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When Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno took command of Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) on December 14, 2006, Iraq was in flames, write military scholars Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan in the Weekly Standard. Coalition forces were sustaining 1,200 attacks per week, and insurgents and death squads were slaughtering 3,000 civilians a month. Al Qaeda in Iraq was strong and running rampant through several provinces. Iraq’s fledgling elected government was paralyzed.
When Odierno relinquished command of MNC-I just over two weeks ago, civil war had ceased. Both civilian casualties and weekly attacks were down 60 percent. Al Qaeda in Iraq had been vanquished from its safe havens in Baghdad, Anbar, and Diyala, and were attempting to cobble together a “last stand” in Mosul.
As a purely military operation, the series of MNC-I offensives easily bears comparison with Patton’s race across France or the Soviet destruction of German forces in 1944 and 1945. That the Iraq operations occurred in the midst of a counterinsurgency and helped gain the support of the local populations is a testimony to the tactical skill and precision with which American forces fought, as well as to the brilliance of the political and diplomatic efforts of [Gen. David] Petraeus and [Amb. Ryan] Crocker to set the non-kinetic conditions for success.
Under the partnership of Odierno and Petraeus, the Kagans write, “the situation in Iraq had been utterly transformed.” Here’s the fascinating story of how the general did it.
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Off-key
All right. Mission Accomplished! Let’s bring the troops home.
Good grief! These guys manage to compare beating the might of the Nazi army to handling a raggedy bunch of “insurgents” in a country in which we have the ONLY organized military.
Heck, it has already taken us longer to deal with these guys than it did to dispose of the ENTIRE AXIS!
It’s actually pretty pathetic. Disgusting, really.
What is pathetic is the inability of many American citizen to give honor when honor is due and recognize comptetence, bravery and sacrifice when it surfaces. What is disgusting is the horrific and inhumane mission of Al Qaeda and their cowardly tactics which both have made this a significantly different war than any we have fought before. What is admirable is that we did not resort to tactics that we used in WW II (like bambing Dresden) even though this might have minimized US casualties in this war.
Petraeus and Odierno faced an insurgency that toward the end of 2006 was winning against the Coalition. A combination of Petraeus’ counter-insurgency policy, well executed by Odierno, turned the situation around, though there is a lot more military and diplomatic work to be done.
Had Bush caved in late 2006 and allowed the insurgency to win, almost surely there would have been a vicious civil war with a major alQuaeda presence in Iraq that would have been disastrous for both American and Middle East interests. This cold still happen if Obama or Clinton follow through on a precipitous withdrawal without regard to conditions or consequences on the ground.
The idea that this war in Iraq and against the Jihadis has to with a “raggedy” bunch of opponents is dangerous. These opponents are in fact smart and are using irregular methods including suicide bombers with ferocious success. They have already intimidated many Europeans and some Americans who lack backbone and somehow hope the problem will go away.
Arcadia,
Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that a) our troops are in Iraq, and b) you are in charge rather than Petraeus or Odierno.
How would you do it differently so it wouldn’t be “pathetic” or “disgusting”?
#2
Arcadia,
My impression from what I have read of history is that it is generally much easier to defeat an army, even a large one, than insurgents dispersed among a civilian population. To defeat an army, you defeat its leaders, they surrender, and all the soldiers serving under them are obliged to stop fighting. We defeated Saddam’s army quite easily.
I think we would have had just as much trouble in Germany and Japan if insurgents had continued fighting after V-E and V-J days. One mistake of the Bush administration was expecting that the aftermath of toppling Saddam would be more like Germany and Japan after WWII. Many Iraqis did welcome freedom from Saddam, especially the Shiite minority, I think. But there is a much much bigger difference culturally between us and Iraq than us and Germany. I know less about Japanese culture, but as I understand their obedience to the emperor required them to surrender when he said to, as much as it went against the desire of many to die fighting.
As is well known, General Petraeus oversaw the writing of a new counterinsurgency doctrine before being sent to Iraq. But the doctrine did not provide a great deal of detail about how to plan and conduct such operations across a theater as large as Iraq. It was Odierno who creatively adapted sophisticated concepts from conventional fighting to the problems in Iraq, filling gaps in the counterinsurgency doctrine and making the overall effort successful.
Odierno had absorbed Petraeus’s new counterinsurgency doctrine and knew the importance of establishing legitimate government institutions by protecting the population from the insurgents trying to alienate them from the government.
Petraeus as he took command in February 2007 emphasized using combat forces to protect the population in major cities, establish and expand safe areas, and clear insurgent safe havens. It was Odierno’s job to figure out how, exactly, to accomplish those tasks with the forces he had available. He came quickly to a counterintuitive conclusion: Securing Baghdad required large-scale offensive combat operations outside the city.
Previous American commanders had recognized that the violence in Iraq resulted primarily from the actions of distinct enemy organizations–rather than from any inchoate hatred between Sunni and Shia–and they had developed very sophisticated understandings of how individual enemy leaders interacted with each other and their subordinates.
The surge brigades made it possible to conduct multiple simultaneous operations rather than focusing on one problem or area at a time. U.S. forces within Baghdad would provide as much security as possible for the population, disrupt enemy groups operating from within the capital, and identify the enemy safe havens within the city. At the same time, Odierno planned to deploy troops into the belts around the capital to attack the enemy’s support zones and lines of communication and to eliminate the suburban safe havens that were essential to the functioning of the enemy system.
When President Bush announced the change in strategy and surge of forces in January 2007, Odierno was already using the forces that he had, and those that were arriving, to shape the conditions for the large offensive that could not begin until June. He and Petraeus then sent the first two new brigades into Baghdad, and the next three to the belts.
Petraeus also challenged the relationship between U.S. leaders in Iraq and their Iraqi counterparts. His predecessors’ emphasis on encouraging the Iraqis to do things for themselves had led them to defer to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki whenever possible and to try to avoid confrontations with the inexperienced Iraqi leadership. Petraeus took a more activist approach and relentlessly pressured Maliki and other Iraqi officials to make critical decisions and to abandon counterproductive behaviors. Crocker supported this approach and added to the pressure on the Iraqis to make the hard decisions and to take risks they would have preferred to avoid.
Post #7 was my error. I did not mean to press the post button. The content is fine since they are excerpts from the excellent article to which Lynn referred us. I wanted to sort through those quotes and comment before I posted but I hit the post button by mistake.
So #7 are not my words.
But the article is a must read. Thank you so much for the referal Lynn.
2 Arcadia et al,
This war unlike the European theater against the Nazis has continual scrutiny by the world press, CNN, BBC and Aljazeera. In the years immediately after Viet Nam, I think we all realized you could win on the battlefield but lose the war nonetheless. So command in modern warfare is in a different matrix.
You cant compare OIF to WW2. We cannot and will not use indiscriminate carpet bombings with no thought about civilian casualties.
And let’s face it, the Arabs– be they Iraqi or Palestinian or Lebanese Hezbo fighters–know how to “play to the camera” to maximize the sympathy factor from the global media.
#6 Great post!
The Emperor of Japan was complicit in many of that nation’s war crimes. MacArthur resisted calls to have him tried and hanged. Ive often wondered how the average Japanese reacted to hearing the divine voice of Hirohito euphemisticly declare “Things have not worked out for us in the most optimal preferred way.”
And BTW, even after the 2nd atomic bomb there were Japanese generals who wanted to kick the Emperor out and keep on fighting. Maintaining honor is/was very important to the Japanese. There was no dishonor in surrendering to an enemy armed with so devestating a weapon.
A better historical parallel than WWII would be the Barbary Wars at the beginning of the 19th century. Along with gaining their independence from Great Britain, the nascent US lost the protection of the British Navy in the Mediterranean.
Pirates from the north coast of Africa, backed by the rulers of states such as Algeria and Tunis, used jihadist idealogy to justify seizing slaves and property from Europeans found sailing on the Mediterranean.
Thomas Jefferson began a war (without congressional authorization) that brought about concessions by the Barbary States who, emboldened by America’s distraction by the war of 1812 with Great Britain, relaunched hostilities until defeated again under President James Madison.
The entire series of related conflicts encompassed over 15 years, and was concluded by military force.
Pauline’s post brought this to mind.
One of the good things about Gen. Robert E. Lee was that even though he was pressured by many in the South to allow a Civil War of insurgency to continue rather than surrender at Appomatox, his sense of honor would not allow it. He knew that would do no good for either side.
In this war against Al Qaeda and other jihadists and insurgents, we had to face the fact that there was not one shred of anything close to honor in our enemy in this conflict.
Here’s another key quote from the Kagan article:
“The key to the success of these operations was the combination of breadth and continuity. All of them struck multiple enemy safe havens and lines of communication at the same time–in contrast with previous U.S. military operations that had generally attacked enemy concentrations one at a time. Enemy groups could no longer move easily from one safe area to another and those that tried to move suffered serious losses as they dispersed. The rapid movement from one operation to the next denied the enemy time to regroup. As scattered insurgent leaders and fighters attempted to reconsolidate in new areas, Coalition forces hit them again and again.”
Here is one more postive trend cited by Kagan in the article:
“…both Sunni and Shia, are increasingly defining themselves as Iraqis, that is to say Arabs, rather than Sunnis or Shia. Their growing rejection of clericalism and preference for secular government was noted recently by Amir Taheri in the Wall Street Journal…”
We, as a nation, were fortunate to have the wake-up call of 2004 and the subsequent shift in policy which put Gen Petraues in charge of operations and SecDef Gates in charge of the DoD.
But, triumphalism is not warranted. There is still reconciliation to be achieved and it is unknown what will happen when we stop funding the awakening forces.
But, triumphalism is not warranted.
Hi Coyote,
Did you mean to suggest that the Kagans’ article smacks of triumphalism? Because the very end of the long piece says much the same thing you did in #14 above. The Kagans in no way suggested the mission is fully accomplished, but seemed to be offering an inside look at what has been accomplished thus far.
Kudos to the military brass who turned the tables on the jihadists, doing something that Rumsfeld and the other architects of the Iraq War couldn’t do. Glad Bush finally listened to reason and not politics.
Back when things were grim, Iraq War supporters maintained that things weren’t over yet and the U.S. needed to keep fighting.
I would think they should be saying the same thing now. While the surge has brought about positive results, it cannot last forever. It remains to be seen what will happen when Iraqi forces take over. When the Iraqi government actually has to take charge and implement government security policies on their own, without the backing of U.S. forces. When the Iraqi government has to respond to invasions by Turkish forces, or even Iranian forces.
We are in Iraq for decades, at least. Now is not the time to start the celebration.
Coming soon to a banner near you:
“Mission Accomplished 2!”
If you love “Mission Accomplished”,you are guaranteed to love “M.A.2″!
A hundred years from now when we’re still occupying Iraq (as McCain is advocating), our grandchildren will get to see “Mission Accomplished 33!”. I wonder if it will grow old by then? Will it have the same punch?
*****
If the Iraqi people have thrown down their weapons and embraced each other in peace and harmony, why are we still occupying their country? Should we not at least be packing up?
Anlir - We still have troops in Germany and in Japan. We packed up a lot of them from Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but we still have some there. Should we leave our European and Pacific posts?
Klasko - why were US troops in Germany and Japan? To quell jihadists? To keep Germans and Japanese from killing each other?
Or to serve as a defense against the USSR?
Comparing Germany/Japan to Iraq is apples v oranges.
I don’t know specifically what Coyoteblue meant by saying “There is still reconciliation to be achieved…” so I won’t agree or disagree with that. But I will say that I am not for reconciling with the enemy. I am for destroying them, while doing our best to protect our allies in Iraq (behind whom many of our enemies are cowering and hiding).
Our mission is to make Iraq stable. Reconciliation is a mutual mission that is far more political than military related. That will need will always be on the table to one degree or anothter. But I am very proud of what our military has achieved and they deserve our admiration.
Lester,
It’s present tense. We still have troops today in both of those countries, so I doubt they’re serving as a defense against the non-existent USSR.
Rumsfeld also has my admiration. We can only act upon what we know at the time and learn as we go. We all had a lot to learn as we fought this war and those who adjusted deserve a lot of credit (perhaps even more than Rumsfeld). Like Lester, I’m glad that President Bush had the wisdom to listen and keep learning. But those who applied earlier strategies with the limited knowledge and resources they had should not be blamed. Only nations can win wars, and they are team efforts. And that remains true as this war continues.
We are not occupying Germany or Japan (or any other country except Iraq) to keep people from killing their fellow citizens and to stop a civil war.
Fact is, the neo-cons used the Iraq war as a pretext to establish permanent US military bases in the Middle East. If we have to permanently occupy Iraq to do that, they say “go for it”.
Joel Mark has got to be one of the last defenders of Rumsfeld. Every major policy decision the man made in regards to the war was a failure. Like Brownie, he did a heck of a job!
Well, for one thing, Lester, in Germany we were part of an occupying force, and immediately following WWII, we were helping to rebuild. And Russia was our ally. We had a military interest in having a European presence.
There are a few similarities.
We are trying to help Iraq rebuild. Do we not have a military interest in having a Middle Eastern presence?
Anlir,
What’s your view of our troops in Korea, then?
It’s present tense. We still have troops today in both of those countries, so I doubt they’re serving as a defense against the non-existent USSR.
No, they are there against the very much existent Russia. Seriously, you think our forces are in Germany and Japan for the same reasons as Iraq? Heh.
Well, for one thing, Lester, in Germany we were part of an occupying force, and immediately following WWII, we were helping to rebuild. And Russia was our ally. We had a military interest in having a European presence.
Rebuilding was not undertaken by the military, but through the Marshall Plan. Also, our military had very little interaction with German and Japanese police and security and intel forces - we weren’t training them like we are training the Iraqis. Our soldiers weren’t rebuilding schools. American money went the to Germans and Japanese and we let them do it.
As for having a presence in the Middle East? No, I see no reason to have a presence there. Nor do I believe we need a military presence in Europe.
You can make a case that we need a military presence everywhere. South America. Africa. Middle East. Europe. South Asia. Southeast Asia. Australia. You name the area, you can probably find a reason why the U.S. should be there. Doesn’t mean we should be there.
Germany and Japan can take care of themselves. We don’t need to be there.
Israel can take care of itself. We don’t need to be there.
We can’t be the world’s policeman. Or parent. Sooner or later, dad has to let the unruly children figure things out for themselves.
Lester: As for having a presence in the Middle East? No, I see no reason to have a presence there. Nor do I believe we need a military presence in Europe.
This is a rather isolationist view of America’s role in the world. The problem is that we have learned through experience as a powerful commercial nation that in the long run isolationism is costly. That is why over time Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, and Bush II become in the long run of history much appreciated presidents.
In reality America has a crucial interest in a stable world order; that is why we have troops in Europe and Asia in the interest of stability, just as we will need troops in Iraq for Middle East stability. Virtually every post WW II American president has understood this; probably even Obama or Clinton would, also, understand this after a few Carter-like foreign policy disasters including a hasty withdrawal from Iraq.
Those isolationists who somehow think all would be well in some sort of fortress America are ill informed and rather naive.
Peter Leavitt’s got a point. If we would just conquer the entire world, it would do wonders for our bottom line.
#5: How would you do it differently so it wouldn’t be “pathetic” or “disgusting”?
Let me answer!!!!
I never would have invaded Iraq. I would have moved heaven and earth to get Bin Laden. Al Queada would have been wiped out. Our troops would be home.
Peter #4
Petraeus and Odierno faced an insurgency that toward the end of 2006 was winning against the Coalition.
When many of us expressed similar sentiments at the end of 2006, Peter was one of the first use the epithet of anti-American for those who criticized the US political and military leadership at that time. Most of the so-called liberal posters were frequently called traitors (except me) for openly doubting US success in 2006
HRW: When many of us expressed similar sentiments at the end of 2006,…
Back in that period you and the other leftists on this blog were chortling at the prospect of an American defeat cum Bush humiliation. Your views and those who backed the war through thick and thin were quite different.
Read the linked article.
The bigger picture makes it clear that this war, like most, has had its ups and downs. But President Bush never wavered from his commitment to win, regardless of emense criticism. That is the key factor. When the insurgency had some “ups” in 2006, we were simply retooling and revamping how to implement new strategies based on what we were learning. And we were continually learning.
The components for the success of the surge were in the planning and in the implimentation long before the surge itself was even announced and even longer before the success of the surge was clear.
It required more troops so that we could begin to act on a wider scale SIMULTANEOUSLY, disenabling Al Qaeda and others from being able to regroup and adjust in other places.
Also, there was early pressure from the left for us to begin sooner to shift the responsibility for security to the Iraqis. And that is the direction in which our strategy went, too early. Turns out now in hindsight that this was unwise strategy and part of the problem. The surge represented our willingness to stop listening to the armchair pundits and many leftists who wanted us to back off and let the Iraqis do their own security. The solution was for us to take that bull by the horns with increased troops, new pr-active strategies and simultaneous action.
To this moment, the notion of shiftig the greater responsibiliy for security to the Iraqis early on still sounds good on paper to the uninformed and untrained mind, but read the article. It was NOT.
Peter - I’m not an isolationist, even though I don’t agree that we should have our troops stationed at every global fork in the road. There is a big difference between isolationism and believing that we shouldn’t overextend our troops.
We have a rather large navy with a full compliment of carriers and nuclear subs, which are quite adept at spreading America’s military might without a costly land base. Just this week, the Navy launched a Tomahawk missile strike into Somalia, targeting wanted Islamic terrorists. Note that the strike did not come from our troops stationed in Djbouti.
While I don’t want the U.S. to retreat into its borders when it comes to foreign policy, I do want some judicious review on how far we will extend our military overseas. I really don’t see the efficacy of leaving troops stationed in Germany or Japan. I question whether we can afford to leave 50,000, much less 100,000, troops in Iraq on top of that. And for how long? Can the nation’s treasury afford it?
Lynn
No, Kagan seems to be aware that triumphalism is not warranted, the same cannot be said for some of our denizens here at WMB.
Joel
Reconciliation refers to within the state of Iraq, not with our enemies, please, over the years I have posted here, I don’t believe I’ve given any indication that I think we can make peace with radical extremists. Although I do confess that I have said, stand by and will continue to say that declaring war on the whole of Islam is both daft and immoral. It’s easy to remark that reconciliation is a political mission and not part of the military’s writ, but that is not how it is on the ground. Just a few months ago SecDef Gates did something remarkable on that score when he told Congress that State needed better funding for just this purpose.
I believe you are wrong to cut Rumsfeld a break for “what he did not know” as the record shows that the uniformed services were not crazy about his plan. I also think it is a leap to credit the President with listening as it was the election of 2004 that forced him to change tactics. To that I say Viva democracy!
HRW, I have to echo your sentiment at post 30 as I recall being named a defeatist and several other derogatory remarks pointed at me for pointing out that we needed more boots on the ground and that the execution of the war was pretty woefully bad.
Cameron: Arcadia,
Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that a) our troops are in Iraq, and b) you are in charge rather than Petraeus or Odierno.
How would you do it differently so it wouldn’t be “pathetic” or “disgusting”?
Before sending troops in I would have been familiar enough with history to know that Iraq is a cobbled-together country, full of ancient, irrational animosities and that sudden removal of the central power would inevitably lead to bloody, violent, resistance and inter-relgious strife.(See the late, unlamented Yugoslavia, not to mention a variety of former Soviet republics and African states). I would have been familiar enough with history to reason that if the Israeli’s, as ruthless and efficient a military force as there is couldn’t control their own border, we couldn’t in our wildest imaginations ever dream of controlling the huge border of Iraq. I would have listened to my army chief who knew all of this and advocated a greatly larger invasion and occupation force. And most of all I would never have begun this asinine war without listening to my State Department and other experts in civil authority who knew that a comprehensive occupation plan to include negotiation with all parties was needed, before I dropped my first, stage-managed, shock and awe bomb.
The utter stupidity, arrogance and cupidity of George W. Bush created ALL of these problems. And now that he is revealed as being an idiot, Republican strategists are saying to us, “well, gee, yes he is, but now at least he’s got some smart generals”. As noted it is absolutely pathetic.
Incidentally, our history lesson is now continuing. If the Russians couldn’t control Afghanistan with a huge complement of troops and might, what the heck ever made this boob think we can do better?
Oh, Joel. Al Qaida regrouping in other places, say like Pakistan? Afghanistan? Where they have been since before Sept 11 and still are????
Coytote,
Read the article. It made it clear that this war in Iraq is not over, let alone the overall whole war on jihadist terror. The President has made it clear from the start that this will be a long struggle. But the surge in Iraq has been hugely successful and many Al Qaeda leaders and jihadists have been destroyed for good. The fact that critics now have to go outside of Iraq to cite Al Qaeda’s regrouping is proof of that. But the battle continues.
But Al Qaeda has been badly crippled and their mission in Iraq looks like it may fail miserably. I would think that Americans would take confidence in that.
Another point that comes through to me in the article is that those who would focus everything on getting bin Laden have far too small a picture and have no idea what is at stake in this war.
One can learn a lot by reading the article.
Regarding Rumsfeld, he served his country well considering what we had to go on and what we had yet to learn. He did not reap all the results that Petraeus, Odierno and Crocker did (and the point of this thread is to recognize their more admirable accomplishments), but he was part of the tough fiber that kept us going and learning as we went. Rumsfeld represents what Americans are made of and his efforts were honorable, but I’m sure he is content now to relish the progress we are making without taking credit for it.
But the most credit may indeed go to President Bush who has held his resolve to win through it all whether the news was positive or not, and was willing to listen and learn and change course when necessary to kiip winning as the end result. But the Presdient has stayed on mission. It makes one proud to see our Commander-in-Chief stand by his men and women and them by him through thick and thin. They have performed bravely and justly overall while being villified at home and abroad, mostly from the left and sometimes from the right too. And there is much more moral fiber that we will need to draw upon before this is over.
The neo-cons keep telling us that victory is just around the corner. First it was a matter of days. Then it was a matter of less than a year. Then it became several years. Then it became 10 or 20 years. The latest number is 100 years. Who wants to bet if we’re still there in 100 years (and if the neo-cons have their way we will be) the neo-cons will tell people if they just hang on another 1,000 years we can win.
The fact is the neo-cons have lied to the American people from day one. Their goal was and is the permanent occupation of Iraq. There will always be one more “crisis” that will necessitate America’s continued occupation of Iraq.
Anlir,
The President told us it could be a long and hard battle from the start. It’s a lie to cast a blanket of blame to say the neo-cons lied. Nevertheless, all sorts of speculations are pervasive in politics and military campaigns from all sides.
RDean/#29,
Thanks for not posting/following the directions. See Arcadia’s #35 for an actual answer.
Joel
At 37. Once again, al Qaida has its base in the same geographic area that it was in prior to 9/11 and prior to the Iraq war. Its nerve center (not just bin Laden) is not and never was in Iraq. It had recruitment operations and sent folks there. So, we have crippled an adjunct wing, one part of a multi-headed beast. At post 39, who villified the troops? Liberals and moderates criticized the President for his prior conduct of the war. That is not villifying troops. You have a creative memory.