The oversold postwar german resistance

[Jason McCullough]

Slate article talking about the rather non-existant postwar problems in Germany. I can't find the thread this came up in originally.

Oh, and Marshall has a new article on Bush in the context of Presidential lying up.

[JeffL]

Slate article talking about the rather non-existant postwar problems in Germany. I can't find the thread this came up in originally.

Oh, and Marshall has a new article on Bush in the context of Presidential lying up.

Yeah, already read that article. He's just wrong. There are quite a few papers and books, by credible historians, on the Werewolf (and other) attacks and acts of sabotage. Of course, Benjamin is hardly the most unbiased of sources.

So why do you think Clinton and Bush lied so profusely on all of the WMDs that Sadaam had accumulatd? Do you think they just plain lied to fit their needs (which would be really foolish on the part of Bush, since he knew we would have to produce then when we took over), or do you think they just believed faulty intelligence?

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Slate article talking about the rather non-existant postwar problems in Germany. I can't find the thread this came up in originally.

Oh, and Marshall has a new article on Bush in the context of Presidential lying up.

Yeah, already read that article. He's just wrong. There are quite a few papers and books, by credible historians, on the Werewolf (and other) attacks and acts of sabotage. Of course, Benjamin is hardly the most unbiased of sources.

Citations?

Troy

[JeffL]

We did this in another thread - there are several books and quite a few papers, it doesn't take much to find them. They certainly weren't in the league with organized international terrorism, such as we're seeing in Iraq, so honestly I'm not sure what the relevance to Iraq is - I'm just talking as an old military history buff. Amongst military history discussions over the years I've never really heard any contraversy over the activities until the recent events.

[Jason McCullough]

Slate article talking about the rather non-existant postwar problems in Germany. I can't find the thread this came up in originally.

Oh, and Marshall has a new article on Bush in the context of Presidential lying up.

Yeah, already read that article. He's just wrong. There are quite a few papers and books, by credible historians, on the Werewolf (and other) attacks and acts of sabotage. Of course, Benjamin is hardly the most unbiased of sources.

So why do you think Clinton and Bush lied so profusely on all of the WMDs that Sadaam had accumulatd? Do you think they just plain lied to fit their needs (which would be really foolish on the part of Bush, since he knew we would have to produce then when we took over), or do you think they just believed faulty intelligence?

Links, please? What specifically is he wrong on? The death count?

Clinton didn't lie about Saddam's WMDs; he believed what CIA/etc. told him, apparently. Clinton covers the entire 93-00 span, too, and the best operating theory I've seen out there is that Saddam had something until 98 or so, and everything since then was made up stuff to scare his neighbors. This makes perfect sense, combined with:

Bush didn't lie either, technically (ignoring the specific line items he said in speeches, I'm talking overall). It's a hell of a thing to describe it properly; he and everyone in his administration was so crazily convinced Saddam had stuff they'd believe any fool unsourced thing that came in from the intelligence services, and demanded the CIA go trolling for only confirmations, not refutations. Maybe "living in a fantasy land and taking us along for the ride" is the best description. For god's sakes, reading pre-war Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle is so at odds with post-war revealed reality makes my head hurt. Scott Ritter was pretty much right.

My operating theory: Saddam basically didn't have shit left in the late Clinton administration, but the CIA hadn't really caught on to this, as he was using plants to leak just enough WMD suspicions to scare his neighbors. His scientists apparently kept Saddam somewhat in the dark as to the status of his programs, to boot. The status quo remained until for some unexplained reason (I've actually never seen a good timeline of how 9/11 turned into an obsession with Saddam) the post-9/11 Bush team became convinced Saddam was hiding under every rock, and no one else could stand up to the sheer amount groupthink they brought to bear. There wasn't much institutional opposition (no Democratic control of anything, CIA completely cowed and Tenet doing that ass-covering thing of his), so in spite of extremely weak support they managed to pull an extremely big change in foreign policy.

So it's not "Bush lied"; it's "Bush was living in a fantasy land."

"Chabali and the ANC say they can get Iraq running just fine, and that Saddam is finishing the wiring on an ICBM? Ok, let's invade. What do you mean, I need to verify? I've already got the trust part."

[Shawn Metcalf]

We did this in another thread - there are several books and quite a few papers, it doesn't take much to find them.

When that thread you mention last discussed this issue, you were going to dig up some books of yours concerning this.

They certainly weren't in the league with organized international terrorism, such as we're seeing in Iraq, so honestly I'm not sure what the relevance to Iraq is - I'm just talking as an old military history buff.

I'm not sure what the significance is either, but if Rice and Rumsfeld are going to cite post-WWII combat deaths in Germany to defend the Bush administration's Iraq policies, then I guess they've made it significant. In any case, it can't be this hard to reach a consensus on whether there were any allied combat deaths in Germany after WWII - and if so, how many there were.

[ydejin]

Bush didn't lie either, technically (ignoring the specific line items he said in speeches, I'm talking overall). It's a hell of a thing to describe it properly; he and everyone in his administration was so crazily convinced Saddam had stuff they'd believe any fool unsourced thing that came in from the intelligence services, and demanded the CIA go trolling for only confirmations, not refutations. Maybe "living in a fantasy land and taking us along for the ride" is the best description. For god's sakes, reading pre-war Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle is so at odds with post-war revealed reality makes my head hurt. Scott Ritter was pretty much right.

...

So it's not "Bush lied"; it's "Bush was living in a fantasy land."

Yep, completely agree with you on this one Jason. They pretty much sorted out all their intelligence information and summarily rejected anything that disagreed with their theories. They also ignored any objections on intelligence that did agree with their theories. Technically they didn't lie, because they really did believe they knew the truth. But their process was deeply flawed, which is why their results ended up so far distanced from reality. These flaws were very obvious and in fact external observers called the administration on this, but the administration chose to ignore any criticism and continued to filter all intelligence information to match their false view of the world.

Of course the overall effect is the same. Bush may not have lied technically, but he did take us to war on the basis of a number of falsehoods.

For those that are interested, here's another article on the Iraqi resistance from the Los Angeles Times. It talks about how most, but not all, of the resistance is homegrown Iraqis and not Arabs from other countries.

[JeffL]

On the Bush/Clinton WMD thing - all I can say is I sure would like to see the truth of what really was/is. I'm hopeful that within the next year or so, when hopefully things are at least a little more settled in Iraq and we have time to sort everything out, we'll find out what really happened. I'm interested in the latest stories by some journalists saying that there's evidence that Sadaam moved a bunch of the stuff out to Syria (?) I'm not convinced, based on all I've read, that Sadaam just decided to get rid of everything back in 1998 and then stonewalled inspectors and tried to convince the world that he still had the stuff - it just doesn't pass my common sense test. It doesn't sound like Sadaam to get rid of tons of this stuff, with no real motivation.

As for the post-war German partisan activities, I suppose I just need to go home (I'm still at work - no wonder, I keep stopping and posting here ;) ) and pull out the old books and papers. I've got anecdotal as well, the father of a guy I work with rode into Germany with Patton and he's often talked about this stuff (as well as how less concerned they were about perceptions of how "nice" they were when they rolled in - he talks about Patton telling them, when they would take partisan fire from a house that slowed them down, to "flatten the f**ing building and let's keep moving". But it sounds like people are wanting specific references, so let me pull some out.

I will say, however, that I'm not sure what the relevance is to Iraq. To me, the appropriate references to post-war Japan and Germany is in reference to the length of time we had to be there to rebuild their infrastructures and to help them transform into new governments and economies - it took many years, whereas we've been in Iraq for what, 14 weeks? We've become incredibly impatient and have what I consider unrealistic expectations, even beyond those stoked by people with obvious political motivations. It's like when we were in Afghanistan a couple of weeks or so and hadn't won yet, and people were screaming "Quagmire!".

[ydejin]

I will say, however, that I'm not sure what the relevance is to Iraq. To me, the appropriate references to post-war Japan and Germany is in reference to the length of time we had to be there to rebuild their infrastructures and to help them transform into new governments and economies - it took many years, whereas we've been in Iraq for what, 14 weeks? We've become incredibly impatient and have what I consider unrealistic expectations, even beyond those stoked by people with obvious political motivations. It's like when we were in Afghanistan a couple of weeks or so and hadn't won yet, and people were screaming "Quagmire!".

I agree, but at the same time, I put the much of the blame for people's unrealistic expectations squarely on the Bush administration. You may recall when Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki testified before congress last year that the occupation of Iraq would require on the order of several hundred thousand troops, the Bush administration was all over him. They insisted that he was orders of magnitude off. I also seem to recall claims from the administration that the bulk of our troops would be out in 90 days post-war.

The administration presented a picture to the American public that invading and reconstructing Iraq would be quick and easy and inexpensive, and as with the WMD any facts to the contrary were summarily ignored. Now they're paying the price for their own exaggerated claims.

I think in many respects the inaccurate assessment of Saddam's WMD capabilities are much more forgivable than the inaccurate assessment of the postwar costs. The WMD might have been an honest mistake (although as mentioned previously, there were clearly very major errors in the Bush administration's intelligence assessment process). Pre-war there was no way of knowing with 100% accuracy what was going on with WMD in Iraq. The inaccurate assessment of the postwar cost in both expenses and tying down US troops is much harder to excuse. The potential for long term occupation, the potential that many troops might be required for a long time, and the potentially high cost of reconstruction could be seen very clear beforehand -- yet the Bush administration insisted that we would have a short occupation involving few troops with little monetary cost. In respect to the cost of reconstruction, I think Bush and company very clearly lied to us.

[JeffL]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I don't recall Bush ever saying post-war would be quick and easy. Are there some links to jog my memory? Seriously, I'm not arguing, I just can't recall him saying anything like that.

[Jason McCullough]

Bush didn't directly, but Wolfowitz & Rumsfeld either directly said or leaked on background lots of stuff like that.

Here:

For obvious domestic political reasons, the Bush Administration going into the war had downplayed the scale and duration of a post-war occupation mission. When then-Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told legislators that such a mission would require several hundred thousand U.S. troops, his assessment had been immediately dismissed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as "wildly off the mark." Wolfowitz explained that "I am reasonably certain that (the Iraqi people) will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep requirements down." Six weeks ago, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was still suggesting the U.S. force in Iraq could be reduced to 30,000 by the end of the year. But the prevailing assessment in Washington appears to be shifting to the idea of a figure closer to Shinseki's.

Here:

"You have to remember that this is not like the Balkans," Wolfowitz said. "Iraq is one people who share the same objective: the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime."

Here:

Back in Washington, US officials who are quietly – and gingerly – making plans for postwar Iraq dismiss comparisons to the imperial MacArthur. The last thing they want to emulate in Iraq is the seven-year occupation of Japan. In fact, some officials at the Pentagon and State Department tell NEWSWEEK they hope to be able to withdraw US troops in as little as 30 to 90 days after President Saddam Hussein's ouster – if Iraq's military can be swiftly purged of his henchmen and turned into a pro-Western security force. That, they admit, is optimistic; more "realistically," says a Pentagon official, the talk is of a maximum five- to six-month occupation. "The plan is to get it done as quickly as possible and get out," says Lt. Col. Michael Humm, a spokesman for the Pentagon's chief planner, Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith.

[JeffL]

Hmm, Yeah, it seems unlike Bush to say that he thought something was going to be short or easy - he kept saying re: Afghanistan that he never predicted it would be short and easy, and what I do recall him saying about Iraq was that it may be a long and difficult situation, but that we were committed to stay until done. And in my own (albeit brief) search I couldn't find any direct quotes from anyone high in the administration that indicated they were saying it would be short and simple - just "sources" etc. Which I usually discount. I'll keep looking - everyone keeps saying that everyone in the administration was claiming this would be short and easy, I'd like to find that actual statements.

[ydejin]

Hmm, Yeah, it seems unlike Bush to say that he thought something was going to be short or easy - he kept saying re: Afghanistan that he never predicted it would be short and easy, and what I do recall him saying about Iraq was that it may be a long and difficult situation, but that we were committed to stay until done. And in my own (albeit brief) search I couldn't find any direct quotes from anyone high in the administration that indicated they were saying it would be short and simple - just "sources" etc. Which I usually discount. I'll keep looking - everyone keeps saying that everyone in the administration was claiming this would be short and easy, I'd like to find that actual statements.

It's hard coming up with links other than pundits as direct quotes on the administration's pre-war estimates are all old news and most major services only keep their stories up for a few weeks. I did come up with some from what I consider reliable news sources:

Here's one from USA today which includes the administration's response to Shinseki's troop estimates. The article also suggests that Army Secretary Thomas White may have been fired in part for agreeing with Shinseki's estimates.

Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz criticized the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, after Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require "several hundred thousand troops." Wolfowitz called Shinseki's estimate "wildly off the mark."

Rumsfeld was furious with White when the Army secretary agreed with Shinseki.

Here's another one this one discussing the among other things comments the administration made on the cost of the war:

Former White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay has estimated the high limit on the costto be 1-2% of GNP, or about $100-$200 billion. Mitch Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget subsequently discounted this estimate as “very,very high”, and has stated that the costs would be between$50-$60 billion, though nospecific supporting figures were provided for the estimate.

We're now spending $4 billion per month just on troops. There is no way we are getting out of this at only $50-60 billion. As Paul Bremer, our top Iraqi administrator said the cost "almost impossible to exaggerate." We now have people estimating amounts much, much higher. The Brookings Institute has estimated ultimate costs to taxpayers could end up as high as $300-450 billion.

Did Bush ever say the occupation was going to be "short or easy"? Not directly, but everytime someone brought to public attention that occupying Iraq could be long and expensive, members of his administration or their friends insisted that those estimates were way off. Shinseki's estimate was reported to be "wildly off the mark" while we were told to discount Lindsay's as "very, very high". Now it looks like those estimates were in fact correct.

There is a pattern to this. Why did Bush and company try so very hard to ensure that the public thought those cost and troop numbers were off? Because he wanted us to think that the cost of going to war wouldn't be that high. Same thing with the 30-90 day or "maximum five- to six-month" occupation numbers that were leaked to the press. He estimated low so the public wouldn't count the real cost and would support his decision to go in.

Now he's talking about a "long and difficult situation" but that's not how it was portrayed pre-war. What he's trying to do now is lay the foundation for what happens next year when he's up for re-election and we're potentially still bogged down on this. Then he's going to refer to the comments he made now.

[Jason McCullough]

I'm pretty sure Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz count as high-ranking admin officials. Everyone else was doing the fun game of seeing how you can say "it'll be easy and won't take long" without declaring so on the record.

[ydejin]

I'm pretty sure Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz count as high-ranking admin officials. Everyone else was doing the fun game of seeing how you can say "it'll be easy and won't take long" without declaring so on the record.

Mitch Daniels, who said that the $100-$200 billion estimate was “very,very high” was Director of the OMB at the time. That's considered a "Cabinet Rank Member" and his position shows up right next to the Chief of Staff and the Vice President Dick Cheney on the White House Webpage!

[quatoria]

It's also worth noting that, as of yet, the cost of Iraqi occupation has not been budgeted for next year. Why? To enable Bush and his administration to not have to factor that cost into defecit projections or expenses. It's Afghanistan all over again. Appearance trumps reality yet again. If this Administration has been about anything, it's been about spin.