Rumsfeld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq: Magazine

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, March 31, 2003

Rumsfeld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq: Magazine

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US Defense Secretary Donald H.Rumsfeld had repeatedly rejected advice from senior war planners that more troops and heavy equipment be deployed in the Gulf region before the Iraq war began, the New Yorker Magazine reported.

In an article for its April 7 edition, which goes on sale on Monday, the weekly said Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way.

"He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every turn," an unidentified senior Pentagon planner told the magazine in its edition to be released Monday.

Planners had recommended deploying four or more Army divisions and shipping enough tanks and other heavy vehicles for three or four divisions in advance, but their proposals were rejected, the magazine said.

Rumsfeld had also overruled advice from General Tommy Franks, head of US Central Command and commander of the Iraq war, to delay the invasion after Turkey's parliament refused to allow tens of thousands of US troops to enter Iraq from Turkish soil, it said.

"This is tragic. American lives are being lost," the magazine quoted a senior planner as saying.

Rumsfeld has insisted that the US-led coalition forces have made "substantial" progress, with some troops having moved within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of Baghdad in a week, but a former intelligence official was quoted as saying that the war was now a stalemate.

A spokesman at the Pentagon declined to comment on the article.

Rumsfeld is known to have a difficult relationship with the Army's upper echelons while he commands strong loyalty from U.S. special operations forces, a key component in the war.

He has insisted the invasion has made good progress since it was launched 10 days ago, with some ground troops 50 miles from the capital, despite unexpected guerrilla-style attacks on long supply lines from Kuwait.

Hersh, however, quoted the former intelligence official as saying the war was now a stalemate.

Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, the article said.

"The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements arrive," the former official said.

The article quoted the senior planner as saying Rumsfeld had wanted to "do the war on the cheap" and believed that precision bombing would bring victory.

Pentagon officials said earlier this week that they plan to insert as many as 100,000 more US troops into Iraq by the end of April, to bring the total of US-led forces there to about 225,000.

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