September 16, 2004
Unfit For Command
When Iraqi insurgents killed four security contractors and dragged their bodies through the streets of Fallujah last March, President Bush unleashed a punitive Marine raid sparking a city-wide rebellion.
As the siege of Fallujah dragged on and media coverage, casualties, and public opinion threatened to destroy President Bush's poll numbers, he decided to call off the attack. In its place, the "Fallujah Brigade", consisting of former local insurgents under a Ba'ath Party General, was raised and deployed into the city.
The Marine commander, Lt. General James Conway, recently let reporters know how disgusted he was with the whole operation. Starting with the initial attack, Conway groused that rather than let the commander on the ground plan the Marine's attack, President Bush let political issues dictate the timing and circumstances,
"We felt like we had a method that we wanted to apply to Fallujah: that we ought to probably let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge." But, Conway said, "We follow our orders. We had our say, and we understood the rationale, and we saluted smartly, and we went about the attack." An attack that Conway says, "certainly increased the level of animosity that existed."
As the "siege of Fallujah" continued and American opinion of President Bush's occupation of Iraq turned south, the President decided to withdraw the Marines. General Conway took a swing at Bush's waffling in the face of opinion poll pressure by saying, "When you order elements of a Marine division to attack a city, you really need to understand what the consequences of that are going to be and not perhaps vacillate in the middle of something like that," he said. "Once you commit, you got to stay committed."
"No one wants to give up territory that they paid for with blood," said one junior Marine officer during the withdrawal. "I think [the Marines] are frustrated," says another. "If this fails, they're going to have to go right back in there."
Well guess what. They're going to have to go right back in there. I wrote at the time that forcing the Marines to retreat for political reasons was a bad idea that would only aid the insurgents. As it turned out, President Bush gave the defenders of the "Arab Alamo" 800 AK-47 assault rifles, 27 pickup trucks, and 50 Marine radios as well as a propaganda victory.
The same day General Conway slammed his Commander in Chief for "vacillating", President Bush was on the campaign trail telling National Guard members, "What's critical is that the president of the United States speak clearly and consistently at this time of great threat in our world, and not change positions because of expediency or pressure."
If those young Marine officers are still alive, I'm sure they're not amused by the irony or the hypocracy.
There’s no question that things in war sometimes don’t go as planned.
The military serves at the pleasure of the nation’s civilian leadership and it is not at all unusual for there to be differences of opinion. Truman fired McArthur for disagreeing with him and similar confrontations have occurred since then. Clinton fired an Air Force general for saying that his Commander in Chief was a dope smoking, draft dodging, womanizer — all of which was true.
Personally, I’m impressed by this administration’s overall willingness to give commanders the flexibility they need to make tactical decisions.
Obviously, Fallujah is a politically charged operation. It’s being alleged that the strategy was directed from “top U.S. military and civilian leaders,” though all we know for sure is that the order came from Army General Sanchez.
In any case, Marine General Conway makes it clear that they (the Marines) understood the logic of the decision and did as they were told, even though he disagreed with that decision at the time.
It’s a bad situation, but the only really unusual about it is that a senior officer publicly vented his disagreement with a decision that was made by someone above his pay grade.
Posted by: NOTOTH at September 16, 2004 09:47 AMPersonally, I’m impressed by this administration’s overall willingness to give commanders the flexibility they need to make tactical decisions.
But “this administration” doesn’t do that. Gen. Conway just said it doesn’t. Fallujah is one example. Invading Afghanistan and Iraq “on the cheap” is another. Gen. Franks is telling Sen. Graham that Bush diverted forces from Afghanistan prematurely. Shinseki got canned for embarrassingly predicting we’d need more occupation troops.
President Bush is letting opinion polls drive military operations.
the only really unusual about it is that a senior officer publicly vented his disagreement
That right there says it all.
The problem is, people had reservations about this war from the beginning that weren’t aired, but have turned out to be prophetic. People who know what they’re talking about have been ignored in favor of those saying what the Neocons wanted to hear.
As far as logic goes, there are two ways an argument can fail- by being unsound, and by being invalid. Being invalid means the logic isn’t straight. Being unsound means your facts aren’t straight, even if your logic is. The orders may have been logical, but they weren’t necessarily the right logic for the right place.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at September 16, 2004 05:17 PMNOTOTH, I am surprised with you answer. Telling someone they are wrong because they followed your wrong plans don’t cut, not in America.
It’s a bad situation, but the only really unusual about it is that a senior officer publicly vented his disagreement with a decision that was made by someone above his pay grade.
Iraq is worse off today than it needs to be due to Bush’s adminstrations policy leadership. Check out any congressional committee hearing and read in between the lines. Iraq is in trouble and Bush is running around trying to tell everybody everythings fine. I just hope most Americans don’t have their head stuck in the sand with the fear Bush is creating.
Posted by: Henry Schlatman at September 16, 2004 10:30 PMWell I give Nototh points for trying to explain this.
At least thst’s more than Bush is doing.
Great Post AP, this is the gist of why I think Bush should be fired.
Posted by: greg at September 17, 2004 02:29 AMTogether we live, divided we fall. Words so adherent for truth in a new generation. If God is with us, who can be against us. We are not God, but a creation of a eternal loving father. He gave us over 500 witnesses of his work in us. Look up Simon Greenleaf.
There will always be people who will pull us apart through works of selfishness, jealosy, rage, enmity. The good works of our eternal savior Jesus Christ is a free gift. Grace is free. Come to Jesus and learn of HIS love for HIS creation.
