What is your plan for Iraq?

[elucidator]

@Sam

Wrong. Read the 9/11 commission report. There were plenty of connections between Iraq and al-Qaida before the war. What there isn’t is a connection between Iraq and 9/11. None whatsoever we know of. But plenty of contacts with al-Qaida and other terrorists…

Ahem.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10164478/

Ten days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Bush was advised that U.S. intelligence found no credible connection linking the attacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein, or evidence suggesting linkage between Saddam and the al-Qaida terrorist network, according to a published report…. In one of the Journal report’s more compelling disclosures, Saddam is said to have viewed al-Qaida as a threat, rather than a potential ally….

(emphasis added)

So, yes, I suppose “contacts” with AlQ. Not quite what you seem to imply, of course. Rather the opposite, point of fact.

…Or the Germans in North Africa…

We were actually at war with Germany. Your point escapes me.

…Yeah, and the Italians weren’t our enemies before WWII, either. Was that war wrong?..

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? My point was that we already had the terrorists as enemies, we did not have the Iraqis as enemies, until we made them our enemies. You seem to find some strategic brilliance in multiplying our enemies rather than reducing them. Is this from the George A. Custer College of Strategic Planning? Really, Sam, what the fuck?

…You know, you put forward these simplistic sound-bite arguments against the war… you sputter and roll your eyes… So I’m not going to bother trying again…

C’mon, Sam, fight fair. I mean, sure looks like you’re trying again!

(And a whole bunch of poll numbers to support….something. Not sure what, perzackly.)

…Support for Bin Laden and terrorism in general has plunged in almost every country since the Iraq war began…

A perfectly astonishing assertion. Cite?

…The U.S. is no longer seen as a spineless, cowardly country that bombs from the air and runs at the first sign of its own casualties…

And again, cite? Do you detect some signs of widespread approval and admiration? It would be news to me as well as many, many others.

…Libya has renounced WMD…

As has been pointed out to you Godonlyknows how many times….Libya was in negotiations over these issues months and months before the war. Embarassing.

…Syria is under pressure…

From us.

…The U.S. is gaining intelligence like crazy…

Cite? Are we talking about “actionable intelligence”? Or the same old drivel we got from Curveball, Chalabi, etc. etc. ad nauseum?

…Saddam is no longer instigating terrorists, paying suicide bombers, and generally acting like a destabilizing influence…

Make up your mind. Is “destabilziing” an inherently bad thing? Then why do you applaud with such fervor when we do it? And precisely when, where, and how did Saddam “instigate terrorists”, considering the above citation about his hostility towards AlQ? Or are you talking about two different things and hoping I won’t notice?

…And, with luck, there will be an America-friendly Arab democracy right in the heart of the middle east…

Sure hope so. Doesn’t seem all that likely. Cost seems a might high. But, just as you say, “with luck”.

If you bet all your money, your home, your wife and kids that you can draw one card to an inside straight flush, “with luck” you may win. If this sounds like an intelligent plan to you, I want to cordially invite you to our next poker game. Bring money, deeds, candid photos, etc.

…Now imagine the Iraq war had never happened. Saddam is still in place, still thumbing his nose at the Americans … So would there be a humanitarian disaster in Iraq?..

I have no idea. Neither do you. Difference is, I’m not claiming otherwise. This is pure conjecture masquerading as argument.

…If not, we know what would be happening - Saddam would be rebuilding his WMD capability…

We “know” no such thing. Again, conjecture masquerading as argument. Weak conjecture, at that.

…Would the no-fly zones be in place still? If so, what do you think Arab opinion of the U.S. would look like today…

No idea what your point is here. Do you imagine that the imposition and maintenance of the “no fly zones” was a positive boon to our reputation amongst the Arabs? On what basis, this extraordinary conjecture?

…

Arab support for Bin Laden was climbing steadily until the Iraq war started. Given that trend, what do you think it might be today?…

Gosh, I dunno, Sam. I’m guessing pretty high. I have a hard time imagining why you think the Iraq War has improved our standing amongst Arabs. Got any evidence to back that up? Anything at all? Beyond your bald assertion?

[Liberal]

My plan: get out. Now.

[Agnostic_Pagan]

@Sam Stone

You’re not training individual soldiers - although training a modern soldier takes a lot longer than six weeks of basic training.

I concur. Which is why I am now bringing up the point two years into this mess.

The problems with the Iraqi military are much bigger than that. They are:

* The lack of a command and control infrastructure....
* Logistics....
* An NCO corps....
* An effective officer corps....
* Tactics....

In short, the U.S. isn’t just training individuals, it’s training an entire army. They need to learn how to work together, how to support their efforts, how to coordinate between units, and all the rest. This is a problem on a whole different scale than just putting people through boot camp and handing them a rifle.

Again, I concur. This is a huge task, and we should have had a plan for all this before we went in. We barely have one now. Ever since flyboy landed on the carrier, I have known this has only been an exercise in hubris. There are monumental tasks that need to be accomplished, and we have made those tasks harder for ourselves and the Iraqis precisely because we have not a plan. Disbanding the army, forcing us to start from the ground up, is only one example. An arguement could be made that it was necessary to modernize the Iraq army, but I never heard one made. It was out of fear of insurrection, and the typical short-sightedness of this administration that the decision was made.
I wish that we could just cut and run, but that I believe that will cause more damage in both the short and long term.

An exit strategy similar to Vietnam or Korea, I believe is appropriate.

Political. The most important lesson from those conflicts is to ensure a stable political environment, not leave the country divided into two, or three, or four parts, unless they decide to leave federation as most of Yugoslavia did to their benefit (Croatia and Slovenia, not so much Bosnia.) This part appears to be moving in the right direction, but only in spite of ourselves, not due to any strategic or tactical planning on our part.

Security. Train the Iraqis until they can take up the fight on their own with minimal support from us. (Minimal meaning no more than one or two combat brigades, but enough logistical support and engineers to repair the damage we caused, and until the Iraqi have enough units to replace these as well.) At this stage, stating that we expect to have an fully capable Iraqi army by such and such date is not unreasonable, thus ensuring the public (both American and Iraqi) and the troops that there is an end in sight and we can stand down on our end. And such is not giving any encouragement to the ‘rejectionists’. We are ‘giving up’. We are handing over operations to the locals, who will still have our entire support and assistance in non-security issues.

Economy. This is one area where the international community needs to be brought and going hat in hand to the UN might help in this regard if we had any credibility left with them. (John Bolton is not an asset of the US, and harping on Annan about the OFFP when we are just as, if not more, culpable in the oil smuggling. Cite:http://www.oilforfoodfacts.com/default.aspx) But this is the task of the Iraqi government and public - as it is with every other nation. We can provide assistance, trade deals, expertise, but this is not our responsibility. If Iraq goes to on to be a strong trading partner of the US, fine. If not, also fine. But it is their decision to make, and with whom they wish to make them, i.e. regardless if they were ‘coalition partners’ or not.

@Sam Stone

The opposition at home makes the U.S. look weaker.

Don’t get me wrong - I think everyone has a right to protest, and I don’t necessarily think it’s unpatriotic or treasonous or anything like that to oppose the war. But people who do oppose the war should understand the effect their opposition has on the enemy and the effort in general. If you understand that your opposition may embolden the insurgency and make life more difficult on the ground for both the Iraqis trying to create a free society and for the U.S. military, but still believe that your cause is just, then go ahead and protest. But at least have the honesty to admit that your protest does do harm to the effort of winning the war.

I disagree. Our protests are a sign of a functioning democracy (which we are most of the time). They demonstrate the true power of the United States - freedom of expression and the right to peaceably assemble, not force projection. Criticizing and critiquing those in authority is the most important responsibility of a citizen, not following blindly. It emboldens the terrorists only by showing them exactly what they fear - politics based on discourse, not violence. It emboldens the Iraqis to create a free society by showing them what they have to gain.

AP

[ElvisL1ves]

We certainly *are * “training individual soldiers” - to fight in the nascent ethnic militias, against each other. The insurgents have already started but have less equipment and training. With no sense of national unity or national purpose, how is any national army going to stay one?

As to what we should do, the least unpalatable approach is to recognize the near-unstoppability of fragmentation of a country which has even less sense of unity now than it ever did, and make the partition as unbloody as possible. Continued fantasizing of the sort Sam is predictably demonstrating can only get more good people - *our * people killed there.

[Banquet_Bear]

…while I disagree strongly with Sam Stone’s position, at the very least he has advocated a position. (Even though its wrong. ) With the available knowledge that we have on hand, creating a workable plan for success in Iraq is an extremely inexact science loaded with our own biases and agendas. Even the most well thought out plan can be nit-picked to death-I have my own plan for Iraq, and I’m sure when I unveil it in the next couple of days, you guys will tear it to shreds. (After six months jobless, I start some casual work tomorrow… yeh for me! but it will be a while before I get some time to type it out )

With the permission from the OP, I wonder if I could reform your question to maybe garner some more food for thought. Lets pretend, through some quirk of fate, that the reader is now the President of the United States. You are not allowed to leave Iraq. You take over the United States and the situation in Iraq exactly as it is today. You have one month to formulate a plan, and then up to five years to action it. You have one singular objective: “to make Iraq safe and secure, with a functioning government and a viable economy.” (You may modify the objective if you feel that this shouldn’t be the objective in Iraq.)

With these qualifiers, what plan would you put in place? What assumptions will you make? What would be you objectives? How would you measure those objectives? What sort of timetable will you have and what, if any milestones? Where will you draw the money from? How will contracts be allocated? Who will administer the Justice system and monitor the crime rate? Will Security Contractors be allowed? Do you bring in the United Nations? Do you send in more troops or reduce their numbers?

[elucidator]

First thing I do, I have the surviving members of Iron Butterfly hunted down. I would then drop all charges for Saddam, and simply toss him out the front door into the streets of Baghdad. No guards, no escorts, just chuck his ass out into the street and whoever gets him first…gets him first. Appoint Henry Kissinger ambassador to Kurdistan, they would love to get thier hands on…see him again. Turn Chalabi over to the Jordanians for questioning. Maybe he knows something, maybe he doesn’t. Who cares?

[David_Simmons]

@Banquet Bear

…while I disagree strongly with Sam Stone’s position, at the very least he has advocated a position.

Sam’s position is, “Hang in there tiger, I’ll hold your coat.”

You are not allowed to leave Iraq.

I also advocated a position. Get together a staff and formulate a plan to get out by this time next year. Why should I accept the stricture of not being allowed to leave Iraq?

[Agnostic_Pagan]

@Banquet Bear

With the permission from the OP, I wonder if I could reform your question to maybe garner some more food for thought. Lets pretend, through some quirk of fate, that the reader is now the President of the United States. You are not allowed to leave Iraq. You take over the United States and the situation in Iraq exactly as it is today. You have one month to formulate a plan, and then up to five years to action it.

Permission granted. Though I feel this administration only has the next year, not five, to get its shit in gear. If no tangible progress - i.e. visible troop reduction, and far less frequent terrorist attacks, is not made before the congressional elections, I do not believe the Republicans have a snowballs chance in hell. (Or at least I hope so.)

You have one singular objective: “to make Iraq safe and secure, with a functioning government and a viable economy.” (You may modify the objective if you feel that this shouldn’t be the objective in Iraq.)

In this thread, the objective you stated is what I want to explore. We are there. Should we be? I have seen enough threads on why or why not. They may be relevant when it is time to impeach. But I believe that the above is now necessary, though the viable economy is for the Iraqis to do so, or every life lost will have been vain. Too many have died, especially Iraqi citizens. We broke it, we have to fix it.

With these qualifiers, what plan would you put in place? What assumptions will you make? What would be you objectives? How would you measure those objectives? What sort of timetable will you have and what, if any milestones? Where will you draw the money from? How will contracts be allocated? Who will administer the Justice system and monitor the crime rate? Will Security Contractors be allowed? Do you bring in the United Nations? Do you send in more troops or reduce their numbers?

I would begin with high level cabinet meetings with the new Secretaries of State and Defense, and perhaps other cabinet members also, Energy, Commerce, etc.
I would demand an immediate summary of what resources are at hand, what is their best and worst case scenarios with the relevant costs. I would give the broad outline as above, and ask them to flesh it out - what resources do you need, and how much time do you need to accomplish those tasks.

I suppose I would act like the president of any major corporation which is the least of what I expect of POTUS. (I keep imagining that if Bush and company were the board of directors of a company just how many shareholder lawsuits they would be facing.)

I would not be releasing meaningless PR reports repeating ad nauseum what has happened, but what we want to happen, with emphasis on the how and when.
AP

[Sal_Ammoniac]

In this whole discussion over a “plan,” I think the unfortunate reality is that Iraq is basically an intractable problem, so plan or no plan, it all comes to the same in the end.

Sam Stone has lucidly set out a scenario for winning, that’s not, on its face, unworkable. But his scenario only speaks to the military aspect of the problem, not the political aspect, nor the economic aspect, nor the governmental aspect. The paradox for the Americans is this – as soon as we get the Iraq army to some level of effectiveness, then the calls for us to leave – both domestically and in Iraq – become irresistable. But what then? Just because Iraq has an elected government does not mean it’s a good or experienced or effectual government. In fact, we have reason to fear otherwise.

The principal point is this government will inherit a country that’s a basket case. Remember that Iraq was a despotic third-world country to start with, and they’ve been at war since basically 1980. Their infrastructure is a shambles, there has been significant brain drain, people are living on state handouts (cheap bread, gasoline at a couple cents a gallon). This coming government will be – to judge by comparable oil-dependent governments around the world – a government of patronage, driven by ethnicity.

So post-intervention Iraq will have a simmering insurgency, a weak and cash-strapped government riddled with incompetence and corruption, and a brutal three-way ethnic split. Sure, they could pull the rabbit of democracy and prosperity out of the hat, but how likely is this, on a percentage basis? I’d contend that’s it’s pretty darn low. Ten percent, maybe?

[David_Simmons]

@Sal Ammoniac

In this whole discussion over a “plan,” I think the unfortunate reality is that Iraq is basically an intractable problem, so plan or no plan, it all comes to the same in the end.

Sam Stone has lucidly set out a scenario for winning, that’s not, on its face, unworkable. But his scenario only speaks to the military aspect of the problem, not the political aspect, nor the economic aspect, nor the governmental aspect. The paradox for the Americans is this – as soon as we get the Iraq army to some level of effectiveness, then the calls for us to leave – both domestically and in Iraq – become irresistable. But what then? Just because Iraq has an elected government does not mean it’s a good or experienced or effectual government. In fact, we have reason to fear otherwise.

The principal point is this government will inherit a country that’s a basket case. Remember that Iraq was a despotic third-world country to start with, and they’ve been at war since basically 1980. Their infrastructure is a shambles, there has been significant brain drain, people are living on state handouts (cheap bread, gasoline at a couple cents a gallon). This coming government will be – to judge by comparable oil-dependent governments around the world – a government of patronage, driven by ethnicity.

So post-intervention Iraq will have a simmering insurgency, a weak and cash-strapped government riddled with incompetence and corruption, and a brutal three-way ethnic split. Sure, they could pull the rabbit of democracy and prosperity out of the hat, but how likely is this, on a percentage basis? I’d contend that’s it’s pretty darn low. Ten percent, maybe?

You took the words right out of my mouth, and said them better too. The main objection to our getting out as soon as possible is the “you broke it, you fix it” line. I don’t believe we can “fix it” if that means leaving behind a viable Iraq in a time span of anything under several generations of Iraqis. And if we could possibly fix it I don’t think that GW and his crew are the people that could do it. I’m of the view that the President has a a pie-in-the sky vision of an Iraq that’s democratic, sort of like another South Dakota only speaking a foreign language. An Iraq that will transform the Middle East into a model of peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

[Revtim]

Those who think they have a plan, you should b aware of this:
http://www.fedgrants.gov/Applicants/AID/OM/BAG/RFA&%23032%3B267-06-001/Grant.html

The United States Agency for International Development is seeking applications for an Assistance Agreement from qualified sources to design and implement a social and economic stabilization program impacting ten Strategic Cities, identified by the United States Government as critical to the defeat of the Insurgency in Iraq. The number of Strategic Cities may expand or contract over time. USAID plans to provide approximately $1,020,000,000 over two years to meet the objectives of the Program. An additional option year may be considered amounting to $300 million at the discretion of USAID. Funds are not yet available for this program.

Help the administration that apparantly didn’t realize there’d be insurgents, and make a cool billion!

[Squink]

@Revtim

Those who think they have a plan, you should b aware of this:

See post #8, this thread.
Also, The Oil Spot Strategy: How to Win in Iraq by Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.
Combined with rumors of an Increased Air War, it’s starting to sound as if we’re going to go for the old-time Vietnam strategy, and hope things turn out different this time around.

[David_Simmons]

@Squink

Combined with rumors of an Increased Air War, it’s starting to sound as if we’re going to go for the old-time Vietnam strategy, and hope things turn out different this time around.

You mean the routine, “The Iraqis have to do this themselves but they aren’t quite ready yeat.” Wait six month. “The Iraqis have to do this themselves but they aren’t quite ready yet.” and as Sam Stone said “Repeat as necessary.” for ten years like was done in Vietnam?

[Squink]

@David Simmons

You mean the routine, “The Iraqis have to do this themselves but they aren’t quite ready yeat.” Wait six month. “The Iraqis have to do this themselves but they aren’t quite ready yet.” and…

Yup, that’s the routine: AP Shocker: Iraq VP Disputes Bush on Training of Forces.
Combined with ceding the countryside and turning airstrike targeting authority over to Shiite militias, it’s a recipe for endless disaster. Your plan’s better.

[David_Simmons]

@Squink

Your plan’s better.

It seems thatLt. Gen. William Odom (USA Ret.) had the same idea earlier. With a followup by the General. Except he wants out even faster. Swear to God, I didn’t know of the General’s statements before I posted.

[Agnostic_Pagan]

@David Simmons

It seems thatLt. Gen. William Odom (USA Ret.) had the same idea earlier.

From the Generals site “Even if we were able to successfully train an Iraqi military and police force, the likely result, after all that, would be another military dictatorship. Experience around the world teaches us that military dictatorships arise when the military’s institutional modernization gets ahead of political consolidation.”

I think is a key point. The followup questions are 1) Is this unavoidable? 2)Would this necessarily be a bad thing? 3)If unavoidable, can it be manageable? That is install the dictator we want, or at least one we could live with (which, tragically, is what Saddam was originally - he was a brutal dictator, but he was one of ‘our’ brutal’ dictator, cf. Pinochet , Trujillo).

The best case scenario I see is a ‘managed’ Vietnamization, based not on just the relationship between US and Vietnam then, but now also. Definitely not allies, but no longer the enemy, (sort of a China Lite.) I would also try to use every contact we have, and build new ones between the Pan-Arab community to support a new government backed by an Arab peacekeeping force, primarily Jordan and Egypt.

At the same time, I do not believe Iraq itself will survive the transistion, but break into its component parts. I think this is probably best for the region also in the long term as well as short.

I find myself in the middle between those that want to cut and run, for which the General made a good arguement, and those expecting everyone to live happily ever after in a functional, stable democratic Iraq. I guess I want a return to the status ante bellum - a functional, stable, autocratic Iraq, but more along the lines of Singapore or South Korea until a few years ago.

[David_Simmons]

@Agnostic Pagan

At the same time, I do not believe Iraq itself will survive the transistion, but break into its component parts. I think this is probably best for the region also in the long term as well as short.

I think so too. From just a cursory reading of the history of what is now Iraq that seems most likely. Iraq was formed from three provinces of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. Mosul (mainly Kurds), Bagdhad (mostly Sunnis) and Basra (mostly Shia). It was under a British mandate from the League of Nations to run the place. The it got independence and limped along under various monarchs until the Ba’ath party gained control followed shortly thereafter by the military dictatorship of Saddam. It has never really been a functioning country under its own rule as a representative democracy and it was formed from three pretty incompatitble provinces.

The economic situation is going to really cause trouble. The Kurds and Shia have oil and the Sunni don’t. A lot of countries manage to get along without oil, but having once had control of all that oil through the Ba’ath the Sunnis are going to hard to convince that they souldn’t still have it, or at least a piece of it.

It seems to me that through ignorance and an unwillingness to learn GW has stumbled into a reall mess and has taken us with him. What’s that saying? Oh yes. If you don’t know how it works, leave it alone.