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by Larry C Johnson

The following article, which first appeared at Soldiers for Truth, sheds new light on the arrogance and hubris that is the Bush Administration. The article, Iraq: What Could Have Been, What Should Have Been..., was authored by retired U.S. Army Colonel Richard L. Stouder and details the fact that the debacle unfolding in Iraq is a consequence of the Bush Administration ignoring war plans the Army had developed, which if followed would have enabled us to get control of Iraq and avoid the bloody civil war now raging.

Ignoring the professionals and relying on political hacks is the defining characteristic of the Bush Administration. The military tried to tell them more troops would be needed to take over Iraq. Eric Shinseki and others were ignored. The CIA tried to tell them that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Doug Feith set up the Office of Special Plans and set about manufacturing his own bogus intelligence. Then there are the Katrina and Walter Reed disasters. One time is a mistake. Doing the same thing over and over is a pattern of behavior.

Before you plow into Stroud's article you may need a cheat sheet to understand the acronyms. Here's some help:

OPLAN--Operations Plan

CINC--Commander in Chief

CINCCENT--Commander in Chief Central Command

CENTCOM--Central Command

SWA MRC--Southwest Asia Military Regional Command

CINCPAC--Commander in Chief Pacific Command

ARCENT--Army Central Command

Okay boys and girls. You now have enough acronym acumen to read and appreciate Stroud. Have at it:

By Richard L. Stouder,
Director Technology Development and Deployment, National Security Directorate, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Editor's Note: No editing of this piece has occurred. Some may not like the author's tone, but it is his tone, not DefenseWatch's tone. The excerpt immediately following gives the reader an inkling of the frustration he feels about today's mess in Iraq. It could have, and he argues, should have been different.

I was assigned to US Central Command in 1992 after graduating from the National War College. For my first year I was assigned as the lead for the OPLAN that was the redux of Desert Shield - Desert Storm. The culmination of that first year was Gen Hoar and I briefing the OPLAN for approval to the SecDef. In the room were Dick Cheney, the CJCS, Colin Powell, and the one of Cheney's Undersecs, Paul Wolfowitz. This was the first rewritten OPLAN since the first Gulf War. I think it is illustrative and a portent of things to come when the major sticking point was a discussion of the number of Army and Marine forces and the number of USAF fighter squadrons. The person who was arguing for more Air Force and less ground forces was Wolfowitz. (keep reading . . .)

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