This week , we mark the tenth anniversary of the day the U.S. launched the Iraq War . But when we think of how differently that war might have been fought , the most important date to remember is February 25 , 2003 . That 's when Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki told the Senate Armed Services Committee that `` several hundred thousand soldiers '' would be needed in Iraq when post-hostilities control was taken into consideration . Shinseki 's estimate was more than double that of the George W. Bush administration , which in March 2003 sent a ground invasion force of 145,000 troops into Iraq . Donald Rumsfeld 's Defense Department wasted no time in answering Shinseki . Two days after Shinseki 's Senate testimony , Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz used his appearance before the House Budget Committee to present an entirely different view of America 's prospects in Iraq . `` Some of the higher-end predictions that we have been hearing recently , such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam ( Hussein ) Iraq , are wildly off the mark , '' Wolfowitz declared . `` It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in a post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself . '' The Department of Defense 's anger with Shinseki was understandable . His troop estimate made it seem as if the Bush administration was lowballing Congress and the American public . But there was nothing out of the ordinary in Shinseki 's thinking . In Bosnia , where Shinseki had served with the United States peacekeeping mission after the ethnic warfare there was stopped , the Pentagon had used a formula of one soldier for every 50 Bosnians . In Iraq that calculation added up to 300,000 troops . The Defense Department countered Shinseki by saying that Iraq was very different from Bosnia when it came to troop needs . `` There has been none of the record in Iraq of ethnic militias fighting one another that produced so much bloodshed and permanent scars in Bosnia , along with a continuing requirement for large peacekeeping forces to separate those militias , '' Wolfowitz insisted . By April 2003 , one month after the Iraq invasion began , it became clear that Shinseki 's troop estimate was correct . When mobs began looting government buildings and hospitals , there were not enough American soldiers to stop them . `` Stuff happens ! '' was Rumsfeld 's explanation of the chaos . A more publicity conscious Army chief of staff than Shinseki might have used the looting to make his case before the media . Long before their disagreement over Iraq , he and Rumsfeld had clashed over Rumsfeld 's belief that high-tech warfare gave the Pentagon leeway to reduce overall American troop strength . In 2002 Rumsfeld , irritated by Shinseki 's insistence that American troops were stretched too thin around the world , had made Shinseki a lame-duck Army chief of staff by announcing his successor while Shinseki had more than a year left to serve . In the spring of 2003 Shinseki chose , however , not to engage in a protracted war of words with Rumsfeld . Instead , he stuck to his position on what was needed in Iraq and waited until his Pentagon retirement ceremony in June 2003 to make his case that in the wake of 9/11 , America needed more boots on the ground to meet its global responsibilities . `` Beware the 12-division strategy for a 10-division Army , '' Shinseki told his Pentagon audience and then went on to compare America 's war in Iraq with the war he knew as a junior officer in Vietnam . `` The lessons I learned in Vietnam are always with me , '' Shinseki stressed , `` lessons about loyalty , about taking care of the people who sacrifice the most . '' Both President Bush and Rumsfeld made a point of not attending Shinseki 's retirement ceremony , and the New York Times buried its account of Shinseki 's retirement speech on page 32 of the news section . By contrast , those who came to Shinseki 's retirement ceremony did so as an act of support , and they included not only Army brass who appreciated the stance he had taken on Iraq but a contingent of his West Point classmates , who , like Shinseki , had served in Vietnam during the 1960s . In the eyes of many of his classmates , Shinseki , who lost nearly half his right foot after stepping on a Vietnam land mine , was doing for the troops in Iraq what President Lyndon Johnson and his secretary of defense , Robert McNamara , had failed to do for America 's troops in Vietnam : he was looking out for them regardless of the political consequences . To these classmates Shinseki 's candor about Iraq made him as much a hero as his Vietnam combat record , and today , as we look back on Iraq and try to decide who the best and brightest generals of that war were , Shinseki 's 2003 judgment shines through . Small wonder that , like another admired Army chief of staff , World War II hero Omar Bradley , Shinseki has had a second career as the head of the Veterans Administration .
Nicolaus Congress : An American general took issue with Eric Shinseki administration views on U.S. . Eric Shinseki argued that the VA needed a much larger force to bring stability to Iraq . Others who objected to his estimate were proved wrong , Mills says . Mills : Shinseki , now Iraq chief , was penalized for showing loyalty to troops .