I agree with you in principle - in fact, I guess I wasn't clear enough in what I was saying. In my earlier post I said that can't wait to initiate development until total security has been established. The implied statement is that, as soon as an acceptable degree of security is reached, development programs have to kick off full force. This means that there will be an element of risk accepted by those involved in development, and reliance on synchronization of ops with those responsible for security. In the statement of yours that I quoted above, I only take issue with the semantics of "...gradually shift over into development..".Originally Posted by CPT Holzbach
In my opinion, its not a shift over to development. It should be the bringing of development into the operational picture, with no reduction in the security effort. In fact, in the early phase of implementing real development efforts, security ops need to increase as the mission expands to include escort and protection duties for many elements of the development piece.
Iraq clearly demonstrates how manpower-intensive that can be. Disruption of basic services through infrastructure attacks, criminal kidnappings, bombing attacks upon civilians are all security issues - but they are also all linked in to the development effort. On the other hand, the unemployment rate and gaps between wages and goods may seem to be a development focus, but it is tied in very tightly to the security issue.
In Iraq, we have never had the force structure in place to implement the degree of security necessary to effectively move forward with development. Because of that manpower shortage, despite the massive expenditure of funds and material, many critical areas have not improved significantly since '03 (some have even retrograded). The inability to address those issues over the intervening period certainly feeds into the insurgency. That is why the standing up of the Iraq military and security forces are so critical. We have to succeed.
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