Share This PageFrom Vietnam to 9/11
John P. Murtha with John Plashal
Epilogue
From Vietnam to 9/11 was initially published well before the war in Iraq. When I was informed that the book would be published in paperback form, I felt it appropriate to include an epilogue on the Iraq war and its aftermath.
During the past eighteen months, I have traveled to Iraq and nearby countries on three occasions to conduct inspections and assessments. I have a number of concerns regarding the central policy issues involved in this momentous foreign policy crisis: intelligence failures, our preemptive strike policy, the excessive tempo of operations for our troops, the inadequate equipment provided for them, our allocation of resources in the global war against terrorism, and the potential obstacles to the Bush administration’s goal of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. My observations are based on extensive conversations with military leaders and the troops in Iraq, intelligence briefings, congressional hearings, and discussions with experts and scholars on the Middle East.
Background
After the end
of the Cold War, national defense policy was set,
to some extent, on an ad hoc basis as we responded
to crises in Somalia and the Balkans and tried to
make breakthroughs in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Neither political party paid significant
attention to the other threats that some of us saw
as more probable and more
dangerous—terrorism and the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction—or to the need
for enhanced homeland security. As I noted in
Chapter 10, when I traveled to Texas prior to
President Bush’s inauguration, I urged him
to make nuclear nonproliferation and
counterterrorism the centerpieces of his
administration’s defense strategy. Despite
this advice—and the warnings contained in
the prophetic study on the terrorist threat
written by former senators Gary Hart and Warren
Rudman, the increases above the budget approved by
Congress to counter terrorism, and the proposal by
some in Congress to form a Department of Homeland
Security—terrorism was basically not on the
radar screen of most Americans or of the new
administration.
When President Bush took office, his administration’s national security policy emphasized ballistic missile defense, saw China as our chief future adversary, and rejected Clinton’s approach of “constructive engagement” in foreign policy. Most notably, it left Israel and the Palestinians to fend for themselves. Any policy option that sounded even remotely like “nation building” or “peacekeeping” was discredited. This perspective on America’s national security interests, of course, underwent a 180-degree change on September 11, 2001, when the country experienced what some had been predicting: terrorist attacks on our soil. The perpetrators struck at the very heart of our society and showed their determination to use every means at their disposal to disrupt our way of life and counter our geopolitical interests. The dramatic events of that day cleared away all the haze in the debate about defense policy. The American people rightly understood that terrorism, and the potential use of unconventional weapons against us, was the number one threat.
In the wake of 9/11, the United States conducted a decisive war to overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, where a safe haven for Osama bin Laden and training camps for his al-Qaeda operatives had been established. The administration made an irrefutable case for toppling the Taliban regime: we had been attacked, Afghanistan was the home base of our enemy, and there was broad international support for our going to war.
In 2002, however, the administration began a steady “drumbeat” of publicity regarding the threat posed by Iraq. This drumbeat included weekly appearances on television and radio talk shows by administration spokespersons, testimony by numerous administration witnesses before congressional committees, and press interviews by key administration personnel. On October 5, 2002, in his weekly radio address, for example, President Bush remarked, “The danger to America from the Iraqi regime is grave and growing.” Two days later he stated, “Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today—and we do—does it make any sense for the world to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?” Regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice argued, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud over America.”
A massive U.S. troop buildup in the Middle East was initiated to confront the Iraqi regime. Pressure against Saddam Hussein began escalating steadily, threatening Iraq with severe consequences if it did not disarm as called for in a UN Security Council resolution. With information provided to the Congress by administration witnesses as well as other factors, such as Saddam Hussein’s past history of attacking neighboring countries and his programs to develop and produce chemical and biological weapons (which he had used against Iran and his own people), the House and Senate passed a resolution authorizing the use of force to remove Hussein from power. I voted for the resolution. On March 7, 2003, the United States, Britain, and Spain proposed ordering Hussein to give up banned weapons by March 17 or face war. Ten days later, the same three countries declared that the time for diplomacy was over. They withdrew the resolution after it became apparent that the UN Security Council would not adopt it. On March 17, President Bush issued a forty-eight-hour ultimatum: Hussein and his two sons had to leave Iraq. The invasion began on March 20.
A rapid and effective military campaign was launched. Just six weeks later, on May 1, the President declared the end of major military combat operations. A cruel tyrant no longer oppressed the citizens of Iraq. But in the wake of a quick military victory, a number of unsettling issues arose concerning the aftermath of the war in Iraq.
Intelligence
Anyone who has read the Preface to this book
will understand how crucial I believe the role of
intelligence to be in the conduct of foreign
affairs and in the policy making that leads to any
decision to deploy America’s armed forces.
The points I made there are very relevant to the
events surrounding the Iraq war and should be in
the forefront of the minds of American leaders. As
I put it, “the way we go about collecting,
analyzing, and using intelligence information is
one of the most important determinants of our
success or failure in world events. Unfortunately,
it is a lesson we have had to relearn too often,
at a heavy price in American blood and
treasure.”
Much has been written about the various intelligence failures surrounding the Iraq war. First of all, let me underscore the obvious successes. The national and tactical intelligence systems for the actual invasion—e.g., knowing the positions of enemy tanks, the locations of Iraq’s key command and control centers, and the most effective way of attacking them during the invasion—performed extremely well, just as they had years earlier, during the Persian Gulf War.
Despite these achievements, though, there were many mistakes. Congressional hearings have investigated these failures in great detail, questioning the lack of timely data providing the targets for the initial air strikes that were supposed to take out Saddam Hussein and his sons, the nonexistent uranium contracts (when Iraq was supposedly buying uranium in Africa), and the absence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the administration’s own chief weapons inspector, David Kay, stated that “we were all wrong” about the weapons of mass destruction. And as of this writing, there is no proven connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda during his presidency. Regarding these and other intelligence failures surrounding the Iraq war and its aftermath, it is not yet clear whether the intelligence reports themselves were largely faulty or whether senior officials may have “cherry-picked” nuggets from a variety of intelligence reports in order to reach their preconceived conclusions. What is certain is that intelligence must always be used as a tool of statecraft, not as a political tool.
I cannot emphasize enough that “intelligence” means much more than the accumulation and interpretation of classified reports developed from input derived from top secret reconnaissance satellites, communication intercepts, tactical intelligence reconnaissance systems, and HUMINT—i.e., spying by human agents. In a broader sense, intelligence must obviously include a deep understanding of the complexities, the social dynamics, and the ethnic diversity of the countries with which we interact or in which we intervene, as well as the potential of those factors to affect America’s policy objectives and military missions favorably or adversely. In a television interview with Jim Lehrer, Kay underscored this point, saying,
“The strange thing, Jim, is this isn’t the first time we failed to understand what is going on in a society. You can go back to the Second World War. We missed what was going on in Germany under strategic bombing. Much more recently . . . when the Soviet Union fell, this giant, this superpower, . . . we suddenly discovered we had a basket case on our hands. They couldn’t feed their own people. It was falling apart. In Vietnam . . . we misread Vietnamese society as well.
“We are not very good as a nation in our intelligence capability at reading the most fundamental secrets of a society, what are its capabilities, what are its intentions? You can’t photograph those.”
A classic case of our government’s underestimating the realities of a country where we intervened militarily (albeit mainly through proxies) was the CIA’s program to train and equip guerrillas to invade Cuba in 1962, a few years after Fidel Castro had taken over Cuba and imposed a communist dictatorship. The CIA assured the Kennedy administration that once the guerrillas landed on Cuban soil, a massive uprising by the Cuban people to overthrow Castro would occur. Instead, the invasion was a fiasco, and there was no uprising.
Elsewhere in this book, I have touched on several instances in which America intervened militarily when we had a very rudimentary knowledge of the social complexities and diversity of the culture and little knowledge of how those factors would affect the goals of our military mission. In some cases, that lack of knowledge and understanding played an important role in events that led up to a failed policy. Lebanon and Somalia are just two examples of our misreading what our troops would face when they were deployed. And in the Balkans, we confronted a very steep learning curve regarding our involvement in that enormously complicated region of the world.
In Iraq, the Bush administration assumed that our troops would be greeted with open arms. And one week after the war had begun, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz addressed the postwar costs of rebuilding Iraq in an appearance before the House Appropriations Committee. He asserted, “There is a lot of money to pay for this. . . . It doesn’t have to be taxpayers’ money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” Thus on three key issues—the postwar environment our troops would face, the cost of the postwar occupation, and the presence of weapons of mass destruction—the information provided to Congress and to the American people turned out to be wrong.
I noted earlier that intelligence failures fall into two categories. In the first, the intelligence agencies get it wrong and provide bad information to decision makers. In the second, intelligence personnel and policy planners make accurate assessments and recommendations, but the architects of the policy do not listen to them. The case of postwar Iraq belongs to the latter category. It has been widely documented that the State Department and the Army, in particular, performed extensive and detailed planning for the postwar events in Iraq. Those studies foresaw the very challenging environment facing our troops.
Indeed, before the war had even begun, a study group at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, concluded in part that “long term gratitude is unlikely and suspicions of U.S. motives will increase as the occupation continues. A force initially viewed as liberators can rapidly be relegated to the status of invaders should an unwelcome occupation continue for a prolonged time. Occupation problems may be especially acute if the United States must implement the bulk of the occupation itself rather than turn these duties over to a postwar international force.” Similarly, David Reiff wrote, “What went wrong is that the voices of Iraq experts of the State Department almost in its entirety and indeed, of important segments of the uniformed military, were ignored. As much as the invasion of Iraq and the rout of Saddam Hussein and his army was a triumph of planning and implementation, the mess that is postwar Iraq is a failure of planning and implementation.” And in an article in Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows commented on the extensive planning that took place and the issues dealt with by the civilian government officials and military officials who warned about the challenges of the postwar environment when they researched the probable environment we would face in postwar Iraq. Fallows observed, “Almost everything, good and bad, that has happened in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime was the subject of extensive pre-war discussions and analysis. This is particularly true of what have proved to be the harshest realities for the United States since the fall of Baghdad: that occupying the country is much more difficult than conquering it; that a breakdown of public order can jeopardize every other goal; that the ambition of patiently nurturing a new democracy is at odds with the desire to turn control over to the Iraqis quickly and get U.S. troops out; that the Sunni center of the country is the main security problem; that with each passing day Americans risk being seen less as liberators and more as occupiers, and targets.”
Despite these voluminous studies and warnings by our own experts in the government and military about the challenge of the postwar environment, the chief architects of the policy to invade Iraq preferred to believe the soothing assurances of Iraqi expatriates, who had been living abroad for decades but convinced some in the administration that the postwar period would be a walk in the park. Beyond the issue of that mistake, though, are the implications for future foreign policy decisions potentially based on the doctrine of the “preemptive strike.”
Preemptive Strike
The
framework rationalizing the strategy for invading
Iraq appears in a twenty-one-page document
entitled The National Security Strategy of the
United States of America, which presents a
justification for unilateral intervention by the
United States. There is a logic and simplicity at
the heart of the document that could be described
as “Get the bad guys before they get
you.” In the case of Afghanistan,
America’s decision to invade was faultless.
Osama bin Laden was funding terrorist training
camps in Afghanistan, and not only had his
followers attacked America but he also had vowed
continued attacks on America itself and American
interests around the world.
But in the case of Iraq, we now know that it posed no imminent danger, no threat to our nation’s core interests. Moreover, our having a preemptive strike policy at the center of our doctrine for intervening militarily in other countries marks a transition to a foreign policy at odds with our entire history. Invading without a clear indication that our core national interests are threatened violates one of my fundamental principles for going to war. In any future crisis, an administration making a case for a preemptive strike must present totally reliable—dare I say almost perfect—intelligence. Considering the faulty intelligence we had regarding Iraq, it is clear that the world (and indeed the American public) will be very skeptical of future interventions whose rationales rely heavily on evidence from America’s intelligence community.
In his interview with Jim Lehrer, David Kay also noted that “our credibility . . . as a nation is what allows us to cooperate with others and influence others towards our own ends. If they doubt the honesty and the objectivity of what we’re saying, we’re going to be in a world of hurt.” Forty-three years ago, the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles on Cuban territory. President Kennedy sent former secretary of state Dean Acheson to brief key foreign leaders on the threat this posed to America and to ask for their support of an American policy to ensure the missiles’ removal. Acheson briefed French president Charles de Gaulle and asked for his support in this grave crisis. At the end of his briefing, Acheson advised de Gaulle that he had photographic evidence of the Soviet weapons. De Gaulle responded, “I do not need to see the photographs. The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me.” Sadly, such confidence in our leadership is now a thing of the past. The word of the United States is no longer held in such high regard, and we have lost international credibility.
Excessive Tempo of Operations
While it will take a long time to sort out the
causes of our intelligence failures and to develop
policies and programs to rectify them, another
effect of the events in Iraq is very quantifiable
and is already reaching crisis proportions: our
troops are spread too thin because of
America’s current extensive global
commitments. The Iraq war and its aftermath have
caused an enormous strain on our armed forces
personnel. This issue is of vital importance,
because if our forces continue to be overextended,
we will quickly see an erosion of morale,
retention, and recruitment. This would seriously
hollow out the quality of our future armed forces.
We must focus on whether the United States has a
force structure sufficient to carry out the Bush
administration’s strategy of placing such
heavy emphasis on the manpower-intensive polices
of peacekeeping and nation building
The history of nation building during the past decade—Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo—does not suggest that it can be accomplished swiftly or inexpensively. As Carl Bildt wrote, “In 2003 we learned again that it is far easier to win a war than to build a peace. To destroy regimes is relatively easy; many even do it to themselves. But to build new and stable ones is extraordinarily demanding. There are no quick fixes, early exits or purely military solutions.” There have been successful nation-building efforts in the last sixty years in the aftermath of past wars, such as those in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. To a very large extent, however, these countries had a homogeneous populace, which contributed to the stability of the postwar environment. By comparison, Iraq’s populace is heterogeneous, comprising Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites. Iraq’s multiethnic nature and ancient religious and ethnic strife ensure that realizing America’s objectives will take a very long time. (The ancient rivalries among the warlords and clans in Afghanistan are also foreboding in terms of the future of nation building there. History suggests that in the aftermath of U.S. military intervention, the length of U.S. military presence and financial assistance will most likely be measured in decades, not months or years.)
Two months prior to the war, Paul Wolfowitz stated, “First—and this is really the overarching principle—the United States seeks to liberate Iraq, not occupy Iraq. . . . If the president should decide to use force, let me assure you again that the United States would be committed to liberating the people of Iraq, not becoming an occupation force.” Months after the war, though, when reality set in, L. Paul Bremer—the head of U.S. operations in Iraq—said, “As long as we’re here, we are the occupying power. It’s a very ugly word, but it’s true.”
I believe an imbalance between our military’s infrastructure (especially personnel levels) and the Bush administration’s foreign policy has already occurred. The commitment of U.S. troops deployed abroad puts a strain on personnel levels well beyond the actual number deployed. In addition to the enormous number of troops needed to provide logistical support for our deployed troops, many national intelligence programs must direct personnel and resources to assist in the support and operations of the deployed force. Finally, because the deployed troops must be rotated, other troops must simultaneously train stateside, preparing to replace the deployed troops. The reality is that large segments of America’s force structure—especially the Army and the Reserve—are considerably strained just in conducting the current deployments for any prolonged period.
Army
As of this writing, the total deployment of
active and Army Reserve/National Guard forces in
Iraq and the nearby region stands at about
135,000. There is, of course, a massive logistics,
intelligence, and communications infrastructure in
the region to support the force in Iraq, including
17,000 troops in Kuwait. The unwillingness of so
many other countries to send sizeable forces for
the postwar peacekeeping operation puts additional
strain on our forces.
At the time of peak deployment to Iraq and the region, 73 percent of the Army’s active combat forces were deployed either in the Middle East, Korea, or Afghanistan. Other peacekeeping missions are also ongoing, especially in the Balkans. Additionally, a large commitment of American armed forces remains in Europe. In the words of General Eric Shinseki, the former army chief of staff, the administration has a twelve-division foreign policy but only a ten-division force structure.
National Guard and
Reserve
As noted in Chapter 6
above, the National Guard and the Reserve have
played a central role in America’s national
security policy for many years, especially since
1973. In that year, the Department of Defense
implemented the Total Force policy, which involved
integrating the Guard and Reserve into the war
plans of the active forces: “As a ready
source of manpower, Guard and Reserve men and
women are a bargain. They number more than 1.2
million and allow the nation to nearly double its
armed forces if necessary while accounting for
just 8.3% of the defense budget.”
From the end of World War II until 1989—almost half a century—there were only four activations of the Guard and Reserve. In the last fourteen years, however, they have been mobilized six times. The following statistics put this into perspective.
• Since the
Cold War began to unwind in 1989, the Selected
Reserve (those reservists and Guard personnel who
train regularly and are mobilized for situations
such as the Iraq war) has been reduced from about
1,200,000 to under 900,000—a 25 percent
reduction.
• In the Persian Gulf War,
about one out of five American troops came from
the Reserve and the National Guard.
•
In the Iraq war, reservists and Guard personnel
deployed to the region made up the highest
percentage of deployed troops in any U.S. military
campaign in modern history.
• U.S.
troops serving in Iraq for yearlong tours of duty
were replaced by new troops by May 2004. Now, 40
percent of the Army troops deployed to Iraq are
from the National Guard and Reserve.
•
Since 9/11, more than 400,000 reservists have been
mobilized.
• One out of every two
Marines in the Marine Corps Reserve has been
called to active duty since 9/11.
Many personnel who previously served on active duty volunteer for the Reserve and National Guard after their tour of duty in the active service is complete. As reservists, their commitment would normally involve training one weekend each month as well as two weeks during the year. Many of the military occupational specialties in which large numbers of Reserve units concentrate—military police, civil affairs, transportation, and logistics—are the very specialties needed on a large scale for the administration’s vast peacekeeping and nation-building missions.
The Reserve component has played a key role in recent military operations. Reservists served, and continue to serve, with great distinction in Iraq. We must be very concerned, however, about the effect frequent extended call-ups to active duty will have on morale, recruitment, and retention. As noted above, a significant portion of the men and women who serve in the Reserve enter after finishing their active-duty tour. Some soldiers who are now considering joining the Reserve after completing their active service will have second thoughts, given the increased likelihood that reservists will be mobilized. Simply put, it will be harder for potential reservists to make a commitment to the Reserve and National Guard if many of them believe that they will be activated for extended periods of time. Frequent calls to extended active duty would so interfere with reservists’ long-range personal goals that retention and recruitment could plummet.
With reservists making up an enormous percentage of troops involved in the current conflicts, we must also be concerned about the support systems in place for their families. As a recent article about Guard and Reserve personnel noted, “They work and fight in a military that is taking casualties in places such as Afghanistan, dealing with all the wartime trappings of separation and sorrow. But their spouses and children, who were never part of a self-supporting military culture the way most active-service families are, remain in a civilian world where neighbors and friends have long since put away the flags they flew after 9/11 and are going about their daily lives.”
Indeed, the current widespread use of “stop-loss” orders demonstrates the extent to which large segments of our military already have serious personnel problems. When issued, the stop-loss order can extend the time individuals must remain in the service even though their scheduled time for retirement has arrived or the time they had signed up to serve is complete. As Lee Hockstader put it, “Through a series of stop-loss orders, the Army alone has blocked the possible retirements and departures of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National Guard and reserve members who were eligible to leave the service this year.” Granted, the use of stop-loss orders is an important management tool enabling the services to retain unit cohesion and to keep individuals in vital specialties. Having said that, I have no doubt that the frequent mobilizations, combined with long-term deployments and stop-loss orders, will result in negative recruitment and retention for Reserve personnel. Indeed, this is already happening. In early fiscal year 2004, the Army National Guard announced that it had missed its recruitment goals in fiscal year 2003 by 8,000 personnel, or 15 percent.
A decline in the quality and size of the Guard and Reserve would have an especially adverse effect on our nation’s long-range national security interests. If the massive deployment to Iraq (with the 40 percent Army Reserve component presence) were to continue for a long period of time, and another crisis suddenly erupted, U.S. threats to intervene might ring hollow, especially if that new crisis involved the need for a postwar occupation along with peacekeeping and nation building by American forces. We simply do not have the force structure to conduct such a policy.
Another important policy issue that must be addressed is the fact that many of the Guard and Reserve units sent to Iraq lack the proper training for the missions to which they have been assigned. The experience of a constituent’s son offers an example. After serving in Iraq for more than a year and being extended once, he was all packed and ready to return home when he was suddenly extended for a second time. He was then assigned to ‘‘ride shotgun’’ for contractor supply convoys because the civilian truckers refused to drive without armed military escorts. This reservist had no training for this mission. He didn’t even have basic gear with which to communicate with other security personnel in his own convoys. (By the way, in addition to his service in Iraq, he had been activated a few years earlier and served in Bosnia for ten months.)
Although this soldier personally did not serve at the prison at Abu Ghraib, he told his father about others in his unit who had. It is clear from that account—and others I have heard—that the tragedy at the prison can be partly attributed to chronic shortages in personnel as well as a lack of training and supervision. Most of the unit’s personnel had no formal training in running a prison, and the entire American prison contingent was at half strength, compared to Army standards. This—coupled with the mixed messages coming from the command structure about how much pressure to bring upon these prisoners and what was allowed and not allowed—was a recipe for disaster.
I met with five Egyptian generals who told me that while what was done to the prisoners would be humiliating in any culture, the particular acts perpetrated at Abu Ghraib were especially demeaning to those in Arab and Muslim cultures. One of the generals told me that some were so demeaning that many view the humiliation to be worse than the physical torture. These acts have had far-reaching ramifications across the Muslim world. They have set back America’s reputation and moral standing at the very time when the central focus of the administration’s foreign policy is to spread democracy.
Equipment Shortfalls
I traveled to Iraq in August 2003
to meet on-site with our military and civilian
leaders and assess our operations. Although major
combat had ended several weeks before, U.S. and
allied forces experienced attacks almost daily. My
conversations and briefings addressed a wide range
of topics. What I uncovered is included in the
following letter, which I sent to Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld after I returned.
August 24, 2003
The Honorable Donald
Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
The
Pentagon
Washington, D.C.
Dear
Secretary Rumsfeld:
As you are aware, I
recently returned from travel to the Iraq theater
of operations during which I met with Ambassador
Bremer and our senior military leaders in the
region. In a matter of days, the President will
receive a letter from me outlining my broad
findings, conclusions and recommendations. In the
meantime, however, I want to raise with you
several specific items that I believe require your
immediate attention. In my discussions with our
senior military, I received information about
parts and equipment shortages that are adversely
affecting our troops’ ability to conduct
their mission and provide adequate protection for
themselves and others. These are:
Personnel Protection:
1. Body armor: It
was reported that some 40,000 troops in theater
lack protective Kevlar plates for body armor
vests. Many of the troops I’ve visited in
military hospitals who were wounded in Iraq claim
that these Kevlar plates saved their lives.
2. Portable RF jammers: Remotely controlled radio devices are detonating many of the land mines and bombs being used against our troops. There are several portable radio frequency jammers that have been deployed that serve as an effective counter-measure against this threat. Yet, the Army division patrolling the so-called “Sunni Triangle” has a total of only nine portable jammers, and the 2nd brigade of the division only had one. The division leaders with whom I met reported that these jammers are urgently required for convoy and patrol protection.
3. Kevlar blankets: Division Commanders reported a shortage of Kevlar blankets for the HMMWVs.
Parts Shortages:
1. Bradley
Fighting Vehicles: Of the 140 Bradleys deployed
within the 1st Armored Division in theater, I was
told that some 46 of these personnel carriers had
been “dead-lined” due to lack of
vehicle tracks.
2. HMMWVs: It was reported that roughly 80 of the 1st Armored Division’s HMMWV wheeled vehicles had been taken out of service due to a lack of spare parts. In addition, the Division reported that it is still waiting for 125 “up-armored” HMMWVs.
3. Parts distribution: Perhaps the most troubling information I received regarding spare parts was that in-country distribution problems resulted in a zero balance in 46 percent of the spare parts inventory for the HMMWVs and Bradley fighting vehicles.
Mr. Secretary, I
know you are as concerned as I am about these
shortfalls and the need for a quick resolution.
Sincerely,
Jack Murtha
There have been subsequent improvements. By early
2004, everyone in theater had been provided
protective armor, and the supply of Kevlar
blankets was sufficient. The supply of the radio
frequency jammers has increased, too, but a
shortfall still exists. This low-tech equipment
essential to the safety of our armed forces should
have been available from day one. To some extent,
equipment shortfalls were unavoidable. Having said
that, it must ultimately be determined to what
extent the architects of the war, confident that
we would be widely accepted by the populace after
the war and that our troops would encounter a
relatively benign environment, did not give high
priority to making protective equipment
available.
For a few years, Congress added funds above the Bush administration’s budget request for the procurement of armored Humvees. Armoring the Humvees “helps protect occupants from armor-piercing bullets, mines up to 12 pounds and 155-millimeter artillery blasts overhead.” The administration opposed the increase, but fortunately, because of this congressional intervention, the program went forward—and at least there were some armored Humvees in the Army’s inventory. While production of the armored Humvees was ramped up after the end of major combat operations in Iraq, there is still a serious shortage of them.
The intensity of our operations and the harsh weather conditions in Iraq have placed an additional strain on much of our equipment. In an interview, General Paul Kern of the Army Materiel Command noted that one of the most critical shortages “was track and suspension systems for the Bradley fighting vehicles, which normally run only 800 miles in an average year but are running 1,200 miles per month escorting convoys in Iraq. . . . They are changing track every 60 days when normally they would do that only once a year.” The equipment of our forces in Iraq is being operated at an average of one year’s worth of “optempo”—i.e., the tempo of operations—every seven or eight weeks. Bringing this equipment back to full operational capability will carry an enormous cost. As Joseph L. Galloway noted in an article in the Miami Herald, “The Army’s chief logistics and materiel commanders said that although they try to prepare for the worst, few saw any need for 130,000 troops in Iraq this long after the war, and no one anticipated that mines and rocket-propelled grenade attacks would require Bradley Fighting Vehicles to escort every convoy running from Kuwait into Iraq.”
Allocation of Resources in the War on
Terror
In setting a national
security strategy, communicating that strategy to
the public, and analyzing alternative proposals to
national security policies, leaders must, first
and foremost, view matters through the lens of the
threat. What is the primary threat to
America’s national security? How do we best
protect ourselves from that threat? What resources
should we allocate to which programs in order to
counter the threat in the most cost-effective
manner? If we step back from the rhetoric of the
war on terrorism and dispassionately analyze the
question of the most cost-effective way to counter
the terrorist threat, we realize, first, the
immense cost of the war in Iraq and the postwar
occupation and nation building. These expenditures
dwarf those of the budgets of all of the other
programs in place to fight terrorism. The
Department of Homeland Security, which combined
the operations of twenty-two federal agencies, has
a proposed budget of approximately $40 billion for
the next fiscal year. Our nation’s safety
absolutely depends on this agency’s carrying
out its mission. Juxtaposed with its budget is the
funding (thus far) of about $150 billion for the
invasion, occupation, and economic reconstruction
of Iraq. A supplemental appropriation bill in the
range of $50 billion will likely be requested for
operations in Iraq for the ensuing months. In
other words, the projected $200 billion to be
spent on Iraq represents five times the total
annual budget of the Department of Homeland
Security.
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, the document mentioned earlier, reads in part: “Enemies in the past needed great armies and great industrial capabilities to endanger America. Now shadowy networks of individuals can bring chaos and suffering to our shores for less than it costs to purchase a single tank. Terrorists are able to penetrate open societies and to turn the power of modern technologies against us.” Budgeting resources and allocating personnel to counter these low-cost terrorist threats effectively while simultaneously spending vast sums on the war in Iraq and its aftermath presents an enormous fiscal challenge—to say nothing of the strain on the personnel, budgets, and equipment of our armed forces.
While there is a deep division among the American people about the war in Iraq, I believe there would be overwhelming public support for the Bush administration’s Iraq policy if our citizens believed that the war was driving a stake into the heart of al-Qaeda and eliminating potential future terrorist attacks on America and American global interests. But at a joint news conference in 2003, President Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair were asked if there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. President Bush stated, “I can’t make that claim,” and the prime minister concurred.
On Sunday, December 13, 2003, we woke up to the great news that Saddam Hussein had been captured the day before. One of the world’s most vile dictators, a man who had so frequently strutted in a macho fashion before his people and the world, meekly surrendered as he crawled out from a hole dug in the dirt in a hut near Tikrit, Iraq, his ancestral home. Radio and television stations announced the news that morning, but the story had broken too late for the Sunday morning newspapers to cover. Interestingly, the lead story on that same Sunday morning in many papers was “International Funding for al-Qaeda Goes On Unabated.” A few weeks after Saddam’s capture, various flights had to be canceled due to intelligence reports of specific threats that planes would be hijacked and flown into targets. And during the holidays, concerns about a possible attack brought federal agents to major cities with special equipment to detect radiation that terrorists’ “dirty bombs” would emit.
I raise these points not to detract from the great accomplishment of the rapid military victory in Iraq and the eventual capture of Saddam Hussein. A ruthless dictator has been removed from power; initial steps are being taken toward democracy in Iraq. Those who perceive the military victory in Iraq as a great setback for international terrorism, however, should put things in perspective.
I disagreed with the
President when he stated, “The war on
terror, you can’t distinguish between
al-Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on
terror. And so it’s a comparison that I
can’t make because I can’t distinguish
between the two, because they’re both
equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally
as destructive.” On the contrary, I believe
that combining the war in Iraq with the war
against al-Qaeda detracts from the reality of the
international challenge America faces. As an
article in the British periodical The
Economist (which supported the invasion of
Iraq) read, “Yes, Saddam terrorized his
people and his neighbors. But to lump all
America’s enemies together as
‘terrorists’ is to play with words
and, worse, to risk making a muddle of policy.
Osama bin Laden is a religious fanatic with an
apocalyptic vision of permanent Islamic war
against the infidel. . . . Saddam had to be
stopped, but his defeat has not necessarily
hastened the defeat of al-Qaeda, and might even
make victory harder if it continues to stoke up
Muslim rage against the West.” And as the
President said before a joint session of Congress,
“there are thousands of terrorists operating
in over sixty countries.” That fact
dramatizes the extent to which we will have to
count heavily on the cooperation and action of the
intelligence, military, and law enforcement
agencies of countries around the world to achieve
ultimate victory against the terrorists. We must
remember that the fight against al-Qaeda and the
international terrorist movement involves many
functions in which the intimate cooperation of
other countries’ police, intelligence, and
military is absolutely essential—functions
such as taking out the key figures of al-Qaeda and
their successors one by one, infiltrating
terrorist cells and organizations, tracking the
whereabouts of suspected terrorists, tracing the
funding for terrorist groups, and developing
cooperative programs to ensure that the vast
amount of cargo shipped internationally is safe
when it enters our ports and airports. The fight
against terrorism must not evolve into or be
perceived as basically a U.S. operation. In the
words of Michael Ignatieff, “The
Achilles’ heel of American power has been
its inability to understand its dependence on
other nations, and without friends and allies, a
war against terror will fail.”
The Challenge of Exporting
Democracy to the Middle East
The
central rationale for the Bush
administration’s policy toward Iraq has
evolved from “an imminent danger posed by
weapons of mass destruction” to
“getting rid of a despicable dictator”
to a “long twilight struggle to bring
democracy to the Middle East.” Attempting to
spread democracy in the Middle East is a noble
goal. Recent decades have seen great progress
toward America’s objective of increasing the
number of democratic governments around the globe.
This accomplishment stands as one of the great
achievements of our foreign policy, and I believe
that a continuation of the trend toward worldwide
democracy is inevitable over the long term.
Most countries in the Middle East have held out against this historical trend, however. In the case of Iraq, as of this writing, important initial steps have been taken toward the goal of establishing democracy. An interim constitution has been agreed upon. Elections will most likely be held in early 2005. We all hope that this scenario plays out successfully. I have reservations, though, as to whether the interim constitution will prove workable. Will a constitution forced on an interim Muslim government (one whose members are paid by the United States) give that governing body the legitimacy, respect, and confidence it will require to govern effectively and to withstand future political pressures and hardships? I would also offer a word of caution regarding the goal of spreading democracy in the Middle East, lest policy makers become overly enamored of and reliant on a policy committing enormous U.S. resources to accelerating democracy in the region. I believe we must question to what extent such a trend can be imposed by U.S. intervention and involvement and to what extent the countervailing “law of unintended consequences” might affect such a policy.
We are all familiar with the old saying “Be careful: You might get what you wish for.” In his recent book, The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria, the chief foreign correspondent of Newsweek, quoted a senior Saudi official who said:
The Arab rulers of the Middle East are autocratic, corrupt and heavy-handed. But they are still more liberal, tolerant and pluralistic than what would likely replace them. Elections in many Arab countries would produce politicians who espouse views that are closer to Osama bin Laden’s than those of Jordan’s liberal monarch, King Abdullah. Last year the Emir of Kuwait, with American encouragement, proposed giving women the vote. But the democratically elected Kuwaiti parliament—filled with Islamic fundamentalists—roundly rejected the initiative. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah tried something less dramatic when he proposed that women in Saudi Arabia be allowed to drive. (They are currently forbidden to do so, which means that Saudi Arabia has had to import half a million chauffeurs from places like India and the Philippines.) But the religious conservatives mobilized popular opposition and forced him to back down.
A similar argument was raised by The Economist, which editorialized,
Now that he has stated his belief in democracy, however, Mr. Bush cannot simply confer his blessings on the Arabs with a wave of the wand. . . . To be sure, those who advocate this course of action have an interesting case to make. Since the September 11th attacks, they argue, it should be clear that the absence of democracy is one of the things that turn Arabs toward Islamic extremism and against an America widely seen as the propper-up of extremist governments. This argument is probably right. So is its corollary that the creation of a liberal, democratic order in the Arab world is in America’s own long-term interest. But there is a fine distinction—and a world of difference—between a policy of advocating democracy and a policy of imposing it. Apart from being questionable in principle . . . any crude attempt to impose democracy on the Arabs is liable to backfire in practice.
One way such a policy could backfire is by knocking over bad regimes only to see even worse ones take their place. The existence of a general Arab appetite for democracy does not mean that the alternative to a repressive, authoritarian regime is bound in every case to be a liberal democracy.
The complexities of attempting to bring democracy to Iraq were dramatically displayed in January 2004, when massive numbers of demonstrators in Iraq held marches in support of having elections. L. Paul Bremer came to the United Nations and pleaded with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to send a UN delegation to Iraq to convince the Shiite Iraqis not to hold elections in the time frame they wanted. The administration had developed a complex five-milestone plan to gradually transition to an electoral democracy. The first milestone was to agree on a law defining how to choose constitutional delegates. Then regional caucuses would select a transitional assembly, and that assembly would select a provisional government to return sovereignty to the Iraqi people. Elections were to be held in 2005. The case in favor of this approach, as opposed to going straight to a popular election, is a strong one: the lack of a current census or registration of voters made it clear that an early vote was not practical.
The Shiite majority, however, disagreed with Bremer’s approach and demanded a popular vote quickly. Massive demonstrations calling for popular elections were held at the behest of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Susan Sachs wrote that “the most important political figure in Iraq today is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an elderly Shiite Muslim cleric. He has not set foot outside his home for six years, yet the white-bearded ayatollah has effectively commandeered the Bush administration’s planning for postwar democracy.” After consulting with an assessment team from the United Nations, the Shiites agreed to conduct elections later than they had originally demanded. While the initial steps toward democracy are evolving in Iraq, it is far from clear how long it will be until a viable Iraqi democracy can function. Switching for the moment to the process in Afghanistan, as of late February 2004, 2 percent of Afghan women had registered to vote, and 8 percent of eligible Afghan voters had been enrolled. Nevertheless, a national election was scheduled for June.
As Quentin Peel observed, we must not confuse “purely electoral democracy—the right to vote and the establishment of parliamentary institutions—with full fledged liberal democracy.” Without the robust institutions of a free press, a secure environment, an effective police force, a fair judicial system, and an impartial system of laws and regulations, a nation cannot truly function as a vibrant democracy. Achieving these goals in Iraq (to say nothing of Afghanistan) will take a prolonged period of time, effort, and enormous sums of money.
In a column entitled “Dysfunctional Democracy,” the author and journalist Georgie Anne Geyer succinctly expressed this concern: “We’re way too tied up with the magic word ‘democracy.’ It’s almost like the ancient alchemists who thought they could make gold from common metals: The modern one-note Americans, rife in this administration, who insist only the mechanism of democracy is important are the modern political alchemists. Yet, while forms of democracy are surely desirable everywhere—I prefer the less purist phrase ‘representative government’—the mechanism of electing leaders doesn’t mean much without the cultural, legal, social, economic and psychosocial stuff of democracy.” Don’t get me wrong. I believe that our foreign policy should support trends toward more open Arab societies—culturally, economically, and politically open. The failure of many of the governments in the region to meet the hopes of their citizens is causing significant societal strains there. Let me quickly add, however, that a policy emphasizing the rapid expansion of democracy in the Arab world must be tempered by prudence and historical perspective. It must be guided by a set of achievable goals. It must have a realistic timetable and an appreciation of the limitations to enforcing change. It must have the support of the American public and the Congress. If the policy requires the use of our armed forces, we must carefully assess their capacity to carry out their mission, especially if it involves the multiyear peacekeeping and nation-building operations that are the central focus of the Bush administration.
Over the long term, more open, tolerant, and democratic societies and governments in the Arab world would certainly mark a significant improvement for the people of the region and an important step forward for the national security interests of the United States. But the key policy issue is to what extent democracy may be imposed on the governments in the region rather than encouraged in a more gradualist, incremental approach toward that goal. As a recent article in The National Interest noted,
Development of democracy in the Arab world will depend more on internal and political developments than what happens in Iraq. Indeed, instability in Iraq could encourage a reaction against democratization in some Arab states. Fortunately, serious if incremental change can be expected from governments throughout the region. Ferment has already begun and will expand, given the vast changes in the availability of communications and media and the workings of globalization. . . . There is a good chance over time that we will see better and more reformist Arab governments. But to assert that the occupation of Iraq will produce democracy in Iraq, which will then spread like a virus to other countries in the Middle East, is more prayer than analysis.
Conclusion
As the twenty-first century unfolds, America is a
military and economic colossus. The capability of
our military is unprecedented. While our economy
has many problems, it is still the envy of every
other country in the world. America has reached a
historic pinnacle of military and economic power,
but our leadership and our citizenry must
recognize that we do not have an unlimited ability
to influence global events. Our position as the
world’s only superpower must be kept in
perspective.
• America represents
only 5 percent of the world’s population.
• Our military is currently
overstretched.
• There are
unprecedented budget deficits.
• The
cost of the “regime change” in Iraq
thus far is $150 billion—a sum larger than
the combined defense budgets of France, Germany,
the United Kingdom, and Italy.
• The
cost to our enemies in Iraq to spread havoc and
attempt to engender a civil war to counter
America’s massive financial and manpower
commitment is low. Although there is clear
evidence of outside powers funding a significant
number of fanatics to attack coalition troops,
that cost is not high. In terms of the Iraqi
citizens opposing the coalition, their costs are
nominal—some mortar rounds, some
rocket-propelled grenades, explosives placed in an
old used car, and the free labor of a few
fanatical suicide bombers.
• There is
no support in the American populace or the
Congress for further large-scale military
deployments or invasions unless they should
involve operations absolutely essential to our
national security.
As of this writing, the Bush administration is making some encouraging adjustments to its foreign policy in terms of setting priorities and reaching out to the international community. Two years after the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a policy to pursue Osama bin Laden aggressively is finally being implemented. The administration has also called upon the United Nations to play a larger role in Iraq’s future.
I believe that there must be a “regression to the mean” in our foreign policy. We must reject a unilateral policy and return to one that depends more on the cooperation and participation of other countries and our allies. We must be increasingly selective as to where, when, and why we deploy American troops in the future.
I have raised my concerns about many aspects of the administration’s Iraqi policy—using poor intelligence, improperly equipping our troops, overstretching our military, and ignoring the extensive warnings of its own experts on the challenge of the postwar environment. Nevertheless, a war initiated on faulty intelligence must not be followed by a premature withdrawal of our troops based on a political timetable. An untimely exit could rapidly devolve into a civil war, which would leave America’s foreign policy in disarray as countries question not only America’s judgment but also its perseverance.
Let me end on a personal note. American citizens must aggressively maintain a support system—financially and emotionally—for the stateside families of those serving abroad and the families of those who have been killed and wounded. As a member of Congress, I have made many visits to the Army’s Walter Reed Hospital to visit the wounded. I am always impressed with how upbeat they are despite their injuries. Most soldiers are of very modest means and joined the military to better themselves. Six soldiers from the district I represent have paid the ultimate price.
The widows of two soldiers killed in Iraq visited my office while they were in Washington, D.C. Both women were in their early twenties, had small babies, and had paid their own way to come to Washington to meet with wounded war veterans. They had brought gifts for the wounded at Walter Reed Hospital. They told me that their conversations with the patients helped them deal with their own losses. The injured shared their stories of how they were wounded, and the young widows shared their stories of their losses as well. During their visit to my office, one of them said, “I was married, got pregnant, lost my husband and had my baby all in the same year. I shouldn’t have had to live my whole life in one year.”
© 2004 The Penn State University