After the United States manages to exit from the Iraq War, someday, conservative generals will claim that they were undercut by the politicians who didn't support them properly. There is actually some substance to that complaint. But they will try to avoid any examination of Army doctrine and the military's general lack of preparation for occupation operations and counterinsurgency.
And Cheney forbid that a monstrous boondoggle like the Star Wars antimissile fraud get cancelled. The government exists to provide welfare to the Bush dynasty's favorite corporations, doesn't it?
Meanwhile, the Republican politicians will claim that they were undercut by domestic weaklings (Democrats) who kept pointing out how bad things were going in the Iraq War. And, of course, that perennial Republican whipping boy, the Liberal Press! Liberal Press! Liberal Press!
Here in the reality-based world, a big reason that military leaders in particular have lost an enormous amount of credibility with the public is that they keep making public statements that are obviously fake. A recent example, the 01/05/05 press briefing by Gen. Thomas Metz, on the situation in Iraq.
One part of Metz's briefing has been widely quoted:
We continue to deal with violence and lawlessness in some areas of Iraq. But in Iraq's 18 provinces, 14 currently are prepared and secured enough to hold elections. The independent electoral commission of Iraq is leading the way in an effort to operate approximately 9,000 polling centers. And the Iraqi police services and Iraqi National Guard are focused on providing security, with the Multinational Corps Iraq providing technical assistance and quick reaction forces as required.
One little thing the general forgot to mention here, though, as a number of reporters have noted, among them Robert Fisk (Fear and Voting in Baghdad Seattle Post-Intelligencer 01/14/05, also at CommonDreams.org):
The American generals -- with a unique mixture of mendacity and hope amid the insurgency --are now saying that only four of Iraq's 18 provinces may not be able to "fully" participate in the elections. Good news. Until you sit down with the population statistics and realize -- as the generals, of course, all know -- that those four provinces contain more than half the population of Iraq.
Molly Ivins also noticed (Leading by misleading WorkingforChange.com 01/11/05):
I wouldn't go calling anyone a liar, but as we say in our quaint Texas fashion, this administration is stuffed with people who are on a first-name basis with the bottom of the deck. They've been telling us only four out of the 18 provinces in Iraq will be too unsafe to vote in. Doesn't sound that bad, does it? Unless you happen to know that about 50 percent of the population lives in those four provinces.
And it's nice to hear that the Iraqi police and National Guard are "focused on providing security." At least when they aren't helping the resistance. How is that going? Robert Fisk again (Curbs leaving big holes in coverage about Iraq The Star [South Africa] 01/17/05, also at CommonDreams.org):
Rarely, if ever, has a war been covered by reporters in so distant and restricted a way. Several Western journalists simply do not leave their rooms while on station in Baghdad.
So grave are the threats to Western journalists that some television stations are talking of withdrawing their reporters and crews altogether. Amid an insurgency where Westerners - and many Arabs as well as other foreigners - are kidnapped and killed, reporting on this war is becoming close to impossible.
Not many British and American papers still cover stories in Baghdad in person, moving with trepidation through the streets of a city slowly being taken over by insurgents. ...
Checkpoints may be manned by policemen, but it is now unclear just who the cops are working for. US troops operating in and around Baghdad are now avoided by Western journalists, unless they are "embedded", as much as they are by Iraqis, because of the indiscipline with which they open fire on civilians on the least suspicion.
Gen. Metz, though, says:
[W]e refuse to be intimidated by the thugs intent on advancing their selfish, oppressive intent through terror, destruction, intimidation and murder. This tiny minority of thugs has only their selfish interest in mind instead of the interests of the Iraqi people. They are growing weaker, and the Iraqi people's fierce determination ensures that the thugs will not succeed.
Well, all right then! The following answer shows once again the military's focus on conventional war measures in claiming progress in a counterinsurgency war:
One of the measurements that I think shows the weakness is the insurgents' inability to maintain safe havens. And I think we all know Fallujah was the major safe haven that they were able to maintain. That was taken from them, as was the safe haven of Samarra and the potential safe havens of Thawra and Najaf and many other places.
So today he has no safe haven. But you're right; he continues to attack. And he is working for more and more spectacular attacks, which is the techniques of a terrorist, to intimidate and frighten the people. But he is weaker and cannot control neighborhoods and towns as he could a couple of months ago. So we believe that he is desperate. We are three weeks away from the elections, and he is making those desperate efforts to intimidate the people of Iraq.
For one thing, this is hardly accurate even in these terms. The US has been avoiding using ground transport between cities, at least in some areas, because the roads are that vulnerable to insurgent attacks. And if half the population live in areas where the security situation doesn't permit holding elections, it's hard to believe that there aren't quite a few neighborhoods and towns under the insurgents' effective control.
But the insurgency doesn't need to establish provisional governments in cities and towns to destabilize the occupation by showing the occupation authorities cannot provide security. And, unfortunately, by that measure things don't seem to be going so well.
It's amazing that the generals didn't learn more lessons from the famous "credibility gap" of the Vietnam War. But by blaming everything on spineless politicians and a weak-kneed public, many of them seem to have concluded that going out before the press and blowing smoke that is either transparently wrong as they say it, or gets discredited by events very quickly, is perfectly fine if they can just manage the media coverage a little more carefully.
And for years, they will ring their hands over the "credibility gap" (or whatever label it winds up with) during the Iraq War.
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