The Mistake Filled War

Having followed the testimony this week of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, one is tempted to indulge in a lot of thinking about what could have been or what should have been. Retrospect is a perfect perch for doing that, of course, and critcisms now of mistakes made at the beginning is much easier than forseeing what will occur.

Like probably most Americans (and almost all the current opponents of the war) I was in favor from the start. Saddam Hussein needed to be deposed, and an American invasion was needed to do so. Also like most Americans, I assumed that appropriate intelligence and war planning would take place before an invasion. As did many, I fell for the "slam dunk" quote from CIA Chief George Tenet even though I did not particularly trust him. As we have found, that was a mistaken assumption on my (our) part.

Clearly, contingency planning was not in place for an occupation, particularly one with an active and deadly guerrilla insurgency. The invasion was done on the cheap, with bad intelligence and far too few troops. (I am pretty certain that this was the subject matter of the dispute between Colin Powell and Rumsfeld so there was probably another side presented to the President. He picked the wrong side if that is what occurred.)

Even after it became clear that was the case, our leaders stonewalled and spinned the reports in order to maintain a policy that was obviously a failure. This went on for over three years, with lives and time and treasure wasted because the government could not or would not admit error, and make appropriate changes in strategy and tactics.

The three years were critical. During that period, Americans became impatient. The public saw a drumbeat of negative news from the war zone, with hardly any of the positive things that were happening being reported in the media. The negatives (and there were many) were emphasized by the media, Hollywood, and the Left. The anti-war movement got stronger, and the American Left started forcefully opposing the war and agitating for an immediate timeline for withdrawal. Even many that favored the war changed positions, and now are pushing hard for our forces to retreat.

After the 2006 elections, when the Democrats won control of Congress at least partly on an anti-war platform, the Bush Administration finally awakened and made the changes that should have been made years earlier. Rumsfeld was let go and new strategy, tactics and rules of engagement were put in place. Another 30,000 troops were surged into the battle zones, and were finally in place in June of 2007.

Now, three months after the surge battle operations actually started, the new men in charge have been home for a progress report. The report, of course, has been mixed. The military portion of the new strategy is showing some success, but is not over. On the political side, there is less (or no) progress, but Ambassador Crocker maintains that with time, that will improve.

How much time? That is hard to tell. Even steadfast Republicans are beginning to get very nervous at the anti-war sentiment in the country, but it appears that there will be a slight consensus for following the recommendations of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. This means that we will probably have over 100,000 troops in Iraq at the end of Bush's term. Then it will be up to whomever succeeds Bush to deal with the situation. That is when it will get interesting.

Where do I stand? I think we should give the new strategy a chance to succeed, but also plan for what must be done if it does not. We cannot leave the field to Iran under any circumstances.