Iraq War: It's not as though they weren't warned ...

"I think we are winning.  Okay?  I think we're definitely winning.  I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05

"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.

Some people were trying to be realistic about postwar challenges.  But Bush and his crew didn't care to listen: Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario by Dr. Conrad C. Crane and Dr. W. Andrew Terrill (Feb 2003).  This was just a few weeks before the US invaded Iraq.

In October 2002, the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, in coordination with the Office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff/G-3, initiated a study to analyze how American and coalition forces can best address the requirements that will necessarily follow operational victory in a war with Iraq. The objectives of the project were to determine and analyze probable missions for military forces in a post-Saddam Iraq; examine associated challenges; and formulate strategic recommendations for transferring responsibilities to coalition partners or civilian organizations, mitigating local animosity, and facilitating overall mission accomplishment in the war against terrorism.

Yes, that's right. Even in Rummy's own department there was some serious thought being given to this.  But we had Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress (INC).  We didn't need no stinkin' postwar plans!

Here are the summary conclusions to the report:

To be successful, an occupation such as that contem-plated after any hostilities in Iraq requires much detailed interagency planning, many forces, multi-year military commitment, and a national commitment to nation-building.

Nation-building, multi-year military commitment, many forces ... I guess now we have a pretty concrete idea of what that means.

Recent American experiences with post-conflict operations have generally featured poor planning, problems with relevant military force structure, and difficulties with a handover from military to civilian responsibility.

Why break up a streak like that?

To conduct their share of the essential tasks that must be accomplished to reconstruct an Iraqi state, military forces will be severely taxed in military police, civil affairs, engineer, and transportation units, in addition to possible severe security difficulties.

Severe security problems?  Like roadside bombs, RPGs, and well-armed and massive resistance, suicide bombers.  Nah ... they're gonna welcome us with open arms.  They're going to strow flowers in the path of our troops and sing happy songs to them.

The administration of an Iraqi occupation will be complicated by deep religious, ethnic, and tribal differences which dominate Iraqi society.

Actually, there is reason to think that this concept, which was promoted by the exiles of the INC, was greatly exaggerated.  But US policy has made that a self-fulfilling prophecy.

U.S. forces may have to manage and adjudicate conflicts among Iraqis that they can barely comprehend.

Gee, if we had been actively promoting a pool of qualified Arabic-speakers, it might have helped a tiny bit with that comprehension.  But who needs a bunch of A-rab speakers?  We got the super-weapons and we gone kick their hineys!  Only wimps worry about talkin' to these A- rabs.  Hail, if they want to talk to us, let 'em learn English!

An exit strategy will require the establishment of political stability, which will be difficult to achieve given Iraq’s fragmented population, weak political institutions, and propensity for rule by violence.

Exit strategy... exit strategy...  That would be, like, finding a way to get out after we toppled Saddam and his statues?  Wow, who would have ever thought of that?  And they have a lot of violence in their politics?  Really?  Nah, that can't be true.  We don't need to worry about stuff like that.

Now here's a thought (my emphasis):

If the war is rapid with fewcivilian casualties, the occupation will probably be characterized by an initial honeymoon period during which the United States will reap the benefits of ridding the population of a brutal dictator. Nevertheless, most Iraqis and most other Arabs will probably assume that the United States intervened in Iraq for its own reasons and not to liberate the population.

Long-term gratitude is unlikely and suspicion of U.S. motives will increase as the occupation continues. A force initially viewed as liberators can rapidly be relegated to the status of invaders should an unwelcome occupation continue for a prolonged time. Occupation problems may be especially acute if the United States must implement the bulk of the occupation itself rather than turn these duties over to a postwar international force. Regionally, the occupation will be viewed with great skepticism, which may only be overcome by the population’s rapid progress toward a secure and prosperous way of life.  

But, what about all the good news there was bound to be?  Couldn't they have talked about the good news?

If the campaign to eliminate Saddam is short and involves few civilian casualties, it is likely that U.S. troops will be greeted with enthusiasm by Iraqi citizens who have had the burden of Saddam’s tyranny lifted from their shoulders. Nevertheless, the United States should not expect that occupation forces will be protected by a bottomless well of gratitude. Most Iraqis will assume that the United States has intervened in their country for its own political purposes and not to liberate them from oppression, an argument that is not terribly difficult to make.  Indeed some sources, such as the London-based Economist, suggest that the Iraqi population already appears to distrust U.S. motives for an invasion, assuming such an act would be initiated primarily to help Israel’s strategic situation and to dominate Iraqi oil. Major postwar improvements in the quality of daily life of the population may soften such concerns, but they are unlikely to eliminate them. (my emphasis)

There was a different version of the paper with the shortened title Reconstructing Iraq: Challenges and Missions for MilitaryForces in a Post-Conflict Scenario, also dated February 2003.  But it no longer seems to be available at that Army War College Web site.  It's interesting to see the corresponding paragraph in the withdrawn (?) version (my emphasis):

Initial Iraqi gratitude for the destruction of the Saddam dictatorship is likely under most circumstances, but many Iraqis will nevertheless assume that the U.S. intervened for its own purposes and not primarily to help them. U.S. forces therefore need to complete occupation tasks as quickly as possible and must also help improve the daily life of ordinary Iraqis before popular goodwill dissipates. Even the most benevolent occupation will confront increasing Arab nationalist and religious concerns as time passes. The possibility of terrorism being directed against occupation forces probably will increase over time, and even a small number of terrorists can be expected to create serious problems for an occupation force. A popular uprising against U.S. troops is much less likely than a terrorist campaign, but is still possible if the occupation is poorly managed.

Returning to the currently available version (my emphasis):

Should democracy or even pluralistic political stability be established in Iraq, this would be a tremendous achievement of which all could be proud. Nevertheless, U.S. policymakers sometimes assume that a democratic government will also be friendly to U.S. policies in the Middle East. This cannot be assumed in the case of Iraq. At the present time, the only Arab leader who has been elected in a fair election is Palestinian President Yassir Arafat, who is clearly not the favored U.S. choice. Likewise, in the Gulf, Islamists have done extremely well in recent legislative elections in Bahrain. The Kuwaiti parliament has a strong Islamist grouping, and free elections in other states could duplicate this situation. Free elections in the Arab world seldom produce pro-Western governments.

And the Shi'a-dominated interim government elected in January doesn't have a particular pro-Western cast to it.  But they still need the US forces to defend themselves against the insurgents, at this point.

This prediction played out pretty much as written:

It is doubtful that the Iraqi population would welcome the leadership of the various exile groups after Saddam’s defeat. Many Iraqis are reported as hostile to the external Iraqi opposition groups despite the fact that a post-Saddam power struggle has yet to take place. According to former CIA analyst Judith Yaphe, "[Iraqi exile leader Ahmad] Chalabi and the INC [Iraqi National Congress] are known quantities and extremely unpopular in Iraq."

So has this one:

In addressing the needs of postwar Iraq, there may also be considerable domestic pressure to limit the duration and extent of the U.S. occupation. Large Reserve and National Guard mobilizations and deployments may be necessary to help staff the occupation. Regular Army units would face the need to train their troops in a very different set of skills required for occupation duties as opposed to warfighting. In particular, young soldiers must be trained to interact with large numbers of foreign civilians as something similar to a constabulary force. They must also learn that, unlike in warfighting, force is often the last resort of the occupation soldier. Moreover, while troops are serving on occupation duty, many of their warfighting skills could deteriorate, requiring them to undergo a period of retraining when they return to more traditional duties.

This one also has come true, although we'd have to say the last sentence now looks like quite an understatement:

Although Iraq is one of the most repressivecountries in the world, it is not a disarmed society. Unlike a variety of other dictatorships, many Iraqi citizens have access to firearms. One of Saddam’s most common ways of rewarding loyal tribal sheikhs is to allow them to arm their followers.  Moreover, a variety of militias in Iraq have been equipped with weapons as part of a regime defense strategy. These weapons can become a problem following the war.

Maybe Rummy and Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney should have spent a little time with this study:

Another danger of occupation is that terrorists might generate strategies to alienate Iraqis who are initially neutral toward a U.S. occupation. In Lebanon, for example, militants would occasionally hide weapons in mosques to tempt Israeli occupation troops into conducting searches of these sites. The sight of a mosque being ransacked by foreign, non-Muslim soldiers is offensive to many believers, no matter how good the reasons for such a response might be. As a result, the Israelis further alienated the population.  Such actions are particularly problematic when no weapons are found. Moreover, damage created by a search remains to be viewed by devout believers after the troops depart.

Also, any expansion of terrorism or guerrilla activity against U.S. troops in Iraq will undoubtedly require a forceful American response. Such U.S actions could involve a dramatic escalation in the numbers of arrests, interrogations, and detentions of local Iraqis. While such actions do improve security and force protection, they seldom win friends among the local citizenry. Individuals alienated from the U.S. occupation could well have their hostility deepened and increased by these acts. Thus, a small number of terrorists could reasonably choose to attack U.S. forces in the hope that they can incite an action- reaction cycle that will enhance their cause and increase their numbers.

Finally is the question of suicide bombers. As noted, suicide bombings were popularized as an anti-occupation tactic by Lebanese Shi’ites fighting to rid their country of an Israeli army in the mid-1980s.89 Since then, the tactic has been used by Arab radicals to help equalize the struggle between a heavily-armed Israeli force and a terrorist group operating within a civilian population.

One thing they didn't anticipate in this study is the damage that could be done if the US started practicing criminal, sadistic torture on Iraqi's arrested in mass sweeps, especially if photos were to get out of, say, naked and handcuffed prisoners being menaced by dogs (which are considered more or less like rats in Iraq) or of prisoners stripped naked and being forced to crawl around on dog leashes, or something like that.

A mass uprising against occupation forces is unlikely in the early stages of any U.S. occupation of Iraq, probably up to at least the first year. Gratitude for the removal of Saddam Hussein and an uncertainty over the degree to which U.S. troops can be pushed are virtual guarantees of the limits to which even a restive population can reasonably be expected to adhere. After the first year, the possibility of  a serious uprising may increase should severe disillusionment set in and Iraqis begin to draw parallels between U.S. actions and historical examples of Western imperialism. (my emphasis)

I guess the estimates on the risks of the occupation was considerably better than Ahmad Chalabi's intelligence about "weapons of mass destruction."  Too bad the Bush administration - and the Congress - listened to one and not the other.

And yet another observation proves to have had great foresight:

The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious. Rehabilitating Iraq will consequently be an important challenge that threatens to consume huge amounts of resources without guaranteed results. The effort also threatens to be a long and painful process, but merely "toughing it out" is not a solution. The longer the occupation continues, the greater the potential that it will disrupt society rather than rehabilitate it. Thus, important and complex goals must be accomplished as quickly as possible. However, a withdrawal from Iraq under the wrong circumstances could leave it an unstable failed state, serving as a haven for terrorism and a center of regional insecurity or danger to its neighbors. The premature departure of U.S. troops could also result in civil war.

And this one, too (my emphasis):

Additionally, the haphazard and ad-hoc nature of civil-military organization and planning in Afghanistan has made many NGOs and IOs wary and hesitant to deal with the American military again. Some have been especially critical of what they perceive as the manipulation of humanitarian aid for political advantage, and a blurring of roles between NGOs and special operations forces, particularly those involved in civil affairs. The civilian agencies feel that if they become identified with military agendas their utility will be lessened and their personnel endangered.

I've used sarcasm in this post to emphasize how frivolous, arrogant and irresponsible much of the Bush administration's approch to postwar planning for Iraq was.  But we can now see the very real consequences of those failures.  Americans and Iraqis are dying every day because of them.