Iraq: The End of the Beginning or the Beginning of the End?

The answer to the above question may come with President Bush's "New Strategy" speech on Wednesday evening (9PM EST). If the answer is the "end of the beginning," it will be essentially more of the same...just Phase II. If it is the "beginning of the end," we may be out of Iraq by the end of his Presidency.

I have just finished "Fiasco," by Thomas Ricks, the Washington Post's senior Pentagon correspondent. He joined the Post in 2000. Prior to that he was in a similar position at the Wall Street Journal for seventeen years.

It's difficult to summarize a 482 page book in a few paragraphs, but here goes...

"Fiasco" doesn't dwell on the U.S. political side of Iraq. Instead it is a "military history" of the war from its beginning until early 2006. But it is also a story of the "ripple effect" of false assumptions and the reluctance of "committed" authority and power to admit error and change course.

Ricks' book is divided into three main parts: "Containment," "Into Iraq," and "The Long Term." The first section is the run-up to the war; the false intelligence; the military planning; and the decision for invasion. The second part deals with the invasion, the drive to Baghdad, and the immediate aftermath. The final part looks at the growing insurgency and the military attempt to deal with it. Virtually, the entire book is based on interviews with senior and key military people who took part.

The key false assumption that led to the "Fiasco," seems to have been the notion that we would be greeted as "liberators" and that there would be a quick hand-over of the reins of power to a new Iraqi government.

This assumption drove military planning - i.e. a relatively small force, essentially a "spearhead" to Baghdad. Overthrow Hussein. A fast transition and out. There was an added advantage to this type of plan insomuch as if the Iraqis did possess WMD, we'd be moving too fast for them to be effectively used against us. Secondly, with the false assumption that we'd be viewed as liberators, there wasn't much concern regarding protection for the rear echelons, guarding discovered munition dumps, etc.

There were a few tell tale signs that this was not to be in the drive to Baghdad, but they became significant only in hindsight: rear echelon attacks on supply convoys, attacks by apparent civilians, etc. Franks' (General Tommy Franks, who formed the plan and was head of CENTCOM, the command with overall responsibility) favorite saying was "Speed Kills." Unfortunately, "speed" had the disadvantage of making the plan assumptions far more important than usual, because the rapid movement made it difficult to have time to observe actual conditions on the ground and to adjust tactics accordingly.

So, we got to Baghdad ahead of schedule. At that point, no one seems to have known what to do next. There is general consensus today among the military people who took part that no one planned for the aftermath.

Here there is a "missing piece" in the story. The impression is that Franks, Rumsfeld and the Pentagon in general thought someone else would take charge...that their "job" ended when they reached Baghdad and overthrew the regime. There was a civilian U.S. authority, under retired General Jay Gardner, but no one appears to have paid a great deal of attention to them at a strategic level of importance (unlike MacArthur in post-war Japan or Clay in Germany). Instead, this group seems to have been viewed as a sort of necessary, but minor function.

There was also a virtual "war" going on between the State and Defense Departments. In some ways, Rumsfeld seems to have thought that his only post-war assignment was in ensuring WMD were found. When this did not occur, bureaucratic paralysis seems to have set in. Sort of: "What! No WMD! Then, why are we here?"

Yet, still, there was such lack of forethought on the post-war situation, that one suspects a missing historical piece. Enter Iraqi ex-patriot Ahmed Chalabi, the W.T. Barnum ("There's a sucker born every minute") of the 21st Century. Chalabi was head of an ex-patriot Iraqi group claiming Iraqi post-war political power. Chalabi (who lives in London today) was the source of much of the phony intelligence on pre-war Iraq...from the WMD threat to being greeted in the streets with flowers. He was also an "insider" with Washington neo-cons in and out of government (Wolfwitz and Pearle being two). In 2004, he would be invited to sit immediately behind Laura Bush at the State of the Union Address.

On the other hand, the professional intelligence community - world-wide - never seems to have taken him very seriously, but he had the ear of the key civilians in the White House and Pentagon, who were pushing for war...and returned their friendship by coming up with exactly the intelligence they wanted to hear.

Chalabi moved into Baghdad with our forces (and a small ex-patriot based militia of his own) and apparently began to "assume" power. At this point things get hazy. It is as if someone, in Washington, told Chalabi that he would be "The Man," but forgot to tell our generals on the ground in Iraq or Jay Gardner, heading the civilian transition team. Sooo...they and the emerging religious factions in Iraq, seem to have just ignored him. There is this sort of "pause." The military waits to either go home or be told what to do next and get neither. The religious factions begin filling the vacuum. Here, I'll guess the "missing piece" of history.

Chalabi was disliked by almost everyone except the neo-cons. The State Department distrusted him. The CIA distrusted him. The military-on-the-ground in Iraqi distrusted him. Pearle, Wolfwitz, Douglas Feith (who worked for Wolfwitz, as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy), Scooter Libby (and to a lesser extent Cheney) and Judith Miller (of the New York Times) appear to have been his base of power within the United States.

But, perhaps more important than State, the CIA, et. al., Jay Gardner disliked him. And, as head of the civilian transition team, Gardner was technically the chief U.S. bureaucrat in Iraq at the time. Ricks interviewed Gardner who told him that following his appointment, but prior to his departure for Iraq, Feith told him: "You know, Jay, when you get there [Iraq], we could just make Chalabi President." Later in a joint press briefing, when Gardner was asked about Chalabi's Iraq National Congress (his political group), Gardner played down their role saying that a "lot of groups" will make inputs.

Following the press conference, Feith exploded at Gardner: "You've ruined everything, how could you say this?" The story in the book was related supposedly to illustrate how Gardner failed to get along with the Pentagon...but perhaps, Gardner DID ruin everything.

Shortly thereafter, Paul Bremer was appointed to replace Gardner.

Bremer was, by Ricks account, a career diplomat and, prior to his Iraqi service, thought to be a smart and savy guy. In Iraq, however, he was essentially a "loner" and uncommunicative. His answer on more than one occasion to real and pressing questions (i.e. de-Baathification; failure to seal the Syrian and Iranian borders, disbanding the Iraqi Army and sending them home with their guns, etc.)...was in the last resort, words to the effect: "I have my instructions."

Instructions to screw up the country? Maybe...at least until things could be rearranged to bring Chalabi back as the new "strongman of Iraq."

Ricks describes Chalabi as a "secular Shite," which seems like an oxymoron. As such, he was an "enemy" of the Sunnis and, perhaps, an opening toward Shite Iran...the guy who could form a secular government, based on a Shite majority.

For a brief period he held the Number 2 position in the first Iraqi government; then his fortunes changed and fast.

Five months after his attendance at the State of the Union Address, Iraqi police, accompanied by U.S. Navy Seals and the CIA raided his home in Baghdad. The story subsequently was circulated that he'd spied for Iran...he left government and returned to London.

So, the "missing piece" is that perhaps there was a post-war plan for Iraq...a covert one, held by a handful of civilian Pentagon neo-cons. What screwed the plan up may have been, in a curious way, Bush's naivety and steadfastness. Once the WMD and 9/11 reason for invading Iraq were proven false, the reason turned to "democracy." This had been a reason from the first (it was part of Cheney's view of a way to "stabilize" the Mid-East and Bush's mission to democratize the world), but had never been in the forefront, chiefly - I believe - because it was such a hard sell to the American people, whose reaction was/has been sort of "Yes...well...that would be nice...but do we want to have our kids dying for it?"

But, if Bush really personally believed in his mission, he probably would have insisted that if Chabali became President of Iraq, he'd have to get there primarily on his own, through a democratic process. And, with the CIA, the State Department, our generals, the Iraqi secular Sunnis and the Iraqi religious Shites all against him...it was just not in the cards; to make sure of that, the CIA either "exposed" him or spread rumors to totally discredit him.

So, Iraq began to descend into a civil war (or more properly, a religious war). And, our "forces in place" were left holding the bag.

Ricks points out that the result was a mixed bag. In certain sectors, we did very well...the sectors wherein the military commander sensed that we were caught up in an insurgency and adjusted tactics accordingly. In others, we did miserably...mass arrests, beatings, hostage taking...and generally treating all Iraqis as potential or real terrorists.

One of the "hero generals" in Ricks' book is General David Petraeus, who commanded the 101st Airborne. Petraeus sensed the insurgency early and became a counter-insurgency specialist. Although promoted to three stars, he was shuttled to Kansas to head the Army War College following his tour of duty in Iraq...prestigious, but not particularly career building (the Pentagon being where the action is). Bush has just named him to replace General Casey, who will become Army Chief of Staff (Casey also grasped counter-insurgency and, as head of all coalition forces in Iraq, began teaching its tactics to all incoming unit commanders in Iraq).

Thus, the "good news" is that our military has apparently adjusted reasonably quickly to a political vacuum and a situation they did not anticipate, nor could have expected to anticipate given what they were being told (and not told) by the political leadership. The "bad news" is that there really is little more they can do now other than what they are doing until such time as they are given new directions. This, I suspect, is the reason they have been less than enthusastic regarding adding additional forces and why they keep reminding us that the answer to the Iraq problem is not military, but political.

Finally, Ricks (who is very definitely pro-military) points out that aside from the occasional "cover-up" of a scandal by specific individuals (sometimes in high positions), today's Army, institutionally, is exceptional in allowing "out-of-the-box" thinking and dissent. He points out that some of the earliest and harshist criticism for the Iraq War actually came out of professional military journals and at the War Colleges. And, he notes that the doctrine of "preemptive war" runs contrary to what much of the profession considers to be a mainstay of our military history and traditions.

In concluding this, let me say that I share many of Ricks observations. One can be pro-military, but anti-war. Military force is organized violence on such a massive scale that it is probable that criminal activities will accompany its use - mistreatment of prisoners, the murder of civilians, etc. (as well as lethal accidents and errors). That in no way justifies those criminal activities; they should be exposed and prosecuted, but it is also precisely why such force should be deployed only in the face of immenient threat and as a last resort.

I opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. Tactically, because I believed the intelligence was not strong enough to justify it, that the Administration's overall case for war was weak and that we had not exhausted chances for a diplomatic solution. Strategically, I opposed it because I believe that "preemptive war" is such a major change in our history and values that it should be debated rationally at a national level, rather than "sold" on the basis of falsehoods and quasi-falsehoods, fear and threats. And, secondly, because the resources we were willing to commit did not seem to match the goals we sought. It was encouraging to discover in "Fiasco" that most of our professional military felt approximately the same way.