lennart
09-04-04, 12:09
US commander will not take blame for unrest
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 09/04/2004)
America's top commander in Iraq has warned Washington that he will not be "the fall guy" if violence in the country worsens, it emerged yesterday, as word leaked out that US generals are "outraged" by their lack of soldiers.
America's generals consider current troop strengths of 130,000 in Iraq inadequate, reported the columnist Robert Novak, a doyen of the old-school Right in Washington.
Gen John Abizaid, commander of Central Command, told his political masters earlier this week that he would ask for reinforcements if requested by the generals under him. His words overrode months of public assurances from the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and other civilian chiefs that more troops are not necessary.
As violence flared across the Sunni triangle and the Shia-dominated south of Iraq on Wednesday, Mr Rumsfeld indicated that troop numbers would be bolstered at least temporarily, by leaving in place units that had been earmarked to return home as part of troop rotation, while still sending replacements.
But officers who will not speak out in public let it be known that major reinforcements might be impossible to find. US forces are so overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan that "there are simply no large units available and suitable for assignment", Novak wrote in his column in The Washington Post.
The leaks have revived memories of the bitter debate that raged in Washington in the run-up to the Iraq war, as uniformed chiefs clashed with Mr Rumsfeld and his aides, who predicted that US forces would be welcomed as "liberators", allowing troop numbers to be reduced rapidly.
Relations between the uniformed military and the Pentagon's civilian chiefs are currently worse than at any time in living memory, Novak wrote, citing a former high-ranking national security official who served in previous Republican administrations.
Many still in uniform bitterly recall the public dressing-down earned by the then army chief of staff, Gen Eric Shinseki, when he told Congress a month before the invasion, in February 2003, that "several hundred thousand troops" might be needed to occupy Iraq.
That estimate was slapped down as "wildly off the mark" by the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. Thomas White, the army secretary and a former general himself, publicly backed Gen Shinseki. Mr White was sacked shortly afterwards by Mr Rumsfeld.
A new account of the war, In the Company of Soldiers, reveals that in May 2003 Pentagon planners "predicted that US troop levels would be down to 30,000 by late summer [of 2003]".
Underlining the mood of crisis, private security contractors in Iraq - many of them US and British military veterans - have abruptly dropped professional rivalries and begun sharing information and even resources, creating what US officials called the largest private army in the world.
Such co-operation was born out of unhappy necessity, a source at one of the leading security companies said, criticising the Pentagon and occupation officials for failing to share intelligence on threats with guards they had hired to protect everything from power stations to the chief US administrator, Paul Bremer.
Information sharing is being made easier by the close ties in the special forces community, where many British, US and other western military commandos have known each other for years.
"The unfortunate thing is it had to happen this way," said the industry source. "This informal communication is necessitated by lack of communications and intelligence sharing between the Pentagon, Coalition Provisional Authority and private security."
A South African working for a British security firm, Hart Group, was killed on Tuesday in the town of Kut, after coalition forces from Ukraine failed to respond to repeated pleas for help from a small group of besieged guards.
Asked if private security firms were working together because they trusted each other more than some coalition militaries, the industry source declined to comment, saying: "Let's not go there."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/09/wirq109.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/04/09/ixnewstop.html
Nog even en Iraq staat onder volledige controle van het huurlingenleger.
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 09/04/2004)
America's top commander in Iraq has warned Washington that he will not be "the fall guy" if violence in the country worsens, it emerged yesterday, as word leaked out that US generals are "outraged" by their lack of soldiers.
America's generals consider current troop strengths of 130,000 in Iraq inadequate, reported the columnist Robert Novak, a doyen of the old-school Right in Washington.
Gen John Abizaid, commander of Central Command, told his political masters earlier this week that he would ask for reinforcements if requested by the generals under him. His words overrode months of public assurances from the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and other civilian chiefs that more troops are not necessary.
As violence flared across the Sunni triangle and the Shia-dominated south of Iraq on Wednesday, Mr Rumsfeld indicated that troop numbers would be bolstered at least temporarily, by leaving in place units that had been earmarked to return home as part of troop rotation, while still sending replacements.
But officers who will not speak out in public let it be known that major reinforcements might be impossible to find. US forces are so overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan that "there are simply no large units available and suitable for assignment", Novak wrote in his column in The Washington Post.
The leaks have revived memories of the bitter debate that raged in Washington in the run-up to the Iraq war, as uniformed chiefs clashed with Mr Rumsfeld and his aides, who predicted that US forces would be welcomed as "liberators", allowing troop numbers to be reduced rapidly.
Relations between the uniformed military and the Pentagon's civilian chiefs are currently worse than at any time in living memory, Novak wrote, citing a former high-ranking national security official who served in previous Republican administrations.
Many still in uniform bitterly recall the public dressing-down earned by the then army chief of staff, Gen Eric Shinseki, when he told Congress a month before the invasion, in February 2003, that "several hundred thousand troops" might be needed to occupy Iraq.
That estimate was slapped down as "wildly off the mark" by the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. Thomas White, the army secretary and a former general himself, publicly backed Gen Shinseki. Mr White was sacked shortly afterwards by Mr Rumsfeld.
A new account of the war, In the Company of Soldiers, reveals that in May 2003 Pentagon planners "predicted that US troop levels would be down to 30,000 by late summer [of 2003]".
Underlining the mood of crisis, private security contractors in Iraq - many of them US and British military veterans - have abruptly dropped professional rivalries and begun sharing information and even resources, creating what US officials called the largest private army in the world.
Such co-operation was born out of unhappy necessity, a source at one of the leading security companies said, criticising the Pentagon and occupation officials for failing to share intelligence on threats with guards they had hired to protect everything from power stations to the chief US administrator, Paul Bremer.
Information sharing is being made easier by the close ties in the special forces community, where many British, US and other western military commandos have known each other for years.
"The unfortunate thing is it had to happen this way," said the industry source. "This informal communication is necessitated by lack of communications and intelligence sharing between the Pentagon, Coalition Provisional Authority and private security."
A South African working for a British security firm, Hart Group, was killed on Tuesday in the town of Kut, after coalition forces from Ukraine failed to respond to repeated pleas for help from a small group of besieged guards.
Asked if private security firms were working together because they trusted each other more than some coalition militaries, the industry source declined to comment, saying: "Let's not go there."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/09/wirq109.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/04/09/ixnewstop.html
Nog even en Iraq staat onder volledige controle van het huurlingenleger.