USNewsLink™ © 2003

OUR PICK FOR BIGGEST MEATHEAD OF 2002
Stupid Is As Stupid Did

by Judith Haney
The one and only judge in the contest!

Biggest Meathead of 2002 is Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, deserves this award for his premature, incomprehensible, decision to send American troops to fight in the Operation Anaconda mission without advance and adequate air support and reliable advance intelligence.
1. During interviews, the returning troops from Operation Anaconda said they did not expect to be in the field so long.
2. Some spoke of temperatures well below freezing at night. There were cases of hypothermia, they said, and drinking water would freeze.
3. For the first three days, the troops slept on the ground huddled together for warmth under a single blanket.
4. The soldiers were unprepared for the subfreezing temperatures at 10,000 feet -- some said they hadn't even brought sleeping bags.
5. American troops were unexpectedly forced to do the fiercest fighting in Operation Anaconda after an allied Afghan general retreated under withering fire from foes who might have been tipped off about the attack, senior military officers said.
6. The Afghan retreat and subsequent battlefield confusion in the operation's early hours led swiftly to American combat deaths and allowed hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters to surge into the fight from hide-outs in nearby mountains and valleys, these officials said, creating a massed enemy force larger than American commanders anticipated.
7. Thanks to Tommy Franks misplaced trust in Afghan military leaders, failure to confirm intelligence information, and his reckless disregard for the clear and present danger he placed our American troops squarely in the middle of, our American troops suffered needlessly, lost their lives, and sustained serious wounds.
8. Three U.S. soldiers recovering at a military hospital in Germany described how a mission to hunt al-Qaida and Taliban fighters turned into a daylong firefight in the Afghan mountains.
9. The three members of the 10th Mountain Division said at a news conference that more than 100 U.S. forces members were pinned down Saturday, March 2, 2002, in a valley until helicopters were able to pull them out under cover of darkness.
10. The soldiers were hit by bullets or mortar rounds from enemy fighters who they said were perched on overlooking ridges and ducked into caves to defy U.S. bombers' and helicopters' attempts to dislodge them.
11. "They'd been fighting there for 20 years before we got there," said Spec. Wayne Stanton, 20, of Rockwood, Tenn. "We could hear them laughing at us when we tried to shoot at them."
12. "We're fighting in their back yard," said Spec. Ricardo Miranda, 20, of Salinas, Calif., whose right arm and left leg were heavily bandaged. "They know where every crack in that mountain is, every cubbyhole, every cave."
Congratulations General Meathead! The next time, let's send you to the front without adequate air support, unreliable intelligence information, inadequate supplies, in sub-zero temperatures at an altitude of 10,000 feet. You deserve nothing less than to suffer the same deadly environment you have so willingly exposed our loyal American troops to.

ADDITIONAL READING ABOUT THIS MISSION:

Ambush at Takur Ghar: Part I
Bravery and Breakdowns in a Ridgetop Battle
Seven U.S. servicemen died on an Afghan ridge in an battle that revealed flaws in the U.S. military operations.
Washington Post, May 24, 2002
In the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, a Navy SEAL watches U.S. forces destroy munitions captured from al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Navy SEALS played a leading role in the combat of March 4, the deadliest day of the Afghan war for U.S. soldiers.

A Wintry Ordeal at 10,000 Feet: Part II
Washington Post, May 25, 2002

Equipment Failures Hindered Battle
Yahoo, May 24, 2002
The deadliest firefight for the United States in the Afghan war — a mountain battle that killed seven Americans — was beset by communications problems, the Pentagon said Friday.

The war commander, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, attributed the problems to the harsh weather and equipment failures, such as broken radios and shot-up helicopters, rather than to human error.

In a leadup to Memorial Day, he praised the bravery of the troops and the success, though costly, of the operation in recounting the battle on the frigid mountaintop against dug-in al-Qaida fighters. A commando who fell out of a helicopter and six soldiers who tried to rescue him were killed.

"That battle showed heroism," Franks said. "It showed fog, uncertainty, it showed friction, elements common to every war I think we've fought."

"In the end the bravery and the audacity and certainly the tenacity of the people involved in that operation carried the day."

During the battle, in March in an area of eastern Afghanistan the locals call Takur Ghar, U.S. commanders watched helplessly as a Predator drone relayed live video of some of the fighting.

The operation was hurt by communications problems, from a reconnaissance flight that failed to detect al-Qaida forces lying in wait to the difficulties that troops on the ground and in helicopters had in raising their commanders and nearby warplane pilots.

Franks indicated troops in the heat of the fight might have used a wrong radio frequency.

But he said no changes in command arrangements between regular and special forces were made as a result of a Pentagon review. He said of the people on the scene that day: "I think their judgments were good."

Nor did he think it was extraordinary that equipment would malfunction given the circumstances. "In the middle of a firefight, things will get shot up," he said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was briefed on the review's findings on Thursday.

"As in most human endeavors, plans are never executed exactly the way they're developed," Rumsfeld said.

The battle was part of Operation Anaconda, a U.S.-led effort to encircle and eliminate a large number of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in the mountains south of Gardez. It began early in the morning of March 4, when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter tried to drop a team of Navy SEAL commandos near the top of a mountain.

There were heavily armed al-Qaida fighters there, and they shot at the chopper with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The helicopter was hit, and as it lurched away to safety, Navy Petty Officer First Class Neil Roberts tumbled out the rear door.

Roberts survived the fall, but was eventually surrounded and killed by the al-Qaida fighters.

Six others were killed as two other Chinooks dropped in teams to rescue Roberts or recover his body.

One man, Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, was with Roberts' group of SEALs. They had boarded another Chinook and returned to the mountain to get Roberts but also came under fire and fell back, farther down the mountain, before the third Chinook arrived.

Five of the dead were from that last team, Army Rangers and Air Force commandos whose Chinook landed after daybreak at the spot where Roberts fell out of his helicopter. The third Chinook also came under heavy fire and was disabled; it was believed that the four Rangers killed were shot either inside the helicopter or as they were trying to leave it.

The surviving members of the Ranger unit battled the al-Qaida forces for hours before being evacuated.