| 20 March 2006 First Contact Three years and ten hours ago I still worked for Uncle Sam. I heard the news just before bedtime, and I called the Boys and told them it had begun. Then I went to bed, which seemed appropriate after having warned my children to be extra alert. At that time I had every reason to believe that Saddam had a nasty trick or two up his sleeve, some bugs or gas that he might unleash by human means right here, in the enemy's unprotected rear. I didn't like the sound of it, but I slept anyway. I had to work early in those days, and noted as I rushed out of the little apartment that three SCUDs flew into Northern Kuwait, and Patriot missiles were fired against them. Going downtown there was news but no information about first contact, or if the warheads in the rockets were filled with high explosives or something really nasty. Swarms of aircraft were flying from north and south. I could not keep up with the news and I did not try. It was swirling all around me. The big screen TVs in the lobby of the Hubert Humphrey Building were set to the Fox Network, it being a Republican administration. It still is. The Iraqi Information Ministry was still on the air, and Al Jazeera broadcast a translation of a call for the American people to rise up and do some regime change of our own, answering President Bush's appeal for a popular uprising in Iraq a couple days before. I said at the time "well begun is half done." I was as weary as anyone for the long slow-motion build-up and posturing. There were compelling reasons to start he invasion that night, since it was the first day of Spring, and temperatures would rise and make combat unbearable. The moon phase was right for stealth flying. It was time to go, and military imperatives assume a life of their own. The Great Powers had followed a similar track in August of 1914. Once set in motion, the national mobilizations began, Austria, and Germany and Russia and France and Britain implementing their plans with railroad-like precision. But of course, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Count Alfred Von Schlieffen was a Prussian who directed the General Staff of the German Army at the turn of the last century. His contribution to the slaughter was the war plan that bore his name. The Schlieffen Plan called for a great swing through the Low Countries, and around the French defenses to take Paris from the flank, and reprise the great victory of 1871. “Let the last man on the right brush the Channel with his sleeve,” he said. Then he retired to his Scholss in the East and someone else had to execute the plan. His successors were less bold, and hedged their bets. The big swing was modified, made less strong, so that the plans of other nations might be foiled. You cannot account for every contingency. The rush to Baghdad, allowing pockets of Fedaheen to remain in the rear and along the flanks of the advancing Americans, was intended to avoid a siege of the capital that would be as dramatic and sorrowful as the siege of Paris. General Eric Shinseki was the Chief of Staff of the Army, and his contribution to the plan was the application of the Powell Doctrine: overwhelming force. Secretary Rumsfeld did not like the advice, and changed the plan. Lighter, more agile forces were the answer. The alternative was too expensive. Shinseki retired to his Schloss. Three years ago it looked like the gamble might have been a good one, though the early days of the fight were harder than expected. Baghdad was reached in three weeks, though the Coalition was not showered with flowers upon arrival. As it turned out, the follow-on plan had relied heavily on the flowers, and most of the dead were yet to come. No plan survives first contact. Everyone in the business knows that. But having a plan that counts on goodwill is inexcusable, and we have reaped the consequences. Or rather, our kids and the Iraqi people have. This war business is expensive, and three years ago I wish we had thought further than first contact. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |