Iraq War Critics: James Webb on the Risks of Occupation

They can't say they weren't warned. This piece from September 2002 by James Webb, Secretary of the Navy under the Reagan Administration, represents a pragmatic conservative criticism of Bush's Iraq War policy. One made when there was still time to choose alternatives to invasion and occupation. Heading for Trouble Washington Post 09/04/02.

... American military leaders have been trying to bring a wider focus to the band of neoconservatives that began beating the war drums on Iraq before the dust had even settled on the World Trade Center. Despite the efforts of the neocons to shut them up or to dismiss them as unqualified to deal in policy issues, these leaders, both active-duty and retired, have been nearly unanimous in their concerns. Is there an absolutely vital national interest that should lead us from containment to unilateral war and a long-term occupation of Iraq? And would such a war and its aftermath actually increase our ability to win the war against international terrorism? ...

America's best military leaders know that they are accountable to history not only for how they fight wars, but also for how they prevent them. ... With respect to the situation in Iraq, they are conscious of two realities that seem to have been lost in the narrow debate about Saddam Hussein himself. The first reality is that wars often have unintended consequences -- ask the Germans, who in World War I were convinced that they would defeat the French in exactly 42 days. The second is that a long-term occupation of Iraq would beyond doubt require an adjustment of force levels elsewhere, and could eventually diminish American influence in other parts of the world.

Webb points to some factors that make Iraq distinctly different from postwar Japan. And, relying on some (now) obviously low estimates of what kind of occupation force would be required, he says:

In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets.

No, Bush and Rummy can't say that nobody warned them.