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June 07, 2006Sacrifice, and "Cakewalks"--with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment in Ramadi, Iraq Amid the flames and smoke and smell of burning diesel, there was little left of the Humvee but a blackened knot of scalding, twisted steel. Please remember these sacrifices when people speak of "cakewalks." Please remember them when prominent right-wing bloggers--many of whom appear to know very little about foreign policy generally--breezily link to myriad sources that imbibe every last bromide supplied by the very same crowd that promised such "cakewalks". And, last but not least, please also keep these sacrifices in mind when people--indeed some of them the very same individuals who promised Iraq would be a breeze--suggest a military conflict with Iran would be "easy" or a "cakewalk" or "no biggie" too. Posted by Gregory at June 7, 2006 04:50 AM | TrackBack (0)Comments
Victory is for thoses whose will is strong. What would Churchill have done? Steel.Will.Steel.Will. Posted by: IntermittentExplosiveDisorderLiberal at June 7, 2006 05:26 AM | Permalink to this comment
"Cakewalk". "Yellowcake". What's the difference? Posted by: Happy Jack at June 7, 2006 05:45 AM | Permalink to this comment
Victory is for thoses whose will is strong. It's true. Germany and Japan lost WWII because their leaders didn't want victory badly enough. Good post, greg. Posted by: CharleyCarp at June 7, 2006 11:55 AM | Permalink to this comment
Excellent article, and excellent post. Greg. Posted by: Doug H. at June 7, 2006 12:06 PM | Permalink to this comment
Once bitten twice shy. To some extent i fell for the "cakewalk" rhetoric in Iraq -- not that I thought that there wouldn't be some casualties, of course, but a small number compared with the benefits of decisive action. After watching this adminstration bungle virtually every aspect except the first three months of actual fighting, I can't imagine how any right-thinking person could entrust them with our soldiers' and Marines' lives. It's as though people need so badly to see the Left proven wrong that they're willing to invest any amount of blind faith and self-deception needed to get there. If only we insulate ourselves from reality enough, we too can see the Emperor's new clothes! I'm surprised there aren't more voices asking, "And we should trust you lot on Iran.... why, exactly?" But human stubbornness dies hard, and admitting one was wrong is apparently the mark of exceptional intellectual honesty (even though I've always thought it was just common sense). Posted by: Equal Opportunity Cynic at June 7, 2006 12:32 PM | Permalink to this comment
Let me inject som unwelcome balance to this increasingly pedantic thread -- the people that mentioned the term cakewalk would unboubtedly like to be able to take the word back, but their opinion was not completely unrealistic. They were speculating on possible outcomes in light of a six week campaign in Afghanistan and a 10 year "nation building" experience in the Kurdish no fly zone. Throw all the bricks you want, but their opinion wasn't crazy at the time, the unforgivable sin was not adjusting to reality when their projections turned out to be wrong. Posted by: wks at June 7, 2006 01:00 PM | Permalink to this comment
We are losing the war because this administration considers its tax cuts for the wealthy more important then the war.
These good men died so that the Bush girls will never have to work a day in their lives. Posted by: spencer at June 7, 2006 01:38 PM | Permalink to this comment
Yeah, wks is right Afghanistan was such a success (can't you wimpy liberals see that?), of course Iraq was going to fall just as easy! We went into to Afghanistan and told them who was boss, Bin Laden is sure sorry he ever killed 3000 Americans on our own soil! He looks like the fool! Posted by: IntermittentExplosiveDisorderLiberal at June 7, 2006 01:41 PM | Permalink to this comment
Greg: This is a rude question, for which I apologize in advance. I value your integrity. But, when the administration said that they would only need some 100,000 troops for this war, and ginned up the need for this war, and simultaneously did nothing to increase enlistments and dissed allies right and left, what were you saying? What were you doing? Gulf War I was fought with more than 400,000 troops. The administration has been trying to get by with less than half that (and failing, so it seems) What I missed in 2002-3, for the most part, was any sense that anyone took into account that the administration was not staffing this war appropriately, and would take a stand saying that "we can't do this, because you are preparing us for disaster." (Kevin Drum, I think, took a stand much like this.) The war in Iraq, even based on what we thought we knew, did not have to be fouight at that moment. We could have prepared, then fought. Or made a national decision that we were not willing to spend lives and men on WMD elimination. The political class really let us down in the run up to Iraq. the Left decided to base its opposition on absolutist principles, which made their arguments pretty easy to ignore. The right decided not to notice that our troop strength just might get the job done. So you are angry. You are willing to call W names. You are willing to call Hugh Hewitt and Mark Steyn names. Fine. But why were you willing to support a war that was apparently understaffed. Did you believe Rumsfeld had found a new way to fight war? Did you believe the threat from Iraq was too great to wait? Why? (And, Andrew Sullivan -- if you bother with Greg's comment section, this is directed at you too) Alonzo Church Posted by: Appalled Moderate at June 7, 2006 02:10 PM | Permalink to this comment
I now feel uneducated. I've been reading so called Conservative blogs since the war started. Never noticed the use of "cakewalk "from them. I have seen it in this context that it was used here, to put those still for the war down. But never from them.
plainslow, the "cakewalk" term got used only before the war. While Baghdad was getting looted and the Oil Ministry records had been searched, Bush came out with an announcement that it would be a long hard expensive war. He'd said nothing like that before. And I haven't heard of prowar bloggers use the "cakewalk" term since. After we started having a hard time, somebody (I think it was Rumsfeld) got a lot of media attention by saying he'd never said it would be a cakewalk. People seasrched through old quotes and I think they found only one administration official who had said that war with iraq would be a cakewalk, who was not Rumsfeld.
All, RE: cakewalk
Ken Adelman first used the term cakewalk, and actually reiterated it at the end of the war in a Washington Post op-ed. "I said cakewalk, and cakewalk it was". Is that clear enough or are you just 'plain slow" ? And you are correct. If we had finished the job 10 years back, we wouldn't need to go back, we'd still be there. Posted by: erg at June 7, 2006 06:30 PM | Permalink to this comment
I want them to continue to help the Iraq's until they can hopefully stand on thier own, or until the soldiers decide that's not going to happen. Not the press. Right. Let's just drop all this "Constitution" and "civilian authority" frivolity, and appoint a Generallisimo. Think of the money we'll save on elections! Posted by: sglover at June 7, 2006 06:40 PM | Permalink to this comment
"Ken Adelman first used the term cakewalk, and actually reiterated it at the end of the war in a Washington Post op-ed. "I said cakewalk, and cakewalk it was"." Fine, I agree to not listen to Ken Adelman on the question of how difficult a military campaign in Iran would be.
So maybe we can all agree that the precondition was NOT just a Cheney-Rummy tactic to pave the way to war? Posted by: liberalhawk at June 7, 2006 06:49 PM | Permalink to this comment
"So maybe we can all agree that the precondition was NOT just a Cheney-Rummy tactic to pave the way to war?" No, it is. I don't know why the French are going along with it. Their motivation is orthogonal from Cheney & Rummy's motivation. Posted by: Jon H at June 7, 2006 07:20 PM | Permalink to this comment
I'm as much a fan of semantic games as the next fellow, but I don't see the importance of actual verbiage used -- "cakewalk" or not "cakewalk" -- relative to the expectations that were set. Regardless of how many times that actual word was used, it's plain that the Administration had unrealistic expectations about the effort necessary to succeed in Iraq, and passed those expectations on to gullible people like me. All the word games in the world won't change that fact or restore the same people's credibility when they tell us that Iran will be a breeze. Oh, wait, I can't cite any use of the word "breeze" by the Administration. I guess that totally undermines my point, hence making the Administration's song and dance somehow believable, eh? Posted by: Equal Opportunity Cynic at June 7, 2006 07:37 PM | Permalink to this comment
Apparentley I am plain slow erg. Thanks for the shot at me because I look at things different then you.
Although I have been an opponent of the war since the summer of 2002, when I couldn't quite believe that the Bush Administration was trying to find reasons to go to war in Iraq, the fact of the matter is that the military operations were, in fact, a "cakewalk." If, prior to the war, someone would have said that Americans would suffer only 3000 dead soldiers in the war, everyone would have agreed that the mission would have been a great success, with "minimal" casualties. We in fact suffered much fewer casualties than that in the actual "war," and are only now approaching that figure more than 3 years later, in the context of a lingering insurgency (and possibly a nascent civil war). Of course, the point of the original post is that each of those casualties represents a real tragedy. And, while I can't speak for anyone else, such tragedies are why I never supported the war. Despite the many reasonable criticisms of the way the war has been conducted, the truth is that it's impossible for everything to go right. In war, shit happens. Good people die. Innocent people are maimed. Some people commit crimes or atrocities. The real mistake in Iraq was going to war in the first place, where there were other options (like continued containment of Saddam, use of special forces to hunt down terrorists around the world, and efforts at home to reduce gasoline consumption and to secure the borders) that, in my view, would have yielded better results at a fraction of the cost in dollars and lives. While I understand the arguments by Dick Cheney and the Powerline crowd about the universal perception of Iraq's WMDs, the truth is that it is difficult to conceive how Iraq (with or without WMDs) ever was enough of a threat to the U.S. to justify risking American lives in a military action there. The neo-conservatives and others who pushed the war are not "conservative" in any sense of the word. Their radical agenda amounts to nothing more than turning over the game-board and hoping that the resultant mess is better than the situation before they turned it over. I could go on and on. The bottom line is that I hope that I'm wrong, and that Wolfowitz / Perle / Cheney were right; and that Iraq stabilizes and provides the foundation for a profound change in politics across the Middle East. Unfortunately, I think that's unlikely. Posted by: themovingfinger at June 7, 2006 08:23 PM | Permalink to this comment
No, the reason I took a shot a you was this para:
I typed in cakewalk Iraq into google and at the top of the search list was Ken Adelman's original Wash Post article. The later Wash post article "Cakewalk revisited" turned up with a little more googling (I actually happened to reemmber it so I didn't have to do that). So basically, 2 words typed into Google was enough to find the ultra-hawk who originated the term. The fact that you did not do this and yet expressed doubt on the origin of the term indicates that you are either dishonest or incapable of using Google (i.e. functionally internet illieterate). Posted by: erg at June 7, 2006 09:02 PM | Permalink to this comment
themovingfinger, I'm going by memory here, but I'm almost certain expectations for casualties were set much lower than 3000 deaths, more like in the hundreds. Perhaps the country was willing to accept this many American deaths from the outset, but that's certainly not my impression. Everyone agrees that the initial occupation was pretty much a cakewalk (by whatever name), but that's sort of the point -- the ease of occupying a nation was confused with the ease of keeping it occupied. It doesn't inspire great confidence in the masterminds of this whole effort when they propose a sequel. Posted by: Equal Opportunity Cynic at June 7, 2006 09:08 PM | Permalink to this comment
I googled as well. Top of the list was a Feb 2002 opt on Adelman. . Since the war started a year after that , I did'nt think my statement "I've been reading so called Conservative blogs since the war started." was inaccurate. If that makes me dishonest, then so be it. If there was an opt I missed since the war started, then for that I apologize. But I was'nt attempting to be dishonest. As for expectations that were set. I knew the war would be long ( I anticipated 10 years) when it started. No war goes as planned. And one where the goverment is overtrown is not going to be short. Never once from any blogs I read did anyone say it would be all over and we'd be home by now. Again maybe I've read the wrong blogs. I am conservative, but not Ken Adelman Right wing.
Have I missed something? Putting aside any overly optimistic projections regarding the Iraq war, who has been describing an invasion and occupation of Iran as a "cakewalk", "breeze", "no big deal" or any other combination of words that would suggest they think it is anything but an incredibly daunting task? I've seen nothing like that. Nice strawman, though. Posted by: Lurker at June 7, 2006 09:33 PM | Permalink to this comment
It isn't just that the administration got it wrong, but that most of the experts got it right. For instance, Kenneth Pollack's book, The Threatening Storm was very clear that things would be really difficult in Iraq after our military defeated theirs. Posted by: Les Brunswick at June 7, 2006 09:35 PM | Permalink to this comment
* Feb. 7, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy: "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." * March 4, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a breakfast with reporters: "What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. . . . Iraq is much weaker than they were back in the '90s," when its forces were routed from Kuwait. * March 16, Vice President Cheney, on NBC's Meet the Press: "I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months." He predicted that regular Iraqi soldiers would not "put up such a struggle" and that even "significant elements of the Republican Guard . . . are likely to step aside."
"It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine." –Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying before the House Budget Committee prior to the Iraq war, Feb. 27, 2003 Budget Director Mitch Daniels On September 15th 2002, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay estimated the high limit on the cost to be 1-2% of GNP, or about $100-$200 billion. Mitch Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget subsequently discounted this estimate as “very, very high” and stated that the costs would be between $50-$60 billion [Source: WSJ, “Bush Economic Aide Says Cost Of Iraq War May Top $100 Billion,” Davis 09/16/02; NYT, “Estimated Cost of Iraq War Reduced, Bumiller, 12/31/02; Reuters News, “Daniels sees U.S. Iraq war cost below $200 billion,” 09/18/02] “There’s just no reason that this can’t be an affordable endeavor.” [Source: Reuters, “U.S. Officials Play Down Iraq Reconstruction Needs,” Entous, 4/11/03] “The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid.” [Source: Washington Post, 4/21/03 -This is just a taste. While "cakewalk" itself may have been only used by sporadically, all these quotes above imply that it would be a "cakewalk". To argue otherwise is to be disingenuous.
I stand by my original comments - if the Iraqi govt today were at a comprable level of public support and control of the major cities as the Karzai govt we would not be labeling Iraq a failure - troubled maybe, but not a failure. I also reiterate a lot of the rosy optimism on nation building was due to the success we had getting the Kurds cooperating once they were out from under Saddam's boot. If people like Fouad Ajami or Bernard Lewis couldn't predict the problems we are facing [the appearance of hundreds of suicide bombers, a tactic unknown in modern history, for only one example] why are you armchair quarterbacks so smug after the fact. The main complaint of the left and the trendy set before the war was that we would suffer tens of thousands of casualties in a Stalingrad [Chris Matthew's phrase] battle for Baghdad. I don't see an equivalent call for reflection on that end of the spectrum. I do not put this argument out as an excuse for not adapting once changes were obviously required, but I don't think the people putting these arguments forward were acting in bad faith at the time they made these statements. Posted by: wks at June 7, 2006 11:24 PM | Permalink to this comment
Hey, if you wanna make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs. That's what eggs are for, right? Damn whinyass army guys, complaining about being blown up in the 115 degree heat 10,000 miles away from home so that George Bush could look like a hero in his flight suit. He's the Decider, after all. If he decides Iraq is worth all the money and lives lost, ours is not to question why. Apparently. wks is right, the pro-war people's opinions were not crazy. They were just stupid. The implication, even if they were careful enough not to say it explicitly, was that we'd go in, remove Hussein et al and freedom would ring throughout the land. Now they're peeved that people are not happy that Americans are still getting blown up after the mission was supposedly accomplished (I guess that particular PR event is not looking so savvy right now). Smart people "manage expectations," they don't throw around words like "cakewalk," squawk about "9/11" every time someone questions them, impugn the patriotism/manhood of everyone who suggests we give it a little more thought before we invade a country that's done nothing to us and remove all of its leadership. Iraq was a disaster before we went in, but it wasn't our responsibility. Now it's OUR disaster. Gosh, I don't know why I don't feel like giving the people in charge of it a hale and hearty "good show!" RE Afghanistan: yes, it's a real garden spot now. Of course, compared to what it was before, it would be. I love how the standards are so low now that we're comparing our results to those of the Taliban and arguing that because the govt we set up isn't as bad as them, it's a smashing success. I'd like to believe that even Bush et al can't be stupid enough to think an invasion of Iran is remotely doable, but I find that I can't. I'm beginning to think that they ARE that stupid. Or they just don't care how many people they kill. Or both.
Exactley the reason I did'nt want this war to start. If predictions don't pan out exactly (as they never do in a war unless we attack Panama), then many of the same people who were for it will change thier mind, as many have. http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/30/sprj.irq.iraq.poll/ (still a majority) This may be the wrong war. It may be the wrong time. But we are in it. Our number one goal now is to help the Iraq goverment to the point it can defend itself internally.
The main complaint of the left and the trendy set before the war was that we would suffer tens of thousands of casualties in a Stalingrad [Chris Matthew's phrase] battle for Baghdad. I don't see an equivalent call for reflection on that end of the spectrum. Oh fuck off, wks. You're debating your own half-baked extrapolations. Many, many of people on the left opposed the Iraq adventure because they saw it as a long-term strategic disaster, quite apart from casualty counts. We expected (correctly, as events have shown) that in the end America would find itself with no good options, and lots of costs. You don't need to be either Sun Tzu or Albert Schweitzer to guess that that's not exactly a desirable outcome. Posted by: sglover at June 8, 2006 12:09 AM | Permalink to this comment
If people like Fouad Ajami or Bernard Lewis couldn't predict the problems we are facing... ... perhaps we should have listened to other voices. For a good pre-war assessment, I'd suggest reading what Cordesman wrote. Maybe the next time they have a confab at the White House, they'll invite him instead of Amir Taheri. Posted by: Happy Jack at June 8, 2006 01:29 AM | Permalink to this comment
I actually don't think we should say: "Well, it's been real and it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun, see ya around, Iraq, we're outta here." We seem to have made an even bigger shambles of their country than it was before, as much as it sucks to have to clean up after the gross incompetence of the Bush administration, I think we're obligated to. If we end up needing to draft people into the never-ending War on Terror TM, I suggest we start with registered Republicans, as they seem to be the most enthusiastic about kicking ass and taking names over in Iraq. Seems only fair. Democrats and all the other naysayers certainly can't be trusted to do it, since they supposedly wanted it to fail from the beginning, to prove how much of an idiot Bush is. If we weren't so determined to deny the greatness that is Bush, Iraqis would be busy counting all their oil money and opening Wal-Marts and Starbucks and Ikeas. Posted by: LL at June 8, 2006 03:56 AM | Permalink to this comment
WW2 would have been lost with these kinds of comments. The Left, and that definely includes Belgravia Dispatch, would have been carping all the way, aout everything. Or maybe not, it was a Democrat prosecuting that war. Posted by: Sherman at June 8, 2006 04:04 AM | Permalink to this comment
Well I think it is fairly clear that characterising the Pro war crowd as having predicted a cakewalk is a bit of a straw man. I think most pro-war commentators did think that the genuinely widespread predictions of military and civil catstrophe in the lead up to the war that featured in Anti-war arguments were overblown and and often hysterical. And they did turn out to be precisely that. The conventional military phase was, in historical terms, a very lopsided encounter and probably went more rather than less smoothly than even optimist's had dared hope. The character and force of the insurgency took a long while to crystallize, and I am not convinced that it woud have been scotched at birth if there had just been more troops. Pre -war planners should have been more concerned and paid more attention to the formation of the Fedayeen Sadaam - which is something we can know in hindisght, but I ma not sure it was obvious at the time - Sadaam had traditionally mistrusted to the point of paranoia, paramilitary formations, and we still don't really know to what extent the Fedayeen Sadaam really was the kernel on which the later insurgency formed. Robert Kaplan reports that few of the military people he came accross in his time reaseraching "Imperial Grunts" beleive that more troops are needed per se, most call for a greater empahsis on Socom and Troops with law enformcement experience in the mix, more tanslators, and most especially better organised interagency support in the PRT's. These are al priamrily civilian jobs. Some of the more commonly cited bungles probably are not - the disbandment of the Iraqi army looks like it has led to a much better army, and if the old army had been kept in place I think there is very good reason that Iraq would probably now be either re-subjecgated under a Sunni minority rule, or that there would simply be instead of a Sunni insurgency opposeed to the majority of the population, there would be a Shia and Kurdish insrugency against a Suni dominated army defending an illegitamte government. I also think that it is hard to too strongly cricticise planners for not anticipating the type of insurgency we are witnessing now - it is very hard to predict what a seemingly irrational opponent will do. And the sunni insurgecny and it's supporters does appear to be deeply irrational and delusional in that both their tactics and strategy are suicidal. They may yet succeed in turning a civil conflict into a civil war - but the would be destroyed in the process. And it is difficult to say that this was a desperate choice from ana oppenet backed into a corner - given the history the Sunni's were offered a reamrkably magnamonious deal by the new majority. It is hard to plan for suicidal rejectionism. Of course it's something that the example of Algeria should have made clear was far more possible than not - but what do you do other than what was done ? After all the complaint was that there were not enough troops, but that had the effect of ensuring that the Sunni area's were initially very lightly occupied. And the Sunni insurgency claims it is motivated by the weight of the occupation rather than it's absence. The fact is that as a military struggle the insurgency was over before it began, and what they fail to realise is that a premature withdrawal would result not in their victory but very probably in the annihalation of the community they claim to represent. The war is far from over and a victory that does establish a stable Iraqi polity with a moderate nature remains a very great strategic prize. What else can be done to secure it is the only serious debate worth having, but is unfourtunatley not the main debate that is occuring. Posted by: Johan W at June 8, 2006 04:04 AM | Permalink to this comment
WKS Your comment re predictability is frankly stupid. If people like Fouad Ajami or Bernard Lewis couldn't predict the problems we are facing [the appearance of hundreds of suicide bombers, a tactic unknown in modern history, for only one example] why are you armchair quarterbacks so smug after the fact. Ajami - who in many ways I like - has certain blinders on with respect to Arab regimes and the US, whether he "could" predict or not is of course a different question. Lewis, who is a fine historian whose histories I own, is a classicist. (In Islamic history terms) Let me suggest to you that it is stupid (or perhaps merely near-sightedly ignorant) to look to a specialist in more or less Medieval history as your baseline expert and predictor for modern Iraq or the Middle East. Only, perhaps, would a paucity of proper experts in the US of A or the English speaking world in modern MENA would lead a rational and informed analyst or observer to turn to a Medievalist (even a respected one) for baseline insight on modern politics. One certainly would laugh at the concept, say in the context of the UK or Europe. However, American Right Bolshy ideologues (and those suckered by ignorance, gullibility, lack of critical thinking, etc) seem to have based their baseline experts on those who said what they wanted to hear. Such as Lewis, who again while a fine historian (despite the degree to which he is hated by the Left) is a specialist in times long-past and shows little sense of modern political dynamics. Your claim is, then, stupid. Posted by: The Lounsbury at June 8, 2006 04:19 AM | Permalink to this comment
"Lewis, who is a fine historian whose histories I own, is a classicist. (In Islamic history terms)" Well, that'd explain a great deal if Bush and Rumsfeld was expecting Iraqis to ride out in scalemail, swinging scimitars. I certainly hope Lewis isn't providing his insight on Iran's nuclear program.
"WW2 would have been lost with these kinds of comments. " WW2 would have been lost with this kind of leadership. Posted by: Jon H at June 8, 2006 04:34 AM | Permalink to this comment
plainslow writes: "Our number one goal now is to help the Iraq goverment to the point it can defend itself internally. " I'm not even sure what that means when the government's own organizations appear to be doing much of the killing. Defend itself? That presupposes that there is a unitary body in action, rather than a schizophrenic organization at war with itself and its own citizens. Posted by: Jon H at June 8, 2006 04:37 AM | Permalink to this comment
As to this long excuse making by John Well I think it is fairly clear that characterising the Pro war crowd as having predicted a cakewalk is a bit of a straw man. No, it is not, mate. I recall quite distinctly the "all is done" happy talk I kept hearing from the US CPA-Iraq staff and online c. 2003, when I was in the neighbourhood working on investment schemes for Iraq, etc. No, it is indeed pretty bloody accurate if something that is now denied. As in your comment. I think most pro-war commentators did think that the genuinely widespread predictions of military and civil catstrophe in the lead up to the war that featured in Anti-war arguments were overblown and and often hysterical. That, however, is fair enough. A good amount of Leftie anti-war bleating was overdone and shrill, even hysterical. Of course that does not mean there was not pragmatic, center-Right warning that Iraq would be a bloody Pandora's box. And they did turn out to be precisely that. If you mean the most hysterical Left anti-war knee-jerking, yes.
Well, I will say as someone on the scene in Spring 2003 through 2004, that the stunning incompetence of the US administration, the complete denial of the reality of an emergence of an insurgency (which certainly was pretty bloody obvious to private business - when one has trucks getting whacked constantly, etc. ) for what I can only describe as myopic domestic American political reasons certainly seem important. Whinging on about the Fedayeen is excuse making. Some of the more commonly cited bungles probably are not - the disbandment of the Iraqi army looks like it has led to a much better army, and if the old army had been kept in place I think there is very good reason that Iraq would probably now be either re-subjecgated under a Sunni minority rule, or that there would simply be instead of a Sunni insurgency opposeed to the majority of the population, there would be a Shia and Kurdish insrugency against a Suni dominated army defending an illegitamte government. This argument might make some degree of sense if the old army was not in fact largely Shia. Certainly of course core units and upper echelons of the officer corps were Sunni, but imagining a Sunni coup d'etat while American and UK (and the confettis of the coalition) are/were present is really pitiful grasping at straws to create some scenario to make the disbanding of the army seem reasonable. I also think that it is hard to too strongly cricticise planners for not anticipating the type of insurgency we are witnessing now - it is very hard to predict what a seemingly irrational opponent will do. Bollocks. Again mere excuse making and special pleading. Listening to staff with area expertise - not just the US diplo service, but miltiary - would have done wonders. The Americans military staff I met in area with Iraq/Arab region expertise had a very good sense c. mid 2003 of where things were going. No one in the US led CPA-Iraq wanted to listen, but the information and analytical skills were there. I saw the willful blindness first hand and have no bloody patience at all for this sort of idiotic "couldn't know" special pleading and whinging on. By mid 03 for those who did not want to willfully deceive themselves and had a sense of Iraq, Arab region etc. the broad outlines of the problems were pretty bloody clear. And the US admin certainly could have taken steps. Maybe it would have worked, maybe not, but this idiocy re anticipation and "irrational" opponents (utter bloody rot, suicide bombing and assymetric warfare isn't new, Sri Lanka has been engaged in this since the bloody 80s, West Bank was already a lesson) is pure tripe. And the sunni insurgecny and it's supporters does appear to be deeply irrational and delusional in that both their tactics and strategy are suicidal. Irrational? Have you been lobotimised? The strategies are quite rational (not that the Sunni are one entity). The takfiri jihadi moujahidine types have a fairly rational strategy (if their ultimate over-arching goals may be deluded, the short term goal of poking a finger in the eye of Satan to get "revenge" is entirely rational.). Hurt the US, destabilise, prevent the installation of a Kafir regime associated with the great US Kafir... Their strategy and tactics may be evil, but they are rational. The Baathist/Sunni supremacist / Iraqi nationalist more or less the same. Exploiting cannon fodder who are certain to die is an entirely rational act. Nasty, but rational. But what can we say, you're engaged in excuse making and it helps to pretend your opponent is irrational for this particular line of excuse making. They may yet succeed in turning a civil conflict into a civil war - but the would be destroyed in the process. It already is a civil war, and quite the contrary, the leadership of say the Sunni supramcists may emerge with its pocket of power - rather like the ethno-religious fiefdoms of Lebanon. The Sunni are not going to be wiped out, many will suffer, but the hard men at the top rarely care about such things. Nothing specially Iraqi or Arab about that, however. See Serbia. And it is difficult to say that this was a desperate choice from ana oppenet backed into a corner - given the history the Sunni's were offered a reamrkably magnamonious deal by the new majority. Well, not particularly - no deal has been really done. The US has sponsored some things, and there is a flimsy government that may or may not survive an American presence, but frankly a Sunni looking at not the myopic US 6 months and an election point of view, but for 5 years and ownership of his house.... no deal. Engaging in this kind of superficial self-delusion as to the frame of reference for Iraqis of course is going to make it look to you like the conflict is irrational. Frame it in native terms, very rational. You also, of course, have to look at real incentives on the ground, not the Model Civil Society textbook delusion view of the situation. It is hard to plan for suicidal rejectionism. No, for it's neither sucidal nor hard to foresee emerging. All the elements were there for a Lebanese type evolution, and that is what happened. Anyone with a decent acquiantance with the socio-political situation and not engaged in self-deception and whanking on could see it. Bloody tedious. Posted by: The Lounsbury at June 8, 2006 05:07 AM | Permalink to this comment
RE "WW2 would have been lost with these kinds of comments." I wondered when someone would get around to the WW2 thing, about how we'd all be speaking German now if the anti-war people today had been around back then. Nice. So the sacrifice of the armed forces then and now means nothing, their efforts clearly worthless, since they can all be undone by questioning. I have to wonder why we bother sending any military over there at all when all Bush has to do is fly over to Iraq himself and make some of those awesome speeches that he does over here about how freedom is on the march and he doesn't understand why people don't see that. What's a few bombings and mass executions compared to the almighty power of PR? If only people would stop pointing out when bad stuff happens, it would magically stop happening and the insurgents would just give up and go back to where they came from. I guess we need to take all the money we squander on the ineffectual military and spend it all on PR flacks to combat all that horrible free speech coming from people who disagree with Bush. Posted by: LL at June 8, 2006 05:19 AM | Permalink to this comment
OK, I want every prowar blogger who says that he claimed all along it was going to be a 10-year fight to post a link to him saying it before April 2003. I may have been reading the wrong blogs but I wasn't seeing any of that back then from people who said it should be done. I only saw that prediction (or worse) from people who said it shouldn't be done. I was doubtful about the Stalingrad claims, but I don't remember posting my doubts more than a couple of times. Soldiers like to think they're protecting their civilians, they don't like to follow a strategy that gets a lot of civilians killed so the rest of the world will blame the invaders for killing them. It seems like -- losing. Still, the USSR was willing to get masses of civilians killed off and for all I knew the iraqis might have the same sort of fatalism in war. If they did go along with that it looked like a moral problem for us, and a logistics problem, but it wouldn't delay victory very long. We could for example do a siege, and negotiate to let civilians and wounded soldiers out (since the defenders wouldn't want extra mouths to feed), and as morale declined the iraqis wouldn't shoot at civilians or deserters who wanted to surrender to us, and as it got more obvious that they had no plan the resistance would collapse. We'd have to be ready to take care of a whole lot of people. And that's the slowest approach. We could have moral problems bombing so many civilians, but one way or another we'd win fairly quick against a Stalingrad strategy. The big problem was the long run, and even there we could luck out. Get local elections, get local governments functioning with local police supported by local militia, and build up from there. If iraqis saw we meant what we said about liberating them, we jcould be out in 2 years, maybe 18 months, and maybe leave a peaceful democratic nation. Not particularly proamerican or proisrael, but democratic. I thought there was a reasonable chance. Iraqi bloggers said the sunni/shia/kurd thing wasn't a big issue. There were lots of sunni/shia marriages, and they all got along except shias and kurds had been oppressed more than sunnis, on average. I was pretty sure it was going south when Garner left. He'd been supporting local alections. But Bremer came in and threw out elected representatives because he didn't like them. He appointed american/iraqis to replace them. Right then it was clear to me and to a lot of iraqis that we didn't mean what we said about liberating iraq. They asked how long we intended to stay and both Rumsfeld and Bush weasel-worded about that, they didn't say anything to indicate they didn't plan to stay forever. I didn't know that the current mess was inevitable the way so many pro-war bloggers now say they did, but I knew we had to do it right to get a good result, and it was obvious from month 3 of the occupation that we weren't doing that. And that's about when the insurgents started getting active. Three months after Bahgdad fell I started campaigning against Bush. I figured it was lost at that point, and with a new leader we might be able to keep US casualties down to 2000. People laughed at me. They said there was no way we'd ever take 2000 casualties in iraq. I failed. Maybe it would have been just as bad if Bush had lost, I'll never know.
OK, I want every prowar blogger who says that he claimed all along it was going to be a 10-year fight to post a link to him saying it before April 2003. I may have been reading the wrong blogs but I wasn't seeing any of that back then from people who said it should be done. I only saw that prediction (or worse) from people who said it shouldn't be done. I was doubtful about the Stalingrad claims, but I don't remember posting my doubts more than a couple of times. Soldiers like to think they're protecting their civilians, they don't like to follow a strategy that gets a lot of civilians killed so the rest of the world will blame the invaders for killing them. It seems like -- losing. Still, the USSR was willing to get masses of civilians killed off and for all I knew the iraqis might have the same sort of fatalism in war. If they did go along with that it looked like a moral problem for us, and a logistics problem, but it wouldn't delay victory very long. We could for example do a siege, and negotiate to let civilians and wounded soldiers out (since the defenders wouldn't want extra mouths to feed), and as morale declined the iraqis wouldn't shoot at civilians or deserters who wanted to surrender to us, and as it got more obvious that they had no plan the resistance would collapse. We'd have to be ready to take care of a whole lot of people. And that's the slowest approach. We could have moral problems bombing so many civilians, but one way or another we'd win fairly quick against a Stalingrad strategy. The big problem was the long run, and even there we could luck out. Get local elections, get local governments functioning with local police supported by local militia, and build up from there. If iraqis saw we meant what we said about liberating them, we jcould be out in 2 years, maybe 18 months, and maybe leave a peaceful democratic nation. Not particularly proamerican or proisrael, but democratic. I thought there was a reasonable chance. Iraqi bloggers said the sunni/shia/kurd thing wasn't a big issue. There were lots of sunni/shia marriages, and they all got along except shias and kurds had been oppressed more than sunnis, on average. I was pretty sure it was going south when Garner left. He'd been supporting local alections. But Bremer came in and threw out elected representatives because he didn't like them. He appointed american/iraqis to replace them. Right then it was clear to me and to a lot of iraqis that we didn't mean what we said about liberating iraq. They asked how long we intended to stay and both Rumsfeld and Bush weasel-worded about that, they didn't say anything to indicate they didn't plan to stay forever. I didn't know that the current mess was inevitable the way so many pro-war bloggers now say they did, but I knew we had to do it right to get a good result, and it was obvious from month 3 of the occupation that we weren't doing that. And that's about when the insurgents started getting active. Three months after Bahgdad fell I started campaigning against Bush. I figured it was lost at that point, and with a new leader we might be able to keep US casualties down to 2000. People laughed at me. They said there was no way we'd ever take 2000 casualties in iraq. I failed. Maybe it would have been just as bad if Bush had lost, I'll never know.
OK, I want every prowar blogger who says that he claimed all along it was going to be a 10-year fight to post a link to him saying it before April 2003. I may have been reading the wrong blogs but I wasn't seeing any of that back then from people who said it should be done. I only saw that prediction (or worse) from people who said it shouldn't be done. I was doubtful about the Stalingrad claims, but I don't remember posting my doubts more than a couple of times. Soldiers like to think they're protecting their civilians, they don't like to follow a strategy that gets a lot of civilians killed so the rest of the world will blame the invaders for killing them. It seems like -- losing. Still, the USSR was willing to get masses of civilians killed off and for all I knew the iraqis might have the same sort of fatalism in war. If they did go along with that it looked like a moral problem for us, and a logistics problem, but it wouldn't delay victory very long. We could for example do a siege, and negotiate to let civilians and wounded soldiers out (since the defenders wouldn't want extra mouths to feed), and as morale declined the iraqis wouldn't shoot at civilians or deserters who wanted to surrender to us, and as it got more obvious that they had no plan the resistance would collapse. We'd have to be ready to take care of a whole lot of people. And that's the slowest approach. We could have moral problems bombing so many civilians, but one way or another we'd win fairly quick against a Stalingrad strategy. The big problem was the long run, and even there we could luck out. Get local elections, get local governments functioning with local police supported by local militia, and build up from there. If iraqis saw we meant what we said about liberating them, we jcould be out in 2 years, maybe 18 months, and maybe leave a peaceful democratic nation. Not particularly proamerican or proisrael, but democratic. I thought there was a reasonable chance. Iraqi bloggers said the sunni/shia/kurd thing wasn't a big issue. There were lots of sunni/shia marriages, and they all got along except shias and kurds had been oppressed more than sunnis, on average. I was pretty sure it was going south when Garner left. He'd been supporting local alections. But Bremer came in and threw out elections because he didn't like the guys who got elected. He replaced them with american/iraqis that he appointed. Right then it was clear to me and to a lot of iraqis that we didn't mean what we said about liberating iraq. They asked how long we intended to stay and both Rumsfeld and Bush weasel-worded about that, they didn't say anything to indicate they didn't plan to stay forever. I didn't know that the current mess was inevitable the way so many pro-war bloggers now say they did, but I knew we had to do it right to get a good result, and it was obvious from month 3 of the occupation that we weren't doing that. And that's about when the insurgents started getting active. Three months after Bahgdad fell I started campaigning against Bush. I figured it was lost at that point, and with a new leader we might be able to keep US casualties down to 2000. People laughed at me. They said there was no way we'd ever take 2000 casualties in iraq. I failed. Maybe it would have been just as bad if Bush had lost, I'll never know.
How strange. I posted a comment that went roughly "Now I know it isn't enough to wait an hour to see if a post shows uo" since I reposted one twice after a couple of hours when it didn't show up. The new post didn't show up and I reposted it, only to see both copies. But now both copies are gone. I don't understand this.
Good post Greg..shows what combat conditions under fire are like. What you are going through is much worse than what we went through out in the field in Vietnam. There the VC or NVA would pop up out of a spider hole, shoot and run..They would mine the roads and creekbeds and trails but out heavy tanks and daily sortees on the roads kept the roads clear..They also had to hand carry all of their artillery shels vs the bad guys in Iraq who have vehicles, horses and whatnot to carry their arty and explosives. Keep up the outstanding work and don't worry about the b.s being spouted back in the States..we know the good things you are doing there in Iraq to give those people their freedom.. God Bless out Troops ! Posted by: B Morgan at June 10, 2006 05:45 PM | Permalink to this comment
The Lounsbury: I am not quite sure whether some of your misundertsanding of my post was wilful or just due to poor expression on my part - others may be better able to judge. I recall quite distinctly the "all is done" happy talk I kept hearing from the US CPA-Iraq staff and online c. 2003, when I was in the neighbourhood working on investment schemes for Iraq, etc. I think the happy talk and the denial - especially of the CPA - was unforgivable - and I think it demonstrated quite early the disconnect between the civil and military reconstruction and pacification effort that bedevils the operation to this day. But it was not that that I was reffering to - and my use of the word "predictions", might be a clue to the fact that I was making reference to the idea that there were pro-war types in the lead up to the war who were predicting it would be a cake-walk. If I remember the unequivocal predictions were mostly being made by the other side of the argument. Now in the period roughly from April 2003 to April 2004 I think it would be fair to say that in light of just how wrong the cassandras had been on the course of the conventional campaign and it's immediate aftermath there was probably a greater tendency to accept at face value Bremer's and Rumsfelds polly-anna pronouncements. People closer to the ground knew that there was something wrong - but at the time I think that there were plenty of people, and I know I was one of them, who thought that what was visble to a far observer at that time was nothing more than what one would expect after the sudden removal of a decrepit 30 year old despotism, and not justification for more doom mongering so soon after one lot had been completely discredited . Now anyone who cared to read what military people close to the ground had to say would have realised at least a year before the Administration appears to have, that the insugency was gathering far greater force than we were being told. This argument might make some degree of sense if the old army was not in fact largely Shia. This is an idiotic and ignorant thing to say - the old Army was composed of Shia conscripts lorded over by Sunni officers - with a core of predominantly Sunni elite units to discipline any mutinies in the outer units. As in many Arab armies the gulf between officers and men was gapingly wide. The consrcription was a source of huge resentment amongst the Shia , the situation of the Shia within that army was akin to the position of press ganaged sailors in the Navies of the Naploenic wars, or the average soldier through most of the pre-napoleonic armies. The conscripts were little more than miliatry slaves, and the army was one of the primary instruments that maintained the position of Sunni dominance in Iraqi society. And who said anything about a Sunni coup d'etat - merely maintaining the old army would make such a thing unnecasarry - the Sunni would just keep a lid on stability and the coalition upped stumps and declared victory, knowing that with the Army in their control they would be the final arbiters of the future. What people forget is that there was in fact very detailed and thorough palnning done in the lead up to the war by the Americans and involving many Iraqi exiles. What went both wrong and right was that very early on the administration did realise that this planning might well forge a stability early on, but that in preserving so much of the status quo it would never be accepted by either the Kurds or Shia, who were not about to accept Sunni domination of the new Iraq. So this planning was thrown out in it's near entirety at about the same time that many of the returning exiles were also discredited, sometimes failry, sometimes not. What was wrong was that Bremer appears to have, after throwing the old plan out, eschewed making a new one and simply make one up as he went along. There were many Sunni who were disaffected from Sadaams rule - but their vision of the future was domination by the Good Sunni, as opposed to the bad Sunni Sadaam had turned out to be. Plenty of these turned, if only tacitly, to the insurgency once it was clear that the Coalition was serious about betting on the Kurds and Shia. this idiocy re anticipation and "irrational" opponents (utter bloody rot, suicide bombing and assymetric warfare isn't new, Sri Lanka has been engaged in this since the bloody 80s, West Bank was already a lesson) is pure tripe. Again I think you are wilfully misundertanding me - I made no claim that assymetric warfare or suicide bombing was something itself that could not be anticipated - my whole argument was that the Sunni rejectionism and persitent supremacism was irrational enough to be hard to anticipate. They were not being told that they would be excluded from the new Iraq, nor was a general bloodletting and indulging of Kurdish or Shia vengeance countenanced (one of the more unremarked, yet remarkable, stories of the Iraq conflcit has been the degreee of overall forbearance excercised by the Kurdish and Shia leadership in the face of extreme provocation - the shia death squads are a recent, and still limited phenomena). The Sunni position has been and remains largely delusional and bloody minded. They were offered a pretty good deal given their past history of oppression, the Kurds and Shia had good cause to hate the Sunni, and Baath loyalist most especially. But neither group was seeking to indulge in a Kosovo style orgy of extended vengeance. And yes Sunni rejectionism is irrational, the longer it persisted the more dominant the Shia and Kurds would become in the new security forces and every other level of Goverment - so that now Sunni's are represented far below their numbers. If the insurgents succeed in breaking up Iraq through civil war it will be the Sunni who end up with a very short stick - The Shia and Kurdish areas have the overhwhleming majority of Iraq's oil, most of the fertile land, the majority of the population, and now the military and political measn to hold on to these gains. The Sunni will be left with Anbar as their heart land whilst trying to contest with Shia and Kurd who hold the money, the food, the numbers, and if the choice cannot be avoided - will have the backing of the sole remaining superpower, as well as possibly the backing of the regional giant in Iaran as well. So no I have not been lobotomised , but you have not done your homework, or have drunk a bit of the kool aid that leads people to indulge in Sunni supremacist apologetics. The position of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq is far worse than any of the factions in Lebanon vis a vis their opposition - so yes their rejectionism is suicidal - and irrational even in local terms, and some Sunni appear to be belatedly realising that , although it has taken the appearnce of Shia death squads to come to that conclusion. It is still not too late - and the Kurds and Shia do not in general want a civil war and are still offering a settlement. If the Sunni Arabs know what is good for them they will take it, if not their future is as goatherds in the western desert, living on the periphary of relatively powerful Shia and Kurdish lands. Posted by: Johan W at June 10, 2006 07:04 PM | Permalink to this comment
Johan, I can see how you'd consider the deal we offered sunnis a pretty good deal. It was a little better than the deal we offered the confederacy at Appomattox. But the sunnis haven't been unconditionally defeated yet. Note too that a lot of sunnis naturally consider it legitimate to resist US occupation. But before we sent in Negroponte we had a lot of US talk about the El Salvador option. We were going to train shia secret police to kidnap and kill random sunnis to teach them not to tolerate resistance. Now that's happening. Would it have happened if we hadn't made it happen? There might have been room for some sort of compromise but that looks gone now. The US government has backed the sunnis into a position where their choice is to surrender and take whatever retribution gets dished out (independent of the official terms of surrender) or else fight. If you were in their place what would you do? Surrender to the invaders and the government that's using death squads? If you did choose to surrender, who woul you surrender to and what mechanism would they use to accept your surrender?
What people forget is that there was in fact very detailed and thorough palnning done in the lead up to the war by the Americans and involving many Iraqi exiles. Do you have links for that? This is the very first time I've ever heard it. For years now we've had people saying "There are people in the state department who're good at planning this sort of thing but they were never consulted" and such. It would be interesting if there was actually a detailed plan that got rejected at the last minute in favor of no plan at all. I wonder why it was never mentioned in te early years. Could it maybe be a revision of the history?
J Thomas: There are analogies with the deal offered the confederacy - in so far as the deal would not countencance the continuation of policies that either party had come to view as their divine right (slavery in the south, continued oppression of the Shia in Iraq). And on the Battlefield the Sunni were unconditionally defeated, unless you were watching a different war to the one I saw. In the immediate aftermath their army had either fled the feild or had been destroyed in situ - and the Shia and Kurds, needless to say, did not rally to their cause as (at least) the shia did against Iran. Likewise in the immedidate aftermath, and for a good time afterwards they were very lighltly occupied, though not really by design so much as the fact that the 4th ID had been refused transit through Turkey at the 11th hour. And it is worth remebering that the Sunni who support the insurgency probably don't make up a majority even within the Arab Sunni population, there are plenty of Anti-Sadaamite pro-government Sunni, not to mention the fact that there is also a very sizable population around Bagdad in particular of Mixed Shia-Sunni neighbourhoods with high rates of Intermariage - so my remarks should not be regarded as directed at the Sunni Arab population as a monolithic whole. Now this talk about the US El Slavador option is something I would really like to see some citation for - as it is the first I have heard that such an approach was contemplated. Whilst it is right to find the idea of death squads repugnant, I do find some of the current objection to the rumoured existence of such to be a little belated and highly selective. The insurgency has long been characterised by precisely such tactics - and it was not Just Zarqawi who had a policy of viscious terror towards the Shia and Kurds (and even if it had been Zaeqawi was sheltered and supported by the Sunni. Effctively for almot 3 years the Sunni death squads have been bombing, abducting, shooting, stabbing and otherwise indiscriminatley slaughtering Shia - at their funerals, their mosques, their festivals, their schools , markets and hospitals - the overwhelming majority of civilian casulties since the end of the conventional war are attributable to Sunni on Shia violence. All through the Shia have shown great forbearance, and the American policy has been consitently to suppress the main Shia militia just as it tries to fight the insurgency. I am not condoning the shia death squads in Police or security force guise - but set against the Sunni on Shia violence it is thus far a very minor phenomena, is quite recent, and comes at the end of a long period of the most extreme provocation. The Shia have been experiencing the equivalent of the London bombings directed against them almost every 3rd or 4th day day for a couple of years now, do you think Americans or British would have withstood such an assault over such a period of time and still held out the hand of compromise, and not lashed out? I do find some of the Sunni outrage is a little hard to take - especially from outfits like the Muslim Scholars association , whose support for the insurgency and obduarcy vis a vis the politcial path makes their hands red with Shia blood. Remarkably eough even now the Shia led unity coalition holds out the hand towards the Sunni of involvement in the political process, and they have ensured that despite the boycotts and the violence what Sunni have joined the polictical process are welcomed there. So there is still room for a deal. The US is not the one that has backed the Sunni into any corners - they have done that themselves - though as said they are not in a corner - they are being offered peace, rather then defeat. My own view is that the Sunni Arab leadership has been as obdurate, bloody minded and incompetent as that of the Palestinians. I find it difficult to sympathise with their plight - their leadership has been disatrous for their country, and they have ****ed-up every second chance they got for a quarter of a century. You ask what I would do - I would urge that the weapons be laid down and that whatever concilaition offer still on the table be accepted. And I would do thsi before the Americans leave rather than after - because I don't think that if the Sunni wait until the Americans judge the ISF strong enough to defend the goverment with out their help there will be much left in the way of good-will offers. What is stupid is that the SUnni insist that they are fighting to end the occupation - when in fact they are the factor most resposnsible for perpetuating it. If they wait until the Coalition leaves they will face an ISF largely unconstrained by the necessities of military dependency on the US - the result wil be a catastrophe for the Sunni community, and tragic. But you ask me to place myself in Sunni shoes - when the problem is that too many of the Sunni leadershp refuse to put themsleves in the shoes of the Kurds or Shia. WRT to prewar planning there was a 4 corners (An ABC Australia newsprogramme similar to frontline) that was I think a rescreening of a US PBS documentary. I watched it prior to the war and it detailed the extensive planning , even to the extent of running exile-staffed shadow ministries. There was also an exile army as well as detailed planning for reconstrcution efforts and revitalisation of the Oil industry. In the very early days post invasion we head alot about the exiles and Chalabi in particular. Now it became very clear very early that neither the Shia nor the Kurds were going tolerate what would have been in effect a takeover by the exiles. Nor - given that the whole operation was run out of the State Dpeartment were DOD or even the whitehose very ahppy about it. The fact is that the story has not been very well told - when it deserves to be - there is still a lot of mystery surrounding why Garner was so abruptly replaced, the exiles shunted offstage and the CPA hamstrung by interagency feuding and a floundering Bremer who appears to have been given the breif to feel his way forward and try to put a more civilian face on the coalition effort at precisely the time when the Military were the only people doing much in the way of reconstrcution. It was a mess, and there is almost certainly lot's of blame to go around - but without a better idea of how the mess came to be the blame does not strike me as very constrcutive. I do think that the original paln probably might have dleivered stability in the short term, but without knowing it better in detail I don't think rule by exiles and retention of much of the Baathist state can have led anywhere but to greid down the road. Posted by: Johan W at June 11, 2006 09:48 AM | Permalink to this comment
Johan, the officially nonsectarian iraqi government was firmly defeated on the battlefield though they never surrendered. But their population hasn't suffered enough to see they must surrender. The biggest part of the civilian casualties during the invasion were in the south, among shia -- because the northern offensive didn't happen, and so the north didn't get nearly as many airstrikes. By comparison the american south had gone through years of blockade, massive military casualties, and Sherman. They *knew* they were beat. Even then they had the Klan doing hangings and targeted assassinations despite the occupation troops which mostly couldn't catch them. my remarks should not be regarded as directed at the Sunni Arab population as a monolithic whole. Thank you! That's important to remember, that none of these abstractions are actually monolithic wholes. the Sunni who support the insurgency probably don't make up a majority even within the Arab Sunni population Maybe so. I haven't seen a poll about that I'd trust. I'd expect a lot of sunnis would support the insurgency and the iraqi government both. Why not? Try more than one thing and see which works quicker. there are plenty of Anti-Sadaamite pro-government Sunni Saddam is captured, and if he were to escape tomorrow he might possibly lead a small splinter group of sunnis. Anti-Saddam is not the issue. Pro-government? A lot of iraqis have hope for the government. Right now it consists of an assembly that has not actually done much of anything. Plus a court system that runs without an assembly making laws. Whose laws do they use? Saddam's laws plus CPA rulings.... Plus an army that is entirely under foreign control. And a civil administration, likewise. There is not really an iraqi government to be pro for yet, but they hope. The best chance to get the americans out appears to be for the iraqi government to tell us to leave. Now this talk about the US El Slavador option is something I would really like to see some citation for - as it is the first I have heard that such an approach was contemplated Clearly we see very different news. A google search on "salvador option" gave 85,000 links. Effctively for almot 3 years the Sunni death squads have been bombing, abducting, shooting, stabbing and otherwise indiscriminatley slaughtering Shia Are you sure? For the first couple of years the story was that it was particularly collaborators who got hit. Sunnis or shias who worked as translators, office workers, laundromats, etc for the US forces. Then when we set up a collaborationist police force they started going after police and their families. Zarqawi got a terrible reputation for attacking random civilians, and other insurgents made great efforts to distance themselves from him. Note that in Baghdad it's precisely the integrated acculturated sunnis the death squads can reach easiest.
All through the Shia have shown great forbearance, and the American policy has been consitently to suppress the main Shia militia just as it tries to fight the insurgency. The american policy has been to suppress militias period. We want there to be no armed force in iraq outside our control. the overwhelming majority of civilian casulties since the end of the conventional war are attributable to Sunni on Shia violence. Do you have a source for that? I have had a very hard time getting reliable numbers about how many iraqis have died or why. Here's a calculation that makes sense to me, though there's no evidence for it. The US has had about 20,000 casualties, dead and wounded. There's a rule of thumb that says if the insurgent to military casualties are less than 5:1 (or maybe 10:1, it's a rule of thumb) then the military is losing badly. It's inconceivable that we're losing badly in a milibary sense, so the insurgents must have taken 100,000 to 200,000 casualties, dead and wounded. They have essentially no medical team apart from the civilian MDs, and we raid those -- when we find hospital patients etc that appear to be wounded by US weapons we grab them to interrogate. With reasonable but not excellent care we'd expect 50% dead and 50% wounded. These guys aren't getting that much care. That would suggest around 90,000 to 190,000 insurgent casualties so far, assuming that insurgent:US casualties are no more than 10:1. You ask what I would do - I would urge that the weapons be laid down and that whatever concilaition offer still on the table be accepted. After you propose surrender, how long do you think you'd live? And I would do thsi before the Americans leave rather than after - because I don't think that if the Sunni wait until the Americans judge the ISF strong enough to defend the goverment with out their help there will be much left in the way of good-will offers. There's no particular reason to think the iraqi government forces will have any strength after the americans leave. We have trained a lot of iraqi infantry -- the guys we need to take casualties in our place. We haven't trained logistics guys, artillery, asrmor, or officers. So these guys won't be particularly useful for militias. Their training depends on support that won't be available. They can shoot but they haven't been trained not to waste their shots. They expect unlimited resupply. What is stupid is that the SUnni insist that they are fighting to end the occupation - when in fact they are the factor most resposnsible for perpetuating it. If we had no opposition, why would we ever leave? Back when people started asking Bush whether we did intend to ever leave, he wouldn't say there was any such intention. We got a lot of talk about how we still had bases in germany after 60 years, though germany isn't occupied. WRT to prewar planning there was a 4 corners (An ABC Australia newsprogramme similar to frontline) that was I think a rescreening of a US PBS documentary. I watched it prior to the war and it detailed the extensive planning , even to the extent of running exile-staffed shadow ministries. There was also an exile army as well as detailed planning for reconstrcution efforts and revitalisation of the Oil industry. In the very early days post invasion we head alot about the exiles and Chalabi in particular. Thank you. All I heard about was the exile army, which was insignificant but strong enough to guard Chalabi's headquarters. I can imagine there were detailed plans to revitalise the oil industry, which were made irrelevant when we actually got a look at the Oil Ministry's records and saw that the plans were based on very mistaken assumptions. Interesting to hear that the detailed work was done by the State Department when other sources have said the State Department was out of the loop. The fact is that the story has not been very well told - when it deserves to be I'll be interested to hear more about it. I think there's a possibility that this was propaganda. That someone somewhere along the line wanted to put out reassuring stuff about the coming war, and they made up things that sounded plausible completely independent of what was actually happening. It took us a very long time to figure out that iraqis wouldn't tolerate government by exiles, and with our support some exiles are still important even in the assembly -- Allawi for example. Posted by: J Thomas at June 11, 2006 11:35 PM | Permalink to this comment
J Thomas: I agree the mixed Neighbourhoods have suffered the worst, and yes Sunni seen as Collaborationist have been targeted as have Shia for the same reason. And in realtion to the targeted killings of moderate Shia on grounds of religious offence - this appears to be the work of outfits like the (shia) Mehdi army. But the point remains that when it comes to indiscriminate killing in what are often mass casulty events - market, mosque and funeral bombings the phenomena has mostly (almost exclusively) been Sunni on Shia violence. Likewise the attacks on Police are possibly not strictly speaking sectarian, but in practical terms the much greater willingness to join in the Shia community has meant that practically it may as well be sectarian. It is almost exclusively carried out by Sunni's and the victims are almost exclusively Shia until very recently where there has been a marked upsurge in the the recruitment rate amongst Sunni Arabs. The Goverment has hitherto often been paralysed - but it is worth pointing out that at least part of the reason for that has been the fact that it has been holding out for Sunni particapation and the sunni negotiators have been especially bloody minded given that they boycotted one election and had a fairly poor showing in the next and at the same time have done far too little to dissociate themsleves form the Anti-goverment insurgency. The other cause of paralysis was the fight withing the Shia block to block the more fundamentalist Shia's within the block from dominating it. This battle appears to have been won (for the moment) - and had to be because the fundamentalist Shia were not just unacceptable to the moderate Shia, but also to the Kurds and the Sunni as well. Now the Goverment has to do something, but whilst it was forming the Army and Police were being built and the efforts at rebuilding the Judiciary has also proceeded, and appears to have produced a fairly credible institution given the circumstances. Likewise the education sector has been fairly well reconstructed. All three efforts may well have benfited from the vaccum at the centre. Now the centre ahs to give them direction and avoid undoing the good work that has been done through political meddling. Many of the other problems mostly depend on the security situation - alot of reconstrcution of Utilities has taken place - there are new power plants, water plants and telephone switches. But the insurgents have been very effective at attacking the network that would deliver these benefits to Iraqi's, especially in Bagdad. Ubiquitous networks like Power, Water and Transport are very hard (impossible) to defend. Until there is either a political settlement or offensive action against the insurgents sufficient to dissuade them form prosecuting these attacks many of the benefits will be kept form Iraqi's. Posted by: Johan W at June 11, 2006 11:49 PM | Permalink to this comment
re: gaps in prewar planning Here is one allegational story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/17/AR2005081701974.html (Claiming that State warned that there were gaps in planning by DoD, as State was being forced out of the picture.)
http://www.thememoryhole.org/state/future_of_iraq/ (Claiming that there was a project to plan out an Iraq transition, done by State, and maybe as a way to distract State, but it was ignored.) Posted by: frank wallace at June 12, 2006 01:52 AM | Permalink to this comment
Frank, thank you! So this k"planning project" involved 17 teams of 10-20 iraqi exiles and 2-5 outside experts each. They met for one to 1 1/2 days each, and then split into subcommittees, and the result of each group was a written report with recommendations for what somebody else should do. This is not what I think of as occupation planning. Planning for an occupation would involve specific plans that would be funded, with particular people assigned to perform each task. So for example the exiles said it would be vitally important to get clean water and electricity running in the first few days after the victory. They suggested that iraqi exile engineers should arrange this. They would move in soon after the troops and link up with the engineers actually running the water works and power plants, they'd establish what was needed and get it as quickly as possible. And a number of iraqi exile engineers volunteered. But an actual plan would have been funded. There would be a list of iraqi exile engineers who would do the work. They would be assigned bodyguards. Before the invasion they would do considerable work researching what kinds of waterworks and powerplants were running, and they'd compile lists of spare parts that would likely be needed. They would contact the manufacturers of the spare parts and make plans for urgent-priority requests. We would supply priorit transportation. Etc. We would have the details worked out, and we'd also have resources available to deal with unexpected problems. None of this was done at all. The State Department "plans" were basicly a proposal to plan the next stage after the invasion. And probably they didn't know when the invasion was scheduled -- 4 of the 17 groups had not yet had their initial meeting when the invasion occurred. So when Garner was appointed they sent him 1200 pages of suggestions. Kind of like throwing a drowning man a big book that describes how to set up a lifeguard training program. The judiciary committee was the most successful working group with a 600 page report about what new laws should replace Saddam's laws, but I haven't confirmed that it made up half of what they sent Garner. Given generous founding and a strenuous 6 months delay before the invasion, the State Department effort could have turned into a competent postinvasion plan.
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