Military Prepping New ‘Pentagon Papers’

The Pentagon has ordered up a series of studies to examine the military’s failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, reports the Boston Globe. According to one of the authors, the findings (scheduled for this fall) “won’t be pretty.”

This news is small recompense for the catastrophe our military has unleashed on the world, but it’s at least a step in the right direction. Anyone care to take bets on how hard Bush will work to keep the studies secret?

Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON — The US military establishment has quietly undertaken a wholesale reassessment of its war strategy with a goal of identifying the mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan — and remedying them before the next conflict.

This summer, high-level Pentagon officials ordered a pair of secret studies to pinpoint the military’s failures in the two conflicts, and, according to one of the authors, “the results won’t be pretty” when the findings are produced this fall. Last week, the Defense Department invited about 50 of the nation’s top counter insurgency specialists to a closed-door meeting outside Washington to critique recent operations and chart a way forward.

The studies, according to several Pentagon officials involved, have found serious deficiencies across the board. For example, US troops in Iraq have often used too much force when conducting operations in civilian areas, unnecessarily alienating local populations. They cite US commanders as being too slow to establish working relationships with local allies, and note that providing security and safety for the Iraqi people wasn’t an early priority.

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