Army edits its history of the deadly battle of Wanat

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...2804334.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009100401053

I am not sure what truly happened at Wanat as I was neither there nor have reviewed the entire investigation, but Gen Mattis and Gen Petraeous directed and reviewed the original investigation and found sufficient cause to issue Letters of Reprimand to the Battalion and Brigade Commander for failure to supervise and support the platoon in contact. I understand and somewhat sympathize with the "chilling effect" argument, yet from what I have read, there were some glaring errors in the placement of the OP and the plans to react and support in the case of an all out assault against it- failures which seem to me, as they apparently did to Gen Petraeous, to be largely failures of the chain of command.

The Army's official history of the battle of Wanat - one of the most intensely scrutinized engagements of the Afghan war - largely absolves top commanders of the deaths of nine U.S. soldiers and instead blames the confusing and unpredictable nature of war.

The history of the July 2008 battle was almost two years in the making and triggered a roiling debate at all levels of the Army about whether mid-level and senior battlefield commanders should be held accountable for mistakes made under the extreme duress of combat.

An initial draft of the Wanat history, which was obtained by The Washington Post and other media outlets in the summer of 2009, placed the preponderance of blame for the losses on the higher-level battalion and brigade commanders who oversaw the mission, saying they failed to provide the proper resources to the unit in Wanat.

The final history, released in recent weeks, drops many of the earlier conclusions and instead focuses on failures of lower-level commanders...

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Wait what? Aren't we taught that the commission imposes "total accountability and unlimited liability"?
I don't remember there being an asterisk there specifically absolving senior officers.

bruno said:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...2804334.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009100401053

I am not sure what truly happened at Wanat as I was neither there nor have reviewed the entire investigation, but Gen Mattis and Gen Petraeous directed and reviewed the original investigation and found sufficient cause to issue Letters of Reprimand to the Battalion and Brigade Commander for failure to supervise and support the platoon in contact. I understand and somewhat sympathize with the "chilling effect" argument, yet from what I have read, there were some glaring errors in the placement of the OP and the plans to react and support in the case of an all out assault against it- failures which seem to me, as they apparently did to Gen Petraeous, to be largely failures of the chain of command.

Click to expand...

Bruno, I'm a simple Grunt. I read the article and all I get out of it was: The 1st LT. is dead, and was wrong with his placement of the OP...and a couple of commanders didn't follow up and will be passed over? What are "failures of the chain of command", and why aren't their names mentioned?

Maximus- This platoon was really chewed up- about 75% of the soldiers on the COP were wounded including 9 KIA. From what I have read (which may or may not be accurate), the issues that caused the Chain of Command to get reprimanded in the original report included:
poor location of the COP to begin with. They basically had a reinforced platoon building a COP outside of Fire Support range with no means of rapid ground reinforcement.
A lack of Class 4 engineering materials to construct a defensive perimeter and cover. They very little earth moving/handling equipment so they were filling the HESCO barriers by hand, plus limited Water availability.
Insufficient support with Recon assets that could have warned of an impending attack with minimal poorly placed OPs out that would have warned of an attack. Finally, I think that they were engaged a couple of weeks earlier in air strike that killed a number of civilians during an operation that poisoned the local populace and was counter to the COIN doctrine that they were trying to implement at the time.
I'm not sure what happened and how much this was a failure of the Chain of Command and I have not seen the specific findings that led to the disciplinary actions,- but I know that Gen Mattis and Gen Petraeous found some significant failures of the Chain of Command and neither of them are exactly unknown quantities in terms of their understanding of the battlefield and the dynamics on the field so reversing their decision causes me some real concern about leadership accountability. the counter concern is of course that not every failed operation is attributable to failures in commandand holding commanders liable could certainly leave them risk averse in performing the mission. It's a fine line to walk.
Tom Ricks did a really indepth series on this a year ago that you can find at the link below. It's a 7 part series so when you get to the "Read on box" click on the next bullet).
Also the Army Combat Studies Institute published a really thorough history of the battle last year - it's long but it tells you a lot about Afghanistan.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/post...han_battle_what_happened_at_wanat_last_july_i


http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/csistudywanat.pdf

Thanks Bruno, it was the fine line you mentioned that had me wondering.