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This scathing critique of US general officers by an active duty Army Lt. Col. is pretty negative. I can't personally speak to the quality of the generals, but I agree with much of the rest of the piece - in principle, if not degree. I'll also note that many of the right strategies are coming into place at this late stage in the conflict. This is notable:

The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.

Given the lack of troop strength, not even the most brilliant general could have devised the ways necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. However, inept planning for postwar Iraq took the crisis caused by a lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. In 1997, the U.S. Central Command exercise "Desert Crossing" demonstrated that many postwar stabilization tasks would fall to the military. The other branches of the U.S. government lacked sufficient capability to do such work on the scale required in Iraq. Despite these results, CENTCOM accepted the assumption that the State Department would administer postwar Iraq. The military never explained to the president the magnitude of the challenges inherent in stabilizing postwar Iraq.

After failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America's generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency theory prescribes providing continuous security to the population. However, for most of the war American forces in Iraq have been concentrated on large forward-operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents. Counterinsurgency theory requires strengthening the capability of host-nation institutions to provide security and other essential services to the population. America's generals treated efforts to create transition teams to develop local security forces and provincial reconstruction teams to improve essential services as afterthoughts, never providing the quantity or quality of personnel necessary for success.

The author outlines motivating the majority of the American electorate as a precondition for success in a protracted conflict (more thoughts on that here). The pre-invasion Pentagon leadership might have recognized this, as their entire plan relied on decapitation of the regime followed by handing over security to Iraqi domestic agencies and relatively quick phased withdrawal. Unfortunately, as we now know, an already tattered Iraqi civil society - flimsily held together with institutional violence - dissolved and there was no Plan B, in either actions (authority to declare martial law, for example) or force structure (another 150,000 troops to plug into the conflict). The US strategy has been reactive and undermanned ever since.

Beyond limited personnel for counterinsurgency, the biggest problem I saw in Iraq was the (apparent lack of a) relationship between the US authorities and elements of the Iraqi bureaucracy. As systems and government institutions were handed over to Iraqis, there seemed little maintenance of American responsibility or even oversight. Thus, when various Iraqi kleptocrats deny fuel and/or pay to the Iraqi security forces that Americans and Iraqis are dying to build, where is the US influence to curb corruption? To ensure the delivery of fuel? To make sure Iraqi soldiers get paid? To make sure the rolls of Iraqi soldiers are actually full when they are slated to take over primary responsibility for a given battlespace?

It's possible that American personnel I'm unaware of are feverishly working on this problem, but the results of any such efforts seemed wholly inadequate.

The security forces, the Military and Police transition teams are doing great work, and the Iraqi Army (and police, nationally, to a lesser extent) shows great promise. But without enough American engagement to set up enduring government bureaucracies that function properly, the efforts are hampered. I think it's possible. But it takes time and personnel. Almost exclusive public focus is on the violence, but these are the pivotal challenges to winning this war, because the Iraqi Army (and police in certain areas) will fight for their country.

If I were able to return to Iraq, a focus would be assessing the relationship between American authorities and these dysfunctional Iraqi bureaucracies.

Related: This headlinesums it up well:

Top general in Iraq asks Congress for more time

Notable:

Petraeus called progress in the volatile western Anbar province "breathtaking"

Posted by Bill at April 27, 2007 11:09 AM | TrackBack (0)