BF2S Forums Why don't we have more troops in Iraq?

The politicians, largely thanks to Donald Rumsfeld, though ultimately Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, wanted to have a quick, streamlined war, a war of the 21st century. A war that relied heavily on technology and kept troop commitment to a minimum, to garner the public's support of the war more easily. Military advisers were ignored and pushed to draw up the war the way the above stated people wanted it to be run.

Obviously, they fucking failed.

This is what happens when politicians make decisions about how war should be conducted.

They are not trained, experienced, or qualified to run a military campaign, but they choose to interfere anyway, in an attempt to either garner public support or boost their own ego, and it always ends in disaster.

The United States army is entirely capable of stabilizing Iraq, but it will require complete martial lockdown of the nation for several months, which American politicians refuse to commit to.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

The politicians, largely thanks to Donald Rumsfeld, though ultimately Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, wanted to have a quick, streamlined war, a war of the 21st century. A war that relied heavily on technology and kept troop commitment to a minimum, to garner the public's support of the war more easily. Military advisers were ignored and pushed to draw up the war the way the above stated people wanted it to be run.

Obviously, they fucking failed.

Not only failed. They nearly ruined  the country

  Their arrogance and bullheadedness to "stick with the plan"  even though they had virtually no realistic postwar blueprint resulted in more destruction of Iraqi society than the initial invasion.


Extremely delicate thing to try, and there were  windows of opportunity that were missed, and so much advice ignored, fail isn't a strong enough word

Even if you were like me and thought  yeah, Saddam should be removed; never ever trust the government (this government, ANY government) to do something like this. 
I learned my lesson. 

Invasions = bad idea

I agree we need more guy's over there, but with less spending. there is alot of pork that can be trimmed from our military budget. I mean look at WWII, but of course a large portion of the nation supported that war. Ole Cheney screwed up from the start with only sending less then 180k over. There should have been 300k ready to throw boot's on the sand from the army, marines and nato nations...well shit just didnt work out that way..

20k surge, give me a break..it's like trying to polish a turd.

I remeber in 2003 when they made it to baghdad..and we all watched them topple the statue of saddam and beat it with shoes, waiving the their flags about..I told my dad, these godamn bastard sunni terrorist are going to stronghold the city

Last edited by beerface702 (2008-04-24 22:43:06)

There were plenty of troops for the assault. One could argue there weren't adequate troops for the consolidation as our supply lines were extremely vulnerable. So...to the question about having enough troops for the takedown: we had enough.

The planning assumptions by Rumsfeld et al for post-invasion Iraq were flawed and they refused to listen to their military experts. That's why there weren't enough troops for the consolidation and occupation.

Sadly, it's quite simple.

HurricaИe wrote:

I'm doing a paper on Desert Storm, and one thing I noticed is we had a shitload of troops there. Way more than we have now in Iraq. I realize they're two entirely different wars, but we really... crushed the Iraqis in Gulf War I. Wouldn't a larger troop presence bring down the violence and help us enable the Iraqis to defend themselves? I don't want to keep sending people over there... but if it got this war done faster....

The war is over. Bush said so on a big boat. This is nation building son!!!! Something that cant be done quickly.

HurricaИe wrote:

We really should've kept the Powell doctrine... that part about having an exit strategy BEFORE going on sounds rather smart.

The Neo Cons were so foaming at the mouth to get into Iraqi they had no exit strategy. Hell they didn't even have an entrance strategy.........................they just made a shit load of WMD AlQueeda shit up and went right ahead.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

imortal wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

The politicians, largely thanks to Donald Rumsfeld, though ultimately Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, wanted to have a quick, streamlined war, a war of the 21st century. A war that relied heavily on technology and kept troop commitment to a minimum, to garner the public's support of the war more easily. Military advisers were ignored and pushed to draw up the war the way the above stated people wanted it to be run.

Obviously, they fucking failed.

Actually, they planned pretty well for the high-intensity, direct assault phase.  We did have enough troops for that.  The problem is that you need a lot more troops for occupy and police a large area with a high population.  There are insufficient trooops to accomplish that.  And once the insurgency was allowed to fester, grow, and take root, makes it nearly impossible to deal with without complately draconian measures which would destroy what goodwill we have managed to foster there.  If we took those measures, we would almost have to declare Iraq a colony and invest in it like you would not believe. 

And no, Iraq is not a de facto or a de jeur colony of the United States.

Blitzkrieg was the modern style of warfare the politicians were going for. The military knew we needed more troops.

Of course we did.  The offensive was tough, but not undoable.  And, giving the administration a bit of a break, there were supposed to BE more troops.  The 4ID was supposed to attack south from Turkey; unfortunately, the Turkish government started getting a bit mulish, and threw up a series of roadblocks and red tape that kept the equipment ships carrying the equipment for 4ID sitting in the med until the powers-that-be gave up and moved them through the Red Sea toward Kuwait. 

And yes, it was also a bad-ass political statement trying to send a message about how few we could attack with.

I will state one more time.  Attacking and destroying a military is different from garrisoning and policing a nation.  Manpower requirements change.

kylef wrote:

I'd rather see more out than more in...sending more troops makes it look even worse, in my opinion. And I think Bush would at least try to end his Presidency on a high...

If you count his low as a new high in lowness, he wins.

There are a few good examples of counterinsurgencies.  However, in large part, the US tried to find a new one.  Realistically, we do not have enough troops to effectively police an unstable nation...at least not with our current strategy.  That's just my opinion.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

The politicians, largely thanks to Donald Rumsfeld, though ultimately Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, wanted to have a quick, streamlined war, a war of the 21st century. A war that relied heavily on technology and kept troop commitment to a minimum, to garner the public's support of the war more easily. Military advisers were ignored and pushed to draw up the war the way the above stated people wanted it to be run.

Obviously, they fucking failed.

Yea cause Saddam and the Iraqi defence force beat our asses.