Knowledge and Understanding
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Originally Posted by
reed11b
OK, understood, however my big beef w/ the slide is that it absolves us of our central role in the Iraqi insurgency by implying that the insurgency always had this long range political/strategic goal and plan. Nothing I have ever seen suggests this to be true with possible exception of AQ. OIF II, III, IV etc. did not need to occur had WE acted correctly. What is needed is an internal review focus, not an external one.
How did we create the insurgency? Too few troops to begin with, bypassing large numbers of fighters and weapons, Disbanding the Iraqi Army, Criminalizing Baath Party membership, The CPA, Bremmer’s free market experiment, Not supporting local experiments in democracy, etc etc….
The too few troops I put as a minor factor, but it did allow a large number of Iraqi soldiers to keep there weapons and contributed to our inability to create law-and –order during the riots and to find and secure the weapons caches.
All of the above were exaggerated by the complete disbanding of the Iraqi Army, leaving a large number of Iraqi Soldiers with at least some military training and no means of making an income to join in the dis-order and later the insurgency. This also made it so that anger or frustration could not be re-directed to the Iraqi leadership since it did not exist. It also created a condition were any Iraqi’s working in the new security forces were automatic stooges of the U.S. since the U.S. created those security bodies.
Criminalizing Baath Party Membership had a similar effect. Most of the professional classes in Iraq, such as Doctors, were required to be Baath members to practice there profession. The majority of Baath party members were also Suni, and this would contribute to there feelings of being discriminated against that would have violent repercussions later as the country nearly slipped into Civil War.
The CPA as a concept was a bad choice, even outside of the myriad of bad choices the CPA made. By not having a truly Iraqi interterm government, it meant that an Iraqi did not have the choice of working for the Nation of Iraq, they could either work for or against the occupying forces. Guess what many Iraqi’s chose? Even a neutered interterm Iraqi government would have been able to deflect anger away from the coalition forces, and would have made support feel more like Iraqi’s pulling themselves back up on there feet rather then an insulting handout.
Breemers free market experiment justified many educated Iraqi’s fears that the US and allies were doing a resource grab. It may also be the key reason that the Iraqi economy, including it’s oil, were so slow to recover.
I could go on, but the point is the insurgency was a reaction to our actions and was preventable from the get-go and was not created by some far thinking insurgent generalissimo. Yes AQ seems to think more on the long-term side, but perhaps a military solution is not ideal for dealing with AQ.
Reed
Reed,
Your knowledge of what occurred is right on. The slide, however is right also. Recognize that it is a generalization and not an absolute, and intended to get a US tactical audience to understand that the guy they are in a firefight with, or hunting down was sent out with a different purpose than they were, and so will react differently than they will to similar circumstances.
But you are absolutely right that there was no insurgency (active phase one insurgency that is) in Iraq due to the suppressive efforts of Saddam's government. We set it all in motion with our regime change operation. Which is why I say we are not conducting COIN in Iraq, but are conducting "post-regime change FID."
To my way of thinking, there are three broad categories of Insurgency, and you have described one. I believe all three exist in Iraq, and none of them include AQ. AQ is not conducting Insurgency in Iraq, they are conducting UW.
There is Resistance (as you describe, those who rose up to drive out the invader/occupier US). There is Separatist (the Kurds, who want to break a piece of the old Iraq off for a new Kurdish state), and there is Revolutionary (both Sunnis and Shia have a go at this; those who reject the current government and want to change it).
But back to the Pyramid. The wise insurgent understands his tremendous tactical disadvantage. So he maximizes his strengths. He hides among the populace, he uses information operations, he targets and disrupts low-level symbols of the government. Not because he wants to wipe out school teachers, mayors and tax collectors. Because he wants to achieve one of the three strategic effects above.
We think we can win by attrition. Kill his fighters and kill the fight. (I am not a fan of the strategy, because those fighters all come from the very populace whose support you are attempting to gain). We need to get a little more strategic ourselves. Target the causes of insurgency and not the symptoms of it. Obviously so long as we are occupying the country this is hard to do with those who are of the Resistance. One more reason to not try to fix the entire government and make it effective. Focus on goodness, focus on communicating that and your clear intent to leave. Make your actions reflect your words. Put the host nation to the fore and let them clearly demonstrate they are in charge, and get the F out.
So yeah, you are right, but so is CAVGUY. Focus on where your understanding overlap and work out from there to where you don't. Too many start by focusing on where they disagree, and there really isn't anywhere to go from there.
It really isn't pick on Bob day but...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
But you are absolutely right that there was no insurgency (active phase one insurgency that is) in Iraq due to the suppressive efforts of Saddam's government. We set it all in motion with our regime change operation. Which is why I say we are not conducting COIN in Iraq, but are conducting "post-regime change FID."
Agree there was no insurgency -- partly because there was no government to insurge against...
Mostly because of that. What caused the insurgency to develop was, in order of importance to that start:
- A massive Intelligence failure on our part. Saddam told us what he was going to do; arm everyone, release all the prisoners in the jails and go to guerrilla warfare.
- A failure on the part of then CinCCent and the Army to well outline the problems foreseen and, possibly, to allow egos to get in the way of the limited intel that did point to a possible guerrilla fight.
- A failure for over 22 years by the leadership of the Army to really address the issues of IW and the occupation of a foreign nation; this failure led to a failure to have doctrine readily available and to train for those contingencies. This led to Reed's accurate summation of an Army that stood by and twiddled its thumbs and then overreacting as usual and firing at any and everything too promiscuously.
- The CPA and its errant stupidity merely solidified the three foregoing issues and exacerbated all those problems. The installation of the interim government and the subsequent election turned Saddam's IW fight into an insurgency, plus. Got to add in the criminal mischief, the sectarian feud, tribal enmities and all the other things that coexisted with the insurgency.
The first item, Intel failure, is possibly an overstatement but not by much and the error(s) are hard to attribute. The second two items are flatly military error. The fourth item is political and out of the purview of the Armed Forces.
I emphasize that because it was a factor in Korea, in the Congo, in the Dominican Republic in Viet Nam and will always be a factor that the Armed Forces cannot control.
Quote:
We think we can win by attrition. Kill his fighters and kill the fight. (I am not a fan of the strategy, because those fighters all come from the very populace whose support you are attempting to gain).
You're closer to decision points than I am but I do not get that perception. I do agree that some want to do that -- and I suggest part of that started from somewhere near your current home and the rest came from senior people who've been marginally trained and educated over the past 25 years (the training and education are improving, and rapidly -- but that does not excuse the lapses of senior Flag Officers and civilian leadership from 1975-2002 (with a few rare exceptions like Shy Meyer and John Wickham who the others merely waited out...). My perception is that the majority of the Army (and I include senior folks) does not believe that.
Other'n that, I agree with you... ;)
Letter From The Birmingham Jail
Bob's World has often talked about the Civil Rights Movement but many here may not be familiar with it in the way Bob is talking about. Below is the 1963 letter from the Birmingham jail written by Martin Luther King while he was in jail. I highly suggest everyone read it and I think Bob's comments may become clearer.
Among the highlights are MLK's entire Strategy of non-violent Civil Disobedeance....has nothing to do with pacifism. Including the 4 step Strategy Process and The story Bob told about the guy that looses all the fights but wins the war. It is not just a story....it was a planned tactic and the people were specially selected to survive such an event.
Again I encourage everyone to read it as there are numerous lessons about COIN contained in it. And now without further adue MLK Letter From The B'ham(that how we do it down here) Jail.
http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/office...lk/letter.html
Damn it almost forgot the music....The Birmingham Jail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFPFk...eature=related
Welcome and two questions
Oredigger61,
Welcome aboard, an interesting bio too. Have you a link to the cited Military Review article, even if 1974 pre-web? Secondly what was PHIBSCOLCORO? You will not some of our resident sages cite 're-inventing the wheel' regularly, so a 1974 article comes as not surprise.