Fighting A Smaller War
By Mitch Berg
I’ve not written a lot about the war in Iraq lately.
Mainly because I haven’t had much to say that many other commentators – Michael Yon, Bill Roggio, Bill Ardolino and many others – haven’t said much, much better.
Partly because I needed to learn a few things. Do some reading. Figure out what I thought about things.
The Administration – largely the Pentagon, I think – screwed up mightily between 2004 and 2006. They lived down, I think, to the classic stereotype; they fought their previous war over again.
Things have changed, so far this year. The “Surge” – with its focus on the kind of classic counterinsurgency warfare, and its straying away from the mania for “Force Protection” that sprang up in the wake of the bombings at the Beirut Embassy, the Khobar Towers and the Mogadishu “Black Hawk Down” skirmish, seem to have fundamentally changed things on the ground in Iraq, and even in the theatre that reallly matters; in Washington, and even in the Fallujah of American life, the media. The chanting of the lefty droogs that “the war is un-winnable” and that “we’ve already lost” are starting to seem as quaint and naive as the Administration’s predictions that the occupation would be a cakewalk seemed two years ago.
Suffice to say that while the Administration was wrong and made mistakes, the Democrats are farther-off-base, and want us to make vastly bigger ones.
I was going to post those pieces this week – but the bridge collapse and its aftermath are of more immediate impact, here and now; that, and events in the US and in Iraq keep overtaking what I write.
But I’ll be posting the articles next week, with an aim toward having a rational discussion about the issue.
(A wag might jump to the conclusion that to have a “rational discussion”, I’ll need a new bunch of left-leaning commenters. But faith and hope spring eternal).
August 9th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Good luck with that “rational discussion”. We’ve been looking for one at the Home Blog, but aside from one liberal commentor (named Ed) all we get is the usual spittle-flecked invective. It gets tiresome.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Sometimes we get a link from RickDFL pointing an article in The Nation by a defeatist, 3rd tier Clinton-era State Dept. Bureaucrat.
August 9th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Mitch:
Wrong right from the title: “Fighting A Smaller War”
Except that U.S. troop levels just reached their second highest level of the war.
“The “Surge” – with its focus on the kind of classic counterinsurgency warfare, . . . seem to have fundamentally changed things on the ground in Iraq, and even in the theatre that reallly matters; in Washington.”
Your suggestion that what happens in Washington is what “really matters”, instead of in Iraq, goes a long way towards explaining how you people lost this war. I am sure the soldiers and Marines in Iraq will be glad to hear Republicans think that their efforts in Iraq do not “really matter” compared to some Pentagon press agent in DC.
As for the Weekly Standard article you link to, it, like your post, is noticeably absent in any evidence from Iraq. One British general is willing to say – off the record – things might get better. Civilian deaths are down in Bagdhad, but up elsewhere. Ramadi is more peaceful, but Basra (the city our supply line runs through) is falling apart.
Your thoughts on this continue to be blinded by the assumption that Iraq is a military problem that can be solved by correct tactics. Iraq is a political problem for Iraqis to settle.
August 9th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Rick,
The “Smaller War” is a reference to a post I’m putting up early next week.
The bit about where the war “really matters” is something I got from
soldiersservicepeople, many of whom have been saying for years that they can win the war on the ground; it’s the war in Washington where they’re vulnerable.As to your assumption about me being “blinded” – time’ll tell, lil’ fella.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:10 am
“time’ll tell, lil’ fella”
No sadly it won’t. No matter how bad things get, you people will keep saying that another 6 months will do the trick.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:21 am
No sadly it won’t. No matter how bad things get, you people will keep saying that another 6 months will do the trick.
Actually, I’ve never said six months’ll do the trick. If you read anything about the history of counterinsurgency warfare, you see that it takes time. Not six months, but years. That’s the bad news. The good news…
…well, that’ll wait until next week.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Our soldiers in Iraq think they are fighting a war. The Iraqi politicians think that their security people are fighting a war alongside US soldiers. The Generals and politicians in Washington think we are fighting a war.
RickDFL says the war is over.
You ever think that maybe you have a credibility problem to overcome, Rick?
August 9th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Terry:
“The Iraqi politicians think that their security people are fighting a war alongside US soldiers.”
Really? Name them? Makaki? Hakim? Sadr? The Kurds? The Sunnis? They are all using the U.S. to provide weapons and money for their sectarian fights against each other.
August 9th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Rick-
Mitch’s title is accurate. “Small war” is not a reference to the number of troops involved, but rather the type of war. Counter-insurgencies are almost always labeled as such. “The Small War Manual” is a fairly well-known Marine Corps publication that was still being used by the military as a counter-insurgency handbook up until the recent release of “The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.”
August 9th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Chad:
1. Our fight in Iraq is not a counter-insurgency. There is no clear cut division between ‘our’ local allies and the insurgents. We are in the middle of a multi-sided civil war arming and fighting all sides.
2. There is nothing ‘small’ about this war. It is not like sending a company of Marines under Chesty Puller down to Nicaraguga to kick some ass. Our entire ground force is either in Iraq, recovering from a deployment to Iraq, or preparing to deploy to Iraq. Aside from the futility of our efforts, the second major liberal objection to the war is that it is destroying the readiness of the Army and Marines.
August 9th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
General Petraeus says we’re fighting a counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq.
RickDFL says we’re not.
Who ya gonna believe?
August 9th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Chad:
Given the Tiger Beat pace at which you GOPers go through your cute little military he-man crushes, I doubt we can rely too much on what Gen. Petraeus says. Anybody remember Tommy Franks, John Abizaid, or Perfect Peter Pace.
I do know this about General Petraeus. First while he was in charge of training and arming the Iraqi security forces they were totally infiltrated with the sectarian militias that now are the prime drivers of the civil war. Second, during this period 190,000 weapons were simply lost and almost certainly wound up in the hands of sectarian militias and criminal gangs. Finally, Gen. Petraeus’ training command was so corrupt that it lead Col. Ted Westhusing, one of the Army’s leading experts on ethics, to kill himself in shame.
http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2440
Here is what he wrote about his commanders.
“You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff—no msn [mission] support and you don’t care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied—no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves”
Ted was a soldier and I will take his view on Gen. Petraeus over yours any day of the week.
August 9th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
From your link:
“He received an anonymous letter claiming USIS was cheating the military at every opportunity, that several hundred weapons assigned to the counterterrorism training program had disappeared, and that a number of radios, each of which cost $4,000, had also disappeared.”
“Even if the charges were accurate, there was little that could be done.”
In other words, this is something you do NOT know about General Petraeus.
The letter you quote the you say he wrote about his commanders was actually a suicide note. It appears by your lone link that Col Westhusing was in Iraq with no one that he could confide to or shoot the bull with who became increasing lonely. I would guess he was surrounded by higher and lower ranking officers whom he had no history with. He became depressed and depending on how you read the article, either killed himself or was killed.
Now you can make a good case based on this article that:
We should have a better procedure to take care of stressed soldiers.
We should have more over site over the contractors we employ in Iraq.
To take the leap you did and smear General Petraeus based entirely on this account of this poor sick soldier is despicable, especially since I suspect you wouldn’t have done it if you thought Petraeus was going to report the surge failed and that we should withdrawal.
There are some things that should be left out of politics. This poor man is one of them.
August 9th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Buzz:
I do not see why I should discount Ted’s evaluation of Gen. Petraeus just because it appeared in his suicide note. If anything it gains added weight. Nor does anything in your post contradict Ted’s claim that Petreaus tolerated endemic corruption in the security forces.
As for Ted, keep your pity. I will stand up for the truth. That was the code he lived by.
August 9th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
“second major liberal objection to the war is that it is destroying the readiness of the Army and Marines.”
Since when was the Left concerned with military readiness?
August 9th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
I have no proof either way, which in this country anyway, tie goes to the accused. Neither do you. You have a suicide note written by a distraught man, in questionable mental health and you use it as a club to attack Petraeus. You apparently mis read my post if you think I was contradicting anyone’s claim other than yours. Even in your link these charges were coming from an anonymous note and nothing in the link even attempted to substantiate them. “I will stand up for the truth”???? Are you freaking kidding me? Shouldn’t that be “I will stand up for rumors, anonymous attacks and questionable conclusions!!!(as long as they support my preconceived opinions)” There is no possible way you can remotely know what the truth is if you are basing entirely on what you linked too. How do you keep a straight face even saying that?
August 9th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
“the second major liberal objection to the war is that it is destroying the readiness of the Army and Marines, before we can.”
Fixed that for you.
August 9th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Paul:
“Since when was the Left concerned with military readiness?”
Since the Right started to destroy the U.S. military. It’s like you walking into my house setting it on fire and then saying ‘since when did you care so much about fire safety’.
August 9th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
“Since the Left started to destroy the U.S. military. It’s like you walking into my house with a chainsaw and wrecking ball knocking down most of it ’since when did you need such a big house?”
Fixed THAT for you too. I’m a giver.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
“They are all using the U.S. to provide weapons and money for their sectarian fights against each other.”
Non-responsive. Whether what you say about is true or false, it doesn’t contradict “The Iraqi politicians think that their security people are fighting a war alongside US soldiers.”
On the other hand it is indisputable that Iraqi army battalions are fighting this war with coalition troops or coalition tactical support.
August 9th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Buzz:
Col. Westhusing did not kill himself because of a single anonymous letter. He was overwhelmed by an environment of rampant corruption and sectarian abuse. Anyone who pays the slightest attention to Iraq, knows that he concerns and objections to the training of Iraqi security forces under Petraeus have been amply confirmed. For info on sectarian infiltration of the Iraqi security forces you can start here:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/06/security_forces.html
I doubt you can find anyone who would deny at this point that the Iraqi security forces were totally infiltrated by sectarian militias.
As for corruption and theft:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-woweap07,0,5911050.story
“The report from the Government Accountability Office indicates that U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. . . . [T]he GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard, rushed and failed to follow set procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.”
August 9th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Terry:
“On the other hand it is indisputable that Iraqi army battalions are fighting this war with coalition troops or coalition tactical support.”
Well what does that prove? I say the war is lost because there is no political party in Iraq willing to fight for the U.S. non-sectarian goal. Our whole strategy is to create a non-sectarian central government that can impose order on Iraq. If you concede that all of the Iraqis fighting on our side are simply doing so to build up their position for further sectarian fighting, then how does their fighting with us prove our strategy is working.
August 9th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Oh come on Rick. No one is this dense.
Nowhere did I say he killed himself due to one anonymous letter. I said you based your entire opinion on that one anonymous letter. Your point is that he killed himself because of fraud and infiltration of Iraqi security? Are you kidding me? A Col in the United States Military kills himself because of something like that? As opposed to him being clinically depressed?
According to your link you just now posted, this is an ongoing investigation. But you have already decided you know exactly what happened? Guess you have some spare time after solving the bridge issue up there. It is amazing how the level of evidence required to condemn someone is completely proportional to how close that persons politics follow yours.
August 10th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Buzz:
“I said you based your entire opinion on that one anonymous letter”
What entire opinion? I can not think of any opinion I have that is based on the anonymous letter Col. Westhusing received.
“Are you kidding me? A Col in the United States Military kills himself because of something like that? As opposed to him being clinically depressed?”
No I am not. Ted was depressed, not because he was sick, but because the Army he had devoted his life to completely failed to meet the standards it had set for itself. All that stuff about ‘duty, honor, country’, he really believed it. Unlike you he also had an absolute commitment to truth and honesty. He could not bury his head in the sand and refuse to face facts just because they were unpleasant.
“But you have already decided you know exactly what happened?”
No, not exactly, but it is incontestable that the training program for Iraqi security forces overseen by General Pertraeus was riddled with corruption and sectarian infiltration. It is also incontestable that Ted believed Gen. Petraeus was willing to turn a blind eye on the issue.
August 11th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Since the Right started to destroy the U.S. military. It’s like you walking into my house setting it on fire and then saying ’since when did you care so much about fire safety’.
Sure Rick.
When Bill Clinton took office, we could fight two wars simultaneously.
When he left, we couldn’t, because he deployed the military more than any president in history.
Spare me.
August 11th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Paul:
Just stop making things up. We could still fight two wars when Bill Clinton left office, in fact we did in Afghanistan and Iraq – at the same time. More importantly, doing a unit by unit comparison the U.S. military has seen an across the board deterioration in readiness and combat capability under Bush. Troop training, recruitment standards, and equipment reserves have all taken a tremendous hit. There is no one who would say the 2007 U.S. military has a higher state of readiness that the 2000 version.
It is a sad fact of democracy that people like you are allowed to have a say on military deployments, despite no knowledge of or concern for our troops in uniform.
August 12th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Paul:
Just for the sake of kicking a guy when he is down, I just happened to come across this:
“The anecdotal evidence on the ground confirms what others – prominent among them General Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State – have been insisting for months now: that the US army is ‘about broken’. Only a third of the regular army’s brigades now qualify as combat-ready. Officers educated at the elite West Point academy are leaving at a rate not seen in 30 years, with the consequence that the US army has a shortfall of 3,000 commissioned officers – and the problem is expected to worsen.
And it is not only the soldiers that are worn out. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to the destruction, or wearing out, of 40 per cent of the US army’s equipment, totalling at a recent count $212bn (£105bn).”
observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2147052,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
And unlike Bill Clinton your boy is 0-2.