Miscellaneous Musings... Part 1

Posted By Mr Wolf

First off, welcome back, Matt!  It's good to see you back at the helm and having returned safely from the Imperial Kingdom.

I wanted to bring to your attention some VERY interesting developments in the literary world- books are coming out for the summer reading season, and they have every appearance of being quite interesting reading.

One book that has jumped to the top of my reading list is the forthcoming book by LTG Ricardo Sanchez, former V Corps Commander and senior leader in Iraq.  His book, Wiser In Battle: A Soldier's Story (HarperCollins) is coming out this month and was excerpted in TIME this past week.

In the memo, Rumsfeld stated that one of the biggest strategic mistakes of the war was ordering the major redeployment of forces and allowing the departure of the CENTCOM and CFLCC staffs in May-June 2003.

LTG Sanchez was referring to the movement of the CFLCC/CENTCOM staff elements back into Kuwait and Qatar shortly after the major battles into Baghdad, and just prior to the beginning of IED's becoming major threats in the theater, and the coalescing of insurgent forces throughout Iraq.  The EECP was brought back from Victory Palace (see photo) and repositioned/refitted in Kuwait at this time.  That was the forward headquarters for CFLCC.

LTG Sanchez makes some very, very serious accusations here- he details out some conversations that apparently never took place between the CENTCOM staff and Pentagon leadership.  I have some insight into this, given that I helped develop these staff layouts for Kuwait and Iraq.  I am extremely interested in the context of this material, so I've already ordered my copy of his book and will get this read (and commented on here) ASAP.  Stay tuned- this could be very interesting.  I've disagreed with some of the General's comments previously, and given what happened to him politically, his comments could be construed as sour grapes.

On the subject of Abu Ghraib, there are a couple of films that I'm going to review shortly- I just received a copy of The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (Kennedy/HBO Video) and I intend on getting a copy of Standard Operating Procedures (Morris/Sony Pictures) just as soon as I can.  My gut tells me these may go way, way out of bounds on what actually happened at AG.  It will be interesting to see the context they put this event in.  I'm especially interested in how they characterize the way in which the story was broken.  They've not interviewed any of the key players (outside of some of the convicted participants) who investigated the incident.  MG Tony Taguba has not indicated to me that they approached him, either.

The NY Times (MTRIH) has been up to old tricks again.  It was interesting to see on ABC the other night where they covered some of the newly-released President Johnson tapes from his White House days.  In one segment they played, Pres. Johnson complained about the coverage in the Times on what was happening in the Vietnam war.  Good to know the Times is at least consistently stupid even decades later. 

Just this weekend the Times printed a selection of Op-Eds by various 'experts' on the best way for the US to  exit Iraq.  At first glance, I was ready to pounce all over them for what would likely be some outrageous comments.  But to my surprise, most were quite well thought out, and were devoid of the usual NYT-style rants against the administration.  For example:

The way forward in Iraq must proceed from the recognition that the surge, of which I was an early proponent, has stabilized central  Iraq, reduced violence overall and provided space for the Iraqi government to undertake important reconciliation efforts. - Frederick  Kagan

This is generally the tone of the 9 entries, with the exception of GEN Paul Eaton's, who is basically shilling for Gen Wes Clark and Amb Rich Holbrooke to come in and restore some semblance of order.  To me, that'd be like Obama asking Limbaugh to come in and fix his campaign communications team.  Right.

I've also added a PILE of books to get read (after Sanchez's), including HOGS in the Shadows, Naked in Baghdad, Yon's Moment of Truth in Iraq, Bing West's The March Up, and an especially dear read, From Baghdad with Love, which is about rescuing a Marine pup from Fallujah.  This was a gift from the Neesley family after their dog was brought to Michigan (and a hearty THANKS!! to them for it!)

AHSP, if you're tuning in, JSTHU in advance.  :)

-Wolf

---

Mission: To protect and promote the reputation and dignity of America's Warriors.
Join us!

Comments

Miscellaneous Musings... Part 1

First off, welcome back, Matt!  It's good to see you back at the helm and having returned safely from the Imperial Kingdom.

I wanted to bring to your attention some VERY interesting developments in the literary world- books are coming out for the summer reading season, and they have every appearance of being quite interesting reading.

One book that has jumped to the top of my reading list is the forthcoming book by LTG Ricardo Sanchez, former V Corps Commander and senior leader in Iraq.  His book, Wiser In Battle: A Soldier's Story (HarperCollins) is coming out this month and was excerpted in TIME this past week.

In the memo, Rumsfeld stated that one of the biggest strategic mistakes of the war was ordering the major redeployment of forces and allowing the departure of the CENTCOM and CFLCC staffs in May-June 2003.

LTG Sanchez was referring to the movement of the CFLCC/CENTCOM staff elements back into Kuwait and Qatar shortly after the major battles into Baghdad, and just prior to the beginning of IED's becoming major threats in the theater, and the coalescing of insurgent forces throughout Iraq.  The EECP was brought back from Victory Palace (see photo) and repositioned/refitted in Kuwait at this time.  That was the forward headquarters for CFLCC.

LTG Sanchez makes some very, very serious accusations here- he details out some conversations that apparently never took place between the CENTCOM staff and Pentagon leadership.  I have some insight into this, given that I helped develop these staff layouts for Kuwait and Iraq.  I am extremely interested in the context of this material, so I've already ordered my copy of his book and will get this read (and commented on here) ASAP.  Stay tuned- this could be very interesting.  I've disagreed with some of the General's comments previously, and given what happened to him politically, his comments could be construed as sour grapes.

On the subject of Abu Ghraib, there are a couple of films that I'm going to review shortly- I just received a copy of The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (Kennedy/HBO Video) and I intend on getting a copy of Standard Operating Procedures (Morris/Sony Pictures) just as soon as I can.  My gut tells me these may go way, way out of bounds on what actually happened at AG.  It will be interesting to see the context they put this event in.  I'm especially interested in how they characterize the way in which the story was broken.  They've not interviewed any of the key players (outside of some of the convicted participants) who investigated the incident.  MG Tony Taguba has not indicated to me that they approached him, either.

The NY Times (MTRIH) has been up to old tricks again.  It was interesting to see on ABC the other night where they covered some of the newly-released President Johnson tapes from his White House days.  In one segment they played, Pres. Johnson complained about the coverage in the Times on what was happening in the Vietnam war.  Good to know the Times is at least consistently stupid even decades later. 

Just this weekend the Times printed a selection of Op-Eds by various 'experts' on the best way for the US to  exit Iraq.  At first glance, I was ready to pounce all over them for what would likely be some outrageous comments.  But to my surprise, most were quite well thought out, and were devoid of the usual NYT-style rants against the administration.  For example:

The way forward in Iraq must proceed from the recognition that the surge, of which I was an early proponent, has stabilized central  Iraq, reduced violence overall and provided space for the Iraqi government to undertake important reconciliation efforts. - Frederick  Kagan

This is generally the tone of the 9 entries, with the exception of GEN Paul Eaton's, who is basically shilling for Gen Wes Clark and Amb Rich Holbrooke to come in and restore some semblance of order.  To me, that'd be like Obama asking Limbaugh to come in and fix his campaign communications team.  Right.

I've also added a PILE of books to get read (after Sanchez's), including HOGS in the Shadows, Naked in Baghdad, Yon's Moment of Truth in Iraq, Bing West's The March Up, and an especially dear read, From Baghdad with Love, which is about rescuing a Marine pup from Fallujah.  This was a gift from the Neesley family after their dog was brought to Michigan (and a hearty THANKS!! to them for it!)

AHSP, if you're tuning in, JSTHU in advance.  :)

-Wolf

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bfadb53ef00e552247f0a8834

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Miscellaneous Musings... Part 1: