If you want to believe America stands on high moral ground in Iraq, I strongly advise you not to read "Fiasco"by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas E. Ricks. One of the more eyebrow-raising revelations in this book - which reveals almost more than I want to know about our ineptitude and bungling of the war - is that President Bush was told in November 2004 that we were losing the war in Iraq. Ricks reports that a senior administration official revealed in an interview," I told the President in November of 2004 that we were losing and he was shocked" (pg. 407 ).
In fact, there are many reasons (according to Ricks, the Washington Post's Pentagon correspondent, who has written two Pulitzer Prize-winning books on the American military ) that we are losing the war.
Perhaps his entire, carefully documented, 490-page book can be summed up this way: We are losing the war in Iraq because we have failed to win the population. We have not only failed to win over the hearts of the people, we have created the insurgency itself.
According to military experts - many with Ph. D. 's in middle eastern studies or Arabic history from West Point, MIT, and Harvard - counterinsurgencies are won by winning the hearts and minds of the population you are attempting to liberate. We have managed to do just the opposite by using military tactics that humiliate Iraqi males. When Americans in fatigues wearing night goggles break down the door of an Iraq family, enter the rooms where the women are sleeping, point weapons at the children and cuff the men in "fixicuffs," the man of the house is humiliated.
Muslim tradition says he must seek revenge; thus, you have just created another insurgent. Just ask yourself this question: If uniformed soldiers knocked on your door and sent you off to prison in your pajamas and abused you for months, would you not, upon return home, take up arms against them ? Why not ?
Ricks reports one unit in particular used hard-nosed tactics that were often condemned by other military leaders. The 4 th Infantry Division commanded by Gen. Raymond Odierno (which is based in Fort Hood, Texas ) was known for its cowboy philosophy.
"A general who served in Iraq, speaking on background, said flatly, ' The 4 th ID-what they did was a crime '" (pg. 233 ).
Gen. Odierno was later considered for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The U. S. Marines were noted for using other tactics that worked well, especially in the south. But those commanders who chose hard-core tactics created more insurgents by sending innocent detainees to Abu Ghraib prison, where they were routinely abused.
Paul Bremer, chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, does not fare well in Ricks'story of our misguided adventure in Iraq. Bremer was despised by many of those who worked under him, and even refused to speak to senior U. S. commander Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.
Bremer did three things that he was specifically told not to do by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA ) while living in the secure Green Zone in Baghdad. Even one of these decisions would have created further insurgencies.
1. Bremer dismantled the Iraqi Army, leaving 150, 000 ARMED men out of work and angry. This stupid move left Iraq with no security to deal with the looting and other forms of street violence.
2. In his disastrous de-Bathification program Bremer fired the top three executives, whom he assumed were Bathists, from all large corporations and public service companies, putting 50, 000 more angry men out of work. This move also crippled the service companies. No power, no water, no fire department or street cleaners. More anger and resentment toward the occupying force.
3. Bremer took the training of Iraqi security forces out of the hands of Special Forces, who are trained to do that very thing, and put it into the hands of poorly trained National Guard units who didn't have a clue, thus delaying the training of Iraqi forces for at least two years.
When the CPA turned the interim government over to Iraqis in a brief behind-closed-doors ceremony, the despised Bremer hurried to the airport and flew home on a C-130. He began writing his own book defending his horrific decisions.
Rumsfeld should be fired immediately for his personal arrogance and hubris that have cost the lives of thousands. He is guilty of a half dozen fiascoes. But his total mishandling of troop strength and lying about it may be the most offensive of his many mistakes.
Bush's threadbare line," If the commanders on the ground want more troops they'll have them," is a total lie, according to Ricks. Gen. Anthony Zinni, as well as most experienced generals, wanted more troops from the beginning. They were ignored because Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz (for purely political reasons ) claimed to know more about military action than all the generals combined.
"' We need to send significantly more troops and equipment, ' Larry Diamond wrote in a memo to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on April 26, 2004. ' In my weeks in Iraq I did not meet a single military officer who felt, privately, that we had enough troops. Many felt we needed tens of thousands more soldiers … or maybe two battalions - that is at least an additional fifteen thousand to thirty thousand troops '" (pg. 348 ).
Rumsfeld has continuously assured America and the parents of our soldiers that the commanders feel they have enough troops. That is a baldfaced lie.
Furthermore, remember all those articles back in 2003 by Judith Miller in the New York Times warning us that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of WMDs ? Guess where she was getting her information. None other than Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi expatriot who for more than 10 years has urged Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney to invade Iraq. By the summer of 2003 it was known there were no weapons of mass destruction. His erroneous information got Miller fired at the Times in 2006 for her roll in taking the country to war. Chalabi is today head of the Oil Ministry in Iraq.
If you want to pretend the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do... don't read "Fiasco."
If you want to believe morale is high among our soldiers... don't read "Fiasco."
If you think the military professionals respect the leadership at the Pentagon... don't read "Fiasco."
If you want to believe we are winning in Iraq... don't read "Fiasco."
Grady Jim Robinson lives in Fayetteville. His column appears on Wednesdays.
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