Lieutenant General Neubold: On Iraq and Rumsfeld

This is one of the articles by the dissenting generals -- the few who speak out: TIME Magazine -- Why Iraq Was a Mistake

Read the whole thing. He paid a price to write this, it deserves to be read in the original.

What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department. My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions--or bury the results.

The "alienation of allies" is the charge that's often forgotten, I think it was the most senseless error. I remember watching Rumsfeld and his minions mocking our potential allies before the invasion, and deciding then that he was a fool.

I wonder what Neubold means by "failure of other agencies"? Is he referring to the CIA? The State Department? Really, we need a journalist to follow-up on that mysterious phrase ...