I keep coming back to the failure to properly arm and protect our soldiers, and to send enough of them in the beginning to get the job done and keep the lid on a huge, fractious country with 25 million people with even more old hatreds. When a soldier in Kuwait challenged him on the issue of vehicle protection, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld replied: ''You have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want.''
At the time, Rumsfeld was sending American divisions to Iraq without their Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, and sending their crews out to patrol the most dangerous roads in the world in light Humvees.
Some 60 percent of our casualties in Iraq have been from the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that any idiot can plant beside or beneath a highway or road or city street and then hit the call button on a cell phone when an American convoy drives into the kill zone.
Three years into the war, the Pentagon only now has named a retired four-star general to head a search for technical solutions to the enemy's prime weapon.History is going to judge these men harshly for what they did, and also for what they did not do, when the lives of American soldiers and the future of Americans yet unborn were in their hands.
Is Galloway blind? What Army and what war is he seeing, because it sure isn't the US Army and it sure isn't the Iraq War.
Let's go over a couple things, shall we?
The idea that our troops went into Iraq poorly armed is sheer idiocy. The related notion that our troops were poorly protected is idiocy draped over idiocy. Our troops were (and are) the best equipped and best trained force on the planet. From our armored vehicles to our communications to our body armor to our logistics, we are unmatched. And our government has rushed improved equipment into the field at remarkable speeds to adapt to new conditions.
As for sending sufficient troops, we sent enough to dismantle the regular Iraqi military in record time with minimal casualties. As for the idea that we needed to have enough to keep the lid on a huge fractious country I can only say hogwash. We face Sunni enemies hiding among the 5 million Sunnis who did not easily accept losing control after centuries of neck-stomping privileges. Well-armed with lots of money, these enemy forces have had an impact all out of proportion to their numbers. And for an insufficient force, it has done just fine keeping the enemy atomized after three years with more Iraqi troops coming on line every month. Does Galloway even remember the Ia Drang Valley? That we fought an NVA division? And that facing enemy platoons in attack on our forces is virtually unheard of today?
And please remember that the soldier in question at the press conference was fed the question by a journalist and the accusation that the troops had to scrounge metal from junk yards was bull.
Moving on to the the issue of patrolling in Humvees instead of heavy armor, please recall that in the aftermath of the invasion, critics of the war effort were deriding the Army for all the heavy armor it had and were urging the troops to put on their soft caps and patrol in shirt sleeves. How quickly the critics switch their complaints and forget their opposite complaints.
As for the IEDs, yes they are a problem. In part because our troops were so well trained and equipped that the enemy learned it could not attack us with small arms and expect to live. Further, IEDs show in part how the armor hype was always stupidly short-sighted. Today the enemy uses shaped charges and larger bombs that overpower even armored Humvees. We do in fact detect and stop far more IEDs than we used to--so technology is advancing our way as is our experience in spotting the IEDs and making life difficult for those planting them. But with more IEDs planted as the enemy shied away from direct attacks and those used larger, the deaths remain constant. The key is training and going after the bomb makers and money guys who finance them. This we are doing, too, and it may not be as glamorous as some wonder device produced under the direction of a senior officer in charge, but it is what will work in the end.
He was a journalist once. I don't know what Galloway is now. If Galloway keeps coming back to his tired and wrong points to draw faulty conclusions, history will judge him pretty harshly--notwithstanding his bravery and eloquence in the Ia Drang Valley.
I'm pretty confident that history will judge our troops and leaders pretty damned well for the job they've done so far in Iraq and the victory they are bleeding to give us--if only we will shut the ef up long enough for them to do the job.
