PBS Frontline: Endgame

[Ski]

Don't know if anyone saw this last night, but it's an overview of the war in Iraq from about the middle of 2003 to the present. Looks at the military, diplomatic and political issues associated with Iraq. I like Frontline's coverage of many issues. Don't know how true some of this is, but a lot of rings true to what I have been told by those who have been there.

Link is at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/endgame/view/

[Tacitus]

Some of the interviews were pretty revealing, I thought.
We apparently didn't even imagine that there could be an insurgency in Iraq. The best case scenario seems to have been the ONLY scenario we ever imagined or thought worth planning for. How any serious student of war can think like that is a mystery.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ews/keane.html
Here is a quote from Gen. keane:

Q:To whose feet do you lay this strategy? How did we get to the short-war strategy? Is that White House-driven? Is that Rumsfeld-driven? Is that [CENTCOM Commander, 2003-2007, Gen. John] Abizaid-driven?

A:I think it's complex. It's a shared responsibility, let me say up front, between the national civilian leaders and senior military leaders. I think it's driven in part by my own failures when I was there as a senior military leader contributing to [CENTCOM Commander, 2000-2003] Gen. [Tommy] Franks' plan that we never even considered an insurgency as a reasonable option. We took down the regime and thought all we had to do then was occupy the country, stabilize it, and in a matter of a few months we could reduce the force, and then in a matter of a few years we should be able to be out of there.

Well, obviously that was wrong to begin with. And once members of the regime decided not to surrender and the insurgency began to grow, the strategy that evolved in '04 was a considerably more thoughtful strategy than the one we had in '03. It was a shared strategy among the generals who were participating -- Gen. Casey and Gen. Abizaid -- and obviously Secretary Rumsfeld.

Now, it's operating within an ideology ... that you use the minimal amount of force because you do not want the host nation to be overly dependent on you. ... They looked at Bosnia and Kosovo and rejected those models, because we had a very large footprint there, and we created, in their minds, an artificial dependency from the host country on us to establish a rule of law, to get basic government services going, and we were doing too much. As a result of that, you protract your stay. ... So the strategy develops out of that basic, I believe, administrative ideology in how you apply force and how you stabilize the country with the minimum amount of force. And it's out of that that the military leaders are also designing a military strategy to help stabilize Iraq, get it to be secure, and also have a representative democracy that's not a threat to its neighbors. ...

So the administration, I think, had a role to play here with influencing the military leaders in terms of their ideology. But military leaders bear responsibility here as well in crafting a military strategy that turns out not to have worked.

[Ken White]

Your Statement:

"We apparently didn't even imagine that there could be an insurgency in Iraq. The best case scenario seems to have been the ONLY scenario we ever imagined or thought worth planning for. How any serious student of war can think like that is a mystery."

may or may not be correct; all we know is what's been said in public and that's generally, in the national security arena, not a very good indicator of what actually happened.

Without being totally privy to the briefing sessions to the WH, we'll never know precisely what went on. However, based on the open source stuff I've seen (all should be easily Googled), I know:

- We had a massive failure of intelligence. Saddam gave two Russian Generals gold medals just before we attacked and they left town. The thinking at the time and until mid summer 2003 was that he'd wasted two medals. Then it became apparent that they suggested he open all his arm store, arm the entire populace, empty the prisons and let the Americans get to Baghdad because you will not be able to stop them conventionally -- then wage a guerrilla war. He did all that and he even announced publicly that he was going to do it. The Intel community either missed it totally or they propllry analyzed and reported it in a classified item not yet released and a command decision was made to go any way. We don't know which; we do know the authority exists for the President to do that.

- That the CIA, State, the Army War College, the J3 on the Joint staff and DCSOPS at DA all warned of the almost inevitability of the chaos that ensued. The CentCom war game two years earlier had included such problems.

- That the initial entry rumor mill had a "90 days and we're gone" mantra and that planners were told to low key the post attack planning effort.

- That the original intent was to go earlier and that there was strong advice not to play the UN game, yet Bush decided to go back to the UN and delay the attack (Why is not known, my guess would be to support Blair). That delay allowed a Turkish election to transpire and the new government reversed Turkey's position and did not allow passage of the 4th ID (and all its attachments) to start a northern front, a very significant part of the original plan.

- That Franks wanted 350K troops and Rumsfeld wanted 90K and that the Decider compromised on 250K+

- That in early May of 2005, Garner was abruptly removed, Bremer was installed and the whole ball game changed. To include the disbanding of the Army and the Police, arguably really dumb and several other dangerous things inculding incompetent political appointee staffers in the CPA. The "90 days and we're gone" rumors ceased. What we do not know is why that major change occurred, all we know is what we've been told about and what on the surface appeared to occur.

The rest as they say is history.

So we did imagine -- what we did not do was train beforehand on how to fight such a campaign and we deliberately elected not to plan comprehensively for something that had been touted by many in the Armed forces as a possibility, even a probability.

I do not know -- you may -- what went on in the Tank and in the WH Situation Room or at Camp David. So I don't know why some of those things occurred. From the above my guess (informed type as opposed to WA type) is that CentCom dusted off the Contingency Plan which visualized post attack problems and was told by the well known American Civilian control of the Armed Forces to forget that, strike hard and fast and we're getting out quick. That is their prerogative.

The Armed Forces then have to rebel or say "Yes Sir." My guess is that Franks was given the word that the Guidon was planted and it was going to go; either he could lead it or someone else would. Given his ego, he knew he could take Baghdad quickly but didn't know what would happen next so he said "Okay but I want to retire as soon as we secure the city."

Much has been made of the intel on WMD and so forth. Spooks by nature are an unforgiving crowd and get perturbed when their product is ignored -- but the Commander, the decider, has a right and the authority to do that; intelligence is advisory, not prescriptive. Similarly, the decider has authority to overrule his military adviser on plans for combat, discard elements he does not like and go for the gold. He may be dumb to ignore the Intel and / or to change the best plan his military folks can provide but he absolutely has the authority to do so. If he's successful, no one cares and he's a hero; if not he become something else.

At this time we don't know enough about the lead in, we do not know what caused some of those apparent decisions -- and it ain't over yet.

[walrus]

With the greatest of respect, I don't believe there was a "massive failure of intelligence" at all, at least certainly not in respect of weapons of mass destruction. Analysts resigned over the way their intelligence was presented and one British Analyst suicided.

There is also evidence that Intelligence was diverted through a special office that run by Feith that "fitted" it to the expectations of the Administration. I therefore have no doubts that there were people who would know the likely Iraqi reaction to occupation, but practiced self censorship for fear of losing their jobs.

Prudent risk management is part of the planning process of any activity and I have no doubt that there were plenty of people in the Pentagon who are aware of this. The question of insurgency must have been raised, and the risks assessed, but what happened to the risk assessment is anyone's guess.

I believe Powell certainly knew, hence his famous "You break it, you own it" comment to the Commander in Chief.

[Ken White]

no mention by me of WMD, just intel with respect to Iraqi capabilities and possible intentions that might be inferred by planners from those capabilities.

Analysts resign frequently, it's a high turnover job. The majority of those from Langley are of an anti-Bush persuasion and are also in the process of defending their institution. If anyone retires from the CIA and goes public, you can bet they are either attacking (rarely) or defending (usually) the Agency.

The Brit who committed suicide did so for reasons we may never know but there is no doubt that a portion of his angst was directed at the fact that he had leaked some classified info to a BBC reporter. That should be easily Googled.

Yes, there is the probability that Fido Feith, who's intelligent but stupid and dangerous, tried to muddle some intel -- but that is irrelevant. The CIA and DIA stuff goes directly to the President; Feith's foolishness may or may not have gotten there. The point I made was that Bush almost certainly made a conscious decision to proceed regardless -- and that is totally legal. It may or may not have been dumb (and we do not know enough at this time to say whether it was or was not) but it was not illegal.

Self censorship and job protection are a common phenomena in all walks of life in my observation. Even in the Priest / Rabbi / Preacher hood. Politicians, elected or appointed are masters at it. Civil Service folks are notorious for it. Unfortunately, the Armed forces are a reflection of the society from which they come so some folks in uniform also practice job protection. Far fewer than in an equivalent number of civilians in my observation but there's no question that service people at all levels are guilty of it. Human foible.

As you say, the risk assessment was almost certainly made. My guess is that Bush overruled Rumsfeld (who did not want to go to Iraq and hated the mission) and the JCS recommendation (The Staff recommendation; Myers was an Air Force guy and couldn't even spell land warfare -- that, BTW was part of the overall problem; three aviators; Bush, Rumsfeld and Myers nominally in charge and none of them with the first idea of what ground combat looked like) and said "Go." He undertook a calculated risk. We'll see in a few years how good his instinct was, too early to tell now.

Powell's 'famous' quote isn't a Pottery Barn rule but you're right, he knew -- so did most people in the Army. Only the Politicans refused to heed or consider the problem. However, they're the ones that were in charge, they did nothing illegal and while none of us are happy with what's going on right now, it could've been far worse and we'll have to see what happens when the fat lady sings before we can write the Critics Review.

[Tom Odom]

As you say, the risk assessment was almost certainly made. My guess is that Bush overruled Rumsfeld (who did not want to go to Iraq and hated the mission) and the JCS recommendation (The Staff recommendation; Myers was an Air Force guy and couldn't even spell land warfare -- that, BTW was part of the overall problem; three aviators; Bush, Rumsfeld and Myers nominally in charge and none of them with the first idea of what ground combat looked like) and said "Go." He undertook a calculated risk. We'll see in a few years how good his instinct was, too early to tell now.

Ken

while I agree with much of what you say, I have seen nothing and heard nothing that indicates that Rumsfeld was anything but enthusiastic about taking on Iraq, especially as a test case for transformational shock and awe, doubly especially after the CIA and Tenet embarrassed him with the take down of the Taliban in Afghanistan. I do agree that after Baghdad fell, Rumsfeld lost all interest aside from maintaining his control over things, something he had done publicly even before the war kicked off, insisting that Iraq was a DoD project until the last minute when they hired General Garner.

On intell flow into the White House, CIA and DIA cables go to the White House. They do not go in the Presidential Brief without the normal process. Tenet's book, however, makes it clear that Feith's stuff did circulate there as put forward by Cheney and Rumsfeld. Nothing that has come out so far indicates Feith's efforts were irrelevant. To the contrary, insistence on creating linkages using doubtful intelligence and dubious sources is a matter of record.

Finally when it comes to intelligence failures, many are failures to heed intelligence. That is an operator failure and the decider as you call him is operator number 1. WMD is a mixed picture. Likely reactions of the Iraqis is equally mixed. But one thing I know for sure is the Iraqis acted in 2003 and continued to act in 2007 pretty close to what the intelligence community said they would had we gone north in Desert Shield.

Anyway, good debate on a diifficult subject

Best

Tom