More general dissent

I know that a major part of why our infallible generals who are coming out and trashing Rummy is to position themselves for the decades-long arguments to come over who failed so badly in the Iraq War. That's not to say their complaints aren't legitimate in themselves.

At least in the short run, it makes it harder for Bush to hide behind his lie that he's just following the generals' recommendations and that whatever they ask for, they get. It's kind of a punk thing for Bush to say to begin with. But given the list of things that man has to answer for in the court of history - and maybe one day in the International Criminal Court - what's one more scam?

Gareth Porter summarizes how General Reveals Rift with Rumsfeld on Insurgents Inter Press Service 04/15/06. He writes:

A military assessment of the Iraqi insurgency in late 2004 concluded that it had the active support of millions of Sunnis who rejected the legitimacy of a U.S. installed government, according to Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who led all coalition forces in Iraq from January 2005 to January 2006.

That analysis conflicted with the view of Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, who believed the insurgents represented only Saddam loyalists and foreign jihadists and could be defeated by a combination of force and free elections.

Vines's revelation thus provides evidence of differences between top U.S. generals and U.S. policymakers in 2004-2005 over the nature of the insurgency and what to do about it.

He goes on to explain that the destruction of Fallujah - which is Maverick McCain's model for how the whole war should be fought - might have been avoided if the civilian leadership had taken more seriously the findings of that study.

Porter also explains his speculation that Vines himself was very involved in preparing that study, which was likely done under the auspices of CENTCOM.

Some of the material coming out right now is giving a much better picture of just how much self-delusional groupthink dominated the decision-making about the Iraq War:

The Vines analysis was yet another skirmish in a battle between the administration and professional analysts over the nature of the insurgency that had begun in 2003. The key points in the analysis on support for the insurgency had already been stated in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq issued in October 2003 and reissued in June 2004, according to Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

White, now an Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute, told IPS in a telephone interview that the NIE had portrayed the insurgency as having an enormous support base among Sunnis, because of a wide range of grievances, including unemployment, the arrest and killing of family members, and destruction of homes as well as opposition to foreign occupation.

Porter also says that once Zalmay Khalilzad, who was one of the hardcore neocon advocates for the Iraq War but who, came to Baghdad as the American Ambassador, he pressed for taking into account the kind of realities that were described in the report. He "sided with CENTCOM and the intelligence community on the need to meet legitimate Sunni grievances", writes Porter. This adds some background to the shift toward the Sunnis in the civil war that the US has been making the last several months now.

This may be positioning an alibi:

Nevertheless he pointedly observed in his speech, "The policy was directed by Washington," adding that the command in Iraq had merely carried it out."

But it's also more accurate than nonsense from the Bush administration about how they've just been setting back and supplying the generals with everything they ask for. The civilian leadership is ultimately making the decisions, even if that decision is to defer to the military recommendations.

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