"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.
Given the exaggerated claims of the past two years about the capability of Iraqi forces, there is every reason to be cautious about the Bush administration's current claims.
But there are also signs of real improvement in the Iraqi forces: Bush eyes Iraq endgame by Peter Grier Christian Science Monitor 12/01/05. Grier writes:
Meanwhile, Bush's assessment that Iraqi forces have made substantial progress in recent months was backed up by at least one expert who has been critical of the training effort in the past.
A new report entitled "Iraqi Force Development" by Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, concludes that "very real progress is being made in many areas."
Iraqi forces have taken responsibility for security in several areas of Iraq, including roughly 87 square miles of Baghdad, notes the study.
Iraqi security forces now have responsibility for the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, among other locations.
Cordesman's paper is available online: Iraqi Force Development: Can Iraqi Forces Do the Job? by Anthony Cordesman with William Sullivan, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) 11/29/05. I've quoted Cordesman on this subject and other aspects of the Iraq War here a number of times. He supports the Bush policy to "stay the course" in Iraq. But, as the following quote will show, he's scarcely a flak for the administration:
There is broad agreement ...among virtually all analysts who have examined the way in which the US went to war in Iraq, and dealt with its Coalition allies and Iraqi exile groups, that the US did not properly prepare for stability and nation building operations, and failed to anticipate the threat of terrorism and insurgency.
The Department of Defense not only ignored the risk of terrorism and insurgency, it did little to realistically plan to create stability. It had no clear plans to secure government offices and maintain the process of governance. It was not organized and manned to provide local security and prevent looting, or seize exposed arms depots. The originaloffice charged with reconstruction – the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) -- was never given significant manpower and financial resources, and its head – General Jay Garner – was initially given a three-month appointment. The US planned to inherit stability, not achieve it, and to begin major force reductions within a few months following Saddam’s fall. The preservation or creation of effective Iraqi military, security, and police forces was never a serious part of the pre-war, wartime, or immediate postwar US planning effort.
It is also clear that the US and Coalition were slow to react as terrorism and insurgency became serious problems, and underestimated the scale of Iraqi resentment and hostility that occurred as a result of the invasion and the problems that followed. For all of these reasons, the Coalition efforts to shape, train, and equip Iraqi military and security forces need to be put in historical perspective. It was not until the spring of 2004 that the effort to create the Iraqi forces that both Iraq and the Coalition needed gained real urgency, and until then no guidance was given to shape the training program to meet the needs that were evolving in the field. (my emphasis)
I hope to post more later about this paper (which runs to 322 pages; it's not exactly a quick read). Cordesman makes clear that 2005 has seen some real improvement in the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces (army and police). He also takes a pragmatic rather than ideological view of the potential pitfalls:
This analysis documents positive trends, but also shows that Iraq, the US and its allies, and the world can “lose” the struggle in Iraq as well as win it. Such a defeat is not probable, but it is possible. There is no one variable that could produce such a “defeat,” and there is no agreed definition of what “victory” or “defeat” mean. A “defeat” could take the following forms:
* A war of attrition whose cost and casualties eventually meant the Bush Administration lost the public and Congressional support necessary to go on fighting.
* The open failure of US efforts to create effective Iraqi military, security, and police forces and any ability to phase down the US and MNF presence at an acceptable rate.
* A large-scale Iraqi civil war - where some combination of Arab Sunni versus Arab Shi'ite, Arab versus Kurd, secularist versus theocrat, or struggle for authoritarian rule made continuing the Coalition presence purposeless or untenable.
* The collapse of effective Iraqi governance because of divisions between Shi’ite, Sunni, and Kurd.
* The creation of a religious state without the pluralism and tolerance critical to a US definition of victory.
* The creation of open or de facto divisions in Iraq that allied the Iraqi Shiites with Iran and created the equivalent of a Shi’ite crescent divided from the Sunni part of the Arab and Islamic world.
* The continued failure of US aid and Iraqi economic development to meet the needs and expectations of the people and the destabilizing impact of long-term, large-scale unemployment.
* The failure to meet popular expectations regarding personal security, reductions in crime, availability of key services like water and electricity, and education and medical care.
* Demands by an Iraqi government that US forces leave on less than friendly terms.
* Domestic US political conditions that lead to the enforcement of some “exit strategy” that made the US leave before a stable Iraq can be created.
* The isolation of the US from its regional and other allies, most remaining members of the Coalition and the support or tolerance of the UN. (my emphasis)
That ninth possibility - "Demands by an Iraqi government that US forces leave on less than friendly terms" - is not so distant a possibility as those following the war primarily through TV news might think. The recent Cairo conference signaled that the US may very well face that situation.
Whether the improvement that has been achieved is sufficient to allow a major reduction in American ground troops in Iraq will become evident over the next few months.
"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05
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