Honor, Fear And Interest Are Thucydides’S Reason For...

Honor, fear and interest are Thucydides’s reason for war.(site) The On 20 March 2003 the United State chose to invade Iraq for all three of these reasons. President George W Bush made the decision and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and CENTCOM Commander, General Tommy Franks executed the mission. All three men shared responsibility for the less than effective initial planning for the war that set the United States on the road toward ultimate defeat. CENTCOM initial planning for Iraqi Freedom failed to comply with current JP 5-0. These deficiencies in JOPP created large amount strategic risk in the overall execution of the mission. Simply put, CENTCOM’s ways and means did not support the POTUS’ ends. (site) Cobra II, the final†¦show more content†¦Without this understanding they ignored or assumed away phase IV inadequacies. (site) Second, Franks and his planners’ failed to conduct operational design before planning OIF. (old plan)Thi s lack of understanding of the Iraqi operational environment and made many of their planning assumption and subsequently their planning decisions counter productive or unless to the achievement of the National Strategic Objectives Ends. Thirdly, Rumsfeld’s subjected the plan to his dominating desire to remake modern warfare by invading with a small, agile and lethal force, regardless of strategic risk involved. (site) He considered OPLAN 1003-98 old fashion and thought it was outdated that securing Iraq would take more soldiers that defeating it. (site) Lastly, during the initial planning of OIF, Bush failed to take charge and ensure CENTCOM’s plans supported his objectives. These failures ensured a gap between the POTUS strategic ends and CENTCOM ways and means. This invited strategic risk as define in JP 5-0.(JP III-1) In 2002 during OIF initial planning President George W Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld severely limited Franks’ opportunity to conduct effective operation design by failing to synchronize and clarifying the strategic objectives for the Iraq Invasion. In mid August, 2002, Bush issued a top secret guidance titled â€Å"Iraq: Goals, Objectives and Strategy† this document provided clear National Strategic Ends, and one of his objective describe