Analyzing the Blunders of Iraq

Here is a great essay analyzing the armchair generals' complaints about the prosecution of the Iraqi war.

But what is missing from the national debate over the "worst" war in our history is any appreciation of past American military errors—political, strategic, technological, intelligence, tactical—that nearly cost us victory in far more important conflicts.

Take one of this war's most controversial issues, intelligence failures. Supposedly we went to war in 2003 with little accurate information about either Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or its endemic religious factionalism. As a result the U.S. government lost credibility and goodwill at home and abroad, and is now plagued by enormous political and military problems in trying to stabilize a constitutional government in Iraq. Have lapses of this magnitude been unusual in past wars?

Not at all, in either a strategic or tactical context. American intelligence officers missed the almost self-evident Pearl Harbor attack, as an entire Japanese carrier group steamed unnoticed to within a few hundred miles of Hawaii. After fighting for four long years we were completely surprised by the Soviets' efforts to absorb Eastern Europe. Almost no one had a clue about the Communist invasion of South Korea in June 1950—or the subsequent Chinese entrance en masse into North Korea months later. Neither the CIA nor the State Department had much inkling that Saddam Hussein would gobble up Kuwait in August 1990.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Have there ever been lapses in military leadership like the ones that purportedly mar our Iraq effort? The so-called "Revolt of the Generals" against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was nothing compared to the "Revolt of the Admirals" that led to Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson's forced resignation in the midst of the bitter first year of the Korean War.

But surely these armchair critics can acknowledge that such controversies over personnel pale in comparison to past storms. Lincoln serially fired, ignored, or bypassed mediocrities like Generals Burnside, Halleck, Hooker, McClellan, McDowell, Meade, Pope, and Rosecrans before finding Grant, George Thomas, Sherman, and Philip Sheridan—all of whom at one time or another were under severe criticism and nearly dismissed.

World War II was little better. By all accounts General John C.H. Lee set up an enormous logistical fiefdom in Paris that thrived on perks and privilege while American armies at the front were short on manpower, materials, and fuel.

Read the whole thing.