Rumsfeld 'has left troops in danger'

The alleged decision by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to overrule military advice and send reduced numbers of troops to the Gulf has left the forces in “an extremely dangerous situation”, an expert said today.

The New Yorker magazine claims that Rumsfeld insisted at least six times before war began that the proposed amount of servicemen should be cut back.

It is also suggests that Rumsfeld rejected war commander General Tommy Franks’s advice to delay the start of the action when Turkey refused to allow American troops to use its bases.

Alex Standish, editor of Jane’s Intelligence Digest, said that problems arise when politicians, often untrained in a military arena, refuse to listen to their war chiefs.

“This is one of the problems when politicians are not au fait with how the military works.

“You find that politicians ultimately always instruct the military. The military just has to carry out the tasks given to it.

“The difficulty comes when experienced military chiefs give advice to politicians which is not heeded.”

Rumsfeld, a former Navy pilot, is known to have a strained relationship with the armed forces thanks to his abrasive nature and domineering style.

He has been accused in the past of bullying generals.

Mr Standish said the number of troops had been underestimated, as had the nationalistic feeling and resistance shown by the Iraqi forces.

“There was a great deal of wishful thinking that this would be a short relatively bloodless war.

“They entirely underestimated the need to have enough troops to guard the 300 miles supply line. It’s an extremely dangerous situation to be in.

“If you have too few troops, you can’t protect your supply lines. That’s the problem they’re having at the moment. You run out of food and water. You have a major problem on your hands.”

Up to 100,000 more US troops are expected to move into the Gulf in coming weeks although US officials insisted they were always part of the plan.

Embedded reporters have claimed that the progress of US supply lines convoys on the way to Baghdad were halted by attacks from Iraqi fighters and that some infantrymen were down to one meal a day.

Mr Standish added that it was difficult to say whether Rumsfeld had interfered too much in the military planning.

“We don’t know the final outcome, but if you have to reinforce after 10 days something has gone badly wrong. If you call in extra supplies this early, you’ve miscalculated.”

Mr Standish added that the inability to use Turkish territory could have lengthened the war significantly.

“That’s caused a major problem because they wanted to bring in heavy armour and around 60,000 troops through Turkey and open a northern front.

“Since the Turkish parliament blocked this, the northern front can only be opened up by dropping people in.

He added that a northern campaign would have allowed the allies to put pressure on the regime from both the north and south.

“Saddam has been able to focus all his troops on countering the offensive from the south.

“That will have lengthened this campaign quite significantly.”

General Franks today denied that he recommended a delay to the start of the war and that he was overruled by Rumsfeld.

“There are very few people who know the truth of how this plan was put together,” he said.

“No one has driven the timing of this operation except the operational commander.”