Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
It's only a few years too late, but Paul Wolfowitz is finally admitting that the administration was woefully unprepared for the postwar occupation of Iraq.
"There were two issues about enough troops," Mr. Wolfowitz, who served as deputy defense secretary between 2001 and 2005, said yesterday. "One was enough troops for the major combat. A lot of people said we didn't have it, and obviously we did. There was a very difficult balance that had to be struck between surprise, which meant a smaller force, and enough troops or a lot of troops, which meant a much slower force and potential of many disastrous consequences."But on the question of postwar troop levels, Mr. Wolfowitz said he would have preferred to augment the American presence with trained Iraqis. "The other 'enough troops' issue was enough troops for afterwards. And I think on that point, yeah, we were clueless on counterinsurgency," he said.
But then he drops this ridiculous claim:
"I think I said in my comments quoting Doug's book, no one anticipated this insurgency, a lot of people were slow to recognize it once it started," Mr. Wolfowitz said.
Sorry, but that's rank historical revisionism. The only ones who didn't anticipate an insurgency were named Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. Gen. Zinni, who as the head of Central Command was in charge of all Middle East war contingency plans, said over and over again before the war that the real problem would be the postwar occupation when we had to stabilize the country, secure the weapons caches and build a new political system.
Gen. Shinseki told them this over and over again. Colin Powell told them this over and over again, yet Bush sided with Rumsfeld and took all authority over postwar reconstruction planning away from the State Department and gave it to the Defense Department. Wesley Clark said repeatedly before the war that the easy part would be toppling Saddam; the hard part was the postwar occupation. The only ones who were clueless to this were the people in charge, the very people who should have known. The "no one could have foreseen this" excuse is simply a lie.
Comments
By the way, this is the same Paul Wolfowitz who went before a Congressional committee and said that General Shenseki didn't know what he was talking about when the latter stated that 300,000 or more troops would be required for the Iraq adventure.
Posted by: SLC | May 2, 2008 9:32 AM
Ed - I disagree. There is no doubt that President Bush and the culture and tone he set for his Administration guaranteed poor decisions and poor execution of policy. As an ashamed Republican I voted for Kerry in 2004, would do so again, and will most likely vote for the Dem candidate in 2008.
However, there is strong evidence that if Bush had followed the State Dept.'s plans for post-war occupations, and allowed the State Dept.'s personnel with experience with such functions to run the operation, rather than allow the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld team at Defense to do so, we could have quickly succeeded in Iraq with Rumsfeld's small/fast invasion technique.
The fact that Bush/Cheney rejected support from the CIA and the State in pre-invasion planning and post-invasion support since they were and are considered "liberal" institutions inside the Beltway is anecdotal evidence of how flawed conservative ideology is when it comes to being practically applied. The top State Dept. expert in this field was not hired since he was too successful during the Clinton regime, other top experts were rejected because they were pro-life, as if that had anything to do with the task at hand.
George Packer's "The Assassins Gate" makes a strong case for such scenarios, i.e., that enough Iraqis at the local level were extremely open to cooperating and supporting the Americans rebuilding their country and were capable of providing the necessary security and support. However, Packer shows all our horrendous mistakes post-invasion and how we lost the very grass roots support we needed, and initially had, that would have provided the political capital necessary to stop Sadr and never allow al Qaeda to get a foot-hold in that country post-invasion. The fact is, we were greeted with flowers, we than shat on those flowers.
While I'm disgusted with Bush, all conservatives, and conservatism in general, the idea that we failed because the number of troops invading was too small does not stand-up to close scrutiny. A collaborative pre-invasion plan would could have accommodated Rummy's new paradigm for an invasion, the problem was that collaboration with State and the CIA didn't happen thanks to Cheney/Bush and the worst Nat'l Security Advisor of all time - Condi Rice - so weak she not only could run a meeting, she allowed Cheney to shut Powell and State completely out of the loop.
That doesn't mean a Powell/Eisenhower approach would not have succeeded, I believe it would have, but that supported of approach would have also required the same factor as a small Rummy invasion - functional experts at the State Dept. being allowed to do their job.
It's important we understand the differentiation between policy, strategy, tactics, and execution and properly grade our performance in each area; otherwise we'll lose future opportunities to further our interests and keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. In Bush's case, it wasn't policy on invading so much as it was a complete avoidance of even applying himself to the execution of his policies that failed us. A lazy president and an ideological VP driven to further interests not in line with American interests is a pretty disgusting soup to swallow and I'm sick of eating it.
Posted by: Michael Heath | May 2, 2008 10:03 AM
Re Michael Heath
Mr. Heath, contrary to his contention that too few troops were employed, actually supports that contention. The difference between him and General Shinseki is that Mr. Heath supposes that Iraqi troops could have been employed to make of for the inadequate number of coalition troops.
However, the problem that Mr. Heath ignores is the fact that the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis in Iraq just don't like each other and that the country was held together by the iron fist of Saddam Hussein. Remove the iron fist and absent the substitution of another iron fist (e.g. a larger force), the intramural fighting was almost inevitable.
Posted by: SLC | May 2, 2008 10:17 AM
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | May 2, 2008 10:42 AM
Michael, Sorry, but your statement that Cheney's small/fast war strategy could have worked quickly if only they had relied on the State Department and CIA for the prewar occupation planning is without basis in reality. Countries do not like foreign conquerors and occupiers. Period. As SLC pointed out, Iraq itself is inherently unstable because of the ethnic divisions. Moreover, Iraqis had no real experience in self government.
The first fact virtually guaranteed an insurgency if we stayed any length of time beyond what it took us to depose and capture Saddam Hussein. At the very least, it guaranteed that we would not have the support of a grateful Iraqi populace just THRILLED to have the chance at a better life under the guidance of American invaders. That particular delusion of Bush/Cheney/et. al., if sincerely held, betrayed a staggering naivette and unforgivable ignorance of history.
The latter two facts made it impossible for us to leave once we'd deposed Saddam without completely destabilizing the region and making life considerably worse for Iraqis than it had been under Saddam. They also made it impossible for us to quickly (i.e., within 3 years) install even a minimally democratic Iraqi government capable ensuring stability and security without substantial and long term U.S. troop support.
Incorporating the State Department would have been better for a lot of reasons and may have MINIMIZED some of the problems, but the State Department cannot magically make Iraq what it isn't. If a goal of the invasion was to install a stable, democratic government in Iraq, achieving it would inevitably require long term U.S. support, both financial and troops/personnel, and, equally inevitably, it would involve significant insurgency and factional fighting.
That's why proactively deposing other countries' dictators who don't pose a direct, imminent threat to our security is a bad idea. In doing so, we incur a moral obligation to stabilize the country and prevent a worse dictator from rising up to take his place. Unfortunately, that is a virtually impossible task.
Posted by: AnneS | May 2, 2008 10:42 AM
As I understand it the Neo-Con policy was
1.) get in fast
2.) hit hard
3.) win the war
4.) get plenty of shots of grateful Iraqs showering the Americans with flowers etc.
5.) install a puppet government under Chalabi, who would be treated as a hero of the "new Iraq".
6.) get the hell out just in time for the elections.
It was State who were warning that:
a) Iraqis would not be naturally friendly to the Americans (yes they would cheer when you drove past in a tank, once your gone they'll figure out ways of blowing it up)
b) American troops would have to provide police/army functions immeadiately after the invasion.
c) Iraq police/army should not be "de-baathised" as this would lead to the disintergration of Iraqi security.
d) American troops would have to go in force to Irad to secure the peace.
e) winning hearts and minds is absolutely critical.
f) elecetions should be held ASAP (a puppet govt. would look weak and unermine security); all Iraqis should participate.
The Neo-Cons just about made it to three, State was spot on.
As I understand it -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 2, 2008 10:45 AM
Many people predicted the consequence of invading Iraq. Molly Ivins wrote this, on January 16, 2003:
Posted by: Russell | May 2, 2008 10:52 AM
Tegumai beat me to it. "Surprise"? WTF? The troop buildup began in December 2002.
At the time I remember arguing that the massing of tens of thousands of troops on the Iraq border was prima facie evidence that the higher-ups knew that Saddam did not have WMD, since such a concentration of troops was a perfect target for chemical or biological weapons.
Posted by: Pieter B | May 2, 2008 11:25 AM
I am perfectly cognizant of the ethnicity challenges facing Iraq when I wrote my rebuttal above. SLC's response is an overly-simplistic response to the facts on the ground when we reached Baghdad though consistent with the story spoon-fed by the MSM, but not by historians, including liberal ones (which is why I referred to Packer's book). The fact is that we did get Kurd, Sunni, and Shia support immediately after the invasion, with the exception of Sadr and his followers. Again, check out Packer's book and numerous others who are critics, not apologists, for the Bush screw-ups.
I am also not oblivious of the fact that Hussein's ethnic cleansing efforts in terms of Shia and Kurd towns/neighborhoods would have resulted in fresh conflicts regardless of the troop levels we employed. However, given the grass roots support we had and blew, we had no political capital or even an infrastructure to administrate justice on those conflicts, thus chaos ensued.
The fact remains however, that we did have a short opportunity of time in the summer of 2003 where we had the support of most Iraqis, including all non-Sadr Shias and the Sunnis; we blew that support by not having a security plan in place post-invasion to support their nationalist aspirations nor did we empower local/neighborhood councils to dispense justice. If we had done just those two things, we would have enormously better results.
I'm also of the mind that NOT invading at all, and instead increasing containment and isolation of Iraq in 2003 would have been the best plan of all. The fact we didn't fairly debate our options pre-invasion speaks ill for both parties and the main-stream media leaning way to far to the right in 2002 and 2003.
What the historians already know and the media and liberals ignore, is that we did have a window of opportunity, but the Bush/Cheney/Rice triage failed us by not putting a post-invasion plan in place that would have worked, which quickly caused those that would have rebelled against us no matter what we did to get an upper-hand most Iraqis would not have supported if we'd have provided adequate security. I believe this reality is ignored because it complicates the story and weakens the argument of Bush being a horrible president, which he obviously is.
While it's clear there was going to be conflicts between the ethnic groups, it's also true that those conflicts would have been manageable with an adequate security force, even the Shias are pro-Iraq more than pro-Iran/Shia (w/the possible exception of Sadr who would have been more easily dealt with if we'd had better security plans). The only legitimate alternative would have been to split the Kurds off though I think either way would have worked given the State Dept's plan for Iraq, which again, was never implemented.
I think we need to parse the history of went wrong in Iraq more than we do. Our current national version is overly simplistic. In hindsight, especially given the quality of the current administration, not invading would have been by far our best choice. However, a careful reading of history shows that we still could have succeeded if we'd allowed the Executive branch's functional experts to do their job, the fact Bush didn't allow them that opportunity is more evidence of how horrible he's been as President.
Posted by: Michael Heath | May 2, 2008 11:26 AM
Looks like Wolfowitz is shaping up to be this generation's McNamara.
Posted by: Turcano | May 2, 2008 11:32 AM
Also, there's no reason a build-up couldn't have continued even after the shooting started.
This bullshit should tip off anyone who thinks Wolfowitz has decided to be forthcoming about the whole thing.
The real reason for the small force was that the neocons had to convince the parts of the public they cared about that imperialism is cheap and easy. Remember how Iraq was going to pay for the whole thing with their vast oil revenues?
Notice that even with the surge -- 4-1/2 years too late -- there were *still* far fewer troops in the country than the experts told us were needed to stabilize it *before* reality hit the fan.
Posted by: Bobby | May 2, 2008 11:37 AM
If Joe Citizens like me were saying that the only way you could rule the country is by putting in a new autocrat as ruthless and amoral as the one we knocked off, how could the Administration not know it?
How would you have solved the problem?
Posted by: Bobby | May 2, 2008 11:44 AM
Sorry, Michael, I just can't buy it. It is, of course, possible that, if all the stars had aligned perfectly, we would have had a narrow window of opportunity during which, if we hadn't made any moderately serious blunders, we could have set Iraq on the road to democratic stability for the first time in its history. In doing so, we would have accomplished what no invading nation that I am aware of ever has. Historically speaking, the first precondition (proper alignment of stars) almost never happens and the second (no moderately serious blunders) never happens.
I guess there's a first time for everything, though.
Posted by: AnneS | May 2, 2008 11:53 AM
Re Michael Heath
Mr. Heath and I are not in total disagreement. If a sufficient force had been available in country (300,000 or more), regardless of how it was made up, so that security could be imposed from the getgo, it is possible that the ethnic tensions could have been contained by imposing an iron hand to replace Saddams'. The notion of a Democratic Iraq is piffle. It wasn't going to happen and it isn't going to happen.
However, as with all counterfactuals, it assumes that everything would have gone right. I have argued that Hitler could have won the Second World War if he had not made the many strategic and tactical blunders that he did.
All of this, however, is ancient history and we are into current events. The question is, what do we do now? As far as I can see, none of the three candidates have any answers.
Posted by: SLC | May 2, 2008 12:18 PM
Wolfowitz:
This is actually correct, if you limit it to people the administration actually bothered to listen to. You see, for nutcases like them, people with functioning brains are traitors, and nothing they say has any relevance.
So it makes perfect sense, once you realize that our leaders do not live in the real world, and in fact have gone to great lengths to avoid even setting foot there. Of course, that realization is pretty damn terrifying in itself.
Posted by: phantomreader42 | May 2, 2008 12:43 PM
Probably the least bad that is actually feasible is to simply pull out the damper rods and let the civil war finish in real time. Give a couple of months notice so people can flee the country, or at least "cleanse" themselves by moving to a region where people of their ethnicity is relatively likely to be safe.
Probably better, though the world's politicians would never let it happen, is to go ahead and partition it before pulling out the damper rods. There will still be wars as the various parties try to improve the imposed borders, but maybe not so many ordinary citizens would get killed.
Unfortunately, whether a "natural" civil war or a civil war from predefined start lines, half the nations of the world are going to try to get an advantage by arming one or more camps, so it's likely to be nasty and brutal, but not short. You can almost empathize with those who think they can ignore reality and have the problems magically disappear.
Posted by: Bobby | May 2, 2008 12:46 PM
Bobby
well before the America's "Fearless Leader" lead the "Coaltion of the Willing" into a quagmire ("Repeat after me, one, two, three, QUAGMIRE" - D Rumsfeld) Colin Powell brought up the "Pottery Barn" rule: "You break it, you buy it", this still applies -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 2, 2008 12:54 PM
The most simple way I can explain to people how woefully under-staffed and under-equipped in the post-combat phase of OIF:
My four man team had two COUNTIES to manage - over 250 villages, towns and one decent sized city. Four fucking soldiers.
Posted by: Brando | May 2, 2008 1:09 PM
So the question is, how to fix it with the least additional harm. For me that overrides all other notions of "should" and "ought to".
Posted by: Bobby | May 2, 2008 1:20 PM
Bobby quoting me and then asking me the following:
It's not what I would have done. It's merely utilizing the State Dept. plan given the President and Congress' decision to invade Iraq. That plan can be found in Packer's book and others like Thomas Ricks' Fiasco. It's been a couple of years since I read these books so I'm not up to speed enough to regurgitate State's position on occupying a post-Invasion Iraq nor is there space here to make their argument in a convincing manner in a blog comment.
State's plans had nothing to do with installing another autocrat, so Bobby, that's coming entirely from your own imagination; in fact the State Dept. plan focused on securing Iraq's institutions and quickly putting two different type courts in place to handle both neighborhood issues and Hussein-era atrocities. It was a grass-roots approach at the neighborhood level, which the Iraqi's self-formed anyway the summer of 2003; the Bush plan completely ignored them until Petraeus took over.
My point is this, you can not get the history of our invasion by closing wathcing the media, they've failed at reporting this story. We do have access to what happened with books like Packer's and Ricks' aforementioned books, along with Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone" along with several others.
While Wolfowitz and Bremer were absolute failures and Shineski was correct, that doesn't equate to a failure by a small/fast invading force, it does speak ill of them post-invasion as SLC concurs.
Posted by: Michael Heath | May 2, 2008 5:15 PM
Quoting Michael Heath:
and
Perhaps. Or perhaps ...
If you jump off a cliff, you have a small window of opportunity in which to attempt to fly. Unfortunately, as this window closes, following Plan A or Plan B or any other plan still will leave you as a lump of flesh.
Perhaps everything going to hell was the inevitable result following a short, illusory show of support from a shell-shocked Iraq once the bombing stopped and Saddam was removed.
Your argument only says that "things weren't so bad" for a short period of time. There's no evidence that the State Department's plan would have been better. Speculation, yes. So it may be worthwhile to consider that liberals are ignoring that this entire endeavor was merely a really bad, immoral idea rather than a spectacularly bad, immoral one.
I tend to agree with most of what you have posted, but the certainty of this argument, along with the repetition, imbues it with more validity than it warrants.
Posted by: itchy | May 2, 2008 11:06 PM
DingoJack:
Sure I raped the gal'n knocked'er up, but I've made my piece with God and I'm gonna do right by 'er 'n get hitched up all good'n'proper like, and doncha go try talkin' me out of it now.
Hey, it's gotta be more fun than screwin' the dingoes.
Posted by: XPCNW | May 3, 2008 5:01 PM
XPCCNW - and your point is...?
The "Pottery Barn" rule shows that long before the invasion the Secretary of State was concerned over the need to repair the damage done by invading Iraq. Rumsfeld and Cheney refused to listen and made sure the Pres went with them. The point is had the the President's and the Secretary of State's concerns been considered the quagmire would have been at least minimised. -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 4, 2008 3:14 PM