Responding to yesterday’s post on Rumsfeld’s tangle with Ray McGovern, fracus_futile writes:
Jeff, you say
Moran also argues that early troop levels in Iraq are another mistake Rumsfeld should admit toâ€â€but on that account we disagree: the purpose for keeping troop levels low, you’ll recall, was to avoid a large US footprint and make the inevitable suggestions by the war’s opponents that the US was engaging in an imperial occupation of Iraq difficult to proffer with a straight face.
So, your [sic] saying Bush and Rummy were too pussified to follow the Powell Doctrine to use overwhelming force? Bush didn’t have the political or domestic support to counter an “imperial occupation†charge? Bush was trying to be nice?
Well, no, not really. At least, not in the case of troop levels.
In fact, I am arguing just the opposite: that they took a calculated (and courageous) risk, one that I think will ultimately prove to be a wise one.
But I’m not surprised fracus has decided to frame it the way he did—just as I’m sure more attuned readers will recognize the similarity in the charge fracus levels against my position on troop levels in Iraq and the charges many on the left side of the blogosphere leveled against what was, from my perspective, a straightforwardly pragmatic argument that served as a gloss on Shelby Steele’s controversial Opinion Journal piece: namely, that, when the situation on the ground calls for it, we err on the side of whatever action is likely to shorten the war and save lives in the long run, even if that action is professionally ruthless, and even if the easy political choice is to err on the side of assuaging public perception (which is itself largely the result of viewing the world through what I’ve described, with all my “grad school obscurantism,” as a logically incoherent social philosophy).
Continues fracus_futile:
You seem to be rewriting history a bit. IIRC, the small force was to demonstrate Rummy’s revolutionary small/special force theories. Can you provide any links to pre-war stories on the fear of an “imperial occupation†charge? Or really, any link to Bush backing down to any charge that he was being too tough in the GWOT?
Come on, if Bush/Rummy could have gone in with 500,000 troops, secured all of Iraq, drew down to 250,000 a year later and 130,000 in year three, we’d be paying $0.79 a gallon right now.
Well, I suppose that’s possible—though I don’t think it’s very likely.
But to answer the immediate question, no, I have no links to pre-war stories wherein the Bushies and/or the DoD argue that their plan was “pussified.”
But there is no doubt Rumsfeld is a small-footprint kind of guyâ€â€and that the calculus was to avoid the appearance of an occupation.
From Jack Kelly, the Pitt Post Gazette:
Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki has become a cult figure to officers critical of Mr. Rumsfeld, and for journalists looking for a club with which to beat the Bush administration. The admiration stems from Gen. Shinseki’s testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2003, that several hundred thousand more troops than the administration was planning for would be required to pacify Iraq.
It appears, in retrospect, that Gen. Shinseki was right. But we ought not to make this assumption as glibly as so many have.
To begin with, the Shinseki plan called for more troops than there were in the active U.S. Army, which casts some doubt on its practicality. But the larger issue is the debate within the military between the “big footprint†guys and the “little footprint†guys.
Gen. Shinseki is a big footprint guy. He favored an occupation like that in Germany and Japan after World War II.
The little footprint guys, most of whom are in special forces, said the presence of a large number of American troops was in itself an incitement to insurgency.
I’m a little footprint guy. I think by far the most serious of the mistakes we’ve made in Iraq was creation of the Coalition Provisional Authority. The CPA (soldiers said it stood for Can’t Provide Anything) did little good, and provided a very visible “American occupation†for extremists to rally against.
[my emphasis]
If you’ll look through my archives, you’ll probably find a similar mention somewhere of the CPA as being our initial misstep. We have since recovered (see, most recently, war critic Gen Barry McCaffrey’s assessment, and al Qaeda’s own assessment), and that we are now seeing successes from the newly trained Iraqi forces against the insurgents—while the US begins drifting back into a support role—is heartening.
See also this, from the WSJ Opinion Journal:
[…] As for those who’ve raised the issue of competence, we’d be more persuaded if they weren’t so impossibly vague. If their critique is that Mr. Rumsfeld underestimated the Sunni insurgency, well, so did the CIA and military intelligence. Retired General Tommy Franks, who led and planned the campaign that toppled Saddam Hussein, took a victory lap after the invasion even as the insurgency gathered strength.
If their complaint is that Mr. Rumsfeld has since fought the insurgents with too few troops, well, what about current Centcom Commander John Abizaid? He is by far the most forceful advocate of the “small footprint†strategy–the idea that fewer U.S. troops mean less Iraqi resentment of occupation.
Our point here isn’t to join the generals, real or armchair, in pointing fingers of blame for what has gone wrong in Iraq. Mistakes are made in every war; there’s a reason the word “snafu†began as a military acronym whose meaning we can’t reprint in a family newspaper. But if we’re going to start assigning blame, then the generals themselves are going to have to assume much of it.
[my emphasis]
Those were just the first two instances I found in a quick Google search (“Rumsfeld small footprint Iraq). But both clearly note that the impetus behind keeping the footprint small was to avoid inciting Iraqi resentment over an occupation, and therefore avoid an insurgency that was more widely supported by Iraqi nationalist.
I think, after some fits and starts, the plan worked, and will end up saving US and Iraqi lives; additional troops may have “pacified” the insurgency more quickly, but, because the insurgency would have been larger (under my reading of the situation), additional US troops would have also represented additional targets for the insurgents, yielding a higher body count on both sides. Instead, the Rumsfeld strategy relegated the insurgency to mostly Iranian run Shia (al Sadr’s “militia,†for instance), deposed Ba’athists, some wary Sunnis, and foreign fightersâ€â€who have helped to organize many of the insurgent attacks).
But Iraqis are behind the democratization of Iraq and the direction the country has taken at ~ 80%—a number that would be far higher but for Sunni suspicion.
But even the Sunni leadership is coming around and has joined the political process.
So yes, I disagree with Moran and the “big footprint†strategists. I think we largely avoided the pitfall of having to battle a huge number of Iraqi nationalistsâ€â€while making domestic war critics screaming “imperialism†look sillyâ€â€by going the route we did.
Which is why some of those same cynical anti-war opportunists have migrated to the “we needed more troops†trope, itself, my argument goes, much closer to the perception of imperial designs than is the paradigm we went with.
I always thought it was a smart idea not to throw too many troops into the fray for fear of crippling our ability to fight if the Iraqis deployed their supposed WMD against out troops. But then that would mean we actually thought they had WMD. And we know now “Bush lied” about that. (cough)
“Professionally ruthless.”
Good term.
But I prefer “professional inhumanity.” More descriptive. It’s what a commander needs in wartime.
Also lets you know people actually die in combat.
Something the Neocons apparently don’t realize.
2400 KIAs, 15,000 wounded.
And growing.
Check out The Cruel Sea, by Nicholas Monsarrat.
***
Sad about my (distant) cousin Porter Goss, isn’t it?
Well, I have no links but I recall things a bit differently. Sure, NOW the big footprint crowd talks exclusively about post-invasion pacification. But it was not always so. Who was it? Gen. McCaffrey? Anyway I disdinctly recall some rather recently retired general officer acting as analyst for one of the cable news shows predict, with glum certainty, “tens of thousands of body bags”. And that was just to take Baghdad. At the point this prediction was made our troops had already made the stunning advance, had surrounded the capitol city. The initial “Thunder Run” had not yet occurred. Baghdad was going to be worse than the Battle of Stalingrad. Which, didn’t the attacking army end up surrendering? Anyway, that’s the way I recall the Big Footprint boys talking before it became impossible to say such things. Oh, and kinda turns out Rummy was more right than even he thought. The best equipped, heaviest division ~ 4ID ~ sat the thing out. Any of these “No blood for oil” voices, who’ve recently be making “shoulda had a bigger footprint” noises, any of them been rebuking Turkey for reducing that footprint? Don’t think so. All criticism goes to neocons. Still. As to that half-million strong occupying force, they would have done whatnow? Shot all the looters? yeahright. Gone house to house, room to room countrywide searching out soldiers in civilian clothes? ‘Cause THAT would have stopped the IEDs? I don’t see it. C’mon lefties clue me in. Say you had 500,000 occupying the joint. What were the gonna do? Yeah, I know – Restore Order. But tell me HOW? Occupied Japan largely went along when they heard Hirohito say “It’s over.” Germany lay in ruins so it was clear to them that it was over. Besides, post war half of Germany was being murdered and raped by Russians so that was a clue too. So lacking a Divine leader who had capitulated and having left Baghdad standing and assuming an unwillingness to rape our way through Baghdad, gimme a snapshot a day-in-the-life of what the half million would have done to make the IEDs and suicide bombers go away.
Funny, these armed-horde advocates seem to overlook the fact that, combined with the Brits, something like only 4 divisions toppled the regime (“Mission Accomplished!”) in three weeks.
And for the extent of the victory, and the strategic purpose, the dead from 3+ years of hostile action and mopping up (lower than the figure cited above) is low, indeed. It would take something like 70 more years to become Vietnam.
Cordially..
And we should consider not doing things that are likely to ‘incite’ terrorists. Like making them mad.
How small of a footprint is our embassy going to have?
I was a “little footprint” guy when it started—I think Afghanistan taught us an awful lot about the application of combat multipliers like air power. Afghanistan’s success made the small footprint approach seem worth trying in Iraq, too. And doubtless there were some in the Pentagon who thought we’d need a million men to knock out the Taliban.
When it became apparent we were facing an insurgency, could we have surged more forces in? Probably. Did the Pentagon react slowly to the insurgency, move too slowly to close the Syrian border, and fail to come up with a solution to the IED quickly enough? Probably.
All this stuff, though, is pretty normal in war. War is not about quick, elegant, bloodless solutions. It is primarily trial and error, and people get killed by the errors. We make mistakes. So does the enemy.
It is wrong to judge an Army or a war by its mistakes. It is more appropriate to judge it by the reponse to the mistakes. Does the Army learn? Does it fix what’s broken? Does it adapt its strategy and equipment? Does it write new chapters of doctrine to govern the new face of war it sees?
In every case to the above, when thinking of Iraq, the answer is “Yes”.
There is always a risk in war that your fundamental assumptions were wrong, or that your army might not be unable to adjust to the new war. Then you have a disaster.
The first phase went so well that everyone expected it to be a 90 day bloodless process. The insurgency changed that view. But people—including Sullivan, who became completely unhinged over (the stupid incidents at) Abu Ghraib for no good reason—had no right to expect the war to be easy and bloodless. And once committed to war, you don’t throw up your hands in defeat at the first sign of difficulty. It takes 90 days, a year, 5 years, 10 years—what’s important is that you win. Period. We can agonize over the cost after we’ve won. Instead, people seem all too willing to say “Oh, bloodshed—we give up now.”
With this public, we would have hounded Roosevelt our of office after Corregidor (“The General on the spot told them he needed more help!”), Guadalcanal (“We should have known we needed a bigger fleet!”), or Kasserine Pass (“We didn’t have enough armor! Roosevelt LIED to us!”). We had some very painful lessons to learn then, too. The difference was, our grandparents’ generation were made of sterner stuff, and didn’t view the entire world through the prism of a conspiracy theory or the need for immediate gratification.
Also the ability to buy people or otherwise convince them to just switch sides.
Well, what the fuck happened to the scare-quotes generator, actus? It SHOULD be: to incite ‘terrorists’, not to ‘incite’ terrorists, because the former makes the happy kite-flying, Baathist psychopaths and dead-ender jihadis and knuckle-dragging Paleosimian murderers and Syrian/Chechen/Iranian muj for hire into sympathetic benefit-of-the-doubt folks. They might have legitimate reasons for executing school teachers and poll workers and bombing groups of school kids; you never know.
The latter makes you out to be a complete dolt. They ARE terrorists and you’re doubting that we are inciting them. I agree but you are making ‘proving the other guy’s point’ into a science.
In retrospect, what should have been done is:
1) Tell the Sunni’s to hand over Zarqawi and all the Baathist thugs left fighting within 30 days.
2) If they didn’t, then we should have armed the Kurds to the teeth and let them kill as many Sunni’s as they could with our air support.
That would have the bonus effect of paying the Turks back for screwing up the 4ID deployment.
For those Monday morning quarterbacks who think more troops would have helped, one word:
Algeria.
I’m making sure to use the correct word. Inciting them is bad. We have to be culturally sensitive to their terror culture.
More troops would have killed more people. More troops would have meant more of our people to kill. And of course, more troops would CREATE MORE TERRORISTS!!!
So, why do the moonbats love the “Not enough troops” mantra? Because we didn’t send them. Had we sent them, the moonbats would be cursing Shinseki and moaning about Tommy Franks being fired for his dissent.
Ignore them, and ignore actus.
I’m looking at you, Verc.
Correct. Look at how the Sunnis are finally moving into the political process.
Yep, TallDave, precisely right.
Shinseki’s figure of 500,000 is risible. We do not have that many troops. We did not need that many troops.
Occupying a territory requires more troops, BUT we did not press into the Sunni triangle for fear of a ‘Vietnam-style quagmire’.
On the other hand, small wars require small armies. If you have a choice of 100 soldiers to do a job and 50, go with the fifty. Read the Marine Corps Small Wars Manual. You do not need 155mm arty batteries when mortars will do. Go bare bones, grind out the insurgents/rebels/Moros/Cong. That’s how you fight a small-war.
Shinseki and his fellating admirers offered 500,000 to defeat Hussein and OCCUPY his nation. Shinseki never said anything about a small war. The army he wanted couldn’t fight a small war (a guerrilla war) if it wanted to.
We can add completely dicking the dog on predicting a small war after the invasion to our pampered Pentagon princes. Stay away from Shinseki kidz; he’s bad for you.
Who me? I’m an angel with happy, glitter wings.
Everything I know about why Rummy et al. were right about lower troop numbers I learned on this blog.
I also learned here another significant reason why we did not go in with overwhelming numbers, which Jeff pointed out in his post: we did not go to conquer and govern but to topple the Ba’thist regime and establish a democratic government that can protect itself.
Both of these are significant indeed and ought not to be ignored.
Any troop in Iraq or any war that isn’t there to do a particular job for a particular reason is, by definition, a target of opportunity for the enemy. That’s really all there is to say about this whole big force/small force stuff. You’d think it would be self-evident.
That being said, I believe that history will show that where Bush and Rumsfeld genuinely fucked up is by not absolutely securing Turkey’s cooperation before we took the safety off. Many of the assholes we’re fighting now, namely Saddam Fedayeen, would have been killed during the invasion if we’d had the northern anvil in place when hammer time came as was originally planned. Not to mention that if the 4th Infantry Division been allowed to roll, we WOULD have had more troops in Iraq, exactly where and exactly when we needed them.
Since intelligence and planning are one of the major force multipliers that make the small force paradigm possible, I think it’s safe to say that small force is generally less fault tolerant when it comes to major changes in plan. Live and learn I guess.
yours/
peter.
You could be right, Peter.
Sometimes I wish I could accellerate time and get past the stupidity of recent events. 10 years from now people will look at Iraq and go “what the hell were these idiots talking about” and wonder why there were constant cries for more troops. Anyone with the slightest shred of military history is stunned at the incredibly tiny amount of casualties involved in Iraq’s defeat and rebuilding.
The two problems are that people have no sense of history or patience, and that the media insists on shoving a mic in front of anyone who his in the slightest degree critical of the administration.
Actus, you made a joke!
tw: probably
Vercingetorix, Peter could indeed be right. A few objections:
1) I’m not sure Turkey’s cooperation was there for the securing. I simply don’t think we were going to get it. We offered them tens of billions in extra aid if they played ball. Pace actus, we can’t buy everyone. I have to imagine we also pointed out to them that their noncooperation would cool our friendship. At the same time, France and Germany (a) blocked the deployment of NATO Partiot missile batteries to Turkey in case Saddam decided to send some Scuds their way; and (b) (more importantly, I’d guess) basically promised them they’d never be part of the EU if they sided with us. That settled it.
2) There was a significant northern anvil was in place when we invaded: The Kurdish Pesh Merga, with a little help from Special Forces. Here I’d venture that Rumsfeld and Franks were attempting to repeat the signal success of the Afghanistan campaign, using SF, airpower and indigenous forces to secure a large area. They were rather effective in this. Did they save us our post-conquest troubles? No, and I rather doubt the 4th ID could have, either.
3) Turkey’s noncooperation may have been the only thing that gave us strategic surprise. The French and Germans were rather pleased with their successful obstructionism. I recall reading (and I don’t remember the source, so take this with a grain of salt) that the French basically told Saddam we wouldn’t invade without Turkey’s cooperation, which they’d taken care of denying. I find this plausible because I have no better explanation for Saddam’s being, apparently, caught by surprise after a military buildup lasting over a year (aka, Rush to War, TM).
In a speech earlier this year, President Bush trumpeted the success of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s 2005 operations in Tal Afar. He said, “The example of Tal Afar gives me confidence in our strategy.”
In a February Washington Post article about those operations, one military expert said they “will serve as a case study in classic counterinsurgency, the way it is supposed to be done.”
The article’s last two paragraphs:
I’m sure there’s more than one way to wage a counterinsurgency war, but Rumsfeld’s decision to fight with lower troop levels has limited the military’s options and made it more difficult to repeat a textbook example of success.
What JPS said.
I don’t know whats4lunch. it could be more a matter of how many iraqis we get trained. it’s my understanding that they were a large part of the tal afar campaign. you might start here.
Fewer troops does not necessarily mean fewer options. It means fewer military options. The 3rd Cav engaged the enemy with more than their weapons…..that’s part of their success.
This is not exclusively a military war. The military is there to kill the terrorists, and destroy their ability to wage terrorism. They protect key facilities. But the military is not winning this war alone.
The war is part diplomatic, but let’s not forget the reconstruction effort, which is rebuilding or creating new infrastructure in Iraq…..and pumping money into the economy. Or the training of Iraqi forces to care of themselves. And so on.
The anti-war decries the use of the military in Iraq……and ignores the non-military efforts. Funny that.
Forgive me if this has been mentioned before.
Rumsfeld is in the Col. John Boyd camp of military doctrine. Small, light, faster to turn, deploy, supply… etc. Get inside your oppnents OODA loop and you will control the situation. This theory was prooven in both theatres of operation in the current situation.
It was mentioned earlier and I agree, in fact it is the same thing I have argued: More troops on the ground would have meant more targets. Furthermore, where exactly would they have been and what difference TACTICALY would it have made? In going house to house, there is only so much you can do, only so much space, and only so many soldiers you can place on patrol.
The real battle has been lost at home. As long as any hope remains alive that waiting out the US is possible, that the citizens of America would rather see Katie talking about gum drops and candy canes because Iraq was so last year, the terrorists will continue the PA campainge that, at its heart, is what terrorism is all about. The MSM is happy to sell advirtising, and will foster controversy in anything it sees.
Finally, it strikes me as disconcerting that a group of people who are not in the situation or even have constitutional authority, continue to second guess strategy and theory in a bid to gain political hay. The fact that the democrats and their useful idiots claim a greater military ideaolgy is both laughable and misguided. They desire a return to the era of Vietnam. Alllow them to regain congreassioanl power, and they’d have it.
TW: The chicken was involved, but the pig was committed.
Another point to consider is the time required to do the war the way the Junta of generals wanted it done.
1. We obviously can’t take troops from Korea or any other potential hot spot, those in training, or take everyone so no one gets to rotate out. Its probably at least a year and a half until we enlist, train and equip four or five divisions, more if we draft.
2. The new plan is no advance until the area is totally secured. Since even one casualty is too many, thats a slow advance, a few months to get to Basra, a few more reducing Fedayeen before crossing the rivers etc.
That means tha today, instead of talking about the new government and the constitution, we would be trying to guess when the preparations for the final assault on Baghdad would be complete.
Thanks, but I prefer George Patton (a good plan executed violently now) to George McClellan.
Indeed. There is a tendency—reversible with training, of course—on the part of the aggressor to achieve the initial objective, and then wait to see how the enemy will respond.
That’s how I lose chess matches.
We go to war with the army we have. Did we have the army Gen. Shinseki wanted? No.
So should we go to war?
We do.
Never in this century have we gone to war with what we’ve wanted. And whose fault is that? Ours, for not insisting that our representatives and our military leaders, civilian and uniformed, be clairvoyant.
The critics are fools. What would you do now, sirs?
We await your answers. We will wait in vain.
“Hindsight is simple.”
Maggie,
My concern is with the last line of Roggio’s post:
[My emphasis]
You may be right that low U.S. troop levels can be offset by growing numbers of Iraqi soldiers and police, but if that’s the case, U.S. troops should not stand down as Iraqis forces stand up. A more successful formulation would be, quoting Bill Kristol, “as they stand up, we will stand with them.”
From what I understand, the key to counterinsurgency war is winning hearts and minds, and to do that one must be able to provide basic daily security to the population: stopping the looting and kidnapping, if not the head-chopping and suicide-bombing (let alone the death squads.)
At this point, the U.S. military seems unable to provide that security. Perhaps with enough Iraqi troops, things will change.
Real JeffS,
I agree whole-heartedly, but the State Department’s diplomatic efforts have been underwhelming and reconstruction funding is drying up.
In these pages, I recently read a sneering dismissal of Fred Kaplan’s Slate piece on the McCaffrey memo.
I thought the dismissal was unfair: all Kaplan does is add up McCaffrey’s bottom line assessments of the situation and conclude:
“Hindsight is simple.â€Â
Indeed.
TW:usually wrong too, because hindsight doesn’t take into consideration the different reactions the alternative action would have wrought.
Darn it, my unit is drilling this weekend, so I have missed this thread until now.
Speaking as a former logistician (I went to the Dark Side now – Civil Affairs) Anyone who seriously suggests that Shenseki’s dream-army could have been sustained from the infrastructure, port facilities, runways, etc., available at the time really needs to go relook that.
Small footprint means so much more than simply “fewer targets for the enemy”. It means your logistics can be more responsive and robust, you don’t strain your transportation or medical units as badly, and it doesn’t cost as much money (people bitch about how much the conflict has cost now -whoo).
Numbers can help – but not so much in something like this campaign. If we were tangling with a couple of million of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army – yeah, I’d want every swingin’ you-know-what on the line.
actus’ seeming denegration of the SF’s work in Afghanistan aside [I’d love to tell you how alot of the Afghan Campaign went down, actus. If you had any sense of shame, you might blush TO DEATH for being so smug/glib about it. I am fairly confident that I am much better informed, was in a better positioned to learn about, and more experienced in the operations of OEF, and I take quite strong exception to what you wrote] small groups of really well trained and equipped people with air, space, naval, comms, and all other types of support can defeat many types and sizes of enemy.
I’ll stop to catch my breath now, pour a glass of port and not go on and on about this. Might lead me to post something on my own site, eventually. But I have clogged up enough of the page here.
Jeff, you say, as if it were conventional wisdom:
We recall that from where? You provide 2 sources:
The Jack Kelly, Pitt Post Gazette article, dated April 23, 2006
The WSJ Opinion Journal aritcle, dated April 17, 2006 which cites Gen Abizaid as a small footprint†guy. Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003. “Mission Accomplished Day” was May 1st, 2003. Gen. Abizaid became the Commader of CENTCOM on July 7, 2003.
You say:
Yes, both mention using a small footprint to avoid resentment, 3 years after the start of the war.
I fear, these two articles are attempts at revisionist thinking to justify a big miscalculation. Coming up with a good story in 2006 doesn’t mean it was true in 2003.
Regarding the small footprint, I could just as easily say Rummy thought he was smarter than the Generals, Bush wanted to avoid a draft, Cheney wanted to get in fast to flow that cheap oil in time for the 2004 elections. I could say those things, but they add nothing except tin-hat thinking without authoritative sources.
You also say
Show me that calculus!
IIRC, the pre-war calculus was small footprint, greeted with flowers, crown Rummy as the “New American Military Strategist†NOT small footprint, avoid “Imperialist Occupier†charge.
fracas,
I am throwing the Bulls&%$ flag. You show me where we pllanned on “greeted with flowers” and I will crawl all the way to CENTCOM to retreive the document for you.
Small footprint was a logistical consideration, first and foremost. However, avoiding an overwhelming appearance of “occupation” was a secondary but important consideration. “METT-TC” is what you consider in ALL planning, notice that “C” is the last factor. Are you saying that everyone from the JCS, J-3 down to the brigade and battalion commanders decided to delete that from their planning and OPORD writing?
Uh, jargon check: METT-TC = Mission, Equipment, Time, Troops – Terrain, Civilian considerations. Heh, sorry about that.
Compared to the US performance in the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam, so far the Iraq War has been the most successful war this nation has engaged upon in its entire history.
Accordingly, I just giggle at silly claims of “mistakes”.
whats4lunch:
The diplomatic side……I am not referring to the Ministry level/State Department circle jerks. The State weanies (at the lower levels, anywho), from what I heard, were more interested in protecting their turf and liquor supply. Sorry about that, I should have been more explicit.
By “diplomacy”, I meant the networking that unit commanders went out of their way to develop. Not to mention a large number of agencies in Iraq. The Corps of Engineers, for example, did a fair job of getting tribal chiefs and regional leaders to talk with each other, and work together on projects. USAID less so, but still better than the rest of the State Department. Not 100% successful, but not total failures either.
As for the Iraqi Reconstruction and Relief Fund and similar money buckets…..that was never supposed to be a infinite supply of money, although the initial sum on the table was pretty damned impressive. I’m not up to speed on current expenditures there, but I think there’s maybe 1.5 to 2 years of work left. In the meantime, a lot of infrastructure has been upgraded or built from scratch. Again, not always successful (reasons vary), but putting a functioning infrastructure back into place was a complete nightmare in 2003, even discounting the combat damage and subsequent looting. It’s not done by any means, but things are MUCH better than under Hussein.
Check out the Corps in Iraq, or USAID in Iraq.
<blockquote>But I prefer “professional inhumanity.†More descriptive. It’s what a commander needs in wartime.</blockquote>
Carl, not in the United States Army (or Air Force, Navy or Marines) he or she doesn’t.
Real JeffS,
The only State Department “weenie” I’ll make an exception for is Khalilzad, who, at this point, deserves to be covered in gold for his patience and perseverance.
Beyond that, I think we’d agree that most of the reconstruction successes have been led by people like Major John, on-the-ground troops with access to a hefty chunk of petty cash and a willingness to go above and beyond.
On the larger reconstruction efforts, however, I’m not so sanguine. Neither the most recent GAO report nor the latest SIGIR report paints a glowing picture.
The GAO notes that “as of March 2006, oil and electricity production were below pre-war levels and reconstruction goals for oil, electricity and water had not been met,” while the SIGIR notes a “reconstruction gap” between spending and delivery of services to Iraqis.
Both agree that the biggest challenge to reconstruction is the lack of security.
And I just don’t see that changing much until there are more U.S. and Iraqi boots on the ground.
Major John says
Well VP Cheney said on Meet the Press, March 16, 2003 (search for “greeted”)
The very next day, Kanan Makiya was questioned at The National Press Club (again search for “greeted”) and said
Cheney said greeted as liberators and cites Kanan Makiy. Next day, Kanan Makiya said greeted with sweets and flowers.
Thus was created the meme: Cheney said the US troops would be greeted with flowers and candy. Shorthand for the Bush administrations belief that the war would be inexpensive, relatively easy and welcomed by the Iragi people while ignoring the possibility of significant blowback (the insurgency).
Saying
may be a bit strong considering the planning prowess of the VP.
Oh, and I too was a major, in a Brigade S-3 slot, through 1994. I don’t recall planning for phase 1 (e.g. overcome the enemy) without considering its impact on phase 2 (e.g. securing and occupying the territory).
I’ve been out of the Army for a few years, but it just seems to me that invading with overwhelming forces, securing the territory with minimum damage, then withdrawing heavy fighting forces and leaving behind lighter security forces would have had a better civilian result (real security vs a debatable “no occupation” appearance) than the way it turned out. And the significant drawdown while immediately building up the Iraqi security forces would have militarily demonstrated the “No Imperial Occupation” impulse.
The Washington Post reported in December 2004:
The Washington Times earlier reported that:
Brookings Institution fellow Michael O’Hanlon wrote in Policy Review that:
And the authors of the recent book Cobra II told PBS that:
Major John, please tell me you were being facetious. Otherwise, please provide a link showing that there was any post-war planning at all.
One big problem is that we can’t discuss the mistakes that were made, at least not in public. There is lots of discussion going on, but it all has to be done carefully, making sure to stay under the radar—which means, in the end, that many people with useful inputs can’t make them.
Why? Because no attempt at discussion gets beyond “We made a mistake…” At that point the chorus goes up: YES! MISTAKES! BUSH MUST ATONE FOR THOSE MISTAKES BY APPOINTING HOWARD DEAN CZAR OF THE WORLD, ORDERING THE TROOPS TO WITHDRAW BY CRAWLING ON THEIR HANDS AND KNEES EATING DUST OUT OF THE ROAD AND CRYING MEA CULPA, AND COMMITTING SEPPUKU WITH CBS GETTING THE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO! No rational discussion is possible in that cacaphony.
Myself, I believe that Bush, Rumsfeld et al were overoptomistic on several matters, most prominently the number of ex-Ba’athists and their degree of willingness to make common cause with the Waha’abbists. I also think that they and many others (including me) failed to fully appreciate the degree of dependence and fatalism the Iraqi people had reached after so many years of Saddam’s regime.
Neither of those is a reason to avoid doing what we did, and neither of them is anything that would have been avoided by anyone else in the same circumstances with the same information flow. But if a slightly better appreciation of those two factors had been present, we might have de-emphasized “de-Ba’athification” and begun strongly emphasizing “Iraqification” a bit earlier. As it stands, it took First Fallujah to really drive the points home.
The slowness of the reconstruction decried by whats4lunch is, I believe, deliberate. As I have said before, one of the things we must do is break the fatalist dependent attitude endemic to the region. Iraq must be rebuilt by Iraqis, not by Americans; otherwise Iraq will just turn into another Puerto Rico, inhabited by people whose first instinct is to complain “what have you done for me lately” while skimming as much of the cream as they can reach.
For evidence in that direction, consult Michael Totten. It would seem that the Kurds have accepted the challenge and begun to work on their own behalf, and the results (if Totten’s evidence is valid) are stunning. If other Iraqis simply sit there and expect someone else to work for their benefit, no good will come of it. It would seem to me that the Administration thinks so too, and is slowing the reconstruction efforts as a sort of hint.
Regards,
Ric
Fracas,
Sorry – I remain unconvinced that single remark by the VP citing one scholar = the US Armed Forces planned on being greeted by flowers. We got a lot more cnical after Somalia. Bosnia reminded us that tired, haggard and quiet relief was more authentic too.
Things have changed since 1994. And be damned if they aren’t changing constantly – it is hard even for anyone on the inside to keep up. Were it easier, I wouldn’t be pounding my way through ILE-CC right now…heh.
Ric said:
Well, I dunno… I’d need to see some evidence before I was convinced.
On the other hand:
…is a really good point, one that I have rarely heard made by anyone… except Iraqis.
As a follow-up I’ll note that, in a recent interview, the SIGIR mentions how Khalilzad is trying to shift more of the reconstruction decision-making onto the Iraqis’ own Provincial Reconstruction Development Councils.
“Empowering” is such a hollow word, but sometimes it’s apt.
w4l:
Sure, but having the 3-5 million troops there to replicate what McMaster’s did would create all sorts of other military problems, besides costing thousands more lives and costing a trillion dollars a year (that’s around 10% of U.S. GDP, enough to seriously affect the economy.
Our goal is not to administer the whole country. There are things you can do with a ballpeen hammer that you can’t with a sledgehammer.
w4l,
Cobra II is basically a collection of DNC talking points. Every one of those conclusions is disputed by Tommy Franks, Abizaid, and lots of other people.
The GAO notes that “as of March 2006, oil and electricity production were below pre-war levels and reconstruction goals for oil, electricity and water had not been met,†while the SIGIR notes a “reconstruction gap†between spending and delivery of services to Iraqis.
But. Electricity is down partly because a lot of stuff is turned off for maintenance before the big summer demand. And when you consider the redistribution and massive numbers of off-grid producers (restricted under Hussein), electricity access is far better than prewar. Oil production is down, but the financial targets are still being met because oil prices are high. Goals for water and sanitation haven’t been met, but they’re better than prewar, as is education. There are 250,000 ISF putting their lives on the line and they continue to get better and grow more numerous. You can see all this in the Iraq Index.
Not to say these things haven’t been a problem, or aren’t disappointments. But the fact is nearly everything is continuing to get better, if not as fast as we’d like. Overall, the country is building, not falling apparent.
apart, not apparent. Dammit.
Yes, yes, yes, wingnuts, but you have not yet answered whats4lunch and fracasfutile’s questions:
Have you knuckle-draggers stopped beating your wives?
But at the risk of pissing off the boyz with their hands on the hotline to God (everyone over field grade and up), I would like to throw out that YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME THAT WE DID NOT FUCKING PLAN FOR POST-INVASION IRAQ.
Actually, I completely fucking believe it. If I could have gone a single fiscal quarter without S-1 dicking up my paperwork and Kansas City for doubling my pay and withholding it the next month for 18 months of back pay, then I would think, gee, those folks at the Pentagon, thank god for whatever the hell they are doing there.
Unfortunately, if the largest mechanized war we have fought in fifty years wasn’t enough to pique the curiousity of the career pogues in DC and if 12 years of still bombing said country did not stir a bit of pique, and if 9-11 didn’t jar someone awake that wasn’t thinking about the Super-elite secret powers inherent in Chinese-made berets–and all of this is without Bush’s war dreamed up somewhere in Crawford in 1999-2000–and if almost a full year of UN debate and inspections and what not was not enough time to draft out a something, then I do not know what the hell to tell you guys.
I’ve got a ginormous novelty finger pointed right at the Pentagon and the pampered pimps looking to make careers out of a calling. Hey, this is the Pentagon’s failure. This is why they are paid, to plan for shit. They’ve had 12 years and we do not accept “This Private Don’t Know, Sir” from anyone with two stripes or greater, much less butter-bars and up. You can’t lay military incompetence on civilians.
Oh, btw, that’s what’s for dinner, fracas and whatnot, if we win your point and spike the ball and do your victory dance. Actually, it seems fairly obvious that the US military would completely suck at taking over another country. We secured nothing, no radio stations, no martial law, no nothing; considering the genesis of why we wouldn’t do anything so, well, mean and hurtful as to take control of a city/country (after all, radio stations are all about free speech, yes no?), this point doesn’t exactly redound to the ever-loving glory of the kinder, gentler warrior types.
But whatever. Tip Jeff and go tip the ACLU. Disent is much more patriotic than actually, you know, doing anything at all about anything at all.
w4l: I agree with your caveat for Khalilzad…..the man has the patience of a minor god.
There are several issues here that the GAO doesn’t address, w4l.
The first one is that the oil infrastructure was routinely attacked by the terrorists. Yes, yes, I know, “troops on the ground solve that”. Except that it wouldn’t. Iraq is about twice the size of Idaho, and criss-crossed with pipelines. I doubt that a couple divisions of troops would solve this problem. But the attacks routinely shut the system down. And, as I recall, the oil production, while not spectacular, was steady.
Another issue was the age and condition of the transport and processing systems. There are 4 refineries in Iraq, as I recall, that process crude for export and fuel for internal use. One of them shut down completely for something like 60 days for a badly needed overhaul.
As for electricity, the infrastructure was held together by tape and spit. Literally. Some of the generators were 30 years old in 2003, and lacked maintenance and spare parts. At least 3 new power plants were built in 2004-2005; I forget how many were overhauled. The number of trained operators and technicians was abysmally low, so training is a major issue.
Further, the concept of a national power grid is a new one in Iraq. More to the point, many areas did not have commercial power available until recently. Private home connections were generally illicit (still are, in some places, I believe). Home generators are very common.
And, thanks to the problems with the oil infrastructure, some of the generators lacked fuel (e.g., natural gas).
(TallDave’s comments about pre-summer maintenance is entirely valid, by the way.)
The point that many people (including you) miss is that Iraq was literaly in the 19th century at the time of the invasion. Open sewers, even in Baghdad. No reliable water supplies. Power grids run under the warlord model. And so forth. Schools were hovels, or non-existent. Hospitals were limited.
Add in the tribalism, lack of professional schooling, limited trade schools, difficulties in getting capital investments, no decent banking system, cultural differences, security issues, and simple inexperience with the Iraqis, and yeah, we do need to go slow.
All that we are really doing with the IRRF is getting the place back to around 1940-1950, maybe 1960. The rest is up to the Iraqis, whether they want to do it or not. And many do want to do it.
Those spending gaps are largely due to unanticipated costs. Such as the terrorists mortaring a nearly completed police station, requiring to be rebuilt. Or the logistics of getting necessary materials into Iraq, such as cement and steel rebar. And, to be honest, bureaucratic overhead, which is worse in Iraq for a number of reasons that I won’t go into. Leave it at the fact that overhead is a recognized problem, some reasons valid, some questionable.
The Corps of Engineers learned those lessons the hard way. I don’t know about USAID.
The good news is that while the GAO report is probably accurate, it’s likely pessimistic. The Corps and GAO have a long standing relationship based on mutual distrust. The major projects are completed, or getting close to it (e.g., the Sadr City sewage lines). I can’t say that construction work is ahead of the power curve, but it’s not all that far behind. And there’s a huge difference between “having some” and “having none”.
From Ric:
There’s some of that bleating going on already, but it’s a mixture of ME corruptions/tradition, and holdovers from the Ba’athist regime. But it’s not overpowering
TW: point. Damn, this server reads my mind, it’s a good thing that I don’t have a dirty mind.
Forgot to comment on this, w4l. Khalilzad has been trying to do this for a while; I recall soon after he assumed his duties in Baghdad. But cooperation between different political jurisdictions is an unknown skill at the city level. Remember, Hussein encouraged tribalism. But that won’t work when two adjacent entities have to work together on, say, a water supply project, or a road. It’s bad enough here in America, but in Iraq, hoo doggie!
So there’s a certain amount of training and mentoring involved. Which is difficult because the Iraqi leaders are generally not dummies, and are certainly experienced.
So it devolves into leading by example. Which works only if the leader is trusted. A slow process. If Khalilzad is frustrated, there’s a good reason why.
Real JeffS & TallDave,
Thanks for your patience, your politeness and your wealth of explanatory detail.
The Iraqi Index numbers don’t seem widely out of line with those of the GAO and SIGIR, but of course, numbers don’t tell the whole story.
Any links or sources you can provide that offer a fuller picture would be appreciated. (Where’d you get that tidbit about the sewers in Sadr City, for example? Nice catch.)
TallDave, I’m not in a position to assess the accuracy of Cobra II. I can only note that Michael O’Hanlon came to many of the same conclusions. I assumed that O’Hanlon – the head of the Iraq Index project – would know what he was talking about.
I would also note that I did not advocate expanding H.R. McMaster’s model to the entire country, but having the option to use it in Baghdad might be nice.
In closing, I’d just like to ask what both of you think of the McCaffrey memo? Are his estimates way out of line? And, if not, shouldn’t somebody start talking about the effort required to win the war?
And Verc, I think it’d be better for both of us if we continued our conversation when you’re not on meth.
Major John
We seem to be talking about different things. My 06:52 PM comment was in response to Jeff saying
I posited a Rumsfeld calculus that included “greeted with flowers.” Then in my 09:39 PM comment explained how the “greeted with flowers” meme came to be.
I only used “CENTCOM” when referring to Gen. Abizaid, as Commander of. No one I knew in the Army would have made a plan based on being “greeted with flowers.”
But Cheney and Rumsfeld were never in the Army and I believe their belief in “greeted with flowers” caused them to throw out previous OPLANs, ending up with the dysfunction described by whats4lunch in his 09:48 PM comment.
The only explanation of Iraqi Freedom that makes sense to me is that Rumsfeld wanted to prove his “21st Century” war fighting ideas (note to Jeff: Rummy’s “21st Century” ideas are backed up by actual, contemporaneous reporting) and believed in “greeted with flowers,” so he ignored those planning for security and occupation.
You’ve got to be kidding. Sure, Rumsfeld is a retired O-6 in his second stint as SecDef, but he wasn’t in the ARMY, so he can’t possibly know anything about the military! And what does Cheney have to do with any of this? Did he run the war? How the fuck did we wind up in Kosovo with a CinC that never ever served at all!?! He didn’t even like the Army! And what the hell is this?
You are simply not worth the effort, fracas.
W4L sez:
We stayed, didn’t we? We set about training Iraqi forces, and establishing an Iraqi government. Do you really believe that was all ad lib?
“It appears, in retrospect, that Gen. Shinseki was right.”
I’m not sure if I believe this. American troops don’t have much trouble killing insurgents. I think it’s unclear whether more troops would have improved the situation or not. It’s likely that more troops could have worsened the situation insofar as the US presence would be felt (and likely resented) by more Iraqis.
The biggest error, I think, was in dissolving and then rebuiling the Iraqi army.
haha. That’s what I get when I get an urge to post a comment without finishing reading the post! As you can tell from the above comment, I completely agree. Great post, Jeff.
Before we bog down into the details of who said or din’t say “we were greeted with flowers” I would like to point out that we were greeted with flowers. The majority of Iraqis celebrated the toppling of Saddam and continue to support it through democratic elections.
Is a minority sad at the loss of power? Sure, you are never greeted as liberators by those doing the opression. See the reaction the union army got from rich whites. If all you knew about the civil war was what you read in “Gone with the Wind” then you would assume we weren’t greeted as liberators in Atlanta either.
I don’t see any problem in a planning assumption that states “we won’t have to fight our way through a hostile population.”
Those are dreaded Baghdad tulips, Pablo. They are full of killer bees and semtex.
W4L, you are mostly splash damage for my Shuck and Awe campaign against Fracas. On the other hand, you were the one standing right next to him.
Still, my points obtain. The military had at least a year, and more like twelve, to come up with a rudimentary plan. Most likely they did have something, but most likely that something was gooned up because of the military culture; we just don’t do that stuff. OTOH, the best laid plans would have utterly failed. Iraq was far worse off than appearances let on. I give you the full year from 2003-2004 in which the military tried lots of things which did not work, and then learning occured.
Yet your points are moot. Large numbers of troops gives us more options? Absolutely, but the options that we want require fewer troops (isolate the enemy from the people, crush the enemy). We should have had an ironclad plan. Absolutely, but that best [theoretical] plan went to hell when Turkey folded just weeks before invasion. You improvise at war. It is an American genius. You want politicians to pick millenarian worst-case numbers out of thin air and campaign on those numbers; you are absolutely dreaming. And on and on.
W4L, if you have anything useful to add, feel free. All I see is griping about what could have been if the world was perfect. And sometimes if it was better than perfect.
Because HALLIBURTON! stole the money for the tickets home!
There are a certain number of people who also think that more troops were/are necessary in Afghanistan.
What those people have not done is visited the country and viewed operations with an eye to objectives and means. Had they done so, they would readily see that we were and still are dealing with the possibility of stepping on ourselves.
The fact is that as technology and training have advanced, a Brigade today can effectively cover a battlespace that once required a Division (or more, going back farther).
It’s not a complete explanation, but it is definitely a largely contributing factor.
Poppycock, RTO. A troop is a troop is a troop is a troop whether they ride donkeys or jeeps or anti-gravity sleds. And we are losing in Afghanistan, man, to the poppies.
Look, Westmoreland had Vietnam all but in the bag with 500,000 soldiers until Abrams came along a ruined it. And this is Afghanistan, man. Alexander might have taken it with 40,000 guys with spears, but the Soviets did it with hundreds of thousands, man. More troops = more options.
So take that, Alexander the Not-So-Great, you’ve been pwned. /snark
w4l, I picked up most of those details during my active tour to Kuwait as a liaison for the Corps of Engineers; none of this is classified, of course.
I had a daily feed of information from the Gulf Region Division, the operating arm of the Corps of Engineers in Iraq. The Sadr City sewer system was a major project, since it required a standing Coalition presence in a part of Baghdad unfriendly to the Coalition (at that time anyway), provided employment, and improved the place. From what I’ve been told, one could only improve Sadr City.
I don’t have a link directly to the Sadr City data, but if you go the GRD web site, there’s a lot of information there on the various projects, past and present. I believe that there are links to other construction agencies in Iraq as well (e.g., USAID).
Glad to be of some help!
RTO Trainer sez:
It’s also the military that Rumsfeld is transforming to, and those who prefer divisions on the ground don’t like it. But it works, which is all that really matters.
Greeted with flowers? Does kisses, cheering, hugs, and flags count? Why do people so desperately ignore the successful conquering of a despotic regime and the reaction of the Iraqis? Why do people forget the 40,000+ Iraqi demonstration in support of the coalition troops (well I can forgive this, the legacy media was taking that day off, apparently)? Why do people pretend that a small number of violent thugs represents the bulk of Iraqi sentiment?
Firemen are greeted with open arms and joy in most of America, but there are places they are shot at by idiots and thugs. Does that mean America doesn’t like firemen?
It would in the idiot logic of the moonbat left.
Correct. The transition is uncomfortable, but it does work. The older troops that can’t deal with these changes are the loudest whiners. But the military has been very responsive to field input in Iraq. And by “very” I mean weeks to months instead of years.
Change does not mean the old ways were wrong; it just means that there are new ways, like it or not.
For myself, I have serious concerns with the transition, but I’ve supported them because they do work.
Heh, I just remembered the old saw, “If it’s stupid and it works, it ain’t stupid.”
TW: Take note of that.
Pablo says
Yep, you got me. I wasn’t paying close enough attention at 03:17 AM. I got that one wrong.
Welllll, he was going to the CIA to gather intelligence, he was getting intelligence from the DIA, he was selling the war, and his office was involved in knocking down dissenters to the war. Cheney could have been doing all this just to keep himself busy, or he could have been a major player in the rush to war.
As a former Commander of mine at Fort Riley once said, “two points make a line.” I’ll leave it for you to decide where the line of Cheney’s points leads.
Why, that’s a jpg. A digital photo. Of U.S. troops. And concertina wire. And a palm tree. And a guy offering flowers to someone behind the soldier on the right. With no date. Or location.
Oh, I know. You’re trying to prove me wrong again by showing a middle eastern guy greeting U.S. troops wth flowers. Good job Pablo. I like pictures too.
But, oh, you’re so literal. In my 09:39 PM, I attempted to explain how “greeted with flowers” was shorthand for a number of Bush administration brain dead planning assumptions.
Correct me if I’m wrong Pablo, but I don’t see a security and occupation OPLAN stuffed under any web gear. And I don’t see the 2,258 U.S. troops who’ve died in Iraq since “Mission Accomplished.”
Ah, sounds Masonic. Someone call Opus Dei.
Is he giving them to his momma, perhaps, who has baked an IED cake? And holding those flowers in his kung-fu death grip against the imperialist Amerikkkans who seek to deflower the rich fertile land of Mesopotamia? And that smile? THat is his Tiger-style growl of Death!
Oh, come off it now. This is another actus-level evasion; I do not have to retract my statement because I, like, so changed it.
Compare with this masterpiece…
Which gets to the heart of the whole ‘flowers and sweets’ motif; You accuse the Iraqis of hating the US troops and this administration of ‘just-not-getting-it’. But gee, someone out there likes us, which basically means you are fucked.
Fracas,
You won’t ever see a “security and occupation OPLAN stuffed under any web gear” until a significant portion of Phase III operations are completed. If Phase III lasts weeks instead of months thre might even be a significant gap between the end of Phase III and anything but ad hoc Phase IV planning (actually operating on the fly).
Why is this? Because you ca’t plan of Phase IV until you know for real what Phase III looks like at its end.
If you wish you can add into this that the US is traditionally very poor at Phase IV planning and operations.
A further mitigating factor is that Iraq has turned out to be a real world example of the USMC’s “three-block war” concept; fighting a LIC in one city block, SASO in an adjacent block and Humanitarian Operations in the next one, all conducted by one commnader and his unit.
So if your crystal ball is fully tuned up and ready to go and you can handle this kind of macro-multitasking better than the Commanders in the field, I suggest you get your uniform on, your direct commission packet submitted, and start lobbying your branch manager for a staff billet with one of these guys.
I like pictures of flowers, too.
I support Oscar and the Gay Conservative, even though he is, in fact, gay. And a Floridian.
Could be. Don’t know. The picture is cropped too tight.
Vercingetorix, look at their eyes. The troops in the background are talking to each other. The guy in the foreground is attempting to pass the flowers to someone to the right and behind the troop.
Or do you really believe foreground guy is attempting to crown background troop as the May Queen?
The Word: think – Too good to pass up
Bingo! Fracas is futile. Don’t step in it. And don’t mention Rumsfeld’s 39 years of military experience either.
fracas just got that wrong because it was early in the morning. There’s no sense in talking about it, other than that such an error destroys not only fracas’ point, but any authority he might have claimed in arguing it. So don’t mention it.
BOOGA BOOGA!!!
Cheney’s got a gun
Cheney’s got a gun
Iraq has come undone
It’s looking like Zarqawi won
Because, Cheney’s got a gun…
Oh, that rocked, Verc!
” or he could have been a major player in the rush to war.”
Ahh, there wasn’t a “rush to war”, there was a recognition (finally) that we were at war against a committed and resoursful enemy.
There was a rush to serve up some whoop-ass, a course that engenders tremendous respect from me to the entire Bush administration.
RTO Trainer says
Could that be because RTO Trainer believes
Come on, the Pentagon has a plan to respond to massive Global Warming even though they don’t even believe in Global Warming.
You can PLAN for anything. You can PLAN for best case scenarios. You can PLAN for worst case scenarios. You can PLAN for multiple contingencies. It’s a PLAN for something that might happen in the future. Gee, we’re going to take out the most despotic, gas-his-own-people dictator in the Middle East and his buddies. Think maybe we should have a PLAN to provide the remaining civilians with power and security?
Instead of saying
I think the correct answer is we can’t EXECUTE our Phase IV PLAN until we assess how Phase III went. Then we choose the most appropriate Phase IV contingency PLAN, adjust the PLAN for realities on the ground, change it to an ORDER, and EXECUTE the ORDER. Then reassess again. Adjust the ORDER. And reassess again.
But if your bosses believe we will be “greeted with flowers,” then we have
Fracas,
Come back and debate me on this when you have some study of military history and planning under your belt.
lee says
Did I miss something? Was there an attempted attack on the east coast by Iraqi unmanned aircraft? Did the British give us photo reconnaissance of the 45 minutes-to-launch missile sites? Did we have confirmed human intel that weapons grade uranium suitable for a suitcase bomb had been delivered to Saddam?
I know. We had to attack ‘cause we had weather reports that it was going to get hot in Iraq in April.
lee, I think you’re right when you say
Real JeffS,
Ahhh, well, I guess there is no substitute for boots-on-the-ground. [snark] Thanks again for your efforts.
Verc,
For what it’s worth, I found a lecture by an army historian who argues there was too much post-war planning: none of it formalized, none of it well thought out or articulated, all of it contradictory and cavalierly modeled on quick victories in Afghanistan.
I seem to recall reading, in these pages, a poll that showed something like 90% of the Afghan population supports U.S./NATO forces. Every 12-year-old goat-herder is a force multiplier. Iraq remains less clear-cut: there is massive support from the Kurds, no support from the Sunnis and mixed results from the Shiites.
I guess I’m just stuck on the “oil-spot” strategy. To me, it seems the most developed, the most informed by history and common sense. I’m sure it’s not the only way to fight a counterinsurgency, but I haven’t heard the options so well expressed.
That said, everything I’ve read about Iraq in recent months asserts that U.S. forces are doing everything right. Iraqi troops/police are making up the difference, winning hearts and minds and the tip-lines are ringing off the hook.
But it’s a race against time. Early mistakes were made and, in the absence of daily security, Iraqis turned to their tribal/sectarian institutions for help. Now U.S. forces have to contend with baksheesh and the brain-drain.
None of which is to say the job can’t or won’t be done, but it’s been made harder than it needed to be. And I put the blame for that on Rumsfeld.
From his glib dismissal of looting until today, he has shown himself to be, at worst, a hindrance; at best, irrelevant. Whatever successes U.S. troops have will have come from the bottom-up and despite him. At this point, he seems more concerned with his future transformative legacy than day-to-day reality.
And for all of that, he should go.
RTO Trainer
In the vernacular of Rumsfeld. We have OPLANS for the “known unknowables,” we hope to capture the “unknown knowables” with contingency OPLANS, we execute OPORDERS to deal with the “known knowables,” and adjust OPORDERS for the “unknown unknowables.”
So what’s to debate?
The strongest argument that “mistakes were made” centers around disbanding the Iraqi Army and starting from scratch. Do you agree with that? If not, what do you think the biggest errors were?
What do you give Rumsfeld credit for? How about defeating the Saddam regime in a month? How about Afghanistan?
Rumsfeld has been a driving force in military transformation. Like a quite a few commenters, I am military, USMC, and so Rummy has stepped on my cock so often my member looks like a beavertail; I think it is shameless that our M109s have some of the shortest range in the world, so killing the Crusader pissed me off. But it was the right thing to do. And the Commanche and maybe the Raptor and maybe the JSF.
Rumsfeld is many things, but not irrelevant. The Pentagon wanted to fight a conventional war and still does with all of those above programs (the last QDR posited China as the greatest threat to the US, a position I do not entirely disagree with). Left to its own devices it would fight a war against the Seminoles the way Pershing and Patton fought the Germans. That is simply not a respectable position. Rumsfeld highlights that failing.
The Corps and other branches have been trying to transform themselves to fight the wars of the future, which Iraq will be the rule not the exception. The culture of the Pentagon does not want to return to its essence as a frontier and expeditionary force, hunting down savages and war parties in every clime and place as they say. Instead, the Pentagon wants to fight the European empires that murdered themselves long ago. Even if we fight China, it will be less total war than assymetric border excursion like the five wars India and China have fought.
Bottom line is that Rumsfeld is going against the Pentagon culture that is dead set on ignoring the type of fighting we are doing in Iraq and will do every decade and century until the Republic goes to its fate. That is a bad side to be on.
Pablo,
Of course, I give all due credit for these. All the more so, in the case of Afghanistan, when one considers that there was no off-the-shelf war plan for an invasion. Rumsfeld adapted and improved on the CIA’s plan.
But Iraq is not Afghanistan and, perhaps, Rumsfeld’s first mistake was assuming that he could easily repicate the successes of the latter in the former.
If you scroll through this thread, you’ll find any number of things that could have been done differently: waiting for the 4th ID, engaging and destroying the Saddam Fedayeen early, adequately guarding the ammo dumps and WMD sites, securing the borders more quickly, stopping the looting, talking a less aggressive approach to debaathification.
It’s not just that the Iraqi army was disbanded: everyone all the way down to the traffic cops were sent home. In a country without traffic lights, that’s an obvious recipe for chaos.
And with that chaos came resentment and the loss of a lot of the goodwill U.S. forces had earned by removing Saddam.
To me, all of this boils down to inadequate post-war planning: considering all the possibilities, knowing how to respond to each, co-ordinating with whatever civil authorities are going to take over and putting those authorities in place.
Look, I know hindsight is 20/20 and I know it’s easy for us to sit here and judge.
And I know that shit rolls downhill, onto the heads of yer average ground-pounder in the field.
But is it too much to ask that someone at the top be held as accountable as those on the bottom, for a change?
Verc,
You may be right.
But now that Rumsfeld has led the charge, maybe it’s time for someone else – someone a little less bloodied – to take up the fight.
W4L, fair enough. Now which of those things do you hold Rumsfeld responsible for?
I think that interms of military achievement of objectives, the success of Afghanistan was achieved in Iraq. Certainly you don’t think we’ve secured Afghanistan and/or its borders, even as we speak. But in both cases, we rolled the existing regime up pretty quickly.
whats4lunch, it is because Rumsfeld has gotten his nose broken and his ribs bruised and taken it on the chin, all of that, and he is still in the fight, that is the reason I support him. That man will fight. He’s moving the Pentagon in the right direction.
None of this is easy. I bet any one that is in the military now can name all of the good men they’ve lost; I know I can. But we delay these changes and we fill body bags. We also tie our hands up when we try to fight anywhere else.
Rumsfeld has made noises to cancel the DDX, the Raptor, JSF, FCS, the Virginia class, the V22, all of which are near and dear to my heart as a shameless war-monger neocon zio-nazi. He has axed the Commanche and the Crusader. That is credibility you do not get through anything but fighting tooth and nail. With him in the driver’s seat, we might get to see those systems fielded sometime this century. And he has fought two hard wars and led the DOD to victory in each of these stages.
But, this has been a good talk. Forgive my earlier Guns of August rehearsal; Jeff subcontracts me out to bounce the clientale in a left-wing tailspin.
fracas, as someone who has worked on contingency plans (which is what you are referring, BTW, “OPLAN” is an “operational plan”), as well as bona fide OPLANs (including executing them), up to theater level, let me gently point out that Rumsfield was speaking soundbytes for the camera.
If you expect the details of developing viable operational plans to be compressed into one glib statement, then your naivity plummeted from “amusing” to “pathetic”.
Any plan can be very specific, or it can be generic. But the one thing that a plan can’t be is prophetic. That’s why those plans always state their assumptions up front. So that if conditions change, you can compare the assumptions against actual events, and see if the plan remains valid. This is part and parcel of “knowing the unknowable”.
Because, y’know, shit happens, and there isn’t sweet fuck all we can do about it, except roll with the punch. That’s reality. Ask your commander about where those points lie on a line.
So maybe there were plans available. And these plans were evaluated and discarded. And, in the heat of the war (and things were EXTREMELY chaotic at all levels in 2003), maybe mistakes were made. I don’t know, I wasn’t there at the time.
But, as RTO points out, you are clearly clueless about the reality of developing OPLANs. Which is completely different in preparing an OPORD. Come back to debate us when you understand that.
TW: I’ve been in the military for a long time. I ain’t a genius, but I understand the system.
Geez, the AI is scaring me again. Jeff, did that software come from Vulcan or what?
Verc, I’ve read variations of this comment across the blogosphere, and I finally decided to throw my two bits in.
During my 27 years of active, Guard, and Reserve duty, I’ve come to realize that the legacy of the Cold War is still upon us. Many of our senior officers (and not a few NCOs) came up through Armor. In and of itself, that’s not a problem. No, the problem is that these people, at some time in their career, lived and breathed fighting a massive armor war in Europe, a la’ World War II. That’s what they trained to do, so that’s what is going to happen. I know, I used to be one of those guys.
But I changed my mind soon after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. With the fall of the Soviet Union, just where would we fight such a war? Not in Europe. And not without the massive infrastructure we had in place there. Nope, ain’t gonna happen, says I.
Unfortunately, many members of the military didn’t do this, and persisted in the thought that the tank is the center of the battlefield, just like it used to be. Events since then have proved otherwise. Armor has been key in winning battles, but not key in winning wars. We’ll need tanks again, God bless those treadheads, but they shouldn’t drive our doctrine.
All the services saw the need to transform to meet the need of a new battlefield. Unfortunately, they all had different visions of the same battlefield. Rumsfield (with the approval of Bush) has struggled to unify that transformation. In the process, many toes have been stepped on, egos bruised, and sacred ghosts laid to rest. The Crusader is a prime example of this. The job is nowhere near complete. The expansion of the special forces is another. And there are others.
Rumsfield has my respect. I can’t say that I like the man. But he has my respect, because he cleaned house, and did it for the good of the nation. Have mistakes been made? Yes. Will more be made? Yes. Do I agree with all his decisions? No. Can I live with this? Yes.
I see any “accountability” being in the history books. Will Rumsfield (and Bush) be recorded as good and able leaders who lead the nation through a war, or as incompetent bunglers? We’ll know in a generation or so.
In the meantime, we have a reasonable (not perfect) plan, and vigorous execution of it. In my view, anything else is gravy.
I’m Army, but I’ll send a “Semper Fi!” your way anyway……a fair number of my relatives have gone that route, so I think I have that privilege.
“Did I miss something? Was there an attempted attack on the east coast by Iraqi unmanned aircraft? Did the British give us photo reconnaissance of the 45 minutes-to-launch missile sites? Did we have confirmed human intel that weapons grade uranium suitable for a suitcase bomb had been delivered to Saddam?”
I doubt you missed anything, you know as well as anyone the reasons stated for going into Iraq, and none of them were punishment for 9/11.
It’s hardly worth engaging someone like you, ‘cause you’re a damn hypocrite.
If AlGore had been elected, and responded exactly the same as Bush, you would be touting Iraq as the most humanitarian, visionary, flawless military action in the history of the universe. The CIA would be acting responsibly. The MSM would be playing up the successes, and telling about the astoundingly small causualties. Abu Garab would have been a two day story, without pictures, from the prospective that the pentagon had the situation well in hand and the perps in custody before the public even was informed.(as it was). Nancy Polosi would be on TV every night letting us all know of the tremendous advances for women that the freeing of Iraq and Afganistan had achieved. Ted Kennedy…well, Teddy would still be a drunken fool, so never mind about that. Hollywood would be making movies staring Sean Penn and Alec Baldwin as heroic marines saving babys from the evil foriegn terrorists in Iraq.
The whole war in Iraq would be over, and the troops home already, because the enemy, confronted with a united and determined US, would have been disspirited and given up.
Is all this my endorsment of a democratic lead goverment, so that all this will come to pass? Hardly. If AlGore hd been elected, he would have responded to 9/11 by promising the Taliban three billion dollars a year for permission to bomb two random caves in Afganistan. Then he would have apoligized to the terrorists for making them mad. After disbanding the NSA, and cutting aide to Israel, he would have considered the country safe again, and gone back to his war on the automobile, and dreaming up more ways to raise taxes.
So please, take your “patriotic” dissent,and stick it straight up your ass.
JeffS, I still have the Cold Warrior in my bones and blood. It is so hard to think of anything else but fighting the Red Army, or the PLA. Anything like Iran, Iraq, Egypt, maybe, India, maybe, China, maybe, Japan, probably never again, the EU, maybe we can spare an afternoon, Venezuela, maybe, but the US is 220+ years old.
For two centuries, at least, we fought the Indian Wars until we closed the frontier in 1891. After that we fought the Banana wars and the excursions into the corpse of the Spanish empire. Then we fought as far afield as Russia during their revolution and Asia. I can count the number of times we have engaged Great Powers on one hand: Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Spanish American War, WWI, and WWII (Cold War, Quasi-War with France, and Civil War excepted for various reasons, but still only makes nine). If you include the Mexican War, Vietnam, Korea, Gulf War I and II, that only raises the bar to fourteen (none of which were Great Powers, if defined to include those nations that can start an Epochal war).
Not going anywhere with this, just to beat the hell out of this dead horse. Semper Fi; I won’t out you at the next meeting if you don’t out me.
People who make this silly claims about “mistakes” and “lack of planning” forget that a lot of planning involved predictions of resistance among the Shia – predictions that resulted in a lot of work to build support among that community that worked.
Among the problems in Iraq we are dealing with are problems of a second order nature that exist because we successfully dealt with the first order problems. But because this crap about “mistakes” is based solely on partisan sniping, the successes are deliberately and dishonestly ignored.
When you compare the supposed “mistakes” of the current war to those of history, such as the massive troop deaths from communicable influenza in WWI; the failure of Gen. MacArthur to protect his bomber force in the Phillipines, the botched Guadalcanal invasion and the confusion of the North African operation in WWII; the failures of intelligence in the Korean War ( both in the lack of preparation of the initial onslaught and the refusal of American command to see the Chinese Army build up ) – these complaints are just hilariously silly.
You don’t know how that resonates within me, Verc.
No, you probably do!
Since the ROE doesn’t allow me to fire on the unarmed, nothing.
Yikes.
tw: Three strikes and you’re out.
If you didn’t mean to imply that somehow Rumsfeld’s transformation effors have somehow resulted in amilitary where successes come from the top down, you’ve failed, and in so doing displayed your ignorance.
Bottom-up is the natural source of military successes.
Jeff, Without any suggestion of nuance, you say it is *heartening* that newly trained Iraqi authority are now more effectivly dealing with the insurgents.
It is a little unsettling, that you, a careful potential politician, would be so
starkly black and white about an issue so full of complexity.
Normally your views are framed in a safe envelope of jelly like consistancy, and wisely so, as to avoid being nailed.
Yet, in this instance, one can*t help but notice a boyish enthusiasm and abandon.
While newly trained Iraqi ati-insugents are taking on more resposibility, there is an annoying habit among some who meet and do self appointed duty after working hours.
They have a tendency to vist various places where Suni are known to reside and mete out a crude justice.
H,mmm. What seeds of future mayhem are being sown here?
Just one facet of this not quite so black and white issue. TG