QUOTE
....
Still, there was a persistent, if muted, sense among many in the senior levels of the officer corps that Rumsfeld's transformation of the military might be hasty and ill-considered. This opposition coalesced in the buildup to the Iraq war, and became particularly pointed after Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, pooh-poohed Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's testimony before Congress that the occupation of Iraq would require \"hundreds of thousands of troops;\" Shinseki, not Wolfowitz, turned out to be right. There was great skepticism among many officers that Iraq was the right \"next target\" in the war on terrorism, and an emerging doubt that Rumsfeld and his lieutenants really knew what they were doing. But as the troops deployed, a sense of mission took over, and much of the grumbling stopped. Only in the aftermath of the conquest did there emerge a barely contained fury.
The military's gripes with the administration didn't grow widespread until after we'd conquered Iraq; the problems with planning, previously a matter of policy debate for top-level officers, translated into unpleasant realities for soldiers in the field. Many officers have become disenchanted with the continuing chaos in Iraq, and with the lengthening of in-country stays and the changing rotation schedules. \"What I've seen throughout the officer corps is a real pendulum swing over the last three or four months, from being pro-Bush to anti-Bush,\" Vandergriff said. \"The officers at the middle levels, who are traditionally the most Republican, are frustrated ... that there's no exit strategy,\" and worry that \"this conflict could just drag on and on.\" Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, who had been friendly enough with the Bush administration that he was sent last year as the president's special emissary to the Israelis and Palestinians, last month called the administration's policy a \"brain fart.\"
....
... Christopher Parker, a former Army captain and a political scientist at the University of California-Santa Barbara, put it to me more bluntly: \"What we're seeing now is almost unprecedented, this widespread sense among people in the military that they're being jacked around.\"
....
... When Special Forces needed to be moved from Afghanistan to Iraq this summer, they were replaced by reservists who had been trained to speak Spanish and Russian. \"There's a sense from everyone I talk to, even down at the unit level, that whoever planned this war simply had no idea what we were getting into,\" a retired Army captain told me.
....
... The world-straddling, saber-rattling visions of the unilateral interventionists, who a few short months ago had Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang in their sights, now seem a little less like an imminent reality, and a little more like a bad dream.
Still, there was a persistent, if muted, sense among many in the senior levels of the officer corps that Rumsfeld's transformation of the military might be hasty and ill-considered. This opposition coalesced in the buildup to the Iraq war, and became particularly pointed after Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, pooh-poohed Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's testimony before Congress that the occupation of Iraq would require \"hundreds of thousands of troops;\" Shinseki, not Wolfowitz, turned out to be right. There was great skepticism among many officers that Iraq was the right \"next target\" in the war on terrorism, and an emerging doubt that Rumsfeld and his lieutenants really knew what they were doing. But as the troops deployed, a sense of mission took over, and much of the grumbling stopped. Only in the aftermath of the conquest did there emerge a barely contained fury.
The military's gripes with the administration didn't grow widespread until after we'd conquered Iraq; the problems with planning, previously a matter of policy debate for top-level officers, translated into unpleasant realities for soldiers in the field. Many officers have become disenchanted with the continuing chaos in Iraq, and with the lengthening of in-country stays and the changing rotation schedules. \"What I've seen throughout the officer corps is a real pendulum swing over the last three or four months, from being pro-Bush to anti-Bush,\" Vandergriff said. \"The officers at the middle levels, who are traditionally the most Republican, are frustrated ... that there's no exit strategy,\" and worry that \"this conflict could just drag on and on.\" Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, who had been friendly enough with the Bush administration that he was sent last year as the president's special emissary to the Israelis and Palestinians, last month called the administration's policy a \"brain fart.\"
....
... Christopher Parker, a former Army captain and a political scientist at the University of California-Santa Barbara, put it to me more bluntly: \"What we're seeing now is almost unprecedented, this widespread sense among people in the military that they're being jacked around.\"
....
... When Special Forces needed to be moved from Afghanistan to Iraq this summer, they were replaced by reservists who had been trained to speak Spanish and Russian. \"There's a sense from everyone I talk to, even down at the unit level, that whoever planned this war simply had no idea what we were getting into,\" a retired Army captain told me.
....
... The world-straddling, saber-rattling visions of the unilateral interventionists, who a few short months ago had Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang in their sights, now seem a little less like an imminent reality, and a little more like a bad dream.