Army officer accuses his generals of Iraq failures

[CommunityEditor]

An active-duty Army officer warns that the U.S. faces the prospect of defeat in Iraq, blaming American generals for failing to prepare their forces for an insurgency and misleading Congress about the situation here. More from the article --

“For reasons that are not yet clear, America’s general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq’s government and security forces, and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq,” Lt. Col. Paul Yingling said in the article published Friday in the Armed Forces Journal.

The generals not only went into Iraq preparing for a high-technology conventional war with too few soldiers but they also had no coherent plan for postwar stabilization. The generals also failed to tell the American public about the intensity of the insurgency their forces were facing, Yingling wrote.

“The intellectual and moral failures common to America’s general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship,” he said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said the Iraqi government plans to take full control of security from the American-led forces before the end of the year. In February, coalition forces launched the Baghdad security plan, which calls for nearly 30,000 additional American troops, as well as thousands of Iraqi soldiers, most of whom will be deployed in violent Baghdad.

Yingling appeared to welcome that change but suggested it is too little too late.

“For most of the war American forces in Iraq have concentrated on large forward operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents,” he wrote. “In 2007, Iraq’s grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends an even wider and more destructive regional war.”

During the past decade, U.S. forces have done little to prepare for the kind of brutal, adaptive insurgencies they are now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Yingling said.

“Given the lack of troop strength, not even the most brilliant general could have devised the ways necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq,” he wrote.

Yingling said he believes that no single civilian or military leader has caused what he regards as the current failure in Iraq.

But Gen. Tommy R. Franks, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and other top commanders in the Iraq war have been criticized by others as too slow to figure out the realities of the Iraq war and too optimistic in their assessments.

Full article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...nerals_070427/


Is Yingling right on? Insubordinate? Too little too late? Can we turn this around? What needs to be done? What do you think of his comments?

WOW -- a Lt. Col that know more and how to do things better than the Generals.

[roger simpson_guest]

I found two very interesting commentaries on DEA Watch. The following was submitted by a field grade Army officer currently stationed in Iraq. The second commentary was submitted by a retired Army general (I presumed a four-star; his/her identity was redacted by the publisher. Both are in the public domain (non-copyrighted).

-- Roger Simpson

Here is the first...

Report from the Front (Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army):
27 Apr 2007, 13:22 PST, 3rd Edition
http://members.aol.com/deawatch/daily.htm

You all back in The World are probably hearing about Col. (Paul) Yingling's accurate criticism of our command structure that has screwed up the Army and the war.

You all will remember how many times I told you all about how screwed up General Abizaid was. These guys don't have a clue but they'd do anything for a command of their own. Petraeus is no different. He wanted that fourth star and he agreed to do whatever CINC Bush told him in order to get that star. Now he is up to his neck in crap and he smells to the High Heavens.

You all might want to check out a book written by a couple of field grades like myself. This book was written over thirty years ago about how the senior Army command screwed up the Vietnam War and our Army during those terrible years. This book is still in print. If you all can find out who is selling it I bet that your DEA Watch readers will buy it and learn that today's generals never read the book and as a consequence have made and are making the same mistakes made thirty years ago.

The name of the book is: "Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army" by LTC Richard A. Gabriel and MAJ Paul Savage. This book is a MUST READ by anyone serving in the Army. (It was pulled off the library shelf at the Point in 1989 after Reagan and his nuts came to power. They, like Bush, sought to reface the Army in their image. Because they failed we could only engage in conflicts with street gangs where we got our a**es kicked in Beirut and Grenada.)

D/W Note: LTC Paul Yingling's full article can be accessed here: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198


And here is the second report...

Report from the Front (Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army), con't:
27 Apr 2007, 14:20 PST, 5th Edition
http://members.aol.com/deawatch/daily.htm

Dear Sir: Military readers might also be interested in an official study commissioned by General William C. Westmoreland in 1969. This report was titled: Study on Military Professionalism" and completed by the Army War College (Carlisle Barracks, PA) on 20 June 1970.

Because this report revealed in painful detail that the Army's failure in Vietnam was directly caused by mismanagement and incompetency in the Officer Corps the report was highly classified for many years. The report was declassified by President Bill Clinton in 1995. I am at this moment sending a full copy of this report to DEA Watch by private courier. You should soon have it in Army time, which is yesterday.

Best wishes for all your great work, Thank you, General (D/W redacted) United States Army, Retired

With all due respect to the LTC, publicly speaking or voicing opinion towards the chain of command should be dealt with at the very least a letter of reprimand. Him being a senior officer, he should know that voicing these kind of opinions give more ammunition to our enemies on the gun line. With the support of this combat operation pretty low, we need to know that our officers have faith in our chain of command to win this war.

Many people may not like to hear LTC Yingling's remarks...but they need to hear it. This is NOT disobedeince or disrespect...it's moral courage to tell the king he has no clothes, regardless of the consequences. I believe the LTC knows the importance of the topic, and that the future protection of our country are at stake, and that is more important to him than his career advancement.

I have read several books written on the war in Iraq. The American done the job they were supposed and was get to baghdad and get the man out of power. From that point on that is when things to hell in a hand basket, the people in charge of post resturction didn't have a clue on how to do it. They fired the Iraqi army, police and government because they said they couldn't trust them, well, they just put about 750,000 more insurgents on the street to fight them instead of hemping the,
The american army is not a police force and that was what was need at first, Second we were not equipped to fight a street war,

I done almost 22 months in vietnam and we would fight the VC and most of the time it was on his terms. He would hit us and then melt back in the jungle until the next firefight. I see the military leaders didn't learn anything.

We should have slowed down going to baghdad and disarmed any with a gun and blew up anything that could be used aganist us. Then i don't think we would have this problem.

Ranger-12

Yingling is absolutely right. Most of the General Officers are Ring Knockers, ( Military Acadamy Grad's) who have their tickets punched and are promoted to GO.
Many of these GO's are inept and just don't hve the slightest on what is going on.
During my 22 plus years of service I witnessed many Generals who that I observed would not make a pimple on a good I'st Sgt ass.
GO's for the most part should come up through the ranks, then they would have an idea on how life really is for the enlisted men who actually carry out the mission.
Most of them do not understand that death and dying on the battlefield is forver.
Becoming a GO in the end really depends on who they know. Work at the Pentagon, get to know the big wigs, get promoted. About sums it up.
Westmorelend, disgraceful as a GO !!!!!!!!!!!

I spent some time in Iraq with Yingling. I don't think to this day he has ever commanded above the battery level. Any one on the 3d ACR staff could see all the attention from the press that H. W. McMasters received because of his previous publication - Dereliction of Duty. Looks like Yingling is trying to follow the same path.

As an "effects coordinator" working at regiment Yingling was part of the "spin machine" trying to put a positive spin on all operations - even those that failed. Someone should pull apart the events the day LTC Crowe was killed. He put together storyboards for the press.

If he indicts anyone it should be himself.

A classic example of the pot calling the kettle black.

I served a tour in Iraq and agree that the upper echelons are clueless on many levels. Examples include ignorance of middle east and for that matter foreign culture. The Army tends to think that they live in the real world and everyone else is wrong. Lack of preparation for an insurgency. Training infantrymen to think on their feet and be able to use discretion when applying force just doesn't have the same appeal as building a new weapons system.

I think the results in Iraq speak for themselves. Match the words with the results and you will either see lies or incompetency or likely both.