An article from The New Yorker

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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From: Ronda Hauben <ronda () panix com>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 08:51:08 -0500 (EST)
To: dave () farber net
Cc: Ronda Hauben <ronda () panix com>
Subject: An article from The New Yorker


Dave

I thought IP readers would find this article in the New Yorker about
the micromanaging of the Pentagon, of interest.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030407fa_fact1

New Yorker article-march 31, 2003

ronda

March 31, 2003 | home

 



OFFENSE AND DEFENSE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
The battle between Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon.
Issue of 2003-04-07
Posted 2003-03-31


As the ground campaign against Saddam Hussein faltered last week, with
attenuated supply lines and a lack of immediate reinforcements, there was
anger in the Pentagon. Several senior war planners complained to me in
interviews that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his inner circle of
civilian advisers, who had been chiefly responsible for persuading President
Bush to lead the country into war, had insisted on micromanaging the war¹s
operational details. Rumsfeld¹s team took over crucial aspects of the
day-to-day logistical planning‹traditionally, an area in which the uniformed
military excels‹and Rumsfeld repeatedly overruled the senior Pentagon
planners on the Joint Staff, the operating arm of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
³He thought he knew better,² one senior planner said. ³He was the
decision-maker at every turn.²

On at least six occasions, the planner told me, when Rumsfeld and his
deputies were presented with operational plans‹the Iraqi assault was
designated Plan 1003‹he insisted that the number of ground troops be sharply
reduced. Rumsfeld¹s faith in precision bombing and his insistence on
streamlined military operations has had profound consequences for the
ability of the armed forces to fight effectively overseas. ³They¹ve got no
resources,² a former high-level intelligence official said. ³He was so
focussed on proving his point‹that the Iraqis were going to fall apart.²

The critical moment, one planner said, came last fall, during the buildup
for the war, when Rumsfeld decided that he would no longer be guided by the
Pentagon¹s most sophisticated war-planning document, the TPFDL‹time-phased
forces-deployment list‹which is known to planning officers as the tip-fiddle
(tip-fid, for short). A TPFDL is a voluminous document describing the
inventory of forces that are to be sent into battle, the sequence of their
deployment, and the deployment of logistical support. ³It¹s the complete
applecart, with many pieces,² Roger J. Spiller, the George C. Marshall
Professor of military history at the U.S. Command and General Staff College,
said. ³Everybody trains and plans on it. It¹s constantly in motion and
always adjusted at the last minute. It¹s an embedded piece of the
bureaucratic and operational culture.² A retired Air Force strategic planner
remarked, ³This is what we do best‹go from A to B‹and the tip-fiddle is
where you start. It¹s how you put together a plan for moving into the
theatre.² Another former planner said, ³Once you turn on the tip-fid,
everything moves in an orderly fashion.² A former intelligence officer
added, ³When you kill the tip-fiddle, you kill centralized military
planning. The military is not like a corporation that can be streamlined. It
is the most inefficient machine known to man. It¹s the redundancy that saves
lives.²

The TPFDL for the war in Iraq ran to forty or more computer-generated
spreadsheets, dealing with everything from weapons to toilet paper. When it
was initially presented to Rumsfeld last year for his approval, it called
for the involvement of a wide range of forces from the different armed
services, including four or more Army divisions. Rumsfeld rejected the
package, because it was ³too big,² the Pentagon planner said. He insisted
that a smaller, faster-moving attack force, combined with overwhelming air
power, would suffice. Rumsfeld further stunned the Joint Staff by insisting
that he would control the timing and flow of Army and Marine troops to the
combat zone. Such decisions are known in the military as R.F.F.s‹requests
for forces. He, and not the generals, would decide which unit would go when
and where.

The TPFDL called for the shipment in advance, by sea, of hundreds of tanks
and other heavy vehicles‹enough for three or four divisions. Rumsfeld
ignored this advice. Instead, he relied on the heavy equipment that was
already in Kuwait‹enough for just one full combat division. The 3rd Infantry
Division, from Fort Stewart, Georgia, the only mechanized Army division that
was active inside Iraq last week, thus arrived in the Gulf without its own
equipment. ³Those guys are driving around in tanks that were pre-positioned.
Their tanks are sitting in Fort Stewart,² the planner said. ³To get more
forces there we have to float them. We can¹t fly our forces in, because
there¹s nothing for them to drive. Over the past six months, you could have
floated everything in ninety days‹enough for four or more divisions.² The
planner added, ³This is the mess Rumsfeld put himself in, because he didn¹t
want a heavy footprint on the ground.²

Plan 1003 was repeatedly updated and presented to Rumsfeld, and each time,
according to the planner, Rumsfeld said, ³ŒYou¹ve got too much ground
force‹go back and do it again.¹² In the planner¹s view, Rumsfeld had two
goals: to demonstrate the efficacy of precision bombing and to ³do the war
on the cheap.² Rumsfeld and his two main deputies for war planning, Paul
Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, ³were so enamored of Œshock and awe¹ that
victory seemed assured,² the planner said. ³They believed that the weather
would always be clear, that the enemy would expose itself, and so precision
bombings would always work.² (Rumsfeld did not respond to a request for
comment.)


Rumsfeld¹s personal contempt for many of the senior generals and admirals
who were promoted to top jobs during the Clinton Administration is widely
known. He was especially critical of the Army, with its insistence on
maintaining costly mechanized divisions. In his off-the-cuff memoranda, or
³snowflakes,² as they¹re called in the Pentagon, he chafed about generals
having ³the slows²‹a reference to Lincoln¹s characterization of General
George McClellan. ³In those conditions‹an atmosphere of derision and
challenge‹the senior officers do not offer their best advice,² a
high-ranking general who served for more than a year under Rumsfeld said.
One witness to a meeting recalled Rumsfeld confronting General Eric
Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, in front of many junior officers. ³He was
looking at the Chief and waving his hand,² the witness said, ³saying, ŒAre
you getting this yet? Are you getting this yet?¹²

Gradually, Rumsfeld succeeded in replacing those officers in senior Joint
Staff positions who challenged his view. ³All the Joint Staff people now are
handpicked, and churn out products to make the Secretary of Defense happy,²
the planner said. ³They don¹t make military judgments‹they just respond to
his snowflakes.²

In the months leading up to the war, a split developed inside the military,
with the planners and their immediate superiors warning that the war plan
was dangerously thin on troops and matériel, and the top generals‹including
General Tommy Franks, the head of the U.S. Central Command, and Air Force
General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff‹supporting
Rumsfeld. After Turkey¹s parliament astonished the war planners in early
March by denying the United States permission to land the 4th Infantry
Division in Turkey, Franks initially argued that the war ought to be delayed
until the troops could be brought in by another route, a former intelligence
official said. ³Rummy overruled him.²

Many of the present and former officials I spoke to were critical of Franks
for his perceived failure to stand up to his civilian superiors. A former
senator told me that Franks was widely seen as a commander who ³will do what
he¹s told.² A former intelligence official asked, ³Why didn¹t he go to the
President?² A Pentagon official recalled that one senior general used to
prepare his deputies for meetings with Rumsfeld by saying, ³When you go in
to talk to him, you¹ve got to be prepared to lay your stars on the table and
walk out. Otherwise, he¹ll walk over you.²

In early February, according to a senior Pentagon official, Rumsfeld
appeared at the Army Commanders¹ Conference, a biannual business and social
gathering of all the four-star generals. Rumsfeld was invited to join the
generals for dinner and make a speech. All went well, the official told me,
until Rumsfeld, during a question-and-answer session, was asked about his
personal involvement in the deployment of combat units, in some cases with
only five or six days¹ notice. To the astonishment and anger of the
generals, Rumsfeld denied responsibility. ³He said, ŒI wasn¹t involved,¹²
the official said. ³ŒIt was the Joint Staff.¹²

³We thought it would be fence-mending, but it was a disaster,² the official
said of the dinner. ³Everybody knew he was looking at these deployment
orders. And for him to blame it on the Joint Staff‹² The official hesitated
a moment, and then said, ³It¹s all about Rummy and the truth.²


According to a dozen or so military men I spoke to, Rumsfeld simply failed
to anticipate the consequences of protracted warfare. He put Army and Marine
units in the field with few reserves and an insufficient number of tanks and
other armored vehicles. (The military men say that the vehicles that they do
have have been pushed too far and are malfunctioning.) Supply
lines‹inevitably, they say‹have become overextended and vulnerable to
attack, creating shortages of fuel, water, and ammunition. Pentagon officers
spoke contemptuously of the Administration¹s optimistic press briefings.
³It¹s a stalemate now,² the former intelligence official told me. ³It¹s
going to remain one only if we can maintain our supply lines. The carriers
are going to run out of jdams²‹the satellite-guided bombs that have been
striking targets in Baghdad and elsewhere with extraordinary accuracy. Much
of the supply of Tomahawk guided missiles has been expended. ³The Marines
are worried as hell,² the former intelligence official went on. ³They¹re all
committed, with no reserves, and they¹ve never run the lavs²‹light armored
vehicles‹³as long and as hard² as they have in Iraq. There are serious
maintenance problems as well. ³The only hope is that they can hold out until
reinforcements come.²

The 4th Infantry Division‹the Army¹s most modern mechanized division‹whose
equipment spent weeks waiting in the Mediterranean before being diverted to
the overtaxed American port in Kuwait, is not expected to be operational
until the end of April. The 1st Cavalry Division, in Texas, is ready to ship
out, the planner said, but by sea it will take twenty-three days to reach
Kuwait. ³All we have now is front-line positions,² the former intelligence
official told me. ³Everything else is missing.²

Last week, plans for an assault on Baghdad had stalled, and the six
Republican Guard divisions expected to provide the main Iraqi defense had
yet to have a significant engagement with American or British soldiers. The
shortages forced Central Command to ³run around looking for supplies,² the
former intelligence official said. The immediate goal, he added, was for the
Army and Marine forces ³to hold tight and hope that the Republican Guard
divisions get chewed up² by bombing. The planner agreed, saying, ³The only
way out now is back, and to hope for some kind of a miracle‹that the
Republican Guards commit themselves,² and thus become vulnerable to American
air strikes. 

³Hope,² a retired four-star general subsequently told me, ³is not a course
of action.² Last Thursday, the Army¹s senior ground commander, Lieutenant
General William S. Wallace, said to reporters, ³The enemy we¹re fighting is
different from the one we war-gamed against.² (One senior Administration
official commented to me, speaking of the Iraqis, ³They¹re not scared. Ain¹t
it something? They¹re not scared.²) At a press conference the next day,
Rumsfeld and Myers were asked about Wallace¹s comments, and defended the war
plan‹Myers called it ³brilliant² and ³on track.² They pointed out that the
war was only a little more than a week old.

Scott Ritter, the former marine and United Nations weapons inspector, who
has warned for months that the American ³shock and awe² strategy would not
work, noted that much of the bombing has had little effect or has been
counterproductive. For example, the bombing of Saddam¹s palaces has freed up
a brigade of special guards who had been assigned to protect them, and who
have now been sent home to await further deployment. ³Every one of their
homes‹and they are scattered throughout Baghdad‹is stacked with ammunition
and supplies,² Ritter told me.

³This is tragic,² one senior planner said bitterly. ³American lives are
being lost.² The former intelligence official told me, ³They all said, ŒWe
can do it with air power.¹ They believed their own propaganda.² The
high-ranking former general described Rumsfeld¹s approach to the Joint Staff
war planning as ³McNamara-like intimidation by intervention of a small
cell²‹a reference to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and his aides,
who were known for their challenges to the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the
Vietnam War. The former high-ranking general compared the Joint Chiefs of
Staff to the Stepford wives. ³They¹ve abrogated their responsibility.²


Perhaps the biggest disappointment of last week was the failure of the
Shiite factions in southern Iraq to support the American and British
invasion. Various branches of the Al Dawa faction, which operate
underground, have been carrying out acts of terrorism against the Iraqi
regime since the nineteen-eighties. But Al Dawa has also been hostile to
American interests. Some in American intelligence have implicated the group
in the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which cost the lives
of two hundred and forty-one marines. Nevertheless, in the months before the
war the Bush Administration courted Al Dawa by including it among the
opposition groups that would control postwar Iraq. ³Dawa is one group that
could kill Saddam,² a former American intelligence official told me. ³They
hate Saddam because he suppressed the Shiites. They exist to kill Saddam.²
He said that their apparent decision to stand with the Iraqi regime now was
a ³disaster² for us. ³They¹re like hard-core Vietcong.²

There were reports last week that Iraqi exiles, including fervent Shiites,
were crossing into Iraq by car and bus from Jordan and Syria to get into the
fight on the side of the Iraqi government. Robert Baer, a former C.I.A.
Middle East operative, told me in a telephone call from Jordan, ³Everybody
wants to fight. The whole nation of Iraq is fighting to defend Iraq. Not
Saddam. They¹ve been given the high sign, and we are courting disaster. If
we take fifty or sixty casualties a day and they die by the thousands,
they¹re still winning. It¹s a jihad, and it¹s a good thing to die. This is
no longer a secular war.² There were press reports of mujahideen arriving
from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Algeria for ³martyrdom operations.²

There had been an expectation before the war that Iran, Iraq¹s old enemy,
would side with the United States in this fight. One Iraqi opposition group,
the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi, has been in regular
contact with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or
sciri, an umbrella organization for Shiite groups who oppose Saddam. The
organization is based in Iran and has close ties to Iranian intelligence.
The Chalabi group set up an office last year in Tehran, with the approval of
Chalabi¹s supporters in the Pentagon, who include Rumsfeld, his deputies
Wolfowitz and Feith, and Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense
Policy Board. Chalabi has repeatedly predicted that the Tehran government
would provide support, including men and arms, if an American invasion of
Iraq took place. 

Last week, however, this seemed unlikely. In a press conference on Friday,
Rumsfeld warned Iranian militants against interfering with American forces
and accused Syria of sending military equipment to the Iraqis. A Middle East
businessman who has long-standing ties in Jordan and Syria‹and whose
information I have always found reliable‹told me that the religious
government in Tehran ³is now backing Iraq in the war. There isn¹t any Arab
fighting group on the ground in Iraq who is with the United States,² he
said.

There is also evidence that Turkey has been playing both sides. Turkey and
Syria, who traditionally have not had close relations, recently agreed to
strengthen their ties, the businessman told me, and early this year Syria
sent Major General Ghazi Kanaan, its longtime strongman and power broker in
Lebanon, to Turkey. The two nations have begun to share intelligence and to
meet, along with Iranian officials, to discuss border issues, in case an
independent Kurdistan emerges from the Iraq war. A former U.S. intelligence
officer put it this way: ³The Syrians are coördinating with the Turks to
screw us in the north‹to cause us problems.² He added, ³Syria and the
Iranians agreed that they could not let an American occupation of Iraq
stand.²



  

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