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March 25, 2006Cordesman on IraqThere are still a few adults around not in constant spin-mode on Iraq. Here's some sobering straight-talk from Anthony Cordesman, laced with occasional cautious optimism. Excerpt: But again, we need to be much more honest with what we're doing. First, we're issuing numbers about the amount of space the Iraqi forces occupy, which I think everybody understands in the real world are little more than rubbish. We're not talking to the American people honestly about the problems with the Ministry of the Interior forces, and particularly the police. We talk about 240,000 or more trained and equipped Iraqi forces, but half of them are in the Ministry of Interior. They present serious problems in terms of quality, and they become associated, in some cases, with death squads and Shiite causes. We've exaggerated how quickly the Iraqi forces are coming on line in the army. There's progress there, but very large numbers of those units are not really units with significant capability. They depend on U.S. air power, mobility, support, armor, and artillery, and they will [continue to depend on that support] well into 2007 or 2008 at the earliest. There's going to be a painful problem, later this year at some point, when the Congress has to be asked for the money to give Iraqi forces what they need by way of equipment to be truly independent.
Comments
I don't mean to presume, but I doubt that Cordesman really meant that American emphasis on elections over effective governance was not predictable. Americans have almost always emphasized elections as the defining component of solutions to civil conflict, whether in Southeast Asia, Central America, Eastern Europe or the Balkans -- even, if one goes back far enough, in the American South during the Reconstruction period. It is the American counterpart to the older European notion that civil conflict depended on a legitimate monarch, or at least a plausibly legitimate one. And it is not always wrong. There have been many places where the idea that the man or party that gets the most votes is the one who ought to manage the government is well enough accepted that elections can resolve this most crucial of questions in a way more or less acceptable to everyone, providing a way out of civil strife by filling the vacuum of legitimate authority. There are any number of reasons why Iraq is not such a place, but to dwell on them is to miss the point about why the American emphasis on elections over governance has been a mistake in this instance. The truth is that the United States needs very little from a country like Iraq: we require it to forego acquiring weapons of mass destruction and attacking its neighbors, and to be stable enough not to become a terrorist nursery. That's about it -- except for the international need for Iraq to put its oil on the world market eventually, which any Iraqi government, democratic or not, will find it necessary to do for its own reasons. American interests do not require a liberal, secular democracy in Iraq. The Bush administration, having found its other justifications for invading the country proven wrong, has found it convenient to contend otherwise. This isn't to say that liberal democracy isn't the best thing for Iraq, and for Iraqis. Indeed, leaving aside for a moment how Americans are likely to view the last three years in the future, Iraqis are likely to view their own conduct with some pain and embarrassment. Delivered from a tyrant they could never have overthrown on their own and given access to vast resources (however inexpertly deployed) and political and economic opportunities, Iraqis cannot be said to have made the most of them, though some have tried. The country would be much better off today had every directive coming from Paul Bremer's CPA been universally regarded as having come from God himself, and every American idea about government and the economy accepted without cavil. But that is Iraq's problem. Ours is that even after having sunk much blood and vast amounts of borrowed treasure in Iraq we are still committed to a course toward an objective that makes eminent sense for most Iraqis but is not central to our own interests, and is most likely many years distant if it can be reached at all. Cordesman may be right to imply that fewer mistakes and a greater emphasis by American authorities on effective governance in 2003 and 2004 might have made a huge difference. On the other hand it may only have forced the conflict to take on a different shape. It is the objective, not the path chosen to reach it, that is the source of our difficulties in Iraq. Posted by: Zathras at March 25, 2006 10:55 PM | Permalink to this comment
I'd be happier with Cordesman if he'd signaled distress sooner. Iraq has been headed in a disastrous direction since Baghdad fell and giddy fools talked of looting looking like freedom. He's finally speaking the truth to power; would that he found the courage to do this earlier. Posted by: ali at March 26, 2006 12:01 AM | Permalink to this comment
Cordesman has been saying the same thing for quite a long time, Ali. He's consistently been one of the better voices on Iraq for awhile and has been an expert on the Iraqi military for decades, since the Iran-Iraq War. Zathras - Is that you, Dan Senor? Posted by: tequila at March 26, 2006 01:19 AM | Permalink to this comment
Cordesman also seems not to have any post in the Bush Administration, though the article doesn't say whether he had any consulting or advisory role. I imagine not, since his is exactly the kind of input the Bush Admin went out of their way to exclude from their war "planning." If it's true he's been sounding warnings for a long time, it's evident no one in the WH has been listening to him. Nor does the article indicate whether they're listening to him now. His notes of optimism are very hedged, in that they rely either on changes the Bush Admin won't make, or on events we can't control. Or, in the matter of funding the reconstruction, relying on Congress to refill that budget rather than try to get back the billions and billions Halliburton et al. stole. Congress won't do either one, and Bush isn't going to divert money towards reconstruction if his and Cheney's cronies aren't going to get it. It's all well and good to say "We shoulda, coulda, didn't" when talking about the malfeasance (I can't call them "mistakes" because they were deliberate) in 2003-2005. But life doesn't come with a reset button, and neither does war. The problems with the invasion and with the occupation - with the troop levels, with their deployment, with the way the occupation was led and financed, with the economic, political, and military decisions everyone involved made... were recognized at the time, were commented on at the time, and were roundly ignored (or shouted down) at the time. The malfeasance went forward, and put the US in the position where there aren't any good choices to make. I'm not sure, after 3 more years of the Bush Admin running things, we'll even have much of a choice between "bad" and "worse" outcomes. This is esp. worrisome, because while some war supporters have had the occasional Come to Jesus moments and admitted they were wrong to trust the Bush Admin on Iraq, they seem perfectly willing to trust him again - on Iran. That is sheer insanity. Posted by: CaseyL at March 26, 2006 01:54 AM | Permalink to this comment
We have, I'm afraid, pushed for elections rather than effective governance. although I agree with much of what Cordesman has to say, I think he misses the point here. The US pushed neither for effective governance nor elections -- the Bush regime attempted to install a puppet government that could be "legitimized" by designer "elections". I mean, the idea that the US "pushed" elections is rather a joke --- the US stopped elections in a number of Shia regions in the summer of 2003 because it was afraid of the results, and was insisting that elections could take place only after a census --- yet couldn't secure the country sufficiently to allow a census to take place. Only when Sistani insisted upon elections --- when he sent his followers to protest in the streets, did the US finally agree to allowing the Iraqi people to vote on their own future --- and structured the elections in a manner designed to minimize the exercise of autonomous Iraqi power. Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 26, 2006 04:01 AM | Permalink to this comment
Greg, you know folks in the Washington Establishment so maybe you can answer this question. Why exactly has the U.S. dragged its feet with regards to getting any kind of decent equipment to the Iraqi Army? Especially since the entire Bush strategy now hinges on the Iraqi security forces being able to take over the country, you would think that we would want to see them with decent armor, vehicles, and heavy weaponry. Instead, three years into the war and two years after they realized that we would need to train an Iraqi army, the Iraqi forces are still riding around in pickup trucks. Posted by: Andrew Reeves at March 26, 2006 01:27 PM | Permalink to this comment
Andrew, there might be some concern about who ultimately gets the armor, vehicles, and heavy weaponry. Just because the Bush Admin keeps telling the American public that the insurgency is in its last throes and there is no civil war doesn't mean that someone, somewhere in the military chain of command doesn't realize what a feeble lie that is, and that vehicles and heavy weaponry given to the Iraqi Army will inevitably wind up supplying the insurgency. Posted by: CaseyL at March 26, 2006 03:59 PM | Permalink to this comment
As usual, foreign policy “realists” such as Anthony H. Cordesman are speaking words of wisdom…too bad President Bush doesn’t want to listen to what they have to say: the man prefers to get his “news” from Fox and the New York Sun! Always short on facts, the cheaply Neoconish New York Sun recently published yet another article purporting to “prove” the existence of secret links between the Iraqi Baath party and Al Qaeda- see link below: However, reading the article in question only “reveals” that: Funny how after their Iraq debacle, the Neocons haven’t stopped peddling the tall tale of Saddam’s alleged “connections” with OBL: the Leninist thugs of Washington are decidedly obsessed with Saddam and the Baath party…even after they’ve been rendered inoffensive- assuming they ever posed a threat to America any other country. Bush, Cheney & Co. have always lied about the nature of the Iraqi regime, repeatedly accusing Saddam Hussein of being an Islamic fundamentalist in cahoots with Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban: unfortunately, after having been bombarded with fabricated infomercials produced by Israeli “Middle-East experts”, the American public eventually came to believe exactly what the Neocon wanted: that Saddam was kind of a later days bloodthirsty Saracen, on the verge of conquering the Infidel pastures of Wyoming and Oklahoma! Yet, as we now know, the truth is otherwise: there never were any “links” between the Baath party and Al Qaeda, no spooky “secret meetings” in Vienna or Prague or “somewhere in Eastern Europe” between “Saddam’s diplomatic envoy and Bin Laden’s righthand man” as Vice-President Dick Cheney had alleged on numerous occasions
And check out this article for a fascinating firsthand description of Saddam’s Tickrit “spider hole” hideout: Yes these US soldiers were “surprised” after having been brainwashed about Saddam’s penchant for Islamic fundamentalism…which turned out to be just another lie churned out by Washington’s Neo-Conmintern propaganda factory. Like him or not, Saddam Hussein was a truly modernist, Westernized Arab head of state who protected women’s rights and enforced affirmative action programs in favor of Iraq’s tiny Christian minority. “Old Europe’s” foreign policy establishment viewed the Iraqi Baath party essentially as a strong bulwark against both Persian-Khomeinist fundamentalism and Wahhabi-Afghan terrorism. The Israelis and Washington’s Neocons thought otherwise: now we have to deal with the strictures of Sharia Law, the rise of Hamas and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which they have deliberately brought to power…
CaseyL, I don't entirely buy that line of thought, for no other reason that barring a Mutiny of 1857 type situation, there really wouldn't be much more of a threat posed by a force of Iraqis that happened to have halfway decent tanks, APC's, hummers, and some light artillery. Of course, given that a lot of these forces seem to be at least somewhat friendly to Iran, perhaps a Mutiny of 1857 situation is in fact what they fear. Greg? Posted by: Andrew Reeves at March 26, 2006 05:49 PM | Permalink to this comment
"We don't have people who know how do deal with a command economy—particularly a command kleptocracy. We don't know how to reform a country at this level. Rather than giving Iraqis responsibility, we've gone through one set of American ideas after another, none of which fits Iraqis." Another G-D liar. Anybody who knew anything about such matters - in the US government, the UN, various NGO's - was deliberately shut out by the Bush administration. Posted by: Barry at March 26, 2006 08:11 PM | Permalink to this comment
Andrew, I think it's quite likely that grown-ups in the DOD think that serious investments in the Iraqi national army could be a mistake. First, it's clear enough that it's a national army in name only -- while we may trumpet one or another recent success (defined as a time where the army didn't flee, or fail to deploy) what we're still not seeing is the answer to the Robert E Lee problem. When will Kurdish soldiers in the Iraqi army stand against the Kurdish militias in Kirkuk? When will Shiite soldiers fight the Badr Corps? Yes, it's progress that Shiite soldiers will fight Sunni irregulars. (I'm referring to the army, not Ministry of Interior / Badr death squads. They're fighting, but it's not really progress). But the real national army is the one where flag trumps sect. We're so far from that, I don't think anyone is imagining when we get there. And I'm not sure we even want it. Once there is a cohesive national army, there will be a military leader stepping up to move the bickering politicians aside, and solve the problems with a firm hand. As Mubarak says he told Bush in late 2002, 'Saddam didn't make Iraq, Iraq made Saddam.' IMO, there's no George Washington on the menu. The choices are Robert E. Lee or Saddam Hussein (not the human, but the archetype). To which would you give heavy weaponry? Posted by: CharleyCarp at March 26, 2006 08:35 PM | Permalink to this comment
That is a pertinent observation, and takes us back to the decision to disband the old Iraqi Army. The argument can be made -- a persuasive one I think -- is that this was most unwise. However, had the old army not been disbanded it would have become very difficult to prevent it from becoming by far the most potent political force in a country where almost all other institutions had been destroyed or heavily damaged. It may be that if an effective Iraqi army can be built now, the same dynamic will apply. Posted by: Zathras at March 26, 2006 10:21 PM | Permalink to this comment
Zathras, that's a reasonable observation: if disbanding the army was a lousy idea, then what should have been done with it? And what can be done to prevent the new Army from becoming the power behind any strongman able to get and keep its loyalty? Regarding the first issue, the point was made way back when that not all the 650,000 army members were true Saddam loyalists, but regular soldier types (or as much "regular soldier types" as possible in an Army under the command of a murderous despot) who would have been amenable to serving under the new leadership. Firing the top commanders made sense, but some effort ought to have been made to recruit and keep the rest. China and the Soviet Union both had political crises in which the army was called in to put down a popular uprising. The responses by the armed forces were vastly different. In the USSR, the crisis was the coup attempt against Gorbachev, and the climax was when thousands of Russian citizens surrounded the White House to protect Yeltsin: the Soviet Army showed up, clearly under orders from the coup leaders to disperse on the crowd, even if that meant firing on them. The Army refused - because they would be firing on their own people. The coup failed. In China, the Army was called out against the democracy demonstrators massed in Tienanmin Square. The battalions of the Chinese Army were at that point (and may still be) known for feeling emotionally attached to whatever cities or villages they hailed from, and not for any particular feeling for "Chinese citizens" in general. The armed forces sent against Tienanmin Square weren't local; that was a deliberate tactic by the Party - and so the called-in forces didn't hesitate to roll over the demonstrators, kill them by the thousands, and end the uprising. I'm sure you know all that, but I bring it up to illustrate what might be a solution to the problem of Iraq Army loyalties. Iraq culture seems to operate along very strong ethic/clan lines. If what you want is an Army loyal to a central command, don't post the soldiers in their ethnic/clan territories; and make identification with "the country" an essential part of basic training. If what you want is an Army willing to defend a particular territory or population to the bitter end, do post the soldiers among their own ethnic/clan members. There are, obviously, serious risks to either approach. The first approach risks re-creating Saddam's Army - loyal to the strongman above all else. The second approach risks the outcome we may be seeing right now: an Iraq Army ready to fragment along ethnic/clan lines to wage a civil war. Posted by: CaseyL at March 26, 2006 11:18 PM | Permalink to this comment
Cordesman has been a shill for the Saudis for some time. I would first look at what the Saudi's gain from his comments before giving them any credance. Posted by: davod at March 27, 2006 12:27 PM | Permalink to this comment
Davod, wouildn't it be better to look at his arguments on their merits, independent of who said them? Wouldn't you object if somebody started saying you were a shill for Bush or the Democrats or whoever, and so they should ignore everything you say until they see what your masters gain by you saying it?
Interesting critique, with the feeling of truth about it. The end is crucial: "What we should have been able to avoid are the mistakes we continued to make in 2004 and 2005." The model in my head is for more local neighbourhood security forces, of Iraqis who live/ work in an area to be hired to patrol and keep that area secure. Especially if unemployment is high, more Iraqis should be hired to stop violence, in groups of organized deputies. There should have been more authority with mayors of cities, and local tribal sheiks, and local city councils -- and there still should be more authority given to these local Iraqi leaders. There is still too much power in Baghdad, not enough in the other cities. But law enforcement and local security is always mostly a local issue.
But the Bush bashing made this essentially impossible -- where was an honest debate about alternatives as of that 2004, post-Saddam / post Abu-Ghraib situation? There is no evidence whatsoever that the Bush administration paid any attention to civilian hysteria. While there were a great many useful suggestions made, the responsible officials should not have waited for US voters to tell them which mistakes to stop making. It was their job to figure that out for themselves. And indeed, at the time they said they had learned from the mistakes and corrected them, as they continually say even now. The mistakes are all 6 months to a year in the past, and they're doing the right thing now -- I hear that repeatedly from bloggers who claim to be active military guys who know the score. I've been hearing that for 2+ years. It sounds like they change course every 6 months, when they find out that what they started doing 6 months ago didn't work so it's time to correct the problems and do something different. Regardless, it's absurd to say that Bush-bashing could prevent adequate strategy in iraq. If that claim is true, that's the most damning indictment of all. They let their critics at home prevent them from effective coordination with the iraqis. Indefensible.
Tom, don't blame 'Bush-bashing', that's just an attempt to excuse the people with the power and arrogance of their mistakes. From the beginning, this administration cut everybody out of the loop, except for their innermost circle. If anybody was competant, they were systematically excluded. Disagreement was equated with disloyalty. Reality was thought of as a product of action and spin; not as something which had to be dealt with honestly. Posted by: Barry at March 31, 2006 09:17 PM | Permalink to this comment
"Davod, wouildn't it be better to look at his arguments on their merits, independent of who said them? Wouldn't you object if somebody started saying you were a shill for Bush or the Democrats or whoever, and so they should ignore everything you say until they see what your masters gain by you saying it?"
JT, at this point anybody connected with the administration should be assumed to be lying or BS-ing. The arguments of people like that are, at best, not to be trusted without proof. Posted by: Barry at March 31, 2006 09:18 PM | Permalink to this comment
Barry, what is Cordesman's connection to the administration? I understand he worked for the Defense Department in a former administration. He's employed by a think tank that hopes to influence the administration, but do they really have any influence? Cordesman is highly critical of the Bush administration's handling of the war. He has a collection of specific suggestions but he says we can't reinvent the war now, we basicly have to go with the strategy we have. My point is: Suppose that he's a shill for the saudis, he's saying what the saudis want us to hear. Is that any reason not to listen to him? Where he talks sense, pay attention. Where he doesn't talk sense, discard the flawed arguments. Even if we accept that he's saying what the saudis want us to hear, that doesn't discredit him. Maybe what the saudis want us to hear is the truth. Stranger things have happened. In the worst case it would be useful for us to know what the saudis want us to think. You wouldn't ignore an argument just because it was made by an israeli apologist, or an iranian, or a democrat. Why ignore Cordesman just because you believe he speaks for the saudis? As a side issue, does anybody have evidence whether he speaks for the saudis? If he does that gives extra meaning to his ideas.
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