War In Iraq (Strategy and History)

War in Iraq

This volume brings together a group of essays on all phases of the Iraq War: both U.S.-led major combat operations to defeat the Ba’athist regime as well as efforts to reconstruct the country and defeat the insurgency. The chapters were written by some of the leading scholars on the Iraq war, many of whom have practical first-hand experience, with a conclusion by leading U.S. strategic thinker Eliot Cohen. It is also the first work on the Iraq War to incorporate an understanding of the Iraqi side, based on a systematic analysis of captured Iraqi archives. This volume will be of great interest to students of the Iraq War, small wars and insurgencies, international security and strategic studies in general. Thomas G. Mahnken currently serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. At the time this book was written, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, and a Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. He is author/editor of nine books, including the forthcoming Routledge Strategic Studies Reader (2007). Thomas A. Keaney is the Executive Director of the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He is author/editor of six books.

Series: strategy and history Series Editors: Colin Gray and Williamson Murray ISSN: 1473-6403

This new series will focus on the theory and practice of strategy. Following Clausewitz, strategy has been understood to mean the use made of force, and the threat of the use of force, for the ends of policy. This series is as interested in ideas as in historical cases of grand strategy and military strategy in action. All historical periods, near and past, and even future, are of interest. In addition to original monographs, the series will from time to time publish edited reprints of neglected classics as well as collections of essays 1 Military Logistics and Strategic Performance Thomas M. Kane 2 Strategy for Chaos Revolutions in military affairs and the evidence of history Colin Gray 3 The Myth of Inevitable US Defeat in Vietnam C. Dale Walton 4 Astropolitik Classical geopolitics in the space age Everett C. Dolman 5 Anglo-American Strategic Relations and the Far East, 1933–1939 Imperial crossroads Greg Kennedy 6 Pure Strategy Power and principle in the space and information age Everett C. Dolman 7 The Red Army, 1918–1941 From vanguard of world revolution to US ally Earl F. Ziemke

8 Britain and Ballistic Missile Defence, 1942–2002 Jeremy Stocker 9 The Nature of War in the Information Age Clausewitzian future David J. Lonsdale 10 Strategy as Social Science Thomas Schelling and the nuclear age Robert Ayson 11 Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies Disguising innovation Terry Pierce 12 The Fog of Peace and War Planning Military and strategic planning under uncertainty Edited by Talbot C. Imlay and Monica Duffy Toft 13 US Army Intervention Policy and Army Innovation From Vietnam to Iraq Richard Lock-Pullan 14 German Disarmament After World War I The diplomacy of international arms inspection 1920–1931 Richard J. Shuster 15 Strategy and History Essays on theory and practice Colin S. Gray 16 The German 1918 Offensives A case study in the operational level of war David T. Zabecki 17 Special Operations and Strategy From World War II to the war on terrorism James D. Kiras 18 Science, Strategy and War The strategic theory of John Boyd Frans P.B. Osinga 19 US Defense Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom Military innovation and the new American way of war, 1973–2003 Robert R. Tomes

20 US Special Forces and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam Military innovation and institutional failure, 1961–63 Christopher K. Ives 21 War in Iraq Planning and execution Edited by Thomas G. Mahnken and Thomas A. Keaney

War in Iraq Planning and execution

Edited by Thomas G. Mahnken and Thomas A. Keaney

First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2007 Selection and editorial matter, Thomas G. Mahnken and Thomas A. Keaney; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data War in Iraq: planning and execution / Thomas G. Mahnken and Thomas A. Keaney. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Iraq War, 2003–Campaigns. 2. Insurgency–Iraq. 3. Postwar reconstruction–Iraq. I. Mahnken, Thomas G., 1965–II. Keaney, Thomas A. DS79.764.U6W37 2007 956.70443–dc22 ISBN 0-203-08895-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-42075-X (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-08895-6 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-42075-4 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-08895-1 (ebk)

2006034194

To the memory of Philip Merrill

Contents

List of figures List of contributors Acknowledgments Introduction

xi xii xviii 1

THOMAS A. KEANEY AND THOMAS G. MAHNKEN

PART I

Defeating the regime and occupying Iraq

1 America’s anabasis

7

9

ISAIAH WILSON

2

Iraqi military effectiveness

22

KEVIN M. WOODS, WITH MICHAEL R. PEASE, MARK E. STOUT, WILLIAMSON MURRAY, AND JAMES G. LACEY

3

The Afghan model in northern Iraq

52

RICHARD B. ANDRES

4

Deep attack against Iraq

69

RICHARD B. ANDRES

5

Doomed execution

97

KEVIN M. WOODS, WITH MICHAEL R. PEASE, MARK E. STOUT, WILLIAMSON MURRAY, AND JAMES G. LACEY

6 Mission not accomplished NORA BENSAHEL

129

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Contents

PART II

Reconstructuring Iraq and countering the insurgency 7 The Iraqi insurgency, 2003–2006

145 147

AHMED HASHIM

8 The first battle for Fallujah

163

CARTER MALKASIAN

9 Counterinsurgency in Karbala

187

PETER R. MANSOOR

10 Civil affairs engagement in Iraq

198

JOHN R. BALLARD

11 The U.S. Army and counterinsurgency in Iraq

206

KALEV I. SEPP

12 Rediscovering the way of Lawrence

227

ISAIAH WILSON

Conclusion: historian’s leapfrog and the war in Iraq

246

ELIOT A. COHEN

Index

257

Figures

1.1 1.2 3.1 12.1

Evolution of the CFLCCC CONPLAN and OPLAN Phase IV: concept and nesting Attacking the enemy across the Green Line AO North First 30 Days

16 18 58 234

Contributors

Richard B. Andres is a Professor of Political and Security Studies at the U.S. Air Force’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. His current research focuses on the use of air power and new cyber technology in the recent wars in Serbia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. His most recent publication appeared in the June 2006 edition of The Journal of Strategic Studies. Colonel John R. Ballard is currently assigned as the chief of staff of the combating terrorism directorate within the office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. His office specializes in special operations and low intensity conflict issues pertaining to the war on terrorism. His previous assignments included command of the Marine Corp’s 4th Civil Affairs Group in Iraq during operation Iraqi Freedom. Colonel Ballard earlier served as a Professor of Joint Military Operations at the U.S. Naval War College and as the Director of Plans and Policy on the Marine Forces Pacific Staff in Camp Smith, Hawaii. Colonel Ballard is a 1979 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He holds a Master’s degree from California State University and a Doctorate from Catholic University. He is the author of two books and numerous professional journal articles. Nora Bensahel is a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, specializing in military strategy and doctrine. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Security Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Her recent work has examined stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, post-conflict reconstruction, military coalitions, and multilateral intervention. Her recent publications include The Counterterror Coalitions: Cooperation with Europe, NATO, and the European Union (RAND, 2003) and The Future Security Environment in the Middle East (RAND 2004). She has held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. She is a member of the Executive Board of Women in International Security, and frequently appears as a commentator in the news media. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University.

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Eliot A. Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University and founding director of the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies there. A graduate of Harvard College, he received his Ph.D. in Political Science at Harvard in 1982. He subsequently taught there and at the Department of Strategy, in the Naval War College. After serving on the policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he came to SAIS in 1990. He has written books and articles on a variety of military and national security-related subjects, including, most recently Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (Free Press, 2002). He has written or co-authored other books including Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War (Free Press, 1990), and directed the U.S. Air Force’s official multi-volume study of the Gulf War, The Gulf War Air Power Survey (Government Printing Office, 1993). He has an extensive background in executive education, to include programs for general officers in the American armed forces and senior executives in the private sector. He has served as an intelligence officer in the United States Army Reserve, and as a member of the Defense Policy Advisory Board of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Ahmed S. Hashim is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies in the Naval War College. He specializes in Middle Eastern and South Asian strategic issues, with a particular emphasis on Iraqi and Iranian affairs. He explores functional security issues such as the Revolution in Military Affairs, Asymmetric Warfare, and Terrorism. Previously he worked at the Center for Naval Analyses for four years on issues such as the Revolution in Military Affairs and Asymmetric Warfare. Between 1994 and 1996 he was Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Strategic Studies in Washington, DC, where he worked on Middle East security issues. He was a Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London between 1993 and 1994 where he wrote a monograph titled The Crisis of the Iranian State. He received his Ph.D and M.Sc from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his B.Sc. from Warwick University in Coventry, England. His latest publications are “Saddam Husayn and Civil–Military Relations in Iraq: The Quest for Legitimacy and Power” (Middle East Journal, Winter 2003); “The World According to Usama Bin Laden” (Naval War College Review, Autumn 2001); “Iraq’s Chaos” (Boston Review, October 2004); “Iraq: From Insurgency to Civil War” (Current History, January 2005). Forthcoming studies include: “Al Qaida’s Grand Strategy” (Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq, Cornell University Press, Fall 2005). Thomas A. Keaney is the Executive Director of the Foreign Policy Institute at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. He also serves as the Executive Director of the Merrill Center for Strategic Studies and Senior Adjunct Professor of Strategic Studies at the school. Until 1998 he was a Professor of Military Strategy at

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the National War College, Washington, DC, and Director of its core courses on military thought and strategy. During a career in the U.S. Air Force, he served in positions including: Associate Professor of History at the U.S. Air Force Academy; planner on the Air Staff; forward air controller in Vietnam; and B-52 squadron commander. He retired as a colonel in 1991. He is author of Strategic Bombers and Conventional Weapons: Air Power Options (National Defense University Press, 1983) and (with Eliot A. Cohen) Revolution in Warfare?: Air Power in the Persian Gulf (Naval Institute Press, 1995). His other publications include (edited with Barry Rubin) US Allies in a Changing World (Frank Cass, 2000) and Armed Forces in the Middle East, Politics and Strategy (Frank Cass, 2002). He is a graduate of the National War College. He holds a B.S. from the U.S. Air Force Academy and M.A. degree and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan. Thomas G. Mahnken currently serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. At the time this book was written, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University and a Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. He served on the staff of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, in the Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment, and as a member of the Gulf War Air Power Survey, commissioned by the Air Force to examine the performance of U.S. forces during the war with Iraq. He is the author of Uncovering Ways of War: U.S. Intelligence and Foreign Military Innovation, 1918–1941 (Cornell University Press, 2002), of Technology and the American Way of War, 1945–2005 (Columbia University Press, 2007) and (with James R. FitzSimonds) of The Limits of Transformation: Officer Attitudes toward the Revolution in Military Affairs (Naval War College Press, 2003). He is editor (with Joseph A. Maiolo) of Strategic Studies: A Reader (Routledge, 2007), (with Emily O. Goldman) of The Information Revolution in Military Affairs in Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) and (with Richard K. Betts) of Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (Frank Cass, 2003). He is also the co-editor of the Journal of Strategic Studies. He was a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Southern California with Bachelor’s degrees in History and International Relations (with highest honors) and a Certificate in Defense and Strategic Studies and holds M.A. degree and Ph.D. in International Affairs from SAIS. Carter Malkasian is a civilian advisor assigned to the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) from the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research and development center in Alexandria, Virginia. He deployed with I MEF to Iraq from March to May 2003, February 2004 to February 2005, and February 2006 to June 2006. His publications include: “The Role of Perceptions and Political Reform in Counterinsurgency: The Case of Western Iraq, 2005–2006” in Small Wars and Insurgencies (Routledge, volume 17, issue 3,

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2006); “Toward a Better Understanding of Attrition: The Korean and Vietnam Wars’ in The Journal of Military History (2004); and A History of Modern Wars of Attrition (Praeger, 2002). He completed his Doctorate in the History of War at Oxford University. Colonel Peter Mansoor, has served in a variety of command and staff positions in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East during his career. He commanded the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division in Iraq and Germany from July 1, 2003 to June 30, 2004, to include 13 months in combat in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Under his command, the 1st Brigade Combat Team was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism in combat during the three-month period leading up to the transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on June 28, 2004. Previously he served as G-3 (Operations, Plans, and Training Officer) of the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Hood, Texas, from 2001–2002, a period which included multiple deployments in support of homeland defense in the wake of terrorist attacks on 9/11. He commanded the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry from 1999–2001, to include a deployment to Kuwait in support of Operation Desert Spring and two counter-drug deployments along the U.S.–Mexican border in support of Joint Task Force 6. He has served on the Joint Staff as the Special Assistant to the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy (J-5). A distinguished graduate and recipient of a B.S. degree from the United States Military Academy in 1982, he holds a M.A. and Doctorate in Military History from The Ohio State University and a Master’s degree in of Strategic Studies from the Army War College. Kalev Sepp is an Assistant Professor in the Naval Postgraduate School’s Department of Defense Analysis and a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer who served in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America for 24 years. He has direct experience in counter-insurgency, urban warfare, psychological operations and civil affairs, drug interdiction, interagency coordination, nuclear-chemical-biological defense, and strategy formulation. As an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy, he taught courses on insurgency and civil wars, and military and international history. He was also a resident scholar at Harvard University, and a commentator on military affairs on National Public Radio. Most recently, he co-wrote an official study of U.S. Army special operations in the Afghanistan expedition. Kalev Sepp has earned degrees from The Citadel (B.A. in English, 1975), the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (M.M.A.S., 1992), and Harvard University (A.M. in History, 1994, and Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History, 2002). Major Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III, United States Army, is an Academy Professor with the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. He is an Army aviator, military historian, and strategist, and is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced

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Military Studies (SAMS), a postgraduate program that focused on the strategic and operational levels of war policy and planning. His portfolio includes military command in Germany and the Balkans, and research and publication in the areas of public policy, security and defense strategy, conventional arms procurement and sales (force modernization), and professional military education. He holds a B.S. in International Relations from the United States Military Academy, Master’s degrees in Public Policy and Government from Cornell University, Master’s degrees in Military Arts and Sciences from the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College and School of Advanced Military Studies, and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. Major Wilson is a combat veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he served as the chief of war plans for the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Northern Iraq, and later upon return from Iraq as the Division’s chief architect for the 101st Airborne reorganization under Army Transformation. Ike is currently serving with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as an International Affairs Fellow-In Residence (2005–2006) where he is writing a book on his war planning experiences and directing The Beyond War Project, a multi-year, interdisciplinary and multi-agency collaborative research initiative dedicated to the reformation of the American way of war commensurate with the post-9/11 security environment. Major Wilson is married to Lauren Ann Lee of Toronto, Canada. They have three children, David, Spenser, and Mae. Kevin Woods is a research staff member with the Joint Advanced Warfighting Program at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He has led the Iraqi Perspectives Project since its inception in the Fall of 2003 and continues to supervise research into the former regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Woods retired from the U.S. Army in 2004 after completing many worldwide operational and joint assignments including Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mr. Woods received his Bachelor’s degree from Auburn University and a Master’s degree from the U.S. Naval War College. He is currently working toward a Ph.D. in Military History. Other contributing authors on the Iraqi Perspectives Project: Professor Williamson Murray is an adjunct research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is currently the Class of 1957 Distinguished Visiting Professor of History at the U.S. Naval Academy and a Professor Emeritus of History at Ohio State University. Professor Murray is a widely published historian who has taught at the Air War College, the United States Military Academy, the Naval War College, and the Marine Corps University. Professor Murray has a Bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. from Yale University. Jim Lacey is a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is a retired U.S. Army officer with extensive experience as a researcher, business writer, and journalist. He served as an embedded reporter with the 101st Airborne Division during the opening phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mr. Lacey is a graduate of The Citadel. Mike Pease is a member of

Contributors

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the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is a retired U.S. Navy officer with experience in joint operations, electronic warfare, and defense arms cooperation. Mr. Pease has a Bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a Master’s degree from the Naval War College. Mark Stout is a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He has previously held a variety of positions at the Department of Defense, Department of State, and Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Stout has a Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a Master’s degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is presently a Doctoral candidate with the University of Leeds. Thomas G. Mahnken and Thomas A. Keaney Washington, D.C. August 2006

Acknowledgments

This book grew out of a conference on “U.S. Military Operations in Iraq: Planning, Conduct, and Occupation,” which was sponsored by the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) and organized and conducted by the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at The Paul H. Nitze’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC on November 2, 2005. Many of the chapters in this volume originated in presentations at that conference. We sought out other contributors in an effort to round out the volume by addressing topics that did not receive enough attention in the original conference, such as the role of air power and the Iraqi side of the war and the insurgency that followed it. Earlier versions of Chapters 3, 4 and 7 previously appeared in The Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 4 (October 2006). Chapters 2 and 5 first appeared in Kevin M. Woods, with Michael R. Pease, Mark E. Stout, Williamson Murray, and James G. Lacey, Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam’s Senior Leadership (Norfolk, VA: U.S. Joint Forces Command, 2006). This project, undertaken under the sponsorship of U.S. Joint Forces Command, made use of dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi military and political leaders and thousands of official Iraqi documents to analyze the forces and motivations that drove Iraqi decisions and actions in the Iraq War of 2003. Kevin Woods was project leader and principal author of these and other chapters of the report. Co-authors were James G. Lacey, Williamson Murray, Michael R. Pease, and Mark E. Stout. All are presented here with permission. This book would not have been possible without SSI’s sponsorship of the original conference. In particular, we would like to thank SSI’s Director, Professor Douglas Lovelace, its Director of Academic Engagement, Dr. Dallas D. Owens, and Research Professor, Dr. W. Andrew Terrill. Their cooperation in the conference and in supporting the publication of papers were essential parts of this project. At SAIS, this volume could not have been completed without the assistance of Courtney Mata, the Merrill Center Program Administrator. Ms Mata not only managed all aspects of the conference but also took on the task of formatting and proofing this entire volume, which went far beyond the call of duty. Her efficiency, initiative and good cheer have been invaluable in completing this project, and we appreciate this opportunity to thank her publicly.

Acknowledgments

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Finally, we wish to thank the Philip Merrill Center and its Director, Eliot Cohen, for giving us the latitude and encouragement to pursue this project. The Center’s commitment to excellence in research, writing, and teaching has provided a superb atmosphere in which to work. It is to the Center’s founding sponsor, Mr. Philip Merrill, who died this year, that we dedicate this volume. Thomas G. Mahnken and Thomas A. Keaney Washington, DC August 2006

Introduction Thomas A. Keaney and Thomas G. Mahnken

A book on a war still underway must accept a number of limitations. Many of its aspects remain secret or unknowable. More broadly, we lack the perspective necessary to judge which events or issues will retain their importance in the longer term. Yet the value of understanding more about the war in Iraq, underway for more than three years as these words are written, argues for analysis, imperfect though it may be, of what has occurred. The war’s outcome is far from clear at this point, with even its name being uncertain, beyond the term “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Analysis of the war has nevertheless begun both within and outside of the U.S. and allied military forces, and this volume seeks to add to that examination. The book has as its focus the planning and execution of U.S. and coalition military operations from 2003 until the summer of 2006. Its chapters focus on the military aspects of the war rather than the reasons for it or the debate in the United States or abroad about its rationale or prosecution. That said, our scope extends well beyond the actions of the U.S. Defense Department. As the individual chapters make clear, an understanding of warfare in Iraq requires a clear understanding of the several elements of national power. The authors of the chapters in this volume bring a great deal of credibility to their analyses. Most are, or have been, active duty military officers, many of whom served in Iraq in planning or operational positions, and thus speak with first hand experience. And although their criticisms are often severe, they include specific recommendations of what systems need adjustment and suggestions for undertaking those adjustments in doctrine and planning. Although this book’s thirteen chapters look at a number of aspects of the war, the present volume’s scope is nowhere complete. First, excluding the two chapters on the Saddam Hussein regime’s planning and execution of the 2003 Iraq War and the chapter on the Iraqi insurgency, attention is directed mainly on actions of the U.S. Army. Although coalition forces figure in the chapter on operations in Karbala, there is otherwise no consideration of British or other allied forces. The chapters by Richard Andres deal with the employment of air power, particularly in Northern Iraq, but otherwise this book focuses on the ground war. Finally, we recognize that perspectives on this war vary from province to province and from rotation to rotation, so any analysis must be seen

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with this limitation. For these reasons, readers will note differences of opinions and perspectives among the chapter authors. The book is organized chronologically into two parts, Defeating the Regime and Occupying Iraq and Reconstructing Iraq and Countering the Insurgency. However, and inevitably, each chapter contains elements that transcend each of these periods and address one or more themes. The first and most common theme and item of criticism is the failure of planning: the failure to anticipate the next steps after the fall of the regime and to recognize the resulting insurgency. LTC Isaiah Wilson makes the failure to plan beyond major military operations, neglecting what he terms Phase IV, the central topic of his first chapter. Wilson points out that the campaign plan, which was directed toward combat operations to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, stopped well short of dealing with any sort of reconstruction effort. Wilson attributes this failure to a propensity of American planners toward “the methodical battle syndrome” a trait ever less applicable in the new form of warfare that American forces face. Nora Bensahel cites the same lack of planning for the post-major combat operations, but identifies assumptions made by the U.S. political leadership as the main failing. To Bensahel, the assumptions that coalition forces would be greeted as liberators and that the Iraqi government would continue to function obviated any need to plan for a major reconstruction or occupation effort. Additionally, she cites the lack of interagency cooperation that hampered the establishment and operation of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) as fundamental flaws in the ability of the CPA to function. Bensahel would have the military take a more active role in stabilization and reconstruction in the post-conflict phase, even though that would involve what are typically thought of as civilian tasks. The chapters by Kevin Woods et al. provide a picture of the Iraqi command structure and the dysfunctional nature of its operation. The picture is fascinating in itself, but also shows how ignorance of the nature of the opposing military can lead to the mis-assessment of enemy actions. Woods, relying on numerous interviews with senior Iraqi leaders and on Iraqi documents, gives details on two vital aspects of the nature of the Iraqi Army: the effect of its emphasis on regime survival and population control, not war fighting; and the climate of fear that pervaded the senior officer corps, leading to a poorly motivated and poorly coordinated fighting force. The picture is of an army whose commanders did not trust one another, lied in their combat reporting, and who remained generally unaware of the actions of the coalition forces they faced. Saddam Hussein himself is shown as just as ignorant of the strength, direction, and success of the coalition attack until it was far too late to respond in any coherent manner. Richard Andres addresses the role of air power in the war in several aspects. Drawing heavily on the research of Woods et al on the brittle nature of the Iraqi high command and its climate of fear and suspicion, Andres details how coalition air forces’ concentration on the brittle command and control structure, along with key individuals and locations, unhinged the Ba’athist regime. He links the reports of Iraqi leaders avoiding their offices and communications centers

Introduction

3

because of fear of being targeted with the effects of a paralyzed Iraqi Army capable of only days-old battlefield reporting. Andres in addition points to what he describes as an invisible cyber war that began as early as 2002, targeting the Iraqi political elites and military leadership. The tools of these attacks – faxes, emails and phone calls urging officers to stage a coup, commanders to surrender their units, or other cooperation with coalition forces – proved particularly effective on an Iraqi command structure already in the grip of fear under the tight control of Saddam Hussein. Andres shows how some of the first-order effects, such as a drastic tightening of control by security forces and replacement of commanders, had the second-order effects of further reducing the willingness and ability of military commanders to operate in the face of the coalition attack. In an earlier chapter, Andres enters the debate of the relative effectiveness of air and ground power heavily on the side of air power. In his view, the use of air delivered precision weapons, working in coordination with Special Operations Forces (SOF) and lightly armed indigenous forces, was in many ways a replay of the 2001 experience in Afghanistan. Andres discusses the debate and conditions that led to the use of aircraft, SOF, and Kurdish forces, their success, and the future efficacy of employing local forces in place of U.S. land forces. Whether the hollowed out Iraqi Army provided a true test of the “Afghan model” and how successful the air power, SOF, and indigenous forces combination would be fare against a well trained regular army are, as Andres admits, open questions, but this experience in Northern Iraq is sure to take its place alongside the Afghan experience in the continuing discussion of the nature of future combat and the air and ground systems that will support it. Several authors look at the source, conditions and growth of the insurgency. The Woods et al chapter finds no evidence of a plan by Saddam Hussein’s regime to transition to guerilla warfare. By contrast, the Ba’athists appear to have thought of nothing more than remaining in power right through the collapse of the bureaucracy, government, and army. Bensahel and Wilson amply demonstrate how the power vacuum in the summer of 2003 and beyond as well as heavy-handed occupation policies made fertile ground for an insurgency’s growth. The most complete assessment of the insurgency comes in the chapter by Ahmed Hashim, who finds the roots of what he sees as an inevitable clash in Iraq’s twentieth-century history. Hashim points to an insurgency launched by the previously privileged but now dispossessed Sunni Arabs as early as April 2003 in the Sunni Triangle, the area bounded by Baghdad, Ramadi and Fallujah. Hashim describes an insurgency begun based on politics, not religion, which became several, often unrelated, insurgencies with the addition of foreign fighters, youth angered by occupation conditions and policies, and in combination with actions by a politically active clergy. To Hashim, the Sunni Arabs, faced with the loss of their positions in society and under the leadership of a still-active Ba’ath Party, had all the motivation they needed to resist U.S. occupation. Foreign terrorist brought the tactic of suicide bombing and linked easily with local Sunni Arab Salafis who emerged in cities such as Ramadi, Fallujah, and Mosul.

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A further complexity in the country’s politics emerged with the rise of the Shi’ite insurgency in 2004, and Hashim identifies the key role that Muqtada alSadr played in this process. Here the combination of resistance to occupation, the recruitment of previously dispossessed Shi’ite youth into the Mahdi Army, and assistance from Iran have created what Hashim sees as all the elements necessary for civil war within Iraq. Several chapters address how to combat the Iraq insurgencies, based on the authors’ experiences and observations. Isaiah Wilson recounts his experiences in Northern Iraq around the city of Mosul in 2003–04; Peter Mansoor describes his experience as the commander of U.S. forces combating Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Karbala in the spring of 2004; Carter Malkasian analyzes combat in the Sunni city of Fallujah in the spring of 2004 and its aftermath; and John Ballard argues for the importance of a civil affairs component in dealing with insurgency based on his experience in Fallujah in late 2004 and his observations of civil affairs actions in other Iraqi cities. Wilson organizes his discussion of planning around four concepts, or planning observations, derived from his experience as chief of plans for the 101st Airborne Division under then-Major General David Petraeus. The four planning observations become Wilson’s strategy for counterinsurgency. These observations include, first, determine the situation being faced, by which he describes as a post-modern age warfare in which the aim must include creating a new regime, not just removing the old one. Second, the military command must organize according to the mission; in this case it meant bringing in military personnel who were subject matter experts on the local culture and conditions and not just adept on military planning. Third, the military effort had to focus on establishing an efficient public administration, or state building, to deliver the goods to the local population. And, finally, he cautions that the strategy requires patience in building relationships in order to develop trust and new sources of intelligence. Peter Mansoor’s experience in Karbala outlines the several stages of combating an insurgency, in line with Wilson’s experience, but in Mansoor’s case it began with an intense period of combat. Mansoor had first to break the Mahdi Army’s hold on the city of Karbala. For these actions Mansoor emphasizes the value of firepower and armored protection during the three weeks of combat. Following the combat phase, however, Mansoor points to the importance of putting Iraqi government officials in charge, particularly with a police presence, with other coalition forces in the background. Like Wilson, he points out the necessary element of civic actions that can deliver services to the population. Mansoor’s account includes treatment of the coalition aspects of the Karbala actions: he operated under the tactical control of a Polish officer and alongside Polish and Bulgarian troops. Carter Malkasian, like Mansoor, looks at active combat against insurgents and does so as a cautionary tale concerning the ill effects of military action not coordinated with political support. Malkasian looks at the issue of signaling resolve and examines its components. The scene is the spring of 2004 and the city of Fallujah where four Blackwater security contractors had been killed and

Introduction

5

their bodies hung up over the Euphrates, a gruesome event recorded and widely televised. Looking to take immediate action against this outrage, and to remove the insurgent sanctuary that Fallujah had become, U.S. forces began a major military offensive into the city. However, Malkasian explains that because the offensive began without gaining political support and emphasized firepower without seeking to minimize civilian casualties, collateral damage and the unfavorable publicity engendered caused the Iraqi governing body to call off the offensive in mid-stream. Malkasian notes that the attempt to signal resolve resulted in just the opposite, encouraging further resistance in the city and the surrounding region. He then details the later successful preparation done for a later military offensive into the city in November 2004, which included the organization of political support and measures to minimize casualties. John Ballard’s chapter concerns Fallujah and its surrounding area during and after this second offensive into the city. Ballard’s subject and military background is in civil affairs, and he describes the employment of civil affairs measures during the second battle for Fallujah in the fall of 2004, elaborating on the process advocated by Carter Malkasian in his chapter. Ballard speaks in terms of “clear, hold, build” strategy for Iraq. In describing the “clear” phase, Ballard outlines civic affairs actions taken in Fallujah, which he identifies as those designed to lessen the impact of military operations. Those measures included negotiating with civic leaders of Fallujah to restrict the use of firepower in areas of cultural or economic facilities. In the “hold” phase, he emphasizes the inclusion of Iraqi forces to provide security as well as developing better civil–military relations in the community, a particularly difficult task given the previous relationship with Saddam Hussein’s security forces. His “build” phase addresses the building of national institutions within the country, at this point a necessary goal but one that must look beyond the current crises. Dealing with the present insurgency in Iraq is the subject of Kalev Sepp’s chapter. He addresses that subject by laying out a doctrine for U.S. Army forces, but one that would be applicable for all military forces involved in counterinsurgency operations. Sepp writes based on his evaluations of U.S. Army units during his visits to Iraq. Though he advocates many of the counterinsurgency measures suggested by Wilson, Ballard, and Mansoor – building state institutions, training Iraqi forces to supplant coalition forces, and engaging other agencies of the U.S. government in the effort – he does so after noting the wide variety of techniques and differing levels of success of the military units. His aim is to provide a doctrine common to all units. His doctrinal recommendations are radical ones for the Army, for he calls for what he sees as a basic reorientation of that organization: away from a focus on mass, firepower, and speed and toward operations requiring patience; away from a centralized hierarchical structure to fighting in decentralized formations; and acting with allies rather than unilaterally. Sepp’s strongest message is for the United States to recognize that it is not trying to stabilize Iraq, it is in the process of fundamentally attempting to change the country, destabilizing it from what it had been, and all that entails. Finally, Eliot Cohen’s concluding chapter proposes some techniques for

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analyzing a conflict still underway. His contribution is to look to the future and imagine the varying perspectives of future historians and how they might frame the issues of the war. That exercise provides a different construct for evaluating the trends and important aspects of the war that are not now distinct or well understood. Looking at the origins of the war, Cohen sees historians developing schools of thought that essentially continue the present debate: the war as part of a Neoconservative plan to remake the Middle East, or as a reaction to the attacks on 9/11, or as an action to settle more permanently the war that ended in a cease fire in 1991. In evaluating military operations during the intense combat phase of the war, he links the experience to the more general debate on how or how much conventional warfare has changed by the “Revolution in Military Affairs.” Here, Cohen suggests that historians will find evidence to support varying judgments, examples of both the effectiveness of high technology weaponry and networked systems and of the inadequacy of the Iraqi Army as a test of that effectiveness. Cohen devotes a major portion of his chapter to assessments of American counterinsurgency efforts. As historians reflect on the Iraqi insurgency and how that conflict fits within the more general history of American counterinsurgency efforts, Cohen sees two singular aspects being identified: first, that Iraqi society was comprised of an unusual amalgam of ethnic and religious groups brutalized by a generation of internal and external conflicts, a landscape of which military planners had little understanding; and second, how the nearly unlimited supply of weapons available to insurgents presented significant challenges to a counterinsurgency campaign. In assessing American performance in these operations, he sees historians focusing on the personalities of the individual political and military leaders to a much greater degree than do contemporary accounts. Specifically, the character of the individual military commanders had large consequences for the success of the operations. Ending this volume with questions of how historians, policymakers, and the public in the future will view the Iraq war provides a fitting end to this volume and serves as an apt description of the motivations that prompted this study. This volume is far from the last to be written about the war in Iraq. It will have served its purpose, however, if it enlightens students of the war and informs the debate over the U.S conduct of the war, and indeed of U.S. military planning and operations more broadly.

Part I

Defeating the regime and occupying Iraq

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America’s anabasis Isaiah Wilson

While a young man, the Greek historian Xenophon participated in the expedition led by Cyrus the Younger against his older brother, the emperor Artaxerxes II of Persia, in 401 BC. The Greeks were victorious in battle, but with the death of their leader, Cyrus, found themselves in a strategically precarious situation. The Greek Ten Thousand found themselves deep in hostile territory, near the heart of Mesopotamia, far from the sea, without a plan for the war that was now upon them, and without leadership. They finally fought their way north through hostile Persians, Armenians, and Kurds to Trapezus on the coast of the Black Sea and then sailed westward and back to Greece.1 Xenophon recorded this expedition and the journey home in his work entitled The Anabasis (“The Expedition” or “The March Up Country”), a reference to an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country. The work was an expression of the difficulties of waging expeditionary wars, and more specifically, of waging war in Mesopotamia. The parallels between Xenophon’s anabasis, then, and our own anabasis that began back in March 2003 are intriguing: • • • • •

each was an expedition, a march up country; each began as an unequivocal tactical victory, but each devolved into a strategic quandry, to say the least; our own march up country traversed much of the same ground – literally and figuratively – as the Greek Ten Thousand’s; both fights were in the heart of Mesopotamia; and, Xenophon’s anabasis lasted close to ten years . . . our own katabasis (march out of country), many have proposed, may take just as long.

The Iraq War – America’s Anabasis – is giving witness every day not only to the challenges of expeditionary warfare in Mesopotamia, but also of the rise of what seems to be a new-age of war and peace; an era of long wars to which the United States seems to have a record of failures – incomplete wins. The Iraq

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experience follows in a long tradition of falling short of achieving “complete victory” in our intervention policies. This chapter focuses on planning – the planning (and in some cases, the apparent lack thereof) that laid the path to war upon which the United States and its coalition of the willing embarked in the third week of March 2003, a path that has, thus far, left our war policy far short of its grand objectives (a safe and secure Iraq embracing liberty and with no threat to its neighbors), and the inheritor of a Long War of insurgency and counter-insurgency. If, as Clausewitz wrote, the first, the supreme act of policy judgment is to decide upon the kind of war upon which one is embarking, then the second is to plan accordingly.2 Did the war we embarked upon in Iraq, beginning in March 2003, defy the post-modern realities of what war – regardless of its catalyst – was destined to be? If we got the purpose and aims of the war wrong, did we also get the approach to the war – our calculus for the intervention – wrong? Did the former beget the latter? Regarding the Iraq War, is our current policy anemia (our failure to “win the peace”) the result of our determining the wrong political objectives, or, did we have the right objectives, but merely fail to achieve them? Were we wrong in our cause, or simply in the effectiveness of our approach? The war in Iraq is the latest in a long debate over how much manpower and materiel, not to mention time, is required to win decisively in our nations’ wars and interventions. The debate is the offspring of the traditional “guns versus butter” calculus that is a vitally important debate for any democratic nation to undertake prior to, and throughout, a war. This latest war in Iraq, however, has raised this discussion to a new level of relevance and importance. This is the case, in part, because of the elusiveness of the decisive victory that defense and military planners were convinced would come with the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime on April 9, 2003, and the “bog” of insurgency and antiinsurgency in which the United States and its military forces have found themselves since the President declared “mission accomplished” on May 1, 2004. Was there a plan for the peace? Some say yes, others no. As an official early recorder of the war, serving from March to June 2003 as an historian and combat observer/interviewer for U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki’s Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group (OIFSG),3 part of my duties were to collect data and first-hand soldier accounts of the war’s progress – to conduct an initial assessment of how well the plan was measuring up against the realities of the warfight on the ground. What I observed first-hand was the absence of an operational plan for that part of the war that came after the collapse of the Ba’athist regime on April 9, 2003. From this vantage point, I was also able to confirm what I had recorded as a historian months earlier: there was no operational plan for Phase IV operations in the U.S. war-plan for Iraq. The rest of this chapter will focus on the way in which this planning for the war developed.

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The planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom A campaign plan “Flawed By Design” 4 There are two dictums that are commonly understood by those in the planning communities. The first is that planning does not occur in a vacuum. The second is that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The planning that led to the execution of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) violated the first dictum and relied far too heavily on the latter. The result was an Iraq War campaign plan that wasn’t. A campaign plan by name only, one that was more reflective of a major combat operational plan than a holistic war plan and one where the actions and outcomes of the majority of its activities were left to hope (and the vote of the enemy) instead of to deliberate prior preparation. Dr. Conrad Crane of the U.S. Army War College refers to the flawed planning process behind OIF as yielding “many plans, but not one.”5 This author has referred to this condition as an anemia of U.S. operational planning, resulting in the campaign plan that wasn’t.6 Overall, the campaign planning for the Iraq War suffered then, and continues to suffer to this day, from three major flaws. Incomplete planning regarding purpose and political aim The Iraq War is not a modern war, but rather a post-modern one. As an exemplar of a Clausewitzian modern war, the Iraq War would have been considered an unlimited war – a war devoted to the overthrow of an enemy regime. Once that political aim expanded beyond the aim of regime change to the aim of nation-building (change “of” regime7), the purpose and intent of the war went beyond the defining parameters of the modern paradigm. With this new aim, the Iraq War became a post-modern war, beyond Clausewitz’ wildest imagination. With the modern parameters (art and science) for determining whether a limited or unlimited war providing little to no relevance to this war in Iraq, the planning and decision making for the war fell suspect to subjective judgment. The Iraq War, consequently, has become a war of limited (scarce) resourcing, despite its absolute unlimited aim. The result of this policy mismatch is now an out-ofbalance U.S. strategy, which loses more and more of its legitimacy both with the American and the Iraqi publics of concern. Incomplete planning regarding timing The Iraq War was initially a forward-planned intervention resourced and directed toward the attainment of a limited military object (toppling of Saddam) instead of a more comprehensive political objective. We essentially planned our way into a fight with Saddam instead of planning a way toward a better state of peace with the Iraqi people. As such, the timing of the campaign plan (i.e. when diplomacy would end and major combat operations begin) was arrived upon with an eye toward a pre-emptive military timetable instead of a more protracted

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and preventive “holistic” timetable. Political pundits, and devoted rejectionists of the war, have argued that peace was not given enough of a chance prior to the U.S. initiation of major combat. Despite the popular sound bite (“give peace a chance”), there is a grain of practical truth to this argument. If the initial parameters of the war campaign had been calculated and constructed with the broader, “change of regime” (reconstruction of a stable, safe, and secure Iraq), political aim instead of the much more limited change-in-regime (toppling of Saddam) endstate, the planning calculus for this more complex and Long War would have suggested a radically different staging and timing of the campaign plan and strategy for the prosecution of the intervention. Based on the more limited “topple Saddam” objective, the calculus of war centered on Saddam Hussein and his state apparatus as both the military and political/strategic center of gravity – the source of all power of the adversarial regime, that if destroyed, would cause the regime to collapse, thereby leading most directly to the attainment of the political objective (change in regime). Seeing this war as “this kind of war,” biased military planning toward more military, offensive, and rapid options. In an effort to obtain the most cost-effective option to end Saddam’s rule, planning came to privilege options that offered rapid and decisive results. Launching whatever lethal attacks it would take to disable and destroy those parts of the state regime feeding the power of Saddam (i.e. critical governing infrastructure; the army) and finally to eliminate Saddam himself sooner than later. The concept of Rapid Decisive Operations8 was a planning and execution construct that best fit this conception of the war aim and the set of options deemed best for attaining the political objective with the least cost to the nation’s resources (blood, treasure, international reputation). Since the political aim of the war defines the set of feasible, acceptable, and suitable options for carrying it out, that linkage remains of primary importance. However, separated from its proper political objective, military force (or any other type of force) becomes pointless.9 In Iraq, although military force did not prove “pointless” (it effectively ended Saddam’s rule over Iraq, and his threat to the region and the West), it did prove inadequate as a tool for rebuilding a new country after destroying the Hussein State. Although the timing was adequate and effective for the toppling goal – an early and swift launch of combat operations – it is proving with every year that passes without an attainment of the political goal to have been the wrong timing from the beginning. If planned based on a Long War’s requirements, it is highly unlikely that the United States would have initiated combat on March 19, 2003; it is even less likely that this initiation would have been accelerated by 24 hours in an attempt at a quick decapitation attack – such an attempt, especially if successful, while winning the military objective of ridding the world of the nuisance of Saddam, would have left the Iraqi nation in political chaos. Ironically, and tragically, it now appears that despite what were the best of intentions, getting the political aim wrong for an Iraq War may be contributing to insecurity, instability, declines in prosperity, and overall political and societal chaos in Iraq.

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Incomplete planning regarding allocation and distribution of forces The Iraq War was in fact a war that America would end up waging with the forces it had available rather than the force it needed. Limiting the war short of its natural parameters has left the United States poorly and inadequately positioned, strategically, operationally, and tactically, to fight the war to a complete win, never having the right amount of force on the ground, the right mix of forces on the ground, nor the right array of forces on the ground in Iraq.

Drawing limited lessons from total wars – OEF and OIF-1 The failure-to-plan story begins much earlier than 2001, but a snapshot from the U.S. war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, October 2001, is an appropriate starting point. Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) set several bad precedents that contributed to the delinquency of planning for and the execution of war in Iraq in 2003 and since. The United States expedition in Afghanistan in 2001 was a limited operation of primarily military objectives – dissolution of the Taliban regime, disruption and if possible the destruction of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, and the capture or killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. Afghanistan was a major military operation to achieve a military objective. It was a combat action born of the mother of necessity – the attacks of 9/11. There was no original intention for a U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan, and therefore no original Phase IV plan. In fact, there was no Phase IV planning of any kind, and little of what could be considered as campaign planning.10 The command, control, and execution was as ad hoc as the war itself. While tactical actions during OEF proved the unmatched innovativeness and adaptability of the American soldier, the U.S. modern forms of warfare, and the capacity for the United States to combine the old (i.e. modern; even pre-modern) ways of warfare with those of the present and the future (i.e. post-modern, fourth-generational) yielded less than a decisive victory. In spite of the battle victory, the effort has only attained a strategic stalemate. The tactical approach from Afghanistan was adopted, almost in total, and transposed to the situation in Iraq – an entirely different and more complex situation than Afghanistan. To some, the tactical and operational successes of OEF all but validated the Special Operations Forces (SOF) “plus” precision guided munitions (PGM) “plus” indigenous ground forces (IGF) design as the U.S. Government preferred strategy of choice.11 This interpretation of OEF (that the operation was “won” through tactical, ground level innovations) seems to have been interpreted as an adequate proxy for a military strategy for OIF, perhaps even for the entire war policy in total. The poverty of the Iraq War campaign plan – the denial of the real and broader war that a war in Iraq was by its nature destined to be – perhaps finds some of its causal roots in the lessons rightly gathered from Afghanistan but wrongly applied to the situation that would become the Iraq War.

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The evolution of a war plan12 The evolution of military planning began in earnest in late 2001 with initial guidance coming from the Joint Staff (at the time in the heat of OEF planning and operation management) that control of Phase IV operations in Iraq would fall to the leadership of either the U.S. State Department or Iraq’s exiled government (the Iraqi National Congress, or INC). By June 2002, and in the aftermath of the tactical success of OEF, this original Joint Chiefs of Staff guidance was changed – the lead agency for campaign planning for the Iraq War, to include Phase IV planning, would fall to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.13 Central Command (CENTCOM) planning began in June 2002, with ECLIPSE II as the eventual base concept plan for OIF, and its successor OPLAN COBRA II (which evolved into OPLAN 1003V) actually serving as the precursor that led to the execution order initiating major combat operations. The bulk of this planning was conducted at Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) levels – Third Army Headquarters initially in Tampa, Florida and then Camp Doha, Kuwait. Among the key factors affecting the planning, and later the execution, of OPLAN 1003V was the determination of how many units would deploy before combat operations were to begin and how many axes of advanced ground forces would to be used to execute the major combat operation. This consideration proved highly political and, as a consequence, toxic to the hopes of creating, resourcing, and executing a holistic campaign plan that was reflective of the complete complexity of the operations, activities, challenges, and opportunities that would define the entire domain of the Iraq War. Part of the early planning considerations for how many forces would be deployed prior to the initiation of major combat operations rested on the traditional tension between the historic American penchant for large-scale, deliberate deployments of overwhelming force and the more efficient approach of “just-intime” operations. There were at least two factors that weighed on the decision to deploy a heavier and more full-spectrum complement of forces or a lighter and more agile force. The first major factor was purely operational – logistical requirements for large-scale Army and Marine Corps formations and the availability of relatively limited strategic lift capacity (due to competing requirements in Afghanistan and other operational theaters around the globe) stiffened those arguments for a deliberate (protracted) deployment. A strong operational counter argument was the potential gains in operational surprise over enemy forces that could possibly be gained by a quick no-notice strategic deployment. The second major factor influencing the force-generation decision was a political one. By the fall of 2002, U.S. diplomatic efforts in the United Nations demonstrated to the world that an American-led campaign to remove Saddam Hussein from power was becoming a probability rather than simply a possibility.14 The administration in Washington, DC by this time, saw a grave and growing danger to the United States and its friends and interests within the wider Middle East region festering in Iraq with every moment of delay in offen-

America’s anabasis

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sive preventive action. The need for a pre-emptive military intervention against this grave and growing threat by the fall of 2002 had become the political agenda undergirding all intervention planning. These two key factors set the course for America’s intervention policy toward Iraq – an intervention derived from a limited political/military objective of ending the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. From this tension developed three options of planning courses of action: a deployment scheme similar to Desert Shield/Storm (1990–91); an almost nonotice deployment in which the war would start with very few forces on the ground in Kuwait; and a hybrid that combined elements of both former approaches.15 Most official accounts that have appeared since the beginning of the war in 2003 have argued that few, if any, of the operational planners, particularly those on the military side of the planning, thought that the Saddam regime would immediately collapse under the pressure of simultaneous attacks along multiple lines of operation (avenues of advance). Much planning and rehearsal time and resources were nevertheless expended on developing plans for this remote possibility. The option of simultaneous attack for a rapid decisive effective regime collapse was, again, reflective of both a political desire for an immediate addressing of the grave and growing threat posed by the Hussein regime as well as an American tradition for quick (and if possible, costless) decisive victories in its war-fights and interventions. Three iterations of planning took place, each reflecting of different sets of operational conditions, but all were influenced by the political intent for a quicker than later resolution of the Hussein problem. Each included the idea of simultaneous attack from the air and on the ground, with the number of units available serving as the key variable in those calculations. Figure 1.1 lays out the evolution of the Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) concept plan (CONPLAN) and operational plan (OPLAN) development process.16 This CFLCC planning sequence paralleled that of Central Command with the intent of ensuring an effective integration and synchronization of these two key echelons of planning and theater-strategic intervention policy implementation (execution) – a process in the military known as “nesting.” The first iteration (OPLAN BLUE, war gamed through simulation, March–April 2002) was regarded as the “generated start option,” which assumed a build-up of forces until all the forces required had arrived in theater before the initiation of major combat operations (i.e. before initiation of the “war” as it was to be seen by planners and decision makers alike). Planners then developed a second option – the “running start” (OPLAN IMMINENT BADGER, war gamed April–July 2002) – which reflected assumptions of launching combat operations with minimum forces and continuing to deploy forces and employ them as they arrived in theater.17 The final option derived from the war-gaming that took place in regard to the running start option. During simulation trials of the “running start” plan, planners determined that the minimum force required

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VIGILANT GUARDIAN SEP. 01–MAR. 02 One corps limited objective attack to create battlespace and secure the southern Iraqi oil fields TPFDL

Continuous tension regarding amount of force required “on the ground” to begin the ground operation

OPLAN BLUE MAR. 02–APR. 02 Two corps simultaneous attack to isolate Baghdad Generated Start Force TPFDL

IMMINENT BADGER APR. 02–JUL. 02

Two corps sequential attack to Isolate Baghdad Running Start Force TPFDL/Force Packages

Northern line of operation • Hea vy/light BCT – demonstration • Hea vy/light BCT – limited objective attack • Two division (Coalition) – supporting attack • Division combat team – suppor ting attack

COBRA II JUL. 02–MAR. 03 Two corps simultaneous attack to remove regime TPFDL/force modules/RFF’s ? ? ? No TPFDL ? ? ? ECLIPSE II JAN. 03–APR. 03 Initially two corps restore stability planning began JUN. 02

Figure 1.1 Evolution of the CFLCCC CONPLAN and OPLAN.

under the running start option was inadequate. As a result, a “hybrid plan” was developed that better reflected the forces required to effectively meet the objectives of the war – collapse of the Hussein regime. This hybrid plan eventually evolved into OPLAN Cobra II – the plan directing the invasion and ground campaign that led to the collapse of the Hussein regime on April 9, 2003. This plan, unlike its predecessor plans, had no confirmed and formalized time-phased force deployment list (TPFDL) – that is, no detailed and dedicated assignment, or mobilization and deployment scheduling, of units devoted to the plan, the lack of which only adding to the ambiguities of OPLAN Cobra II regarding scope of the mission and whether or not troops deployed and assigned were adequate for the full scale campaign lying ahead. An inadequate plan The hybrid plan that was developed by military planners in response to their realizations through simulation and war-gaming that more forces were required – demanded – by the anticipated conditions on the ground during the intervention was not the decided plan for resourcing, nor for eventual execution. What did ultimately become the campaign plan for OIF was a “compromise” of the running start and hybrid options. In the end the plan reflected a compromise

America’s anabasis

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solution between the hybrid and running start options that provided more forces than planned under running start scenarios, but fewer than estimated as required for the hybrid plan. This compromise plan reflected little to none of the force requirements of the first and original “generated start” courses of action. Most of the officers taking part in this planning process preferred the simultaneous attacks afforded by the hybrid plan, once the decision process relegated the options to a zero-sum calculation between this alternative versus the paucity of the running start option. Nevertheless, the policy implemented was one that reflected the desires and determination of what was acceptable by the administration. The number of forces required was the single most important variable around which all planning variants revolved. The question of how much force is required to either stay the present course, or change the course but stay the fight in Iraq to win, continues to define the war in Iraq and the U.S. future role in it.18 The official U.S. Army “early” history of ground war in Iraq, On Point, acknowledged the pre-eminent importance of this question and also noted the persistent operational and strategic ambiguity that derived from an inability of force planners, operational planners, and decision makers alike to come to an agreement on the right approach to executing the strategy. As On Point puts it, “the end was never in question – remove the regime; but the specific method, or way, required to achieve this strategic goal was the subject of contentious debate. Without agreement on the way – simultaneous or sequential – there rarely was agreement on the amount of force or means required.”19 Though accurate in its own context, this early assessment is incomplete to say the least. This assessment reflects an assumption that the end driving the intervention policy planning (“remove the regime”) reflected the correct or appropriate political objective of the intervention. The fact of the matter has proven to be this: removal of the Hussein regime, though a necessary condition to victory was insufficient in, and of, itself as the means toward the greater end of achieving a sustainable and legitimate quality of stability and peace in Iraq. Moreover, the chosen method, or way, of intervention – major combat operations by use of military force – was to prove not only insufficient, but in hindsight a likely contributing cause to the rise in insurgent and anti-American (anti-occupation) sentiment and condition in Iraq today. Although On Point, and similar early histories like it, correctly acknowledge the errors in the military planning for major combat operations against Saddam Hussein, all either ignored, or simply failed to recognize, the wider failures of planning and execution: the failure to plan for and execute an intervention policy and the civil–military plans and strategy for that policy, that reflected and addressed the complete array of objectives, requirements, responsibilities, challenges, threats, and opportunities of the war that was to be “at-hand” in Iraq. Figure 1.2 once again graphically represents the military approach to concept, operational planning, and execution of OIF. It reflects, as noted in the white text boxes, where effective and robust operational planning began, existed, and stopped – ending far shy of the actual political object of the war-policy.

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Decisive maneuver

C F C

PHASE III

Regime Removal/Transition

IVa Stabilization

IVb Recovery IVc Transition CJTF – IRAQ

DP

DP

Interim administration

C F L C C

CFLCC exercises military authority on regional basis Decisive maneuver

DP

DP

Regime removal/ transition

PHASE III

PHASE IV Baghdad Regime collapse/ isolated military defeat

CFLCC redeployed

Independent Iraqi Govt

OFFENSE STABILITY

SUPPORT

The Nature of Operations

Figure 1.2 Phase IV: concept and nesting.

What this particular graphic shows is why there was a plan to win the war but none to win the peace, from the perspective of the mechanics of the campaign. Focusing on the ground (division-level) effort, the chart shows a linear conception to operations, with offensive operations taking place predominately during what is to be regarded as “decisive operations” (Phases I–IIIb of OPLAN 1003V). Phase IV then follows, after completion of regime collapse, dominated by operations falling under the rubric of “stability” and then “support operations.” The graphic shows an effective, well-planned, well-coordinated, and adequately resourced (i.e. effectively “nested”) operational campaign plan for the major combat operation phases of the war contrasting with an impoverished plan (“un-nested”) for the “rest of the war” – Phase IV, or what is today regarded as the stability and reconstruction phases of the campaign. This imbalance of resourcing and planning gives an indication of the mal-alignment of aims and action in the Iraq campaign. The plan for the major combative operations to bring about the end of Hussein’s state regime was not a plan for peace, or for the winning of the whole war – it was, as planned, nothing more than a military plan for destruction and annihilation.

History is written by the victors What will our contemporary Xenophon eventually record about this Iraq War? We are years, and more than likely decades away from real historical account-

America’s anabasis

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ings of the war. Until that time, however, the recordings of our early historians are important as they can help us to avoid some of the more tragic elements of what is clear, even this close to the war still in progress, confirming what did not work – and perhaps what will not work in interventions of this day and age. Phases I through III of OIF was a “march up country” of a traditional and conventional sort. America’s anabasis was not all that different from Xenophon’s 3,000 years earlier. But this “reality” and condition set, dramatically changed on April 9, 2003, when the Saddam regime came tumbling down. U.S. and coalition forces, however, remained on the original anabasis, directing preparations for the “march” out of the country. The dramatic change of the situation in Iraq (from dynamic and rapid major combat operations to a condition of steady-state, protracted combat, stability, and support operations) brought with it a whole new set of numbers and equations that needed to have been added to the modern correlations of forces and means. America is suffering from a form of methodical battle syndrome.20 Ours is a unique and particularly virulent form of the sickness. Planning for interventions must reflect the realities of the contemporary operating environment. At present, our concept of, and approach to, war and peace does not match with the contemporary realities. Rigid adherence to past plans and planning processes is a path that leads to the bane of methodical battle. The fact that we could have planned and carried out the initial battles against the Iraqi state so expertly, only to squander that initial success in the absence of a plan for winning the wider war – the peace that was to follow – may indicate that we are closer to falling into the trap of methodical battle than we might wish to admit. Our ability and willingness to thinking beyond our past ways of war and peace, and forward toward a new approach to intervention planning will surely decide how effective our future actions will be, both in war and in peace.

Notes 1 Xenophon, Anabasis, translation by Carleton L. Brownson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). Also accessible online at, classics.mit.edu/Xenophon/ xen.anab.html. 2 Wilson III, Isaiah, “What Kind of War?” unpublished paper, February 2005, (under review with Proceedings, Naval Institute Press). 3 The Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group (OIFSG) was a history-recording and Army Strategic Planning Board-related research initiative formed and missioned by General Eric Shinseki, at the time the chief of staff of the United States Army. The OIFSG was formed in early April 2003, a week after the initiation of ground combat in Iraq. The group was tasked with following U.S. and coalition forces during their historic march up country, conduct interviews with soldiers and their generals along that long hazardous expedition, record and chronicle what was observed first-hand, to include flaws in operational planning and materiel failings and shortfalls that hampered the pure and noble courage of the soldiers in the efforts on the ground. Most of the accounts written on the major combat operation phase of the war, to date, have made use of over 4,000 gigabytes of data collected and coded by the OIFSG. 4 See, Amy Zegart, Flawed By Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001).

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5 Conrad Crane, presentation delivered at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Conference on the Iraq War, November 2, 2005. 6 See, Wilson III, Isaiah, “Thinking Beyond War: Civil–Military Operational Planning in Northern Iraq,” presentation delivered to the American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Conference (Washington, DC, September 2–5, 2004), and the Cornell Peace Studies Program (PSP), Cornell University (October 17, 2004). Accessible online at, www.einaudi.cornell.edu/PeaceProgram/calendar/index.asp? id3989. 7 For this political science definition and description of “regime change,” see Stephen D. Krasner, International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983). 8 Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO) relates to compelling an adversary to undertake certain actions or denying the adversary the ability to coerce or attack others. Although many RDO principles will apply to larger-scale, longer-lasting operations, the RDO concept is not intended as a preliminary phase of a protracted campaign. This RDO concept is founded in the key constructs of Joint Vision 2010, a Joint Staff document that looked to the development of U.S. military capabilities. The concept has also been outlined by the May 1997 Capstone Concept for Future Joint Operations (CFJO). The RDO concept focuses on how a highly deployable, lethal, agile, survivable, and supportable joint force can rapidly defeat an adversary’s operational and strategic centers of gravity. The essence of the concept emphasizes situational understanding, immediate response capability, speed, and massing of effects rather than forces. Distinguished from traditional operations, this approach usually will not focus on seizing and occupying territory in the battlespace except for a limited purpose; that purpose being to generate an otherwise unobtainable opportunity for precision engagement, to secure a key decisive point, or to protect the civilian populace. Forces inserted for these purposes would have the capability to be withdrawn quickly and employed elsewhere. An RDO campaign typically will be characterized by immediate, continuous, and overwhelming operations to shock and paralyze the adversary, destroy their ability to coordinate offensive and defensive operations, fragment their capabilities, and foreclose their most dangerous options (accessed online at, www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/rdo.htm). 9 The exact Clausewitz quotation states, “Wars cannot be divorced from political life; and whenever this occurs in our thinking about war, the many links that connect the two elements are destroyed and we are left with something pointless and devoid of sense.” Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 605. 10 Wilson, “Thinking Beyond War: Civil–Military Operational Planning in Northern Iraq.” 11 Stephen Biddle, “Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Military and Defense Policy” (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2002). 12 The majority of my data on prewar planning was obtained during my personal research while serving with the OIF Study Group (OIFSG), as well as from the OIFSG publication, On Point: The U.S. Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom (Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 2004). 13 Gregory Fontenot, E.J. Degan, and David Tohn, On Point: The U.S. Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005), p. 44. 14 Ibid. Also see, Tommy Franks, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004). 15 Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, On Point: The U.S. Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 45. 16 The “Northern Line of Operation” box describes the attack options that were under consideration and war gaming back in 2002 – plans for the opening of a second front, in the north, facilitated by the opening of a line of operation and deployment through Turkey. This “second front” was largely thwarted by a refusal on the part of the government in Ankara to allow U.S./Coalition forces land bases and transit authorities through Turkey.

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17 Ibid. 18 Casie Vinal, “US Will Stay the Course in Iraq, Bush Says,” accessed online at, www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2003/n07102003_200307101.html. Also, see this author’s contribution to the “Should we stay or should we go?” debate, “Are We Winning Yet?” Council on Foreign Relations Term Member Conference debate notes, accessible via www.cfr.org. 19 Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, On Point: The U.S. Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 46. 20 Methodical battle tends to utilize rigidly centralized command structures that require little or no creativity or initiative from lower-level leadership (also called “top-down” or “command push” tactics). The semi-static, large scale battles of the American Civil War and World War I are classic examples of methodical warfare. See Thomas Donnelly and Sean Naylor, Clash of Chariots (New York: Berkeley Publishing, 1996) and Marc Bloch, Strange Defeat (New York: W.W. Norton, 1968).

2

Iraqi military effectiveness Kevin M. Woods, with Michael R. Pease, Mark E. Stout, Williamson Murray, and James G. Lacey

Yes, the guards play a very important role, and we thank Allah. In history when they write about Napoleon’s guard, they will arrange them next to the Republican Guard of Iraq. Saddam Hussein (Captured media file, [approximately 1993] “Saddam discussing issues related to the war in 1991”)

Any evaluation of Iraqi military effectiveness must first take cognizance of the often-pathological behavior of most Iraqi generals and senior officers.1 Saddam’s Iraq, however, was a world apart from a Western conception of military professionalism. Iraqi officers rarely expected to give professional advice. Instead, they understood that their role was to ensure Saddam’s dictates were followed to the letter, often no matter how infeasible or irrelevant to the military problem. They also expected and accepted intrusions into even the most mundane military affairs. For example, in a meeting in 1995 on the readiness state of the Republican Guard, a senior officer reported to Saddam: May God protect you sir. Despite all the moral considerations, there is another subject that should be brought up to you, sir, with complete honesty. We, the Republican Guard, feel prouder day after day. We are in better shape when it comes to training and accuracy in our job. The truth is we could not have achieved this without accurate follow up and the supervision of our honorable supervisor [Qusay Hussein]. He didn’t leave any place of the Republican Guard without visiting it, whether at training or during normal daily activities. He visited the soldiers, their sleeping places, and the kitchens . . . All the guards are now talking about the visit of the honorable Qusay, and they declare it proudly in front of all people.2 In such an atmosphere, it is almost useless to judge Iraqi military effectiveness by the standard measures of equipment, organization, and doctrine. In Iraq, internal political concerns infused every aspect of the military and its employment. Simply put, the Iraqi military’s main mission was to ensure the internal security of the Ba’ath dictatorship. Its second was to fight wars.

Iraqi military effectiveness 23

Assessing Iraqi tactical capabilities Before the war, the U.S. Central Command had developed a fairly accurate assessment of Iraq’s tactical capabilities.3 Nevertheless, the way the Iraqis employed those capabilities during the war often surprised U.S. combat commanders. They found it a constant challenge to try and fathom future Iraqi military moves: so little of what they were witnessing on the battlefield made sense to soldiers trained in the Western tradition. However, within the context of Saddam’s regime, even apparently logic-defying moves made perfect sense. None of this should suggest that reasonable courses of action were actually open to the Iraqis that could have changed the war’s outcome. Coalition forces had prepared to meet an army that would fight tenaciously but in a style more familiar to their own outlook on the employment of military forces. That the Coalition fought a force focused on internal affairs and bedeviled by political interference was so much the better. However, to develop an understanding of Iraqi decision-making and actions on the battlefield, it is vital to understand all of the factors within their political-military system that limited military effectiveness. By 2003, the Iraqi military was reeling from 13 years of almost continuous engagement with Coalition air forces, the accumulating effects of sanctions, and the insidious impact of dysfunctional regime policies. These pressures had all helped to propel the Iraqi military into a state of chronic decline. Concerned about everything except fighting wars, the cultural and organizational dynamics of the Iraqi military, which once aspired to a Western-like profession of arms, became focused on militarily irrelevant – but for them life or death – issues. The foremost example of declining Iraqi military effectiveness lay in the condition of the Iraqi Air Force, which failed to launch a single sortie against the Coalition invasion force. According to the commander of Iraq’s Air Force and Air Defense Force, failure to launch was the result of Saddam Hussein’s decision that the Air Force would not participate in the war. Apparently, Saddam reasoned that the quality and quantity of the Iraqi Air Force’s equipment would make it worse than useless against Coalition air forces. Consequently, he had decided to save the Air Force for future needs, ordering his commanders to hide their aircraft.4 This decision is yet another indication that he did not believe Coalition ground forces would reach into the heart of Iraq and that his regime would survive whatever conflict ensued. To implement the decision to preserve the Air Force, which Saddam decided only two months before the war, the Iraqis moved most of their aircraft away from operational airfields and camouflaged them in palm groves. They also buried other aircraft literally in sand to hide them from prowling Coalition air forces, where American forces dug them up after the war. The refusal of the Iraqi Air Force to engage is reminiscent of Desert Storm when Saddam ordered a significant portion of the Air Force to flee to Iran. This time, however, Saddam ruled out the option of seeking Iranian sanctuary. He remarked, “The Iranians are even stronger than before; they now have our Air Force.”5 Even with his

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regime under dire threat, Saddam’s thoughts were never far away from the regional power balance.

Schemes and “bureaucratic eloquence” Besides the regime’s political calculus, which constantly worried senior officials and focused on almost everything except resisting a Coalition invasion, another factor reduced military effectiveness: sanctions. For more than 12 years, United Nations sanctions had attacked the very fiber of the Iraqi military by making it difficult to purchase new equipment, procure spare parts, or fund adequate training. Attempts to overcome the effects of the sanctions led Saddam to the Military Industrial Commission as a means to sustain the military.6 The Commission and a related series of special organizations steadily promised new capabilities to offset the effects of poor training, poor morale, and neglected equipment. Saddam apparently waited for the delivery of wonder weapons that would reverse the tide of defeat.7 One Republican Guard officer described the insidious effect of sanctions on the military in the following terms: The government made rapid efforts to limit the negative direct and indirect effects of the savage sanctions on the weapons and activities of the military forces. Unfortunately, they were the wrong kind of efforts. The army continued to fight the schemes of the Military Industrial Commission, which played an important role in promising secret weapons it would never deliver while most types of things we needed were neglected. These people received large amounts of financial support, but the army could not get simple things. As time passed, President Saddam Hussein set aside many resources for the commission departments that were difficult to afford and led to a large amount of administrative corruption in the commission directorates to keep the money coming to them.8 The Iraqi naval forces fared no better. According to a former commander of the Iraqi Navy: The best we could ever hope to do was defend the beaches with light infantry, artillery, and light weapons. We had a regiment of infantry, which we could only man at a level of 60 percent, maximum. Between 1991 and 1998, the navy’s personnel strength dropped from approximately 25,000 to 9,000. We no longer had much equipment, so our need for high numbers of personnel was gone. At one point we tried to get boats made for us. We went to the Military Industrial Commission to get a private company to make boats for us. The commission also promised to get missiles as well. They made the launchers, but were late in making the missiles because some essential equipment was caught in so-called “procedural delays.” After the two years of this project we still had no boats, and by the end of the third year, the war came and interrupted the plans.9

Iraqi military effectiveness 25 A captured Military Industrial Commission annual report for 2002–2003 investments showed more than 170 research projects with an estimated value of more than 320 million Iraqi dinars. The Commission divided projects among areas such as equipment, engineering, missiles, electronics, strategic weapons, artillery, and air forces. One senior Iraqi official alleged that the Commission’s leaders were so fearful of Saddam that when he ordered them to initiate weapons programs that they knew Iraq could not develop, they told him they could accomplish the project with ease. Later, when Saddam asked for progress reports, they simply faked plans and designs to show progress when no program existed. This constant stream of false or at best optimistic, reporting, undoubtedly accounts for why many of Saddam’s calculations on operational, strategic, and political issues made perfect sense to him. According to Tariq Aziz: The people in the Military Industrialization Commission (sic) were liars. They lied to you, and they lied to Saddam. They were always saying that they were producing or procuring special weapons so that they could get favors out of Saddam – money, cars, everything – but they were liars. If they did all of this business and brought in all of these secret weapons, why didn’t they work?10 However, the Military Industrial Commission members were not the only ones lying. This was particularly true of the most trusted members of the inner circle – especially if negative news reflected poorly on their responsibilities or reputation.11 In the years before Operation Iraqi Freedom, everyone around Saddam understood that his need to hear only good news was constantly growing and it was in their best interest to feed that need. As noted earlier, honest reporting of military readiness and capabilities became the exception, not the rule. Many commanders simply became afraid to put their positions, possibly their livelihoods, or even lives at risk by challenging the given truth.12 One senior minister noted, “Directly disagreeing with Saddam Hussein’s ideas was unforgivable. It would be suicide.”13 Another official said that there existed an almost reflexive tendency to pass on good news and to never contradict what they had previously told Saddam. According to one former high-ranking Ba’ath official: Saddam had an idea about Iraq’s conventional and potential unconventional capabilities, but never an accurate one because of the extensive lying occurring in that area. Many reports were falsified. The ministers attempted to convey a positive perspective with reports, which were forwarded to Saddam’s secretary, who in turn passed them up to Saddam.14 In another instance, Saddam commissioned a series of reviews and studies of lessons learned after the 1991 Gulf War with the Coalition. One might assume this would have represented a singular opportunity for the military to bring some

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reality into Saddam’s conception of the world. Just the fact he was calling for, a lessons-learned discussion could be interpreted that perhaps Saddam recognized something had gone wrong. However, these reviews and studies started from the assumption that Saddam’s decision to invade Kuwait was militarily sound. Therefore, the “lessons learned” efforts did not take into account the complete scope of Gulf War experiences. The opportunity was too much for the military commanders to handle. Presented with a one-of-a-kind opportunity to tell the truth, they passed. During one recorded review of a post-Desert Storm study, the Commander of the Republican Guard strode to the podium with confidence and listed the “great” accomplishments of his forces during the “Mother of All Battles,” among them were: • •

•

creating impenetrable and perfectly camouflaged command bunkers; analyzing the battlefield and deploying in such a way as to make the American nuclear-tipped Pershing missiles useless (no mention of the facts that the United States did not deploy Pershing missiles during the war, or that by dispersing their forces to avoid nuclear attack, the Iraqis became easy prey for the massed Coalition armor); determining the specific method and timing of U.S. operations so that “once the attack began, we were clearly expecting it.” (Nothing was in the presentation about how the Iraqis were helped by President Bush giving them an ultimatum and countdown.)15 According to the then-Republican Guard Commander, As a result of all these successful preparations, our losses were not as devastating as the arsenal that was used against the Iraqi Army during the period should suggest. So this clearly shows that the Republican Guard and the other Iraqi armed forces were able to dig in and deploy wisely, and thus minimize the damage of the aerial power . . .16

In Saddam’s conception of victory, the ability to escape total annihilation equated to military success. Fear of Saddam’s reaction to bad news was not the sole prerogative of his ministers and soldiers. Its pernicious tentacles even reached into Saddam’s immediate family. One former high-level official related the following story about Qusay Hussein and an opportunity for at least a modicum of honest readiness reporting: At the end of 2000, it came to Saddam’s attention that approximately seventy military vehicles were immobile. Saddam told Qusay to resolve the problem. Republican Guard mechanics claimed they could repair the vehicles if the funds were made available. Qusay agreed to the work and funds were provided for the task. Once the work was completed, Qusay sent a representative to inspect the vehicles and he found them lined up on a

Iraqi military effectiveness 27 vehicle park thirty-five vehicles on each side. The vehicles looked like new, having been freshly painted and cleaned. After Qusay’s representative inspected them, a second inspection was conducted to verify that they were now operational. The staff was told to supply drivers to move all vehicles to the opposite side of the vehicle park to ensure they were in working order. None of the seventy vehicles would start. When this was reported to Qusay, he instructed that Saddam not be informed, as Qusay had already told Saddam that the vehicles were operational.17 In the end, Qusay did not order mechanics to fix the vehicles – it appears that he was only eager to have this failure be hidden from his father. As if lying were not enough, there were further impediments to the flow of information within the regime. One such impediment was the requirement to embellish even the simplest fact with fawning over Saddam, as evidenced by the Minister of Defense’s relation that a training exercise called Golden Falcon took place: In reference to your Excellency’s instructions regarding the large exercises at the Public Centre, having strong faith in the only God of our hearts, and God’s permanent support to the believers, the faithful, the steadfast, and with great love that we have for our great homeland and our Great Leader, our Great Leader has won God’s favor and the love of his dear people in the day of the grand homage. Your enthusiastic soldiers from our courageous armed forces have executed Golden Falcon Exercise number 11. In this exercise we have tested our readiness and confrontation plans against any who attempt to impure the lands of civilization and the homeland of missions and prophets. This exercise is the widest and most successful in achieving the required results. Soldiers from the III and IV Corps have participated in this exercise. And, on this occasion, and on behalf of your heroic men in the great army of Iraq, I have the pleasure and the honor to reaffirm the manhood pledge to confront plans of conspiracy and aggression, and in the name of God, we shall not bargain the truth for vanity, neither let depravity prevail against mortality, nor shall we fear anyone save God, and we shall bow-down only before God. The curse and the entire curse shall be put upon Washington, London, and Tel-Aviv, who are the supporters of the devil, depravity, and corruption and upon whom ever supports them. And, God willing, The Great Iraq shall achieve victory, and with God’s help this victory is very near.18 More notable was the fact that the Iraqis conducted Golden Falcon in anticipation of an Iranian invasion just months before the Coalition invasion. This was one more indicator of how Saddam actually considered Iran to be the real threat and how little he regarded the potential finality of decisive American action. There was no indication that the two corps actually conducted any significant maneuver or field training exercise during this period.

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This kind of bureaucratic “eloquence” extended to every level of military organization. Some documents show that flowery language replaced actual orders to units. One example is a March 9, 2003 instruction marked as a movement order from the Al-Hussein brigade to one of its combat groups: The Third Group, al-Quds Army . . . and other formations attached to it are fighting valiantly, placing their trust in God Almighty, until the end that He proscribes, which God willing will be the enemy’s defeat and his withdrawal, and a victory for us that will please our friends and grieve our enemies . . .19 After the war, several of the more capable military commanders commonly noted four other factors that seriously affected military readiness, each of which is discussed in greater detail in the following sections. • • • •

The mostly irrelevant military guidance passed from the political leadership to the lowest level of military operations. The creation and rise of private armies. The tendency for relatives and sycophants to rise to the top national security positions. The combined effects of the onerous security apparatus and the resulting limitations on authority.

Many senior Iraqi military officers blamed this “coup-proofing” of the regime for most of what befell the Iraqi Army during Operation Iraqi Freedom.20

Irrelevant guidance According to one Iraqi general, “All military planning was directed by Saddam and a selected few. It was much like Hitler and his generals after 1944.”21 After 1991, Saddam’s confidence in his military commanders steadily eroded, while his confidence in his own abilities as a military genius strengthened. Like a number of other amateurs in history who dabbled in military affairs, Saddam began to issue a seemingly endless stream of banal instructions. He could not resist giving detailed training guidance at the same time he became fascinated with the ethereal military capabilities promised by the Military Industrial Commission. Dozens of surviving memoranda mirrored the 2002 Iraqi top secret document “Training Guidance to the Republican Guard” (described below). They all hint at the guidance military officers received from Saddam on a regular basis. One chapter from the Training Guidance document, “Notes and directions given by Saddam Hussein to his elite soldiers to cover the tactics of war,” charged them to train in the following ways: • •

train in a way that allows you to defeat your enemy; train all units’ members in swimming;

Iraqi military effectiveness 29 • •

train your soldiers to climb palm trees so that they may use these places for navigation and sniper shooting; and train on smart weapons.22

Similar instructions were repeated in almost every training manual issued to the armed forces. In time, Saddam’s wisdom became a substitute for real training. In Saddam’s view, such simple guidance was necessary to keep his commanders focused on what he considered the important issues in combat. For him, the key to all things military was violence of execution. In discussing the proper employment of the Republican Guard, he reminded his generals that it should be kept away from skirmishes. I mean, if it is sent in, I want it to be decisive. The Republican Guard will consider anyone on the battlefield an enemy. I don’t want to complicate things for them.23 For most Western military organizations, a key to effectiveness rests on its ability to absorb and profit from past battlefield experiences; and one thing Iraq was not short of was recent battlefield experience. However, even if they understood the lessons, the senior leaders in the Iraqi military appeared incapable of either applying them or else extrapolating from their own experiences to deal with future contingencies. For instance, the Iran–Iraq war (1980–1988) appeared to have conditioned Iraq’s generals to fight bloody, slow-tempo, slugfests over prolonged periods. Therefore, when the high-tempo Coalition forces smashed into Iraqi forces in Desert Storm, the Iraqi operational command structure became overloaded and largely collapsed. Whatever lessons Iraq’s generals took away from Desert Storm did nothing to prepare them for the speed and tempo that Coalition forces imposed on them in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As usual, this problem started at the top. In the aftermath of the 1991 war, the Iraqis made extensive efforts to “learn” from their experiences on the battlefields in Desert Storm. These attempts were hampered by Saddam’s conviction that his ground forces had performed well in the fighting. This forced officers compiling Iraqi lessons-learned analyses to avoid issues that might involve Saddam’s prestige or questioned Iraqi fighting abilities. Instead, they focused on peripheral issues that were almost totally irrelevant to winning wars. We have already seen how these self-imposed restrictions led to such perverse claims as the Republican Guard actually won the war by avoiding annihilation: If it were not for these precautions, we would have suffered great loss, but when we compare our losses with the large number of fighter aircraft, missiles, and artillery bombing that the Iraqi Army was subject to we find these losses trifling. That proved that the Republican Guards and the armed forces managed to reduce the danger from air strikes.24 This was just one of dozens of briefings on Desert Storm that drove home the point that in the issues that mattered, Iraq had done well in that conflict. In a

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short time, the constant repetition of these lessons – dispersing, digging deep bunkers, and hiding the Iraqi Army – became the de facto operational doctrine. Little evidence exists that any of the politicized Iraqi generals understood the advantages in maneuverability, speed, exploitation, command and control, or the training that the U.S. forces enjoyed.25 However, by the time the military was ready to brief Saddam on the lessons of the Gulf War, they fully understood the danger of presenting Saddam truths other than those of which he had already convinced himself. Truthful analyses, therefore, gave way to belittlement of the American victory and discounting that America had any advantage over Iraq other than in military technology. This comment from a mid-1990s conference is typical: After the liberation of our land in Kuwait, and despite the fact that more than thirty countries headed by the occupation forces of the U.S. rushed madly upon our Republican Guard, our performance was heroic.26 One author captures well the reality behind these revisions of Gulf War history: From the ruins, Baghdad radio spoke of the war as “a great achievement” and called the withdrawal “heroic.” Baghdad’s official version of the events reminded some Iraqis of the story of an Italian general defeated at AlAlamain by General Montgomery. When reproached for having allowed his forces to flee the battle, he solemnly remarked, “Yes, we ran away – but like lions.”27

The rise of private armies It is hard to overestimate the effects that the Shi’a and Kurd uprisings in 1991 had on Saddam’s outlook. The threat of another uprising consistently remained his top security concern. One of the precautions he took to prevent and, when necessary, quell a future disturbance was to create private armies made up of politically reliable troops: the Saddam Fedayeen, the Al-Quds Army, and the Ba’ath militia. Most Western analysts have argued that Saddam created these (and spin-off organizations) to help defend Iraq from external attack. This was indeed the case, but only much later in their development and after Saddam’s growing fascination with the success of the Palestinian intifadas and with the American experience in Somalia. However, documents emerging after Operation Iraqi Freedom indicate that the original and primary purpose of the paramilitaries had little to do with defending Iraq from invasion. Because these organizations had a dramatic effect on army recruiting and stripped the military of needed equipment, they actually had negative impacts on conventional elements of national security. Worse still, when they eventually were committed to battle against the onrushing Coalition forces, they were obliterated in short order.

Iraqi military effectiveness 31 The Al-Quds Army The Al-Quds Army was a regional militia created to control specific areas, and after the experience of 1991, to crush as rapidly as possible any disturbance that did occur. Always conscious of Iraq’s “historic” mission, Saddam created the Al-Quds (named after the Arabic word for “Jerusalem”) and claimed the liberation of Jerusalem as its purpose. Its actual size could not be determined at the time of this writing, but it was likely an order-of-magnitude less than the seven million strong Saddam’s advisors claimed it to be. The best estimate is that close to 500,000 joined the Al-Quds, but coming with widely varying degrees of commitment. Currently available documents on the Al-Quds organization indicate that its leaders never seriously considered marching to liberate Jerusalem. Rather, they exclusively focused on defending specific Iraqi locales listed in various Ba’ath “emergency” plans. For example, the August 2002 emergency plan for the city of Kirkuk, located 50 miles north of Baghdad, described the friendly forces as including the various Governate and local Ba’ath militia commands as well as the Al-Quds force. This detailed planning document described the mission AlQuds “fighters” as follows: The Ba’ath Governate Forces Command – Al Quds, supported by subordinate troops, shall fight the enemy rebels boldly. With deep belief in the Mighty God, our forces shall achieve an earth shaking triumph on that enemy, and will prevent that enemy from achieving any despised goals. We shall keep stability and security.28 The specified tasks that flowed from this less-than-specific mission statement provides a glimpse of the national security utility of various Ba’ath military capabilities: •

• • •

defend the sector of responsibility from Al-Hurriyyah playground east to the Laylan Bridge south and . . . prevent the enemy rebels from occupying it, no matter what it may cost; protect vital establishments within responsibility limits by assigning a proper force and identifying the commandant and the assistant; prevent rebels from infiltrating into the town to achieve their goals, maintain security and stability in town; keep all possible village routes and roads under surveillance to prevent saboteurs infiltrating into town.29

One finds the same tone in contingency planning for the Al-Quds in southern Iraq, where the Shi’a represented the main threat. The Commander of the Al-Quds Karbala Division issued a detailed plan on March 9, 2003 for dealing with internal and external threats. His plan took the form of protecting against what he termed “agent-inspired spontaneous disorder against vital targets in order to destroy the

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infrastructure of Iraq and create pressures against the nation.”30 This commander also worried that this time the Coalition might assist the rebels with “a media and psychological war meant to affect morale” and possibly “a push towards vital targets with the use of infantry supported by air force and helicopters.”31 In response to the anticipated threats, the order spelled out the following tasks: • • • • •

prepare alternative methods to deal with the possibility of an interruption in communication; combat rumors and hostile propaganda; keep the main roads open at all times and adopt flexible and effective measures if bridges are destroyed; move, camouflage, and hide all weapons, equipment and vehicles to their assigned holes, disperse and evacuate, move to alternative headquarters; avoid using the entire force in the early stages until after the most serious threat has been identified.32

As to their value as a military force in time of war, the Minister of Defense best expressed the conventional military evaluation of their capabilities: The Quds Force was a headache, they had no equipment for a serious war, and their creation was a bad idea. The Ministry of Defense was required to give them weapons that were taken from the real Army. But the Army had no control of them. Their instructions came only from the President’s office and not from normal military channels.33 According to another senior Iraqi general, the Al-Quds was not a serious combat force: “It never had anything to do with the liberation of Jerusalem or fighting the Zionists, and was merely another organ of regime protection.”34 During the war, the system crafted by Saddam continued to pass a stream of boasts, half-truths, and of lies about the abilities and performance of the AlQuds. Because he fully expected its members to fight like lions and bleed the Americans dry, no one was courageous enough to tell him the truth. A typical report from early in the war was captured by a public release from the Iraqi Army General Command: A hostile force backed by jets fighters and helicopters attempted to approach the outskirts of the Al-Muthanna Governate. Our unrivaled men of the Al-Quds Army confronted it and forced it to stop and then retreat. They inflicted on it huge human and equipment losses. This included the destruction of seven vehicles of various types. Congratulations to the Al-Quds Army on its absolute victory over the allies of the wicked Zionists.35 That the event never happened as described was immaterial to the Ba’ath Command. It closely mirrored the stream of Al-Quds reporting throughout late

Iraqi military effectiveness 33 March 2003. For the military high command, reality was whatever Saddam expected it to be. The military advisor to the Commander of the Central Euphrates Region presented a more realistic assessment of the Al-Quds martial spirit on the same day as the above report: According to the leadership, the Ba’ath party members were to fight inside the city and had built some sandbagged positions, while the Al-Quds Force was to remain outside. During my inspection I could not find even 10 percent of the 30,000 Al-Quds that they assured me were ready. When I asked where they were, I was told they were all locals and at that moment they were either at home or changing shifts – but I was assured that they would be right back. In the Al-Quds fighting positions, where I should have found approximately 200 soldiers, there were not even 50 present.36 The reality that Saddam’s inner circle refused to tell him was that the AlQuds started dissolving as American tanks approached. By the time Coalition tanks arrived at many Al-Qud defensive positions, Saddam’s vaunted warriors had vanished. As another military advisor to the Central Euphrates region noted after the war: The Quds Force numbers were not fixed. Before the war (in normal times) each regiment had 300 fighters. These numbers started dropping to zero during the war. Some were wounded in action, but most deserted.37 This same advisor went on to state that virtually every professional military officer in the field knew what the Ba’athists chose to ignore: All of these Al-Quds were not prepared to fight because their commanders were civilians who had no military experience . . . The military advisors to the Al-Quds had no role, because the Ba’ath commanders made the decisions and wouldn’t listen to the advisor. But Ba’ath commanders, especially Saddam Hussein, lived an illusion. Commanders told him that we have seen millions in the Quds Army and Saddam Hussein would depend on them.38 The Fedayeen Saddam The Fedayeen Saddam is an even more interesting example than the Al-Quds of Saddam’s growing infatuation with popular forces. If the Al-Quds was viewed as a part-time territorial defense force to be used in times of crisis, the Fedayeen Saddam was a permanent force tasked with a number of state security missions. Before the war, Coalition planners believed the Fedayeen Saddam was a paramilitary group with wide ranging missions from counter-insurgency, domestic direct action, and surveillance operations. They also understood that the

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Fedayeen Saddam served as a backup to the regular army and Al-Quds in case of a local uprising.39 Such assessments were generally correct, but the real significance of the Fedayeen Saddam and its sometimes bizarre evolution only became clear after the war. Saddam formed the Fedayeen Saddam in October 1994 in reaction to the Shi’ite and Kurdish uprisings of March 1991. As previously mentioned, these uprisings, which Saddam called “Page of Treason and Treachery,” seared the soul of the regime. Together the Shi’a in the south and the Kurds in the north revealed to Saddam the potentially fatal flaws in his internal security concepts.40 • •

•

First, the local Ba’ath organs were not capable of crushing an uprising by local populations without external support. Second, the Iraqi army, and to a lesser extent the Republican Guard, was unable to act with sufficient speed and ruthlessness to suppress any rebellion. And finally, the tribes of Iraq still represented a significant threat even after more than 25 years of Ba’athist pan-Arabic, socialist indoctrination.

The post-Desert Storm 1991 uprisings as the seminal event in Saddam’s rule cannot be overstated. As with the creation of the Al-Quds, he moved rapidly to create other military capabilities to prevent a recurrence – even at the risk of further weakening Iraq’s military capabilities to defend against an external attack. The fanatically loyal Fedayeen Saddam was the perfect tool to ensure any future revolt would be rapidly crushed. A growing challenge that drove Saddam to expand the powers of the Fedayeen Saddam was maintaining civil order as the effects of the United Nations sanctions began to unravel the social contract of the nation. While many in the West may find it difficult to understand how criminal groups could function effectively in a police state, the tribal culture of Iraq made the formation of secret criminal gangs an easy and often lucrative enterprise. After 1991, criminal gangs became involved in a burgeoning black market, growing steadily in power, influence, and, above all, riches. It is ironic that while the Fedayeen Saddam was charged with controlling a growing lawlessness, its members were heavily involved in large-scale criminal activity.41 It would be easy to view the Fedayeen Saddam as a particularly ruthless state police force, but that would be a mistake. According to Fedayeen Saddam planning documents captured by the Coalition, the mission of the Fedayeen Saddam was to protect Iraq “from any threats inside and outside.”42 To accomplish this mission, the Fedayeen Saddam was to defeat any enemy, defined as whoever sought to sabotage, destroy, or threaten the safety, security, and sovereignty of Iraq, whether from inside or outside, including those involved in the following activities: • •

the destruction of Iraq’s economic environment; smuggling and forging;

Iraqi military effectiveness 35 • • •

spying and being agents; corruption in the armed forces; spreading negative rumors.43

Meticulous Fedayeen Saddam records listed numerous operations conducted in the decade after the creation of the Fedayeen Saddam: • • • •

“extermination operations” against saboteurs in Al-Muthana; an operation to “ambush and arrest” car thieves in Al-Anbar; the monitoring of Shi’ite civilians at the holy places of Karbala; a plan to bomb a humanitarian outpost in Irbil, which the Iraqi secret police suspected of being a Western intelligence operation.44

The Fedayeen Saddam also took part in the regime’s terrorism operations, which they conducted inside Iraq, and at least planned for attacks in major Western cities. In a document dated May 1999, Uday Hussein ordered preparations for “special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas (Kurdistan).”45 Other captured documents indicated that preparations for a regime-directed wave of terror, codenamed “Blessed July,” against targets outside of Iraq were well underway. Evidence exists that the Fedayeen Saddam had already conducted a number of early operations, particularly against the Kurds and Shi’a. Evidence supporting this contention comes in a letter to Uday Hussein from a Fedayeen Saddam widow who requested help to secure her husband’s pension benefits. According to the letter, her husband, a long-time operative with the security services, had died in July 2000 carrying out a suicide operation for the Fedayeen Saddam against Kurdish opposition parties.46 In the final months before Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Fedayeen Saddam actively began planning operations against the Coalition, including suicide missions aimed at crossing into Kuwait to “explode volcanoes under the feet of the invaders,” if Coalition forces were to reach Baghdad.47 While it appears that they never crossed into Kuwait, a number of Fedayeen Saddam suicide attacks did take place during the war. Equipping and training the Fedayeen Saddam was a priority mission for the regular Iraqi Army and for the fast-growing bureaucracy of the Fedayeen Saddam. The organization also became a hobby for Uday Hussein when he was not running Iraq’s Olympic Committee or the Iraqi Youth Union. Saddam’s support and Uday’s involvement ensured that the Fedayeen Saddam remained near the top of the priority list for men and materiel. Thus, it became just one more organization sapping the strength and morale of the regular Iraqi Army and focusing the security energy at the internal threat. Fedayeen Saddam’s training focused primarily on small arms, small-unit tactics, sabotage techniques, and military surveillance and reconnaissance tasks. The Fedayeen Saddam also became a primary consumer for many of the “niche” military capabilities that proliferated throughout the regime. One such project

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was the Iraqi Intelligence Service’s “Division 27” that supplied the Fedayeen Saddam with silencers, equipment for booby-trapping vehicles, special training on the use of certain explosive devices, special molds for explosives, and a variety of explosive timer.48 The only apparent use for all of this Division 27 equipment was to conduct commando or terrorist operations. The Military Industrial Commission also got into the business of supplying – or at least promising to supply – the Fedayeen Saddam with a surprising array of special capabilities. According to a December 2000 memorandum, these capabilities included specially armed helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, and specially modified fishing boats capable of firing rockets with a range of ten to 20 kilometers and torpedoes in international waters.49 Beginning in 1994, the Fedayeen Saddam opened its own paramilitary training camps for volunteers, graduating more than 7,200 “good men racing full with courage and enthusiasm” in the first year.50 Beginning in 1998, these camps began hosting “Arab volunteers from Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, ‘the Gulf,’ and Syria.” It is not clear from available evidence where all of these non-Iraqi volunteers who were “sacrificing for the cause” went to ply their newfound skills. Before the summer of 2002, most volunteers went home upon the completion of training.51 But these training camps were humming with frenzied activity in the months immediately prior to the war. As late as January 2003, the volunteers participated in a special training event called the “Heroes Attack.” This training event was designed in part to prepare regional Fedayeen Saddam commands to “obstruct the enemy from achieving his goal and to support keeping peace and stability in the province.”52 Less than 30 days prior to the start of the war, the Directorate of General Military Intelligence’s Special Mission Unit took charge of the training of a group of Fedayeen Saddam volunteers. They were to form “small kamikaze combat groups, equipped with weapons and munitions suitable for use behind enemy lines and on the flanks, by causing additional damage in the enemy’s armor and helicopters.”53 The volunteers attended a condensed 30-day course, which included physical training, weapons training, planning, map reading, recognizing enemy weapons, using communications devices, military engineering, combat in rough conditions, and swimming, then topped off with a practical exercise.54 Assuming this group started training in the first week of March 2003, some of them were undoubtedly available to test their new skills against the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division during its “Thunder Runs” into the heart of Baghdad. Not atypically, corruption soon worked its way into the Fedayeen Saddam. Despite regular showers of cash, on-the-spot bonuses for successful missions, educational benefits, military privileges if injured, martyr privileges if killed, and free land just for volunteering, a number of Fedayeen Saddam still joined the growing underground economy.55 In 2001, reports surfaced that members of the organization were smuggling weapons to the Saudi border for cash and establishing road-blocks in order to shake down travelers unlucky enough to be caught on the roads.56 These failures of discipline elicited a strong response from the regime. After all, the Fedayeen Saddam was the regime’s private army – therefore Saddam

Iraqi military effectiveness 37 expected it to possess the highest standards of personal honor and virtue. Beginning in 1996, harsh penalties in some cases resembling the harshest examples of Sharia (Islamic) law became the norm for the Fedayeen Saddam. These punishments included amputating hands for theft, being tossed off towers for sodomy, being whipped 100 times for sexual harassment, stoning for various infractions, and cutting out tongues for lying.57 Given the mixed missions, it was only a matter of time until military failure also became punishable as a criminal offense. In typical Iraqi bureaucratic fashion, a table of specific failures and the punishment to be meted out was created and approved. In 1998 the Secretariat of the Fedayeen Saddam issued the following “regulations for an execution order against the commanders of the various Fedayeen”: • • • • • •

Any section commander will be executed if his section is defeated. Any platoon commander will be executed, if two of his sections are defeated. Any company commander will be executed, if two of his platoons are defeated. Any regiment commander will be executed, if two of his companies are defeated. Any area commander will be executed if his Governate is defeated. Any Fedayeen Saddam fighter including commanders will be executed, if he hesitates in completing his duties, cooperates with the enemy, gives up his weapons, or hides any information concerning the security of the state.58

No wonder the Fedayeen Saddam often proved the most fanatical fighters among the various Iraqi forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom. On numerous occasions, Fedayeen forces hurled themselves against armored columns rushing past the southern cities of As Samawah, An Najaf, and Karbala; and finally even trying to bar entry into Baghdad itself, long after the Republican Guard had mostly quit the field. In the years preceding the Coalition invasion, their leaders became enamored with the belief that the spirit of the Fedayeen “Arab warriors” could overcome rapid maneuver and precision fires that were the major attributes of military doctrine.59 In any event, they proved totally unprepared for the kind of war they were asked to fight, dying by the thousands.

Relatives and sycophants Saddam only truly trusted one person – himself. As a result, he concentrated more and more power directly in himself. The list of leadership positions he had assumed by the early 1990s illustrates this lack of trust: President, Prime Minister, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, General Secretary of the Ba’ath Party, and Commander of the Armed Forces.60 However, no single man could do everything. Where he was forced to enlist the help of others to handle operational details, Saddam pursued a unique set of hiring criteria. As one senior Iraqi leader noted, Saddam focused on selecting the

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“uneducated, untalented, and those who posed no threat to his leadership for key roles.”61 The ability or talent to do the assigned job was never high on Saddam’s list of attributes for a new hire. As one of Saddam’s closest confidants, Ali Hassan Al-Majid (“Chemical Ali”) noted, “Saddam was always wary of intelligent people. While Saddam liked having men around him with strong personalities, he did not like for those men to show off.”62 Describing Saddam’s approach for choosing those charged with making decisions that directly affected the military, one Republican Guard corps commander commented after the war: Saddam Hussein was personally a brave and bloody man. But, by his decisions he threw out the clever men, or the clever men learned not to involve themselves in any decision-making. They were then replaced by hypocrites who cared not for the people or army, but only cared about pleasing Saddam. This was clear in the last war when many relatives of Saddam said they would stay and fight for the honor of Saddam, but they did not. This is the nature of any dictatorship.63 Always wary of a potential coup, Saddam remained reluctant to entrust military authority in anyone too far removed from his family or tribe. To Western observers, the Republican Guard represented bulwark of the regime, but for Saddam, it was the military force best positioned to overthrow him. Consequently, in 2001 he placed his youngest son Qusay at its head. According to members of the inner circle, Qusay gradually became the major player in national security after 1995. His rise culminated in his being named “honorable supervisor” of the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard. In addition, Qusay maintained varying degrees of control over the Special Security Organization (SSO) and other internal security organizations.64 Qusay now commanded the elite combat units of the Iraqi military, but his military experience was limited to a short stint at the Iranian front in 1984, where he had little, if any, real combat. According to the Minister of Defense: My working for Qusay Hussein was a mistake; Qusay knew nothing – he understood only simple military things like a civilian. We prepared information and advice for him and he’d accept it or not. As the ultimate Commander of the Republican Guard, Qusay could take advice from professional military officers in the Ministry of Defense and the Republican Guard or ignore it to make decisions.65 Despite his lack of expertise, Qusay exuded confidence and attempted to play a dominant role in the final planning of Iraqi deployments against a Coalition invasion. During a December 18, 2002 Republican Guard planning meeting, Qusay presided over the presentation of a new defensive concept before the corps commanders and their staff. When several officers gently probed the plan’s underlying assumptions, Qusay’s lack of military experience forced him

Iraqi military effectiveness 39 to rely on the intellectually weak but very effective retort: “The plan is already approved by Saddam and it is you who will now make it work.” He soon followed up with the equally reassuring “there will be no changes to the plan because Saddam has signed it already.”66 As the “honorable supervisor” and son of Saddam, Qusay had the final say in significant military decisions unless Saddam himself chose to intervene. His purview included such fundamental matters as what key terrain to defend and when and how to shift the remaining Iraqi forces during the war. Several senior officers privately questioned many of his decisions, but few were willing to do so in such an open forum. After the war, senior military officers constantly remarked on Qusay’s lack of military knowledge and his unwillingness to take their “good” advice. However, this is too simplistic a formulation to explain everything that went wrong. The evidence shows that many who were in a position to advise Qusay were, in fact, unqualified to do so, while those who were qualified were often silent even when given an opportunity to speak. One of those at the heart of the regime who proved incapable of providing sound military advice to Qusay was a Major General Barzan ‘Abd al-Ghafur, the Commander of the Special Republican Guard. Before the war, Coalition planners generally assumed that the quality – and loyalty – of Iraqi military officers improved as one moved from the militias to the regular Army, to the Republican Guard, and then on to the Special Republican Guard.67 It stood to reason that the Commander of the Special Republican Guard would then be a highly competent, loyal, and important personality in Iraq’s military system. After all, the regime was entrusting that individual with the duty of conducting the final defense of the homes and offices of the regime’s elite. Coalition planners considered the Special Republican Guard the elite of the elite; and by logical extension, their commander would surely be the best Saddam could find. This piece of conventional wisdom was wrong.68 After the war, the peers and colleagues of the Special Republican Guard commander were all openly derisive of Barzan’s performance as an officer and commander. Saddam had selected Barzan, as one general noted, because he had several qualities that Saddam held dear, “He was Saddam’s cousin, but he had two other important qualities which made him the best man for the job. First, he was not intelligent enough to represent a threat to the regime and second, he was not brave enough to participate in anyone else’s plots.”69 As the Special Republican Guard commander, Barzan was well aware of the tenuous nature of his position. He recalled in a post-war interview: I was called to Baghdad from holiday and told that I would be taking command of the Special Republican Guard. I was on a probationary status for the first six months. I was ordered by Saddam to take the command; I had no choice. I was sick at the idea of being the Special Republican Guard commander. It was the most dangerous job in the regime.70

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This general, the man who was to command the last ditch stand of Saddam’s Guards, spent most of the war hiding. The selection of such a man for an important military position appears counter-intuitive, but given the imperatives of Iraqi politics, it was the only possible rational decision Saddam could make. The case of the Minister of Defense, General Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Ta’i, is strikingly different. Here, by all accounts, was a competent military commander who, upon reaching the pinnacle of power, apparently decided silence was the better part of valor. A number of senior Iraqi leaders identified General Sultan as one of the best and brightest among Iraq’s military leaders. His peers described him as a “mountain of morals” and compared him to Jafar al Askari, Minister of Defense in the 1930s and considered the “father of the Iraqi Army.”71 Judging just the scope of his military record, he appears to have been an impressive soldier. During his 40-year career, Sultan commanded two brigades, three divisions, and at least two corps of regular army troops. In so doing, he fought in every war after 1968 and developed a reputation as a creative, dynamic military leader. However, Sultan’s elevation to Minister of Defense changed him as well as his colleagues’ opinions of him. The specific reasons for the change are no doubt complex, but his actions during the meetings and planning conferences prior to the Coalition invasion suggest an explanation. In one telling event during the final planning, he remained silent when more junior officers voiced concerns over Saddam’s new plan for the defense of Iraq. As one corps commander who was present later noted, “Some of the senior military leaders present only competed to please Saddam. The Minister of Defense was an honorable man but he gave up his strategic vision in order to keep Saddam’s favor. This, “in his opinion,” was very unfortunate for Iraq.”72

Security and command limitations While most senior military leaders found themselves caught up in the corrupting influences surrounding the regime’s inner circle, other factors combined to undermine the effectiveness of subordinate leaders and units. While actual warfighting units at corps and division level also possessed their share of “trusted” officers, many still exhibited a level of professional competence during post-war interviews that seemed inconsistent with their general reputation. They provided two reasons for this incongruity: the limits Saddam imposed on their exercise of authority and the effects of the pervasive internal security apparatus. The commander of the Baghdad Republican Guard Infantry Division provided an example of the effects of stripping division commanders of authority necessary to make decisions. The division’s mission from 1998 until the Coalition invasion was to defend the area around the city of al-Kut, located southeast of Baghdad. This area has traditionally been the key terrain for defending Iraq against an Iranian invasion from the east; it remains one of the most critical areas in Iraqi defense planning:

Iraqi military effectiveness 41 In the Republican Guard, division and corps commanders could not make decisions without the approval of the staff command. Division commanders could only move small elements within their command. Major movements such as brigade-sized elements and higher had to be requested through the corps commander to the staff command. This process did not change during the war and in fact became more centralized.73 Such a lack of trust had a direct effect not only on the commander’s ability to lead his unit but also the unit’s ability to take advantage of its knowledge of the ground to prepare an optimal defense. In many cases, staff officers in Baghdad who had never visited the area still managed to forward precise deployment locations for even the smallest units directly to division commanders. The Baghdad commander continued: Only the Republican Guard staff command directed maneuvers and it did not allow subordinate commanders to make suggestions. If a commander made a decision without the Republican Guard chief of staff’s approval, he would be punished. The only commanders who had any protection were those from Tikrit. They were allowed to make their own decisions because the government trusted them more.74 The Commander of the II Republican Guard Corps echoed the problems described by the Commander of the Baghdad Division. He reported a constant struggle with higher headquarters regarding disposition of “his” units. As the commander of the II Republican Guard Corps noted, “I had to ask for permission from the Republican Guard staff in Baghdad to move brigade-size units and was still doing so up until April 2 and 3.”75 By then Coalition forces were making their final drive on Baghdad. The gulf between Iraqi and Coalition approaches to battlefield command and control could not have been wider. Coalition doctrine emphasized distributed operations and battlefield autonomy (or decentralized command and control), while the focus of Iraq’s military was on template solutions and centralized control. The nature of Saddam’s regime made it impossible to tolerate any other approach. Saddam personally advising a group of senior commanders on how they should react to an enemy helicopter assault offered an example of where the regime’s emphasis on centralized control bounded all but the most aggressive commanders’ authority: If we assume that X is a commander of an armored brigade according to ordinary standards and there was a landing by helicopters 20 km [kilometers] away from him, what are the checks he should make? What should he wish to know about the landing? . . . What are the sources of information he can depend on? . . . What are the issues? In all events you have one or two guns near the headquarters brigade. Therefore, the first thing you should do is an immediate reaction by artillery. At the same time, you call by phone

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K.M. Woods and say: Maximum attention. And then you prepare the entire brigade to be ready for a later order and then you report this to the higher headquarters and tell it: A landing at a depth of so-and-so took place in front of us . . . This will enable the headquarters to operate its artillery. At the same time, as a higher headquarters, it will help you by offering proper advice, orders, or instructions.76

Not every operational commander had to endure the restrictions that impeded the Baghdad Division commander and others. In sharp relief to these restrictions were those imposed on the Al-Nida Division. The Al-Nida was a Republican Guard armored division tasked to defend Baghdad’s eastern approaches against possible Iranian attacks along the Dialya River from the northeastern shoulder of Baghdad up to Baquba. This sector was the critical terrain in the conventional defense of Baghdad against an enemy attacking from the east.77 The division’s position would make it the “last-line of defense” for any serious Iranian attack. Given the relatively short 120 kilometers to the Iranian frontier, the readiness of the Al-Nida Division was a national priority. Both Iraqi and Coalition intelligence organizations considered the Al-Nida Division to be the “best of the best” in the Republican Guard. As described by the Al-Nida’s chief of staff, the division’s materiel readiness was the best in the Iraqi military: The brigades were at 100 percent strength or better. The tanks were between 99 percent or 98 percent ready for war. The brigades had all the most modern equipment in the Iraqi armed forces, T-72 tanks, and BMP-2 armored personnel carriers, 130 mm artillery cannons . . . and 155 mm cannons. Every battalion had 18 cannons.78 According to his chief of staff, the division commander planned and conducted training virtually independent of any higher authority. Such autonomy was unheard of in his sister unit, the Baghdad Division.79 For example, before the Coalition invasion the division moved one of its brigade garrisons and conducted a series of “urban warfare” training drills. The division’s chief of staff also described adjusting its defensive posture to create a series of “false” brigade fighting positions, while a robust series of new survivability positions were hastily dug along the Diyala River with little or no direction – or interference – from higher headquarters.80 The Al-Nida Division’s commander stated that during the war he often made direct contact with other division commanders to receive battlefield updates and build a picture of what was occurring. For most Iraqi commanders, contacting other commanders even during war-time remained a risky enterprise. When asked in a post-war interview to explain the disparity between the authority he exercised and that exercised by other divisional commanders, the commander answered in an incredulous tone, “I am a Tikriti and other commanders were not.”81 In Saddam’s military, tribal or familial relationships trumped

Iraqi military effectiveness 43 the actual documented authority necessary for effective command at any particular echelon. Another critical inhibitor of Iraqi tactical performance lay in the effects of the regime’s pervasive internal security environment. The almost-Orwellian security environment of the Ba’athist regime stretched from the central offices of the regime’s inner circle down to tactical units. According to one senior minister: Each ministry or any other government establishment had a security chief who reported to the agency to which he belonged. His section kept an eye on all affairs and actions, encouraging disgruntled individuals to provide information on what was going on. The Ba’ath party members and “aspirants” also wrote reports to the leader of the sector or cell. Rivalries and backbiting were encouraged.82 Military officers executed their duties under the constant, intrusive, and, more often than not, uncoordinated supervision of multiple security services.83 One knowledgeable source claimed, “One officer in five reporting on his peers was the ‘desirable’ state of affairs, but the Special Security Office often achieved higher ratios.”84 Every senior commander interviewed after hostilities emphasized the psychological costs of constantly looking over their shoulders as a significant constraint on their military effectiveness. At any one time, each of these commanders had to contend with at least five major security organizations: the Special Security Office, the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the Directorate of General Security, the General Directorate of Military Intelligence, and various “security service” offices within the Republican Guard’s bureaucracy.85 Moreover, the number of security personnel in each of these organizations increased dramatically after 1991. In many cases, new spies were sent to units to report on the spies already there, even those from their own organizations. One former senior commander described the Republican Guard’s Security Office as growing from a small office to a battalion-sized element in response to finger-pointing after the 1991 Gulf War and the regime’s increasing fears about internal security.86 In a rambling tirade, this officer outlined the nature of the surveillance from this one organization and the corroding effect this spying had: The main function of the Republican Guard Security Office was to monitor and ensure the loyalty of Republican Guard forces. All phones in Republican Guard offices were monitored and all meetings were recorded. Highranking officers were subjected to constant technical monitoring and surveillance in and out of their homes. The Republican Guard Security Office monitored all aspects of senior Republican Guard officers’ lives, including their financial affairs and diet. Republican Guard Security Office personnel even questioned the guards at senior officers’ houses to see what they could learn about the officers’ life styles. Republican Guard security officers were generally despised by the regular Republican Guard personnel. The Special Security Office knew how many times I went to the bathroom.

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K.M. Woods Requesting retirement was impossible because the regime would assume one opposed them politically, and one would be arrested and jailed. Republican Guard Security Office monitoring was thorough; for example, one officer was given six months in jail for telling a joke about the Republican Guard Security Office. This was supposed to ensure that Republican Guard personnel would never become involved in politics. This had a powerful negative affect on Republican Guard morale. Republican Guard commanders were not trusted to conduct any movement or even so much as start a tank without permission.87

The II Republican Guard Corps commander described the influence of the internal security environment on a typical corps-level staff meeting: First a meeting would be announced and all the corps-level staff, the subordinate division commanders and selected staff, as well as supporting or attached organizations and their staffs would assemble at the corps headquarters. The corps commander had to ensure then that all the spies were in the room before the meeting began so that there would not be any suspicions in Baghdad as to my purpose. This kind of attention to my own internal security was required. I spent considerable time finding clever ways to invite even the spies I was not supposed to know about. Failure by the “target” of all of this internal spying to coordinate the surreptitious activities of the various persons spying on him could easily have left one out and resulted in unwarranted and possibly dangerous suspicion by the senior leadership in Baghdad based on his report of being excluded from a “secret” meeting.88 This corps commander describes what he believed the impact of all this spying had on military effectiveness: You must understand that the Republican Guard internal security process was very compartmented, even in normal times. For example, in some cases a subordinate unit could be moved by the Republican Guard headquarters without my permission. In some cases, I would find out just prior to the execution of the move. I could not question it. In fact, security measures like this killed the flexibility in units and made commanders into very “small soldiers.” My long experience in the Republican Guard allowed me some flexibility but I was having trouble because the regime security people were always trying to set me up and find some mistake. This is why I always invited all the spies to my meetings. The security situation in the last few years reached the point of incredible. We could have no relationships with fellow commanders. This prevented even friendships. Thank God for my books or I would have felt otherwise a man alone in a cave. During this critical period I was completely uninformed about other unit plans around me. I had the Al Nida and the Baghdad Divisions but officially I could not ask

Iraqi military effectiveness 45 them about any of their missions and plans that were sent to them directly from Republican Guard headquarters in Baghdad.89 There were two common reactions to the pervasive security apparatus. The first, taken by the commander of the II Republican Guard Corps, was to work through the fog of suspicion and maintain as open a process as possible, while still attempting to command a military unit on the brink of war. Operating in this manner often required extreme precautions. The II Corps commander, for instance, held most of his private meetings in the walled garden of a private home where he was relatively assured the regime’s spies could not eavesdrop on him.90 The second reaction, the one more commonly followed by senior leaders, was to avoid any actions, activities, or circumstances that might bring suspicion from the various “eyes” of the regime. During interviews with the commander of the I Republican Guard Corps, it was obvious he selected the second method as his preferred way of dealing with the security forces: One of the biggest weaknesses of the Iraqi military was that, units were not allowed to independently coordinate with each other for defensive integration. All orders came from the chief of staff of the Republican Guard, which ultimately came from Qusay or Saddam Hussein . . . In order to know where units were located on our flanks, we had to use our own reconnaissance elements because we were not allowed to communicate with our sister units.91 The net effect of such reactions to the threat imposed by the security services was that corps-level operational command and control disappeared from the battlefield. This atmosphere of fear and its resulting impact on the performance of the Iraqi leadership explains much about the actions of Iraq’s military forces on the battlefield. The restrictions imposed on them in peacetime made it impossible to coordinate plans or action during war. The regime had consistently sacrificed military effectiveness for the more important needs of internal security. In effect, it had neutered its military force, which was now incapable of standing up to a disciplined and competent military force.

Reflections At the conclusion of Iraqi military operations, one of the most thoughtful senior officers in the Iraqi armed forces provided a list of what he regarded as the major contributing factors to the stunningly sudden collapse of Iraq’s military organizations:92 • The persistence of the Commander in Chief (Saddam Hussein) until a very late time in insisting that every branch of the armed forces, in their organizational differences, make independent plans for the defense of their areas of responsibility.

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K.M. Woods • The tyranny of the security establishment and justification of any of their whims on security grounds, even though those whims actually harmed the defensive planning operations. • The military bureaucracy grew enormous with the constant loss of authority that was a result of the administrative rule, “There is no responsibility without authority, and there is no authority without accountability.” • The unchecked spread of administrative corruption and bribery, especially in the last few years. • A drop in the level of training as a philosophy, and a concrete loss in the foundations for training (because of the sanctions), and a lack of ability to conduct operational planning. • Boredom and restiveness within the military career field because of the measures taken by the political leadership by which they alienated the people (the regime was a constant threat to the people for over twenty years straight. There was a prevalence of the negative emotions from huge numbers of families of martyrs, those being punished, and prisoners). The army did not want to confront the people. • The weakness of political loyalty between the commands and the personal separation from the political leadership by a lot of those affiliated with the armed forces. • Personal egos were behind the behavior of various levels of the high command: this ruled over their moral responsibilities towards the nation and the people and lasted until the final days of the war.93

In the end, Saddam determined that the most important factor for military success lay in the spirit of the warrior. Saddam considered the ideological commitment to the Ba’athist cause as the fundamental basis of this spirit and the foundation for preparing Iraq’s soldiers for war. Because he perceived the Ba’athist spirit of the “Iraqi warrior” was far superior to anything American soldiers were capable of bringing to the battlefield, he overlooked the many forces eroding the foundations of true military effectiveness. The conclusion of an Iraqi training manual sums up the regime’s attitude: Military power is measured by the period in which difficulties become severe, calamities increase, choices multiply, and the world gets dark and nothing remains except the bright light of belief and ideological determination . . . If [the soldier] ignores [his] values, principles, and ideals, all military foundations would collapse. He will be defeated, shamed, and [his] military honor will remain in the same place together with the booty taken by the enemy. The President, the Leader Saddam Hussein asks, “Would men allow for their military honor to be taken by the enemy as booty from the battle?”94 In March 2003, the regime ordered its military to stop the Coalition invasion. It was not the first army to place “spirit” over the reality of firepower and steel, and it is unlikely to be the last.

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Notes 1 This is not meant to be a clinical description but is intended to capture the dramatically different definitions of professional competence at work in Iraq. Some generals were purely Ba’athist and political while others displayed a clear understanding of what in the West would be considered military competence. But even this latter group was adept at acting with the former when circumstances demanded it. 2 Captured media file (August 10, 1995), “Saddam Hussein Meeting with Leaders of the Republican Guard Regarding Readiness of the Guard.” Note: Whenever possible a full citation to the original material is used in footnotes. In some cases footnotes refer to a “Classified Intelligence Report” and a date. These “reports” are, for the most part, interviews of senior personnel from the former regime of Saddam Hussein conducted by personnel not associated with the Iraqi Perspectives Project. The record copy of some of this material remains classified for reasons unrelated to the specific topics contained in this study. All materials derived from these classified reports were cleared for public release by the appropriate U.S. Government agency. 3 For example, “The RGFC [Republican Guard Forces Command] maintains a significant capability by regional standards. The size and experience of the RGFC are key advantages over other regional armies in the absence of U.S. support. However, thirteen years of sanctions have prevented Iraq from replacing the massive equipment losses suffered in Operation Desert Storm, and Iraqi forces remain much weaker than they were in 1990.” U.S. Central Command CONPLAN 1003-V. 4 Classified Intelligence Report, June 2003. 5 Classified Intelligence Report, July 2004. According to Kenneth Pollack, some 115 frontline Iraqi aircraft sought security in Iran during Operation Desert Storm. Kenneth Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991. Lincoln, NB and London (U.K.), University of Nebraska Press, 2002, p. 243. 6 For a detailed description of the history and organization of the Military Industrial Committee, see the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD. Vol. I. Central Intelligence Agency, September 30, 2004, p. 17. 7 Captured document, (February 25, 2003) Military Industrialization Commission Annual Report for 2002–2003 Investments, Projects, and Plans. 8 Unpublished draft memoirs of LTG Raad Hamdani, Commander II Republican Guard Corps. 9 “Perspectives Assistant Senior Military Advisor.” General Taha was commenting about his experiences as the senior naval officer in Iraq before he retired in the fall of 2002. 10 Classified Intelligence Report, May 2003. 11 According to one senior Iraqi source, “The rumor circulating was that if one said no to Saddam, one would be summarily executed; this was particularly true in the year prior to the lead-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom in April 2003.” Classified Intelligence Report, September 2003. 12 Classified Intelligence Report, March 2004. 13 Classified Intelligence Report, July 2004. 14 Classified Intelligence Report, March 2004. 15 Captured document (approximately 1993), “9th Session on the Role of the Republican Guard.” 16 Captured document (approximately 1993), “9th Session on the Role of the Republican Guard.” 17 Classified Intelligence Report, March 2004. 18 Captured document (November 8, 2002), “Letter Addressed to Saddam and Signed by the Minister of Defense Referring to the Summer 2002 Military Exercise ‘Golden Falcon.’ ” 19 Captured document (March 9, 2003), “Movement Order No. 3 for 2003, al-Hussein Brigade General Staff Headquarters.”

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20 Evidence of Saddam “coup-proofing” his regime through the manipulation of military assignments, rewards, and implementing strict controls over military organizations is clear in a large cross-section of interviews, debriefs, and interrogations. For an accurate description of the underlying civil–military relationship, see Ahmed Hashim, “Saddam Husayn and Civil–Military Relations in Iraq: The Quest for Legitimacy and Power,” Middle East Journal, 2003, vol. 57. 21 “Perspectives II Republican Guard Corps.” 22 Captured document (August 25, 2002), “Soldiers of the Republican Guards Headquarters of Offensive Mission as Noted in Republican Guards Training Guidance.” 23 Captured media file (February 29, 1992), “Saddam Meeting with Military Commanders Discussing 1991 Uprisings.” 24 Captured media file (dated approximately 1993), “Iraqi Command Meeting Regarding the Coalition Attack on Iraq and the 1991 Uprising.” 25 The project noted a distinction between most senior officers and a small but surprising group of two- and three-star commanders who possessed a lucid understanding of the capabilities of the Coalition and the qualitative gulf between forces on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom. 26 Captured document (dated approximately 1993), “Iraqi Command Meeting Regarding the Coalition Attack on Iraq and the 1991 Uprising.” 27 Faceh Abd Al-Jabbar, “Why the Uprisings,” Middle East Report, May–June 1992, p. 8. 28 Captured document (August 29, 2002), “Correspondence Issued from Al-Ta’mim Branch Command under the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party to Emergency Regiment Command Secretary.” Many similar examples are archived in the captured documents database from areas such as Fallujah, Basra, Al Nasiriyah, and Karbala. They all generally follow the tone and specificity of the Al-Ta’mim Branch document. 29 Captured document (August 29, 2002), “Correspondence issued from Al-Ta’mim Branch Command under the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party to Emergency Regiment Command Secretary.” 30 Captured document (March 9, 2003), “Plan by al-Quds for Defending District Issued by Karbala Division Commander.” 31 Captured document (March 9, 2003), “Plan by al-Quds for Defending District Issued by Karbala Division Commander.” 32 Captured document (March 9, 2003), “Plan by al-Quds for Defending District Issued by Karbala Division Commander.” 33 Project interview of Sultan Hashim Ahmed Al Hamed Al-Tai, Minister of Defense, November 13, 2003. 34 Classified Intelligence Report, December 2002. 35 Foreign Broadcast Information Service (March 24, 2003), “Iraqi Army General Command Issues Statement on Military Operations 23, 24 March.” Baghdad Iraqi Satellite Channel Television. 36 “Perspectives Assistant Senior Military Advisor.” 37 Project interview of LTG Kenan Mansour Khalil al-Obadi, Senior Military Advisor to RCC Member Mizban Khudr Al-Hadi, November 30, 2003. 38 Project interview of LTG Kenan Mansour Khalil al-Obadi, Senior Military Advisor to RCC Member Mizban Khudr Al-Hadi, November 30, 2003. 39 See U.S. Central Command CONPLAN 1003-V. 40 Starting in late March 1991 and continuing through at least November 1995, Saddam participated in numerous conferences, sponsored studies, and directed analyses of both the 1991 Gulf War and the rebellions that followed. See captured audio tape (May 5, 1991), “Saddam Hussein’s Meeting with High-Ranking Iraqi Officials, Evaluating the Iraqi Military Performance on the Battlefield during the First Gulf War 1991.” 41 A large volume of captured Fedayeen Saddam documents deal with internal criminal investigations for activities ranging from smuggling to armed robberies.

Iraqi military effectiveness 49 42 Captured document (November 2, 1995), “Military Directorate Correspondence Reports About Fedayeen Saddam Troops and Their Organizational Structure.” 43 Captured document (November 2, 1995), “Military Directorate Correspondence Reports About Fedayeen Saddam Troops and Their Organizational Structure.” 44 Captured documents: (July 11, 1999), “Plans and Analysis Reports by the Fedayeen Saddam Secretariat”; (March 14, 2000), “Memo from Office of the Fedayeen Saddam Chief of Staff about Special Operations Against Car Thieves”; (March 20, 2002), “Security Plan for Karbala Force of Fedayeen Saddam from Fedayeen Secretariat”; (November 16, 2000), “Military Orders for Fedayeen to Blow Up a Building.” 45 Captured document (May 25, 1999), “Fedayeen Saddam Instructions.” 46 Captured document (July 1, 2001), “Correspondence Between Fedayeen Saddam and Iraq National Olympic Committee Regarding a Letter from a Widow.” The widow’s letter goes on to note her husband’s many successful missions, including the July 6, 1992 car bomb attack against a convoy near Halabjah carrying the wife of a former French president. 47 Captured documents: (March 25, 2003), “Correspondence from Fedayeen Saddam to Uday Regarding Fedayeen Saddam Suicide Mission Team”; (March 15, 2003), “Letter from Qusay to Saddam Regarding the Preparation of Fedayeen Forces to Strike Deep Within Kuwait if American Forces Converge on Baghdad.” 48 Captured document (approximately 1999), “1999 IIS Plan for Training Fedayeen Saddam Using IEDs.” 49 Captured document (December 23, 2000), “Fedayeen Saddam UAV and Special Boat Plans.” 50 Captured document (November 2, 1995), “Military Directorate Correspondence Reports about Fedayeen Saddam Troops and Their Organizational Structure.” 51 Captured document (October 7, 2000), “Correspondence from Presidential Office to Secretary General of the Fedayeen Saddam Regarding Foreign Arab Volunteers.” 52 Captured document (January 16, 2003), “Training Exercise ‘Heroes Attack’ Plan for Kadhima Command, Al-Muthana Force of the Fedayeen Saddam.” 53 Captured document (February 23, 2003), “Special Unit in Fedayeen Organization Formation Orders from Military Intelligence Director.” 54 Captured document (February 23, 2003), “Special Unit in Fedayeen Organization Formation Orders from Military Intelligence Director.” 55 Captured document (June 14, 1995), “RCC Decision About Fedayeen Saddam Rights and Privileges Forwarded to MIC.” 56 Captured document (May 9, 2002), “Correspondence Issued by Secretariat of Fedayeen Saddam Regarding Cutting Off Hands of the Fedayeen Saddam Members Who Were Smuggling Weapons to the Saudi Side During 2001.” 57 Captured documents: (August 21, 1996), “Reference File of the Laws of the Fedayeen Saddam”; (October 11, 2002), “Memos Within Fedayeen Saddam General Secretariat Regarding Disciplinary Actions and Punishment Orders.” 58 Captured document (January 15, 1998), “Memos Issued by the Head of the Fedayeen Saddam Passing Down Regulations for Executions.” 59 In a 1995 discussion with senior military commanders, Saddam requested a study of such non-Arab struggles, “especially their military sides . . . [w]e can gain a lot from . . . Rommel and De Gaulle.” However, Saddam cautioned them to “avoid propaganda books” and above all do “not concentrate on the leaders.” In this context, perhaps examining operational and tactical decision-making cut too close to Saddam’s exclusive domain. After all, military history is as much a review of mistakes made as it is successes achieved. Captured document (October 8, 1995), “Saddam Meeting with Senior Military Leaders.” 60 Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD. Vol. I. Central Intelligence Agency, September 30, 2004, p. 5. 61 Classified Intelligence Report, April 2004.

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62 Classified Intelligence Report, August 2003. 63 “Perspectives II Republican Guard Corps,” p. 37. 64 Classified Intelligence Report, April 2004. Also Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD. Vol. I. Central Intelligence Agency, September 30, 2004, pp. 87–88. 65 Project interview of Sultan Hashim Ahmed Al Hamed Al-Tai, Minister of Defense, November 13, 2003. 66 “Perspectives II Republican Guard Corps,” p. 7. 67 The Special Republican Guard: The Special Republican Guard was a division-sized internal security force of approximately 15,000 men. Its primary mission was to protect Saddam and control the civilian population of Baghdad. The Special Republican Guard troops were organized into approximately 12 battalions, but were normally deployed in platoon- and company-sized elements. 68 There was an exception to the conventional wisdom. A Central Intelligence Agency study, The Iraqi Senior Officer Corps: Shaped by Pride, Prejudice, Patrimony, and Fear, was released on March 18, 2003 (one day prior to the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom). It noted the following about the Special Republican Guard commander: “He reportedly drinks heavily and has sexual relationships with numerous women,” p. 27. 69 Project interview of Sultan Hashim Ahmed Al Hamed Al-Tai, Minister of Defense, November 13, 2003. 70 Project interview of Barzan Abd Al-Ghafur Sulayman Al-Tikriti, Commander, Special Republican Guard, November 16, 2003. 71 Iraqi Survey Group Notes (September–October 2003). 72 “Perspectives II Republican Guard Corps,” p. 8. 73 Project interview of Salih Ibrahim Hammadi Al Salamani, Commander, Baghdad Republican Guard Division, November 10, 2003. 74 Project interview of Salih Ibrahim Hammadi Al Salamani, Commander, Baghdad Republican Guard Division, November 10, 2003. The correlation between political power and the town of Tikrit goes back to the 1968 Ba’ath revolution. Men from Tikrit, two of them relatives, dominated the new Revolutionary Command Council. The deputy to the new President was Saddam Hussein who spent the next decade ensuring men from Tikrit (al-Tikriti) held the critical positions of trust. 75 Project interview of LTG Raad Hamdani, Commander of the II Republican Guard Corps, November 17, 2003. The contrast in command and control authority between the commanders of the U.S. V Corps and I MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force), and their opponent, the II Republican Guard commander, cannot be overstated. 76 Foreign Broadcast Information Service, “Saddam Discusses Possible ‘Enemy’ Landing Operations with Military Commanders,” Republic of Iraq Television, February 1, 2003. 77 Historically this enemy was always the Persians (modern day Iran). In the past decade, it included the significant threat posed by the Badar Corps (Iraqi Shi’a expatriates supported by Iran) based in southwestern Iran. 78 Project interview of Staff Brigadier General Muhammad Sattam Abdullah Al Hamdani, former chief of staff, Al Nida Division, November 19, 2003. This officer insisted that these were not inflated readiness numbers but reflected the priority enjoyed by his division. 79 According to Intelligence information, no significant training occurred in the Baghdad Division during the fall of 2002. By contrast, one armored brigade of the Al Nida Division trained for a period that was several weeks longer than previous training cycles, and another brigade of the Al Nida Division conducted urban warfare training. 80 It should be noted that based on their actions the priority for this division, despite its orders, reputation, and location, was on survivability and not defense. In some cases, up to four survivability positions were prepared for every one fighting position.

Iraqi military effectiveness 51 81 Project interview of Abd Al-Karim Jasim Nafus Al-Majid, Commander, Al Nida Armored Division, November 21, 2003. According to open source and intelligence reporting, Al-Karim’s father is Saddam’s cousin. 82 Classified Intelligence Report, April 2004. 83 One captured document describes a directive from Saddam in 1996 forbidding employees of the various security organizations from communicating with each other without a “direct order” from Saddam Hussein or his secretary. Captured document (July 13, 1997), “Letter from Secretary of the Presidential Office to SSO Director and Others Ordering Security Employees not to Address Secretary.” 84 Classified Intelligence Report, May 2004. The source was a high-level official of the Iraqi regime with direct access to the reported information. 85 The SSO within the Republican Guard was extensive and included one SSO officer and 15 to 20 support staff at divisional headquarters; and one officer at each brigade and at the regimental level. Republican Guard military intelligence officers reported directly to SSO and not their operational commanders. While SSO did not “infiltrate undercover officers into the RG [Republican Guard],” it did rely on “informal” sources within the commands. Classified Intelligence Report, April 2004. 86 Classified Intelligence Report, June 2004. 87 Classified Intelligence Report, June 2004. 88 “Perspectives II Republican Guard Corps.” 89 “Perspectives II Republican Guard Corps.” 90 Classified Intelligence Report, September 2003. The source was a senior Iraqi officer who had direct knowledge of Iraqi war planning, operations, and information reported. 91 Project interview of Majid Hussein Ali Ibrahim Al Dulaymi, Commander, I Republican Guard Corps. 92 Unpublished draft memoirs of LTG Raad Hamdani, Commander, II Republican Guard Corps. 93 Unpublished draft memoirs of LTG Raad Hamdani, Commander, II Republican Guard Corps. Additionally, thousands of captured documents and personnel files attest to the treatment repatriated Iraqi prisoners of war received from numerous security services. Actions included things such as arrest, constant surveillance, denial of employment, and even denial of marriage permits. 94 Captured document (date unclear; from late 1980s), “Handbook on Ideology and Requirements on Being an Iraqi Soldier.”

3

The Afghan model in northern Iraq Richard B. Andres

In March of 2003, as 250,000 Coalition troops poured across Iraq’s southern border to defeat the ten divisions Saddam had positioned in the South, a small group of highly trained special operations forces (SOF) working with U.S. air power and Kurdish rebels attacked the thirteen divisions Saddam had stationed in the north of the country. Not only did the SOF forces in the North engage a larger force than the heavy divisions in the South, they took fewer casualties (U.S. SOF suffered no fatalities) and did it with only days of preparation and highly constrained air power resources. What is more, when the war ended, because northern Iraq was mainly controlled by Kurdish Iraqis who had fought with Americans, stability operations in that area were initially significantly more successful than in the central region of the country. On the face of it, the operations in northern Iraq are fascinating simply in terms of the sheer audacity involved in pitting forty-eight U.S. Army twelveman A-teams and small groups of unskilled Kurdish militia against three Iraqi corps. More importantly, however, the operations signal the role new precision air power technology can play on the battlefield and in U.S. foreign policy. For some time, a debate has raged in military circles about the extent to which advances in air- and space-based sensors and precision standoff weapons technology have reduced the need for highly skilled ground forces.1 Operations in northern Iraq suggest that current thinking puts too much weight on ground forces. Beyond this, the success of the air-heavy model in northern Iraq suggests a new way of war in which weak indigenous forces, supported by the United States, can defeat much stronger conventional armies. Because such a capability leaves indigenous forces in control on the ground, it has the potential to overcome much of the vulnerability to insurgencies the U.S. experiences during nation-building operations by decreasing the cost and risk involved in such endeavors.2 This chapter examines Coalition operations in northern Iraq. Existing military models suggest that the successes achieved by SOF and air heavy operations should not have been possible.3 The main purpose of the article is to describe the operations and explain why they worked. Beyond this, however, the operations in the North provide a useful test for questions about air power’s new efficacy on the battlefield. Because of the massive use of U.S. ground forces in opera-

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tions in the southern theater during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), it is difficult to disentangle the independent contribution of any particular set of arms or methods. In the North, however, because of the paucity of ground forces, it is easier to distinguish the independent effects air power contributed to battles and to the war. The article is divided into four sections. The first describes the debate that preceded the use of the new model in Iraq. The second describes operations in the North. The third describes post-war stability operations in the North. The final section describes the study’s implications for future operations.

The debate over the Afghan model and troop requirements In 2002, as a war with Iraq began to look likely, a debate began over whether the United States should go heavy (using hundreds of thousands of its own ground troops) or go light by following the example set in Afghanistan, where a handful of special forces working closely with air power and local militias overthrew the Taliban regime in two months of heavy fighting.4 Under normal circumstances, there would have been no debate. The existing plan for invading Iraq, OPLAN 1003-98, called for using half a million highly skilled U.S. ground troops, and the notion that this mission could be accomplished with a handful of special operators working with unskilled and underequipped Iraqi rebels would not have been considered. The U.S. military has a long track record of working with SOF and rebel groups against conventional armies. While these types of operations have been useful for selectively attacking lightly defended high-value assets, they have never been particularly useful for rapidly destroying armies or controlling territory.5 Certainly, the notion that SOF and air power could replace several U.S. corps would have required a great deal of optimism. In 2002, however, circumstances were not normal. First, on a political level, the United States faced resistance from allies to its plans to conquer and occupy Iraq; France went so far as to organize an active political campaign in the United Nations to block a U.S. invasion.6 Opinion polls demonstrated that the vast majority of the world’s population opposed a U.S. invasion and anti-invasion sentiment throughout the world continued to build over time.7 Planners for the Iraq war also had to face the possibility that their plans would face reaction in the Arab world. Throughout the 1990s, Osama bin Laden, citing the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as a precedent, had repeatedly argued that Al Qaeda should encourage a U.S. invasion of the Middle East in order to inspire an insurgency. He, and some Western analysts, believed that a large U.S. occupation force in a Middle Eastern country would galvanize noncommitted Muslims to swell Al Qaeda’s ranks. If such an insurgency could demoralize the United States, as the Afghan insurgency had disheartened the Soviets in the 1980s, bin Laden believed it would result in a massive victory for Al Qaeda.8 Under these circumstances, a long campaign followed by a heavy occupation was not attractive.9 A plausible alternative to the traditional plan fresh in the minds of the

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National Security Council (NSC) principals and the American public was suggested by the U.S. victory in Afghanistan. In a campaign that had stunned experienced Pentagon planners, approximately fifty special forces ground troops, working with small groups of Northern Alliance rebels, and U.S. air power had crossed hundreds of miles of terrain, defeated the 50,000-man Taliban and Al Qaeda armies, and overthrown the government in a little less than two months.10 If a small rebel group in northern Afghanistan could go from controlling 10 percent of the country to controlling a nation larger and more populous than Iraq in two months, it seemed plausible that the far more powerful and well organized Kurdish groups in northern Iraq could do something similar in that country. What is more, although it was still early in the nation building process, the Coalition government formed by victorious rebel groups in Afghanistan suggested a relatively inclusive and stable environment that would require few U.S. peacekeepers.11 Thus, the Afghan precedent suggested reasons to be optimistic about this new way of war.12 The vast majority of those who looked at the possibility of using the Afghan model in Iraq, however, came away opposed to the idea.13 For this group, the debate broke down into two questions. First, could the Afghan model work against Iraq’s large army? Second, would the United States be better off with indigenous Iraqi rebel groups or its own ground forces controlling Iraq after the war? As regards the first question, most military analysts believed that the Afghan model would not work against Iraq’s large and experienced military. This argument had strong foundations. Realistically, the United States could only tap the two Kurdish Coalitions that occupied northern Iraq.14 These groups were severely outnumbered by the Iraqi Army and were light on equipment and training; throughout their wars with Iraq during the twentieth century the Kurds had repeatedly proven themselves tactically inferior to the regular Iraqi Army.15 Decades of experience using militarily inferior rebel groups to fight conventional armies in other countries reinforced the pitfalls of such operations. As a rule, such troops are able to carry on guerrilla operations but are nearly worthless when set directly against conventional armies.16 Against these historical precedents only Afghanistan stood out as a counterexample – and one case makes for a bad precedent. Pessimism about precision air power’s new capability to destroy armies also plagued planners. Unlike traditional combined arms operations, which rely almost entirely on the combination of artillery, armor, and infantry to destroy opposed ground forces, the type of warfare used in Afghanistan depended nearly exclusively on precision air power to destroy opponents. In the new model, SOF called in air strikes on enemy locations and indigenous infantry located enemy troops, screened U.S. SOF while they called in strikes, and mopped up enemies that survived aerial attacks.17 However, this new form of war depended on precision air power for the vast majority of its effects. Unfortunately, from most planners’ points of view, precision air power was a relatively new tool, having made its debut in war only a decade before during the Gulf War, and had not been

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tested against a major power opponent.18 Also, despite a great deal of media hype, its effectiveness on the battlefield remained a subject of debate. As recently as 1999, in Operation Allied Force, air power had proven incapable of destroying Serbian fielded forces despite weeks of bombing targets with few air defenses. If thousands of hours of bombing in Kosovo had only managed to destroy fourteen of Serbia’s 1,000 tanks, it seemed irresponsible to ask U.S. SOF and Kurdish allies to rely on air power for minute to minute protection against divisions of Iraqi armor.19 During the 1990s, war planners had argued that invading Iraq would require 500,000 highly skilled and superbly equipped U.S. troops; the notion that air power would allow 50,000 untrained and poorly equipped Kurds to replace this force appeared preposterous. Contributing to the pessimism about air power was Stephen Biddle’s analysis of the Afghan model. In the most comprehensive analysis of the Afghan campaign available, Biddle concluded that the fighting in Afghanistan did not represent a revolutionary change; indeed he argued that the war had been a battle between two fairly evenly matched ground forces in which air power had given one side the winning edge.20 His analysis decried the much-hyped new sensor and precision technology. In fact, according to Biddle, high tech standoff sensors regularly failed to find the enemy, precision guided munitions (PGM) often failed to kill their targets and, most importantly, the new model had worked only when indigenous allies had possessed approximately the same level of skill as their opponents.21 In short, although precision air power helped indigenous Afghanis during the war, the outcome of the war was mainly determined by the relatively balanced tactical skill of the ground troops.22 Given these dynamics, he argued that relying on Kurdish troops in Iraq would be a mistake.23 It is probably fair to say that Biddle’s analysis gave voice to the intuition of most experienced military planners. Like the strictly military question, the notion that indigenous allies would do better at stabilizing Iraq after the war than American troops also gained little traction among war planners. Again, there were good reasons to hold with the conventional answer. First, Turkey, the United States’ strongest ally in the region, was in a de facto war with the Kurds. Any gains by the Kurds would be seen by the Turks as threats to their interests; a Kurdish controlled Iraq would be anathema to Turkey.24 Beyond this, however, Iraq consists of three often antagonistic groups: the Kurds predominantly in the North, Sunni Arabs in Central Iraq, and Shi’ites in the South. It was widely believed that, if the Kurds won on the battlefield, Iraq would, at best, break up along ethnic lines and, quite likely, fall into civil war.25 In addition, optimism about the situation the United States would face after the war pervaded the pre-war planning. Based on the favorable nation building experience in Germany and Japan after World War II, the well known dissatisfaction of the Iraqi people with the Ba’athist system, and reports from high-level refuges, occupation-optimists argued that a U.S. occupation of Iraq would be relatively short and cost free.26 Thus, with few exceptions, pundits preferred the seeming surety of a U.S.-led occupation to the unpredictability of a Kurdish-led government.

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In the end, the debate over whether to use the Afghan model in Iraq concluded in a one-sided victory for proponents of going in heavy.27 Thereafter, the question focused on “how heavy” or how many hundreds of thousands of U.S. ground troops to send to Iraq.28 After a bitter, and often acrimonious, debate between the NSC, which preferred to use fewer ground forces, and Army planners, who generally preferred to use more, around 250,000 troops were settled upon.29 To the immense satisfaction of almost everyone, the conventional plan had won and the Afghan model was forgotten. Although the final plan for invading Iraq did not call for anything like the SOF-only campaign that had defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan, it did call for unusually heavy use of special forces. According to the plan, as hundreds of thousands of heavy Coalition forces simultaneously invaded Iraq from the North and South, SOF would perform a number of important ancillary operations. In northern Iraq, SOF would link up with Kurdish rebels and attack the Ansar alIslam terrorist haven along the Iranian border. In the West, special forces would support the air-denial operation by seizing key airfields, disrupting lines of communication, and hunting for SCUD missiles to secure Jordan and Israel from attack. In the South, they would support conventional forces in their attack and conduct stability operations with Iraq’s Shi’ite population.30 In addition, special operators would attempt to seize control of oil fields before Iraqi saboteurs could destroy them and conduct attacks against Iraqi political and military leaders.31 Although such special operations may appear limited in comparison to those in Afghanistan, their scale required many times the number of SOF troops used in the earlier war. More than that, the heavy use of SOF demonstrated a new confidence in special operations that conventional planners had seldom displayed in past wars.32 A few days before the war was scheduled to begin, a crisis occurred that made the planned use of SOF heavier yet. By mid March, after months of wrangling with Turkey, it became clear that the Turkish government would not join the Coalition or allow a northern front to be launched from its territory. Turkey’s legislators had a number of reasons for reaching this decision, but their choice came both as a surprise to planners and a hard blow to the invasion plan, which depended on the northern front for much of its striking power. Equally bad, Saddam, believing that the 4th ID, America’s premier heavy division, was being deployed to Turkey, had stationed the bulk of his army along Iraq’s northern frontier. When the attack in the North did not materialize, these three corps would be free to move south, more than doubling Saddam’s defenses against Coalition troops invading from Kuwait.33 In desperation, the Coalition hit upon the idea of rapidly deploying SOF to northern Iraq and using the Afghan model to pin down the Iraqi corps in the North, which they hoped would give the Iraqis the impression that, in spite of Turkey’s refusal, General Franks still intended to send the 4th ID into northern Iraq.34 Thus, despite all plans to the contrary, in the end the Coalition pitted the new model against what turned out to be the bulk of Iraq’s Army.

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Operations in the North On March 23, with virtually no time to plan or equip for combat, the 10th Special Forces Group (10th SFG) deployed into Iraq. The story of the group’s infiltration is harrowing. Despite aggressive diplomatic attempts to induce Turkey to allow the group to infiltrate through its territory, Turkey refused and the 10th was forced to enter through a circuitous route that involved flying at low altitude over hundreds of miles of Iraq territory and taking heavy fire from Iraqi air defenses.35 Immediately after landing, the group linked up with Kurdish forces and began maneuvering to attack enemy units. Northern orders of battle As is often the case in situations involving special operations and indigenous forces, the friendly order of battle defies easy explanation. From the Coalition’s side, the portion of the 10th SFG and 3rd SFG that deployed into northern Iraq consisted of forty-eight Operational Detachment-Alphas (ODAs), each consisting of twelve men. Because of the rush in deploying them, however, they entered without much of their equipment.36 The Coalition forces in the North were designated Joint Special Operations Task Force-North (JSOTF-N).37 Calculating the number of Kurds requires an understanding of the groups involved and their political goals. In the period between the first Gulf War and 2003, the Kurds had formed two groups, both wholly autonomous from the rest of Iraq. The first, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), fielded around 62,000 militia troops; the other, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), controlled around 40,000 more, for an apparent total of 102,000 troops.38 These numbers, however, are deceptive. Engaged in a sometimes-violent dispute with one another for control of the Kurdish population in the North, the KDP and PUK were generally unwilling to work together. Only after intense negotiations between the opposing factions and U.S. envoys did the two groups agree to cooperate. Together they sent a combined total of 60,000 Peshmerga troops to work with the Coalition under a unified command. Of course these numbers were nominal, and the actual number of troops these groups used against Iraq depended on the situation along the Turkish border, the danger posed by the other Kurdish group, and the number of fighters willing and able to show up at given places and times.39 These militia troops, although personally tough and courageous, had virtually no military training.40 Against these hodge-podge forces stood eleven Iraqi regular army divisions, various division- and brigade-sized units of Saddam Fedayeen and Special Police, and two Iraqi Republican Guard divisions. Again, calculating the fighting ability of these units is difficult. First, although the regular divisions were adequately equipped in terms of armor and artillery, their morale was low and they were numerically under strength. Equally important, although significantly better trained than their Kurdish opponents, their training was inferior to that of U.S. forces. The Fedayeen and Special Police, on the other hand, had extremely

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Figure 3.1 Attacking the enemy across the Green Line.42

high morale (often fighting suicidally) but demonstrated little tactical skill. They were, however, valuable assets for the Iraqis in that during engagements in the North, they stayed behind the regular troops and executed deserters, considerably improving the regular units’ willingness to fight. Unlike the regular divisions, the two Republican Guard divisions combined adequate equipment, training, and morale. However, the combat power of even these troops is not easy to calculate. Both divisions were placed behind the line held by regular troops as reserves and to prevent desertion. At some point in the fighting, at least one of these divisions (the Nebuchadnezzar) simply abandoned its artillery, armor, and logistical units in order to avoid air strikes, vastly diminishing its battlefield power.41 The northern mission JSOTF-N troops faced a difficult mission. Using a combination of ground operations, information operations, and air interdiction, JSOTF-N planned to disrupt the movement of the thirteen Iraqi divisions in the North as they attempted to shift South. Although straightforward in concept, pitting a handful of lightly armed ODAs against three Iraqi corps appeared almost suicidally risky.43 When

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the SOF entered northern Iraq they divided into forty-eight ODAs and linked up with Peshmerga fighters. The newly formed groups dispersed along the enemy’s front calling in air strikes.44 Their operations, however, quickly ran into serious problems. Overcoming these obstacles was challenging and goes a long way toward demonstrating the resiliency of the type of warfare used in the North. The first problem the ODAs faced was lack of equipment. When Turkey disallowed the use of its territory, it did more than block the approach route for the U.S. 4th ID. As it happened, the 10th SFG’s had pre-positioned their vehicles in Turkey. Turkey’s refusal to join the Coalition blocked the movement of the high technology equipment that their tactics relied upon. After entering Iraq, one of the task force’s biggest problems was finding vehicles to cross Iraq’s vast northern reaches. Lacking their own vehicles the team pulled together whatever they could find on the fly, including school buses, dump trucks, the personal vehicles of Kurdish leaders, and eventually even leased United Nations vehicles.45 The rushed entry also affected the communication equipment available to the task force. Unlike the SOF teams inserted into western Iraq, which enjoyed state of the art computerized equipment for working with aircraft, JSOTF-N was generally forced to rely upon simple voice communication.46 A second significant problem was lack of robust air support. In the beginning of the campaign, Turkey refused to allow U.S. aircraft to enter the war zone from its territory. Given Iraq’s geography, this posed a serious problem for air support. For land-based aircraft and naval aircraft based in the Persian Gulf, which made up the vast bulk of the Coalition’s resources in the theater, this meant flying from Kuwait, across the length of some of Iraq’s heaviest air defenses, delivering munitions and returning along the same route. As had been the case in Afghanistan, this access problem was initially resolved by using carrier-based aviation.47 However, the small number of carrier aircraft based in the Mediterranean was a weak substitute for the naval- and land-based air assets that had originally been slated to support the 4th ID’s planned maneuvers. Additionally Coalition ground forces in the South and West absorbed the vast majority of allied air assets, diminishing those available for operation in the North. Thus air power’s contribution to the fight was much less than it could have been in the early stages of operations and did not firm up until Coalition attacks had knocked out air defenses over Central Iraq and Turkey allowed overflight. A third problem involved Turkey’s intense apprehension about the Kurds gaining too much from their participation in the war. For decades, the Kurdish population in Turkey and Iraq had been in what amounted to a low level war against the Turkish government. In this war, Kurdish separatist groups, such as the Kurdish Workers’ Party, sporadically employed terrorism against Turkey, and the government in Ankara retaliated with various measures including occasional military incursions into the territory of Kurdish held Iraq.48 On the eve of the war, as the U.S. plan to use Kurdish troops became apparent, Turkey threatened to occupy the city of Kirkuk rather than allow it to fall into Kurdish hands; during the war, on March 27, the United States parachuted the 1,000-man 173rd Airborne Brigade into Bashur Airfield at least partly to deter a Turkish invasion.49

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The problems with the Turks went further than recriminations and deterrent forces. In the process of negotiations between the Coalition and Turkey, various agreements were reached that seriously undermined operations in the North. After the first few days of the war, the Turks believed the Kurdish operations were too successful and demanded that the Coalition limit the number of Kurds involved in the fight. The Turkish request resulted in a ceiling being placed on the number of Kurds that could accompany a Coalition ODA. Initially placed at 300, the number was later reduced to 150. Thus, at the height of the fighting, when Kurdish support was most needed, Coalition rules of engagement effectively prevented the vast majority of available Peshmerga fighters from participating in the campaign.50 Throughout the sixteen days of the operation, the Turks also consistently attempted to force the Coalition to restrain JSOTF-N’s advances, resulting in a see-saw series of attacks and withdrawals. On numerous occasions, Coalition teams would defeat Iraqi units and move forward to occupy territory only to be ordered to withdraw because of Turkish demands. Iraqi troops would then reoccupy the ground, forcing the Coalition teams to dig them out once more.51 At the end of the campaign, as the task force began its final assault on Kirkuk, the Coalition flatly ordered the Kurds to withdraw. They refused and took the city’s remaining defenses by storm, defeating the remaining Republican Guard defenders.52 Northern operations Aside from their lack of essential equipment, adequate air support, and strong political backing, JSOTF-N also faced robust enemy forces. In the decade since the first Gulf War, the Kurdish population in northern Iraq had developed a de facto border with Iraq known as the Green Line. The line consisted of a twokilometers wide swath of no man’s land that followed the contours of the mountains and foothills separating northern and central Iraq and had evolved over the years from a combination of the Coalition’s willingness to bomb Iraqi forces that crossed the line and the Kurdish fighters’ ability to defend the rugged mountainous terrain against incursions. Holding the Iraqis on the line would not be easy. The plan focused SOF and air power efforts on the strongest Iraqi units in the North – the Nebuchadnezzar and Adnan Republican Guard Divisions, and the 3rd Armor Division.53 If air power could disrupt the enemy’s movement, then the task force could envelope the Iraqi forces and cut off their lines of communication with Baghdad. Saddam’s plan called for his forces to fall back on Baghdad.54 For the Coalition, the possibility of having to dig armies out of the heavily populated capital in house-to-house fighting was grim indeed. Fortunately, operations went better than planned and this eventuality never came to pass. On a tactical level, combat looked much as it had in Afghanistan, except on a vastly larger scale. At the beginning of operations JSOTF-N dispersed its ODAs and their Kurdish allies along the Green Line. Teams were generally composed of twelve special forces personnel, a U.S. Air Force combat

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controller, and between 100 and 300 Peshmerga.55 The Kurds, using their hard won knowledge of the Iraqi positions, communicated their locations to SOF teams. The teams, sometimes located as far as eighteen kilometers away, but often as close as two, called in air strikes on the identified Iraqi positions.56 Major Mark Grdovic described the tactics employed in one such encounter: We put JDAMS [Joint Direct Advanced Munitions] through rows of 20 fighting positions, one at a time. We destroyed an entire battalion. Then on foot or in pickup trucks, we would meander to the next hill. We found lots of dead Iraqis and equipment.57 Throughout the sixteen days of operations the Iraqi’s never managed to find a method of hiding or protecting themselves from air strikes. After a position had been bombed, Peshmerga ground troops would move forward to kill or take prisoner any stunned survivors and take possession of the territory.58 Units engaged in combat almost continually between March 24 and April 10.59 During this period, the teams’ main weapon was air power.60 The relationship between the Peshmerga and air power was synergistic. If the Iraqis dispersed and abandoned their equipment to such an extent that they were protected from air power, they became vulnerable to the Kurds. If they concentrated to defend against the Kurds, they became vulnerable to air strikes. Although they attempted various levels of concentration across the theater, no adaptation both protected them and allowed them to hold territory. Not all battles went smoothly. Early in the campaign, air assets were scarce in the North and, consequently, close combat between Coalition and Iraqi ground forces was more common. In such encounters, skill at combined arms became increasingly important. Captain Eric Carver describes one such encounter between his small force of 100 Peshmerga and a much larger and more skilled group of Iraqi troops: Advanced with local Peshmerga forces 8 km into enemy division area with one battalion of Saddam Fedayeen and one battalion Republican Guard. Engaged in heavy ground combat . . . with enemy battalion-sized element61 supported by 120 mm, 82 mm, 60 mm mortars and heavy machine guns and various small arms. Enemy forces tried to launch a counter-attack; members of the team were in direct combat with the enemy. Enemy attack in the morning was fought off with small arms and close air support. Enemy reorganized and mounted another battalion-sized attack in the afternoon again. ODA and Peshmerga forces fought off attack with crew served weapons and small arms. The element was in the process of being flanked when close air support of bombers and strafing runs by F-14s forced the enemy to withdraw to original positions.62 Such encounters go some way toward showing that airpower can even the odds between skilled and unskilled opponents and that it is not particularly brittle in

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the face of limited air power resources. In this battle, the Iraqi Republican Guard employed their superior skill, numbers, and equipment in a counterattack by attempting to flank the smaller unit under cover of artillery. Though air power was slow to enter the fight, the weaker Coalition force was able to hold the attackers off until air power could disrupt the Iraqi maneuver and force them to abandon the field. This pattern was repeated many times in Afghanistan and Iraq.63 Tactically, the new model repeatedly allowed small unskilled forces to defeat larger and more skilled forces. The mission in the North also went well on an operational level. At the start, fighting was extremely difficult. Initially, because of the limited amount of Coalition bombing in the North, Iraqi soldiers in this theater were slower to desert their units than was the case in the rest of Iraq. However, after a week of bombing, the Iraqis lost heart and the trickle of desertions became a steady stream.64 Between deaths and desertions, the Iraqi front began to collapse. SOF–Peshmerga teams destroyed the Iraqi 4th ID on March 30, the 2nd ID on March 31, the 8th ID, and the 38th ID on April 2.65 As the front collapsed, the teams raced south capturing towns and villages as they went.66 The enveloping maneuver was also largely successful, cutting off the 1st and 2nd Corps’ lines of communication with Baghdad and causing them to retreat west toward Tikrit, greatly lowering the chances of the nightmare scenario involving a prolonged siege of Baghdad.67 On April 10, the Iraqi 5th Corps surrendered to 10th SFG and Kirkuk fell as the last Republican Guard units were driven from the city.68 The operation was not, however, entirely successful. First, Coalition intelligence was not up to the task of tracking Iraqi units under such chaotic conditions. Throughout the fighting Iraqi units dispersed, camouflaged, abandoned their armor and artillery, and dug in to avoid air attack, making detection more difficult. The withering air attacks not only spurred desertions, but also made tracking individual units tricky as they simply melted away and ceased to exist as coherent units. Moreover, Coalition commanders focused the vast majority of Coalition sensors on operations in the South. The net result was that the Coalition lost track of a number of divisions in the North. The loss of two of these divisions – regular army units belonging to Iraq’s 1st Corps – was inconsequential, as they made it only halfway to Baghdad before disintegrating. More troubling was Iraq’s elite Nebuchadnezzar division, which also eluded Coalition surveillance. Parts of this division made it to central Iraq where they helped to oppose the Coalition’s main attack through the Karbala Gap. Even this was not very significant, though, as it was forced to divest itself of its armor, artillery, and logistical units, in order to elude coalition surveillance, and in doing so greatly reduced its ability to conduct combined arms warfare.69 In short, against all pre-war expectations, SOF operations in northern Iraq enjoyed enormous success. Despite numerous logistical and political obstacles, a small SOF group working with unskilled indigenous allies and highly constrained air power defeated a significant portion of Iraq’s Army. Moreover, it did so without suffering a single American death.

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Conclusion In the three years since the end of major combat operations in Iraq, the southern campaign has received a good deal of scholarly attention while operations in the North have received almost none. This is unfortunate. The model used in the North proved superior in several ways to the traditional combined arms model used in the South. Against a larger enemy force, northern operations proved less expensive in U.S. blood and treasure. They pitted the United States’ greatest asymmetrical strength, its air power, against Iraqi ground forces. Most importantly, it left friendly, pro-democratic Iraqis in charge on the ground after combat ceased. Operations in northern Iraq go a long way toward showing that pessimism about the Afghan model is overstated. According to Stephen Biddle, the model’s main opponent, the central reason not to employ the model is that it only works when the indigenous ground forces allied with the U.S. are approximately equal in tactical skill to the enemy’s ground forces; air dominance cannot make up for this gap. Yet, this gap existed in northern Iraq. As Biddle points out: Kurdish skills, though mixed, were certainly no match for the Republican Guard on their own. A decade of actual combat experience gives ample evidence of this: the Guard repeatedly crushed peshmerga resistance whenever Kurdish uprisings without American military protection gave Saddam cause and opportunity.70 Further: If SOF-directed precision strikes were sufficient to drive the [Republican] Guard from the field in support of a peshmerga advance, this would thus provide at least some significant support to a claim that the Afghan Model capabilities can overturn otherwise very unfavorable local military balances without significant U.S. ground strength.71 Operations in Iraq clearly passed this test. Republican Guard units put up more of a fight than regular army but were destroyed or chased from the field almost as quickly.72 Only fragments of the two Guard divisions stationed in the North survived to head South.73 This experience, combined with experience gained in similar operations in Afghanistan, suggests that the model can work even when the skill level of friendly ground troops is inferior to that of their opponents. Besides being effective, the operations did not turn out to be risky for U.S. personnel. Apart from in a few exceptional cases, the SOF involved in these operations did not believe the scores of battles they fought in Iraq were close run events.74 The Afghan model decisively defeated regular forces across sixteen days of heavy fighting. Moreover, it did so with few U.S. casualties and no U.S. deaths.75

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How many of the lessons learned in northern Iraq can be applied as general lessons of war is, of course, an open question. Most Iraqi troops were poorly trained and equipped. Even Iraq’s elite Republican Guard were not well prepared by Western standards. Nevertheless, all of these troops were substantially better trained and equipped than their Kurdish opponents, and Iraq’s troops were probably about as skilled as those of most developing countries. Moreover, severe logistical and political obstacles plagued operations in northern Iraq. Many of these could have been reduced or eliminated if the Coalition had given SOF planners more than a few days to prepare and if most air assets had not been assigned to support operations in the South. In short, operations in northern Iraq demonstrate that the air-heavy tactics developed in Afghanistan are a robust method of waging war. The lessons gleaned in Afghanistan and Iraq are likely to be valuable across a significant number of potential future conflicts.

Notes 1 For arguments that the new technology has not gone far toward changing the dynamics of modern war see: Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2004; idem, “Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare,” Foreign Affairs 82/2, March/April 2003; idem, Special Forces and the Future of Warfare: Will SOF Predominate in 2020?, Carlisle, PA, Strategic Studies Institute: U.S. Army War College 2004; and idem, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy, Carlisle, PA, Strategic Studies Institute: U.S. Army War College 2002. For works arguing that precision technology has changed the dynamics of war see: John A. Warden III, “Employing Air Power in the Twenty-first Century,” in Richard H. Schultz Jr. and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr. (eds.), The Future of Air Power in the Aftermath of the Gulf War, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press 1992, pp. 57–83; Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2000. For related work see: Tony Mason, Air Power: A Centennial Appraisal, Washington, DC: Brassey’s Publishing 1994; and Robert A. Pape, “The True Worth of Airpower,” Foreign Affairs 83/2, March/April 2004, pp. 116–130. 2 See: Richard Andres, Craig Wills, and Thomas Griffith, “Winning with Allies: The Strategic Value of the Afghan Model,” International Security 30/3, Winter 2005. 3 For arguments on why the new model should not work in most situations see Biddle, Special Forces and the Future of Warfare; Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare. For more positive analyses see: Max Boot, “The New American Way of War,” Foreign Affairs 82/4, July/August 2003, pp. 41–58; Andrew Krepinevich, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First-Blush Assessment, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments 2003, pp. 13–24. 4 For a detailed discussion of the debate see Bob Woodward, Bush at War, New York: Simon & Schuster 2002. For an overview see Thomas Donnelly, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment, Washington, DC: AEI Press 2004, Ch. 2. 5 For work on this subject see, for instance, John M. Newman, JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power, New York: Warner Books 1992, p. 160; William Rosenau, Special Operations Forces and Elusive Enemy Ground Targets: Lessons from Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War, Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2001; John L. Plaster, SFG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam, New York: Simon & Schuster 1997; and “Project CHECO: USAF Support of Special Forces in SEA,” United States Air Force, March 1969. For work on air power SOF

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8

9 10 11

12

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operations in the European and Mediterranean theaters during World War II see Robert Jackson, The Secret Squadrons, London: Robson Books Ltd. 1983, pp. 112–119; Bernard V. Moore II, “The Secret Air War Over France: USAAF Special Operations Units in the French Campaign of 1944” thesis, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 1992. For work on World War II’s Pacific theaters see Philip D. Chinnery, Any Time, Any Place: Fifty Years of the USAF Air Commandos and Special Operations Forces, 1944–1994, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 1994, pp. 14–59; and David M. Sullivan, “From Burma to Baghdad: Enhancing the Synergy between Land-Based Special Forces and Combat Air Operations,” thesis, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 2003, pp. 28–34. John Tagliabue, “Threats and Responses: Europe; France and Germany Agree on Iraq,” The New York Times, October 3, 2002, p. A16. See for instance, Will Lester, “Poll suggests a growing majority doesn’t think the United States has enough international support for Iraq war,” Associated Press Release, February 21, 2003, accessed through Lexis-Nexis; Judy Woodruff, Dana Bash, Candy Crowley, Bruce Morton, Rhonda Schaffler, Andrea Koppel, and Jonathan Karl, “United States Clashes With Allies Over War,” CNN Inside Politics Transcript #012300N.V15, January 23, 2003; Gustavo Gonzalez, “Latin America: Public Support Weak for U.S. on Afghan and Iraq,” Inter Press Service/Global Information Network, September 9, 2002, accessed through Lexis-Nexis. See Ronald E. Zimmerman, “Strategic Provocation: Explaining Terrorist Attacks on America” thesis, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 2002. The strategy was articulated by bin Laden in a speech: “Osama bin Laden vs. the U.S.: Edicts and Statements,” Frontline, April 1995. Richard B. Andres, “The political consequences of a potential war with Iraq,” a presentation given at the RAND Corporation, Washington DC, December 2003. Andres, Wills, and Griffith, “Winning with Allies”; Benjamin S. Lambeth, Air Power Against Terror: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2005. After major combat operations in Afghanistan, the country’s major urban areas were largely under the control of Afghan groups allied with U.S. forces. The country had also stabilized to the point where NATO and the United Nations had sent in large contingents of peacekeeping forces and relief workers. For work comparing stability operations in Iraq to Afghanistan see Andres, Wills, and Griffith, “Winning with Allies” (note 2). After Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, analysts, searching for a label for the new tactics, termed the operations the “Afghan model” and “the new way of war.” Boot, “The New American Way of War”; Biddle, “Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld noted: “It is hard for me to imagine another Afghanistan. If you think about that situation, it is kind of distinctive. Now it doesn’t mean that some of the things that are working there won’t work elsewhere, but the totality of it is distinctive.” Quoted in Rowan Scarborough, “Air Force Resists More Bombers, Prefers Fighters,” Washington Times, December 26, 2001, p. 1. See also Donald Rumsfeld, “Transforming the Military,” Foreign Affairs 81/3, May/June 2002, pp. 20–32, particularly p. 22; Kim Burger and Andrew Koch, “Afghanistan: The Key Lessons,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, January 2, 2002; Tony Capaccio, “Afghan Lessons Don’t Apply to ‘Axis,’ Generals Say,” Bloomberg.com, February 20, 2002; Michael O’Hanlon, “A Flawed Masterpiece,” Foreign Affairs 81/3, May/June 2002, pp. 47–63. Although the Shi’ite majority in southern Iraq was also opposed to Saddam’s rule, a decade of severe repression had broken the back of the resistance and no large armed rebel group existed by 2003.

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15 Kurdish troops faced-off against Iraqi troops in a number of wars throughout the twentieth century. Although their guerrilla tactics were often successful, when they used conventional tactics the results were disastrous. For an analysis of Kurdish tactical capability in combined arms warfare see Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press 2002, pp. 156–157 and 176–182. In discussing the possibility of using Kurdish troops against Iraq in 2003, Stephen Biddle points out that Kurdish troops have shown themselves in multiple actions against Saddam’s Republican Guard to be even less adept than the Iraqis. Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare. 16 See for instance, Rosenau, Special Operations Forces and Elusive Enemy Ground Targets. 17 For a description of operations in Afghanistan, see: Andres, Wills, and Griffith, “Winning with Allies”; Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare. 18 On the importance of testing new military techniques against major power opponents, see: Emily Goldman and Richard Andres, “Systemic Effects of Military Innovation and Diffusion,” Security Studies 8/4, Summer 1999, pp. 98–99. 19 Bruce R. Pirnie, Alan Vick, Adam Grissom, Karl P. Mueller, and David T. Orletsky, Beyond Close Air Support: Forging a New Air-Ground Partnership, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2005, p. 46. The situations in Operation Allied Force (OAF) in Kosovo and Operation Iraqi Freedom in northern Iraq were different in important ways. In OAF the United States was more constrained by allies in how it could apply force. Rules of engagement also prevented aircraft from flying at low altitude and the topography was more suited to hiding armor and artillery. Most importantly, the NATO air power did not possess “eyes on the ground” in Kosovo until the very end of the war. 20 Biddle, “Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare.” Biddle’s analysis was widely propagated through the military community via briefings before the publication date of the article. For a more detailed explanation of this argument, see Biddle, Special Forces and the Future of Warfare, p. 14; and Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare. 21 Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare, pp. 24–41. 22 Ibid. p. iv. 23 Ibid. p. 55. 24 Fikret Bila, “Turkey’s Gul Says US, Kurds Told Clearly of Turkey’s Position Vis-àvis N. Iraq,” Global News Wire, March 31, 2003. 25 See for instance, Harry Dunphy, “Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds could battle to take power in Iraq if Saddam toppled,” Associated Press, October 5, 2002. 26 “Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Holds New Briefing,” FDCH Political Transcripts, March 21, 2003. 27 Donnelly, Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 34. 28 For a summary of the debate, see Donnelly, Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 38. 29 The total number of ground troops including the U.S. Army and Marines and the troops of other Coalition countries amounted to around 350,000. Although, after the war, the debate over the war plan came to center on the number of troops that would be needed for peacekeeping operations, before the war, the main debate was about the number of troops needed to defeat the Iraqi Army. A few particularly prescient individuals did, however, base their arguments for more troops on the need for more peacekeepers. Army chief of staff Erik Shinseki suggested “several hundredthousand” peacekeepers might be needed. See Vernon Loeb, “Cost of War Remains Unanswered Question,” Washington Post, March 1, 2003, p. A13. Professor Peter Schifferle of the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies conducted an analysis suggesting that around seven divisions would be needed. Peter Schifferle, “Modern Ground Warfare: Operations, Logistics, and Population Control,” a presentation given to the faculty and students of the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, October 2002.

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30 Williamson Murray and Major General Robert H. Scales Jr., The Iraq War: A Military History, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2003, pp. 69–70 and 186–190. See also “Global Scouts,” a PowerPoint presentation by USASOC at the NDIA Symposium, February 5, 2004; and Armando Ramirez, “From Bosnia to Baghdad: The Evolution of U.S. Army Special Forces From 1995 to 2004,” thesis, Naval PostGraduate School, Monterey, CA, September 2002). 31 Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, New York: Simon & Schuster 2004, particularly chs. 33–35. See also Linda Robinson, Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces, New York: Public Affairs 2004. 32 For an analysis of the debate about using special forces in Operation Desert Storm, see Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company 1993. 33 Saddam deployed ten divisions in the South and thirteen in the North. See “Global Scouts,” slide 7. 34 Tommy Franks, American Soldier, New York: Regan Books 2004. 35 Some elements of 10th SFG had been deployed since February. For more on the group’s infiltration, see Ramirez, “From Bosnia to Baghdad,” p. 43. 36 Ramirez, “From Bosnia to Baghdad,” p. 44. 37 JSOTF-N consisted of conventional combat and support units as well as special forces. Most significantly, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, containing two light infantry battalions and an armored and mechanized force, arrived late in the operation. However, the operations described in this paper were conducted almost entirely by SOF ODAs. Although it played an important strategic role, by establishing a significant conventional presence in northern Iraq, the 173rd did not engage in significant combat during major combat operations. Gregory Fontenot, E.J. Degen, and David Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Leavenworth, Ks: Combat Studies Institute Press 2004, p. 230. 38 Patrick Cockburn, “US Special Forces Prepare Way for Invasion in Northern Iraq,” London, The Independent, Internet Version, March 7, 2003 (accessed through the Foreign Broadcast Information System (FBIS) portal EUP20030307000177). 39 Exact numbers are elusive. See Aysla Aydintasbas, “The Kurdish Dilemma,” Salon.com, September 6, 2002 www.salon.com/people/interview/2002/09/06/salih/; and “Kurdish Resistance Forces Must Decide Role in New Iraq,” Washington Post, May 13, 2003 www.charleston.net/stories/051303/ter_13kurds.shtml. ODA Team 391 and 392, for example, were expecting 200 Kurds for an operation, and approximately 80 showed up. See Sean D. Naylor, “Nightmare at Debecka,” Army Times, September 29, 2003 www.armytimes.com/archivepaper.php?f0-ARMYPAPER-2212087. 40 Major Mark Grdovic, S-3 for 3rd Battalion 10th Group, in interview with author, November 15, 2005. 41 For more on the Iraqi order of battle, see Anthony H. Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons, Washington, DC: The CSIS Press 2003, pp. 36–56; Murray and Scales, The Iraq War, pp. 77–85. 42 “Global Scouts,” slide 11. 43 Their orders read: “Conduct Unconventional Warfare and other Special Operations in JSOA (Joint Special Operations Area) North to disrupt Iraqi combat power, IOT [in order to] prevent effective military operations against CFLCC [Combined Forces Land Component Command] forces.” “Global Scouts,” slide 6. 44 The first operation, Viking Hammer, involved attacking the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group. See Murray and Scales, The Iraq War, Ch. 6. 45 Grdovic interview. 46 Ibid. 47 As time went by, long range land-based bombers were increasingly used in the North. 48 Denise Natali, The Kurds and the State: Evolving National Identity in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, New York: Syracuse University Press 2005, Chs. 2–3.

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49 Daniel Williams, “US Troops Working With Kurdish Fighters: Groups May Help Special Forces Plan Airstrikes for Advance Into Northern Iraq,” Washington Post and Kurdistan Observer, March 17, 2003 home.cogeco.ca/~dbonni1/18-3-03-us-to-coordinateswith-kurds.html. See also Ramirez, “From Bosnia to Baghdad,” p. 49. 50 Grdovic interview. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. See also Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, p. 230. 53 Ramirez, “From Bosnia to Baghdad,” p. 51. 54 Mark Grdovic, “Task Force 103 During Operation Iraqi Freedom,” a synopsis of training and operations conducted by 3rd Battalion, 10th SFG (A) in OIF, p. 15. 55 Naylor, “Nightmare at Debecka.” 56 Grdovic interview. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 Naylor, “Nightmare at Debecka.” 60 Capt. Eric Carver, U.S. Army, Commander, ODA 065, Memorandum for Record, Subject: Historical Documentation of ODA 065 Operations During Operation Iraqi Freedom, April 16, 2003. Available from the U.S. Army Center for Army Lessons Learned. 61 An Iraqi battalion-sized element is approximately 1,000 troops. 62 Carver MFR. 63 For a more thorough description see Andres, Wills, and Griffith, “Winning with Allies.” 64 Grdovic interview. 65 Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, p. 250. 66 Ramirez, “From Bosnia to Baghdad,” p. 51. 67 Grdovic interview. 68 Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, p. 230; Grdovic, “Task Force 103,” p. 15. 69 For more on how much of the Nebuchadnezzar Division made it to the vicinity of Baghdad, see Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, Chs. 2–3. 70 Biddle, Special Forces and the Future of Warfare: Will SOF Predominate in 2020?, p. 12. 71 Ibid. p. 12 fn. 27. 72 See for instance, Carver MFR. 73 The remnants of the two Republican Guard divisions in the north attempted to move south to cut off the U.S. 3rd ID from its drive on Baghdad. “No cohesive unit of any brigade of any Republican Guard division” made it to the South. See William Branigin, “It was a brief, bitter war for Iraq army: self-deception a factor in defeat,” Washington Post, Sunday, April 27, 2003, p. A25. 74 Grdovic interview. Carver MFR. 75 Special Forces are not always forthcoming with casualty data, however, numerous special operators interviewed for this article repeated this statistic.

4

Deep attack against Iraq Richard B. Andres

In 2003, as Coalition forces rolled across the desert toward Baghdad a coterie of military commentators, in a series of well-publicized interviews, pronounced the plan unworkable. According to these analysts, at the urging of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, CENTCOM Commander, General Tommy Franks had placed too much faith in air power’s ability to weaken Iraq’s Army and had used too few ground troops. These mistakes, they said, would lead to a costly stalemate that would last months or years.1 Less than two weeks later, after a war that cost fewer U.S. lives than even optimists had thought possible, Coalition troops had routed the Iraqi Army and occupied Baghdad.2 In the wake of the unexpectedly rapid victory in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), military theorists have attempted to explain the precipitate collapse of Iraq’s defenses.3 There is a good deal of consensus on some things. The collapse had three main facets. As Coalition troops approached Baghdad, Iraqi Army divisions deployed and maneuvered across the theater in a haphazard manner that displayed a near absence of operational art.4 Tens of thousands of desertions badly weakened the Iraqi forces.5 And, when Iraqi troops came into contact with Coalition ground forces they proved unable to conduct the sort of tactical combined arms warfare that is necessary to survive on a modern battlefield.6 The military commanders’ explanation is also well known. In planning OIF, General Franks had argued that new air power technology would transform OIF into a new type of war.7 Whereas earlier wars had been characterized by linear fronts and decisive combat between ground troops, in OIF, airpower would bypass enemy lines to blind and paralyze Saddam’s inner leadership circle and destroy the Iraqi Army.8 Such an approach, he argued, would require only a fraction of the ground troops necessary for a regular campaign.9 Perhaps because the Franks–Rumsfeld approach so clearly opposes the combined arms paradigm that has shaped thinking on conventional war for the last century, theorists have been reluctant to accept his explanation.10 Few studies of the war have even addressed the collapse of Iraq’s defenses or seriously examined the air campaign.11 Of those that have examined the collapse, two particular explanations have garnered attention. The first involves the innate weaknesses of dictatorial regimes. John Keegan, for instance, argues that Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical policies had exhausted the will of the population before the war

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began; most troops simply refused to fight. Thus, Iraq’s political weakness rather than air power’s new technological capabilities explain its rapid defeat.12 The second explanation focuses on the Iraqi Army’s relative lack of combined arms skill in comparison to Coalition ground troops. Stephen Biddle, for instance, argues that the Coalition’s unexpectedly rapid success in the war resulted directly from the Iraqi Army’s inferior infantry tactics.13 Neither of these explanations is wholly satisfying. While Iraq’s population had little love for Saddam in 2003, it is not clear that he was more popular during the First Gulf War in 1990 or during the Iran–Iraq War during the 1980s. Under Saddam’s Stalinist rule, soldiers fought, and citizens obeyed, out of fear.14 Police states have seldom had trouble inducing obedience or preventing desertion while they possess the tools of repression.15 Lack of popular will offers only a partial explanation; the larger question is why, in 2003, Saddam’s minions stopped fearing him enough to disobey his orders. Similarly, the notion that Iraq’s defenses disintegrated because of soldiers’ lack of skill does not go far toward explaining the collapse. Not only did the vast majority of Iraq’s troops desert long before coming into contact with Coalition ground forces, when they did trickle into the path of advancing Coalition troops they had lost their heavy equipment and were in such a state of disarray that, skilled or not, they were unable to conduct combined arms operations. In this article, I examine the effects of the Coalition’s deep attack on Iraq’s defenses during OIF. Using a combination of Coalition and Iraqi sources, I ask how Saddam Hussein’s attempts to maintain control of his forces and prevent their destruction interacted with the Coalition’s strategy of cyberwar and precision attack to produce the collapse of Iraq’s military capability.16 I conclude that Franks and the air planning staff were substantially correct; deep attack in conjunction with the presence of Coalition ground forces caused Iraq’s defenses to crumble long before Coalition troops made contact with the enemy. Moreover, this process had little to do with lack of Iraqi will or skill. Rather, the process that led to the collapse was a dynamic game played out at the strategic and operational levels of war. Saddam, using much the same explanatory paradigm of war employed by pessimistic U.S. military news commentators, responded intelligently to the Coalition’s attacks on his regime, command and control (C2), and fielded forces. Yet his counters to each type of attack weakened his defenses against others. In the end, he proved unable to prevent his top commanders from staging a coup, while also giving them enough freedom to fight effectively, and simultaneously keeping them sufficiently committed to employ their troops effectively in the field. The disintegration of Iraq’s military was a direct result of deep attack. The Rumsfeld–Franks approach worked in OIF and presages an effective new way to employ cyber and air power. The chapter is laid out in three sections. In the first, I describe the development of the plan to invade Iraq and how this evolution fit into the larger debate over air power’s role in modern war. In the second, I examine deep attack operations and how they contributed to the collapse of Iraq’s military. In the third, I assess the contribution of deep attack to the outcome of the war and discuss its

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implications for the use of air power in future campaigns. Data for the analysis comes from a variety of sources but depends heavily on interviews with senior Iraqi leaders conducted by journalists and U.S. military interrogators after the war.

Debating the plan For almost a century, one of the most debated issues in military theory has centered on how to use air assets in conventional war. Air theorists have long contended that air power is best used against high value targets deep behind enemy lines, while ground planners have generally thought of air power as ancillary to ground forces, most useful for shaping enemy ground forces and providing close air support (CAS) to friendly troops.17 Over the past decade, as new precision air power technology has become available, this debate has become particularly heated. Air planners have argued that precision weapons fundamentally change what air power can do on a conventional battlefield. By one calculation, a single modern guided bomb is as likely to destroy its target at 9,000 bombs dropped during World War II.18 As Colonel Gary L. Crowder, one of the architects of air operations in OIF pointed out during the planning stages of that war: “In the first day of Desert Storm, we struck more targets than were struck in all of 1942 and 1943 by 8th Air Force during the combined bomber offensive.”19 When this capability is married with other tools of information age warfare, such as high-powered sensors and cyber warfare tools, the results can be startling.20 In response to these arguments, some military theorists have argued that precision weapons have not gone far toward changing what air power can do against regime targets or on the battlefield. Robert Pape, for instance, maintains that even with precision weapons, deep attack by air power is unlikely to be able to cause coups or revolutions, or seriously degrade enemies’ C2.21 Biddle argues not only that air power cannot play a significant role against regime targets, it is also unable to do much direct damage to an army’s fielded forces.22 Outside U.S. Air Force planning staffs, these opinions have often predominated among U.S. campaign planners.23 In November of 2001, the theoretical argument over the role of precision air power in modern war became a practical matter when Rumsfeld ordered Franks to update the plan for invading Iraq.24 While Franks came from a traditional Army background, his recent experience in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) had changed his perspective on the air power debate. In that war, precision air power and a small Afghan militia had achieved, in a few weeks, what mainstream planners had argued would require 50,000 U.S. ground troops months or years to accomplish, and this had fundamentally changed his outlook on what air power could do in war.25 Given this experience, Franks determined that the existing plan for invading Iraq was troop-heavy and did not account for advances in precision-guided munitions or “the lessons we were learning in Afghanistan.”26 In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist bombing, the old plan also did

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not account for the perceived need to act quickly given the fear that, with enough warning, Iraq might supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.27 In response to his tasking from the Secretary of Defense, Franks worked closely with his staff of air planners to develop a new plan that would substitute information age speed and precision for industrial age mass and attrition.28 The plan used air power in two particular ways. First, in conjunction with an information operation, it targeted the institutions that kept Saddam in power – the Mukhabarat, the Special Security Organization, the Al Amn al-Khas, and the Special Republican Guard, focusing particularly on the individuals who led these organizations.29 Franks and his air planners saw several ways that targeting these organizations and individuals could affect the war. First, they believed Ba’athist leaders might use a coup, or threat of a coup, to force Saddam to yield to UN resolutions.30 Similar air-operations in Operation Allied Force (OAF) appear to have caused Serbian politicians to pressure Slobadan Milosevic to yield to NATO’s demands regarding Kosovo.31 Even if this did not occur, however, they believed that “destroying these structures would blind and paralyze Saddam’s inner leadership circle.”32 Given Saddam’s tyrannical power structure, Franks held that the regime’s institutions of oppression were the country’s center of gravity.33 The second way the plan employed air power in a deep attack role was against Saddam’s army. This attack would rely on two mechanisms. First, it would use a massive psychological operation to induce surrenders and desertions from Iraqi troops. Similar operations had caused tens of thousands of troops to surrender or desert in Operation Desert Storm (ODS) a decade before, and might have a similar effect in the coming war.34 Second, the plan anticipated using air power directly against Iraq’s deep forces, particularly Republican Guard divisions.35 In a repetition of the tactics used in OEF the year before, rather than using Coalition ground troops to destroy the enemy, the plan called for using land forces to shape the enemy so that air power could destroy them. Used this way, the mere existence of Coalition ground forces would cause Iraqi divisions to come out of their dispersed positions and maneuver in the open under lethal fires from the air.36 Franks’ confidence in precision fires was so great that the first revision of the OPLAN his office published, called for less than a fifth of the ground troops designated by the previous plan.37 Part of his willingness to use so few troops came from necessity. As he points out, it was not possible to deploy 500,000 troops before Iraq’s summer heat made an invasion impractical.38 Another part of his reasoning, however, was that on “the twenty-first-century battlefield, strength would derive from the mass of effective firepower, not simply the number of boots or tank tracks on the ground” and that “the days of half-million strong mobilizations were over.”39 Whatever Frank’s reasons for developing an air-heavy plan, the arrangement did not long withstand contact with the Washington planning bureaucracy. When the air-heavy nature of the plan became known, a ferocious debate

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commenced in planning circles, sometimes spilling into the media.40 Under pressure from Washington’s planning establishment, and under relaxed time constraints as the date of the potential invasion was pushed from 2002 to 2003, increasingly the plan began to look like a traditional twentieth-century ground campaign. First, the number of ground troops steadily increased. In the initial plan, deep-bombing operations had been followed by an invasion utilizing only 80,000 ground troops.41 Fifteen months later, however, the total number of ground troops increased to 350,000.42 Next, planners reduced the percentage of air attacks against regime targets, originally the heart of the plan, in order to divert air assets to CAS missions designed to support the ever-increasing number of Coalition ground forces. Finally, planners shortened the weeks of planned pre-invasion air strikes to days and eventually removed them from the plan entirely.43 In the end, ground forces attacked almost twenty-four hours before the air campaign began.44 By all appearances, ground-centric military theory had triumphed; OIF would be mainly a combined arms ground campaign. Yet if conservative planners managed to transform Franks’ planned air war into a ground campaign, the unexpected success of deep attacks quickly turned the actual war into something else entirely.

Deep attack A quick look at the plan for using air power in OIF would provide a mostly erroneous picture of how air was actually used in the war. On the surface, the relatively small percentage of sorties dedicated to striking regime targets (9 percent) and the massive number of sorties allocated to CAS (79 percent) gives the impression that air power played a mainly supporting role in the war.45 This was not the case. In fact, due to economies derived from precision weapons, the small percentage of sorties dedicated to regime targets crippled Saddam’s government, and the vast majority of sorties labeled as CAS struck and destroyed or demoralized enemy troops deep within Iraq. Creating coups and decapitating the regime For the last century, the United States has attacked non-military enemy targets during most of its wars. In World War II, it employed the combined bomber offensive against Axis; in the Vietnam War, it used Operation Rolling Thunder against the North; and in ODS, it employed precision attack against government and military targets in downtown Baghdad.46 While these operations had dissimilar target sets and were planned based on different theories of war, each focused on causing widespread destruction in the enemy’s interior.47 In the late 1990s, the development of cyber tools and precision weapons radically changed the way the United States attacked enemy regimes. Against Serbia, in 1998, the U.S. first employed a new precision strategy that used information age methods to locate and target assets belonging to the regime’s most important leaders. In Serbia, this meant targeting Slobadan Milosevic’s top

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political supporters with threats and bribes via faxes, emails, and phone calls; and then targeting their personal assets with economic sanctions and precision munitions.48 Although the subject has not received much academic attention, there is some evidence that the targeted politicians played a significant role in persuading Milosevic to concede to NATO’s demands.49 Franks describes taking a similar approach in Iraq in 2003. According to the CENTCOM commander, a few Gestapo-like pillars propped up Saddam’s unpopular regime.50 These props included: Iraq’s communications infrastructure; buildings such as Ba’ath Party headquarters and the command center of the Mukhabarat Special Security Organization; and senior Ba’ath leaders and the officers of the Special Republican Guard.51 If these “pressure points” could be influenced, air planners believed Saddam might “comply with U.N. Security council resolutions.”52 If he failed to yield, he might be toppled in a coup.53 Even if neither of these things came about, destroying the regime’s political infrastructure “would blind and paralyze Saddam’s inner leadership circle.”54 In practice, the Coalition’s deep attack began in 2002 with a cyber attack aimed at Iraq’s political elite. Using sophisticated cyber tools, the Coalition penetrated Iraq’s electronic information networks and located and contacted Ba’ath Party leaders and military commanders with faxes, emails, and phone calls urging them to stage coups, betray secrets, order troops to desert, and otherwise act in ways that would disrupt Saddam’s political and military C2.55 Once the war began, Coalition aircraft attacked the institutions and individuals on the regime-targets list with precision munitions.56 Unlike in the First Gulf War, where precision munitions had been used to shut down Iraq’s communications, in this case, jamming and counter C2 attacks purposely left some channels open as avenues for eavesdropping and influence.57 The invisible cyberwar against regime targets appears to have achieved quite a few of their intended effects. After the War, a number of senior Iraqi leaders complained to the press that the CIA had not paid them as much as they believed they had been promised and the international press was full of accounts of Iraqi military commanders accepting Coalition bribes.58 One story widely cited by the international media alleged that the head of the Special Republican Guard, General Maher Sufian al-Tikriti, ordered his forces not to defend Baghdad after making a deal with the United States.59 A month after the war, Franks pointed out that “before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, U.S. Special Forces had gone in and bribed Iraqi generals not to fight. . . . I had letters from Iraqi generals saying, ‘I now work for you.’ ”60 However damaging this campaign’s first order effects were to Iraq’s defenses, its second order consequences were probably worse. Given the nature of the Ba’athist regime, one of Saddam’s chief fears had always been military coups.61 Because many of the individuals targeted by cyber attack turned the messages over to the police, Saddam was aware of the pre-war information campaign and this appears to have magnified his fears.62 In response, in the days before the war, he drastically increased the Soviet style mechanisms employed

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within his military to weaken or expose plotters. For instance, new orders forbade division and corps commanders from communicating with one another. When the war began, in order to confound plotters, he immediately shifted his senior military leaders to new commands. As final insurance, he placed Ba’ath Party leaders over his military commanders with orders that no unit above company size could move without direct permission from its Ba’ath Party minder.63 The anti-coup processes Saddam put into place to counter the Coalition’s cyber attack worked. Coalition special forces involved in psychological operations described the effects of the safety measures as undermining their campaign. Coalition handlers often could not locate Iraqi commanders who had agreed to work with them, and who had subsequently been transferred to new commands. Coalition messages that targeted friendly Iraqi commanders were received by their replacements, betraying the friendly commander’s cooperation.64 None of this should be surprising; the methods Saddam used had been taught to him by Russian advisors who drew on a body of knowledge perfected across decades of experience by the Soviet Empire and its client states.65 Yet, while anti-coup defenses worked, implementing them carried a stiff price. As might be expected, the measures that increased Saddam’s security against internal threats by constraining Iraqi commanders – increasing the hierarchy of the C2 system, and injecting politicians into the chain of command – impaired Iraq’s ability to fight an outside invader. After the war, Iraqi senior military commanders loyal to Saddam described their immense frustration with the negative effect the Stalinist precautions had on combat effectiveness.66 The Iraqi minister of defense pointed out that the inability of commanders to communicate with each other: Dramatically reduced the quality of battlefield reporting and leadership situation awareness [and that] because the regional commands were under Ba’athist leadership, Baghdad received reports on the course of events in the fighting . . . from politicians, not professional military officers. Moreover, the arrangement effectively cut key military leaders and staffs out of the chain of command.67 Asked to explain the catastrophic collapse of Iraq’s defenses by U.S. interrogators, a group of senior Iraqi leaders listed tyrannical internal security measures as among the most important reasons for the failure of their country’s defenses.68 Thus, even before the war began, cyber attack made an already hierarchical Stalinist command structure even more brittle. It was against this brittle C2 structure that the Coalition commenced its attacks on leadership with GPS and laser-guided bombs.69 Although the main counter-regime attack did not occur until after the ground assault had begun, the day before the war, the Coalition launched a stealthy attack on a bunker near Baghdad believed to contain Saddam Hussein.70 If Iraqi leaders were not already aware of the danger precision munitions posed to them personally, this attack

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certainly provided a glimpse of the future. When the main attack began, their dilemma became even clearer, not only did the Coalition destroy official buildings such as headquarters and bunkers; it also made a concerted effort to destroy the homes of senior Ba’ath Party leaders.71 While the precision campaign killed few senior Iraqi leaders, the countermeasures these leaders employed to avoid danger drastically distorted the high commands’ situational awareness and ability to control its forces.72 Across the theater of combat, Iraqi leaders would not go to their offices, stayed away from telephones and radios and avoided contact with military personnel.73 Under any circumstances this would have made it difficult for the Ba’ath Party security apparatus to do its job – preventing disloyalty and defeatism – but since Saddam had recently placed this same group of leaders in central leadership positions in his military chain of command, the effects of their retreat was magnified throughout the country’s C2 system. After the war, military commanders bitterly complained about the dilemma in which the missing politicians placed them. Taking military action without the consent of their minders would incur a death sentence from Saddam, but failing to do so would result in destruction by the Coalition.74 Interviews with Iraqi commanders reveal harrowing stories of courageous officers taking rudimentary defensive actions, such as unilaterally ordering a bridge to be destroyed, knowing that their orders would result in their death if the regime survived.75 Undoubtedly, the most damaging affects of the attacks resulted from precautions Saddam took to protect himself. Security conscious under the best of circumstances, as the war commenced Saddam went into deep hiding. Constantly moving from one safe house to the next, Saddam would not allow any electronic equipment near him and would only permit party leaders and military commanders to contact him after having them driven in a car with blacked out windows through a series of cleaning points.76 Because of these procedures, even his highest commanders could only seek Saddam’s guidance after hours or even days of attempting to arrange meetings.77 Compounded with the fact that Saddam demanded personal control over any military decision of importance, the effects on the high command’s ability to act was debilitating. One of the most important examples of the effects of the interaction between Coalition attacks and Iraqi defenses occurred as the Coalition’s main thrust approached Baghdad through the Karbala Gap. On April 2, the high command recalled Iraq’s senior leaders to Baghdad to reorganize the country’s defenses.78 At the meeting, the minister of defense conveyed Saddam’s order to deploy the army north to block what he believed was the Coalition’s attack from the western front. In fact, the real attack was coming from the south and had already begun, but Saddam’s intelligence had misread both the location and the timing of Coalition movements.79 At the meeting, Lt. General Raad Al-Hamdani, the commander of the Republican Guard divisions south of Baghdad, had firsthand knowledge that the attack was coming from the south, and vehemently opposed sending Baghdad’s defending troops north away from the city. He explains:

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I objected, because I was in contact with the enemy [in the south]. So I spoke with the defense minister. He said that no discussion is permitted, because it is a message from the president, and we should start moving the troops starting on 5 a.m. next day, which was April 3.80 Hamdani goes on to explain that Saddam’s son Qusay agreed with his analysis, but even he was afraid to disobey Saddam. Saddam could not be apprised of the situation because he was incommunicado as a precaution against attacks on his person. When he returned to the front, General Hamdani used subterfuge to place as many troops as he could in the Karbala Gap to oppose the real attack while sending the rest of the army north to fight Saddam’s phantoms.81 Devastated Iraqi C2 caused mistakes, such as those made on April 2, to take place across various levels of operations. Throughout the war, Saddam’s knowledge of the locations of U.S. troops was limited. Although he often received accurate intelligence of Coalition movements, this information was generally days old by the time it reached him, often making it worse than useless in a fast moving ground campaign.82 A post-war U.S. Army analysis of Iraqi operations in central Iraq provides some insight into how Iraq’s lack of situational awareness affected its operations. The Iraqis misread the Coalition’s main thrust: They were apparently unsure of the coalition’s true direction of attack and when the main assault would actually start. . . . Additionally, expecting the main effort from between the two rivers, they oriented in the wrong direction.83 Meanwhile, the Coalition ground attack on Baghdad flushed the Baghdad, Adnan, Hammurabi, and Nebuchadnezzar Republican Guard divisions from their various dispersed positions around Central Iraq. As they concentrated to move, air power swept in to maul them.84 Only a small fraction of these units made it to their destination. Interestingly, however, these flushed divisions were rushing to the wrong locations, attempting to block phantom coalition attacks while ignoring the actual push toward Karbala.85 After the war, both coalition and Iraqi commanders shared a common perception of the effects the decapitation campaign had on Iraq’s ability to coordinate its defenses. In the opinion of CENTCOM Commander General Tommy Franks, once operations began, Iraq’s command and control system was not effective, “no one was in charge in Iraq.”86 According to the Coalition’s Land Component Commander, General David D. McKiernan: “The regime’s situational awareness was destroyed. . . . They didn’t know where we were; they didn’t know where their own forces were.”87 Iraqi General Hamdani described the situation at the operational level: “The regular army, Republican Guard, Quds army, and Ba’ath Party militias were all fighting in a separate pattern, as if there are no unified armed forces. . . . Everybody was just waiting for orders.”88 Iraqi General Huwaysh-Fadani Al-Ani’s describes the complete confusion at the capital. Even

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as coalition ground forces closed in on the capital, “the authorities in Baghdad had little sense of what Iraqi forces were confronting along the Euphrates River.”89 Perhaps the Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, better known as “Baghdad Bob,” best symbolized the confusion when, as coalition troops stormed the city, he pronounced that Iraq was winning and that the enemy was nowhere near the capital.90 Retrospectively, describing the causes of Iraq’s rapid defeat, General Hamdani put much of the blame on Iraq’s organizational defenses against coups. In his opinion, high-ranking officers did not have enough authority to wage war effectively because of Saddam’s precautions. However, he went on to say, there were good reasons for limiting officers’ authority. The regime faced genuine internal threats.91 The combination of Iraq’s authoritarian political structure and the Coalition’s decapitation campaign put Saddam in an impossible position. To survive internal enemies, he was forced to take measures to weaken his defenses against external threats. While the Coalition’s attacks on the regime did not achieve their most ambitious goal, Saddam’s overthrow by an internal coup, they did achieve their secondary goal of decimating Iraq’s C2 and blinding its forces. Psychological warfare The second way Franks and the air planners envisioned using deep strike was to induce desertions in Iraq’s Army. The plan involved using propaganda and targeted messages, in combination with precision bombs to cause Iraqi soldiers to leave their units.92 Military theorists lack consensus about why troops desert under air attack.93 The explanation that militaries have traditionally applied to this process does not seem to work well where precision air power is concerned. According to the time-honored theory, soldiers refuse to desert either when their morale is high, or when their fear of military police exceeds their fear of the enemy. The problem is that air power, even precision air power, is not particularly good at destroying rear area troops that have dispersed and taken cover.94 For instance, even in OIF, bombs only destroyed around 1 or 2 percent of rear area troops.95 Nevertheless, in this war, as in other recent wars involving precision air power, enemy troops deserted in large numbers. In OIF, air planners used a combination of psychological operations and kinetic attacks to induce desertions. First, the Coalition engaged in one of the most intense psychological operations in U.S. history. In a relatively brief period of time, aircraft dropped tens of millions of leaflets and scores of solar-powered and hand-cranked short-wave radios onto Iraqi troops. Simultaneously, aircraft broadcast television and radio messages intended to undermine the regime.96 Next, the Coalition began a concentrated bombing campaign against Iraq’s rear area troops.97 State of the art air- and space-based sensors located troop positions and precision weapons subsequently systematically targeted them.98 Against these attacks, Iraq employed three primary defenses. First, although

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Iraq had only limited air defenses, its army had developed considerable skill at concealing and protecting its forces from aerial sensors and precision weapons.99 Even as early as ODS, the army had shown substantial ability to mask its position from U.S. sensors.100 By 2003, it had perfected many of these techniques. Interviews with Iraqi commanders show that, in preparing for the war, Saddam’s main concern had been a long bombing campaign.101 Consequently, he deployed his best divisions deep in Iraq and used overlapping techniques to conceal and protect them: troops dispersed and deployed to safe-houses; equipment was hidden in orchards; troops dug redundant protective bunkers and randomly circulated between them to throw off Coalition intelligence; and extensive use was made of camouflage and decoys.102 Iraq’s second defense involved the use of policing institutions to prevent troops from deserting. Throughout Saddam’s reign, Iraqi troops possessed abysmal morale and Ba’ath Party officials viewed officers as dangerous competitors. To preserve discipline, Iraq employed a Stalinist command structure involving multiple layers of secret police and harsh discipline for deserters.103 Just as this system had allowed Stalin’s army to absorb enormous casualties without breaking during World War II, it had allowed Iraq’s Army to hold up under high casualties during the Iran–Iraq War. In the battle of the Al Fao Peninsula, for instance, the army absorbed over 50,000 casualties without breaking.104 During the First Gulf War, however, although it suffered less concentrated casualties than it had in its war with Iran, the army broke and desertions became rampant.105 During the 1990s, Saddam responded by developing Special Police and fedayeen divisions tasked specifically with preventing army desertions. Along with Republican Guard units, these forces often deployed behind or alongside other units, their main mission to shoot fleeing Iraqis.106 Iraq’s third defense involved a sort of internal information operation. According to post war interviews with officers in his high command, Saddam’s greatest fear was internal, not external, security.107 One of his highest priorities was preventing anti-regime information from falling into the hands of troops. Not surprisingly, the regime censored and suppressed information. However, the Iraqi regime took censorship to an extreme. To prevent rebellion Saddam instigated a policy of compulsory internal deception. From the enlisted ranks through the high command, the regime harshly punished individuals who spread negative information. Individuals were literally expected to lie to their leaders if the truth involved unwanted news.108 Far from an exception, Baghdad Bob’s daft optimism was the rule among members of the regime during the war. Just as the Coalition’s psychological operations’ propaganda attempted to exaggerate the danger to soldiers of obeying the Iraqi regime, Saddam’s optimism campaign attempted to screen out negative information in order to create the opposite impression. The idea was that, for a regime afraid of desertion, pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If troops believe the regime will fall, they will stop fearing the judicial consequences of desertion and leave the ranks, resulting in actual defeat. The Iraqi Army’s defenses and the Coalition’s deep attack interacted in

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interesting ways. If the purpose of propaganda leaflets was to communicate the specific information that was written on them, Saddam’s defenses appear to have succeeded. Interviews with Iraqi troops suggest that few read the leaflets as they rained from the sky since viewing them carried a death penalty from Saddam and because the Special Republican Guard quickly collected and destroyed them.109 Yet troops also reported that seeing the leaflets fall telegraphed their vulnerability to Coalition bombs, and seeing the priority Saddam put on destroying them undermined their belief in the invulnerability of the regime.110 Saddam’s defenses against the cyber campaign also had unintended consequences. Security policies required officers who received personal communications from the Coalition to turn them over to their superiors. Yet this process simply increased the number of officers exposed to the information. As an Iraqi colonel explained: Faxes and emails to commanders had a big impact. . . . If one commander receives a fax and gives it to his senior, in this simple way the officer knows of the U.S. technical superiority. Imagine him thinking: “If the Americans are able to get into the mind of a senior commander this way, how can I protect a whole division?”111 The corrosive effect of messages targeted at leaders also helps to explain one of the most unusual aspects of desertion in OIF. While desertions in most previous wars have been initiated by enlisted soldiers and hindered by officers, in this war, most desertions appear to have originated when officers ordered their men to “go home.”112 Procedures designed to protect troops from bombs also sometimes backfired. The army’s static defenses largely preserved the lives of dispersed troops. Intent on destroying the army from a distance, the Coalition employed one of the most intense rear area bombing operations in air power history.113 Approximately 67 percent of the bombs and missiles used in the war targeted troops in deep areas. By contrast, a decade earlier in ODS only around 7 percent of air strikes aimed at this type of target.114 Operations were also more intense. In ODS, attacks slowly increased in intensity allowing Iraqi forces to adapt; in OIF, the attacks were relentless from the start.115 However, the first order effects of these strikes on Iraqi personnel were somewhat disappointing. While the attacks annihilated many divisions’ artillery and armor brigades, static troops largely survived.116 Across all rear areas, these attacks killed only 1 or 2 percent of the soldiers targeted.117 Nevertheless, Iraqi security police proved incapable of monitoring dispersed and hidden troops, largely undermining Saddam’s defenses against desertion. The outcome of this interplay between defenses and bombs was remarkable. For the first week, Iraq’s defenses held and few troops deserted. After ten days, desertions increased and by the end of the second week, the vast majority of Iraqi forces had deserted.118 Iraq’s high command estimates that 85 percent of Iraq’s troops deserted or were killed by deep air attacks.119 This estimate is con-

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sistent with other sources.120 In the end, Saddam was unable to employ Stalinist techniques to prevent his troops from deserting and also prevent them from being destroyed from the air.

Shaping the deep battlefield with ground forces The third way the Coalition employed air power against deep targets involved using ground-air synergy to destroy Iraqi troops that would not desert. In practice, this use of air power directly overlapped with attacks designed to induce desertions, however, the more nuanced idea behind this strategy was to use the threat of ground invasion to force Iraqi troops to leave their redoubts and maneuver and concentrate in the open where they would be vulnerable to air strikes.121 Throughout most of its history, air power has been highly effective against troops moving in the open. As early as World War II, armies attempting to move under enemy air supremacy have been forced to disperse, travel at night, and employ other defensive stratagems.122 In the era of modern night and all-weather sensors and precision weapons, the task of moving under enemy air power has become substantially more difficult. Nevertheless, some countries have managed to do so. In OAF, the Serbian army escaped destruction from NATO air power by dispersing into small units and traveling in civilian vehicles.123 However, these tactics appear to have limitations. In OEF, when Taliban troops attempted to emulate Serbia’s dispersion tactics, the United States countered by employing indigenous rebel militias; if Taliban troops remained dispersed, the militias defeated them in ground combat and through close air support, if they concentrated in groups large enough to resist ground forces, aircraft located and destroyed them.124 In OIF, Franks intended to employ something like the Afghan model on a much larger scale.125 As long as Saddam believed he was only fighting air power, he could leave his troops dispersed and hidden in rear areas. However, once he detected approaching ground troops, he would be forced to concentrate his forces and move them to the locations where they would be useful.126 Before the war, Iraqi commanders had also been aware that, in the event of a ground invasion, rear area troops would have to maneuver in the open to block the invasion and that these troops would be extremely vulnerable to Coalition air power.127 To overcome this problem, the army pre-positioned logistical supplies throughout the country so that when they moved they could abandon trucks and other equipment that generated large sensor signatures. They also developed methods of dispersing divisions and moving them as individual battalions as well as shifting units from the same divisions to separate fronts to confuse observers.128 Saddam also had a less well-defined plan that involved employing tribal fighters. Before the war, he ordered his troops to view the movie “Blackhawk Down,” which featured tribal fighters in Somalia defeating U.S. Rangers using small arms and swarming techniques. After the war, Saddam’s senior commanders

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said that he placed a great deal of his hope for victory in what he called the fighting spirit of the tribes.129 In order to induce tribal warriors to mimic Somali tactics, he also organized the Saddam fedayeen, a poorly trained group of irregulars, and promised them large bounties for assaulting Coalition troops.130 Apparently, the idea was to place these troops into contact with Coalition ground troops by dressing them in civilian clothes and moving them in civilian vehicles.131 Again, these tactics had mixed results. During the war, when Saddam thought he had determined the invasion’s path, he attempted to move his Republican Guard divisions to block the Coalition’s approach.132 Air planners gave these divisions high targeting priority and while his innovations allowed some of his troops to arrive at their intended destinations, these divisions suffered the vast majority of their casualties when they left their dispersed positions to counter the Coalition’s ground attack.133 Air power simply annihilated some divisions in transit.134 However, Iraq’s innovations for moving troops probably prevented the army from being annihilated altogether. Apparently between 10 and 20 percent of Iraq’s forces made it into Coalition artillery range. Coalition close air support and artillery destroyed most of these.135 For Iraqi troops that approached close enough to use their weapons, the cost of dispersion and abandoning high-sensorsignature artillery and armor was high. In no case does it appear that a Republican Guard division made it into contact with Coalition troops sufficiently intact to employ the combined arms tactics necessary to fight on a modern battlefield.136 For the most part, Republican Guard troops that approached Coalition ground forces trickled into contact piecemeal and were destroyed on contact before they could inflict casualties on Coalition ground troops.137 The methods employed by Saddam’s fedayeen troops also had varied success. The fedayeen’s dispersal, use of civilian clothes and vehicles, and lack of heavy arms allowed them to elude sensors. According to Franks, despite the fact that thousands of fedayeen straddled the route to Baghdad “the first indications we had of the presence of irregulars in these southern towns came from Special Forces we’d inserted into the cities, beginning on D-Day.”138 The success of these tactics in placing Iraqi troops in direct contact with Coalition ground forces was significant. Yet like the Republican Guard, they suffered from the dispersion–concentration dilemma. By employing methods that allowed them to avoid deep interdiction, they rendered themselves unable to employ combined arms tactics. Consequently, despite often suicidal élan, when these troops encountered Coalition forces they died by the thousands without inflicting significant losses on Coalition forces.139 In the end, the fedayeen failed to inflict more than token casualties. Perhaps the best demonstration of the effectiveness of ground-air synergy involved the use of special operations forces (SOF) and Kurdish militias in northern Iraq. A few days before the war began, reacting to Turkey’s refusal to allow troops to stage from its territory, the Coalition projected forty-eight special forces A-Teams into northern Iraq to work with Kurdish militias. Following the model developed in Afghanistan in 2001, the Kurds provided

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light infantry and, by their presence, forced Iraqi troops to mass as SOF called in air strikes.140 The effects were spectacular. In sixteen days of hard fighting, the 600 SOF and untrained allied militias defeated thirteen Iraqi divisions.141 As had occurred in the southern part of the country, the Iraqis in the north could not find a method that allowed them to survive air strikes and also mass and maneuver sufficiently to be combat effective enough to fight even frail ground forces.142

Implications Before the Second Gulf War began, planning debates centered around how many ground forces would be necessary and how the Coalition could most effectively employ air power to destroy Iraq’s Army and overthrow its regime. After the war, the most debated question changed to how many troops were necessary to occupy and govern Iraq. While this new question is significant, so is the old one. The recent reminder that guerrilla wars are important has hardly rendered conventional warfare obsolete or questions about conventional war irrelevant. In regard to the use of air power in a deep attack role, the case of OIF has a number of important implications. First, the massive success of the deep strike campaign suggests that air planners’ decision to employ most air assets behind enemy lines was sound. Against regime targets, C2, and Iraq’s fielded forces, air power worked synergistically with cyber attack and psychological operations. Together, these methods virtually annihilated Iraq’s ability to make war. Best estimates suggest that these methods resulted in the destruction or desertion of 85 percent of Iraq’s forces in a matter of days.143 The forces that remained had little situational awareness and maneuvered across the battlefield in ways that made them combat ineffective.144 Clearly, these operations depended on the presence of friendly ground forces to force the enemy to mass and maneuver in the open, but the extremely low casualty rates among Coalition ground forces resulted directly from air power destroying the enemy at a distance. Second, it is clear that U.S. forces could have defeated Iraq about as easily with substantially fewer ground forces. Deep strikes destroyed nearly the entire Iraqi Army. CAS and artillery destroyed most of the small number of regular troops that survived to close on friendly forces. The only forces that made it into contact with Coalition troops in substantial numbers were irregular fedayeen troops that avoided aerial fires by dressing as civilians and swarming behind the armies’ long lines of communication.145 As is generally the case when guerrillas attack conventional forces, Coalition forces destroyed them with minimal effort and few losses. Probably the best idea of how many ground forces were really necessary for the campaign can be derived from the northern campaign where around 600 Coalition special forces troops working with feeble Kurdish militias and substantial amounts of air power defeated over half of Iraq’s Army.146 Clearly, the 350,000 ground troops the Coalition employed in conventional operations in the south were overkill. Third, it is not at all clear that Iraq’s Army would have done better if it had

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possessed superior skill in combined arms warfare. In the combined arms model that has dominated military employment since World War I, tactical skill at ground combat has been one of, if not the single most important determinant of battlefield success.147 Historically, armies that have been able to coordinate artillery fires with movement have proven superior to larger and better equipped armies without this capability.148 Yet in OIF, air power so disrupted Iraqi situational awareness and response time that skill became largely moot. Beyond this, Stalinist restrictions on command authority aimed at preventing coups further constrained leaders to the point where it is difficult to see how more skill would have mattered. Even if this had not been the case, to avoid detection, Iraqi units were forced to abandon their artillery, without which combined arms warfare is largely impossible.149 After the war, Coalition investigators were often impressed with the operational skill of Iraqi commanders and troops’ tactical acumen at avoiding air strikes.150 Under the circumstances, however, skill was not a major factor in the outcome of the war. A fourth point about Iraq involves how much the nature of the regime itself led to the catastrophic collapse of the army. Saddam’s regime was clearly oppressive. Only leaders such as Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, and Kim Il-sung exceed his record for tyrannizing their own populations. Yet these leaders had little trouble forcing their men to fight despite massive casualties and years of deprivation. Nor did Saddam have trouble enforcing discipline in his bloody wars with Iran. Like these other despots, Saddam employed internal policing procedures to foster obedience within his army wherein layers of increasingly secure and privileged populations behind the front enforced discipline on those closer to the fighting. By specifically targeting the most privileged and secure of Saddam’s minions with cyber tools and precision weapons, the Coalition caused his security apparatus to unravel from the top down. Unlike Hitler’s Gestapo and Nazi leaders, Saddam’s Mukhabarat and Ba’athist elite were too busy attempting to survive to maintain regime discipline. It is easy to forget that, like Saddam’s mutinous officer corps, many top Nazi officers also turned on Hitler during World War II.151 The difference is that Hitler’s security apparatus remained intact throughout the war while Saddam’s was rapidly destroyed by air power. Saddam’s problem was not that his people did not support him, nor that he had failed to create effective police institutions to control his army; the reason Saddam’s defenses fell apart under coalition bombing is that the first victim of the campaign was the security system itself. A final point that requires discussion is how many of the lessons learned in Iraq can be transported to future wars. All states and all wars are unique. Before crafting the series of operations and stratagems that brought down Iraq’s regime and destroyed its army, planners carefully consulted subject matter experts who were able to highlight seams and weaknesses in Iraq’s military and system of governance. This careful and tailored planning had much to do with the success of the deep campaign.152 Iraq’s popular dissatisfaction with its government combined with Saddam’s heavy reliance on a Stalinist police apparatus to maintain discipline in his army provided weaknesses planners were able to exploit. This

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targeting strategy would not necessarily be effective against different states with different types of regimes. This said, the success of deep attack operations in Iraq does suggest some wider lessons. First, given modern U.S. capabilities, against states that employ despotic internal security measures and hierarchical C2 systems, attacks on regime targets are likely to prove much more effective than has historically been the case. If Pape was correct in downplaying the success of decapitation attacks in the twentieth century, the outcome of the current war suggests this subject needs to be reconsidered in light of current U.S. technology.153 In the future, attacks on enemy regimes may be one of the most effective methods available to impair their armies. Second, direct attacks by precision and psychological weapons on fielded forces proved enormously effective at inducing desertions in Iraq and destroying the Iraqi Army’s fighting ability. The unraveling of the regime however, with its associated effect on desertions and disastrous operational level maneuvers muddies the waters making it difficult to discern the independent effect of attacks on Iraq’s fielded forces. While the combination of attacks on Iraq’s regime and fielded forces hamstrung its army, this effect was the result of complex interactions. Based on the near inability of the Iraqi Army to maneuver effectively under precision attack, it is tempting to say that air power alone can now destroy armies. A more accurate statement, however, would be that, in the future, joint planners would do well to reverse the usual paradigm. Rather than using air power to shape enemy forces and ground forces to destroy them, in the future it may be more useful to use ground forces to attempt to shape enemy maneuvers to increase their vulnerability to aerial fires.

Conclusion Looking back on the pessimistic predictions made by the now much maligned T.V. generals during OIF, it is evident why they came to the conclusions they did. Like Saddam Hussein, they thought of conventional war as it has been throughout most of the last century, a ground based clash of armies along a front. In fact, technology has changed and war has changed with it. Cyber tools and precision weapons have created an environment where states that cede control of the air can no longer count on front lines to protect their leaders or their rear area troops. The paradigm of war is shifting. If large armies and industrial output were the keys to winning conventional wars in the twentieth century, today the indispensable factors are quickly taking control of information and control of the air.

Notes 1 For a discussion of this media coverage and specific examples, see for instance: Anthony H. Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons, Washington, DC: The CSIS Press, 2003, p. 63; WSJ.Com, “Rumsfeld’s Second Front,” Opinion Journal from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page, April 1, 2003

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R.B. Andres www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id110003279; Rachel Smolkin, “Media Mood Swings,” American Journalism Review, February 17, 2003 www.ajr.org/article.asp?id3040; David Corn, “The Hubris of the Neocons,” The Nation, March 31, 2003 www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid532. John Keegan describes the collapse of Iraq’s military as so rapid and complete as to be inexplicable by theories of modern Western warfare: John Keegan, The Iraq War, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004, p. 2. Stephen Biddle calls the cost of toppling Saddam radically low and points out that the coalition loss rate was among the lowest ever for major mechanized campaigns. Stephen Biddle, James Embrey, Edward Filiberti, Stephen Kidder, Steven Metz, Ivan C. Oelrich, and Richard Shelton, Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation, Strategic Studies Institute, Conference proceedings, April, 2004, pp. 1–2. See for instance: Keegan, The Iraq War, p. 2; Biddle, Embrey, Filiberti, Kidder, Metz, Oelrich and Shelton, Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation, pp. 1–2; Gregory Fontenot, E.J. Degan and David Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004; Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons; Williamson Murray and Major General Robert H. Scales, The Iraq War, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003. On lack of operational art, see, for instance: Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 331; Biddle, Embrey, Filiberti, Kidder, Metz, Oelrich and Shelton, Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation; David McKiernan, Interview with Lt Gen David D. McKiernan, Frontline PBS, 2004 www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/invasion/interviews/mckiernan.html; Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani, Frontline PBS, 2003 www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/shows/invasion/interviews/raad.html. On desertion rates, see for instance: Biddle, Embrey, Filiberti, Kidder, Metz, Oelrich, and Shelton, Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation, p. 10, particularly fn. 19. Keegan, The Iraq War, p. 2; Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. On tactical skill, see, for instance: Biddle, Embrey, Filiberti, Kidder, Metz, Oelrich, and Shelton, Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation, pp. 23–25; Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 333; Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad AlHamdani. Tommy Franks, American Soldier, New York: Harper Collins, 2004, pp. 415–416. For a similar view expressed by an air force planner, see: Mace Carpenter, Rapid, Deliberate, Disciplined, Proportional and Precise: Operation Iraqi Freedom Air and Space Operations (Unpublished draft paper), 2006. On the plan for attacking leadership, see: Franks, American Soldier, p. 392. On the planned synergistic use of ground and air forces, see: Franks, American Soldier, p. 399. Franks, American Soldier, p. 415. The combined arms paradigm is based on the notion that battles and wars are won by the integration of ground based maneuvers and (primarily) artillery fires. In this model air based fires play a secondary role. For detailed description, see: Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, Chs. 3 and 4. Many excellent works have avoided these questions by self-consciously focusing on the ground war to the exclusion of the air campaign. Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn’s, for instance, point out that they deliberately ignore the role played by air power. Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. xxi. Cordesman provides a detailed analysis of the weapons used in deep attack operations, but makes less effort to link those kinetic effects to the col-

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lapse of Iraq’s defenses. Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons. In explaining their own reluctance to focus on the effects of the deep air campaign, Murray and Scales argue that “the air contribution will remain murky and uncertain” because it occurred behind enemy lines where friendly eyes could not observe it directly and because the second order effects it attempted to generate are complex and difficult to assess. Murray and Major General Robert H. Scales, The Iraq War, pp. 75 and 156. Keegan, The Iraq War, p. 7. Biddle et al. makes a similar argument. Biddle, Embrey, Filiberti, Kidder, Metz, Oelrich, and Shelton, Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation, p. 10. In his view, Iraqis’ shortcomings at ground combat: “Created a permissive environment for coalition technology that a more skilled opponent elsewhere might not. The 2003 outcome was thus a product of a powerful interaction effect between coalition strengths and Iraqi weaknesses. Our strengths were indeed essential for the outcome, but so were the Iraqis’ shortcomings. Both advanced technology AND a major skill imbalance were required.” Moreover, air powers’ contribution to ground operations had little to do with the low casualties the Coalition experienced in the war. Biddle, Embrey, Filiberti, Kidder, Metz, Oelrich, and Shelton, Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation, pp. 12 and 13. Joe Galloway, “Don’t Take Too Much From U.S. Iraq War Experience,” Military.com, 2004 www.military.com/ NewContent/0, 13190, Galloway_070804,00.html. Other work tacitly makes related arguments: Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom. For an analysis of the regime, see, for instance: John Andreas Olsen, Strategic Air Power in Desert Storm, London: Frank Cass, 2003, Ch. 4. Some examples of police states maintaining discipline under high casualty rates include: Japan, Germany, and the U.S.S.R. during World War II; North Korea and China during the Korean War; the P.R.V. during its wars with the U.S. and later with China; and Iraq during its war with Iran. By cyberwar, I mean use of electronic means to penetrate and manipulate enemy information systems. Robert Pape offers the definitive description of ideas presented by air power theorists. Robert Pape, Bombing to Win, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996, Ch. 3. For a description of the debate between air and ground theorists on the use of air power in war see: Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000, particularly pp. 85–91. In World War II, for instance, the average circular error probability (CEP) for bombs was 3,300 feet, and an average of 9,000 bombs were required to hit a single fixed target. Even as late as the Vietnam War, CEP averaged 400 feet and it took around 176 bombs to hit a single target. By 2003, precision munitions had reduced CEP to a few yards and one bomb was generally enough to destroy one target. See: David Deptula, “Firing for Effect,” Air Force Magazine, April 2001, 46–53. Crowder was Chief of Strategy, Concepts, and Doctrine of the Air Combat Command. Quoted in Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons, p. 257. For the original quote and research on this subject, see David A. Deptula, Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare, Arlington, VA: Aerospace Education Foundation, 2001, p. 2. Such arguments may be understatements in that they do not take into account modern global sensor nets, stealth and suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) technology, and air power’s new ability to bomb equally accurately from any altitude and through bad weather and darkness. See, for instance: Ibid.; Michael Russell Rip and James Hasik, The Precision Revolution: GPS and the Future of Aerial Warfare, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2002, p. 224; Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power.

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21 See for instance: Pape, Bombing to Win; Robert A. Pape, “The True Worth of Air Power,” Foreign Affairs 83/2, March/April, 2004. See also Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power. 22 Biddle, Embrey, Filiberti, Kidder, Metz, Oelrich, and Shelton, Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation, particularly Ch. 4. 23 Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power, p. 90. 24 Franks, American Soldier, p. 329. 25 Ibid., p. 329, see also 15. 26 Ibid. 27 For a discussion of Frank’s thoughts on this subject, see: Ibid., p. 416. 28 Ibid., p. 415. 29 Ibid., p. 337. 30 Ibid., pp. 392 and 398. 31 Julian Tolbert, Crony Attack: Strategic Attack’s Silver Bullet?, Maxwell AFB, Air University, Montgomery, AL: thesis, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 2003; Carpenter, Rapid, Deliberate, Disciplined, Proportional and Precise: Operation Iraqi Freedom Air and Space Operations. 32 Franks, American Soldier, p. 392; Carpenter, Rapid, Deliberate, Disciplined, Proportional and Precise: Operation Iraqi Freedom Air and Space Operations. 33 Franks, American Soldier, p. 400. 34 Stephen T. Hosmer, Conflict Over Kosovo: Why Milosevic Decided to Settle When He Did, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001. 35 See: Franks, American Soldier, p. 377. 36 Ibid., p. 399. 37 Joseph L. Galloway, “General Tommy Franks Discusses Conducting the War in Iraq,” Knight Ridder Newspapers, June 19, 2003. Bob Woodward provides a detailed description of the evolution of the plan. Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. 38 Franks, American Soldier, p. 372. Another major concern involved telegraphing the invasion to Saddam. Planners worried that if Saddam were convinced that an invasion was inevitable he might react before the Coalition was ready. Franks, American Soldier, p. 344. 39 Franks, American Soldier, pp. 415 and 394. 40 For more on this debate, see, for instance: Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons, pp. 149–150; Mark Helprin, “Analyze This: Civilian Officials Only Reached a Point of Sufficiency Because They Were Pushed to It,” National Review, May 5, 2003; Rowan Scarborough, “Decisive Force Now Measured by Speed,” Washington Post, May 7, 2003; Richard T. Cooper and John Hendren, “Strategy Boiled Down to Light Vs. Heavy,” Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2003; Michael R. Gordon, “A Sequel, Not a Rerun,” New York Times on the Web, Dispatches: A Web-Exclusive Column, March 18, 2003; Pat Towell, “The War Agenda: Military Operations,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly, March 15, 2001; and Thomas E. Ricks, “War Plan for Iraq Largely in Place,” Washington Post, March 2, 2003. 41 On 80,000 troops, see: Galloway, “General Tommy Franks Discusses Conducting the War in Iraq.” For an early plan involving 105,000 troops, see: Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 58. 42 The total number of military personnel deployed for the operation included: 233,342 U.S. Army; 74,405 U.S. Marines; 42,987 Coalition troops; 54,955 U.S. Air Force; and 61,206 U.S. Navy. 43 Although a single decapitation strike was made on the Dora Farms complex before the war, in the end, the full air attack did not begin until twelve hours after the ground invasion began. Galloway, “General Tommy Franks Discusses Conducting the War in Iraq.” See also: Woodward, pp. 380–389 and 402.

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44 For a discussion of the reasoning behind this decision, see: Keegan, The Iraq War, p. 141. 45 Wesley Hallman, “Airpower and Psychological Denial,” Joint Forces Quarterly, p. 37. 46 For a discussion of the purpose behind specific deep air campaigns, see: Pape, Bombing to Win, Ch. 3. 47 This is most obviously the case as regards the combined bomber offensive in World War II, however, even precision attacks on downtown Baghdad in the Gulf War focused on destroying critical infrastructure to create massive cascading effects. See, for instance: John A. Warden, “Success in Modern War: A Reply to Robert Pape’s Bombing to Win,” Security Studies 7/2, Winter 1997/98. 48 For a discussion of this campaign, see: Hosmer, Conflict Over Kosovo: Why Milosevic decided to Settle When He Did; Tolbert, Crony Attack: Strategic Attack’s Silver Bullet?; Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power. 49 Tolbert, Crony Attack: Strategic Attack’s Silver Bullet?, ch. 6. 50 Franks, American Soldier, p. 337. 51 Ibid., pp. 337 and 482. 52 Ibid., p. 338. 53 Ibid., p. 392. 54 Ibid. 55 For descriptions of this campaign see: Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, “U.S. Reports Talks Urging Surrender,” New York Times, March 21, 2003; Jack Kelley, “U.S. Officials Concede They ‘Misjudged’ Iraqi Defections,” USA Today, March 31, 2003 www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-30-iraq-resistance_x.htm; Scott Peterson and Peter Ford, “From Iraqi Officers, Three Tales of Shock and Defeat,” Christian Science Monitor, April 18, 2003 www.csmonitor.com/2003/ 0418/p01s03-woiq.html; Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, “Plan’s Defect: No Defectors,” Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2003. 56 Franks, American Soldier, p. 482. 57 Ibid., p. 471. For a more detailed analysis, see: Woodward, Plan of Attack. 58 Timothy J. Burger, “The Secret Collaborators,” Time 162/162003, p. 30. See also: Lee Siu Hin, “Report From Baghdad,” Lee Siu Hin Reports, 2003 www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/security.html; Peter Dale Scott, “Why Baghdad Fell Without a Fight – Does Saddam’s General Have the Answer,” Pacific News Service, Commentary, 2003 news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_ id4c8b95795b56eb46fd81460fb1c3a58a; “Former Iraqi Soldiers Speak Out,” AlHayat, May 26, 2003 www.dehai.org/archives/dehai_news_archive/aprmay03/0984.html. 59 “Saddam Betrayed by Republican Guard Chief: Report,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 26, 2003 www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/26/1053801319670.html; Hin, “Report from Baghdad”; Scott, “Why Baghdad Fell Without a Fight – Does Saddam’s General Have the Answer”; William Branigin, “A Brief, Bitter War for Iraq’s Military Officers, Self-Deception a Factor in Defeat,” Washington Post, April 27, 2003; Pepe Escobar, “The Baghdad Deal,” Asia Times Online, April 25, 2003 www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED25Ak04.html; “Former Iraqi Soldiers Speak Out.” 60 Scott, “Why Baghdad Fell Without a Fight – Does Saddam’s General Have the Answer.” 61 For an analysis of Saddam’s concerns, see: Olsen, Strategic Air Power in Desert Storm, Ch. 4. 62 After the war, a number of Iraq’s top commanders confirmed that, before the war, Saddam was aware of the campaign and that he feared a coup more than he feared the Coalition. Institute for Defense Analysis IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declas-

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R.B. Andres sified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), Institute for Defense Analysis, 2005, pp. VII–1. This prioritization of concerns was based on Saddam’s belief that the United States was unlikely to invade Central Iraq with ground troops, and his mistrust of his own people. See Chapter 5 of this volume for more on this analysis. For a discussion of how Russian information countermeasures were enacted see Russian Academy of Military Sciences Scientific Council RAMSS, Compilation of Essays Presented in Moscow June 6, 2003, Moscow: Scientific Council of the Academy of Military Sciences, 2003 (Foreign Broadcast Information Service translation), particularly essays by General of the Army Gareyev and Colonel A. Tsyganok www.thedonovan.com/archives/oifrussian/OIFrussianLL12.pdf. For specific measures, see: IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VI–33. Mark Grdovic, Interview with Major Mark Grdovic, S-3 for 3rd Battalion 10th Group During Operation Iraqi Freedom (Telephone interview, November 15, 2005). RAMSS, Compilation of Essays Presented in Moscow June 6, 2003. For material discussing specific methods used by autocratic regimes to protect against military coups, see, for instance: Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil Military Relations, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957, p. 82; Stephen Biddle and Robert Zirkle, “Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World,” Journal of Strategic Studies 19/2, June, 1996; Eliot Cohen, “Distant Battles: Modern War in the Third World,” International Security 10/4, Spring, 1986, p. 168; Risa Brooks, Political-Military Relations and the Stability of Arab Regimes, London: IISS, 1998; Kenneth Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. Iraqi General Al-Hamdani described these problems to the media and to coalition interviewers after the war. Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. See also: IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an OperationalLevel Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VI–33. IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. IV–8. Ibid., pp. III–39. Regime strikes accounted for 9 percent of all attacks, or around 1,800 targets. Lt. General T. Michael Moseley, Operation Iraqi Freedom-By the Numbers, USCENTAF (United States Central Command Air Forces): Assessment and Analysis Division, 2003, p. 5. Woodward provides a detailed description of the NSC’s deliberation leading up to the strike. Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 373–399. Franks points out that: “The targets of these bombs were the offices and homes of senior Ba’ath leaders and officers of the Special Security Organization and the Special Republican Guard. Communications intercepts and our meager HUMINT resources had indicated that these leaders were likely to wait out heavy Coalition air attacks in their homes, which were largely spread throughout the affluent Mansour neighborhood.” Franks, American Soldier, p. 482. For a theoretical discussion on how C2 attack can have this effect, see Warden, “Success in Modern War: A Reply to Robert Pape’s Bombing to Win.” For work on why this type of attack has seldom been effective across history, see: Robert A. Pape, “The Air Force Strikes Back: A Reply to Barry Watts and John Warden,” Security Studies 7/2, Winter, 1997/98.

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73 In post-war interviews, the Iraqis described a plan to protect personnel known as high value targets through a combination of coup-proofing security measures, stepped-up secrecy, variation, signature reduction, and sanctuaries. This involved, among other things, keeping leaders moving and housing them in densely packed civilian neighborhoods. IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an OperationalLevel Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VI–9. 74 Peterson and Ford, “From Iraqi Officers, Three Tales of Shock and Defeat.” 75 Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. 76 IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VI–50. 77 According to debriefs of those in Saddam’s inner circle the dictator moved from safehouse to safehouse every three to six hours during this last week in power. His inner circle tried to update him on the battlefield situation to the extent possible, but to little avail. Ibid. 78 The supervisor of the Republican Guard [Saddam’s son Qusay], the defense minister, army chief of staff, al-Quds army chief of staff, Republican Guard chief of staff, and the commanders of the two Republican Guard armies attended the meeting. AlHamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. 79 Ibid. See also: McKiernan, Interview with Lt Gen David D. McKiernan. 80 Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. 81 Ibid. For a discussion of how the Coalition attempted to create the illusion that the attack was coming from other directions see Franks, American Soldier, pp. 558–559. 82 Iraqi commanders who interacted with Saddam throughout the war repeatedly returned to this theme in interviews. See: IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VI–21, VI–26, VI–50. On the nature of Saddam’s misperception, see for instance IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VI–19; Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 330. 83 Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 331. 84 Ibid. 85 See, for instance: IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VI–17. 86 Interview with Tommy Franks by John Keegan, cited in Keegan, The Iraq War, p. 239. 87 McKiernan, Interview with Lt Gen David D. McKiernan. 88 Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. 89 IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VI–26, VI–21. 90 “The Collected Quotations of ‘Baghdad Bob,’ Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf: The Iraqi Minister of DisInformation,” CFIF.Org www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/ current/in_our_opinion/baghdad_bob.htm. 91 Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. 92 Franks, American Soldier, p. 448. 93 For a detailed analysis of this subject, see: Stephen T. Hosmer, Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Operations in Four Wars 1941–1991, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1995. 94 Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, Ch. 4.

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95 Carl Conetta, Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War, Briefing Memo 30, Project on Defense Alternatives, 2003, p. 8. 96 Psychological operations included 158 aircraft sorties that dropped 31.8 million leaflets, fifty-eight sorties by EC-130E Commando Solo radio – and TV – broadcasting aircraft, and 125 sorties by EC-130H Compass Call communicationsjamming aircraft. Moseley, Operation Iraqi Freedom – By the Numbers, p. 8. For a good overview, see: Ronald O’Rouke, “Iraq War: Defense Program Implications for Congress,” 2003, p. 61. For other coverage see for instance: James Dao, “Trying to Win Iraqi Hearts and Minds on the Battlefield,” New York Times, April 6, 2003. See also: Martha Brant, “The IO Options,” Newsweek (Web exclusive), March 26, 2003. 97 Approximately 79 percent of all air attacks were against fielded forces and most of these were against ground targets deep behind enemy lines, particularly against Iraq’s Republican Guard divisions. This was a significant change in targeting priorities from Operation Desert Storm (ODS). Hallman, “Airpower and Psychological Denial,” p. 35. For further discussions of the increased prioritization of enemy ground forces see Conetta, Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War, Briefing Memo 30, p. 2. 98 Conetta, Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War, Briefing Memo 30. 99 Iraq did not use its Air Force at all during the war. Also, although Iraq possesses the remnants of an integrated air defense system built for them by the French before ODS and improved upon by the Chinese during the 1990s, it was nearly worthless in the face of Coalition SEAD and stealth technology. For an analysis of the SEAD campaign, see: Kenneth P. Ekman, Sowing Modern SEAD: Reaping Success or Changing Strains?, Maxwell AFB, Air University, Montgomery, Al: thesis, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 2005. For a discussion of the Iraqi Army’s skill at protecting itself from air attacks see: IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VI–8. 100 For an analysis of the techniques used by Iraq in ODS see: William F. Andrews, Airpower Against An Army, Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 1998. 101 IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. V–16. 102 For a description of the techniques used to foil Coalition air attack see: Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. 103 On this system, see, for instance: Olsen, Strategic Air Power in Desert Storm. 104 IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VII–3. 105 Hosmer, Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Operations in Four Wars 1941–1991. 106 During OIF, these units were also tasked with physically picking up and destroying air dropped propaganda leaflets because Saddam had decreed a death sentence for regular soldiers who read them. Peterson and Ford, “From Iraqi Officers, Three Tales of Shock and Defeat.” 107 This was one of the Iraqi Perspectives Project’s two major explanations for Iraqi preparation for the war: IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an OperationalLevel Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. VII–1. 108 On lack of trust, see: Branigin, “A Brief, Bitter War for Iraq’s Military Officers SelfDeception a Factor in Defeat.” While enforced dishonesty may appear bizarre, the policy is common in autocratic regimes: Brooks, Political-Military Relations and

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the Stability of Arab Regimes; Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991. See, for instance: Peterson and Ford, “From Iraqi Officers, Three Tales of Shock and Defeat”; IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. V–13. Peterson and Ford, “From Iraqi Officers, Three Tales of Shock and Defeat.” Ibid. Branigin, “A Brief, Bitter War for Iraq’s Military Officers Self-Deception a Factor in Defeat.” For instance, in ODS, “Lieutenant General Charles Horner, USAF, CFACC, placed direct attacks on fielded forces, specifically the Republican Guard divisions, as number five of five objectives with a stated goal of ‘destroying the Republican Guard forces.’ In contrast, Lieutenant General Michael Moseley, USAF, CFACC during Iraqi Freedom, placed such attacks as number two on his list of eleven ‘strategy-to-task mission areas.’ ” Hallman, “Airpower and Psychological Denial,” p. 35. See also: Conetta, Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War, Briefing Memo 30, p. 2. This amounted to around 12,000 aim points. The operations also included a much higher percentage of precision munitions than previous wars – 67 percent versus 6.5 percent in ODS. Conetta, Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War, Briefing Memo 30, p. 2. Ibid. On casualties, see: Ibid., p. 8; Terry McCarthy and I. Hindiyah, “What Ever Happened to the Republican Guard? A Time Investigation Suggests Most of the Elite Iraqi Forces Survived the U.S. Bombardment,” Time Magazine, May 12, 2003; Paul Richter, “Bombing is Tool of Choice to Clear a Path to Baghdad: Heavy Strikes are Meant to Grind Down Top-level Forces Before an Assault,” Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2003. Conetta, Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War, Briefing Memo 30, p. 8. McCarthy and Hindiyah, “What Ever Happened to the Republican Guard? A Time Investigation Suggests Most of the Elite Iraqi Forces Survived the U.S. Bombardment.” For work on desertions and timing see: Peterson and Ford, “From Iraqi Officers, Three Tales of Shock and Defeat”; Branigin, “A Brief, Bitter War for Iraq’s Military Officers Self-Deception a Factor in Defeat”; Grdovic, Interview with Major Mark Grdovic, S-3 for 3rd Battalion 10th Group During Operation Iraqi Freedom. Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. RAMSS, Compilation of Essays Presented in Moscow, June 6, 2003. For a description of how this method was used in OIF see Franks, American Soldier, pp. 314 and 415. For a theoretical description of this type of technique see: Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power. For how these methods were used in Afghanistan in 2001 see: Richard B. Andres, Craig Wills, and Thomas Griffith, “Winning with Allies: The Strategic Value of the Afghan Model,” International Security 30/3, Winter, 2005/2006; Benjamin Lambeth, Airpower Against Terrorism: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005. For a historical description of the use of air power against troops in the open, see: John A. Warden, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat, Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1989. Bruce R. Pirnie, Alan Vick, Adam Grissom, Karl P. Mueller, and David T. Owlets, Beyond Close Air Support: Forging a New Air-Ground Partnership, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005, p. 46. On these methods in Afghanistan, see: Andres, Wills, and Griffith, “Winning with

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R.B. Andres Allies: The Strategic Value of the Afghan Model”; Lambeth, Airpower Against Terrorism: America’s conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom. Franks, American Soldier, p. 399. On this synergy, Mace Carpenter, chief of the combined air operations center strategy division during OIF points out that: “Lieutenant General David D. McKiernan . . . coordinated offensive operations to force the enemy to regroup and defend the approaches to Baghdad against ground attack. The resulting joint synchronization of air effect and ground maneuver working closely together proved devastating to Iraqi forces as the regrouping made the Iraqi surface force more vulnerable to air attacks.” Carpenter, Rapid, Deliberate, Disciplined, Proportional and Precise: Operation Iraqi Freedom Air and Space Operations, p. 2. See also: Franks, American Soldier, p. 329. There are a number of reasons a static defense would not protect Iraq. First, Iraq’s territory was too large to predict the enemy’s invasion route; the army would have to move to block it. Second, given U.S. air supremacy, over time its aircraft could simply destroy static troops where they hid. Finally, and equally important, on a tactical level, combined arms warfare is only effective when troops are able to maneuver and particularly to counterattack enemy ground forces: Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle. Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. On this subject see, for instance: Toby Harnden, “Iraqis Watch Black Hawk Down for Tips,” News.telegragh, 2004 www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml/ news/2003/04/01/wtac101.xml; IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. V–35. The groups known collectively as the fedayeen included the Saddam fedayeen, Al Quds (a local Ba’ath militia commanded by party leaders and national Ba’ath Party militia members); and the volunteers known as the Lions of Saddam (a group of Sunni boys, eighteen and younger with rudimentary training). See Franks, American Soldier, p. 486. On bounties, see: Peterson and Ford, “From Iraqi Officers, Three Tales of Shock and Defeat.” For descriptions of Fedayeen tactics see: Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Ch. 4; Franks, American Soldier, pp. 485–490 and 518. Branigin, “A Brief, Bitter War for Iraq’s Military Officers Self-deception a Factor in Defeat.” See also: Richard J. Newman, “The Iraqi File,” in Air Force Magazine Online, 2003, p. 52 www.afa.org/magazine/July2003/0703iraq.asp. For a description of these effects, see: Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 330. Through a combination of death and desertions, air power destroyed these divisions when they were still about thirty miles from the capital. Branigin, “A Brief, Bitter War for Iraq’s Military Officers Self-deception a Factor in Defeat.” Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 330. Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad AlHamdani. Col. William F. Grimsley, the 1st Brigade commander of the 3rd ID noted: “We never really found any cohesive unit of any brigade of any Republican Guard division.” Rather his troops encountered groups of Ba’ath Party fanatics, paramilitary fighters and members of different Republican Guard divisions, including the Nebuchadnezzar, the Adnan and the Medina. Branigin, “A Brief, Bitter War for Iraq’s Military Officers Self-deception a Factor in Defeat.” Asked what had happened to Republican Guard CFLCC General McKiernan responded, “I think the RG were destroyed; some of them destroyed through very lethal air effects, some of them destroyed through very lethal ground attack, some of

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them destroyed because they gave up and went home. And some of them destroyed because they did not know where they were on the battlefield, where the enemy was, and they wandered into places that they were quickly dispatched.” McKiernan, Interview with Lt Gen David D. McKiernan. For more on air power’s effect on the Republican Guard see: Rowan Scarborough, “Rulers of the Air,” Washington Times, April 27, 2003, p. 1; Bradley Graham and Vernon Loeb, “An Air War of Might, Coordination and Risks,” Washington Post, April 27, 2003, p. 1; for specific arguments that Coalition air, rather than ground, was most central to the destruction of Iraqi forces, see for instance: Peterson and Ford, “From Iraqi Officers, Three Tales of Shock and Defeat,” p. 24; Cooper, “Strategy Boiled Down To Light Vs. Heavy,” p. 1. Franks, American Soldier, pp. 486 and 487. See also: Murray and Scales, The Iraq War, p. 103. For descriptions of fedayeen tactics, see: Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 209; Murray and Scales, The Iraq War, pp. 100–104; Franks, American Soldier, p. 488. An after action report by the 3rd ID provides a description of the lack of effectiveness of fedayeen methods. After killing an estimated 2,000 fedayeen and destroying 100 vehicles, the division reported losing only two tanks and one Bradley. 3rd ID, “Operation Iraqi Freedom, Third Infantry Division (Mechanized) ‘Rock of the marne,’ After Action Report, Final Draft,” May 12, 2003. For descriptions of special forces and air power operations in northern Iraq, see: Armando Ramirez, From Bosnia to Baghdad: The Evolution of U.S. Army Special Forces From 1995 to 2004, Monterey, CA: thesis, Naval Post Graduate School, 2002; Richard B. Andres, “The Afghan Model in Northern Iraq,” Journal of Strategic Studies 29/3, Fall, 2006; Stephen Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute: U.S. Army War College, 2002; Stephen Biddle, Special Forces and the Future of Warfare: Will SOF Predominate in 2020?, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute: U.S. Army War College, 2004. Andres, “The Afghan Model in Northern Iraq.” See: Ibid.; Ramirez, From Bosnia to Baghdad: The Evolution of U.S. Army Special Forces From 1995 to 2004. Al-Hamdani, Transcript: Interview with Lt. Gen. Raad Al-Hamdani. See also: Conetta, Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War, Briefing Memo 30. McKiernan, Interview with Lt Gen David D. McKiernan. Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Ch. 4. Andres, “The Afghan Model in Northern Iraq.” Biddle makes this argument most cogently. See: Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle. Ibid. Ibid., Chs. 3 and 4. After the war, coalition interviewers found that many Iraqi commanders were surprisingly competent. This competence appeared inconsistent with their wartime performance. “They themselves provided two reasons for this incongruity: (1) the limits on the exercise of their authority and (2) the effect of the pervasive internal security apparatus. IDA, Iraqi Perspective Project: Toward an Operational-Level Understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts declassified for publication by U.S. Joint Forces Command), pp. III–31. According to Kenneth Pollack, these problems are common in Arab armies. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991.

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151 Anne Armstrong, Unconditional Surrender, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961, Ch. 3. 152 For specifics on how this process worked, see: Carpenter, Rapid, Deliberate, Disciplined, Proportional and Precise: Operation Iraqi Freedom Air and Space Operations. 153 On decapitation, see: Pape, Bombing to Win, pp. 79–86.

5

Doomed execution Kevin M. Woods, with Michael R. Pease, Mark E. Stout, Williamson Murray, and James G. Lacey

Everyone in whose body the Hulegu’s intent and action has settled down – will commit suicide at the walls of Baghdad and Iraq towns, as was the case with those who died at the walls of Jenin and Palestinian towns. Saddam Hussein, 13 January 20031

Reconstructing the events of the final days of Saddam’s regime remains, and likely will remain, a challenge. From the Iraqi government viewpoint, the war was a series of events that it could never get ahead of and rarely comprehended. In the midst of an increasingly chaotic situation, both the regime and its military institutions lost control. Moreover, Saddam’s peculiar leadership style, the operational concept employed by the Coalition, and the rapid collapse of major Iraqi forces all tend to obscure contemporary analysis of the war from an Iraqi perspective. The difficulty in building a precise picture lies in the fact that though individual sources were well placed by position and background to describe events, they rarely possessed a complete view of the battle.2 The final Iraqi military collapse came so fast that no one on the Iraqi command side could grasp a complete picture. Nevertheless, based on numerous post-war interviews with the Iraqi commanders and the recovery of hundreds of thousands of contemporaneous documents, an outline of events that is plausibly accurate is coming into view. While the incomplete nature of this evidence should temper the finality of judgments, one must remember that much has already been written and many judgments have been made about the war without the benefit of any Iraqi perspective at all. Though several key Iraqi commanders were interviewed for this project, this account of the operations centers on the interviews of a few key officers, wellplaced to view many key events, and who were relatively perceptive and honest with interviewers. The most impressive of these interviewees was one of the few truly competent officers Saddam tolerated near the top ranks of the regime, Lieutenant General Hamdani, who served during the war as Commander of the II Republican Guard Corps. Hamdani provided considerable insight into the efforts of the II Republican Guard Corps to defend such areas as the Karbala Gap and the nature of Iraqi military plans and preparations.

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Hamdani’s views on the conduct of the defense of the Karbala Gap suggested that an adversary not hampered by the restrictions imposed by Saddam could have posed serious difficulties to a modern attacking force. Hamdani himself had had a long and distinguished career in the Iraqi Army, possessing extensive combat experience beginning as a platoon commander during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which the Iraqi forces were sent to reinforce the Syrians at the end of that conflict. More recently, he served on the front line for much of the Iran–Iraq War as a battalion commander and was a brigade commander during Desert Storm.3 His long war service in front-line units identified him as both a competent officer and an individual Saddam could trust. Given the regime’s paranoia, military competence was no guarantee of advancement or even survival. What protected General Hamdani from a fate that befell some of the military leaders from the Iran–Iraq War was the fact that Saddam’s sons, Qusay and Uday, as well as Tariq Aziz’s son, served in his battalion during the war with Iran.4 In a regime where social connections sometimes counted for more than competence, the relationship the general established with those three individuals undoubtedly helped to propel him to the top of the Republican Guard and protected him from Saddam identifying him as a danger to the Ba’ath regime. General Hamdani was particularly well placed during Operation Iraqi Freedom to present an account of the Iraqi view of the war.5 His II Republican Guard Corps was responsible for defending the southeastern approaches to Baghdad along which both the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division advanced. In short, he commanded the Iraqi troops facing the American main effort and supporting ground attacks. As stated earlier, the Iraqi military commanders charged with their nation’s defense found themselves hamstrung by a number of interrelated factors. Quite simply, Saddam trusted no one with the possible exception of his sons. Thus, Iraqi commanders were not able to make the necessary preparations and deployments to meet a Coalition ground invasion. Moreover, Saddam’s fear of a coup continued to make it impossible for even corps commanders to do any significant collaborative planning.6 The final effect of such distrust made it impossible to create coherent plans above the corps level for Iraq’s defense. It is worth re-stating the handicaps that hobbled Iraqi generals even within the purview of their individual commands. Incessant spying, suspicion, and interference by often militarily incompetent superiors – political and military – was a constant psychological stress as well as a serious impediment to making military preparations. Saddam’s threat calculations, as well as the inability and/or unwillingness of most of his subordinates to provide accurate information, exacerbated the planning difficulties throughout the system. A combination of mutually exclusive political assumptions and a national security system where truth was in short supply conspired to make adequate preparations for war virtually impossible – especially a war that Saddam repeatedly announced would not happen. Finally, there was the negative impact of the change in war plans on December 18, 2002. Barely three months before the onset of hostilities,

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Hamdani and his colleagues found themselves saddled with an unworkable and unrealistic plan for the defense of central Iraq and Baghdad – a plan that Saddam had drawn up at the last moment without regard to military realities and apparently without the advice of any of his more competent senior military commanders.7

The coalition psychological campaign – effects of precision weapons From the Iraqi perspective, it appeared, as in 1991, that any Coalition attack would begin with lengthy air operations.8 Saddam, it seems, believed that air attacks would be the primary military means the Coalition would utilize against Iraq. Most of his senior military officers still using the template of the Gulf War believed Coalition efforts would open with a sustained air campaign possibly followed weeks later by ground operations.9 It was a shock to many of them when the Coalition offensive began with a simultaneous air and ground attack, coupled with a comprehensive psychological operations campaign aimed at undermining the willingness of Iraqi soldiers to fight. It is likely that at the time, Coalition planners underappreciated the psychological effects precision firepower had on Iraqi combat units. Lieutenant General Majid Husayn Ali Ibrahim Al-Dulaymi, Commander of the Republican Guard I Corps, told interviewers after the war, “Our units were unable to execute anything due to worries induced by psychological warfare. They were fearful of modern war, pin-point war in all climates and in all weather.”10 The general then added that psychological operations were “the bullet that hits the heart before hitting the body. . . . When it hits, it makes a fearful man; he walks without a brain. Even the lowest soldier knew we couldn’t stop the Americans.”11 Besides the normal tools of a psychological campaign such as leaflets and radio broadcasts, the general emphasized the impact of precision weapons on the psychology of Iraqi soldiers. He himself received a severe shock during a visit to the Adnan Republican Guard Division shortly after a series of precision air attacks had obliterated one of its battalions that moved in the open. In his words, “The level of precision of those attacks put real fear into the soldiers of the rest of the division. The Americans were able to induce fear throughout the army by using precision air power.”12 The story of the Al-Nida Division, which was the best-equipped division in the Iraqi military, underlines the devastating psychological effects of Coalition airpower. Considering that the Al-Nida Division was never really engaged in the ground fighting during the course of the war, what happened to it suggests that psychological operations, integrated with precision fire, created a generalized dread of seemingly inevitable destruction; this combination quite literally broke the will of many Iraqi units subjected to it. In the eyes of the average Iraqi soldier, Iraq’s inability to stop the United States from “flying 8,000 miles to drop its trash (pamphlets)” on them proved the regime’s military impotence. The fact that the Coalition seemed to know exactly where to drop the “trash”

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made every soldier in the Republican Guard feel as if they were in “a sniper’s sight.” Witnessing the effects of precision weapons that devastated exposed positions did not help already poor morale.13 The Al-Nida commander offered the following opinion on the psychological effects of Coalition air attacks on his troops: The air attacks were the most effective message. The soldiers who did see the leaflets and then saw the air attacks knew the leaflets were true. They believed the message after that, if they were still alive. Overall they had a terrible effect on us. I started the war with 13,000 soldiers. By the time we had orders to pull back to Baghdad, I had less than 2,000; by the time we were in position in Baghdad, I had less than 1,000. Every day the desertions increased. We had no engagements with American forces. When my division pulled back across the Diyala Bridge, of more than 500 armored vehicles assigned to me before the war, I was able to get fifty or so across the bridge. Most were destroyed or abandoned on the east side of the Diyala River.14 In effect, precise airpower and the fear it engendered made an entire division of the Republican Guard combat ineffective. In this case it was not so much destroyed as dissolved. For the average Iraqi soldier the Americans appeared to be blowing up every hole that they could find. It must have been an unnerving realization when each of them realized they were hiding in a hole.

The air campaign Regime high-value targets The opening salvo of “The Defining Battle” was an American air strike on Saddam’s suspected location. Although the attack missed Saddam, it did confuse him about U.S. intentions. According to Saddam’s personal secretary, the first U.S. missiles hit a Baghdad residence called “Dora Farm.” While Saddam’s wife and daughters had at times used this residence, Saddam himself had reportedly not set foot on Dora Farm since 1995. The morning of the opening attack, at approximately 0330 Baghdad time, Saddam and his bodyguards went to his personal secretary’s house. It was an attempt to try and discover what had happened and determine if this was the start of the impending Coalition offensive. After gathering what information they could, Saddam and his personal secretary relocated to a safe house in the Al-Mansour neighborhood in central Baghdad. Upon arriving in Al-Mansour, Saddam anxiously recorded a video message for the Iraqi people. Because they had no staff, Saddam wrote the speech in his own hand, which required him to appear for the first time on television wearing his oversized glasses.15 The attack on Dora Farm signaled the start of the Coalition air campaign and caused the Iraqi air defense command to immediately swing into action. Despite

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a profound inability to limit the ferocity of the Coalition air attacks it did demonstrate a determination to appear effective. Which to some extent was all that really mattered. As Saddam often reminded his officers, effort in the face of overwhelming force was the key to success. For instance, early in the war, the Commander of the 1st Air Defense Region, in a typically optimistic overstatement, reported that his forces had either “averted or downed” more than 130 enemy cruise missiles, helicopters, or fighter aircraft.16 This report was not just the hopeful bluster of the combat uninitiated as evidenced by the tone of air defense reporting within hours of the final regime collapse. On 8 April, the day after American forces entered Baghdad to stay, a field report to the Minister of Defense from the Air Defense Command noted indignantly that “the enemy continues to violate the sanctity of our air space,” and proceeded to describe success against enemy aircraft.17 Memories of the reported execution of the air defense commander in the early days of Desert Storm undoubtedly had an impact on the new commander’s willingness to be entirely forthcoming. Before the war, Iraqi leaders had every reason to expect they personally would become targets of any air campaign. If there were doubts about the Coalition’s intent to decapitate the regime, the opening night attack on “the farm” dispelled them. To improve his chances of survival, Saddam added a final layer of security measures to his now-routine “coup-proofing.” He and his inner circle attempted to counter precision attacks targeted at regime leadership by stepping up secrecy, varying the locations of meetings and stopovers, instituting elaborate electronic signature reduction measures, and using “safe” sanctuaries. Combined, these measures generally proved successful against Coalition efforts to eliminate key regime personnel, although they also significantly degraded the regime’s ability to maintain a clear awareness of, or provide any relevant command and control to the battlefield. Saddam’s personal security included elaborate measures designed to keep his location and movements a secret from even close associates and advisors. The security services had worked out and rehearsed most of these arrangements prior to the start of the war. The inner circle’s wartime communications network included only the most senior cabinet ministers and government officials. The security services assigned these ministers three low-ranking but trusted employees to provide a 24-hour alert team (eight-hour shifts) at a central headquarters. During the war, when Saddam wished to meet with a minister, he sent a representative by car to inform the alert teams. These alert teams then traveled by car to the hidden location of the respective minister, informed him of Saddam’s orders, and transported him to a secret link-up point. At the link-up point, a special Presidential Guard detail transported the minister to a new transfers point and from there a new detail took him to a presidential safe house. All presidential vehicles were equipped with black curtains to block the minister’s view of the route of travel. As a final measure, to prevent tracking devices, all cellular phones, watches, calculators, personal pens or pencils, and/or any battery-operated devices were prohibited at all meetings.18 In addition, the security services had designed the hide locations as sanctuaries,

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not bunkers. Bunkers took a major construction effort and attracted the attention of American intelligence sensors during their construction. In fact, not many bunkers remained unscathed by the end of the war. Designating a civilian-constructed building or residence as a sanctuary required no extra work that might be noticed by the ever-prying eyes. Throughout the war, Saddam moved between various safe-houses centered on the upscale district known as Al-Mansour. This area provided other targeting challenges beyond the problem of uncovering Saddam’s hide-sites. By placing many of these hide-sites in heavily populated civilian districts or by being sure they shared a common wall with “protected” sites like foreign embassy property, religious sites, or medical treatment facilities, Saddam sought to create foolproof sanctuaries from Coalition air attacks. Military targets Precision air attacks in the first days of the war may have failed to decapitate the regime, but they had a devastating effect on the Iraqi armed forces – even when they missed. The Commander of the Al-Nida Republican Guards Division, whose division dissolved from the psychological impact of the air attacks, commented to an interviewer after the war: The early air attacks hit only empty headquarters and barracks buildings. It did affect our communication switches which were still based in those buildings. We primarily used schools and hidden command centers in orchards for our headquarters – which were not hit. But the accuracy and lethality of those attacks left an indelible impression on those Iraqi soldiers who either observed them directly or saw the damage afterwards.19 For the most part, the brigades of the Al-Nida Republican Guard Division escaped attack during the first week of the war. But one air attack during this period did find and strike the 153rd Artillery Battalion, located in the 41st Brigade area. The battalion had dispersed itself in three distinct locations: it had hidden its artillery pieces in an orchard, the soldiers in a second hide position, and the ammunition in a third location. The division commander said he was shocked when “The air attack hit all three locations at the same time, and annihilated the artillery battalion.”20 Such experiences became commonplace as Coalition air power chewed up Iraqi ground forces that attracted the attention of satellites or other aerial reconnaissance. During the course of the conflict’s first week, the other two brigades of the Al-Nida escaped serious damage from air attack by remaining hidden in prepared positions. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the second week, Coalition air power found and hit both the 42nd and 43rd Brigades. The Al-Nida Division’s commander noted the effect of these air attacks on his forces: In the 42nd Brigade sector, the troops were in their prepared positions and were hit very effectively for five days. The continuous nature of the attacks

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did not allow us to track the number of losses. After the attacks many of the soldiers “escaped” [a euphemism for deserted]. By the end of the war more than 70 percent of the Al-Nida Republican Guard Division “escaped,” [while at the conclusion of hostilities] between the air strikes and desertions only 1,000–1,500 soldiers remained out of more than 13,000.21 Matters were no better with the division’s 43rd Brigade. This brigade started the war with three mechanized battalions and one tank battalion. But after one particularly heavy air strike, virtually all of the troops abandoned their positions and ran away. By the time the brigade made its final move to Baghdad on April 1, when the division was transferred to the Republican Guard I Corps and ordered to defend the “red line,” the unit had simply ceased to exist as an organized combat unit. Its soldiers had abandoned virtually all of their vehicles east of the Diyala River and walked away rather than risk moving them and becoming targets for Coalition air attacks.22 Even before the war, the mere threat of air or missile attack had degraded the Al-Nida division commander’s ability to coordinate his brigades, due to a regime mandate that all units and headquarters seek shelter in isolated hide sites. The Al-Nida commander therefore placed his primary headquarters just outside Baqubah, some distance from his fighting forces, and made its primary focus seeking and maintaining protection from air attack. To improve its chances of survival, “the headquarters was dug into underground shelters with reinforced walls and iron plates on the ceilings. . . . A separate larger shelter was co-located in a nearby orchard for meetings.”23 The division’s headquarters possessed no computers – wall maps with manual plots were the primary means of keeping track of the division’s units. Primary communication was by land lines, and radio communications were kept as limited as possible. The division commander did possess a Thuriya [satellite phone], but was afraid to use it for fear of attracting an air attack on his headquarters.24 When Coalition attacks eventually destroyed the main communications system, the division established a relay system to maintain contact between its headquarters and the various units under its command. To communicate, the division commander was forced to spend much of his time moving among his units. Nevertheless, for some Iraqi commanders, Coalition air attacks on Iraq’s ground forces were less successful in the early days than they were to be later in the war. As General Hamdani reported in post-war interviews, Iraqi forces were generally safe as long as the troops were not moving: During this time there were heavy air attacks on the Medina Division, but we were surprised at how few fell on the Al-Nida Division. The attacks were effective against fixed sites such as communications and logistic facilities, but much less so on the forces themselves. We had multiple positions for each vehicle, and the troops remained dispersed. The Nebuchadnezzar Division took some damage from air attacks during its move into position

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The defense of the southern cities and confusion out west The view at the top As Coalition air attacks ravaged Iraq’s military forces and installations, ground forces rolled over the Iraqi regular army units in their way. The British 1st U.K. Armoured Division, supported by the U.S. Marine Corps’ 23rd MEU, drove north and then east to seize the Ramallah oil fields and close off the southern city of Basra. Meanwhile the 3rd Infantry Division, followed by the 1st Marine Division, sliced up the desert roads west of the Euphrates River. The 1st Marine Division then turned in to cross the Euphrates at An-Nasiriyah. After fighting its way through the outskirts of Nasiriyah, the 1st Marine Regimental Combat Team (RCT) drove to the northeast toward Al-Kut, while the 5th and 7th Marine RCTs crossed to the north of Nasiriyah with the objective of driving up the Tigris–Euphrates valley toward Diwaniyah. The 3rd Infantry Division continued its advance, bypassing An-Nasiriyah, As-Samawaha, and An-Najaf to gain a position from which it could drive through the Karbala Gap and attack Baghdad. As the American advance reached toward the northwest, it came under increasingly heavy attack from Ba’ath militia and Fedayeen Saddam. To the Americans, these attacks appeared fanatical and beyond reason. In fact, they were suicidal; in the 3rd Infantry Division, unit after unit reported going “black” on ammunition (almost empty) as they dealt with Fedayeen Saddam, who charged tanks in small groups or in the back of Toyota pick-ups. However, the picture of the war forming in the Iraqi high command was entirely different from what was actually happening. The regime assumed that Coalition forces would attack, or at the very least invest, each of the cities along the Euphrates and not leave their supply lines open to attack by Iraqi forces operating from these cities. The reports reaching Baghdad of heavy fighting around the outskirts of the southern cities reinforced this pre-conception. As Iraqi units attacked out from the cities, their commanders reported exactly the message that Baghdad expected to hear: that everything was going wonderfully and that Iraqi forces were slaughtering the invaders in surprisingly large numbers. Throughout the war, the quality of the reporting from the military and security channels to the regime leadership was mixed. Reporting through political channels was almost uniformly bad. An operations log from the General Military Intelligence Directorate (GMID) provides a detailed, if somewhat confusing, hour-by-hour picture of events from March 20, through to April 2, 2003. The first entry notes simply say, “At 0532 hours the beginning of the enemy’s aerial hostilities, with enemy airplanes bombing the city of Baghdad.”26 Soon thereafter, other cities, particularly in the south, were reported to have “thick aviation” over them.27

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On that first full day of war, the majority of the entries in the 37th Division’s log referred to the loss of “monitoring stations” throughout the county.28 Of particular note was the emphasis placed on the rapid loss of monitoring stations in the western border areas (near Jordan). The GMID log noted that Coalition attacks had destroyed, attacked, or cut off at least 34 of these monitoring stations on March 20, alone.29 Iraqi concern undoubtedly heightened when multiple reports received that evening indicated that several groups of as many as 16 enemy armored vehicles were on the road between the Jordanian border and Kilometer 160.30 Log entries on the evening of March 22 noted that “Enemy has a massive presence of armor in the Al-Kasarat region [Jordan] 90 kilometers from Ar Rutbah.”31 The impression of these reports was that a large American armored force was driving from Jordan and across the western desert. This impression would have profound implications later in the war. Over time, these and other reports helped to fix in Saddam’s mind the idea that the main Coalition attack was coming out of Jordan. One of the more interesting encounters in the western desert during this period occurred as the lead elements of a massive Coalition special operations effort swarmed across the Jordanian border and ran into an isolated Iraqi unit near the village of Al-Hibaria. According to an intelligence report to Saddam’s secretary on March 23, early on the previous morning an American patrol consisting of “four armored cars and a small vehicle” attacked the Iraqi patrol which had resisted “until the ammunition ran out” and was then captured.32 During questioning, the senior Iraqi present identified himself to his American captors as a sergeant from the border forces. Questioned by the Americans, he convinced his captors of his military ignorance, signed a “local cease-fire agreement,” and was released.33 Unknown to his American captors, the sergeant was actually an officer from Iraq’s elite Special Mission Unit 111 sent to the region on March 17 to gauge the situation in the west.34 In a clear grasp of the obvious, the Director of Military Intelligence added at the bottom of the report that “we should notify the chiefs of the regional military leadership and the Minister of Defense to tell our soldiers to sign this type of pledge [military cease-fire agreement].”35 These and other reports continued to fixate the regime’s elites on a Western approach. Losing their early warning outposts in the opening moments of the war could only have one meaning: the Americans were doing something big in the western desert and they did not want it seen. An early assessment in a GMID operations log notes that the enemy, in addition to attempting to move on AnNasiriyah in the south, “has utilized all of his present forces and it is possible that he will undertake to reinforce them with additional forces or that he will open up a front in the northern region.”36 By March 25 the reports noted a “military force composed of approximately sixty tanks and armored vehicles . . . 20 kilometers southwest of the Ar Rutbah region . . . and they had begun to move in a strategic direction . . . and that according to the commander of the Al-Qa’im border group individuals coming from Syria told him that ‘the intention of the enemy is to open a front by way of Jordan.’ ”37

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According to these reports, Coalition “armor” was not the only thing crossing the western borders – friends were arriving as well. The operations log notes on March 21 at 0015 hours, “eight Syrian persons surrendered themselves to the Al Qa’im border troops . . . according to them they came to serve as Mujahideen with the Iraqi people against the American enemy and . . . more would be arriving soon.”38 Support and promises of support from foreign fighters like this continued throughout the war. According to a memorandum to the Director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service dated March 27: We have been contacted by Dr. Abid Al-Aziz Al-Rantisi [senior Hamas leader in Gaza] . . . during the past few days to ensure his and Palestinian support against the barbaric American enemy. He requested us to open the check points at the border to let the volunteer fighters participate in the war.39 This offer was apparently part of a first trickle of foreign fighters, which would soon thereafter become a flood.40 The memorandum went on to say, “Hamas is willing to carry out demonstrations and suicide attacks to support Iraq.” The intelligence services reported that they were “pleased with the Hamas stand in this situation as we always expected the movement’s support.” The memo concluded by saying how “helpful it would be if Hamas was to conduct operations against American and Israeli interests in the occupied lands.”41 From the Iraqi perspective, though the situation in the west was troubling, the fact that they still controlled the major southern cities meant that their overall strategy was working. The Minister of Defense announced in a news conference on March 27: The enemy encircled the town of Al-Samawa from the direction of the desert and is now in the back of the town. The tribes of Al-Muthanna, the Ba’ath Party, Saddam Fedayeen, and military units are now implementing special operations aimed at these American units. . . . Now, as to the situation in the mid-Euphrates sector; in the past three days, the enemy’s losses were very heavy, as they are losing tanks and personnel carriers; they are firing at civilians in more than one place and in more than one sector. The performance of our units is very good and there is very good cooperation in the mid-Euphrates sector between the Saddam Fedayeen, the Ba’ath Party fighters, and the tribesmen. Before I came to the news conference, I talked to Staff Lieutenant General Salah Abbud, deputy commander of the region. He told me that the enemy had withdrawn because they sustained heavy losses.42 Since this optimistic assessment was going out at the same time as the 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Division were rapidly destroying all Iraqi units that challenged them, it was easy to believe that the Minister of Defense was simply parroting regime-generated propaganda. But a close study of the

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documentary evidence indicates that many of the regime elites truly believed these misconceptions. Ba’ath Party commanders were reporting accurately that they were still holding the cities though their reports of inflicting heavy losses on the Coalition forces were false. No one in Baghdad had any reason or desire to doubt them.43 Typical of the reporting reaching Baghdad was this March 21 report from the southern region command’s control center: The enemy is advancing toward the airport in An-Nasiriyah . . . a counterattack force of the 11th Infantry Division made contact with the enemy and [was able to] destroy six enemy tanks . . . one Iraqi tank has been destroyed.44 The fact that most of the 11th Infantry Division had effectively evaporated under the first ground assaults of the Coalition was something that neither Saddam nor those around him had any way of knowing. They were receiving similarly optimistic reports from the militia forces to complement those from trusted party officials. For instance, a report from the security officer of a Basrabased Fedayeen Saddam unit enthusiastically reported on March 24: The latest attack . . . by the Fedayeen and the heroic men of the Party on the remnants of the enemy . . . on the Az-Zubayr Bridge and fired up two tanks with their crews and the enemy was routed to the rear . . . the routed force of the enemy is estimated to be more than fifty tanks.45 A week into the campaign, perhaps sensing that he was receiving inflated reports, the Minister of Defense displayed a glimpse of the professionalism his peers credited to him. He established a committee to explore exactly how American ground forces were fighting the campaign. On March 27, this committee forwarded its report titled “The Methods of the U.S. Enemy During the Aggression Against Our Steadfast, Fighting Country.”46 It was a mixture of already well-understood generalizations of American capabilities and some fanciful conjecture to explain events that were not making sense in Baghdad. This report stated that the Americans were avoiding entering the cities, “while capturing important communications nodes to control entry and exit points for towns and cities, with the objective of preventing the arrival of reinforcements.”47 The committee also warned that U.S. forces would attack at a number of places at the same time, “in order to dilute our effort and confuse our troops, coupled with a propensity to withdraw in case of casualties and to hold onto land in case of any success.”48 Both of these items might have provided the regime hints as to what was actually happening, but it appears the report was either not widely circulated or it was ignored. Possibly the Minister of Defense failed to take it seriously because of bizarre elements. One of its explanations for how the Americans could appear at so many different places was that Chinook helicopters were capable of air-landing heavy battle tanks – which Chinooks were not.49

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The view of local Ba’athists The high command had one vision of the war’s progress, but that largely reflected the reports it was receiving from the battlefront. It is therefore instructive to take a close look at what the local officials were actually dealing with as opposed to what they were reporting. The best source on what local Ba’athists were seeing in one region was Lieutenant General Yahya Taha Huwaysh-Fadani Al-Ani, the assistant military advisor to the Ba’ath commander in the Central Euphrates region. In his previous career, General Yahya had reached the pinnacle of Commander, Naval and Coastal Defense Force, managing to reach retirement. However, in January 2003 he had been pressed back into service. By his own admission, General Yahya knew he had only limited experience in coordinating a land battle. He did, however, have a front row seat to events as they occurred. General Yahya had a particularly good view of the impact the apparent two-pronged Coalition advance on Ad-Diwaniyah and An-Najaf had on local Ba’ath officials. In fact, those perceived threats were actually American feints designed to confuse the Iraqis as to the Coalition’s true objectives – and they worked. On March 28, General Yahya first came into contact with American forces. According to his account: On the 28th, after the Coalition had rested and resupplied some distance away, the Bradley armored personnel carriers arrived at the outskirts of AsSamawa, but did not enter the city. They covered and penned us in the city while their supply columns moved to the north behind a screen of tanks. Some Fedayeen Saddam patrols attacked with RPG-7s, while the Al-Quds force fired some 120 mm mortars. I went to the roof of the As-Samawa hospital to see what I could outside the city. I saw tanks and armored personnel carriers approaching, covered by eight helicopters.50 Around March 29 or 30, we learned that the fighting in An-Najaf had started. I lost communications with my boss, regional governor Mizban. I contacted Ad-Diwaniyah and An-Najaf and asked them to contact the governor, but they said they had not heard from him for two days. We then heard that regional governor Mizban had been dismissed and sent back to Baghdad, but we did not know who his replacement was. We thought it was Lieutenant General Salah Abboud as the new regional governor of the Central Euphrates region.51 Clearly, he was able to see that the Americans were making no effort to enter As-Samawah and that since their supply columns were heading north, he could have reasoned that most of the Coalition’s combat power must be proceeding ahead of it. If he needed any confirmation that Coalition forces were bypassing the area, then the fighting around Najaf (100 miles north of his position) the next day should have done the trick. Still, no evidence of any such reasoned analysis traveled up the chain of command.

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Of course, the confusion over who was actually in charge of the region at this point may have a considerable amount to do with faulty reporting to Baghdad. This command confusion was due in part to the Ba’ath regime’s security bureaucracy. In addition to regional governor Mizban’s dismissal on March 29, the local head of the governorate of As-Samawah, Saif Al-Din Mishadad, also received his walking papers and was replaced by a regular army officer, Major General Ali Al-Hababi. Nevertheless, Baghdad reversed its decision three days later and Mizban was returned to office, quite fittingly on April Fool’s Day.52 Governor Mizban’s difficulties with the defense of As-Samawah were not his only ones. At the same time the defenders of An-Najaf (also within his area of responsibility) were in equal difficulty. By the time Saddam received accurate reports on the situation it was already too late to take effective action. Iraq’s former trade minister records Saddam’s anger in the following terms: Saddam appeared upset with the events in An-Najaf, telling the ministers that the situation in An-Najaf was “difficult,” that it appeared the city was about to fall to Coalition forces, and that “even the Ba’ath Party was facing difficulty in An-Najaf.” After a brief discussion, Saddam ordered that Mahmoud Dhiab Al-Ahmad [Minister of Interior] leave the meeting and contact Mizban Khuthair al-Hadi, the Central Euphrates regional commander, and direct Mizban to order Iraqi forces to withdraw from An-Najaf. AlAhmad returned shortly thereafter and reported that he was not successful in contacting Mizban.53 By now the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division had already moved north of AnNajaf in preparation for its drive through the Karbala Gap. The 3rd Infantry Division was replaced at As-Samawah by units of the 82nd Airborne, reinforced by Abrams and Bradleys. For the defenders of As-Samawah, the situation became increasingly desperate. General Yahya continues his account of events: On March 31 I noticed that there were only approximately 200 fighters left in As-Samawah. The Al-Quds fighters complained that they no longer had any soldiers. The Ba’ath Party said they no longer had any men.54 By this time, communications with Baghdad were all but cut off. In one last communication with local authorities, Baghdad ordered the replacement of their party leader and the commander of the local Fedayeen Saddam. Both men were immediately ordered to Baghdad. On April 3, the local leadership of As-Samawah decamped. As General Yahya indicated, “No one knew where they had gone. Their guards didn’t even know where they had gone.”55 At this point the general and his staff decided that discretion was the better part of valor and left for Ad-Diwaniyah on the morning of the fourth. With the departure of the Ba’ath officials, civic order quickly disintegrated. General Yahya recalled, “In the morning . . . when we started out, the mobs started looting everything. They came to steal our cars, but my guards

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scared them off.”56 It took almost a full day to get to Ad-Diwaniyah, and once there he again found himself in the midst of chaos. The Defense Ministry, shocked to hear that As-Samawah was about to fall, ordered Yahya to organize the impenetrable defense of Ad-Diwaniyah. Inexplicably, the Defense Minister reversed himself two days later and ordered General Yahya to return to his former post in Baghdad as the head of the military academy.57 Putting aside the fact that the Ministry of Defense was worried about staffing its military academies as the Coalition was approaching Baghdad’s suburbs, General Yahya’s account suggests a complete breakdown of military-political cooperation in the Euphrates region. The authorities in Baghdad had little sense of what Iraqi forces were confronting near the cities, while local authorities clearly had no control of their subordinates. While local Ba’ath leaders dithered, fought amongst themselves, and then finally ran off, thousands of Fedayeen Saddam continued to sacrifice themselves to maintain the regime. While their attacks caused U.S. soldiers some local difficulties as they sped toward Baghdad, their tactical impact on the course of the conventional war was virtually nothing. The military view At the start of the war, Lieutenant General Hamdani was responsible for defending Baghdad from attacks originating from the southeast. Units under his command were spread from Ba’qubah northeast of the capital, to Al-Kut southeast of the capital and then in an arc that generally ran to An-Nasaf and up to Karbala. The Al-Nida Division (41st, 42nd, and 43rd Brigades) deployed in the area around Ba’qubah. The 3rd Special Forces Brigade deployed at the Al-Rasheed airport – to protect the regime from internal rebellion as well as to defend against external threats. The corps artillery was located southwest of the capital at Sarabadi. The Medina Division (2nd and 10th Armored Brigades and the 14th Mechanized Brigade) was deployed nearby immediately south of Baghdad at As-Suwayrah. The Baghdad Division was deployed in the area of Al-Kut, where it could move either south in case of trouble in the Shi’a regions, or attack the flanks of an Iranian drive on Baghdad. Finally, the start of the war found the Nebuchadnezzar Republican Guard Division in the midst of quietly moving from the area around Kirkuk through Tikrit to Al-Hillah. This involved subjecting the division to a 300mile movement under constant threat of Coalition air attack. To accomplish this task, the Division had to leave all of its tanks and artillery behind and move in small groups. It still lost over 10 percent of its men to air attack. And when it was put in the line without its heavy equipment, it had no better prospects of stopping the tanks of the 3rd Infantry Division than did the Fedayeen Saddam. Hamdani first learned of the start of the Coalition’s offensive when reports of air attacks throughout his area of responsibility flooded into his headquarters. During the war’s initial phase, he spent much of his time trying to divine the Coalition’s intentions. From the earliest reports he understood that a substantial portion of the Coalition’s forces was moving up the west side of the Euphrates

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River. Consequently, he ordered elements of the Medina Division to cross the Euphrates to take up positions guarding the Karbala Gap. Before his forces could execute the order, General Hamdani’s superior, the Republican Guard Chief of Staff, countermanded the order. Hamdani recalled, “Saddam had declared that no Republican Guard forces would deploy west of the Euphrates River. Apparently he was afraid that forces west of the river would become trapped if the bridges were destroyed and would not be available for defending Baghdad.”58 What Hamdani failed to inform the Chief of Staff was that he had already moved two battalions of the Medina Division across the Euphrates. Though his superiors denied him the use of a third battalion, which he had intended to move into the Karbala sector, he was determined to make the best of a bad situation. Sensing that “if the Coalition were going to strike up the west side of the Euphrates, the critical point or the ‘neck of the bottle’ was the gap between Karbala and the lake. To cover this key terrain, General Handani stretched the two Medina battalions to cover the road between Al-Musayyib and Karbala.”59 At the same time that Hamdani was moving troops to cover the Karbala Gap, he ordered the Baghdad Division, which was defending Al-Kut, to prepare to move up the Tigris River to defend the bridges near An-Numaniyah. Meanwhile, as the final units of the Nebuchadnezzar began arriving in his area, he took advantage of the regime’s inattention to place some units on the “west” side of the Euphrates. By March 24, as the vicious sandstorm closed in, Hamdani took advantage of the Coalition’s tactical pause to discover and assess the true overall situation. That task was not a particularly easy thing to do. Reports from the southern cities were almost uniformly optimistic, but Hamdani knew that such reporting rested on what the locals could see from very limited vantage points. His own tactical reporting told him that Coalition logistics convoys were sweeping past the cities, and it was not hard to deduce that heavy armored formations were moving with them. That he was able to develop a realistic appraisal of ongoing events demonstrates that intuition, knowledge, and training often count for as much as the best sensor technology: By this time, I thought that the Coalition would focus on a Euphrates axis of advance and would simultaneously isolate the forces in the south on a line from An-Najaf to Al-Kut. Once the south was cut off, they would maneuver west of the Euphrates River toward Baghdad. My estimate of the situation was that it would not be in the Coalition’s interest to fight a number of battles before Baghdad. Coalition forces would use air power to make up for the limited forces on the ground. They would move rapidly up the west side of the Euphrates River and attack Baghdad from the southwest. I expected they would use airborne and air assault forces, false and real, to isolate and confuse the defenses around the cities.60 Based on his estimate of the situation, Hamdani moved his 3rd Special Forces Brigade from the Rasheed district to Al-Hillah. By March 25, it had moved into

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its assigned positions unscathed by American airpower, which the sandstorm had partially blinded. The brigade commander reported back that the Al-Hillah Ba’ath officials were near panic and confused about the state of affairs to the south. More troubling to Hamdani were reports that “The Al-Quds units were in chaos and abandoning their posts.” According to Hamdani, this information provided a strong indication that matters were spinning out of the regime’s control.61 Even though Hamdani clearly defined Coalition intentions, those above him did not share his certainty. In Baghdad, rumors persisted that the Israelis were on the verge of joining the assault with one airborne and three armored divisions. This force was said to be ready to attack through Jordan.62 Continuing Coalition special operations throughout the western desert region also worked to keep the regime’s attention focused on the west rather than on the main Coalition attack coming from the south. Significantly, the regime was also receiving intelligence from the Russians that fed suspicions that the attack out of Kuwait was merely a diversion. An example of this intelligence was the following document sent to Saddam on March 24: The information that the Russians have collected from their sources inside the American Central Command in Doha is that the United States is convinced that occupying Iraqi cities is impossible, and that they have changed their tactic; now they are planning to spread across the Euphrates River from Basra in the south to Al-Qa’im in the north, avoiding entering the cities. The strategy is to isolate Iraq from its western borders . . . Jordan had accepted the American 4th Mechanized Infantry Division; they were supposed to enter through Turkey, but after the Turkish parliament refused, they changed direction and are now in the Suez Canal heading to AlAqaba.63 Such external sources of information were only one of the fog-generators obscuring the minds of Iraq’s senior leadership. The bizarrely optimistic reporting coming up the chain of command from Fedayeen Saddam authorities in the south continued to add to Baghdad’s and Saddam’s misunderstanding. One Fedayeen Saddam report claimed the destruction of 42 tanks and 49 armored personnel carriers near Karbala on March 25.64 Hamdani did his best to draw a more accurate picture of the situation for the regime, but was constantly stymied by Saddam’s and his close associates’ refusals to entertain comments contrary to what they wanted to believe. Long after the war ended, Hamdani’s frustration was still palpable: Part of the problem with reporting the conditions on the ground was the political leadership. The Ba’ath officials in command of the local units in the Middle Euphrates Region did not understand what was happening. [Nevertheless] Saddam gave great credit to an idealized vision of tribal

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warfare. In Saddam’s eyes this kind of close combat was what the Ba’ath Party could deliver. Saddam thought that the Ba’ath commanders knew more than the professional military. The Ba’ath destroyed the army.65 The U.S. seizure of the bridge at Al-Kifl 30 miles north of An-Najaf convinced Hamdani that he was facing the main U.S. attack. However, he remained perplexed by the purpose behind the assault on Al-Kifl. His earlier assumptions were that the Coalition would attack through the Karbala Gap and then cross the Euphrates north of Al-Kifl. Now it appeared they were crossing the river a hundred miles south of the point he had predicted. To find out what was going on, he decided to carry out a personal reconnaissance of the bridge area along with the commander of his 3rd Special Forces Brigade: A retired soldier from Al-Kifl met me along the way and told me the Americans were close to the bridge. I sent the commander of the 1st Battalion of the Special Forces Brigade ahead to the bridge site to confirm the report. He told me, when he returned, that when he climbed the wall of the canal next to the bridge, he could reach out and touch the side of an American Bradley fighting vehicle. This meant that I was personally only 300 to 500 meters away from the American units.66 Hamdani became convinced that this was a serious threat and immediately concentrated artillery from the Medina and Nebuchadnezzar Divisions to carry out what he termed an artillery raid against the American position. The artillery was a mix of 152 mm cannons, BM-21 rocket launchers, and light artillery. Hamdani allocated ten rounds to each weapon for the mission. His plan was to have them fire the ten rounds as rapidly as possible and then run for cover before American counter-fire came in. While the Iraqis believed they had destroyed seven vehicles, the attack barely registered with Americans around the bridge. On the other hand, the American counter-fire plastered the surrounding area. As Hamdani later said, “The American reaction to our Kifl attack was very strong. We were somewhat overwhelmed by the volume of the counterattack fire.”67 As Hamdani attempted to organize counterattacks to dislodge the Americans from the Al-Kifl bridgehead, he was also trying to build a clearer picture of what else he was confronting. The lack of clear information from the south continued to hamper him, while intelligence from Baghdad was proving useless. He later stated, “I was told by Qusay that American forces were in An-Najaf and were quickly moving on Ad-Diwaniyah.”68 This would suggest that the Americans were going to attack up the east side of the Euphrates, and not the west, as Hamdani was still predicting. However, contrary to information coming from Baghdad, the Americans were doing exactly what Hamdani predicted. The 3rd Infantry Division was moving away from Najaf, which the 101st Airborne Division was now investing, and racing toward Karbala – on the west side of the Euphrates. It is almost hard to fault Qusay for sending out this misleading information as optimistic reports streaming out of the Central Euphrates Regional Command

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Headquarters were still bombarding Baghdad. These reports, while generally accurate as to the location and timing of enemy activity, completely missed every other detail. For example, on March 28, the Central Euphrates Regional Command Headquarters reported that “an enemy force . . . headed from the Afak intersection toward Diwaniyah” but that a regiment of the Al-Quds “engaged them and forced them to withdraw.”69 The report got the location of the American forces correct, but rather than being forced to withdraw, the Americans smashed the Al-Quds force and continued to roll. It appears that since the AlQuds force was destroyed, no report reached Baghdad informing them that the Americans had changed direction and were now rolling toward Al-Kut and not Diwaniyah. A deluge of other reports that same day listed numerous American attacks throughout southern Iraq, but almost every one examined to date reported that the Americans were “forced to withdraw by the brave party units and fighters for Saddam.”70 However, the true import of what was happening was not lost on local Iraqi military officers. For instance, in a post-war interview the senior military advisor to the regional commander, Lieutenant General Al-Obadi, described the action outside Ad-Diwaniyah: The style of the American attacks was to attack and withdraw immediately . . . they did not fight in the cities . . . all the time Coalition convoys were moving north on the highway to Baghdad, while we were locked up.”71 Lieutenant Colonel Al-Obadi clearly understood that the American attacks aimed to pin the Iraqis to the cities. As Hamdani suggested, “Republican Guard headquarters in Baghdad was providing information of very little value.”72 To get a clearer picture of American intentions, he began sending Republican Guard patrols into the zone south of his area of responsibility. In each case, they soon ran into the Americans. Those who survived reported that the Americans were in strength on both sides of the Euphrates. Hamdani later stated, “As the reconnaissance reports began to come into my command post in Al-Hillah, I assessed that the Coalition had three axes of advance.” In fact, there were only two main American axes of advance in the south. Hamdani’s patrols had picked up the fact that the 3rd Infantry Division was definitely racing up the west side of the Euphrates and was likely to come through the Karbala Gap. However, he seems to have misinterpreted the U.S. Marine feint toward Ad-Diwaniyah as a major effort. The 1st Marine Division was in reality about to switch its advance from the northwest to the north and drive through An-Numiniyah across the Tigris to attack Baghdad from the east. Hamdani’s misreading of the situation may have resulted from his own preconceived notions of Coalition intentions. Talking about a war game in 2002 he stated, “I warned strongly against keeping the Baghdad Division in Al-Kut, if enemy forces ever reached Ad-Diwaniyah. I did not want the Baghdad Division cut off from Baghdad.”73 Now that the Baghdad Division was in Al-Kut, he saw

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his fear coming true and warned the division commander to “pay closer attention to his west than the south.” Unfortunately for the Baghdad Division, the Marines were coming from the south. One of Hamdani’s patrols that escaped American attention reported a critical piece of information: the Americans were establishing a large logistics base to the west of Najaf in the desert.74 The establishment of a logistics base so far north confirmed in Hamdani’s mind that the Americans were going to come through the Karbala Gap. In his view, it made no sense for the Americans to establish a massive logistics base on the west side of the Euphrates if they had any intention of attacking up the east side. Unfortunately for the prospects of a more successful defense, none of his warnings had much effect on those in command in Baghdad. Instead, the Baghdad command became ever more obsessed with imaginary American and Israeli forces coming through Jordan, while it ignored the reality that American forces were already on its doorstep. By the time the last of Hamdani’s patrols reported in, fighting was breaking out all across the II Republican Guard Corps’ entire front. Hamdani’s forces were under heavy pressure from the Marines who were closing in on the east side of the Tigris, and by renewed attacks by the 3rd Infantry Division that had finished re-arming and re-fueling on the west side of the Euphrates River. As he attempted to reposition force to meet these threats, he was stymied by the seeming complacency of the regime, which apparently failed to recognize how desperate the Iraqi position was becoming. At the end of March, Hamdani finally received permission to move the Baghdad Division from Al-Kut and back to the capital. However, by the time it arrived in the vicinity of Abu Gayreb, it had become a battered wreck of less-than-brigade strength. The division was replaced in Al-Kut by the 34th Regular Army Division, which bore the brunt of the Marine attack on the city and promptly collapsed.75 On March 30, American pressure increased considerably with a series of attacks toward Al-Hillah and Al-Hindiyah. Unsure of what to make of conflicting reports, Hamdani went forward himself to see what was transpiring. His personal reconnaissance led him to believe that “the attacks toward Al-Hindiyah were more dangerous . . ., because it looked like the Americans were trying to secure their flank for an attack into Karbala.”76 With pressure mounting on both flanks, Hamdani found himself in an increasingly difficult situation. Returning to his headquarters, he called Qusay to urge a fundamental re-deployment of Iraqi forces to meet the American threat at Al-Hindiyah and to prepare to meet an assault through the Karbala Gap. He asked that the Al-Nida Division be moved south to defend the approaches to the city from the Euphrates, while the rest of the Medina Division would be redeployed to the west bank of the Euphrates to meet the threat to Karbala. Qusay was non-committal, but the Republican Guard Chief of Staff castigated Hamdani. Hamdani recalled that “I was told that I was not fighting the plan. This was incredible to me – the plan! What plan, I asked him. The Americans had wrecked our plan.”77 In the end, it was impossible for Qusay and the Chief of Staff to accept

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Hamdani’s warnings of impending doom when they had such a chorus of positive reports flowing in, announcing things such as “the Ba’ath knights, the great Republican Guard soldiers, and the Fedayeen Saddam attacked and forced the enemy to leave Al-Hindiyah . . . the enemy had great losses in soldiers.”78 In effect, Hamdani had become an Iraqi Cassandra – his predictions entirely discounted in the ever-optimistic land of Saddam’s innercircle. The only reinforcements Qusay would part with were elements of a special forces battalion from the Republican Guard I Corps. Hamdani did not receive permission to re-deploy any of his forces to new locations. Realizing that little help was going to be forthcoming, Hamdani focused on doing the best he could within the restrictions imposed by the regime. By the beginning of April, Coalition attacks were disrupting communications between his headquarters and subordinate units. Hamdani was now forced to undertake time consuming and arduous trips between units that stretched from Karbala to Al-Kut. To make matters worse, when the Marines drove into An-Numiniyah they cut a lateral access road, and he now had to detour through Baghdad to visit each flank of his corps. On the evening of April 1, he received reports that American forces, estimated to include 150 tanks of the 1st Marine Division, were attacking across the Tigris at An-Numiniyah.79 The following day he journeyed out to the Tigris where he confirmed the reports, and for the first time realized that the main Marines effort was heading for Al-Kut and not Ad-Diwaniyah. He also now realized that the Marines attack on Baghdad would come from the east and not the south as he had originally thought – a direction where he had precious little to stop them. The situation was now critical and about to get worse. On his way back from this trip, Hamdani received more bad news from his Chief of Staff: major American forces were driving toward the Karbala Gap and chewing their way through the Medina Republican Guard’s 14th Brigade. Going through Baghdad, Hamdani stopped at the Republican Guard Headquarters to receive whatever updates they had and begged for help. But the Chief of Staff was away from his office, and no one else knew anything. Hamdani stated, “The stop was not helpful.”80 Upon his arrival at the Karbala battle front, Hamdani met with the Commander of the Medina Division who reported that his division was under intense pressure by both American ground and air forces. As for just how intense, Hamdani got an immediate demonstration. As he listened to the Medina commander, Coalition aircraft savaged “the better part of a battalion in defensive positions right beside us. I think there were something like 39 killed, 100 wounded, and 17 armored vehicles destroyed.”81 During this meeting, both men received orders to meet with the Republican Guard’s Chief of Staff. According to Hamdani, when they arrived at the meeting site, “The Medina commander provided a frank and honest assessment. The news he reported was not good. He told the Chief of Staff that the Medina 14th Brigade commander was very brave in battle, but was not having great success against the Americans.”82 In the middle of this depressing meeting, Hamdani and the Republican

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Guard’s Chief of Staff were called to an emergency meeting to be held by Qusay. This was a clear indication that most of the operational decisions had devolved from Saddam to his son at this point in the war. It was to be one of the more important meetings of the war. As Hamdani relates: The Minister of Defense had a message from Saddam. The message was an order for immediate execution. The Minister of Defense said that Saddam would not be able to meet during the next two days, but that he had just met with Saddam and the plan was explained to him.83 The minister went on to explain that what had happened over the last two weeks was a “strategic” trick by the Americans. He told U.S. American forces were going to come from the direction of Jordan, through Al-Ramadi, and into northern Baghdad. Emergency procedures were to go into effect at 0500 the next morning.84 The Al-Nida was supposed to shift to the northwest of Baghdad under the Republican Guard I Corps.85 Minefields were to be immediately established to the west and northwest of Baghdad. The talk of establishing minefields made me think that they thought we were fighting Iran again or something.86 At this point, Hamdani indicated that the plan would leave him with only the Medina and Nebuchadnezzar Divisions with which “to fight the American attacks from the south! I told them that this plan was the opposite of what we were facing.”87 The Minister of Defense replied that he was only the messenger and that there was no further use for discussions since Saddam had spoken. Qusay at least allowed Hamdani to explain his view of the situation: I said that a minor attack was moving up the Tigris along the line from AnNasiriyah to Al-Kut [the Marines’ 1st RCT]. This attack was actually somewhat of a surprise to me given the tight roads and poor armor terrain in the area. Another minor attack was pushing up the middle ground from AsSamawah to Ad-Diwaniyah. However, the main attack was on the west side of the Euphrates River through Karbala and into the southwest side of Baghdad. The U.S. 4th Infantry Division would soon join in the main thrust. I said that the Americans would own Karbala by that night, and they would move quickly to take the bridge.88 Hamdani’s operational view on April 2 was surprisingly in line with the latest strategic intelligence provided through the Russian ambassador to Baghdad. According to a memorandum from the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs to Saddam, dated April 2, Russian intelligence reported through its ambassador that: 1

The American’s were moving to cut off Baghdad from the south, east, and north. The heaviest concentration of troops (12,000 troops plus 1,000 vehicles) was in the vicinity of Karbala.

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K.M. Woods The Americans were going to concentrate on bombing in and around Baghdad, cutting the road to Syria and Jordan and creating “chaos and confusion” to force the residents of Baghdad to flee. That the assault on Baghdad would not begin before the arrival of the 4th Infantry Division sometime around April 15.89

It is unclear if Qusay had seen the Russian report, but Hamdani’s arguments made him pause. After Hamdani finished his presentation, Qusay turned back to the Minister of Defense and Republican Guard’s Chief of Staff to ask their opinions. The Minister could only suggest that he did not know whether Hamdani was right or wrong, but plans should still be carried out as President Hussein had ordered. According to Hamdani: He said that we should execute the plan as Saddam directed. The Republican Guard Chief of Staff at first did not answer either way. He repeated over and over, “we must fight.” The Regular Army Chief of Staff said that he did not agree with my theory and that Saddam was right. He said, “We must all be 100 percent with Saddam.” The Republican Guard Chief of Staff then said that I had never executed the plan and that I moved forces without permission. He said that I was to blame for all these casualties.90 Qusay remained unsure of what to do, but finally ordered the Al-Nida Division to move in to support the Republican Guard I Corps as they established a defense against the American thrust coming from Jordan. “He also directed a withdrawal from Karbala and that all units move to the east side of the Euphrates.”91 Hamdani, realizing the argument was lost, tried to salvage something and asked for permission to destroy the strategic Al-Qa’id Bridge on the Euphrates (Objective Peach). He received Qusay’s permission and then went to talk privately to the Chief of Staff. Hamdani had only been speaking to him for a moment when he received a call informing him that the Al-Qa’id Bridge was already under attack. As he recalls, the officer reporting indicated that columns of enemy armor were moving from Jaraf Al-Sakhr toward the bridge. I gave the report to those present, but they did not believe it.”92 Only Qusay seemed somewhat alarmed at the news. The other generals ignored it and turned to discussing the shape that the minefields to the west of Baghdad should take. Hamdani commented on the dismal scene: “It was the kind of arguments that I imagine took place in Hitler’s bunker in Berlin. Were all these men on drugs?”93 In a mood of utter disbelief, he left the meeting to fight “two real battles – one on the Tigris and one on the Euphrates” – while the generals, Saddam, and his sons dealt with their imaginary universe.94 The question of how such a critical bridge could have been left standing is one of the great mysteries of the war. Hamdani referred to it afterwards as the “Iraqi Remagen Bridge,” and it was surely that.95 Its importance was well understood long before the first American tank arrived, which makes its survival all the more puzzling.

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In fact, Hamdani had asked for permission to destroy the bridge as early as March 23, but was told by Saddam, in a message forwarded by the Republican Guard headquarters, that he was not to destroy the bridge under any circumstances. Nevertheless, Hamdani still had the bridge rigged for demolition.96 As he related the story later: Despite Saddam’s orders I moved one company-sized element of the reconnaissance battalion to Karbala to begin screening south of the city along the approaches to the main highway. The reconnaissance battalion was commanded by one of my better young officers, Colonel Hassani. I ordered him in person and in writing to destroy the bridge whenever he felt that Coalition forces were approaching. He was ordered not to wait for additional orders on this point.97 A week later, the regime’s internal security priorities interceded to undo all of Hamdani’s preparations. Early in April, Hamdani had sent his Chief of Staff, Staff Major General Abdullah Mechpass, to the bridge with explicit orders to check on demolition preparations. However, according to Hamdani, “Upon his arrival, he immediately ordered Colonel Hassani to ignore my orders and not to destroy the bridge because it was against the specific direction of Saddam and that I [Hamdani] would be killed by security personnel if the bridge were destroyed.”98 Hamdani later concluded that both officers “acted out of personal loyalty to me, but they were still wrong.”99 Upon reaching his forward headquarters, Hamdani gave the order for the Medina Division to pull back from Karbala, but to keep one of its battalions on the west bank of the Euphrates to harass and attempt to contain the American penetration. He also began moving elements of the Medina’s 10th Brigade to the area. A personal reconnaissance confirmed that the Americans were up on the Euphrates in strength, but information from the front remained ambiguous. There were reports that the bridge had been blown, but those reporting probably did not realize that the demolitions only affected one side of the duel span bridge. At dark Hamdani met up with the Republican Guard’s Chief of Staff and that organization’s director of the staff. Both believed the bridge was destroyed and incredibly explained the presence of American tanks on the far side of the Euphrates by claiming they were being delivered there by helicopters.100 Hamdani reported his plans to establish a new defensive line west of Latifiya. However, the Republican Guard’s Chief of Staff demanded that he use all the combat power in the II Republican Guard Corps to launch an immediate counterattack. Hamdani tried to warn him that the Americans could see at night as well as they could during the day, while his troops would be fighting blind. The Chief of Staff brushed aside Hamdani’s arguments and reiterated his demand for an attack. Over the course of the next few hours, the Iraqis gathered their strength. Armor from the 22nd Brigade moved into position to attack from Al-Iskandariyah, while a portion of the 10th Armored Brigade, reinforced by a special forces battalion was to attack down the road from Al-Yusufiyah. The latter

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attack was to use the cover provided by a large industrial complex on the southeast side of the bridge to mask its approach. Three truck loads of explosives were to follow up the attack and be blown up on the bridge to ensure that this time it fell into the river. Hamdani was racing against the clock in hopes of launching his attack before 0400, the hour when daylight brought with it American air power out in full force.101 But in war nothing is simple. The deployment of a division that had never practiced night movements or even conducted maneuvers together proved frightfully difficult. Hamdani’s description of the attack demonstrates the Iraqis were not lacking in courage, only in skill: The attack moved forward slowly because we did not have night vision . . . The Medina Division’s commander and I followed the 10th Armored Brigade with our communications groups. . . . At 0200 American jets attacked our force as we moved down the road. We were hit by many missiles. Most of the Medina Division’s staff were killed. My corps communication staff was also killed. When we reached the area near the bridge where the special forces battalion had set up a headquarters, we immediately came under heavy fire. Based on the volume of fire, I estimated at least 60 armored vehicles.102 At approximately 0430, a team of Iraqi special forces soldiers had managed to creep to within 400 meters of the bridge, but by then the Iraqi attacking force had lost all of its tanks and its ammunition trucks had also been blown up.103 Hamdani continues: At around 0445 the sky started to lighten and the jets returned and started killing us one after another. In the early light I saw more than 60 tanks on the bridge. The firing from the American armored vehicles increased in all directions. Little distinction was made between civilian and military structures and vehicles.104 At 0630 on April 3, Hamdani reported to the Republican Guard Headquarters that the counterattack had failed. He also warned that he desperately needed reinforcements to patch together a line to keep the Americans from marching directly on Baghdad. But only four hours later he received news from local civilians that 150 American tanks were already moving east and northeast and heading straight for Baghdad. The American breakout had begun and Hamdani received no reinforcements with which to stop them. With his command vehicle and its communications equipment destroyed, Hamdani left the battlefield in a civilian vehicle driven by a junior signal officer. In an attempt to reach his forward headquarters, approximately ten kilometers north of Al-Mahmuiyah, he found himself in a race with American armor: As we drove we began to see American armor units racing down the roads. I was hoping to make it to my forward headquarters before they did. They

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were driving and shooting at the same time. There was a lot of firing, and I am sure there were a lot of casualties. As we were about to reach the compound of my forward headquarters, the car I was driving was hit by enemy fire. The tires were all shot out and the lieutenant was killed.105 Hamdani managed to link up with the few surviving members of his staff and make it back to his headquarters. As he attempted to gain a handle on the situation and pass along orders to surviving units, he glanced out the window and saw an American M1 Abrams tank in the middle of the courtyard. At that point he told his remaining staff officers to leave and go home. Their war was over: We had no more weapons and we had no more morale. Looking out the window was like being in some kind of movie. I could see M1s, M2s [Bradley Fighting Vehicles], and helicopters. I remained hidden away in the building until April 7 or 8 when a civilian in the area told me Baghdad had fallen. I was sleeping in an orchard next to my compound during this time.106

The Ba’ath regime ends with a whimper, not a bang The awareness of this catastrophic military defeat only slowly dawned on Saddam and those around him. Those at the center of power still kept a solid hold on unreality. Even if they did grasp the truth, they remained silent or contented to echo Saddam’s musings or pass along titbits of favorable news. The only decisive action many of Saddam’s inner circle seemed capable of in the regime’s final days was attempts to stem the flow of bad news. For instance, a Ministry of Defense memorandum dated April 6 told subordinate units, “We are doing great” and reminding all staff officers to “avoid exaggerating the enemy’s abilities.”107 Despite such wishful thinking and the willful denial of the truth, Saddam’s Ba’athist regime’s military was dead or dying by April 6. Coalition attacks had destroyed almost all of the corps and division headquarters in combat. The few that remained were ineffective due to the furious pace of the American advance. While some isolated units continued to fight, they were no longer connected to a coherent military organization. They were, in fact, the last twitch of an army in its death throes. In the final days of the regime, Saddam understood at some level that all was lost, and became focused on his own personal survival. According to debriefs of those closest to him, he moved from safe-house to safe-house every three to six hours. To every extent possible, his inner circle attempted to update him on the battlefield situation, but continuing the pattern of lies and omissions, much of the information he received was fiction. According to Tariq Aziz, by April 6 even Saddam had accepted that the end was near. On that day, he called a meeting with the Iraqi leadership at a house in the Mansour District of central Baghdad. During the meeting, Saddam’s tone

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was that of a man “who had lost his will to resist” and “knew the regime was coming to an end.”108 Later that day, Saddam traveled to another safe-house a few miles away and met with his sons Uday and Qusay, the Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff of the Al-Quds, the Chief of Staff of the Republican Guard, the Chief of Staff of the Fedayeen Saddam, and his ever-present personal secretary. It was now almost midnight, and according to those present, the combination of some truthful battlefield reports and open media (Saddam was known to watch Western satellite news at times during the war) finally affected the leader’s decision-making. Saddam began giving orders to deploy and maneuver formations that had ceased to exist. His attention focused on plans to have the Republican Guard enter Baghdad and join with the Fedayeen Saddam in “preparing” for urban warfare.109 Late the next day Saddam met again with his closet advisors and accepted “that the army divisions were no longer capable of defending Baghdad, and that he would have a meeting with the Ba’ath Regional Commanders to enlist them in the final defense of the regime.” A subsequent meeting on the same day produced an unexecuted concept to divide Baghdad into four quadrants. He placed loyal Ba’ath stalwarts in command of each sector and charged them with defending the city to their deaths. In Saddam’s view, some options still remained. To maintain this fiction, he and his followers had to divorce themselves from the reality outside their safehouses. At the same time Saddam was holding meetings with his military staff, an American armored brigade already held Baghdad’s airport. Worse, as he was discussing with Ba’ath loyalists the plan for the final defense of the city, another brigade of American armor was busily chewing up the manicured lawn in front of his palace in the center of the city. *

*

*

Since the end of the war one question that has come up regularly is whether the regime had made plans to continue the conflict through the insurgency the United States is currently combating. As far as can be determined through interviews conducted for this book, and the tens of thousands of records reviewed so far, there were no national plans to transition to a guerrilla war in the event of military defeat. Nor, as their world crumbled around them, did the regime appear to cobble together such plans. Still buoyed by his earlier conviction that the Americans would never dare enter Baghdad, Saddam held onto his hope that he could stay in power – until the last minute. At the same time, the military and civilian bureaucracy went through their daily routines until the very end, as if their world was not collapsing. For someone looking at the regime from the outside during its final days, the continued functioning of the regime’s bureaucracy appears at times bizarre. However, it is quite clear that even as American tanks were smashing the last armed resistance on the road to Baghdad, the regime, in many respects, continued to function as if it was business as usual, even if it were sometimes a

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macabre type of business. Some of the orders issued by the regime in its final days underline the surreal atmosphere of the period. • • • • •

•

An order dated April 1 ordered the customs police to return to their positions at the international airport.110 On April 2, the Ba’ath Party asked for inspections of air defense units to be undertaken and these reports to be forwarded to Party Headquarters. Another missive ordered all divisions “to stop encouraging people to volunteer for suicide missions.” In the war’s last week, two edicts were signed by Saddam ordering local party officials to clamp down on the black market.111 As Coalition tanks rumbled into Baghdad, the Military Intelligence Directorate confirmed Saddam’s order that Arab Fedayeen volunteers receive the same salaries and benefits as Iraq’s special forces.112 As the American tanks parked on the grounds of Saddam’s Baghdad palace, the bureaucracy produced orders that (1) honored “fighters” of the 1991 Gulf War, (2) increased transportation allowances for all Iraqi armed forces, and (3) informed the Telephone Operator Battalion about “the new numbers of the planning ministry in their replacement location.”113

Finally, on the regime’s last day, the Military Intelligence Directorate produced a memorandum to commanders in the southern areas of Iraq which complained about “the slow process in handling several cases for runaway soldiers.” The memo reminded commanders that it was their responsibility to “take actions to speed up the process of handing over these arrested soldiers and returning them back to their army units and to prepare a report for these runaway cases . . . on a daily basis.”114 The intention was clearly to maintain a list of those whom the regime would punish as soon as the Americans had given up and gone home.

Notes 1 Address by President Saddam Hussein on the 12th Anniversary of Um Al-Maarik, January 17, 2003 (www.iraqcrisis.co.uk/resources.php), downloaded October 1, 2003. Hulegu was the thirteenth-century Mongol leader who sacked Baghdad. Saddam’s reference to the modern day operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the Palestinian-controlled territory is another example of his particular histography. Most credible reporting on the Israeli military operation into Jenin places the dead at 52 Palestinian fighters and 24 members of the Israeli Defense Forces (April 11, 2002). 2 The study is limited in its description of the operational/tactical views of regular army forces in the north, general purpose Iraqi forces in the west, and Fedayeen Saddam forces in general. Additional research continues on these and other areas. 3 “Perspectives II Republican Guard Corps.” 4 Examples of purging within the ranks of Iraq’s senior officer corps during the Iran–Iraq War are documented in Said Aburish’s Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge (Bloomsbury Publishing, London: 2000), pp. 208, 238–239, 245–246, 263, and 312. According to Phebe Marr, six of 20 Regular Army division commanders were executed on charges of conspiracy after March 1991. The Modern History of Iraq (Westview Press. Boulder: 2004), p. 264.

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5 The documents, interviews, and other source materials that have been reviewed to date confirm General Hamdanis’s account. 6 Here it is worth noting that the history of independent Iraq from 1932, when it gained independence, to 1968, when the Ba’ath assumed control, is a history of one coup after another as senior army officers jockeyed for power. Moreover, there were several coup plots in the 1990s, which heightened the regime’s paranoia about its security. 7 Various Iraqi generals interviewed suggested that they believed that most of the conceptual planning for this order was the work of Saddam, Qusay, and the Chief of Staff of the Republican Guard. 8 This view was widespread throughout the Iraqi military forces as well as within Saddam’s inner circle. General Hamdani, for example, commented in one of his interviews, “I expected a repeat of 1991 with a long air campaign before any [Coalition] ground forces entered Iraq.” “Perspectives II Republican Guard Corps.” 9 What the Iraqis missed was the fact that Coalition commanders believed that the large forces they deployed in Kuwait for the coming ground offensive – the 3rd Infantry Division, the 1st Marine Division, the 1st U.K. Armoured Division, and the 101st Airborne – represented a tempting target that the Iraqis might attack with any WMD in their possession once the air campaign began. The best means to avoid chemical attack, Coalition military leaders believed, was dispersion, which the small size of Kuwait did not allow. Hence, the decision to begin the ground offensive concurrently with the air campaign as a means of dispersing Coalition forces forward into enemy territory. 10 Project interview of Majid Hussein Ali Ibrahim Al Dulaymi, Commander, I Republican Guard Corps. 11 Project interview of Majid Hussein Ali Ibrahim Al Dulaymi, Commander, I Republican Guard Corps. 12 Project interview of Majid Hussein Ali Ibrahim Al Dulaymi, Commander, I Republican Guard Corps. 13 Project interview of Abd Al-Karim Jasim Nafus Al-Majid, Commander, Al Nida Armored Division, November 21, 2003. 14 Project interview of Abd Al-Karim Jasim Nafus Al-Majid, Commander, Al Nida Armored Division, November 21, 2003. 15 Classified Intelligence Report, July 2003. The televised broadcast of this speech, with Saddam uncharacteristically wearing glasses, led to some speculation in the Coalition that it was actually a “body-double” and not Saddam. 16 Captured document (March 22, 2003), “Memorandum #56 from Commander, 1st Air Defense Region to Directorate of Air Defense.” 17 Captured document (April 8, 2003), “Air Attack Reports on the Air Defenses.” 18 Classified Intelligence Report, April 2003. 19 Project interview of Abd Al-Karim Jasim Nafus Al-Majid, Commander, Al Nida Armored Division, November 21, 2003. 20 Project interview of Abd Al-Karim Jasim Nafus Al-Majid, Commander, Al Nida Armored Division, November 21, 2003. 21 Project interview of Abd Al-Karim Jasim Nafus Al-Majid, Commander, Al Nida Armored Division, November 21, 2003. 22 Project interview of Abd Al-Karim Jasim Nafus Al-Majid, Commander, Al Nida Armored Division, November 21, 2003. 23 Project interview of Abd Al-Karim Jasim Nafus Al-Majid, Commander, Al Nida Armored Division, November 21, 2003. 24 Project interview of Abd Al-Karim Jasim Nafus Al-Majid, Commander, Al Nida Armored Division, November 21, 2003. 25 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 26 Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division

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29 30 31 32

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March 20–April 2, 2003.” The 37th Division was a part of the 7th Directorate of the Directorate for General Military Intelligence. The 7th Directorate also controlled Special Mission Unit 111. Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Based on a review of this and other documents there were hundreds of monitoring stations manned by small three- to five-man teams spread across Iraq. These stations served as listening posts and reported visual, audio, and occasionally signal collections directly to Baghdad. More than one million leaflets were dropped on the “monitoring stations” by USAF MC-130 Talons by March 21, resulting in many of these stations being abandoned. Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Coalition forces in the general area at the time were lightly armed special operation force patrols. Captured document (March 23, 2003), “Memorandum 4811 from GMID to Secretary–Presidency of the Republic.” This report is confirmed by the log of the 37th Division of the GMID in captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Captured document (March 23, 2003), “Memorandum 4811 from GMID to Secretary-Presidency of the Republic.” Given the tone of the report, it is probable that Sgt Badi was actually Unit 111’s Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the mission. Captured document (March 31, 2003), “Military Movements Directorate Letter and GMID Correspondence.” Captured document (March 23, 2003), “Memorandum 4811 from GMID to Secretary-Presidency of the Republic.” Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Captured document (March 27, 2003), “Memorandum to Director of the IIS, Subject: Hamas.” This same operations log records that on March 27 “three buses of Syrian volunteers [had] arrived.” However, “one of them collided with a bombed out bridge, leading to . . . losses in the ranks of the volunteers.” Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, “Iraqi Defense Minister Ahmad Holds News Conference March 27,” Dubai Al-Arabiyah Television, 1850 GMT, March 27, 2003. Given the general doctrinal framework within which the Iraqis were operating – namely one in which every move was carefully choreographed much like the French concept of “methodical battle” before World War II – it is not surprising that most senior Iraqis were incapable of conceiving of the kind of maneuver the 3rd Infantry Division was executing. Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Written Summaries for the 37th Division March 20–April 2, 2003.” Captured document (March 26, 2003), “MOD Report on Iraq’s Strategic Defense in Preparation for the Latest War.”

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47 Captured document (March 26, 2003), “MOD Report on Iraq’s Strategic Defense in Preparation for the Latest War.” 48 Captured document (March 26, 2003), “MOD Report on Iraq’s Strategic Defense in Preparation for the Latest War.” 49 The II Republican Guard Corps Commander indicates that this same over-estimation in heavy-lift capabilities was repeated by the Republican Guard’s Chief of Staff to explain how the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division could have gotten armor across the Euphrates north of Karbala on April 2. “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 50 “Perspectives Assistant Senior Military Advisor.” 51 “Perspectives Assistant Senior Military Advisor.” 52 “Perspectives Assistant Senior Military Advisor.” 53 Classified Intelligence Report, April 2003. 54 “Perspectives Assistant Senior Military Advisor.” 55 “Perspectives Assistant Senior Military Advisor.” 56 “Perspectives Assistant Senior Military Advisor.” 57 “Perspectives Assistant Senior Military Advisor.” 58 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 59 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” The area to which Hamdani was referring is referred to in Coalition planning documents as the “Karbala Gap.” 60 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 61 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” This is consistent with the description of the Al-Quds and Ba’ath Party Militia operations in As-Samawah in an interview with the assistant military advisor to the Middle Euphrates Region Command. 62 One IIS report dated March 29, 2003, passed information received from “Jordanian drivers” that “about 10,000 Israeli soldiers [are] in Jordan waiting for orders to attack Iraq” Captured document (March 29, 2003), “Iraqi Intelligence Service Report about American Forces.” 63 Captured document (March 25, 2003), “Letter from Russian Official to Presidential Secretary Concerning American Intentions in Iraq.” 64 Captured document (March 27, 2003), “Telegrams from the Al-Fajir Regiment.” 65 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 66 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 67 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 68 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” The latter represented the move by the 1st Marines Division up the central Euphrates Valley; the Marines were about to switch direction to the north to cross the Tigris at An-Numaniyah. 69 Captured document (March 28, 2003), “Situation Reports from the Middle Euphrates Region Command to the Presidential Office and General Command of the Armed Forces.” 70 Captured document (March 28, 2003), “Situation Reports from the Middle Euphrates Region Command to the Presidential Office and General Command of the Armed Forces.” 71 Project interview of LTG Kenan Mansour Khalil Al-Obadi, Senior Military Advisor to RCC Member Mizban Khudr Al-Hadi, November 30, 2003. 72 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 73 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 74 In U.S. Central Command’s OPLAN, 1003V this logistics base was called Logistics Support Area Bushmaster and was established by elements of V Corps on March 21. 75 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” (Also project interview of Salih Ibrahim Hammadi Al-Salamani, Commander, Baghdad Republican Guard Division, November 10, 2003). 76 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 77 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.”

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78 Captured document (March 31, 2003), “Situation Reports, Commander 1st Sector Karbala.” 79 Two-thirds of the 1st Marine Division – the 5th and 7th RCTs – had driven up Highway 1 to Ad-Diwaniyah before cutting over to An-Numiniyah on the Tigris. The 1st RCT – the other one-third of the division – had driven up Highway 7 to AlKut before turning northwest along the Tigris to reunite with the division’s main body at An-Numaniyah. 80 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 81 V Corps Summary from April indicates that the corps’ close air support force was focused on destroying the supporting artillery of the Medina Division as well as supporting the close-in fight. 82 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 83 Undoubtedly Saddam was worried about an American precision air attack directed against his person. 84 Hamdani said he had not been informed as to exactly what the nature of those emergency procedures was. Captured documents indicate an extensive series of “emergency plans” (some going back to 1993) at the national and Governorate levels that predominant focused on local Ba’ath militias controlling critical buildings, key bridges, and local populations. 85 Interviews with the Al-Nida Republican Guard’s Commander indicate that they received the order on April 1. However, due to the cumulative effects of air attacks and desertion, the division was only able to move 1,000 troops and 50 armored vehicles into this final defensive line (from a pre-war strength of almost 14,000 troops and 550 armored vehicles). 86 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 87 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 88 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” The bridge referred to here was called Objective Peach by the Coalition and was located approximately 20 kilometers northwest of Al-Iskandariyah. 89 Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Letter from Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Office of the President Regarding Russian Intel.” 90 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 91 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 92 Unpublished draft memoirs of LTG Raad Hamdani, Commander, II Republican Guard Corps. 93 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 94 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 95 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” Hamdani was referring to the Ludendorff railroad bridge at Remagen that soldiers of the U.S. 9th Armored Division captured on March 7, 1945. Its capture and exploitation allowed the Americans to gain a secure bridgehead over the Rhine and eventually led to the surrounding of the Ruhr pocket in which much of the German Army in the west went into captivity. 96 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 97 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 98 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 99 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 100 This is a physical impossibility and something well-known by most competent Iraqi military officers. The 25,000-pound usable load of a CH-47 falls well short of being able to lift a Bradley fighting vehicle, much less an Abrams tank. 101 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 102 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 103 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” 104 “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” It is worth noting here that American forces were firing on buildings from which they were taking fire, while many

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K.M. Woods U.S. troops had begun to regard any civilian vehicle driving around in the midst of a massive firefight during the dawn hours as being a suicide bomber’s vehicle, bent on attacking them. “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” “Perspectives Iraqi II Republican Guard Corps.” Captured document (April 6, 2003), “Ministry of Defense/Air Force Command Memorandum No. 171, Referring to a Minister of Defense Chaired Conference on March 30, 2003.” Classified Intelligence Report, May 2003. Classified Intelligence Report, October 2003. Captured document (April 1, 2003), “Memorandum to Customs Police.” Captured document (April 2, 2003), “Orders from the Arabic Socialist Ba’ath Party to the General Command of the People’s Army.” Captured document (April 4, 2003), “General Military Intelligence Directorate to the 8th Adjutant Confirming Saddam Hussein’s Order to Treat the Arab Fedayeen Volunteers the Same Way as Special Forces Troops in Terms of their Salaries and Supplies.” The total number of Arab volunteers is not clear. However, an March 11, 2003 memo indicates significant bureaucratic efforts by the Ministry of Defense to integrate Arab volunteers into training camps, to get them equipped, and to get them paid. Volunteers, noted on this document came from such countries as Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Libya, and the Palestinian territories. Captured document (March 11, 2003), “Military Command Memos Concerned with the Arabian Volunteers to the Iraqi Special Forces.” Captured document (April 6, 2003), “Correspondence of the Communications Directorate on the Order to Honor Fighters in 1st Gulf War and the Orders to Increase Allowance for Transportation.” Captured document (April 7, 2003), “GMID Commanding.”

6

Mission not accomplished Nora Bensahel

On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, under a banner that declared “Mission Accomplished,” and declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq.1 Yet more than three years later, the mission seems anything but accomplished. Since President Bush’s declaration, almost 2,200 U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq (including more than 1,600 who were killed in action), and more than 16,800 soldiers have been wounded.2 More than 153,000 foreign troops remain in Iraq, including 130,000 Americans. Despite continuing military operations, the insurgency continues unabated. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 insurgents are active in Iraq, and are conducting an average of 75 attacks a day throughout the country.3 The Iraq Body Count estimates that between 33,000 and 37,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed by military operations in Iraq.4 What went wrong with Iraqi reconstruction? Why did a war that seemed so spectacularly successful at removing Saddam Hussein from power prove so problematic in the aftermath of his downfall? This chapter argues that the prewar planning process for postwar Iraq was plagued by a myriad of problems, including a dysfunctional interagency process, overly optimistic assumptions, and a lack of contingency planning for alternative outcomes. These problems were compounded by a lack of civilian capacity during the occupation period, which led to a complicated and often uncoordinated relationship with the military authorities who found themselves taking the lead in many reconstruction activities. Taken together, these mistakes meant that U.S. success on the battlefield was merely a prelude to a postwar insurgency whose outcome remains very much in doubt more than three years later.

Prewar planning and postwar Iraq: November 2001 to May 2003 Military planning for what would become Operation Iraqi Freedom started on November 27, 2001. At the request of President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks, the commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM) pulled the existing warplan for a conflict with Iraq off the shelf and began examining its assumptions and requirements. A few

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days later, Rumsfeld sent Franks a memo that directed him to develop a Commander’s Concept of a new warplan, one that updated OPLAN 1003 so that it included fewer heavy forces, faster deployment timelines, and new technologies and doctrinal lessons learned from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.5 The new warplan slowly took shape during the next several months, through an ongoing consultative process between senior military and civilian leaders. Franks and his small planning staff were constantly in Washington during the spring and summer of 2002, briefing Secretary Rumsfeld, the National Security Council (NSC), and on numerous occasions, the President himself.6 The concept of operations changed significantly over time, evolving from discussions in January about a concept called the Generated Start, to June discussions about an alternative called the Running Start, and finally discussions in August about a compromise Hybrid option, which was the operational concept ultimately approved by the president.7 Franks and his planners refined the Hybrid option throughout the fall and winter, as they finalized the details of what was now called OPLAN 1003V.8 By August 2002, therefore, the general contours of the warplan were mostly agreed upon. Civilian planning, however, had barely begun. During that summer, an interagency process was formed to start planning the civilian pieces. The NSC established an interagency Executive Steering Group (ESG), including representatives from the State Department, Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Office of the Vice President (OVP), which was charged with strategic planning and developing policy recommendations for the Deputies’ and Principals’ Committees.9 The ESG was supported by a stafflevel Iraq Political–Military Cell and several interagency working groups, including one that focused on humanitarian relief and reconstruction.10 Humanitarian relief plans were extensive, following President Bush’s guidance that such assistance needed to be available in Iraq as soon as military operations commenced.11 Iraq already suffered from many humanitarian challenges, with the United Nations (UN) estimating that 60 percent of the population depended on its Oil for Food program and that more than 800,000 people were internally displaced within Iraq.12 According to U.S. and UN estimates, war in Iraq would displace as many as two million additional people; disrupt and perhaps destroy key nodes in the food distribution system; disrupt the electric supply, which would directly affect water and health services; and cause many personnel from the UN and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to leave the country, thereby reducing their services.13 On February 24, 2003, senior U.S. officials outlined the general principles of their humanitarian relief plans, and discussed details of their financing and implementation.14 Reconstruction plans, by contrast, were not nearly as robust as the humanitarian relief plans, despite the fact that they were both developed by the same interagency working group. Why was reconstruction less of a priority? Simply stated, U.S. officials made two key assumptions that made reconstruction seem like a fairly straightforward and undemanding task.

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First, they assumed that the United States would be greeted as liberators, not as occupiers. Shortly before the war, Vice President Dick Cheney used this exact language in a television interview: “my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”15 Iraqi exiles told U.S. officials that the local population would greet U.S. forces with “flowers and sweets.”16 CENTCOM commander General Franks also assumed that Iraqis would support U.S. forces, and perhaps even join them in combat, once they believed that the United States was completely committed to removing Saddam Hussein from power.17 Expecting U.S. forces to be greeted as liberators instead of occupiers is much more than just a semantic issue; it contains an implicit assumption about the nature of the postwar environment.18 Liberation has a positive connotation, of outside forces that are supported by the local population and work in its best interest. Occupation, by contrast, has a negative connotation of outsiders pursuing their own agenda for their own interests, without much regard for locals. Occupiers cause resistance movements to form, as history demonstrates well, but liberators are welcomed and unchallenged. When U.S. officials chose to conceptualize U.S. forces as liberators, they assumed away any major security problems or popular resistance in postwar Iraq. Abundant evidence demonstrates that U.S. forces were not prepared for the looting, breakdown of law and order, and nascent insurgency that emerged in the days and weeks after the fall of Baghdad,19 in large part due to the prewar assumption that U.S. forces would be welcome as liberators instead of occupiers.20 Second, they assumed that the government would continue to function after the ministers and their closest advisors were removed from power. Since Saddam’s regime depended on a highly centralized government structure, where all important decisions were made in Baghdad, U.S. officials assumed that government ministries were largely effective state structures. If that were the case, then the top leadership of each ministry could be replaced,21 leaving the remaining technocrats and civil servants – the vast majority of the ministry staff – to continue running the state. No large-scale reconstruction would therefore be necessary, since the new leadership of Iraq would inherit a functioning and capable governance structure. The United States would only need to help the ministries continue their work for a short time during the transition of power. Jay Garner, the head of the civilian Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (discussed below) only planned to stay in Iraq until June 2003, and his timetable called for a permanent, elected government to be in place by August.22 Taken together, these two assumptions suggested that reconstruction would not be a particularly difficult task. If Iraqi citizens welcomed U.S. troops and helped them in their mission, and U.S. officials would only need to assist functioning ministries for a short while, then reconstruction would only be a minor task for U.S. forces. On the face of it, these were not unreasonable assumptions to make, or at least they were no less reasonable than any other set of assumptions that senior U.S. policymakers might have held. The problem was that no planning occurred for scenarios where these assumptions might not hold. Any scenario based on a single set of assumptions is quite vulnerable to being wrong,

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since things rarely work out exactly as predicted. The fundamental problem was not the content of these particular assumptions, but the fact that a single set of assumptions drove U.S. government planning efforts, and no contingency plans were developed in case that one scenario did not occur. The interagency working group continued to develop its humanitarian and reconstruction plans throughout the fall of 2002. On January 20, 2003, President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 24, which established the Department of Defense (DoD) as the lead agency for postwar Iraq. It also directed DoD to establish the civilian-led Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), which bore responsibility for planning for the administration of postwar Iraq and, in the event of war, implementing those plans. All the plans developed by the working group and various U.S. government agencies were supposed to be turned over to ORHA, which would now become the single agency in charge of postwar planning.23 Why was the DoD placed in charge of civilian planning efforts for postwar Iraq? Perhaps the main reason was the desire to maintain unity of command. In past cases of stability and peacekeeping operations, military and civilian authorities often did not report to the same decisionmaker, and in some cases, the civilian authorities did not coordinate effectively with each other.24 By placing ORHA within DoD, both civilian and military chains of authority in Iraq would report to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who would, in principle, be able to ensure that their efforts were complementary. Additionally, there were concerns that the State Department did not have the capacity or the experience necessary for detailed planning efforts. The Future of Iraq project, which has been much discussed in the aftermath of the war, seemed emblematic of this problem. Though much valuable information was contained throughout its 13 volumes, it was not an actionable plan: it contained general information rather than specific tasks, it did not prioritize reconstruction of certain areas over others, and it did not address the question of resource allocation at all. To be fair, the Future of Iraq project never intended to do any of these things; it was intended as a collaborative effort that would encourage Iraqi exiles to think about some of the challenges that a postwar Iraqi government, not the United States, would have to address.25 Nevertheless, for many in the DoD, it reaffirmed the stereotype that the State Department was good at diplomacy and broad discussions but not the detailed type of planning which is one of the greatest strengths of the current U.S. military. It was hoped that giving the postwar mission to the DoD would lead to greater unity of effort,26 more rigorous planning efforts, and more available personnel and resources.27 What this view overlooked, however, is the fact that the U.S. military had not had any experience managing postwar reconstruction since the occupations of Germany and Japan after World War II.28 The organizational and administrative structures from that time had long since disappeared, not to mention the personnel who had directly participated in the occupation.29 The DoD did possess advantages of unity of command and capacity for detailed

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planning, but its disadvantages – and particularly its lack of expertise with the civilian aspects of reconstruction – were not fully appreciated at the time. Retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner was asked to lead the newly established ORHA, and he recruited several other retired officers to serve in senior staff positions.30 Ironically, in its early days, this new civilian organization was staffed primarily by active-duty military personnel; civilian agencies took a long time to send their representatives, since they do not regularly reassign and redeploy their personnel the way the military does, and they had to seek out volunteers since civilians could not be ordered to serve in a potential war zone. ORHA quickly set to work, developing ideas for how it would administer postSaddam Iraq while also getting itself up and running as an organization. On February 21 and 22, 2003, only a month after it was created, ORHA held a meeting at the National Defense University to evaluate its preliminary plans. This meeting, which ORHA referred to as the Rock Drill,31 included representatives from agencies throughout the U.S. government as well as from CENTCOM. Many issues remained unresolved during the meeting, which ORHA continued to work on during the following weeks. In early March, Garner was told that ORHA should deploy to Kuwait as soon as possible. Staff members started deploying right away, even though ORHA only had about half the personnel it had hoped to have at that point. Garner arrived in Kuwait on March 16, three days before combat operations commenced in Iraq. ORHA was too little, too late. It struggled to get qualified personnel throughout its existence, because the civil service and interagency systems are not designed to generate personnel who can be deployed overseas. Perhaps more important, however, was the fact that ORHA was formed so late in the planning process. It only had eight weeks to prepare for its mission, which pales in comparison to the 15 months of military planning for major combat operations. Furthermore, civil–military coordination was lacking, largely because ORHA and the military commands had not synchronized their plans and reconciled their differences before combat operations commenced. The most consequential coordination failure involved the key question of when ORHA would enter Iraq. Garner intended for ORHA to follow advancing U.S. forces into Iraq, starting their work as soon as the shooting stopped. He repeatedly emphasized the rapid nature of transition to his staff, telling them that they should be prepared to “work their way out of a job within 90 days.”32 Yet the plans developed by CENTCOM called for a much slower transition, whereby ORHA would not enter Baghdad until 120 days after the end of major combat operations so that U.S. military forces could ensure stability and provide support for ORHA.33 In other words, rather than being done in 90 days, their jobs would not even start for 120 days. Garner grew increasingly frustrated in the days following the fall of Saddam, since he felt that they were losing valuable time for the reconstruction process. Garner had to appeal personally to Franks to allow ORHA into Iraq, despite the continuing looting and instability.34 Franks acquiesced. Garner entered Baghdad on April 21, and the majority of the ORHA staff followed shortly thereafter.35

134 N. Bensahel By this time, though, ORHA was already being phased out of existence. On the evening of April 24, Rumsfeld called Garner and informed him that President Bush planned to appoint L. Paul Bremer III as his permanent envoy to Iraq.36 The White House officially announced Bremer’s appointment on May 6, and Bremer arrived in Baghdad on May 12, with a mandate to replace ORHA with a new Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).37 Whereas ORHA had been designed as a temporary organization to assist a new Iraqi government during a short transition period of several months, the CPA was an explicit occupying authority that possessed indefinite control of the Iraqi government. It also implicitly acknowledged that the reconstruction of Iraq would be a longer and more complicated endeavor than U.S. policymakers had anticipated, and that a different set of U.S. policies would be needed.

Occupying Iraq: the CPA and the military, May 2003 to June 2004 The CPA represented a fundamental shift in U.S. policy toward postwar Iraq, but it did not start with a clean slate. It took responsibility for governing a country that lacked public order, whose infrastructure had been devastated by years of sanctions and postwar looting, and that suffered from a nascent insurgency. It also inherited a situation where U.S. civilian and military authorities had not been cooperating closely, either during the planning process or on the ground during the weeks following the fall of Saddam’s regime. The CPA found itself taking on a job that no one had envisaged during more than 15 months of prewar planning. It is therefore not surprising that it took a long time to get itself organized and functioning, even at a minimal level. The CPA’s goals were broad and ambitious. It set itself the task of creating “a durable peace for a unified and stable, democratic Iraq that provides effective and representative government for the Iraqi people; is underpinned by new and protected freedoms and a growing market economy; is able to defend itself but is no longer a threat to its neighbors or international security.”38 It organized itself around four main objectives, called core foundations: security, governance, economy, and essential services.39 The CPA staff in each of these areas faced monumental tasks of rebuilding the core functions of a state. Despite the hard work of many individuals, the organization as a whole lacked the capabilities and resources to adequately support their efforts. The sheer volume and urgency of their work, for example, meant that various offices within the CPA often did not coordinate their activities with each other and often adopted inconsistent policies. Staffing posed constant problems for the CPA, since too few civilians volunteered to go to Iraq to fill all of its vacancies. Since the DoD, and the U.S. government more generally, lacked the ability to identify civil servants with the skills and interest for a tour in Iraq, the mechanisms to support them while they were in theater, and the authority to require other government agencies to provide personnel, the CPA remained chronically understaffed throughout its

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existence. In March 2004, for example, the CPA Inspector General determined that the CPA had only filled 56 percent of its authorized slots,40 and Bremer reported great frustration with the bureaucratic delays in getting the personnel he needed.41 Those who did serve in Iraq often stayed for very short periods, from three to six months, and often did not continue working on Iraq issues when they returned to their home agencies in the United States. This meant that much of what they learned was lost, and that the CPA lacked institutional memory. Many CPA staffers were young, often in their twenties and thirties and without much previous experience in the fields within which they worked.42 These organizational and bureaucratic problems were compounded by the fact that the CPA remained largely confined to its headquarters within the international area of Baghdad known as the Green Zone. When CPA staff needed to travel to ministries downtown or other places outside the Green Zone, they needed to travel in secure vehicles or, as the insurgency grew worse, in military convoys. Yet demand for the convoys often exceeded supply; trips needed to be scheduled several days ahead of time, and even then, there was no guarantee that a convoy would be available. This severely restricted the CPA’s ability to do its work. Furthermore, the CPA had only a minimal presence outside Baghdad for several months. It opened two major field offices – CPA North, which covered the Kurdish governorates, and CPA South, which covered four largely Shi’a governorates – but these offices had small staffs and often did not coordinate their activities with the CPA in Baghdad. The CPA did not establish a presence in most of Iraq’s 18 governorates until the fall.43 The CPA did not brief its field offices or the military divisions throughout Iraq until November 2003 – almost halfway through the occupation period.44 When it did arrive, the CPA tried to impose some order on the local governance systems that had evolved haphazardly over time. It established unified teams within the governorate, which included representatives from the military forces on the ground in that area as well as the CPA, U.S. government agencies, and international organizations. This approach did help improve coordination efforts between the civilian and military authorities in each governorate, but the military forces still possessed far more personnel, resources, and by this point, local experience, than their CPA counterparts. During the first few months of its existence, then, the CPA remained limited in its reconstruction efforts. It managed to work closely with the ministries in Baghdad despite the increasing dangers of leaving the Green Zone, but even these efforts at the national level suffered from the CPA’s staffing and organizational constraints. At the governorate and local levels, the CPA had a minimal presence at best for several months after the fall of Saddam’s regime. During this period, there was a major U.S. presence throughout the country – but it was a military presence, not a civilian presence. More than 150,000 U.S. and Coalition forces were spread throughout Iraq during the summer and fall,45 and were dealing with some very unpleasant conditions – the aftermath of very severe looting, local power vacuums, electricity shortages during a very hot summer, and the first signs of a nascent insurgency.

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Many military commanders had started local reconstruction activities after the end of major combat operations, as a way to develop connections with local communities and to assist them with their urgent needs. Once the CPA was founded, the military commanders were told that the CPA would take responsibility for most of the efforts they had started. But the military commanders kept waiting for the CPA to arrive in their areas, but for the reasons described above, few CPA officials the ventured out of Baghdad. Troops in Iraq soon started joking that CPA stood for “Can’t Provide Anything.”46 Military commanders started undertaking a wide range of reconstruction activities out of necessity. Some of these tasks were ones where military capabilities could be particularly useful, such as drilling wells, repairing power plants, and building schools. But they also found themselves taking on tasks well beyond the usual military reconstruction tasks, such as establishing city councils, justice procedures, and local budgets and spending priorities. They felt that they had to do such nontraditional activities, in order to establish some sense of order and progress in the areas where they were deployed. Ironically, these military efforts to fill the gaps left by the absence of the CPA actually made the CPA’s tasks even more challenging. Because the division commanders took these initiatives on their own authority, without any central guidance from their higher headquarters or from the CPA, different policies were established in different parts of the country. Policies on every issue – from payment of local hires to electoral procedures for local councils – varied significantly across the country. This meant that any CPA efforts to establish coherent national policies had to try to reconcile all of these policy differences, while also minimizing resentment and confusion among the Iraqi citizens who found out that they would no longer receive the wages that they had been promised or the positions they held. Even in Baghdad, few organizational linkages connected U.S. civilian and military authorities. Military forces were commanded by Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7), which had morphed out of the headquarters of the U.S. Army V Corps, and which reported to the CENTCOM commander. Civilians working for the CPA reported to Bremer, who in turn reported to President Bush through Secretary Rumsfeld. This meant that there was no one in theater who was responsible for both, which undermined the unity of command that was the ostensible reason why the DoD was put in charge of postwar Iraq. Bremer and Rumsfeld spoke frequently, but their interaction was still at too high a level to overcome the problems of having dual chains of command within the country. To be sure, the two chains did try to work together: CJTF-7 did have an office at the CPA’s headquarters, since its own headquarters was located near the Baghdad airport, and the CJTF-7 commander, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, reportedly held daily meetings with Ambassador Bremer. But the dual chains of command made it impossible for either one to pursue an integrated political–military strategy.47 These problems were exacerbated by each organization’s frustration with the other: CPA staffers often viewed CJTF-7 as focused too much on tactical military operations without understanding how they fit into

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a broader political context, while the CJTF-7 staff and the division commanders in theater were frustrated by the CPA’s inability to provide enough staffing and resources to fulfill its missions. These frustrations and organizational frictions plagued both military and civilian authorities in Iraq throughout the occupation period.

Lessons for the future What can we learn from the complicated, and sometimes uncoordinated, relationship between military and civilian authorities in planning for, and occupying, postwar Iraq? The first and most general lesson is about the interconnected relationship between military and political objectives, which must be better understood by decisionmakers both in and out of uniform. The Iraq experience also demonstrates that military forces must be prepared to play a greater role in postwar stabilization activities than their planning has traditionally assumed, and that the civilian authorities need to improve the interagency planning process and their capacities for implementing reconstruction tasks. A return to Clausewitz Officers attending staff colleges often begin their studies by examining Clausewitz’s infamous dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means.48 Their teachers emphasize that military force exists to serve political ends. Success, in a Clausewitzian sense, does not come from battlefield defeats; it occurs when the geostrategic objectives of the operation have been achieved. Yet this fundamental principle has been all but forgotten in military planning efforts, which almost always dedicate the vast majority of time and effort on major combat operations and far less to what role the military will play once the shooting stops. It is unsurprising that military organizations will choose to emphasize combat, since that is seen as its core mission. Yet focusing exclusively on successful battlefield victories risks conflating military objectives and strategic objectives, and losing sight of the overall political purpose of the operation. In Iraq, the military planning process – with the full support and participation of the civilian Secretary of Defense and the Commander-in-Chief – fell into this trap.49 They focused on the combat phase and the military objectives of the operation (removing Saddam Hussein from power and defeating his military forces) and failed to realize that the ultimate political objectives of the operation (establishing a peaceful and democratic Iraq) would either succeed or fail depending on how events unfolded after the military objectives had been achieved. Debates over the proper force levels in Iraq, for example, raged throughout the first half of 2002, with General Franks often pushing for a greater number of troops than Secretary Rumsfeld preferred – but both based their calculations on combat requirements, and did not discuss the force requirements for the stabilization phase or countenance the possibility that it might require more troops than the

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combat phase.50 Indeed, when Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki testified to Congress that the reconstruction of Iraq would require “something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers,”51 Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz wasted no time in publicly dismissing this estimate as “wildly off the mark.” He went on to state, “it’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army.”52 The lesson from Iraq, then, is that operational planning must start with the strategic end state that the civilian authorities wish to achieve, and then work backwards to determine the best ways to achieve that end state. Whatever emerges as the most demanding part of the operation should drive the planning process, and resources should be allocated accordingly. The stabilization and reconstruction parts of the operation may in fact be more demanding than combat operations, since that is the part of the operation where strategic success or failure is most likely to be determined. In retrospect, it is clear that establishing security in postwar Iraq, and preventing the insurgency that continues to plague Iraq in 2007, would have taken far more forces and capabilities than were available at the end of major combat operations. Future operational planners and their civilian superiors must not repeat that mistake: instead of focusing on combat operations, they must start by examining the strategic end state, and work backwards to develop a set of plans which uses military forces and resources in the way that is most likely to achieve that end state. The military role in stabilization Iraq is the latest, but certainly not the only, case which demonstrates that ground forces must be prepared to take on stabilization and reconstruction tasks in the immediate aftermath of war. This is not a popular conclusion: both military and civilian authorities generally agree that these are civilian tasks. Civilian police should be responsible for providing law and order, they argue, and organizations such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the UN technical agencies should take the lead in creating governance structures, promoting economic development, and other reconstruction tasks. In principle, they are of course correct, since the military is designed to fight and win wars and does not have the expertise that these other activities require. Yet the stark reality is that in the vast majority of postconflict situations, only the military will be capable of executing these important tasks. Establishing law and order in the immediate aftermath of conflict is absolutely essential to creating the conditions for successful reconstruction. Yet a security gap often emerges in such situations, where local police and other security forces are unable to establish postconflict law and order because they have been discredited or rendered ineffective during the conflict period. International civilian police can fill the security gap in principle, but the international community still lacks quickly deployable civilian police capabilities.53 Although some efforts to expand this capability are underway,54 there are inherent dif-

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ficulties in generating large numbers of internationally deployable civilian police. Each deployed policeman means one fewer policeman in his or her home precinct, for example, and for countries such as the United States where police forces are organized locally instead of nationally, the lack of centralized police authority makes it extremely difficult for the national government to identify, recruit, and organize deployable police contingents. For reconstruction activities, it is clear that civilian organizations, far more than military forces, possess the mission, expertise, and capabilities to undertake the reconstruction tasks necessary in a postconflict environment. However, civilian organizations cannot enter a postwar situation until some basic level of security has been established. In Iraq, as in other cases, military forces on the ground became involved in a wide range of local reconstruction tasks before there was any civilian presence in their regions. These activities are often considered vital for their own protection: local jobs programs and governing institutions help put people back to work and give them a stake in the revitalization of their own areas, which makes them less likely to express boredom or frustration by taking up arms against the military forces. The Iraq experience demonstrates that military forces are the only ones that can step in to fill the security gap, and very often to start some of the other reconstruction projects that may later be taken over by civilians. Military forces may not have to execute these tasks in every postwar situation, but they must always be prepared to do so. This means that they must plan, train, and equip for these missions, and integrate them seamlessly with their preparations for combat operations. In November 2005, the Department of Defense issued Directive 3000.05, which defines stability operations as a “core U.S. military mission” that “shall be given priority comparable to combat operations.”55 This represents a major shift in U.S. policy from treating stability operations simply as a lesser-included case of highintensity warfare. There will no doubt be a great deal of bureaucratic resistance within the Pentagon to such a major policy shift, but if the provisions of the directive are implemented as intended, should lead to more integrated doctrine and training for these types of stabilization and reconstruction activities. Strengthening the interagency process During both the planning and implementation phases of postconflict reconstruction in Iraq, the U.S. government lacked effective interagency coordination. A formal coordination structure did exist, but it provided only general policy guidance and failed to mediate key tensions among its members, particularly between the Departments of State and Defense.56 Furthermore, the January 20, 2003 decision to designate the DoD as the lead nation for reconstruction activities exacerbated this problem. DoD had neither the personnel nor the expertise necessary to lead civilian reconstruction programs on its own. The National Security Council directed other U.S. agencies to provide experienced personnel first to ORHA and then to the CPA, but rarely pushed the agencies to comply with this policy.

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The U.S. government contains a lot of expertise on many postconflict reconstruction issues, but it lacks an effective mechanism for aggregating that expertise into a coherent approach toward civilian reconstruction. Much work has been done since the fall of Baghdad to suggest ways to improve this process, including a particularly notable study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies,57 but there does not seem to be a strong commitment throughout the U.S. government to solve this problem. One promising development was the establishment of an office within the State Department called the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), whose mission is to “lead, coordinate, and institutionalize U.S. Government civilian capacity to prevent or prepare for postconflict situations and to help stabilize and reconstruct societies in transition from conflict or civil strife.”58 Yet that office has been consistently underfunded, its work has remained limited, and it has had trouble getting consistent representation from other U.S. agencies despite its mandate to be an interagency office. S/CRS only received seven million dollars in funding during Fiscal Year (FY) 2005, despite a presidential request for $17 million. As of this writing, it seems as though the president’s request for $124 million for FY06 will only result in a fraction of that amount at best.59 Another promising development was the issuing of National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 44 in December 2005, which addresses the management of interagency efforts for reconstruction and stabilization. It reaffirms the role of S/CRS as the focal point for such efforts, and it creates a Policy Coordination Committee to oversee these issues. Yet it remains to be seen whether its provisions will be implemented effectively or whether bureaucratic disagreements will continue to plague the coordination process.60 However, the interagency process reflects the preferences and style of the president.61 He can establish whatever structures he likes, and can either use the formal coordination process or rely on less formal meetings, policy papers, or even conversations. Therefore, establishing effective interagency structures is not enough to solve the coordination problem: active and sustained presidential leadership is required to push the disparate agencies of the U.S. government to coordinate their work and overcome their inevitable bureaucratic differences. Without that sort of presidential involvement and commitment to push the interagency process along, the capacity of the U.S. government for civilian reconstruction tasks will remain lacking – which then further increases the likelihood that military forces will be pushed to take on tasks that are primarily civilian in nature.

Notes 1 White House Office of the Press Secretary, “President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended,” May 1, 2003, available at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html, accessed March 30, 2006. 2 Data as of March 30, 2006. Official Department of Defense casualty figures can be found at www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf. 3 Brookings Iraq Index, updated March 27, 2006, pp. 18, 20, and 22, available at www.brookings.edu/iraqindex.

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4 Data as of March 30, 2006. See www.iraqbodycount.org/. 5 Tommy Franks, American Soldier, New York: Regan Books, 2004, pp. 315 and 329; Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004, pp. 36–38. 6 According to Woodward, Franks briefed President Bush at least six times on the evolving concept of operations (on December 28, 2001, and February 7, April 20, May 11, June 19, and August 5, 2002) and briefed Secretary Rumsfeld even more frequently. 7 Woodward, Plan of Attack, offers detailed descriptions of each of these three concepts, especially pp. 96–97, 124–125, 133–136, and 145–148. See also Franks, American Soldier, Chapters 9 and 10. 8 It is important to note that the Hybrid option was never actually implemented, due to the timing and process of approving deployments and the decision to start the war with the aerial attack on Dora Farms. Nevertheless, the Hybrid option remained the basis for planning from August 2002 through the start of the war in March 2003. 9 “Pre-war Planning for Post-War Iraq,” information sheet published by the Office of Near East and South Asian Affairs within the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy, www.defenselink.mil/policy/isa/nesa/postwar_iraq.html, accessed April 2004. 10 Andrew Rathmell, “Planning Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Iraq: What Can We Learn?” International Affairs, 81/5, 2005, p. 1021. 11 Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 147. 12 The UN also estimated that an additional 740,000 Iraqis were refugees in neighboring countries. Elliott Abrams, NSC Senior Director for Near East and North Africa, “Briefing on Humanitarian Reconstruction Issues,” February 24, 2003, available at www.state.gov/g/prm/rls/2003/18402.htm, accessed January 2006. See also Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 276. 13 United Nations, Likely Humanitarian Operations, December 10, 2002, paragraph 17, available at www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/war021210scanned.pdf, accessed January 2006; Joseph J. Collins, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations, DoD News Briefing, February 25, 2003, briefing slides available at www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2003/030225-D-9085M-011.pdf, accessed January 2006. 14 The six principles they identified were minimizing displacement, infrastructure damage, and disruption of services; relying primarily on civilian relief agencies; developing effective civil–military relations; facilitating operations of international organizations and NGOs; prepositioning U.S. government relief supplies and response mechanisms; and restoring the food distribution system. See “Briefing on Humanitarian Reconstruction Issues,” February 24, 2003. 15 Vice President Dick Cheney, remarks made on Meet the Press, March 16, 2003. 16 Kanan Makiya, one of the Iraqi participants in the Future of Iraq Project, acknowledged after the war that this had been his message to President Bush, and he stated “I admit I was wrong.” Joel Brinkley and Eric Schmitt, “Iraqi Leaders Say U.S. Was Warned of Disorder After Hussein, But Little Was Done,” New York Times, November 30, 2003. Quote from Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 259. 17 Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 81. 18 It may also have had some legal implications. Sandra Mitchell, vice president of the International Rescue Committee, recounted that she and other NGO representatives discussed the responsibilities of occupying powers under the Fourth Geneva Convention with representatives of the U.S. Agency for International Development. She noted, “we were corrected when we raised this point. The American troops would be ‘liberators’ rather than ‘occupiers,’ so that the obligations did not apply.” Quote from James Fallows, “Blind Into Baghdad,” The Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2004, p. 63. 19 For one of the best descriptions of Baghdad in the immediate aftermath of the war and how it affected the local population, see Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near,

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New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005. See also Jon Lee Anderson, The Fall of Baghdad, New York: The Penguin Press, 2004, and George Packer, The Assassins’ Gate, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. As the 3rd Infantry Division noted in its after action report, “Because of the refusal to acknowledge occupier status, commanders did not initially take measures available to occupying powers, such as imposing curfews, directing civilians to work and controlling the local governments and populace. The failure to act after we displaced the regime created a power vacuum, which others immediately tried to fill.” Quote from John J. Lumpkin and Dafna Linzer, “Army Says Policy Choice Led to Chaos in Iraq,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 28, 2003. One source reports that the number 50 came up frequently during discussions of how many senior officials would need to be removed. Gordon Corera, “Iraq provides lessons in nation building,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, January 2004, p. 31. Packer, The Assassins’ Gate, pp. 132–133; Transcript of Jay Garner interview, dated July 17, 2003, for a Frontline episode called “Truth, War and Consequences,” first aired October 9, 2003, available at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ truth/interviews/garner.html, accessed January 2006. Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 283. This was most notably the case in Bosnia, where the Dayton Accords strictly separated the civilian and military tasks and authorities. For details, see Richard Holbrooke, To End a War, New York: Random House, 1998. Paul Bremer, who served as the Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, recalls that Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, told him that the Future of Iraq project “was never intended as a postwar plan.” L. Paul Bremer III, My Year in Iraq, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006, p. 25. For more on the genesis and content of the Future of Iraq project, see Fallows, “Blind Into Baghdad,” pp. 56–58; and David L. Phillips, Losing Iraq, New York: Westview Press, 2005. An official DoD fact sheet stated: “The rationale for reporting directly through DoD was based on lessons learned from Bosnia and a desire to eliminate a dual reporting and command chain. . . . Many contend the lack of coordination between the military and the civilian entities [in Bosnia] led to the prolonged involvement of all parties. We did not want to repeat past mistakes.” See “Pre-war Planning for Post-War Iraq.” According to Woodward, Secretary of State Colin Powell agreed with this logic. Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 282. For a comparative study of the occupations of Germany and Japan with subsequent nation-building efforts, including Iraq, see James Dobbins et al., America’s Role in Nation-Building, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, MR-1753-RC, 2003. Even if they had, though, the political situation after World War II was simply not a good parallel. World War II was a total war, where civilian populations suffered enormously, and Germany and Japan both surrendered unconditionally when the conflict ended. This gave legitimacy and some degree of popular support to the U.S. occupations. Operations in Iraq, by contrast, were supposed to remove Saddam Hussein through a precision campaign that would leave most of Iraq unscathed and most civilians unharmed, and as discussed above, the government would continue to function and the United States would not become an occupation authority. One of these retired officers quipped that they were the DoD’s version of the Space Cowboys, referring to the Clint Eastwood movie where aging astronauts return to space for one final mission. Brigadier General (Ret.) Buck Walters, quoted in Richard Woods, Tony Allen-Mills, and Nicholas Rufford, “Painful Rebirth of Iraq in Cauldron of Defeat,” Sunday Times (London), April 13, 2003. As Garner later explained, the meeting was called a rock drill because “you turn over all the rocks” to identify any problems or issues with the plans. Garner interview with Frontline, July 2003.

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32 Susan B. Glasser and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Reconstruction Planners Worry, Wait, and Reevaluate,” Washington Post, April 2, 2003. 33 Donald R. Drechsler, “Reconstructing the Interagency Process After Iraq,” Journal of Strategic Studies 28/1, February 2005, p. 20. 34 Garner recounts their conversation as follows: “[I] said, ‘You got to get me into Baghdad.’ He said, ‘You know, it’s really hot there right now, it’s really going to be hard to protect you.’ I said, ‘I think we’ll take our chance.’ He said, ‘Well, let me talk to the military commanders.’ It was either the night of the 17th, [or] the night of the 18th, he called and said, ‘Go ahead, and we’ll give you all the support we can.’ ” Garner interview with Frontline, July 2003. 35 Monte Reel, “Garner Arrives in Iraq to Begin Reconstruction,” Washington Post, April 22, 2003. 36 Garner interview with Frontline; Mark Fineman, Robin Wright, and Doyle McManus, “Preparing for War, Stumbling to Peace,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2003. 37 The timing of these decisions led to much speculation that Garner had been fired from his position. Garner has steadfastly denied that this was the case, stating (in the July 2003 interview for Frontline, among other places) that the plan had always been for him to stand up the organization and to transfer power to a permanent envoy after a few months. Critics interpret these events less charitably, arguing that their timing and the White House’s lack of public praise for Garner were designed to convey an impression of a clean start and a distancing from ORHA. 38 Coalition Provisional Authority, “Vision for Iraq,” July 11, 2003. 39 Coalition Provisional Authority, “Achieving the Vision: Taking Forward the CPA Strategic Plan for Iraq,” July 18, 2003. A fifth objective of strategic communications was added later. 40 Only 1,196 of its 2,117 authorized positions were filled at that time. Rathmell, “Planning Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Iraq: What Can We Learn?,” p. 1026. 41 Bremer notes, for example, that he sent Rumsfeld a memo on July 7, 2003, which emphasized that “Washington was being extremely slow in assigning personnel needed by the CPA: of 250 people I had requested weeks before, not a single one had yet arrived in Baghdad. Washington red tape would slow down reconstruction funds and personnel for almost a year.” Bremer, My Year in Iraq, p. 114. 42 Bremer, My Year in Iraq, p. 125; Rathmell, “Planning Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Iraq: What Can We Learn?,” p. 1026; Ariana Eunjung Cha, “In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime,” Washington Post, May 23, 2004; Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Iraq’s Barbed Realities,” Washington Post, October 17, 2004. 43 Bremer, My Year in Iraq, p. 125. 44 Rathmell, “Planning Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Iraq: What Can We Learn?,” p. 1033. 45 171,000 coalition troops were deployed in Iraq during May 2003, though continuing force withdrawals reduced that number to 156,000 troops by October 2003 and 146,500 troops by December 2003. See “Coalition Troop Strength in Iraq Since May 2003,” The Brookings Institution Iraq Index, March 27, 2006, p. 20, accessed at www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf, March 2006. 46 See interview with Max Boot, September 9, 2003, available at www.cfr.org/publication.html?id6249; and Joseph Galloway, “Bremer Exits With Long Record of Bad Decisions,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 1, 2004. 47 Rathmell, “Planning Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Iraq: What Can We Learn?,” pp. 1030–1031. 48 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 605. 49 To be sure, Iraq is not the first time that this dynamic occurred. Military experts, including Andrew Krepinevich, have argued that the military’s focus on combat

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operations and not the more difficult political phases of an operation is an outgrowth of its experience in Vietnam. It is also not a problem that exclusively faces the United States. British General Rupert Smith, for example, recently published a book on precisely this theme. He writes that his operational experiences during the 1990s taught him a key lesson: “No more was I part of a world of wars in which the civilian and military establishments each had its distinct role in distinct stages. The new situations were always a complex combination of political and military circumstances, though there appeared to be little comprehension about how the two became intertwined – nor, far more seriously from the perspective of the military practitioner, how they constantly influenced each other as events unfolded.” Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force, London: Allen Lane, 2005, p. xiii. For a thorough discussion of the debate over force levels in Iraq, see Woodward, Plan of Attack. General Eric Shinseki, testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 25, 2003. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, testimony to the House Budget Committee, February 27, 2003. A wide literature exists on the security gap and the lack of international civilian police. See, for example, Michael J. Dziedzic, “Introduction,” in Policing the New World Disorder, Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1998, pp. 3–18, and Seth G. Jones, Jeremy Wilson, Andrew Rathmell, and K. Jack Riley, Establishing Law and Order After Conflict, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, MG-374-RC, 2005. One notable step in this direction is the formation of the Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units (COESPU), which was part of an initiative launched in 2004 by the Group of 8 countries. The center is located in Vicenza, Italy, and is run by the Carabinieri. See coespu.carabinieri.it, accessed February 2006. Department of Defense Directive 3000.05, “Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations,” November 28, 2005, available at www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html/300005.htm, accessed February 2006. See, for example, the discussion of CENTCOM’s frustration with the lack of policy guidance in Mark Fineman, Robin Wright, and Doyle McManus, “Preparing for War, Stumbling to Peace,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2003. On the persistent tension between State and Defense, see David Rieff, “Blueprint for a Mess,” New York Times, November 2, 2003. For more information on the CSIS project, which is entitled “Beyond GoldwaterNichols,” see www.csis.org/isp/bgn/. The S/CRS mission statement is available on its website, www.state.gov/s/crs/. The report from the conference committee that oversees the State Department’s budget included no appropriations for S/CRS, although negotiations are ongoing as of this writing. See PEP Briefing Note, “The Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization,” The Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping, December 2005, available at www.effectivepeacekeeping.org/docs/pep/bn-scrs-1205.pdf, accessed February 2006. The text of NSPD-44 is available at www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-44.html. See, for example, I.M. Destler, Presidents, Bureaucrats, and Foreign Policy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972; I.M. Destler, Leslie H. Gelb, and Anthony Lake, Our Own Worst Enemy, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984, especially Chapter 4; and Paul Schott Stevens, “The National Security Council: Past and Prologue,” Strategic Review, 17/1, Winter 1989, pp. 55–62.

Part II

Reconstructuring Iraq and countering the insurgency

7

The Iraqi insurgency, 2003–2006 Ahmed Hashim

Background Three years after the invasion of Iraq by U.S. and Coalition forces, the violence in that hapless country continues unabated. The United Nations reported, for example, that 6,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed in violence in the two-month period of May to June 2006. What began as Iraq’s “restorationist” Sunni insurgency in spring 2003 has metamorphosed into an all embracing dynamic of violence.1 In the course of the past three years Iraq has seen the emergence of a “multi-layered” insurgency that includes terrorists who seek a radical transformation of the situation in their favor, namely the Sunni Jihadi insurgents who have targeted Iraqi Shi’a in horrific suicide bombing campaigns. It also witnessed social movements such as the Sadrist Movement – which has sought to preserve and advance Iraqi Shi’a gains against Sunnis, the Coalition and, indeed, against other Shi’a groups – turn to insurgency. For purposes of analytical clarity, I follow Bard O’Neill in defining insurgency as a “struggle between a nonruling group and the ruling authorities in which the nonruling group consciously uses political resources (e.g. organizational expertise, propaganda, and demonstrations) and violence to destroy, reformulate, or sustain the basis of legitimacy of one or more aspects of politics.”2 Equally valid is the new definition put out by the Army Field Manual (Interim) Counterinsurgency Operations, FMI 3-07.22 which said: “an insurgency is organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict. It is a protracted politico-military struggle designed to weaken government control and legitimacy while increasing insurgent control. Political power is the central issue in an insurgency.”3 Based on these two definitions, it is clear that there have been several, often unrelated, insurgencies in Iraq since 2003. Furthermore, it is clear that the insurgencies in Iraq are about politics, or more accurately who is to have political power, and that they will most likely last for a long time.

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The Sunni insurgency Origins of the insurgency The insurgency began in April 2003 with the outbreak of violence by the Sunni Arab population in what has come to be known as the “Sunni Triangle,” an area bounded by the cities of Baghdad, Ramadi and Fallujah. The insurgency cannot be understood without reference to the historical domination of Iraq by the Sunni Arab minority that constitutes roughly 18 percent of the total population. The Sunni Arabs have been historically conditioned since Ottoman times to believe that they are destined to dominate the country politically, economically, culturally, and intellectually. Indeed, they have never seen themselves as a minority nor acted as one. Moreover, when the British wrested control of Mesopotamia – as Iraq was formerly known – from the Ottomans in 1918, they institutionalized the domination of the Sunni Arab minority over the new state of Iraq. The Sunnis controlled the government, the bureaucracy, the military, and the educational institutions. They succeeded in shaping the identity of the country along the lines that largely excluded the other major groups, namely the Shi’a Arabs and the Sunni but non-Arab Kurds. These two communities remained ambivalent about the new Iraqi state. The Kurds did not wish to be part of the new Iraq initially but had no choice and were pushed into becoming Iraqis. For them this was the first betrayal by the international community. At the time they were too weak and divided to insist on institutionalized guarantees to protect their rights as a minority. They fought against one another almost as much as they rose up in arms against the Iraqi state. The situation of the Shi’a Arabs was worse. The Ottoman Turks, who controlled the country until the end of World War I, treated them as a fifth column for Shi’a Iran. They had very few opportunities to enter the administration or the military. Moreover, they did not promote themselves politically and chose to have as little to do with the state as possible. Under the Ottomans secular education made little headway in the Shi’a south and the population relied largely on their clerics for education as well as spiritual succor. When the British came to Iraq they imbibed the Ottoman and Sunni Arab disdain for the Shi’a. The new, British promoted, Sunni dominated Iraqi state continued to marginalize the Shi’a, and the largely Shi’a south remained poor and backward. Although there was a nascent Shi’a commercial class and many rich individual Shi’ites, for decades, commerce and economic activity was largely in the hands of the vibrant Iraqi Jewish community.4 The Sunnis controlled the curriculum of the secular educational system which promoted Arab nationalist ideologies that tended to look askance at the Shi’a and suspected them of little loyalty to the “Arab nation” because of their adherence to a sect whose most powerful exponent was non-Arab Iran. Although the Shi’a Arabs and Sunni Kurds lost the chance to influence the formation of the new Iraqi state and its identity when Iraq was founded in 1921, their second chance came in 1958 when the Iraq revolution-cum-coup overthrew

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the monarchy and dismantled the class and social foundations on which it was based. Coming on the heels of increasing sociopolitical and economic unrest, the revolution was led by officers of lower middle-class background. Since Sunni Arabs dominated the officer corps, they also served as the driving force behind the violent change of government in 1958. Its leader, however, was Abdel Karim Qasim, who was half Shi’a Arab and half Kurd. Both the Kurds and Shi’a saw the Qasim regime as an opportunity for their respective communities to get a greater share of political power and economic resources. That did not happen, and coteries of Sunni Arab military officers from a number of key tribes continued to dominate the post-monarchical regimes between 1958 and 1968. These officers – who were either Arab nationalist or conservative Sunnis – were suspicious of Kurdish intentions and skeptical of the Arab identity of the Shi’a. These suspicions were heightened by the tendency of the Kurds to engage in periodic acts of insurgency in the northern regions and by the adherence of the Shi’a urban population either to mass left-wing or “reactionary” religious movements. From 1968 to 2003 a peculiar Iraqi totalitarianism under Saddam Hussein heavily dominated by a Sunni Arab minority from the small town of Tikrit ran the country. Under the Ba’athist regime the political, communal, and socioeconomic base of the state narrowed even further. Now, three years following the collapse of the regime, we are just beginning to understand the key to its ability to perpetuate its horrendous rule for over three decades. It did rely to some extent on outside support for its continued perpetuation, particularly during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980–1988. But it largely managed on its own through the use of three critical internal devices: oil income, a massive coercive establishment, and neopatrimonialism. Under Saddam, Sunni Arab political power was officially vested in the Ba’ath Party, the security and intelligence services, and the armed forces and in a vast network of patronage that drew in and enriched many members of Saddam’s tribe and closest relatives, and key Sunni Arab sheikhs.5 Unofficially, Saddam relied on key Sunni Arab tribes, and above all, on members of his own clan and family. Few Kurds and Shi’a attained top positions in this regime whose strategy of state formation and national integration proved hostile to the political aspirations and cultural and social values of those two communities. In April 2003 the U.S. overthrew the Sunni Arab-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein and with that act it ended Sunni Arab domination of the country. A total of 83 years separated two seminal events in Iraqi political history: the institutionalization of Sunni domination in 1921 under the aegis of the British and its destruction in 2003 under the aegis of the Americans. Although many Sunnis did not support Saddam politically, and indeed, had suffered because of various attempts to overthrow him, it is an incontrovertible fact, that, for the Sunni Arabs the downfall of the regime was not only the collapse of power and privileges, but also of the entire nationalist edifice that they had constructed to legitimize their domination of the country for the past eight decades. This was a cataclysmic event. It constituted a grievance. People often fight fiercely to protect privileges and positions of dominance as much as they fight to gain more of these resources. Moreover, and just as important, people also fight

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not only to maintain or advance things that they value materially, they also fight for a set of non-material values that can be sub-subsumed under the rubric of identity. Many Sunni Arabs have not been reluctant to express their grievances and discontent in verbal terms. For example, the words of a former member of the Iraqi security/intelligence service from Dhulu’iyah who was on top of the world when Saddam was in power, but was forced to sell diesel fuel illegally to survive in post-Saddam Iraq, expressed deep-seated humiliation and anger as a member of the Sunni community: “We were on top of the system. We had dreams. Now we are the losers. We lost our positions, our status, the security of our families, stability. Curse the Americans. Curse them.” Of the Shi’a he said: “These people with turbans are going to run the country. What do they know? Iraq needs people like us.”6 Another Sunni professional, “Abid,” an educated English-speaking individual who was originally well-disposed toward the Americans expressed his frustrations differently: “The problem with the Americans is that they have no respect for us.”7 Another professional vividly expressed his anger at the perceived marginalization of the Sunni community in post-Saddam Iraq. Dr. Abdullah Hasan al-Hadithy, a professor at the University of Islamic Sciences in Baghdad and a Sunni cleric expressed his view “that the Americans don’t treat the Sunnis well at all, and there are a lot of us in the population: thinkers, experts, scientists, military leaders. They sidelined the Sunnis, and we don’t appreciate this because we want to rebuild the country too.”8 Many Sunni were not merely content to voice their discontent verbally; indeed, many took action. The grievances of that minority group, including the threat to their identity in the new post-Sunni Iraq, the mistaken assumption that they would accept their loss of status and privileges “lying down,” and certain “muscular” aspects of the U.S. response to their discontent fanned the flames of violence leading ultimately to an ever-spiraling level of violence which most observers, including senior U.S. military officers began to refer to as guerilla warfare or insurgency by the fall of 2003. Political/social composition and active/passive support of the insurgency Contrary to the belief that the deposed Ba’ath Party had faded away and played little or no part in the insurgency, there is compelling evidence that its members have played significant political and operational roles. What is remarkable is that it also issued statements that outlined its operational goals – how to fight the occupiers – and political goals for a “liberated” Iraq. Although it is not a Marxist party in terms of ideology, the Ba’ath Party is a Leninist party in terms of organization and modus operandi. In this context, it is a small elitist party that functions well in clandestine mode. Shorn of its onerous duties of running a complex state and society, the state of affairs characterized by clandestine operations allows the party not only to plot secretly but also to devote considerable time and effort to ideological output and planning a return to power. It has done

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so in the past when it was not in power. It is doing it again now that it has gone into hiding. Although it has proven itself as a clandestine organization and has shown itself capable of organizing former regime resistance to the foreign presence and the new Iraq, it is clear that its former ideological mish-mash of pan-Arab nationalism and socialism has not proven itself as a motivational factor. The pro-Saddam group lost considerable power and legitimacy with the apprehension of the former Iraqi leader in mid-December 2003. There has been a fusion of Islamist sentiment and Iraqi Sunni Arab nationalism among the “mainstream” insurgent ranks (I use the term mainstream here to distinguish them from the religious extremists); a fusion which, ironically, the Ba’ath Party has sought to harness. The fact that the Ba’ath Party leadership in hiding includes the very pious Ibrahim Izzat al-Duri, a long-time colleague of Saddam Hussein and a member of the regime, and who acknowledged the key role of the party in the insurgency, has helped solidify the ideological links between a rising Islamic sentiment among many former party members, former security and military personnel, and their official adherence to the Ba’ath Party’s principles. In an exclusive written interview with Time magazine sometime in early summer 2006 Al-Duri provided a remarkably candid analysis of the Ba’ath Party insurgents. He stated that the Party’s goal is to “mobilize and bring together the energies of the people for the fight to expel the occupation and liberate our country.” He then proceeded to reveal that the party had gone through extensive restructuring in ideological and organizational terms: “the Ba’ath Party has undergone an internal shake-up, restructuring its base and leadership on struggle-oriented, faith-based patriotic and nationalist principles. It now has a revolutionary, struggle-oriented identity and has shaken off the dust of the past.”9 Many of the Islamic-nationalist insurgents have blamed the former regime for the disasters that have befallen the country. Strengthened by the solid organizational structure of the underground party on the one hand and by a new ideological foundation based on a mix of religion and nationalism, the neo-Ba’athist insurgents showed greater motivation and dedication than the free-lance insurgents of the early months of the insurgency which had been bankrolled by key members of the Ba’ath Party who had gone into hiding. More ominously the new insurgents showed a dramatic improvement in small-unit fighting skills during the bloody outbreak of fighting in the Sunni areas in April 2004. They have shown an ability to stand and fight, rather than merely to “shoot and scoot” or “pray and spray” as in the past, to conduct coordinated small unit ambushes and attacks against U.S. forces, as in Ramadi in early April 2004, and to press attacks on supply convoys. Young men from the various Sunni Arab tribes have also swollen the ranks of the insurgency. They were infuriated by what they saw as outrageous behavior by U.S. forces. For example, in the Fallujah area the 50,000-strong Albueissa tribe has played a prominent role in the tribally-based insurgency; its members have claimed that it was their fighters who shot down the U.S. Army Chinook helicopter that resulted in the deaths of 17 U.S. troops in early November 2003.

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What motivates the tribes in the so-called Sunni Triangle to allow their young men to go off to fight? There are several distinct layers of tribal motivations. There are the intangible ones such as the traditional tribal reluctance to submit to any kind of authority – Saddam often had trouble with Sunni Arab tribes – and the conservative Islamist and nationalist reluctance to submit to foreign infidels. Then there are the tangible material incentives to fight that the coalition can fix. These include the lack of security and law and order, and economic opportunities. Last but not least, alleged U.S. missteps and “boorish” behavior are an important factor; trampling on tribal honor and customs when searching private homes and individuals and detaining suspects for months without providing information or access to detainees. U.S. standard operating procedures when responding to ambushes and attacks have resulted in the slaying of innocent bystanders; as one member of the Albueissa tribe, who lost his two-year-old granddaughter in September 2003 to seemingly trigger-happy U.S. soldiers, put it: “It is their routine. After the Americans are attacked, they shoot everywhere. This is inhuman – a stupid act by a country always talking about human rights.”10 These were not isolated incidents. Conflict between Iraqi and American erupted in the equally conservative town of Hit in May 2003 as a result of what the population saw as overly aggressive responses against the people to hit and run attacks by insurgents. These “aggressive” responses were deemed to be a deliberate disdain for traditions, searching of homes without the presence of the male head of the household, and searches of females by U.S. male soldiers. In an extensive discussion with several retired Sunni Arab officers the author was told in no uncertain terms that one of the biggest factors promoting hatred for the U.S. was its cultural ignorance and arrogance and disdain for the Iraqis; the evidence lay in the daily treatment of Iraqis and of detainees. Foreign terrorists and Sunni extremists have played an increasing role in the insurgency. These groups went for the suicide bombs and the massive car bombings that devastated several targets in Baghdad and elsewhere with serious loss of life. The influx of foreign terrorists and religious extremists is not a massive one; what is more important than their relatively small numbers is the fact that they constitute a force multiplier and are willing to engage in operations that most Iraqi insurgents would prefer to stay away from such as extremely bloody suicide attacks. Beginning late 2003 there was growing evidence the insurgency in Iraq had begun to attract foreign Islamists and anti-American groups such as Al Qaeda and the Tawhid organization of the elusive and enigmatic Jordanian–Palestinian terrorist, Abu Musa’b al-Zarqawi for whom Iraq was a new and easily accessible battlefield. Despite the insistence of the Bush Administration and observers of the Iraq scene that the former Ba’athist regime and Al Qaeda were in cahoots, it is clear that the U.S. presence has attracted such groups into Iraq following the regime’s demise. The foreign Islamists infiltrating into Iraq would be expected to make common cause with local Sunni Arab Salafis who have emerged in cities such as Ramadi, Fallujah, and Mosul.

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The mutual suspicion between Sunni Islamists on the one hand and former regime loyalists, secular-minded nationalists, and tribal elements who are actively opposing the Coalition on the other does not mean that the latter groups would be averse to providing logistical support for the former. The attempts by “free-lance” jihadists itching to fight the U.S. and by Al Qaeda elements to infiltrate Iraq can only be successful if such foreign volunteers are provided with resources, protection, concealment, and the necessary means to undertake their missions. They do not cross the borders into Iraq with the resources they need; and furthermore, Arabs are not all alike, and Arab infiltrators into Iraq do not easily blend with the locals. However, there is increasing evidence that the different agendas and different modus operandi of the nationalist Iraqi insurgents on the one hand and their ostensible religious Arab allies on the other have caused considerable tensions. In early summer 2004 nationalist insurgents in Fallujah threatened a group of foreign jihadists based in the Jolan suburb, under the leadership of a Saudi with the nom de guerre of Abu Abdullah, until the foreigners agreed to leave. Later that summer the insurgent “authorities” in Fallujah – made up largely of former military personnel and Iraqi police and led by clerics – succeeded in kicking out a number of non-Iraqi terrorists. This, however, did not resolve the tensions between them and native-born extremists who have the solid backing of a number of Salafi clerics within the city.11 The importance of the Salafis, both local and foreign, lies in two distinct areas. First, they have contributed to increasing the prospects for communal violence or complex war by waging a campaign of terror or deliberate and focused attacks that have targeted leaders of other communities, promoters of “moral laxity,” and non-Muslims. They have derided the Shi’ites and their rituals and have even attacked and defaced posters of Shi’a religious figures. In the fall of 2003 Islamists were particularly active in Mosul where they attacked a nunnery, killed a well-known writer, bombed a popular cinema, and torched four liquor stores. Second, the rise of Iraqi Salafism and the infiltration of foreign Salafis and Al Qaeda operatives explains the rise of massive suicide bombing campaigns in Iraq that have dwarfed suicide bombing campaigns anywhere else in the world. What can one say about the social composition of the Sunni insurgency? The insurgency does not have the support of all Sunni Arabs but its range encompasses all classes and it is both urban and rural. Its ranks include students, intellectuals, former soldiers, tribal youth and farmers, and Islamists. The insurgency has the tacit support of many within the Sunni Arab community. These people may not actively support the insurgency but they are not reticent about expressing their admiration for the insurgents and their activities. For example, a member of the Fallujah administrative council openly stated that the insurgents are “mujahideen (holy warriors). We don’t know them,” he stated, but then ventured to add, “Al Anbar (the province where Fallujah is located) has a bigger nationalist consciousness than the rest of Iraq. We are also more religious. We consider this resistance a religious duty and a nationalist one as well.”12 Sympathy for the insurgency does not necessarily translate into activism

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within its ranks. The insurgency has several layers of operational activists. First, there are the combat components, that is to say, the individuals who commit the acts of violence against the coalition. The attackers are usually composed of young men – either former soldiers, whose attacks and ambushes have been the best-organized and most professional, or men without military experience, such as students or tribal youths as well as men from the ranks of the unemployed, who undertake the attacks under instructions from and guidance of older men, usually former regime soldiers or intelligence or security services officers. There are also part-time insurgents who participate in actions then return to their “normal” daily routines. The most amateurish insurgent fighters were also the “dumbest” and many have been killed or captured. Money was their prime motivation for participating in attacks. Second, the insurgency has a layer of individuals who are its financiers and arms suppliers. Insurgency like all other forms of violent action against a constituted authority or more powerful force is costly. Insurgent leadership must find ways to entice recruits to actively participate in an enterprise that can lead to capture, injury or death. Support for the goals of the insurgency – fighting for honor, nation, ethnicity, etc. are motivating factors to join an insurgency, but money and arms are needed to maintain an insurgent organization. In this context, the former regime loyalists hid large quantities of money around the country prior to the downfall of the regime. Although U.S. forces have uncovered many of these caches and captured several key insurgents with large quantities of cash, the insurgents continue to have access to financial resources. They have gotten donations from private citizens – some of whom may donate voluntarily – and particularly from rich families, particularly those who are in the construction/contracting and commercial sectors in Al-Anbar province. The role of the mosques and the Sunni clergy in the insurgency Insurgent organization and political indoctrination is opaque to U.S. forces. This is not surprising since it is increasingly the Sunni mosques – of which the U.S. has little understanding – that have become centers of opposition to the coalition. Traditionally, the Sunni clergy was not as politically active as their Shi’a counterparts. This has begun to change both in Iraq and in the rest of the Arab world. In Iraq we have witnessed a rising tide of political activism among the mainstream Sunni clerical establishment and the emergence of younger politically active clergymen (Imams) with clear-cut Salafist tendencies. The Friday sermons have been a traditional way of channeling political and social discontent in Muslim societies. In Iraq the Friday sermons by both Sunni and Shi’a clerics resonate with a population that has no notable or charismatic politician or lay leadership to turn to in this time of stress and humiliation. Very conservative Sunni Arabs living within the Sunni Triangle bounded by Baghdad, Ramadi, and Fallujah were receptive to religious political activism. Despite its original allegiance to militant secularism, Saddam’s regime itself

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began to promote the re-islamization of Iraqi society over the last ten years of its rule to buttress its legitimacy. This was symbolized by a number of religious policies undertaken with the official sanction of the regime over the course of its final years: in 1999 the regime launched al hamla al-imaniyah or the Enhancement of Islamic Faith campaign that saw the restriction of drinking and gambling establishments, the narrowing of secular practices and the promotion of religious education and the propagation of religious programming in the media. The regime even allowed Sunni clerics to politicize their sermons so long as they focused their ire on the forces that kept Iraq under debilitating sanctions. While the regime focused mainly on reviving religion among the minority Sunni Arab population, many Sunni Iraqi activists saw the regime’s strategy as a move from infidelity to hypocrisy.

The Shi’a insurgency Origins and evolution of the Shi’a insurgency By the end of March 2004 to everyone’s surprise significant elements of the Shi’a community rose in open rebellion against the coalition when the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr unleashed his, so-called “Mahdi Army” against the coalition. Suddenly, the coalition was faced with the unsavory prospect of a two-front war. The precipitating factors of the Shi’a insurgency were again the mistakes and failed policies of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) which was running Iraq at the time, but as with all conflicts there were underlying causes for the Shi’a uprising. The precipitating factors of Muqtada’s uprising seem simple enough. From the beginning, when he unexpectedly emerged as a political force, Muqtada had shown himself to be disdainful and critical of the CPA and of the Iraqis on the Governing Council who were assisting the former in running Iraq and in preparing the country for a return to sovereignty. However, for the most part he was smart enough never to cross the red-line: i.e. to avoid inciting violence. Instead, he focused his energies on revitalizing his father’s extensive political network among the poor Shi’a and the younger clerical establishment. He created a militia, a major step in itself, but cleverly he argued that it would not be armed and would devote itself to social work in the neighborhoods. The members of the militia merely hid the arms that they had acquired from looted Iraqi military stores at their homes. The central offices of the Sadrist movement supplied ammunition that allowed members of the militia to practice their marksmanship in the numerous garbage-filled open fields that dot Madinat Sadr (Sadr City), a sprawling squalid suburb of Baghdad where the unemployment rate hovers around 70 percent. The militia was made up largely of disgruntled and unemployed young Shi’a men of Madinat Sadr who would stand at street corners for hours on end every day. Eventually they would be enticed to attend Friday sermons after which their entry into the movement began. Few of the “rank and file” within the lower levels of the militia – often young barely literate

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kids who had migrated from rural areas into urban centers – had any training in arms or small-unit tactics whatsoever. For months, as Muqtada built up his organization, the Coalition and the CPA had debated what to do about the Sadrist movement, particularly after his sermons began to sound like they were preaching violence against the Americans. In March 2004 when the CPA decided to close down Muqtada’s paper and arrest one of his chief aides, Muqtada concluded that the U.S. was going to move decisively against him. He decided to preempt the move by calling out his supporters, arming them, and throwing them into battle against the Coalition forces. We cannot ignore the underlying causes of the Muqtada phenomenon as an insurgency. What we need to understand about the Muqtada phenomenon was that it was a populist one. Therefore, attacking his non-existent religious credentials simply because he was young and had not yet reached a level of religious learning within the Shi’a clergy, as the CPA did in late 2003 and early 2004, was besides the point and was a waste of time, effort, and resources. Muqtada was purely political: he was a populist who did not like foreigners, particularly Iranians, even though he takes material aid from them. Indeed, among the reasons given of Muqtada’s distaste of Ayatollah Sistani was the fact that the latter was of Iranian birth. In this context, we must also see Muqtada’s uprising as an internal struggle within the Shi’a hierarchy – waged largely between the “nativist” Iraqi Shi’a such as Muqtada and his movement on the one hand, and the returning exiles on the other – for political and socioeconomic primacy over the Shi’a population, and thus by extension – since the Shi’a are the majority – over the future of Iraq itself. Whether Muqtada expected a wider rallying of the Shi’a population to his side was not clear, but he knew that no Shi’a leader or organization could openly take sides with the U.S./Coalition against him without losing legitimacy or being considered open collaborators. There was a clear class and social basis to the Muqtada insurgency. Muqtada catered to the most dispossessed elements within the long-suffering Shi’a community. His constituents were the young disgruntled men of towns such as Madinat al-Sadr and Al-Kut where unemployment was rampant. Even if the Shi’a did not welcome the advancing coalition forces with open arms, without a doubt the coalition did have considerable goodwill among many of the Shi’a in the early days of the occupation. However, the Shi’a were prepared to challenge the authority and legitimacy of the Coalition if the gap between its promises and its achievements were too great. And the Shi’a political leader best prepared, or able to undertake that challenge was, none other than, Muqtada. During two days of patrolling with members of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in early March 2004 I got a full flavor of the rising tide of anti-American sentiment among the young, especially among young men who claimed that they were members of the Al Mahdi Army. By way of contrast, on my previous visit to Madinat Sadr in November 2003, the inhabitants were still quite friendly and open despite a serious contretemps between some of them and some U.S. military personnel in October 2003, that had led to overt expressions of hostility among segments of the inhabitants of Madinat Sadr.

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Strengths and weaknesses of the Muqtada movement Muqtada gained traction with many Shi’a because of his perceived courage in standing up to the Coalition. Whether he did this in self-defense or out of opportunism, his act of defiance struck a chord with many Shi’a because, by late March 2004, many within that community had begun to see the June 30 agreement to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis as bogus and that Iraq would continue to remain under barely concealed U.S. control beyond that date. But Muqtada was not able to foment a Shi’a-wide revolt. Many Shi’a are simply terrified of his political vision of an Islamic government ruled by politicized clerics. Moreover, although he has made some headway in becoming a more nationally-recognized leader as a result of his pugnacious statements calling upon Iraqis to launch a nation-wide revolt and upon the Coalition to leave; this has not been enough. He has yet to transcend the bounds of his own uncouth constituency. The class distinction between his followers and the inhabitants of Najaf and Karbala, where his militia chose to make a stand is evident in the anger with which the petty bourgeoisie and commercial class of these towns have reacted to the downturn in business occasioned by the fighting in both cities in 2004. In the aftermath of the collapse of Saddam’s regime, these two holy cities witnessed a massive revival in commercial activity and construction of housing and hotels as a result of the surge in pilgrim traffic from Iran and throughout the Shi’a world. Although there was tension between the native Iraqis of these towns and the influx of richer Iranians (many Iraqis blamed the dramatic increase in prices and rents on the Iranians) such tension was subordinated to the fact that a large proportion of the population was either making money or benefitting from the economic upsurge. If the Maoist adage that political power grows out of the barrel of the gun is accurate, Muqtada should worry because he has the least number of barrels in Iraq. His militia is the weakest in the country and while it has a number of members of the former Iraqi army, it also includes a large number of young men who have little or no military skills (including young men who had avoided the draft under the former regime by disappearing from sight). In this context, it was not surprising that Muqtada began to feel that his best strategy was to marshal the mass social movement that made up his constituency of the “dispossessed” into a powerful political force. To some extent Muqtada reinvented himself as a political leader of some stature. Nonetheless, this has not meant that he has put away the gun. Indeed, the Mahdi Army became better trained and better equipped over the course of 2005–2006. It emerged as the “protector” of the Shi’a against the terrorist depredations of radical Sunni extremists when poor Shi’a – often the prime targets of suicide bombings – complained that the security forces and “official” militias dominated by the Shi’a political parties were not doing enough to protect them. Indeed, the internal security dilemma that the various ethno-sectarian communities face visà-vis one another presents the country with the prospect of civil war.

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From insurgency to civil war? From the vantage point of summer 2006 the original insurgency has evolved into patterns of complex warfare/violence. “National resistance” by a small segment of the population, terrorism by religious extremists, politico-economic violence by organized criminal gangs, and incipient civil war pitting ethnic and religious groups against one another has become the norm rather than an all-out so-called war of national liberation against the Coalition forces and the struggling Iraqi authorities. The possible descent into civil war is what seems to worry most Iraqis. Observers of the Iraqi scene as well as academic specialists are not sanguine either. Nicholas Sambanis, Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University, and a well-known expert on civil wars and internal conflict, wrote on July 23, 2006 that “It’s official: There Is Now A Civil War In Iraq.”13 In his piece he defines civil wars “as armed conflicts between the government of a sovereign state and domestic political groups mounting effective resistance in relatively continuous fighting that causes high numbers of deaths.”14 Sambanis acknowledges that the definition does little to distinguish civil wars from other forms of political violence. Indeed, his definition of civil war could very well describe the kind of insurgencies that have occurred in Iraq since 2003. Many analysts have acknowledged the difficulties of defining civil war, particularly in this post-Cold War era of rampant internal violence within states that have been described as “failing” or “failed” states.15 We traditionally view civil wars as a form of violence within a bitterly divided polity in which the opposing sides are pitted against one another by means of conventional armies. Hence, we refer to the English Civil War, which opposed the armies of King Charles I (the “Cavaliers”) and the Parliament (the “Roundheads”). By the same token, the American Civil War pitted two opposed armies representing two separate governments, the Federal and the Confederate. This characterization of civil war between wellorganized factions with distinct governmental entities has been best exemplified by the view of Hans Magnus Enzensberger, who in his book, Civil Wars from L.A. to Bosnia, wrote of the American, Russian and Spanish Civil Wars “there were regular armies and fronts; the central command structures attempted to carry out their strategic objectives in a planned way through strict control of their troops. As a rule there was political, as well as military leadership, following clearly defined goals, and ready and able to negotiate when necessary.”16 But it seems that Enzensberger was suggesting that “old” civil wars were civilized and rational affairs conducted by recognized governmental entities on both sides in contrast to “new” civil wars that are characterized by gratuitous violence by groups without recognizable goals. But as Stathis Kalyvas pointed out in a seminal study, civil wars have been known since ancient times to be particularly violent and cruel affairs.17 This occurs even if they are conducted by two recognizable entities with armies competing for political and ideological control over a particular territory. And what seems to be gratuitous and indiscriminate violence/terror has a rational basis to it. Indeed, in the final analysis definitions need not be static; civil war in this day

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and age can and should be defined as widespread and sustained violence among communities of a particular polity over the identity and future direction of their country, encompassing the use of regular and quasi-regular forces and the solicitation of aid from outside parties. It occurs when the state is incapable of mediating internal conflicts peacefully. Furthermore, the rise of militia organizations is evidence of the state’s lack of capability to maintain law and order and stability; seeing this, the various communities begin to put their trust in local military forces that protect people on the basis of ethnic, regional, or sectarian identity. Militias themselves are not only a reflection of the state’s institutional collapse; their mere existence and their activities on the ground fan the flames of further violence between communities. This has already occurred in Iraq. In Iraq, the only indigenous side that has a recognizable regular army is the Iraqi government. But a deeper investigation would reveal that many of the militias are quasi-military forces or paramilitary forces. The myriad ethno-sectarian militias that were founded or came out into the open in late 2003 Iraq rapidly became a major problem. American occupation authorities in Iraq recognized this before they transferred sovereignty to the Iraqis. On February 19, 2004, Ambassador Paul Bremer stated that “we have made clear in discussions with the Kurdish leaders and other political leaders that we believe there’s no place in an independent, stable Iraq for armed forces that are not under the control of the command structure of the central government.”18 But none of the militias have come under effective government control. It is not clear how Iraqi authorities were to bring them under control. Iraq does not have effective security forces at present and the state is barely functioning in terms of providing basic services which people are accustomed to: law and order and security. The result is that people turn increasingly to militias which are organized along ethnic and sectarian lines and have began to dispense summary justice within their respective communities.19 All the major ethno-sectarian groups in Iraq have their own militias which are well-armed and trained and organized for sustained low-level combat operations. One senior CPA official in Al-Hilla encapsulated the situation in the country in a remarkable statement: “what we have in Iraq are militias with political parties.”20 The various party militias have refused to disband. Their respective supporters cite the lack of security in the country and argue that militias can contribute to bringing about law and order. The truth is more prosaic. The various parties are keeping their militias in reserve in case serious civil strife breaks out.21 However, militias widen the political gaps between the communities, promote clashes, and accelerate the slide towards civil war. In 2004 there were few clashes between rival communal militias, but these clashes increased in number and intensity in 2005 and in 2006. Another indicator of the onset of civil violence could be the rise of “militarized cantons” which refers to actions by ethnic or sectarian militias to take over policing of and security for their own enclaves, cities, or districts. The large Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga, many of whom have not integrated into the regular Iraqi army are a de facto army or an army in process of emergence. While many of the Shi’a militia are rabble or poorly trained, the situation

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is changing; and moreover, others like the Badr Corps, the armed force of the political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has received considerable training over the last 20 years from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. And finally, many of the Sunni insurgents are members of the former Iraqi army, and have often conducted small-scale operations in places like Ramadi that betray their military pedigree.

Conclusions Indeed, in this context we have moved beyond “mere” insurgency by one group and slowly entered the realm of the Hobbesian “warre of all against all.” The slow but steady descent into widespread Iraqi on Iraqi violence based on ethnosectarian affiliation began in late 2003 when people from the various communities began seeking succor, support, and security within their own respective communities. People who were not of the same faith or ethnicity are seen as the outsider. As one Iraqi observer put it at that time: “a tide of religious and ethnic sentiments was reborn by the war. Everyone now calls himself a Kurd or Arab, Shi’ite or Sunni and sticks to his side. Everyone feels the tension; the smallest incident could make things degenerate.”22 A worried Sunni Arab member of the Muslim Ulema Commission added in late February 2004 that “the people are not safe. The people have started to gather along sectarian lines. The ethnic and sectarian divisions threaten to fragment the country into small parts.”23 Saddam claimed to have wanted to abolish sectarian and ethnic affiliation as an organizing principle, yet he practiced it. The political climate of post-Saddam Iraq has further contributed to this by allowing sectarian and ethnic affiliation to continue to be the organizing principle of Iraqi politics. The formation of the Nuri al-Maliki government in spring 2006 was seen as yet another positive milestone in the country’s inevitable path to stability and security. Despite the wrangling between the various political parties over cabinet positions, the new government seemed far more energetic than its predecessor. Indeed, Nuri al-Maliki seemed to have a national plan to deal with the insurgency and the horrific descent into large-scale Iraqi on Iraqi ethno-sectarian violence. Al-Maliki provided a summary of his plan in an op-ed in the Washington Post on June 9, 2006. Maliki stated that his government would work on the strengthening of Iraq’s security forces and disarming of militias, the rebuilding of the infrastructure of more secure areas before other parts of the country, and the beginning of a “national reconciliation” to end the fighting between Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups. For Maliki, of course, security considerations trumped everything else; that was not difficult since he only had to look out of his office in the secure Green Zone in central Baghdad to see how far things had deteriorated even in the capital. In this context, Maliki promised to forcefully confront insurgent violence, particularly in Baghdad through the implementation of a massive security sweep. He also indicated that the new government was willing to negotiate with mainstream Iraqi insurgent groups concerning a cessation of fighting and their integration into the peaceful political process. Matters

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seemed promising in this arena, particularly as many of the “mainstream” Iraqi insurgent groups had grown tired of the religious extremists in their midst, most notably Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi. His death near Baquba as a result of a U.S. airstrike in early June 2006 was viewed as a very promising sign in that the insurgency could now liberate itself from its more extremist elements who had brought Iraq onto the brink of catastrophe by their indiscriminate terror and as a major boost to the Maliki government that desperately needed such a victory. But despite Zarqawi’s elimination, the Iraqi on Iraqi violence did not abate; and it looked as if the myriad militias or bands of gunmen that had emerged in the country had a great deal to do with the inter-communal violence. Maliki was also deeply concerned by the prevalence of militias and their activities that did not have the official sanction of the government. His plan was to integrate the more important militias into the security organs of the state and ensure their loyalty to the state and to disband others or retire older members of militia forces: “It is imperative that we reestablish a state monopoly on weapons by putting an end to militias,” Maliki wrote in his op-ed. “Unlike previous efforts, this will be done in a way that ensures that militia members are identified at the start, dispersed to avoid any concentration of one group in a department or unit, and then monitored to ensure loyalty only to the state.” Whether Maliki will succeed in reducing the insurgency by political and military means and in reducing the country’s growing fracture by dealing with, among other things, was open to question in late July 2006. His trip to the United States during that period was intended to elicit further support for a new strategy of halting the slide toward failure.

Notes 1 In his excellent overview of insurgency, Bard O’Neill describes the types of insurgencies; he refers to one kind as preservationist, which he defines as insurgencies undertaken by groups “oriented toward maintaining the status quo because of the relative political, economic, and social privileges they derive from it;” see Bard O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse, Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005, pp. 27–28. Similarly, some of the Sunni insurgents were trying to preserve, or more accurately restore the system, the Ba’athist regime, from which they had benefitted politically and socioeconomically. 2 Bard O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, p. 15. 3 Counterinsurgency Operations, Field Manual Interim 3-07.22, HQ, Department of the Army, October 2004. 4 The best recent studies of the Iraqi Shi’a community include Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi’as of Iraq, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003; Faleh Jabar, The Shi’ite Movement in Iraq, London: Saqi Books, 2003. 5 Full analysis of this structure of power and patronage is to be found in Faleh Jabar, “The State, Society, Clan, Party and Army in Iraq: A Totalitarian State in the Twilight of Totalitarianism,” in From Storm to Thunder: Unfinished Showdown Between Iraq and the United States, Tokyo, Institute of Developing Economies, 1998, pp. 1–28. 6 Daniel Williams, “In Sunni Triangle, Loss of Privilege Breeds Bitterness,” Washington Post, January 13, 2004, p. 1.

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7 Gerhard Sporl and Bernhard Zand, “The wrath of the conquered,” Der Spiegel, July 21, 2003 at www.spiegel.de/spiegel/english/0,1518,258027.html. 8 Maureen Fan and Drew Brown, “U.S. Losing Trust Around Baghdad,” Miami Herald, November 13, 2003 at ebird.afis.osd.mil/ebfiles/e20031113233079.html. 9 Aparisim Ghosh, “Inside the Mind of Saddam’s Chief Insurgent,” Time, July 24, 2006 at ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e2006072544730.html. 10 Quoted in Patrick Graham, “Americans Sow Seeds of Hatred,” The Guardian, November 9, 2003, observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1080989,00.html. 11 For more details see Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006. 12 Quoted in Charles Glover, Mark Huband and Roula Khalaf, “Smiles and Shrugs Speak Volumes about Nature of Attacks on American Troops,” Financial Times, September 25, 2003, p. 1. 13 Nicholas Sambanis, “It’s Official: There Is Now A Civil War In Iraq,” New York Times, July 23, 2006, ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20060723446956.html. 14 Ibid. 15 See, inter alia, Stathis Kalyvas, “New and Old Civil Wars,” World Politics, Vol. 54, October 2001, pp. 99–118; Sthathis Kalyvas, “The Ontology of ‘Political Violence’: Action and Identity in Civil Wars,” www.apsanet.org, Vol. 1, No. 3, September 2003. 16 Hans Magnus Enzensberge, From L.A. to Bosnia, New York: The New Press, 1994, p. 15. 17 Sthathis Kalyvas, “ ‘New’ and ‘Old’ Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction?,” World Politics, Vol. 54, October 2001, pp. 99–118. 18 Cited in Hannah Allam, “Kurdish peshmerga fighters determined to remain military unit,” Knight Ridder Newspapers, March 4, 2004 (accessed on-line). 19 Stephan Faris, “The Religious Militia Muscles In,” Time, March 1, 2004. 20 Meeting in Al-Hilla on February 20, 2004. 21 Edward Wong, “Iraqi parties refuse to disband militias,” New York Times, February 10, 2004. 22 Quoted in Deborah Parmentier, “Communal tensions high in Iraq six months after Baghdad fell,” Agence France Presse, October 7, 2003. 23 Quoted in Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, February 19, 2004.

8

The first battle for Fallujah Carter Malkasian

Perceptions matter in a guerrilla war, as in all conflict. Members of the population may join an insurgency because they perceive the government or occupying power as uncommitted to enduring the costs of counterinsurgency, or they may abandon the insurgency because they perceive insurgent violence as pointless in the face of a determined government or occupying power. Accordingly, signaling resolve – taking actions that indicate that the government or occupying power will bear the costs of suppressing the insurgency – plays a critical role in convincing potential insurgents of the futility of violence. Military force often seems the obvious means to signal resolve. Besides clearing a safe haven or killing a key leader, an offensive or raid can compel the population to recalculate whether they can endure the costs of violence and outlast the governing power. The first battle of Fallujah in April 2004 renders a cautionary lesson on using military force to signal resolve in an unconventional conflict. The United States launched the offensive into Fallujah in order to signal resolve and deter the population from supporting insurgent violence. Instead of signaling resolve, the offensive catalyzed popular support for insurgent violence in Iraq and threatened to turn the entire country against the Coalition. Violence escalated in the first battle of Fallujah because of the precipitous application of military force, unattended by the support of key Iraqi political bodies. The offensive into Fallujah generated a popular backlash against the Coalition. Iraqis viewed the offensive as an unjust act of a foreign occupier. The offensive represented a loss of freedom that made violence worthwhile. Set upon demonstrating rapid decisive action, Coalition leaders had failed to gain sufficient support from the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) prior to the offensive and had failed to implement measures to mitigate the impact of civilian casualties upon the council. Iraqi outrage at civilian casualties compelled the IGC to threaten to renounce support for the Coalition. The political opposition of the IGC forced the Coalition to cut off the offensive before it could signal resolve and deter Iraqis from supporting the insurgency. Instead of resolve, the Coalition signaled weakness. The premature cessation of the offensive amounted to a military victory for the insurgents, one that induced Iraqis, specifically Arab Sunnis, to support violence rather than compromise. It convinced many Sunnis that the United States could not endure the costs of fighting. This change in perceptions

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compounded the loss of popular support from the initial offensive. Ensuing efforts to resolve the violence through political means fell apart because Sunnis had no interest in compromise. The first battle of Fallujah suggests that signaling resolve in an unconventional environment involves more than the use of military force. The oppressive effects of military force upon a local population can escalate violence and trigger popular support for insurgents, counteracting positive effects from signaling resolve. This alone should bring pause to advocates of military force. The counteractive effects of using military force can be compounded if military force is unaccompanied by robust preparations to strengthen political support from indigenous political bodies and protect those bodies from popular backlash against the escalation of violence. Rather than signal resolve, a military action that generates political opposition, or stalls due to political opposition, heartens insurgents and drives moderates to their cause. Indigenous political opposition cannot always simply be ignored. Efforts to grant an occupied nation sovereignty or democratize a nation bolster the power of indigenous political bodies. An occupying power cannot disregard the opposition of key political bodies without discrediting those efforts toward sovereignty or democratization. In such circumstances, military force should be tailored to allow the support of indigenous political bodies, even at the expense of rapid action. Military force may not signal resolve as much as the support of key political bodies that enables a government or occupying power to wield force unrelentingly. This chapter derives from my experience advising the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) in Iraq from February 2004 to February 2005. I MEF was responsible for Al Anbar province in western Iraq, which included Fallujah. The chapter is divided into five sections. The first section reviews arguments regarding signaling resolve and using military force in an unconventional environment. The second section discusses the situation in Fallujah and Iraq before April 2004. This section emphasizes how Sunnis equivocated between supporting the insurgents and the Coalition. The third section examines the outbreak of the first battle of the Fallujah and the military operations to the end of April. It shows that the precipitous use of military force caused a popular backlash against the Coalition. The fourth section looks at the Fallujah Brigade initiative. The section highlights how the cessation of the offensive into Fallujah emboldened Sunnis to reject compromise with the Coalition. The fifth section summarizes the role of political cohesion in signaling resolve.

Signaling resolve and military force The importance of perceptions and signaling resolve in conflict has received substantial academic attention.1 Prominent scholars have outlined how conflicts persist because combatants perceive that their opponents have weak resolve or lesser military capability.2 These perceptions cause combatants to prefer violence to compromise. Certain scholars have noted that perceptions and resolve in unconventional conflicts affect popular support for insurgent violence. In his detailed

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study of the province of Long An in the Vietnam War, Jeffrey Race described how insurgent successes compelled the population to support violence: A number of people now became active in the movement who had previously been receptive to the idea of joining but had calculated that it was not expedient to do so. Just as in 1955 and 1956 the government’s apparent strength and survival capacity caused many to join who would not otherwise have done so, so now the apparent defeat of the government caused a corresponding shift in the other direction.3 Similarly, the Israeli Defense Force’s hasty withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 has been cited as causing Palestinians to perceive violence as a useful means of attaining their aims.4 The United States initiated the first battle of Fallujah in order to signal resolve. Key U.S. leaders feared that the brutal Blackwater murders, if left unpunished, would embolden uncommitted Iraqis to join the insurgency. The premise that military force could build political support related to the Bush Doctrine and the 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy, which stated: The presence of American forces overseas is one of the most profound symbols of the U.S. commitment to allies and friends. Through our willingness to use force in our own defense and in defense of others, the United States demonstrates its resolve to maintain a balance of power that favors freedom.5 Projecting power and demonstrating resolve would presumably cause states to bandwagon with the United States and domestic popular opinion to shift in favor of the U.S. government. Accordingly, U.S. leaders thought that military force would deter the Iraqi population from supporting the insurgency.6 Following the first battle of Fallujah, the failure to signal resolve has sometimes been attributed to the lack of fortitude on the part of U.S. decision-makers to complete the offensive.7 A more determined use of military force would have signaled resolve and circumvented the escalation of violence. Bing West recounted Lieutenant General Sanchez, commander of all Coalition forces in Iraq, arguing after the battle: “The lesson is to use massive force.”8 West himself stated: “The singular lesson from Fallujah is clear: when you send our soldiers into battle, let them finish the fight.”9 No shortage of historians and political scientists argue to the contrary; military force, particularly heavy-handed offensives, only antagonizes the population and spurs an insurgency. Mia Bloom claims that most counterinsurgency tactics are counterproductive. In Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror, she shows how Israeli tactics in the Al Aqsa Intifada, such as targeted assassinations, merely inflamed Palestinian public opinion and supplied continual recruits for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.10 Similarly, Race argues in War Comes to Long An that security measures alone offend the population, cause them to side with the insurgents, and ultimately lead to an escalatory spiral of violence.11

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A broad span of academic literature addresses the effect of domestic political support and democracy upon the use of military force. Political scientists have shown how signals of resolve tend to impress opponents if the governing and opposition parties are unified. Conversely, opponents give signals of resolve less credence if the government is unsupported.12 Other political scientists have focused specifically on insurgency. Most notably, Gil Merom argued in How Democracies Lose Small Wars that democracy undermines effective counterinsurgency. The effective use of force against insurgents necessitates brutality. Democracies allow domestic political opposition to form against that brutality, which can ultimately curtail the use of force. Successful use of force requires the domestic polity to tolerate casualties and brutality toward the enemy.13 Merom did not relate political opposition to signaling resolve or consider opposition outside of a domestic context, but he clearly thought that military force fails because political opposition precludes its full and sustained application. In general, the literature focuses on domestic political opposition within a democracy. That said, the idea that the actions of a separate political body affect the use of military force parallels the role the IGC played with the Coalition. The establishment of democracy drove the U.S. mission in Iraq. Although only an advisory body, the creation of a sovereign and democratic Iraqi government (the Iraqi Interim Government) slated for June 2004 depended upon the blessing of the IGC. Thus, just as a democracy cannot dissolve domestic opposition, the Coalition could not disregard the opposition of the IGC.

Fallujah and Al Anbar before April 2004 In early 2004, the insurgency in Iraq comprised two broad groups: Sunni resistance and jihadists.14 The Sunni resistance formed the basis of the insurgency. Centered on local areas, the resistance included Ba’athists, the former military, and a wide pool of young and impoverished Sunni men. In early 2004, the Sunni population, including sheikhs, major civic leaders, and Sunni politicians, broadly supported the resistance, but also interacted with the Coalition. The Sunni resistance had two general aims. First, they wanted the United States, viewed as an occupying power, to withdraw from Iraq. Cadres of Iraqis, many ex-soldiers, formed the resistance once the United States occupied Iraq. A combination of nationalism, sectarianism, and Islamic belief influenced Sunnis to take up arms against the U.S. invasion. An Oxford Research International poll in March 2004 found that 66 percent of the people in central Iraq, which included the Sunni-dominant provinces, viewed the Coalition invasion as a humiliation for Iraqis rather than liberation. Fifty-seven percent opposed the presence of Coalition forces.15 Heavy-handed Coalition actions, arbitrary raids, and collateral damage generated support for the resistance. Most notably, on April 28 and 30, 2003, U.S. troops twice fired into mass gatherings in Fallujah, together resulting in 13 civilians dead and 91 wounded.16 The two incidents spurred popular support for the resistance in Fallujah. Second, the Sunni resistance sought greater political power and economic

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benefits. The fall of the Saddam regime, followed by de-Ba’athification and the dissolution of the Iraqi Army, curtailed Sunni political influence and income. The military and bureaucracy had provided a large number of jobs and the Saddam regime had subsidized agriculture and industries. Estimates of unemployment in Al Anbar in early 2004 ranged from 40 percent to 60 percent. Jihadists, epitomized by the Al Qaeda-affiliated network of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, were the extremist terrorists and foreign fighters. Iraqis as well as foreigners became jihadists. Like the Sunni resistance, jihadists sought to compel a U.S. withdrawal, but only as a means of creating an anarchical environment conducive to supporting terrorist activity in the region. Ultimately, they hoped to establish a new caliphate centered in Iraq. Jihadists attacked Iraqi civilians (especially Shi’a) and the IGC, as well as Coalition forces. Zarqawi targeted Shi’a in order to create tension with the Sunnis and instigate a civil war.17 Jihadists rejected any compromise with the Coalition or the Iraqi government. Their intention to found a religious state that exported terrorism clearly threatened U.S. national security. In spite of ideological differences, jihadists and Sunni resistance generally cooperated against the Coalition occupation. Jihadists and hard-line elements of the Sunni resistance perceived the United States as weak and believed that their aims were attainable through fighting. They thought that the United States could not endure a prolonged conflict and would shortly withdraw from Iraq.18 Zarqawi wrote to Osama Bin Laden in early 2004: “The enemy [the United States] is apparent, his back is exposed, and he does not know the land or the current situation of the mujahidin because his intelligence information is weak. We know for certain that these Crusader forces will disappear tomorrow or the day after.”19 The letter also stated: “It [the United States] is looking to the near future, when it hopes to disappear into its bases safe and at ease.”20 Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia, and the 1991 Iraqi intifada added to the perception that the United States would withdraw and abandon its supporters in Iraq. Many Sunnis did not perceive a U.S. withdrawal as inevitable. Moderate Sunnis, largely composed of prominent sheikhs, civic leaders, and politicians, passively supported the resistance but still tentatively cooperated with the Coalition and were not committed to violence. They chose to proceed with their daily lives, lending passive support rather than taking up arms. The Oxford Research International poll from March 2004 found that only 29 percent of the people in Sunni provinces viewed attacks on the Coalition as acceptable.21 Fifty percent believed the Coalition should remain in Iraq until the establishment of a permanent government or the restoration of security, compared to 33 percent who wanted the Coalition to withdraw immediately. Zarqawi noted the non-violent position of moderate Sunnis with concern: “they [the Shi’a-dominated IGC and the United States] have succeeded in splitting the regular Sunni from the Mujahidin. For example, in what they call the Sunni triangle, the army and police are spreading out . . ., putting in charge Sunnis from the same region.”22 Even in Fallujah a small degree of interaction occurred. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the 82nd Airborne Division set up the Fallujah

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Provisional Authority Council to run the city. It contained the few moderate Sunnis still willing to work with the Coalition.23 The local 505th ICDC Battalion (national guard) showed some signs of cohesion and cooperated in training with the Coalition. They proudly bragged about nine jihadists they killed in a major battle on 14 February.24 Growing insurgent strength By early 2004, before the first battle of Fallujah, insurgents had organized within cities – such as Fallujah, Ramadi, and Husaybah – in cells of four to five men, primarily from the local population.25 They regularly conducted guerrilla attacks, albeit at a low intensity. However, the strength of the insurgency was growing. With limited forces, the 82nd Airborne Division could not regularly operate in most cities and towns, leaving the insurgents freedom of movement.26 Indications of insurgent strength abounded in certain areas. Local tribally based Sunni resistance dominated the border town of Husaybah, a major smuggling point. In Ramadi, cadres of Sunni resistance had been fighting since summer 2003, funded by former regime leaders. The most ominous indications of insurgent strength came from Fallujah. Residents and city leaders supported the resistance, partly because of the April 2003 violence but also because of the city’s religious fundamentalism and large population of Ba’athist and former Iraqi Army officers.27 The insurgents exploited the absence of Coalition forces. Jihadists centered much of their activity in Fallujah. The terrorist leaders that planned the devastating attack in Karbala in early March 2004 operated out of Fallujah. Abdullah al Janabi, an imam, helped coordinate local Sunni resistance activity with jihadist elements.28 Jihadists were gaining dominance over the city. On February 14, a group of jihadists, probably from the Zarqawi network, assaulted the police station, resulting in a major firefight. The 505th ICDC Battalion managed to defend the station but not before the police had been overwhelmed and 82nd Airborne reinforcements had been repulsed. Completely demoralized, the police resigned in droves. A series of major insurgent attacks followed during March, culminating in a Marine foray into the city on March 26 that generated heavy fighting against roughly 100 insurgents.29 The worsening situation suggested that Fallujah needed a Marine presence lest the jihadists gain control and turn the city into a base for operations throughout Iraq. However, the situation remained stable enough for I MEF and the 1st Marine Division (its ground combat element) to consider a cautious plan for taking Fallujah and not rushing into a major battle. The I MEF leadership wanted to wait before clearing the city. Relationships needed to be formed with moderate Sunnis in order to mitigate popular resistance. Furthermore, information needed to be collected on insurgent activity. Better intelligence would reduce collateral damage through identifying precise targets. Marine officers strongly wanted to limit damage to the city and its inhabitants.30 Finally, the two local ICDC battalions needed further time to train and build confidence. They resisted entering the city

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alongside Marines or even holding checkpoints in rear areas while Marines advanced. Iraqi participation would dilute the image of occupation.

The Mahdi uprising As the situation in Al Anbar worsened, a threat to stability formed in southern Iraq. After the fall of the Saddam regime, the Shi’a population, located in southern Iraq, largely cooperated with the Coalition. Violent activity was minimal. Shi’a political and religious leaders worked with the Coalition in order to promote Shi’a power in the new Iraq. Shi’a political leaders and parties held 13 of 25 seats in the IGC. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most prominent Shi’a leader, commanded wide respect from the Shi’a population. Sistani embraced moderate beliefs and opposed violence. He usually cooperated with the Coalition, although he advocated a peaceful solution to the insurgency. In general, the support of the Shi’a population (the largest ethnic group in Iraq) lent tremendous credibility to the Coalition presence in Iraq. The major exception to Shi’a support for the Coalition was Moqtada al Sadr, a vocal young cleric from Najaf. Sadr condemned the CPA and demanded an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. He wanted to create an Islamic government in Iraq and gain personal political power. He tried to compete with Sistani for religious leadership of the Shi’a. Since the fall of the Saddam regime, Sadr had been making statements that verged on inciting violence. Poor and unemployed elements of Shi’a society served as a base of popular support. Sadr formed an armed militia, the “Mahdi Army,” estimated at 3,000 to 10,000 strong. Baghdad and every city in southern Iraq had a Mahdi Army contingent. Throughout March, Sadr acted increasingly aggressively. In reaction, on March 28 Ambassador Paul Bremer, head of the CPA, shut down Sadr’s newspaper, al Hamza. On April 2, the Coalition arrested one of Sadr’s key lieutenants. The following day widespread protests broke out. Then, on April 4, violence shook Coalition control over southern Iraq. The Mahdi Army assaulted Coalition and ICDC compounds in Najaf, Nasiriyah, Al Kut, Baghdad, Al Amarah, and even Kirkuk. Literally thousands of Shi’a took part. Fighting spread to Basra, Karbala, and Hillah. The militia captured several police stations and city government centers. Sadr cast the uprising as a revolt against occupation. Thousands of Shi’a protested in major cities in the south. The ICDC and police in several cities largely disintegrated. By April 8, the Coalition had lost control of Najaf. Over the next two months, the Coalition fought to regain control of the southern cities. The Mahdi uprising imperiled Coalition control of the Shi’a south and the support of the Shi’a majority of Iraq. Sadr had easily overthrown Coalition control. Moderate Shi’a did not counter the moves of extremists, even if they opposed Sadr and his activities. Shi’a religious and political leaders objected to the military force used by the Coalition to reassert control over Najaf and Karbala. Although he reportedly preferred the Coalition to the Mahdi Army, Sistani issued an official statement that condemned the U.S. approach toward the

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Shi’a uprising. He called for both sides to pursue a peaceful resolution.31 Sistani’s equivocal approach did little to deter public participation in protests against the Coalition. These events placed the IGC and the Coalition in an extremely weak political position on the eve of the first battle of Fallujah.

The first battle of Fallujah Before the Mahdi uprising broke out on April 4, tensions between the Coalition and Sunni population escalated in Fallujah. On March 31, insurgents and people in Fallujah murdered four Blackwater security contractors driving through the city and hung their bodies from the bridge over the Euphrates. Large crowds of people, including police, gathered, cheering and waving enthusiastically. The media televised the gruesome event. In the aftermath, local universities reportedly endorsed the violence and Fallujah imams refused to explicitly condemn the killings.32 The U.S. government, the CPA, and Combined Joint Task Force SEVEN (CJTF-7, the military command over Coalition forces in Iraq) viewed the murders as an inexcusable affront. They wanted the insurgent sanctuary in Fallujah permanently removed. The importance of resolve permeated the thought processes of key U.S. leaders. They thought that the insurgents and Sunni population would scoff at the power of the United States if flagrant rejections of Coalition authority went unpunished. Inaction would signal weakness to the insurgents and Sunni population. Rapid military action would deter moderate Sunnis from supporting the insurgency. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez (commander of CJTF-7) wanted Lieutenant General James Conway (commander of I MEF) to immediately enter the city.33 General John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), felt I MEF’s March plan to clear Fallujah would signal weakness internationally.34 The plan allowed too much time to pass while building intelligence and developing Iraqi forces. Ambassador Bremer told Sanchez, “We’ve got to react to this outrage or the enemy will conclude we’re irresolute.”35 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld also pressed for immediate military action.36 On April 1, Rumsfeld relayed the direction for Coalition forces to enter Fallujah. CJTF-7 dubbed the operation “Vigilant Resolve.” Bremer wanted to use military force to signal resolve in southern Iraq as well. He told key U.S. national security officials, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, “we must respond forcefully to Muqtada. There are lots of people sitting on various fences to see how we will react (other militia, tribes, etc.) – and all those pleasant folks in Fallujah. If we show weakness now we will be pushing Iraq to civil war.”37 He later repeated this argument to the secretary of defense, secretary of state, and national security advisor. The decision to attack Fallujah appears to have been reached with little consultation with the IGC. The Fallujah crisis and the Mahdi uprising placed the council under great stress. Supporters of Sunni ministers disparaged the offen-

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sive against Fallujah while supporters of Shi’a ministers disparaged military action in the southern cities. On April 5, Bremer met with the Iraqi Ministerial Committee for National Security. He described the ministers as “wobbly.” Most of the ministers resisted endorsing firm action against Sadr.38 Apparently, the CPA took no further action to build political support in the IGC, or with Sistani, for the offensive into Fallujah. I MEF was also not prepared to conduct a major offensive into Fallujah. Lieutenant General Conway and Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, preferred to wait longer. The problems that had been identified in March – poor relationships with moderate Sunnis, inadequate intelligence collection, and undeveloped Iraqi forces – still existed. The heavy fighting encountered during the March 26 foray reinforced the importance of careful and thorough preparations. With just two Marine infantry battalions and two shaky ICDC battalions in the immediate vicinity of Fallujah, Mattis possessed few forces to conduct a major urban offensive, especially without thorough preparations. In spite of these concerns, he obeyed orders and created a plan for two battalions to advance into the city. CJTF-7 assigned its available Iraqi forces to I MEF for the operation. These forces included the only two trained Iraqi Army battalions and the 36th ICDC Commando battalion. In their haste to launch an offensive, Coalition leaders paid insufficient attention to minimizing civilian casualties. Conway and certain members of the I MEF staff recognized that the battle risked sparking wider Iraqi resistance and that civilian casualties could turn international and Iraqi public opinion against the Coalition. However, the need to expedite the attack meant that measures could not be taken to evacuate all civilians from the city, which would have been the best means of minimizing civilian casualties, or construct an information operations campaign to mitigate the impact of civilian casualties upon international and Iraqi public opinion. I MEF underestimated the presence and effectiveness of insurgent propagandists in the city. Furthermore, instructions from Sanchez, Abizaid, and Rumsfeld de-emphasized the importance of minimizing civilian casualties by endorsing harsh military action.39 The mood within I MEF shifted from working with the population to a combat mindset necessary for fighting an urban battle. On April 3, the two battalions moved into the outskirts of the city, setting up blocking positions and preparing to attack. Media broadcasts and the movement of forces warned the local population that an attack was imminent. Major firefights erupted with the insurgents. Jihadists and members of the Sunni resistance fought together. A large number of Sunnis sided with the insurgents, especially in the Fallujah area. Locals moved in large groups from their homes to makeshift fighting positions in buildings and mosques. Mosques called Iraqis to defend the city. Outlying villages were emptied of men.40 Iraqis poured into Fallujah from western towns. Insurgents formed into groups as large as a platoon. Total insurgent strength in Fallujah probably reached roughly 2,000 men. Although over 65,000 residents fled, the majority stayed in the city.41 Why did Sunnis flock to join the insurgency? Marine offensive preparations

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provoked Iraqis who would not have normally turned to violence. People from Fallujah told news reporters that the majority of locals had been unwilling to fight the Coalition in 2003 but that sentiment changed in April 2004.42 People saw Coalition offensives in southern Iraq and Fallujah as an attack on their whole society. Iraqis in Fallujah and Ramadi considered resisting the occupation to be a right. A large number of Sunnis joined the insurgents before the Coalition offensive even commenced. Dissatisfaction with their political and economic conditions further justified resistance. The Coalition had not improved their standard of living since the fall of the regime, and the shift of political power to the Shi’a disgusted Sunnis. Not all Sunnis joined the insurgency at this point. Moderate Sunnis outside of Fallujah wavered over whether to side with the Coalition or the insurgency. They waited for the outcome of the crisis to take sides. People were both frightened by the insurgents and offended by the offensive but they were still willing to work with the Coalition. Even in Fallujah, a few sheikhs and imams told the people not to take up arms. Refugees from the city waved at Marines and interacted with them in a friendly manner.43 Many locals hid in their homes, waiting for the fighting to end.44 The Marines advance into Fallujah officially began on April 6 with a limited two battalion attack. The battalions encountered widespread resistance from insurgents fighting in groups of eight to 30 men. 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment captured the southeast quadrant of the city. A limited foray by 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment into the northeast corner of Fallujah (the Jolan district) resulted in 36 hours of intense fighting, which drew the battalion into the outer edge of buildings.45 Heavy fighting continued over the next three days. Insurgents often coordinated mortars, volleys of RPGs, and machine-gun fire in defense of positions. The Iraqi forces assigned to the offensive lost their nerve. One Iraqi Army battalion deserted and the other refused to deploy. The two ICDC battalions largely deserted as well, rather than fight their fellow Sunnis in Fallujah. Many actually joined the insurgents. Only the 36th Commando Battalion did not dissolve, benefitting from close integration with U.S. special forces.46 The intensity of the fighting caused Mattis to reinforce the Fallujah area with four more battalions and a regimental headquarters before the end of April, removing nearly all forces from elsewhere in the I MEF area of operations, with the exception of Ramadi and Husaybah. The fighting in Fallujah quickly spread to most of Al Anbar. As I MEF attacked into Fallujah on April 6, the Sunni resistance mounted a set of ambushes in Ramadi that rapidly turned into a popular uprising. Coalition preparations to attack Fallujah probably encouraged the insurgents to act. Some came from outside towns to fight. As in Fallujah, mosques called men to arms. Locals, incensed over Fallujah, readily joined the fighting. The insurgents fought in groups of four to ten men. The Marines lost 12 killed and 30 wounded on April 6. Fighting continued until April 10, when a major clearing operation broke insurgent resistance for the time being. Overall, the Marines estimated that they killed 300 insurgents.47

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In rural areas, insurgents conducted massed ambushes on Coalition supply lines, choking the major supply routes surrounding Fallujah. Insurgents knocked out convoys around Fallujah, Ramadi, Abu Ghurayb, and North Babil. Supplying Coalition forces became difficult until I MEF devised new convoy techniques. Political opposition Overcoming resistance in Fallujah demanded the use of air strikes, artillery, and tanks. Their firepower accidentally killed civilians and damaged buildings and mosques. The media estimated total civilian deaths as high as 700, whereas the Iraqi Minister of Health gave a lower figure of 220 deaths.48 Firm evidence for both of these figures is lacking. Bing West calculated that air strikes destroyed over 75 buildings.49 Civilian casualties were not the result of any malicious Coalition intent but a function of the firepower necessary to overcome insurgent defenses. The large size of insurgent units meant that they could lay down a heavy volume of fire. Insurgent defensive positions were too strong to be taken via maneuver without support from artillery, mortars, air strikes, or tanks. An axiom of warfare since World War I has been that a well-manned position defended by automatic weapons cannot be taken without prohibitive casualties in the absence of artillery fire or air strikes. The urban environment of Fallujah made taking such positions even more difficult. Given these constraints, U.S. Marine units followed their combined arms doctrine to apply suppressive firepower in assaulting insurgent positions under fire. Marines applied firepower selectively against discrete targets rather than lavishly and indiscriminately as had been the case in the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, precision weapons struck some insurgent positions in mosques and firepower unintentionally killed and injured some civilians.50 Insurgents, the Iraqi people, and the Arab media greatly exaggerated civilian casualties. Insurgents spread rumors of Coalition atrocities and aggressively distributed false information of civilian casualties to the media and local people. Locals spoke of dead in the streets and ambulances being shot up. Doctors from Fallujah declared hundreds had been killed in the first few days of the battle. Children told the press of their parents being gunned down and their homes destroyed. Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya showed footage of U.S. air strikes and Iraqi bodies. They reported wounded civilians even before the offensive had begun.51 During the battle, Arab journalists claimed that 40 civilians had been killed in an air strike against a mosque when in fact no civilians had died.52 Al Jazeera played stock footage of injured civilians from previous battles and claimed the footage was from Fallujah.53 Largely because of inadequate time, I MEF had not prepared a solid plan to issue its own news releases that would pre-empt the false information coming out of the insurgency and the Arab media. Collateral damage upset the Arab media and the Iraqi people, especially televised footage of air strikes on mosques and images of wounded civilians. Iraqis

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felt the Coalition was killing and attacking Iraqis indiscriminately. Sunnis across Iraq protested U.S. tactics.54 Al Anbar Governor Abdul Karim Burjis received calls from his contacts throughout the Arab world, who asked why the Coalition was butchering the people of Fallujah. The provincial council called for a ceasefire. Fallujah redefined the resistance for Sunnis. For many, the offensive justified jihad against the Coalition. An International Republican Institute poll in Baghdad in early April showed that people saw the offensive in Fallujah as a disproportionate response to the killing of four contractors.55 Collateral damage spurred larger numbers of Sunnis to join the insurgency. According to many Iraqis, people that would not otherwise oppose the Marines presence in Fallujah took up arms because of the destruction of homes and injury to family members.56 On April 8, roughly 1,500 Iraqis staged a protest at the cloverleaf just outside the eastern entrance to the city, shouting anti-American slogans and carrying pro-insurgent banners.57 The crowd included Shi’a waving Sadr propaganda as well as Sunnis. This marked the first recorded occasion that Sadr propaganda had been seen in the Fallujah area. Fallujah was becoming perceived as not merely a Sunni, but a national, event. The offensives against Fallujah and the Mahdi Army made the Coalition into a mutual enemy for many Sunnis and Shi’a. Shi’a involved in the Mahdi uprising found common cause with the insurgents fighting against the Coalition in the Sunni Triangle. Shi’a empathized with images of wounded women and children in Fallujah.58 Shi’a mosques called people to help the Sunnis in Fallujah. Similarly, certain Sunni neighborhoods in Sadr City actively assisted the Mahdi Army.59 Graffiti in one Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad signified the moment of common cause: “Long live Fallujah’s heroes”; “Down with America and long live the Mahdi Army”; “Long live the resistance in Fallujah”; and “Long live the resistance.”60 The crisis came to a head when the IGC called for cease-fire negotiations in Fallujah. Members received tremendous pressure from their supporters to oppose the offensive. The IGC was furious that they had not been fully consulted prior to the initiation of the offensive, and the council refused to condemn the insurgent defense of Fallujah. Division marked a council meeting on April 7, as certain members attacked the Coalition for its heavy-handedness. Later, Sunni members, including Hachem Al Hassani (representing the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party) and the prominent Sunni, Ghazi al Yawr, threatened to leave the council if the Coalition did not initiate cease-fire negotiations with representatives of Fallujah.61 Even Adnan Pachachi, a staunch U.S. ally, openly criticized the offensive. Some of the members began negotiating with Fallujah city leaders. In the end, only Iraq’s human rights minister resigned, but the discontent voiced by the council members threatened the cohesion of the council.62 Simultaneously, the Shi’a Minister of the Interior resigned and a prominent Shi’a member of the IGC suspended his membership. Both were under pressure from the Mahdi uprising. These resignations and threats promised to fragment the IGC. Such an event would cripple democratization of Iraq and paint the Coalition as an occu-

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pier oppressing the Iraqi people against the will of its leaders. As a result, Iraqi, international, and domestic U.S. opinion would likely turn against the mission in Iraq. Late on April 8, Bremer began working toward a cease-fire in Fallujah.63 With violence spreading throughout Iraq, the U.S. government halted the offensive. On April 9, CJTF-7 ordered I MEF to cease offensive operations but hold and defend its positions within the city. Although initially meant to be only a 24-hour pause to relieve Iraqi domestic political pressure on the IGC, the U.S. government never resumed the offensive.64 The United States faced international political pressure as well, although the bulk of it appears to have transpired after the unilateral cease-fire. Lakhdar Brahimi, UN special representative to Iraq, disapproved of the offensive and threatened to quit his mission to construct a plan for the selection of an interim government.65 The British government strongly pressured the United States to find a solution to the situation other than continuing the military offensive. The British Foreign Office and military criticized U.S. tactics as heavy-handed. On April 16, Prime Minister Tony Blair met with President George W Bush. He said that renewing the offensive threatened to break up the Coalition.66 The April 9 cease-fire halted the Marines advance but fighting continued, including several firefights involving 30 to 100 insurgents.67 Insurgents also launched battles with Coalition forces in towns close to Fallujah, such as Khalidiyah, Karma, and Abu Ghurayb. Violence even spread to Husaybah, where roughly 150 insurgents fought a major battle with Marines on April 17. Apparently, local resistance worked with the Zarqawi network to mount the attack, which may have been planned in coordination with the fighting in Fallujah. Different insurgent groups coordinated attacks and moved fighters across the entire Sunni Triangle. Insurgents from Ramadi, Mosul, Tikrit, and Kirkuk supported Fallujah with arms, supplies, and men. The insurgency no longer consisted of disconnected cells in each town or city operating independently. In Fallujah itself, a new group of insurgent leaders had emerged. Janabi acted as the predominant leader, but former Iraqi generals helped guide the defense. New jihadist leaders also emerged, most notably Omar Hadid, who won fame for personal bravery on the front line. By the middle of April, the use of military force to suppress the insurgency in Fallujah appeared an utter failure. Military force had escalated the conflict, inspiring previously quiescent Iraqis to take up arms. The Oxford Research International poll from March 2004 had found that 49 percent of all polled (throughout Iraq) viewed the invasion as a humiliation for the Iraqi people rather than liberation. A new poll in late April, by a different polling agency, found that 89 percent of Iraqis viewed the Coalition as an occupying force.68 The Oxford poll had also shown that only 26 percent of Iraqis thought the U.S. should withdraw immediately. The new poll found that 76 percent of all Iraqis thought the U.S. should move to bases away from the towns after the transfer of sovereignty in June.69 Popular discontent undermined the Iraqi political support necessary to complete the military action. Tactical success meant nothing without this popular support.

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The creation of the Fallujah brigade The Coalition and I MEF gradually turned to addressing the insurgency through political means, culminating in the formation of the Fallujah Brigade. In the end, though, a political solution failed because, after the unilateral cease-fire on April 9, Sunnis viewed the Coalition as weak and compromise as unnecessary, creating an atmosphere where jihadists gained dominance. The first battle of Fallujah had signaled U.S. weakness instead of resolve. After the April 9 “cease-fire,” the IGC began negotiating with moderate Sunni leaders from Fallujah and Ramadi, most of who interacted with the Sunni resistance. The Coalition wanted a cessation of violence and the locals to turn over insurgent heavy weapons and foreign fighters within the city. The I MEF leadership viewed the negotiations skeptically because insurgent attacks continued despite the fact that offensive operations had already ended. Reports from the negotiations suggested that Sunni leaders were not interested in ending the violence, but rather in capitalizing on Coalition concessions.70 They repeatedly denied the presence of foreign fighters within the city and said just a few wayward criminals perpetrated the violence. Additional lines of negotiations emerged as different Coalition entities made contact with various Sunnis from Fallujah, who claimed authority. Reportedly, by April 15, President Bush sought an option other than restarting the offensive and risking political progress in Iraq or withdrawing from Fallujah and leaving the insurgents in control.71 Nevertheless, negotiations dragged on with little movement toward ending the fighting. Conway resolved the dilemma by establishing the Fallujah Brigade, a unit of Sunni former military, recruited to enforce order in the city and root out foreign fighters. The Fallujah Brigade was an ambitious attempt to neutralize the insurgency by addressing the major grievances behind the Sunni resistance. Conway disliked holding static positions in the city and facing persistent heavy fighting and steady Marine casualties. Realizing that the U.S. government would never restart the offensive, he sought an option that would save Marine lives while also providing security to the city. Conway and his chief of staff, Colonel John Coleman, perceived a division between jihadists and Sunni resistance within the city. They understood that opposition to a foreign occupier united the resistance and the jihadists. However, they perceived that the Sunni resistance had no interest in creating anarchy or a fundamentalist state.72 If the Coalition withdrew and enabled the Sunnis to provide their own security, then the resistance would see no reason to continue the insurgency. Hopefully, the resistance would turn on the jihadists, who otherwise perpetrated violence harmful to the Sunni community. The idea of the Fallujah Brigade matured when the director of the nascent Iraqi National Intelligence Service, General Shehwani, proposed establishing a local Sunni force around a reliable former Iraqi army general and other reliable officers. Conway thought that the old Sunni officers of the Iraqi Army might be a means to create stability in Fallujah. Perhaps the former soldiers, with no interest in terrorism or religious extremism, would root out the jihadists. Meanwhile, the Coalition would start funneling in civil assistance to rebuild the city.73

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Besides pacifying Fallujah, Conway and Coleman wanted the brigade to become a vehicle for reversing Sunni marginalization and bringing Sunnis into the political process.74 Coleman felt that military force was not the key to success. The only means of defeating the insurgency, from his perspective, was to allay their political and economic concerns.75 He believed the Fallujah Brigade could help do so by giving the resistance prestige within the Sunni community – building their position against the jihadists – as well as a stake in interacting with the Coalition and the IGC. The old Iraqi Army embodied one of the most revered structures in Iraq. An Iraqi army formation would draw Sunnis from Fallujah to its colors and regenerate nationalist bonds. I MEF could try to place the brigade under the Ministry of Defense, which would give the Sunnis a direct role in the military. Economic assistance and advocacy of Sunni political concerns to the CPA could further encourage the moderates to join the political process of building an independent Iraqi government. Using these tools, Conway and Coleman believed the Sunnis might be brought back into the Iraqi political process and induced to reduce their military activity. They pursued the Fallujah Brigade initiative cautiously, however, always aware that former Iraqi officers might prove unreliable and that the entire enterprise might need to be scrapped at any moment. On April 25, Conway began negotiations with five former Iraqi generals, identified by Shehwani. I MEF and the Iraqi generals shared a common goal of ending violence in Fallujah and removing terrorists from Iraq. The generals agreed with the concept of forming a locally recruited brigade to secure Fallujah.76 After the meeting, one Iraqi general, Brigadier Abdullah Muhamdi, and some other former officers entered Fallujah and obtained the sanction of Sunni resistance leaders to form a brigade. The next day the generals reported a battalion could be formed in three days, under the command of former Staff General Muhammed Jasim Saleh.77 Apprised of the situation, CENTCOM gave I MEF the authority to create the Fallujah Brigade. Negotiations rapidly came to an agreement that the Marines would withdraw from their foothold in the city, the insurgents would cease attacks in the area, and the Fallujah Brigade would pacify the city. The Fallujah Brigade leadership promised to fight jihadists in the city.78 I MEF and the leadership of the Fallujah Brigade set four objectives for the Fallujah Brigade: ending attacks on the Coalition, securing heavy weapons from the city, obtaining an apology for the Blackwater murders, and capturing all the foreign fighters in the city. On April 30, Saleh led roughly 300 uniformed new soldiers of the Fallujah Brigade out of Fallujah and met Conway about 100 meters away at the cloverleaf. They had been recruited over the past few days. Any training originated with the old Iraqi Army. Many of the soldiers had been fighting the Coalition days earlier.79 The 1st Marine Division withdrew to the outskirts of the city. Insurgent leaders ordered a cessation of attacks in the city and its immediate outskirts. Janabi enforced a moratorium on operations in the vicinity of Fallujah. Imams forbade the firing of weapons within the city or armed presence on the streets. They implied that Fallujah had been successfully defended, stating

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“There have been several efforts to defend the city from the inside and outside and we need to continue doing that against any aggressors, and it is important to keep our unity.”80 The Fallujah Brigade would rapidly grow to roughly 2,000 men, largely Sunni resistance from the Fallujah area. The Coalition paid for their service. The U.S. government accepted the brigade as the best option yet for resolving the crisis surrounding Fallujah. The IGC generally opposed the brigade because it created an armed Sunni militia. Days after the formation of the brigade, the IGC forced the removal of Saleh because of his connections to the Saddam regime. Bremer and the CPA completely distrusted the Fallujah Brigade as well.81 From the point of view of the insurgents, they had attained their major military objective of keeping the Coalition out of Fallujah. They declared victory and initiated a propaganda and rumor campaign that spread that message.82 Both the insurgents and moderate Sunnis (those Sunnis passively supporting the resistance yet open to interacting with the Coalition in March 2004) revised their calculations of the likelihood of the Coalition persevering in Iraq. Moderate Sunnis had expected the Coalition to overcome insurgent opposition easily. When the insurgents survived, they perceived the Coalition as weak. Intelligence reports repeatedly stated that insurgents and moderate Sunnis felt that Americans withdrew because they had been defeated. The media reported that Fallujah residents believed that the resistance taught the Coalition that Fallujah could not be taken.83 One former general said that defeating the Americans in Fallujah represented only the first step in evicting them entirely from Iraq.84 Moderate Sunnis stopped resisting the insurgency, deciding that it might defeat the Coalition.85 Fallujah Brigade meetings often included extended espousals of insurgent strength by prominent Sunni leaders.86 Moderate Sunnis feared the repercussions of siding with the Coalition and the Iraqi government when the United States departed and they faced the insurgents alone.87 Arab Americans on the 1st Marine Division staff could not identify any group of Sunnis within Fallujah that was willing to compromise.88 The deleterious effects of the cease-fire spread beyond Fallujah. A Kurdish member of the IGC, Mahmoud Othman, stated: “Fallujah has been given to the very people the Americans were fighting. . . . This sends a bad signal to Iraqis . . . it encourages the pro-Saddam people and Ba’athists to carry out more [insurgent] actions in other parts of the country.”89 Journalist Anthony Shadid wrote that the defense of Fallujah reached mythic proportions. Iraqis compared Fallujah to the Battle of Karameh, where the PLO and Jordanian Army repulsed an Israeli Defense Force incursion after the Six Day War. They perceived that the insurgents in Fallujah forced an embarrassing withdrawal upon the United States.90 In Ramadi, Khalidiyah, and Karma, moderate Sunnis stopped interacting with the Coalition partly because they doubted the Coalition could protect them or ultimately defeat the insurgency.91 The leadership of the Fallujah Brigade, headed after the ouster of Saleh by Major General Mohammed Latif, met with Marine officers nearly every other

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day to review progress on the remaining objectives of the cease-fire – turn-in of heavy weapons, an apology for the Blackwater murders, and the capture of foreign fighters. The meetings, originally meant to review and plan military operations against the jihadists, rapidly devolved into negotiations between the resistance and the Marines. The Sunni resistance, particularly Janabi, strongly influenced the brigade leadership. Sometimes Janabi directed the content of their negotiating statements.92 I MEF had little control over the Fallujah Brigade, other than payments. The Fallujah Brigade leadership refused an embedded advisory team, training, or any combined operations.93 Still, at first the Fallujah Brigade initiative met some success. Generous allotments of economic assistance induced Sunni insurgents to break from the jihadists, who opposed any dealings with the Coalition. Sunnis throughout Iraq praised the Fallujah Brigade as a model for stability, and several cities examined forming their own brigade. On May 10, Latif convinced Janabi to allow Mattis to drive a convoy into the city and meet with the mayor at his compound. Latif and Abdullah exerted all of their influence to prevent jihadists and hardliners from attacking the convoy, reportedly physically stopping some insurgents from attacking.94 On May 20, the mayor of Fallujah apologized for the Blackwater murders. A few days later, Latif negotiated the release of three NBC journalists detained by jihadists in the city.95 Despite this success, the Fallujah Brigade leadership never produced significant numbers of heavy weapons or any foreign fighters. They never even allowed civil affairs teams into the city. The Sunni resistance leaders had little intention of permanently laying down arms or committing to fighting jihadists. They viewed the Fallujah Brigade discussions as proof of their military success and the weakness of the Coalition.96 For example, locals greeted the completion of the May 10 convoy with celebrations, declaring that jihad had defeated the Marines.97 With its forces outside the city, I MEF had limited leverage over the resistance, other than economic assistance. The negotiators actually raised their demands, continuously calling for I MEF to pull farther and farther back and expand the Fallujah Brigade’s area of operations. The harsh bargaining position (espoused by moderate Sunnis) derived from the perception that the insurgents had “won” the battle and forced the Coalition to the negotiating table. Insurgents expected that I MEF would withdraw completely from the area surrounding Fallujah, since they had abandoned the city. They took on faith that visible popular support signaled the strength of the resistance and that therefore the United States must heed their wishes.98 Most disturbingly, Fallujah grew into a burgeoning insurgent base of operations. Large insurgent units and strong points remained within the city.99 Although the Fallujah-based insurgent groups honored the truce in Fallujah, they went to fight in Baghdad or other cities. Jihadists ravaged Baghdad with car bombs created in car bomb “factories” in Fallujah.100 Numerous unsubstantiated reports claimed that Zarqawi himself actively operated in Fallujah. Jihadists also enforced fundamentalist law against the population of Fallujah. Rather than marginalize the jihadists, pulling out had allowed their strength to grow.101

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The successful defense of Fallujah caused many locals to view jihadists as heroes. The “victory” endowed them with popular support and prestige. Hardline elements of the Sunni resistance aligned with the jihadists and began espousing extremist rhetoric. Some moderate Sunnis declared fundamentalist laws acceptable. Moderate Sunnis opposed to the jihadists stayed quiet, frightened by intimidation and convinced that insurgent violence would succeed. Jihadists clearly outgunned the Fallujah Brigade. In these conditions, openly opposing the jihadists was foolhardy. Mattis believed that the brigade would fold or reach an agreement with the jihadists if ever forced to oppose them. By late May, I MEF and the U.S. government had lost confidence in the ability of the Fallujah Brigade and its leadership to meet the April 30 conditions, let alone enforce security in Fallujah.102 As the limited influence of the Fallujah Brigade leadership became clear, I MEF approached Janabi. Conway pressed Abdullah and Latif to set up a meeting between Janabi and Mattis. After two weeks of excruciatingly difficult preliminary negotiations, during which I MEF repeatedly considered dissolving the Fallujah Brigade altogether, Janabi met with Mattis on June 14.103 Janabi cited several grievances: lack of Al Anbar representation in the new Iraqi Interim Government, the slow process of compensation for damage from the battle, the detention of people from Fallujah, the reputation of Fallujah as a “terrorist” safe haven, unemployment in Fallujah, and the poor status of public services. Furthermore, Janabi claimed to have been personally offended when soldiers entered his home and tore his Koran in 2003. Although sympathetic to these grievances, the I MEF leadership could not consider other demands, which were excessive. Janabi wanted the Coalition to stop asking the Fallujah Brigade to arrest jihadists, to withdraw from towns near Fallujah (Karma and Saqlawiyah), and to remove forces between Fallujah and Baghdad. Mattis did not respond to these demands. The meeting with Janabi represented the last hurrah of the Fallujah Brigade initiative. Negotiations fell apart in late June as Janabi refused to compromise. The jihadists (particularly Omar Hadid) had grown stronger than the Sunni resistance. Janabi was in a precarious position. He had directly opposed the jihadists by enforcing a cessation of military activity in Fallujah. The jihadists now refused to tow Janabi’s moderate line. Ironically, as Janabi lost power, I MEF at last saw real signs of a wedge between the resistance and the jihadists. Locals gave reports of Sunni resistance and jihadists skirmishing in the city.104 In retrospect, the fighting was a function of the strengthening position of the jihadists, rather than the resistance acting to rid their city of the jihadists. The Fallujah Brigade and the rump Sunni resistance lacked the strength to defeat the jihadists and hard-line elements of the resistance. It was only a matter of time before the Fallujah Brigade initiative fell apart. The Coalition may have laid the final straw that broke the Fallujah Brigade initiative’s back. On June 19, the Coalition initiated a series of precision air strikes against the Zarqawi network in Fallujah. Although carefully directed against jihadists, the attacks may have discredited negotiating efforts by the Sunni resistance. After the first strike, Marines began taking fire at TCP-1, the

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last Coalition position on the outskirts of the city. On June 24, insurgents mounted a major attack on TCP-1. The Marines repulsed the attack but suffered 16 casualties.105 Local resistance readily joined in the fighting. City leaders connected to Janabi told I MEF that they did not care that the air strikes targeted jihadists. Sometime during this period, Janabi ceded power to Hadid and the jihadists. He now shared leadership of the insurgency in Fallujah. By the end of June, internecine fighting had ended and the wedge had disappeared. Thereafter, despite attempts to re-institute the cessation of hostilities, insurgents regularly attacked TCP-1 and convoys passing by the city. The demise of the Fallujah Brigade initiative should not be attributed to the Coalition precision strikes. The strikes accelerated jihadist assumption of power, but the Sunni resistance had been losing ground for a month. In any case, the Sunni resistance had only been using the cease-fire to facilitate insurgent activity and had offered no meaningful concessions. They had set upon intransigence since the end of the first battle of Fallujah, which they read as a Coalition defeat. Rather than defuse and fragment insurgent activity, the cessation of military operations had allowed it to grow more intransigent and consolidated. The insurgency after June 2004 Over the next four months, Fallujah experienced intensifying violence. The city became a major insurgent command and control node, and staging ground for attacks. By mid-summer, insurgents from Fallujah threatened the integrity of the new Iraqi state. Meanwhile, insurgents sustained large-scale attacks over the summer and into the fall in Ramadi, North Babil, the western desert, Baghdad, and Samarra. Consequently, in November 2004, the Coalition launched a second offensive into Fallujah. The Coalition had carefully prepared for the assault. Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and the Interim Iraqi Government strongly supported the offensive. Extensive discussions with the obstinate Fallujah leaders exhausted all diplomatic options. Civilians evacuated the city and I MEF created an aggressive information operations campaign. Battalions from the Iraqi Army accompanied the Marines and Army soldiers in the assault. The offensive captured and cleared the city without either an escalation of Sunni support for the insurgency or political interruption. Thereafter, the scale of insurgent activity in the city and throughout Al Anbar fell. In spite of the Mahdi uprising and the first battle of Fallujah, the Shi’a and Sunni never formed a national resistance. April 2004 represented a fleeting moment of national Iraqi resistance. The Shi’a never united behind Sadr. The majority of Shi’a looked to Sistani as their leader. Following his initial silence, Sistani called for a peaceful resolution to the violence and even warned Shi’a against joining the Mahdi uprising.106 Many Shi’a clerics and sheikhs opposed Sadr as well.107 Additionally, Sunni willingness to cooperate with Sadr died out after April, partly because of their antipathy toward the Shi’a. Eventually, the Coalition isolated the Mahdi Army in Najaf and Sadr City and reached an informal truce with Sadr in June. Sadr mounted a second uprising in August 2004,

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which the Coalition and the Iraqi Interim Government put down through a more decisive use of force.

Conclusion The attempt to use military force to signal resolve failed in the first battle of Fallujah. Violence escalated throughout western Iraq. Insurgent activity rarely dropped to the levels of early 2004 again. The insurgency gained broad and active popular support from the Sunni population. Sunnis turned to violence for two major reasons. First, the Coalition offensive against Fallujah represented oppression by a foreign occupier that warranted taking up arms. Hyped media coverage of collateral damage exacerbated the negative Sunni reaction. Second, the cessation of the offensive caused Sunnis to view the battle as a military victory. Iraqis perceived the Coalition as weak for not completing the battle. The perception of U.S. weakness encouraged insurgents to avoid compromise and moderate Sunnis to espouse violence, exemplified by their intransigence during the Fallujah Brigade negotiations. Jihadists gained popular support because of their leading role in conducting violence. Thus, U.S. civilian and military leaders were not mistaken regarding the importance of signaling resolve. However, U.S. leaders were mistaken that military force alone was the best course for signaling resolve. Military force can escalate violence by oppressing the population. Resolve will not be signaled if the costs of escalation preclude an offensive’s completion. The Coalition failed to complete the offensive into Fallujah in April 2004 largely because of Iraqi political opposition driven by the popular backlash to military force. The Coalition could not complete the offensive without risking the fragmentation of the IGC. Democratization of Iraq would be crippled. Sheer determination on the part of the U.S. government or military could not negate the cost of such a setback, which would completely change the nature and objectives of the occupation. The demand for rapid action precluded setting conditions for the IGC to weather the crisis. I MEF could not take the greatest possible efforts to minimize collateral damage, such as evacuating all civilians from the city or enacting an information operations campaign to pre-empt propaganda that portrayed its actions as heavy-handed. Additionally, the Coalition pressed on with the offensive even though the Mahdi uprising was placing the IGC under tremendous stress. Finally, CPA did not obtain the IGC’s support for the operation. In sum, the Coalition neglected to build the Iraqi political support necessary to carry through the offensive. The key point is that military force alone could not signal resolve given the political constraints within Iraq. The goal of democratization constrained the United States from disregarding the concerns of key Iraqi political bodies. In similar circumstances, efforts to signal resolve via military force probably need the firm support of indigenous political bodies. Absent of such support, the use of military force should be delayed. Unsupported use of military force is counterproductive. Even with political support, the use of military force can produce

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high costs and generate recruits for an insurgency until battlefield success demonstrates the futility of violence to these new recruits. Without political support, the use of military force may be prematurely curtailed and may never demonstrate the futility of insurgent violence. An offensive crippled by the opposition of indigenous political bodies is no way to signal resolve.

Notes 1 James Morrow, “The Strategic Setting of Choices: Signaling, Commitment, and Bargaining in International Politics,” Strategic Choice and International Relations, Eds. David Lake and Robert Powell, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 86–96. James Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization 49/3, Summer 1995, 371–414. 2 James Fearon, “Civil War Since 1945: Some Facts and a Theory,” Presentation to American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, September 2005, p. 25. Robert Powell, “Bargaining and Learning While Fighting,” American Journal of Political Science 48/2, April 2004, 344–361. 3 Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province, Berkeley: California University Press, 1973, p. 191. 4 Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, p. 125. 5 National Security Strategy of the United States, September 2002. 6 Jonathan Monten, “The Roots of the Bush Doctrine: Power, Nationalism, and Democracy Promotion in U.S. Strategy,” International Security 29/4 Spring 2005, 148–149, 151. 7 Michael Rubin, “To Win in Fallujah,” FrontPageMagazine.com, May 18, 2004. 8 Bing West, No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah, New York: Bantam Books, 2005, p. 234. 9 West, No True Glory, p. 319. 10 Bloom, Dying to Kill, pp. 17, 35, 37, 82, 90, 92, 195. 11 Race, War Comes to Long An, p. 283. 12 Kenneth Schultz, “Domestic Opposition and Signaling in International Crises,” American Political Science Review 92/4, December 1998, 829–844. Ronald Rogowski, “Institutions as Constraints on Strategic Choice,” Strategic Choice and International Relations, Eds. David Lake and Robert Powell, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 134–135. Robert Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42/3, Summer 1988, 427–460. 13 Gil Merom, How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and the Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 19, 24. 14 For the sake of simplicity, this chapter refers to all Iraqi Sunni Arabs as “Sunnis” even though many Kurds and jihadists were also Sunni. The chapter also generally refers to members of the insurgency as “insurgents” when not differentiating between Sunni resistance and jihadists. 15 National Surveys of Iraq, Oxford Research International, March 2004. By comparison, 64 percent of southern Iraq (Shi’a dominant) viewed the invasion as liberation. 16 Scott Johnson, “Inside an Enemy Cell,” Newsweek, August 18, 2003. 17 Zarqawi letter, www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/20040212_zarqawi_full.html. 18 Ahmed Hashim, “The Insurgency in Iraq,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 14/3, August 2003, 9. 19 Zarqawi letter, www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/20040212_zarqawi_full.html.

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C. Malkasian Zarqawi letter, www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/20040212_zarqawi_full.html. National Surveys of Iraq, Oxford Research International, March 2004. Zarqawi letter, www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/20040212_zarqawi_full.html. Discussion with 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, Camp Fallujah, March 22, 2004. Discussion with 505th ICDC Battalion, Camp Fallujah, March 23, 2004. Johnson, “Inside an Enemy Cell.” Discussions with 2/4, 1st Marine Division Headquarters, Camp Pendleton, March 22, 2005. Discussion with 505th ICDC Battalion, Camp Fallujah, March 23, 2005. Fallujah Planning Brief, Camp Fallujah, March 16, 2004. Charles Clover, “Smiles and Shrugs Speak Volumes about Nature of Attacks on American Troops,” London Financial Times, September 25, 2003. 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division Targeting Meeting, Camp Fallujah, March 8, 2004. Discussions with 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, Camp Baharia, June 2004. I MEF Brief to Lieutenant General Sanchez, Camp Fallujah, April 3, 2004. Rajiv Chandraskaran, “Anti-U.S. Uprising Widens in Iraq,” Washington Post, April 8, 2004. Fallujah Fatwa, Hamza Abbas Muhana and Muhammad Mutlik Obeid, April 1, 2004. L. Paul Bremer, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006, p. 317. West, No True Glory, p. 59. Bremer, My Year in Iraq, p. 317. West, No True Glory, p. 7. Bremer, My Year in Iraq, p. 322. Bremer, My Year in Iraq, pp. 325–326. I MEF Brief to General Abizaid, Camp Fallujah, April 9, 2004. Civil Affairs Mission, Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1), Civil Affairs Detachment, Fallujah, May 2, 2004. I MEF Operational Planning Team on Displaced Persons, Camp Fallujah, April 16, 2004. Nicholas Riccardi, “A Peacemaker Runs the Gauntlet in Fallouja,” Los Angeles Times, April 16, 2004. I MEF Brief to General Abizaid, Camp Fallujah, April 9, 2004. Discussion with the CPA Representative to Fallujah and RCT-1, Camp Fallujah, April 8, 2004. Comments by Lieutenant Colonel Gregg Olson, RCT-1, After Action Review, Camp Fallujah, May 5, 2004. Significant numbers of men lost the will to continue fighting after one week of combat, though. Discussions with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division Headquarters, Camp Pendleton, March 22, 2005. Camp Fallujah, I MEF Refugee Planning Meeting, April 20, 2004. West, No True Glory, pp. 225, 315. Ron Hassner, “Fighting Insurgency on Sacred Ground,” Washington Quarterly, Spring 2006, 156. Christine Hauser, “War Reports from Civilians Stir Up Iraqis Against U.S.,” New York Times, April 14, 2004. Interview with Ahmad Mansur, Al Jazeera correspondent in Fallujah, Al Jazeera Satellite Channel Television, April 5, 2004. Chandraskaran, “Anti-U.S. Uprising Widens in Iraq.” Comments by Lieutenant General James Conway, Camp Fallujah, April 29, 2004. Discussion with Lieutenant General John Sattler, Camp Pendleton, November 10, 2004.

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54 Chandraskaran, “Anti-U.S. Uprising Widens in Iraq.” 55 International Republican Institute Poll, April 2004. Karl Vick and Anthony Shadid, “Fallujah Gains Mythic Air: Siege Redefines Conflict for Iraqis in Capital,” Washington Post, April 13, 2004. 56 Alissa Rubin, “Fallujah’s Fighters Trade Weapons, Not Allegiances,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2004. 57 Pamela Constable, “Marines Try to Quell ‘A Hotbed of Resistance,’ ” Washington Post, April 9, 2004. 58 James Hider, “We All Fight Together, Rebels Proclaim,” London Times, April 8, 2004. 59 Hider, “We All Fight Together, Rebels Proclaim.” 60 Vick and Shadid, “Fallujah Gains Mythic Air.” 61 I MEF Brief to General Abizaid, Camp Fallujah, April 9, 2004. Bremer, My Year in Iraq, pp. 333–334. 62 Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005, p. 234. 63 Operational Planning Team on MEF Operational Plan, Camp Fallujah, April 8, 2004. Bremer, My Year in Iraq, p. 333. 64 I MEF Brief to General Abizaid, Camp Fallujah, April 9, 2004. 65 Bremer, My Year in Iraq, pp. 326–327. 66 Lieutenant General James Conway, Address to I MEF Command Element, Camp Fallujah, April 29, 2004. West, No True Glory, pp. 159–160. 67 Comments by Lieutenant Colonel Gregg Olson, RCT-1 After Action Brief, Camp Fallujah, May 5, 2005. 68 ICRSS Poll, April 20–29, 2004. The poll was conducted in Baghdad, Basrah, Mosul, Babil, Diyala, Ramadi, and Sulaymaniyah. It surveyed 1530 households. 69 ICRSS Poll, April 20–29, 2004. 70 I MEF Commanders’ Discussion, Camp Fallujah, April 14, 2004. 71 Lieutenant General James Conway, Address to I MEF Command Element, Camp Fallujah, April 29, 2004. Discussion with the CPA Representative to Fallujah, Camp Fallujah, April 30, 2004. 72 I MEF Commanders’ Discussion, Camp Fallujah, April 26, 2004. 73 Comments by Lieutenant General James Conway, Camp Fallujah, April 17, 2004. Comments by Lieutenant General James Conway, Camp Fallujah, April 26, 2004. 74 I MEF Brief to General John Abizaid, Camp Fallujah, May 5, 2004. 75 Colonel John Coleman, Talk to I MEF staff, Camp Fallujah, March 10, 2004. 76 Comments by Lieutenant General James Conway, Camp Fallujah, April 26, 2004. 77 Comments by Lieutenant General James Conway, Camp Fallujah, May 9, 2004. 78 Comments by Lieutenant General James Conway, Camp Fallujah, April 29, 2004. 79 Discussion with Captain Rodrick McHaty (I MEF Foreign Area Officer), Camp Fallujah, April 30, 2004. 80 Friday Prayer Messages in Fallujah, Translated by Captain Rodrick McHaty, May 9, 2004. 81 Comments by Colonel John Coleman, Camp Fallujah, May 1, 2004. Discussion with the CPA Representative to Fallujah, Camp Fallujah, May 2, 2004. Lieutenant General Sanchez Briefing, Camp Fallujah, June 9, 2004. 82 Rod Norland, Tom Masland, and Christopher Dickey, “Unmasking the Insurgents,” Newsweek, February 7, 2005. 83 West, No True Glory, p. 227. 84 Daniel Williams, “Despite Agreement, Insurgents Rule Fallujah,” Washington Post, June 7, 2004. 85 Discussion with RCT-1, Camp Fallujah, May 19, 2004. Discussion with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, Camp Fallujah, April 26, 2004.

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C. Malkasian Comments by Lieutenant General James Conway, Camp Fallujah, April 29, 2004. Discussion with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, Camp Fallujah, April 24, 2004. West, No True Glory, p. 190. Rubin, “Fallujah’s Fighters Trade Weapons, Not Allegiances.” Vick and Shadid, “Fallujah Gains Mythic Air.” Discussions with 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st U.S. Division, Camp Ramadi, June 14, 2004. Discussions with 1st Battalion, 34th Armored Regiment, Camp Habbaniyah, July 2004. Discussions with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, Camp Mercury, August 1, 2004. Fallujah Brigade Meeting, Fallujah Liaison Center, Fallujah, May 20, 2004. Discussion with Captain Rodrick McHaty, Camp Fallujah, May 8, 2004. Fallujah Brigade Meeting, Fallujah Liaison Team Center, Fallujah, May 6, 2004. Fallujah Brigade Meeting, Fallujah Liaison Team Center, Fallujah, May 6, 2004. Conversation with Captain Rodrick McHaty, Camp Fallujah, May 11, 2004. Discussion with Captain Rodrick McHaty, Camp Fallujah, May 28, 2004. Observations at I MEF Headquarters, Camp Fallujah, April 30 to June 10 2004. West, No True Glory, p. 224. Rubin, “Fallujah’s Fighters Trade Weapons, Not Allegiances.” Conversation with the CPA Representative to Fallujah, Camp Fallujah, May 4, 2004. Brief to Ambassador Robert Blackwill, Camp Fallujah, May 23, 2004. Briefing on Future Development of Iraqi Security Forces, Camp Fallujah, May 20, 2004. Brief to Ambassador Robert Blackwill, Camp Fallujah, May 23, 2004. Brief to General John Abizaid, Camp Fallujah, June 2, 2004. Meeting with Fallujah Brigade leadership, Camp Fallujah, June 2, 2004. I MEF Commanders’ Discussion, Camp Fallujah, June 5, 2004. Discussion with Captain Rodrick McHaty, Camp Fallujah, June 6, 2004. Comments by Lieutenant General Conway, Camp Fallujah, June 8, 2004. Discussions with 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, Camp Baharia, June 27, 2004. Discussions with 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, TCP-1, Fallujah, June 27, 2004. Farnaz Fassihi, “Strange Bedfellows in Iraq: Complex Web of Shiite Politics Helps and Hinders U.S. Efforts,” Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2004. John Burns, “Leading Shiites and Rebel Meet on Iraq Standoff,” New York Times, April 13, 2004. Diamond, Squandered Victory, pp. 216, 232, 243–244.

9

Counterinsurgency in Karbala Peter R. Mansoor

On March 20, 2006 President George W. Bush outlined a strategy for the elimination of the insurgency in Iraq. Building upon earlier comments by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and using the recent example of the successful restoration of the city of Tal Afar to Iraqi government control, the President stated that the coalition had adopted a new approach to its operations in Iraq, encapsulated by the terms “clear, hold, and build.”1 In the future, coalition forces would not only remove insurgent and terrorist forces from an area through decisive combat action, but would leave behind strong Iraqi security forces to prevent their return, while working with the government and local leaders to rebuild the economic infrastructure and create political conditions for long-term stability. This was an approach long overdue in the conflict, but it was not novel. Indeed, coalition forces had used a similar concept nearly two years previously in restoring the city of Karbala to Iraqi control after an uprising by militia loyal to the radical Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the spring of 2004. A little-known success story in the first year of the war, the battle for Karbala showed what was possible when the manifest capabilities of the Coalition were applied to counterinsurgency operations in a coherent and consistent manner.

The April 2004 uprising Although the Sunni insurgency was the largest problem facing the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in 2003–2004, the rise of Shi’a militias added a new layer of complexity to the situation and in the long run were perhaps more dangerous for the future of Iraq. Foremost among these threats was that posed by Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical young Shi’a cleric and the son of Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, a prominent and respected Iraqi Shi’a cleric killed by gunmen along with two of his sons in the holy city of an-Najaf in 1999. Saddam Hussein had elevated the elder al-Sadr to a position of leadership among Iraqi Shi’a in the wake of the failed uprising after the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam wanted a puppet, but al-Sadr used his position to call for the release of Shi’a leaders and governmental reform. Saddam had the cleric assassinated as a potential threat to the regime, but al-Sadr remained a martyr in Shi’a memory. His only surviving son, Muqtada, sought to exploit his father’s reputation along with anti-American,

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nationalist, and Islamist sentiments in a bid for power after he was left off the Iraqi Governing Council. Sadr’s followers consisted primarily of disaffected, unemployed, and poorly educated youth in eastern Baghdad and across southcentral Iraq. The CPA never made the hard choices needed to suppress the militias and end their potential threat to political stability. In August 2003, the Iraqi Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Sadr and eleven of his followers for the April 2003 murder of a moderate Shi’ite cleric, Ayatollah Majid al-Khoei, who had returned to Iraq from London in the wake of the coalition invasion. Jealous of this threat to his nascent power, Sadr had the cleric killed in a mob-style attack in the Grand Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf. Regrettably, the CPA ordered the arrest warrants sealed. Some Shi’a leaders argued that the CPA should co-opt Sadr into the political process (missing the point that Sadr’s angst was largely due to his being left out of the government in the first place), while others urged that he be dealt with through more direct (and harsher) means. The CPA vacillated and instead kicked the can down the road. Although Sadr’s organization, the self-proclaimed “Mahdi Army,”2 had to be suppressed before Iraq could stabilize, coalition leaders failed to order execution of various plans designed to seize Sadr and disarm his militia.3 In October 2003 Sadr declared the formation of a “shadow government,” thereby directly challenging the authority of the CPA and the Iraqi Governing Council. On October 16 Sadr’s followers shot and killed a U.S. military police battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kim Orlando, and two soldiers in Karbala. Fighting was averted by the timely retreat of Mahdi Army forces from Karbala – but only after the 1st Armored Division sent a battalion task force south to force the issue. This episode marked the emergence of a pattern that Sadr would follow again and again over the course of the next year in his attempt to navigate the tense military-political landscape of Iraq. He would arouse his followers with inflammatory rhetoric, then launch his militia against targets calculated to achieve a political effect against the coalition. When confronted with overwhelming force, he would beat a hasty, but temporary, retreat, only to rearm and begin the process anew. For six months, the CPA and Combined Joint Task Force SEVEN (CJTF-7) watched as Sadr’s militia grew alarmingly in size and scope and new recruits openly trained for combat. Crisis stage was again reached on March 28, 2004, when Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III ordered the closure of Sadr’s incendiary newspaper, Hawza, a half-measure at best that resulted in large and unruly demonstrations by Sadr’s followers. On April 2 coalition forces arrested a top Sadr aide, Mustafa al-Yaccoubi, but this nibbling around the edges of his center of power backfired. Sadr responded by unleashing a full-scale insurgency in eastern Baghdad and across south-central Iraq, just as U.S. military forces were undergoing a major transition. Sadr forged an alliance of sorts with Sunni insurgents, an association that was bound to break down in the end due to radically divergent goals – with the single exception of forcing the coalition from Iraq. Well-placed car bombs succeeded in destroying several bridges along Main

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Supply Route TAMPA, the key coalition logistical route from Kuwait to Baghdad. As supplies of food, fuel, and spare parts dwindled, faces of Coalition leaders in Baghdad grew long and grim. During the course of what was dubbed the “April Uprising,” Muqtada alSadr’s militia overran much of Karbala. Situated roughly 60 miles south of Baghdad and 25 miles west of Al-Hillah, Karbala is home to over 100 mosques and 23 religious schools, to include the Hussein and Abbas shrines, two of the most holy in Shi’a Islam. The two brothers were martyred in AD 680 in a battle that both determined the immediate future of the Islamic caliphate and initiated the split between Sunni and Shi’a Islam. The political significance of the first battle of Karbala prompted Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party to prohibit mass pilgrimages to the city. Muqtada al-Sadr understood the city’s political importance, along with the extensive revenues that pilgrims brought into Karbala and which could be tapped into by a force that controlled the city. By the end of April the Mahdi Army effectively controlled the old city, although significantly it lacked a presence inside the shrines, which were protected by security guards from the Badr organization. Sadr’s militia attacked the city hall, but Polish soldiers and Iraqi police held off the insurgents in heavy fighting. The Mahdi Army seized the governor’s house, old Ba’ath Party headquarters, the Mukhayem mosque and Mukhayem shrine, and other buildings on the fringes of the old city, turned them into strong points, and cached tons of ammunition inside the structures. Sadr’s goal was nothing less than to control the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala and thereby the revenues from Shi’a who made annual pilgrimages to the shrines. Mahdi Army dispositions in Karbala clearly reflected this priority, with most of the enemy positions located in the old city and south along nearby Governor’s Street. A large arms and ammunition cache was located in an amusement park in the northern part of the city. Enemy strength was estimated at 250 fighters, a total that would increase as the Mahdi Army in Karbala received reinforcements from elsewhere in Iraq.

The Coalition reacts The 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division and its attachments, collectively known as the Ready First Combat Team, was completing preparations for redeployment to Germany when the order came to remain in Iraq for an undetermined period of time. On April 12 the brigade was ordered to prepare for its new role as the operational reserve for Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I), with the modest mission of being prepared to deploy anywhere in the country at any time. A week later the brigade transferred authority over its sector of Baghdad east of the Tigris River to the 39th Enhanced Separate Brigade and moved into new quarters at Camp Victory North near Baghdad International Airport. The crisis in south-central Iraq soon forced MNC-I to commit elements of the Ready First Combat Team into the fight. On April 27 MNC-I ordered the brigade to dispatch a reinforced task force south to Karbala to operate under the

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tactical control of the Polish-led Multi-National Division Central-South (MNDCS). Task Force 1-37 Armor, augmented by two companies of engineers from the 16th Engineer Battalion and an artillery platoon from 2-3 Field Artillery, formed the basis of the organization. The command lash-up was unique in that Task Force Bandits, as the organization was christened, would work directly for the 1st Polish Brigade Combat Team (BCT), commanded by Brigadier General Edward Gruszka of the Polish Army. Movement south via heavy equipment transport and road march began on April 29. Within 48 hours the main body of the task force had arrived in Camp Lima, roughly ten miles east of Karbala. The 1st Polish BCT had a Bulgarian motorized rifle battalion stationed in Karbala and Polish battle groups in Camp Lima and in the town of Hindiyah along the Euphrates River. Although capable of conducting combat operations, the national rules of engagement for these forces prevented them from conducting offensive operations. If the coalition wanted to eject the Mahdi Army from Karbala, American combat units would have to lead the attack. To assist the Polish commanders with the formulation of plans and the provision of external resources – primarily air support and logistics – for the upcoming battle, Brigadier General Curtis Scaparrotti, Assistant Division Commander for Maneuvers in the 1st Armored Division and Colonel Peter Mansoor, Commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division helped to coordinate operations in MND-CS headquarters in Al-Hillah and the 1st Polish BCT headquarters located at Camp Juliet in Karbala. The 1st Polish BCT Chief-of-Staff, Colonel Andrej Knap, was a 2002 U.S. Army War College graduate, which helped greatly in coordinating coalition operations in Karbala. Upon arrival in Camp Lima, Lieutenant Colonel Garry Bishop, commander of Task Force Bandits, quickly readied his forces for combat operations. Understanding the enemy’s composition and disposition was critical to the fight ahead. Since 1-37 Armor did not have enough time to establish its own human intelligence network, it relied on information gathered by the 1st Polish BCT to shape initial operations. Given that Polish patrols could not probe insurgent positions to confirm or deny the enemy situation, much of this data was outdated. Fortunately, an American Special Forces detachment in Karbala provided additional details, and the 1-37 Armor intelligence officer was able to piece together an accurate template of the enemy situation in the city. Discussion among Polish and American commanders led to the selection of tactical objectives for initial operations against the Mahdi Army. Major General Mieczyslaw Bieniek, Commander of MND-CS, met with local leaders in Karbala on May 2 and gave them 48 hours to convince Sadr’s militia to vacate the city or face the consequences. The deadline came and went, and in an attack at 11:30 pm on May 4, Task Force Bandits cleared enemy forces out of their strong points along “Ambush Alley” south of the Mukhayem mosque – the old Ba’ath Party headquarters, the governor’s house, and a hotel. Enemy counterattacks from the vicinity of the Mukhayem mosque were ineffective and they are unable to retake the lost ground, a recurrent theme of combat operations against the ill-trained Shi’a militia.

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The next day, May 5, the task force cleared the Karbala amusement park and in the process seized 1.5 metric tons of ammunition and explosives, to include pre-made improvised explosive devices. Engineers detonated the captured ammunition on-site in a huge explosion at dawn the next day. The rising fireball above Karbala sent a clear signal to the citizens that the enemy had lost another round in the fight. This operation eliminated one of the Mahdi Army’s largest caches of munitions in the area. Combined with the clearance of the structures along Governor’s Street, the seizure and destruction of this ammunition cache dealt Sadr’s forces in the city a severe blow. Coalition forces were locked in a fight with Muqtada’s militia for supremacy in Karbala, one that would only end with the destruction of the enemy forces in the city. The key now was to prevent the enemy from returning to areas already cleared, which Task Force Bandits achieved through aggressive patrolling of Governor’s Street and other areas. On May 5, A Company, 1-37 Armor conducted a patrol down Governor’s Street in the afternoon and made contact with several dozen Shi’a militia. The enemy fired 25 RPGs at the unit’s M1A1 Abrams tanks, with no effect, while American soldiers killed six enemy and wounded 13 others. For a week the soldiers of Task Force 1-37 Armor conducted continuous, aggressive patrols to reestablish control in Karbala outside the old city. They fought off over three dozen attacks that included a number of improvised explosive devices, hundreds of rocket propelled grenades, and assault rifle and machine-gun fire, but by May 10 the Shi’a militia had ceded the area outside the old city to coalition control. Multinational Force Iraq, the top Coalition military headquarters in the country, declared the area of the old city inside the ring road surrounding the holy shrines of Hussein and Abbas an exclusionary zone for ground operations – a fact known to Coalition forces and assumed by the enemy. As Task Force Bandits ratcheted up the pressure on the Mahdi Army, the Shi’a rebels increasingly confined their activities to the inner ring of the old city surrounding the shrines. The safety afforded enemy forces by the rules of engagement regarding these protected sites was more apparent than real, and in the end would prove an insufficient shield against their eventual destruction. The key in this regard was for tactical leaders to be flexible in their application of combat power, and managing risk rather than attempting to eliminate it entirely from their operations. The next tactical objective was clear. The enemy’s primary sanctuary was the Mukhayem mosque, which Sadr’s forces had converted into a major militia base. Although located just outside the exclusionary zone, the facility’s location approximately 250 meters south of the Hussein shrine made any military maneuver in the area a sensitive operation. Before the war the facility was more akin to a funeral home as it was used to wash bodies prior to burial, but the previous fall Sadr’s forces occupied the place and designated it a mosque in order to seek protected status against Coalition searches. Sadr’s information campaign succeeded in making the new designation stick, and the Coalition therefore needed Iraqi buy-in to search the premises without undue repercussions. After consultations with the Iraqi Governor of Karbala – who clearly understood the machinations

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of Sadr’s propaganda machine regarding the Mukhayem “mosque” – the 1st Polish BCT received permission to conduct operations to seize the facility and eject the Sadr’s militia from the vicinity. To placate local sensitivities, it was desirable that Iraqi troops lead the assault. At this stage of the war, however, Iraqi forces were few in number and not very capable. The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps battalion in Karbala had largely melted away during the Mahdi Army uprising, and the city police were barely able to defend themselves (and in a few cases had abandoned their stations to the enemy). There was one exception to this general rule. U.S. Special Forces had recruited and trained an Iraqi Counterterrorism Task Force (ICTF), which MNCI offered to MND-CS for operations in Karbala. This combined Iraqi–American organization was well trained and led, with Iraqi soldiers and noncommissioned officers led by U.S. Special Forces soldiers. We secured the use of the ICTF to lead the assault into the Mukhayem mosque, and the organization would perform magnificently in the upcoming operation. On May 11, Task Force Bandits successfully assaulted the Mukhayem mosque, ejected Sadr’s militia from the premises and nearby buildings, killed 22 enemy fighters, and seized hundreds of rounds of large caliber ammunition and explosives. U.S. forces freed five Iraqi policemen who had been kidnapped and were discovered bound and gagged by troops as they cleared the area of enemy militia forces. The Mahdi Army retreated into the old city of Karbala to reestablish its base of operations. This was a challenge, since the exclusionary zone around the holy shrines effectively shielded the enemy from ground attack. To prevent Sadr’s militia from re-occupying the Mukhayem mosque, Brigadier General Grushka and I determined that the task force would retain the site as a defensive position. A company of U.S. soldiers, augmented by a Polish platoon, secured the area and settled in for what would turn out to be the decisive fight for supremacy in Karbala. Until the arrival of Task Force Bandits in Karbala, the Mahdi Army had held all the cards. Discussions were fruitless as Sadr’s lieutenants believed they could hold their positions against coalition units stationed in central-south Iraq. The elimination of the militia’s strongholds along Governor’s Street and at the Mukhayem mosque changed matters dramatically. A delegation of “concerned citizens” soon appeared at Camp Lima, asking to talk with the American commanders. Lieutenant Colonel Bishop, Lieutenant Colonel Kem, and I received the party and held a series of discussions to reiterate the need for the militia in Karbala to disband. As the days progressed, it became clear that this group was actually a delegation representing the Mahdi Army. Under intense pressure from our military operations and increasingly isolated from the population, they were seeking a face-saving solution that would enable Muqtada’s militia to disengage without admitting defeat. Their attempts to mask the eventual destruction of Sadr’s forces and the withdrawal of his militia remnants from Karbala as a “negotiated settlement” were little more than propaganda cover for what turned out to be a major defeat for Sadr’s position in the area.

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The destruction of the Mahdi Army in Karbala The retention of the Mukhayem mosque as a forward operating base in the heart of Karbala was a direct challenge to the Mahdi Army and its claim over the heart of the city. Sadr’s militia, operating from the old city, openly challenged coalition control of the area. What followed was a week of intensive urban combat, the type of operations for which U.S. soldiers are well-trained and equipped. As militia forces moved forward to take coalition positions under fire, U.S. and Polish forces engaged them with tank, infantry fighting vehicle, machine gun, grenade, and rifle fire. Enemy mortar and rocket propelled grenade teams continually raked Coalition positions, while snipers on both sides targeted anyone who dared venture forth on the streets. Iraqi civilians vacated the beaten zone, which soon came to resemble similar scenes of urban combat during the previous century in such locations as Brest, Aachen, Seoul, and Hue. Lieutenant Colonel Bishop wisely chose to rotate companies through the Mukhayem mosque position every 24 hours to keep fresh troops on the scene. Soldiers conducted patrols outside the exclusionary zone to ensure the Mahdi Army did not infiltrate back into the newer parts of the city. Three soldiers were killed in the defense of the area and over 30 wounded, mostly due to sniper and mortar fire. An enemy mortar team located between the two holy shrines operated with impunity until an armed Predator unmanned aerial vehicle located it 50 meters east of the Hussein shrine. After some consultation, MNC-I gave permission to engage, and a Hellfire missile destroyed the mortar and killed the personnel operating it. Mortar fire against Coalition forces immediately ceased and never resumed. With portions of Karbala turned into a battle zone, the situation could not continue indefinitely. Sadr’s militia in the city was receiving reinforcements from other parts of Iraq and Coalition prestige would suffer from enemy retention of the area around the holy shrines. In response to this situation, the leadership of Multinational Force Iraq decided to authorize a ground assault against enemy positions in the old city, a plan fraught with some risk but great potential rewards. To provide the forces for this attack, another battalion (1-36 Infantry) from the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division was brought down to Camp Lima. Since American forces were now predominant in the area, the attack into the old city would be planned and executed under American command. On the night of May 20, a couple of hours before the attack was to commence, higher authorities deemed it too politically risky and called it off. Damage to the holy shrines could set off an adverse Shi’a reaction that would threaten the coalition’s strategic position in Iraq. Deterred from using ground forces in the exclusionary zone, I instead ordered a probing attack by a tank company around the ring road bordering the shrines to draw the enemy out of his hideouts. C Company, 1-37 Armor, under the command of Captain Tom Byrnes, made contact with enemy forces both north and south of the shrines. In the resulting engagements, extensive use of AC-130 Spectre gunship fire killed over 100 enemy fighters, destroyed the Mahdi Army headquarters inside the old city, and led to the retreat of all remaining militia from Karbala.

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In less than three weeks of fighting, U.S. and Allied forces had succeeded in restoring Karbala to Coalition control. In the battle for Karbala, U.S. forces suffered four killed and 49 wounded. The Mahdi Army, however, fared much worse – over 400 killed and wounded, 33 taken prisoner, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of rocket propelled grenade launchers and small arms confiscated and destroyed. The lightly armed insurgents could not stand up to the firepower and armored protection afforded by the end products of American industry and technology, nor could they match the training and discipline of U.S. soldiers.4 We had cleared the city, but now needed to hold and rebuild it.

Reconstruction and provision of long-term security The most important task was to show the citizens that the local Iraqi government was now in charge. Most Iraqis in Karbala did not want the Mahdi Army in the city, for its presence would inhibit pilgrims from venturing forth to the holy shrines, which were the mainstay of the local economy. Few residents possessed the means or courage to openly oppose Sadr’s militia, but would throw their support to the local government if it could show that it was in control. Shortly after the fighting ceased the Iraqi governor of Karbala held a meeting with his town council which was carried live on the local TV station. He announced the restoration of the city to the control of the local government and detailed plans to begin reconstruction. Coalition leaders had discussed these issues with him beforehand, but during the meeting we stayed in the back and out of sight of the cameras. This was an Iraqi show, which made it clear to the local citizens that the Mahdi militia had been defeated. In downtown Karbala, dismounted infantry now patrolled the streets without opposition, and Iraqi police once again appeared on the streets. The tanks and infantry fighting vehicles remained in Camp Lima just in case, but were not needed to maintain order in the city. The presence of Polish and Bulgarian forces in Karbala would ensure coalition control over the city for the immediate future; however, recruitment and training of effective local security and police forces was essential for long-term stability. The 1st Polish BCT took on the responsibility of recruiting and training an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps battalion in Karbala. The police were in somewhat better shape, although that force had suffered attrition during the recent crisis. To train new police recruits, we rebuilt the police academy and enlisted the aid of international police advisors in revamping the curriculum. We improved security at local police stations, and began the longer-term process of training ICDC and police to operate independently of Coalition forces. One step in this direction was the creation of a Joint Coordination Center at City Hall to enable the governor to control and coordinate the actions of first-responders in the event of an emergency situation. For the five weeks that Task Force Bandits remained in Karbala after the destruction of the Mahdi Army forces in the city, we dispensed over $1.2 million via a weapons buy-back program and civic action through the Comman-

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der’s Emergency Response Program (CERP). The intent of the weapons buyback program was to rid the city of the raw materials of war. It resulted in the purchase of 21 pistols, 534 rifles, 343 RPG launchers, 71 mortars, 620 rockets, 4,289 grenades, nearly 18,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, 819 RPG rounds, 3,868 mortar rounds, and 3,292 artillery rounds. We finally halted the buy-back of arms and ammunition due to enterprising arms merchants from Baghdad, who heard of the program and brought their wares down to Karbala for a quick profit. Civic action projects injected money into the local economy, put laborers to work, and provided immediate benefits to the community. These projects included restoration of parks and playgrounds, school repairs, renovation of the water treatment plant, repair of irrigation systems, and repair of the electrical grid. We put great emphasis on the removal of tons of rubble to erase the signs of battle. The citizens of Karbala helped to clear the streets and sidewalks. Hotel owners quickly began renovation of their facilities, for their livelihood depended on renting rooms to the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who annually visited the shrines. Lieutenant Colonel John Kem, the 1st Brigade Engineer and Commander of the 16th Engineer Battalion, suggested a program to provide monetary grants to city residents whose dwellings or businesses were damaged by the recent fighting. This money would help them rebuild and prime the city’s economy at its moment of greatest need. Given the number of structures damaged or destroyed, we estimated the cost of the program at approximately $1.5 million, a small price to pay for the goodwill the grants would engender and the economic impact they would have on the city. The CPA seemed supportive of the idea, but the request got caught up in the intricacies of the Green Zone bureaucracy and was not implemented before the departure of 1-37 Armor from Karbala. In counterinsurgency warfare money is a weapon every bit as powerful – perhaps more so – than rifles and bullets, but decentralization in its use is the key to its effectiveness. Like arms and ammunition, money must be provided to subordinate leaders to ensure the greatest impact on local situations. In Iraq, the centralized nature of CPA bureaucracy and the lack of regional reconstruction teams with their own budgets and resources hampered coalition efforts. We were somewhat concerned about the impact of inadvertent casualties on the sympathies of the civilian population. One lesson the Ready First Combat Team had learned during its nine-month stay in Baghdad was that satisfying the Iraqi code of honor could go a long way in assuaging the anger of families and tribes who had loved ones killed or injured by coalition operations. Even if we were not at fault, it was often better to pay “blood money” than incur a clan’s lasting wrath if honor was not satisfied. In Karbala, therefore, we worked through the governor to offer these same solatia-like payments to those families who had loved ones killed or injured in the fighting. The rules for these payments were clear. If a woman or child were injured or killed, we would pay the money with no questions asked. If a military-age male were involved, we would first investigate the family to ensure that he was not a member of the Mahdi

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Army killed in the course of military operations. Although the program was widely publicized, no citizens came forward to make a claim. In large measure this was due to the fact that the civilian population had largely vacated those areas where the Mahdi Army operated, and the precise nature of our targeting and attacks against the militia forces which precluded collateral damage. Throughout the battle for Karbala, information operations played a key role in influencing local opinion. The city had a working TV station, which helped in getting our messages across to the local population. Since there was little the Mahdi Army could do to prepare for our assault that it had not already undertaken in the way of fortifying strong points and stockpiling ammunition, we telegraphed our punch to keep the citizens informed as to the necessity for the operations and our progress in ridding the city of Sadr’s militia. The enemy knew we would attack, if not the precise time and place, which may have been a factor in some of the less committed fighters melting away back to their homes. Major General Bieniek, Brigadier General Gruszka, and I held a number of discussions with local leaders to keep them informed and supportive of the mission. Via leaflets and loudspeaker broadcasts, we offered the rank-and-file of the Mahdi Army amnesty if they were willing to lay down their arms. For the leaders and those who chose to stand by their side, the choice was starker: surrender or die. A number of factors aided coalition actions in Karbala: support from the local citizenry, who did not want Muqtada al-Sadr controlling the city’s economy; the presence of forces from coalition allies, which, although they could not conduct offensive operations to eject the Mahdi Army from Karbala, could maintain security in the city once it was clear of enemy forces; and a fairly strong local Iraqi government that could lend legitimacy to reconstruction operations. Once the fighting ended, a visible and robust police presence was critical to securing the people and providing legitimacy to the local government. A quick infusion of money in the form of humanitarian aid and civic action contracts to local businesses helped to ease the pain of conflict, remove the evidence of the recent fighting, and put unemployed young males to work. In the end, though, it was the restoration of security to Karbala that made reconstruction and civic action possible and brought the bulk of the citizenry over in support of the coalition and local government. Without the defeat of the Mahdi Army in the city, no amount of reconstruction aid could have brought the counterinsurgency fight to a successful conclusion. When citizens feel fear in their everyday lives, it is unlikely that one can win their hearts and minds, earn their respect, or gain their trust and confidence. The suppression of Shi’a rebellion was a critical point in the first year of the Iraq War. Had Sadr’s militia succeeded in holding south-central Iraq, coalition operations in the remainder of the country would have become untenable. In Karbala, the 1st Polish BCT and forces from the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division succeeded in destroying the local Mahdi Army forces and ensured longterm control through effective combat operations, support of local Iraqi security structures, and a targeted civic action program. The Karbala model was “clear-

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hold-build” in action nearly two years before that approach became the official strategy of the Coalition in Iraq. As of the spring of 2006, the war damage caused by military operations in Karbala has been completely erased, and the city remains under the control of the Iraqi government – a testament to the courage and sacrifice of the American, Polish, and Bulgarian soldiers who paid the price in sweat and blood to restore the city to Coalition control in the spring of 2004.

Notes 1 The White House, “Strategy for Victory: Clear, Hold, and Build,” March 20, 2006, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060320-6.html. 2 In Shi’a Islam, the Mahdi, or “Guided One,” is the prophesized redeemer of Islam who will one day return to Earth to create the perfect Islamic society. 3 Larry Diamond, “What Went Wrong in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004. 4 The basis for the superior effectiveness of combat units fielded by Western civilization is a theme explored fully in Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power, New York: Doubleday, 2001.

10 Civil affairs engagement in Iraq John R. Ballard

We must then have a decisive strategy to help that government set a path toward democracy, stability, and prosperity.1 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Our coalition, along with our Iraqi allies, is moving forward with a comprehensive, specific military plan. Area by area, city by city, we’re conducting offensive operations to clear out enemy forces, and leaving behind Iraqi units to prevent the enemy from returning. Within these areas, we’re working for tangible improvements in the lives of Iraqi citizens. And we’re aiding the rise of an elected government that unites the Iraqi people against extremism and violence. President Bush2

When civil affairs personnel describe the war in Iraq, they paint a very different picture of the conflict than do most other soldiers, and they tell a story vastly different from the one portrayed in the media. The civil affairs view of the war is also unlike the perception held by the vast majority of American citizens. Quite simply, civil affairs soldiers and Marines see Iraq through the eyes of the Iraqi people – for they work there primarily to minimize the impact of military operations on the host nation and, in Iraq’s case, to facilitate progress.3 Significantly, this civil affairs view of Iraq should begin to dominate our coalition concept of operations over the next several years, for with the second, national election in Iraq completed in the fall of 2005, the United States and Iraq reached a real turning point in the campaign: the time when Iraqi progress can finally take the fore over security operations. In military terms, civil affairs activities should become the focus of U.S. effort, alongside the rise to primacy of the Iraqi security force. Most civil affairs personnel would say bluntly that leaving Iraq now is incompatible with the continued existence of a unified Iraqi state. With the disbanding of the Iraqi army, the coalition assumed responsibility for the internal and border security of Iraq until the Iraqi security forces can accomplish those missions independently. Since staying forever in Iraq runs against U.S. national ideals and unnecessarily threatens military capacity in a time of global war, the

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issue is much simpler than many analysts make it. The vital question should now be: how can the United States most significantly reduce the influence of the insurgency in Iraq during the next (final) two to three years of coalition military preeminence in the country. This chapter describes some of the previous civil affairs efforts in order to inform the refinement of an approach that makes Iraqi progress the focus of Coalition effort. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s 2005 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee4 provides an excellent framework to illustrate these contributions of civil affairs Marines and soldiers. Her description of the campaign included all the basic considerations that should drive those efforts, so her words can serve to focus and illustrate the civil affairs contribution to the future campaign in Iraq.

“Our strategy is to clear, hold, and build . . .” First of all, as Secretary Rice noted, coalition forces had to “clear the toughest places – [leaving] no sanctuaries.” Clearing Iraq of insurgent influence has dominated all aspects of the strategy in Iraq, but it was not an end in itself. It was a necessary pre-condition, but was insufficient for a truly independent functioning Iraqi state. The value of the well-debated “oil spot”5 strategy – the idea that we only need to concentrate our security effort in those key areas of Iraq that are nearly secure – cities such as Najaf and Basra – until they become self reliant. Then, with most areas under local control, the coalition can turn to the less-secure neighboring areas, until eventually there will only be the three, largely Sunni, provinces where the insurgency draws the majority of its support remaining.6 Those areas will then be pacified town by town – as the coalition has already done in Sadr City, Fallujah, Baquba, and Tal Afar, and as it is continuing to do in the rest of Al Anbar province – but with the added power that comes from freeing up forces from the already safe areas of the country.7 Population and resource control and humanitarian assistance dominate this necessary “clearing” task from the civil affairs perspective. The normal wartime actions of civil affairs teams working with the civil population can often help identify sources of insurgent power, but also are far more likely to result in the identification of safe areas where the local residents know the insurgency is weak and provide other equally important contributions to mission success. Immediately prior to the battle for Fallujah in November of 2004, civil affairs teams were involved in negotiations with local civic leaders, provided planning assistance in the determination of restricted fire areas around cultural and economic facilities, assisted with the economic development of outlying areas and coordinated with international aid organizations for needed resources.8 They also pressed for dialog with civic leaders in a range of municipal departments to secure access to local water, electricity and food distribution capabilities. Every day civil affairs teams helped families in search of lost loved ones and lost property. These activities continued, albeit at a reduced level, even during the most intense combat operations.

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The efforts of civil affairs units in Fallujah saved the city fire department, protected several other critical infrastructure sites, permitted local residents to participate in the care of their dead, segregated and cared for captured personnel prior to screening, and dispensed humanitarian aid immediately. Perhaps most importantly, civil affairs units maintained a regular dialog with at least a few of the city elders in order to understand the needs of the people during the fighting and anticipate future civic requirements. At the operational level, during the height of combat, civil affairs planners worked simultaneously on the plan to restore the city’s infrastructure in coordination with representatives from the Iraqi Interim Government. In fact, a civil military operation began in the city at the end of the first week of combat to coordinate relief and recovery efforts. These activities were fundamental to the eventual success of the operation. Americans have carried the bulk of the load for this “securing” task thus far in the conflict, but the task of making Iraq safe is too large for U.S. forces to accomplish alone. Fortunately, the units of the Iraqi armed forces have been involved in combat operations since 2004 and are growing rapidly in capability. They have many good leaders and are developing the skills and discipline required to conduct independent small unit actions. Five Iraqi battalions fought well in Fallujah in 2004 – they also assisted with local policing and the distribution of humanitarian supplies after the early days of the battle.9 What they often lack is the staff and command skills to coordinate larger operations (with the exception of a few areas in Baghdad and Mosul). In February 2006, units of the 4th Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division conducted successful independent operations around the city of Fallujah to clear local towns of insurgents. One of the battalions of that brigade has been fully integrated into the area of operations of the Marine regiment responsible for security around the city and the leadership of that battalion has shown the skill and the sensitivity needed to effectively maintain daily security in the region in a way that only U.S. forces were capable of doing in 2004. The Iraqi units continue to show greater and greater capability. The coalition campaign has now progressed sufficiently to begin developing Iraqi civil affairs capabilities and working to instill a dedication to safeguarding and supporting the population within the Iraqi armed forces – a sharp contrast to the practice under Saddam Hussein. This is not a simple thing, nor would it be normal among most armed forces around the world. (Few armed forces have specialized units that focus on the civil aspects of conflict.) But as the Iraqi armed forces mature they will learn the value of good civil–military relations and their relationships with police and border security forces will also improve. Both of these relationships will be very important in a country where formerly the military helped suppress and punish the people.

Hold and enlarge, with an emphasis on the Iraqi people Secretary Rice said that the follow-on actions of coalition should seek “to hold and enlarge secure areas.” The civil affairs component of the military views

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even this action very differently from many other organizations. Civil affairs personnel see economic development as critical to the restoration of an acceptable Iraqi standard of living. Without such a minimal quality of life, the Iraqi people will be unwilling to share in the burden of security and unable to participate in their own governmental affairs, or to develop sorely needed responsible governance. Economic development requires investment and growth – neither of those can be accomplished without a minimum of security. No investors will risk their funds in an area where they do not feel that security matches acceptable risk. General Peter Schoomaker, the Chief of Staff of the Army, clearly understands the shift in focus that is needed in Iraq. In February, 2006, he noted, “fundamentally, counterinsurgency is not a military deal . . . it is political, economic, informational. It’s about separating the support of the people away from the insurgents. You do that not by disrupting people’s lives but by enabling their welfare.”10 General George Casey, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, has established a counterinsurgency school in Iraq where all newly assigned commanders, down to the company command level, are shown the value of this approach. As a result, the latest generation of coalition leaders in Iraq has begun to put the needs of the Iraqis first. From general to captain the Defense Department has finally shifted the attitudes of the combat leaders to make Iraqi progress a priority. The Iraqi people have unique expectations and needs. The best way the coalition can contribute to meeting these needs requires a good understanding of the Iraqis and their cultures. This is a forte of civil affairs forces. Many coalition officers never would have anticipated that cell phone tower restoration would have been a high priority in the reconstruction of the city of Fallujah – but it was very clearly almost as important as the restoration of electricity for the residents of the city. Pure water was far less important to the local population because they were accustomed to the water of the Euphrates – something that would make any American ill. But they had more recently become dependent upon cell phones in the wrecked infrastructure of Iraq as the only way of maintaining contact with their dispersed family members. Responsible governance must go hand in hand with economic development otherwise all profit (and therefore all growth) will be stolen by those few in positions of power and will not be made available to serve the needs of furthering economic prosperity. The Iraqis will need public servants to serve as local department managers, mayors, governors and federal administrators who work selflessly to improve local conditions. For too many Iraqi officials in the old regime worked against, not for, the needs of the people. (A real mayor and a functioning city council in Fallujah emerged a full year after the battle and made real improvements in the city – for Iraqis by Iraqis.11) Theft is a huge problem in Iraq today because there is no ethic of “community” in the sense of sharing resources – almost everything made available to residents immediately disappears into individual or tribal coffers. Thus “community resources,” in the American view (such as surplus food stocks,

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sanitation facilities, or even municipal transportation assets) only rarely service community needs. The essential nexus between the improvement of economic conditions in Iraq and the development of governmental policies and procedures (to include policing) that ensure the welfare of all the people remains the key to really “holding” the areas secure. Again, the city of Najaf – where coalition forces fought a major battle in August 2004 – is now a great example of growth in both areas and relative security with Iraqi-only means. Fallujah shows some progress as well, but it comes much more slowly in the Sunni regions of the country where the insurgents still influence everyday life in powerful ways people in America fail to understand.12

National institutions must be restored to Iraq Most importantly, concurrently with every other effort in Iraq, “we must build truly national institutions.” This slow flowering task is where civil affairs forces make their greatest contribution and impact on the future. Although the development of national institutions takes time in every nation, Iraqis must overcome some particularly significant hurdles as they progress toward this objective. They have neither natural borders nor a common ethnic or religious basis from which to easily develop a national consciousness. They have no recent history of government services responsive to the people’s needs, and they have an extreme paucity of civil servants who are willing and able to serve as civic leaders. For over two years, civil affairs teams and a host of senior officer augmentees in Baghdad have been working throughout Iraq to help the Iraqis develop national institutions. Replacing the ineffective bureaucrats in the huge number of key positions formerly held by Ba’ath Party loyalists will take years. The right people are painfully few in number. Others currently have little incentive to serve in such potentially dangerous positions. Unfortunately, Coalition leaders have made some bad choices, selecting unreliable people to serve in interim government positions in the press of events, and this has not helped foster trust in democracy. To push “good government” into the provinces will take civic education and years of recruitment initiatives. Unfortunately, because the security climate was so poor, those civil affairs teams and the combat units they support have been working largely alone in the most hotly contested areas of Iraq. Early in 2004, in Al Anbar province there were only two State Department employees and no tangible presence from the other U.S. government departments or from international aid organizations. Even the Independent Electoral Commission in Iraq (IECI) failed to station a management team in the province for either of the first two national elections – because the middle mangers of the IECI feared for their lives in Al Anbar. (It was no small wonder Sunnis did not feel “encouraged” to vote there.) Secretary Rice announced an augmentation of our civil affairs efforts in this vein when she said: To execute our strategy we will restructure a portion of the U.S. mission in Iraq. Learning from successful precedents used in Afghanistan, we will

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deploy Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in key parts of the country. These will be civil–military teams, working in concert with each of the major subordinate commands, training police, setting up courts, and helping local governments with essential services like sewage treatment or irrigation.13 Only after the essential functions of a government are restored and the Iraqis able to support them will a transfer of responsibility for the greatest part of the Iraqi security situation be possible.

“The enemy has no positive vision for the future of Iraq” This contest is now more a battle of ideas than it is a battle of bullets. The bulk of the U.S. effort must be directed at countering ideological support for terrorism in Iraq and in making the promise and goals of democracy and benefits of progress more clear to the Iraqi people. In these efforts civil affairs forces have played and will continue to play a critical role – because of the different perspective they have and due to their close relationships with the people of Iraq. Working on another level, civil affairs personnel have been assigned to every national ministry in Iraq to work with a new cohort of Iraqi public servants to revamp the government apparatus of the country in Baghdad. They have helped Iraqis make great improvements in medical care and educational services across the country. They have even assisted with the development of political parties and the parliamentary process. Much less successfully, they have also helped in the development of the very immature provincial and town councils to extend effective government into the far reaches of Iraq. This effort may one day yield the greatest benefit for the country, but will always be little known. The problems that plague the U.S. ideological effort fall into two significant categories. First of all, the region has a long history of anti-western rhetoric. Major events in the Middle East since 1967 (including two lost wars against Israel and the continued military pressure of the West) have shown the Iraqi people too much that is negative and disappointing. But since 2001 (and particularly in Iraq) actions by the insurgents have betrayed their words. In particular the letter between the key leaders of Al Qaeda and the insurgency in Iraq (Zawahiri and Zarqawi) makes it clear that the insurgents/terrorists themselves have very different but equally selfish goals for Iraq and little interest in the Iraqi people. As Secretary Rice noted: Zawahiri’s July letter to Zarqawi reveals that he is “extremely concerned” that, deprived of popular support, the insurgents will “be crushed in the shadows.” “We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the Taliban,” he warned, whose regime “collapsed in days, because the people were passive or hostile.”

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With Zarqawi gone, the coalition must not only continue to drive the wedge between his followers and the support of the Iraqi people, but it must also more clearly enunciate its own goals and objectives of leaving Iraq when its responsibilities have been transferred to Iraqis. Specifically, the leaders of the coalition need to increase transparency and fully integrate Iraqis into its decision-making process so that they can convince their fellow citizens (through rumor – the most effective communications tool in Iraq) that the coalition is not in Iraq to steal the nation’s oil or to develop a permanent presence there. The nations of the coalition must, absolutely, develop effective means to counter the ideological support the terrorists and insurgents derive from the Iraqi population.14 The United States has sponsored numerous studies to learn better ways of communicating with the Iraqis, but there has been very limited implementation of a coherent communications strategy in the Middle East, or even in the United States. This has been largely due to a dominating focus on security of U.S. forces. That focus has relegated an information strategy to the back bench. Because few in the military or in government understand the nuance of an information strategy to reduce ideological support, few actively participate. (Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes’ recent global tour illustrates this very well.) This lack of understanding of the role and the process, and finally a lack of understanding of the real goals of the enemy has hampered realization on an individual level of the importance of such an ideological response. Iraqis can be quite stoic and long suffering but U.S. civil affairs teams experiences with them also indicate that they are increasingly intolerant of the uncertainty that results in their daily lives from the acts of insurgents. They have little expectation that their government leaders will protect or support them, but they have a very tangible expectation that Baghdad should be able to keep the peace in Iraq.

Extinguishing the insurgency in Iraq By far the best way to end the insurgency that threatens Iraq is to enable the Iraqis themselves to determine and control their own future. They can extinguish the insurgency by withdrawing the fuel it needs to survive simply by refusing to allow it free access to their towns and cities. The Iraqi battalions that fought in Fallujah in November 2004 made this obvious. Now that the Iraqis have restored a portion of their security force capability, those forces should re-assume the responsibility for combating the insurgents in their own land. Once the people of Iraq and their forces unite in this effort the American role in the war should be significantly reduced. That itself will reduce the draw of the insurgency. Many Iraqis have been too fearful to avoid cooperating with the insurgents. Many too have felt that the insurgency was a fight against an occupying power. U.S. words and actions must make it clear that U.S. forces will leave Iraq and that they are in the country to make it better for the Iraqis. U.S. leaders must choose their words carefully, but most civil affairs officers who have served there sincerely believe that the United States can make its case and can gain the cooperation of the majority of Iraqis. With that backing the tacit support given to

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the insurgents will slowly erode and the fire in the insurgency will certainly be extinguished over the next few years. Iraqis will continue to battle internal strife, but the significant reduction of tacit support from a more economically prosperous and better governed population will make the task of the insurgent too difficult and the reduction of ideological support will significantly hamper recruitment of new insurgents. The insurgency must be extinguished by a people who will not tolerate the insurgents because they finally see a different and realistic future for Iraq.

Notes 1 Condoleezza Rice, “Iraq and U.S. Policy, Opening Remarks Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” Washington, DC, October 19, 2005. 2 George W. Bush, “President Discusses War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy,” Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, DC, October 6, 2005. 3 For a good book-length insight into the civil affairs perspective, see Rob Schulteis, Waging Peace, a Special Operations Team’s Battle to Rebuild Iraq, New York: Gotham, 2005. 4 Ibid., Rice, “Iraq and U.S. Policy.” All further quotes are from this speech unless specified otherwise. 5 For an excellent overview of the oil spot strategy see Andrew Krepinevich, “How to Win in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005. 6 Interestingly, two of these three voted against the constitutional referendum: Al Anbar, and Salah al-Din. The other two majority Sunni areas of Iraq, Diyala, and Ninevah provinces, came close to voting no, but did not achieve a two-thirds percentage of no votes. 7 What remains slightly incongruous in this theory is the dominating significance of the city of Baghdad in Iraq – the one city where the coalition must maintain order if any government functions are to realistically occur. For a host of reasons, Baghdad will likely remain a focus of effort by “all sides” in the conflict. 8 Many promises were made, too many optimistic assumptions were relied upon, and in the end, in Fallujah, no appreciable support was provided by international aid organizations. 9 Though they were frequently tempted and often succumbed to the temptation of siphoning off some of the humanitarian supplies for their own needs. 10 Julian E. Barnes, “The Future of U.S. Warfare,” U.S. News and World Report, February 27, 2006. 11 Philip Shiskin, “Frustration, Fear in Fallujah,” The Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2005. See also his “Many Hindrances Beset Iraq’s Road to Recovery,” The Wall Street Journal, October 31, 2005. 12 Many able public officials in Iraq during 2004 were afraid to act on divisive issues for fear members of their families would be wounded or killed by the enemy. 13 Unfortunately, and not surprisingly given the hazardous work conditions facing these Provincial Reconstruction Teams, the response of individuals in the State Department has not been enthusiastic and few of the positions required have been filled with volunteers. 14 Similar efforts are needed to counter support the enemy gains from the global population, but this may well take a different methodology for the global population has a very different and less tangible incentive to stop its support. Because the spread of democracy and human rights has little or no value for those who have not experienced it, or for those jaded by never having lived without it, that rationale has a very puny effect as a counter.

11 The U.S. Army and counterinsurgency in Iraq Kalev I. Sepp1

Only three months after the capture of Baghdad by American Army and Marine Corps troops, it had become evident to the new chief of U.S. Central Command, General John P. Abizaid, that he was facing a new and unexpected war. In a public news conference, he described the renewed fighting “as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us.” “It’s low-intensity conflict in our doctrinal terms,” he explained, “but it’s war, however you describe it.”2 The enemy the United States and its Coalition allies now confronted were an aggregate of armed insurgents who sought to prevent the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq – one of the stated purposes of the invasion. To overcome this violent resistance to political change, the allies and in particular their military forces had to mount a counterinsurgency. This endeavor would have to be more than combat operations aimed at the armed opposition – the goal had to be to bring the entire population of Iraq to the side of the new government, to ensure its success. This meant that the entire country of Iraq, with its distorted economy, corrupt bureaucracy, hapless police, and collapsing infrastructure, had to be completely rebuilt. By default, this had to be the responsibility of the occupying military forces – there was no one else to do the job. The United States armed forces, by far the largest of the invading formations, would have to carry the greatest share of the burden of this considerable effort. The question was, and in large measure remains, could the U.S. military adapt to the requirements of this particular kind of war and warfare? The scale of the effort to rebuild Iraq can be understood by factoring out the ongoing insurgency. Iraq is a post-conflict society, much like Germany and Japan after World War II, and Korea after its 1950–1953 conflict. Even absent the necessity of fighting determined insurgents and terrorists on a daily basis, the country would have needed at least five years to recover from the physical damage of the Coalition invasion and subsequent mass looting. Further, a wholly new government must be formed and installed. According to a 2003 RAND study on “nation-building,” to date no effort at enforced democratization has been brought to a successful conclusion in less than seven years. Internal strife diverts resources to security efforts and extends this rebuilding period by several more years.3 The insurgents stand against this objective of a democratic Iraq, and assail

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these ways and means. Understanding the enemy explains the difficulties in bringing the insurgency to heel. About 90 percent of the total body of armed insurgents are Iraqi Sunnis. These are variously former Ba’athists, Saddam loyalists, and “rejectionists” – reactionaries, to use the Marxist term. They are driven by the quasi-religious concept of a “good resistance” and sustained by a sense of being undefeated by the vastly superior U.S. forces. Paradoxically, Sunnis from the western province of Al Anbar are more opposed to Shi’ia Iraqis from the southern provinces than they are to U.S. soldiers and Marines. Iraqi Sunnis perceive the southern Shi’ia as puppets of Iran, and hence not true Iraqis. Further, the Sunnis fear extreme retaliation by the Shi’ia for the abuses they inflicted during their three decades in power. Savvy Sunni leaders have come to realize the despised Americans will be their protectors from Shi’ia revenge. The remaining 10 percent of the insurgents are foreign jihadis, Shi’ia religious extremists and militias, and growing criminal armies. There are approximately 20,000 to 30,000 insurgent combatants (although some official sources estimate there are as few as ten thousand armed fighters). If the rough math of historical precedents holds, there would then be about 300,000 active supporters – known as auxiliaries in the parlance of unconventional war-fighters such as the Army Special Forces – and 3,000,000 sympathizers. These estimates extend from many nations’ experiences in guerrilla warfare since World War II, and interestingly are similar to the ratios of fighters-to-supporters in regular military forces. Each combatant needs approximately ten persons to actively support his operations and survival. These auxiliaries perform such logistical tasks as providing food and shelter, means of communications, transportation, and medical assistance when needed. Most importantly, they furnish the intelligence the combatant needs to hide from the authorities, select targets, attack them, and withdraw back into hiding without detection. Beyond this circle of auxiliaries, the population of the region, neighborhood, or town must be counted on by the insurgents for at least passive support. Popular sympathy for the insurgents, or mortal fear of retribution, keeps the people who are not actively involved in fighting or supporting the combatants from reporting the tell-tale signs of insurgent activity – invisible to spy planes and passing military patrols, but plainly evident to local residents. As the conflict has progressed, some Coalition political and military leaders have readily grasped the character of the insurgents they combat, but others have evinced difficulty in conceptualizing the enemy. These officers and officials improperly homogenize the insurgents into a single entity.4 They comprehend Al Qaeda, other radical Islamist groups and the entire insurgency as “Salafists” connected to the “global insurgency” bent on creating an Islamist caliphate. This simplistic view avoids the very difficult task of discerning the disparate and often minute elements of the insurgency, and its equally disparate and numerous causes. This overly-generalized view also avoids making the necessary plans and taking the necessary actions at local, provincial, and national levels, all very complex without a single unitary enemy, to eliminate or at least mitigate the conditions that produce insurgents.

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The new Iraqi government and its Coalition allies face an insurgency that is on the one hand diverse and disunited, but on the other is hardened, capable, and dedicated. Raw recruits and rookie policemen cannot be expected to leave their training schools and go directly into battle against the hardened and vicious killers who fill the ranks of the various insurgent and criminal groups. When insurgents staged uprisings in 2004 in Fallujah, Ramadi and Najaf, newlyformed army and police forces collapsed. In Mosul, the entire police force deserted, and in Al Anbar province, the whole Iraqi 7th Division disintegrated. Major offensives by both American and seasoned Iraqi forces were necessary to restore order and drive the insurgents underground. The collapsed Iraqi units and police departments have since been painstakingly reconstituted and retrained, a process that is still going on in some zones over a year later. The results of these military initiatives has been seen in the increasing role of Iraqi forces in operations, as in Tall Afar in the fall of 2005 where Iraqi government forces outnumbered their U.S. counterparts, and Iraqi soldiers suffered the brunt of the casualties, both in killed and wounded. Iraqi security forces were eventually able to control the cities of Najaf and Karbala, portions of Diyala province and the notorious Haifa Street area of Baghdad. The measure of the Iraqi security forces is not their numbers, but their abilities, especially those of their leaders and commanders. The senior staff officers of the Multinational Force – Iraq and its adjunct headquarters, the Multinational Security Transition Command – Iraq, estimate by the sixth year of the war, about 2008, the Iraqi Army and police forces will have matured sufficiently to be able to assume responsibility for their own country’s security. Besides the training and equipping of individual soldiers and their units, a military infrastructure must be built, to enable the essential tasks of command, transportation, communications, logistics, and maintenance. This supporting infrastructure is commonly referred to as combat support and service support forces. These range from truck and logistical units for moving units to where they’re needed to fight the insurgents, to intelligence units for conducting analysis to plan operations. Institutions and processes also must be in place to assure pay for its soldiers, implementation of support contracts, and promotion policies, to name a few. This effort will take time and require continued support and assistance from the United States and allied military forces for several years. The framework of these functions, if not all the functions themselves, should be largely complete by 2008. Until then, the Iraqis must rely on both the logistics system of the Coalition, and its leadership as well. Until the Iraqi police and army forces gain sufficient size and maturity to perform their duties throughout the country, the principal line of defense between the terrorist insurgents and ordinary Iraqi citizens, by virtue of numbers, is an American soldier or Marine. Their presence, increasingly augmented by competent Iraqi forces, is essential to protecting the population from the insurgents in order to gain their confidence and cooperation – which is what is necessary to undermine the insurgency and end the violence. Where American and Iraqi forces operate in concert with each other, the effectiveness of both is

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multiplied, and the confidence and cooperation of the population is gained more quickly. Security operations are most effective when authority and resources are pushed down to the lowest levels, usually battalion and company level. This approach to operations is familiar, even routine, to U.S. and other Coalition forces, but is a concept that Iraqi forces are only now coming to appreciate. Over time, as Iraqi forces develop and are less dependent on Coalition support, the Coalition role, particularly the role of U.S. forces, will begin to diminish – not in 2007, but perhaps over the following year or two. The Coalition forces plan and conduct a wide variety of security operations. Some are unilateral, many are in conjunction with Iraqi troops, and Iraqis lead some with Coalition soldiers serving only as “back-up.” These operations are usually small patrols, in vehicles or on foot. Troops will often surround a block, and then go door-to-door to talk with the residents to reassure them that security forces are nearby, to gather information, and to deny insurgents any sense of sanctuary or safe haven. Soldiers will also set up traffic stops to inspect vehicles and to deny enemy freedom of movement. These operations generally consume half the available combat forces on any given day. In effective U.S. units, almost 70 percent of those patrols are aimed at gaining information from the population. The other 30 percent are raids, planned with the intelligence garnered from the patrols. When conducting these operations, Coalition and Iraqi soldiers often come under fire from insurgents with rifles and machine guns, such as AK-47s, and rocket propelled grenades. They’re also frequently attacked with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) ranging from a single “hot-wired” artillery shell, to massive bombs secreted under roadways and in cars, to suicide bombers. Occasionally, insurgents will ambush Coalition and Iraqi forces using a combination of all of these means. Despite having the advantage of surprise, most of these encounters turn out badly for the insurgent attackers. Coalition troops kill and capture significantly more of the insurgents whether in defensive fights or offensive raids. Iraqi soldiers are doing better as well. This is due to the improving tactical proficiency of Iraqi military units, and, increasingly, the cooperation of the Iraqi people who provide the information needed to find the insurgents. Equally as important, one-quarter of available troops are dedicated to keeping major highways open so military supplies, construction materials and Iraqi commerce can get where they need to go. This also allows Coalition and Iraqi forces freedom of movement anywhere in Iraq – no area is denied to them. Similarly, they run patrols and surveillance operations in areas where insurgents routinely launch rockets and fire mortars, in order to spoil these attacks. These operations are not without risk. The greatest threat to American troops while clearing these routes is improvised explosive devices. Some are simple, even crude; some display increasing sophistication and power. U.S. forces attempt to counter these IEDs with new technologies to baffle the firing systems; by driving in armored “humvees,” tanks, and armored personnel carriers; and by constantly changing tactics. In combination with community patrols and raids, route security measures limit access to safe havens for insurgents and terrorists.

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The remaining combat force is dedicated to guarding bases where Coalition and Iraqi forces plan and prepare their operations. These secure bases range from a fortified platoon or company patrol base of a hundred troops in a contested city, to a battalion or brigade forward operating base with several thousand soldiers manning the garrison. Insurgents and terrorists rarely assault these bases directly because they suffer heavy casualties when they try. Because of this, insurgent attacks on bases are usually limited to occasional mortar bombs or rockets that are, in the main, randomly aimed. These operations present the Army or Marine infantryman, and troops designated to serve as infantry, with an arduous daily routine. He works 15 or more hours a day. He walks through the neighborhoods he is tasked to make safe, or patrols riding in an armored humvee. Even the vehicles with air-conditioners cannot overcome the 130° summer heat, and the interior – packed with weapons, radios, ammunition, water, first-aid kits and display screens – is hot, cramped, and uncomfortable. During these patrols the infantryman is always watched by the enemy and judged by his Iraqi counterparts and the population. In this environment, he has to be professional, treat Iraqi citizens with dignity and respect, and respond to situations with violence or compassion as the moment demands. His breaks, or “down-time,” are limited. He may get 30 minutes for each meal, but often eats field rations on the go. He may also get six hours to sleep, but will often find his sleep interrupted by guard duty, mortar attacks, or a call to join a quick reaction force. The few hours remaining make up his personal time, if circumstances allow it. The infantryman’s squad of nine or fewer men is one of several dozen in a battalion. They may be stationed together on the same Forward Operating Base. Called “FOBs” for short, they have names like Courage, Sykes, Liberty, and Brassfield-Mora. They may be situated on an abandoned Saddam-era Iraqi army barracks or air base, set in a town, along a stretch of highway or sometimes deep in the hard-pan desert. These squads may also be in a company or platoon patrol base in the heart of an Iraqi community, to deny the enemy control over that area. Often surrounded by enemy fighters, the patrol bases are tenaciously defended by their occupants, since these are subject to direct fire attack by small arms and rocket propelled grenades and assault by suicide car bombers. They know they are the sole expression of government authority in areas claimed by insurgents and terrorists as theirs. In the American forces, the heaviest burden for prosecuting the counterinsurgency falls on the combat battalions. Battalions are made up of about 700 troops when fully manned, and sometimes have more, but often less. Battalion headquarters are normally stationed on an FOB. The commander and staff direct the operations of Iraqi and Coalition units against the insurgents to protect the population, as well as their own base, and the supply routes that allow it to be sustained. The average battalion in Iraq is responsible for 250,000 civilians in an area the size of Rhode Island. Some battalions have almost 2,000,000 Iraqis in their assigned areas of operation.

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Battalions closely manage the platoons and companies that prosecute the war for Iraq. The work schedule for these bands of several hundred soldiers or Marines is literally “24/7.” Every day, a battalion will run some 25 vehicle and foot patrols, along with traffic checkpoints, civil affairs events, engineer projects, detainee processing, psychological operations messaging, and training Iraqi security forces. In the course of a week, a battalion will also conduct four or more major searches and raids. The battalion commanders themselves will spend 40 to 50 hours weekly meeting with community leaders to strengthen the decision making and effectiveness of local government, gain and improve their confidence in Coalition and Iraqi forces, and improve cooperation against the insurgents and terrorists. Because of this workload, on any given day, any given combat battalion in any given city in Iraq operates with very few personnel to spare, except for those who are sleeping. Over the course of a week, a battalion will spend two-thirds of its effort in maintaining and developing its “situational awareness” – a thorough knowledge of its environment, particularly of the people and goings-on in its zone of responsibility. This is no easy task, since interaction with the population depends completely on a handful of interpreters in each unit. Commanders realize the value of their “terps,” who variously speak Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish, Farsi, Turkoman, and tribal dialects like Yezidi. They are the conduits of human intelligence, which guides almost all of the other 30 percent of the battalion’s efforts – action to capture insurgents and thwart their plans. With two-thirds of a unit’s time and effort devoted to finding information, the remaining one-third is spent acting on what they learn. In a counterinsurgency, which is a battle not against tank divisions or fighter squadrons but against small cells and individuals, it is hard to improve this ratio. Human intelligence is gained in patient, face-to-face engagement by soldiers with the people they are working to protect. Trust is vital, and the soldiers earn this slowly by convincing the inhabitants of a given neighborhood, village, or district that they and their Iraqi counterparts will stay to guard them. This means long-term presence, so the local people see the same troops again and again and can be confident that they will not be abandoned to criminals and terrorists. Training the Iraqi security forces is a top priority for the Coalition forces. Officers and sergeants from the combat battalions, and others selected for this duty, are embedded in Iraqi battalions and brigades to help shape them into viable, independent formations. These advisers accompany their Iraqi counterparts on operations, to oversee, aid, and coach them. By their daily presence, they set an example that has visible results. During the second battle for Fallujah in November 2004, Iraqi sergeants and junior officers fighting in the city were seen to be emulating U.S. Army and Marine squad and platoon leaders in combat. The advisers’ close instruction also allows them to best develop the Iraqi officers, who are critical to the performance of their units. Also in Fallujah, but on a larger level, one brigade from the Iraqi Intervention Force, well-seasoned from previous operations, and benefitting from advisers since their formation, fought as a brigade and was assigned battalion-sized objectives. This level of performance is becoming

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more common. This is because Iraqi leaders and their units are profiting from the experience of conducting operations with U.S. units, the example and assistance of advisers in all Iraqi Army and Special Police units, and their own operations that are becoming more routine. The counterinsurgency is not simply a military struggle. Although the weight of the current Coalition effort is on security, the troops are actively engaged in all areas of counterinsurgency – building the government and the economy – while fighting insurgents at the same time. In January 2006, Iraq formed its own government, but it remains reliant on the United States and its Coalition partners for much of its security. Another successful election may convince the majority of Iraqis and many insurgents that armed rebellion cannot succeed. However, this is unlikely to convert the religious fanatics and professional terrorists, and the insurgency will continue, however diminished. To win, it is necessary to bring all elements of power to bear simultaneously inside Iraq. The conflict cannot be decided in battle alone. The Iraqi and American forces’ decided tactical victory over the entrenched insurgents in Fallujah in November 2004 advanced their cause but did not end the war. Rather, a steady and long-term accumulation of successes in all the sectors of national life and affairs is required. The Iraqi government and the Coalition must continue to improve their ability to protect the citizens of Iraq, and reduce the insurgents’ ability to gain popular support. They must implement simple but effective antiterrorist measures, such as identity cards and vehicle licensing, deny the insurgents sanctuary, and meet the political, social and economic expectations of the Iraqi people. It is not possible to kill enough Saddamists, Salafists and gangsters to end the insurgency, unless the new Iraqi government eliminates the conditions that create them in the first place and allow them to operate. Security operations create the conditions essential to meeting the population’s expectations. This is central to success in the inherently political struggle of counterinsurgency. The United States must help the new government officials to be successful. It will not be possible to completely change the attitudes of the Shi’ia, the Sunnis, and the Kurds toward one another, but it is possible to make functional the ministries of the Interior, Finance, Defense, Water, Electricity, Health, Education, Trade, and others, as well as the Iraqi National Intelligence Service and the other agencies and departments of government. Connecting these organizations at the national level, and from the national level to the provinces, cities and towns, are the sinews of government: the bureaucracy. A new corps of educated and trained civil servants is essential to the day-to-day running of the entire system of government. Across Iraq, military commanders and staffs provide advice and assistance to provincial and local governments. Iraq’s Ministry of Defense and Interior are assisted by embedded teams from the Coalition’s major military headquarters. Similarly, U.S. military lawyers go daily to the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, the only functioning judiciary in the country. Other agencies are present, but largely in Baghdad with the national government. In the rest of the country the weight of the effort to recon-

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stitute government falls largely on the military, simply because there is no one else available. Iraq’s long-term success requires more than military approaches. Ensuring the enduring success of Iraq’s government and economy will require more effort, not less. Shortchanging these major components of the counterinsurgency will undermine any military progress. It is important not to confuse holding elections with building the elected government’s capacity to govern; to mistake civic-action projects for genuine economic sector revitalization; nor to fail to distinguish the formation of battalions with what Americans know as “providing for the common defense.” In this framework, withdrawing from Iraq would more likely result in abandoning Iraq at its moment of greatest need. Winning will come from staying to ensure the government and the economy are rebuilt with as much effort and resources as the United States has applied against Iraq’s security forces.

Counterinsurgency and the U.S. military But can the United States Armed Forces really prosecute a counterinsurgency war to a successful end? It is not obvious that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are adequately suited to this role in this kind of “small wars” – distinguished from general war by the strategist Carnes Lord by the pre-eminence of political considerations in their prosecution.5 Three years into the battle for Iraq, there are unsettling signs that the U.S. Army’s adaptation to small wars is uneven. Two concurrent and contrasting stories from the war zone illustrate this. In March of 2006, Tom Lasseter of the Knight-Ridder news organization, embedded with the 101st Airborne Division, reported a telling incident in the contested town of Samarra.6 Elements of the division’s 187th Infantry Regiment, known by their nickname the “Rakkasans,” were based in a concrete-walled fortress in the center of town. The official designation of the outpost was Patrol Base Uvannie, but the besieged troops there called it “The Alamo.” Lasseter witnessed an American soldier manning a heavy machine gun shoot and kill an unarmed Iraqi man because he walked into an “exclusion zone” – which the troops called a “kill zone” – that extended 100 yards out from the concrete barrier walls of the base. As the Iraqi lay dying with a .50-caliber bullet wound through his body, the U.S. medics who rushed to his side helpless to save him, he pointed at a little building in front of him and said in broken English, “This is my house.” He had simply been walking home. The colonel commanding the regiment had gruffly declared “The Rakkasans don’t do warning shots.” The late-arriving lieutenant on the scene fully understood that killing the Iraqi man, in a society where honor and revenge are paramount, created 15 new insurgents. The soldier who killed the Iraqi civilian railed to the reporter that he didn’t understand why he was in Iraq. At the same time, also in the conflictive west of Iraq, another journalist reported a story on another regiment, but with a very different cast. In a feature article in February 2006, the Washington Post’s Tom Ricks described the

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operations of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar, and the relative success of the Americans’ efforts there.7 He noted that months before the unit left the United States, the regimental commander conducted a long and comprehensive intellectual preparation of his troops for this kind of war, not just tactical training. His officers and sergeants made their way through extensive reading lists. They studied and discussed historical cases of counterinsurgencies, focusing on subjects like population security and control. Once in Iraq, they planned their operations in conjunction with the Iraqi security forces. In the battle for Tal Afar, the Iraqis accepted their share of responsibility for clearing the city, and in the end suffered more casualties than the Americans. The regimental commander received a letter of thanks from the mayor praising his troops for ridding the town of insurgents – but more, for helping re-establish the municipal government, resolving political disputes, and developing the police and public services. The mayor called the cavalrymen “Lionhearts,” the stuff of martial legend. This marked contrast between two regiments of the same Army should not exist. Yet as late as December 2005, a U.S. Army brigade commander arriving in Iraq admitted he only learned his unit’s primary mission – to train Iraqi security forces – as his troops were moving into their sector of responsibility. Why are Army units and leaders sometimes so baffled by their tasks in a counterinsurgency war? In part, there is a fundamental misstatement of their overarching mission in Iraq. The Defense Department’s strategic plan for 2006 highlights the future mission of “stability operations.”8 This infers that in present and future wars, the U.S. military will be working to restore a country in conflict, or in a post-conflict situation, to its pre-conflict “status quo.” But U.S. national policy intends that almost everything in Iraq will be wholly different than before. So, the United States, its Embassy and its armed forces are not trying to stabilize Iraq. They are, rather, fundamentally destabilizing an entire country and everything in it. The presence of uninvited foreign military troops in any country is by itself destabilizing. Simultaneously, a new government is to be instituted – a Stalinist dictatorship will be replaced by a representative democracy that is still responsive to tribal and religious structures. There will be a new economy. The previous Marxist-style command economy with oil-funded welfare programs will be supplanted by free-market capitalism and entrepreneurship. A new media environment with a free press and freedom of expression will supersede the censored state-controlled propaganda machine run by Saddam Hussein. Iraqis will have a new security system – the Iraqi Gestapo of Saddam’s regime will be replaced with a uniformed civil police force, chartered to protect rather than terrorize the citizenry. Iraq will have a new diplomatic standing, and new relations with Turkey, Syria, Iran, Israel, the United States and the rest of the world. Very significantly, a new society is in the making. Iraq will no longer be dominated by the Sunnis, but instead, ethnically and politically federated, with a strong Shi’ia – and hence Iranian – influence. Call it militant Wilsonianism, call it expeditionary democracy, call it coun-

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terinsurgency, but this is not a return to status quo ante bellum, and it is decidedly not stabilizing. It is the overturning of a nation. It is, at its core, revolution. American soldiers are the instruments of this revolution, and its implementers as well. This tremendous effort is largely driven by U.S. armed forces and the U.S. Army in particular, because there is simply no one else to do the job. But is it really possible for the U.S. Army to undertake this work, now and in the future? It would require the Army to direct political, social, and economic revolutions on a scale so vast that they would completely eclipse what the new United States themselves experienced in breaking from Great Britain’s imperial rule, or in reconstructing the defeated slave states of the South following the American Civil War. Unlike the outcomes of those wars, however, where violence quickly subsided after the formal end of hostilities was announced, the conflicts in invaded and occupied countries may continue, slowing the advance of revolutionary change. Conflict and instability would be instigated and perpetuated by insurgents and guerrilla fighters, the type of combatants which the U.S. Army has a checkered record of successfully fighting. In 1962, on the cusp of large-scale American troop deployment in South Vietnam, the Chief of Staff of the Army and welldecorated World War II general, George Decker, dismissed the threat of the insurgent Viet Cong by declaring “Any good soldier can handle guerrillas.”9 He supposedly based his observation on the experience of the U.S. Army on the Western frontier in the nineteenth century, in the long series of actions against hostile native tribes – the so-called Indian wars. If so, he overlooked the internal dichotomy of the Army of that age, divided between the small units policing the Western territories against guerrilla Indian bands, and the traditional Army based in the East that looked to Europe for example, studied Napoleonic-style warfare and largely ignored the “small wars” on the American frontier. Combat against the various bands of insurgents in Iraq reveals those same contradictions in the American Army and, in similar ways, the Marine Corps. Military counterinsurgency operations are small, both relatively and absolutely. In the U.S. Army’s successful post-World War II campaigns against guerrilla forces – the Greek Civil War, the Hukbalahap Rebellion in the Philippines, the hunt for “Ché” Guevara in Bolivia, and the Salvadoran Civil War – the “unit of action” was often a single soldier. American advisors, technicians, and defense attachés worked in small teams, and sometimes as individuals, never numbering more than 250 in an entire country at a time, and often only a few dozen. In contrast, the classic U.S. Army embraces mass. The framework of the force plainly reveals this, as its units of action are brigades, divisions, and corps – blocks of thousands of troops. In the Army’s schools, the Civil War and World War II are overstudied, at the expense of smaller-scale, less dramatic, but far more common expeditions and police actions. The Army maintains a fixation on what soldier–scholar John Waghelstein calls “the sine curve of mobilization, world war, and de-mobilization.”10 Counterinsurgency operations are, of necessity, slow and require patience. The government, its agencies and its allies must accept that long-term social and

216 K.I. Sepp economic changes are essential to eliminate the conditions that incited and fueled anti-government sentiment and violence. Tactical actions will often begin and end quickly, but the overall campaign is invariably an extended one. The classic Army, though, prefers speed at all levels of military activity – tactically, operationally, and strategically. This derives from its experience in the Civil War and codified by General Order 100 signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863.11 Also known as the Lieber Code, it is the basis of the United States’ Law of Land Warfare. It introduced the premise of a “short, sharp war” as more humane and less destructive than any long war. Short-duration and high-intensity conflicts also play to American technological, industrial, and logistical advantages, combining speed with mass to create operational inertia. This concept of warfare also reinforces the characteristic of “offensive-mindedness” in all ranks of military leaders, while anticipating the impatience of the American public with wars lasting more than a few years. In the main, the quest for speed in all operations is contrary to prosecution of a counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency operations require allies of all stripes. In the twenty-first century, in the period of accelerating political and economic globalization, the legitimacy gained by the engagement of the UN in a conflict is crucial to earn the support of world public opinion. Further, the variety of tactical approaches the several members of an international alliance bring to combating an insurgency prevents the insurgents from developing a simplified approach to dealing with the security forces they must confront. For all the challenges of forming, maintaining, and directing a coalition, it is worth the political, diplomatic, and military advantages that accrue to a multi-national counterinsurgent effort. Hard experience has validated the aphorism that for any country, the only thing more difficult than fighting a war with allies is fighting without any. The Classic Army would prefer to fight alone. Despite having fought alongside allies in every major conflict since World War I, Americans generally treat allies as an inconvenience. Allies, with their differently-organized and equipped units, seem to slow things down and complicate operations, even in the rarified environments of U.S. military schools and staff colleges where the complexities of multinational operations can be minimized without serious penalty. There is some validity to this outlook – at the end of the Cold War in 1991, European governments slashed their military budgets. Even the North Atlantic Treaty Organization armies find their conventional warfare technologies and expertise tend to lag behind the Americans, with the exception of certain “niche” capabilities. The English-speaking armies – the British, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders – enjoy the benefit of a common language with the Americans, easing planning and coordination. Of the other European ground forces, only the very competent but miniscule rapid deployment and special operations units integrate readily with the ground combat components of the U.S. military. The Americans’ preference for unilateral operations can be noted in the tiny fraction of senior U.S. military officers who can carry on a professional-level conversation in any language besides English. Counterinsurgency operations are, by definition, decentralized. This is neces-

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sary because any given insurgency is not a single unitary conflict, but a “mosaic war” of a hundred different little wars fought in separate districts, regions, valleys, villages, and even neighborhoods. During the long post-World War II Indochina conflict, the Viet Cong fighting to overthrow the Saigon regime recognized this characteristic. They formalized their insurgent strategy under the dau tranh concept.12 This allowed subordinate area commanders to balance centralized objectives, strategy, and doctrine with decentralized execution, with their local actions and timing adapted and adjusted to local conditions. The 2005 Counterinsurgency Survey in Iraq revealed the most effective U.S. unit commanders at the battalion and brigade level operated on the principal of maximum possible decentralization, of both resources and authority. For the first time, many captains commanding conventional force companies had their own staffs (normally only assigned to lieutenant colonels, colonels, and generals) – notably intelligence sections, created from teams of artillery spotters and from analysts detached from higher-level headquarters which were too distant from the local action to provide timely support. The infantry battalion commander assessed in the survey as the most successful in Iraq revealed his approach to operations: “I delegate authority until I feel uncomfortable, and then I know I’ve got it about right.”13 This attitude of decentralization runs against the bent of the Classic Army, which is supremely centralized and hierarchical. The same 2005 Counterinsurgency Survey found major U.S. units in Iraq still attempting to manage intelligence and combat operations on the “Cold War” model. Information was to be gathered from lower-level units and reported upwards, where it would be collected and analyzed at the highest headquarters. The lower-echelon units would then be maneuvered as deemed necessary by the senior commander. This method would certainly have been useful in a general war against the Warsaw Pact armies in Europe. However, it assumes an enemy who is equally centralized and hierarchical, acting under a single authority toward a specific objective. The fragmented elements of the Iraqi insurgency operate mostly independently, usually without coordination, with different motivations and often for differing ends. These individual components of the insurgency are best discerned and best dealt with at the lowest echelon, by the local counterinsurgent commander. A key element in this endeavor is an attitude of patience – contrary, again, to the idea of combining speed and mass to achieve battlefield success. In Iraq, by continuing to cleave to the principles of large-scale conventional combat, the Classic Army remains focused on the next big war, rather than the small war at hand. Thus, the Army is divided, much like the Soviets during their own war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The core of the Cold War-era Red Army, epitomized by the Soviet Eighth Guards Army based in East Germany, was poised for the conquest of western Europe – their anticipated big war. A significant portion of the Red Army, however, was dealing with the small war they found themselves fighting after they ousted the pro-Western Kabul government. The “Afghanistan Club,” as these Russian officers came to be known, came to discover that the highly centralized command systems of their European-

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oriented counterparts were inappropriate to the dispersed nature of warfare against the insurgent mujahadin guerrillas. These counterinsurgency veterans became separate and apart from their classic army colleagues, creating a schism in the Red Army.14 Like the Soviets in Afghanistan, the U.S. forces in Vietnam were never defeated tactically in any significant way, but they both lost strategically. Similarly, the Soviets and the Americans finally adapted their armies and tactics to effectively fight their counterinsurgencies, but in both cases, when they finally did, it was too late politically. Neither administration, in Russia or the United States, was willing to extend their commitment to their wars any further. The Soviet loss of Afghanistan precipitated a loss of Soviet credibility in the global foreign policy arena, just as the abandonment of Vietnam diplomatically crippled the United States for a decade after its defeat in that war. The Classic Army holds an attachment to the so-called “Weinberger” and later “Powell Doctrines,” which its leadership believes will save it from misemployment in small wars, and hence the consequences of the failure of United States strategy and policy in Vietnam. Two of the key tenets of these doctrines are: first, before the armed forces are committed to combat, there must be complete public support for going to war; and second, a vital national interest must be at stake. These seem appropriate preconditions before a democracy commits itself to war. However, in his 1983 essay “Notes on Low-Intensity Warfare” (a term for small wars since fallen from doctrinal usage), the strategist Edward Luttwak suggested that the U.S. military had oversimplified its understanding of these tenets.15 The first tenet assumes there is no link with public support to the manner in which a war is fought, only to the decision to fight it. Luttwak contends “Public support cannot be demanded up front; it must be earned.”16 This thesis is being validated by the public debate over continuing the large-scale U.S. military commitment in Iraq. The second tenet forgets that the nature of American global engagement requires protection of merely “important” and “other” interests, not just the vital interest of guarding the territory and citizens of the United States. George Kennan, the diplomat and statesman who conceived of the containment strategy against the Soviet Union, posited that the “American way of life” in itself is a vital interest. Ensuring this way of life will require military action more like international policing than wars aimed at the destruction of opposing armies and fleets. A central contributing factor to the Army’s adherence to the primacy of conventional warfare, writes Luttwak, is the Army’s self-regard.17 The Classic Army inflicts casualties on its opponents by overwhelming firepower, speed, and mass – so it focuses its efforts internally to optimize its administration of material and personnel resources to achieve maximum efficiency. A clue to this attitude is the frequent use of football metaphors by senior officers to describe operations and plans, as the twin characteristics of power and speed in the sport are emulated by the military. This “inwardly-regarding” mindset ignores the enemy and the setting and context of the conflict, and is much akin to the axiom attributed to Josef Stalin, that “Quantity has a quality of its own.”

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The critical flaw in this viewpoint is that it assumes all opponents can be beaten with mass and power and speed – but this is not so. To fight small wars, as it must to serve the nation, the Army needs to be “outwardly-regarding.” It must be able to determine and define enemy weaknesses, and then organize itself to exploit those weaknesses. But the Classic Army, as large as it is, has a large internal bureaucracy. Any bureaucracy is inherently inflexible in any fundamental way, and resistant to adaptation. This impinges on the flexibility necessary for joint operations, which should entail the selection of the most appropriate units for a given mission. Instead, it is reflexive for a large bureaucracy to simply include all services and all units in an operation, with all their platforms and weapons systems. The most successful tactical units in a counterinsurgency disperse and maintain a constant presence among the population, to protect the people from the insurgents and gain the best possible awareness of their operational environment. This is in juxtaposition to another military bureaucratic reflex, which is to consolidate forces rather than allow them to be seemingly scattered about. The apparent logic of this is to improve logistical support and “force protection.” While this may be optimal for internal functioning, though, it disregards what is best to fight both rural and urban guerrillas and their criminal allies in an insurgency – which is the actual objective. There are related problems for the Classic Army and its “inwardly-regarding” behavior. In consonance with its internal focus, it intends to fight all wars in the same way, and sees them only as scaled differently. But all small wars are different and unique. A cursory comparison of the ongoing insurgencies involving U.S. troops in Colombia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Iraq reveal this basic fact. In the face of this reality, the Classic Army rotates personnel frequently and widely, because it assumes that all personnel and leaders are essentially interchangeable. But small wars require expertise in specific and often arcane subjects and fields of knowledge, with language, cultural skills and key personal contacts taking years for individuals to acquire. The United States military has long eschewed “politics and policy” as beyond their purview, claiming with due justification to be an apolitical service of the government. To extend this beyond interference in American domestic politics, however, is unhelpful to the accomplishment of the purpose of the armed forces. Small wars overseas require manipulation of local politics to overcome opponents without having to defeat them in combat. Outright military defeat of insurgents has not been, and likely will not be possible in most conflicts. Despite this historical evidence, the Classic Army remains focused on firepower. In 2005, the Washington Times published a letter from a Marine corporal describing his experiences in combat in Iraq’s Al Anbar province. The summary of his observations of combat was that success against the various insurgents and criminals would come with equipage of U.S. forces with bigger caliber rifles, pistols, and machine guns.18 As weapons design stands, .50-caliber bullets are as big as can be practicably fired by foot soldiers, but these thumb-sized lead slugs are not helping the Rakkasans in Samarra. Over a century of experience shows that small wars cannot be won by firepower alone.

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There are positive signs, nonetheless, that the Classic Army is capable of adapting itself in notable measure to the operational demands of small wars. The 2005 Counterinsurgency Survey in Iraq reported that company-grade officers – that is, lieutenants and captains, along with their sergeants, leading small teams of ground troops – often showed resilience, flexibility and inventiveness in coping with their respective local missions. At a higher level, Lieutenant General David Petraeus, while commander of the U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Center, reshaped the training focus at the National Training Center for ground troops in the southern California desert to replicate conditions and scenarios common to Iraq. In doing so, he replaced the two-decades-old training format of major tank battles that had served the Army so well in its 1991 war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. Correspondingly, serious steps have been taken at the direction of the Multi-National Force-Iraq Commanding General to refit his organization for the Iraq conflict, including establishment of a counterinsurgency academy for arriving officers at Taji, north of Baghdad. At the same time, however, the military and defense bureaucracy insinuated debilitating assistance to the counterinsurgency academy by reflexively contracting civilians to replace veteran soldiers as instructors in counterinsurgency. While this sort of substitution may work with cooks and mechanics, it is not helpful in fighting an everevolving insurgency. It is another example of the false efficiencies a bureaucracy seeks, regardless of the state of war. Yet even assuming the Classic Army could become a New Model Army, capable of engaging in the new century’s coming small wars, there remains the question of policy, its implementation, and its costs. Patience is not widely held as one of the leading American virtues. If the Army disciplines itself to fight long-duration small wars, it is not wholly certain that the American political process would actually allow it to wage them. While the sports analogies of power and speed are not suitable to small wars, a game clock may be. The famous football coach Vince Lombardi said, “I never lost a game – I just ran out of time.” In Iraq, and in future small wars, the timeline of American political will may matter more than any capabilities, however remarkable, the American armed forces can provide. In preparing the armed forces for the anticipated small wars and counterinsurgencies of the twenty-first century, military leaders occasionally refer to history. Rather than taking account of “lessons learned” from previous conflicts, however, it can be more useful to contemplate the use of history as an analytic tool for decision makers. In that regard, counterinsurgency can be considered in historical context, as well as in its current form in Iraq, and then how history may be regarded in the next century of this form of warfare. Certainly in the past century, counterinsurgency has been integral to U.S. foreign policy. The subject was directly addressed by President John F. Kennedy in his speech to the U.S. Military Academy’s graduating class of cadets in 1962: [W]e need to be prepared to fight a different war. This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin, war by guerrillas, subversives,

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insurgents, assassins; war by ambush instead of combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. It requires, in those situations where we encounter it, a whole new strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and therefore, a new and wholly different kind of military training.19 It is in the best interests of the United States to promulgate stable governments and societies, by those means available to it. (The British armed forces state their objective in counterinsurgency to be the “restoration of order.”) The 2005 National Defense Strategy of the United States holds as a primary strategic objective to “Establish favorable security conditions [in the world, and] . . . [b]ring about . . . a broad, secure, and lasting peace.” To accomplish this, the United States will “fulfill our alliance and other defense commitments” with an “active, forward and layered defense of . . . our partners.” This is essentially an extension of the Cold War-era concept of defending our allies against Sovietand Chinese-sponsored “wars of national liberation.” President Woodrow Wilson might have recognized this broad counterinsurgency strategy as “making the world safe for democracy.”20 By agreed-on doctrine, all agencies of the U.S. government are responsible for supporting the conduct of counterinsurgencies. This inter-agency approach, in its varying degrees, is visible in the current wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Colombia. The U.S. government has extensive practice in both successful and unsuccessful counterinsurgency wars. In living memory, it experienced failure in Vietnam and success in El Salvador, in both cases against communist-inspired insurgent movements. (It is worth noting that the United States concurrently sponsored insurgencies in Afghanistan and Nicaragua in the 1980s against Soviet-sponsored governments, successfully attaining U.S. national policy goals.) As cited earlier, widely-documented historical records allow close study of the American involvement in the Philippine Insurrection of 1900, the Hukbalahap Rebellion in the same islands a half-century later, the Greek Civil War that followed World War II, the Guatemalan insurgency in the 1960s, Ernesto “Ché” Guevara’s Bolivian adventure, and others. There are also major historical examples of insurgencies and civil wars involving the United States in lesser measure in Russia, China, Israel, Cuba, Iran, Somalia, Peru, and others. With this background, the leadership of the U.S. government and its armed forces should have a strong professional comprehension of the nature of counterinsurgency wars – however, actions belie this assumption. The conduct of the current battle for Iraq seems to signal that the senior-level leadership did not seem to remember any of these earlier conflicts, or understand them in a useful way. In the fourth year of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, the “why” of the war is moot. The “how” is critical – how the civilian and military leaders planned for, and responded to, the indigenous resistance to the invasion of Iraq by foreign troops. Before the invasion, the possibility of insurgency was discounted. When the insurgency emerged, it was denied, then discounted. When

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the insurgency became serious, it was treated as a simple military problem with a “kinetic” solution – that is, firepower would eliminate the resistance. Psychological operations, also known as “information operations,” proceeded from the premise that success could be generated simply by convincing the various target audiences that all was well. They failed almost completely. (This approach recalls the response of American automakers in the 1970s, when better-built Japanese cars eroded their market share of sales – they initially felt they only needed to produce better television commercials.) This form of warfare the United States encountered in Iraq after the tearing down of Saddam Hussein’s statue would be familiar to World War II and postwar era veterans of the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, forerunner of the Army Special Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency’s paramilitary branch. The OSS and their British counterpart organization, the Special Operations Executive, managed resistance units against the Axis powers in Europe and Asia. This provided them first-hand insights into the strengths and vulnerabilities of anti-government guerrilla movements. In 1961 the U.S. Army published Field Manual 31-15, titled Operations Against Irregular Forces, based on the experience and historical knowledge of OSS and Special Forces veterans from World War II and the subsequent insurgent “wars of de-colonization.” The relevance of the manual’s observations and counsel written over 50 years ago to current-day counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is striking: Troops employed against irregular forces are subjected to morale and psychological pressures different from those normally present in regular combat operations. . . . This . . . results to a large degree from . . . the ingrained reluctance of the [American] soldier to take repressive measures against women, children, and old men who usually are active in both overt and covert irregular activities. . . . Soldiers who are untrained in such operations are prone to bewilderment when faced by irregular force tactics and the intense political and ideological feelings of guerrillas.21 In the manual’s section on “guidance to commanders and staffs of combined arms forces” responsible for security duties, there is a clear directive on how to deal with a nascent insurgency: “When an irregular force is in its formative stage it may be eliminated by the employment of civil law enforcement measures and removal of the factors which cause the resistance movement.”22 Ironically, the authorizing official for the manual was General George Decker. His opinion that conventional soldiers could readily deal with guerrillas is strong evidence in itself that Decker probably did not read such manuals or consider the historical events that informed them. In some ways, this situation continues. Serving officers today often disregard these original doctrinal manuals as “outdated” because they do not address improvised explosive devices, the internet, cell phones, and other new technological devices. These detractors fail to recognize these tools in the traditional lexicon of guerrilla warfare as mines, cellular networks, and clandestine communications. Laptops and digital pagers have not

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changed the basic nature of insurgency, or the principal actions necessary to counter it. There remains a strong historical prejudice against the study of counterinsurgency. Historian James Corum wrote, “Counterinsurgency is not rocket science – which is unfortunate because America would be good at it if it were.”23 His comment reflects a two-centuries-old disdain on the part of the mainstream military leadership for professional education in any martial subject other than largescale conventional wars, and the technologies that attend them. The argument consistently made to support their view is skill at large-scale conventional warfighting was and is the final guarantee of the security of the United States and its vital interests. The corollary to this position, then, is that other forms of conflict, like insurgencies, are “lesser included offenses” – simply smaller versions of major war – whose study can be marginalized without undue risk to the nation or its armed forces. The battle for Iraq, and the global counterinsurgency that is the War on Terror began on September 11, 2001, would seem to refute this outlook. If it can be said, to turn a phrase, that “you go to war with the history you know, not the history you wish you knew,” then in the case of the U.S. military’s leadership, that’s not much useful history at all, and often too much of the wrong history. There is a surprising degree of ahistoricism in the officer corps of the U.S. armed forces. Any given Army general officer is likely to know more about the Battle of Gettysburg than the entire Vietnam War. The “Vietnam Effect” remains a potent intellectual force in the senior ranks of military officers, and skews lessons and understanding of the conflict. For example, during the war the late Lieutenant Colonel David Hackworth, who aggrandized himself as a masterful guerrilla fighter, co-authored the Department of the Army Pamphlet 525-2, Counterinsurgency. The sweeping title notwithstanding, Hackworth only describes how to conduct ambushes and patrols – the work of infantry sergeants, not generals and ambassadors. The late Colonel Harry Summers exacerbated this perspective with his flawed assessment of the Vietnam War, On Strategy. Three generations of senior U.S. Army officers who read this treatise at defense colleges – it was required reading for decades – were imbued with Summers’ chief lesson of the Vietnam War. Summers argued the primary cause of the failure to gain victory in Vietnam was not that the United States inappropriately tried to fight a conventional war in the wrong setting against the wrong enemy, but that the American military strayed from its conventional warfighting doctrine, and was distracted by the unhelpful concept of “unconventional war.” Whether one view or the other is correct is now irrelevant – the issue is that the majority of senior American military leaders would seem to believe Summers. In Iraq as in Vietnam, no one aware of American military history should have been surprised at the difficulty of raising a competent indigenous army. The United States has traditionally done poorly in training foreign forces. The Philippine armed forces, under American military tutelage from 1900 to 1941, were rapidly defeated by a Japanese invasion force. (General Douglas MacArthur, commander in the Philippines, had just declared he was only a few years from making the archipelago “impregnable.”) Likewise, the South Korean Army,

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formed and guided by U.S. advisors for five years after the country’s liberation at the end of World War II, was almost wiped out in a few weeks by the Sovietsponsored North Korean Army. The U.S. Marines do not hold a much better record. The Marines garrisoned Haiti from 1913 to 1933, and again in the 1950s, and occupied Nicaragua in the 1920s and 1930s. Despite training those countries’ security forces for decades, when the Marines departed, both the Haitian Garde and the Nicaraguan Guardia degenerated into corrupt oppressors of the citizens they were trained to protect. An attitude of historical exceptionalism on the part of many U.S. military officers denies them a fuller comprehension of the varying character of insurgencies and how they can be brought under control. These officers conclude, or are taught, that they can disregard the extensive British experiences in counterinsurgency because the British are too distinct from their American cousins. The British are set aside for being under-resourced, representing a collapsing empire for most of the twentieth century, and taking far too long to get Northern Ireland right. The French, for all their hard-earned familiarity with fighting insurgents around the globe, fare no better in this outlook. The sense of exceptionalism may be valid, but in a way that hinders American capacity to fight small wars. As is evident from defense budgets, U.S. military forces and doctrines tend to be “platform-based” – that is, built around given weapons systems such as tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, bombers, submarines and aircraft carriers. This unbalances U.S. military warfighting doctrine, and has led to a misunderstanding about the role of the military in national security. It is incorrect to state the armed forces’ mission is “to fight the nation’s wars.” This is not their only function. It is the responsibility of the military to do whatever the civil leadership of the nation, duly elected by the American people, directs it to do. And that may be many things besides fighting wars, which the armed forces will find hard to do if they have only prepared themselves to fight wars, and only one kind of war at that. This imbalance in how military leaders comprehend the full array of wars and warfare has evidenced itself in the struggle to restore law and order in Iraq. An infantry division commander posted near Baghdad in the first year of the insurgency declared, “Our first priority in Iraq is force protection” – that U.S. soldiers make their own defense their foremost concern.24 Correspondingly, he added that his first priority for action in counterinsurgency was “getting the best equipment for our soldiers.” This is a laudable concern, reflecting sincere devotion to the welfare of American troops. It also reveals that initially, most U.S. forces in Iraq were strategically and operationally adrift. Force protection and equipment upgrades are inherent requirements of command, but are not missions that achieve any meaningful end. Such priorities assume the mere presence of U.S. troops is sufficient to defeat an insurgency, which it can never be. While discussing his division’s activities, the general never mentioned any effort to educate his officers and soldiers about the unique demands of counterinsurgency warfare – or the first objective in defeating an insurgency, which is safeguarding the lives and property of the native population.

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For all the various uses of history to study counterinsurgency, there are viable lessons that can be drawn from previous wars, both individually and collectively. Brian M. Linn, scholar of Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the past century, found several lessons offered by Army veterans reflecting on their fight to suppress the armed resistance to the American occupation after overthrowing the Spanish colonial government. Among these were: the insurgents are not invulnerable; the role of the local commander is critical; there must be strict control of retaliatory and punitive measures; local security forces are necessary; and as an institution, the U.S. armed forces must study the subject of insurgency.25 These remarks may have been useful to later generations of officers, had they been aware of them. However, the role of history and historians is not to tell military commanders what to do, but to tell them what they need to know. In that regard, “leaving to win” and “exit strategy” are concepts but not examples, and ring hollow when sounded aloud in the context of past counterinsurgencies. Better included in that body of historical knowledge for commanders would be the observation by the military writer J.F.C. Fuller, set in the simplest terms: “The object of war is not victory, but a better peace.”26

Notes 1 The author gratefully acknowledges the guidance and encouragement of Eliot Cohen, Tom Keaney, and Tom Mahnken of The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in preparing this essay. 2 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs, “Abizaid Says Coalition Is Facing Guerrilla Warfare in Iraq,” July 16, 2003, accessed at usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html? pwashfile-english&y2003&mJuly& x20030716181529yakcm0.5860712&tusinfo/wf-latest.html. See also CNN.com Transcripts, “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” July 16, 2003, accessed at transcripts.cnn.com/ TRANSCRIPTS/0307/16/ldt.00.html. 3 James Dobbins, “Nation-Building: The Inescapable Responsibility of the World’s Only Superpower,” RAND Review, Summer 2003. 4 Name withheld, e-mail to author, October 28, 2005, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. 5 Carnes Lord, “The Role of the United States in Small Wars,” Annals of the AAPSS, September 1995. 6 Tom Lasseter, “Order, Peace Elusive in Iraqi City of Samarra,” Knight Ridder Newspapers, February 15, 2006. 7 Thomas E. Ricks, “The Lessons of Counterinsurgency,” Washington Post, February 16, 2006, p. A14. 8 Department of Defense Directive 3000.05, “Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations” (for fiscal years 2006–2011), November 28, 2005. 9 Quoted in Andrew Krepinevich, Jr., The Army and Vietnam, Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, p. 37. 10 John D. Waghelstein, “What’s wrong in Iraq? Or ruminations of a pachyderm” Military Review, January–February 2006. 11 General Orders No. 100, Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, Washington, DC: Adjutant General’s Office, April 24, 1863. 12 Douglas Pike, Viet Cong, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968.

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13 Name withheld, interview by author, July 30, 2005, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. 14 Russian General Staff, The Soviet–Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost, Lester W. Grau, ed., translated by Michael A. Gress, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002. 15 Edward Luttwak, “Notes on Low-Intensity Warfare,” Parameters, December 1983, pp. 333–342. 16 Edward Luttwak, “Notes on Low-Intensity Warfare,” Parameters, December 1983, p. 333. 17 Edward Luttwak, “Notes on Low-Intensity Warfare,” Parameters, December 1983, pp. 341–342. 18 “A Marine Reports from Iraq, by an Anonymous Marine,” Washington Times, November 22, 2005. 19 John F. Kennedy, Address at Graduation Exercises of the U.S. Military Academy, Public Papers of the Presidents, Kennedy, 1962, p. 453, June 6, 1962. 20 Woodrow Wilson, War Message to Congress, 65th Congress, 1st Session, U.S. Senate Doc. No. 5, Serial No. 7264, Washington, DC, April 2, 1917. 21 U.S. Army, Field Manual 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961. 22 U.S. Army, Field Manual 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961. 23 James Corum, “War from the Top Down,” New York Times, June 2, 2005, A-21. 24 Name withheld, interview by author, June 6, 2005, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. 25 Brian M. Linn, The Philippine War, 1899–1902, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000. 26 J.F.C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958.

12 Rediscovering the way of Lawrence Isaiah Wilson

The early verdicts are in, with regard to the root explanations for our nation’s failure to win the peace in Iraq. Faulty planning appears to be a major culprit that friend and foe of the current U.S. course in Iraq seem to be able to agree upon. Planning, in spite of being the cause of our current sufferings in Iraq, may hold the key to our escape from the paradox itself. This chapter explores some of the possibilities. In early June 2003, this author was called forward by David Petraeus, at that time a Major General and commander of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). After the collapse of the Hussein regime in early April, the 101st Airborne had been sent north from Baghdad to liberate, occupy, and manage the stability and reconstruction effort in Northern Iraq. General Petraeus needed a new planner to assist in this effort, at that time an effort thought to be an intense but brief operation that would be handed over to either the U.S. State Department or some other non-military agency by summer’s end at the latest. This author joined the 101st Airborne Division on June 8, 2003 expecting to plan the division’s return trip home. Instead, for the next ten months this author led the planning not only for stability and reconstruction operations, but also for major combat operations, counter-terrorism operations, and what turned out to be the first year in America’s Long War of counterinsurgency in Iraq.

A plan to win the war, but not the peace As explained to the public and the military, the war in Iraq began on March 19, 2003 and ended on or around April 9, 2003 with the final collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime. Activities beyond regime collapse were “other than war” – postwar – and as such, the purview and responsibility of some other entity than the U.S. military. This view of the jurisdictional divisions of the war had been made clear to me as early as March 2003 during the formation of the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) Study Group. When several of us on the Group’s advance party asked higher headquarters about the scope of the Group’s mission, we were told to focus interviews, research and recordkeeping on the ground war; to cover phases I (Preparation) through III (Decisive Operations), but to stop there. When

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several of us pressed the issue further, offering our concerns as historians with writing a “history” of the war that did not cover the war’s entirety, we were told that our mission was to end with the collapse of the regime. We could mention Phase-IV (Transition) in passing as we concluded the book, but should go no further – the military’s Phase-IV was beyond our mandate.1 By the time this author arrived in Mosul, Iraq, on July 8, 2003 to assume my duties as chief of plans for Major General Petraeus and the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) it was becoming more and more obvious that the war was not over and that the OIF Study Group’s story would be a premature and incomplete one. In the last week of April – two weeks after the regime’s collapse – the 101st Airborne had been re-assigned to “liberation” duties in Mosul and the Northern Provinces. The Marine Corps (I MEF) had been deployed earlier and had since run up against some “substantial challenges” in their attempts to pacify the North. By the time lead elements of 101st Airborne (the 2nd Brigade Combat Team – Strike Brigade) had arrived in Mosul, the Marines had withdrawn under fire to Mosul airport. On June 4, the Division faced down a citywide riot in Mosul. By June 17, the 101st had conducted a major air assault operation in its western sectors near the Jordanian and Syrian borders and destroyed a terrorist camp (Operation SNAKE) killing over 70 foreign jihadists and former Hussein Regime Loyalists (FRL). This was what the “post-war” environment looked like in the north – presumed at that time to be one of the more pacified areas of the country. If this was not war, then what was it? The lack of a coherent, complete, and comprehensive war plan left the country and the U.S. intervention policy in strategic ambiguity, and each unit in Iraq without clear marching orders by May–June 2003. Each separate division was left to its own devices to develop its own plans for conducting stability and reconstruction operations in its individually assigned area of operations (AOs). The result was a completely uncoordinated, un-synchronized, non-integrated, and out-of-balance stability and reconstruction situation throughout Iraq, with each of the eighteen provinces or governorates that comprise the country falling under the control of at least five separate Multi-National Division (MND) controlling agencies. The result was the unintended creation of at least five separate and all-too-often dysfunctional distinct approaches to security, stability and reconstruction operations. What we see even in 2006 in Iraq in terms of uneven developments in the restoration of security, essential services, governance, and the economy is of course in part the result of the uniqueness of each region. But another cause of the unevenness, and variance among the provinces of Iraq, comes largely as the result of an unevenness in the planning for and execution of these operations by separate occupying forces in disparate areas of operation – each approaching the mission based on their own definition of the mission, concept of operations, understandings of the social-political-economic situation, and interpretation of the grand strategic purpose of the war itself. All occupying forces (the commanders, their units or organizations, and the quantity and quality of their resources

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available) were not created equal. Even those provinces or governorates that have experienced relative success in post-combat stability and reconstruction operations evidence a very sporadic development. Much of this is the simple result of the difficulties of democratization. But poor planning has also played a dire role here.

Two early successes – the north and the south The two more successful areas of operation during the first year of the war – the northern provinces under the 101st Airborne and the southern provinces under British forces – each have suffered dramatic degradations in security, stability, and reconstruction efforts in the two years since those initial occupations. Once pacified and stabilized, cities such as Mosul and Tal Afar, and Basra by winter 2005 had once again devolved into epicenters of insurgency and safe havens for transnational jihadist activities.2 The initial failure to develop and implement a country-wide and comprehensive campaign plan caused the U.S. and coalition intervention strategy to culminate prematurely. This created and then exacerbated a seam between an effective military campaign and the absence of a plan for winning the peace that was to follow. When removing a tick from a body, we all know that it is not good enough only to remove the visible part of the invading insect at the surface of the skin – one must remove it entirely from the body, else that left remaining invisible below the surface of the skin will become infected. The same is true of policies designed to affect regime change. As such, the battle plan to overthrow the Hussein regime merely removed one part of that regime from the Iraqi body politic. Lethal remnants of that regime were left to linger, fester, and metastasize into the chronic fever of insurgency and transnational terrorism that exists today. Flaws in the planning that determined the purpose of the U.S. intervention in Iraq in 2003 led to the flaws in operational planning that continue to deny decisive victory for the Iraqis, the U.S. and its coalition to this day. Those operational planning flaws have, since the fall of 2003, heavily informed U.S. force planning re-conceptualizations and organizational redesigns. Many of these redesigned units are now returned to war-fights either in Afghanistan or Iraq – redesigns that may reflect more of the modern-age flaws that have denied U.S. success and victory thus far in both interventions rather than new and more effective post-modern force designs and structures reflective of the contemporary operating environment.

Planning for a “third kind of war” – the 101st Airborne in northern Iraq, 2003–2004 The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson provided a poignant eyewitness account of the U.S. war against Iraq as well as a detailed and vivid narrative of the 101st Airborne Division during its heroic march up country in Operation Iraqi Freedom. His book chronicled the exploits of the soldiers of the

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101st Airborne and centered much of the drama on the unit’s charismatic commander at the time, Major General Petraeus.3 Although Atkinson’s storytelling ended in April 2003 with the collapse of the Hussein regime and the completion of major combat operations in Iraq, the story of the 101st did not end there. Although there have been some varied editorial accounts of the post-major combat operations experiences – and relative successes – of the 101st Airborne and its conduct of stability and reconstruction operations in Northern Iraq, the full account is yet to be written. Although this short chapter will not provide the full story, it does offer a partial narrative of the division’s unique approach to its warfighting and peace-waging in northern Iraq from the time of the unit’s arrival in northern Iraq in June 2003 until the division’s transfer of mission and redeployment from northern Iraq in March 2004. That unique approach, recorded in the annals of western military doctrine as the indirect approach to warfare, is offered here through anecdote as an alternative approach to planning and operations that proved successful in northern Iraq, and might offer some future success in future expeditions well beyond the current intervention in Iraq.

There and back again – the planning behind Petraeus’ fourteen lessons from soldiering in Iraq A truly enduring quality of the U.S. military is its capacity for adaptation and innovation. America’s military is a learning organization. All too often the learning comes late, but nevertheless it has proven time and time again its capacity to turn lessons gathered from past and present experiences (both our own and that of others, friends and foes alike) into lessons-learned intended for better outcomes in the future. In the January–February 2006 issue of Military Review, Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus, in an article entitled, “Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq,” offered 14 of his personal observations on waging and dealing with the complexities and paradoxes of counterinsurgency – an early compilation of observations from his experiences as Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) during the first full year of the war and from his year tenure as Commanding General of the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I) (see below). None of the observations are new. Yet the novelty of their unique employment in certain (two, initially) quarters of Iraq – in the north by the 101st and in the south by the British – does merit an examination of their utility as a better way forward in how America can (and perhaps should) intervene in the counterinsurgent wars of the twenty-first century. The story of the 101st Airborne in northern Iraq is a story of soldiering of course, but also of the planning behind the soldiering. In combination, the indirect approach employed in northern Iraq achieved early relative success in contrast to other quarters of the country, where the war of insurgency and terror waged wild and out-of-control.

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Observations from soldiering in Iraq 1 “Do not try to do too much with your own hands.” 2 Act quickly, because every army of liberation has a half-life. 3 Money is ammunition. 4 Increasing the number of stakeholders is critical to success. 5 Analyze “costs and benefits” before each operation. 6 Intelligence is the key to success. 7 Everyone must do nation-building. 8 Help build institutions, not just units. 9 Cultural awareness is a force multiplier. 10 Success in a counterinsurgency requires more than just military operations. 11 Ultimate success depends on local leaders. 12 Remember the strategic corporals and strategic lieutenants. 13 There is no substitute for flexible, adaptable leaders. 14 A leader’s most important task is to set the right one.

Observations from planning counterinsurgency in northern Iraq Although the 14 observations offered by Lieutenant General Petraeus offer useful advice on how to wage more effective counterinsurgency, one key question remains unanswered; namely, how to organize effectively for, and command and control, the initiative as counterinsurgent in an insurgent’s war? These questions are questions of operational and theater-strategic level planning. Just like Petraeus’ 14 points, the four planning observations that follow are early and conditional offerings – one planner’s story of the local politics of a counterinsurgent’s war. Observations from planning in northern Iraq 1 Meeting the “Supreme Judgment” is the essential step . . . determine the kind of war embarked upon – and then organize accordingly. 2 Know the enemy and know yourself. . . . Orient and organize to the local conditions and avoid “mad banditry.” 3 Counterinsurgency is an exercise in nation-building and state rebuilding. . . . The countersurgent must plan and organize for public administration. All politics is local . . . and local politics is all about patronage-politics. In places like Iraq, must of the public administration is done through the local TRIBES. 4 In counterinsurgencies, position and operational patience are the key – must reorganize the command and control, intelligence, and planning efforts accordingly.

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The first planning observation is to “determine the kind of war embarked upon.” The Prussian general and military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz – considered the father of Western military thought and practice – offered this message in his seminal work of the politics of war, On War. In his magnum opus, Clausewitz premised two kinds of war: War can be of two kinds, in the sense that either the objective is to overthrow the enemy – to render him politically helpless or militarily impotent, thus forcing him to sign whatever peace we please; or merely to occupy some of his frontier-districts so that we can annex them or use them for bargaining at the peace negotiations.4 Not until late-October to early-November 2003 was the war in Iraq publicly and openly identified as an insurgency; prior to this time, there was an unspoken reluctance to apply that label to Iraq. The reluctance to see the kind of war that had emerged by June 2003 led to critical delays throughout the country in a reorientation of U.S. and coalition forces to counterinsurgent postures – delays that have now been documented as likely setting conditions for the rise of the insurgency itself.5 Although it is too early for empirical studies to prove the case, there is ample anecdotal evidence of the relationship between the relative successes the U.S.led coalition achieved in the northern and southern quarters of the country in 2003 and the fact that the occupying forces governing these quarters during that initial year both approached their wars as counterinsurgents, in spite of unofficial reluctance to dismiss the reality that the war in Iraq had devolved to insurgency. In the north, the 101st Airborne, though perhaps not explicit in describing its war-waging strategy as counterinsurgency, in fact employed the indirect methods of counterinsurgency. The 101st approached its actions throughout the war “holistically.” The division’s operational approach to the war (the way its commander “defined” operational aims and objectives, the way its planners developed plans and arrayed capabilities for the attainment of those aims and objectives, and the manner in which its tactical leaders carried out their daily missions) reflected a full-spectrum approach. The capacity of the 101st’s leadership to think and act beyond the common understanding of war – to obtain a broader and more in-depth knowledge of the compound threat (organic and inorganic) – allowed the division to achieve relative success in northern Iraq, while U.S. forces elsewhere were experiencing relative setbacks. The second planning observation is to “know the enemy and know one’s self, and to orient to the local conditions accordingly.” The premise is taken from a 2500 year old principle of warfare offered by Sun Tzu: Therefore I say: Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know

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yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril. Such people are “mad bandits.” What can they expect if not defeat?6 The 101st Airborne, like most if not all other U.S. combat divisions operating in Iraq in 2003, approached the war based on its resident knowledge of conventional warfare and the conventional doctrine and ways of warfare it brought with it to Iraq. The 101st Airborne, like other units, was ill-prepared and scarcely knowledgeable of the insurgent’s war it soon faced after the April 9 regime collapse and the May 1 declaration of the end of major combat operations. Since early 2003, the United States and its coalition have been scrambling to dig out of the mad banditry of ignorance of the local situation of a growing insurgency – a kind of warfare deemed anathema to America’s accepted way of war since its loss in Vietnam. The 101st Airborne deliberately worked toward rebalancing this knowledge gap, and did so with a devoted study of local history, culture, politics, and ethno-religious traditions. The division also “contracted-in” subject-matter experts in the areas of political economy and economic development, governance-building, anthropology, history, and strategic planning, through the by-name request of military officers and civilian experts.7 The augmentation of the unit with subject matter experts, coupled with significant reorganizations of internal plans and operations staff officers and staff agencies, enhanced the division’s capacity for conducting effective intelligence preparation of the area of operation in Northern Iraq. If Iraqi ethno-socio-political life was not complicated enough, the added heterogeneity of northern Iraq made it so. The Arab–Kurd divide was only the tip of an underlying iceberg of contrary, competing, often at times, outright clashes of cultures in and around the primary city of Mosul. Tribal genealogies – political, cultural, and fictive – added to the already complicated cultural landscape. Determining the effective mixes and relationships among various tribal groups, ethnic groups, and political parties within the AOs was essential to establishing an effective governing apparatus, adequately functional public services system, and effective state of security in the region. The creation and maintenance of enemy force “black lists,” neutral and/or potentially suspect local population “gray lists,” and, perhaps most importantly, in many respects, a “white list” of community members supportive of the Coalition force and “pro-progress” Iraqi reconstruction efforts have proved essential to success in northern Iraq. The division began to see a distinct improvement in local community cooperation and coordination with U.S. forces after approximately three months of its presence in and around Mosul. And three months of “familiarization” with the local environment and communities was probably a rapid timetable for acclimation (“acculturation”). At the seventh month of the Division’s 12-month tour of duty, the planning staff of the division began to reap the longer-term benefits of its expertise in local ways, norms, and mores. The third planning observation is essentially that “counterinsurgency is all about public administration.” By early July 2003, the 101st Airborne had

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Civil support tasks

Businesses reopened ~28 Apr. CMOC opens 26 Apr.

22 Apr.

25 Apr.

2BCT occupies Mosul 22 Apr.

Province council election 5 May

Began meeting for election process 28 Apr.

Meeting with community leaders 23 Apr.

1BCT occupies Tigris Valley 25 Apr.

Bridge on Mosul – Irbil road fixed 1 May Mosul Schools Reopened ~29 Apr.

Benzene and Propane shortages 3 May

30 Apr.

CPA-N in Irbil 25 Apr.

5 May Joint police patrols start 26 Apr.

Payments made to gov’t workers 17 May

Syrian border reopened 14 May Humanitarian flights reume 12 May

Makhmur Harvest Accords 11 May

10 May

3 BCT occupies NW Nineveh 8 May

Expanded CMOC moves to Opora Hotel 15 May Mosul Newspaper 14 May

15 May

Amb. Bremer arrives in Baghdad 15 May

Benzene and propane supply fixed 18 May

Train service fixed 18 May

20 May

25 May

1AD Assuming Baghdad AO 25 May

Security/CPA tasks

Figure 12.1 AO North First 30 Days.8

already been occupying northern Iraq for two months. In that short time, the division working with extremely sparse guidance from the fledgling Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and Combined Joint Task Force-Seven (CJTF-7), had already laid the foundations of several of the major macro-economic, macro-political institutions that have over decades of developmental and nation(re)building experience proven necessary and essential in successful stability and reconstruction operations (SROs) (see Figure 12.1). By May 26, the following macro-institutional achievements had been met: • • • • • • • •

train services repaired (May 15); supply lines for benzene, propane, and kerosene restored (May 15); salaries to Iraqi civil servants resumed (May 17); Syrian border reopened; trade and cultural visits resumed (May 14); humanitarian airlifts (flights) resumed (May 12); major ground transportation nodes (roads; etc.) repaired (May 1); Provincial Council Election (May 6); local small businesses reopened (April 29).

Receipt of my initial “marching orders” as the division planner came in the face of these significant and noteworthy achievements. However, they also came from the realization that in spite of these macro-nation-rebuilding efforts, without finding ways of “delivering the goods” (life, liberty, prosperity) on a day-to-day basis at the local (community) level, a legitimate nation-building

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enterprise would be at best a risky business. Unless we, the counterinsurgent, found ways of administering, we would not be able to convince the “fencesitters” in the north that the best path toward progress, security, and prosperity lay with the coalition effort. Effectively “delivering the goods,” that is, the effective and reliable provision of essential public services to the locals throughout northern Iraq was essential to our early successes as the counterinsurgent. The irony of the U.S. democratization strategy in Iraq, and for that matter of all nation-rebuilding efforts, is that the initial stages of the intervention which required a general debilitation or in some cases outright destruction of state governing institutions, was an unfortunate necessity that eliminated those main State-structures that are typically relied upon to administer to the general public. The necessity of destroying local Ba’ath Party apparatuses became the mother of our unit’s innovations with indirect public administration through partnering with local kin-based, or tribal, networks. T.E. Lawrence had reminded us of the importance of leaving the local politics to the locals themselves: Do not try to do too much with your own hands. . . . [B]etter the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them.9 Lieutenant General Petraeus’ 14 lessons make mention of this principle, as does the U.S. Marine Corps Small Wars Manual, our country’s seminal volume on counterinsurgency. In our more contemporary situation, however, it was not so much a matter of our choice, whether or not to “do too much with our own hands”; first, there were far too few U.S. hands available. Second, the hands we did bring to the “fight” were not guided by the proper kinds of heart and mind – we simply did not have the degree of understanding of the local norms, nor were we from the neighborhood, and as such, not the trusted agents to legitimately deliver the goods to the people. Third, even if we had had the proper capabilities and capacity on-hand, the traditional institutions that a western military is most accustomed to working with, and through, either suffered from years of neglect by Saddam Hussein and the Ba’athists or had been destroyed during the early months of the war. Choice played less of a role than many who have written about the war suggest. The fact that the 101st Airborne was aware of the way of Lawrence, was able to quickly recognize early-on its own lack of capacity and then to rapidly adjust to understanding local tribal networks and then integrating – acculturating into those networks as best as a Western power could – tribalism into the division’s planning and operational templates proved determinative if not decisive in the successes achieved in the northern provinces.

Insurgency in northern Iraq The following words hung over the command center of the 101st Airborne Division Headquarters’ Battle Command Center (BCC) in Mosul, Iraq:

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These words coincided with advice given in the Small Wars Manual on how to wage a successful counterinsurgency: The initial problem is to restore peace . . . peace and industry cannot be restored permanently without appropriate provisions for the economic welfare of the people . . . productive industry cannot be fully restored until there is peace.10 For the 101st, grassroots engagement was the key, from dismounted combat patrols to meals with local Sheikhs, to tea sessions with local community leaders – this was a vital part of the daily business of engagement. This kind of interaction was essential to developing the links to the local community (an awareness of the “terrain”) that would eventually produce intelligence. These contacts proved essential in securing a sustainable environment in and around the city of Mosul and throughout AO North. Until a semblance of stability could be restored in the area, essential services could not be reliably administered to the local public outside of working with informal, community networks: tribal networks. As the division’s understanding of the tribal ways of the north improved, so did the units’ operational effectiveness and own force protection. By November 2003, though not a formal member of any tribe (a Westerner could never achieve this status in true form), leaders within the 101st as well as the division as a whole were considered as “friends” and distant brothers of the majority of the local tribes and confederations. This “inclusion” and specific labeling of the 101st as “distant family” was vitally important. There is an ancient Arabic adage, “Me against my brother; my brother and I against my cousin; my brother, my cousin, and I against the world.” Being perceived as an invited guest or distant member of the local community would not confirm one’s policy success or personal protection completely, but this status could and did prove significantly useful.

“It’s the economy (and the engagement), stupid!” In stability and support operations (SASOs) and reconstruction efforts, money is ammunition. Simply stated, the key to establishing (and maintaining and retaining) a bridgehead with the local population within an environment of insurgency, as the counterinsurgent, was the ability to quickly restore minimum conditions of normalcy in all public service sectors (security, food/water, fuel/power, housing, employment, etc.). If money can be seen as the ammunition, then having an effective tribal engagement program was our division’s “weapon.” Firing for effect was greatly enhanced through our tribal engagement strategy.

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The 101st did not necessarily enter into stability and support operations in Northern Iraq explicitly planning to engage tribes and tribal networks. Although some study and pre-conflict knowledge of the tribal landscape was evident, the division’s leadership was determined to get to know the local environment, its people, and their leaders (both formal and informal). Getting to know the locals ended up equating to getting to know tribes and tribal ways of doing business. Recognizing what was before us (a societal network steeped in tribalism) as we learned more about the local environment and its people historical and anthropological familiarity with the region. It also required a general agnostic respect for the tribal underpinnings of Iraqi lifestyle. Each Brigade Combat Team (BCT) AO shaped its own tribal engagement strategy tailored to the unique tribal landscape of the regions under their control. This was another tenet of our approach consistent with past doctrine – the Small Wars Manual that directed that the campaign plan be tailored to the conditions of the local area and its people.11 Engaging the tribes did not always (or only) equate to the stereotypical western recollections of the American Wild-West and “pow-wows” with the natives, though the fictive nature of tribalism in Iraq did at times and in particular locales, facilitate similar types of native interactions and rituals. Engagements differed according to tribe and AO. In the urban centers, tribal engagement looked and felt more like the typical power politics that are familiar in the United States. Yet even in the cities the basic behavior was tribal. North of the former Green Line, engagement with Kurdish tribes reflected political interactions more similar to Chicago party machine politics of the 1920s. Though tribal at their roots, Kurdish tribes have transformed more toward partisan political factions than stereotypical tribes, although relations between Kurdish tribes and families do revert to more traditional tribal norms and mores (i.e. blood-feuds, rites of honor, etc.). The key to waging a successful tribal strategy was in approaching each region and its people in accordance with its own norms and behavior patterns. It cannot be overstated: the historic and enduring tribal system in Iraq has always served as an informal public administration system. In the rural areas in particular, tribes provide daily sustenance and are the provider of all essential services, employment, and security. Perhaps most important, tribes provide the people sense of purpose, heritage, and reason for being. Tribes provide the “ties that bind” historically in Iraq. Under Saddam’s rule, and at periods of “low state power,” tribes served as a sort of indirect mechanism for rule; a secondary system of governance. Saddam on several occasions made use of tribes to build and maintain his own legitimacy with the populace, to maintain relative internal stability and security, and to “administer” on a day-to-day basis. What we found was that getting government to work at the local level in the rural areas – and to a lesser but still relevant degree in the cities as well – required a system of public administration that in part incorporated (assimilated) the tribes. Learning about the patronage-based kin, clan, and tribal politics peculiar to northern Iraq, and each of its four separate but interconnected provinces (also

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known as “governorates”) was essential to getting an initial set of governance institutions re-established and back up and running throughout the north – institutions that maintained a modicum of local public trust and legitimacy. This better understanding of the local politics – the day-to-day politics of northern Iraqi public affairs – proved critical for establishing initial essential services, local economies, governance, and civil society. Eventually, our expanding knowledge of local tribal ways and relationships was incorporated into our plans for rebuilding the Iraqi Ministerial system – we found that appreciating the traditional roles that some tribes and clans had once enjoyed under the old regime of Saddam Hussein (and before it) was beneficial in helping us in our support of local selected and elected Iraqi leadership to determine the fair, just, and effective distribution of political “spoils.” To reinforce these “tribal-ministerial” arrangements, we aligned our own divisional units in a hierarchy mirroring that of the size, status, and reputation (suasive power) of local tribes and tribal-ministerial networks – we essentially embedded ourselves (our own military “tribes” if you will) within the local structures. We did the same with the assignment of particularly important issues and items of Iraqi governance rebuilding (i.e. oversight of the oil and electricity ministries, management of Arab–Kurd relations; Ba’ath Party Renunciation; etc.) to individual senior leaders within the division. Our two assistant division commanders were assigned the role of “Oil Pasha” and “Tribal Pasha,” respectively. Our division commander, Major General Petraeus, had specific portfolios that included dealing with managing relations between the two major Kurdish factions in northern Iraq (the Barzani KDP family and the Talabani PUK family). This process of complex positioning and embedding within the socio-political (“tribal”) geography of northern Iraq was a rushed affair even with the 101st Airborne’s one-year tour. This sort of proper positioning for counterinsurgency is a protracted affair, demanding patience, intelligence, and long-duration assignments. But it cannot be overstated – getting the initial occupation “footprint” as properly aligned as possible with preexisting socio-political arrangements, and then being willing and capable of making adjustments to those boundaries based on changing local relationships is an extremely important condition-setter for success in countering an insurgency.

The “right” governance mix Key to getting the local urban politics right for Mosul and Nineveh province early-on was to ensure as inclusive and well-balanced a tribal representation in the council as possible. The division succeeded (as much by luck as by plan) in achieving a balanced and adequately representative city and provincial governing body. The interim government of Mosul and Nineveh provence reflects Arab and Kurdish Iraqis, Yezidis, Turkomen, Sunni, Shi’a, and Christians. The council also represented the tribes (with the initial oversight on the part of Coalition forces of ensuring Shammar representation). Through happenstance, the

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division promoted the election of Governor/Mayor Al Basso of the Al Hammadin tribe (a military tribe of lesser influence and regional power) over other larger and more powerful confederations. This act alone helped to stave off an imbalance between the Shammar, Al Tai, and the Jiburi confederations; election of a smaller tribal member as governor/mayor did not equate to a zerosum loss of honor and prestige on the part of any of the large and powerful tribes, and therefore helped to prevent tribal blood feuds. Engagement of late has incorporated efforts at extending suffrage and representation to women (four female council members have recently been added to the Ninawah council). As the 101st Airborne began to study tribal life in northern Iraq, division planners and intelligence officers began to span some of the physical gaps within and beyond the area of operations by obtaining a better understanding of the human terrain. Tribal analysis began to reveal potential (albeit loosely correlated) patterns linking persistent areas of operational gaps and tribal boundary seams. Within the Sharqat salient (southern sector) lay the tribal boundary between the Jiburi and the Duri tribes. Mosul and the northwest Badush area revealed a nexus of several tribes, the most prominent being the Al Hammadin, Al Tai, Shammar, and Jiburi tribes. Simply overlaying operational maps on top of tribal maps showed a possible tie between tribal boundaries and operational gaps. This also suggested a potential enemy line of operation, identifying potential tribal complicity. Again, although this tie that binds proposition was never fully proven, operations conducted along this enemy line of communication resulted in some of the major coalition force “wins” during OIF-1 – the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the capture of major former regime elements (FRE) senior leadership, etc. The fourth planning observation is about learning to go to the next step and finding ways of effectively integrating local networks into our traditional planning and analysis structures and processes in order to produce reliable actionable intelligence.

Northern Iraq: a target rich environment The north was an extremely complex and potentially volatile area of operations. The region had international terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda (AQ), Hizbollah, HAMAS, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). There were also “home grown” terrorist organizations such as Ansar al Islam (AI), former regime elements (Fedayeen, Ba’ath, Al Awda), and Muhammad’s Army. There were support networks and facilitators – the Iraq Extremist Network, Kurdish and Islamic Political parties, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – which provided insurgents with cover, information, documentation and other support such as transportation, logistic, and finance. On top of this were budding criminal organizations. Gaining an economy-of-scale advantage over this complex operational space demanded a compound organizational structure for incident management.

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Organizing for success Key to effective incident management was a clear awareness and understanding of the compound threat environment in Northern Iraq. Similar assessments of the “friendly situation” and “fence-sitting” communities were key and essential, and added greatly to the division’s situational awareness and preparation for its mission. The mission of AO North’s Joint Inter-Agency Task Force (JIATF) was to gather intelligence, coordinate and synchronize intelligence operations, and coordinate conventional Special Forces, Other Governmental Agencies (OGA) and multinational operations in order to identify and neutralize hostile individuals and groups and their support networks in Northern Iraq. The task force had both operational and intelligence arms. There was continuous fusion not only within each arm but also between them. As required there was also interaction with the special staff. There was representation from the National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as well as special advisors from organization and subject matter experts such as the U.S. Embassy, legal, public affairs, information operations, and document exploitation (DOCEX). The task force synchronized national and theater assets as well as intergovernmental and multinational provided information. The coordination of intelligence and operations with all agencies led to synchronized intelligence plans and execution of operations which resulted in apprehension of individuals, disruption and failure of organizations, and explain second and third order intelligence effects. The successful execution of Operation LOCKED CLAW on September 23, 2003 was an example of effective joint interagency counterinsurgency operations. This operation was a series of simultaneous operations targeting 27 members of the Al-Rifah insurgent group. The operations resulted in the capture of 17 members including the brigade’s number 1 target – a bloodless major combat operation facilitated through the accurate and reliable (actionable) information gathering and analysis garnered through JIATF integrated planning.

Counterinsurgency in northern Iraq Developing intimacy with the local Iraqi people, and gaining an intimate knowledge of the human and physical terrain – embedding into the environment – was a key to the success of the 101st Airborne’s counterinsurgency operations. Knowledge of the local tribes was both a process for achieving this as well as a product of this engagement. The threat in northern Iraq is a complex collage of former regime elements, foreign fighters, and criminal elements. With over 1,500 square miles of porous border, with three strategic pivot states, Syria, Turkey, and Iran, the threat environment of AO North presents a constantly fluctuating threat: AI, AQ, Mujahadeen fighters, jihadist, etc. Leading the counterinsurgency as a Western outsider (and an infidel in the eyes of the virulent side of Islamic society)

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demanded an indirect approach to the counterinsurgency and counter-terrorist fight through the building of relationships with local tribes and indigenous security forces. In late-August 2003, the division analysis coordination element (ACE) and division planners began to formalize what had been up to that point, a series of periodic and informal meetings between division personnel and members of the local Iraqi Kurd security forces (Asaish and Peshmerga). There was a deliberate effort to formalize these relationships, as a means toward the establishment of a dedicated information-sharing medium. This evolved to the establishment of Combined Task Force-Counter-Terrorism, North (CTF-CT-N), a formal collective security organization, where information of possible intelligence and operational value was shared between U.S. forces, and KDP and PUK Iraqi Kurds and their Peshmerga forces. The Iraqi Kurd Asaish, a loose equivalent to the U.S. FBI, also attended these weekly meetings. Kurdish party and tribal contacts were vital in the capture of several high-value targets and served time and time again as an essential capability for gaining and maintaining indirect contact with various enemy elements, from an intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) standpoint. A similar organizational framework was established in August 2003, this one oriented on tying in the interests, and physical presence, of Turkish security forces operating in “observer” roles in the mountainous terrain of Iraqi Kurdistan (the provinces of Dahuk, Irbil, and As Sulaymaniyah) into cooperative relationships with local Kurd and Arab clans and families, as well as into cooperative and politically “soothing” arrangements with U.S. occupying authority in northern Iraq. Tying the administrative tribal ways of each of these tribes to one another in the north, painted a public administrative sub-structure to the entire region – literally revealing the informal trade, smuggling, and potential anti-coalition infiltration and exfiltration routes that appeared to work the seams between the U.S. divisional battlefield architecture. Combining our growing knowledge of these tribal byways with our expanding appreciation of the historic relevancy of these tribal byways to the former regime allowed division planners to hypothesize about the whereabouts and habits of senior high-level Ba’athists, to include Saddam Hussein. Might they have reverted to their old tribal ways and locations after the collapse of the regime? Researching northern Iraqi tribalism from a historical context seems to have benefitted the division’s typical and traditional intelligence lines of operation. A simple proposition drove the research: If Saddam and his Ba’athist supporters made effective use of certain tribes, certain tribal locations, certain tribal pathways, and these tribal ways and means proved effective in the survival and eventual success of the Hussein regime’s rise to power, then in a natural (instinctive) response to regime collapse in May 2003, Saddam and his supporters might have simply returned to these previous ways and methods; hide holes, and exfiltration routes. Charting this historical data, with the support of the division ACE, as well as the unit historian and division planners, contributed to much of the success we enjoyed regarding the identification, targeting, tracking, capture,

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and killing of high payoff targets – senior level Ba’athist and former regime elements. The division planners shaped operations in critical areas (nodes) along a templated line theoretically connecting these key tribal nodes. Planners referenced this as the tie that may possibly bind. The capture of Saddam Hussein occurred in a spider-hole at the southern-most extent of this hypothetical “tie that may bind.” Even looking back and analyzing the raid of July 17, 2003 – the raid that resulted in the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein – reveals that the location of their final hiding place rested, again, along this line of probable operations (on the banks of the Tigris River, near the northern portion of the templated enemy line of operation).

Full spectrum warfare  offensive operations  counterinsurgency  counterterrorism  reconstruction As the 101st Airborne continued to gain experience in full-spectrum operations, the division developed a better operational understanding of what, conceptually, the U.S. Army had defined as full-spectrum operations. Where contemporary U.S. Army doctrine identifies full spectrum as composed of offense, defense, stability, and support operations, the 101st experience revealed both a different array of operations and timing/sequencing of those operations. Whereas the war’s beginning marked the start of offensive operations, there was no definitive end to “offensive” operations. In truth, there was no way of, and no reason to, determine a beginning or ending of offensive operations. The nature of those offensive operations – the point of attention – proved a dynamic and ever-changing thing. Traditional “close with and destroy” type offensive operations were continuous, but were only one aspect of the “offense.” Closing with to restore local industrial, commercial, and essential service infrastructure was another continual form of offensive operations. The reconstruction agenda was synonymous with the offensive. Counterterrorist’s and Counterterrorism operations tended to be periodic, precision strike operations conducted as shaping operations to “contain” the internal challenges of pushing forward the reconstruction efforts from the external terrorists threat. All, combined, were definitive of an environment of insurgency.

Conclusion: re-learning the lessons of Lawrence There came a point during our year-long stint of duty in Iraq in 2003 and early 2004 where the growing sentiment throughout other military commands within the theater of operations was that the 101st Airborne, far away from the battles and engagements of the Sunni Triangle, was not even fighting a “war” in the north. The nightly MND Commander conference calls with the CJTF-7 Commander, General Sanchez, was perhaps one of the best examples of the different wars being waged within the different occupation zones. Although the preponderance of reporting from other Division Commanders made note of numbers of

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anti-insurgent operations conducted, numbers of insurgents and anti-Coalition forces captured or killed, and similar traditional combative indices, the 101st reports were a mixed review of anti-insurgent and counterinsurgent activities. The anti-insurgent portions of the situation report covered ongoing combat operations. The counterinsurgency portions of the report covered preventive and pre-emptive operations and actions we were taking on behalf of stabilization and reconstruction operations – tribal engagement and close-with-to-restore operations. As time and our campaign plan progressed, the balance of our nightly reports to higher headquarters tilted more and more toward counterinsurgency reporting. As we became better counterinsurgents, the need for anti-insurgent tactics, techniques, and procedures lessened, or at least took a supporting role in our overall war-waging repertoire. It was not long before the perception that the 101st Airborne in the north, and the British forces in the south, weren’t even fighting a war anymore, a sentiment that was more an indictment against the British and the Screaming Eagles of the 101st than a recognition that our approaches to the war, though non-standard, were yielding more success than the traditional approaches that were being wielded in other quarters. By October 2003, the CPA and CJTF-7 leadership was already beginning to direct individuals from other MND sectors up to the north to observe 101st operations and operational planning.12 The first thing they would all come in contact with was a banner posted over the doorway to our plans and analysis shop – We’re Fighting A War Too, We’re Just Not Whining About It! Are we winning yet? The 101st Airborne returned for its second tour of duty in Iraq in September 2005 and is now (at the time of this writing) seven months into its current tour of duty. From March 2004 up until the present, the war in Iraq has peaked and dipped between the extremes of chaotic and extreme insurgent and terrorist violence – to the scope and scale of major combat operations – to brief periods of shaky stability and pacification. The official word today is that although an insurgency still rages in Iraq – in some areas nearing the point of open civil warfare – that the war is largely limited to four of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Great hope within both the current Administration and senior U.S. military ranks has been placed on recent localized successes gained by Colonel H.R. McMaster, Commander of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) in the city of Tal Afar and its immediate surrounding environs.13 The indirect approach taken by McMaster’s 3rd ACR has been applauded for its effectiveness at “saving Tal Afar,” and is now being touted as the exemplar of the “Close-HoldBuild” strategy underpinning the latest U.S. Iraq strategy. The reputation and accomplishments of Colonel McMaster and the 3rd ACR is absolutely warranted. However, just as the full threat situation in and around Iraq cannot be judged or determined based on the situation within any one local area – or any four provinces – neither can “victory” be predicted upon the

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extremely localized tactical wins, wins limited to the actions of one single U.S. combat brigade in one Iraqi city. Hints of a future war-loss . . . of war-win might be evident in these sorts of examples, but we should all be very wary of extrapolating localized successes or failures too far. Hope that battle-wins such as that of the 3rd ACR’s in Tal Afar is no substitute for deliberate operational and theater-strategic level planning. We must capture, and accredit the successes of the indirect method of counterinsurgency and work toward assessing these lessons gathered, coding them, and integrating them into a new and more holistic approach to twenty-first century warfare and general intervention policy and strategy. The tactics-techniques and procedures – the tactical approaches to warfighting – adopted and employed by units like the 3rd ACR, 1st Cav, the U.K. forces in Basra and Southern Iraq, and the 101st Airborne offer valuable and necessary parts to a new understanding and appreciation of how America can (and must) fight to wage and win wars of counterinsurgency, but in and of themselves, they remain mere soldiering techniques – incapable of winning the peace . . . and keeping it after it is won. Tactical means and methods must be “operationalized” into a new way of war and peace, one that merits closing with to restore civil society and governance as much as it has held a close with to destroy focus for our military forces throughout our nation’s military history. Counterinsurgency wars cannot be won by an army or through its combat actions, . . . but as history has shown, fighting the counterinsurgent’s war by martial power alone can certainly lose them. The lessons we are now gathering – and operationalizing into a new set of doctrine and planning techniques and concepts – will hopefully make Iraq, and the interventions that are surely to come after Iraq, examples of our final acceptance of the former and not tragic examples of the latter. Time will tell.

Notes 1 See Chapter 1 for a discussion of this study group. 2 There is already a large and growing body of descriptive accounts (“early histories” and journalistic accounts) of the Iraq War that describe this rise-and-fall cycle of war. For a quick and accurate chronology, see “Timeline Iraq: A Chronology of Events,” at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/737483.stm. 3 Rick Atkinson, In the Company of Soldiers, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004. 4 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 69. 5 Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, New York: Pantheon Books, 2006. 6 Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Griffith trans., New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. 7 The Department of Social Science at the United States Military Academy, West Point provided three of its Academy Professors to the division during the unit’s initial tour of duty in Northern Iraq (2003–2004). 8 “Area of Operations-North Briefing,” 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), dated January 2004. 9 T.E. Lawrence, Twenty-Seven Articles (1917) from Charles M. Stang (ed.) The Waking Dream of T.E. Lawrence: Essays on His Life, Literature, and Legacy, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002.

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10 United States Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940, Chapter 1, p. 16. 11 Small Wars Manual, Chapter 1, p. 13. 12 Major Ike Wilson, Planner’s Journal, January 2003. 13 Rod Nordland, “Is This a Strategy for Success: Washington’s Good News in Iraq isn’t Quite What it Seems,” Newsweek International, April 3, 2006, at www.msnbc.msn. com/id/12016224/site/newsweek/.

Conclusion Historian’s leapfrog and the war in Iraq Eliot A. Cohen

The preceding essays have captured, in dismal detail, many of the misfortunes of the Iraq War, as well as some of its successes. Conceived in controversy, its chief stated – though not the most important – rationale undermined by the failure of coalition forces to discover the weapons of mass destruction that they believed to exist, it was unpopular in many quarters overseas. It was and remains a matter of acrimonious debate at home, as well, which makes the problem of finding a proper perspective for judging it particularly important. American forces were not surprised, as Kevin Woods has noted, by the military feebleness of Saddam Hussein’s regime. But although the initial march to Baghdad was technically very well executed, this volume captures the many disquieting signs of things to come that appeared early on – ferocious attacks by bands of guerrillas plaguing the supply lines and even tackling American forces head on, for example, or the reserve shown by the Shi’ite population of the south, which had been betrayed too often to believe that they were at last rescued from Saddam’s regime; and no less troubling, the sullen hostility and defiance of Sunni Arabs who, though displaced, did not feel defeated. Friction with allies, discord at home, a clumsy (to put it mildly) initial occupation fraught with divided civilian and military authority, the belated efforts to build or rebuild adequate security institutions – all contributed to the emergence by 2006 of an Iraq which, despite some hopeful political signs, seemed immersed in sectarian and communal violence from which it was hard to see an exit. As this unfolded, the bitterness of partisan debate in the United States has become ever worse. Those who have defended the war are chagrined or defiant, denying or excusing failure, or perhaps looking for a few culprits (possibly the President himself) upon whom undeniable mistakes and failings can be blamed. Those who have opposed it range between outrage and conspiratorial theories of a virulence that one associates with the more paranoid corners of the Middle East. In such an atmosphere reasoned analysis and debate has become ever more difficult. The best antidote to discussion by competitive shouting lies in what one might call “historian’s leapfrog” – an effort to position oneself 30 or 40 years ahead of today, to pose the kinds of questions about contemporary politics that historians pose about the past, to self-consciously adopt the perspective that

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comes with time. Whether one favored the war or opposed it, one does well to try to shed the passions of the moment, and imagine how future historians will frame the issues that agitate us so much. The first insight that such an approach yields is the realization, so often shared by historians but missed by contemporaries, that most politicians and generals are neither wizards nor idiots, knaves nor saints, competents nor blunderers. Barring the occasional world historical figure of the stature of a Stalin or a Churchill, most political and military people swim in a tide of uncertainty, making the best choices they can for a variety of reasons, noble and sordid alike, with the limited foresight that attaches itself to the human species. Indeed, one of the sad ironies of the current war is that the one really outsized fiend in the narrative – Saddam Hussein himself, with his torture chambers and mass graves, poison gas and personal executions – has almost vanished from the narrative. The normality of most political and military figures does not prevent them from causing enormous trouble, to be sure. More than one student of the crisis of 1914 has sadly remarked on how depressingly average the prime and foreign ministers, field marshals and general staffs were. But surely the best point of departure for a reconsideration of the Iraq War is to start with the assumption that historians will not carry against the leading American figures in this tale the animus that has distorted the contemporary debate. No less important, the historical perspective will recognize in this war features common to most wars in history, and will judge more soberly than contemporaries might the difference between reasonable and unreasonable expectations of success, normal and excessive failures to anticipate, and the second and third order consequences of conflict that bedevil all military contests. And the future historian will deal, as he or she does with regard to other wars, with four large issues: the origins of the conflict, combat, occupation and insurgency, and aftermath. Military historians understand very well that the dating of a war’s beginning is a far trickier matter than one might think. Where, for example, should one set the dates for the beginning of World War I – the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria? The crossing of the Belgian frontier by German forces? or, as Luigi Albertini implies in his massive study of the origins of the war, in the ausgleich that made of the Austrian empire a dual empire, Austria–Hungary, that would be ripped by the pressure of the southern Slavs? In a similar vein one could ask how to separate a series of wars and define the contestants. Were the world wars, as some have suggested, one long struggle over German domination of the continent, marked only by a 20-years’ truce? Were they one long European civil war? For that matter, was the American civil war a “war between the States,” as southern apologists proclaimed at the time and after the event, a “rebellion” as Lincoln defined it, and officials declared in formal documents down through the 1880s, or a “war of American unification?” One may apply a similar set of questions to the Gulf War of 2003. It almost assuredly did not begin when American forces crossed the border of Kuwait in March. But when did it start, what were its origins, and should it be understood on its own terms, or linked to other wars in the region? Future graduate students

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will, no doubt, come up with schools of historical interpretation for the inevitable comprehensive examinations. There will be the Neoconservative Intentionalists, who will insist that the war originated in ambitious schemes of a few thinkers – not the actual leaders of the United States government, but secondary officials such as Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense – who conceived the overthrow of Saddam as a remedy for the larger ills of the Middle East. This school, one suspects, will focus its attention on America’s strategic reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, and will see in the decision for renewed war with Iraq a plan to undermine Islamist movements by implanting a liberal state in the heart of the Arab world – while, of course, removing a particularly persistent and noxious opponent. Among the Neoconservative Intentionalists will be those who will conceive it to be a good idea badly executed, or a bad idea that no administration could ever have implemented successfully, but the fundamental interpretation of events will remain the same. A variant of this view will be that of the Jihad Expansionists, who will see this war as part of a larger conflict. In their view there will be a connection with the 9/11 attacks, not because Saddam Hussein’s regime controlled or shaped that event, nor even because American policymakers made faulty connections there, but because Iraq was only part of a larger, more amorphous conflict between the West and a dysfunctional Arab world, which had left the embrace of the dictators in order to fall into the clutch of radical Islam. In this view the war will be a manifestation of the deepest pathologies of Arab politics. No matter what the immediate causes of the Iraq war, the truest cause, in this view, will be the surging anger and turmoil of an Arab world that was, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, an abject failure in coming to terms with modernity.1 The introduction of jihadi elements into the Iraqi insurgency will reinforce this view. The chief opponents of these schools will be what one might call the Mesopotamian Continuationists, who will see something quite different in the resumption of hostilities. They may date the origins of the war to the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, or earlier to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August of 1990, or earlier yet, to the chaos of the Iranian revolution and the opening that it gave Saddam Hussein to make Iraq the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. Where the Neoconservative Intentionalists look to a wider Middle Eastern, indeed global context, the Mesopotamian Continuationalists will focus more on Iraq and the Persian Gulf. They will note the failure of the first Gulf War to end cleanly; they will examine the diplomatic wrigglings and sporadic uses of violence in the years between 1991 and 2003 – ranging from Iraqis shooting at distant American and British aircraft to the massacre of Shi’a insurgents; they will focus, finally, on the last few years and Saddam’s apparently successful effort to dismantle the UN sanctions regime, and his quite successful effort to destroy the inspections directed against his nuclear weapons programs. September 11, 2001 will figure here not as the cause, but as the triggering event that led the American administration to decide to lance the boil that was Saddam’s nuclear ambitions. Rather than figuring in some larger scheme to

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remake the Middle East, 9/11 will be seen as the event that made American political leaders fear the consequences of leaving this particular despot armed with the most dangerous weapons imaginable. Each of these schools of interpretation will, as is usually the case, find some supporting evidence; and there will, no doubt, be attempts at synthesis between them. But they will, in the end, provide starkly different interpretations of how the war came about, when it began, and even what its larger folly or wisdom may have been. When it comes to the actual combat operations of the war, historians will look at two aspects of the war not nearly covered as well by contemporaries as the actual fighting. The first will be “the other side of the hill” – what the opposition intended, how they read events, and how they understood the contest. A particularly strong contribution in this area has already been made by the Iraqi Perspectives Project, a United States government sponsored effort that drew on extensive interviews with former Iraqi military and governmental officials, and exploitation of the vast quantities of documents discovered by Coalition forces.2 Kevin Woods, summarizing the findings of the Project in the chapters above, has already made clear how distorted some American thinking about Iraq was in 2003, to include the substantial underestimation of how Saddam had reconfigured his forces to deal not with an American attack, but with the – to him, far more menacing – threat of Shi’a and Kurdish uprisings. These preparations, which included the development of militia units and the prepositioning of large amounts of weapons and munitions helped provide some of the infrastructure for the ensuing insurgency. The intense combat phase may not, in retrospect, seem as striking a military achievement as it did at the time – much in the way, for example, that the Israeli conquest of the Sinai and Golan heights in 1967 seems, in retrospect, to owe much more to precipitate decisions to withdraw by the Egyptian and Syrian high commands respectively, than contemporaries realized. But here too, future historians are more likely to see patterns and context where observers at the time see uniqueness and disjunction. The context for future military historians will be a broader set of changes in conventional warfare, what used to be known as “the Revolution in Military Affairs.” Historians look for continuity and change. They will see continuity with developments that have taken place for some 20 years before these events – the rise of quality, and particularly technological quality in the hands of first rate military organizations. Whereas in 1991 analysts made the mistake of weighing raw numbers of opposing tanks, artillery pieces, and so on, by 2003 they understood that to compare, say, a T-72 with a late model American M-1 tank was pointless. Modern high tech armies had clearly made a leap that made past concern with raw numbers of forces seem absurd. In a similar vein, the end of the linear battlefield – long predicted, ever since the first third of the twentieth century – seemed to have come about at long last, with Coalition operations taking place throughout the depth of Iraq from the very outset. The close and devastating cooperation of special operations forces with reliable precision air

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power, first evident in the Afghan war of 2001, appeared here as well. Some will agree with Richard Andres’ argument that the synthesis was equally effective here, albeit with less publicity than in Afghanistan. Others will find in Iraq a reaffirmation of the old verities, to include the need for large ground forces fighting according to the tenets of what Steven Biddle calls the “modern system.” On the other hand, the 2003 war showed some apparent breaks with the recent past, to include the reliance on prolonged and sustained air operations before the launching of any ground attack, or the phenomenon of acute casualty sensitivity by Western militaries. Intense conventional war, and not a footling at a distance, had returned to modern conflict. The question that will remain is the mechanism of change, whether by conscious choice imposed from above, or by a kind of unexpected and unconstrained evolution from below. Here too, it is likely that future historians will debate the significance of the war in ways similar to those of the first Gulf War, 12 years earlier. A transformationalist school will see the maturation of networked forces, the routine incorporation of precision guidance at all levels, the integration of special forces into the conduct of conventional war, and argue that here was a major advance in the conduct of war. A more skeptical school will focus on the weakness of Iraqi equipment and training, the irrationality of Saddam’s personality and its deleterious effects on Iraqi strategy, and the general decay of the Iraqi Army under the pressure of a decade of sanctions and constant military pressure from without. The war will be interpreted in a longer context, that context being the development of conventional warfare itself. From the point of view of contemporaries, however, the conduct of major combat operations pales in significance by comparison with the insurgency that broke out shortly after the destruction of the Saddam regime. The overthrow of the regime was, from a military point of view, inevitable once the Americans took the decision to do it. Far murkier is the nature of the insurgency that subsequently erupted, although Ahmed Hashim’s chapter helps greatly in illuminating it. Although here too there will be some sources – captured documents, records of interrogation and the like – it is more likely that for a long time, and perhaps forever, there will be great uncertainty over the contours of the insurgency. Here, unlike with regard to the origins of the war, the differences will be over matters of degree rather than of kind. How unified and centrally coordinated was the Sunni insurgency against American forces? What was the relative importance of old-line Ba’athists out for revenge, Islamist militants from within Iraq and outside, and angry, unemployed, xenophobic young men? Similar questions will be posed with regard to the rise of Shi’a militias, and their reactions with one another. Analysts have noted the differences among these various groups, their shifting relationships with one another, but it may be many years before they can also dominate the roles played by external powers – Syria and Iran most notably, but also a broader jihadi movement – in feeding the insurgency, providing equipment, training, and safe haven. The assessment of the importance of these external forces will likely shift over time.

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Historians will also record the contrast between this insurgency and those of the postcolonial period. Unlike the cases of Algeria or Vietnam, where a strong subversive organization created a parallel administration, and directed guerrilla and terror activities centrally, here there seems to have been a much looser, and networked set of organizations operating in tandem with one another. Those same historians will note, however, that American counterinsurgency doctrine was ill-prepared for such opponents, although the depth of the problem may have been such that no American doctrine could possibly have succeeded here. Again, for future historians, the issue of uniqueness will arise. To be sure, all such wars have distinctive features, but in two respects, at least, one suspects that the Iraqi case will look more unusual than most. The first is the wreck that was Iraqi society when the Americans rolled in. As a peculiar and indeed unnatural amalgam of diverse ethnic and religious groups – from Kurds in the north, to the traditional Sunni elites of the core, to the Shi’a of the south, and with Turkomen, Yazidis, and many others in between – Iraq may not have been that different from other postcolonial states sliced apart and sewn together by British and French diplomats from the carcass of the Ottoman empire. But the ferocity of the Ba’athist regime, the brutal war with Iran in the 1980s, the 1991 war and the aborted Kurdish and Shi’a revolts in its immediate aftermath, the years of sanctions and low level fighting with the residual anti-Iraqi coalition after 1991, left a particularly atomized and brutalized population, at once fearful and mistrustful, and willing to resort to arms. Under such conditions, sub-national allegiances – to family, clan, tribe, and local or religious groups – were the only means of survival. The physical environment of guerrilla warfare – the densely built cities, the villages along the twin rivers of Iraq, and the harsh deserts beyond – were reasonably well-understood. It is less clear that American planners understood equally well the socio-political landscape, which means that this war will be a fruitful subject for reflection on the question of intelligence in counterinsurgency. Historians of the future will trace the impact of the ethnography and sociology of postwar Iraq on the rise of the insurgency. They cannot fail to be impressed by one other unique feature of the Iraqi insurgent movements – the availability to them of virtually unlimited quantities of weapons and high explosives. Any visitor to Iraq after 2003 could not help but be stunned by the vast expanses of desert littered with munitions baking in the sun – aerial bombs, rockets, mortar shells, cluster munitions, surface to air missiles, and of course, small arms aplenty. It is hard to think of a counterinsurgency campaign that ever had to cope with a population so heavily armed, and which had available to it so much bomb-making material. The distinctive feature of irregular warfare in Iraq was not the ambush or even urban fighting; it was, rather the vast quantity of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) of infinite variety, most of them ineffective, to be sure, but on a scale that dwarfed that of, say, the British experience in Northern Ireland. What of the actual conduct of counterinsurgency operations? For contemporaries the debate about Iraq turned on general propositions – was the war justifiable

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and prudent? Was there any chance of winning to begin with, or was the entire venture improbable? Some journalists discussed the personalities of commanding generals, and there was in the daily discussion of Iraq reference by the news media to particular individuals. It is likely, however that future historians will focus more than we have on the influence of those personalities. Indeed, it is a matter for reflection that where historians usually put tremendous weight on the natures of particular political and military leaders, and on the decisions that they make, contemporaries seem to weight such matters less. In the case of Iraq there is a rich array of leaders whom historians will examine – from the President and the Secretary of Defense to the leaders of the Iraqi exile community which helped make the argument for war in 2003. But it is probable that more attention will come in the future to individuals a level below. It was apparent in 2003–2006 that the character of individual military commanders, at the division level and often below, had large consequences for the conduct of military operations. The 101st Airborne Division, 1st Cavalry Division, and 1st Armored divisions under generals Petraeus, Chiarelli, and Dempsey adapted remarkably quickly to the counterinsurgency mission, pursuing a combination of reconstruction and focused violence which achieved notable successes in restoring some semblance of normality in their areas of operation. Other units, under commanders more inclined to go hunting the enemy with less regard for the impact of such operations on the local population, fared less well. An assessment of these commanders, as well as those above and below them, will furnish the matter for speculations which, though unresolvable, will be worth thinking about. Had the corps commanders in Baghdad been different early on, might there have been an earlier, more vigorous, and more effective response to the insurgency? Turning points and watersheds during a war often appear only in retrospect. For obvious reasons, political and military leaders will claim successes and describe tipping points that in retrospect appear nothing of the sort. Churchill’s description of el Alamein as “the end of the beginning” was a shrewd, and calculatedly modest assessment that was untypical in capturing the significance of an unfolding event. Americans will have memories of declarations of the “light at the end of the tunnel” in Vietnam just as the enemy launched a massive offensive. In irregular warfare, of course, the turning points are more difficult to discern, and less likely to consist of conventional clashes like an Alamein, a Kursk, or a Normandy invasion. The second battle of Fallujah in November 2004 was probably as close to a conventional battle that might be depicted as such, although the insurgency worsened in key areas (though not Fallujah itself) in the immediate aftermath of that event. There were other events on a lesser scale – the squeezing of Moqtada al Sadr’s militia out of Najaf in the summer of 2004, as described by Colonel Peter Mansoor in his chapter here being an example. In each case, however, as is often the case, the enemy (or enemies) shifted their activities to different venues. More important to political and military leaders were a series of votes in 2005

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for an interim and final Iraqi government, and to ratify the new Iraqi constitution. In each case, American political leaders, understandably pleased by the relative success in getting out the vote, interpreted these elections as pivotal moments in the creation of a new Iraq. One question for the future will be whether these really were turning points: it is too difficult for us now to judge these matters, as it is to assess the points at which the careers of various Iraqi politicians flourished or waned. Perhaps most interesting of all from the point of view of a future military historian will be the placing of the American counterinsurgency effort into Iraq in the context of the history of American counterinsurgency more broadly. Contemporaries made comparisons with Vietnam, although usually in the spirit of partisan debate rather than of inquiry into analogies. And indeed, the future historian will write not so much about the analogy as the power of the image of Vietnam to shape American decision making. The aversion of the American military to anything that would, in their minds, lead to a re-creation of that failure, the use of Vietnam in the increasingly venomous domestic debate, the question of the relationship between American society – still guilty over its treatment of the Vietnam veterans in the 1960s and 1970s – and its military, will come under scrutiny. But there will be more. The Iraq War, together with the Afghan experience, will probably be seen in retrospect as that moment in time when the U.S. Army reluctantly embraced counterinsurgency as a central mission. The nature of that embrace, however, its depth and its sincerity, will remain disputed. Three approaches can already be distinguished. The first, identified most with units like the 4th Infantry Division under Major General Ray Odierno, was direct, aggressive, and lethal: it aimed above all at identifying and capturing “high value targets” – leaders of the insurgency at all levels. It also probably inflicted, unintentionally, more casualties on Iraqi civilians than any other.3 It was also, however, the approach that finally yielded up Saddam Hussein as a prisoner, and that pacified his home base of Tikrit. The second approach – a more nuanced style combining “hearts and minds” with limited uses of force was put in place by Major General David Petraeus with the 101st Airborne Division in northern Iraq and Major General Peter Chiarelli of 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad.4 This approach (shared as well by units like 1st Armored Division under Major General Martin Dempsey) emphasized the importance of creating employment with emergency relief funds, and trying to bring to life an Iraqi economy and society shattered by decades of war and tyranny. As the war unfolded, it incorporated a more serious effort to train Iraqi forces, yielding such local successes as the flushing out of insurgents from the town of Tal Afar by American and Iraqi forces under the command of Colonel H.R. McMaster and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. The third approach was that of U.S. Army Special Forces. It involved relying heavily on local leaders – particularly the tribal sheikhs – to split the insurgency by negotiation, and by empowering militias and informal military organizations. Although a secondary effort for much of the war, it had passionate advocates in the field and in Washington.

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Although these approaches had something of the quality of archetypes, and were in practice some times blurred by commanders experimenting with different styles, they often came into sharp and personal conflict in the field.5 Military trainers finding themselves looking down the barrels of American guns; Iraqi allies handcuffed and face down in the dirt; bewildered battalion commanders furious at mistreatment of civilians by Iraqi forces (regular and irregular alike) under nominal American control – this was the concrete manifestation of three widely different theories of war. And these three theories of war will, no doubt, translate into a struggle for the counterinsurgency soul of the American military in years to come, with results that no contemporary can predict. A future historian, as noted above, will find some of the parallels drawn by contemporaries with the Vietnam experience problematic. But he or she will surely find some that resonate, and that raise larger questions about the ability of the post-World War II American political and military system to adapt to new kinds of conflicts. Robert W. Komer served as the senior coordinator of the Vietnam War on the National Security Council, and later in Vietnam as the deputy to General William Westmoreland in charge of counterinsurgency. The study he wrote for the RAND Corporation upon his return – “Bureaucracy Does Its Thing” makes fascinating, albeit chilling, reading for students of the war that preoccupied American soldiers a generation later.6 Komer argued that the failure in Vietnam was not personal or intellectual – there were smart people in the government who knew what needed to be done – so much as bureaucratic; that the great impediment to success in Vietnam was the tendency for large governmental and military organizations to play out “institutional repertoires,” no matter what their objective chances of success. It is a hypothesis that future historians will surely re-examine in the wake of this war. Whether in procedures for letting contracts (which ended up favoring Western businesses over local contractors and labor forces), or in the metrics of success (too often, the tracking down and killing of insurgents rather than the undermining of the cause that sustained them), the American government over all seemed remarkably prone to do what it did best – deploy vast quantities of men and material and approach a knotty problem in a linear fashion. Because the last chapters of the Iraq War have not been written, we cannot tell how future historians will critique or rewrite them. They will surely find unsurprising the fact – so outrageous to contemporaries – that the American government and its armed forces did not anticipate the challenges they would face there. As the British historian Michael Howard pointed out long ago, all militaries get it wrong before the war – the critical question is how quickly they adapt once the war has begun. What future historians will judge, therefore, will be the speed and efficacy of that adaptation. In the forefront will stand one very large question: was the war ever winnable, or did it represent an ambition too great ever to be fulfilled. But beyond that will stand an even larger question: that of the long term consequences of the war. The long term consequences will be the most perplexing and interesting of all, because views of them, as of all wars in the past, will change over time.

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Judgments about the causes, conduct, and long-term consequences of World War I remain the subject of heated dispute among historians. The same will remain true here. Military historians are usually wary of terms like victory and defeat, which inevitably color contemporary debates. They will note in the case of Iraq, for example, that call it what one will, the Iraq war will have had large consequences in the region. The empowerment of the majority Shi’a population in Iraq, long an oppressed and powerless minority not only there, but throughout much of the Muslim world, will likely have large repercussions for intra-Arab and intra-Muslim politics. Connected to this will be the emergence of Iran as a far more important and influential power in the wake of the war. The timid, and quickly withdrawn tacit support of Sunni regimes for Israel in its war with Iranian sponsored Shi’ite Hizbullah guerrillas in southern Lebanon during the summer of 2006 is one datum worth pondering. Similarly, the destruction of Saddam’s regime, and of Saddam himself, means the end of the last of the secular, radical Arab strongmen – the Nasser type – who dominated Arab politics for decades from the end of European control in the region after World War II through to the early 1990s. New and potentially more dangerous currents flowed, the most important of which was the Islamization of Arab politics. But the war showed other trends as well – the emergence of a much more lively Arab television media culture, which though hostile to the United States was sharply critical of much of Arab culture as well. These and other consequences will be affected by the final outcome in Iraq, be it the gradual stabilization of a national unity government, or the disintegration of Iraq in civil conflict. But the consequences will remain. Finally, future historians will ponder the effects of the war on American politics. As of 2006 the results looked to be a discrediting of parts of the Republican Party, counterbalanced by a radicalization of some of the Democratic Party which, in turn, yielded partisan energy and marginalization in American politics. It sharpened civil–military tension, as unsuccessful wars (and often, successful wars as well) often do. It will certainly have produced a tough, combat hardened, and skeptical Army and Marine Corps, who do not, despite various human rights abuse cases, seem to have launched the respect and affection of the American people. The uncertainties remain: how much, for example, American diplomatic isolation, and popular antagonism to the United States, will be attributed to the war, and how much to the unpopular President who waged it. But even should the outcome prove in the main unfortunate, it seems unlikely that future historians will chronicle this as the beginning of an irrevocable American decline. When the dust settles, the American economy will remain large and vigorous; American society youthful (by comparison with most other major powers) and ambitious; and the American military well-funded and competent. American political and military leaders will have their headaches, but future historians are likely to study this as a case in the failure of a superpower, not the beginning of the end of a hegemon.

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Notes 1 See the reports issued by the United Nations Development Programme, Arab Human Development Report: Creating Opportunities for Future Generations, New York: United Nations, 2002. There were following reports in 2003 and 2004. 2 Kevin M. Woods, with Michael R. Pease, Mark E. Stout, Williamson Murray, and James G. Lacey, Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam’s Senior Leadership, Suffolk, VA: Joint Center for Operational Analyses, United States Joint Forces Command, 2006. 3 See Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, New York: Penguin Press, 2006. 4 See two articles by these commanders, Peter W. Chiarelli and Patrick Michaelis, “The Requirement for Full-Spectrum Operations Source,” Military Review 85, no. 4, 2005, pp. 4–17 and David Petraeus, “Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq.” Military Review 86, no. 1, 2006, pp. 2–12. 5 See, for example, Anne Scott Tyson, “In a Volatile Region of Iraq, U.S. Military Takes Two Paths,” Washington Post, September 15, 2006, p. A1, and Greg Jaffe, “A Camp Divided: As U.S. Tries to Give Iraqi Troops More Responsibility, Clash of Two American Colonels Shows Tough Road Ahead.” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2006, eastern edition. 6 Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S. – GVN Performance in Vietnam, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1972.

Index

1st Polish Brigade Combat Team (BCT) 190 Abizaid, General John P. 171, 206 Adnan Republican Guard Division 60, 77, 99 Afghan model: Afghanistan victory 53–4; conventional plan, use of 56; Green Line 60; Iraqi desertions 62; Iraqi divisions 54, 57–8, 62; Kurds, role of 52, 57, 59–61; northern orders of battle 57–8; Operational Detachment-Alphas 57, 59; operational success 62; political opposition 53; postwar occupation versus Kurdish-led government 55; precision air power technology 52–3, 54–5, 61–2, 63; SOF, use of 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60–1; success of 63–4; troop requirements 53–6; Turkey, refusal of 56, 57, 59 Afghanistan, Soviet loss of 217–18 Air Force, Iraqi 23–4 Al Amn al-Khas 72 al Askari, Jafar 40 Al-Dulaymi, Lieutenant General Majid Husayn ali Ibrahim 99 al-Duri, Ibrahim Izzat 151 Al-Hababi, General Ali 109 al-Hadithy, Dr Abdullah Hasan 150 al-Hamdani, Lieutenant General Raad 76–7, 97–9, 110–21 Al Hassani, Hachem 174 al Janabi, Abdullah 168, 175, 177, 179, 180–1 al-Khoei, Ayatollah Majid 188 Al-Kifl bridgehead attack 113 Al-Majid, Ali Hassan 38 al-Maliki, Nari 160 Al-Nida Division 99–100, 102–4, 110, 118 al-Obadi, Lieutenant Colonel 114

Al-Qa’id Bridge attack 118–20 Al Qaeda 53, 152, 203, 239 Al-Quds Army 30, 31–3, 108, 112, 114 al-Sadr, Muqtada 4, 155–7, 169, 181, 187–9 al-Sahaf, Mohammed Saeed 78, 79 al-Ta’i, General Sultan Hashim 40 al-Tikriti, General Maher Sufian 74 al-Yaccoubi, Mustafa 188 al-Zarqawi, Abu Musa’b 152, 161, 167, 203–4 Albertini, Luigi 247 Albueissa tribe 151, 152 Allawi, Prime Minister Ayad 181 Andres, Richard 250 Army, American: adaptation, need for 220; anticipated big war versus small war at hand 217–18; decentralization versus centralization 216–18; extended campaign versus quest for speed 215–16; history, lessons learned from 220–2; inwardly-regarding behavior 218–19; as learning organization 230–1; mass versus individual units 215; policy implementation, time for 220; politics and policy, eschewing of 219; “Powell” doctrine 218; small wars, and need for expertise 219; unilateral operations 215; “Weinberger” doctrine 218 Army, Iraqi see military effectiveness, Iraqi Atkinson, Rick 229 Aziz, Tariq 25, 98, 121 Ba’ath Party: headquarters 74; militia 30, 46; Sunni insurgency 150–1 Ba’ath regime: ending of 121–3; internal security environment 43–5, 46; Sunni domination 149

258

Index

Badr Corps 260 Baghdad Republican Guard Division 40–1, 42, 77, 110, 111 Barzan, Major General 39–40 Biddle, Stephen 55, 63, 71 bin Laden, Osama 13, 167 Bishop, Lieutenant Colonel Garry 190, 192, 193 Blackwater murders 4–5, 165, 170, 179 Blair, Tony 175 Bloom, Mia 165 Bremer, L. Paul 134, 135, 136, 159, 169, 170, 178, 188 Burjis, Abdul Karim 174 Bush, George W. 129, 132, 136, 165, 175, 176, 187, 198 Carver, Captain Eric 61 Casey, General George 201 CENTCOM 14, 129, 133, 136, 170, 177 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 240 Cheney, Dick 131 Chiarelli, Major General Peter 253 civil affairs perspective: acceptable standard of living, restoration of 201; civil–military relations 200; clearing task 199; counterinsurgency, as political 201; economic development 201–2; future campaign in Iraq 198–9; ideological effort 203–4; Iraqi people and culture, understanding 201; Iraqi self-determination 204–5; national institutions, restoration of 202–3; “oil spot” strategy 199; “securing” task 200 Clausewitz, Carl von 10, 11, 137–8, 232 Coalition forces: combat battalions, role and duties of 210–11; Forward Operating Bases 210; government and institutions, building of 212–13; infantrymen, arduous duties of 210; Iraqi security forces, training of 211–12; political objectives 212; secure bases, maintaining 210; security operations 208–9; “situational awareness” 211; supply routes, clearing of 209 Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) 2, 167–8, 234; core foundations 134; field offices 135; Green Zone, confinement to 135; limited reconstruction efforts 135; Muqtada, action against 156; policy differences 136; Sadr, arrest of 188; staffing problems, and bureaucratic obstacles 134–5 Coleman, Colonel John 176

combat phase 249–50 Combined Joint Task Force SEVEN (CJTF-7) 170, 171, 175, 188, 234 Combined Task Force-Counter-Terrorism, North (CTF-CT-N) 241 conflict, origins of 247–9 Conway, Lieutenant General James 176–7, 180 Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) 140 Corum, James 223 counterinsurgency: American Army, contradictions in 215–22; counterinsurgency methods, employment of 232; democratic Iraq, insurgents’ stand against 206–7; doctrine, for U.S. Army forces 5; foreign jihadis 207; historical prejudice against study of 223–4; history, lessons of 225; indirect approach 241; insurgent auxiliaries 207; insurgent characteristics 207–8; intelligence 251; Iraqi forces, increasing operational role of 208; military infrastructure, need for 208; operations 251–4; Operations Against Irregular Forces, relevance of 222–3; OSS and Special Forces, experience of 222; public administration 233–5; rebuilding of Iraq, U.S. responsibility for 206; small wars, adaptation to 213–14; stability, promotion of 214–15, 221; tribal structure 241–2; warfare, imbalance in comprehension of full array of 224; see also civil affairs perspective; Karbala model CPA see Coalition Provisional Authority Crane, Conrad 11 Crowder, Colonel Gary L. 71 cyber war 3, 73, 74 Decker, George 215, 222 deep attack: Afghan model, use of 81; air power, role of 71–3, 81, 82; bribes 74; campaign, success of 83; coup creation, and regime decapitation 73–8; deepbattlefield, shaping with ground forces 81–3; ground–air synergy 81, 82–3; institutions, targeting of 72; Iraqi command and control system, ineffectiveness of 74–5; Iraqi leaders, precision weapon attacks on 75–6; Iraqi military collapse, explanations for 69–71; lessons learned, application of to future wars 84–5; military coups,

Index 259 Saddam’s fear of 74–5; non-military targets 73; plan, debating 71–3; political elite, cyber attack on 73, 74; political infrastructure, targeting of 74; precision air power technology 71–2; psychological warfare 78–81; rear area troops, vulnerability of 81; Republican Guard divisions, annihilation of 82; Saddam, self-protection of 76–7; situational awareness, lack of 77; SOF, and Kurdish militias 82–3; tactical skill 84; tribal fighters, Saddam’s use of 81–2 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) 240 Dempsey, Major General Martin 252 Department of Defense (DoD), and civilian planning 132–3, 139–40 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 240 Desert Storm 15, 23, 29, 71, 80 desertions, Iraqi 62, 69, 78, 80–1 dictatorial regimes, innate weakness of 69–70 Directorate of General Security 43 Enzensberger, Hans Magnus 158 Executive Steering Group (ESG), and civilian planning 130, 132 expeditionary warfare 9 Fallujah, first battle for: Blackwater murders 170; civilian casualties 171, 173; collateral damage 173–4, 182; fighting, intensity of 172; IGC, and cease-fire negotiations 174–5; insurgent casualties 171; insurgent strength 168–9, 171; jihadists 167, 168, 171; Mahdi uprising 169–70, 174, 181; military force, and escalation of violence 163–4, 175; moderate Sunnis, and Coalition 167–8; political opposition 173–5, 182; Sunni insurgency 164, 166–7, 171–2, 174; violence, intensification of after June 2004 181; see also signaling resolve Fallujah brigade: Fallujah initiative, demise of 180–1; Fallujah as insurgent base of operations 179–80; IGC–Sunni negotiations 176; insurgents, declaration of success 178–9, 182; Iraqi generals, negotiations with former 177; jihadists, as heroes 179–80; leadership 178–9; Sunnis, bringing into political process 177; TCP-1, attack on 180–1; U.S. weakness, signaling of 176

Fedayeen Saddam 30, 57, 82, 108, 112, 122; activities of 34–5; Coalition, operations against 35; corruption, and punishments 36–7; criminal gangs, and black market 34; equipment of 35–6; Kurds and Shi’a, operations against 35; military failure, and punishments 37; military resources, consumption of 35–6; Shi’ite and Kurdish uprisings, Saddam’s response to 34; state security missions 33–4; terrorism operations 35, 36; Uday Hussein, involvement of 35; UN sanctions, and maintenance of civil order 34; volunteers, recruitment of 36 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 240 Franks, General Tommy 56, 69, 70, 71–2, 74, 77, 81, 82, 129–30, 131, 137 Fuller, J.F.C. 225 Garner, Jay 131, 133, 134 General Military Intelligence Directorate (GMID) 43, 104–5 Golden Falcon training exercise 27 Grdovic, Major Mark 61 Green Line 58f Gruszka, Brigadier General Edward 190 Gulf War: (1990) 25–6, 70, 79; (2003) 247 “guns versus butter” calculus 10 Hackworth, Lieutenant Colonel David 223 Hadid, Omar 175 Hashim, Ahmed 250 history, written by victors 18–19 Howard, Michael 254 Hughes, Karen 204 Hussein, Qusay 22, 26–7, 38–9, 77, 113–19, 122, 242 Hussein, Saddam 46, 187, 247; Ba’ath regime, ending of 121–2; centralized control 41–2; dictates, implementing 22; dictatorial regimes, innate weakness of 69–70; Iraqi army command structure, dysfunctional nature of 2, 3; Iraqi military collapse 97; personal security 100–2; re-islamization policy 154–5; relatives and sycophants 37–40; selfperception as military genius 28; selfprotection of 76–7 Hussein, Uday 35, 122, 242 I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) 164, 168–9, 170, 171, 172, 175, 176, 177, 179–81, 228

260

Index

improvised explosive devices (IEDs) 209, 251 Independent Electoral Commission in Iraq (IECI) 202 insurgency 250–1; active combat phase 4–5; background 147; civil war 147–61; islamization 154–5; see also counterinsurgency; Shi’a insurgency; Sunni insurgency Iran, as real threat 27 Iran–Iraq war (1980–8) 29, 70, 79, 149 Iraqi Civil Defense Corps 192 Iraqi Counterterrorism Task Force (ICTF) 192 Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) 163, 169–71, 174–5, 176 Iraqi Intelligence Service 43, 176 Iraqi National Congress (INC) 14 Iraqi Perspectives Project 249 Iraqi Youth Union 36 Joint Inter-Agency Task Force (JIATF) 240 Joint Special Operations Task Force-North (JSOTF-N) 57, 58, 59, 60 Karbala model: 1st Polish Brigade Combat Team (BCT) 190; building grants 195; civic action projects 195; Coalition reaction 189–92; information operations 196; Iraqi Civil Defense Corps battalion, recruitment of 194; Mahdi Army, destruction of 188, 193–4, 196–7; Mukhayem mosque, assault on 192; political significance 189; reconstruction, and provision of longterm security 194–7; Sadr, and Shi’a uprising 187–9; solatia-like payments 195–6; tactical objectives 190–2; weapons buy-back program 194–5 Keegan, John 69 Kem, Lieutenant Colonel 192, 195 Kennan, George 218 Kennedy, John F. 220 Knap, Colonel Andrej 190 Komer, Robert W. 254 Kosovo 55, 72 Kurdish Workers’ Party 59 Kurdistan Democratic Party 57 Kurds: Afghan model 52, 57, 59–61; betrayal of 148, 149; security forces 241; and SOF 82–3; tribes 237 Kuwait, invasion of 26 Lassiter, Tom 213

Latif, Major General Mohammed 178–9, 180 Lawrence, T.E. 235 Lieber Code 216 Linn, Brian M. 225 Luttwak, Edward 218 MacArthur, General Douglas 223–4 McKiernan, General David D. 77 McMaster, Colonel H.R. 243, 253 Mahdi Army, destruction of 4, 157, 188, 193–4, 196–7 Mahdi uprising 169–70, 174, 181 Maliki government 160–1 Mansoor, Peter 252 Mechpass, Staff Major General Abdullah 119 Medina Division 110, 113, 116, 117, 119, 120 Merom, Gil 166 methodological battle syndrome, of America 19 military effectiveness, Iraqi: Ba’athist ideology, commitment to 46; centralized control 41–2; commanders, stripping of authority of 40–3; guidance, irrelevant 28–30; Iraqi Air Force 23–4; military collapse, factors contributing to 45–6; military readiness, factors affecting 28; military success, as escaping annihilation 26, 29; political interference 22, 23; private armies, rise of 30–7; relatives and sycophants 37–40; reporting, false/optimistic 25–7; Republican Army 22; Saddam’s dictates, implementing 22; sanctions, effects of 24–8; schemes, and “bureaucratic eloquence” 24–8; security and command, limitations to 40–5; tactical capabilities 23–4; tribal/familial relationships, and authority 42–3 Military Industrial Commission 25, 36 Military Intelligence Directorate 123 militias, in Iraq 159–60; see also Al-Quds Army; Fedayeen Saddam Milosevic, Slobadan 72, 73–4 Mishadad, Saif Al-Din 109 Mizban, Governor 108, 109 Muhamdi, General Abdullah 177 Mukhabarat Special Security Organization 74 Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) 189, 193 Multi-National Division Central-South (MND-CS) 190, 192

Index 261 Multi-National Divisions (MNDs) 228 Multinational Force Iraq 191, 208, 220 Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I) 230 National Security Agency (NSA) 240 National Security Council (NSC) 54, 130, 139 National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 132 Nebuchadnezzar Republican Guard Division 60, 62, 77, 110, 111, 113, 117 Odierno, Major General Ray 253 Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) 131, 132, 133, 134 Office of Strategic Services (OSS) (US) 222 Oil for Food program (UN) 130 Olympic Committee 35 On Point 17 O’Neill, Bard 147 Operation Allied Force (1999) 55, 72 Operational Detachment-Alphas (ODAs) 57, 59 Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) 13, 71, 130 Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) see war plan (US) Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) Study Group 227–8 Operation LOCKED CLAW 240 Operation Rolling Thunder 73 OPLAN 15–16, 72 OPLAN 1003-98 53, 130 OPLAN 1003V 14 OPLAN COBRA II 14, 16 Orlando, Lieutenant Colonel Kim 188 Othman, Mahmoud 178 Pachachi, Adnan 174 Pape, Robert 71, 85 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) 57 peace, failure to win: “post-war” environment 228; regime change policies 229; regime collapse, and jurisdictional divisions of war 227–8; war plan, lack of and strategic ambiguity 228–9 Peshmerga 159; see also Kurds Petraeus, General David 220, 227, 228, 230–2, 252, 253 planning, postmodern age 227; 101st

Airborne, and planning for “third kind of war” 229–30; community links 235–6; counterinsurgency methods 232; counterinsurgency and public administration 233–5; enemy and self, knowing 232–3; expertise, contractingin 233; full spectrum warfare 242; intelligence operations 240; Lawrence, re-learning lessons of 242–4; local politics, leaving to locals 235; northern Iraq, complexity of 233, 239–40; operational planning flaws 229; Petraeus’ fourteen lessons from planning 231–2; Petraeus’ fourteen lessons from soldiering 230–1; stability and support operations 236–7; tribal engagement strategy 237–8; war, determining kind of 232 “Powell” doctrine 218 psychological warfare: Al-Nida division, annihilation of 99–100; concealment 78–9; desertions, inducement of 78, 80–1; internal information operation 79–80; leaflet drops 78, 80, 99–100; policing institutions 79; precision air power, fear induced by 99; rear area troops, bombing campaign against 78, 80 Qasim, Abdel Karim 149 Race, Jeffrey 165 Reconstruction: civilian planning 132–3, 139–40; Clausewitz, return to 137–8; CPA, and the military 134–7; fatality numbers 129; force levels, debates over 137–8; future, lessons for 137–40; Future of Iraq project 132; governance structure, supposed continuation of 131; humanitarian relief plans 130, 132; hybrid option, and OPLAN 1003V 130; insurgent numbers 129; interagency process, strengthening 139–40; liberation versus occupation 131; military objectives, and political purpose 137; “Mission Accomplished” claim of George Bush 129; reconstruction plans 130–2; stabilization, military role in 138–9; strategic end state, and operational planning 137–8 reporting, poor quality of 25–7, 104–7, 112–14 Republican Guard 34, 57–8, 64

262

Index

Republican Guard Corps 41, 44, 45 Republican Guard Security Office 43–4 “Revolution in Military Affairs” 6 Rice, Condoleezza 187, 198, 199, 200, 202–3 Ricks, Tom 213 Rumsfeld, Donald 69, 129–30, 132, 134, 137, 170, 171 Saddam Fedayeen see Fedayeen Saddam Saddam Hussein see Hussein, Saddam Sadrist movement 147, 155–6, 157, 187–9 Salafism, rise of 152–3, 154 Saleh, Muhammed Jasim 177–8 Sambanis, Nicholas 158 Sanchez, Lieutenant General Ricardo 136, 165, 170, 171, 242 Scaparrotti, Brigadier General Curtis 190 Schoomaker, General Peter 201 Serbia 81 Shadid, Anthony 178 Sharia law 37 Shehwani, General 176–7 Shi’a insurgency 34; class and social basis of 156; CPA, action against Muqtada 155, 156; as internal struggle 156; Mahdi Army, unleashing of 155; Sadrist movement 155–6, 157, 187–9 Shinseki, General Eric 10, 138 signaling resolve 163–6, 170, 182–3; see also Fallujah, first battle of Sistani, Grand Ayatollah Ali 169, 171, 181 Special Forces Brigade 110 Special Operations Forces (SOF): Afghan model 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60–1; Kurdish militias 82–3 Special Police, Iraqi 57 Special Republican Guard 39, 72, 74 Special Security Office 43 Special Security Organization (SSO) 38, 72 Stalin, Joseph 218 Summers, Colonel Harry 223 Sun Tzu 232–3 Sunni insurgency: Ba’ath Party, roles of 149, 150–1; Fallujah, first battle of 171–2, 174; fertile ground for 3; financiers and arms suppliers 154; foreign terrorists, involvement of 152, 153; grievances 149–50; Kurds, betrayal of 148, 149; monarchy, overthrow of 148–9; operational activists 154; origins of 148–50; Ottomans, legacy of 148; Salafism, rise of 152–3, 154; Shi’a, as

fifth column for Iran 148, 149; social composition 152; Sunni clergy, role of 154–5; Sunni domination 148, 166–7; tribal motivation 151–2; US aggression 152 Sunni Triangle 3, 148 Taliban 81 Tenet, George 170 Tikriti commanders, trust in 41, 42–3 tribal structure: authority 42–3; counterinsurgency 241–2; Sunni insurgency 151–2; tribal engagement strategy 235–8; tribal fighters, Saddam’s use of 81–2 Waghelstein, John 215 war, long term consequences of 254–5 war plan (Iraq): Al-Kifl bridgehead attack, and American counter-fire 113; AlQa’id Bridge attack 118–20; Baghdad, defense of 109–11; command confusion 108–9; emergency meeting 117–19; external intelligence, confusion caused by 112; Hamdani’s warning, rejection of 115–16; Iraqi collapse, piecing together 97; Iraqi generals, handicaps hobbling 98–9; military–political communication breakdown 110; military targets 102–4; officers, Saddam’s lack of trust in 98; reconnaissance reports 113, 114–15; regime complacency 106–7, 115–16; reporting, poor quality of 104–7, 112–14; Russian intelligence 117–18; sandstorm, as opportunity to assess situation 111–12; “suicidal” attacks 104; US air campaign 100–4; war plan, as unworkable 99; western approach, regime elite’s fixation on 105–6 war plan (U.S.): campaign plan, design flaws 11; CENTCOM planning 14; CFLCC (Combined Forces Land Component Command) 14, 15–16; concept and nesting 17–18; CONPLAN (Concept Plan) 15–16; ECLIPSE II 14; hybrid plan, inadequacy of 16–17; ‘justin-time’ versus use of overwhelming force 14–15; number of forces, requirement for 17; OPLAN 15–16; OPLAN 1003V 14; OPLAN COBRA II 14, 16; peace, no plan for winning of 18, 19; planning, incompleteness of 11–13; time-phased force deployment list 16; topple Saddam policy 14–15

Index 263 “Weinberger” doctrine 218 West, Bing 165 Wilson, Woodrow 221 Wolfowitz, Paul 138, 248 Woods, Kevin 249

Xenophon 9, 19 Yahya Al-Ani, General Taha HuwayshFadani 77–8, 108, 109, 110