I'd remind MajGen Bolger that it was on Gen. Bradley's advice (forceful recommendation) that Gen. Eisenhower relieved MajGen. Fredendall from command of II Corps, for his poor performance at Keasserine, something that it is said, Ike was reluctant to do.

Something else overlooked: Bradley and Marshall were responsible for tasking an Army primarily made-up of draftees, or citizen soldiers. Both understood this new citizen soldier couldn't be treated like the pre-war professional, and were successful in adjusting training, and discipline accordingly.

The brigade didn't commit any war crimes, individuals in the brigade did. Maybe the command climate allowed or caused it to happen, but that isn't the same as the entire brigade being guilty of war crimes.

The fast axe served the officer corps well in WWII. With a few notable exceptions, Army divisions, regiments, and brigades were well run and did very well against one of the best and most successful land armies in history - the Wehrmacht - fighting for its life on the borders of and within its home country. Not a bad record at all.

It should also be added that the US Army in WWII was a conscripted force; professional officers and commanders must deal with less well trained citizen soldiers differently than professional volunteers. Knowing that a major, or not-so-major mistake might end one's career creates a more circumspect environment, with (perhaps) less wastage.

If the same principles had been upheld during Korea and Viet Nam, perhaps we would have done better; the reluctance to fire incompetent or overly brutal commanders certainly had a detrimental affect in those two conflicts.

IN baseball we can argue whether a manager's quick hook is better or worse for the team, but we aren't talking about playing games here; thousands of lives on all sides are at stake. IMO, keeping a commander in place who is incompetent, or who wastes lives, or creates (as perhaps Col. Steele did) an environment that allows or even encourages soldiers to step over the line is in and of itself close to being a criminal act.

Joe Collins was a highly successful commander. And in spite of what many historians and commentators have claimed about Bradley's caution (he had other major flaws as well) he was one of the most successful high-level commanders in the history of American arms. Can't argue too, too much with either of their methods, at least in terms of of how they vetted and maintained their subordinate commanders. As for Patton, wasn't he actually treated in an extremely lenient manner by Ike after several incidents that would have ended the careers of many other officers? Patton was damn lucky that Ike didn't cut off his head - I have spoken to any number of 3rd Army vets who to this day believe that's what should have happened.

Max Hastings in Armaggedon has a very harsh view of the skill level of the American and British officer corps (from top to company grade) compared to the Germans. Granted, the German army had been fighting much longer, and there were of course many good US officers, but Hastings is pretty convincing in arguing that the tactical and strategic performances of our officers were, on the whole, inferior to the Germans. (Generally, he speaks well of the average US soldier.) Rick Atkinson's books reach the same conclusion, without being quite as strident.

in this war raised questions that i've never seen answered.

The interservice race to Baghdad was suggestive of the scene in 'Patton', where subordinate Bradley is being pressed to take casualties on a heavily defended mountain road, in order to 'beat Monty' to Salerno. Was Col. Dowdy's dissmisal scapegoating, for coming in second, by the team that got the messy line of advance?

Key Marine Commander Is Removed
No Explanation Given for Decision
By Thomas E. Ricks
April 5, 2003; Page A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A31340-2003Apr4&notFound=true

I recall Bolger's article; I recall he praised Gen. Patton as an officer less willing to summarily relieve subordinates, but rather was willing to give them time to learn from mistakes. The "fast axe" is seldom the best approach to leadership.

I was ambivalent about Tom Ricks' initial post on this subject, since I'm not sure how useful the analogy is.

The World War II Army was led by men with long records of service in the much smaller peacetime army and much personal familiarity with officers relieved of command in the war's early years. Success on the battlefield was usually proof against removal from command, but unsuccessful commanders were removed frequently -- a situation possible because the definition of success and failure in World War II was pretty clearly understood.

The case of Col. Steele presents a different problem. In a different kind of war, or the war much to today's army trained to fight for most of its senior officers' careers, he might well have been considered an adequate or better commander. In the Iraq war, though, abuses of civilians by one unit risked strengthening an insurgency and increasing the risk to other American units arriving in country after the unit responsible for the abuses had left.

Such abuses are now clearly understood to be a case of command failure; five years ago they may well have been so understood in the abstract, but senior commanders unfamiliar with the kind of war they were fighting obviously did not insist on rules of engagement protective of civilians as they do now. In other words, the respective definitions of success and failure on the battlefield were less clear than they had been in earlier wars. This is not, of course, an excuse for war crimes or for Col. Steele specifically, but it is the responsibity of the Army's leadership to define for field officers the lines they may not cross in the field. I have never had the impression that this was done until well after the Iraq war started.

After some debate on whether or not to weigh in on this subject, I have obviously decided to enter the debate.
I respect the opinion found in all of the previous posts here but have to also respectfully disagree with the vast majority of the information so far concerning the entire COL Steele scenario.
I have the good fortune of understanding many of the facts involved in this case, of which most have not ever, and will not ever be released to the public, nor am I able to express them here. However, after having served with him, I can say unequivocally that COL Steele was not the criminal or monster that everyone conveniently makes him out to be.
On the contrary, I found him to be sharp witted and a natural leader. I have also never encountered a Soldier, be it officer or enlisted, who would speak poorly of him, which is in extreme contrast to what most stories like to make the public think. Actually, from as far as I can tell, they (his Soldiers) all loved him and were sad to see him go when the time came for his change of command.
It is easy for people who have never walked a mile in his very worn and dusty boots to make him the target for their failures, but it is impossible for those same people to produce anything that substantially corrobrates their misguided accusations. And because of this, the Army has now lost the potential that COL Steele had to continue to show leadership in the face of adversity.
No one has ever been recorded in the history books, as a flawless commander of troops, whether in wartime or peace, and last I checked, the record still holds.
I do not pretend to think that COL Steele was any different, but I do know, and so does every one else that served with him at any point during his very distinguished and decorated career that he does not deserve the treatment that is levied against him in many public venues.
Let's not forget that this is still a Soldier who has dedicated his life, and sacrificed more than his share for well over 20 years, in order to preserve the freedoms that we so gladly take for granted each and every day.

I just wish more would take the time to understand the person. Maybe someday, someone will write a book to clear all of this up.

And one last point. If COL Steele did foster such a horrible climate, one that supposedly led to "War Crimes," than why over the course of the entire year is there documented only ONE ISOLATED incident as opposed to an entire year's worth of war crimes? Could it be that the indivdiuals who actually conducted the heinous act, actually bare ALL of the responsibility for their criminal act(s)?

I think the answer may be staring us all in the face.

"...but one can also avoid winning by playing it safe," Bolger writes, in a sentence that seems to me also to apply to the conduct of the Iraq war from 2003 to 2006."

Are you indicating that you think we could have EVER won in Iraq?

Look, the only reason we 'won' in WWII, the ONLY large scale war we have 'won' in the history of modern warfare is because we came late, took few casualties per capita compared to the other armies, and infrastructure-wise, suffered no damage at all compared to most countries involved.

That last point is probably the SOLE reason for our 70 year or so economic boom, currently 'busting'

America is a first class LOSER when it comes to winning wars (most of which should NEVER have been fought in the first place), but we DO spends HUGE amounts of money ($915 Billion Dollars currently http://trunc.it/xe3l) on our military industrial complex, while we get whupped by folks using punji sticks, WWII vintage weapons (like the AA gun Jane Fonda was sitting on, indelibly engraved in the American mind, sandals made from the tires of stolen jeeps, and now, in our latest atrocity, homemade IEDs with freeze plugs for projectiles that can take out an MRAP http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee241/photobastard/blownrap.jpg , despite claimes to the contrary by the company that built them on that premise.

Get over the delusion you're operating under Tom, the only war that the US has won in recent times is the war on a bunch of Cuban construction workers on Grenada, while the US medical students studying there (because you have to be RICH to go to medical school in the US) were phoning home, asking WTF was up with that.

Why don't you cover some of what our military dollars TRULY buy us... THUGS... such as the US-CIA backed Opium growing mercenaries in Afghanistan with long-standing ties to the Russian mobster who 'lost' almost' 1/4 MILLION AK47s belonging to the CPA when he was working for the Pentagon (That's right... a Russian mobster flying freight for the Pentagon in Iraq)... The Northern Alliance.

Northern Alliance leader Abdul Rashid Dostum who is about to be reappointed as military chief of staff to the Afghan president has been accused of massacring 2,000 surrendered Talib by Physicians for Human Rights.

PHR is calling on the US government to stop covering it up and begin a full investigation... This has also been demanded or requested by officials from the FBI, the State Department, the Red Cross and other human rights groups.

Allegedly Dostum's fighters, WHILE HE WAS ON CIA PAYROLL, put the captured Talib fighters in container trucks where many died from the heat/lack of water while others either simply suffocated or were killed when Dostum's crew sprayed the containers with gunfire, and then buried them in a mass grave, which according to reports has been tampered with, including the removal of large quantities of soil.

More on this HERE