Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Strategic Blunders in the Iraq War

Only time and history will tell us what went wrong where. But now that the Bush Administration is fessing up to making mistakes in how the war was handled, a look back reveals at least a couple glaring strategic mistakes.

I am not talking about tactical missteps, but major blunders impacting the overall strategy of the war.

One caveat here - please don't let this descend into a discussion of going to war with Iraq in the first place. We made a decision and we are there (and the vote was overwhelmingly for the war by both parties based on the SAME intel the admistration had).

My views are somewhat tainted by service as an Army officer, retired well before even 9/11. But I do have some insight into how things should at least work.

Number 1 - Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. When this selection was announced, I asked why. And I still don't know why he was selected. Had neither the temperment nor open mindedness to deal with warfare on an asymetrical level.

Number 2 - Ignoring the Secretary of the Army's assessment on required troop levels, then firing the Secretary of the Army for disagreeing with the Secretary of Defense. General Eric Shinseki was a distinguished military officer and then Secretary of the Army. He provided an open, honest and fact-based assessment that troops in the range of 300,000 would be needed in Iraq. Rumsfeld was vehement when Sinseki would not change his mind. So he fired him. (Believe me, it was a firing).

Rumsfeld ignored the estimation of his top Army resource, and pulled a number out of someone's butt. This move was dangerous on more than one level. First, it ignored reality and modern warfare requirements. Second, it allowed politics to take precedence over military decisions. And third, it sent a loud and clear message to all other officers - dissent would not be tolerated at any cost.

Number 3 - allowing the Iraqui Army to go home. I remember my jaw hitting the floor when it was announced that the Iraqi Army would be dissolved and sent home. Oh, there were a few high ranking officers in the deck of playing cards, but Saddma's professional soldiers were just sent home. No recognition that in a country the size of California that was held together before with the might of the world's then 5 largest military. No recognition that a new nation that bordered Iran and Syria just might need to stand on its own some day. And no recognition that unemployed professional soldiers might tend to find suitable work elsewhere in their chosen profession.

Number 4 - outlawing the Bath party. This is a lesser degree than the others. To get anywhere in Iraq one had to be a member of the Bath party. Similar to being a member of the nazi party in Germany. Now it would have been a great idea to eliminate the party itself, but its members included those who ran the infrastructure of Iraq under Saddam. In other words, many of these people were necessary in any new government. I recall that patton took a load of criticism by employing former members of the Nazi party in the post war transition. But it worked.

I believe we also had little appreciation for the tribal nature of Iraq. saddam was if anything a very effective policeman and had no tolerance for tribal disputes. With Saddam gone, grudges hundreds of years old resurfaced. We had a good example of this when the Soviet Union collapsed with the issues in Serbia topping the list.

I have kept my thoughts to myself until today - when our Commander in Chief made a public statement that I like many other Americans cared not what was best for this country because of my opposition to the current Immigration plan (aptly called Shamnesty by some). It is high time to shed some light on on the blunders of this administration and to learn from them. If we do not, this Country that I do love will cede to the control of those who care more about campaign contributions than they do about America.

Good post + 1.........

Every thing you say has the ring of truth to it. Well Said. Les

Ditching Jay Garner in favor of Paul Bremer. Allowing the State Department to take over when everyone who has ever been abroad knows that it is the military who gets the job done, in war and in peace.

I agree that Bush went too far with his comment on immigration. The real divide in this country is between Americans, and the super- rich internationalists who want unrestricted immigration to feed their factories and work in their mansions.

We dramatically defeated the Iraqi Army with the troops we had. We did not need anywhere near 300,000.

However I do agree that letting the Iraqi Army go was a mistake. Many former members of Saddam's Army were a big part of the initial batch of insurgents which created the intiial destabilization.

I kinda-sorta agree about Rumsfeld, troop numbers & etc., but lets face it, the Big Army is the last place anyone'd turn for advice on asymmetrical warfare. I think the book is still open on some of these questions as the "hearts and minds" stategy is the only way to go in Iraq. Sure, we could have crushed the country and its people (even with the troops we sent) but that wouldn't have gotten the important part of the job done. Too much US presence could have (would have?) had the effect of making Iraq a permanent (as in: forever) welfare case--totally dependent on American largess--with no incentive for independence. Probably wouldn't have been a poor idea to go in with 500,000 CA personnel and lock the country down for a time, with major withdrawals coming in short order, though. The new cooperation from tribal chiefs, in Anbar, could be considered a direct result of the "light footprint" strategy. The learning curve has been steep and the cost high, though. I have to admit that you may be correct in every particular. History will have to decide.

That said, I agree that disolving the Iraqi Army was totally bone-headed. Outlawing the Bath Party, equally so. Allowing the career State Department Arabists to have anything to say about anything--least of all the new Iraqi constitution--was a huge blunder.

you win wars by killing people, and breaking things.

We did not kill enough of the right people, nor did we break enough of the right things.

Should have taken Baghdad, killed Saddam, and just left, with the caveat that if they pizzed us off again, we would be back.

France and Russia could have been given the job of clean up, since they have so many billions invested there.

Well, this ain't the old days where we kicked their a**es into surrender and laid out ground rules for peace........too many liberals demanding restraint, remember the stolen/damaged artifacts flap and the anti-American press? Hammering Syria and Iran would have already happened when they ignored the memo to those losers if they interfered with our troops. But...enter libs again with their restraint and peace activists who know war is wrong, unless attacks are by the enemy.


Restraint encourages the enemy and causes more American casualties......

More troops were needed to stabalize the country after the invasion..Too much land mass for the few troops that were originly there,thus the new troop build up.........only too little too late I'm afraid,but hope not.......

Yes a good thread for people that think.
I go along with number two and number three.
I dont know how the hell were gonna get out of this mess but i certainly know we just cant"get out now" as the projectile vomiting left insists we do.

A very big one was underestimating the rift between Sunni and Shiite. It's a split that goes back 1400 years to the death of Mohammad and it will exist as long as Islam exists. It has cause numerous civil wars in the Muslim world and millions have died for it. As far as I know, Turkey is the only country to have a government where the sects coexist and even there it's very shaky. If either side gets a little more power than the other, the whole thing will collapse.

Dick

1

Being tolerant, thoughtful and caring, I rather thought the first and proper choice would have been nukes in A'stan right off the bat. We wouldn't be in Iraq now if that option had been exercised.

Yes, Rummy was the wrong man at the wrong place and time. Hindsight being 20/20 I'm left to wonder who would have been the right person. Meanwhile, down on the Southern Border.....

This post identifies the real problem and that is the failure of our intelligence services and that includes the top brass in the military and administration.

Precisely.
There were those who said the Soviet Union served a useful purpose by keeping the lid on the ethnic/tribal/religous conflicts in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and parts of the Middle East......and now we seem to have inherited the job..........Maybe we could subcontract with the Russian Communist Party

Casey

The reality of the war in Iraq is that we won the war but lost the peace.

Our military did exactly what was asked of it and is continuing to do so. We are in a political quagmire that was created in the first moments, not of war but of peace. Our military did exactly what they are trained to do, they totally crushed the 5th largest army in the world. They did it quickly and efficiently and with an absolute minimum of casualties (to our side).

The politicians let us down BEFORE the shooting started in a number of ways and continued the trend after the shooting supposedly ended. The military mission is to win a war. The political mission is to win the peace.

We had a nearly flawless plan to win the war, but absolutely NO PLAN for the peace. We allowed the country to descend into anarchy and chaos in the first moments of peace. Once that happened, it became nearly impossible to reign it back in.

I am certainly not qualified to speak to the tactical changes that might have been made that could have changed this situation, but what I do know is that that is a POLITICAL and not a military task.

The real problem is that we MUST stay there and MUST try to stabilize the country because if we do not, all we have accomplished is to have taken away the terrorist base in Afganistan and given them Iraq in exchange. I'm sure the planners of 9/11 are smiling at that thought!

I don't think there's much to criticize in the war itself....it was about as unqualified a successful campaign as history can show us. It is now and will continue to be studied by our own and other militaries as a textbook combined arms operation.

But then the blunders began. Demobing the Iraqi army instead of turning them into a National Guard/CCC force was a huge mistake. Permitting the chaos and looting in Baghdad to ever get traction undermined respect for the coalition's authority, and led to much worse. The belief that Iraqis were capable of putting aside their tribal and religious rivalries to build a democratic republic has thus far not been proved true. And the "soft footprint", don't break anything, be nice rules of engagement, combined with the massive incursions of foreign alQs have now got us in the mess we're in.

There were at least two competing strategies proposed for the war.

The one that was accepted was the "quick win" model.

The other model was to advance slowly, and make the Iraqi army come to us. The theory was that by doing that, we would totally degrade and destroy their military resources.

I'm not particularly in favor of one or the other, but I can't help wondering what would have happened if the Iraqi military had not existed by the time we reached Bahgdad.

To all,

Its a guerrilla war, the battlefield is gone. We have at total misunderstanding of the Islamic Radicals. They continue to outsmart us at every turn. Its the fault of our military intelligence. I am sure they told the president they would win the situation and they have failed. Sure the soldiers are brave but they are not fighting on their terms but on that of the radicals.

We keep doing the same thing over there day after day. There is no plan or thinking. We need to step back but not withdraw completely before we wear ourselves out.

By the way did anyone else see the Miss Universe contest the other night. Miss USA made it to the final 5 and she was booed. Cat calls and boos were quite loud there in Mexico City.

Where the heck is another Ronald Reagan. We need him so much.

Good post. A book you might be interested in is "Utility of Force" by Sir Rupert Smith a retired British general. A good read and food for thought.