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Unlike allegations that the Bush Administration knowingly deceived the American people about Iraq's possession of WMD, the charge that the administration failed to properly plan for the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq cannot be dismissed as mere partisanship. While Democrats have every reason to highlight the early mistakes and Republicans have reason to downplay them, there seems to be a growing consensus that the entire affair was poorly planned and managed.
The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq
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In the months leading to the invasion of Iraq, George Packer writes, "a who's who of foreign policy and military think tanks," including the Rand Corporation, the Army War College, the United States Institute of Peace, and the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies, produced reports that "were striking for their unanimity of opinion. Security and reconstruction in postwar Iraq would require large numbers of troops for an extended period, and international cooperation would be essential." None of these, Packer observes, seems to have penetrated the Oval Office, nor did similar warnings and assessments from frustrated military experts inside the Pentagon, particularly the office of Stability and Peace Operations, or from the State Department's "Future of Iraq Project."
Even a figure as influentially placed as Marine General Anthony Zinni, Gen. Tommy Franks' predecessor at U.S. Central Command, was ignored after urging CENTCOM to dust off Operation Desert Crossing, an on-the-shelf plan for reconstruction following regime change in Iraq. The litany of missed opportunities continues with a rebuffed bipartisan offer of assistance from the conservative Heritage Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, organized by the Council on Foreign Relations. Finally, Packer reminds us of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's testimony before Congress, in which Shinseki concluded that, based on his experience in the Balkans, postwar Iraq would require "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers." In return for this forthright but unwelcome assessment, for which he was publicly rebuked by Paul Wolfowitz, Shinseki was sent into early retirement.
In short, there was no shortage of well-informed observers inside and outside the government who believed that providing security and reconstruction in post-Saddam Iraq would be a most arduous task requiring, among other things, substantially higher troop levels than would be needed to destroy the regime. Given these warnings and assessments, the most prudent course would have been to hope for the best and plan for the worst. And yet, as Packer reminds us, by mid-February 2003, only a month before the invasion, "it was becoming clear to people paying attention that the administration wasn't remotely prepared for dealing with post war Iraq."
I can confirm the rising frustration of many within the defense and national security establishment. We were quite confident that we were going to war, but were increasingly frustrated that, as one senior military officer put it at a planning meeting in early 2003, Phase IV (the military term for postwar peace and security operations) was a "big black hole." As Packer summarizes it, "Plan A was that the Iraqi government would be quickly decapitated, security would be turned over to remnants of the Iraqi police and army, international troops would soon arrive, and most American forces would leave within a few months. There was no Plan B."
At the time, I found it all a bit puzzling. How could it be that those most committed to a vision of a democratic and stable Iraq, those most committed to Iraq's central role in the broader strategic vision for the war against Islamic extremism, those most committed to the Bush Doctrine, and thus those most vulnerable to criticism if the situation became unglued, simply ignored these ample warnings and proceeded undisturbed with their unrealistically optimistic scenarios? Packer's book helps to unravel the mystery.
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