Monday, September 11, 2006
Marine colonels and speaking truth to power on Iraq
Somebody -- I think it was Michael Scheuer in Imperial Hubris -- said that Marine colonels who have given up their ambition for further promotion are the only senior officers in the military who write and speak with great candor. I have no idea whether that is true (and cannot remember Scheuer's exact words), but a Marine colonel has certainly spoken candidly -- and pessimistically -- this morning.
The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents.
The officials described Col. Pete Devlin's classified assessment of the dire state of Anbar as the first time that a senior U.S. military officer has filed so negative a report from Iraq.
The report is analytical, rather than prescriptive, so it leaves the question of policy to others. Obvious solutions -- flooding the zone with U.S. troops, or sending in the Shiite dominated Iraqi army -- do not seem likely to succeed. In any case, the need for a "solution" presupposes that we care what happens in al Anbar, Iraq's "empty quarter." I certainly don't care in the abstract, unless al Qaeda is truly able to operate there with a free hand. The news on that front is not particularly encouraging, either:
Devlin reports that there are no functioning Iraqi government institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has become the province's most significant political force, said the Army officer, who has read the report.
Iraq has to assess the importance of exerting central control over al Anbar in the abstract. At the moment control of Baghdad is more important, and the efforts of both Iraq and the United States in the capital may partly explain why there are so few soldiers in Anbar. Once Baghdad is secure, the interests of the United States and Iraq may diverge. The American interest -- which other Sunni regimes in the region share -- is to prevent control of territory by al Qaeda, which is somewhat different from the national government's interest in affirmatively exercising power throughout its territory. The question is, can we get what we want without a massive Shia invasion of western Iraq? If not, what would be the broader implications of that invasion for region?
2 Comments:
By 
Lanky_Bastard, at
Mon Sep 11, 06:41:00 PM:
Sometime in the last 4 years Al-Qaeda has become the most significant political force in Anbar?
That's messed up.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Sep 11, 10:33:00 PM:
In the years of Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan became the most significant political force in many parts of the South. What else was left? *shrugs*
