Middle East strategies: Iraq
Suicide bombings: everyone suffers (photo report).
Strategy
As the deployment and handling of the situation in Iraq itself during the conflict and since is mostly governed by US decisions, this predominantly covers the US end of decision-making. More UK-focused material has yet to be added.
White House Strategy for Iraq, their site.
Rebuilding Iraq Factsheet, December 2005.
The New Way Forward in Iraq Factsheet January 2007.
Background briefing before announcement of new strategy January 2007
Plans to build 50 permanent bases and have Iraq under long-term US control June 2008
[later edit on planning for the post-conflict situation and repercussions:
Plans in place before the invasion:
i. These relied significantly on the credibilty (in the eyes of the US at the time) of dubious ex-patriate figures such as Ahmed Chalabi. These should have been checked out more thoroughly as there were indications at the time that his 'authority' should be treated with caution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi (quickref of generally known facts, not absolutely authoritative, obviously). Relying heavily on even more clean-cut expatriates with a vested interest without substantial verification seems inadvisable. Where their statemtents do not accord with your own intelligence, and your troops are going to be sitting in the middle of the situation, the inadvisability borders on negligence.
ii. The'de-Baathification' policy (I am not sure the point when this was decided upon) was based on erroneously treating bureaucratic infrastructures of ultra-controlling dictatorships as always identical to entrenched, pervasive poisonous ideologies. c.f. in part post-communist Russia for the former and post-Nazi Germany for the latter [suggestions for additional examples welcome]. The USSR tried to indoctrinate its population with an ideology but failed and had by 1989 only achieved a communist dictatorship, exposed by its popular overthrow. If the US, when planning for the post-invasion period, believed in popular support for the overthrow of Saddam and for a regieme-in-waiting, then cleansing the bureaucrachy before the new regieme took power was largely redundant - the corrupt elements wouldn't have had sufficient influence and housecleaning could have been left up to a new, popularly-supported Iraqi executive. If decided on late in the day, the weakness and fragmentation of Iraqi army (not a sign of tenacious adherence to the Saddam regieme) makes it hard to see why it was thought necessary elsewhere. As it was, breaking up the bureaucracy broke the secular societal frameworks it reflected.
This occurred at the tightest conjunction between the conflict itself and post-conflict provision and I have no idea whether it was done as a 'purely military' decision or part of the post-conflict plan - something for me to double check on when I have a chance.
On advice from experts before and mentioned after the invasion, which helped consolidate my views:Reconstructing Iraq by Dr Crane.
Dec 2006 Newsweek article following the publication of the Army and Marines Counterinsurgency Manual, "it was a monograph Crane had co-written in January 2003, "Reconstructing Iraq," that brought him back to the Petraeus’s attention. The study, completed two months before the invasion, predicted almost to a letter the problems the United States would face in Iraq, including the breakdown of order and the potential for civil war. Commissioned by the Army, the paper was widely distributed among senior officers. But it never got traction with the civilian leadership-neither at the Pentagon nor later in the top echelons of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Thomas Powers, quoted in the article, is the author of 'Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al Qaeda', among other works amid a long journalistic career focused on combat and intelligence reporting.
The Director General of the Security Services(MI5), Eliza Manningham-Buller, Cherwell 24 of 11 June, 2004. The opinion she gave at a September 12 2001 meeting with Tyler Drumheller (the CIA's chief of clandestine operations in Europe until 2005), George Tenet (then CIA director), Sir David Manning (Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser at the time) and Richard Dearlove (then head of MI6), can be found in Drumheller's memoirs 'On the Brink' referred to in this 4 August 2007 Guardian article. The article also repeats 2003 intelligence advice to ministers: Why now, why Iraq, they asked; it would merely increase the terrorist threat, as the joint intelligence committee warned ministers less than a month before British troops and bombers joined the US attack on the country. Concern in Whitehall was shared by some perspicacious Americans, including General Tony Zinni, the former head of US central command, which is responsible for operations throughout the Middle East. He called it the wrong war, fought in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Contemporary White House etc statements:
General Powell, White House Press briefing, 7 April 2003
We're examining what's going to be needed in the way of security or a peacekeeping force. It's not clear yet what's going to be required and when it's going to be required or where it's going to be required. It is for that reason that we are in discussions, not only with the U.N. but with NATO.
One of the items for discussion in Brussels last week was, is there a role for NATO. And I was very pleased that all of my NATO colleagues at the North Atlantic Council meeting we had, accepted the possibility that there may be a role for NATO organizations, NATO units to go in an peacekeeping, security or stability role, perhaps helping in the search for weapons of mass destruction infrastructure.
The CIA's career is chequered, according to “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA,” by Tim Weiner of the New York Times, reviewed in this article. There is at least one book out: 'How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror' by Laurie Mylroie, which is an attack on the CIA containing justifications for the invasion and complaining that the CIA and State Department advice didn't give grounds to invade. This reviewer is very unconvinced (as am I) by the authors apparent argument that 'the experts advised against it but, thank goodness, the executive went ahead and did it anyway'. However, I've only read the review, not read the book. IMHO the author's entire argument sounds misguided to the point of lunacy - serious fringe conspiracy-theorist stuff.
Books I came across in 2009 but have not yet read
NY Times review of 'Fiasco' (Ricks on the planning for the war ) published 2006:
An after-action review from the Third Infantry Division underscores the Pentagon’s paucity of postwar planning, stating that “there was no guidance for restoring order in Baghdad, creating an interim government, hiring government and essential services employees, and ensuring that the judicial system was operational.” And an end-of-tour report by a colonel assigned to the Coalition Provisional Authority memorably summarized his office’s work as “pasting feathers together, hoping for a duck.” ... To make matters worse, Mr. Ricks adds, the Army seemed to have “forgotten almost everything it had learned in the Vietnam War about counterinsurgency.” During 2003 and much of 2004 effective counterinsurgency measures aimed at winning the political support of the Iraqi people were not being employed; instead, an emphasis was put on “the use of force, on powerful retaliation and on protecting U.S. troops at all costs.” ...
In late 2002, Mr. Ricks reports, 70 national security experts and Mideast scholars met at the National Defense University to discuss the looming war and concluded that occupying Iraq would “be the most daunting and complex task the U.S. and the international community will have undertaken since the end of World War II.” The group’s emphasis on the importance of “maintaining a secure environment” in post-invasion Iraq and its recommendation against a swift dissolution of the Iraqi military would be ignored in the ensuing months.
...Not only had the war “stressed the U.S. Army to the breaking point,” a study published by the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute declared, but it had also turned out to be “an unnecessary preventive war of choice” that “created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland” against further attacks from Al Qaeda. The war “was not integral” to the global war on terrorism, the report concluded, but was a costly “detour from it.”
On listening to the experts later - i.e. in 2006 (from Ricks' 2009 book 'The Gamble' referred to below) from the perspective of many senior officers in Iraq, the surge “had been more or less conceived and executed by Odierno in Baghdad, with some crucial coaching” from retired Gen. Jack Keane... and from General Petraeus, who, Mr. Ricks says, had been skeptical of the initial 2003 invasion. ... Ricks describes the military men in charge of the new strategy in Iraq [Gen. David H. Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno] as “pragmatists and skeptics” - experts “whose advice had been disregarded and even denounced during the run-up to the war.”
]
Uneducated musings on issues arising in the press:
Obviously the current 'strategy in Iraq is not improving the situation sufficiently but the 'Divide and rule strategy' (Independent 11/04/07 Robert Fisk) will have visible similarities to Israeli handling of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, providing massive negative propaganda fodder. Unsurprising then, that the 'gated communities' plan was formulated 'along with, according to some reports, at least four senior Israeli officers '. While Israel faces an insurgency problem and so seeking advice seems germaine, following similar policies to their inflammatory ones seems inadvisable; even though they were on 'home territory', the increasingly extreme measures they have taken to secure a subset of their populace has failed to end, or even diminish, insurgent campaigning. I can see that this might offer short-term reduction in bombings but, if implemented, who is being protected from whom? Will there be enforced Sunni/Shia segregation and what kind of Iraq would that make?
The article itself seems good to me, and at least some of FM 3-24's recommendations and conclusions merit applause.
Overall, it still fails to address a major problem a Guardian article (also today's) encapsulates beautifully in the context of Afghanistan:
A western official said that he had once met a man who purported to be an insurgent. "He said to me, 'You foreigners have the watches, but we have the time'.
12/04/07 - Bush's ignoring experts' guidance earlier creates more problems for him. Unsurprisingly retired commanders are unwilling to walk into this obvious fall-guy trap but I can't help but wonder whether the backlash might be future administrations giving the army too much lease.
(later edit 30 April - still looking for a fall guy.)
12/04/07 - Didn't take long for a demonstration that secure zones aren't a flawless approach.
14/06/07 - OMFG Arming a faction? OMFG.
Well, of course: they aren't Iraq's.
In the meantime, you can see how well the long-considered post-conflict strategy is going in liberated Iraq (not to mention the Parliament being bombed).
Some Americans still think stronger intervention is the way although opinion remains strongly divided
The UK politicians are backing off
This article (28/07/07) echoed a former commander's position on withdrawal, while a US commander reiterated that there is no military solution. [Please harken, hawks gazing at Iran.]
UK troops no longer the right tools for the job in Basra CFlater edit February 2009 British Military perspective on British withdrawal from Basra and impact on Iraq (Lieutenant-General John Cooper in the Times (General Cooper was in command of the Multinational Division Southeast, encompassing Basra, in 2006, before the deal was negotiated to allow the last 500 British troops in the city to leave in 2007 without being attacked) and Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the defence staff, Ministry of Defence in the Economist (Although Operation Charge of the Knights in March last year got off to an inauspicious start, its eventual success and subsequent developments have transformed Basra. Yes, it was led and largely executed by the Iraqis, with coalition forces in support. That was always the intent, and indeed the point.' )
Strategy now the new administration is in (2009 onwards)
February 2009 edit
America's scorecard in Iraq according to the NYTimes “We are not necessarily weaker,” but... after all these years and the money that we’ve spent, I’m not sure we’re coming out in a stronger strategic position.” From other sources, current estimates of the Iraq war costs are $3 billion for the USA and another $3 billion to the remainder of its allies combined. Estimated cost to Iraq itself tbd.
Generals Seek to Reverse Obama Withdrawal Decision http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45640 Keane and Petraeus If Obama does not change the policy, according to the source, they hope to have planted the seeds of a future political narrative blaming his withdrawal policy for the "collapse" they expect in an Iraq without U.S. troops.
NB General Jack Keane (ret) is on the Secretary of Defense’s Policy Board, was the Army Vice-Chief of Staff (2nd in command) from 1999 to 2003 (including during the invasion), has ties to a[n as yet unnamed] network of active and retired four-star Army generals and was among the authors of the 2006 surge policy. He continues to have a strong influence on Petraeus. He is Senior Managing Director and co-founder of Keane Advisors and apparently a Director of METLIFE, Inc. and General Dynamics Corporation, as well as a board member of Vector. Keane on Obama [video], Keane Petraeus and the military industrial complex [video] [see below]
Thomas E. Ricks most recent book 'The Gamble' (NY Times review) alleges that only the mid-term election results caused the Bush White House to change their policy and concludes that “the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably have not yet happened.” the dominant impression left by “The Gamble” and “Fiasco” is one of the devastating consequences of an ill-conceived and ill-planned war - an unnecessary war of choice, waged with too few troops and no overarching strategic plan, a war that was going badly but was allowed to continue along the same unfruitful path for three years by a White House “in denial” about its downward trend. Mr. Ricks covered the military for The Washington Post from 2000 to 2008.
Mistakes of the past
Going in at all
truth or revisionism? the two worst mistakes - the decisions to disband the Iraqi army and to de-Baathify the ministries.
NB US did not start planning for the post-conflict structure of Iraq until after the invasion.
The road to Iraq - Tenet speaks again.
[Later note, on leaving office Bush speaks of his mistakes. With reference to Iraq, he claims his sole mistake was the 'Mission Accomplished' poster.]
According to the New York Times, the US has paid out more than $32m in compensation for civilian deaths, injuries and property damage. and that's just the ones they've paid out for.
Of the 500 cases released, 204, or about 40 percent, were apparently rejected because the injury, death or property damage was deemed to have been “directly or indirectly” related to combat. Of the claims approved for payment, at least 87 were not combat-related, and 77 were condolence payments for incidents the Army judged to be combat-related. (NY Times)
One army adjudicator said some adjudicators made no payments at all “There was no reason for it. It was clearly not combat, and the victim was clearly innocent, all the facts are there, witness statements, but they wouldn’t pay them.” however, over the year he was acting, he paid 52 condolence payments, most for deaths. “I had three to four times more... I just didn’t have enough money.”(Source requires NY Times login.)
In that context...
Reconstruction & working with Iraqis
Of course, the problems those who work with 'the West' experience, and our subesequent support-level, won't help much. (Winning what?)
later edit - Reconstruction efforts to date are dubious. Later edit - But that's OK, becuase apparently its the Iraqis' fault. later edit - 29/07/07
More on reconstruction failures. Where are the wages to come from, I wonder? and then there's this- insight into Iraq reconstruction efforts (initially posted on 23 March 07): many of the contractors he worked with during his first tour in 2003 have since been killed by insurgents so they had to find a new ways to get things done.
It's no wonder that Well, the government may not want to try to insurrection targets with half-trained staff with its resources already way too stretched, although there is a crying need for employment opportunities, they're no use if they're unsafe. The only reason the police and army aren't in a total recruitment crisis is the scarcity of paid work, but even they're having trouble.
later edit - article to consult later and see if I endorse/disagree
Indymedia Iraq
later edit - Jan 2008: Federal oversight reports widespread failures in rebuilding by at least one American firm
Efficient rebuilding? the Army Corps of Engineers charged the government hundreds of millions of dollars for supervising projects in Iraq that have been identified as having failed or fallen behind schedule specifically because oversight was lax or nonexistent.
the corps’ fees supported an arcane management structure at the heart of what detractors cite as an example of how not to carry out reconstruction in a country emerging from a war. Shockingly (not to me) the cheaper Air Force-run projects using Middle Eastern engineers who were already in Iraq or the region were more successful. The Air Force office was eventually brought in to fix the problems.
later edit - December 2008 unpublished US official history (PDF) spotlights reconstruction effort errors. NY Times article on same.
OIL THIEVERY 4 Aug 07
February 2009 MASSIVE FRAUD If not conducting the fraud diverting billions of reconstruction funds, US military must have been either complicit or higly negligent. Looks like all three across various losses and activities.
New Iraq or disintegration?
Allegedly there is some cause for optimism.
later edit - Or maybe not -
Iraq doomed 'unity hopes nil', .
Exit rapidly? but how to do that and take responsibility?
In the meantime Iraq continues to disintegrate June 2007; situation deteriorating...
Government shaky.
Picture on the ground piece, June 2008
Later edit: January 2008 Falluja (The city has been sealed off since November 2004 when United States Marines stormed it in an attack that left much of the city in ruins.
...When I asked what the hospital lacked Dr Kamal said wearily: "Drugs, fuel, electricity, generators, a water treatment system, oxygen and medical equipment." It was difficult not to think that American assistance might have gone to the hospital rather than the business development centre.): - figures of interest:
Colonel Feisal Ismail Hassan al-Zubai, police chief ... a former officer in Saddam Hussein's Special Forces, cheerfully admits that before he was chief of police, "I was fighting the Americans".
His brother, Abu Marouf, full name Karim Ismail Hassan al-Zubai a former guerrilla commander, controls 13,000 fighters of the anti-al-Qa'ida Awakening movement in and around Fallujah. The latter is calling for his al-Sahwah (Awkakening ) movement fighters to be integrated into the police force and army. ... violence has fallen largely because the United States has handed power to the guerrillas who fought it for so long. ...If the Iraqi government pretends it has conquered its enemies and refuses to give men like Abu Marouf a share in power then Iraq will soon be facing another war.
They are finally letting Baath party members back into posts but apparently this is still rather restricted.
later edit 2009 elections offer glimmers of hope for a nationalist secular Iraq but the picture is more complicated than the Independent article indicates. Many are crowing this as a demonstrating a delayed success for the operation, but given the lives lost, the ongoing resources required, the ongoing fragility of the situation and the deterioration of Iraqi and international openess toithe influence of the nations whose forces invaded and the bolstering of sectarianism and Iranian influence in the region, this seems rather a stretch: Although he fought a secular campaign, on important decisions Mr Maliki does not generally act without seeking the opinion of the Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Articles to consult later and see if I endorse/disagree:
later edit MIT International
Iraq: Canary in a coal mine?
Explaining the War on Terrorism from an Ontological-Security Perspective
Casualties and Humanitarian issues
icasualties.
The methodology page is rather interesting, especially, "While not actually members of the coalition Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) now bear the brunt of military casualties in Iraq."
If you saw unattended military equipment lying around for anyone to abuse, would you leave it there?
Of course, we're not letting Iraqi's stay in the UK to excape the escalating situation back 'home' - 'At least 110 pilgrims die in suicide attacks as US admits extra 7,000 troops may go to Iraq' (Guardian March 7th):
In Mosul, in northern Iraq, meanwhile, dozens of Sunni militants reportedly linked to al-Qaida stormed a jail and freed up to 140 insurgent prisoners.
Officials said as many as 300 men led by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, attacked the city's Badoush prison and overwhelmed police. Everything since that report on 07/03/07 hardly offers better.
Military
[UK] Following from the casualties issue this situation is a disgrace and threw up this fact: ...the record numbers of troops returning with mental illnesses are having to wait up to 18 months for treatment... and then there's just getting the injured out of the field.
[UK] 2009 MOD admits it has no idea of trauma figures for UK forces involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[US] The US situation for soldier-casualties has been similarly flawed.
[US] A marine's perspective on Iraq, was interesting to read. (Thanks again metafilter.)
Life for US forces in Iraq
Pressure and prosecution
Later edit 2009 Obama put US military healthcare high on his agenda
See Lieutenant-General John Cooper above on perceptions of British performance in Iraq 2009
[US] Military corruption and fraud - billions of reconstruction dollars have gone astray.
Military not Iraq, or not just Iraq
A perspective on politics and force. I have yet to decide whether this is flawed, merely confused or ill-conveyed by the report. Some good points appear to have been made.
UK Navy
[Masters Thesis - check if useful - http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/shervington.pdf Small Wars and Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Lessons from Iraq 2005 Shervington.]
Contractors
My entry on Blackwater /(since renamed Xe), the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), the Peace Operations Institute and Rumsfeld's championing of such outsourcing (plus Cheney's).
Blackwater leaves the organisation. Calls for regulation with more details.
another tracking site on Security Services
BAPSC (Sourcewatch on). The security industry: Britain's private army in Iraq The British security guards taken hostage in Baghdad are just four among a foreign legion paid for by you. Yet as we grow more reliant on them, their future is perilous in a country without rules. By Andrew Johnson, Marie Woolf and Raymond Whitaker Published: 03 June 2007
Boom times ahead for dogs of war By Julian Joyce
2007 pdf - One of many US congressional memoranda or reports on Blackwater []
February 2008 Presidential election - article on Obama and military contractors The force that now plays that role is composed almost exclusively of contractors from Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy. And at present, these contractors are not held accountable under US law. Obama and a host of legal experts, including in the Justice Department, acknowledge that there may be no current US law that could be used to prosecute security contractors for crimes committed in Iraq, such as the killing of seventeen Iraqi civilians last September in Baghdad's Nisour Square. ...Obama may have no choice but to continue the contracting arrangements with firms like Blackwater if he is elected President. ...The irony is that it was Senator Obama who sponsored a bill in February 2007 defining a legal structure to prosecute State Department contractor crimes in US courts. ...Obama could find himself in a situation where, as President, he continues using forces he himself has identified as "unaccountable."
December 2008 Nisour Square trial in the US - Blackwater trial unsealed
In 2009 Iraq banned Blackwater from operating in Iraqi territory. The US scrambled for alternative contractors to fill the breach.
News archives
The Guardian
The Times
<>The Telegraph
The NY Times
2007 US Counterinsurgency Manual. Watch the Daily Show interview with Nagl I saw co-inciding with its release: transcript with clip of the show. Read his forward to the manual.
Some background to the manual authors
Dec 2006 Newsweek article following the publication of the manual, In particular covers Dr Crane (see above for quote).
Lt. Col. John Nagl was among the first officers after September 11 to deal with the issue in writing, authoring a doctoral thesis in 2002 on counterinsurgency lessons from Southeast Asia (it was later published as the book, "Eating Soup with a Knife"). Army Gen. David Petraeus made the study of counterinsurgency a priority in his post at the Army’s Combined Arms Center in Kansas.
Lt Col John Nagl's works
Jan 2008 perspectives in US
The Valley of Elah and the story it is based on
An unfortunate row about my opinions and where I derive them from.
Strategy
As the deployment and handling of the situation in Iraq itself during the conflict and since is mostly governed by US decisions, this predominantly covers the US end of decision-making. More UK-focused material has yet to be added.
White House Strategy for Iraq, their site.
Rebuilding Iraq Factsheet, December 2005.
The New Way Forward in Iraq Factsheet January 2007.
Background briefing before announcement of new strategy January 2007
Plans to build 50 permanent bases and have Iraq under long-term US control June 2008
[later edit on planning for the post-conflict situation and repercussions:
Plans in place before the invasion:
i. These relied significantly on the credibilty (in the eyes of the US at the time) of dubious ex-patriate figures such as Ahmed Chalabi. These should have been checked out more thoroughly as there were indications at the time that his 'authority' should be treated with caution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi (quickref of generally known facts, not absolutely authoritative, obviously). Relying heavily on even more clean-cut expatriates with a vested interest without substantial verification seems inadvisable. Where their statemtents do not accord with your own intelligence, and your troops are going to be sitting in the middle of the situation, the inadvisability borders on negligence.
ii. The'de-Baathification' policy (I am not sure the point when this was decided upon) was based on erroneously treating bureaucratic infrastructures of ultra-controlling dictatorships as always identical to entrenched, pervasive poisonous ideologies. c.f. in part post-communist Russia for the former and post-Nazi Germany for the latter [suggestions for additional examples welcome]. The USSR tried to indoctrinate its population with an ideology but failed and had by 1989 only achieved a communist dictatorship, exposed by its popular overthrow. If the US, when planning for the post-invasion period, believed in popular support for the overthrow of Saddam and for a regieme-in-waiting, then cleansing the bureaucrachy before the new regieme took power was largely redundant - the corrupt elements wouldn't have had sufficient influence and housecleaning could have been left up to a new, popularly-supported Iraqi executive. If decided on late in the day, the weakness and fragmentation of Iraqi army (not a sign of tenacious adherence to the Saddam regieme) makes it hard to see why it was thought necessary elsewhere. As it was, breaking up the bureaucracy broke the secular societal frameworks it reflected.
This occurred at the tightest conjunction between the conflict itself and post-conflict provision and I have no idea whether it was done as a 'purely military' decision or part of the post-conflict plan - something for me to double check on when I have a chance.
On advice from experts before and mentioned after the invasion, which helped consolidate my views:Reconstructing Iraq by Dr Crane.
Dec 2006 Newsweek article following the publication of the Army and Marines Counterinsurgency Manual, "it was a monograph Crane had co-written in January 2003, "Reconstructing Iraq," that brought him back to the Petraeus’s attention. The study, completed two months before the invasion, predicted almost to a letter the problems the United States would face in Iraq, including the breakdown of order and the potential for civil war. Commissioned by the Army, the paper was widely distributed among senior officers. But it never got traction with the civilian leadership-neither at the Pentagon nor later in the top echelons of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Thomas Powers, quoted in the article, is the author of 'Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al Qaeda', among other works amid a long journalistic career focused on combat and intelligence reporting.
The Director General of the Security Services(MI5), Eliza Manningham-Buller, Cherwell 24 of 11 June, 2004. The opinion she gave at a September 12 2001 meeting with Tyler Drumheller (the CIA's chief of clandestine operations in Europe until 2005), George Tenet (then CIA director), Sir David Manning (Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser at the time) and Richard Dearlove (then head of MI6), can be found in Drumheller's memoirs 'On the Brink' referred to in this 4 August 2007 Guardian article. The article also repeats 2003 intelligence advice to ministers: Why now, why Iraq, they asked; it would merely increase the terrorist threat, as the joint intelligence committee warned ministers less than a month before British troops and bombers joined the US attack on the country. Concern in Whitehall was shared by some perspicacious Americans, including General Tony Zinni, the former head of US central command, which is responsible for operations throughout the Middle East. He called it the wrong war, fought in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Contemporary White House etc statements:
General Powell, White House Press briefing, 7 April 2003
We're examining what's going to be needed in the way of security or a peacekeeping force. It's not clear yet what's going to be required and when it's going to be required or where it's going to be required. It is for that reason that we are in discussions, not only with the U.N. but with NATO.
One of the items for discussion in Brussels last week was, is there a role for NATO. And I was very pleased that all of my NATO colleagues at the North Atlantic Council meeting we had, accepted the possibility that there may be a role for NATO organizations, NATO units to go in an peacekeeping, security or stability role, perhaps helping in the search for weapons of mass destruction infrastructure.
The CIA's career is chequered, according to “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA,” by Tim Weiner of the New York Times, reviewed in this article. There is at least one book out: 'How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror' by Laurie Mylroie, which is an attack on the CIA containing justifications for the invasion and complaining that the CIA and State Department advice didn't give grounds to invade. This reviewer is very unconvinced (as am I) by the authors apparent argument that 'the experts advised against it but, thank goodness, the executive went ahead and did it anyway'. However, I've only read the review, not read the book. IMHO the author's entire argument sounds misguided to the point of lunacy - serious fringe conspiracy-theorist stuff.
Books I came across in 2009 but have not yet read
NY Times review of 'Fiasco' (Ricks on the planning for the war ) published 2006:
An after-action review from the Third Infantry Division underscores the Pentagon’s paucity of postwar planning, stating that “there was no guidance for restoring order in Baghdad, creating an interim government, hiring government and essential services employees, and ensuring that the judicial system was operational.” And an end-of-tour report by a colonel assigned to the Coalition Provisional Authority memorably summarized his office’s work as “pasting feathers together, hoping for a duck.” ... To make matters worse, Mr. Ricks adds, the Army seemed to have “forgotten almost everything it had learned in the Vietnam War about counterinsurgency.” During 2003 and much of 2004 effective counterinsurgency measures aimed at winning the political support of the Iraqi people were not being employed; instead, an emphasis was put on “the use of force, on powerful retaliation and on protecting U.S. troops at all costs.” ...
In late 2002, Mr. Ricks reports, 70 national security experts and Mideast scholars met at the National Defense University to discuss the looming war and concluded that occupying Iraq would “be the most daunting and complex task the U.S. and the international community will have undertaken since the end of World War II.” The group’s emphasis on the importance of “maintaining a secure environment” in post-invasion Iraq and its recommendation against a swift dissolution of the Iraqi military would be ignored in the ensuing months.
...Not only had the war “stressed the U.S. Army to the breaking point,” a study published by the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute declared, but it had also turned out to be “an unnecessary preventive war of choice” that “created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland” against further attacks from Al Qaeda. The war “was not integral” to the global war on terrorism, the report concluded, but was a costly “detour from it.”
On listening to the experts later - i.e. in 2006 (from Ricks' 2009 book 'The Gamble' referred to below) from the perspective of many senior officers in Iraq, the surge “had been more or less conceived and executed by Odierno in Baghdad, with some crucial coaching” from retired Gen. Jack Keane... and from General Petraeus, who, Mr. Ricks says, had been skeptical of the initial 2003 invasion. ... Ricks describes the military men in charge of the new strategy in Iraq [Gen. David H. Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno] as “pragmatists and skeptics” - experts “whose advice had been disregarded and even denounced during the run-up to the war.”
]
Uneducated musings on issues arising in the press:
Obviously the current 'strategy in Iraq is not improving the situation sufficiently but the 'Divide and rule strategy' (Independent 11/04/07 Robert Fisk) will have visible similarities to Israeli handling of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, providing massive negative propaganda fodder. Unsurprising then, that the 'gated communities' plan was formulated 'along with, according to some reports, at least four senior Israeli officers '. While Israel faces an insurgency problem and so seeking advice seems germaine, following similar policies to their inflammatory ones seems inadvisable; even though they were on 'home territory', the increasingly extreme measures they have taken to secure a subset of their populace has failed to end, or even diminish, insurgent campaigning. I can see that this might offer short-term reduction in bombings but, if implemented, who is being protected from whom? Will there be enforced Sunni/Shia segregation and what kind of Iraq would that make?
The article itself seems good to me, and at least some of FM 3-24's recommendations and conclusions merit applause.
Overall, it still fails to address a major problem a Guardian article (also today's) encapsulates beautifully in the context of Afghanistan:
A western official said that he had once met a man who purported to be an insurgent. "He said to me, 'You foreigners have the watches, but we have the time'.
12/04/07 - Bush's ignoring experts' guidance earlier creates more problems for him. Unsurprisingly retired commanders are unwilling to walk into this obvious fall-guy trap but I can't help but wonder whether the backlash might be future administrations giving the army too much lease.
(later edit 30 April - still looking for a fall guy.)
12/04/07 - Didn't take long for a demonstration that secure zones aren't a flawless approach.
14/06/07 - OMFG Arming a faction? OMFG.
Well, of course: they aren't Iraq's.
In the meantime, you can see how well the long-considered post-conflict strategy is going in liberated Iraq (not to mention the Parliament being bombed).
Some Americans still think stronger intervention is the way although opinion remains strongly divided
The UK politicians are backing off
This article (28/07/07) echoed a former commander's position on withdrawal, while a US commander reiterated that there is no military solution. [Please harken, hawks gazing at Iran.]
UK troops no longer the right tools for the job in Basra CFlater edit February 2009 British Military perspective on British withdrawal from Basra and impact on Iraq (Lieutenant-General John Cooper in the Times (General Cooper was in command of the Multinational Division Southeast, encompassing Basra, in 2006, before the deal was negotiated to allow the last 500 British troops in the city to leave in 2007 without being attacked) and Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the defence staff, Ministry of Defence in the Economist (Although Operation Charge of the Knights in March last year got off to an inauspicious start, its eventual success and subsequent developments have transformed Basra. Yes, it was led and largely executed by the Iraqis, with coalition forces in support. That was always the intent, and indeed the point.' )
Strategy now the new administration is in (2009 onwards)
February 2009 edit
America's scorecard in Iraq according to the NYTimes “We are not necessarily weaker,” but... after all these years and the money that we’ve spent, I’m not sure we’re coming out in a stronger strategic position.” From other sources, current estimates of the Iraq war costs are $3 billion for the USA and another $3 billion to the remainder of its allies combined. Estimated cost to Iraq itself tbd.
Generals Seek to Reverse Obama Withdrawal Decision http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45640 Keane and Petraeus If Obama does not change the policy, according to the source, they hope to have planted the seeds of a future political narrative blaming his withdrawal policy for the "collapse" they expect in an Iraq without U.S. troops.
NB General Jack Keane (ret) is on the Secretary of Defense’s Policy Board, was the Army Vice-Chief of Staff (2nd in command) from 1999 to 2003 (including during the invasion), has ties to a[n as yet unnamed] network of active and retired four-star Army generals and was among the authors of the 2006 surge policy. He continues to have a strong influence on Petraeus. He is Senior Managing Director and co-founder of Keane Advisors and apparently a Director of METLIFE, Inc. and General Dynamics Corporation, as well as a board member of Vector. Keane on Obama [video], Keane Petraeus and the military industrial complex [video] [see below]
Thomas E. Ricks most recent book 'The Gamble' (NY Times review) alleges that only the mid-term election results caused the Bush White House to change their policy and concludes that “the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably have not yet happened.” the dominant impression left by “The Gamble” and “Fiasco” is one of the devastating consequences of an ill-conceived and ill-planned war - an unnecessary war of choice, waged with too few troops and no overarching strategic plan, a war that was going badly but was allowed to continue along the same unfruitful path for three years by a White House “in denial” about its downward trend. Mr. Ricks covered the military for The Washington Post from 2000 to 2008.
Mistakes of the past
Going in at all
truth or revisionism? the two worst mistakes - the decisions to disband the Iraqi army and to de-Baathify the ministries.
NB US did not start planning for the post-conflict structure of Iraq until after the invasion.
The road to Iraq - Tenet speaks again.
[Later note, on leaving office Bush speaks of his mistakes. With reference to Iraq, he claims his sole mistake was the 'Mission Accomplished' poster.]
According to the New York Times, the US has paid out more than $32m in compensation for civilian deaths, injuries and property damage. and that's just the ones they've paid out for.
Of the 500 cases released, 204, or about 40 percent, were apparently rejected because the injury, death or property damage was deemed to have been “directly or indirectly” related to combat. Of the claims approved for payment, at least 87 were not combat-related, and 77 were condolence payments for incidents the Army judged to be combat-related. (NY Times)
One army adjudicator said some adjudicators made no payments at all “There was no reason for it. It was clearly not combat, and the victim was clearly innocent, all the facts are there, witness statements, but they wouldn’t pay them.” however, over the year he was acting, he paid 52 condolence payments, most for deaths. “I had three to four times more... I just didn’t have enough money.”(Source requires NY Times login.)
In that context...
Reconstruction & working with Iraqis
Of course, the problems those who work with 'the West' experience, and our subesequent support-level, won't help much. (Winning what?)
later edit - Reconstruction efforts to date are dubious. Later edit - But that's OK, becuase apparently its the Iraqis' fault. later edit - 29/07/07
More on reconstruction failures. Where are the wages to come from, I wonder? and then there's this- insight into Iraq reconstruction efforts (initially posted on 23 March 07): many of the contractors he worked with during his first tour in 2003 have since been killed by insurgents so they had to find a new ways to get things done.
It's no wonder that Well, the government may not want to try to insurrection targets with half-trained staff with its resources already way too stretched, although there is a crying need for employment opportunities, they're no use if they're unsafe. The only reason the police and army aren't in a total recruitment crisis is the scarcity of paid work, but even they're having trouble.
later edit - article to consult later and see if I endorse/disagree
Indymedia Iraq
later edit - Jan 2008: Federal oversight reports widespread failures in rebuilding by at least one American firm
Efficient rebuilding? the Army Corps of Engineers charged the government hundreds of millions of dollars for supervising projects in Iraq that have been identified as having failed or fallen behind schedule specifically because oversight was lax or nonexistent.
the corps’ fees supported an arcane management structure at the heart of what detractors cite as an example of how not to carry out reconstruction in a country emerging from a war. Shockingly (not to me) the cheaper Air Force-run projects using Middle Eastern engineers who were already in Iraq or the region were more successful. The Air Force office was eventually brought in to fix the problems.
later edit - December 2008 unpublished US official history (PDF) spotlights reconstruction effort errors. NY Times article on same.
OIL THIEVERY 4 Aug 07
February 2009 MASSIVE FRAUD If not conducting the fraud diverting billions of reconstruction funds, US military must have been either complicit or higly negligent. Looks like all three across various losses and activities.
New Iraq or disintegration?
Allegedly there is some cause for optimism.
later edit - Or maybe not -
Iraq doomed 'unity hopes nil', .
Exit rapidly? but how to do that and take responsibility?
In the meantime Iraq continues to disintegrate June 2007; situation deteriorating...
Government shaky.
Picture on the ground piece, June 2008
Later edit: January 2008 Falluja (The city has been sealed off since November 2004 when United States Marines stormed it in an attack that left much of the city in ruins.
...When I asked what the hospital lacked Dr Kamal said wearily: "Drugs, fuel, electricity, generators, a water treatment system, oxygen and medical equipment." It was difficult not to think that American assistance might have gone to the hospital rather than the business development centre.): - figures of interest:
Colonel Feisal Ismail Hassan al-Zubai, police chief ... a former officer in Saddam Hussein's Special Forces, cheerfully admits that before he was chief of police, "I was fighting the Americans".
His brother, Abu Marouf, full name Karim Ismail Hassan al-Zubai a former guerrilla commander, controls 13,000 fighters of the anti-al-Qa'ida Awakening movement in and around Fallujah. The latter is calling for his al-Sahwah (Awkakening ) movement fighters to be integrated into the police force and army. ... violence has fallen largely because the United States has handed power to the guerrillas who fought it for so long. ...If the Iraqi government pretends it has conquered its enemies and refuses to give men like Abu Marouf a share in power then Iraq will soon be facing another war.
They are finally letting Baath party members back into posts but apparently this is still rather restricted.
later edit 2009 elections offer glimmers of hope for a nationalist secular Iraq but the picture is more complicated than the Independent article indicates. Many are crowing this as a demonstrating a delayed success for the operation, but given the lives lost, the ongoing resources required, the ongoing fragility of the situation and the deterioration of Iraqi and international openess toithe influence of the nations whose forces invaded and the bolstering of sectarianism and Iranian influence in the region, this seems rather a stretch: Although he fought a secular campaign, on important decisions Mr Maliki does not generally act without seeking the opinion of the Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Articles to consult later and see if I endorse/disagree:
later edit MIT International
Iraq: Canary in a coal mine?
Explaining the War on Terrorism from an Ontological-Security Perspective
Casualties and Humanitarian issues
icasualties.
The methodology page is rather interesting, especially, "While not actually members of the coalition Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) now bear the brunt of military casualties in Iraq."
If you saw unattended military equipment lying around for anyone to abuse, would you leave it there?
Of course, we're not letting Iraqi's stay in the UK to excape the escalating situation back 'home' - 'At least 110 pilgrims die in suicide attacks as US admits extra 7,000 troops may go to Iraq' (Guardian March 7th):
In Mosul, in northern Iraq, meanwhile, dozens of Sunni militants reportedly linked to al-Qaida stormed a jail and freed up to 140 insurgent prisoners.
Officials said as many as 300 men led by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, attacked the city's Badoush prison and overwhelmed police. Everything since that report on 07/03/07 hardly offers better.
Military
[UK] Following from the casualties issue this situation is a disgrace and threw up this fact: ...the record numbers of troops returning with mental illnesses are having to wait up to 18 months for treatment... and then there's just getting the injured out of the field.
[UK] 2009 MOD admits it has no idea of trauma figures for UK forces involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[US] The US situation for soldier-casualties has been similarly flawed.
[US] A marine's perspective on Iraq, was interesting to read. (Thanks again metafilter.)
Life for US forces in Iraq
Pressure and prosecution
Later edit 2009 Obama put US military healthcare high on his agenda
See Lieutenant-General John Cooper above on perceptions of British performance in Iraq 2009
[US] Military corruption and fraud - billions of reconstruction dollars have gone astray.
Military not Iraq, or not just Iraq
A perspective on politics and force. I have yet to decide whether this is flawed, merely confused or ill-conveyed by the report. Some good points appear to have been made.
UK Navy
[Masters Thesis - check if useful - http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/shervington.pdf Small Wars and Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Lessons from Iraq 2005 Shervington.]
Contractors
My entry on Blackwater /(since renamed Xe), the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), the Peace Operations Institute and Rumsfeld's championing of such outsourcing (plus Cheney's).
Blackwater leaves the organisation. Calls for regulation with more details.
another tracking site on Security Services
BAPSC (Sourcewatch on). The security industry: Britain's private army in Iraq The British security guards taken hostage in Baghdad are just four among a foreign legion paid for by you. Yet as we grow more reliant on them, their future is perilous in a country without rules. By Andrew Johnson, Marie Woolf and Raymond Whitaker Published: 03 June 2007
Boom times ahead for dogs of war By Julian Joyce
2007 pdf - One of many US congressional memoranda or reports on Blackwater []
February 2008 Presidential election - article on Obama and military contractors The force that now plays that role is composed almost exclusively of contractors from Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy. And at present, these contractors are not held accountable under US law. Obama and a host of legal experts, including in the Justice Department, acknowledge that there may be no current US law that could be used to prosecute security contractors for crimes committed in Iraq, such as the killing of seventeen Iraqi civilians last September in Baghdad's Nisour Square. ...Obama may have no choice but to continue the contracting arrangements with firms like Blackwater if he is elected President. ...The irony is that it was Senator Obama who sponsored a bill in February 2007 defining a legal structure to prosecute State Department contractor crimes in US courts. ...Obama could find himself in a situation where, as President, he continues using forces he himself has identified as "unaccountable."
December 2008 Nisour Square trial in the US - Blackwater trial unsealed
In 2009 Iraq banned Blackwater from operating in Iraqi territory. The US scrambled for alternative contractors to fill the breach.
News archives
The Guardian
The Times
<>The Telegraph
The NY Times
2007 US Counterinsurgency Manual. Watch the Daily Show interview with Nagl I saw co-inciding with its release: transcript with clip of the show. Read his forward to the manual.
Some background to the manual authors
Dec 2006 Newsweek article following the publication of the manual, In particular covers Dr Crane (see above for quote).
Lt. Col. John Nagl was among the first officers after September 11 to deal with the issue in writing, authoring a doctoral thesis in 2002 on counterinsurgency lessons from Southeast Asia (it was later published as the book, "Eating Soup with a Knife"). Army Gen. David Petraeus made the study of counterinsurgency a priority in his post at the Army’s Combined Arms Center in Kansas.
Lt Col John Nagl's works
Jan 2008 perspectives in US
The Valley of Elah and the story it is based on
An unfortunate row about my opinions and where I derive them from.