Saturday, September 29, 2007

On Surging

Sorry it took so long, but here’s my take on Petraeus and “the surge:” ANY good news is good news but Bush might be overstating the surge’s “success.” To begin, let’s look at the operational rationalizations and goals for the surge’s implementation. First, the surge was designed to be Baghdad-centric. Forces were added to Anbar but combat strength was focused on Baghdad. The Euphrates River was to act as a barrier to insurgent held neighborhoods while increased U.S. combat teams, operating and living among Iraqis, cleared these areas. Second, relieving violence in these chosen areas would increase security, thus giving the Iraqi government breathing room to govern and foment reconciliation.

Now let’s look at what’s happened. Success in Baghdad has been limited. Some areas have been cleared, yet even these neighborhoods are not totally successes of American combat strength. Many of these areas have simply been “cleansed” through Sunni-Shi’a bloodletting and forced or elected migration. While much of the “cleansing” has been bloodless after the surge, thanks to the addition of troop-strength to end militia violence, Iraqis have cast their lot with their own ethnic groups instead of US forces and a centralized Iraqi government. Although violence may be curtailed, American forces have yet to gain the people’s confidence, the overriding counter-insurgency goal.

Alternatively, success in Anbar, which includes Fallujah, Ramadi, and Haditha, has bordered on the extraordinary. The Sunni have rejected al Qaeda operatives and the radical agenda they have sought to imposed and for the present time, have agreed to a TEMPORARY alliance with American forces to drive terrorist out of Anbar. This effort has been highly successful and brought peace and security to an area that has given American forces MAJOR problems ever since the invasion began. Here too, however, success has not been acquired by American operations but by a conscious choice by tribal leaders to reject Al Qaeda. Like Baghdad, the Sunni in Anbar still remain loyal to their tribes, sheiks, and local militias instead of the centralized Iraqi government.

Therefore, while violence overall is down, these successes are not successes that belong to the surge in troop strength. Rather, they are the result of a shift in strategic and operational creativity among Iraqi and American leader, which is a more than welcome development.

Now, what does this mean? Well, at the superficial level of Beltway politics, I think this report serves White House policy quite well. Any good news from Iraq will encourage Republican fence-sitters to stay with the president, at least for now, which should loosen congressional purse-strings. As far as developments in Iraq though, I think recent events suggest we are definitely on our way to some sort of Sunni-Shi’a-Kurdish partition. Whether this is a complete partition with three separate nations or a loose confederation held together by a central national government will depend on American successes and, increasingly, on the effectiveness of Iraqi security forces, whose success could instill national pride and increase confidence in a national government. A complete partition could be dangerous as a weak Kurdistan could encourage aggression from Turkey and an independent Sunni nation could still remain disconnected from the global economy, due to a lack of oil reservoirs in western Iraq, and therefore could still be vulnerable to terrorist infiltration. On the other hand, however, the Sunni in Anbar, which would probably make up most of a the possible independent state, have already rejected Al Qaeda so these fears, along with the broader fear that Iraq will become a haven for terrorists if US forces withdraw, could be overblown.

Time will tell but Petraeus is still the best chance we have.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Day 2: Senate pulls off the gloves

Well, I have to admit we got some fire works from the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. Foreign Relations was a bit of a drag, and in my opinion, run extremely unfairly by king-of-the-long-winded-bull-shiters: Joe Biden (DE-D). Petraeus is basically called a liar and isn’t even allowed to defend himself because Biden has to waist time preaching his partition plan with nary a question?

As for Armed Services, I thought Levin was critical but respectful, many of his collegues and MoveOn could certainly take a lesson. It was good to see McCain away from the campaign trail; he knows his stuff. Dodd seemed to wear his “I-just-visited-Walter-Reed” label just a little too proudly but posed some interesting questions. However, the shockers of the day were John Warner (VA-R) and Lindsey Graham (SC-R). WOW! Graham really raddled Petraeus when he pressed him about the possibility of his son’s deployment to Iraq. All want to know how long Petraeus thinks we’ll be in Iraq but he ain’t bitin’.

I’ll try to include a little more analysis tomorrow but I’ll just say the Dems gained a little more traction but still no real smoking guns. I don’t know why we thought these hearing would magically provide us with a go-no-go answer; maybe we were just hoping for too much.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Day 1

Considering the inappropriate behavior from members of Code Pink, MoveOn.org, and other radical anti-war protesters, I thought Petraeus responded remarkably well to several tough and pointed questions from the left side of aisle. Except for the small number of proposed force-level reductions, however, there really wasn’t much new. Petraeus seems to be attempting to slow down the draw down and makes valid points for doing so. As for Congress, same old, same old. We’ve seen this 1,000 times; one side presses for blood with no central theme and come off disjointed, while the other side praises and lobs softballs. This process yields nothing new and enables the administration to control the debate. So the real winner today was probably the White House. We'll see if the Senate does any better; they're more knowledgeable for the most part but half of them are also running for president, so I suspect not.

As for the Code Pink and MoveOn crowd, you people never cease to amaze. The anti-war message can carry a lot of weight but is has to be done RESPECTFULLY!!! Calling one of the most decorated officers in the military a traitor in a New York Times full page add pulls your legitimate criticism of the situation on the ground off point and makes you sound like a bunch of crazies. Respectful dissent wins more converts than denigration.

Hats off though, to Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) for maintaining control and running a respectful hearing. I've always thought a lot of him and continue to do so. I wish there were more like him.

Petraeus Preview

Last Friday, Gen. Petraeus published a letter to all Multi-National Forces Iraq (MNFI) that provides a preview of the congressional testimony he’ll give later this week. Overall, it seems to be what’s been expected: a very measured and honest assessment that touts security successes but recognizes shortcomings. Regarding security he states the following:

Up front, my sense is that we have achieved tactical momentum and wrested the initiative from our enemies in a number of areas of Iraq. The result has been progress in the security arena, although it has, as you know, been uneven. Additionally, as you all appreciate very well, innumerable tasks remain and much hard work lies ahead. We are, in short, a long way from the goal line, but we do have the ball and we are driving down the field.

Like many others, however, Petraeus seems less confident in the Iraqi government:

Many of us had hoped this summer would be a time of tangible political progress at the national level as well. One of the justifications for the surge, after all, was that it would help create the space for Iraqi leaders to tackle the tough questions and agree on key pieces of "national reconciliation" legislation. It has not worked out as we had hoped. All participants, Iraqi and coalition alike, are dissatisfied by the halting progress on major legislative initiatives such as the oil framework law, revenue sharing, and de-ba'athification reform. At the same time, however, our appreciation of what this legislation represents for Iraqi leaders has grown. These laws are truly fundamental in nature and will help determine how Iraqis will share power and resources in the new Iraq. While much work remains to be done before these critical issues are resolved, the seriousness with which Iraqi leaders came together at their summit in late August has given hope that they are up to the task before them, even if it is clearly taking more time than we initially expected.
Interesting stuff. Hearings begin in about an hour on C-SPAN, I believe, and will be rebroadcast tonight.

Stay tuned . . .

Thursday, September 06, 2007

An OIF Fiasco? Let me count the ways.

Wow it’s been WAY too long. The second half of my Summer was pretty rough, but I’m back now and hopefully my second year of law school will provide a little more time to blog. It certainly can’t get any worse.

Lots to talk about as we gear up for Gen. Patraeus’s report in September. First as promised, however, is my review of Fiasco.

Let me begin by stating that, much to my shock, this book is not a Bush/Rumsfeld diatribe. Ricks mounts a mature and honest assessment of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and has more than enough criticism to hand out without falling into the convenient trap of blaming W and Rummy for every OIF mistake, which in my opinion is overly convenient and unfair. In fact, contrary to the NY Times book review, criticism of the CIC and SECDEF is extremely limited. While Ricks does write that Bush and Rumsfeld are ultimately responsible for OIF failures, and blasts them for putting a rosy face on the rise of Iraqi violence, he chooses to focus his analysis on strategic and operational decision makers, or the individuals who actually controlled political and military policy and strategy on the ground in Iraq.

Ricks’ most bitter criticism is reserved for Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, Commander of Coalition Ground Forces in Iraq from June 2003-June 2004. The revelations concerning Bremer are simply dumbfounding. According to Ricks, major policy decisions such as de-Baathification and disbanding the Iraqi Army were made by Bremer completely on his own, contrary to direction from Washington and against the advice of just about every general in the U.S. military. These revelations, which Bremer fails to successfully defend in his memoirs, indicate the remarkable danger of placing unschooled arrogance in positions of power. De-Baathification and scraping the Iraqi Army were two of the worst decisions made by the United States probably since Vietnam’s Rolling Thunder, and if there are any decisions that are responsible for destroying our efforts, it’s these. De-Baathification destroyed reconstruction. It dismissed almost every Iraqi who knew how to run Iraq’s maze of infrastructure and effectively prevented the CPA from tapping a ready-made channel of advice on how to reconstruct essential civil services.

Likewise, according to several interviews with key reconstruction personnel including Gen. Jay Garner USA (Ret.), head of reconstruction prior to Bremer, the Iraqi army was originally slated to play a large role in providing security during reconstruction and according to Garner, this plan was discussed and approved by Rumsfeld prior to Garner’s departure. Knowing that a large security force would bee needed due to Rumsfeld’s reduction of US force levels for the invasion, such approval makes perfect sense. Again however, seemingly without the approval of the White House and against stringent military, intelligence, and civilian advice, Bremer issued his CPA Order Number 2, which dissolved the Iraqi army, police, and internal and presidential security forces and in a single swoop of the pen, Bremer put almost 700,000 men, many of whom were highly trained in the application of violence, out of work. Not only would this decision seriously weaken the already tenuous security situation but it also drove hundreds of thousands of men underground who now had no way to support their family, were already highly politicized and now, are highly pissed at the US for firing them. BOOM: there’s your insurgency.

While Bremer’s opening bungles certainly charted a course for disaster, the US military, according to Ricks, only made matters worse. Chief culprits: Gen. Sanchez, the 4th Infantry Division, and destructive COIN operations.

As Ricks reminds us, classic COIN doctrine focuses on enemy motivation, or in the popular vernacular "hearts and minds." Take away an enemy’s will to fight by convincing him that your not the enemy, that he has a stake in society, and that it’s better to go to work than plant an IED then you’ve neutralized an insurgent. Attaining these goals requires soldiers to sacrifice force for restraint and place a great measure of emphasis on maintaining an enemy’s dignity.

Unfortunately, Sanchez either ignored these principals or failed to effectively train his subordinates in them. Under Sanchez, the U.S. Army mounted a reckless policy designed to neutralize enemy force strength and gather intelligence, but in actuality fueled the insurgent ranks by rounding up thousands of Iraqis with the slightest hint of insurgency connections and throwing them in jail. Not only would these procedures destroy the military’s detainee system and lead to Abu Ghraib, but it also humiliated the thousands of innocents who were rounded up with the guilty. This policy of humiliation and eventual abuse was exacerbated by the heavy-handed tactics of the 4th Infantry Division who rounded up thousands of Iraqis and dumped them on the steps of Abu Ghraib, almost 90% of which, had absolutely zero intelligence value.

The overall feeling that this book left me with was deep and bitter disappointment. Simply put, as an avid supporter of invasion this book infuriated me. I couldn’t care less for the WMD intel debacle. Change was, and still is, desperately needed in the Middle East and Iraq was a logical place to begin. Saddam’s atrocities, the weakened state of the Iraqi military, and the absence of theocratic history made Iraq the perfect candidate for planting the seeds of political and economic change that could have ushered in regional change, and we fucked it up. Shoddy planning for reconstruction, asinine policy leadership, arrogance, and an ineffective military that only made our problems worse by instituting ineffective COIN policies and tactics that led to widespread abuse of the people we were trying to help, destroyed Iraqi confidence in our efforts, which, according to Ricks, remained extraordinarily high throughout the months following the capture of Baghdad. You lose the people and you lose the war. Had Patraeus, whose COIN and reconstruction policies leading the 101st Airborne were quite effective, been more senior in 2003, perhaps things could have been different. Now we’ve lost over 3700 of our bravest, and while "the surge" is showing limited signs of progress, the Iraqi Parliament is deadlocked, Iran is gaining strength and influence, effective and meaningful Republican congressional support is eroding and Americans are fed up with fight. Patraeus doesn’t stand a chance.

Game Over.
Fiasco?

Ricks, you’re GODDAMN RIGHT!