Yesterday morning Effwit saw in the print edition of the WaPo that the Army's Combat Studies Institute was going to release a nifty new report on the history of the Iraq War dealing with the crucial period from the "Mission Accomplished" milestone up to the Iraqi elections in January 2005.He got online and scouted around the Combined Arms Center website and saw an announcement of the report. The page said that it would be available June 30 -- but lo and behold -- the link to the pdf was live. It is a 720 page monster -- but is full of good stuff. A veritable catalog of fuck-ups on our side while the insurgency was getting rolling.
A sample:
The problems created by lack of staff and other resources should have surprised no one. When the CFLCC staff redeployed out of Iraq in May and June 2003, it took with it the Army's main IO assets, including the Joint Psychological Operations Task Force (JPOTF) that had been created for the initial invasion. Thus, once DOD and CENTCOM established CJTF-7, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez and his staff had no theater-strategic and operational-level PSYOP resources and had to rely on support from the IO units within the US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC) located at Fort Bragg. This delayed and complicated the provision of high-level technical support, making it almost impossible to quickly or effectively react to insurgent IO. According to the SAMS study, "What this meant in practical terms for the CJTF-7 was that it could not produce its own operational-level PSYOP products locally and tactical units had to rely upon their assigned tactical PSYOP organizations for more and more support."
Also, yesterday brought the release of Seymour Hersh's new piece on the covert war against Iran. Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
Effwit hasn't gotten to the Hersh piece yet , but he figured that you might want to know about it.
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