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Weasley: A new course needed in Iraq
MY 34 YEARS in the Army taught me to steel my spine, but not my heart, whenever I hear news of American casualties. On Tuesday I read about Sergeant Ernest Bucklew, who was headed home to attend his mother's funeral when his Chinook helicopter was shot out of the sky en route to Baghdad. Fifteen American soldiers died alongside him.
| This is called personalizing the tragedy. It's designed to tug at the reader's heartstrings. From the first paragraph, we should draw a conclusion in the second, right? |
For the sake of every member of our armed forces, we need a plan to end the conflict in Iraq. Retreat is not an option. Withdrawal would be a disaster for America, a tragedy for Iraq, and a crisis for the world. It would destroy our credibility, give terrorists a new haven, and throw the Middle East into greater turmoil. No matter how difficult it will be, we need a "success strategy."
| I guess having an "exit strategy" didn't fly. If we don't have a plan to "end the conflict" then our military's in the wrong business. Publicizing the content of the plan would be pretty stoopid, since the Bad Guys would then be able to analyze it at their liesure and come up with counterplans. Since we're agreed that retreat isn't an option, staying is the only option. Even a brilliant "success strategy" designed by Gen. Clark would include a cold-eyed estimate of the number of casualties a continuing occupation would involve, figured as a percentage of the total force. (This, by the way, avoids personalizing the casualties â planners don't say things like "Well, guess PFC Jones is going to have to take a bullet...") So what's different in Gen. Clark's proposal from what we have now? |
Success won't be easy, but only success can honor the sacrifice of our soldiers and allow the troops to come home. Success means that Iraq is strong enough to sustain itself without outside forces. Success means that representative government has taken root. Success means that Iraq's economy and civil society are healthy again.
| "Honoring the sacrifice of our soldiers" is pretty-sounding blather, a semantic null. Clark's criteria for success aren't really what you'd call hard objectives. The problem is that Iraq was strong enough to sustain itself without outside forces under Sammy. The regime did that by killing people, stealing all the money in sight, and picking fights with its neighbors. We want to leave a different type of regime, but we have to work with the same raw material, a populace that's been beaten up for 30+ years and that's torn by its own internal rivalries and contradictions. We've been working on the representative government from the very first. Jay Garner set up local elections within weeks of the regime's collapse. And Iraq didn't have a working economy when we arrived. It was an artificial construct, just as artificial as the Soviet system was. The money came in, Sammy took it, and he handed it out as he pleased. We'd like to build something a bit more sophisticated than that. |
Congress just gave the administration an $87 billion check to continue down the path that we're on. But President Bush still has no strategy to succeed. I do. Here's my "success strategy": - End the American monopoly.
We must call a summit of the leaders we've alienated, the people whose advice we've scorned, the organizations whose assistance we've turned down. Out of this gathering, we can build a new organization to replace the Coalition Provisional Authority and internationalize the face of the occupation.
| That's making the assumption that the alienation of those leaders was our fault â we're required to please them. In every dispute leading up to the Iraq war there were two sides. In most of those cases ours was the right side. Does Gen. Clark have a plan to nudge them into pleasing us? Other than the diplomatic plans Bush/Powell have been implementing in the face of the changed circumstances Sammy's fall has brought about? |
To guide the reconstruction of Iraq, we need a civilian from an allied country. That civilian official would report to an international council, composed of representatives from nations that support our efforts to build a democratic Iraq.
| Whatever for? Is Clark accusing Bremer of incompetence? What's the matter with having an American in charge? What makes an "international council" more effective than reporting to the State Department and the Defense Department? The lights are back on, the schools are open, the hospitals are running. There are groceries on the shelves. What's Bremer doing wrong? |
As we saw in the Balkans, when we share power, other countries share our burden. I would transform the military occupation into a NATO operation with US forces in charge. With US command, NATO authority, and UN endorsement, other NATO countries would send troops, and Arab countries would also step in.
| We have troops from both NATO and non-NATO countries. There's no indication that NATO operations are more effective than American-run operations. I'd venture to say just the opposite, in fact. |
- Find the right force mix.
The more conventional forces we have, the more logistics we need. The more unarmored Humvees on patrol, the more unnecessary American deaths from roadside bombs.
| On the other hand, the more tracks we have, the more we present the feel of heavily-armed occupation. Taking the helmets off and replacing them with soft caps has its uses, too. The right force mix for an army of occupation is heavier on military police than on artillery, heavier on civil engineers than combat engineers. Managing operations in a fluid situation â which Iraq remains â is a matter of control and feedback, with adjustments made as needed. Because there are large numbers of people, organizations, and issues involved, all of them in constant flux, plans at the operational level will often have to be made up in the morning and modified in the afternoon. |
- Better border protection.
To stanch the flow of foreign jihadists into Iraq, we must seal the borders. That requires assistance from Iraq's neighbors. Using carrots and sticks, we can persuade these countries to cooperate.
| Or not. Iran's our declared enemy and Syria's our undeclared enemy. Regardless of the size of the stick and the flavor of the carrot, they're going to do what they see in their own interests, which at the moment involves shipping jihadis in to fight us. Once the jihadis are bumped off they'll modify their own plans, possibly toward our point of view, more likely toward some other inimical tactic. It takes two to negotiate, and it only takes one to break an agreement. |
- Secure ammunition.
Weapons dumps throughout Iraq are unguarded. It is estimated that 500,000 tons of ammunition is still not secure. We must patrol these sites and destroy these weapons.
| I agree. So, no doubt, do Rumsfeld and the field commanders. The problem is the sheer quantity of the arms and ammunition that Sammy bought. Sammy's demand for ordnance went far beyond the requirements of a normal state and into that realm of pathological obsession. There are more ammunition dumps to guard and dispose of than we have available troops and auxilliaries. |
- More intelligence resources.
Success in Iraq depends on developing good information and a good rapport with civilians. Right now too many of our linguists and intelligence experts are working on the search for weapons of mass destruction. International inspectors should take over that search, which would free up enough experts to help us track down those who are killing our soldiers and creating chaos.
| That's a great idea, so long as the internatinal inspectors aren't following their own agendas and report to our military and political chain of command. Otherwise, we'll just have to make due, building our own intel apparatus within the country as we can. It's too bad there aren't more Americans we speak fluent Arabic, but colleges offer more French, Spanish, and German â and there's no requirement for a foreign language in any of our schools, as far as I can see. |
- Formidable Iraqi security forces.
We should recall the Iraqi Army to duty right now. If given good pay, good training, and solid background checks, Iraqi civilians can also help fill the intelligence and security gap.
| Wasn't there some sort of a problem with the Iraqi army before? Lemme think real hard here... Oh, yes. It was more dangerous to the citizenry than it was to us. Reconstituting the units is an idea, though I don't know if it's a good one or not. There are pros and cons. Even with reconstitution, the officers' corps certainly has to be revamped. So what's the quick solution to that? |
- Give the Iraqis a rising stake in our success.
It would be wrong to transfer authority to the Iraqis before they are ready to succeed, but we can give Iraqis more control over their destiny. The administration says the Iraqis can't have a sovereign government without a constitution. This is backwards. Iraqis, appointed by representatives from Iraq's 50 elected regional councils, should name an interim government even while a constitution emerges. That is what our Founding Fathers did. If we give the interim government control over oil revenues and transfer authority on an ongoing basis, it will be easier for the Iraqi people to see that those blowing up pipelines are sabotaging their future. If we give civilians a stake in stemming the violence, they will help us solve this problem.
| There's a timetable for the drafting of the constitution and it'll be followed by elections for a government. The Iraqis know that. We allowed the Afghans to choose their own constitutional destiny and they came up with an Islamic republic that ten years from now won't be too different from the Taliban. Allow us to learn from our recent mistakes, at least. |
As of today, 383 of our soldiers have been killed in action. When he died, Sergeant Bucklew was only 33. In Fort Carson, Colo., his wife and two sons are grieving. Not a single soldier from Fort Carson died before May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat. More than 20 Fort Carson soldiers have died since.
| Our casualties have been relatively light in Iraq â nothing compared to the casualties we took in Vietnam. The casualties are designed by the Bad Guys to panic the country into losing its resolve and withdrawing, which probably the majority of the Dem presidential candidates are in favor of. I don't see much difference between what Clark is proposing and what Bush/Powell/Rumself are doing. I think that what they're doing will work in the long run, and that a year from now Iraq will be a lot closer to being pacified. |
It is unconscionable to allow our country to continue staggering down the track that we're on in Iraq. Bush keeps saying we need to "stay the course." We need to change the course. With a strategy to succeed, our armed forces will turn things around.
Wesley Clark, a retired general, is a Democratic candidate for president.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-11-06 |
