This May Change Your Opinion Of Your Professional Military
Ladies & Gentlemen:
I received this from a fellow officer last week but we couldn't verify the attribution. Consequently, I held up on it.
I have since been able to confirm that it is as written. The author is who he says he is and this is his work. As a Lieutenant Colonel, prior to going to the War College and then on to the assigment which he writes about, he commanded a battalion of the 18th Infantry Regiment in the 1st Infantry Division, my old unit.
The original can be found on a Website originally started by the late Colonel David Hackworth, one of the most decorated soldiers in the post-WW II period, a published author, and talking head on the Networks prior to his death. The site is Soldiers for the Truth Foundation.
What surprises me about the essay is not what Colonel Stouder says, but that no one tried to block it from getting out. I had heard, from retired friends whose judgment I respect, much of what he writes about. My friends were pessimistic even before the President made his famous carrier landing.
Don't get rattled by all the acronyms - no soldier can write without using them, it's an ineradicable flaw we all must endure.
Sam
RICHARD L. STOUDER
Director Technology Development and Deployment
National Security Directorate
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
I was assigned to US Central Command in 1992 after graduating from the National War College. For my first year I was assigned as the lead for the OPLAN that was the redux of Desert Shield - Desert Storm. The culmination of that first year was Gen Hoar and I briefing the OPLAN for approval to the SecDef. In the room were Dick Cheney, the CJCS, Colin Powell, and the one of Cheney's Undersecs, Paul Wolfowitz. This was the first rewritten OPLAN since the first Gulf War. I think it is illustrative and a portent of things to come when the major sticking point was a discussion of the number > of Army and Marine forces and the number of USAF fighter squadrons. The person who was arguing for more Air Force and less ground forces was Wolfowitz.
I then became the Chief of War Plans Division and began work on the next generation of War Plans. As we were trying to figure out how to execute the requirements in the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCAP), the bi-annual document where CINCs are tasked for war planning, we encounter a problem. As George H.W. Bush and Cheney were carrying out the "Peace Dividend" they started an aggressive program to downsize the Armed Forces. As you remember we dramatically cut the size of the military during this timeframe. This reduction of the military was at odds with the tasks to the CINCs in the JSCAP; there were not enough forces to meet the taskings to CINCCENT
(SWA MRC) and CINCPAC (Korea MRC). We in CENTCOM were the genesis of the Two MRC strategy when we got Gen Hoar to assign unacceptable risk to our OPLAN when war in SWA followed war in Korea . The major point here is Bush the first and Cheney as the SecDef began the cutting of our military to the point where we could not execute the taskings of the JSCAP.
In the 1994 planning cycle we hit an immediate hurdle. The JSCAP directs CINCS to use the National Intelligence Estimate as the basis for the threat assessment that is building block for the respective OPLANs. I got very involved in this and had many meetings with the CIA (responsible for the NIEs) and DIA. For any who have seen inside the NIE process you are quickly disabused of the idea that NIEs are pure intelligence. The NIE process is fraught with politics. It is supposed to be a consensus document, that is, intelligence assessment by committee. This NIE had serious fundamental flaws and we got the new CINC, Gen Peay to non-concur and to request the CJCS allow CENTCOM to use the CENTCOM intelligence assessment as the basis for planning vice the NIE; this was unprecedented. After a year of debate we finally won. This is also illustrative of things to come.
It was in the planning for this OPLAN where we began to have serious internal CENTCOM debate on Phase V, post conflict. The discussions included most every issue that has now come to light in the current war. Fundamental to our assessment was the complex society that was Iraq. Saddam Hussein was the glue that held Iraq together. If we remove Saddam there was a great chance that Iraq would come apart at the seams. Combine that with the fact that we were charged by the JSCAP to defeat Saddam while 1) maintaining as a nation-state, and 2) insuring Iraq remained a counter-balance to Iran and
3) had the capability for self defense. This required some new thinking about how we approached post conflict operations. This was to be the first OPLAN that seriously addressed this complex phase of the operation, for we had no doubt we could win "the war," but we had to insure we had a plan "to win the peace." This OPLAN was eventually approved by the then SecDef, William Perry.
The 1996 planning cycle then provided more detail to post conflict operations. We had another huge debate with OSD regarding the number of ground forces vice the number of air forces. We conducted detailed modeling and simulation to defend our force ratios. One of the other important aspects of our justification for ground forces was post conflict operations. There was tremendous pressure from OSD that mirrored the Air Staff view that precision weapons delivered by air would win the war and we could cut ground forces significantly. In the end, SecDef Cohen approved the OPLAN.
I spent two years in another assignment and in 1998 I was assigned as the G3, Third US Army/ARCENT working for then LTG Tommy Franks. CINCCENT Tony Zinni designated ARCENT as the Combined Force Land Component Commander
(CFLCC). In this capacity ARCENT was responsible, in peacetime, for planning and coordinating all land operations, and in war, employing all land forces. As we developed the land operations in support of CENTCOMs OPLAN and briefed it to Gen Zinni, he was most uncomfortable with post conflict planning; there was not enough detail. Gen Zinni fully understood the complexities in Iraq and the role that Saddam played. He also said that what kept him awake at night was the thought that Saddam "might die in his sleep" or "be assassinated," and the US would be left to go into Iraq to quell the ensuing chaos. We then went into several months of detailed planning for post conflict operations. Every possible scenario and every branch and sequel that could be conceived was identified and planned for. Gen Zinni also knew that even with the best of military plans, the solution to post conflict had to include the interagency process of the US Government. He caused a two day meeting in Tysons Corner where the CENTCOM plan, the Service Component Commanders plans were presented to a large interagency working group. In the end this effort failed because the various agencies of the US Government refused to take responsibility for their Titled functional areas. Nevertheless, for the first time there was a detailed military plan for post conflict operations. These plans covered consequence that has come to pass since we invaded Iraq. The person who briefed the land component plan was LTG Franks.
So Bush the second was convinced we needed to go into Iraq and remove Saddam. We had a military plan that was developed and improved upon since
1992 and had been briefed to every SecDef that served during that timeframe. Success depended on very thoroughly thought out and war gamed force levels. The plan had very detailed concepts for post conflict operations. The first thing the serving SecDef, Rumsfeld, did was tell CENTCOM to trash the OPLAN. Rumsfeld and his advisors believed that we could win with "shock and awe" and didn't need many ground forces. In the total ignorance of Iraq and Arab culture, Rumsfeld and his advisors said they didn't have responsibility for nation building. Rumsfeld and his advisors based their justification on the current Iraq NIE. Who was the primary advisor, none other than Paul Wolfowitz. The Army and Marine Corps has been hand cuffed since they crossed the Line of Departure. The lack of ground forces has now proven to be the fundamental flaw of the Rumsfeld strategy, and we have never recovered from this. Key to the Zinni post conflict plan was keeping the Iraqi Army intact. There were plans for how to not destroy the Iraqi Army so that they could be the foundation for rebuilding the Iraqi military so that Iraq could remain a counter balance to Iran. Also key to our post conflict plan was rapidly rebuilding an Iraqi government. The first acts of Paul Bremmer were to disband the Iraqi Army and refuse to allow former Baathists in the new government. If the paucity of ground forces didn't doom the U.S. effort, these two acts did. We have been playing catch-up ever since. The Army and Marines have carried this war and every success we have had has been on the backs of the Soldiers and Marines that walk patrol everyday.
The military of our country is charged with fighting our nation's wars. Since the end of the first Gulf War our military has been reduced to levels below required to defend our national interests. Funding for our military, > as a percentage of GNP, has been at the lowest in generations. We have a military planning process that is designed to execute our National Military Strategy. We have a professional military that knows how to fight our nation's wars. Unfortunately when the military strategy is ignored by so-called civilian experts, when we have a generation of senior military leadership that have been cowed by a "my way or the highway" SecDef, we have the mess we are in now. The Army is unfairly taking the blame for this debacle in Iraq. The Army is too small for the requirements asked of it, its people are over-extended and tired, its equipment is in shambles, and its future modernization is in jeopardy due to funding. The Army and the United States of America will unfairly pay for this folly for generations.
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