First, lack of civilian technical experts is a huge problem in Iraq, but it's systemic to the US gov't: even now, we don't have the organization in place because the State Department's foreign service has jealously resisted any encroachment upon their traditional primacy in nation-building. If you ask me, Bolton doesn't need to go reform the UN: he needs to lead a reform effort in Foggy Bottom (and I say this after working with the Embassy in Kabul for a year).
Second, as for Zinni, you would have to look at more than just that one Congressional testimony. I'll dig up some of the interviews and press statements that he made prior to the War, but it's going to take me a few days to sort it out, because I have some other things going on.
If I had to give you a bottom-line up front, I would say that Zinni subscribed to a "conventional" theory of warfighting that required far more resources than what the new "unconventional" theory had demonstrated in Afghanistan. When their team "lost" there, they got hysterical about Iraq instead of responsibly presenting the (very valid) point that fighting a COIN didn't fit the Downing paradigm and a contingency plan needed to be in place. They failed big-time in that regard and we got the worst of both worlds, Rumsfeld's theorists unsupported by Powell's theorists.
Ultimately, it doesn't come down to whether or not he felt we couldn't defeat the Hussein regime-- it's what he thought we needed in order to do it. Zinni, like Shinseki (and Powell, for that matter) are believers in the Weinberger Doctrine (which they've actually re-named the Powell Doctrine, though Cap thought it up first): overwhelming force applied toward readily achievable objectives with a clearly defined exit strategy, which becomes a numbers game and requires a huge logistical tail (and a lot of time) to build it up. Their world was shattered when Downing and Myers demonstrated in Afghanistan that a combination of a small SOF footprint leading indigenous forces and supported by USAF air power could actually achieve operational effects that matched those of the regular forces thirty to fifty times (or more) their size.
Like Shinseki and Powell (and Armitage), Zinni had spent an enormous amount of effort trying to convince the President of the superiority of the "conventional" approach-- and it all fell apart when Downing pulled off Afghanistan. They did manage, however, to delay the War in Iraq until 2003, which actually led to Downing's resignation (a long story in its own right).
But at the start of the War, the "Powell crowd" had tried to convince the President that they had insufficient forces to topple Hussein once the Turkey option closed. They lost, and the 3rd ID proved that superior firepower and C4I has made us instoppable-- at achieving the *conventional* objectives we had always pursued.
I'll get you the news stories on all of that, but give me some time.
Also, specific to Zinni (and no
The end of your comment was lost...
Also, I don't think that Afghanistan proved anything... yet. That's one of the big problems I see right now- an extremely short sighted understanding of what victory actually means. It will be years before we are able to call Afghanistan a victory or defeat. Sure, we toppled the Taliban, but was that our only strategic goal? The same goes for Iraq- sure we defeated Sadaam's puny armed forces, but so what? Was our only strategy to defeat his forces? Then why are we still there?
And again- I'm saying that there is a transformation, but that it had nothing to do with the needed manpower for a complete operations. It's easy to forget that there are bigger strategies afoot then simply defeating the enemy on the field of battle, but that's the reality, and this necessitates large numbers of people when your goal is nation building, regime change, etc. In essence I'm saying that we probablly could have gone in with less straight up soldiers, but we should have had at least double the personnel.
This transformation changes the roles that each member of the network must play in military/political operations, but it doesn't change the need for large numbers of actual people.
And I would agree with those preliminary findings: Rumsfeld and Friends' strategy was more right vis a vis the troops needed to defeat an enemy; the Army generals' (plus Zinni) strategy was more right about the troops needed *after* that enemy is defeated. But because they had so shrilly opposed each other prior to the conflict, they did not *listen* what each other could contribute, and the American soldier is paying the price.
However, I will once again reiterate that Khalilzad and Barno demonstrated that you don't so much need all the extra troops, as you do a bold and innovative strategy that focuses on non-kinetic operations, political and economic reconstruction, and extending the legitimacy of the central authority. We didn't have that in Iraq, so even Desert Storm I troop levels would not have been sufficient.
Commenting by HaloScan
