Bremer on Iraq

varwoche

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varwoche
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Add Paul Bremer to the list of people in the extreme know who are critical of the Iraq effort.
The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.

"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. "We never had enough troops on the ground."
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wa post
 
I think it's amazing the sheer number of people who slam the war to one degree or another when they no longer have anything to lose politically.
 
Hmm, one person`s opinion, interesting...as the likes of Kodiak or Zilla might say, but just look at all the others who say differently like "Bring it On" Bush and "Stuff Happens" Rumsfeld.

Maybe Bremer should be tried for treason for saying something negative about the "war on turr".
 
The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq


This is one of the standard criticisms of Bush for which no evidence is ever offered. Numbers of troops are generally an issue when large conventional armies are fighting on traditional battle fields. Insurgencies on the other hand, being by definition a type of assymmetric warfare, are not much affected by just dumping in more troops - they are probably winnable only by such techniques as turning the people against the insurgents, turning the insurgents against each other, adding small numbers of very specialized forces such as field intelligence, psyops, light assault forces etc.

and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

This is 20-20 hindsight and probably a lot easier said than done - the U.S. military is trained to fight armies, not looters - that phase was probably unavoidable.
 
Patrick said:
The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq


This is one of the standard criticisms of Bush for which no evidence is ever offered. Numbers of troops are generally an issue when large conventional armies are fighting on traditional battle fields. Insurgencies on the other hand, being by definition a type of assymmetric warfare, are not much affected by just dumping in more troops - they are probably winnable only by such techniques as turning the people against the insurgents, turning the insurgents against each other, adding small numbers of very specialized forces such as field intelligence, psyops, light assault forces etc.

and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

This is 20-20 hindsight and probably a lot easier said than done - the U.S. military is trained to fight armies, not looters - that phase was probably unavoidable.
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So.... what your're really saying is they should have known that they were screwed before they started. Plenty of people tried to let them know.
 
varwoche said:
Add Paul Bremer to the list of people in the extreme know who are critical of the Iraq effort.
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Ahhh yes, he said we needed more troops to secure Baghdad after its fall. This means he's on the "list of people in the extreme know who are critical of the Iraq effort." (probably an indiscriminate list full of people varwoche considers to be in the know who either didn't support the war, didn't like the way it was fought, or like a bremer offer one hindisight criticism which varwoche expands)

Let me guess, at some point in a thread you are going to shotgun this list of "people in the extreme know who are critical of the Iraq effort" and put a responder in the hard job of disseminating the list and countering each one (like this one for instance).

Predictable to say the least Varwoche, why don't you try surprising us sometime.
 
Predictable to say the least Varwoche, why don't you try surprising us sometime.
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Ironic coming from Mr. Sourceless.

they are probably winnable only by such techniques as turning the people against the insurgents, turning the insurgents against each other, adding small numbers of very specialized forces such as field intelligence, psyops, light assault forces etc
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Yeah, piece of cake. According to Patrick, the war in Iraq could have been won by dropping in an Arabic-speaking guy with a bullhorn.
 
So.... what your're really saying is they should have known that they were screwed before they started.

Well no ... what I'm really saying is what I really said ... the "more troops" mantra of the amateur war strategy boyscouts is baloney.
 
Re: Re: Bremer on Iraq

corplinx said:
Ahhh yes, he said we needed more troops to secure Baghdad after its fall. This means he's on the "list of people in the extreme know who are critical of the Iraq effort." (probably an indiscriminate list full of people varwoche considers to be in the know who either didn't support the war, didn't like the way it was fought, or like a bremer offer one hindisight criticism which varwoche expands)

Let me guess, at some point in a thread you are going to shotgun this list of "people in the extreme know who are critical of the Iraq effort" and put a responder in the hard job of disseminating the list and countering each one (like this one for instance).
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In fact, I've been meaning to do something like this.

If it's your opinion that Bremer didn't have a special vantage, fine, however I disagree.
 
So when Kerry says that he would fight what he calls the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time more effectively and that he would avoid what he calls Bush's "catastrophic errors", he means he'd send in more troops?

He'd compound Bush's error of fighting the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Boy, it's getting drafty in here.
 
BPSCG said:
So when Kerry says that he would fight what he calls the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time more effectively and that he would avoid what he calls Bush's "catastrophic errors", he means he'd send in more troops?

He'd compound Bush's error of fighting the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Boy, it's getting drafty in here.
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No, your just making things up.
 
a_unique_person said:
Originally posted by BPSCG
So when Kerry says that he would fight what he calls the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time more effectively and that he would avoid what he calls Bush's "catastrophic errors", he means he'd send in more troops?

He'd compound Bush's error of fighting the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Boy, it's getting drafty in here.
No, your just making things up.
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No I'm not. I'm just asking what appear to me to be pertinent questions:

1) Is Kerry planning on sending more troops to Iraq?
2) If so, isn't that inconsistent with his earlier position on the war that it's "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time"? And wouldn't that be compounding Bush's mistakes?
3) And wouldn't it require reinstating the draft to do that?

What do you mean when you say "No, your (sic) just making things up"? What am I making up?
 
BPSCG said:
No I'm not. I'm just asking what appear to me to be pertinent questions:

1) Is Kerry planning on sending more troops to Iraq?
2) If so, isn't that inconsistent with his earlier position on the war that it's "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time"? And wouldn't that be compounding Bush's mistakes?
3) And wouldn't it require reinstating the draft to do that?

What do you mean when you say "No, your (sic) just making things up"? What am I making up?
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Face it, it's election time, and no-one is going to be able to fix Iraq, and no-one is going to admit that. All they are going to do is what they can do, hang on for the duration and hope it turns out magically better somehow.
 
a_unique_person said:
Face it, it's election time, and no-one is going to be able to fix Iraq, and no-one is going to admit that. All they are going to do is what they can do, hang on for the duration and hope it turns out magically better somehow.
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That's incorrect. Kerry has a secret plan that he's refusing to divulge at this time. This was the election strategy that won for Nixon in 1968, if you recall.
 
Patrick said:
So.... what your're really saying is they should have known that they were screwed before they started.

Well no ... what I'm really saying is what I really said ... the "more troops" mantra of the amateur war strategy boyscouts is baloney.
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Yeah, what does General Zinni know about war? I mean, he was just a general with years of experience in these sorts of operations.

Clearly Patrick, a poster on Randi.org has more knowledge and experience in determing how many troops are necessary.

Lurker
 
BPSCG said:
Boy, it's getting drafty in here.
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yeah, and it's from all wind generated by you Bush guys trying to spin this.

Are you really unable to accept Bush may have made even one slight error, other then the error Bush admits to of being to successful :rolleyes:

Here is a guy who was on the ground in Iraq, hand picked by the Bush administration, witnessing things first hand, and you guys are just tossing off his criticisms.

I expect corplinx to show up at any minute and pull out his hats and signs and call you guys on your faith and lack of skepticism.

LOL - Once again we find corps is sitting in the middle of the cup, leading the spin.
 
DavidJames said:
Are you really unable to accept Bush may have made even one slight error, other then the error Bush admits to of being to successful
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Not at all. It seems quite clear, certainly in retrospect, that 1) we should have gone in with a lot more firepower and destroyed the Baath army rather than allowing it to melt back into the general population, and 2) we should have been much more aggressive about training up and rebuilding the Iraqi armed forces (from the survivors of step 1) above) to maintain the peace in their own country.

That having been said, are you really unable to accept that Kerry was in error in stating that "this was the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time"?
 
BPSCG said:
So when Kerry says that he would fight what he calls the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time more effectively and that he would avoid what he calls Bush's "catastrophic errors", he means he'd send in more troops?

He'd compound Bush's error of fighting the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Boy, it's getting drafty in here.
Click to expand...

All you are doing is pulling Kerry's quotes out of context and slapping them together to make him seem contradictory, when he is not. YOU KNOW that when he called this war the wrong place at the wrong time, he was talking about the decision to go to war - not about the execution of the war once the decision had been made. Mainstream Democrats as well as Republicans know that this Iraqi war, once started, HAS to be seen through to a successful conclusion - there is no alternative.
 
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