Dick is pointed the wrong way
On declaring the surge strategy failed when it's barely begun
By Charles Bird Posted in War — Comments (24) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I can understand the frustration of Senator Richard Lugar about the way the things are going in Iraq, but I think he's way too premature in calling for a change in the current strategy. His proposal makes no sense. The current strategy just became fully operational last week. A fair-minded person should at least give it a chance and see how it turns out. But sadly, Lugar has joined the ranks of liberals such as Reid, Pelosi and Murtha, declaring the current surge strategy failed before it's barely gotten out of the starting gate.
I'd like to think that this fellow Republican is ignorant about the current plan, but he's too experienced a player for me to believe this. Dick Lugar wants more emphasis on diplomatic and economic options, but he doesn't seem to be aware that the current strategy already provides these options, and he fails to recognize the significant role that al Qaeda is playing in Iraq right now. Instead of listening to his fellow Democratic Senators, perhaps he should spend more time bending his ear to firsthand accounts from the likes of J.D. Johannes or Michael Yon or Pete Hegseth or David Kilcullen, whom I cut and paste at length:
More below the fold...
Ten days ago, speaking with Austin Bay, I made the following comment:
“I know some people in the media are already starting to sort of write off the “surge” and say ‘Hey, hang on: we’ve been going since January, we haven’t seen a massive turnaround; it mustn’t be working’. What we’ve been doing to date is putting forces into position. We haven’t actually started what I would call the “surge” yet. All we’ve been doing is building up forces and trying to secure the population. And what I would say to people who say that it’s already failed is “watch this space”. Because you’re going to see, in fairly short order, some changes in the way we’re operating that will make what’s been happening over the past few months look like what it is—just a preliminary build up.”
The meaning of that comment should be clear by now to anyone tracking what is happening in Iraq. On June 15th we kicked off a major series of division-sized operations in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces. As General Odierno said, we have finished the build-up phase and are now beginning the actual “surge of operations”. I have often said that we need to give this time. That is still true. But this is the end of the beginning: we are now starting to put things onto a viable long-term footing.
These operations are qualitatively different from what we have done before. Our concept is to knock over several insurgent safe havens simultaneously, in order to prevent terrorists relocating their infrastructure from one to another, and to create an operational synergy between what we're doing in Baghdad and what's happening outside. Unlike on previous occasions, we don't plan to leave these areas once they’re secured. These ops will run over months, and the key activity is to stand up viable local security forces in partnership with Iraqi Army and Police, as well as political and economic programs, to permanently secure them. The really decisive activity will be police work, registration of the population and counterintelligence in these areas, to comb out the insurgent sleeper cells and political cells that have "gone quiet" as we moved in, but which will try to survive through the op and emerge later. This will take operational patience, and it will be intelligence-led, and Iraqi government-led. It will probably not make the news (the really important stuff rarely does) but it will be the truly decisive action.
When we speak of "clearing" an enemy safe haven, we are not talking about destroying the enemy in it; we are talking about rescuing the population in it from enemy intimidation. If we don't get every enemy cell in the initial operation, that's OK. The point of the operations is to lift the pall of fear from population groups that have been intimidated and exploited by terrorists to date, then win them over and work with them in partnership to clean out the cells that remain – as has happened in Al Anbar Province and can happen elsewhere in Iraq as well.
The "terrain" we are clearing is human terrain, not physical terrain. It is about marginalizing al Qa’ida, Shi’a extremist militias, and the other terrorist groups from the population they prey on. This is why claims that “80% of AQ leadership have fled” don’t overly disturb us: the aim is not to kill every last AQ leader, but rather to drive them off the population and keep them off, so that we can work with the community to prevent their return.
This is not some sort of kind-hearted, soft approach, as some fire-breathing polemicists have claimed (funnily enough, those who urge us to “just kill more bad guys” usually do so from a safe distance). It is not about being “nice” to the population and hoping they will somehow see us as the “good guys” and stop supporting insurgents. On the contrary, it is based on a hard-headed recognition of certain basic facts, to wit:
(a) The enemy needs the people to act in certain ways (sympathy, acquiescence, silence, reaction to provocation) in order to survive and further his strategy. Unless the population acts in these ways, both insurgents and terrorists will wither, and the cycle of provocation and backlash that drives the sectarian conflict in Iraq will fail.
(b) The enemy is fluid, but the population is fixed. (The enemy is fluid because he has no permanent installations he needs to defend, and can always run away to fight another day. But the population is fixed, because people are tied to their homes, businesses, farms, tribal areas, relatives etc). Therefore—and this is the major change in our strategy this year—protecting and controlling the population is do-able, but destroying the enemy is not. We can drive him off from the population, then introduce local security forces, population control, and economic and political development, and thereby "hard-wire" the enemy out of the environment, preventing his return. But chasing enemy cells around the countryside is not only a waste of time, it is precisely the sort of action he wants to provoke us into. That’s why AQ cells leaving an area are not the main game—they are a distraction. We played the enemy’s game for too long: not any more. Now it is time for him to play our game.
(c) Being fluid, the enemy can control his loss rate and therefore can never be eradicated by purely enemy-centric means: he can just go to ground if the pressure becomes too much. BUT, because he needs the population to act in certain ways in order to survive, we can asphyxiate him by cutting him off from the people. And he can't just "go quiet" to avoid that threat. He has either to come out of the woodwork, fight us and be destroyed, or stay quiet and accept permanent marginalization from his former population base. That puts him on the horns of a lethal dilemma (which warms my heart, quite frankly, after the cynical obscenities these irhabi gang members have inflicted on the innocent Iraqi non-combatant population). That's the intent here.
(d) The enemy may not be identifiable, but the population is. In any given area in Iraq, there are multiple threat groups but only one, or sometimes two main local population groups. We could do (and have done, in the past) enormous damage to potential supporters, "destroying the haystack to find the needle", but we don't need to: we know who the population is that we need to protect, we know where they live, and we can protect them without unbearable disruption to their lives. And more to the point, we can help them protect themselves, with our forces and ISF in overwatch.
Of course, we still go after all the terrorist and extremist leaders we can target and find, and life has become increasingly “nasty, brutish, and short” for this crowd. But we realize that this is just a shaping activity in support of the main effort, which is securing the Iraqi people from the terrorists, extremist militias, and insurgents who need them to survive.
Is there a strategic risk involved in this series of operations? Absolutely. Nothing in war is risk-free. We have chosen to accept and manage this risk, primarily because a low-risk option simply will not get us the operational effects that the strategic situation demands. We have to play the hand we have been dealt as intelligently as possible, so we're doing what has to be done. It still might not work, but "it is what it is" at this point.
So much for theory. The practice, as always, has been mixed. Personally, I think we are doing reasonably well and casualties have been lower so far than I feared. Every single loss is a tragedy. But so far, thank God, the loss rate has not been too terrible: casualties are up in absolute terms, but down as a proportion of troops deployed (in the fourth quarter of 2006 we had about 100,000 troops in country and casualties averaged 90 deaths a month; now we have almost 160,000 troops in country but deaths are under 120 per month, much less than a proportionate increase, which would have been around 150 a month). And last year we patrolled rarely, mainly in vehicles, and got hit almost every time we went out. Now we patrol all the time, on foot, by day and night with Iraqi units normally present as partners, and the chances of getting hit are much lower on each patrol. We are finally coming out of the "defensive crouch" with which we used to approach the environment, and it is starting to pay off.
It will be a long, hard summer, with much pain and loss to come, and things could still go either way. But the population-centric approach is the beginning of a process that aims to put the overall campaign onto a sustainable long-term footing. The politics of the matter then can be decisive, provided the Iraqis use the time we have bought for them to reach the essential accommodation. The Embassy and MNF-I continue to work on these issues at the highest levels but fundamentally, this is something that only Iraqis can resolve: our role is to provide an environment in which it becomes possible.
It's pretty clear to me that we should have been doing this two years sooner, but fer crying out loud, give Plan A a chance. At least until September. There's always Plan B for down the road.
One other thing. I don't know where the good Senator is getting his information, but perhaps he should add a blogger or two to his list of resources. If he gets his news just from the mainstream media, he wouldn't know that civilian casualties dropped significantly in the month of June. From Engram at Back Talk:
Attacks by al Qaeda are coming; of that, you can be sure. Still, as of this very moment, late in June, casualties in Iraq are suddenly way down. Here is my standard monthly civilian casualty chart, with the numbers for June adjusted upward in recognition of the fact that there are still a few days left in the month (details on how I compute these figures can be found here):
[The image insertion probably didn't work, so the link is here.]
The black bar represents the month in which al Qaeda bombed the Golden Mosque (the catalyzing event that everyone agrees set off the wave of sectarian violence we see today), and the blue bars represent the months during which the troop surge has unfolded. As you can see, casualties are suddenly down by more than 30% compared to the previous month. Had casualties increased by that amount this month, what would you conclude about the effectiveness of the troop surge? What would the mainstream media conclude? Well, whatever it might be, the opposite conclusion actually applies. By this measure, which is the measure that I believe most Americans care about, the troop surge is working (for the moment). To my surprise, American military casualties are also down compared to the previous month (by about 15%) despite the offensive operations that are underway.
All of this could change on a dime (it has before), and to believe otherwise would be to underestimate al Qaeda. I never do that, and I never will. But it is worth noting that, at the very moment that Senators Lugar and Voinovich are suggesting that the troop surge is not working, we have the first real indications that it is reducing civilian casualties to a considerable degree. In light of that, you'd think Republican senators would be inclined to give General Petraeus a bit more time to see what he might be able to accomplish.
I'll bring you a full casualty report (as usual) when the month of June comes to a close a few days from now. If al Qaeda manages to kill 500 innocent Shiite men, women and children in the last few days of the month, then June will turn out to be a normal month in terms of civilian casualties. So far this month, al Qaeda has pulled off only one serious mass-casualty attack:
BAGHDAD - The death toll from a truck bomb targeting the Khilani Shi'ite mosque in central Baghdad on Tuesday was 87 killed and 214 wounded, police said. The mosque was badly damaged.
In case you, like mainstream media reporters, preposterously think of this as an example of "sectarian violence," let me remind you of Zarqawi's plan for Iraq, using his own words:
The Shi'a in our opinion, these are the key to change. Targeting and striking their religious, political, and military symbols, will make them show their rage against the Sunnis and bear their inner vengeance...Then, the Sunni will have no choice but to support us in many of the Sunni regions.
Got the picture? Al Qaeda is trying to engineer a civil war (and Zarqawi himself explain why). They are not participants in that civil war. And they know that you can't stand what they are doing. In fact, they are certain of it, and it pains me to think that they might be right. Democrats cannot even so much as acknowledge al Qaeda in Iraq (bizarrely suggesting that the "real terrorists" are in Afghanistan), and now Lugar weighs in with an unconvincingly brief and entirely superficial analysis of the role played by al Qaeda. Civilian casualties are way down in June, and the main reason is that al Qaeda has, for the moment, been suppressed. Ignoring that force -- a force that has proven its ability to kill even with 160,000 American troops, the Mahdi Army and, now, the tribes of the Anbar Province arrayed against it, is a bad idea. But that's what every advocate of withdrawal does. And they do that because making the argument in favor of withdrawal while acknowledging the role played by al Qaeda in Iraq -- and doing so in a convincing way -- is not really possible.
Can al Qaeda replicate their latest mass-casualty attack multiple times in the last few days of June? If not, June will be a good month, and the argument that the troop surge is not working will, at least for the moment, be harder to make.
To Senator Lugar and the other wavering Senators--both GOP and otherwise--let's not engage in the premature eject-ulation of American troops. I don't know why so many are so willing to write off the Iraq campaign before General Petraeus even comes to Washington to give his update. Well, actually I think I do know why, and it's bothersome.
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Dick is pointed the wrong way 24 Comments (0 topical, 24 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
think that Richard Lugar innocently comes by his position. I think he's fully aware that the situation is not as he describes, although I doubt he cares to examine it in detail -- lest his conscience unduly trouble him.
What's driving him? I dunno, but I think he's dirty, and probably bought and paid for. This is not his first foray into undermining Bush, the GOP, and the war for our civilization.
It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?
as one of the senate's great foreign policy experts for years, but every time I hear him speak I've very underwhelmed.
The Dick Lugar foreign policy expert of 1984 is not the same person in 2007. He was great at promoting the overthrow of Marcos in the Phillippines, and working with Sam Nunn to get stockpiles of the former USSR nuclear weapons dismantled. He does not have the same convictions today of the birth of new democracies that he had then. It may be just another reason to term limit Congress critters like we term limit POTUS.
"We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders -- or at least made great headway."
Fred Thompson
He getting up there in age. He might not be able to think as clearly anymore.
He used to be decent, but he has just seemed more and more brain-damaged with every passing year. Friends back in Indiana have confirmed this for me.
He really could use a primary challenger, not so much because we could knock him off, but he's got to retire eventually, and we need to groom someone to take his seat (or knock off Bayh). Indiana is too red of a state to have one Dem Senator, much less a Dem and a Republican that's well down the road to RINO status.
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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
judicial nominees, that is, a weak link who needs to be replaced.He's always deferred to Biden even when he was chairman and Biden was ranking member. What he's doing now is nothing new, it's just being promoted as such by the media to enhance their "Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket" storyline.
like John Warner and John Danforth of what the right look, the right voice, and a superficial mastery of issues will bring you in the way of media accolades.
Where Lugar goes really wrong is not in his worry about the damage to US interests if we stay in Iraq but his utter and reckless lack of concern about the damage if we leave.
He continues to flog the empirically discredited notion that settling the conflict between the the Israelis and the various terror groups surrounding them is critical (to what? who do the Israelis deal with? who do the Arab thugocracies support?) and offers nothing new but serves up a steaming helping of past failed policies.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
I think that Lugar's primary concern is that the compromise that's possible after September will be much lousier than the compromise that's possible now.
His view hinges on the conclusion that the Iraqi government will make almost no "benchmark-related" progress by that time regardless of how much space the U.S. military is able to give them, and that the political climate is going to be determined by the benchmarks rather than the security situation.
I agree that - political climate issues aside - waiting until September is the rational approach. But Lugar is correct in thinking that it's a big gamble.
"I should be allowed to think" -- John Linnell
that we are doing something operationally different than we were doing just a few months ago. For at least three years we pursued a strategy of attrition while we waited for the Iraqi to take over. We pursued this strategy for the reason we always do namely that it is the least costly politically.
Until we lose, then it's very costly because you lose everything. Eventually it is pointed out that if we are not fighting to win, aren't we just allowing our soldiers to die in order to run out the clock? nd if that's the case, shouldn't we pull our troops out sooner rather than later? Why should any more die?
This, I think, is where the American people are now, and I guess from what I read on this and other sites, much of the conservative side as well. The only way that attrition could work is if the media were on our side, and presented the much greater casualties we inflict on the enemy so people can understand the progress we are making. But, if your only metric is are Iraqi civilians being blown up? Are US soldiers being killed? then it's easy to understand why the American people think we're losing.
In this situation, Al Qaida have been at an advantage in Iraq, because they can insure a steady supply of dead Iraqis and a few Americans. However, this sitution has changed, because of the new tactics we a re using. While Iraq offered advantages to Al Qaeda to exploit, eg the sectarian divisions, AQ is also limited.
For one thing while they can range around Iraq at will because it's not secured, they can't stay or operte for any length of time in much of the country -- the Kurdish and Shia areas (the Shia are running the country now and the Kurds are pretty happy in their part). No, Al Qaeda is restricted to the Sunni or mixed areas (Anbar, Diyala, Baghdad, the suburbs of Baghdad)where they were initially ssuccessful in bringing the population (angry at losing their power and fearful of reprisals)to their cause. This unholy alliance did a great deal of damage and seemed on the verge of defeating us.
With our new tactics we are aggressively attacking, isolating, surrounding and killing AQ in their areas. Of course many escape, but as Kilcullen explained, that doesn't mean they remain effective. More importantly, they only have one tactic. They can't attack us or the Iraqi army (they would be annihilated) and as I said, they can't stay out o the Sunni areas. They have gone to their basic tactic which is killing Sunni Iraqis by blowing up their mosques, hospitals, etc. But now the Sunnis have grasped the mistake they made in allying with AQ, and they have joined us in increasing numbers as they are doing in Anbar. The other AQ tactic is running away. By doing so they are giving up their control of some areas that they need to operate.
Yes time is running out in Iraq....for Al Qaueda!
Their tactics are effective against weaklings and dim bulbs like Lugar, Hagel, Voinevich, et al, but not against our military.
Senator Lugar deserves to be shown more respect than that. He has achieved many foreign policy successes with respect to the overthrow of Marcos in the Phillippines and the work he and former Senator Sam Nunn have done with respect to dismantling nuclear weapons of the former USSR. I think history will be kind to him for his accomplishments. I will concede that he has not been as motivated and driven now as he was 20 years ago, but don't let a speech in 2007 mark him as a dim bulb.
"We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders -- or at least made great headway."
Fred Thompson
Even a moron who reads his stated reasons can easily tell that his "solution" only exacerbates the same "problems" leading us to defeat!
So we are losing to Al Qaeda? Let's run away. "Redeploy". But at the same time, let's force the Jews to make more concessions to Hamas. Because that has worked out so well and will gain us much goodwill. At the same time, let's get the Iranians and Syrians to help us out in Iraq. Since there is a civil war- let's "redeploy" outside of Iraq- because that will forestall any more of a civil war since then our troops won't be able to do anything for anyone. And at the same time- let's split up a democratically elected pro-western government into three points- becuase that will make sure there is no future civil war.
Does this make sense to anyone with more than a third grade education?
United States Air Force
http://airforcepundit.blogspot.com
What will you guys say if the General comes back and say it isn't work?
I voted for Lugar and I stick by my vote. For people who don't live in Indiana you just see it as a "reliable" red state, but you don't understand the culture and the values at all. Indiana isn't Georgia.
Whatever you say about Lugar you can't say he is doing this for polls because the fact Democrats refused to even challange him in this state. He is doing this because he believes things are not getting better, which everyday I am starting to agree. The fact is if you asked me 1 week ago if I agreed to "pull out" I would of sayed no. Now I am not sure because I respect Lugar that much.
if the general comes back and says the surge is working? I also have doubts about any eventual success in Iraq, but since we've been there four years, and the next three or four months are viewed by many as a, more or less, final test of whether or not we can eventually achieve success, then it seems extremely foolish for anyone to pick this moment to cast doubt on the effort.
He's betting on what he thinks the future holds. If he's right, the options are going to be a lot better now than they will be after September. If he's wrong, and the Iraqi government makes enough progress to bolster support for the current policy, then there will still be time to reconsider the compromises.
To me, it seems the timing is anything but foolish.
"I should be allowed to think" -- John Linnell
regroup and press on. I don't think quitting is much of a solution to anything in life.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
but not his judgment on this particular issue. If Petraeus comes back in September and reports that there is little discernible progress in Iraq and faint prospects for future progress, then I would agree that it's time to take a serious look at other strategies. But not before then.
What really irritates me about Lugar and the other like-minded Senators is that a year ago they were clamoring for Bush to listen to his generals. Bush finally did it, but only after the mid-term meltdown last November. Now here we are nine months after the election and we find Bush listening to the generals and Senators refusing to do so, pre-judging a comprehensive operation that has barely gotten underway.
Because I thought that most of his generals were against the surge so he brought some in that were in favor of it.
That is what people were saying listen to the generals.
Finally it is easy to say what is another 3-4 months when you aren't there. I do have quite a few friends over there and when people say what is a few more months it feels like people aren't recognizing our friends and family do die in that time. Like I said I have yet to agree with Democrats and September is my time. But to be honest in September I don't want to see minimal progress I want to see major progress and if that isn't the case then I will not support staying there anymore.
I seriously doubt it. At the time the Dems were telling Bush to listen to the generals, Rumsfeld was running the show and there were issues between Rumsfeld and the military brass, most exemplified by the six retired generals who called for Rummy's ouster.
On the matter of minimal progress or major progress, I don't see where we disagree. Look, the current strategy is significantly different than the one prior to Feb-2006, and the plan is based on principles that have a proven track record of success. Why would you or Lugar be in favor of changing it before we've even had a chance to gauge its progress? The only reason I can see is that Lugar has come to the conclusion that we've already lost. Sorry, but I'm not there, at least not yet.
The COIN strategy could be a great success (which I think it will be), but if the Iraqi government doesn't solidify, it doesn't get us where we want to go. Lugar's pessimism is directed toward the Iraqi government, not our military (though he believes that our military is reaching the point of being strained).
"I should be allowed to think" -- John Linnell
Proven track records of success?
What I have seen in the past month is again holy shrines being attacked, government members found to be corrupt, the government's leader himself resigning, bombing after bombing after bombing. The only area that seems safe is the Kurdish area and they have their own militia protecting them. Sunni's and Shites are in all out war with each other at this point and you saying we have a proven track record of success going on?
All I see right now is more troops not better political situation which is the ONLY way this will be solved. Lugar probably has come to the conclusion we have already lost but he is loyal enough to stay with his party, which people here (and in my hometown Indiana newspaper) are attacking him for.
The problem here we have is two fold.
1) Situation politically in Iraq is not improving. Americans can tolerate attacks, but what we can't tolerate is a sense that the people are to busy fighting amongst themselves to solve anything, which is happening.
2) The President's ship has sunk. He has barely enough political capital to keep Republicans in line until Sept, but the fact is (and it is sad but true) no matter what is said then people's minds won't change because of the leadership we have in government. American's don't trust Bush anymore, which means we don't trust him leading our military, which means we don't trust him in Iraq. It is the same situation in Vietnam with L.B.J. and Nixon. Nixon didn't get us out it was Ford but people perceived the war being fought differently so they didn't run him out of office in his reelection bid.
I am the ONLY member of my family that still supports us staying there. My friend who is in Iraq told me before he went on his tour that we should just bomb Iraq and Iran into the ground because he doesn't trust the Iraqi people. I would love to have you guys give me some reason for me to keep supporting this President's "stratagy" because I know what probably will happen if we leave, but the fact is I see it happening anyways if we stay at this point.
Sunni's and Shites are in all out war with each other at this point and you saying we have a proven track record of success going on?
Like with Lugar, you're ignoring the role of al Qaeda in all of this. There isn't an "all out war" (which tells me you're buying into the mainstream media spin), there are hardline paramilitant Sunni and Shiite groups who are responsible for a chunk of the violence, but it's not as widespread as you apparently believe, and al Qaeda is public enemy #1 because of its attempts to destabilize the situation and trigger sectarian violence.
I didn't say that we have a proven track record in Iraq, I'm saying the strategy has a proven track record in past conflicts. Again, the present plan just reached full staffing a week ago, so you and Lugar have no basis for judging its success or failure, which was kind of my point. You might peruse the COIN manual to learn a little more.
All I see right now is more troops not better political situation which is the ONLY way this will be solved.
Then you're not seeing closely enough. The national government passed oil legislation earlier this year, which was an important step, but clearly they haven't done much on the other major issues. Locally, the political progress has been significant, the most important being a number of the Sunni tribes turning away from al Qaeda and allying with coalition forces. It will take time for the different groups to compromise on the national level, and no one is predicting that major advancements will be made by September. However, political progress can't happen until Baghdad and the surrounding provinces achieve some modicum of security. The present strategy recognizes the importance of the political side of things.
Situation politically in Iraq is not improving.
Again, you and Lugar are pre-judging, unwilling to give the plan a chance before labeling it.
The President's ship has sunk.
I agree that Bush so far is a failing president. His poll numbers in the high 20's speak for themselves. Congress' job approval is in the teens, so they don't have much political capital either. The important thing to note is that polls change. If there is a fair amount of progress by September, Bush's poll numbers will move upward and he will gain political leverage relative to Congress. After all, the primary reason the Repubs lost last November was Iraq. If Iraq shows a few clear signs of turning around, perceptions will change.
I would love to have you guys give me some reason for me to keep supporting this President's "stratagy"...
Whoever said this was the president's strategy? Far as I'm concerned, Bush is supporting the Petraeus strategy. The only thing I'd like Bush to do is stay out of the way and let the general do his thing.
...want their 15 minutes of fame on Al Jazeera, it seems.