TPM can chatter about the Rumsfeld debacle. But it looks like Sy Hersh has the goods and then some. Here’s the sneak preview. I’d say this is going to be the big article.
Here are just a few examples from an article just sent out by Reuters …
“He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every turn,” the article quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner as saying. “This is the mess Rummy put himself in because he didn’t want a heavy footprint on the ground.”
It also said Rumsfeld had overruled advice from war commander Gen. Tommy Franks to delay the invasion until troops denied access through Turkey could be brought in by another route and miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance.
“They’ve got no resources. He was so focused on proving his point — that the Iraqis were going to fall apart,” the article, by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, cited an unnamed former high-level intelligence official as saying.
…
Hersh, however, quoted the former intelligence official as saying the war was now a stalemate.
Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, the article said.
“The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements arrive,” the former official said.
The article quoted the senior planner as saying Rumsfeld had wanted to “do the war on the cheap” and believed that precision bombing would bring victory.
We’ve got a great military, great commanders and great troops. They can do this. But we owe them far better civilian leaders.
