The general mess
There is no evidence that civilian leadership turned down any troop request for Iraq. There is abundant evidence that civilian leadership asked the military if they had what they needed for the war in Iraq and if they were satisfied with the plan that Centcom had put together. It wasn't just Gen. Franks who developed this plan. His component commanders were assigned by the Joint Chiefs and they all signed off on the plan. Events have demonstrated that no additional troops were needed through Phase III of the plan which ended with the liberation of Iraq. It is the Phase IV part of the plan that should be the focus of the debate. The person primarily responsible for that part of the plan has been Gen. Abizaid, yet his name never comes up in this debate nor his rationale for his "small footprint" strategy.
It should also be pointed out that the "not enough troops" chorus has not suggested that the US should have waited till it could get more troops into Afghanistan where even fewer troops were used to liberate that country. And, where fewer troops have been needed for Phase IV operations. Logic, history and terrain all suggest that Afghanistan should be the location of the strongest insurgency, but that has not been the case. The insurgency there is even weaker than the weak insurgency in Iraq.
It is time to move this debate from the civilians who approved the plan the military came up with and have an honest debate about the virtues or lack thereof of the "small footprint" strategy during Phase IV.
It is my view that the best way to defeat an insurgency is by having a force to space ratio that prevents enemy movement and denies sanctuaries. Clearly we did not have a force sufficient to do that initially. We attempted to make up for this by focusing on getting actionable intelligece on the enemy. In the meantime we force our troops to buy the same real estate more than once, becuase we did not have enough troops to take and hold areas. The creation of the Iraqi army has had a positive effect in both getting actionable intelligence and in having enough force to take and hold an area and deny enemy movement.
While H.R. McMaster is credited with writing the bible on generals speaking out, his most important work in the Iraq war was his innovative liberation of Tal Afar with the help of Iraqi forces. That is the model the military should be looking at, instead of his book on the history of the joint chiefs of the 1960's. It also shows that civilian leadership did not get in the way of his using his best military judgement in taking effective action in Iraq. Did any of the complaining generals suggest such a plan while they were in Iraq? If so, was it rejected by civilian leadership? I think the evidence is pretty clear.
BTW, Boot is still clinging to the assertion that the insurgency in Vietnam was successful. History shows that after the failure of Tet, the insurgency never had a chance to topple South Vietnam. Conventional warfare was needed to conquer South Vietnam after the Democrats cut off funding for the South Vietnamese and refused to let the US use its air power to stop the communist conventional attack.
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