Centerfield

Conservative may feel uncomforable with my ideas. But, something has to change quickly, or the American people will turn on the Bush administration. And, the Republicans will out of office for a long time.

John Murtha, Democrat from Pennsylvania, has come out against the Iraqi War with a good report. Blog site Moderate Republican has a good discussion about this topic. While I commend Murtha, hold him in high esteem, and agree with his view of the war in Iraq, I must question his idea about immediate redeployment of troops. "My plan calls for immediate redeployment of U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces, to create a quick reaction force in the region, to create an over-the-horizon presence of Marines, and to diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq". "Immediate Redeployment" was a poor choice of words. Regardless, he was correct in his general evaluation of the war.

We should set a time table and put the Iraqis on notice that we will be leaving as soon as the new government is installed. For sure, we should leave next year. We gave the Iraqi people the most precious gift in the world. Namely, they have an opportunity to form a more perfect union. Now, it is time we start thinking about our own homeland security. We need to secure our borders, waterways, and airports. And, we need to address terrorist cells in America. Those that want to do us harm should be expelled from America and we should develop a secure and humane immigration policy that is consistent with our need for workers in all fields.

Mike, I'm just going to paste in what i said saturday, which about covers it:

I acknowledge the obvious point that one way or another, sooner or later, it is and MUST be up to Iraqis.

However, given that we now can be reasonably sure that Iraq was not much of a threat circa 2003, let me say this: if indeed Iraq does descend into civil war after we withdraw, and it becomes an ever more dangerous and lawless land, or a stronghold for violent islamic fundamentalism, it won't have been worth it.

If that doesn't happen, and Iraq is able to continue to slowly creep forward as a functioning representative democracy capable of showing other muslims a system better than what they have, it WILL have been worth it.

In other words, it will have been worth it depending on how we can get the dominoes to fall. My sense is that they WILL fall, one way or the other. And the way in which they do fall is the most important criteria for worthiness of the effort, because what we need to care about most is long-term global stability. A sustained effort against islamic terrorism by the US that yields only short-term removals of threat followed by the the development of chaotic power vaccuums will not work, and is a morally bankrupt way to proceed.

And to add on in response to MMR above: IMO we have a responsibilty to Iraq that goes beyond warning them that they'll have to sink or swim without us based on a timetable. We can't jsut tell them what they'll HAVE to do just because we've got bigger fish to fry. We need to base any substantial (as opposed to incremental) drawdowns on our reasonable judgement that Iraq and its security forces are ready, willing, and able to provide stability and security for the new government.

In other words, our drawdown must be based on our assessment that Iraq is ready, not upon a calendar.

I think you are right that "we created this vacuum" and more we have created a new base of operations for al Qaeda and their Iraqi allies.

I also agree we need to "see this through", but I think we need to humbly defer to others for help. We really are too much a part of the problem to continue as the face of stabilization and reconstruction.

What we need to reconstuct is a broad alliance with the international community. Then we can "redeploy" a potent reaction force in the region to respond to crisis situations on the ground in Iraq while others, less culpable in the damage, help Iraq towards freedom and democracy.

I hear people say no one will help to that extent. I say if we support them with anywhere near the funds we're spending in Iraq we'll have competent takers.

I'm not 100% sure we "own it" all at this point, but we certainly broke it. Unfortunately, now we're helping keep it broken.

I believe in our mission in Iraq. The fact that it is dificult does not mean that it shouldn't be done.

We are the only remaining superpower. Internationalism is a nice concept but no one else has the military power to accomplish radical changes in the region. I see the US as a police officer for the world. We cannot sit idle and let them sort it out. That to me would be the same as a police officer using his gun and badge to protect himself and his family while the neighborhood is filled with violence.

We have made many mistakes and we need to learn from them, quickly, but the idea of abandoning a region of people simply because it is dificult is not in keeping with the ideals of this country.

Think of it as a progressive liberty tax. We will pay a little more due to our abundance to give a helping hand to those who have little.

Tom, your plan about seeking cooperation from our European allies sounds remarkably like John Kerry's. It was a bad plan then, and it's a bad plan now.

The biggest problem in Iraq right now is SECURITY. And by that I mean block-by-block, help keep innocent civilians from being killed by terrorists or Sunni or Shi'ite partisans. It's a valid criticism, I think, of Secretary Rumsfeld's approach to the war that he didn't send in enough troops to preserve security after the war. I think we needed (and still need) more military police types to walk beats in neighborhoods and provide security to the people whose lives we disrupted.

What country is going to send in more troops than we are providing right now? France? Spain? Italy? There simply are no other armies in the world as well trained and capable as ours. Now, if the Swiss would like to come in and take care of one town, and the Norweigans another and so forth, great. I wish they would. But they've all made it clear (even directly in response to Senator Kerry's proposal) that they will absolutely not provide troops under any circumstances.

I'm sure many Iraqis have a love-hate reaction to America right now. But they know that Americans do their dead-level best to keep civilians from being killed by terrorists or ethnic cleansing squads. They know it because they see our troops doing that every day. Leaving them now would be a deep betrayal to those people and would cause much longer lasting harm to American interests. Right now, it's the Islamic fundamentalists who hate us. If we left the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites to kill each other in a three-way civil war, then everybody would hate us.

I'm sure many Iraqis have a love-hate reaction to America right now.

Right. So let's all say it now, 10 times:
Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.
Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.
Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.
Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.
Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.
Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.
Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.
Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.
Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.

Everyday Iraqis' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.

Maybe even add in an

Everyday Americans' pragmatic tolerance for our continued presence.

Clarification: Given the size and power of our military is it possible for us to enter a conflict and not either 1) effectively use our forces (i.e. "play to win") or 2) leave a "vacuum" when we leave?

PatHMV,

It's a valid criticism, I think, of Secretary Rumsfeld's approach to the war that he didn't send in enough troops to preserve security after the war. I think we needed (and still need) more military police types to walk beats in neighborhoods and provide security to the people whose lives we disrupted.

I'm going to disagree there, once on theoretical grounds and once on experience. First, conventional military theory argues that an occupation force needs on the order of 10 to 20 "security personnel" per 1,000 Iraqi inhabitants in order to effectively "police an insurgency." If you do the math, using the lower ratio means that we would have needed 250,000 trigger-pullers in order to succeed using that strategy; now don't forget that the troop-to-tail ratio of combat support (tail) to combat arms (teeth) is at least 2:1 (really 3:1, but we can use the best case scenario again). That's a total force of 750,000, or more than what the entire US Army can field, even if we magically mobilized every deployable Guard and Reserve unit.

But, secondly, our mission in Afghanistan has never had even one-sixth the size of the force they have in Iraq, and yet I don't think anyone would question where we've had more success. It's not so much about how many troops you have on the ground, it's about how those troops are being employed, and whether it is consistent with the right political strategy. The good news is that a lot of the "Afghanistan team" (Ambassador Khalilzad, LTG Vines, etc.) are making their way into Iraq, and I think we're already starting to see the changes in strategy, and will soon start seeing some of the results.

I do, however, agree with you on the relative feasibility of "internationalizing" the Coalition. If you look at Afghanistan-- a mission in which almost the entire world agreed with our position and supported the mission-- the Europeans agreed to assume responsibility for the operations (via NATO) more than two years ago. But in practice, they have only recently assumed control of the relatively stable and more peaceful Northern and Western regions (as well as Kabul, which always fell under their security jurisdiction); with a few exceptions (UK, Canada, France, Romania-- all of whom are serving under the American-commanded banner) they continue to balk about assuming responsibility for any of the South or Southeast.

It's not about simply "paying" them to do it, Tom. The Europeans (again, minus Britain and France) have neglected their militaries for years, to the point that they no longer have the ability to contribute much in that arena.

This doesn't mean the Administration can't or shouldn't be doing more to find other Coalition partners-- I believe last year's decision to turn down the Saudi-funded multinational Islamic corps was a huge mistake; and there are countries with more capable militaries whom we could plead with for support (India and Russia, chiefly among them). But it wouldn't be a magic cure, nor would it realistically allow us to withdraw many more forces than we're already reducing.

The victory strategy, as Brian noted here and in a separate thread, lies in developing the independent security capability within the Iraqi forces to allow them to secure their own country against all reasonable threats, internally and externally. It's as simple as that.

Bobby, I agree with the ultimate point that eventually it all comes down to how well we train the new Iraqi army.

I would quibble with your numbers, though. Not all parts of Iraq have equal rates of insurgency. The Sunni triangle needs something close to the troop ratio you describe. But the Kurdish areas not nearly so many, with the Shi'ite areas to the south probably needing more than the Kurds but fewer than the triangle.

Also, I'm not sure how effective a multinational Islamic force would be. What countries would they come from? Each of the Arab Islamic nations would have their own goals and desires for Iraq, which would not necessarily be in harmony with actually bringing stability and independence to Iraq.

I have some observations about reading various blog sites. I saw IMO today on a blog site. I wondered about the meaning. It means one of the following: International Maritime Organization, International Meteor Organization, Irish Medical Organisation, or In My Opinion. I assume it means In My Opinion.

Secondly, the idea of staying in Iraq sounds a lot like LBJ and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War. Even though there are differences between the Vietnam War and the Iraqi War, there are similarities. Namely, we do not have a clear exit strategy and our troops are not enthusiastically supported by a majority of people in the host nation.

Third, we should tell the Iraqis they will have to fight and die for their country. Good golly, it is their country.

Forth, if we are still in Iraq in 2008 and still losing soldiers every day, the vast majority of Americans will turn against Republicans. Even though the Democrats lack vision or solutions, they will overwhelm the Republicans in 2008. I hope this does not happen. However, the conservatives cannot survive politically by continuing to support Bush and his "stay the course" idea regardless of the costs. Hopefully, the Iraqis can assume responsibility for securing their nation soon. I hope for the best. Take care.

PatHMV,

I would quibble with your numbers, though. Not all parts of Iraq have equal rates of insurgency. The Sunni triangle needs something close to the troop ratio you describe. But the Kurdish areas not nearly so many, with the Shi'ite areas to the south probably needing more than the Kurds but fewer than the triangle.

This is a good point. I would note, however, that the ratio for security to population has a "floor" of about 4 (a typical US city; some cities do drop to 3 or lower) while the high number, 20, applies to more active insurgencies, such as the Malayan Emergency and the modern Jammu & Kashmir (and several parts of Iraq). Ten might still have turned out to be the national median, but it might be as low as 8 or so-- I'd have to do a more sophisticated analysis.

In any case, the US military could never have sustained the numbers necessary to win a war of occupation using this conventional military strategy, since deploying troops for twenty-four to thirty-six straight months is just not an option (which means we would need a force two to three times its size for rotational purposes). The solution lies in thinking out of the box, and adopting an unconventional strategy, which I would point out we more readily accepted in Afghanistan because we never even considered having more than 20,000 troops-- US and Coalition-- on the ground.

But any time I hear the "More troops would have won it!" approach, I feel compelled to point out that its not really how many or what types of chess pieces you have on the board; it's how you apply those chess pieces (i.e., your strategy)that ultimately determines whether you will win or lose. And sometimes having more troops on the ground actually causes you problems because you then think you can win using a purely conventional strategy based on attrition, leaving you subject to a more dynamic opponent who will exploit your vulnerabilities-- as the Union experienced when they faced Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. But I digress.

Also, I'm not sure how effective a multinational Islamic force would be. What countries would they come from? Each of the Arab Islamic nations would have their own goals and desires for Iraq, which would not necessarily be in harmony with actually bringing stability and independence to Iraq.

Okay, the multinational Islamic corps-- and we're speaking purely in theoretical terms because Washington turned it down during its conceptual stage-- was a Riyadh proposed idea. It would have consisted of brigades and battalions contributed by various Muslim nations (no neighboring states allowed-- Algeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia were among those proposed, but again this was purely in concept), and funded by the Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc.) The proposal would have carved out its own distinct Area of Responsibility, separate from the MNF-I territory, in which the Muslim force would have been responsible for conducting combat security operations. The proposal also called for it to fall under UN control.

Washington vetoed the idea because, among other reasons, it was considered a bad idea to have two separate zones of control in Iraq due to the coordination problems that would be presented; now we dealt with this issue from the beginning in Afghanistan with the separate ISAF/NATO and Coalition areas (and are still dealing with it), so it can be done-- it just takes extra work. But, in fairness, I have been told by a very reliable source that the unstated reason was that the Administration just didn't believe the Saudis were serious about it-- Riyadh has a bad habit of proposing concepts that they don't intend to ever really follow through on, and if that was the reason, then it was probably a fair one.

But personally, I think getting a Muslim force involved in the stabilization of Iraq would have been worth the extra work in coordination, even if we had only assigned them a relatively quiet area. There's nothing wrong with asking the other Muslim countries to help stabilize Iraq, and what we saw in Somalia was that the Kenyan contingent actually had a great deal of success, which the Turks attributed to their "regional identity."

But not even exploring this concept, to me, was a much bigger Administration mistake than not having "enough" troops on the ground, which I think is completely bogus and unsound.

All,
I don't think Iraqis have the political maturity for a stable functioning democracy anytime soon. (The murder of Saddam's defense counsel is a case in point.) I say this without any bias against Iraqis, however, the colonial legacy and U.S. backed dictatorships of the past have not prepared the way for anything like democracy.

Furthermore, the continued U.S. military presence impedes progress in political preparedness. First, ihe U.S. has huge credibility problems in the middle east, due in no small part to U.S. foreign policy in Israel. The U.S. military presence inevitably tarnishes the Iraqi government. No doubt the insurgents exploit this to their advantage. Second, the U.S. has not made any friends with its attack in Fallujah, and its treatment of Iraqi detainees. Finally, the U.S. military presence lends support to the false charge that the Iraqi government is a puppet of the U.S. government.

Globalizing the effort would help to reduce the negative association that the Iraqi government has with the U.S.

As for moral obligations, nations are not moral entities. Moral obligations? Get real. A moral obligation might mandate a decision that might harm U.S. interests. This moral talk is pure and empty rhetoric.

Bobby,

I agree that strategy is critical, but every strategy has its own ideal number of troops. Given the strategy we're pursuing, do you think we have the ideal number? People talk about how our troops have to continually reconquer certain areas. Maybe 50,000 more would be helpful in this regard.

They've quit "reconquering," Adam. Now they go in and estabish a presence and stay--especially in the towns along the Syrian border and that one "river route" from Syria to Baghdad. That's possible because the ING is getting up to speed in many places.

Not surprisingly, most of the trouble is in just three provinces.

Bobby, I'm certainly not saying that just more sheer number of troops would make a difference. But I do believe that a different type of troop mix could help significantly, and certainly could have helped a lot in the early post-war days when the Army was the only police force of any type to be found in Iraq. Going house to house searching for insurgents, gaining the trust of the local residents so they will inform on the insurgents, these things need interpreters and soldiers trained as policy rather than infantry.

On a larger point, looking at the history of American military action in the post-Vietnam era, it looks to me like we've used our soldiers primarily in missions with a large "peace-keeping" or "nation-building" function. But the military has resisted these missions, insisting that its soldiers should only operate in Gulf War I-like missions, real shooting wars with artillery and what not. As a result, the arms of the military most needed in Somalia and post-war Iraq type missions (the military police and translators) have gotten the short end of the funding stick.

Secretary Rumsfeld has worked hard to shift to a leaner, meaner Army (successfully killing the Crusader artillery, for example), but in my view has not adequately addressed the need for different types of training needed for the different types of missions we now call on our brave young men and women to perform.

Adam,

I agree that strategy is critical, but every strategy has its own ideal number of troops. Given the strategy we're pursuing, do you think we have the ideal number? People talk about how our troops have to continually reconquer certain areas. Maybe 50,000 more would be helpful in this regard.

Honestly, brother, I don't think they need any more troops. We have a sufficient number of troops and hardware to carry out a successful strategy. If you give us another 50,000 troops, we'd just continue to employ them in the same sub-optimal manner and we'd receive very little benefit to their presence. In fact, the more troops and resources you give the military, the more likely we are to eschew an unconventional strategy and keep trying to achieve victory through mass and firepower-- a losing proposition in a counterinsurgency unless you have a few million troops on the ground (which we're just not going to do) and intend to keep them there for a long, long time.

I hate to say it, but the military is a lot like the US Postal Service-- no matter how many people we have, we always want more, we'll always take more, and somehow the "work" expands to keep everyone "busy."

The winning proposition is to continue to integrate and refine our civil-military-political strategy, subordinate kinetic operations to information operations, develop stronger relations with the locals, and utilize small unit tactics against targets derived from intelligence gained from supportive populations. (Obviously, simultaneously, there's a civil-political strategy to rebuild the civil and political institutions that you need to sustain an emerging democracy, and that includes the training of the Iraqi security forces). You don't need more troops to do that. And, honestly, adding more troops will likely cause the military to go back to the large-scale maneuver strategy that is doomed to failure in an unconventional war.

PatHMV,

To be sure, the US conventional military force organization is not really conducive to the kind of small unit kinetic action that is inherently required in fighting a counterinsurgency. And it isn't easy to simply task organize "on the fly" in the manner that our OPFOR (the 11th ACR) is famous for doing at the National Training Center. And that follows directly from your second paragraph that the US Army believes it exists to fight and win on the maneuver battlefield-- against the Germans in WWII, the North Koreans and Chinese in the Korean War, the Soviets penetrating the Fulda Gap, and the Iraqi Army during Desert Storm and the "Thunder Run."

That was the (quite unfortunate) legacy of a military culture that devalues "unconventional war" and glorifies "conventional war"-- even as the occurrences of the first outnumbered the second by a factor of as many as 10-to-1 in historical experience (dependng on who you ask; the low end would still be 4-to-1).

But you're preaching to the choir, brother. I think the way we indoctrinate our senior and junior military officers is absolutely at odds with the kind of adaptability that we need to be successful in both "third-" and "fourth-generation" battlefields; our organizational culture is far too rigid and inflexible to allow us to make the numerous and continuous subtle changes that we need to be successful. That's one of the reasons the Army's "transformation" has not really impressed SECDEF Rumsfeld (or COL Macgregor, for that matter): we've changed things cosmetically, while refusing to make the hard changes to our doctrine, organization, and culture that we really need. It's also one of the reasons we're steadfastly resisting Effects-Based Operations (EBO) and adhering to our Cold War "Legacy" doctrine. It's a mess.

Sadly, these are lessons we learned coming out of Vietnam, but instead of taking note and correcting the ship, we embraced a more inflexible code-- the Weinberger Doctrine and Powell Corollary-- that allowed us to pretend we would "never again" have to fight in another unconventional war type scenario. It was a dereliction of duty of the highest order, and we're paying the price today.

Ironically, the other services-- especially the US Marine Corps-- have been far more adaptable and flexible. Had we that kind of organizational culture, we might have long ago made the changes in Iraq that we're now seeing being manifested in everything from the marginalization of the potential spoilers to the emergence of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams.

But overcoming bureaucratic inertia and organizational resistance is a problem with any bureaucracy that does not want to embrace change that they do not necessarily agree with-- and the US Army is no different.

MMR:
Yep, IMO stands for "in my opinion". IMHO is a common, er, humbler variant.

I keep seeing the, "oh, yeah, it's Vietnam again" rhetoric. And three not insubstantial differences come to mind.

IMHO :-), in Vietnam, not only were they unenthusiastic, but a majority wanted us gone, saw us as evil betrayers, and sympathized with Ho Chi Minh. That's because we acted against an elected government and for a series of unelected dictators, and because our method of converting hearts and minds was blowing them up.

Here, we're on the side of democracy, and the enemy are converting hearts and minds by blowing them up. As a result, though they aren't crazy about being invaded, most Iraqis want us to stay, and the rebels poll at under 10%.

Bobby:
I think DC was to reject the Arab troops, because they would arguably have been picked by the other side: antidemocratic dictatorships living in fear of this succeeding. Would many have been encouraged to work towards failure of democracy? Bush' cards are on the table about wishing to encourage regional freedom and democracy.

Amen, Bobby...

Hmmm, very interesting, Bobby. I'm not sure if you can comment on this, but do you have confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld? It seems that you agree with his general plan to restructure the military.

A general perception of him is that he's arrogant and out-of-touch, with his shock-and-awe campaign, his dismissal of looters, and his comment that the insurgents were just a bunch of "dead-enders." Just to pick your brain, how do you feel about the disbanding of the Iraqi army? And I guess, more generally, do you think Bush has reasonably prosecuted this war?

Jon Kay,

That's a fair point. although we weren't giving them authority over the political and civil reconstruction of their AOR-- just responsibility for providing security. The UN would have been the administrative liaison, at least until the elected Iraqi government assumes complete authority. Depending on your opinion of the UN, that might have turned out to be a very valid criticism.

Adam,

Without ruffling any feathers, I can say that I am supportive of the SECDEF's concept of military transformation: becoming more joint, more interagency, and more expeditionary by design; smaller, more modular, self-contained formations; adopting a more flexible, effects-based doctrine; and leveraging our improved battlefield operating systems. In practice, however, I'm not convinced that we're implementing the concepts wisely, and are losing great opportunities to redesign the force. Overcoming bureaucratic culture-- especially in the Army-- has proven to be far more challenging than anyone had thought.

Understanding that the military needed to transform in order to become more powerful, however, is not necessarily the same thing as knowing what it takes to win an unconventional war, nor does it even mean that the SECDEF and his reformist allies were even quick to recognize that we faced an insurgency-- they weren't. Unfortunately, fairness in criticizing his shortcomings in prosecuting the War in Iraq has been transferred to unfair criticisms of Transformation.

Disbanding the old Iraqi Army was controversial (to say the least). If Bremer hadn't done it, I'm sure that for the last two years, he would have received enormous attacks from critics who would have charged him with making a "deal with the devil" and selling out to the "warlords"; we heard the mantra incessantly in Afghanistan after allowing the warlords to remain in control of their respective regional feifdoms after toppling the Taliban. Of course, Part II of that strategy is to build an independent security force that, as it becomes more capable, assumes responsibility from the "warlords," who increasingly find themselves being marginalized through full-spectrum operations. That's the strategy that Ambassador Khalilzad chose in Afghanistan, and I would argue that it might have been a better option for Bremer to choose in Iraq. But done is done.

Finally, as for the prosecution of the war, I try to avoid making sweeping assessments since I have little first-hand knowledge of what's occurred there-- I've done two tours in Afghanistan, but have not yet been directed to Iraq, so most of what I know is from what my colleagues tell me in open and closed forums. I will say that there have been aspects of OIF that I have not necessarily agreed with, things that I felt we did better in Afghanistan, and I have been extremely pleased to see Ambassador Khalilzad move from Kabul to Baghdad this summer, implementing a similar strategy that worked well for us in the first place over a strategy that has not worked as well in the second. I truly believe that you're going to see major effects as "the Viceroy" continues to lead the inter-agency effort. He's an amazing man.