The poetry of Gen. Shinseki's nomination

by Jay McDonough

The George W. Bush presidency has been like some kind of alternate universe, a topsy turvy world.  Accountability is not expected (Libby, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove, et al.).  Incompetence is rewarded (Tenet, Rumsfeld, Bremer, et al.).  And truth is to be hidden rather than sought after (Bush, Rice, Cheney, Libby, Rove, Tenet, et al.)

So, the news that Barack Obama has asked retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki to head up the Department of Veterans Affairs has a sense of correctness, some justice, and perhaps even some poetry to it. 

Gen. Shinseki was a 38 year veteran, a two time Purple Heart recipient, and a four star general who was both prescient and unlucky.  In February 2003, just prior to the U.S. entry into Iraq, Gen. Shinseki testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee and had the audacity to challenge the Bush Administration's claim only a relatively small U.S. force would be required in Iraq.  The generals assertion a force of up to 700,000 American troops would be required to overthrow the Saddam regime and maintain control or Iraq resulted in personal attacks from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz.  After Shinseki had been effectively squeezed out and retired, neither Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz attended the four star's farewell ceremony.

President-elect Obama said this today about Gen. Shinseki:

"When I reflect on the sacrifices that have been made by our veterans and I think about how so many veterans around the country are struggling even more than those who have not served -- higher unemployment rates, higher homeless rates, higher substance-abuse rates, medical care that is inadequate -- it breaks my heart, and I think that General Shinseki is exactly the right person who is going to be able to make sure that we honor our troops when they come home," Obama told NBC News' Tom Brokaw in a interview taped for broadcast today on "Meet the Press."

So, the guy that was correct, the guy that told the truth and was accountable has some redemption here.  But there's a tragic component as well to this appointment: Gen. Shinseki will now be responsible for the care of tens of thousands of Iraq war victims that might have been spared had a bunch of arrogant know nothings not chosen to ignore the general's wise advice.

Comments

[zenpundit]

Well, yes and no.

The senior brass wanted "drive by" regime change in Iraq (or no invasion at all), following the philosophy of the Powell Doctrine and an institutional revulsion toward MOOTW, nation-building and COIN. It became the bureaucratic pracice of the JCS to "sticker shock" the civilian leadership with gargantuan troop requests from Bush I. through Clinton, when any interventions of any kind were proposed. Just ask Madeleine Albright and Strobe Talbott.

Shinseki was partly representing the policy preferences of the general officer corps to avoid being left "holding the bag" in Iraq, which is exactly what ultimately happened. Shinseki was actually wrong in the number of troops needed to *topple* Saddam and the real figure, assuming effective combined arms use of air power and manuver tactics, was closer to the 40,000 figure of Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, though not that low.

For an occupation of Iraq, Shinseki was dead right on the troops required. I suspect that Rumsfeld, who viewed "transformation" of DoD force structure as his legacy, was not terribly enthused with the original neocon idea occupying Iraq and added his own weight as SecDef behind those who were resisting any effective planning but then got on board when it became clear that the administration was going to do exactly that and pursue democracy as an ideological goal. The documents on the internal debate within the Bush administration won't be out for thirty years but they sure will be interesting to look at for historians.

Occupations are not planned on the fly. The Allies in WWII began considering how to occupy a defeated Germany, Italy and Japan a full two years prior to V-E and V-J Days. This reluctance to make a definitive strategic choice as to where he would go with Iraq until the last minute represents one of Bush's greatest strategic errors.

[anderson]

zen,

You are misrepresenting Shinseki's testimony. He was asked specifically by Carl Levin about requirements for an "occupation force," not an invasion force. And Shinseki answered that question, referring precisely to the occupation of post-war Iraq, not the force required to dislodge Hussein. The numbers cited were based on troop/population ratios in Bosnia and elsewhere.

SEN. LEVIN: General Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army's force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war?

GEN. SHINSEKI: In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commanders' exact requirements. But I think --

SEN. LEVIN: How about a range?

GEN. SHINSEKI: I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about posthostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground-force presence.

[zenpundit]

Well Anderson, I don't recall stating that I was discussing only Shinseki's verbal response to Sen. Levin that you quoted from Wikipedia, but rather his role as chief of staff of the Army in general. Moreover I said that he was "dead right" on the question of an estimation of occupation numbers, so I'm not sure what your beef is today.

Here's Shinseki's (seldom read) prepared statement to the Armed Services Committee. Read it:

http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2003/February/Shinseki.pdf

These docs represent not the personnel view of the CoS but the institutional, consensus, view of the service the CoS represents. Nowhere therein is there any bureaucratic contemplation of gearing up for the kind of numbers Shinseki suggested in his answer to Levin that would be necessary to occupy Iraq (basically doubling the figure of mobilized personnel).Here's what Gen. Shinseki's prepared statement said about Army numbers:

"The challenges we face in FY03 and 04 are two-fold: increase recruiter productivity and recruiting resources necessary to maintain recruiting
momentum when the economy becomes more robust"

Does that sound like the U.S. Army was seriously inclined to consider occupying a country the size of Iraq to you ?

Ergo, I said Shinseki's verbal reply to Levin was a "sticker shock" comment because that's exactly what Shinseki was doing at that moment in time and what Powell did as JCS to Clinton.

I'm not anti-Shinseki and I think he's fine as VA sec. Nor am I "misrepresenting" his testimony.