DID RUMSFELD FAIL HIS SUN TZU?

Over 4,600 years ago, there lived a great Chinese martial expert named Sun Tzu, who wrote Art of War, considered by most experts to be the ultimate work on the planning and execution of warfare. This great work strongly influenced Napoleon's subjugation of Europe, Hitler's blitzkrieg, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the American planning of Desert Storm.

Clearly it guided Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's strategy for reforming the armed services and his planning and execution of the Iraq war. Sun Tzu's principles of superior leadership, enemy demoralization, surprise attack, force concentration, and lightening maneuvers to rapidly defeat an enemy of superior manpower were very well understood by Mr. Rumsfeld in his approach to the Iraqi campaign.

The question is, how well did President Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks execute the principles? What kind of score would Sun Tzu have given our war effort in Iraq? What kind of score would Sun Tzu give the critics of the war?Let's connect the Art of War dots to the Iraqi war dots.

• "The Tao causes the people to be fully in accord with the ruler. Thus, they will die with him; they will live with him and not fear danger."

Score 100 for President Bush. The troops loved and admired him at invasion time.

• "Heaven encompasses yin and yang, cold and heat, and the constraints of the seasons."

Score 100 for President Bush. He refused to allow United Nations dilly-dallying to push our troops into a debilitating summer desert war. U.S. forces struck during relatively comfortable cool weather.

• "Earth encompasses far or near, difficult or easy, expansive or confined, fatal or tenable terrain."

Score 100 for President Bush. The desert allowed the enemy no place to hide and encouraged our technologically superior army to utilize all its advantages. Compare this to a score of zero for President Lyndon Johnson, who put us in the fatal, untenable terrain of triple-cover Vietnam forests, which almost entirely neutralized American technology and made it impossible to seize and control territory populated by an easily hidden adversary.

• "One who excels at employing the military subjugates other people's armies without engaging in battle, captures other people's fortified cities without attacking them, and destroys other people's states without attacking them, and destroys other peoples’ states without prolonged fighting. He must fight under Heaven with the paramount aim of 'preservation.'"

Score 100 for General Tommy Franks, who rapidly bypassed defended Iraqi cities on his way to Baghdad even though he increased the risk of enemy attacks to his supply lines. The "Franks Plan" was an outstanding example of incurring acceptable risk in order to secure major gain.

• "In general, in battle one engages with the orthodox and gains victory through the unorthodox. Thus one who excels at sending forth the unorthodox is as inexhaustible as Heaven...."

Score 100 for Rumsfeld and Franks. While engaging in an orthodox land invasion, the Americans mixed in large amounts of precision bombing strikes, special forces activity, night attack strategy and pre-strike leaflet propaganda.

• "Thus one who excels at warfare seeks victory through the strategic configuration of power, not from reliance on men."

Score 100 for Rumsfeld and Franks. Despite being denied the second invasion route from Turkey, the dynamic duo pressed forward from the South, relying on overwhelming force instead of the traditional measure of overwhelming manpower. Rumsfeld's theory that overwhelming force – and not overwhelming manpower – is critical to successful attack was espoused 2500 years ago and was thoroughly validated in Iraq. The Powell Doctrine of overwhelming manpower was wrong in 564 BC in China, when the highly maneuverable Wu army defeated the vastly larger Ch'u army. It remained wrong in Desert Storm, which needlessly sent 500,000 military personnel to the Gulf when less than half that number were needed.

• "In order to cause the enemy to come of their own volition, extend some apparent profit. In order to prevent the enemy from coming forth, show them the potential harm."

Score 50 for Rumsfeld and Franks. The use of "Shock and Awe" was a major factor causing the Iraqi army to largely melt away without fighting in force. But we missed a major opportunity to show the Iraqi army "potential profit" by promising to employ them in the immediate post-war period. Thus, there was no one to prevent the looting of the infrastructure and the subsequent sabotage of economic assets like the pipelines.

• "Thus if I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate while the enemy is fragmented. If we are concentrated into a single force while he is fragmented into ten, then we attack him with ten times his strength."

Score 80 for Rumsfeld and Franks. While Iraqi military leaders did not know of our attack plans and had to scatter their forces across several cities and towns, they did anticipate that we would attack Baghdad.

• "The ch’i (morale) of the Three Armies can be snatched away; the commanding general's mind can be seized. For this reason in the morning their ch’i is ardent; during the day their ch'i becomes indolent; at dusk their ch'i is exhausted. Thus one who excels at employing the army avoids their (enemy's) ardent ch'i and strikes when it is indolent or exhausted."

Score 100 for Franks. During the rapid march on Baghdad, U.S. troops rested during the day and attacked during the night – when Iraq's ch'i was at its lowest ebb.

• "If someone is victorious in battle and succeeds in attack, but does not exploit the achievement, it is disastrous and his fate should be termed 'wasteful and tarrying.'"

Score zero for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Franks.The failed U.S. intelligence about a defeated Iraq is the administration’s greatest failing, one which may yet turn victory into defeat. Cheney said the Iraqis will welcome us with open arms. Bush and Rumsfeld were equally optimistic about eliminating Saddam Hussein. All ignored the old wisdom of an 18^th-century British general who said, "He may be a bastard, but he is our bastard." Members of the Baath Party and all Sunni Muslims would have enormous economic, political and personal reasons to hate those who eliminated the regime.

The widespread looting and sabotage should have been expected from a people who had looted and sabotaged freely in Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation. The overnight destruction of Saddam's power meant that 30 years of dictatorial repression would suddenly explode in the vacuum.