Yes, let's generalize from one commander of one 400-man Unit to the entire 160,000 soldier war.  Seems justified to me.

Given the way the Bush administration deals with any dissent from the party line, the generals are well aware that complaining about troop levels either publicly or privately is a career-limiting move.
Al, remember the fate of General Shinseki, who before the war disagreed with Paul Wolfowitz over the required troop levels?
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You know, the reason so many people are appearing as "Anonymous Hero" is because the first time you create an account, if you preview your first message, then your nickname gets wiped out.  Smooth move.  Needs some work.

Does a nickname appear this time?  It should not be this easy to make yourself appear as "Anonymous Hero".  Fix this, please!

I've spoken with a number of servicemembers in the last several weeks, including my sister and niece, who have dramatically changed their opinion about the war and BushCo. Of course, the D0D corporate culture doesn't allow for public discussion of the issues or public dissent.

In campaign 2004, President Bush claimed to be a "war president."

But war president call on citizens to sacrifice, pay for the war, perform national service, accept casualties and privations at home.  George W. Bush did none of these.

For more, see:

"The War President?"

If Bush had added a healthy load of "rhetoric of sacrifice" to the torrent of lies about WMD, everything would have been fine . . .

Actually, it's not so clear that Shinseki "decided" to retire, or was forced out.  Shinseki, and indeed the entire upper ranks of the Army, had experienced strained relations with Rumsfeld throughout 2001 and 2002.  Rumsfeld had made it clear in 2002 that he was passing over Shinseki to promote John McKeane, Shinseki's deputy, to command the Army.  McKeane later withdrew, but this move in 2002 was widely viewed as an attempt by Rumsfeld to undercut Shinseki.
Both Shinseki and Rumsfeld knew that the career path in the military is either up or out.  Rumsfeld didn't need to wait around until 2003 to know that Shinseki wasn't going to be a Bush team player on the subject of troop levels in Iraq.

Matthew, I have a disability.  Please understand what it is to have vision that makes it almost impossible to read such small type with comfort.  Please enlarge the type.  I use a work station screen in the office and still have a problem.  I am not much older than you, but I have a problem that will not go away.  At Harvard there is always consideration.  Good grief.  I hat this new format for the smallness.

Matt's assertion that troop levels in Iraq are insufficient to defeat the insurgents is widely supported by the people who should know:

Former Chief of U.S. Central Command General Anthony Zinni:

"I think that although the military part of this was brilliant in its execution, to Tommy Frank's credit, there were insufficient troops on the ground.

How many more troops were needed, in your view?

In my plan, before that, we would have had two more divisions on the ground. Those two divisions were not there to defeat the Republican Guard. They were there to freeze the security situation so you wouldn't have looting and chaos. And give us some stability. It's the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force."

General James A. Marks (ret.), Chief Intel Officer for Land Command:

"My position is that we lost momentum and that the insurgency was not inevitable," said James A. (Spider) Marks, a retired Army major general, who served as the chief intelligence officer for the land war command. "We had momentum going in and had Saddam's forces on the run.

"But we did not have enough troops," he continued. "First, we did not have enough troops to conduct combat patrols in sufficient numbers to gain solid intelligence and paint a good picture of the enemy on the ground. Secondly, we needed more troops to act on the intelligence we generated. They took advantage of our limited numbers."

The military analysts at Stratfor (requires subscription)

Former Iraqi CPA Head Paul Bremer:

The United States didn’t have enough troops in Iraq immediately following the ouster of Saddam Hussein and "paid a big price" for it, the former head of the US occupation there said. Paul Bremer said he arrived in Iraq on May 6, 2003 to find "horrid" looting and a very unstable situation. "We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," Bremer said during an address.

A study by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that reports to the U.K. Parliament:

"We conclude that the insufficient number of troops in Iraq has contributed to the deterioration in security. We further conclude that the failure of countries other than the US and United Kingdom to send significant numbers of troops has had serious and regrettable consequences."

Neocon hawk, Iraq War cheerleader, and head of PNAC William Kristol:

In a Weekly Standard essay of November. 17, 2003 (written with his frequent collaborator, Robert Kagan), Kristol assailed Rumsfeld for sending insufficient troops to Iraq. "Rumsfeld remains dogmatically committed to a smaller force," he wrote.

Former chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and David Kay:

Following the revelations, the former UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix,said the US had failed to control suspected nuclear sites in Iraq after last year's invasion, allowing crucial equipment to disappear. Dr Blix said it was scandalous for the US to lose control of the situation after the end of the war. Dr Blix's comments were echoed by the former senior American weapons inspector, David Kay. He said it was inexcusable that the US had insufficient troops on the ground to prevent widespread looting after the first phase of military operations ended.

Perhaps the most interesting insight into the pollyanna expectations for Iraq by this administration and why there were insufficient troops committed to this endeavor is this admission:

Thomas E. White, then the secretary of the Army, said he had received similar guidance from Mr. Rumsfeld's office. "Our working budgetary assumption was that 90 days after completion of the operation, we would withdraw the first 50,000 and then every 30 days we'd take out another 50,000 until everybody was back," he recalled. "The view was that whatever was left in Iraq would be de minimis."..

glitter

One more reason why field commanders do not ask for more troops or even raise the issus; this is from Josh, posted at TPM:

<span class="smallcaps">How not to</span&gt get annual performance awards (from the Baltimore Sun)...

John Riggs spent 39 years in the Army, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery during the Vietnam War and working his way up to become a three-star general entrusted with creating a high-tech Army for the 21st century.

But on a spring day last year, Riggs was told by senior Army officials that he would be retired at a reduced rank, losing one of his stars because of infractions considered so minor that they were not placed in his official record.

...

His Pentagon superiors said he allowed outside contractors to perform work they were not supposed to do, creating "an adverse command climate."

But some of the general's supporters believe the motivation behind his demotion was politics. Riggs was blunt and outspoken on a number of issues and publicly contradicted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by arguing that the Army was overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan and needed more troops.

"They all went bat s- - when that happened," recalled retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, a one-time Pentagon adviser who ran reconstruction efforts in Iraq in the spring of 2003. "The military part of [the defense secretary's office] has been politicized. If [officers] disagree, they are ostracized and their reputations are ruined."

...

Garner and 40 other Riggs supporters - including an unusually candid group of retired generals - are trying to help restore his rank.

But even his most ardent supporters concede that his appeal has little chance of succeeding and that an act of Congress might be required.

 

As someone who was an Army brat from birth until the age of 19, reading the entire article from which this was sampled made me sick to my stomach.  Keep in mind, the Bushies did this A YEAR AGO, just as they were ramping up a presidential campaign in which they would hysterically accuse anyone who questioned any of their military decisions of "not supporting the troops".  Even Nixon wouldn't have tried this kind of stunt.