As I said in my previous post, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is sickening, and it only reinforces the notion in the middle east and elsewhere that Americans are a bunch of moral degenerate sex perverts — i.e. the Great Satan. It’s not very helpful in the war. But there are a couple of things I’d like to note.

When my wife was reading the paper yesterday morning, first she got mad at our soldiers who abused the prisoners, and then got mad again when she read the following:

“We are men. It’s OK if they beat me. Beating don’t hurt us, it’s just a blow. But no one would want their manhood to be shattered. They wanted us to feel as though we were women, the way women feel, and this is the worst insult, to feel like a woman.”

Then she allowed that after that remark, a lot of her sympathy disappeared. Not completely, but a a lot. He could have left it at having his manhood shattered, but he went on to say that the worst insult is to feel like a woman.

After seeing some of the pictures of the abuse, what struck me (right after “what were they thinking?”) is that the content isn’t really that much different than what the NEA used to celebrate as “art” by Robert Mapplethorpe (amongst others) — if RM had added grinning idiots to his pictures that is.

Tags: Iraq

The press is worthless in trying to figure out what’s going in Iraq (and they are not much better in informing us about developments elsewhere for that matter). What’s going on in Fallujah? I can’t figure it out. I think even Wretchard is having a hard time, and he’s clearly more wired in than I am (OK, I’m not wired in at all). 

On the one hand, there was all this talk of a ceasefire, yet the firing didn’t cease. And while Centcom kept saying that the Marines were only returning fire, snipers and ambush forces were infiltrating and initiating combat (and I’m not even going to mention AC-130s hosing down parts of town at night — oops). Now I’m not accusing Centcom of lying, but perhaps their pronouncements were directed more at terrorists watching CNN than Americans.

So are the Marines pulling out of Fallujah? One article says yes, another later one says no. 

Clearly the correct strategy is to kill or capture all the insurgents in Fallujah; all this talk of ceasefire and pullback is disheartening. So are we screwing up? Or are we trying to create tactical confusion and trying to soothe those calling for restraint like Kofi Annan? Only time will tell.

Tags: Iraq

How do you measure how well things are going in Iraq? The press (and others) seem to be measuring progress by the inverse of the body count — if coalition deaths are down, the situation is improving, and if coalition deaths are up, the situation is deteriorating. But is that a good way to measure progress?

In WW2, American casualties increased every year of the war, and had we not dropped a couple of A-bombs on the Japanese, they would have been higher in 1946 than in 1945. Yet clearly the darkest time for us was 1942 and by 1945 it was pretty clear we were going to win. Using KIA as a proxy for progress would have provided an opposite view to reality. In Kosovo, not one US service person was KIA (at the cost of about 1000 civilian KIAs), yet the situation is as bad there as ever, and peacekeepers will be occupying Kosovo after the coalition leaves a rebuilt Iraq. 

There seems to be a feeling that progress needs to monotonically increase all the time. The reality in war is that the other guy is trying his best too, and so you have set backs, you have fits and starts, you win some and you lose some. You have to understand that and maintain some perspective. Generally, you have a much better grasp of your own problems, shortcomings, and failures than you do of the enemies, and so a natural pessimism can develop.

There is a myth that Americans won’t tolerate casualties. This is false. What Americans won’t tolerate is casualties without purpose. What casualties measure is the cost, not the progress. And while the cost is very tangible in a situation like Iraq, the progress is far more nebulous, and far more difficult to determine. Yet for an citizenry to make informed decisions about whether a war is worth it, they have to have a reasonable idea of both costs and the progress. And in Iraq, the press has let us down. The consistent message from non-press in Iraq is that progress is being made. 

There are several possibilities why the press doesn’t report on the progress — the bias that only news is bad news, the bias towards immediacy and short time horizons which means that the press does a wonderful job on telling us about the events of the day but can’t tell us the events that take a week or a month to play out, the bias of the press itself against the war, and the perception that the job of the press is to challenge the “official” story and the corresponding desire not to be a “cheerleader”. I have a feeling that all of these play their own parts in shaping the reporting from Iraq.

Tags: Iraq

How bad is it in Iraq? I don’t know. The only God’s eye view exists in, well, God’s eyes. I have to struggle with the trickle that has multiple filters, mainly through people who wish America ill in Iraq. The clear aversion of the press to report anything other than casualties and battles also distorts any perception of the big picture. So does this memo really tell us how bad it is? Maybe. 

Here’s my problem – the memo isn’t actually presented, just a collage of excerpts by someone who could well be using it to confirm his own biases. I don’t have the context of how, why, and by whom the memo was written. Having said that it, it doesn’t paint the prettiest of pictures. On the other hand, many of the problems raised seem to be either endemic to the culture (such as the rampant corruption) or about to be corrected (such as problems with the Governing Council). I’ve seen the same corruption, fatalism, and sloth first hand working in Pakistan for three months. Frankly, other than issues over security, what’s left seems to be more about minor details than major substance.

But stepping back, I’ve wondered about the effectiveness of the CPA from a system perspective. I’m a child of the 60’s, so for me “it’s the system” really does mean something. So you have an organization that has no past and no future, which isn’t a good thing in my opinion. Having no past means that there are no systems already in place to do what the organization wants to do and the people involved don’t know each other. It also means everybody has to be recruited from somewhere else, and as the CPA has no future, who do you get to leave their homes, live in a troubled country, and who most likely won’t be able to translate success in the CPA to career advancement elsewhere.

I think these factors are in part why the military has done a better job at reconstruction than the CPA – they have a past and future — and the other part is that they don’t seem to be bound by the same contracting rules as the CPA. If you’ve ever dealt with government contracting, you know what I’m talking about. At their best, they are slow, cumbersome, and self-defeating. Couple that with trying to deal with a significantly different culture on the far side of the world, and The CPA would seem to be doomed to being lesser than its personnel; the structural defects mean that a CPA filled with first rate people would still be a second rate organization. But short of having a permanent office of occupation and reconstruction that follows their own rules, what else can you do? 

For me, the bottom line is, and has been, that ultimately what Iraq turns into is the responsibility of the people of Iraq. All America can do is what we are doing – give them the chance. We cut their problems down to a manageable (but clearly not non-existent) size. Whether or not they can overcome them is up to them.

And given how absolutely lousy the other states in the region are, it won’t take much for Iraq to be a shining beacon in comparison.

UPDATE: Village Voice has posted the memo on the internet. My take of the memo is that conditions while conditions are improving, problems remain and a cloud of uncertainty overhangs the country. Only with a lot more detail:

“I want to emphasize: As great as the problems we face, and the criticisms back home, and mindful of the sacrifice that almost 600 Americans have made, what we have accomplished in Iraq is worth it. While Iraqis joke, “Americans go home — and take us with you,” the gratitude which they express is sincere and unsolicited, and not limited to a single political class. The political bickering back in the United States has worried Iraqis, who fear that a Kerry victory will mean an American withdrawal, short-term civil war, and long-term empowerment of the most radical elements of society throughout the Islamic world. Nevertheless, several Iraqi political movements have begun reaching out to Senate Democrats to keep their bases covered. I have conflicting impressions of where Iraq is going. It is easy to see progress in Baghdad.”

…

“Despite the progress evident in the streets of Baghdad, much of which happens despite us rather than because of us, Baghdadis have an uneasy sense that they are heading toward civil war.”

…

“We have made the most progress in Baghdad; the south may be calm, but it seems the calm before the storm. Iranian money is pouring in. British policy is to not rock the boat, and so they do nothing that may result in confrontation. This is a mistake. We are faced with an Iranian challenge. Whether Iranian activities are sanctioned or not by the Iranian actors with which the State Department likes to do business should be moot, since those Iranians who offer engagement lack the power to deliver on their promises. In Bosnia and Afghanistan, we were likewise challenged by the Iranians. In both cases, the Iranians promised their intentions were benign. In Bosnia, we rolled up the Qods Force anyway, and Bosnia has remained pro-Western in its orientation. In Afghanistan, we wrung our hands and did little, worried that the Iranians might respond to confrontation if we did anything to enforce our word. This projected weakness. Today, Iran holds as much influence over Western Afghanistan than at any time since after the Anglo-Persian War of 1857. That said, I do not think that a deliberate bombing such as we saw in Karbala or Khadimiya will be the trigger for a civil war. Rather, I worry about deeper conflicts that revolve around patronage and absolutism. Bremer has encouraged re- centralization in Iraq because it is easier to control a Governing Council less than a kilometer away from the Palace rather than 18 different provincial councils who would otherwise have budgetary authority. The net affect, however, has been desperation to dominate Baghdad, and an absolutism borne of regional isolation. The interim constitution moves things in the right direction, but the constitution is meaningless if we are not prepared to confront challenges.”

…

“The interim constitution has been quite a success. I can be quite cynical about most Iraqi politicians, but I do think that it’s hard to not give Ahmed Chalabi credit for getting the deal we got. When I see the results of his maneuvering and coalition building, I wonder how much farther we could have gotten if so many in the U.S. government had not sought to undermine him at every possible opportunity. Of course we could have gotten a better deal had we come in and used our momentum, but the importance of momentum in international relations is something neither the interagency process, nor the CPA, nor the Pentagon fully grasps. If they did, we would not waste time changing “happy” to “glad” oblivious to the fact that Iraq does not operate on Washington time.”

Tags: Iraq

Here’s another soldier’s account of his experience in Iraq:

“I don’t mean to paint too rosy a picture by implying it’s all about challenging and engaging humanitarian work. We still fight. Early on, there was the incident that would have changed everything were it not for a faulty stretch of detonation cord that failed to set off four 155mm rounds (the big ones) buried on the side of the road. It was funny back then. We had a great laugh during dinner when our silence was broken by, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone was trying to kill us.” We ate hamburgers that night, a rare treat, and laughed with mouths wide open.

The fighting is much less funny now, but we are not the perpetual victims my month-old newspapers seem to imply. Sometimes the enemy decides when and where to fight and sometimes we do. When the fighting happens at all, however, it feels like failure. When I spend my time worrying about school contractors and the business plans of artists, it feels like success.”

Once again, an eyewitness says the media just doesn’t get the story right. And I believe this guy – anybody who made it through the Physics 60 series at Stanford (like yours truly and sometime visitor Carl Drews) has instant credibility with me. On a side note, the editor’s introduction is pretty good too:

“Some Americans admire and respect U.S. soldiers but would rather not use them. Others admire and respect U.S. soldiers, especially when we use them. Still others claim to admire and respect U.S. soldiers, but privately would admit they so abhor the notion of sanctioned killing they can’t stomach the uniform.”

Good stuff, Maynard.

Tags: Iraq

Do we need more soldiers in Iraq, and do we need a larger military?

As for Iraq, I’d say the answer is generally no, but only because the number of Iraqi soldiers and police is steadily increasing. Ultimately, Iraqis will have to choose their future, and really all the US can do is to keep it from being stolen by armed force.

But I do think we need a larger military. Part of the problem is the political decision made post-Vietnam to structure the Armed Forces to require reserves to be called up to fight any significant foe. I think we’re currently seeing the shortcoming of that restructuring. So I think we need to reverse that, and replicate a lot of the non-combat capability that is currently in the reserves in the standing army while keeping the reserves; a lot of the civil affairs, military police, and engineer type units. I think we have plenty of traditional combat power as is – in large measure because our advanced technology weapons provide a huge force multiplier in open combat. But that technology of destruction doesn’t do us much good in the non-combat or low intensity combat areas.

In addition to the increase above, we need an additional army division that would be a brand spanking new type: the urban division, specifically trained and equipped for combat and peace keeping operations in cities. To do it right, we need to start small and try out different tactics and equipment that are better suited to urban combat before we create the whole division. I find it interesting that almost all the elite, or at least non-traditional military units are essentially light infantry: special forces, the 10th mountain division, the 82nd airborne division, and the 101st air assault division. The urban division would be mostly light infantry, although it would need tanks, IFVs and artillery.

Tags: Iraq

The insurgents (or whatever you want to call them) have clearly stepped up their attacks in Iraq. So the question becomes, why now. They are confronted with the choice of either attacking, or laying low. If they make attacks, they expose themselves to counter attack and exposure, while if they lay low, they can go unnoticed but they may lose recruits and their own fighters. Now such thoughts may not enter into their calculations, they may be attacking more simply because the have more men, more material, and more hope. Or it could be they have decided that it is better to attack now rather than later.

I know the tactics have been dubbed asymmetrical warfare or 4th generation warfare, but there is nothing new under the sun and I’d call it classic weak versus strong or 0th generation warfare. The goal is to harass the enemy, kill him when and where possible, and hope he goes away because it isn’t worth his while anymore. Morale, or even better, the will to continue, is what is being fought over in this type of warfare. And in Iraq, we need to realize that it isn’t just the morale or will of the US that matters.

The United States will leave Iraq one day; the only question isn’t so much when but under what conditions. Our desire is to leave behind a functioning government complete with armed forces that will be able to defeat the insurgents. It would be nice if the insurgents were wiped out before we left, but not necessary. In that sense, US troops are fighting a holding action. The insurgents would like us to leave before that goal is achieved, and then to defeat the government we leave behind. So the insurgents have to do two things to win – demoralize the US, and demoralize a majority of the Iraqi’s themselves. Thus they are attacking not just US soldiers, but foreign groups (such as the UN and NGOs) that will help the fledgling Iraqi government, and the Iraqi forces (mostly police) we are constituting for the Iraqi government.

At this point, there are now more Iraqi’s under arms fighting with us than there are American troops in Iraq, and the number of Iraqi’s under arms grows daily. Soon there will be more Iraqi’s under arms for the government than there ever were US soldiers in Iraq. So the attacks against Iraqi police are important to the insurgents to keep that day from coming – not from killing that many police, but from killing enough that too few ordinary Iraqi’s become police, or soldiers, or guards. So the insurgents have to attack now before the Iraqi police and military overwhelm them.

Tags: Iraq

I know President Bush is a big fan of the Bible, as I am, and he quotes from the book of Isaiah quite frequently. So I’d like to say to him, and the nation of as a whole, that we shouldn’t commit the sin of Onan (Genesis 38) and pull out too soon, before the job is done. We have a responsibility to Iraq and to ourselves.

Tags: Iraq

“Failure to plan is planning to fail” goes the aphorism, and I’m hearing a lot that the Bush administration doesn’t have a plan for Iraq. Well. I can remember sitting in on a review for a proposal where the manager told us, “we had a plan for [another program – name excised to protect the guilty], we executed the plan, the plan was [a four letter word for excrement – name excised to protect my sensibilities]. This time, we want to make sure we have a good plan, and that’s why we want you guys to review it for us.”

The administration had a plan, and still has a plan. The basic structure is so obvious that it apparently hides in plain sight for some people. The plan is to build a new Iraq – a new government, new police, and new armed forces. Because once we have those, we can pull out, although I think we should keep a major base so that we can continue to exert influence in the region. Realistically, the government only has to be reasonably representative, the police reasonably non-repressive, and the armed forces reasonably effective. Everything else is how to get there. All the physical rebuilding is just the means to the end of the political rebuilding.

There was a lot of contingency planning for various disasters — oil fields set on fire, mass migrations, mass starvation and the like — that didn’t occur. Whether mass looting was planned on, I don’t know. It could be that it wasn’t; it could be that it was hard to shift from war fighting to order keeping and the looting occured before the switch was complete; it could be that the plan for the looting was to simply let it happen. There is nothing that says the plan has to be the right one in hindsight to be a plan. There are reports that a lot of military supply dumps full of weapons have been left unguarded, and if true, that seems to be a huge failure and somehow you think it should have been and should be now in “the plan”. There were earlier reports that the nuclear site at Tuwaitha was left unguarded when in fact wasn’t. What I know of the military tells me that if anything, we had plans for everything. They might not have been any good, but we had them.

I think we can have a good discussion as to whether our efforts in Iraq are adequate, what can we be doing better, how has planning changed with time as the facts on the ground have modified it, has the State Department / Department of Defense rivalry been harmful or helpful, were the assumptions of the planning too optimistic, and whether the big plan is the right one or not, etc.; but the position that somehow the Bush administration didn’t have any plans at all for post-war Iraq is simply wrong, and in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, unhelpful.

Tags: Iraq