Originally Posted by theking

As I stated critisism is acceptable to me..."bashing" is not. Much of the critisism is about the invasion of Iraq. As you should know...as I have stated it many times...I think the invasion of Iraq should have taken place within the first year of the cease fire accords that Iraq agreed to and immediately began to ignore. When the invasion of Iraq finally took place...it was to establish long term strategic positioning and is for the benefit...not only to the US...but to all of the Western countries...but many are to short sighted to realize this or have political motives within there own countries not to openly recgonize this to their citizens.

My only bone to pick about the invasion is that it was entirely mismanaged from the word go. We pussy footed around from the very beginning and this lies at the feet of Rumsfeld. General Tommy Franks told Rumsfeld he wanted 480,000 troops and Rumsfeld offered him 70,000. General Franks said he would not go with less than 400,000. After some explosive talks General Franks was basically told if you will not comply we will get another Commander so General Franks settled to go with 160,000 but then one of our Divisions was not allowed to go in through Turkey in the North...so we went short one Division. It was a risk but it worked well and the Iraq military and Baathist government was defeated in 24 days. Because of not enough boots on the ground chaos ensued though. And the chaos has not been corrected since...once again because of not enough boots on the ground.

BTW this little surge of 30,000 troops is a fucking joke even though it has proven that more boots on the ground can make a difference. An interesting point about the surge is...it is Condi Rice's idea...and the clear and hold policy is also hers and she is one of the primary players in getting rid of Rumsfeld.

If things had not been mismanged from the beginning Iraq would now be on its way to becoming a Jewel in the mideast.