A Corps Commander’s Ill-Timed Candor

[thedrifter]

A Corps Commander’s Ill-Timed Candor



By J. David Galland

When a combat corps commander is marching his soldiers in the direction of battlefield victory, it is not the time to snivel in the public domain.

Once an attack has begun, and soldiers are struggling and dying as they move to reach their goal – as the U.S. Army’s powerful V Corps has done in the past week – it is counterproductive for the corps commander to pick apart, second guess and criticize the overall war plan as crafted by the Pentagon, Central Command and his own headquarters.

That is what V Corps commander Lt. Gen. William “Scotty” Wallace did late last week as he told The Washington Post that the long supply lines from Kuwait into Iraq, and the unexpected stiff resistance by Iraqi irregulars had stalled the U.S. military push toward Baghdad.

“The enemy we’re fighting is different from the one we’d war-gamed against,” Wallace said in a March 27 interview with the Post. Of the Fedayeen Saddam irregulars, Wallace added, “We knew they were here, but we did not know how they would fight.”

While V Corps and other military units fighting up the Euphrates Valley have subsequently regained the momentum after several days of resupply, the issue raised by Wallace’s brutal candor still lingers. After all, it was Wallace himself who oversaw every facet of his corps’ preparation for war in Iraq.

When Wallace pointed his finger presumably at Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks, or Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, for flaws in the campaign plan, it appeared that he was attempting to divert attention from his own expressd responsibilities as the corps commander.

From my corner of the foxhole, Wallace needs to take a long hard look in the mirror before leveling any more implied accusations in the future.

Some may say that Wallace was courageously speaking out for the good of his troops. I would respond that such criticism of the overall plan and war-gaming, would have been much better served had he identified the flaws and spoken out prior to the commencement of the invasion – and quietly fixed any flaws discovered after commencement of hostilities without singing to the press.

Moreover, a heavy corps commander who apparently ignores the ever-present possibility of indigenous guerrilla activity, and fails to incorporate its likelihood into his overall war plan, has made a critical command mistake that is inexcusable.

A combat commander must plan for an often variable and unpredictable level of grass roots resistance to the invading force. Nothing in war is totally predictable and it is the flexible, quick-thinking commander and his combat plan who will raise the flag after the guns fall silent. It seems apparent that under Wallace's leadership that critically important planning did not occur.

Wallace has been in command of the V Corps, based in Heidelberg, Germany, since June 2001. V Corps is the U.S. Army's most forward-deployed heavy armor corps. Prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, its soldiers, equipment and funding had largely been mired in policing the turbulent Balkan quagmire since late 1995 – a region still mired by political instability to this day. But the corps’ planning for possible action against Iraq goes back many months.

But following the events of 9/11 and the commencement of the ongoing war against terrorism, V Corps officials under Wallace's leadership began adjusting the corps’ focus toward a potential leadership role in an Iraqi ground invasion.

Colleagues of mine at V Corps headquarters in Heidelberg headquarters say Wallace’s command began assuming that a campaign against Iraq was becoming inevitable a year ago. And the common understanding and belief was that V Corps would eventually lead from the front. The corps redirected its combat training towards the Iraqi scenario.

That is to say: Lt. General Wallace was at the helm of V Corps during the time the Iraqi war plan was drafted and refined. He was there, in charge, all along.

So for Wallace to indict the war strategists in Washington by asserting that they, and they alone, had misunderstood the combativeness of Iraqi fighters, and to raise the dire possibility of a longer war than many strategists had anticipated, is an assertion that is as bogus as it is self-serving. Wallace’s remarks also portray Wallace as a victim of Washington war strategists who, in the general’s indictment, totally controlled and shaped V Corps’ entire war plan.

As a career Army NCO who has previously served in a corps headquarters, my response to Wallace’s accusation is: Not a chance. Even assuming the extremely remote possibility that Wallace and his staff were merely passive observers of the Iraqi campaign plan – which I do not believe – Wallace and his staff signed on to Central Command’s plan and marched in lock-step with the overall picture for over a year.

Wallace is too smart and experienced an officer to have simply had overlooked, or not planned for an entire armored corps to expect and be prepared for steadfast resistance once it began operating inside Iraq’s borders.

It may be hard for the average American civilian to comprehend the seriousness of Wallace’s gaffe. A commander who indicts his own unit’s actual battlefield preparations while actively engaged with the enemy can be charged with a lapse in judgment that calls into question his ability as a military commander.

Sources within V Corps headquarters say there is general agreement that Wallace's comments have caused bitter resentment in Washington – including the White House – that suggest Wallace may have cut his own professional throat with his ill-timed candor.

Or possibly not: Even as acrimony erupted between the senior Pentagon leadership and war planners over Wallace’s comments and other reports of uniformed military frustration with the war plan, the combined Army-Marine Corps ground force and combat aviation units proceeded to smash through two Republican Guard divisions on the southern perimeter of Baghdad.

Barring a last-minute Iraqi counterstrike – with or without the use of chemical weapons – Gen. Wallace and his troops stand at the gates of the Iraqi capital just two weeks after crossing the Kuwaiti sand berms. Even though his words seemed to challenge Secretary Rumsfeld’s decisions on the war plan, his actions may go a long way to vindicate them – and save his own career.

J. David Galland is Deputy Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at defensewatch02@yahoo.com.

Sempers,

Roger

[wrbones]

If his first sentense means anything at all, why didn't he keep his mouth shut for a bit longer?


Now I'm confused. Either his first sentence didn't mean anything....or all of the rest of it didn't mean anything.....

In addition, we're in Bagdad in two weeks from a standing start....

[greybeard]

History should be a lesson-you never know how an enemy is going to fight until they are engaged. You war game for every contingency, but you can't factor in spirit & courage, or fanaticism. Hope for the best-plan for the worst.
Adapt, overcome. As someone pointed out above, this is a moot point-it's day 15 & the troops are sitting in Bush(Bagdad ) International Airport 10 miles SW of Bagdad.