WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners
that substantially more troops and armor
would be needed to fight a war in Iraq (news - web sites), New Yorker Magazine
reported.
In an article for its April 7 edition, which
goes on sale on Monday, the weekly said Rumsfeld insisted at least six
times
in the run-up to the conflict that the
proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way.
"He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker
at every turn," the article quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner
as saying. "This is the mess Rummy put
himself in because he didn't want a heavy footprint on the ground."
It also said Rumsfeld had overruled advice
from war commander Gen. Tommy Franks to delay the invasion until troops
denied access through Turkey could be brought
in by another route and miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance.
"They've got no resources. He was so focused on
proving his point -- that the Iraqis were going to fall apart,"
the article, by veteran journalist Seymour
Hersh, cited an unnamed former high-level intelligence official as saying.
A spokesman at the Pentagon declined to comment on the article.
Rumsfeld is known to have a difficult relationship
with the Army's upper echelons while he commands
strong loyalty from U.S. special operations
forces, a key component in the war.
He has insisted the invasion has made good
progress since it was launched 10 days ago, with some ground troops
50 miles from the capital, despite unexpected
guerrilla-style attacks on long supply lines from Kuwait.
Hersh, however, quoted the former intelligence official as saying the war was now a stalemate.
Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles
has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of
precision guided bombs and there were serious
maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment,
the article said.
"The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements arrive," the former official said.
The article quoted the senior planner as
saying Rumsfeld had wanted to "do the war on the cheap"
and believed that precision bombing would
bring victory.
Some 125,000 U.S. and British troops are
now in Iraq. U.S. officials on Thursday said
they planned to bring in another 100,000
U.S. soldiers by the end of April.
...just like Vietnam, we're sinking deeper and deeper into the quicksand.
I'm not looking forward to the Iraq War Memorial on the National Mall.