MY COMMENT BELOW APPEARS IN TODAY'S WSJ RESPONSE SECTION

Pearle is Gone, thank goodness and Tenet should be Next.

Perle Takes a Baath

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The level of (Iraqi) resistance is a surprise to me, and I consider myself a very well-informed person. I'd venture to say that the level of resistance is another failure of intelligence (Tenet again); and the repudiation of everything Richard Perle led any of us to believe.

The Baath Party is like the Nazi Party or the Communist Party in that its members will fight to the death because that is all that awaits them if they lose. They will be fanatic and there are at least a quarter million of them: Nice job, Messrs. Perle and Tenet.

Mr. Perle is particularly wrong in that he thought 20,000 shock troops supporting the locals was all that would be needed. He resigned and good riddance. It's a good thing the generals stood up to Donald Rumsfeld, and I assume Colin Powell also weighed in.

Surprised? Yes. Disappointed? Very.

Additional Observation

Had the Pearle opinion prevailed, and it seems possible that Rumsfeld shared this view for a long time, this would have been a "Bay of Pigs" times 100. Ruinous consequences for our country from which we'd never have recovered. I am assuming the generals all stood up to Rumsfeld on this and prevailed. I also assumed that Powell, as a former general who knows strategy, stood up also. When you look at this think Hitler Youth-Waffen SS, Japanese Kamakazis, and the old Assassins of Arab lore. I'm not waffling on the war, but I think my surprise is shared by many. Oh, and Al Jazeera TV is a total surprise, right?

The "old style" generals were right. The troops not being prepared for the disguised enemy etc., is tragic.