Disagreements among military commanders over the war resurface.

Two media items published this past Monday highlighted disagreements in the opening weeks of the war among the military commanders on the ground and Tommy Franks and Pentagon officials. The New York Times ran an article entitled "Dash to Baghdad Left Top U.S. Generals Divided," and the NBC Nightly News broadcast a report by Andrea Mitchell entitled "New book says U.S. underestimated insurgency."

Here's a summary: As the coalition forces were on the way to Baghdad, intelligence officers and the commanders on the ground said that the Fedayeen and other paramilitary forces, not the Republican Guard, were the major threat and needed to be taken out instead of passing them by and proceeding to Baghdad. However, Tommy Franks and the Pentagon decided otherwise. And that turned out to be a mistake. Both reports contain much more information, so by all means, check them out.

The Times and NBC note that Gen. William Wallace, who was the commander of the Army's V Corps toward Baghdad, publicly made these complaints in late March 2003. As reported by NBC, he almost lost his job because of that. In any event, here is the key quote from Gen. Wallace: "The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we war-gamed against." (See this Newsweek article for the origins of this debate.)

When I first read Wallace's quote back in March 2003, I started extensively researching the matter. I then wrote extensively on the matter--38 pages single-spaced, including footnotes giving all my sources.

I have not worked on that writing since May 19, 2003. Now it is time to do something with that work. I am going to put it on the web on a new site.

Stay tuned.