On Monday, DT posted a detailed after action report from the influential and thoughtful former Army general and SouthCom commander Barry McCaffrey on his mid-February visit to Afghanistan.
We now have the report he complied on his mid-March visit to Iraq. Media reports have focused on the comments portending disaster in Iraq and justifiably so. But theres also some hopeful signs, particularly as counterinsurgency guru Gen. David Petraeus moves forward with his strategy to give the Iraqi government breathing room to forge compromises.
McCaffrey also makes some interesting points on certain U.S. capabilities that are worth a second look
From the report
Iraq is ripped by a low grade civil war which has worsened to catastrophic levels with as many as 3000 citizens murdered per month. The population is in despair. Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate.
There is no function of government that operates effectively across the nation— not health care, not justice, not education, not transportation, not labor and commerce, not electricity, not oil production. There is no province in the country in which the government has dominance.
US domestic support for the war in Iraq has evaporated and will not return. The great majority of the country thinks the war was a mistake. The US Congress now has a central focus on constraining the Administration use of military power in Iraq —and potentially Iran.
In summary, the US Armed Forces are in a position of strategic peril. A disaster in Iraq will in all likelihood result in a widened regional struggle which will endanger Americas strategic interests (oil) in the Mid-east for a generation. We will also produce another generation of soldiers who lack confidence in their American politicians, the media, and their own senior military leadership.
But
Since the arrival of General David Petraeus in command of Multi-National Force Iraq— the situation on the ground has clearly and measurably improved.
There is a real and growing ground swell of Sunni tribal opposition to the Al Qaeda-in-Iraq terror formations. (90% Iraqi.) This counter-Al Qaeda movement in Anbar Province was fostered by brilliant US Marine leadership. There is now unmistakable evidence that the western Sunni tribes are increasingly convinced that they blundered badly by sitting out the political process.
Reconciliation of the internal warring elements in Iraq will be how we eventually win the war in Iraq—if it happens. There is a very sophisticated and carefully integrated approach by the Iraqi government and Coalition actors to defuse the armed violence from internal enemies and bring people into the political process. There are encouraging signs that the peace and participation message does resonate with many of the more moderate Sunni and Shia warring factions.
The command and control technology, training, contractor support, and flexibility of Marine and Army combat formations are magnificent.
The US Tier One special operations capability is simply magic. They are deadly in getting their targetwith normally zero collateral damageand with minimal friendly losses or injuries. Some of these assault elements have done 200–300 takedown operations at platoon level. The comprehensive intelligence system is phenomenal. We need to re-think how we view these forces. They are a national strategic system akin to a B1 bomber.
In Sum
In my judgment, we can still achieve our objective of: a stable Iraq, at peace with its neighbors, not producing weapons of mass destruction, and fully committed to a law-based government. The courage and strength of the US Armed Forces still gives us latitude and time to build the economic and political conditions that might defuse the ongoing civil war. Our central purpose is to allow the nation to re-establish governance based on some loose federal consensus among the three major ethnic-factional actors.
Interestingly there is one official “objective” missing when McCaffrey speaks about the possibile achivements in Iraq.
His list is missing — tata — DEMOCRACY !!!
How did that get lost on the way? No more purple fingers?
All other objectives he cites are easily achievable by a US friendly dictator, like aheeem — Saddam Hussein — well Rummy liked him some time ago …
Upps and another objective is missing too — the oil-laws and the profits resulting from them …
Interesting. According to Carter, the vintage of a general is the key to his reliability — a rating system that any believing Bolshevik would understand. Bravo, “Captain”!
Er.… You weren’t one of those LBJ-era officers, were you?
The Liberal/Democrat mantra: “It’ll never start, it’ll never start! (it starts) It’ll never go, it’ll never go! (it goes) It’ll never stop, it’ll never stop!“
Moral of the story: Old Spiro Agnew had the liberals and Democrats pegged exactly right. They have to be negative on anything that was initiated by a Republican (and especially by a conservative) President, because they can’t afford politically to let it succeed, even if it means backstabbing their own country and forcing it to lose a war to the most blood-thirsty killers in the history of the world.
The irony just keeps increasing .… after the current administration spent years mismanaging the reconstruction — political, economic, and cultural — our military, in its finest tradition, has just stuck with it and figured out workable strategies more or less on its own.
The only trouble is, there’s no domestic political will left to continue funding the troops, unless the Pentagon does the best selling job of its life to a hostile Congress.
But please — by all means blame the Democrats for pulling out at the wrong time, when there may (just may) be some light at the end of the tunnel. Just don’t blame them for creating the massive cluster f&%#k of the post-invasion period. We all know who failed to plan and execute that.
Yojimbo
This will be the third time in this century that a western nation has (potentially in Iraq) succeeded militarily, only to have liberal politicians and media claim defeat and influence public opinion to the point that all support is lost and unrecoverable. The French in Algeria in the 1950’s is the most closely related historical example of a successful counterinsurgency, with winning hearts and minds more important than racking up total kills. The TET offensive is another. Whereas the S. Vietnamese and US forces effectively crippled the North’s ability to wage an insurgency, the media portrayed it as a total loss and the end result was an early pullout, and a complete loss of confidence by our forces in the political powers and in the American people. The results of both Algeria and Vietnam were decades of slaughter of pro-western supporters in those countries. I really hope this country wakes up to smell the roses and realizes that we have a long term chance to bolster world opinion of the US by standing by the Iraqi’s until they can be self-sustaining. In the short term, everybody is going to hate us…but a sign of maturity is delaying pleasure for the greater good. As yet, we are an immature nation.
Only in the American military is history written by the losers. Which is why of course they will continue to lose.
When the worlds most expensive military can’t defeat a militia army armed only with small-arms, ten times smaller than it from an impoverished third world country — blaming the media is beyond sad, it is pathetic.
I see that Hoax Meister doesn’t mind seeing the daily death toll in Iraq rise to 1000s a day rather then dozens. Let them “fight it out”. Well let us just let people in Darfur “fight it out”. Oh wait, you want us to go in and help them? Why is that? Oh Arabs, don’t deserve security? They don’t deserve to get a democratic, stable country that’s not run by a dictator who kills hundreds of thousands. I get it.
I see that todays “Liberals” aren’t really about having liberty anywhere else, and think that it’s better to let a country fall into chaos and eventually be ruled by a blood thirsty dictator (again), who will provide “security” (through brutally oppressing millions) then to try hard to make a functional, free society.
I’ve read anumber of posts on DT and for some reason they aren’t reasonable. Blaming Viet Vets or complaining that people are anti-liberal in pathiti attempts to discredit peoples viewpoints instead of giving apposing views or arguements really is sad and indicitive a poor eduation. But wait, aren’t liberals the ones who distroyed education? It really is a shame, the people who post anti-war or anti-this-war comments are doing so on the only vehicle where they could learn about the conflict with out the main-stream-media censorship. Care for a little education?
Posted by: Nic When the worlds most expensive military can’t defeat a militia army armed only with small-arms, ten times smaller than it from an impoverished third world country — blaming the media is beyond sad, it is pathetic. NIC, first they don’t have a malitia or army for us to identify and combat. Normally they relie on small units or cells to create their mayhem. Second, when you cannot easily identify the bad guys from the rest of the society it makes the task of the military extremely difficult. Basically it means you can’t shoot them until after they fire on you. Third, very few people are blaming the media for anything that is not true. They have misrepresented this war from the beginning and starting over 4 years ago have been using that misrepresentation in order to destroy a Presedent they, for whatever reason, hate. It has not been to speak truth to power, it is not from any reasoned position, and it has been and continues to be political at its most partisaned and uglyest.
Posted by: Hoax Meister
Wake up, the only Iraqi experience with democracy (EVER!) has been the past 3 disastrous years–and I’ll bet you a case of whatever that most Iraqis are sick of “democracy” and just want “security.” Where do you get your facts? Have you talked to any Iraqi’s? Have you read any of their BLOGs? And exactly what do you mean by the comment of “past 3 disastrous years?” And if it is just your opinion, how was it formed? Do you know any of what has been accomplished? And could it be just impateince on your part?
I could go on and on, but why bother?
I’m all in favour of no WMD’s in the region. There’s one little country in the region with over 100 nukes. Let’s invade that one next.
I’m all in favour of no WMD’s in the region. There’s one little country in the region with over 100 nukes. Let’s invade that one next.