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| Iraq |
| US General who governed Iraq exposes errors |
| 2003-11-26 |
| from the London Times General Jay Garner, the American first put in charge of running postwar Iraq, has revealed the extent of rivalry in Washington that affected plans for rebuilding the country. The General, former chief of Iraq’s interim administration, said that the communication between his bosses at the Pentagon and the State Department was so bad that he was unaware that Colin Powell’s team had carried out a year-long project to plan for post-conflict Iraq until just weeks before the invasion. When he learnt of the existence of the project by chance in February, he immediately co-opted one of its senior planners onto his team. But he said that he was the ordered against his will to sack him by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary. "There’s enormous rivalries between the agencies, but that didn’t start with this war," he said. "That is just part of Washington". The decision to hand over power more quickly to an Iraqi government was something that should have been done much earlier, General Garner said. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: "I don’t think we are speeding things up now, I think we are trying to catch up to where we should have been. I think we are finally placing more trust in Iraqis, which we should have done to begin with." Garner’s expertise is post-disaster recovery. He’s less than impressive at counter-insurgency and made some major errors early on, which is why he had to be replaced. This smacks of self-justification .... General Garner said that the failure to administer Iraq properly had attracted foreign terrorists to Iraq to fight the coalition. The General added: "That’s not all bad. Bring them all in there and we will kill them there". The General was replaced by Paul Bremer, a civilian administrator, within weeks of beginning his work in Iraq, amid claims that he had failed to restore essential services or impose order quickly enough. General Garner also reserved some criticism for Mr Bremer, saying that his decision to disband the Iraqi army, which effectively threw hundreds of thousands of breadwinners out of work and provided potential recruits for insurgency, was a mistake. The original plan had been to pay the army to take part in reconstruction work. And if Garner had been better at the security work early on, this might have been feasible. He also acknowledged that not enough effort was put into winning over ordinary Iraqis by getting America’s message across to them after the war. "We did a bad job of executing that. There’s no excuse for that. The consequence of that is all they got to listen to was [the Arab-language satellite TV station] al-Jazeera," he said. Again, Garner was supposed to be good at outreach, but somehow this never made his radar. His comments are in stark contrast to those of Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who made a surprise visit to Iraq today. He said that the transition of power in Iraq was on course in spite of the continuing security problems. He said that he strongly believed the handover of power to Iraqis would go ahead as planned by June, although he declined to give a date when British troops could be withdrawn. He said: "There has been a great deal of progress in many areas. The security situation remains difficult. But I am very clear that the combination of political progress and military effort will ensure that there is a transition on schedule by the end of June, and unquestionably that Iraq not only is a better place, but will become a far better place as a result of that transition and the work of the coalition and our partners internationally, but above all by the work of the Iraqi people." He said the security situation in Iraq would improve with the transfer of power. He said: "Everybody understands that there are security problems, and I for one never sought to underestimate those. But what I’m told, and I believe, is that life for a very large number of people in Iraq is considerably better in terms of their living standards, and would be infinitely better when we can get on top of the security situation. One crucial way of doing that is by ensuring as rapid a transfer of power as possible, and that’s what we’re seeking to achieve." Rapid is not the same thing as effective, though. On the other hand, playing hardball just might be a winning strategy in a few places: US forces said today that they have captured a wife and daughter of Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri today in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Al-Douri stands accused by the coalition of playing a leading role in the persistent attacks on its troops. The United States is offering a reward of up to $10 million (£6m) for the capture of al-Douri. He is the former vice-president of Iraq’s Revolution Command Council and is believed to have more than one wife. He is the most senior Iraqi leader still at large after Saddam himself. |
| Posted by:rkb |
| #7 The problem is, we still have three enemies to face: the Iraqi "fedayeen" hard-liners from the old Ba'ath government, the foreign Arab fighters, and the bureaucrats in Washington. We need to stomp all three, instead of concentrating on one or two. Colin Powell has proven totally ineffectual in bringing the State Department into the new government, and deserves to be canned. The government "union" needs to be smashed, and the people that believe they run the government, instead of elected officials, hanged. The problem's been there for forty years - it's time to 'make it go away'. It's graduated beyond turf wars into ideological and political forces that are not working in the best interests of the people of the United States. It's now limiting our ability to win the War on Terrorism. We don't have the luxury of having two governments: one of them needs to cease to exist. Gonna be bloody, but it HAS to be done, if we're to remain a free people. I hope Dubya's got the cojones to do it, but I'm beginning to lose hope. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-11-26 7:12:50 PM |
| #6 That Garner would publicly choose Tom Warrick as his deputy showed a real lack of political acumen. Warrick made his State Department bones during the Clinton Administration, had no use for the Iraqi exiles, and was anathema to the DOD. I agreee with rkb that Garner would have been terrific had the war generated a million refugees. When that didn't occur he was not the right man for the Baghdad job, and Colin Powell had much better candidates to push. |
| Posted by: Tancred 2003-11-26 12:24:20 PM |
| #5 Liberalhawk, I agree with you re: State & the CIA distrusting the exiles, and the problems that has cost us. Not so sure on one account, though, which is that you see Bremer as their man vs. Garner as DOD's. Not quite my take on things, but I could be wrong. Reservists I've talked to are frustrated with the CPA's slowness. From where I sit, though, it's hard to separate out the Army's culture, which is to try for an 80% solution and then do more if needed, vs. "doing it right since it's for posterity". It's one thing to show initiative in rebuilding a school or a cement plant. Creating a stable civil society, including local, regional and national governance with courts, police etc., requires more thought and care IMO. Insofar as Bremer might have a State Dept / bureaucratic bent, I can see the point you make. But Garner didn't strike me as being the right man for reconstruction. He would have been exactly the right person if we had needed to deal with hundreds of thousands of refugees or massive civilian medical casualties, though. |
| Posted by: rkb 2003-11-26 10:55:33 AM |
| #4 eye, true enough. The separate ethnic regions is still a remote possibility though. May even prove politically viable for us in the long run. The rest of it was just the "chicken littles" whining the sky is falling to the supposed "chicken hawks". |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-11-26 10:19:09 AM |
| #3 does anyone recall that Iraq was supposed to break apart into separate ethnic regions ? (you'll never hold the country together) And the unavoidable humanitarian crisis ? (BBC was predicting millions would starve) When was the last time you heard about the electricity being better under Saddam ? And lets not forget the WWIII as the entire middle east erupts in turmoil. |
| Posted by: eyeyeye 2003-11-26 9:50:16 AM |
| #2 "think we are finally placing more trust in Iraqis, which we should have done to begin with." I think he's dead on. Placing more trust in Iraqis, including exiles, was the gameplan going in. Problem with that was State Dept and CIA didnt trust the exiles, and thought they could cultivate people they liked better - so they nixed putting large numbers of INC in during the war, and they pushed out Garner. well they havent yet raised a viable local leadership - looks like that will take years. While the guerilla war grinds on. And the euros and UN, who were supposed to like the State dept and oppose the neocons, turned out to be unwilling to go along with a long US occupation - so we dont have the foreigners as a substitute for the locals, in terms of troops or legitimacy. And it hasnt helped that by all accounts (not just the press, but Iraqi bloggers, troops in blogs and other reports, etc) the CPA under Bremer has been less than competent in reconstruction. Ever notice how many of the reconstruction success stories involve US troops improvising on the ground, generally doing stuff that the CPA SHOULD have been doing. State has even had difficulty getting enough folks over there to staff up the CPA. Well now it appears Condi and Dubya may have wised up. We cant win this by marginalizing the existing Iraqi leadership (IE the exiles and their allies) And we cant win this by making Iraq a US colony for 5 years. Thats why the about face on the political plan for Iraq - the admin realized the old one had F*cked up. Kudos to the admin for realizing that and being willing to change. Now Garner is getting in his licks at Bremer - licks which as far as I can tell, are richly deserved. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-11-26 9:29:42 AM |
| #1 I wouldn't shoot down all of Garner's statements. Let's analyze somethings, make tweaks where necessary and then move on. I don't dismiss everything he says, I'm sure we've fucked shit up - heck, that's to be expected w/any plan. As the old Bushido saying goes when something unexpecte or bad happens "That is War". Things will keep improving, matter of time, too many people w/the instant gratification syndrome running around yelling the sky is falling. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-11-26 9:25:53 AM |