Joe Conason with more on criticism by military men of the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz amateur hour.

Salon.com | Joe Conason's Journal You may not hear about this on TV, unless you happen to glimpse former Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who appeared on the BBC and elsewhere speaking out about Rumsfeld's error -- and the three or four thousand American casualties that may result. At the time of his retirement (when he took over the impossible drug war), he was the Army's most highly decorated and youngest four-star general. He commanded a mechanized infantry division during the last Gulf War. As the Washington Post's superb Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks report today (in a story buried on Page A17), the general is speaking for many veteran officers when he says "there should have been a minimum of two heavy divisions and an armored cavalry regiment on the ground" before the invasion began.

(McCaffrey's concern echoed comments made by Gen. Wesley Clark during an interview with Salon. When asked why the Pentagon would start a war without all the troops in place, Clark responded: "I can't explain it. I can't defend it; I've never seen the plan.")

"How large a force is necessary to invade Iraq has been a point of contention for months between some ground commanders, particularly those in the Army, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld," according to Ricks and Loeb. "He insisted that air power, information dominance and speed enable the U.S. military to achieve much greater effect with a smaller, more agile force." The incompetent diplomacy that removed Turkey from the coalition has made matters worse by delaying the arrival of the Fourth Armored Division's equipment, which had to be rerouted through Kuwait.