Warning Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan

Start another war like Iraq? You’re nuts, Gates says

Video

Gates offers blunt warning against ground wars (NBC Nightly News, Feb. 25, 2011) — The man in charge of the Pentagon during the nation’s most recent wars told a group of cadets: “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.” (00:46)

By Thom Shanker

February 26, 2011

WEST POINT, N.Y. — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets on Friday that it would be unwise for the United States to ever fight another war like Iraq or Afghanistan, and that the chances of carrying out a change of government in that fashion again were slim.

“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it,” Mr. Gates told an assembly of Army cadets here.

That reality, he said, meant that the Army would have to reshape its budget, since potential conflicts in places like Asia or the Persian Gulf were more likely to be fought with air and sea power, rather than with conventional ground forces. …

“The odds of repeating another Afghanistan or Iraq — invading, pacifying, and administering a large third-world country — may be low,” Mr. Gates said, but the Army and the rest of the government must focus on capabilities that can “prevent festering problems from growing into full-blown crises which require costly — and controversial — large-scale American military intervention.”

Mr. Gates was brought into the Bush cabinet in late 2006 to repair the war effort in Iraq that was begun under his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and then was kept in office by President Obama. He did not directly criticize the Bush administration’s decisions to go to war. Even so, his never-again formulation was unusually pointed, especially at a time of upheaval across the Arab world and beyond.

Mr. Gates has said that he would leave office this year, and the speech at West Point could be heard as his farewell to the Army. …

Full story

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Related reports on this site

Some of the documents turned over to the U.N. by Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion.

Iraq WMD Lie Exposed (Feb. 15, 2011)

Iraq War on Trial (Jan. 29, 2010)

Bush-Cheney ‘Hell Bent’ on War (Nov. 27, 2009)

Iraq War Plan Soon After 9/11 (Nov. 22, 2009)

Iraq: Intelligence and Policy Failure (Dec. 10, 2008)

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — February 26, 2010

Taliban Strikes in Heart of Kabul

The Park Residence hotel in Kabul, blown up on Feb. 26, 2010, was a favorite of foreigners. (Photo: Behrouz Mehri / AFP — Getty Images)

One year ago today, I reported that insurgents had struck in the heart of the Afghan capital with suicide attackers and a car bomb, targeting hotels used by foreigners and killing at least 16 people and wounding dozen. The four-hour assault began about 6:30 in the morning with a car bombing that leveled a residential hotel used by Indian doctors. A series of explosions and gunbattles left blood and debris in the rain-slicked streets and underscored the militants’ ability to strike in the heavily defended capital even as NATO marshals its forces against them in an assault on Marjah in the volatile south.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: Two Years Ago — February 26, 2009

Bachmann: “DCCC is After Me!”

Two years ago today, on Feb. 26, 2009, I reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann had acknowledged for the first time — at least implicitly — the uproar her controversial public comments have caused.