Battle Plan Under Fire:
A look at a critical moment in the lead-up to the War in Iraq

The Integral Thinker™ provides the following PBS/NOVA excerpt in order to shed light on a critical management decision which has proved fatal to over 3,000 Americans.  For his impertinence, General Shinseki (U.S. Army Chief of Staff) was unceremoniously relieved of duty.

EXCERPT:

NARRATOR: From the Kuwaiti border, 100,000 U.S. troops struck out across the desert. It was a fraction of the 540,000 Americans deployed in 1991, during the first Gulf War. Inside the Pentagon, there was intense debate over the size of the force. Prior to the war, the outgoing Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, raised hackles when he testified, at a Congressional hearing, that more troops were needed than Secretary Rumsfeld had ordered deployed.

ERIC K. SHINSEKI (Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff): Something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably...you know, [the] figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, so it takes significant ground force presence.

DONALD H. RUMSFELD (U.S. Secretary of Defense): I will say this: what is, I think, reasonably certain is...the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark.

NARRATOR: Rumsfeld's view prevailed…

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3110_wartech.html

The related excerpt which follows is from USA Today:

"[Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz criticized the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, after Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require 'several hundred thousand troops.' Wolfowitz called Shinseki's estimate 'wildly off the mark.' Rumsfeld was furious with [now former Secretary of of the Army Thomas] White when the Army secretary agreed with Shinseki."

The article which appeared June 2, 2003, further states: "The interview [on which the article is based] was White's first since leaving the Pentagon in May [2003] after a series of public feuds with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld led to his firing."

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-06-02-white-usat_x.htm