Washington, Jackson, Scott, Grant, Sheridan, Sherman, Pershing, Marshall, MacArthur, Patton, Bradley. All These Great American Generals to Choose From

we routed the Republican guards in the first hour of fighting .
They couldn’t get out of Kuwait fast enough .
You typically don’t kill retreating soldiers .

Interviews with nearly all of the senior participants, as well as private notes and classified documents, now show that what some officials considered an inconclusive close to the conflict resulted from a misjudgment of the Iraqis' military capabilities, a failure to coordinate war plans among the military services, political sensitivities to how the war was described in the news media and General Powell's determination to get the troops out quickly. Among the revelations are the following:

*No one in Washington, even General Powell, understood what was clear to military commanders in the field: that much of Iraq's crack troops, the Republican Guard, had not been destroyed and were, in fact, escaping north.

*The inability to cut off those troops stemmed not only from a premature decision to end the war but also from a fundamental flaw in the battle plan, which assumed that the Iraqis would stand and fight. Instead, they bolted when the marines began their assault to free Kuwait, and the American Army had trouble accelerating its attack to catch them.

*As the war drew to a close, the clear goal of destroying the Republican Guard gave way to political concerns.

You typically don’t kill retreating soldiers .