All Those Iraq Reports

[SWJED]

2 July - PCR Project - All Those Iraq Reports.

Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced in March 2003. Nearly four and a half years later, the struggle for the “well-rooted country,” its future, and its very existence rages on. With a broad swath of the American public, Congress, and academe dissatisfied with current administration policy, several think-tanks have released reports articulating their visions for the future conduct of the war. The details vary widely, but the reports recently issued by the Center for American Progress, CNAS, and Brookings all agree that present circumstances cry out for a new course. Unfortunately, the disagreement evinced among these reports underscores that the way forward is by no means obvious...

[Jedburgh]

HASC, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee 12 Jul 07 testimony on A Third Way: Alternatives for Iraq’s Future (Part 1 of 3):

General Wesley Clark

Max Boot, CFR

Edit to add Part 2 of 3:

Daniel Byman, Georgetown University

[Jedburgh]

18 Jul 07 testimony to HASC on Iraq: Trends and Recent Security Developments:

William Perry, Stanford

Jessica Tuchman Mathews, CEIP

Frederick Kagan, AEI

[Jedburgh]

HASC, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee 25 Jul 07 testimony on A Third Way: Alternatives for Iraq’s Future (Part 3 of 4):

Bing West

In summary, I would make four points.

First, General Petraeus is our wartime leader. He has a smart, experienced staff. He will provide to you a fulsome, balanced assessment in September - far superior to anything you will hear in the interim.

Second, how you, our elected leaders, depict our withdrawal will have profound consequences. To a very large extent, you will shape the narrative, determining how our great nation is perceived and how friends and enemies respond to us.

Third, if the rationale for withdrawal is because Iraq seems hopeless, then leaving behind a residual force is fraught with peril. You cannot quit, and expect to manage what happens after you quit. Iraq, if it perceives it is being abandoned, could fly apart quickly.

Fourth, the rationale for withdrawal drives everything that comes thereafter. Why are we withdrawing? Is it because we as a nation have given up, concluding that full-scale civil war is inevitable; or has our military succeeded, allowing Iraqi forces to maintain stability?

I do not see a compromise "middle ground" between these two rationales.

MG (Ret) Paul D. Eaton, Former Commander, Coalition Military Assistance Training Team

You must force, in an asymmetric approach, rational governance by this administration. It is irresponsible for Congress to allow the executive branch of the United States to flail diplomatically when we are faced with an existential threat. The power of the purse can be used with much greater finesse to coerce an this administration into prudent governance.

Stephen Biddle, CFR

Under the circumstances, perhaps the most important recommendation that can be offered is to urge the Congress to require by law that the Defense Department develop properly detailed, rigorous, comprehensive contingency plans for the possibility of US troop withdrawals from Iraq – whether partial or total. The United States began the occu-pation of Iraq with inadequate planning; it should not end it the same way. For now, however, it is widely believed that detailed planning for “Plan B” alternatives to the surge would be tantamount to an admission of failure and that the Administration will not sup-port such an effort for fear that it would leak and undermine political support for the war. Such a planning effort, however, is a requirement of prudent policy making. Our best ef-forts to the contrary notwithstanding, we must face the real prospect of failure in Iraq, and we owe it to the American people to be as carefully prepared as we can be to mitigate the consequences of that possibility should it occur.

COL (Ret) Paul Hughes, USIP

America has never won a war without the solid support of its people. While many Americans have indicated they see little to be gained from the continued war in Iraq, the U.S. military sees itself becoming further distanced from the people it protects at a time when our forces face significant challenges in recruitment and retention of its troops. Parents are dissuading their sons and daughters from joining the services; company grade officers are leaving the military in record numbers; and children of soldiers are under tremendous – and generally unrecognized – stress from repeated deployments of their fathers and mothers.

A new partnership between the Executive and Legislative branches is needed if the military is to regain the support of the people. In the past, these two branches have not communicated well with each other, which resulted in no clear articulation of our war aims to the American people. According to the Washington Post, less than 1% of America has served in the military; less than 5% know of someone who has or currently serves. That means upwards of 94% of the American people have no direct stake in this conflict. When both branches work together to articulate policy, this serious gap can be fixed so that our people understand what is at stake, the price being paid and the realistic consequences of failure.

[Jedburgh]

FPC, 14 Jul 07: The Iraq Commission Report

The UK has a legal and moral responsibility to Iraq. Under Resolution 1483 and subsequent UN resolutions, the British hold shared responsibility in international law for what happened during and after the invasion of Iraq.

Whilst much has been achieved by the coalition in ending the regime of a brutal dictator and the holding of elections, it is now clear that the initial, over ambitious vision of the coalition can no longer be achieved in Iraq. The UK government needs, therefore to redefine its objectives. In the words of Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former British Special Representative in Iraq, “We thought we were going to achieve something good, that has not happened. It’s actually time for change. It is time to do something about it.”

It is the view of the Commission that the UK government’s aims for Iraq should now be to:

• Preserve and underpin the territorial integrity of the Iraqi state.

• Support a strongly federal internal structure for the Iraqi state, as envisaged, but not yet implemented, under the present constitution.

• Promote the constructive engagement of Iraq’s neighbours in the achievement of the above aims, and support any initiative aimed at stabilising the region.

• Prevent Iraq being a base for al Qaeda attacks within Iraq and beyond its borders....

Full 118 page report at the link.

[Jedburgh]

HASC, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee 31 Jul 07 testimony on A Third Way: Alternatives for Iraq’s Future (Part 4 of 4):

GEN Barry McCaffrey (Ret)

LTG Gregory Newbold (Ret.)

Daniel Benjamin, The Brookings Institution

[Jedburgh]

Brookings Institution, Sep 07: Salvaging the Possible: Policy Options in Iraq

...This paper identifies the stakes in Iraq and why the U.S. and international community should have a stake in stability in Iraq – and if that is not possible, why we should try to contain the impact of the civil war. Because future policy will need to reflect changing security and political dynamics, we do not attempt to predict and analyze every option that might arise in the coming months. Rather, we analyze four options that represent the envelope of possibilities in Iraq: victory, stability, withdrawal, and containment. Understanding the requirements and shortcomings of these options will provide a base to define and assess future variants on these core themes....

[RTK]

For what it's worth, the September BBC/ABC Poll of 2000 Iraqis on their general take of security and infrastructure improvements.

The survey by the BBC, ABC News and NHK of more than 2,000 people across Iraq also suggests that nearly 60% see attacks on US-led forces as justified.

This rises to 93% among Sunni Muslims compared to 50% for Shia.

The poll was conducted in more than 450 neighbourhoods across all 18 provinces of Iraq in August, and has a margin of error of + or - 2.5%.

The number of people wanting coalition forces to leave immediately rose since February's poll but more than half - 53% - still said they should stay until security improved.