PBS Frontline: Endgame

[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

[goesh]

Had the 4th ID been allowed to advance from the north, I believe many future insurgents would have been taken out initially and more weapons caches been destroyed thus saving a goodly number of lives. The cumulative lessons of history are never fully learned and leave the false assumption that today's mistakes are the worst ever. Our enemies and detractors were sure that Viet Nam would cripple us for generations but we are already in Gulf War II plus Afghanistan with Kosovo, Bosnia, Grenada, Panama, Haitti, Lebanon, Somalia well behind us and a Homeland Security system instituted and evolving. Weapons development seems on course and the DOW stands today at 13.5. The recovery from 9/11 is just short of miraculous and our Military seems no less inflexible and adaptive than in Washington's time. Things could be much, much worse.

[Ken White]

I can recall at least two articles alluding to the fact that Rumsfeld was focussed on his plans to force the Army and Air Force to speed up the transformation process and thought that Iraq would be inimical to that but he was outflanked by the Wolfotwits to Cheney onduit. Broadly immaterial in any event, as I said "my guess..."

I'm aware of the flow into the WH. I erred in tacking DIA to the CIA in the 'direct to the Prez' column, should have said direct to the MLO and thence to the NSC.

I figured Feith's stuff probably got to the President; Wolfowitz and Cheney would have insured that, my minor point was (Tenet the Unbelievable not withstanding) we do not KNOW what the President actually saw or was told. Again, my salient points were; (a) that Bush almost certainly made a conscious decision to proceed regardless and (b) I have no reason to doubt that some people made a case for the potential problems. Been there done that, WH briefings are pretty free flowing, more so than are military briefings.

We can differ on the relevance of any intelligence cooking or manipulation. Yes, "...creating linkages using doubtful intelligence and dubious sources is a matter of record." but that does not pass the 'so-what' test. You know as well as I do that intel is not the be all and end all, at that level it is totally understandably rarely precise and that the Boss (historically far beyond Bush) can pick and chose what's presented to suit himself.

Simply, we do not know what intel Bush was briefed and what he heeded or discounted. As time passes, more will be revealed and we'll know more but we cannot know what went on in his head -- whatever it was did what it did and we are where we are. I'm sure some think that by "shining a light on the process" we can insure no future debacles. Heh. Good luck with that. A key and indisputable fact in the whole thing is that Bush said outside the Ranch to a CNN reporter in January of 2002 that "Regime change in Iraq is a goal of my administration." Most of the intel perversion or obfuscation took place after that. Regardless, regime change in Iraq has been effected...

Over many years I've seen many intelligence failures and many failures to heed intelligence. My WAG is that the ratio of failures due to those two factors is pretty close to 50:50 overall with a distinct preponderance toward pure failures of intel to provide the picture at the strategic level, about par at the operational level and with considerable variance at the tactical level, situation and personality dependent. That is not to fault the Intel guys, obtaining info is not easy, analysis is talent dependent, personalities intrude; lot of factors impede the perfection we would all like.

Having worked both sides of that issue, I understand the problems and processes and absolutely do not fault the Intel community in general for not always being able to produce the finite recipe or answers that some idiot Commanders want. I've been a collector and an analyst; I've also been a planner and an operator. I know it isn't easy and isn't perfect on either side. War's like that...

I also know that the conclusions are frequently drawn on the pessimistic side just to be safe.

And that the system essentially works.

Going north after DS would have been interesting; probably been far easier then than it was in 2003. We certainly had more people and a better tail and Saddam would have been far less prepared in all aspects. The Arab Armies would not have gone with us, they would have loudly objected to the invasion of a Muslim nation (but cheered us on under the table) and, regardless of what happened in Iraq, if we had gotten all the way to the Turkish border and then said "You guys take over"...

We didn't, what if games are sort of a waste of time and effort IMO.

Ah yes, but the question is, had we gone north in DS, would that intel have proven accurate at that time ???

[Tom Odom]

We can differ on the relevance of any intelligence cooking or manipulation. Yes, "...creating linkages using doubtful intelligence and dubious sources is a matter of record." but that does not pass the 'so-what' test. You know as well as I do that intel is not the be all and end all, at that level it is totally understandably rarely precise and that the Boss (historically far beyond Bush) can pick and chose what's presented to suit himself.

The so what comes from the decider himself when he declared on more than one occasion that bad intelligence was to blame -- the infamous Tenet "Slam Dunk" remark. I agree that the Jan 2002 remark was telling in its timing and its rare clarity.

Going north after DS would have been interesting; probably been far easier then than it was in 2003. We certainly had more people and a better tail and Saddam would have been far less prepared in all aspects. The Arab Armies would not have gone with us, they would have loudly objected to the invasion of a Muslim nation (but cheered us on under the table) and, regardless of what happened in Iraq, if we had gotten all the way to the Turkish border and then said "You guys take over"...

Having sat on the NIE sessions and the debates between the military and everyone else on this issue, I would say you are probably correct on the ease of military action and absolutely dead wrong on assuming support (under or over the table) from the Arab states. The Army lead the debate in favor of action against Iraqi forces in Kuwait when DIA, the CIA, and State were pretty much unnanimous in declaring the sky would indeed fall if we attacked. this debate ultimately led to Powell's "we are going to cut them off and kill them" brief.

I offered the comparison of 90-91 to 2003 because the intelligence picture are actually quite close, especially after related 2003 estimates were recently released which called what was likely to happen in the near term fairly close. I would say that is not an exercise in "what if" but a relevant comparison to make, given the lack of transitional planning.

Over many years I've seen many intelligence failures and many failures to heed intelligence. My WAG is that the ratio of failures due to those two factors is pretty close to 50:50 overall with a distinct preponderance toward pure failures of intel to provide the picture at the strategic level, about par at the operational level and with considerable variance at the tactical level, situation and personality dependent. That is not to fault the Intel guys, obtaining info is not easy, analysis is talent dependent, personalities intrude; lot of factors impede the perfection we would all like.

Agree on the WAG. Tracks with my experiences. The devil in the intelligence world is in the assumptions of both analyst and listener.

Again good discussion

Tom

[Ken White]

Point 1 -- a politician tried to CHA and deflect blame. This is news? Re: the 2002 remark, yep, rare indeed..

Point 2 -- if Langley and Foggy Butt were opposed... I rest my case. In any event we'll never know what the Arabs would have done. I was not then and am not now convinced that the masters of saying one thing and doing another would have not been quiescent if not supportive; they did not like Saddam at all and they did not like Iraq at all; they would have seen it as an opportunity to dismantle Iraq. Still do...

Point 3 -- Unfortunately, we Americans, mostly, tend to think linearly and too often discount the impact of personalities on events; we look for the idealized, 'book' solution and that's rarely attainable in practice. Egos also are a huge factor. "Indications lead me to believe..." is guaranteed to grate on a 'kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" type and goad him into doing something stupid. Yea verily on the devil...

Thanks, agree, good talking to you.

[Ken White]

Had the 4th ID been allowed to advance from the north . . .

Couple of thoughts. Military forces are conservative and very slow to change for a reason. If the Eastinghouse Corp. screws up a production run of 'Interrible Widgets (TM)' they sell 'em to a discounter, take a tax write off and simply make more widgets; if a military force starts a new process and it's flawed, people get killed; thus they tend (to a fault) to stick with what's proven.

That has long been true and our failure to draw the correct message from the post WW II conflicts led the Army to proscribe IW doctrine and training for most folks from 1975 until 2004. Terrible goof. In any event, the point is that while we can all decry the lack of agility and innovation, and while we can acknowledge that DoD et.al. have grown far too bureaucratic, there is at least some overriding logic to the resistance to change

The second item is that I think you may be pleasantly surprised in the not too distant future, for the first time in my memory (which is overlong. Sigh...) there's a lot of innovation and thought that are harbingers of a real renaissance. Good news is that it's within the services; bad news is that the massive elephant of DoD bureaucracy will be harder to move. At least it's happening. Hopefully, we'll work at it and not regress.

[Stevely]

Had the 4th ID been allowed to advance from the north, I believe many future insurgents would have been taken out initially and more weapons caches been destroyed thus saving a goodly number of lives. The cumulative lessons of history are never fully learned and leave the false assumption that today's mistakes are the worst ever. Our enemies and detractors were sure that Viet Nam would cripple us for generations but we are already in Gulf War II plus Afghanistan with Kosovo, Bosnia, Grenada, Panama, Haitti, Lebanon, Somalia well behind us and a Homeland Security system instituted and evolving. Weapons development seems on course and the DOW stands today at 13.5. The recovery from 9/11 is just short of miraculous and our Military seems no less inflexible and adaptive than in Washington's time. Things could be much, much worse.

I think the strengths of the insurgency follow out of the sort of super-empowerment of small, armed bands that John Robb talks about, so I don't think this thing could have been nipped in the bud by having 4th ID invade from the north as originally planned. It's just too easy for insurgents to wreak the havoc they do, with limited resources and manpower. One extra division sounds like a silver bullet solution.

You may be right, but there is also no guarantee that things don't become much, much worse. It's early yet.