Blind Into Baghdad

The Atlantic Monthly ^ | January/February 2004 | James Fallows

[MJY1288]

Yup, Just like the RAT who the democrats are saying represents the position of the War College

[WOSG]

Other than the ability of a small number of baathists and terrorists to conduct hit-and-run attacks, WHAT HAS GONE WRONG IN IRAQ???!?

Nearly everything under the power of the administration in the war has gone RIGHT.

[anncoulteriscool]

You can't swing a cat in Washington without hitting a former undersecreatary of something. I think I heard this guy on a local radio show once and he was abbrassive and obnoxious. He was one of these people that starts talking and never shuts up.

[WOSG]

If the Iraq "failure" was replicated in Vietnam in the 1960s, the cold war would have ended by 1967.

[driftless]

Let me see...the war is a "debacle". In less than ten months we've defeated the Iraqi army, deposed Hussein and put him in chains, began the establishment of democracy in Iraq, and started a chain reaction of acquiescence to our demands in nearby countries who've decided that discretion is the better part of valor. I believe we need a few more "debacles" like this one.

[cwb]

This is funny, because according to the former Massad chief, who happens to be an expert on the Mid-East, this war in Iraq is the most extraordinary event to have occured in the last 100 years in the Mid-East. In just a few short months, the landscape has completely changed, as Libya and Syria are not only discussing giving up their WMDs, they are also engaged in serious dialog with Israel. Iran and N. Korea who were obstinent(sp) about their nuclear weapons programs, are now having second thoughts. As this gentleman said, the public picture of Saddam in the custody of US soldiers had to be one of the most frightening scenes for the dictators in this region. And I believe he is right--because in the Mid-East, might makes right, whether we like it or not.

Every American death in Iraq is a tragedy, but after "only" 10 months in Iraq with less that 500 fatalities, these people's perspective is a little warped. This is result of our fast-food/microwave society that demands instant results and gratification...and most of the time, without any sacrifice. Please...to make any proclamations at this point about the failure, or success, in Iraq is just playing politics.

[ingeborg]

The Michael Kelly would never have allowed The Atlantic to be taken over by liars. But the magazine seems to be in the thrall of the Soros gang.

[ingeborg]

The late Michael Kelly that is.

[dodger]

Fallows was a Harvardian Rhodent Scholar, eh??

Some of us recall when Rhodes Scholars actually were well-rounded, intelligent and self-actualized people rather than the PC 'droids of recent years, er, decades .... Ditto Harvard grads ....

What has become of the Academy?

[WOSG]

The mind boggles at the arrogance in the account ..

"The U.S. occupation of Iraq is a debacle ... " it starts off with a false main premise and goes downhill from there.

The presumption that we needed 400,000 troops to be in Iraq has been shown false by events. 130,000 is doing the trick.

It really boils down to "The Bush administration is incompetent because they didnt listen to the wonderful ideas of some various outsiders and the smart insiders who know so much more than those boobs Rumsfeld and Cheney ..."

but the nitpicking and anti-Rumsfeld/anti-Pentagon arrogance & hypocrisy really grates. Let take just one snippet ...

"The NGO representatives had no fault to find with the choice of Garner, but they were concerned, because his organization would be a subunit of the Pentagon rather than an independent operation or part of a civilian agency. "We had been pushing constantly to have reconstruction authority based in the State Department," Joel Charny told me. He and his colleagues were told by Wendy Chamberlin, a former ambassador to Pakistan who had become USAID's assistant administrator for the area including Iraq, that the NGOs should view Garner's appointment as a victory. After all, Garner was a civilian, and his office would draw representatives from across the government. "We said, 'C'mon, Wendy, his office is in the Pentagon!'" Charny says. Jim Bishop, a former U.S. ambassador who now works for InterAction, pointed out that the NGOs, like the U.S. government, were still hoping that other governments might help to fund humanitarian efforts. Bishop asked rhetorically, "Who from the international community is going to fund reconstruction run through the Pentagon?" "

Ah, so we were supposed to let the tail wag the dog and not have the pentagon do anything wrt post-war Iraq, just to satisfy the UN and other outsiders? What idiocy!

In the end of course, USA has shouldered the financial and humanitarian burden anyway. NGOs are non-existent practically in Iraq.

Now let me state a few things that ARE useful in this article: First it totally explodes the myth that planning didnt happen or that the administration didnt have a plan; yes they did have a plan. Some folks DIDNT LIKE THE PLAN and are complaining BECAUSE THEY WANTED A HUGE EXPENSIVE UN-STYLE OCCUPATION BY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TROOPS, replete with masses of well-funded NGOs handing out the dole to an Iraqi Welfare State. But Rummy didnt want it. Cheney and the administration didnt want it. The Bush team wanted a leaner occupation force that left Iraqis to their own devices as much as possible.

The Administration is indeed in a different place from the UN-types, the State Dept Liberals and the NGOs about occupying countries. BULLY FOR THEM! This sent a clear message - yes, it may have sent a message to Iraqis for a week or too that looting can happen ... but over time it has sent a positive message to Iraq: "Iraq is your country and you are responsible for it." You cant build freedom by turning a country into a refugee camp.

What Fallows doesnt say is that now we already have 200,000 new Iraqi security forces. He doesnt say that many of the recruits came from the old Iraq army anyway, so the complaint about disbanding the army is not a fundamental issue, but about tactical decision. Nor does he mention the cogent reasons for not keeping the old army - untrained, a *draft* army (do you want to keep people against their will as you build "freedom"?), and of course an instrument of saddam's terror. I too wondered about disbanding the Iraqi army. But it's a call you could make either way, and in the end the new Iraqi army is more effective and is not tarnished with saddam's old regime. Good. New money, new army, new Govt, new ministers, new thinking, New Iraq. Saddam's entire govt, palaces, everything, will be gone. Even him.

This article is not serious journalism. If it was, Fallows would at least grant the benefit of the doubt on the coalition's success in avoiding oil fires, refugee crises; he'd at least mention that in many ways May-to-December was *not post-war* but was still a war-time period where baathists still tried hit-and-run attacks; he'd point out the huge POLITICAL SUCCESS of getting new Iraqi Governing Council up and running and having local Govts throughout Iraq.

Rather, this is an attack piece from a former Carter administration official whose agenda is to defend practices of occupation that have now been discredited by the success in Iraq. Those successes - as in any war - comes not without a price or without messiness. But it is success nonetheless.

[WOSG]

Right.

"This is funny, because according to the former Massad chief, who happens to be an expert on the Mid-East, this war in Iraq is the most extraordinary event to have occured in the last 100 years in the Mid-East. In just a few short months, the landscape has completely changed, as Libya and Syria are not only discussing giving up their WMDs, they are also engaged in serious dialog with Israel. Iran and N. Korea who were obstinent(sp) about their nuclear weapons programs, are now having second thoughts."

Barring major setbacks, the Liberation of Iraq will prove to be a stunning and fabulous success at the strategic level. Our victory in the war already was a fantastic success, and the low-level conflict too, though bloody, is not proving of any strategic consequence *if we dont let it be*. (Now, with Democrats in charge, they would let the terrorists win and would bug out, turning a bloody conflict into a major strategic blinder that would cost us for decades to come.) Winning in Iraq is the strategic equivalent of us winning the liberation of Eastern Europe in the Cold War in the 1950s. It's not the whole 'war on terror' but at least now we are at the end of the beginning.

[okie01]

"The U.S. occupation of Iraq is a debacle ... " it starts off with a false main premise and goes downhill from there.

Exactly. Fallows initial premise is false. Or, at the very least, grossly premature. And his assertion is totally unsupported...resting on a foundation of air.

He has told us that the grass is blue. We are now to proceed forward on the assumption this premise is correct.

Simply awful analysis -- of a transparently partisan and mendacious nature.

If this article accurately represents the state of left-wing intellectual thought, they are in a sad condition, indeed.

[optimistically_conservative]

Agree, thanks for your perspective.

[BroncosFan]

Amen. During Kelly's rein, it was the best magazine in the country. Bar none. I've been so willing to cut 'em a break of late, but this issue clinched it -- it's gone bad. None only is the liberal cant obvious, it's two big features this month are derivative of a much better recent cover story on the occupation/liberation in The New Yorker (which, under David Remnick, is now readable again and seems to understand the evil of totalitarian regimes).

[optimistically_conservative]

During the "peace" of the 90s the State Dept. (Halfbright/Wholecrook) ran the Pentagon by calling the shots ("Why have a military if we're not going to use it").

In this administration the Pentagon drives foreign policy during war.

Fallows sees a problem with that.

I don't.

[meema]

bump to read later

[bothsides]

I think you are missing the point. The most important time of an occupation is the first months. During this time, nothing that was forseen as a possible problem was adaquetly prepared for. It so happens that what was forseen as possible problems are indeed the problems we are having.

Yes, if we go in blind (not taking any of the findings information) then we can only do what we can when situations arise. And yes, our soldiers over there are doing a great job of that fire-fighting.

But don't fool yourself, Rumsfeld sent us to occupy Iraq unprepared. Worse, he did it willingly.

[bothsides]

Ummm, the article says the OCCUPATION has been a debacle, not the WAR. Read the article.

[Batrachian]

I didn't say we where prepared for the occupation. I only said that you can't declare something like this a total failure after 7 months.

It also depends on what you think the goals where. If you think that the main goal of Operation Iraqi Freedom was to depose Saddam Hussein then you have to agree that from that point of view the mission was an unqualified success since Saddam Hussein was, indeed, deposed.

I'm starting to think that this was, in fact, the only real goal of the war. Everything else is window dressing, and if Iraq turns into an Islamofascist regime allied with Iran then I have to ask if it was such a brilliant thing to do, after all.