Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Iraq: The mainstream media and Pentagon in-fighting
In January, USA Today characterized the new strategy in Iraq -- the so-called "surge" -- as "the political and military equivalent of a 'Hail Mary' pass" (in an editorial that basically waffled between the respective positions of the administration and the Democratic leadership). Today, USA Today is running a front-page story that attacks the administration for having "snubbed" apparently obvious advice that it adopt counterinsurgency tactics for three years before promoting General Petraeus at the end of 2006.
[T]he counterinsurgency blueprint that the Pentagon now hails as a success were pitched repeatedly in memos and presentations during the following two years, at meetings that included then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
The core of the strategy: Clear insurgents from key areas and provide security to win over Iraqis, who would respond by helping U.S. forces break IED networks and defeat the insurgency.
Bush administration officials, however, remained wedded to the idea that training the Iraqi army and leaving the country would suffice. Officials, including Cheney, insisted the insurgency was dying.
Commentary
Never mind that USA Today's cover story is barely news at all -- civilian experts were arguing out in public back in 2004 and 2005 that we needed to adopt traditional counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq. See, for example, Kenneth Pollack's public testimony before the United States Senate in July 2005. Thomas Ricks' book Fiasco
, published in July 2006 and reflecting numerous articles he had written in the Washington Post, devotes endless pages to the general point that our various divisional commanders in Iraq each pursued different tactics against the insurgency without any theaterwide strategy or even governing philosophy. The fact that USA Today uncovered a few civilian consultants who say they "advised" the military to change its approach two or three years ago is barely news, much less worthy of the front page.Now, it is tempting to attack USA Today for gratuitous bashing of the Bush administration, but they are not doing it without help. We speculate that the changing tone of the press -- from "the surge won't work" to "the surge was obviously necessary all along but ignorant and perfidious Cheneycons blocked it" -- is the product of bureaucratic warfare within the Pentagon. As Ricks makes clear in his book and even USA Today admits, some generals were pursuing counterinsurgency tactics from the get-go, including particularly David Petraeus during his command of the
For years, Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials resisted just such an approach. Although generals such as Petraeus put their theories into action on a small scale in Iraq as early as 2003, the military still lacked a detailed, nationwide plan for battling the insurgency.
In fact, if Fiasco is revealed in the fullness of time to have been a respectable first draft of history, there was no unified strategy in Iraq because Ricardo Sanchez did not impose one during 2003-2004, the first of at least two "wasted years" during the war. That divisional generals such as Petraeus and Ray Odierno were making it up as they went along with varying success is virtual proof that neither SecDef Rumsfeld nor the White House was micromanaging the occupation. Far from it. They allowed politics within the Pentagon to prevent the emergence of a sound strategy for contending with the insurgency. Iraq has made a lot of people in the Pentagon look stupid; in today's accusatory climate, the last thing such people need is for Petraeus to succeed in 2007-2008 with tactics that he was experimenting with in plain sight back in 2003-2004. They tried to stop Petraeus in January by telling reporters that the surge would never work, and now that it appears to be they are claiming that they would have done the same thing but Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby prevented them. Yes, the Bush White House and Donald Rumsfeld screwed up, but the error was in not requiring that the Pentagon serve up some coherent theaterwide strategy. Instead, they let the military drift along until the failure became obvious even to the top brass.
On the other hand, the usual fools are not even smart enough to change their story.
19 Comments:
By 
David M, at
Wed Dec 19, 11:01:00 AM:
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 12/19/2007 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
By 
, at
Wed Dec 19, 01:30:00 PM:
As a division commander, David Petraeus commanded the 101st ABN, not the 82nd ABN.
By , at
Wed Dec 19, 01:41:00 PM:
"Yes, the Bush White House and Donald Rumsfeld screwed up, but the error was in not requiring that the Pentagon serve up some coherent theaterwide strategy."
But what if that single strategy was not the right one? We all know that the military is an authoritarian institution. Once a supreme marching orders are given, everyone must fall in line. Perhaps it was better to allow few different approaches to play out in parallel for a while.
I think it is a mistake to assume that there is a secret single magic strategy to win a war (or succeed in business, or get laid or whatever). What is absolutely necessary is the determination (backed by all the materiel stocks one can summon). Winning strategy will be forged along the way.
By Unknown, at
Wed Dec 19, 02:12:00 PM:
Thank you Candide, I wanted to make the same point. Also remember, in the end there is only one Commander In Chief. I don't know, but am willing to bet that several ideas were in play here. Only one person gets to say which one gets activated.
By , at
Wed Dec 19, 03:43:00 PM:
The main problem all along has not been military - how to kill and defeat AQ - but political - how to develop the Iraqi citizenry into a politically stable and unified nation.
I've long suspected that FORCING the Iraqis to learn responsible citizenship and organize themselves has been the grand (but unstated) strategic problem since the beginning.
Bush has always said that we would stand down when the Iraqis were ready, willing, and able to standup. That time has arrived so a final coup de grace was delivered via the surge.
A lot can and will happen to the Iraqi nation but it will increasingly be of their choice made as a reasonably democratic, federal nation.
Count this as a neo-con success story.
By , at
Wed Dec 19, 04:28:00 PM:
The Surge would not have been possible without a larger and better trained Iraqi army. This was not available until 2006.
The Iraqi Army, as it was constituted in 2003 after the main combat-invasion phase of OIF was over, had largely dis-assembled itself. Payroll and roster were available, and this army could have been re-constituted, but would have been extremely "politcally" unreliable, as its officer corp was largely based on the Hussein Ba'athist nomenklatura. They would have literally been feeding the 'insurgency'; both ends against the middle. As it was, many disaffected soldiers from that army DID feed the insurgency.
The Surge needed native Iraqis to be the face of 'hold and build'. The US Army and Marines had successfully cleared troubled areas of Iraq over and over again, only to have the insurgents (name that group!) backfill after they departed the area. Plus, the generally ungovernable Anbar province.
The Anbar 'Awakening' happened almost independent of the Surge, but was coincident enough to really make Petraeus' strategy truly successful. The Awakening would NOT have happened until the native Sunni Iraqis had well and truly gotten sick of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which they did by late 2006.
And yes, a lot of the problems we had are due to the incompetency of Sanchez as commander of MNF-Irag in 2003-2004. GWB appointed him, too. That was truly a mistake on the President's part.
-David
By , at
Wed Dec 19, 04:47:00 PM:
Great comments from all above. It makes me nuts to hear all of these arm chair QB's second guessing every tactic that was done thus far. And then to say a particular strategy did not work when in fact any strategy they would have implemented with this country of "ungovernable" non-believers of American kindness would have most likely failed. How do we know for certain that every move the Pentagon made was not the right move for the given time? And that every strategy got us one step closer to where we are today? Sometimes for a broader strategy to work in war or in business or in anything just takes time. People make decisions based on the inputs given at the time. In 2003 & in 2004 the Baathists were nobodies friends and an average Iraqi was trying to look out for his own family and his own life. It took time for our troops and country to win their respect and their belief that we were not going to run when times got tough.
By Cardinalpark, at
Wed Dec 19, 04:53:00 PM:
How many boneheads did Lincoln go through before he found Grant (who was kicking butt out west)? McClellan? Burnside? There were a bunch of guys who got schooled by Lee and Jackson et al until guys like Grant and Sherman and Sheridan came east (and then south).
And let's not forget the grand General douglas MacArthur, who has such a profound reputation and yet who managed to mung up the Philippines and Korea pretty good. And Westmoreland did a lousy job, but his successor was pretty awesome (I'm embarrassed not have his name off the top -- wait, Creighton Adams?) and stabilized Vietnam until we got off spending and bugged out.
War is a bitch. Its execution is never perfect. But our military has been awesome, adaptive, and I would submit that Franks's blitz to Baghdad was historic and Petraeus has been exceptional. The guys in between stunk and we fired them. And in Iraq we have done so with exceptional efficiency (small footprint) and historically unprecedented loss of life.
Geez. Good to see you yesteday TH...
By davod, at
Wed Dec 19, 05:07:00 PM:
As other poster have already written, this is a very complex matter. However:
There was a political issue in Iraq. The decisions made by Bremer and Clique probably started the general insurgency.
I agree that Pentagon politics (not political pressure from above) was the cause of a disjointed approach. If it had been a higher decision then you would have seen more uniformity at the coal face.
I also agree that all which went before contributed to the overall victory (I hope I am not being premature).
By , at
Wed Dec 19, 05:42:00 PM:
It’s a no brainer that from the boots up we are the best army in the middle-east and that the surge should have been a foregone conclusion, but the question is; to what end? Everyone keeps talking about 'our victory,' but just what is that? Is it too hard a question for anyone to even attempts an answer or does anyone have any idea? How many 'surprise' trips to Iraq does it take to equal security? Is spending $3Billion a week considered victory now? You guys like to cheer the battle while ignoring the war and I think it does a disservice to those who willingly fight for us while we ignore the big questions.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Wed Dec 19, 09:13:00 PM:
Zarqawi told Zawahiri that his great fear was that the US would develop enough Iraqi security forces to take al-Qaeda on. If that happened, he predicted, it would be impossible for his forces to succeed.
So, the goal of al-Qaeda was to "Lebanonize" the country, create a civil war and wreck chaos through the country, that would, like Lebanon in 1982, lead to a US withdrawal before adequate Iraqi forces could assemble.
He almost made it.
The rejection by the Sunnis in Iraq is a stunning development. An absolutely devastating setback for any chances of al-Qaeda to succeed on a larger scale.
By K. Pablo, at
Wed Dec 19, 10:36:00 PM:
Instead, they let the military drift along until the failure became obvious even to the top brass.
You can put it this way, or you can phrase it thus: the "Deciders" encouraged independence on the divisional level in order for a successful strategy to evolve. War is a process of strategic evolution. Ricks' book documents the diverse tactics adopted by numerous local commanders. The evolution of a successful doctrine is not unlike the process documented by Rick Atkinson in his two books ("An Army at Dawn" and "The Day of Battle") covering the costly experience the U.S. Army faced learning to fight the Nazis. Basically, successful tactics were allowed to emerge under Rumsfeld.
The impatience of the U.S. electorate was a condition imposed on the Defense Department that they perhaps did not understand, but this pressure was unprecedented.
By , at
Wed Dec 19, 10:40:00 PM:
CP, the man you refer to is Creighton Abrams, the Gen. Petraeus of his time.
As you point out he succeeded Westmoreland and would have secured our victory had not the Democrats stepped in to prevent it.
The more things change... except maybe enough people remember enough history to prevent a repeat of that fiasco.
By , at
Thu Dec 20, 03:33:00 AM:
David
Concur and have already written about it. And it turns out that I understated the Iraqi Surge since two peshmerga divisions are planning to transfer to the IA...
The Real Surge
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/11/the_real_surge.php
The press seems to want to act as if the IA doesn't exist, change or expand. They have never heard that the only constant in life is change...
By , at
Thu Dec 20, 10:54:00 AM:
Re: "Yes, the Bush White House and Donald Rumsfeld screwed up, but the error was in not requiring that the Pentagon serve up some coherent theaterwide strategy. Instead, they let the military drift along until the failure became obvious even to the top brass."
And how many people, Americans and Iraqis, have died as a result of that "screw up"? And the White House is going to give out another round of Medals of Freedom to themselves now that, at great cost in money and life, their blunders are finally being ameliorated.
Someone, somewhere, sometime, has to stand up and say, for the record, that "were it not for the incompetence, arrogance and wilful ignronace of Geroge W. Bush, America would not now be spending $3 billion a week in Iraq and those who have died since 2005, and who are going to die in the next years, would not have died".
That is true accountability. It would go a long way for Conservatives to restore any semblance of credibility if they were able to make that honest statement.
However Conservatives are so loyal to George W. Bush, the person, that they must use euphemisms, such as "White House mistakes were made", or "political infighting happened", as though these things just fell from the sky. They did not. The final accountability for the botched occupation of Iraq (not the invasion), lies with one man, George W. Bush. And grieving relatives and friends need to know whose laziness caused those deaths.
I have yet to hear one single "straight shooter" Conservative (other than ron Paul, who is excoriated for it) say such a clear and unambigious statement. And, as long as conservatives are willing to fudge their comments with mealy-mouthed phrases, all to avoid offending one of the most thin-skinned, vindictive presidents in history (except perhaps Lyndon Johnson), they will be viewed as nothing more than protectors of President Bush in his bubble.
Philadelphia Steve
By , at
Thu Dec 20, 01:35:00 PM:
Philadelphia Steve,
If you are indeed so very wise, why don't you address the main points in TH post:
- Did you think 'the surge' was wrong early this year?
- Do you think 'the surge' is working now and was long overdue?
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Thu Dec 20, 01:47:00 PM:
"And grieving relatives and friends need to know whose laziness caused those deaths."
Do the terrorists bear any culpability for those deaths?
Any at all?
Meanwhile, it's interesting to realize the this is the first administration or government in the histor of warfare that screwed up during the conflict.
FDR? Never. Lincoln? Never. Wilson? Never. Churchill? Never
Learn something new every day on the internet.
By , at
Fri Dec 21, 05:35:00 AM:
I'll put forward a counter theory. The existing strategy coming out of Dec 05 elections was going pretty well, ie ISF was growing and improving although police were a worry. Then the GoI took 6 months to form and even then Maliki took 3 months plus to finally decide Al Sadr was part of the problem or at least found the courage to challenge him. So for nearly 9-10 months there was a vaccuum that the militia's were able to grow into. If the Dec 05 elections had resulted in a functional government say within 6 weeks of the election Rumsfeld may still have been Sec of Def today.
However that said I still think Petraeus's COIN strategiesd are superior I just think if the GoI had formed faster and been stronger Casey/Sanchez might have come out of it alright.
One could argue that we should have planned for a weak GoI and that maybe true but at what point do you say the Iraqis have to accept some responsiblity for their plight?
By , at
Fri Dec 21, 11:40:00 AM:
"what point do you say the Iraqis have to accept some responsiblity for their plight?"
A poignant question that no one in public light will answer.
