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| Iraq |
| Pentagon institute calls Iraq war `a major debacle' |
| 2008-04-18 |
| I haven't read the report(not more than the first 4 pages) nor do I know the reputation of the author. I assume this report will be front page of the Tehran Times tomorrow though. Could someone with more knowledge please make some relevant comments to shed some light on this report and what it means? Is it relevant at all? I'm curious to know to if and to what extent Cheney and Rumsfeld's involvement in day to day war operations have influenced our desired outcomes and eventual victories in the larger WoT. But first things first who is Joseph Collins? WASHINGTON | The war in Iraq has become ``a major debacle'' and the outcome ``is in doubt'' despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute. The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush's projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions. The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations. It was published by the university's National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research center. ``Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,'' says the report's opening line. At the time the report was written last fall, more than 4,000 U.S. and foreign troops, more than 7,500 Iraqi security forces and as many as 82,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed and tens of thousands of others wounded, while the cost of the war since March 2003 was estimated at $450 billion. ``No one as yet has calculated the costs of long-term veterans' benefits or the total impact on service personnel and materiel,'' wrote Collins, who was involved in planning post-invasion humanitarian operations. The report said that the United States has suffered serious political costs, with its standing in the world seriously diminished. Moreover, operations in Iraq have diverted ``manpower, materiel and the attention of decision-makers'' from ``all other efforts in the war on terror'' and severely strained the U.S. armed forces. ``Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there [in Iraq] were designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become, at least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran to expand its influence throughout the Middle East,'' the report continued. The addition of 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq last year to halt the country's descent into all-out civil war has improved security, but not enough to ensure that the country emerges as a stable democracy at peace with its neighbors, the report said. ``Despite impressive progress in security, the outcome of the war is in doubt,'' said the report. ``Strong majorities of both Iraqis and Americans favor some sort of U.S. withdrawal. Intelligence analysts, however, remind us that the only thing worse than an Iraq with an American army may be an Iraq after a rapid withdrawal of that army.'' ``For many analysts (including this one), Iraq remains a `must win,' but for many others, despite obvious progress under General David Petraeus and the surge, it now looks like a `can't win.''' The report lays much of the blame for what went wrong in Iraq after the initial U.S. victory at the feet of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. It says that in November 2001, before the war in Afghanistan was over, President Bush asked Rumsfeld ``to begin planning in secret for potential military operations against Iraq.'' Rumsfeld, who was closely allied with Vice President Dick Cheney, bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the report says, and became ``the direct supervisor of the combatant commanders.'' ''The aggressive, hands-on Rumsfeld,'' it continues, ``cajoled and pushed his way toward a small force and a lightning fast operation.'' Later, he shut down the military's computerized deployment system, ``questioning, delaying or deleting units on the numerous deployment orders that came across his desk.'' In part because ``long, costly, manpower-intensive post-combat operations were anathema to Rumsfeld,'' the report says, the U.S. was unprepared to fight what Collins calls ``War B,'' the battle against insurgents and sectarian violence that began in mid-2003, shortly after ``War A,'' the fight against Saddam Hussein's forces, ended. Compounding the problem was a series of faulty assumptions made by Bush's top aides, among them an expectation fed by Iraqi exiles that Iraqis would be grateful to America for liberating them from Saddam's dictatorship. The administration also expected that ``Iraq without Saddam could manage and fund its own reconstruction.'' The report also singles out the Bush administration's national security apparatus and implicitly President Bush and both of his national security advisers, Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, saying that ``senior national security officials exhibited in many instances an imperious attitude, exerting power and pressure where diplomacy and bargaining might have had a better effect.'' Collins ends his report by quoting Winston Churchill, who said: ``Let us learn our lessons. Never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. ... Always remember, however sure you are that you can easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think that he also had a chance.'' Obtain the report here. |
| Posted by:ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding |
| #8 TOPIX > ZAWAHIRI: MAKE IRAQ A FORTRESS OF ISLAM, + ALL AL QAEDA HAS LEFT IS SPILLING MUSLIM BLOOD AND HOPE LIBERALS WILL SURRENDER [first], + A LOOK AT AL QAEDA'S REAL CBRN CAPABILITIES. *WND > PAT BUCHANAN - IRAN FIGHTING A PROXY WAR WITH THE US? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-04-18 23:27 |
| #7 I have almost the opposite opinion of the Iraq war. While I do agree that initial combat operations were superior, in the occupation the largest lesson learned was "Do things the American way, do not try and preserve any of the defeated system." We dissolved the Iraqi military, and in the long run, they have a better military for it. We tried to keep what police forces they had, and still have to contend with police deficiencies. Their most functional part of government was their judicial system. We should have completely reordered it from Napoleonic Law to Common Law. Not doing so was both a short and long term error. We should have imposed their first constitution, and they should have been under that constitution until the day we left. By then, they probably wouldn't have wanted to change it. The bottom line is that we should have forced them to have efficient, modern systems from the very start. Doing so would suck the life out of their wanting to do things "the old way". We should have also used biometric technology to ID and make an ID card for everyone we met. It would have saved immense amounts of time to have a national census this way, along with a US military managed database of the entire population. It would have made the restoration of government and security much, much faster. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-04-18 21:24 |
| #6 Apparently the NDU is operated under the direction of the Joint Chiefs see http://www.answers.com/topic/national-defense-university-1 |
| Posted by: Spanky Thagum8606 2008-04-18 17:21 |
| #5 The only way this was a major debacle was if it was decided in advance that we would rather nuke the Middle East and it's citizens en masse. It sucks that we had to take this on but it would have sucked worse had we been hit with a nuke and retaliated with the fury that act would have induced in the American body politic. We may still have to do that but if we do, at least we will be able to say we tried the other path and didn't just go for the exterminator first. You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. |
| Posted by: Thaimble Scourge of the Pixies4707 2008-04-18 16:45 |
| #4 Alan - My Pet Jawa IIRC |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-04-18 15:49 |
| #3 Speaking as a complete amateur on this war-fighting thingy, (Abu Uluque was right about that, way back when), I agree with AlanC. Invasions are one thing, conquest another, at least if management refuses to put the entire male contingent of the populace to the sword. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-04-18 15:30 |
| #2 As I saw analysed somewhere today (too lazy to look it up) There were two Iraq wars. The first one was the overthrow of Saddam and that one went like clockwork. the second one is totally different and is a counter terrorism war AQ hasn't called this the most important battlefield for nothing. Regardless of what you think of the first that is a moot point. Now, what about the second war? Should we cut and run from AQ as the Dhimmis want? Or, should we fight to win? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2008-04-18 15:07 |
| #1 Don't really know what to make of this. Points out some pretty obvious issues with the way the war has been handled. Certainly points a finger at Rummy and others for having a too cavalier attitude about going in. But the author still says the war is a must-win. Perhaps the reporting on the report is suspect. Hindsight is 20/20. We should have gone in, if at all, with a bigger force. We should have imposed martial law for a period of time, during which we should have focused on understanding who was who in the country and trying to shore up basic services. But I say all this and wonder whether any of it would have done any good without some of the locals learning the lessons they have over the past 5 years. I am suspect that the Sunnis would have played nice regardless of what we did. Maybe they had to go through AQI hell to understand that there are worse things that working with the Americans/creating a real country. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2008-04-18 14:58 |