THE BIG FOOL SAYS TO PUSH ON

["LouPaulsen" <LouPaulsen@xxxxxxxxx>]

Words and music by Pete Seeger:

http://spikesmusic.spike-jamie.com/folk/ps3/WAIST-DEEP-IN-THE-BIG-MUDDY.pdf


[THE CAPTAIN TOLD US TO FORD A RIVER, THAT'S HOW IT ALL BEGUN; WE WERE -
KNEE DEEP IN THE BIG MUDDY, AND THE BIG FOOL SAID TO PUSH ON.]

ARTICLE #1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49101-2003Mar29.html
Push Toward Baghdad Is Reaffirmed
Bush Backs War Plan Of Rumsfeld, Generals

By David Von Drehle and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 30, 2003; Page A01


President Bush yesterday encouraged his senior generals to keep their sights
fixed on Baghdad despite the unexpectedly stiff resistance still plaguing
allied forces far to the south of the Iraqi capital -- resistance that has
some field commanders pleading for a new plan.

Administration officials said Bush convened a teleconference yesterday
morning at Camp David with the team of senior advisers known as his War
Council. In that session, as one senior official described it, Bush
supported Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's desire to press ahead with
the plans embraced by Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, and Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of the Iraq effort. These plans
call for continuing to prepare for a ground offensive against the Republican
Guard, Saddam Hussein's most fearsome troops, while awaiting the arrival of
additional forces -- some of which are weeks, even months, from being ready
to fight.

Field commanders this past week have spoken openly of a "pause" in the
allied campaign to rest, regroup and reinforce, while securing supply lines
by pacifying southern Iraq.

["SIR, ARE YOU SURE THIS IS THE BEST WAY BACK TO THE BASE?"]

But yesterday's session of the War Council reaffirmed a battle plan that was
crafted in Washington, and reminded any dissenters what the commander in
chief wants.

"When we say we're on the plan, we're on the plan," an administration
official said. "There is no pause."

["IT'LL BE A LITTLE SOGGY BUT JUST KEEP SLOGGING!  SOON WE'LL BE ON HIGHER
GROUND!]

White House officials would not discuss what Bush said. But a senior
administration official said Bush agreed with Rumsfeld that the coalition
should push aggressively toward Baghdad rather than pause for any lengthy
regrouping after enduring a tortured week of bad weather, guerrilla raids
and overstretched supply lines.

It was not clear whether any specific timetable was discussed. White House
press secretary Ari Fleischer would only say Bush "believes that military
tactics and timing are decisions that should be made by the military
leaders, particularly General Franks, and he has full faith in those
judgments."

A senior administration official said the war plan remains focused on
Baghdad because taking out the Iraqi leadership would "not only send an
incredibly powerful signal to the Iraqi people," but would also eliminate
the source from which "local party officials and paramilitary officials are
getting their information and inspiration."

"Every hour of every day, we get stronger and we get more capable and better
prepared and more powerful than the enemy," the official said. "Each day
that goes by, the enemy grows weaker, with less supplies, less information
and fewer people to execute their so-called strategy. So time is on our
side."

[ARTICLE #2]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49102-2003Mar29.html

KIFL, Iraq, March 29 -- Ten days into the invasion of Iraq, the political
imperative of waging a short and decisive campaign is increasingly at odds
with the military necessity of preparing for a protracted, more violent and
costly war, according to senior military officials.

Top Army officers in Iraq say they now believe that they effectively need to
restart the war. Before launching a major ground attack on Iraq's Republican
Guard, they want to secure their supply lines and build up their own combat
power. Some timelines for the likely duration of the war now extend well
into the summer, they say.

This revised view of the war plan, a major departure from the blitzkrieg
approach developed over the past year, threatens to undercut early Bush
administration hopes for a quick triumph over the government of President
Saddam Hussein.

Wars often divide political and military leaders. But in the U.S. campaign
in Iraq, that point of tension came surprisingly soon, after just a week of
fighting, perhaps because an unusually lean launch helped the U.S. force
advance so quickly.

Carrying out the original aim of a quick war with minimal civilian
casualties would require taking chances that officers here now deem
imprudent. In the past week, they found the Iraqi resistance tougher and
more widespread than expected, and the planned charge to Baghdad stopped
short of the city, with Hussein still in place.  [...]

The first tactical change is likely to be that ground forces will wait for
airstrikes to pound their opponents. This phase was skipped this month in
Iraq but was carried out for five weeks during the Gulf War, as many
commanders here recall. "My concern is that we're trying to rush things,"
the Army source said. "If people would revise their thinking and say, 'Okay,
we're going to spend a couple weeks' time getting positioned and letting the
air campaign play out,' then the initiative can be recaptured." [...]

When large-scale ground fighting does intensify, the geographical goals will
change. Instead of a rush to Baghdad, several other tasks now face the U.S.
military. First, Najaf will have to be taken, because commanders don't want
to attack the Republican Guard south of Baghdad with a hostile force
potentially at their rear. Capturing that town, where a suicide bombing
killed four U.S. servicemen today, could take weeks, commanders say.

["SIR, WITH ALL THIS EQUIPMENT NO MAN'LL BE ABLE TO SWIM!"]

[BUT:]

[REPRISE ARTICLE #1]

Bush has been reading and talking in recent months about the need for strong
civilian leadership to keep the military focused in wartime.

["GENERAL, DON'T BE A NERVOUS NELLIE!  ALL WE NEED IS A LITTLE
DETERMINATION!]

Yesterday, in private meetings and public statements, he and his
administration moved to make clear that the military and political
objectives of the war are unchanged

[MEN, FOLLOW ME!  I'LL LEAD ON!]


(Here however the analogy to the Seeger song breaks down.  In the song, the
captain goes in over his head, and the sergeant turns the men around and
leads them out of the river, alive and safe.  In reality, the subordinate
officers want to plunge into the Big Muddy at the same point but with more
resources, fewer limitations, and more civilian casualties.)

(Looked at it from this angle, Rumsfeld looks like a starry-eyed idealist
humanitarian compared to the 'realistic generals'.  He wants to win the
political war and the military war both at once; he is blind to the fact
that the political war is very hard to win and probably unwinnable - there
is no way to pretty up this conquest and make it look like liberation at
this point - and he insists that reality will just have to conform to his
vision.)

(The 'realistic generals', however, are saying that this man does not know
what it takes to win the military war.  To win the military war you need to
be more accepting of bloodbaths and medieval siege tactics.  Some of us have
been writing about medieval siege tactics for weeks, but the 'diseased
cattle' reference suggests that these guys really have been actually
thinking very hard about the analogies.  Which war crimes can they get away
with (bombing power plants, for example), and which can they not?)

[REPRISE ARTICLE #2]
Rumsfeld, in comments Friday, seemed to reject the notion of broadening the
air campaign in a way that would cause more civilian deaths. "We do not need
to kill thousands of innocent civilians to remove Saddam Hussein from
power," he said at a Pentagon news conference. "At least, that's our
belief."

At a meeting on the war at Camp David today, administration officials said
Bush supported Rumsfeld's desire to press ahead with preparations for a
ground offensive while reinforcements are still arriving.

Other officials in Washington were discussing reinterpreting the rules of
engagement to place less emphasis on minimizing civilian casualties and more
on destroying the enemy, even if Iraqi tanks and other heavy weapons are
interspersed with civilians.

The tactics used by the U.S. forces are likely to be tougher, both on the
ground and in the air. With siege warfare looming at Najaf and other cities,
the U.S. military may soon find itself seeking to use tactics that carry
political risks for the administration.

"We're not going to catapult diseased cattle into the city or anything like
that," said one planner. "But there's a question of what you can do and what
you should do."

He cited the example of knocking out electrical power, which the military
can do. But, he added, "Do you want to see pictures on CNN of the baby who
died because power to the incubator was cut off?"

(From the standpoint of the 'realistic generals', looking at the prospects
for the next month, Bush and Rumsfeld are the 'big fools'; looking at the
prospects for the next year, the generals are fools just as big and just as
determined to get us into the river.)

[EVERY TIME I READ THE PAPERS, THAT OLD FEELING COMES ON - WE'RE WAIST DEEP
IN THE BIG MUDDY, AND THE BIG FOOLS SAY TO PUSH ON.]

(Interestingly, and, dare I say, SIGNIFICANTLY, the following paragraphs
from the WPost warn about the costs of the postwar occupation.  Are they
just warning us to be prepared for the massive costs of empire, or are they
actually suggesting that it's time to turn around and get out of the river?
When they talk about 'several hundred thousand occupation troops', that's
comparable to the troop levels in Viet Nam during the war!  That Desch quote
seems downright dovish in its implications.)

Finally, the longer the fighting lasts, the more difficult and expensive the
postwar peacekeeping and rebuilding may be. The Bush administration has
never disclosed how many troops it expects to have to assign to Iraq for
peacekeeping duties, but at one point before the war the staff of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff estimated that 45,000 to 60,000 U.S. and coalition troops
would be needed.

Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, estimated in congressional
testimony earlier this month that "several hundred thousand" troops would be
required. Shinseki was publicly contradicted by Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul D. Wolfowitz, who has played a central role in shaping the
administration's Iraq policy. In his own congressional appearance, Wolfowitz
rejected Shinseki's estimate as much too high.

The fighting in Iraq so far, and the talk by field commanders of a war of
months, now makes Shinseki's view of a burdensome occupation appear more
likely, some say. "This could wind up looking like Israel's foray into
Lebanon," said Michael C. Desch, a political scientist at the University of
Kentucky. "We will win this war militarily, no question about it," he said.
"But we can lose it politically."

"There's no doubt in my mind," said retired Lt. Gen. Theodore G. Stroup Jr.,
a former chief of Army personnel. "If it is a more hostile environment, you
may very well find a requirement for a much larger force" than the Bush
administration had hoped to field. The size of the force, he said would
depend on whether the Kurds wind up fighting the Turks in the north, and
also on how much infrastructure is destroyed. Deploying two or three
divisions to keep the peace for six months or a year would strain the Army,
which has only 10 active-duty divisions.

[WAIST DEEP!  NECK DEEP!  SOON EVEN A TALL MAN'LL BE OVER HIS HEAD!]

Lou Paulsen
Chicago




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