Iraq and Counterinsurgency, Part Two

A Simplified Introduction to Counterinsurgency
(It's simplified because my study of the subject has been rather basic, not because I doubt the intelligence of anyone who might be reading this. )

For whatever reason, the Iraq war was based on plans for a conventional war with no proper planning for the aftermath--though there were fragmented efforts to plan for the post-war situation, they were not coordinated and the plans were not developed to a point where they could be implemented. Thus, on the heels of the rapid assault and taking of Baghdad, there was widespread looting, the borders were not controlled, large caches of weapons were not secured and, aside from certain urban areas, large sections of the country were not occupied or controlled. Because there was no countrywide strategy to secure the peace, individual commanders in different portions of the country wound up winging it. Some, like Gen. David Petraeus, were successful in keeping the momentum going by establishing security and developing good relations with the Iraqi people. Unfortunately, the majority of commanders on the ground did not have Petraeus's training in counterinsurgency and wound up either doing too little and leaving a power vacuum or acting too aggressively, alienating the population and fomenting the nascent insurgency.

The over-arching aim of a counter insurgent strategy is to defeat the insurgency, not to kill the insurgents--depending upon the way you do it, for every insurgent you kill you may be creating another two insurgents down the line. "In counterinsurgency, the battlespace isn't physical, it's psychological. The battle is for the people." (Fiasco, p. 250). Broken down to its most basic elements, the counterinsurgency force must first secure and gain control of the population and then win over their hearts and minds. Unless you win the support of the population by giving them a secure and stable place to live, eventually they are going to throw their support behind the insurgency if the insurgents are local and your force is foreign.

The U.S. did not have a coherent counterinsurgency approach at the beginning and certainly not as the insurgency began to grow, become more organized and develop into a real threat. This happened because the Bush administration was unwilling to recognize it as an insurgency and therefore did not adapt their strategy and tactics. It also happened because the commanders on the ground were not trained in counterinsurgency, aside from the few exceptions such as Petraeus. Even more so, the "boots on the ground," the U.S. military personnel who were interacting with Iraqis on a daily basis, were not trained in counterinsurgency and so even if there had been the desire and plan from above to address the insurgency, those who would carry out the plans were not prepared to do so. This IS NOT the responsibility of the individual soldiers and marines--they were trained for a conventional war and that is how they fought the war. But neither the civilian leadership nor the military leadership were prepared for events on the ground and so the personnel on the ground were not prepared for it either.

According to the U.S. military, there are several hallmarks of successful counterinsurgency practice. There must be unity of command, focus on the needs and security of the population, amnesty and rehabilitation for insurgents and Special Forces advisers must be embedded with indigenous forces. On the other hand, an unsuccessful counterinsurgency will emphasize killing/capturing the enemy rather than engaging the population, military forces are concentrated in large bases for protection, adviser effort is a low priority and Special Forces are focused on raiding and borders remain open. (Taken from "Best Practices in Counterinsurgency" available at: http://www.usgcoin.org/docs1/MilitaryReview_2005-May-Jun.pdf )

How U.S. Efforts have Measured Up

Unfortunately, we haven't done so well in following these guidelines in Iraq. Unity of command is considered essential in any war and even more so in a counterinsurgency--command has been bifurcated at best from the start in Iraq. From the beginning, many decisions were made by the civilian administration (troop levels, etc.) rather than the military leadership. Once we got in country, some decisions were still being made by the civilians back home, some were made by civilian leadership in Iraq (Jay Garner, Paul Bremer (Coalition Provisional Authority or CPA), or the various incarnations of the Iraqi government) and there was no Iraqi strategy but rather individual tactics employed by various commanders on the ground. Thus, military decisions that should have been based on events in Iraq were influenced by political considerations in the U.S., ideological visions of what a new Iraq should look like in the eyes of the CPA, and sectarian interests of the Iraqi government. There was fragmentation of command rather than unity and as a result, there was no consistency in how the initial post-invasion period was approached across the country.

The U.S. should have focused their strategy and tactics on the needs and security of the population. However, because of the light force used for the lightning march to Baghdad, there were not enough troops to secure the rest of the country--the invading force passed through the country rather than securing it as they went. This allowed the insecurity and looting of the initial period of the war and lost critical support among Iraqis. Compounding this, when Bremer instituted his de-Baathificiation policy and dissolved the Iraqi military, he alienated the part of the population most able to run things and provide security and instead created a huge body of disgruntled and unemployed people who were primed to join the insurgency. Far from providing amnesty and rehab for insurgents and giving them hope if they bought into the new government, these policies only made matters worse. The de-Baath policies approved in Washington apparently only affected the top several layers of bureaucracy, rather than Bremer's approach and before Bremer took over, a plan was all but finalized to keep the Iraqi army intact for the most part with funds set aside for payroll. But Bremer implemented his own de-Baath and dissolution plans rather than following these more moderate policies. As time went by, the U.S. military concentrated their forces on large bases, keeping them separate from the Iraqi population and this caused further problems as the military presence raced from point to point in convoys and conducted isolated raids and sweeps after which they returned to their bases rather than exercising a calming effect by being integrated into the population. Concentrating the new government in the Green Zone, whether led by the U.S. early on or the Iraqis later, is the most egregious example of this.

The final point is the use of Special Forces in Iraq. Special Forces are the only military personnel who are trained to create and advise indigenous forces. Many of them are multi-lingual and, as seen in Afghanistan, one of their primary purposes is creating local forces capable of putting a local face on military efforts (there were other problems there which I will not address at this point). The U.S. outsourced the training of the Iraqi army (and later police) to private contractors for the most part, while some training was conducted by National Guard units. The contractors were more interested in playing a numbers game, of passing Iraqis through training quickly--they had no vested interest in quality training even if they had been capable of providing it. As a result, over the first couple of years as much as one half of the trained Iraqi soldiers would desert after being deployed. Members of our National Guard have no training in such efforts and so despite their good will and conscientious work, they were not equipped to do the task assigned them. Further, Special Forces operatives who were deployed to work with the civilian population were given an almost impossible task as the conventional efforts of the military units in their sectors would so antagonize the local population that building of relations became extremely difficult.

As you can see from this brief summary, on these benchmarks of what counterinsurgency efforts should look like, the U.S. efforts in Iraq uniformly missed the mark. There are other things that should have been done and other things that were done poorly or done in a counterproductive manner, but rather than turn this posting into a book I will leave it at this point. The next installment of this series will look at "The New Way Forward" in Iraq as proposed by President Bush and whether or not this can be successful.