War in Iraq -- GWOT's Vietnam or Berlin
Heard this analogy, loosely paraphrased here, by Tim Russert in his teaser interview on this morning's local CBS new radio statio...
- Republicans are trying to make the case to the public that the war in Iraq is central to the GWOT. Parallel to Berlin/Moscow in the Cold War.
- Democrats are trying to make the argument that the war in Iraq is a distraction from the GWOT, sort of like Vietnam in the Cold War.
Forget the political parties for a second and consider from the warfighter's perspective -- which do you think? What would GWOT look like if we weren't in Iraq? Would we be better off? Take it from now going forward...should Iraq be the GWOT Main Effort, or shift to a Supporting Effort, in which case where would the Main Effort be?
I believe Iraq may have started as a distraction but has grown to the point where it is now central. Some folks have attributed a certain Machiavellian wisdom to it all, like that was the plan all along. I think imperial hubris is at least as likely. But that was then, this is now, and it is as core to GWOT as core gets. Main effort.
An illustrative example....
Yesterday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released their report on "postwar findings about Iraq's WMD programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with pre-war assessments." http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf
In today's CBC story on the report(http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/nation...ia-report.html, Senator Kit Bond is quoted as saying
Quote:
Yet to make a giant leap in logic to claim that the Bush administration intentionally misled the nation or manipulated intelligence is simply not warranted.
My initial reaction to that quote was something along the lines of "never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity". Then I started to get really scared....
Marc
Iraq is (Now) the GWOT Focus of Main Effort
I agree with those of the opinion that while Iraq may not have been central to our successful prosecution of the GWOT in 2003 and earlier - it is now. Cutting our losses and pulling out would be perceived as an enormous victory to the extended Islamist terrorist network; provide yet another terrorist 'safe haven' (failed-state) for planning, training and logistical support; and further destabilize a region vital to our national security interests. Yet another vacuum would follow a withdrawal and most certainly this vacuum would be filled by Iran, Syria and non-State actors hostile to the West.
I also have to agree with Merv, if not for the same reasoning, that a 'healthy’ look at our past mistakes to enable needed adjustments in strategy and TTP is desirable – an ‘unhealthy’ look for simple political gain in an election year is borderline treason and does much to further potential defeat in Iraq and elsewhere. While the Democrats seem more prone to using the GWOT as a political tool there is enough blame on both sides of the aisle to go around.
While I am on the soapbox - I am also miffed about criticism heaped on those who have written about our strategic, operational and tactical mistakes in Iraq. In some cases their patriotism has been questioned and to put it bluntly that is a bunch of bull.
I concede that there are many of the 24-7 anti-U.S. crowd who revel in our mistakes to justify their misguided notions; but I will also offer that there are many who look at those mistakes as lessons learned, relearned and unlearned. These are lessons that must be addressed to enable successful operations in the future.
On the use and abuse of prewar intelligence
Hi Merv,
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Originally Posted by
Merv Benson
There are still some undeniable facts about what led the US and its allies to war in Iraq. Saddam was required by his cease fire agreement and 17 UN resolutions to account for his WMD. It was his burden and not the CIA or US intelligence's burden to account for his WMD and have the weapons inspectors supervise their destructions.
True, at least as far as it being his burden to account for his WMD according to both the cease fire agreement and the UN resolutions. I would certainly not argue that he acted in "good faith" in the matter at all :).
As to the CIAs analysis or, rather, the one that was used as the justification to the war, I would certainly argue that it was both the CIA and the Bush administration's burden to make sure that they had the most accurate analysis available. The problem I was trying to point out was that using that analysis as a causus belli and, most importantly, having it publicly proven that the analysis was slanted, has
- reduced the credibility of similar claims in the future;
- led to a lot of international questioning of the motives of the administration; and
- has squandered a lot of international, grass roots support for the GWOT.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Merv Benson
He wholly failed in this obligation and played a cat and mouse game with the inspectors and thumbed his nose at his obligations under the cease fire agreement and the UN resolutions. He could have avoided the war simply by complying.
Sure he did - and so have North Korea and the Sudan to name just two other countries. In and of itself, that is not an internationally recognized justification for war that has the effect of binding international allies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Merv Benson
While the post war analysis could not find most of his WMD what it really means is that much of it is still unaccounted for. This should be a bigger worry than the political second guessing of those who did not want to use force in Iraq to make him comply with his obligations.
Hmmm, that's the logic of the excluded third :). I certainly remember coming across rumours that a fair number of WMD raw materials and components had been smuggled out via Syria to the Sudan. Should it be a major concern? Yup, no question about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Merv Benson
He also brutalized his own people in violation of his obligations under the UN resolutions and paid money to the families of terrorist Palestinians. Many of the thugs that he used to brutalize the population of Iraq are still doing it under different management.
Again, I really have to respond with a "so what?" So do the North Koreans, the Sudanese and a whole host of other countries including China. Would you argue that that is enough justification for an invasion and occupation in and of itself? I would agree that it is a good secondary claim - more of a secondary justification really - but it certainly isn't enough in and of itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Merv Benson
A non politicized look at intelligence failures is worthwhile, but this second guessing and name calling is not productive to dealing with our foreign enemies and it should not be used to make bad faith charges against political opponents in this country.
I certainly agree that a non-politicized look at intel failures is quite worthwhile - no question about that :). I would argue, however, that one of the effects of this particular intel failure has been a series of political repercussions at the international level and that is also worth looking at. The sheer fact that there are questions being asked both inside the US government and by other governments and media outlets about whether it was an "intelligence failure" or a case of slanting available intel to meet pre-existing administration desires impacts on the international perceptions of both the credibility and effectiveness of US intelligence and any claims that may be made stemming from that intelligence.
Is it a "bad faith charge" when you examine why your allies question the validity of your intelligence and start questioning the motivations behind your requests?
Merv, in order to effectively pursue the GWOT, we have to think about it as a global form of counter-insurgency warfare, and part of what that means is that there has to be a fairly high level of international trust in US intelligence and in the motivations behind suggested opperations. That means that an intelligence "failure" of this type has an importance far beyond the borders of the USA.
I think Bill hit the nail on the head in his first post of this thread when he said
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I believe Iraq may have started as a distraction but has grown to the point where it is now central (to the GWOT).
Part of the centrality I see centers around the justifications based on the "intelligence failure" and the public administration responses to the increasingly public, at least internationally, belief that it wasn't a failure but, rather, a purposive slanting of available intelligence. *That* really concerns me and, in truth, I think that the loss of international credibility and trust is much more important than finding the location of any remaining WMD. I'm certainly not advocating that we stop looking for them, but I think claims that since we haven't found them they must be hidden even better than we though are pretty damaging.
Personally, I don't believe what most politicians say anyway (although there are a few exceptions to that). I do, howver, find the idea of a Republican senator implying that it was stupidity on the part of the Bush administration to be very worrysome - certainly that was how I interpreted the remark of his that I quoted.
Marc
Allow me to jump in late.
Iraq is obviously a distraction, since the so called war on terror is war against the global jihadist movements of which the Iraqi government was never apart of, furthermore the war in Iraq not only took away US resources from the war against the jihadist it alienate allies and became a recruiting tool for the jihadist. The catch is due to our poor persecution of the war we have created a situation where our withdraw could very easily lead to large uncontrolled section of country which could the become operating areas for the jihadist (though it might be fair to argue that this has already happened)
Iraq and long term U.S. military views.
Today a JAG and I had a debate over wording in Descision Support Matrix (DSM) he used the phrase pre-conflcit leaders, and argued that it should say legitimate "host nation" leaders. The scenario was based on the U.S. providing assistance to a country threatened by a neighbor that utilized an internal gurilla movement as well to try and grab territory from our ally. I contended that in "Phase IV" of a conflcit where there is an existing central government, that the governement is going to have the say so on who the regional and governmental officials are, and that they might not be the guys who had the job before hostilities broke out. My armor compadre pointed out that this wasn't an Iraq scenario, and we, as a military, had to understand that in many situations where we might execute COIN/FID/SRO/SASO (it's a small war, regardless of what letters you call it) that we would not be starting with either blank slate or blank slate that we as the U.S. are creating. He pointed out that we had to respect the wishes of the government we are supporting. Only about 3 or 4 out of 10 really understood what the tanker was saying initially. As he and I headed to the parking lot, he opined to me that he felt the U.S. Army was to wrapped around the axle with Iraq, and that we were developing a whole crop of leaders and staff officers who just "weren't going to get it" the next time we have to fight a small war. I agreed whole heartedly with him.
What is the opinion that you guys have or are seeing out there?