Quote Originally Posted by Danny View Post
Ken, the sound bite you cited is just that in the way you cited it. It needs context to understand it. It's context is the question whether we are committed to supplying the resources to do the job right. Without context, it is a mischaracterization and mere (to use your words) "sound bite."
That may be the question but I don't think you posed it in your first comment on this thread. Thus, lacking that context, you reaped. I'd also submit that whether we are committed to supplying the resources to do the job right is possibly not a good question. Within reason, all the services have for several years gotten pretty much what they asked for. Thus if the resources are not right, the requests from the field weren't right. Perhaps a better question is 'are we as a nation adequately committed to doing this job.' I suspect the answer to that question is very much perspective dependent and I suggest there is no correct answer.

I am certain that your position isn't that "regardless of whether we are nationally committed to the mission let's leave our forces deployed." This would be an irrational position to take.
I believe the current Administration and the bulk of those who might form the next administration are in fact committed to the mission; thus the nation is both de facto and de jure committed to the mission. I realize there are those in the adminsitration, in Congress, in the Armed Forces and across the nation who wish to not be committed to the mission but my guess is they will not have their wish granted because that would be inimical to the national interest and most people realize that. The politics of the issue are more appropriate elsewhere. This is a practices and methods, not a political board.

I am supposing that you are arguing simply for garnering the national commitment for doing it right. That said, it isn't clear how you would intend to do this since you don't say.
That would be the second incorrect supposition on your part. No 'national commitment' is required, merely the government's intention to continue the mission. I'll note that having been around since the very early '30s, I have yet to see a war in which we have been engaged that had a true 'national commitment.' WW II came very close but even it required a degree of State single-mindedness and coercion that has not existed since and is unlikely to lacking a war of national survival. Each subsequent war has had decidedly less -- and increasingly less -- 'national commitment.' That has generally been political and not necessarily practical.

Finally, my somewhat rambling prose is related to the subject in that IEDs must be seen in the larger context of the commitments we have across the globe. With a different strategy from the beginning, listening to the Israelis who had already dealt with IEDs, and force projection, the IED problem would not have been what it is today and has been for four years.
Being vaguely aware of those global commitments I believe I can see the broader context, certainly glimmers of it...

You say with a different strategy the IED problem would not be what it is. That means we would not be in Iraq as that is the only relevant strategic decision. Obviously true.

If you perhaps meant a different thrust operationally, that's possible. if you meant with different tactics, it is also possible. Note the latter two levels only provide a possibility of a lesser problem.

I believe that listening to the Israelis early on (late '03 and '04) at the behest of the then DepSecDef was done at some length. Doesn't seem to have helped much. You do know, I suppose, that the 'V' hull technology is South African, that we had been aware of it for years before the Israelis found out Hezbollah was just as smart as they were?

I'll also note that the US Army has dealt with IEDs for many years; from the Schu mines and off-route Panzerfausts of WW II and Korea through 105 and 155 shells and 500 and even 1,000 pound bombs buried in Viet Nam all cunningly emplaced and detonated by various means. They even did a few EFPs, a technique that also dates from WW II. We know how to deal with many things -- we just let egos get in the way and refuse to use our experience and apply lessons we learned with difficulty and unnecessary casualties. It's the American way.

Point? I am blaming the magnitude of the problem on senior leadership.
Magnitude of what problem? IEDs? If so, by magnitude do you mean the size, capability or quantity?