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February 28th,
2007 - Military Chiefs Give US Six Months to Win Iraq War |
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Military Chiefs Give US Six Months
to Win Iraq War Simon Tisdall The Guardian February 28, 2007 An elite team of officers
advising US commander General David Petraeus in Baghdad has concluded the US
has six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in
political and public support that could force the military into a hasty
retreat. The officers - combat
veterans who are leading experts in counter-insurgency - are charged with
implementing the "new way forward" strategy announced by president
George Bush on January 10. The plan includes a controversial
"surge" of 21,500 additional American troops to establish security
in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province. But the team, known as the
"Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green
Zone around the US embassy, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched
problems in what has become a race against time, said a former senior
administration official familiar with their deliberations. "They know
they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more
talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They
know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's
getting harder every day," the former official said. By improving security, the
plan's short-term aim is to create time and space for the Iraqi government to
bring rival Shia, Sunni and Kurd factions together in a process of national
reconciliation, us officials say. If that works within the stipulated
timeframe, longer-term schemes for rebuilding Iraq under the so-called
"go long" strategy will be set in motion. But the next six months
are make-or-break for both the US military and the Iraqi government. The main obstacles
confronting Gen Petraeus's team are: - Insufficent numbers of
troops on the ground - A
"disintegrating" international coalition - An anticipated upsurge in
violence in the south as the British leave - Morale problems as
casualties rise - A failure of political
will in Washington and/or Baghdad "The scene is very
tense. They are working round the clock. Endless cups of tea with the
Iraqis," the former senior administration official said. "But
they're still trying to figure out what's the plan. The president is
expecting progress. But they're thinking, what does he mean? The plan is
changing every minute, as all plans do." The team comprises an
unusual mix of combat experience and high academic achievement. It includes
Colonel Peter Mansoor, Gen Petraeus's executive officer and a former armoured
division commander who holds a PhD in the history of infantry; Col H R
McMaster, author of a well-known critique of Vietnam and a seasoned
counter-insurgency operations chief; Lt-Col David Kilcullen, a seconded
Australian army officer and expert on Islamism; and Col Michael Meese, son of
the former US attorney-general, Edwin Meese, who was a member of the
ill-fated Iraq Study Group. Their biggest headache was
insufficient numbers of troops on the ground despite the increase ordered by
Mr Bush, the former official said. "We don't have the numbers for the
counter-insurgency job even with the surge. The word 'surge' is a misnomer.
Strategically, tactically, it's not a surge," an American officer said. According to the US
military's revised counter-insurgency field manual, FM 3-24, authored by Gen
Petraeus, the optimum "troop-to-task" ratio for Baghdad requires
120,000 US and allied troops in the city alone. Current totals, even
including often unreliable Iraqi units, fall short of that number. The
deficit is even greater in conflict areas outside Baghdad. "Additional troops are
essential if we are to win," said Lt-Col John Nagel, another Petraeus
confidant and co-author of the manual, in an address at the US Naval
Institute in San Diego last month. One soldier for every 50 civilians in the
most intense conflict areas was key to successful counter-insurgency work.
Compounding the manpower problems is an apparently insurmountable shortage of
civilian volunteers from the Pentagon, state department and treasury. They
are needed to staff the additional provincial reconstruction teams and other
aid projects promised by Mr Bush. The recent British decision
to reduced troop levels in southern Iraq, coupled with the actual or
anticipated departure of other allies, has heightened the Petraeus team's
worries that the international coalition is "disintegrating" even
as the US strives to regain the initiative in Iraq, the former official said.
Increased violence in the south is now expected, caused in part by the
"displacement" of Shia militias forced out of Baghdad by the US
crackdown. American and Iraqi forces entered the militant Shia stronghold of
Sadr City today for the first time since the surge began. No more major
operation have yet been attempted there but "we or the Iraqis are going
to have to fight them", one American officer said. According to a British
source, plans are in hand for the possible southwards deployment of 6,000 US
troops to compensate for Britain's phased withdrawal and any concomitant
upsurge in unrest. Morale is another key
concern in the Green Zone headquarters as US forces prepare for a rise in
casualties as the security crackdown gathers pace. In a message to the troops
after he assumed overall command last month, Gen Petraeus heaped praise on
their sacrifices while warning of more "difficult times" in the
months to come. "We serve in Iraq at a
critical time... A decisive moment approaches. Shoulder to shoulder with our
Iraqi comrades we will conduct a pivotal campaign to improve security for the
Iraqi people. The stakes could not be higher," Gen Petraeus said. "It's amazing how well
morale has held up so far," the former official said. "But the guys
know what's being said back home. There is no question morale is gradually
being sapped by political debates in Washington." The advisers are also said
to be struggling to prevent the "politicisation" of the surge by
the Shia-dominiated government of Nuri al-Maliki. The fear is that any
security advances may be exploited to further weaken the position of
Baghdad's Sunni minority. Despite progress this week
on a new law sharing Iraq's oil wealth, continuing Shia and Kurdish
opposition to measures to ease the post-invasion de-Ba'athification policy
that excludes Sunnis from many senior posts is proving intractable. The
Petraeus team believes the government is failing to work hard enough to meet
other national reconciliation "benchmarks" set by Mr Bush. Yet it is accepted that the
US is asking the Iraqi prime minister to do what most politicians in normal
circumstances would refuse to contemplate. "What we're doing is asking
Maliki to confront his own powerbase," one officer said. Possibly the biggest
longer-term concern of Gen Petraeus's team is that political will in
Washington may collapse just as the military is on the point of making a
decisive counter-insurgency breakthrough. According to a senior
administration official, speaking this week, this is precisely what happened
in the final year of the Vietnam war. Steven Simon, the national
security council's senior director for transnational threats during the
Clinton administration, said a final meltdown in political and public backing
was likely if the new strategy was not quickly seen to be working. "The
implosion of domestic support for the war will compel the disengagement of US
forces. It is now just a matter of time," Mr Simon said in a paper
written for the Council on Foreign Relations. "Better to withdraw as
a coherent and at least somewhat volitional act than withdraw later in hectic
response to public opposition... or to a series of unexpectedly sharp
reverses on the ground," he said. "If it gets really
tough in the next few months, it will throw fuel on the fire in
Washington," the former official said. "Congress will be emboldened
in direct proportion to the trouble in Iraq." If the policy was not
judged to be working by Labour Day (the first Monday in September, which
marks the start of the new political year), Mr Bush could lose control of the
policy to Congress and be forced to begin a phased pull-out, he suggested. Despite the problems
identified by Gen Petraeus and his advisers, a senior Pentagon official said
this week that it was too early to gauge the strategy's chances of success -
but that preliminary reports were encouraging. "There are some
promising signs. There is a new overall Iraqi commander in Baghdad. A number
of joint operations have just begun. The number of political murders has
fallen. Iraqi forces are showing up as promised, admittedly a little bit
under strength, and are taking up some of the responsibilities that Maliki
said he would," the Pentagon official said. "We have to be
realistic. We're not going to stop the suicide bombers and the roadside
explosive devices for some time. And the military alone are certainly not
going to solve the problem. Maliki has to meet the benchmarks. A civilian
surge is needed, too. The Iraqis have to do it themselves." American officials say they
also have rising hopes of a breakthrough in Sunni-dominated Anbar province
where tribal chiefs are increasingly hostile to al-Qaida terrorists and
foreign jihadis - and are looking for ways to build bridges to moderate
Shias. But this week's US decision to join a dialogue on Iraq with Iran and
Syria, after previously refusing to do so, is neverhteless seen as an indication
of growing administration alarm over the possibility of an historic strategic
failure. Guardian Unlimited ©
Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2023541,00.html |