by David R. Wells and Lawrence H. Wells
29 Oct 2004
We've often said that winning the war was the easy part; the really hard part is winning the peace. Unfortunately this is certainly the case in Iraq. The U.S. and allied military forces were able to win the war quickly and relatively easy, but rebuilding Iraq into a functioning democracy has proven far more difficult.
It is now painfully obvious that the U.S. simply does not have enough troops in Iraq to get the job done. The primary prerequisite for rebuilding Iraq is security, and we clearly do not have the forces in place to provide it. Immediately after the "major combat" phase of the war we did not have enough troops to secure many former Iraqi military weapons depots, nor did we have enough troops to close Iraq's borders and prevent foreign "jihadists" from entering the country. We now face at least three insurgent groups, who in some cases are armed with the very weapons we failed to secure, and we do not have enough troops to combat them. More Iraqi security forces would help, but it appears we don't have enough people to train them.
Much of the blame for the current sorry state of affairs belongs with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Since joining the Bush Administration he has been the leading advocate of "military reform". While we applaud efforts to think outside the box, Mr. Rumsfeld's version of "military reform" seems to be little more than "Do more with less resources." This is a frighteningly Clintonian method of military reform.
It isn't working very well in Iraq.
The military's original plan for the invasion of Iraq called for about twice as many troops as were actually deployed. Mr. Rumsfeld overruled this plan. It is now clear that this was a mistake. Even at the time of the invasion, we compared the plan to the proverbial camel that is a horse designed by a committee. It was neither the traditional heavy invasion force, nor the sort of special forces/intellegence driven force we saw in Afghanistan. It was an odd, mismatched hybrid. The Afghan campaign had its own problems, and we could understand why that model wouldn't work in Iraq. The traditional heavy invasion seemed to us like a better plan. In retrospect, the heavy invasion force might have given us enough troops to win the peace.
Blame must additionally be placed upon the second tier of Department of Defense officials, such as Assistant Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, former Defense Policy Board member Richard Pearle, Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman, Douglas Feith, and others. These people concieved and ran this war. They believed Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, who tricked them into thinking that this would be easy. They ran their own intellegence operation out of the Pentagon which frequently contradicted the CIA, and the CIA's view has turned out to be closer to the truth. They effectively ran the Coalition Provisional Authority, which mismanaged Iraq until June 30, 2004. Pearle is already out due to an unrelated scandal, but the others need to be removed. Even if Bush is re-elected, he should understand that removing these people along with Mr. Rumsfeld is in his own interest. Unfortunately, we see little evidence that Mr. Bush understands this.
In hindsight it is also clear that disbanding the entire Iraqi army after the war was also a mistake. Much of the regular Iraqi army was not particularly loyal to Saddam Hussein or the Ba'ath Party; this is why Hussein created the Republican Guards, whose main mission was to prevent a rebellion by the regular army. (The Special Republican Guards were given the mission of preventing a rebellion by the Republican Guards.) The regular Iraqi army probably could have been purged of its Saddamist and Ba'athist members, and then it could have served as the nucleus of a new Iraqi security force.
The Iraq Survey Group's recently completed Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD, commonly known as the Duelfer Report, concluded Iraq had not possessed significant quantities of chemical and biological weapons since shortly after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. (Iraq had never succeeded in producing a nuclear weapon.) The report also stated that Iraq had no currently active programs to acquire these weapons.
This is a reversal of truly stunning proportions. Prior to the war the CIA and the intelligence agencies of all major foreign powers - including those opposed to the invasion of Iraq - believed that Iraq did still possess some chemical and biological weapons, or at least the means to quickly produce them. We believed this too. Saddam Hussein's own actions strongly indicated that he had something to hide. The prewar debate, both domestic and international, was not over whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; it was over whether Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction justified an invasion.
The Duelfer report does say that Saddam Hussein was trying to preserve his ability to quickly restart his chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs as soon as U.N. sanctions were lifted. It also says that prior to 11 September 2001 Saddam Hussein was successfully eroding support for the U.N. sanctions. He had also largely succeeded in evading the sanctions, and he even diverted the proceeds from the U.N.'s Oil for Food program to finance the purchase of banned materials - in some cases with the knowledge of corrupt U.N. officials.
Our February 2004 message. discussed several possible explanations for our failure to find many weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Duelfer Report indicates that Saddam Hussein was probably bluffing about their existence. Saddam's apparently inconsistent behavior was due to his conflicting desires to erode support for the U.N sanctions by appearing to give up his weapons programs, and his desire to appear to have the weapons in order to deter potential adversaries. He realized too late that the U.S. intended to call his bluff. The report does acknowledge that there are other possible explanations.
The missing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction represent an intelligence failure of disasterous proportions. It is far from the only one, unfortunately:
During the recent Iraq war the military attempted 50 "decapitation" air strikes aimed at key Iraqi leaders, notably Saddam Hussein. These air strikes depended on accurate intelligence.
All fifty failed.
To make matters even worse some of the heaviest civilian casualties of the war were caused by these strikes.
Intelligence gathering and analysis is unquestionably difficult. The following analogy illustrates the inherent difficulty of the task:
"... Intelligence officers ... were somewhat in the position of a woman with a sick child trying to take instructions from a doctor over the telephone while the neighbors are shouting contrary advice in her ear, dogs are barking, children screaming, and trucks roaring by the house. The noise overwhelmed the message."
This may sound like an excerpt from The 9/11 Commission Report, but it is actually historian Samual Elliot Morison discussing the December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack in his book The Two-Ocean War, published in 1963 .
We recognize the difficulty of the task, but clearly we must do better. Our political leaders may again have to make decisions of war or peace based on intelligence estimates, as was the case in Iraq. If the intelligence is inaccurate the decisions will be wrong, no matter who is in office. Note that both the Democratic and Republican candidates for President supported the Iraq war in 2002 on the basis of the faulty intelligence. We therefore fully support the calls of Dr. David Kay, Sen. John McCain, and others for a full investigation of the recent intelligence failures.
Unfortunately neither of the major party candidates for President have said much about this important issue.
For better or worse the US is now committed to turning Iraq into a democracy. As we mentioned in ourFebruary 2004 message. if we succeed we may begin to counter some of the underlying causes of anti-US terrorism. We certainly cannot afford to fail. Unfortunately neither of the major party candidates for President has a clear strategy for success in Iraq.
President Bush has correctly set a goal of making Iraq a democracy, but he does not seem to know how to accomplish this goal. His plan seems to be to keep doing what we're doing, even though it isn't working particularly well.
Senator John Kerry says he has a plan, but it appears hopelessly unrealistic. His entire plan is to "internationalize" the war. He has not said how he would convince key countries that opposed the war to join us now. He implies that that the only reason these countries opposed the war was the heavy-handed diplomacy of the Bush administration. While Bush's diplomacy was indeed heavy-handed, the countries that opposed the war did so because they believed it was in their national interests to oppose the war. This has not changed; if anything these countries have even stronger reasons to oppose the war now. We cannot think of anything that any future President might say that could convince these countries to change their minds and act against their perceived national interests.
Even if it were possible to "internationalize" the war in Iraq, it is by no means clear that this would produce a better result. The track record of "international" efforts by the U.N. and the European Union is not particularly good. Some recent examples:
Here are links to news reports on some of these U.N. failures.
Whether one agreed with the invasion of Iraq or not, we are there now, and we can't afford to fail. We do not need an "exit strategy" for Iraq, we need a plan for victory. We should define "victory" as a stable, democratic Iraq. The United States should encourage a new democratic government in Iraq. This summer's transfer of authority to the new Iraqi provisional government was a good first step. We are nonetheless obliged to keep US military forces in Iraq until the nation is stabilized, and democracy is established.
We do not like to compare the situation in Iraq to that in Vietnam 1964-1975. There are actually few parallels between the two, contrary to what some would have us believe. However, if there is a lesson from Vietnam which does apply, it is this:
The only thing worse than getting involved in a stupid, foreign war in which you have no interest, is getting involved in a stupid, foreign war in which you have no interest, and then losing.
The consequenses of losing in Iraq would be catastrophic.
The United States should support real, legitimate elections, and not elections rigged in favor of certain favored exiles. Doing this will require an election law and voter registration. Elections are tentatively scheduled for January, and we hope they are not delayed. The sooner such elections can be held, the better off we will be.
While the US is now irrevocably committed to the war in Iraq, we always questioned whether Iraq represented an imminent threat. Al Qaeda has demonstrated that it is an immediate threat, and we still think that Osama bin Laden and his followers should be the first priority of our military and intelligence efforts. While Saddam Hussein unquestionably supported some other terrorist organizations, (typically, the "traditional" secular Palestinian terrorist groups) there is still little evidence of cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. It is also now clear that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were not an immediate threat, though they were a long term threat.
Very few "Weapons of Mass Destruction" have been found in Iraq, and those weapons that were there after the 1991 war probably were desroyed in the early 1990s. This demonstrates a huge US intelligence failure, which should be investigated in a non-partisan manner. Congressional Democrats and Republicans (who should have had access to all of the available intelligence data) supported the war, which lead us to believe that the WMDs were real. We should question these politicians - Senator Kerry, to name one - about their vote to authorize the war. We should also ask similarly difficult questions to Mr. Bush. We're starting to wonder if it is time for "regime change" in Washington. All we need is an alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties......
In previous messages we've expressed cautious optimism about Iran's future. Iran actually has more democratic institutions than most states in the region, and Iranian voters regularly elect moderate, reform-minded politicians. The elected politicians have little real power, and the country is still effectively ruled by the unelected and hard-line Council of Guardians. Still, a year ago Iran seemed to be gradually heading in the right direction.
Unfortunately Iran has recently taken several large steps backwards.
Earlier this year the Council of Guardians rigged a national election by having most "reform" candidates thrown off the ballot. No doubt the Council of Guardians feared another embarrasing victory by the reformers.
Iran also appears to be attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Iran claims that it wishes to enrich uranium for use in power plants, but this doesn't seem credible, since uranium suitable for power plants is readily available from foreign suppliers. We also wonder why one of the world's largest oil producers needs nuclear energy at all.
An Iranian nuclear weapons program presents problems similar to the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Iran's hard-line rulers already supports some terrorist organizations, so there would be a risk of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorists. Iranian hard-liners might under some circumstances even be tempted to use a nuclear weapon themselves.
As in North Korea the US has no good military options, though for somewhat different reasons. Attacking the uranium production facilities risks causing widespread radioactive contamination. Any attack would likely enrage the Iranian public at large - people who for the most part would otherwise favor better relations with the United States.
We must also note that given the recent US intelligence problems it would be extremely unwise to conduct a preemptive strike against Iran.
Fortunately there is some hope for diplomacy in Iran. The United Nations has so far shown uncharacteristic firmness in its diplomatic efforts to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program. Several of our European allies are exerting pressure on the Iranian government to abandon their uranium enrichment program. Iran does wish to shed its pariah status in the international community, so they may yet be willing to compromise. Apart from the hard-liners in the government, most Iranians also want better relations with the United States. This may give the US at least a small amount of diplomatic leverage with the Iranian government.
We are willing to give the European and UN efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program a chance to work, but so far, they have met with little success.
The North Korean problem continues to fester. As we've said previously all our options are bad. The least bad option is to continue with the current multilateral negotiations, even though progress has been agonizingly slow.
We've noticed that some on the left side of the US political spectrum have suggested that we abandon the multilateral negotiations, and negotiate with North Korea directly. We find this rather curious, since the American political left generally favors multilateralism in international relations. It also completely ignores the fact that the USA has absolutely no diplomatic leverage with North Korea; in fact, the USA does not even have formal diplomatic relations with North Korea. Our negotiating partners, notably the People's Republic of China, have at least some leverage. China provides North Korea with much of its food and fuel, so they can forcibly influence North Korea if they want to. The People's Republic of China is not really our friend. They are at best an ally of convenience. However, like Japan, South Korea and Russia, they do have an interest in limiting North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Multilateral negotiation is not a good option, but it may be our only one.
We would be remiss if we did not note the passing of former president Ronald Reagan last June. We were not Reagan fans in the 1980s, and at the time we often joked about Reagan's Reign of Error. He confounded our expectations by becoming the best president of the 2nd half of the 20th century. The world changed so dramatically during his term that it is now difficult to remember how things were before he took office.
In 1980 the United States seemed to be in decline. The US economy was in poor condition: Inflation was 12.5%, unemployment was 7.1%, and interest rates were 15% at best. The US military commanded little respect following the Vietnam War. The failed April 1980 attempt to rescue the US embassy staff that was being held hostage in Iran seemed to symbolize US impotence. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was expanding its military power and its political influence.
By the time Reagan left office inflation had been cut to about 4%, unemployment had been cut to 5.5%, the prime lending rate was 9%, and the economy was booming. The economic boom added 17 million new jobs, and was so strong that the late 1987 stock market crash barely caused a ripple. The US military also had been enlarged and strengthened, and it enjoyed renewed public esteem.
During Reagan's term the US withdrew support from a number of dictatorships that were Cold War allies. This is especially surprising, since Reagan began his presidency by proclaiming support for friendly, anti-communist dictators. But when it came to a choice between dictatorship and democracy, Reagan came down on the right side. This led many of these nations to become democracies. The Phillipines and South Korea are perhaps the best known examples, but hardly the only ones. President Carter deserves the credit for starting this policy, but Reagan made it work.
Reagan also dramatically altered domestic US politics. Prior to Reagan the main point of contention in domestic policy was whether the Republicans or Democrats could most effectively administer the "New Deal" era government social programs and their successors. After Reagan it was possible to question the wisdom of the programs themselves.
While this is all impressive, it is not his greatest achievement.
Before Reagan took office, no one even dared to think that the Cold War was winnable. Some even wondered if the Soviet Union might be gaining the upper hand, and most thought the best we could hope for was an uneasy coexistence with the Soviet Union.
Reagan believed that the Cold War was winnable, and then he proceeded to win it. But what was most impressive was how he won it. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher perhaps said it best during her eulogy to Reagan: "He won the Cold War - not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends." This was his greatest achievement, and the one we never expected. For this, we must give him credit.
Reagan was far from perfect. He dramatically increased the Federal debt (though this was arguably the price of winning the Cold War), and some of his cabinet members were tainted by scandal. And then there was the Iran-Contra mess. But Reagan got most of the "big stuff" right. To date none of his successors and only a few of his predecessors can match his achievements.
US government links
UN Resolution 1441 The full text at the US State Department.
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 The library of Congress site with the full text of the Congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq war. You can even see how your Congresscritter voted.
The 9/11 Commission site.The full text of The 9/11 Commission Report is available here. Do not rely on the news media, read it for yourself.
Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD (the Duelfer Report). Once again, do not rely on the news media, who selectively quote from this lengthy report. Read it for yourself.
One caution: The entire report is extremely long - nearly 200 megabytes. If you do not have a very high speed internet connection you will have to make do with the 194 kbyte summary of key findings.
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) An American non-profit television network.
PBS Links:
The NewsHour Forget ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC; this is the best television news program in the USA. Their great strength is their in-depth interviews with important people. This is not soundbite journalism with the celebrity of the moment.
Frontline: PBS' documentary series
Nova: PBS' science series
National Public Radio A non-profit US news source. They're a bunch of flaming liberals, but they provide in-depth coverage that commercial radio news can't match.
NPR Links:
BBC World Service Despite the richly earned criticism of the Hutton Report, the BBC is still among the best news organizations in the world.
Canadian Broadcasting Corp, and Radio Canada International are also good non-US news sources.
Islamic Republic News Agency The official news agency of the Iranian government. If you can overlook the strident anti-American rhetoric you'll sometimes find useful regional information here.
www.agonist.org A personal web site with news headlines and a forum about the war in Iraq.
www.methaz.com A site with satellite pictures of Iraq
United States Naval Institute Some news about the war in Iraq, and also some technical information. Their monthly magazine Proceedings provides excellent coverage of the US Navy and Marine Corps, along with history and opinion.
Globalsecurity.org Technical information about weapons being used in the war.