WP: In Iraq, Military Forgot Lessons of Vietnam, Guerrilla Warfare

In Iraq, Military Forgot the Lessons of Vietnam
Early Missteps by U.S. Left Troops Unprepared for Guerrilla Warfare
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 23, 2006; A13

The real war in Iraq -- the one to determine the future of the country -- began on Aug. 7, 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy, killing 11 and wounding more than 50.

That bombing came almost exactly four months after the U.S. military thought it had prevailed in Iraq, and it launched the insurgency, the bloody and protracted struggle with guerrilla fighters that has tied down the United States to this day.

There is some evidence that Saddam Hussein's government knew it couldn't win a conventional war, and some captured documents indicate that it may have intended some sort of rear-guard campaign of subversion against occupation. The stockpiling of weapons, distribution of arms caches, the revolutionary roots of the Baathist Party, and the movement of money and people to Syria either before or during the war all indicate some planning for an insurgency.

But there is also strong evidence, based on a review of thousands of military documents and hundreds of interviews with military personnel, that the U.S. approach to pacifying Iraq in the months after the collapse of Hussein helped spur the insurgency and made it bigger and stronger than it might have been.

The very setup of the U.S. presence in Iraq undercut the mission. The chain of command was hazy, with no one individual in charge of the overall American effort in Iraq, a structure that led to frequent clashes between military and civilian officials....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072200444_pf.html

we could leave the area.... do you? The last thing we want to do is let go of this bone.

the elections come off, and then the US get the hell out of there, I would be things would be much nicer today. But no, our gov't had to sell off the banks, water, electricity, and destroy their businesses. * had no intention of ever leaving. 14 permanent bases being built in the first year should have been everyone's second hint we weren't going. The 100 articles Bremer produced to dump products we don't want and to make sure the people of Iraq getting totally screwed should have been the firt hint. We aren't leaving and a stable Iraq would force us out.

:dem: