It never occurred to us we’d have no troops in Iraq

Some very thoughtful comments from retired general Jack Keane. http://bit.ly/1vKBO3S

Keane: “[After Vietnam] the army purged itself of the lexicon of everything to do with counter-insurgency … none of our generals had any of the skillsets.”

Keane: “[Abizaid and Rumself] kept telling the senators that the strategy [in Iraq] was working … any casual observer could tell that it was not … they were going to let Iraq go off the cliff.”

Keane at 6:40: Bush 43 hosted Keane and other outsides to discuss alternatives in Iraq. No one from the Pentagon was invited.

Keane at 10:00: “I was absolutely stunned … [AEI] had incredible resolution on what the enemy was doing [even without classified documents].”

Keane at 15:40: “[Bush] asked good questions … his frustration [on Iraq] was very noticeable …”

Keane at 16:30: “One of the conclusions I made about [Bush] is that he was too deferential to his generals … it may have been some counsel from his dad … anybody who knows American military history knows that the American military actually in most wars gets off on the wrong foot.”

Keane at 19:00: “I knew both [Casey and Abizaid] … I put the personal aside because of what was at stake. I lived through the humiliating defeat in Vietnam …”

Keane at 20:00: “We put the army back together again over time. The army that was in Iraq was exceptional … I had them on my mind.”

Keane at 20:20: “At lot of the senior generals did not want to change. The joint chiefs by and large were comfortable with the status quo … by and large they were arguing for the status quo … the president said I disagree with you … I intend to win this … it was quite a moment.”

Keane at 23:00: “We really thought eight to ten [brigades] was about right [for the surge] but the Army and the Marines just didn’t have them … [but] they did a very good job of maximising what they did have.”

Keane at 24:00: “I don’t think it occurred to anybody that we would ever wind up with no troops in Iraq … [in every war] we always left troops to deal with post-conflict.”

Keane at 26:00: Maliki threated to remove immunity because he was so embarrassed politically by Obama admin’s paltry offer of 10,000 troops, which “was not a serious proposal”.

Keane at 1:11:30: “The Unites States policy is to disengage from the Middle East … I don’t think ISIS … would be anywhere near shape or form that they’re in today without US policy decisions.”

Keane at 1:12:00: “Radical Islam … is an ideology … and we just have not fashioned a strategy to deal globally with radical Islam … we have not come to grips with this ideology.”

Keane at 1:16:00: “[Chinese] adventurism is going to continue. They’re convinced the United States is in a weakened state … we’re decimating the defense department budget. They read that budget closer than anybody in America.”

Keane at 1:18:30 on Putin: could not happen without “feckless leadership that has existed for generations in Europe and now … equally weak leadership in the United States … on the table for Putin … is the collapse of NATO.”

Keane at 1:27:17: “The problem we actually have is with people … a battalion commander … is fifteen, sixteen years in the making … there’s no place for us to go out as there is in the private sector to hire middle-level executives … we have to grow them all.”

Keane at 1:28:00: “It’s very difficult to compensate for a lack of quality people.”

Keane at 1:29:00: “After every war we have cut further than we should have … the problem is this the first time we’ve started the cuts while we’re still fighting a war … we really are at war with ISIS.”