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H. Thomas Hayden
recently concluded over 35 years of service,
which included the Agency for International
Development, the Marine Corps, defense industry
and the Pentagon. His specialties are Intelligence,
Counterinsurgency Operations, Counter-terrorism,
and Joint Concepts Development and Experimentation.
His Marine Corps assignments have included
command of two separate battalions; AC/S G-2,
4th MARDIV & AC/S G-2 FMFEurope; Branch Head,
HQMC, Special Operations and Low Intensity
Conflict (SO/LIC); Special Assistant to the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC;
and, Senior Program Analysts at HQMC with
the Joint Staff and DoD at the Pentagon. Overseas
assignments included Vietnam, Japan & Okinawa,
Europe, Central America, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait, Somalia, Singapore, Philippines, and
Colombia. He has an MBA (Pepperdine) and an
MA in International Relations (University
of Southern California). He has written two
books and is working on a third.
Thomas
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September 16, 2004
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This is a two part series with Part I on what went wrong in Iraq
and why, and Part II on what needs to be done about the future.
The problems we have today stem form five failures: (1) failure
to adequately provide enough Coalition troops on the ground to assure
security and stability at the end of organized hostilities, (2)
failure to keep a major portion of the Iraqi army and police forces
intact, (3) failure to keep employed the massive Iraqi government
bureaucracy that existed before the invasion, (4) failure to work
with the established Muslim religious and tribal leaders that were
in place; and, (5) failure to adequately plan for long range internal
security, stability and reconstruction, after the war was over.
The original US Central Command estimate for military forces for
a war in Iraq called for 500,000 military personnel in the region.
This was based on the former Regional Commander-in-Chief's estimate
(General Tony Zinni, USMC), to successfully complete an invasion
and secure the country until a new form of government could take
control and establish security and stability.
The Department of Defense leadership rejected the original plan
and said to plan for no more than 125,000 - maximum. General Tommy
Franks balked at the DoD "guidance" and successfully argued for
175,000 for the invasion and 220,000 in the region.
LtGen Greg Newbold, USMC (Ret), former J-3, Joints Chiefs of Staff,
said in one of my earlier columns for www.military.com, "The single
most important reason for the opposition to the Coalition forces
is the image of the US occupation. When US and Coalition forces
defeated Saddam's
army, we created a vacuum and we permitted chaos to go unabated
because we did not have an adequate post-Iraqi defeat plan. We were
first viewed as liberators, but we have been seen as a conquering
power for too long. Our forces are intended to provide stability
(which they do magnificently in large portions of the country),
but they also are a rallying point for violent opposition."
I would add that US forces are now expected to successfully conclude
the "occupation" and accomplish the following: (1) conduct a successful
counterinsurgency campaign, (2) stop border infiltration by Islamic
militants, (3) secure the Lines of Communication, (4) rebuild an
Iraq army and police force, and (5) provide for security, transition
and reconstruction operations throughout Iraq.
The disbanding of the Iraqi army and the police forces was a colossus
Intelligence failure that ranks right up there with the Nazi invasion
of the Soviet Union. L. Paul Bremer and his planners had no idea
of the consequences of their actions. The asinine idea that the
whole army was corrupt or tainted by Ba'athist indoctrination, which
required all security forces in the country to be dismantled and
rebuilt from scratch was, to say the least stupid. The vacuum, as
LtGen Newbold said, was created by the combination of inadequate
Coalition forces and the lack of Iraqi security forces to keep the
peace.
If one cliché fits Iraq it would be: "It's the economy stupid."
As many have reported in the news media, there was a plan for the
"end game," but it was the wrong plan. The L. Paul Bremer plan for
a laissez-faire economic policy that multi-national corporations
would rebuild Iraq and that a "prosperous economy" would create
jobs and peace would flourish, was doomed to failure from the start.
The destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure from the war, which
put a lot of people out of work, not to mention alienated all the
people, together with the unemployed masses from the disbanded Iraqi
army and police forces, created a 75% unemployment rate that even
today still ranges, from some press reports, at 65% unemployment.
The insurgency may have been started by three elements: (1) unemployed
and disgruntled Ba'athist party members, (2) highly trained Republican
Guards and Special Security Forces, and (3) radical Islamic extremists;
however, everyday the insurgency is growing with average citizens
who are fed up with the deaths and destruction in their neighborhoods,
unemployment, inadequate water and power, and little hope of a future.
With all the money we have spent in Iraq, we could have hired every
former soldier and government employee, and put all on a US payroll
with a 1930s Depression-style make work program.
The pre-Iraqi War establishment in Iraq had Islamic clerics and
tribal leaders who had some relative power in Iraq. L. Paul Bremer
ignored the recognized power of the clerics and the clan chieftains,
and picked and chose the clerics he would work with and totally
ignored the tribal chiefs. At the end of his disastrous tour of
duty, Bremer had grudgingly started to talk to the chief clerics
he had originally ignored.
Recently a reported classified National Intelligence Estimate,
prepared for the President, reports a dark assessment of prospects
for Iraq. The NIE outlines three possibilities for a future Iraq
through the end of 2005: (1) an Iraq whose stability would remain
tenuous in political, economic and security terms, (2) a fractured
Yugoslavia-style break up of Iraq, and/or, (3) developments that
could lead to civil war.
The Pentagon has finally recognized that it underestimated the
potential for an organized insurgency. The battles that have occurred
in Falluja, Ramadi and Najaf are not the remnants of hold out Iraqi
forces isolated from the war. These battles are a popular uprising,
commonly called an insurgency, that has the support, either forced
or willingly provide, by the people.
At this moment we are losing the war. This does not mean that that
the war is lost but it does mean that we need new leadership at
the top of the Pentagon and the military chain of command from US
Central Command to the field commanders who do not understand how
to conduct a counterinsurgency campaign.
The American people must understand that we will succeed or fail
based on how well we can establish new political, economic, military
and social institutions that are a benefit to the Iraqi people.
This will not be done in the short term.
My next column will be on how to conduct a counterinsurgency campaign.
The long-range future of the United States, as a leader in global
affairs, depends on how well the US looks like the Iraqi enterprise
was successfully concluded.
It cannot be another Somalia.
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© 2004 H. Thomas Hayden. All opinions
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