Our Officer Corps
Most Americans, I think, ignore the officer corps of the army. We just don't think of them when we imagine our democratic institutions. But we should, for many reasons.
Anyway, the Iraq war has had a number of unintended consequences, one of which is a growing split between the younger mid-ranks of the officer corps and the generals. Today Lt Col Paul Yingling, a combat leader who has proven his worth in Iraq, publishes a critique of the generals in Armed Forces Journal. There is an article about it in today's WaPo which you can read. Here's a taste of Yingling's conclusions:
"After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public," he writes. "For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq."
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Labels: foreign affairs, Iraq, Military, non-twits
posted by Clemens @ 9:42 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
The question that comes to my mind: if the officer corps was deceiving us about the state of Iraq, does that not finally exonerate Rumsfeld and Bush?
I haven't read the article, so I don't know his answer (if he provides one).
Because the decisions were made about the general outline of the war before getting to the part about the generals, and when Gen Shinseki said something that was not in agreement with what the admin wanted to hear, he was promptly 'retired.' Pentagon level generals are careerists first (my opinion) and that is not what we pay them for and is not good for the Armed Forces - which seems to be Yingling's point.
My point is the the importance of a healthy officer corps to a Republic like ours and the growing evidence of a fractured, though still quite competent, officer corps. It is the junior officers who will remake the army after our adventure in Iraq is over. That will be interesting.
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