How Should the US Have Handled the Iraq War?

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

The recent elections made me wonder about how we should have handled the aftermath of the invasion. There was apparently little to no actual planning done for what we were going to do once we had toppled the government.

We effectively shut down the country during the war--everything from water and electricity to health care services. In the past, when the US invaded a country, we generally tried to set the country up to run itself, like we did with the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico (let's ignore for a moment the disaster the first two became and the Imperialist purposes behind all the actions).
The US built infrastructure, tried straighten out their trade, set up health and education systems, and so on, in all three cases.

After the invasion was over and as successful as it was going to get, nothing like that really happened. The health care system deteriorated, there's a zillion orphans and refugees, and we've done very little to assist Iraqis in rebuilding their country. What we've tried as frequently failed.

Should we have done something more for rebuilding? The world is a very different place now than it was in the early 20th century, so was such a plan even feasible?

[beagle]

A good book to read on this is "Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq" by Rory Stewart.

The impression I got was that the Coalition forces (or at least their political masters, if not the State Department/Foreign Office) expected to be received like the liberators of Paris in WWII, and that consequently believed any rebuilding would be a cooperative exercise, instead of being carried out under fire. Even with poor advanced planning a lot of rebuilding could have been done quickly if civilian contractors were safe.

In fact the percentage of the country longing for Western style liberal democracy was both small and ineffectual, and even that fraction didn't want it imposed from outside. The real power in the country was held by competing local chiefs(one held the diesel concessions, one the truck dealerships and so on) all of whom were jockeying for position. Rebuilding was only going to be easy if done with general local consent (and there would still be imported religious extremists).

Should we have done something more for rebuilding? The world is a very different place now than it was in the early 20th century, so was such a plan even feasible?

For rebuilding you need stability.

I guess there are four options.


1  Don't intervene in the first place.

2  Use the old Roman/British imperial techniques of just inserting another level of management above the existing local kings/chiefs (and turning a blind eye to their excesses). Then come down hard on disputes between middle-managers. Not really appropriate for the modern era.

3  Use huge amounts of cash to make the local power-brokers want to be compliant with your goals for the country. (e.g. the Marshall Plan and steering Europe away from communism).

4  Use massive force and the appearance of being prepared to rule forever to make whatever changes you want to happen appear inevitable. (e.g British Empire and the abolition of slavery).


I guess the U.S. has used a mixture of 3 and 4, but been undermined by the knowledge that its voters want out, and don't picture themselves as imperial masters (even temporarily, to impose democracy).  The high level of Iraqi civilian casualties eventually got round this and enabled more of the old-fashioned 4 type behaviour in the surge.

I guess there are all sorts of deeper questions about setting up central government in riven tribal societies with no history of a non-corrupt civil service.  We're grateful in Britain (I think ) that the Romans did it to us, but is it an inevitable sign of progress?

[Swatopluk]

The State Department had detailed plans but Rumsfeld strictly forbade any use of those (and allegedly even threatened to fire anyone mentioning them).

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

For what I read and heard the two critical 'mistakes' were using a too small force to take control of a population of 30 million people, and the disband of the army right after the invasion. The one compounded the other, amplified the chaos and looting after the invasion and fed a resistance movement with members of the army.

As beagle points out there is a chance that regardless of those two (and many other misconceptions, mismanagement, and outright cronyism on the part of the Bus[c]h government), the result would have been essentially the same.

Even if we believe in good intentions as the motivation for the invasion (and I definitively don't), the whole enterprise is a lesson on why removing a dictator isn't always a good idea, why you must understand the basic culture before you assume a particular behavior on part of the population, and why past results (like the embrace of democracy by the iron curtain countries after the fall of communism) do NOT relate to future results.

As a thought exercise, imagine what would happen if Robert Mugabe is removed from power tomorrow, what would take to do so, and what would be the cost not only in money, but in lives.

[Kaliayev]

Disbanding the army was a massive mistake, possibly the largest.  It essentially created the Sunni insurgency.  The second largest was disbanding the Ba'ath party.  Yes, the upper level members did need to be caught and stuck in a cell, but the fact is, in a one party state, all the clever and knowledgeable officials are going to be a member of...well, even Bush should have been able to figure that one out.

The mercenaries should have been told to stay in the Green Zone from the start.  People thought they were CIA...or Mossad.  It created a very bad impression, especially with their lax ROE.

More troops, full stop.

Different rules for how to interact with locals.  US and British troops distrusted locals from the start, they didn't engage with them and in many cases did not even speak the language.  No-one's going to risk their necks for people they don't care about.

Infrastructure repair being outsourced.  This was compounded by the insurgency, but bringing in outside companies to do the work gave more targets to the insurgents and helped increase the Iraqi unemployment problem.

Focus should have been placed on phase 4 of operations, that is the post-war reconstruction period.  Saddam's armed forces were a paper tiger and everyone knew it.  More so, experience in other modern war zones (Bosnia, Chechnya etc) has repeatedly suggested that the real fight starts once the official troops fade away.  In Chechnya, the rebels allowed the Russians to seize the towns, then turned them into shooting galleries once the occupation had started and their guard was down.  But of course, the Russian army was crewed by misfits, idiots and corrupt ex-Soviet generals and that would never happen to a real modern army, surely?

And of course, the obvious solution beyond all that is don't invade places unless its necessary.  Not only is that a far more ethically suitable approach, it also means you'll be doing a lot more to make sure you win when you do go to war.  Wars of choice are stupid wars, because they arise out of the luxury of options and thus are not treated as seriously by the political leadership of the time.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

And of course, the obvious solution beyond all that is don't invade places unless its necessary.  Not only is that a far more ethically suitable approach, it also means you'll be doing a lot more to make sure you win when you do go to war.  Wars of choice are stupid wars, because they arise out of the luxury of options and thus are not treated as seriously by the political leadership of the time.

My signature in some other place use to read:

    "Violence is the diplomacy of the incompetent"

Asimov had it all figured out.

[Kaliayev]

Indeed.  Though it should be pointed out a well known Corsican general would probably reply:

"If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots."