White Paper
“As a result, two Army divisions that Centcom wanted to help secure the country weren't on hand when Baghdad fell and the country lapsed into anarchy, and a third, the 1st Cavalry from Fort Hood, Texas, fell so far behind schedule that on April 21 Franks and Rumsfeld dropped it from the plan.” 1
Sir,
In Iraq, America is feeding a dragon, only we are in the cage and the dragon is not.
You may remember we met at the Shannon, Ireland airport in late March. You were on your way to Baghdad and I was on my way to a few days of military leave. You asked me (and others) where I was coming from and how long I had been there. I answered Iraq, and at that time, 24 months. You asked me at that point to remain and discuss my view of how we (the Coalition) were doing there. I have thought a lot about your question and want you to know that I had been asking the same thing of myself for quite some time. So let me set out my bona fides first, so that you may consider my thoughts here as qualified opinion, and not as an outsider.
In summary, I spent thirty-three months in Iraq, as an Army officer, independent civilian, and also as a Coalition contractor, which I have detailed at the end of this letter. I am first and foremost an Infantry Soldier, so what I am going to tell you is from an Infantry perspective, from direct experience. Baghdad is the key to Iraq, and we have lost Baghdad.
We need to change that. Here is how.
----------
What if I told you there was a group of men out there that spoke Arabic and English (mostly), were highly educated, completely invested in the commercial success of Iraq, possessed of a deep patriotism, and motivated much more by money than religion. Would that get your attention?
What if I told you that they have been both in the middle and on the outside of the events in Iraq, that they were connected by family and other means to the movers and shakers in all spheres of Iraqi life: economic, political, military, religious, and social?
What if I told you they would be welcomed by over ¾ of elite Iraqis, and the other ¼ would fall in line with their leadership? (my estimates, but given current circumstances likely not far off)
What if I told you they were easily led? Currently disenfranchised? Ready to go?
Would that get your attention? Want to know who they are?
It’s the Ba’ath party. Yes, it’s true they did bad things. Yes, it’s true they worked for Sadaam. And they can work with us now.
----------
When I first arrived in Baghdad in March of 2003, the statue of Sadaam had been torn down the day before. All the way from Kuwait (ten hours in the convoy of three soft-skinned vehicles) we saw Iraqi’s waving at us and yelling, “Bush good, Sadaam donkey”. It was very dangerous, to be sure, but we did ok. We (our civil affairs brigade) conducted all, not some, of our mission outside the wire with soft-skinned vehicles (no doors, sitting sideways like in a Huey-I’m old, so forgive the comparison). In six months of continuous operations in our area of operation we had not one single hostile incident. Not one.
Compare that to today. You have been to the green zone from BIAP; I know. Today that is arguably the most dangerous stretch of road on the planet. It is also the main supply route (MSR) upon which the Coalition’s logistics efforts depend most. It is not controlled. Anyone who tells you differently will qualify their responses: it’s overwatched by drones, there are roving patrols, it’s secured by Iraqi units, etc…. none of which make any difference to the folks getting blown up on Route Irish. It is a basic military tenet that a primary objective is to secure MSRs – we have not done this in nearly 4 years.
I am stating the obvious. Let me continue with some first hand comparisons:
Electricity distribution.
• Pre-war Baghdad: lights on for four hours, off for one.
• Today: On one, off three or four.
Benzene/kerosene availability:
• Pre-war: No issues. Admittedly only 200+ gas stations and yes, far fewer cars, but supply always met the demand in this oil-rich country. Kerosene: same story.
• Today: eight hours in the queue IF there is any in the tanks. Guess who gets blown up a lot? Folks waiting in line for gas.
Security: Under autocratic rule, the killings happened, yes, and they were bad. No argument. But there was nothing like the chaos of Iraq today.
Freedom: The State Department mantra. Ask yourself just how was it that democracy took root in the US? Answer: we fought, killed, and died, for it. Dep State sent the Ba’athists home to no jobs and no futures. Freedom in Iraq is now defined as freedom to express your emotions violently, without consequence. The freedoms in Iraq were externally imposed by the Coalition and they are not working. The Iraqis had thirty years of autocracy (at best) and we gave them the polar opposite overnight. They had no ‘buy-in’. They are not invested in the freedoms we gave them; they are invested in staying alive long enough to flee the country, and they are killing each other to do it, daily.
Capitalist activity: This goes hand-in-hand with freedom, above. The credit for the current economic stability in Iraq can be directly attributed to the CPA’s efforts at establishing the new Iraqi currency scheme, among other endeavors. This is one of the unsung success stories of Iraq. However, freedom to buy goods leads to…………
Consumption excess: You and I discussed this briefly. What I mean here is that while it may be true that kilowatt generation/distribution has surpassed pre-war levels in Iraq, there is no adequate method to measure consumption. The ‘rising tide’ of electrical supply coupled with a stable Iraqi currency and open borders generated pent-up demand for goods (read: air conditioners), which drew excessively on the electrical grid creating a demand that was and remains unsupportable. I mentioned open borders, my favorite topic, and one on which you and I seem to disagree.
Open borders: In late ’03 and early ’04 I was the Operations Manager of the Oil for Food coordination center in the basement of the convention center across from the Rashid Hotel. Doubtless you have been in one of those places. The OFF office, which I set up from scratch, directly controlled eight billion US dollars of inbound goods, handed off to CPA from the United Nations in late November of 2003. Being the start up guy, I established four border control points for these goods and services. During the course of these operations it became very clear to me through my direct employees that the effort to cross the Iraqi border by persons of unclear intent was dramatically simple. It is my personal opinion that the open borders, supported by both the CPA and the Coalition military partners contributed negatively to both the pent-up demand for goods and also, perhaps more importantly, to the clandestine border transit of weapons, personnel and materials that are currently being used to fuel the insurgency.
Other causes of the current mess.
We are fat and happy. I don’t mean that the Soldiers, Marines and others who are patrolling daily are fat and happy: I only mean that the 100:1 ratio of Fobbits to patrollers in the street makes other conflicts look Spartan. And those folks, almost all of them, are eating steak and lobster on Friday night, having ice cream not just with dinner, but lunch as well. They are surfing the net on broadband, promoting each other and handing out awards for PowerPoint presentations. They are working out in fully equipped gyms. Please go back and check my numbers. 100 to 1. That is the support ratio. Delta Force and the Seals work on a planning ratio of about 14 to 1!
Homesteading. Life on the FOB is good, in general (see above). Most folks try earnestly to extend their civilian tours. I did. I know many others who did and do.
The officer reporting system of the US Army. I know this sounds like a crackpot comment, but hear me out please. OER’s (officer evaluation reports) in theater are written not at twelve, but usually at six months. This produces two unintended effects:
1. Report writing becomes a drain on professionals, and
2. Projects undertaken by said officers tend to be, you guessed it, short term.
So the Iraqi’s you are working with end up seeing you come and go, and the things you do with them become as transparent as a Mexican election. They know now that Captain Smith will leave in six months or a little longer, and that this GFI (good F****ing Idea) will be replaced with another one when the next CPT Smith arrives. So we end up with a fully trained cadre of yes-men in the personas of the Iraqis who routinely deal with Coalition folks and in our junior officers (who will go on to become senior officers).
Corruption: Holy cow. The degree of Coalition naiveté about, and the extent and insidiousness of, Iraqi (read: Ministry) corruption was and is breathtaking. They are bred that way; it’s normal for them.
----------
Acheson also upset the right wing when he took the side of Harry S. Truman in his dispute with General Douglas MacArthur over the Korean War. Acheson and Truman wanted to limit the war to Korea whereas MacArthur called for the extension of the war to China. Joe McCarthy once again led the attack on Acheson: "With half a million Communists in Korea killing American men, Acheson says, 'Now let's be calm, let's do nothing'. It is like advising a man whose family is being killed not to take hasty action for fear he might alienate the affection of the murderers." 2
Now, what to do. Here is what I think (assuming we want to keep building the largest embassy in the world, contribute to Middle East stability and control Iran)
1. Put Dept State in second place for now
2. Put a Marine in charge of all forces in Iraq (yes, a Marine) and here is his mandate:
a. Give him three days to set a timetable for handover of everything BUT Baghdad. Let the Kurds run the North. Let the tribes fight over Anbar and the South. Really. If we can’t control Baghdad, we can’t have earned anyone’s respect. Witness Al-Melaki (it means “the angel’ in Arabic) openly criticizing our tactical and strategic failures.
b. Stop the ‘development’ of Iraqi political leaders for the time being: let them develop concurrently (on their own)
c. Establish the formal occupation of Iraq by declaring martial law (check your history: it took three times the troops to control post-war Germany then we ever dedicated to wartime operations). I know this one is too late, but it should still be considered as an operational concept for both Coalition and Iraqi Government Forces. It does provide clear lines of command and authority.
d. Let the General (you need a MacArthur, not an Acheson) be the one to make all operational decisions for the Occupation
e. Direct him to reduce the administrative tail to a more realistic and effective 25:1 ratio and get the other 80,000 non-patrolling troops home.
3. Declare a funding crisis and scale back the comfort dollars in Iraq. It will send a clear message to all that we mean business.
4. Stop the ‘rebuilding’ of Iraq. Declare a breather. Pull out PCO (projects contracting office) and the Gulf Region of the Corps of Engineers till later. As with security, let the Iraqis sort out their own problems, they have the knowledge, skills and resources. Remember Maslow: focus first and only on security. Let the market do the rest. We can get along without the hassle of Iraqi petroleum for now.
5. My personal favorite: make the Green Zone electrical grid go dark each time the Baghdad one does. Keep security measures in place on a separate grid.
6. Ignore the corruption as far as possible. It’s the way things are done in most places outside of the US and our efforts to sanitize the Iraqi process are a hindrance. They do not understand our ethos and corruption is built in too much of their governmental system.
7. Seal the borders. It’s part of Martial Law and sends a powerful message to the world. It is also well within the capability of our forces. Let your ‘MacArthur’ run with that one.
This has run longer than expected, and I didn’t want that to happen. I do think that it’s better to err on the side of detail than send you a nice pretty report. I have nine dead friends in Iraq (ten: lost another last Friday). I lost my family to divorce during America’s involvement in Iraq. I have many Iraqi friends who are probably at this point very tired of Pax Americana but are afraid to admit it.
If any of this is of value to you, please feel free to contact me. You are getting advice from lots of good people; just remember they all represent a particular agenda, and my agenda is to make Iraq a better place for Iraqis. It always was.
Sir,
In Iraq, America is feeding a dragon, only we are in the cage and the dragon is not.
You may remember we met at the Shannon, Ireland airport in late March. You were on your way to Baghdad and I was on my way to a few days of military leave. You asked me (and others) where I was coming from and how long I had been there. I answered Iraq, and at that time, 24 months. You asked me at that point to remain and discuss my view of how we (the Coalition) were doing there. I have thought a lot about your question and want you to know that I had been asking the same thing of myself for quite some time. So let me set out my bona fides first, so that you may consider my thoughts here as qualified opinion, and not as an outsider.
In summary, I spent thirty-three months in Iraq, as an Army officer, independent civilian, and also as a Coalition contractor, which I have detailed at the end of this letter. I am first and foremost an Infantry Soldier, so what I am going to tell you is from an Infantry perspective, from direct experience. Baghdad is the key to Iraq, and we have lost Baghdad.
We need to change that. Here is how.
----------
What if I told you there was a group of men out there that spoke Arabic and English (mostly), were highly educated, completely invested in the commercial success of Iraq, possessed of a deep patriotism, and motivated much more by money than religion. Would that get your attention?
What if I told you that they have been both in the middle and on the outside of the events in Iraq, that they were connected by family and other means to the movers and shakers in all spheres of Iraqi life: economic, political, military, religious, and social?
What if I told you they would be welcomed by over ¾ of elite Iraqis, and the other ¼ would fall in line with their leadership? (my estimates, but given current circumstances likely not far off)
What if I told you they were easily led? Currently disenfranchised? Ready to go?
Would that get your attention? Want to know who they are?
It’s the Ba’ath party. Yes, it’s true they did bad things. Yes, it’s true they worked for Sadaam. And they can work with us now.
----------
When I first arrived in Baghdad in March of 2003, the statue of Sadaam had been torn down the day before. All the way from Kuwait (ten hours in the convoy of three soft-skinned vehicles) we saw Iraqi’s waving at us and yelling, “Bush good, Sadaam donkey”. It was very dangerous, to be sure, but we did ok. We (our civil affairs brigade) conducted all, not some, of our mission outside the wire with soft-skinned vehicles (no doors, sitting sideways like in a Huey-I’m old, so forgive the comparison). In six months of continuous operations in our area of operation we had not one single hostile incident. Not one.
Compare that to today. You have been to the green zone from BIAP; I know. Today that is arguably the most dangerous stretch of road on the planet. It is also the main supply route (MSR) upon which the Coalition’s logistics efforts depend most. It is not controlled. Anyone who tells you differently will qualify their responses: it’s overwatched by drones, there are roving patrols, it’s secured by Iraqi units, etc…. none of which make any difference to the folks getting blown up on Route Irish. It is a basic military tenet that a primary objective is to secure MSRs – we have not done this in nearly 4 years.
I am stating the obvious. Let me continue with some first hand comparisons:
Electricity distribution.
• Pre-war Baghdad: lights on for four hours, off for one.
• Today: On one, off three or four.
Benzene/kerosene availability:
• Pre-war: No issues. Admittedly only 200+ gas stations and yes, far fewer cars, but supply always met the demand in this oil-rich country. Kerosene: same story.
• Today: eight hours in the queue IF there is any in the tanks. Guess who gets blown up a lot? Folks waiting in line for gas.
Security: Under autocratic rule, the killings happened, yes, and they were bad. No argument. But there was nothing like the chaos of Iraq today.
Freedom: The State Department mantra. Ask yourself just how was it that democracy took root in the US? Answer: we fought, killed, and died, for it. Dep State sent the Ba’athists home to no jobs and no futures. Freedom in Iraq is now defined as freedom to express your emotions violently, without consequence. The freedoms in Iraq were externally imposed by the Coalition and they are not working. The Iraqis had thirty years of autocracy (at best) and we gave them the polar opposite overnight. They had no ‘buy-in’. They are not invested in the freedoms we gave them; they are invested in staying alive long enough to flee the country, and they are killing each other to do it, daily.
Capitalist activity: This goes hand-in-hand with freedom, above. The credit for the current economic stability in Iraq can be directly attributed to the CPA’s efforts at establishing the new Iraqi currency scheme, among other endeavors. This is one of the unsung success stories of Iraq. However, freedom to buy goods leads to…………
Consumption excess: You and I discussed this briefly. What I mean here is that while it may be true that kilowatt generation/distribution has surpassed pre-war levels in Iraq, there is no adequate method to measure consumption. The ‘rising tide’ of electrical supply coupled with a stable Iraqi currency and open borders generated pent-up demand for goods (read: air conditioners), which drew excessively on the electrical grid creating a demand that was and remains unsupportable. I mentioned open borders, my favorite topic, and one on which you and I seem to disagree.
Open borders: In late ’03 and early ’04 I was the Operations Manager of the Oil for Food coordination center in the basement of the convention center across from the Rashid Hotel. Doubtless you have been in one of those places. The OFF office, which I set up from scratch, directly controlled eight billion US dollars of inbound goods, handed off to CPA from the United Nations in late November of 2003. Being the start up guy, I established four border control points for these goods and services. During the course of these operations it became very clear to me through my direct employees that the effort to cross the Iraqi border by persons of unclear intent was dramatically simple. It is my personal opinion that the open borders, supported by both the CPA and the Coalition military partners contributed negatively to both the pent-up demand for goods and also, perhaps more importantly, to the clandestine border transit of weapons, personnel and materials that are currently being used to fuel the insurgency.
Other causes of the current mess.
We are fat and happy. I don’t mean that the Soldiers, Marines and others who are patrolling daily are fat and happy: I only mean that the 100:1 ratio of Fobbits to patrollers in the street makes other conflicts look Spartan. And those folks, almost all of them, are eating steak and lobster on Friday night, having ice cream not just with dinner, but lunch as well. They are surfing the net on broadband, promoting each other and handing out awards for PowerPoint presentations. They are working out in fully equipped gyms. Please go back and check my numbers. 100 to 1. That is the support ratio. Delta Force and the Seals work on a planning ratio of about 14 to 1!
Homesteading. Life on the FOB is good, in general (see above). Most folks try earnestly to extend their civilian tours. I did. I know many others who did and do.
The officer reporting system of the US Army. I know this sounds like a crackpot comment, but hear me out please. OER’s (officer evaluation reports) in theater are written not at twelve, but usually at six months. This produces two unintended effects:
1. Report writing becomes a drain on professionals, and
2. Projects undertaken by said officers tend to be, you guessed it, short term.
So the Iraqi’s you are working with end up seeing you come and go, and the things you do with them become as transparent as a Mexican election. They know now that Captain Smith will leave in six months or a little longer, and that this GFI (good F****ing Idea) will be replaced with another one when the next CPT Smith arrives. So we end up with a fully trained cadre of yes-men in the personas of the Iraqis who routinely deal with Coalition folks and in our junior officers (who will go on to become senior officers).
Corruption: Holy cow. The degree of Coalition naiveté about, and the extent and insidiousness of, Iraqi (read: Ministry) corruption was and is breathtaking. They are bred that way; it’s normal for them.
----------
Acheson also upset the right wing when he took the side of Harry S. Truman in his dispute with General Douglas MacArthur over the Korean War. Acheson and Truman wanted to limit the war to Korea whereas MacArthur called for the extension of the war to China. Joe McCarthy once again led the attack on Acheson: "With half a million Communists in Korea killing American men, Acheson says, 'Now let's be calm, let's do nothing'. It is like advising a man whose family is being killed not to take hasty action for fear he might alienate the affection of the murderers." 2
Now, what to do. Here is what I think (assuming we want to keep building the largest embassy in the world, contribute to Middle East stability and control Iran)
1. Put Dept State in second place for now
2. Put a Marine in charge of all forces in Iraq (yes, a Marine) and here is his mandate:
a. Give him three days to set a timetable for handover of everything BUT Baghdad. Let the Kurds run the North. Let the tribes fight over Anbar and the South. Really. If we can’t control Baghdad, we can’t have earned anyone’s respect. Witness Al-Melaki (it means “the angel’ in Arabic) openly criticizing our tactical and strategic failures.
b. Stop the ‘development’ of Iraqi political leaders for the time being: let them develop concurrently (on their own)
c. Establish the formal occupation of Iraq by declaring martial law (check your history: it took three times the troops to control post-war Germany then we ever dedicated to wartime operations). I know this one is too late, but it should still be considered as an operational concept for both Coalition and Iraqi Government Forces. It does provide clear lines of command and authority.
d. Let the General (you need a MacArthur, not an Acheson) be the one to make all operational decisions for the Occupation
e. Direct him to reduce the administrative tail to a more realistic and effective 25:1 ratio and get the other 80,000 non-patrolling troops home.
3. Declare a funding crisis and scale back the comfort dollars in Iraq. It will send a clear message to all that we mean business.
4. Stop the ‘rebuilding’ of Iraq. Declare a breather. Pull out PCO (projects contracting office) and the Gulf Region of the Corps of Engineers till later. As with security, let the Iraqis sort out their own problems, they have the knowledge, skills and resources. Remember Maslow: focus first and only on security. Let the market do the rest. We can get along without the hassle of Iraqi petroleum for now.
5. My personal favorite: make the Green Zone electrical grid go dark each time the Baghdad one does. Keep security measures in place on a separate grid.
6. Ignore the corruption as far as possible. It’s the way things are done in most places outside of the US and our efforts to sanitize the Iraqi process are a hindrance. They do not understand our ethos and corruption is built in too much of their governmental system.
7. Seal the borders. It’s part of Martial Law and sends a powerful message to the world. It is also well within the capability of our forces. Let your ‘MacArthur’ run with that one.
This has run longer than expected, and I didn’t want that to happen. I do think that it’s better to err on the side of detail than send you a nice pretty report. I have nine dead friends in Iraq (ten: lost another last Friday). I lost my family to divorce during America’s involvement in Iraq. I have many Iraqi friends who are probably at this point very tired of Pax Americana but are afraid to admit it.
If any of this is of value to you, please feel free to contact me. You are getting advice from lots of good people; just remember they all represent a particular agenda, and my agenda is to make Iraq a better place for Iraqis. It always was.
posted by tomk at 2:21 PM
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