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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (42074)	5/4/2004 7:59:16 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793670

There was appropriate planning for the combat, but not for the nation building. Don't you see, Phase 1, the combat, did not go according to plan. One could argue it did not go 50% according to original plan. The changes significantly impacted Phase 2. Hell if the 4th ID came through Turkey, hooked up with N Iraqi Free Forces and swept down and through Fallujah to Baghdad from the North and then set themselves up as a blocking force along the Syrian border as originally planned, a whole lot of current situations would not exist. But the 4th ID did not do that so we have change. The phrase no combat plan survives the first firefight is not trite. It is fact. The phrase situational changes begin immediately is true for every war I ever studied. War is chaos. Once in a while, but only once in a while, a combat leader will be able to organize some of the chaos effectively. If you accept the notion that combat/war is politics by other means and you realize that war is a near synonym for chaos, how can you pretend the political changes that war creates will be accepted smoothly? A smooth transition back to a fight-free society has never happened immediately following a war. I believe the battle changes made during phase 1, significantly affected the political situation predicted prior to the onset of battle. Look at it this way, change is a constant during war and that means political change as well as battle changes. This war is still an infant. Letting change frustrate you now accomplishes nothing. There are many many more changes coming regardless of who becomes POTUS. The original goals were to rid the world of Saddam and to free Iraqi citizens from oppression. The goals have not changed. The changes made so far are still moving us in the right direction to accomplish the original goals.