Former general says U.S. military didn’t expect Iraqi insurgency

BY STEPHEN J. HEDGES

One of the nation’s top generals during the invasion of Iraq said Thursday that the insurgency took U.S. military leaders by surprise because they believed the assurances of Iraqi opposition groups and defectors that American forces would be welcomed.

Gen. John Keane, who served as the Army’s vice chief of staff during the war and who has since retired, told the House Armed Services Committee: "We did not see it coming. And we were not properly prepared and organized to deal with it. ... Many of us got seduced by the Iraqi exiles in terms of what the outcome would be."

Keane’s testimony echoes a recent admission by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who told the House committee last month that the Bush administration mistakenly believed the capture of top Iraqi leaders would quell insurgent violence.

Keane said an insurgency in Iraq after the end of major combat was discussed during months of war planning but was not made a priority.

Although Thursday’s hearing was ostensibly held to examine Army plans to adopt new technology and transform its tactics, it became an examination of the trouble the military has encountered in Iraq.

Testifying with Keane were two other retired Army officers, Col. Douglas Macgregor, who left the service last month, and Maj. Gen. Robert Scales.

Scales advocated spending less money on new weapons and technology and more on educating soldiers in cultural, language and strategic skills.

Macgregor, who used his recent post at the National Defense University to serve as an in-house Army critic, said Army leaders paid little attention to the possibility of unrest following the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Keane, who served briefly as acting Army chief of staff after the invasion, agreed. Spreading his hands wide, he told the committee, "This represents the space for the intellectual capital that we expended to take the regime down."

And then drawing two fingers nearly together to reveal just a small gap, Keane added, "This represents the space for the intellectual capital to deal with it after. I mean, that was the reality of it."

Macgregor said that rather than a large invasion force, a small force should have raced to Baghdad, avoiding fights with the Iraqi army, whose officers, he said, could have later helped administer a U.S.-run Iraq.

Scales said the Army based much of its Iraq strategy on the use of advanced weaponry and computer technology that linked battle units and did not emphasize intelligence.

All three retired officers portrayed an Army overtaxed by events in Iraq, as well as a National Guard and Reserve system bearing an unfair burden to support operations there and in Afghanistan.

Keane said the system of using those units as support for the active Army must end.

"That whole World War II or Cold War mobilization process we’ve got is broke," he said. "And I know the institution knows that, and they’ve got to fix it." (KRT)

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