How many troops should we have initially sent into Iraq when we invaded?

Question

Okay, don't say 2 million. What would be a realistic number to have started with? A number that would have ensured that things proceeded more in our favour?

I recall a Genral before the U.S. senate was asked this question. He said that it would take 'Hundreds of thousands of troops'. He was laughed off the stage.

How many troops should we have sent in at the start of the war?

Answer 1

300,000 - 400,000

Answer 2

We should have sent the number of troops that the generals asked for in the first place. Witness the perils of letting someone like Danny Rummy make military decisions when he should have known his role and fought for the troop levels we needed. As far as the number goes, I would say it should have been somewhere around 400,000 to 500,000. My service was with the Air Force, but I come from an Army family (my father served 30 years in the Armored Cav) and we discuss this issue often. The general was laughed off the stage because the force level he asked for was FAR higher then we needed to defeat the Iraqi military. The general knew this, he wasn't all that woried about the Iraqi military. What he was taking into account was the number of troops needed to have an overwhelming American presence in Iraqi cities and towns as well as along the borders. We needed those troops to stop any ideas of insurgency before they started. Instead, we got Rummy's scaled down package and the insurgents got plenty of room to set up their effort. Now, we just might need 2 million to shut it down. Sending only 20,000 is a farce and has a very slim chance of success IMHO.

Answer 3

Just to err on the side of caution, 500,000. This would have allowed us to secure the borders of the country and secure Saddam's weapons caches that according to the Government Accounting Office (NOT the liberal media) went on to build most of the IEDs that killed American Soldiers after the end of combat operations.

This can be spun any way you want it, but the fact of the matter remains that we had the manpower to go over to Iraq and do things right, and Congress gave the president and SECDEF the authority to use it, but the decision was made to do this without enough troops, and that mistake is what has cost thousands of lives since then. Soldiers were forced to leave thousands and thousands of conventional weapons and explosives unattended, because the manpower to secure them were not there...the same thing with the borders. The insurgents poured in, because there was not the manpower to secure them.

Answer 4

Zero.
Our leaders lied when they gave us WMD as a reason to invade.
None were there.
We should have left them alone - we destabilized a region by lying to our own people and then upending the crooked governement that was WAY better than the government in most arab counties. The difference?
We could overthrow Saddam if the world believed he had Nukes.
He didn't, we should not be there.
Sad, really.
If you think about it, how was Saddam worse than Bush Jr. is? No movement on Katrina, Billions in costs for a war we didn't need, Thousands of American troops dead as well as HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of innocent Iraqis.
So Sad to be an American right now.
My father died for this?

Answer 5

In a slow roll, probably 100,000. The trick would be to arm and train the Kurds and Shiites to attack the Sunni government while shooting at the Sunni government too. One of the big problems with the Bay of Pigs and the first uprising attempt in Iraq was the U.S. government left them stranded. If the U.S. acted like a batering ram and let the others rush in and set up, then things would have went faster in the end for the U.S.

Answer 6

As has been proven NONE

we should have never invaded that country


George H.W. Bush had this to say in a 1998 Time article, when asked why US/UN forces didn't go after Saddam Hussein after Iraqi forces were pushed out of Kuwait in the Gulf War.

"We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."

Seems like besides running the CIA and being a one term president, Bush Sr. was a a fortune teller, for his own kid.

Answer 7

We obviously sent enough at the start of the war, as we kicked the Iraqi's Army and the Republican Guard right in the teeth. We didn't know we needed more until later. The war on terror there against the insurgence is a whole different war and scenario!

Answer 8

There are 15 million men in Iraq. To control them all, you need at lest 1 supervisor per 30 people.
So, US Army needs 500000 soldiers over there. Plus officers to supervise the soldiers, and so on, and so forth.
550-600 thousands at least.

To control Iran it takes 1.5 million troops.
USA, go for the total mobilization.

Answer 9

the commanders and planners of the war told Uncle Rummy that they would need a minimum of 400,000 troops to adequately take control and secure the country.

As usual, the civilian politicians think they know how to run a war better than Generals and Admirals, and gave them 120,000 troops...1/4 of what they said they NEEDED, not wanted.

Then the politicians complain that the military has failed to secure Iraq.

DURRRRR!

Answer 10

In terms of bloodshed and horror, I agree with the general. Even with hundreds of thousands they are likely to be sent packing sooner or later.

Can you imagine if a country sent their troops to your homeland? No matter what the intention of the invading army, you would hate them each and every day of your life.

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Answer 11

Our army is too small to achieve the goal of successfully occupying Iraq. A country this size with the goals it has in mind to fight future terror needs a ready to deploy standing Million man army.
But no one wants to hear that, that's too much of a sacrifice for the price of freedom.