Iraq needs more force than the proposed 20,000

Senator McCain:

Gen. Tommy Franks, one time CENTCOM commander, suggested to Donald Rumsfeld in preparing for the Iraq War that 400,000 troops were needed to overthrow Saddam Hussein and to successfully occupy Iraq. Franks based the number on the fact that Iraq is a country of 22 million people and is the size of California. Baghdad alone has over 6 million people. Rumsfeld constantly prodded Franks to reduce the proposed force strength until Franks suggested that a minimum of 250,000 could do the job of 400,000. We ultimately toppled Saddam and occupied Iraq with far less than 200,000, but the occupation has not been successful. Approaching a fourth year, President Bush has kept force strength at ineffective lows and now proposes to “surge” an amount of troops that is still below Franks’ minimum 250,000 needed to succeed. At a current level of 120,000, a surge of 20,000 more will leave us over 100,000 troops short of Franks’ minimum. The United States was in Afghanistan for over a year when he and Rumsfeld argued over needed force strength for Iraq, and Rumsfeld never complained that Franks had to reduce his projected numbers because two wars would overly burden our military. Instead, Rumsfeld wanted to fight both Afghanistan and Iraq with “transformed” numbers. An “over burdened military” was not a concern then and leads one to think that it, as an argument, is not grounded in fact now, but is an excuse to not succeed—a way out of Iraq. It is probably wise to reconsider Franks’ assessment to Rumsfeld over four years ago, and to consider sending 50,000-80,000 more troops instead of the proposed 20,000.