Our Generals Almost Cost Us Iraq

I have had a long standing suspicion that the problems with our strategy in Iraq were not the fault of George Bush. Bush is not a micro-manager. His willingness to accept compromise solutions (take the current increasingly flawed economic bill) is the hallmark of his administration. His administration has been marked by getting along with congress in its spending priorities and with the largest entitlement increase in history; a sop to Liberals.

The only thing that he has been unwilling to cave on is the war in Iraq. He has fought congress and some in his own party to win. His record on the war is eerily similar to Lincoln’s who chose military leaders who lost until he finally found one who won.

Macubin Thomas Owen has an insightful article in the Wall Street Journal that confirms some of my beliefs.

The dominant media storyline about the Iraq war holds that the decisions about how to conduct it pitted ignorant civilians -- especially the president and secretary of defense -- against the uniformed military, whose wise and sober advice was cavalierly ignored. The Bush administration's cardinal sin was interference in predominantly military affairs, starting with overruling the military on the size of the force that invaded Iraq in March 2003.

I’m going to have to disagree with the article.

First, General Shinseki was right about the size of force he proposed. He viewed both the high intensity ground battle AND the reconstruction period. Rumsfeld was dead right that a smaller force with air superiorty could win the ground war quickly. He was dead wrong to think that force would be substantial enough to win the reconstruction. Shinseki was right. Rumsfeld was wrong.

Second, Casey’s approach was not “option 3” — grow the Iraqi Army. Casey’s approach was “(a)grow the Iraqi Army + (b) Staged attacks against insurgent strongholds to keep them at bay.” Casey was right about (a) but short-sighted with his (b).

The only reason we are getting out of Iraq through Petraeus’ actions is because the Iraqi Army was grown under Casey. If that hadn’t been done, we’d be years away from where we are now. Petraeus owes Casey for a substantially rebuilt Iraqi Army that is now taking over the fight in a number of areas.

Casey was wrong about the staged attacks. Petraeus knew the truth that those hotbeds of insurgent strength had to be exterminated. Petraeus’ in short did the following: (1) Isolate a particular area of insurgent strength, (2) Clear the area of insurgents, (3) Control that area afterwards by leaving Iraqi troops in charge.

Step 3 wouldn’t have been possible without the prep work Casey had done. I’m guessing that’s part of why Casey went to Chief of Staff of the Army rather than into retirement.

Your response does not refute the major point. Our generals were not totally incompetent, they were just wrong in the combined strategy they used. Otherwise Casey would have won instead of Petraeus. To take us back to the Civil War, McClelland was not totally incompetent. In fact he was good at building an army virtually from scratch. He organized and drilled with the best of them. He was well liked by the troops, referred to admiringly as “little Mac.” But that did not take away from the fact that he did not use the army he created well. That job fell to Grant and his lieutenant, Sherman.

And, by the way, how many troops did Shinseki ask for? According to Fallows, he wanted as many as 400,000 and told Senator Levin 200,000. Even after the surge was fully completed we never had as many as 200,000 in Iraq. In the end it was not so much the numbers as the strategy.

YOU appear to be over-stating the case for Iraqi troops. Their only major initiative was to take-over of Basra. Otherwise what the American troops have done is turn over to them areas of the country that were already pacified.

At this point the Iraqi troops do not have the logistical capabilities, the communications, the airpower or the armor that makes a modern army like ours so effective and lethal. Remove our troops and the likelihood is that the old tribal animosities would tear the Iraqi army apart and the country would again descend into chaos.

What you have not mentioned - and I think should be your strongest argument - was the realization on the part of the Iraqi people that al Qaeda consisted of a band of bloodthirsty criminal thugs whose presence was intolerable. I attribute a great deal of the success of the surge to the “Awakening” movement in Iraq. But my point is that this was only made possible by Petraeus’ strategy of counter-insurgency which provided cover for the native Iraqis to turn against their tormentors.

Petraeus was wise enough to incorporate the irregular militias of the “Awakening” into his counter-insurgency strategy.

This argument can go on forever because you are arguing from speculation. What would have happened if ….? I can point to the fact that violence and chaos was increasing under the old strategy and has decreased under the new strategy. Your strategy was leading to an inevitable American withdrawal and failure as the American people wearied of the war. Today, the war is on the back pages because of its success.

As long as we’re speculating, can we wonder if Petraeus would have won if the Iraqis had not had the “Awakening?” If they had not experienced the brutality of al Qaeda? Would Grant have won if Meade had not defeated Lee at Gettysburg? Oh the “what ifs.”

I’m not overstating the case for Iraqi troops. Read post #2 again. It said that the primary responsibility of the Iraqi troops was to control a deinfested area. They are more than adequate to that task, and many of them are now ready to engage in offensive operations.

The numbers of Iraqi troops changed the calculation of how many American troops were needed to BOTH clear and control. American troops in the surge were an increase in ground fire power.

The problem with al Qaeda incurring the wrath of the Iraqi people for their murdering of innocent civilians was a major miscalculation on their part. That had an additive effect over time. Initially many Iraqis were buying into the caliphate/talibanish type mentality that spawned those murders. As time when on, though, they saw the American troops trying to be helpful and they saw al qaeda murdering their relatives. Did that transition in thinking come prior to or as a result of the Surge?

I’m certain that there’s an overlap. The tribal leaders were wondering these things when the Surge hit. The Surge made it easy to stand up to the insurgents. The security that came with the surge made the new thinking practical.

“The Awakening” as many call it, was no “awakening.” It was a practical analysis, and the only thing that would give it feet was security.

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