AAR from an American tanker in Iraq

[hellfish]

As a small aside, I find it ironic how everyone talks about the new BCTs are the end of the division, yet we keep referring and treating them all like nothing's changed. We still send divisions on missions together.

[Battlefront.com]

It is tough to say what the impact will be short term. The difficulties of rotations are getting worse, so this news about 3rd ID being in a bind is not something we've seen yet. At least not with one of the premier active divisions. As the old saying goes, you can only rob Peter to pay Paul so many times before Peter is broke and Paul decides to break your kneecaps for failing to make payments on time. OK, not exactly an old saying, but it shoudl be

It is ironic how often history shows us that hawk politicians are terrible at managing military matters. Not saying that doves are any better, but since they aren't inclined to use force their ability isn't really relevant. Which is a whole 'nother set of problems.

Steve

[Sgt Joch]

I wonder how much longer the army will be able to keep up this juggling act. Hopefully, the Bush administration will come up with a new approach in 2007 (depending on the results of the mid-terms) and not try to "stay the course" until 2009 and dump the whole mess on the next president. I'd hate to see what shape the land forces will be in if they have to go through another 2-3 years of this.

[Battlefront.com]

I don't see how it can possibly remain "business as usual" for the next 2 years considering the problems that are already rearing their ugly heads. And yet more generals, with field experience in Iraq, are coming out against Rumsfeld and the way the war is being managed:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/25/iraq.democrats.ap/index.html

Hard to imagine this level of criticism will be going down and not up as the war drags on.

Steve

[Andreas]

Don't know if somebody linked this already, but it is more fodder for the depression.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5371394.stm

Missing the 2003/4 window will one day be remarked upon in historical studies as the turning point of the campaign. It went downhill from there, with no chance of recovery.

All the best

Andreas

[Bigduke6]

If indeed there ever was a window. The article makes an excellent point about the implications of assaulting Falluja, but the Americans were in trouble either way: if you don't trash the town the insurgents have a safe haven, if you do trash the town you create a whole lot more insurgents.

[obnoxious pedantic history professor voice]

The further 2003 recedes out of memory, the more it seems like there supposedly was this magic wand lying around that if you waved it *ZAP!* Afghanistan and Iraq would have turned into nice stable countries overnight.

It's kind of like all that Monday morning quarterbacking on how Bush I should have gone on to Baghdad in 1991. Sounds nice now and a lot of Americans buy it, but that myth ignores lots of realities at the time, among them lack of public will to fight the war, lack of Allies to support the operation, etc.

I think the cardinal error came in 2003, prior to the war, in the decision-makers' failure to recognize, or indeed even to think, much beyond the destruction of existing Iraqi conventional military force by U.S. leaders. The assumption was clearly "We destroy the enemy's conventional army, and we will win the war and so achieve our strategic goals."

In Afghanistan especially, it is mind-boggling to contemplate the history U.S. planners ignored, to come to that conclusion. By deciding they could fight and win a war in Afghanistan, they assumed they somehow could manage a different result from the traditional foreign invader of Afghanistan, who - in time-honored fashion - arrives, sets up a pretend government in the capital for several years, and then eventually gives the place up as a bad job.

No conventional army has defeated the Afghan tribes since the 13th century, and even then it was because the invaders in question - the Mongols - murdered every single local they could catch. The stupidity behind the U.S. logic positing a few thousand troops backed by laser-guided munitions purchased by a modern democracy, could do any better, is breath-taking.

Similarly, the thinking that Iraqi hatred of Saddam (in power in the Mesapotamian region for what, a mere 20 years or so?) would trump Arab nationalism, sectarian fueds, and clan loyalties going back sometimes centuries; with the Israel-Palestinian conflict and Christain Crusader castles right next door, almost beggars belief.

Such thinking assumes, literally, people living in Iraq are as ignorant of Iraqi history, as people living in the U.S. are ignorant of Iraqi history.

In this sense the U.S. failures in Iraq and Afghanistan are comparable to the German failure in the Soviet Union: they were so dazzled by their wonderful high-tech military's ability to win battles, they decided they could ignore history.

I have no doubt that in the memoires of the next 20-30 years will feature plenty of finger-pointing.

The politicians will blame the soldiers:

"Not my fault, the generals told me they would crush all resistance, I was acting on the advice of experts, not my fault the top military brass had no idea about how to win modern war!...and what a shame too because that damn war prevented us from all sorts of economic programs that would have benefited the people I love the most: the American voting public."

And the soldiers will stamp their booted feet and squeeze out crocodile tears and blame the politicians:

The suits never asked us about a long war, and we won every battle, we're ueber dammit!...what fools we were to trust slimy elected officials with the precious lives of our Heroic American Soldiers! And by the way, our tactical model is fully vindicated we did everything exactly right, we're definately great generals!

Which will be, of course, to quibble. Big picture, history will undoubtedly decide the culprit was neither politicians or soldiers, but hubris, pure and simple. It's pretty much the old classic tragedy acted out chapter and verse: How the high and mighty through their own failings inevitably fall from on high.

It's not exactly an original analysis, and I have no dount thousands of European undergraduate political science essays have probably already been written along those very lines.

It'll take U.S. political science undergraduates maybe a generation to get around to doing the same.

[/obnoxious pedantic history professor voice]

[Andreas]

Proper preparation ensuring enough boots on the ground on the day combat ended, riot control preventing the lawlessness of the days after the fall of the regime, no disbanding of the Iraqi army, immediate and large-scale refurb of civilian infrastructure, using Iraqi labour as much as possible, co-option of the tribal leaders, etc. pp.

These could have made a difference, and that is what I am referring to when I talk of a window of opportunity. It only refers to Iraq BTW. Afghanistan is a whole different story.

All the best

Andreas

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

If indeed there ever was a window. The article makes an excellent point about the implications of assaulting Falluja, but the Americans were in trouble either way: if you don't trash the town the insurgents have a safe haven, if you do trash the town you create a whole lot more insurgents.

in fall 2004 i was still following Iraqi events very closely. the game was already lost before that second siege of Fallujah. at that point the resistance had already reached a level in which they could outmatch and outplay the operational tempo and strength of the occupation forces. the failure of the second Fallujah operation was of course something previously unseen, a resistance operation at a strategical level, the total collapse of an entire region's security organ in a couple of hours, but the outplayed occupation forces had obviously failed already long before those events actually took place.

i don't think there ever was a window. i don't think it matters if there had been twice the number of boots on the ground. if something, it would just have accelerated the process. the failure was caused by cultural values.

today Iraq is still a mess, but it could be saved, but i fear the failure will again be caused by cultural values. the tragedy of empires is that they can afford corrupt incompetence. the tragedy of luxury is that it creates weak minds.

In this sense the U.S. failures in Iraq and Afghanistan are comparable to the German failure in the Soviet Union: they were so dazzled by their wonderful high-tech military's ability to win battles, they decided they could ignore history.

except of course that Germans paid great attention to history and consciously formed a strategy different to the historical ones (e.g. no two fronts, no dependence on railroads, no going for political goals instead of focusing on enemy military bodies etc).

the basic mentality of manifest destiny, lebensraum, thousand-year-empire, innate superiority etc is very similar i admit.

[ September 26, 2006, 06:05 AM: Message edited by: undead reindeer cavalry ]

[Battlefront.com]

Oh, I do think there could have been a window if the war was waged differently. For example, 300,000 troops as Shinseski wanted, massive coallition support, a long term and fully developed reconstruction program, massive jobs creation for locals, and (most importantly) some sort of buy-in by Iran and Syria. Obviously not a single one of these things happened, so I tend to agree there was no window in actual events. At best, there was a porthole just above the waterline.

As for the thought "we should have pushed on to Baghdad in 1991", many people felt that way at the time. However, the facts are clear, just as BigDuke6 laid them out. There was zero public support for such an adventure, there was zero planning for the aftermath, there was zero support from Arab/Muslim states for it. In fact, it was the lack of these things that drove the policy, not the other way around. In other words, the policy fit the conditions. Trying to make conditions fit a policy is what has us in this mess right now.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

One quibble with the BBC article Andreas linked to:

The rise in hostility to the US forces is clearly linked to the onslaught against the town of Falluja in 2004.

I don't think that is quite right. Yes, the assault (both of 'em) caused a great deal of long term problems for the occupation forces. However, it isn't the major thing. The major thing is sectarianism and those who pushed it over the edge.

The Iraqis are looking for alternatives to the Coallition and even Iraqi government forces because they feel neither one can (or is even interested in) protecting them. This was the case for Sunnis to start with, so Fallujah only made things worse. But the Shite majority started it's major slide toward violence after repeated attacks on worshipers, mosques, and every day people doing every day things. The Sunnis and Shites are at war with each other now, whether the Coallition's political leadership wishes to call it that or not. So...

It's not surprising things are the way they are. Probably would have wound up this way no matter what the Coallition did. Abu Grabe and Fallujah just made it happen faster.

Steve

[pad152]

Oh, I do think there could have been a window

I think the biggest issue was not having a McAruther type to take command once Iraq fell. Some one who could lay down the law without 500 lawers telling him what he could not do! Someone who could teach the Iraqies separation of church and state.

[Sgt Joch]

It may still be possible to win the war, but it will require some hard choices by the US.

The biggest problem in Iraq now is not the anti-US insurgency, but the ongoing civil war between Sunni and Shiites for ultimate control of Iraq.

The US has been mostly sitting on the sidelines politically, officially backing the Iraqi government, while Iran has been aggressively funding and cultivating ties with various Shiite groups. We now have a situation where several key figures in the Iraqi government who are closely allied with Iran, are using their private militias to expand and secure their power base. If the US does nothing, it will wind up in a few years with a pro-Iranian government in Iraq, which is obviously not the result that the neo-cons in the Bush administration wanted.

At some point, the Bush administration will have to choose its own faction, covertly back them up with weapons and money and let them fight it out for control of the country. The Iraqi Army may be one candidate, so far, it has not been infiltrated to the same extent as the police and several of its leaders would love to get the chance to "disarm" the private militias. A neutral, secular military government could also be acceptable to both the US and Iran.(Pakistan is a good example).

In conjunction, the US should also try to negotiate a deal with Iran. It may be possible to get Iran to agree to reduce it's influence in Iraq if we can put a government in place which will be acceptable to both the US and Iran. We may also have to throw in approval of their nuclear program to sweeten the deal.

None of these are very appealing choices, but they are probably the only realistic options which are left if the US wants to salvage something positive from the Iraq adventure.

just my $0.02...

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

One quibble with the BBC article Andreas linked to:

Quibble away! It is an article by John Simpson, one of these typical BBC hacks who is long on being full of himself, and short on analytical capacity. I see him as the Jeremy Clarkson of war reporting.

All the best

Andreas

[DavidFields]

I had to laugh out loud when I read Sgt.Joch's, possibly correct, analysis.

Let me see: One possibility is to back the army, probably a Sunni General, to institute a coup, dismantle or neutralize the democratic institutions, and then to have him tyranically weld the country back together by force.

Hmm...then we step slowly away from Iraq and think, "So THAT is why they had Saddam Hussein".

Though, at this point, I think Iran, the Shias, or the Kurds are too strong to allow that (even with the American army?) possibility--tasted power and will not go back. I think we knew this from the beginning about the Kurds, but just winked at it. But I think the Sunni/Shia issue escaped high-level understanding?

But I see no successful invasion-Iraq scenarios: Bush takes the war "seriously"? Calls for a draft, or a massive infusion of money to boost the volunteer army? Put 300-500 thousand troops into Iraq, a "cop" on every corner? There may still have been too many pressures in and around Iraq to make it look, short of emptying it of people and sending several million American immigrants, like Texas.

[Sgt Joch]

Originally posted by Rankorian:

Let me see: One possibility is to back the army, probably a Sunni General, to institute a coup, dismantle or neutralize the democratic institutions, and then to have him tyranically weld the country back together by force.

Hmm...then we step slowly away from Iraq and think, "So THAT is why they had Saddam Hussein".

I did say there were no appealing choices...

[Battlefront.com]

I took Sgt.Joch's thoughts as intended, as wlel as Rankorian's This just illustrates the dilema. I think we all agree there is a big problem (even the Bush admin officials understand this, even if it takes a few cocktails to loosen them up ) and that right now the momentum is decidedly negative. The problem is that "staying the course" is akin to the deer staring at the headlights of a truck expecting the truck to come to some peaceful agreement. Compromise and policy shifting is where the Bush Admin has been traditionally weak on since the day it took office. (Note that is something the factual record can back up, so personally I don't consider that a politically motivated opinion. If you want some of those, I can do MUCH better than what I just said ). Yet both compromises and policy shifts are vitally important now. We already blew our best chances at fixing this under the current thinking, so we need to step back and rethink this mess.

The three options I see are pretty obvious:

1. Break the country up into three sections of autonomous rule. The Kurds get the north, the Shites the south. Baghdad is declared an open city and is given its own government. The Sunni west/central section of Iraq is reconfigured to govern itself. The US and Iraqi forces withdraw and a UN force, made up mostly of Muslim forces, is put into its place. The latter is the tricky part because let's face it... who'd want to put their troops in that mess So alternatively the US withdraws and gives explicite military and political aid to the most moderate, viable faction and let them take care of the insurgents any way they choose to.

2. Let the Sunnis learn what it is to be suppressed. Kurds and Shites are allowed to go in and basically hollow out the Sunni areas. Lots of people displaced, lots of death and destruction. But in the end, it is likely that all sides will come to some sort of agreement and move on (for a while at least). Coallition forces sit in Kurdish and Shia areas only.

3. The Coallition pulls out completely, leaving behind as much ammo and arms as it can for the Iraqi government. They will continue to have the complete support of the US (in particular), but if they lose the war like South Vietnam did, oh well. Good intentions gone wrong.

None of these are very good options, all of them have major problems. There are also plenty of variations on theme possible, though I think things pretty much boil down to these three scenarios.

Putting more troops in is the 4th possibility, but that is out of the question since it is beyond impractical. Sooner rather than later, one of these other three will ulitimately become reality. Far better that we choose while we still have the choice than to have the enemy choose for us.

What are the chances that any of these will give the US and Britain the sort of Iraq they wanted? Extremely low. What are the chances that the current military solution will acheive this on its own? Just about zero. So if I were in charge I'd rather gamble on something which might be better, and not likely worse, than the current plan. At least there is a chance of something better coming from it.

Steve

[Andreas]

That reminds me...

All the best

Andreas

[Bigduke6]

Steve,

I agree with your basic Chinese menu of choices, but perhaps you've forgotten one thing: for the administration to make hard choices, it has to admit it was wrong, in public. That staying the course didn't work, that the invasion was stupid, that the war makes more terrorists than kills them, etc.

In other words, the administration in order to regain the ability to choose policy, must concede it took the wrong course to start out with. And that means admitting the critics were right.

The domestic fall out from such admissions are pretty heavy, certainly so much so that the fiction that "staying the course makes sense" must continue past the November elections.

After the elections, the administration must weigh the domestic fall out of admitting it made a big fat error and then compounded it, versus the domestic fall out of continuing the fiction, the waste of money, and loss of lives.

I'm not saying the decision for a pull out might not come. What I am saying is that if it does, it will be because the administration decides it will suffer more political damage from continuing the war, than from ending U.S. participation in the war.

Human life and national treasure do not enter into that decision. Nor does, frankly, what would be good or bad for Iraq. (Which is impossible to know in any place.) It will be made wholly in terms of good and bad for the Republican party.

I make that claim not to rag on the Republicans, but just to point out that domestic politics generally drives U.S. foreign policy. The Democrats are no better, IMO.

As you have pointed out, the administration is by nature not exactly flexible. Factor that in with the improbability that any plan, no matter how well calculated, will produce anything other than more chaos.

My opinion, it would take a public-minded administration indeed to place a slight chance of a stable Iraq, ahead of inevitable damage to the Republican party's future by admitting the policy it pursued for the last several years, and the billions it spent, never mind lives wasted, was all a mistake.

The present administration has an awful, and I mean rotten, record of placing the public good ahead of partisan priority. As I see it, the path of less resistance for them, therefore, is to continue the fiction that staying the course makes sense and that the war is winnable.

So for my money it will be more of the same for another two years, with perhaps some half-hearted attempts to create some kind of new Iraqi government the Americans can bail out on, but frankly just a bid to play for time. Look at Palestine: This thing could drag on for generations.

Ain't democracy grand?

[Andreas]

Well, they can always hope to lose the elections, and then blame anything and everything on lily-livered, weak-willed, limp-wristed, freedom-hating, not-true-blue members of that other party which they do not belong to.

All the best

Andreas

[Sgt Joch]

Originally posted by Andreas:

That reminds me...

All the best

Andreas

Great stuff, worth the read.

excerpt:

i can wish that your boss had surrounded himself with close advisers who had, once at least, held a dying boy in their arms and watched the life run out of his eyes while they lied to him and told him, over and over, "You are going to be all right. Hang on! Help is coming. Don't quit now..."

Such men in place of those who had never known service or combat or the true cost of war, and who pays that price, and had never sent their children off to do that hard and unending duty.

i could wish for so much.

i could wish that in january of this year i had not stood in a garbage-strewn pit, in deep mud, and watched soldiers tear apart the wreckage of a kiowa warrior shot down just minutes before and tenderly remove the barely alive body of WO Kyle Jackson and the lifeless body of his fellow pilot. they died flying overhead cover for a little three-vehicle Stryker patrol with which i was riding at the time.

i could wish that Jackson's widow Betsy had not found, among the possessions of her late husband, a copy of my book, carefully earmarked at a chapter titled Brave Aviators, which Kyle was reading at the time of his death. That she had not enclosed a photo of her husband, herself and a 3 year old baby girl.

those things i received in the mail yesterday and they brought back the tears that i wept standing there in that pit, feeling the same shards in my heart that i felt the first time i looked into the face of a fallen american soldier 41 years ago on a barren hill in Quang Ngai Province in another time, another war.

someone once asked me if i had learned anything from going to war so many times. my reply: yes, i learned how to cry.

[Sirocco]

I can't see more than two viable options for the future of Iraq; either a dominant central "government", a de facto hardman dictatorship, in the mould of Saddam but with better public relations, or a divided country, perhaps under a powerless Iraqi administration. The difficulty with the latter would be to minimise the Iranian influence in the south. I think the wider focus is an attempt to limit the amount Iran gains from developments in it's aim to become the dominant power in the region.

[V]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

It would be extremely bloody, but unleashed from the constraints of conventional, civilized fighting rules (which is what the US is imposing on them) I think they would do a pretty good job of getting rid of the Insurgency. At least in its present form. But it would be soooooooo very messy.

Steve

"Civilized fighting..."

lol.

[V]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

1. Break the country up into three sections of autonomous rule. The Kurds get the north, the ****es the south. Baghdad is declared an open city and is given its own government. The Sunni west/central section of Iraq is reconfigured to govern itself. The US and Iraqi forces withdraw and a UN force, made up mostly of Muslim forces, is put into its place. The latter is the tricky part because let's face it... who'd want to put their troops in that mess So alternatively the US withdraws and gives explicite military and political aid to the most moderate, viable faction and let them take care of the insurgents any way they choose to.

I'm sure the Turks would be willing to occupy the Kurdish region.

Probably wouldn't even have to ask them. They'd just show up the moment "Kurdistan" was announced.

[Moronic Max]

Which is why if we do pull out we really ought to leave troops in Kurdland, if nowhere else.

Let's see the Turks invade then

[Battlefront.com]

BigDuke6, very true that it is rather impossible to change one's position when one still claims one is right. This has been the #1 reason the Bush Administration has managed to secure so very few of its domestic agenda items, even with a Republican controlled Congress. I think it will be written in the history books that never before have so few spent so much energy to do so little at a time when so many things need fixing. Again, this is not some left wing liberal scum sucking pig opinion, rather it is a simple reflection of facts. So very little of what the Bush Admin has tried to get legislated over the last 6 years has ever come to be. Refusing to compromise and take into consideration alternative points of view is widely cited (by Repubs and Dems) as the reason. So it is not surprising that the war is being run the same way.

Generally speaking, I don't see the threat of Turkey as being all that bad. The US will keep forces there, of that I am sure. The Kurds are truly pro-American, if only because they know they are safer with them than without. Likely the area wouldn't be called Kurdistan and likely it wouldn't be accepted as a country (like Macedonia thanks to Greek opposition), but in fact it would be. Plus, if the country is to disolve being able to keep at least the oil rich north within the sphere of US influence would mitigate the loss of possibly 2/3rds of the rest of Iraq.

BTW, a public opinion poll of Iraqis shows that the Sunnis fear an independent Kurdistan and Shia south more than anything. They know they will be isolated and left with the "worst" part of the country in terms of economic viability. This is one reason why I think that a strong, clear threat to Sunnis that the US is going to pull out and let them go on their own does have a very good chance of improving the situation there.

Steve