One Way In, No Way Out
When US tanks rolled across the Kuwaiti border in the spring of 2003 on their way to Baghdad, and the supposed liberation of Iraq, many believed that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a cakewalk. The ground invasion of the country had been proceeded by a massive air campaign based on Wade and Ullman’s theory of rapid dominance, better known to most as ‘shock and awe’. And while the regime of Saddam Hussein remained defiant until such a point that its downfall seemed inevitable, one crucial factor was not considered by the Pentagon – that rather than confront the United States conventionally, a variety of factions with ties to Iraq’s military and intelligence infrastructure would choose to simply slip away into the countryside and formulate a better way to combat what they knew would eventually become the occupation of the country itself.
Their choice of tactics proved the correct course of action.
It is here that it is important to mention that, at that time, no al-Qaeda affiliated group existed in Iraq. That in the early days of the insurgency, largely Sunni based groups waged a guerrilla war against occupational forces, and that they had no ties to terrorist organizations elsewhere. In fact, even to this day, al-Qaeda affiliated fighters in Iraq comprise a fraction of the insurgency itself. Even then, it is important to recognize the distinction between groups directly affiliated with al-Qaeda and ones that have simply affiliated themselves with it because they adhere to its philosophies.
So exactly how naïve was the Pentagon and the administration with regards to post-war Iraq, that being the state of the nation after the removal of Saddam Hussein from power? Obviously, over the now five years that the United States has occupied the country, it has become clear that the situation in which they find themselves was not one that anticipated. This fact has, of course, been written about and debated over the last five years, during which time the Bush administration has worked diligently to alter the focus of the war from one that was supposed to be over three weeks after it began to one against a largely al-Qaeda based insurgency bent on plunging Iraq into a state of irrecoverable chaos in an attempt to further the agendas of men like Osama Bin Laden. Unfortunately, that too is based on falsehoods, not fact.
The fact is, were the United States to leave Iraq tomorrow, the first group’s head on the chopping block in Iraq would be that of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. That is not to say that a protracted and bloody civil war might not follow, but that assertions by the administration that the country could somehow end up in the hands of a group affiliated with al-Qaeda is baseless and little more than a propaganda tool used to detract from the fact that the Bush administration and the Pentagon really have no clue as to what is to be done there. That fact is also echoed by the increasingly aggressive rhetoric aimed at Iran of late, another detractor from the fact that the war itself continues to cost just as many American lives as it always has, and that no realistic solution to the insurgency and the state of civil war that the occupation itself has caused is forthcoming.
Of particular interest in this regard are clips that Wired posted on its blog on the 18th from an edition of Frontline that was aired last night in which Ret. Gen. Jack Keane discusses the realities of the Pentagon’s post-war position…
“We never even considered an insurgency as a reasonable option. We took down the regime, and we thought what we had to do then was occupy then country, stabilize it, and in the mater of a few months we could reduce the force,” says Keane, the former Army Vice Chief of Staff and intellectual co-author of the current troop “surge.”
And while the President may have been “us[ing] terms like ‘win,’ ‘we’re going to defeat the insurgents,’ ‘victory,’” Keane adds, “we never had that as a mission in Iraq.”
Keane obviously still believes that the current troop surge in Iraq, which has now seen the deployment of another 10,000 US troops, is the only course of action available. But even then, he concedes that it’s still a matter of maybes.
Watch the clip below.
You can view the entire program on the PBS website.
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June 20th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
This is one of the worst situations the U.S. has found itself in ever. They can stay and deploy more troops as they are doing but then more soldiers and civilians will be killed by insurgent attacks, or they can leave and risk having the country sprial into a civil war that could kill millions. I know that building a paramilitary force of Iraqi police is what the administration says needs to happen in order to turn over military operations but Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey says that force needs to be at least 40% bigger than they first estimated it to be. It seems to be another example of what happened in Vietnam, when the U.S. withdrew with one of the reasons being that the South Vietnamese army was much bigger in paper than the North Vietnamese. I think it would be the whole situation all over again if the U.S. was to withdraw when they build up what they consider is a sizeable Iraqi army, a weak but large army being totally overrun.
June 20th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
**Spiral not sprial
June 20th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
That area will forever be unstable. Doesn’t matter what western intervention takes place.
The Iraq topic; way to boring.
June 20th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
I watched this entire program on tv late last night / early this morning!
June 20th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
It does not seem at all credible to me that anyone believes this surge will be effective. For starters, the (small) increase in American troops was almost completely offset by the British pullout that occured around the same time. There are 3 basic strategies that could be followed in Iraq: 1) total withdrawl - leave Iraq to fend for itself, 2) full on occupation - throw as much military force at securing the country as you possibly can, which might require substantial international cooperation, and 3) maintain just enough force to keep things just barely stable enough to allow profits to be extracted. It seems the US has chosen option 3.
June 20th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
& I have to agree with one of the concluding statements in the program that says basically it’s going to be messy and end badly and that it’s too late to make things right with everything that was done wrong.
June 20th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
“intellectual”…….Pentagon……yikes.
I remember watching the “shock and awe” footage and feeling sick to my stomach. I couldn’t understand how people thought it could be a good situation, and I’m not a political/military analyst.
I do know a little history, the Sunni-Shia split happened in 850, and the first crusade was in 1095.
Skoti has a point:
“That area will forever be unstable. Doesn’t matter what western intervention takes place.”
democracy isn’t a panacea, and especially if forced onto a populace that holds religious ideology and political ideology in the same hand.
(that said, Skoti:
if the situation expands and escalates, rest assured, it will be a lot less boring…)
June 20th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
[quote comment="16604"][quote comment="16597"]The Iraq topic; way to boring.[/quote]
It’s thinking like that that ensures it continues.[/quote]
I wouldn’t be so generous as to call that “thinking.” And sadly, in the summer classes I’m taking, it’s frighteningly common.
June 20th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
In a discussion on the weekend, a friend of mine said that the reason the US went into Iraq was less for the oil and more due to the fact that Saddam Hussain was about to switch the currency in which they would trade their oil revenues from the US dollar to the Euro. This would have tremendous impact on the value of the dollar. I had never heard this theory before. Any thoughts?
June 20th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Ok, so when the president says “we must defeat the insurgents, we must win”, what the fuck do we “win”??? some fuckin stuffed animal from the second shelf that we can trade up for future “winnings”?
It’s time to come clean with the American public, with the world. We have no clue how to withdraw our forces. We have no resolution to this mess we are in, and we may have made a HUGE mistake.
I feel bad for the next president elected that inherits this big fat shit sandwich. I sure hope he/she is hungry!!!!!!!!!!!
June 20th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
It would be very interesting to see what would happen in Iraq if the U.S. & allies pulled out. What faction would eventually rule the country, & what type of rule would it be? Would it come to be whatever group of insurgence has been most kicking the U.S.’s ass the past years? It definately wouldn’t be Al-Qaeda, though i think they would still have a presence in Iraq. I think there almost surely would be a civil war.
Another interesting question would be this - Would there be more civilian bloodshed & human suffering in Iraq if the U.S & allies stayed vs if they pulled out & let Iraqi’s etc. fight/sort it out for themselves?
June 20th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
[quote comment="16609"]We have no resolution to this mess we are in, and we may have made a HUGE mistake.[/quote]
“may have”?!?
June 20th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
no, you are right—-WE HAVE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE
June 20th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
I’m currently writing my Master’s thesis on the French-Algerian War and there is one crucial factor that prevented them from “pacifying” Algeria: don’t simply count on the population’s support. In the case of Iraq, perhaps the US shouldn’t have assumed that first, a people who, through no fault of their own, had no history of democracy, and second, which had been crushed by American economic sanctions for over ten years would be willing participants in the US’s little endeavor. The language of US politicians - both Democratic and Republican - blaming the Iraqis for their inability to “stand up” is simply shameful. The whole nation stopped over the Virgina Tech shootings; try dealing with that shit every fucking day twice over PLUS trying to reconstruct a country and tell me they are not doing enough.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Excellent special. That is the sad part. There should be no Frontline special because we should never have invaded Iraq…and Rumsfeld referred to the insurgents as “dead enders”. Pretty ironic how the U.S. government can’t compile a strategy to control these so called dead enders. Further evidence supporting the ignorance of the administration.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
…not to mention that while genocide was being committed against the kurds, no one did a damn thing because they didn’t want to ruin business relations. history has already proven to the populace just how much they matter in the grand scheme of things.
as for ‘clear, hold, rebuild’ - i think it’s not going to be pretty impossible now given that the enthusiasm for this war on the part of the american population as a whole is pretty low, making it so that neither enough troops nor enough support through government despite their push will be possible. it’s a bloody mess and not much good will come of it for a very long time and bush’s early resolve is going to be his late regret while he plays golf on the green and the war continues on long after his turn in office is over.
the thing that makes me sad (and hopeful at the same time, if it makes sense) is that there will be civilians there who will carry on with their shred of hope, and soldiers that will continue on there, tour after tour after endless tour, with hope —-
and we will be over here waiting for the latest celebrity news.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:51 am
Bush has already gone on record saying he is NOT responsible for bringing American troops home and resolving said situation–it will likely be up to whomever takes his place in ‘08.
That is scary, it is the quintessential definition of “f*ckedupedness”.
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:38 am
I appreciate Matt G. referencing my comment. I don’t appreciate those who double reference in a way that kiss’ ass to the host. Lets be real folks. I am.
i.e. Iraq topic
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:54 am
Not to kiss ass, (because it’s not going to get me anywhere anyway), but skoti, I have to say that I’m a bit confused as to how saying “the Iraq topic; way too boring” is “real”. Real what? Iraq is certainly not boring. What is going on there isn’t boring. The history behind this current mess is not boring. The casualties of war - loss of civilians and soldiers is not boring. The struggle for survival is not boring. Is it that you are bored by the discussion of a place you feel no connection to? Bored of the debate? Tired of hearing talk about a place that has no relevance to your life because you can’t comprehend (like most of us) even the idea of living under occupation, or in a war zone, or in a place where things used to be bad under a leader who was supplied millions of dollars in ‘humanitarian aid’ by the very government (U.S.) that years later decided to ‘take it down’, even though they should have / could have done something back when Saddam was gassing and mass-burying the rural Kurds? How convenient they overlooked that for so long and then decided to go after him when they saw that perhaps his occupying of Iran would suddenly infringe upon their capital interests? How can this not be fascinating? The double speak! The altering of history! The documentaries and news reports now on the television, one after the other (not to mention all the resources online) that are questioning the rhetoric and challenging the motives and policies of a government that has the wonderful accomplishment of having made people actually wish that a ruthless leader such as Saddam would be PREFERABLE to the conditions they are living under now.
Boring? Really not.
June 26th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
That’s the thing, will things change. No, not soon away. The Iraq war was a shit idea, obviously a hidden agenda. Bush idiots. Anyway, sorry for the disrespect dude. Just sick of the Iraq topic. A change would definitely make the subject less boring to me.
Have a good one.