BTW is also back -- is from the great white north and has sekrits; you are from the Bronx and have secrettes. Very easy to to tell the two of you apart.

There are those, however, with poor memories who have trouble following threads... :)

But were you fond of bringing up Tito of yugoslavia when discussing the USSR w. luis alegria and didya get into it w. KWhite about vietnam?

Thanks for the identification help. i like the site partly because i get a sense of/can keep track of different commenters' global perspectives.

and as long as we're asking Qs here, did you get tossed or just get sick of the old site (or both)?

that Franks probably made a deal with Rumsfeld "I'll get you Baghdad but I want to retire right after that."

You amd Pumpkin Ash -- a match made in heaven, BTW -- seem to be suggesting that he didn't know how bad it was going to be until he got to Baghdad. He should have, he'd been dealing with Wolfotwits and Feith for over a yerar -- he KNEW who was going to be calling the shots there before we even hit the Iraqi border.

What unjustified promotion of Sanchez?

darned tootin'!

...that was always how I've applied it. I've even stated so explicitly a few times, over at the old site.

Crazy thing is, Woodward (and Bernstein) was involved then too: the word I was using was "ratfucking", which is what the CREEPers called their "tactics". The quote was from Donald Segretti, IIRC.

Today his heirs do 4:00 AM robo calling. The mentality has not changed.

Wikipedia considers the word to be slang, rather than "offensive profanity", a phrase they reserve for "f**k" or "f***ing" used by themselves. While researching this comment I also found out there is an Austrian village named like the second variant.

I've stated my interpretation of this rule is that quotes are allowed so long as they are relevant and from a substantial enough source (meaning no games such as quoting a typical dKos commenter, which in practice would be the same as allowing profanity).

Under this interpretation, which hopefully is lying dormant among my Tacitus.org archives somewhere, quoting a major public official such as Pumpkin does would be allowed.

However, I consider Pumpkin's particular use on this ocassion to be rather borderline, because he was using the quote as an adjective, rather than as reference to the specific point he was making. The quote was also rather short, and length aids in characterizing the inclusion of a profanity as being in good faith. In other words, saying: Cheney said "f*** you" does not justify openly using the profanity (as I refrained from doing just now).

The point is to use it only when its absence would render weaken the sense of the original quote, and where the person being quoted is significant enough to be quoted fully, preferably a historical figure. For instance, Patton is a guy who, to be quoted at any length without wearing out the '*' key, would fit this, what I consider to be common sense, exception.

But you better be making a point about Patton or World War II if you are going to be quoting the guy. If you are taking it out of context, then you are just playing games.

SIGs would not be exempted under any circumstances.

providing me a link that apparently will say what I said; Bremer has claimed responsibility for the decision...

I guess I should appreciate the fact that you agree with me and are providing corroboration for my statment.

Thanks.

I've been proven right. Because have Richard Perle and Ken Adelman ever been wrong?

From a Vanity Fair press release, via Atrios:

Perle tells Rose that, “at the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.... I don’t think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty.... [Bush] did not make decisions, in part because the machinery of government that he nominally ran was actually running him.”

Adelman also tells Rose that “the idea of using our power for moral good in the world” is dead, at least for a generation. After Iraq, he says, “it’s not going to sell.”

We do not know what the plan was. At least, I don't. We do not know if that plan was changed and, if so why that occurred. Without more knowledge, we'll just play word games.

You may well be right on Churchill and roosevelt, both were etail hounds -- see my Johnson / Clinton allegory above. No slam, some folks get down in thw weeds, some don't. I prefers the "don'ts" while you obviously prefer the intimatly involved. Different strokes.

Ah, the Iraqi Army. BIG mistake and I said so at the time; you may recall IUrving and I arguing it back and forth. Bremer has claimed full responsibility for that decision; whether that's true or not we don't know.

You may also recall I've been saying 2008 to moderate stability.

And that we have a bet... :)

Okay, once more, from the top (With notes added for the clarity unsure).

The President sets the overall strategy, high level -- "go to Iraq, depose SH, establish a new government." Getting into the details is not his job and is a very, very bad policy -- witness Johnson in Viet Nam.
I have stated again and again I agree that something needed to be done but this way and the timing were bad. No defense of Bush on that score.

The 4th ID was to attack to Kirkuk and Mosul as well as down to Tikrit. In the event, the Turks would not allow them passage -- even though over half the Divisions equipment had already offloaded in Turkish ports. We had to reload and go through the Suez Canal to Kuwait. If the attack on Iraq had taken place when originally desired, in the fall of 2002, the Turkish elections would not have occurred and the then serving governments promise of passage would have been honored. that would have changed many parameters in Iraq. The delay was due, I believe, to Bush acceding to Tony Blair's request to give the UN one more shot. Even though Bush believed it was a waste of time, he agreed; thus the delay. So you can blame Bush for a delay that badly affected the Operational Plan -- but he did it to allow more time for Diplomacy to work. You have fun sorting that one out...

Before I go on, let me make one thing clear -- Bush can delegate authority; he cannot delegate responsibility. He retains responsibility and I do not question that-- all I have ever suggested is that folks should understand that when they get the parameters wrong and the blame goes too high; the minions get to slide -- and they should not. I'm not defending Bush, I'm trying to point out that things like "...Most certainly the President's fault, as handling such conflicts is precisely his job." and "...this makes it Bush's fault by definition, because having the DoD run a country for any length of time is stupid." are not only often legally and practically incorrect (as are both those statements), they just don't show that the writer has really given the issue serious thought and seem to show he or she is just responding viscerally.

Now, on to your theses.

DoD was the Executive agent; all other Federal Agencies were responsible to DoD. DoD correctly told CentCom to develop the plan and gave guidance on force structure and numbers -- as they're supposed to. At least one Conflict (on troop strength) was resolved by Bush personally.
I have said that DoD erred -- and DoD to me automatically includes CentCom, a major subordinate Joint geographical command. To my knowledge they played with the TPFD and interfered in a few other things they should not have. An issue here is the "plan" * . This addresses your Thesis B; DoD was partly responsible for the subsequent errors

The Army and Marines went forth and did great things. They got to Baghdad even though the 4th ID did not get into the north through Turkey. After the seizure of Baghdad, the Army which had not trained for (NOT the same thing as not being prepared for, very different) occupation or nation building prepared to move out into the western desert. For some reason that was halted and an occupation effort begun. A few months later, that bloomed into an insurgency -- another thing for which the Army had not trained.
I have consistently said that as well; the Army did not do it's post attack jobs well because it had diligently and as a matter of policy eschewed those jobs for over 30 years -- longer than anyone serving in Iraq had been around. This addresses your Thesis A; the Army was partly responsible for the subsequent errors and that was primarily due to an institutional policy failure.

Then the decision was made by Bush himself to replace Garner, the DoD occupier with Bremer, the State occupier for reasons we do not know. This is one indicator of the tension between Powell and Rumsfeld; my suspicion is that Powell won a small battle on this. This tension was in no way significant but it did contribute to confusion if, as I suspect, Bremer got conflicting guidance from the two Secretaries.
I have not said that ""The problem was very much a bureaucratic turf war between Rumsfeld and Powell"" -- merely that said turf battle contributed to the problems. "Very much" makes it way, way stronger than it was. This addresses your Thesis C; the turf battle was partly but only in a very minor way responsible for the subsequent errors.

I have never tried to confuse anyone on these issues; I've always said there were Bush, Rumsfeld, DoD, CentCom, Army and Marine errors and that there was enough egg for a lot of faces. Nor have I swapped the issues about as you allege. since you say I have, I'm sure you can pull up a link or two to an example.

I think the problem is that you're trying to oversimplify something that is really incredibly complex. On that level, there is no one failure; a lot of synergistic things occur. Let me answer some specifics in your comment -- I've never said and do not believe the Army didn't want to prepare for the specific task; the Army had avoided training for the post attack tasks but that was a peace time bureaucratic ploy of long standing to avoid spending money on the training involved (which, believe it or not, done halfway right is quite costly compared to conventional combat training).

As I said above; the Rumsfeld - Powell disagreements were a minor annoyance, little more. Actually, the NSC is supposed to iron out those turf battles so the President (whoever he or she is at the time) can concentrate on big picture stuff. Neither Rice nor Cheney was going to buffalo Powell or Rumsfeld; I doubt even Bush would have. Still, if you want to hang that on Bush, go for it -- just remember that it was no more than a minor annoyance and added detriment of small overall impact and that it pertained mostly to Bremer...

Then you get reasonable and accurate; "I expect that all three of your theses are correct...". They are and they are not mutually exclusive. You are correct in saying that one office holder has tremendous authority -- actually, within constraints of a lot of arcane and inane laws, almost total authority -- over all three of the institutions involved. Not the explanations, or really the actions (or lack thereof); the institutions that are responsible for the actions he controls -- but once those actions start, they're almost on automatic pilot. I do not think you realize how very large, cumbersome and bureaucratic your government is. Once it gets moving it is exceedingly hard to turn, much less stop.

Your asterisk item says having DoD run the country for some time is stupid. You're entitled to your opinion. I suggest you review the history of who was in charge of the occupation of Germany and of Japan and for how long after the war that remained true. The other Departments were there and then -- and are now in Iraq -- all represented in large numbers; they were just subordinate to DoD initially. In Iraq, when Powell got Negroponte appointed there, the responsibility in Iraq chopped to State because Iraq had conducted elections, had a government and was no longer "occupied" -- we are now "guests" just as we are in Germany (post 1955), Japan (post 1952) and Korea.

* The Plan. What was it? Several knowledgeable sources, not least A Pumpkin Ash link, say Franks told the Troops they'd be going back the States quickly except for about 30K to distant bases in country. Was there a plan to leave quickly that got changed due to circumstances we aren't aware of? Dunno. The actions of the troops in Iraq in May and June indicate that might have been true. Was there no plan at all. Popular concept but doesn't track logically with an Army and a DoD that tends to overplan, it's out of character. The truth at this point is that we do not know. Thus, the responsibility for the apparent planning flaws can't really be allocated yet; not accurately, anyway.