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Old 06-16-2005, 08:50 AM
ACPlayer ACPlayer is offline
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Default Muzzling the military

Military mumblings

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Another officer quoted in the piece [A knight Ridder article] was Lieutenant Colonel Frederick P Wellman, who works with the task force overseeing the training of Iraqi security troops. He said the insurgency doesn't seem to be running out of new recruits, a dynamic fueled by tribal members seeking revenge for relatives killed in fighting. "We can't kill them all," Wellman said. "When I kill one I create three."

General George W Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, expressed similar sentiments, calling the military's efforts "the Pillsbury Doughboy idea" - pressing the insurgency in one area only causes it to rise elsewhere. This is an interesting about-face for Casey, as he said on March 9 that "the level of attacks, the level of violence has dropped off significantly since the [Iraqi] elections".

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The officers better be careful in what they say:

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Such criticisms, especially from those without sufficient clout to protect them, do not go down well, particularly at the highest levels of the Pentagon. Case in point is the May 29 article in the Baltimore Sun that described how three-star Army general John Riggs, who spent 39 years in the Army, was forced to retire at a reduced rank, losing one of his stars, because of infractions considered so minor they were not placed in his official record. His crime? He publicly contradicted Rumsfeld by arguing that the Army was overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan and needed more troops.

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Some high-ranking officers in the past were quite critical of both the decision to go to war - Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, retired, former commander in chief, US Central Command - and how the war was conducted - former army chief of staff Erik Shinseiki, who famously estimated in 2003 that a postwar occupation force would likely need to be several hundred thousand troops in size.

Zinni was retired when he made his criticism and Shinseiki was forced to retire not long after making his remarks; a move that did not go unnoted in the officer corps. That would explain why active-duty military personnel have been fairly restrained in their public comments on the outlook for the war as the insurgency in Iraq has gained strength since the end of major combat operations in 2003. "Nobody likes to be forced to fall on their sword," according to Colonel Dan Smith, US Army, retired, fellow on military affairs for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. "If you are going to speak your mind you want to stay in the service to fight another day."

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Old 06-16-2005, 11:36 AM
kurto kurto is offline
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Default Re: Muzzling the military

There's little room for disagreement; true or not, in this administration.
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