Who lost Iraq???

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

August 23, 2007

Who Lost Iraq?

By James Dobbins

In the aftermath of national catastrophes, people have a natural

tendency to look for an explanation based on a single point of

failure. Such explanations are often unhelpful in devising subsequent

policy. Simplistic lessons drawn from World War I persuaded the United

States to embrace isolationism and Europe appeasement, both of which

contributed to World War II. The lesson many Americans drew from not

opposing Hitler sooner -- "no more Munichs" -- became a powerful

rationale for the United States' entanglement in Vietnam in the 1960s.

The subsequent national rejection of counterinsurgency missions -- "no

more Vietnams" -- greatly hampered U.S. military performance in Iraq.

If the current debate over the United States' failure in Iraq is to

yield constructive results, it will have to go beyond bumper-sticker

conclusions -- no more preemption, no more democracy promotion, no

more nation building.

Individuals have been the first target of criticism: President George

W. Bush, of course, but also Vice President Dick Cheney; Donald

Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense; General Tommy Franks, the

former commander of U.S. Central Command; Paul Wolfowitz, the former

deputy secretary of defense; Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary

of defense for policy; L. Paul Bremer, the former head of the

Coalition Provisional Authority; and George Tenet, the former CIA

director. All except two of these individuals have been out of office

for some time: the Bush administration is already on its second

defense secretary, third CIA director, third commanding general in

Iraq, and fourth top diplomat there -- and thus far, none of these

changes has reversed a worsening situation. This suggests that the

source of at least some of the United States' difficulties in Iraq

transcends particular personalities.

Meanwhile, the White House, Congress, the State Department, the

Defense Department, and the CIA have engaged in continuous blame

shifting over Iraq. President Bush and Congress have accused the

intelligence community of misleading them about Iraq's weapons of mass

destruction. Tenet has responded that the administration's senior

policymakers never seriously debated the decision to go to war.

Rumsfeld says that the president never asked his advice on the matter.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says that he provided the

president with his views on the wisdom of war unasked, but to no

effect. Former intelligence officers allege that the Defense

Department and the White House manipulated, exaggerated, and

manufactured intelligence appraisals to support a decision to go to

war. Bremer says that he learned after serving several months in Iraq

that the Pentagon was not sharing his reporting with the White House

or the State Department. Tenet insists that the CIA warned the

administration of the difficulties that would be encountered in the

occupation (and recent press reports quoting CIA memos substantiate

this).

During the Vietnam War, dissatisfaction with the conflict first became

evident at the bottom of the military pyramid, and criticism of the

U.S. military's performance was often leveled at its lowest ranks: the

conscript riflemen whose disaffection, alcohol consumption, and drug

usage increased as the war dragged on. Today, no one is complaining

about the performance of the United States' all-volunteer force. In

this war, dissent has emerged among very senior officers and been

directed at the top leadership. Last year, in what became known as

"the revolt of the generals," half a dozen recently retired U.S.

commanders, several of whom had just led major units in Iraq, came out

publicly against Rumsfeld's management of the war. In May of this

year, the Armed Forces Journal printed an article by Lieutenant

Colonel Paul Yingling entitled "A Failure in Generalship." Yingling,

who is a veteran of two tours in Iraq and who is still on active duty,

wrote of both Vietnam and Iraq, "These debacles are not attributable

to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire

institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have

failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian

authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of

policy."

Similarly, the U.S. media have engaged in a good deal of self-

criticism over their coverage of the war. The New York Times

apologized for its prewar coverage of nonexistent Iraqi weapons of

mass destruction. Thomas Ricks, The Washington Post's defense

correspondent, lambasted his own paper's editorial page for its pro-

war boosterism in his book on the occupation. Bob Woodward, the Post's

most famous journalist, acknowledged that he was part of the "group

think" that helped sell the war. Bill Moyers devoted an entire PBS

broadcast to the role of journalists in marketing the war. Dan Rather,

of CBS, admitted that there was no excuse for his own performance in

this regard.

As the difficulties and setbacks in Iraq have mounted, the level of

partisan political recrimination has also increased. The Democrats

have blamed the difficulties in Iraq on the Republicans. The

Republicans have blamed the Iraqis. Now in control of Congress, the

Democrats have insisted on conditioning further U.S. assistance to

Iraq on Baghdad's meeting certain benchmarks. If the Iraqis fail to

meet these goals, as seems likely, Congress may cut back funding for

the war. This will allow the Republicans to blame the Democrats for

the impending defeat, while the Democrats will blame the Iraqis.

In truth, there is more than enough blame to go around. The United

States went into Iraq with a higher level of domestic support for war

than at almost anytime in its history. Congress authorized the

invasion by an overwhelming bipartisan majority -- something that had

not occurred for the Gulf War a decade earlier, nor for any of the

highly controversial military operations of the Clinton era, in

Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Precisely because responsibility

for this misguided enterprise is so widely shared, the temptation to

make the Iraqis the scapegoat for U.S. failure may ultimately prove

irresistible.

But to serve any useful purpose, the debate over who lost Iraq will

need to cut a good deal deeper than this. Reform comes in the wake of

disaster. Sadly, Iraq represents an opportunity in this regard, one

too good to be passed up. Whether one concludes that the war itself

was a mistake or merely that its execution was badly managed,

Americans need to consider wherein their leaders, institutions, and

policies have been at fault.

THE LEADERS

So far, there is little disinterested information available on

decisionmaking within the Bush administration. Nearly all of it has

come from self-serving sources, such as former officials writing in

their memoirs or current officials speaking anonymously to

journalists. From these first drafts of history, one thing already

seems clear: neither the president nor the secretary of defense relied

on structured debate and disciplined dissent to aid his decision-

making. Under their leadership, both the White House and the Pentagon

used management models that emphasized inspiration and guidance from

above and loyalty and compliance from below. In such an atmosphere,

individuals within the administration who doubted the wisdom of

invading Iraq or the adequacy of plans to occupy and rebuild the

country were not encouraged to articulate those concerns. By adopting

such a top-down approach to decision-making, the president and the

secretary of defense denied themselves the more carefully considered

proposals and better analysis that a dialectical process of structured

debate would have produced.

Had President Bush fostered debate, the State Department would have

made the case for continuing to contain Saddam Hussein. Had the

administration investigated the likely costs of occupying and

reconstructing Iraq, the arguments for continued containment would

have gained additional weight. Had Rumsfeld sought military or

civilian expert advice regarding the manpower requirements for

stabilizing Iraq, he might have sought to increase rather than

decrease the already low estimates he was getting from his field

commander, General Franks. Had the White House sought to integrate

lessons learned during the various nation-building efforts of the

1990s, many early missteps in Iraq could have been avoided.

To be sure, a candid appraisal of the likely costs and risks of

invading Iraq would probably have leaked, gravely complicating the

administration's ability to secure congressional and public support

for the war. Such fears probably explain why the administration

silenced Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki and Assistant to the

President for Economic Affairs Lawrence Lindsay after they publicly

aired uncomfortably high estimates of the military manpower and

economic resources necessary to occupy Iraq.

President Bush is by no means the first U.S. leader to understate the

likely costs of an intervention. In 1995, President Bill Clinton

promised to have U.S. troops out of Bosnia in a year; they remained a

full decade. Yet it is equally true that Clinton was extremely

reluctant to commit forces in this and other instances and that his

decisions to do so were taken only after the most exhaustive internal

debates, in which almost every conceivable alternative was explored,

all relevant agencies listened to, and all the downsides considered.

There are undoubtedly costs to dependence on structured debate and

disciplined dissent as aids to presidential decision-making. The

process is time-consuming, the proceedings cannot be kept entirely

confidential, and the ensuing public debate will be anything but

disciplined. Yet a decision to go to war should be difficult, not

easy. The Founding Fathers intended that these issues should be

decided in open congressional deliberations. But current practice has

departed so far from this model that the decision to go to war in Iraq

was not even fully debated within the executive branch.

THE FOLLOWERS

Given the lack of receptivity to alternative views at the top, how

much blame should be shouldered by people lower down who knew better

and failed to speak up or who spoke up but failed to resign when their

objections were brushed aside? Should the generals who revolted be

condemned for awaiting retirement to lodge their protests? Should the

nation foster a more critical climate within its military services,

one in which officers are encouraged to challenge not only illegal

orders but unwise ones as well?

Probably not. The military demands a higher degree of subordination,

obedience, and discipline than other professions. Furthermore,

civilian control of the military is an inviolable principle, which

means that civilians should bear the chief responsibility when the

military is misdirected.

If it is not the military's role to challenge lawful orders, still

less is it the role of the press to manufacture controversy where none

exists. In a democracy, the primary responsibility for opposing or at

least critically examining the case for war falls on the opposition

party. If the opposition chooses to duck that responsibility, as the

Democrats largely did when the issue was put to them in late 2002, it

is hard to fault the press for not stepping in to fill the void.

Much criticism has been leveled at the Bush administration's reliance

on young, inexperienced ideologues to staff junior positions within

the Coalition Provisional Authority. But this is hardly the primary

example of political patronage undermining professional expertise.

Bremer filled nearly all the senior jobs in Iraq with seasoned

professionals and only turned to the White House patronage machine

when the administration proved unable to staff the more junior posts

with career professionals. In Washington, it is not the junior but the

most senior and influential positions that are filled by individuals

chosen primarily for their ideological convictions and personal

loyalty.

The U.S. system of political patronage (unique in its scope among the

world's democratic governments) ensures a high level of inexperience

in the opening years of any presidency, promotes strong barriers to

continuity of policy from one administration to the next, and results

in diminished competence in a civil service whose members are

permanently denied access to positions of greater responsibility. The

system effectively insulates political leaders at the top from

professional advice from the bottom, imposing several layers of

ideological buffer between the two. Some administrations are worse

than others in this regard, but all are bad. Neoconservative excess

may have led to the current mess in Iraq, but well-meaning liberals

are capable of the same sort of folly, as the late David Halberstam

documented in The Best and the Brightest, his classic study of Vietnam

War-era policymaking.

The U.S. military, police, and intelligence services are already

largely fenced off from politicization on the grounds that national

security is too important to entrust to amateurs. The nation should

seek the same standard of professionalism for the senior civilian

officials who staff the Defense Department and other national security

agencies, including the National Security Council. Legislation that

sets aside a certain proportion of subcabinet and White House staff

positions for career professionals would go far toward encouraging

continuity of policy and strengthening the competence of incoming

administrations. So would a requirement that aspirants for top jobs in

the national security field serve some time in another agency or a

joint position, just as military officers now must serve at least one

tour of duty outside their own branch of service to reach the most

senior ranks.

THE INSTITUTIONS

Congress and the White House have already taken corrective action to

address the intelligence failure that provided the war's main public

rationale, demoting the director of central intelligence and creating

a new post of director of national intelligence. Congress has only

begun, however, to examine the uses, misuses, and abuses of

intelligence by policymakers in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Corrective action here may be much more difficult. Some would like to

further insulate the intelligence community from policymakers,

effectively turning it into a fourth branch of government, independent

of the executive and unreservedly free to criticize its intentions and

undermine its policies. This would be a mistake.

The intelligence community proved overly pessimistic in its assessment

of the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It was equally

pessimistic -- if more accurate -- about the problems likely to be

encountered by a U.S. occupation of Iraq. Policymakers seized on one

assessment and ignored the other. The problem was less one of flawed

intelligence than of flawed use of intelligence by policymakers.

Intelligence analysts will almost always emphasize the downside of any

risk and can never be one hundred percent certain in their judgments.

Congress and the public should thus recognize and accept the inherent

limitations of secret intelligence instead of trying to

institutionalize yet another check on executive power.

Ineffectual performance in Iraq accompanied by constant blame shifting

among Washington's agencies has led some to conclude that the entire

interagency structure is defective. While still secretary of defense,

Rumsfeld characterized the interagency system as broken, claiming

that, as reported in Bob Woodward's State of Denial, "in the 21st

Century we're still functioning with an interagency process and

governmental structure that is in the industrial age of the last

century." In his confirmation hearings to replace Rumsfeld, Robert

Gates stated that the lack of interagency collaboration during the war

in Iraq highlights the need to compel cooperation in the way the

Goldwater-Nichols Act helped the military services work together in

the 1980s.

The current system for integrating defense and foreign policy has

actually functioned quite well for most of the past 60 years: it

helped win the Cold War, unite Europe, cope with the collapse of the

Soviet Union, deal with the early challenges of the post-Cold War era,

and initially respond to the attacks of 9/11. Arrangements that seemed

to be working adequately only six years ago are probably not

irremediably broken today. Fixing them does not require a new

department of national security or a further expansion of the White

House staff, as some have suggested. What would help is legislation

establishing a durable division of labor among the State Department,

the Defense Department, and other national security agencies that are

involved in postconflict nation building.

For the past 15 years, critical functions such as overseeing military

and police training, providing humanitarian and reconstruction aid,

and promoting democratic development have been repeatedly transferred

from the State Department to the Defense Department and back again,

leaving each agency uncertain what its long-term responsibilities are

and consequently disinclined to invest in improving its performance.

An executive order defining such roles, as Gates has proposed, would

probably not outlast the administration that issued it. The national

security establishment thus needs a legislated reorganization so that

it can better conduct postwar stabilization and reconstruction

missions, just as the Goldwater-Nichols Act over 20 years ago

reorganized the military establishment to more effectively wage war.

THE STRATEGY AND FORCE STRUCTURE

Many of those calling for a reduced U.S. military presence in Iraq are

simultaneously urging an increase in the size of the army. Underlying

this apparent anomaly is widespread confusion regarding the

appropriate role of military force in combating violent extremism.

Where the United States puts the bulk of its national security effort

is heavily influenced by how Americans conceptualize the struggle

against violent extremist movements in the Muslim world. If al Qaeda

and its ilk are regarded primarily as criminal conspirators, then the

United States needs a counterterrorism strategy that emphasizes

police, intelligence, and diplomatic efforts. If the threat is deemed

to have metastasized to the point where it is regarded as a global

insurgency, then a greater reliance on military force may be

justified.

Many experts believe that the threat of Islamist terrorism has indeed

grown to the point where its purveyors have the capacity to overturn

existing governments and seize control of substantial territory.

Others continue to regard al Qaeda and its imitators more as

opportunistic parasites that seek to attach themselves to what are

essentially nationalist conflicts (much as al Qaeda has attached

itself to a Sunni resistance movement in Iraq).

In the case of parasitic relationships, supporting rather than

opposing the insurgency can, on occasion, be the best way to

marginalize the extremists. This is the approach the United States

followed in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in the Balkans in the 1990s,

where it supported Muslim insurgencies against Soviet and Serbian

domination, respectively. Staying aloof, as the United States did with

respect to the Algerian insurgency in the 1990s, is another option. In

cases where U.S. national interests dictate some level of involvement

against the insurgents, limiting the U.S. role to training, equipping,

and advising the counterinsurgents is normally preferable to direct

military intervention. In rare circumstances, such as in Afghanistan,

that option may not be immediately available, and the burden may fall

to U.S. soldiers.

With the unexpected early retirement of John Abizaid as head of U.S.

Central Command and the replacement of General George Casey by General

David Petraeus as the top commander in Iraq, one of these approaches

to counterinsurgency has given way to another. Abizaid and Casey,

feeling that the large U.S. military presence in Iraq provoked more

resistance than it suppressed, advocated turning combat operations

over to Iraqi forces as quickly as possible. They thus concentrated on

training and equipping the Iraqi security forces. Petraeus, for his

part, believes that U.S. forces employing classic counterinsurgency

tactics still have an opportunity to gain the cooperation of the

population and give Iraqi politicians the time and space they need to

reconcile their differences. The Pentagon's top brass reportedly

backed Abizaid and Casey's preference but were overruled by President

Bush.

Iraq is, after all, a comparatively small country, yet countering the

insurgency there has engaged most of the U.S. Army and the Marine

Corps. If future terrorist-linked insurgencies are to be similarly

confronted by U.S. forces, then very large numbers will be needed.

Alternatively, if the United States chooses in the future to combat

insurgencies via local proxies, as it did throughout the Cold War

(Vietnam being the sole exception), then a renewed emphasis on

training, equipping, and advising foreign forces is in order. In that

case, the need is less for a larger army than for one reorganized to

better handle these new tasks.

It would be a mistake to employ Iraq as the yardstick by which to

gauge the future necessary size and shape of the U.S. military, given

that the war was probably unnecessary and the occupation mishandled

from the outset. Afghanistan offers a better and somewhat less

demanding guide to future requirements. The U.S. effort there has

broad (if diminishing) local support, full international legitimacy,

and substantial multinational participation. Yet Afghanistan, for all

these advantages, is a test the United States is not currently

passing. Improvements in the United States' capacity for nation

building and counterinsurgency are thus in order.

The Bush administration's rhetoric since 9/11 has accentuated the

warlike character of the terrorist threat and the martial nature of

the required response. Yet most of the tangible successes in the "war

on terror" have come as a result of police, intelligence, and

diplomatic activity. Not until U.S. leaders rebalance their rhetoric

will it be possible to redirect the government's funding priorities

toward the nonmilitary instruments on which the suppression of violent

extremist movements is most likely to depend.

THE POLICIES

Preemption, democracy promotion, and nation building have all been

sullied by association with the war in Iraq. All three policies

deserve reexamination, but none should be jettisoned entirely.

Over more than two centuries, the United States has conducted dozens

of military campaigns, only two of which were in response to attacks

on U.S. soil. This record should leave few in doubt that the United

States will employ force to protect itself, its friends, and its

interests without necessarily waiting to be struck first. To enshrine

this principle in publicly proclaimed national doctrine, however, only

makes any subsequent resort to force more controversial and hinders

the process of attracting allies and securing international sanction

for such actions; other nations will never be prepared to exempt the

United States from the internationally recognized restraints on the

unprovoked use of force. This international resistance to declared

U.S. policy was clearly on display when the decision was made to

attack Iraq soon after the Bush administration formally adopted

preemption as the cornerstone of its new national security strategy.

Washington therefore needs to drop "preemption" from the lexicon of

its declared national security policy (as the Bush administration has

already begun to do) while leaving an appropriate degree of

uncertainty in the minds of any potential foes about how the United

States might respond to a mounting threat.

Like preemption, democracy promotion has been a component of U.S.

foreign policy almost since the country's birth. Beginning in the

eighteenth century, most other nations in the Western Hemisphere have

adopted political systems modeled, however imperfectly, on the United

States' system. After World War II, the United States established

strong democracies in Japan and Germany and supported democratization

throughout Western Europe, employing a combination of military power,

economic assistance, strategic communications (that is, propaganda),

and direct, if surreptitious, support to democratic parties. In more

recent decades, all of central and most of eastern Europe, nearly all

of Latin America, much of East Asia, and some of Africa have become

democratic with active U.S. encouragement.

But democratization is no panacea for terrorism and no shortcut to a

more pro-U.S. (or pro-Israel) Middle East. Established democracies may

not make war on one another, but studies have shown that democratizing

nations are highly prone to both internal and external conflicts.

Furthermore, democratic governments in Egypt, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia

would be more hostile to Israel and less aligned with the United

States than the authoritarian regimes they replaced, since public

opinion in those countries is more opposed to Israeli and U.S. policy

than are their current leaders.

It may well have been a mistake to exempt the Middle East from over 60

years of largely successful U.S. efforts to promote democracy, but it

is unrealistic to expect this deficiency to be remedied within a few

years. Recent efforts to accelerate political reform in the region

have already backfired. Elections are polarizing events, particularly

in societies already marked by sectarian conflict, as has been

demonstrated recently in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian

territories. Rather than seeking dramatic electoral breakthroughs, let

alone imposing reforms, U.S. efforts to advance democracy in the

Middle East should focus on building its foundations, including the

rule of law, civil society, larger middle classes, and more effective

and less corrupt governments.

Nation building also deserves to survive its failure in Iraq. The Bush

administration, like the U.S. public, now recognizes that the

occupation of that country was mismanaged. As a result, it has

embraced the nation-building mission in all but name with the fervor

of a new convert. Unfortunately, although the Bush administration's

reaction to setbacks in Iraq has been a determination to do better

next time, Americans seem more inclined to avoid any such future

enterprises.

In fact, both conclusions are valid. The United States should

certainly avoid invading large hostile countries on the basis of

faulty intelligence and with the support of narrow, unrepresentative

coalitions. But not all conflicts are avoidable. Iraq may have been a

war of choice, but Afghanistan was not. Both conflicts left the United

States with a heavy burden of nation building. Through the 1990s, the

Clinton administration slowly learned how costly and time-consuming

such missions could be. In Somalia, the United States turned tail at

the first sign of opposition. In Haiti, it set an early departure

deadline, thereby ensuring that any improvements it introduced would

be short-lived. In Bosnia, Clinton set an even shorter timeline,

promising to have all U.S. troops out of the country within 12 months.

But if Clinton had not learned to avoid setting deadlines, he had at

least learned to avoid keeping them. Only late in his second term did

he finally acknowledge the open-ended nature of U.S. commitments in

both Bosnia and Kosovo.

It has taken the Bush administration a similar amount of time to learn

that nation building cannot be done on the cheap. The "surge" of

troops into Baghdad is a belated acknowledgment that rebuilding a

failed state takes an enormous commitment of manpower, money, and

time. This realization may have come too late to rescue the U.S.

venture in Iraq. It should, nevertheless, serve as a cautionary guide

to such endeavors in the future.

THE FAULT IS NOT IN OUR STARS

By January 2009, nearly everyone responsible for launching and

directing the war in Iraq will have left office. Sorting out who did

what will then become a job for historians. In choosing successors,

however, Americans should insist on leaders who will foster debate and

welcome disciplined dissent. These leaders should be surrounded by

advisers chosen primarily for their relevant experience and

demonstrated competence, not their ideological purity and partisan

loyalty.

Leaders of this caliber, supported by more competent and professional

staffs, will make better use of existing structures for policy

formulation and implementation. These structures can be strengthened

by the establishment of an enduring division of labor for postconflict

stabilization and reconstruction among the national security agencies

and by the building of a cadre of senior career officials with

experience across the national security establishment.

The "war on terror" should be reconceived and renamed to place greater

emphasis on its police, intelligence, and diplomatic components. The

U.S. Army should continue to improve its counterinsurgency skills,

with a particular emphasis on training, equipping, and advising others

to conduct such campaigns. The United States should avoid allowing al

Qaeda and its ilk to dictate its alignment in any particular dispute,

should take sides when necessary based on an objective calculation of

national interests, and should directly engage U.S. troops in local

civil wars only in the rarest of circumstances. "Preemption" should be

retired from the lexicon of declared policy, democratization should be

pursued everywhere as a long-term objective in full recognition of its

short-term costs and risks, and nation building should be embarked on

only where the United States and its partners are ready for a long,

hard, and expensive effort. Above all, Americans should accept that

the entire nation has, to one degree or another, failed in Iraq.

Facing up to this fact and drawing the necessary lessons is the only

way to ensure that it does not similarly fail again.

James Dobbins directs the International Security and Defense Policy

Center at the RAND Corporation and served as Assistant Secretary of

State under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He was the

Clinton administration's special envoy to Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, and

Somalia and the Bush administration's first envoy to Afghanistan.

Foreign Affairs

Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

at August 26, 2007 - 08:10:52 AM CDT

> Who Lost Iraq?

No one.

Perspective: How many Iraqis? 27 million. How many American troops?

160 thousand. How many American casualties from actual combat?

2000(?). How many American casualties from actual combat, minus IED

deaths? 500(?). How many years of being there? March 20, 2003 -

present.

Obviously the Iraqis want the US there. They know, as every expert has

predicted, that if the US pulls out there will be widespread genocide/

sectarian violence in the region, not just Iraq.

<snip>

Another article from another Bill Clinton hack preaching doom and

gloom. yawn

In article <1188133899.172795.178430@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,

Old Redneck <old_redneck@hotmail.com> wrote:

> http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

>

> August 23, 2007

> Who Lost Iraq?

Ali Khamene'i.

--

NeoLibertarian

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money,

that will herald the end of the republic."

--- Benjamin Franklin

On Aug 26, 8:11 am, Old Redneck <old_redn...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

>

> August 23, 2007

> Who Lost Iraq?

> By James Dobbins

Taxpayers lost over $600 bil. and the number will reach $1 trillion,

this large amount of money could have been saved had Al Gore was

elected in 2000.

The U.S. could have used that money to rebuild all interstate highway

bridges that were built in the 1960s with the extra to build maglev

high speed railways and catch up with Japan and Europe.

>

> In the aftermath of national catastrophes, people have a natural

> tendency to look for an explanation based on a single point of

> failure. Such explanations are often unhelpful in devising subsequent

> policy. Simplistic lessons drawn from World War I persuaded the United

> States to embrace isolationism and Europe appeasement, both of which

> contributed to World War II. The lesson many Americans drew from not

> opposing Hitler sooner -- "no more Munichs" -- became a powerful

> rationale for the United States' entanglement in Vietnam in the 1960s.

> The subsequent national rejection of counterinsurgency missions -- "no

> more Vietnams" -- greatly hampered U.S. military performance in Iraq.

> If the current debate over the United States' failure in Iraq is to

> yield constructive results, it will have to go beyond bumper-sticker

> conclusions -- no more preemption, no more democracy promotion, no

> more nation building.

>

> Individuals have been the first target of criticism: President George

> W. Bush, of course, but also Vice President Dick Cheney; Donald

> Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense; General Tommy Franks, the

> former commander of U.S. Central Command; Paul Wolfowitz, the former

> deputy secretary of defense; Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary

> of defense for policy; L. Paul Bremer, the former head of the

> Coalition Provisional Authority; and George Tenet, the former CIA

> director. All except two of these individuals have been out of office

> for some time: the Bush administration is already on its second

> defense secretary, third CIA director, third commanding general in

> Iraq, and fourth top diplomat there -- and thus far, none of these

> changes has reversed a worsening situation. This suggests that the

> source of at least some of the United States' difficulties in Iraq

> transcends particular personalities.

>

> Meanwhile, the White House, Congress, the State Department, the

> Defense Department, and the CIA have engaged in continuous blame

> shifting over Iraq. President Bush and Congress have accused the

> intelligence community of misleading them about Iraq's weapons of mass

> destruction. Tenet has responded that the administration's senior

> policymakers never seriously debated the decision to go to war.

> Rumsfeld says that the president never asked his advice on the matter.

> Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says that he provided the

> president with his views on the wisdom of war unasked, but to no

> effect. Former intelligence officers allege that the Defense

> Department and the White House manipulated, exaggerated, and

> manufactured intelligence appraisals to support a decision to go to

> war. Bremer says that he learned after serving several months in Iraq

> that the Pentagon was not sharing his reporting with the White House

> or the State Department. Tenet insists that the CIA warned the

> administration of the difficulties that would be encountered in the

> occupation (and recent press reports quoting CIA memos substantiate

> this).

>

> During the Vietnam War, dissatisfaction with the conflict first became

> evident at the bottom of the military pyramid, and criticism of the

> U.S. military's performance was often leveled at its lowest ranks: the

> conscript riflemen whose disaffection, alcohol consumption, and drug

> usage increased as the war dragged on. Today, no one is complaining

> about the performance of the United States' all-volunteer force. In

> this war, dissent has emerged among very senior officers and been

> directed at the top leadership. Last year, in what became known as

> "the revolt of the generals," half a dozen recently retired U.S.

> commanders, several of whom had just led major units in Iraq, came out

> publicly against Rumsfeld's management of the war. In May of this

> year, the Armed Forces Journal printed an article by Lieutenant

> Colonel Paul Yingling entitled "A Failure in Generalship." Yingling,

> who is a veteran of two tours in Iraq and who is still on active duty,

> wrote of both Vietnam and Iraq, "These debacles are not attributable

> to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire

> institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have

> failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian

> authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of

> policy."

>

> Similarly, the U.S. media have engaged in a good deal of self-

> criticism over their coverage of the war. The New York Times

> apologized for its prewar coverage of nonexistent Iraqi weapons of

> mass destruction. Thomas Ricks, The Washington Post's defense

> correspondent, lambasted his own paper's editorial page for its pro-

> war boosterism in his book on the occupation. Bob Woodward, the Post's

> most famous journalist, acknowledged that he was part of the "group

> think" that helped sell the war. Bill Moyers devoted an entire PBS

> broadcast to the role of journalists in marketing the war. Dan Rather,

> of CBS, admitted that there was no excuse for his own performance in

> this regard.

>

> As the difficulties and setbacks in Iraq have mounted, the level of

> partisan political recrimination has also increased. The Democrats

> have blamed the difficulties in Iraq on the Republicans. The

> Republicans have blamed the Iraqis. Now in control of Congress, the

> Democrats have insisted on conditioning further U.S. assistance to

> Iraq on Baghdad's meeting certain benchmarks. If the Iraqis fail to

> meet these goals, as seems likely, Congress may cut back funding for

> the war. This will allow the Republicans to blame the Democrats for

> the impending defeat, while the Democrats will blame the Iraqis.

>

> In truth, there is more than enough blame to go around. The United

> States went into Iraq with a higher level of domestic support for war

> than at almost anytime in its history. Congress authorized the

> invasion by an overwhelming bipartisan majority -- something that had

> not occurred for the Gulf War a decade earlier, nor for any of the

> highly controversial military operations of the Clinton era, in

> Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Precisely because responsibility

> for this misguided enterprise is so widely shared, the temptation to

> make the Iraqis the scapegoat for U.S. failure may ultimately prove

> irresistible.

>

> But to serve any useful purpose, the debate over who lost Iraq will

> need to cut a good deal deeper than this. Reform comes in the wake of

> disaster. Sadly, Iraq represents an opportunity in this regard, one

> too good to be passed up. Whether one concludes that the war itself

> was a mistake or merely that its execution was badly managed,

> Americans need to consider wherein their leaders, institutions, and

> policies have been at fault.

>

> THE LEADERS

>

> So far, there is little disinterested information available on

> decisionmaking within the Bush administration. Nearly all of it has

> come from self-serving sources, such as former officials writing in

> their memoirs or current officials speaking anonymously to

> journalists. From these first drafts of history, one thing already

> seems clear: neither the president nor the secretary of defense relied

> on structured debate and disciplined dissent to aid his decision-

> making. Under their leadership, both the White House and the Pentagon

> used management models that emphasized inspiration and guidance from

> above and loyalty and compliance from below. In such an atmosphere,

> individuals within the administration who doubted the wisdom of

> invading Iraq or the adequacy of plans to occupy and rebuild the

> country were not encouraged to articulate those concerns. By adopting

> such a top-down approach to decision-making, the president and the

> secretary of defense denied themselves the more carefully considered

> proposals and better analysis that a dialectical process of structured

> debate would have produced.

>

> Had President Bush fostered debate, the State Department would have

> made the case for continuing to contain Saddam Hussein. Had the

> administration investigated the likely costs of occupying and

> reconstructing Iraq, the arguments for continued containment would

> have gained additional weight. Had Rumsfeld sought military or

> civilian expert advice regarding the manpower requirements for

> stabilizing Iraq, he might have sought to increase rather than

> decrease the already low estimates he was getting from his field

> commander, General Franks. Had the White House sought to integrate

> lessons learned during the various nation-building efforts of the

> 1990s, many early missteps in Iraq could have been avoided.

>

> To be sure, a candid appraisal of the likely costs and risks of

> invading Iraq would probably have leaked, gravely complicating the

> administration's ability to secure congressional and public support

> for the war. Such fears probably explain why the administration

> silenced Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki and Assistant to the

> President for Economic Affairs Lawrence Lindsay after they publicly

> aired uncomfortably high estimates of the military manpower and

> economic resources necessary to occupy Iraq.

>

> President Bush is by no means the first U.S. leader to understate the

> likely costs of an intervention. In 1995, President Bill Clinton

> promised to have U.S. troops out of Bosnia in a year; they remained a

> full decade. Yet it is equally true that Clinton was extremely

> reluctant to commit forces in this and other instances and that his

> decisions to do so were taken only after the most exhaustive internal

> debates, in which almost every conceivable alternative was explored,

> all relevant agencies listened to, and all the downsides considered.

>

> There are undoubtedly costs to dependence on structured debate and

> disciplined dissent as aids to presidential decision-making. The

> process is time-consuming, the proceedings cannot be kept entirely

> confidential, and the ensuing public debate will be anything but

> disciplined. Yet a decision to go to war should be difficult, not

> easy. The Founding Fathers intended that these issues should be

> decided in open ...

>

> read more

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:04:46 -0700, BenLong <pb5511@gmail.com> wrote

this crap:

>> Who Lost Iraq?

>> By James Dobbins

>

>Taxpayers lost over $600 bil. and the number will reach $1 trillion,

And I lost some money in the stock market. I'll get over it. So will

you.

Horvath@Horvath.net

My T-shirt says, "This shirt is the

ultimate power in the universe."

> Obviously the Iraqis want the US there.

If this were true, we would let them have real elections. But it is

just one more lie.

> They know, as every expert

> has predicted, that if the US pulls out there will be widespread

> genocide/ sectarian violence in the region, not just Iraq.

They know, as real people know, that there is already widespread

genocide and racial violence perpetrated against them by the Americans,

and they just want us to stop murdering them.

In article <1188162286.280537.199990@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com>,

pb5511@gmail.com mumbled

> On Aug 26, 8:11 am, Old Redneck <old_redn...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

> >

> > August 23, 2007

> > Who Lost Iraq?

> > By James Dobbins

>

> Taxpayers lost over $600 bil. and the number will reach $1 trillion,

> this large amount of money could have been saved had Al Gore was

> elected in 2000.

> The U.S. could have used that money to rebuild all interstate highway

> bridges that were built in the 1960s with the extra to build maglev

> high speed railways and catch up with Japan and Europe.

I thought you said we would save the money ?

--

Usenetsaurus n. an early pedantic internet mammal, who survived on a

diet of static text and

cascading "threads."

"BenLong" <pb5511@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:1188162286.280537.199990@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...

On Aug 26, 8:11 am, Old Redneck <old_redn...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

>

> August 23, 2007

> Who Lost Iraq?

> By James Dobbins

Taxpayers lost over $600 bil. and the number will reach $1 trillion,

this large amount of money could have been saved had Al Gore was

elected in 2000.

The U.S. could have used that money to rebuild all interstate highway

bridges that were built in the 1960s with the extra to build maglev

high speed railways and catch up with Japan and Europe.

Could have, would have, should have..... Why would "global warming" Gore,

want to rebuild bridges....I thought his big issue was global warming?

Bridges encourage people to drive. Cars use gasoline. Gasoline contributes

to global warming.... Not to mention, consuming a finite resource....oil...

"Tankfixer" <paul.carrier@us.army.m> wrote in message

news:13d408o33fldp7f@corp.supernews.com...

> In article <1188162286.280537.199990@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com>,

> pb5511@gmail.com mumbled

>> On Aug 26, 8:11 am, Old Redneck <old_redn...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> > http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

>> >

>> > August 23, 2007

>> > Who Lost Iraq?

>> > By James Dobbins

>>

>> Taxpayers lost over $600 bil. and the number will reach $1 trillion,

>> this large amount of money could have been saved had Al Gore was

>> elected in 2000.

>

>> The U.S. could have used that money to rebuild all interstate highway

>> bridges that were built in the 1960s with the extra to build maglev

>> high speed railways and catch up with Japan and Europe.

>

> I thought you said we would save the money ?

>

That is what democrats do. When they say we will "save" money by not

spending it somewhere, they mean they want to spend it somewhere else....in

other words....no saving at all.....

On Aug 26, 2:53 pm, Bert Byfield <BertByfi...@nospam.not> wrote:

> > Obviously the Iraqis want the US there.

>

> If this were true, we would let them have real elections.

It is and they(MNFI) did.

<snip erroneous bs>

>

> > They know, as every expert

> > has predicted, that if the US pulls out there will be widespread

> > genocide/ sectarian violence in the region, not just Iraq.

>

> They know, as real people know, that there is already widespread

> genocide and racial violence perpetrated against them

Not widespread, he US is keeping the country from turning into Balkans

2.

>

> by the Americans,

> and they just want us to stop murdering them.

Do you expect anyone to take you seriously after you post this kook

crap?

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 06:11:39 -0700, in alt.war.vietnam Old Redneck

<old_redneck@hotmail.com> wrote:

>In truth, there is more than enough blame to go around. The United

>States went into Iraq with a higher level of domestic support for war

>than at almost anytime in its history.

Well, I got tired of reading about here. While I tend to agree that

it won't fit on a bumper sticker, that particular writer is all over

the map and should focus on a better defined point.

The American public isn't particularly well informed. 9-11 had just

occurred and it seemed like everyone had a US flag on his lawn like so

many pink flamingos... and we wanted some payback . The

administration leveraged that raw emotion to do what they had been

seeking an excuse to do for a long time. They trumped up some

"evidence" and wrapped that in a humanitarian cloak... all in the name

of god and truth and right ... when armies roll, it's usually in the

name of god, truth, and right, you know.

Jones

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 15:39:29 -0700, in alt.war.vietnam Tankfixer

<paul.carrier@us.army.m> wrote:

>> The U.S. could have used that money to rebuild all interstate highway

>> bridges that were built in the 1960s with the extra to build maglev

>> high speed railways and catch up with Japan and Europe.

>

>I thought you said we would save the money ?

Well, neither is quite right. We spent the money; however, we never

raised any new revenue (read: "taxes" or the dreaded 'T'-word). Thus,

we have 600 billion in new T-notes outstanding. Essentially, we

printed money, which degraded our economy. Have you bought fuel or

food lately?

Jones... who does not view the future with much optimism.

On Aug 26, 9:11 am, Old Redneck <old_redn...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

>

> August 23, 2007

> Who Lost Iraq?

Who invaded Iraq? GW Bush.

Rick Hohensee

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 07:24:00 -0700, "hohenseerick@yahoo.com"

<rick_hohensee@email.com> wrote this crap:

>

>Who invaded Iraq? GW Bush.

Really? All by himself?

Horvath@Horvath.net

My T-shirt says, "This shirt is the

ultimate power in the universe."

Horvath wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 07:24:00 -0700, "hohenseerick@yahoo.com"

> <rick_hohensee@email.com> wrote this crap:

>> Who invaded Iraq? GW Bush.

>

> Really? All by himself?

Dick helped a lot.

--

Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html

On Aug 26, 6:56 pm, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

> "Tankfixer" <paul.carr...@us.army.m> wrote in message

>

> news:13d408o33fldp7f@corp.supernews.com...

>

> > In article <1188162286.280537.199...@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com>,

> > pb5...@gmail.com mumbled

> >> On Aug 26, 8:11 am, Old Redneck <old_redn...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> >> >http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

>

> >> > August 23, 2007

> >> > Who Lost Iraq?

> >> > By James Dobbins

>

> >> Taxpayers lost over $600 bil. and the number will reach $1 trillion,

> >> this large amount of money could have been saved had Al Gore was

> >> elected in 2000.

>

> >> The U.S. could have used that money to rebuild all interstate highway

> >> bridges that were built in the 1960s with the extra to build maglev

> >> high speed railways and catch up with Japan and Europe.

>

> > I thought you said we would save the money ?

>

> That is what democrats do. When they say we will "save" money by not

> spending it somewhere, they mean they want to spend it somewhere else....in

> other words....no saving at all.....

Republicans were complaining about the surplus we had with Clinton,

now you are bitching about Democrats NOT saving. Be quiet.

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:26:51 -0500, kT <cosmic@lifeform.org> wrote

this crap:

>

>>> Who invaded Iraq? GW Bush.

>>

>> Really? All by himself?

>

>Dick helped a lot.

Dick always helps.

Horvath@Horvath.net

My T-shirt says, "This shirt is the

ultimate power in the universe."

On Aug 28, 8:05 pm, Horvath <Horv...@Horvath.nossepam.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 07:24:00 -0700, "hohenseer...@yahoo.com"

> <rick_hohen...@email.com> wrote this crap:

>

>

>

> >Who invaded Iraq? GW Bush.

>

> Really? All by himself?

>

As far as legal culpability is concerned, yeah. Bushie-Boy is the

decider. It was his act.

> Horv...@Horvath.net

>

> My T-shirt says, "This shirt is the

> ultimate power in the universe."

"Latrodectus" <eric@elcmedia.com> wrote in message

news:1188347607.617252.303640@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...

> On Aug 26, 6:56 pm, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

>> "Tankfixer" <paul.carr...@us.army.m> wrote in message

>>

>> news:13d408o33fldp7f@corp.supernews.com...

>>

>> > In article <1188162286.280537.199...@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com>,

>> > pb5...@gmail.com mumbled

>> >> On Aug 26, 8:11 am, Old Redneck <old_redn...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> >> >http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html

>>

>> >> > August 23, 2007

>> >> > Who Lost Iraq?

>> >> > By James Dobbins

>>

>> >> Taxpayers lost over $600 bil. and the number will reach $1 trillion,

>> >> this large amount of money could have been saved had Al Gore was

>> >> elected in 2000.

>>

>> >> The U.S. could have used that money to rebuild all interstate highway

>> >> bridges that were built in the 1960s with the extra to build maglev

>> >> high speed railways and catch up with Japan and Europe.

>>

>> > I thought you said we would save the money ?

>>

>> That is what democrats do. When they say we will "save" money by not

>> spending it somewhere, they mean they want to spend it somewhere

>> else....in

>> other words....no saving at all.....

>

> Republicans were complaining about the surplus we had with Clinton,

> now you are bitching about Democrats NOT saving. Be quiet.

>

What republicans complained about the surplus?

On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:31:33 -0700, "hohenseerick@yahoo.com"

<rick_hohensee@email.com> wrote this crap:

>> >Who invaded Iraq? GW Bush.

>>

>> Really? All by himself?

>>

>

>As far as legal culpability is concerned, yeah. Bushie-Boy is the

>decider. It was his act.

Wasn't Congress involved in some way? The Constitution says that only

Congress can declare war.

Horvath@Horvath.net

My T-shirt says, "This shirt is the

ultimate power in the universe."

In <n58dd35v9bi3psdte9rpindb0o4ntc58g7@4ax.com>, on 08/30/2007

at 06:50 AM, Horvath <Horvath@Horvath.nossepam.net> said:

>On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:31:33 -0700, "hohenseerick@yahoo.com"

><rick_hohensee@email.com> wrote this crap:

>>> >Who invaded Iraq? GW Bush.

>>>

>>> Really? All by himself?

>>>

>>

>>As far as legal culpability is concerned, yeah. Bushie-Boy is the

>>decider. It was his act.

>Wasn't Congress involved in some way? The Constitution says that only

>Congress can declare war.

No war was declared junior. Do try to think before posting again.

> Horvath@Horvath.net

>My T-shirt says, "This shirt is the

>ultimate power in the universe."

<oudlteer@nospam.net> wrote in message news:B8IBi.8826$CO5.5524@trndny01...

> In <n58dd35v9bi3psdte9rpindb0o4ntc58g7@4ax.com>, on 08/30/2007

> at 06:50 AM, Horvath <Horvath@Horvath.nossepam.net> said:

>

>

>

> >On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:31:33 -0700, "hohenseerick@yahoo.com"

> ><rick_hohensee@email.com> wrote this crap:

> >>> >Who invaded Iraq? GW Bush.

> >>>

> >>> Really? All by himself?

> >>>

> >>

> >>As far as legal culpability is concerned, yeah. Bushie-Boy is the

> >>decider. It was his act.

>

>

> >Wasn't Congress involved in some way? The Constitution says that only

> >Congress can declare war.

>

>

> No war was declared junior. Do try to think before posting again.

You might take your own advice. All that halabalu over who voted or and

against in Congress for the war sure is a hot topic today. Congress voted

to FUND it.

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:11:29 GMT, oudlteer@nospam.net wrote this crap:

>

>

>No war was declared junior. Do try to think before posting again.

Really? Then why are we there? Because President George W. Bush

invaded all by himself? Think about your answer, dumbass.

Horvath@Horvath.net

My T-shirt says, "This shirt is the

ultimate power in the universe."

In <46d75526$1@news.i70west.com>, on 08/30/2007

at 05:36 PM, "Daryl Hunt" <dhunt@celticommnospam.com> said:

><oudlteer@nospam.net> wrote in message

>news:B8IBi.8826$CO5.5524@trndny01... > In

><n58dd35v9bi3psdte9rpindb0o4ntc58g7@4ax.com>, on 08/30/2007 > at 06:50

>AM, Horvath <Horvath@Horvath.nossepam.net> said: >

>>

>>

>> >On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:31:33 -0700, "hohenseerick@yahoo.com"

>> ><rick_hohensee@email.com> wrote this crap:

>> >>> >Who invaded Iraq? GW Bush.

>> >>>

>> >>> Really? All by himself?

>> >>>

>> >>

>> >>As far as legal culpability is concerned, yeah. Bushie-Boy is the

>> >>decider. It was his act.

>>

>>

>> >Wasn't Congress involved in some way? The Constitution says that only

>> >Congress can declare war.

>>

>>

>> No war was declared junior. Do try to think before posting again.

>You might take your own advice. All that halabalu over who voted or and

>against in Congress for the war sure is a hot topic today. Congress

>voted to FUND it.

That still is not a declaration of war.

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 17:51:32 -0400, Horvath

<Horvath@Horvath.nossepam.net> wrote something wonderfully witty:

>On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:04:46 -0700, BenLong <pb5511@gmail.com> wrote

>this crap:

>

>>> Who Lost Iraq?

>>> By James Dobbins

>>

>>Taxpayers lost over $600 bil. and the number will reach $1 trillion,

>

>And I lost some money in the stock market. I'll get over it. So will

>you.

>

Some who've lost sons & daughters might not though. Look at poor

Cindy Shitcan.

--

"Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,

Just what you want to be, you will be in the end." -- Moody Blues