Thread: Subdue Iran, secure Iraq

From The Sunday Times
February 25, 2007
US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack
Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Washington

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack - Times Online

Though dated, were these military brass nuts?

Does Cheney who has avoided military service better versed in warfare than these generals and admirals?

Before the invasion of Iraq, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki and Army Secretary Thomas White advised Rumsfeld that many more troops would be needed to secure Iraq (something on the order of 250,000 to 300,000). Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose State Department was shut out of the post-war planning process, also privately argued for a bigger force. A RAND Corporation analysis, published in summer 2003, offered a range of estimates for what size force would be necessary in Iraq. Using troops-to-population ratios from previous occupations, RAND projected that, two years after the invasion, it would take anywhere from 258,000 troops (the Bosnia model), to 321,000 (post-World War II Germany), to 526,000 (Kosovo) to secure the peace.

None of these figures seems, at first glance, unachievable for a U.S. military comprised of 1.4 million active-duty troops, 870,900 reservists, and 110,000 individual ready reservists (soldiers who have served their tour of duty and are not training with the reserves but who can by statute still be called up for service). And yet an Iraq deployment that has never exceeded 153,000 ground personnel has put so much stress on the military that a senior Army Reserve official has candidly stated that current rotation policies will lead to a "broken force." How can that be?

To answer that question, begin by deducting virtually the entire Navy and Air Force from the head count; the Iraq occupation has been almost exclusively a ground game, hence an Army and Marine operation. Next, consider that the United States sends into combat not individual soldiers but units, complete with unit equipment sets, unit leaders, and an organizational structure that facilitates command, control, and logistical support. So instead of counting individual soldiers--a meaningless exercise--one must look at how many units the United States could theoretically put on the ground if it wanted to mobilize every active and reserve soldier available. And if you do that, you come to a figure of roughly 600,000 troops. That's the total number of deployable soldiers that the United States could theoretically have called upon to man the initial invasion.

In practice, however, the Pentagon would never have sent that many troops to Iraq, for good reasons: It would have left the defense cupboard bare and served as an open invitation to America's enemies to make trouble elsewhere in the world. Massing a 600,000 force would have meant not only pulling nearly all front-line troops out of Korea, but also mobilizing the poorly-resourced divisions of the National Guard, the third-string crew that the president can call on when the first string (active troops) and the second string (the Guard's elite "enhanced" reserve brigades) are depleted.

Given the need to hold troops in reserve for deterrence purposes, the Pentagon had perhaps 400,000 troops available for the invasion. Yet that number includes many troops in specialized fields that are of little or no use in desert warfare or peacekeeping--off-loading equipment in sea ports, for instance. Such woops could have been reshaped into provisional infantry units, as the Army has done with artillery and air-defense formations, but that would've taken time. The number of troops with units that would actually have been of use in Iraq was probably closer to the figures that Gen. Shinseki and Secretary White have suggested: 250,000 to 300,000--in other words, the lower end of what RAND estimated would be required for success.

But even that number is deceptive. It is the size of the force that could have been initially sent into Iraq, not the number that could have realistically been sustained there. Because so many soldiers in the all-volunteer military are married with families (compared to conscript armies), and because soldiers must periodically be induced or persuaded to voluntarily reenlist, the Pentagon must rotate its forces in and out of theater every 12 months or so in order to maintain morale and reenlistment. Thus, just as a civilian police department must hire three to four police officers for every one cop on the beat, so too must the U.S. military have three to four soldiers for every one serving in Iraq.

The Pentagon, then, could have realistically kept those initial 250,000 to 300,000 troops in place only for a limited time--perhaps a year, certainly not more than two. That might have been enough time to pacify the country, especially if higher troop numbers at the outset would have quelled the early looting and disorder. Then again, a year or two might not have been sufficient time to beat back an insurgency which, we now know, was to some extent planned in advance of the invasion. In that case, keeping 250,000 to 300,000 troops in Iraq for two years or longer would have risked so lowering morale and reenlistment rates as to destroy the all-volunteer force. It would have been like plowing a field with a Ferrari; it could have been done, but only once.

Taking the need for rotations into account, then, the U.S. military can comfortably handle something like 80,000 troops in Iraq at any one time. The actual number on the ground has averaged 133,286 for the last two years, and more than 150,000 soldiers are in Iraq now.

That's a woefully insufficient number for the task. Yet it is pushing the outside limits of what the current force structure can handle. It has meant imposing "stop-loss" emergency measures to prevent soldiers from exiting the service. It has required deploying nearly every active-duty brigade, including one previously committed elsewhere in Korea. It has meant raiding the seed corn of military readiness by deploying the Army's elite "opposing force" training units--seasoned soldiers who play the enemy in mock exercises to build the skills of greener troops before they are sent into battle. It has necessitated calling up all 15 of the National Guard's enhanced readiness brigades, as well as poorly-resourced National Guard divisions that have not been mobilized en masse since the Korean War. It has led the Army Reserve Chief Lt. Gen. James Helmly to write in a recent memo that the Reserve will be unable to meet its commitments without substantial use of the Army's involuntary, mobilization authorities under federal law. As of Dec. 15, 2004, the Army Reserve retained just 37,515 deployable soldiers out of a total of 200,366--almost no cushion at all. And in the final two months of last year, the Reserves missed their enlistment targets last year by 30 percent--a sign of even greater problems to come.

All this for a war that most planners consider to be a medium-sized conflict--nothing like what the United States faced in World War I, World War II, or the Cold War. And while threats of that magnitude aren't anywhere on the horizon, there are plenty of quite possible scenarios that could quickly overwhelm us--an implosion of the North Korean regime, a Chinese attack on Taiwan, worsening of the ethnic cleansing in the Sudan, or some unforeseen humanitarian nightmare. Already we have signaled to bad actors everywhere the limits of our power. Military threats might never have convinced the Iranians to give up their nuclear program. But it's more than a little troubling that ruling Iranian mullahs can publicly and credibly dismiss recent administration saber-rattling by pointing to the fact that our forces are pinned down in Iraq.

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Just Iraq and we are not talking about Afghanistan or Iran.

I am just a pragmatic military man and Superman is not in my Army nor in my advisory staff!

I prefer to win wars and not muddle about and take on more than what I can chew!

I am indeed disappointed that the US does not command the same aura as it did in the past!

Mistake not my deep sorrow or despair at the US actions as anti American. It is just that my heart weeps with frustration at the fast dwindling respect for the US!

At the same time, I take hope that there are men like S2 who will be ready to fight for the honour of their nation and they are honourable men!

Brigadier,

I don't dispute your numbers. Neither does Gen. Dan McNeil. His calculus places a number of 400,000. That won't happen anytime soon. Our ground forces carry vulnerabilities to assymetric operations conducted by al-Quds and affiliated organizations but will play a modest role in any direct operations against Iran. Very modest.

War against Iran is necessary on the present trajectory. Diplomacy has failed. Most knew it would. America isn't the cause of that failure. Iran has had numerous opportunities to achieve all their ostensible objectives via negotiations and have refused for very obvious reasons.

Perhaps it's time that the rest of the world announce complete acquiescence to an Iranian nuclear bomb and their unequivocable support for such. All other options are removed, evidently.

Not for Israel nor the U.S. and so we'll see, I suppose. I'd have preferred this in 2003 as Iran's position was utterly predictable. Whether we do or not remains to be seen. I know nobody else will and, short of America's determination, you can assume an Iranian nuclear choke-hold on the straits of Hormuz within the next five years.

I saw the BBC TV.

Brown has announced that it has frozen the assets of the largest bank of Iran and it will hurt.

I don't equate America with Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism nor do I equate it's practice of "democracy" remotely with my conception of such. I'm sorry that you do.

As to the notion of "evil", you say a whole nation, eh? Not a single mullah? Forgive me. Let's split the diff and call it even. Somehow your hyperbole is no more impressive than mine.

Both the Brigadier and you are preoccupied with "niceties". I'm satisfied that the IAEA has not received Iran's cooperation and that Iran is committed to building nuclear weapons. Is that "nice"?

As to Iran's bridge-building efforts, I've seen none worthy of note. I HAVE seen numerous proposals over the last five years that dramatically enhance Iran's status, achieves their announced objectives and removes their political isolation which have been ARROGANTLY rejected, Zraver. That's removed my doubt when kitty is given everything by pit-bull and chooses to spit in it's face. Bad choice, I'd say. Kitty gets ass-kicking of the first order typically.

Many on my side of the fence understood that everybody favored keeping the option to attack on the table. Many on my side also understood that, if it actually came down to that following multiple, repeated diplomatic failures, there would still be vascillation and hand-wringing by those unprepared to stand by their principles. So noted.

I've not noted, however, any vascillation in the position of POTUS. I've noted patience and forebearance, not arrogance by America. Now I see, finally, those who'd prefer an Iranian nuclear weapon to war. That's unacceptable to me and, I hope, my national leadership. I pray that the United States does everything in it's power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Stand aside.

Brace yourselves.

S2,

I am not denying that Iran should not be allowed to make nuclear weapons.

Even today our newspapers reported that Iran may have got a compact and more sophisticated design from AQ Khan.

AQ Khan's network had advanced nuclear weapon designs: NYT
From ANI

Washington, June 15: Electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon were found American and international investigators on computers that belonged to disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.




The New York Times reported that investigators were not able to determine whether the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist sold those blueprints to Iran or the smuggling ring's other customers.

The plans appear to closely resemble a nuclear weapon that was built by Pakistan and first tested exactly a decade ago. But when confronted with the design by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency last year, Pakistani officials insisted that Khan did not have access to Pakistan's weapons designs.

In interviews in Vienna, Islamabad and Washington over the past year, officials have said that the weapons design was far more sophisticated than the blueprints discovered in Libya in 2003.

Those blueprints were for a Chinese nuclear weapon that dated to the mid-1960s, and investigators found that Libya had obtained them from the Khan network, the NYT reported.

But the latest design found on Khan network computers in Switzerland, Bangkok and several other cities around the world is half the size and twice the power of the Chinese weapon, with far more modern electronics, the investigators said.

The design is in electronic form, they said, making it easy to copy and they have no idea how many copies of it are now in circulation.

Investigators said the evidence that the Khan network was trafficking in a tested, compact and efficient bomb design was particularly alarming, because if a country or group obtained the bomb design, the technological information would significantly shorten the time needed to build a weapon.

Among the missiles that could carry the smaller weapon, according to some weapons experts, is the Iranian Shahab III, which is based on a North Korean design.

However, in recent days top American intelligence officials, who declined to speak about the discovery on the record because the information is classified, said that they had been unable to determine whether Iran or other countries had obtained the weapons design.

Pakistan has refused to allow American investigators to directly interview Dr. Khan, who is considered a hero there as the father of its nuclear program.

In recent weeks the only communications about him between the United States and Pakistan's new government have been warnings from Washington not to allow him to be released.

Dr. Khan's illicit nuclear network was broken up in early 2004; President Bush declared that shattering the operation was a major intelligence coup for the United States.

Since then, evidence has emerged that the network sold uranium enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, and investigators are still pursing leads that he may have done business with other countries as well.


Copyright Asian News International
AQ Khan's network had advanced nuclear weapon designs: NYT

Iran has a theological dictatorship and Ahmedinejad is erratic. Iran wishes to be a regional power in the Middle East to start with. All this compounds a dangerous situation.

The IAEA is still attempting to unravel the nuclear capability of Iran.

Indeed, war should be an option. It is always an option. But it has to be embarked on with total confidence that it will be a success and there will be a logical conclusion and for a superpower, it must be near instant so that the aura remains that none can fool around with a superpower.

I am not for jumping into wars that drag on and at the same time, appears to be floundering. The US is not just any nation. It is the sole global superpower. Therefore, with all her might, military, financial and economic, it should not appear to have met its match with the ragtag armies of other nations and worse, with some untrained fanatics. The US has to remain and project itself as the sole superpower and if any country dares defy her, that country will meet its Waterloo and fast should be the message.

And what is important is more action and less of rhetoric. I just can't imagine that Iran has been put on guard when the aim was to attack Iran. It has compromised the initiative and surprise which would have been to the US advantage! This really confuses me as to whether the US is really serious!

You may feel that I am criticising the US, but that is not so the case. I am only stating that under no circumstance, should the US lose its prestige as a superpower and am pointing out it is doing so, in a self generated suicidal manner!

If Gen McNeill's number indicates it is not possible as I have also pointed out, then don't embark on wars that cannot be won - unless there is the agenda of staying on indefinitely to establish a presence in the area!!

Diplomacy may have failed. It is because none takes US seriously!! None believe that what the US is stating is true and instead they believe it is all gung ho and more out of pique! Therefore, all are cautious lest they look like fools for following the Cheney line of everyone is evil wherever the US wants to have a finger in the pie!

Diplomacy works. And it works well. North Korea is an example. Did anyone have to go to war over that?

Sanctions hurt. The sad part is that the US has lost its credibility and equally sad is that while some are ready to join the sanction regime on Iran, others still ''bankroll'' Iran. It is because every country suspects that behind all the rhetoric, the US has an agenda that defies international acceptability. It is like when the US put sanctions on Pakistan, Saudis made it up with free oil and made the sanction of the US a joke and the US did nothing about it! Later, the Saudis converted it to ''deferred payment'' and heaven knows, if it was paid back or not!!



Time you realise the reality of the world!

Zraver,

Perhaps. Perhaps not. I see Iraq as emerging into a resounding neo-con victory. I have hope for the same in Afghanistan. I'm pleased by the absence of Saddam Hussein. I like a kurdish autonomous province in Iraq. I'm glad that Iraq isn't a threat to again invade Iran or Kuwait. It's good that Iraqi programs and WMD are thoroughly dismantled. I'm encouraged by our prompt removal of the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and eager to see if we might yet transform the untransformable.

Finally, I'm hopeful that by war or otherwise we can prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Life is good and getting better. Now, hopefully, you'll allow us to finish the job and view our remaining near-term enemies vanquished and prostrate before us.

Originally Posted by S-2

Zraver,

Perhaps. Perhaps not. I see Iraq as emerging into a resounding neo-con victory. I have hope for the same in Afghanistan. I'm pleased by the absence of Saddam Hussein. I like a kurdish autonomous province in Iraq. I'm glad that Iraq isn't a threat to again invade Iran or Kuwait. It's good that Iraqi programs and WMD are thoroughly dismantled. I'm encouraged by our prompt removal of the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and eager to see if we might yet transform the untransformable.

Finally, I'm hopeful that by war or otherwise we can prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Life is good and getting better. Now, hopefully, you'll allow us to finish the job and view our remaining near-term enemies vanquished and prostrate before us.

Iraq has a long way to go before it becomes a resounding victory. The focus is off Iraq since the excitement is on the Democratic nomination. Once this dies down, the warts in Iraq will once again surface. I say this not out of any pique but a pragmatic analysis. And it will be even more of a media excitement if the US attacks Iran!!

Saddam Hussein is as good or bad as Mugabwe. Care to explain as to why the US Administration is giving Mugabwe such a long rope? Idi Amin was a self confessed cannibal and yet the US tolerated a cannibal in this modern emancipated times. Care to let us know if Patrice Lumumba was evil, why are the present equally horrid rulers of Congo are not being addressed the same way as Patrice Lumumba? And how come good old Pinochet was such a darling of the US when he proved to be a magician more than a self styled President as he made men simply vanish from the face of the earth?

In Afghanistan, there is no Taliban govt, but they are still everywhere and calling the shots! It is a self delusion to feel that Afghanistan has been cleansed or even close to being cleansed.

We must face reality and not live with dreams and desires!

I have braced myself as per your advice.

You now steel yourself for the shocks!!

True, there was a time when nations prostrated before the US. Today, they have learnt that the US has also feet of clay and they have all the foibles that other nations have and not really a demi God as one used to believe!

I would like to add that the concept and rationale for the GWOT cannot be flawed, but the methodology selected to pursue it is debatable!

I've avoided addressing your comments with anything so thoughtful as "stupid". You should too lest some think it's you with an arrogance issue.

"A strong Iraq counters Iran."

Not on previous terms. In the interim, a strong America trumps Iran if need be.

"Funny you put war ahead of other options."

Who's laughing? What other options? More of the same?

As to the economy, here's hoping you drive a small car and have lots of kids to work on that debt. 3rd war? Naw. One GWOT with multiple fronts- all next to each other. No biggie as global wars go.

""As for getting out of your way- not a chance. As a voting US citizen, you'll have to out vote me and those like me who do not want war with Iran unless it is an absolute last resort."

That's fine. It's a process I relish. "last resort" begs definition under five years of active but futile negotiations. You might consider full acquiescence if you believe that Iran is engaged in creating a nuke weapons capability. Maybe a "no first use" will satisfy your sensibilities? As things now stand, you won't know if it's a "last resort" until it's too late.

Please do what you can while you can. Time is running terribly short unless you prefer surrender.