If Bush was skeptical of the small footprint, he never expressed it. He accepted the assurance of his commanders that the strategy was working--until Samarra.After the bombing, NSC officials were increasingly dubious. They weren't alone. General Keane kept in contact with retired and active Army officers, including Petraeus, who believed the war could be won with more troops and a population protection, or counterinsurgency, strategy--but not with a small footprint. At the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, a former West Point professor, Frederick Kagan, was putting together a detailed plan to secure Baghdad. But the loudest voice for a change in Iraq was Senator John McCain of Arizona. He and his sidekick, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, traveled repeatedly to Iraq. McCain badgered Bush and Hadley with phone calls urging more troops and a different strategy. Together, McCain, Keane, Petraeus, the network of Army officers, and Kagan provided a supportive backdrop for adopting a new strategy.
White House thinking about Iraq changed quickly, at least at the staff level. The reigning assumptions about the conflict were discarded. American troops weren't seen as targets and catalysts for violence anymore. Iraqis wanted their protection. Nor was the insurgency the biggest threat to stability. Sectarian violence, fueled by Al Qaeda in Iraq, was. To tamp it down, a new strategy was required.
I'm no military strategist, but from the beginning I didn't like Rumsfeld's "small footprint" theory, and his sister idea that rampant looting and lawlessness is no big deal. It is a big deal. Why Rumsfeld felt it necessary to go with the "small footprint" strategy has never been clear. I have lots of guesses but I've not seen a straight explanation from Rumsfeld himself. I have no idea either why we went with a near "open borders" policy in Iraq, letting arms and terrorists cross freely back and forth between Iraq and its neighbors.
One thing I hate about news business today is that I can't count on getting a honest and informed answer to any of these questions from a journalist. Reporters at, say, TIME or NEWSWEEK aren't objective enough, competent enough, or honest enough to be relied upon to give me the accurate story. No doubt the story will eventually be told in books, unfortunately I likely won't have the time I need to read them. I'm left dependent upon the best of the military and foreign policy bloggers to learn about these things as they come out.
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