Tong Family

Had lots of questions last night. Amazingly starting in the AM, they got answered. Main depressing thing is confirmation about the war planning overoptimism by Rumsfeld and other civilians, ignoring of advice and general meddling in lots of things. Ugh. Bureaucrats get people killed. Echoes of the Vietnam War. Depressing fact is that the 4th Mechanized will arrive next month and then in May, the 1st Cavalry. It takes a long time to off load. Only good news is that perhaps that those McNamara clones might actually back off:
* “Television knocked off the air after US says allies strike”:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/03/25/international2239EST0909.DTL. Well, they did hit the television station, but it was on the air apparently later, but at least, they are working at it.
* “Al Jazeerah”: http://www.aljazeerah.info/. The English language version. Good reading to get the other POV.
* “Troops to back Basra uprising”:http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=360492003. Explosions were heard as Iraqi units loyal to Saddam attempted to quell the insurrection by firing artillery rounds and mortars horizontally at short range into crowds on the streets.
* “Risks of Rumsfeld’s strategy becoming apparent, experts say”:http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/5473421.htm. Knowledgeable defense and administration officials say Rumsfeld and his civilian aides at first wanted to commit no more than 60,000 American troops to the war on the assumption that the Iraqis would capitulate in two days. Intelligence officials say Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and other Pentagon civilians ignored much of the advice of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. “The secretary of defense cut off the flow of Army units, saying this thing would be over in two days. He shut down movement of the 1st Cavalry Division and the 1st Armored Division. Now we don’t even have a nominal ground force.” said a former general familiar with the war plans. There was nothing too small for them to meddle with,” said one senior official. “It’s caused no end of problems, but I think we’ve managed to overcome them all.”