Editorial: Planning for war in Iraq was terrible

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004 | 9:04 a.m.

In February 2003, during the buildup to the war in Iraq, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki testified before the Senate Armed Services committee. In answer to a question posed by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Shinseki said the U.S. should plan on having "several hundred thousand" troops in Iraq. Not wishing to exacerbate his disagreement with the Bush administration's civilian war planners, who had decided on a total force of about 200,000, including Air Force and Navy troops outside of the country, Shinseki would not commit to a precise number. But James Fallows, a writer for The Atlantic Monthly magazine and author of articles on the Pentagon's planning for the war, told PBS earlier this year that Shinseki believed in the range of 400,000 troops were needed, primarily to secure the country after the Iraqi armed forces were routed.

Shinseki, then on the verge of retirement after a 38-year Army career that included service in Vietnam and Kosovo, was publicly rebuked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Rumsfeld said Shinseki was "far off the mark" and Wolfowitz said the experienced four-star general was "wildly off the mark." This was during the time that the Bush administration was promoting the war by saying the Iraqi people would greet the American troops as liberators, thereby reducing the number of troops needed after the initial combat phase.

Shinseki soon retired with an official cloud over his head. In May 2003 Rumsfeld fired Secretary of the Army Thomas White. Rumsfeld and White had been feuding for some time, but it was White's support of Shinseki's testimony that triggered the firing. In June 2003, White talked with USA Today. "Senior Defense officials 'are unwilling to come to grips' with the scale of the postwar U.S. obligation in Iraq," the newspaper reported White as saying. "It's almost a question of people not wanting to 'fess up to the notion that we will be there a long time and they might have to set up a rotation and sustain it for the long term," White was quoted as saying.

Many retired generals, including Wesley Clark and Barry McCaffrey, expressed similar views. Even retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded the invasion of Afghanistan and the early months of the Iraq war, says in his book, "American Soldier," that he initially projected 250,000 troops for Iraq. In an interview promoting the book, he said he had thought there would be a large number of foreign troops in Iraq as allies, an expectation that never materialized.

As is known, the Bush administration clung to its notion that troop strength on the order of 150,000 would be more than sufficient. And history is witness to the consequence: Widespread looting and vandalism, followed by an unceasing, murderous insurgency that has pushed the American dead to 1,059. And more is becoming known about how right Shinseki was.

In remarks made last month, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, who headed the U.S.-led occupation government, cited the lack of sufficient forces as the reason for the current instability in Iraq. "The single most important change -- the one thing that would have improved the situation -- would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout (the occupation)," Bremer said in a speech at DePauw University, in Greencastle, Ind. And in a speech this week at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., Bremer said, "We never had enough troops on the ground." He said the looting taking place when he arrived, which went unchecked because of a lack of forces, had enormous consequences. "We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he said.

Whether President Bush's decision to invade Iraq was correct remains a matter of debate. But more and more the prosecution of the war and its aftermath is being judged as a certain failure. In the first presidential debate, John Kerry spoke of Iraq and accused Bush of a "colossal error of judgment" and of not having a "plan to win the peace." We believe historians will come to the same conclusion.