Was General Shinseki right all along?

Question

He is famous for his remarks to the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee before the war in Iraq in which he said "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would probably be required for post-war Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz publicly disagreed with his estimate.[1]

When the insurgency took hold in post-war Iraq, Shinseki's comments and their public rejection by the civilian leadership were often cited by those who felt the Bush administration deployed too few troops to Iraq. On November 15, 2006, in testimony before Congress, USCENTCOM Commanding General John Abizaid said that General Shinseki's estimate had proved correct. [2]

Answer 1

assuming we actually should have invaded at the time we did, before we had any realy international support or solid reasons for doing so, i would say shinkseki was right. in the early days of the war(if you want to call it that), it was a mess we were barely able to sustain our presence over there(logistically) for the first few months, let alone establish some kind of civil control. I remember driving back and forth through an abandoned(and blown up) iraqi military base for several weeks with stockpiles and warehouses of explosives and military equipment unguarded and free for the taking. this was, of course, before we knew that every one of these explosives were going to be planted on the sides of the roads in the coming months. anyways, ya, big **** up.
unfortunately i think its too late now to really expect a positive result from the operation. hopefully, if we can show the iraqi people, insurgents and all, that we share a common goal of a more stable nation with better living conditions for its people, then we can move forward, whatever direction that may be.

Answer 2

I always felt bad for Shinseki. He makes one bad call about a freakin beret, and he could do no right afterward. Shinseki was a good CoS, as he actually started the now famous "transformation" long before Rummy got his greasy paws on it. I'm not saying I agreed with all of Shinsekis decisions, but he was willing to give the army a swift kick in the backside it needed. If anything, he didn't go far enough.

Oh, to answer your question, yes he was right. Only a few die hards argue differantly.

I will say however, at the time many in the Army disagreed with him. I remember being one of the only soldiers I knew to agree with him, at least in my unit and on AKO web boards. Now it's fashionable to say that deep down we all agreed with him, but a lot of the military "drank the kool-aid" that rummy was sellin.

Answer 3

Yes. Had we had enough troops to secure Baghdad and all of the ammo dumps spread around Iraq we would be much much further along. As it was many of those ammo dumps literally had no one guarding them so IED material was just there for the taking.

My Command and General Staff College group did a exercise on a similar scenerio before the invasion and our findings were much the same as Shinseki's. I was no fan of Shinseki because I hated his decision to all of us in the Army to wear berets but he was right on that one. I do understand the constraints that Rumsfled had to deal with. Kuwait was bursting at the seams with US & allied forces and Turkey not letting us go in through there seriously impacted our ability to employ a large force quickly.

Answer 4

Absolutely. The one minor problem with civilians running the military is that they think they know it all. That is the main reason Hitler lost WWII. He didn't listen to his Generals and the Germans had an outstanding military with a very professional and well trained Officers Corp. The several hundred thousand troops weren't needed to kick the crap out of Saddam. General Shinseki had the foresight to see that we needed them to occupy and pacify the country. IF ANY FUTURE SECRETARY OF DEFENCES OR PRESIDENTS OR LEGISLATORS ARE READING THIS, LISTEN TO YOUR GENERALS!!!!!!!!

Answer 5

About the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq, yes.....About making the Black Beret wear for regular army personnel, NO! His reason for this was to make them FEEL more elite.....phooey...IF you wanna feel Elite, go to Ranger School or SF School...a beret doesnt make you elite.

Answer 6

Yes he was. He knew we couldn't go into Iraq with what Rumsfeld wanted to go in with.

Answer 7

Yes, I think he was correct, if not underestimating the amount needed.

Answer 8

army