some facts

Congress has not been the problem here. Nor is it fair to blame Clinton entirely for this problem. Clinton downsized the military excessively, to be sure, and left an Army obviously too small for the missions it faced. But Rumsfeld has been in office for four years. If he had begun to address this problem four years ago, the Army could have been considerably expanded by now.

These problems don't result from the liberal media or the antiwar crowd making a ruckus about nothing. They result from Rumsfeld's stubborn adherence to a wrongheaded policy. Surely, with the election safely over, there is no longer any need to protect the architect of these mistakes.

He chose to focus on high-tech weapons technologies that are virtually useless to the troops now in Iraq rather than providing them sooner with the basic requirements of their current mission -- including armored Humvees, body armor, and a regular complement of armored vehicles. Even the deployment of Stryker light armored vehicles, which many now tout as a major contribution to the fighting in Iraq, was not Rumsfeld's initiative, but that of General Eric Shinseki.

souce

This article sums up things nicely mistakes have been made in Iraq and Liberals are not to blame for those mistakes. By the way Clinton wasnt perfect.

[edit on 15-1-2005 by xpert11]

I think attitude is just as important as weaponry. Like the old saying goes "Don't bring a kife to a gunfight", I think Rumsfeld brought a one-legged man to an ass-kicking contest. I was in the first Gulf War and I believe that the U.S. Government was so high on victory after that one, they let their guard down and basically thought they could smash anybody without breaking a sweat.

I don't blame Clinton, he was trying to save money and he also thought that there was no immediate need for a giant military machine. I don't blame the soldiers because they just do what they're told and they cannot argue about it. I don't blame Dubya because he is not a military expert and he had no idea what he was getting into.

The blame lies directly with Rumsfeld and he should have some explaining to do. Even if he didn't expect such a strong insurgency after the invasion, he had plenty of chances (AND HINTS) that we needed to change our battle plan. Take Fallujah: The first attempt to take the city from terrorists was a disaster and Rumsfeld said, "Well, we can just go play somewhere else and these bad guys will go away." WRONG! We should have hit those bastards hard, fast and with no holds barred the first time and we wouldn't have had to lose so many troops the SECOND time! Rumsfeld is a pompous ass and needs to go before many more of our brothers and sisters die.

His replacement? TOMMY FRANKS. Every terrorist on the planet would be crapping their pants if he were in charge.......................