Juan Cole/Informed Comment: April 4, 2005

Wesley Clark Conference Call

Wesley Clark held a conference call on the situation in Iraq with some bloggers Monday afternoon, in advance of testifying in Washington on the situation.

He began by pointing out that the US military made an assessment in September of 2002 that it could hold Iraq with 70,000 troops.

[I had not heard this before, and if it is true, and if the assessment came from the officer corps, it means that the typical opposition set up between Gen. Shinseki and others who wanted more troops, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who wanted a small force--might actually reflect a dispute within the officer corps itself, with Rumsfeld siding with the minimalist faction in the brass.]