Anodyne
Saturday, August 26, 2006
 
Reading Thomas E. Ricks' superb Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, full of striking anecdotes like the following:

"On April 6 [2003], Douglas Hoyt, a platoon leader with the 3rd [Infantry Division], saw looters for the first time. 'I remembered looking through the sights on my tank at people and trying to determine if they were hostile or not,' he recalled later. He didn't stop them. 'It was not our mission at the time.'

The division's official after-action review states that it had no orders to do anything else: '3RD ID transitioned into Phase IV SASO with no plan from higher headquarters,' it reported. 'There was no guidance for restoring order in Baghdad, creating an interm government, hiring government and essential services employees, and ensuring that the judicial system was operational.' The result was 'a power/authority vacuum created by our failure to immediately replace key government institutions.' In a surprising criticism for an Army division to make -- especially one that had led the way in toppling an enemy government -- the 3rd ID report laid the blame for all of this at the feet of its chain of command, leading to [General] Franks to Rumsfeld and Bush: 'The president announced that our national goal was "regime change." Yet there was no timely plan prepared for the obvious consequences of a regime change.'"
- posted by cjb @ 8:23 AM


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