Lessons learned?

I've been following with interest the discussion surrounding a recent article in Legion Magazine by Adam Day. It deals with Operation Medusa, conducted a year ago, and with some of the ongoing confusion over whether BGen Fraser handled the battle as well as he could have. The article certainly doesn't paint a flattering picture of Fraser's decision-making:

Several questions remain to this day for the men who had to follow out these orders, but they can all be reduced to this: why abandon the plan and bring forward the attack?

Indeed, it's hard to see what caused the need to hurry--the Taliban were trapped and surrounded, it was now just a matter of lopping their heads off. As Fraser himself notes, the very heart of the Taliban strategy was to draw them into costly ground conflict.

As one RCR officer said, it's not like they were racing to save Ottawa from an invading force. "What's the rush?" said another RCR officer. "We know where they are, it's a free fire zone."

There was, in fact, no rush. Though Fraser agrees there was pressure from above to get things moving, he says that wasn't a real factor.

Hindsight is 20/20, the saying goes. Unfortunately, the writer of the article has decided that his vision is a little sharper than that, and embellishes what could be decent speculation with unjustified certainty; I find it amazing that any journalist, lacking the intelligence Fraser was receiving (which he likely can't divulge to buttress his decisions), could say definitively that "There was, in fact, no rush."

But Fraser, as quoted in a particularly useful article by David Pugliese today, makes an equally ridiculous statement:

"The article gives you a soldier's perspective and in any operation that is fast-paced, that is dynamic, there are always going to be situations where subordinates will question their commanders, and Medusa was no exception," Brig.-Gen. Fraser said. "But look at the overall operation and measure the success. In this case, Canadians won and the Taliban lost."

With all due respect to BGen Fraser, that's a weak defence. The Taliban hasn't the CF's organization, training, firepower, communications, heavy equipment, logistics, medical support, personal protective gear, or anything to match the Canadians other than a willingness to fight and die.

In a straight-up fight, the Taliban should lose, and lose big-time.

General Fraser is under no obligations to defend his decisions retrospectively, but if he's going to, the question he should address is not whether his forces won or lost, since that's like the NY Yankees high-fiving each other when they beat a little league team of eight year olds. The question he should address is whether his decisions inflicted the greatest damage to his enemy while bringing about the least damage to his own troops.

I believe that question remains unanswered.

Like those posting and lurking at Army.ca, I know that I'm in no position to pass judgment - the burden of command wasn't mine, and I haven't access to all the information Fraser did when he made the decisions he did. But I do know a couple of folks who were there, serving under his command at the time, and I can tell you the confusion over his orders isn't limited to those quoted in the article - many of those engaged in the AAR's wondered why the plan had changed so abruptly.

I suspect it will be years before anyone outside the tight circle of those who need to know will find out just what information made the general deviate from the original plan and push up the attack. In the meantime, I expect the army will learn its lessons, mostly in private. The rest of us will simply have to wait.

Update: Regarding Day's assertion that there wasn't any rush, I've received a private comment that perhaps his assessment simply mirrors Fraser's words that he wasn't going to be rushed, and that he was acting to take the initiative. Fair enough.

Still, if Fraser saw an opportunity, it might well have been time-sensitive - until someone asks the general just what that opportunity was, we won't know if the "rush" was reasonable or not.

Upperdate: Well, as it turns out, I was able to talk with BGen Fraser myself for more than an hour today - thanks to his PAffO for setting it up, and thanks to the general himself for being so generous with his time. I not only got a sense of his perspective on the operation, but also got some interesting answers to specific questions. I sure learned a lot. I'm pressed for time right now, but will get a post up with more detail once I've had a chance to sift through the interview again and compose my thoughts.