■"The Strategy to Secure Iraq Did Not Foresee a 2nd War," by Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, 19 October 2004, p. A1.
■"Limited U.N. Role Hinders Iraq Vote: Security in Crisis, Citizens Take Lead," by Robin Wright and Colum Lynch, Washington Post, 19 October 2004, p. A1.
■"Pentagon Survey Shows Reservists Harbor Doubts," by Greg Jaffe and Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, 19 October 2004, p. A3.
It's 16 April 2003 and Gen. Tommy Franks is smoking victory cigars in Baghdad, talking about how he's planning to draw down American troops quite rapidly in coming weeks. By September, 130k should be 30k.
How, you might have asked at the time?
We had just decided (in the White House, no less) to start really pressing the Europeans and other allies to send peacekeeping troops, plus we figured the UN would jump right in, right? Plus, we just knew the Iraqis working in the government would stay at their posts after we knocked off their dictator of several decades. Then there was the plan to get everything up and running in infrastructure within weeks.
But here's the rub. Secretary Rumsfeld wins his debate with Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki. They were arguing different points: Rumsfeld for a small transformed force to win the war and Shinseki for a large ground force to win the peace. Both had plenty of precedents on their side: the Air Force had won Bosnia and Kosovo almost by themselves, and the Special Ops guys had been enough to topple the Taliban. And yet, if we had put in the ground forces for the subsequent peacekeeping in the manner of Bosnia or Kosovo, we would have had something like a third of a million soldiers under foot, or ten times what Franks expected to have there in September.
This article by Gordon idiotically compares Rumsfeld's effort to win the war with Powell's overwhelming force doctrine. But in reality, Powell's doctrine was all for overwhelming force during war so as to be able to pull it all out as quickly as possible as soon as the shooting stopped. It's a very bad and incorrect comparison
The RAND Study led by a former U.S. ambassador who's been on the scene in a variety of postconflict situations (James Dobbins) said it clearly: the more troops you have on the ground for the peace, the fewer casualties you suffer. We got through the war in 6 weeks with about 150 casualties, which was great. The peace, however, didn't go so well, and it was indeed a matter of numbers.
Don't start the war unless you're ready to go all the way on the peace.
That's why the UN doesn't want to help us out on the elections.
That's why our troops are losing morale: they're trained and ready for peacekeeping (those Reserves and Guards now over there in big numbers), not for slipping back into Leviathan work.
We have no one to blame but ourselves for screwing up that 6-month window after "Mission Accomplished."
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