6 Months to Win
A US soldier takes a break during a search of an apartment in the south-east of Baghdad. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters
Simon Tisdall reports for the Guardian, that a group of officers has told General Petraeus that he has six months to win the war in Iraq. If he fails, political and public pressure might force the U.S. into a hasty withdrawal. The officers are discribed by Simon as “an elite team” and “combat veterans who are leading experts in counter-insurgency… charged with implementing the ‘new way forward’ strategy announced by president George Bush on January 10.”
An interesting quote from the (main) source who is a ‘former senior administration official’:
“The scene is very tense. They are working round the clock. Endless cups of tea with the Iraqis, but they’re still trying to figure out what’s the plan. The president is expecting progress. But they’re thinking, what does he mean? The plan is changing every minute, as all plans do.”
This indicates that, although the army and the White House understand that it’s ‘make-or-break’ now, the communication between both is – still – far from perfect.
That isn’t exactly encouraging.
Tisdall lists “the main obstacles contronting General Petraeus’s team”:
· Insufficent numbers of troops on the ground
· A “disintegrating” international coalition
· An anticipated upsurge in violence in the south as the British leave
· Morale problems as casualties rise
· A failure of political will in Washington and/or Baghdad
Michael J. Stickings wonders what the definition of victory exactly is. My good friend Jules Crittenden meanwhile, considers the article to be a “one-source gripefest”.
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10 Responses to “6 Months to Win”
I’ve never understood how to recongnize when the surege can be said to be successful
If things are calm enough to end the surge, Al Sadr will come back.
If he starts his old activities, will we need a new surge? Or do we maintain the extra troops in Badhdad forever?
I doubt the Iraqi army can be made fully ready to take over in such a short time frame. So, then what?
I see the surge as a way to clear out the Sunni insurgency, and basically accept that there will be a Shiite government backed by Shiite militias like Al Sadr, and a Shiite dominated army and police force. The Shiites have backed off right now to allow the US and Iraqi army to clean out Baghdad for them. Basically we will have Shiite domination with ethnic cleansing until the Sunnis give up on regaining their former dominant position. When the surge is over, I’m predicting the US will turn a blind eye to Sadr and the Shiite militias- because any kind of stability is better than chaos, and we have lowered our expectations.
To offset the increased influence of Iran and a Shiite-dominated Iraq, we will continue to support extreme Sunni groups that are trying to destroy Hezbollah and Hamas.
The military strategy is simply to provide security. If Baghdad can be kept relatively calm for 6 months- and if that time is used for a greatly increased reconstruction effort and political progress, then there’s a chance that it could work. Sad’r and some of the other militant leaders are laying low and there’s no doubt they’d come back to stir up trouble if they have an opportunity to do so. But the question is, will they lose the support of the civilian population? Tipping the balance toward that during the next six months is the only chance to salvage Iraq.
Michael:
Excellent post. This day or reckoning has been coming for some time now and the White House will be unable to wish it away.
I certainly hope things can be turned around in six months or so, but that would meaning everything breaking positively. In a war that has been fought in fits and starts (one step forward, two back, two steps forward, three back) it is very difficult to see that happening.
For one thing — and this is the biggest factor — it cannot happen without the beginning of a genuine Shiite-Sunni reconciliation, and the tentative agreement on the big oil deal notwithstanding, that seems all but impossible, especially in such a short time frame.
The surge, by it’s very definition, will be temporary. We are, in essence, borrowing future readiness to use it today. Regardless of the situation, troops will begin to draw down in 6 months because there’s no one to replace them. My prediction is levels will fall to about 100k. This won’t be a political decision, but one driven by the realities of the deployment cycle. Gen P. knows this and he doesn’t need anyone to tell him so.
Bush & Co. don’t care who thinks they have control of Iraq as long as U.S. oil companies control the wealth of the country.
I’m not sure the surge can achieve anything other than buy time for the Bush Administration as it moves closer to its own endgame in 2008. Certainly it will strengthen the Shite militias and in so doing weaken further the possibility of there ever being a unity government which will be seen by the Sunnis as an honest broker.
CS’s hope expressed above is laudable, but is it realistic? After well over a year of ethnic cleansing, a civilian population in the way CS imagines no longer exists in Iraq (18 teenagers killed on a football field in Ramadi, 41 outside Mustansiriya University and all in just two days). Six years, and we may see a change for the better. Six months?
The military strategy in regards to what the ‘surge’ is, yes it is to simply provide security. It is also only temporary, especially when one looks on how troops are being used (those who have had their deployments extended). The problem with the ‘surge’ is that there is not enough servicemen to get out to do the ‘real’ work of getting local national troops ramped up, let alone to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the locals. By reconstruction work, one also needs to look at whether the work is for small amounts where the work is done in a quick amount of time (setting up generators, drilling for water wells, facility rehab, and other work CERP funds can be used) or the work will be a big-ticket item where there is much needed time to do a scope-of-work definition, design time, procurement of equipment, getting construction started, and so forth (like a waste-water treatment plant, electricity generation plant, and so forth).
The loss of four years and trying to catch-up in six months is asking the impossible, even with the change in the military leadership on the ground at the MNF-I level. It has been reported the provisional reconstruction teams (PRTs) are undermanned, but even that were not the case, the job duties associated with those positions are for long-term rewards; hence why the loss of four years is so stinging.
Plus, read LTC Nagl’s book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malay and Vietnam. He is also one of the writers to the new Field Manual dealing with counter-insurgency. It will show what is required to be done for an insurgency (at least attempt to do).
True, but the follow-on troops are going to be National Guard units; hence the purported call-up 14,000 men and women a few years earlier than anticipated. If the Guard is used, then the troop level WILL NOT drop below 100,000.
Crittenden makes a snide comment that the Democratic Congress is now up to provide the adequate number of troops to be sent to Iraq to ‘win’ the conflict. He is delusional to say the least if he thinks Congress is going to escalate the conflict by sending more troops to Iraq, but even if they had here are some reasons why it is nearly impossible to do so:
1. Active component units in the US Army are now finishing at least their second deployment to the Sandbox, and in some instances there are units who have already started their third deployments. In the case of 3ID, that means in less than five years they will have been deployed three times to Iraq. In the case of 101AD, this is at least their third deployment to either Iraq or Afghanistan in the last six years. The AC army is being stretched, and the US Marines may as well as being stretched. We needed troops in the queue years ago, but the fabulous GOP ridiculed that initiative in the 2004 elections.
2. The Guard units have for the most part met their emergency call-up requirements (24 months over a 5-year period). The possible call-up of is going to be a change in Pentagon to enable these units to be used. The Guard has a lot to be proud of with what it has done over the last six years, in fact we would have been squandering in the wilderness a few years ago without them; with that said, they are still reserve troops but we treat them as active duty. Why not get more AC units called up?
3. Lack of equipment.
A. (3 AUG 2006, AP news) More than two-thirds of the Army National Guard’s 34 brigades are not combat ready, mostly because of equipment shortages that will cost up to $21 billion to correct, the top National Guard general said Tuesday. Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum spoke to a group defense reporters after Army officials, analysts and members of Congress disclosed that two-thirds of the active Army’s brigades are not ready for war.
The budget won’t allow the military to complete the personnel training and equipment repairs and replacement that must be done when units return home after deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan, they say.
B. On 23 JUL 2006, GEN Schoomaker told Congress he needed $17.1 billion for 2007 alone (and another $5 billion/year for the next five years) to replace and repair equipment in the active army. Schoomaker even refused to submit his budget to Rumsfeld, and OMB ended up having to mediate between the two where approx. $5 billion was provided for additional funding to find and repair equipment.
My point is who exactly are we going to send to Iraq if we were to increase the troop level in Iraq as Crittenden recommends? How exactly are they going to do their jobs when we are having a hard time getting equipment to the boots but are willing to pay for big-ticket tech projects?
There is more to ‘winning’ an insurgency than running battalion size operations to get the insurgents to ‘bring it on’.
Great – another 6 months (Friedman unit) and then what? Get them out now!
I think its a brilliant far reaching plan that takes into account many of the lessons we’ve learned in the last 47 months we’ve been freeing Iraq. I have no doubt whatsoever that by month 53 we will have electricity and water running to almost half the city on a regular basis. It is the capital after all and I’m really looking forward to a MISSION ACCOMPLISHEDER banner come September.