We knew in 1999 that even 400,000 troops might not be enough

Militaries engage in war games. In my husbands old SAC squadrons, they went to Olympic Arena at Vandenburg AFB every year and launched a Titan II into the Pacific Ocean. See the orange oxydizer leaking like all get-out in this launch? War games exposed the weaknesses of the system, and the Titan mission (originally it was supposed to be a ten year mission and it went twenty-five) was brought to an end. Leaking oxidizer during the launch could possibly mean the missile would not hit it's target.

War games are vital and necessary for a military to engage in. War games show the unconsidereds that can pop up, whether it's leaking ozydizer or a sectarian civil war.

In late April of 1999, CENTCOM launched a series of war games, under the leadership of Marine General Anthony Zinni, known as Desert Crossing. In Desert Crossings they considered "worst case" and "most likely" scenarios. The Desert Crossings exercises amounted to a feasibility study of an Iraq war plan and management of a post-war, post-Sadam Iraq.

The results were not encouraging. In fact, many of the conclusions drawn from Desert Crossing have played out in the real world. Desert Crossing predicted the instability of the region and the power vacuum that resulted when the Iraqi regime fell. Desert Crossing accurately forecast the "rival forces bidding for power" which, in turn, could cause societal "fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines" and antagonize "aggressive neighbors."

When invasion looked imminent, General Zinni called up CENTCOM and told them they needed to dust of Desert Crossing and they asked him what it was, telling him they had never heard of it.

Apparently, the Rumsfeld DoD feared such a report falling into competent hands.

Bad...and getting worse

Two weeks ago, United States Central Command (CENTCOM) prepared a classified report that verifies what has been suspected for quite some time...Iraq is a mess, and it is spiraling into chaos and civil war.
The chart on the left is the same one shown to top military personnel at the 18 October briefing. It provides a look behind the curtain, into how the military command views the war, the trajectory it is following and the sectarian violence.

Clearly, if it was not a civil war before, it is now, and the turning point was the bombing of the Shi'ite shrine in Sammara in February. The CENTCOM briefing calls attention to several factors that influence life in the failed state of Iraq; the innefectual police force, the absence of moderate religious leaders, and the flight of secular educated professionals from the country. Normally, such a briefing would concentrate on the troop strength and weapons systems the enemy controls and the territory held by both sides.

But this situationis far from "normal" and other factors must be considered if any valid understanding is to be garnered. The report prepared for this briefing considers "hostile rhetoric" from political and religious leaders, as well as militia activity, assassinations and spontaneous civil uprisings.

I said yesterday that officers are rethinking the mission that has been thrust upon them. Now it is official.