Articles by Herschel Smith

Pat Dollard gives us an interesting rundown of what he calls the 11-point plan for victory in Iraq submitted to the White House, Pentagon and State Department (which he claims has been confirmed by sources both inside and outside the military).  I highly recommend that you spend some time reading the full eleven points, but I want to call out three specific points and comment on them.

1. U.S. troops are to be gradually pulled back from all Iraqi cities and towns and sent to seal the borders with Iran and Syria. The real insurgency is not indigenous to Iraq, but being pumped in through Iran and Syria.

2. Ramadi and Baghdad will be two of a handful of initial principle exceptions, as major U.S supported military engagements are in process in Baghadad (sic) and gearing up in Ramadi.

6. A massive assault is shortly due to be launched on Ramadi, the capital of Al Qaeda, and the remnants of the Sunni Insurgency, in Iraq. Ramadi has degenerated to a sort of post-modern trench warfare, Marines and Soldiers locked away in a variety of new urban outposts, while all the schools have finally been closed and it is nigh on impossible for the average citizen to conduct his daily life. The deadlock must be broken, and Al Qaeda must finally be ejected.

Beginning first with point number six, in my article Watching Anbar, I said:

I have been watching the al Anbar Province for most of the Iraq war, and I beg to differ with the U.S. generals.  I believe that however Anbar goes, so goes the war.  The key to Iraq is the Anbar Province.  While Anbar remains unpacified, insurgent groups (al Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Sunna, etc.) can continue to split the tribal loyalties in the region with some tribes siding with the insurgents and others siding with the government in Baghdad.  This is done not only by propaganda, but by intimidation of the tribal leaders and violence perpetrated on their people.

This is a clever way to effect force multiplication.  The insurgents not only have their own military and personnel assets with which to conduct guerrilla operations, they coax and cajole others to join them in the fight.  This way, tribes fight tribes in internecine war throughout the Anbar Province, ensuring that the insurgents are free to continue their guerrilla operations against coalition forces.  This tactic was successfully used by the Viet Cong in the war in Vietnam.

Being freed to continue guerrilla operations, in addition to attacks against coalition forces, the insurgents can conduct death raids against Shi’ite elements, ensuring a response by Shia militia, which ensures a counter-response by more insurgents (including some tribal elements), and so the cycle goes.

Really, this description is somewhat incomplete, and in recent article The Covert War with Iran, I filled in the blanks.  Not only is AQI and AAS fomenting a sectarian war by attacking the Shi’a, but Iranian intelligence assets are doing so as well by directing death squads to do the same to the Sunni.  Ramadi is home to all manner of rougue elements, and must be pacified for OIF to succeed.  It is one side of the fulcrum, the other being Baghdad.

While much was made of the tribes taking up the war against AQI and AAS, I was skeptical, calling the tribes “recruits” and saying that if they end up being useful, it will be only after a protracted time.  Dollard echoes this concern in point number seven of the plan, saying “We will be “firing

Syria and Iran could not tolerate an American success in Iraq, because it would fatally undermine the authority of the tyrants in Damascus and Tehran. Since the United States has taken too long to move on from Afghanistan to challenge the regimes of the terror masters, they had forged an alliance and would co-operate in sending terror squads against coalition armed forces, with the intention of repeating the Lebanese scenarios in the mid-Eighties (against the United States) and the late Nineties (against Israel) — Michael Ledeen, before the invasion of Iraq.

Michael Ledeen has given us compelling argument to see the war in the Middle East as running through Syria directly to Iran.  The war.  The Isreal-Hezballah war, and OIF …  the war.  It is all the same war, argues Ledeen.  Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming.  It has been well known for some time that Iran has provided training, funding, weapons and equipment for terrorists inside Iraq.

Iranians have been caught destroying oil pipelines in Iraq under orders from Iranian intelligence.  IED technology has been developed in Iran, tested by Hezballah in the recent war with Israel, and shipped to Iraq, this IED technology having an unmistakable Iranian signature.  In response to “the surge,” dozens of Iranian Intelligence officers were taking positions around Baghdad, in Salman Pak, Hilla and Kut, in preparation for an attack to drive out the remaining Sunni population from districts on the Rusafa side, east of Baghdad, in order to assume full control by Shi’ite political parties loyal to Iran.

Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, an accomplished terrorist, serves as an Iranian agent in the Iraqi Parliament.  Moqtada al Sadr is apparently not the Iraqi patriot he has been made out to be, as it appears now that not only was he smuggled off to Iran, but the high level leaders of the Mahdi army were as well (see also here).  It is old and tired, this argument on the question whether the insurgents are domestic or foreigners.  Iran and Syria are behind much of the trouble in Iraq.  The Iranian investment of human resources inside Iraq and as a safe haven for the Sadrists, Badr Brigade and other terrorists is as unmistakable as it is remarkable.  Recently seized Iranian intelligence documents detail the mayhem Iran has planned and executed inside Iraq.

The activity of Iranian intelligence and the Quds forces and the flight of the Mahdi army leadership to Iran are not reflexive.  It must be seen within the context of the broader war with Iran.  Perhaps four years too late with this assessment, the January 16, 2007 Strategic Forecasting Geopolitical Intelligence Report by George Friedman flatly states:

The Iraq war has turned into a duel between the United States and Iran. For the United States, the goal has been the creation of a generally pro-American coalition government in Baghdad — representing Iraq’s three major ethnic communities. For Iran, the goal has been the creation of either a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad or, alternatively, the division of Iraq into three regions, with Iran dominating the Shiite south.

The United States has encountered serious problems in creating the coalition government. The Iranians have been primarily responsible for that. With the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June, when it appeared that the Sunnis would enter the political process fully, the Iranians used their influence with various Iraqi Shiite factions to disrupt that process by launching attacks on Sunnis and generally destabilizing the situation. Certainly, [the] Sunnis contributed to this, but for much of the past year, it has been the Shia, supported by Iran, that have been the primary destabilizing force.

So long as the Iranians continue to follow this policy, the U.S. strategy cannot succeed. The difficulty of the American plan is that it requires the political participation of three main ethnic groups that are themselves politically fragmented. Virtually any substantial group can block the success of the strategy by undermining the political process. The Iranians, however, appear to be in a more powerful position than the Americans. So long as they continue to support Shiite groups within Iraq, they will be able to block the U.S. plan.

The Iranian activity has not been limited to providing ordnance, weapons, cash, moral support, training and direct military engagement.  The February 14, 2007, the Strategic Forecasting Terrorism Intelligence Report by Fred Burton describes the ongoing covert war with Iran.

Clearly, there is a lot of rhetoric flying around. But despite the threats and bluster, it is not at all clear that the United States has either the capacity or the will to launch an actual attack against Iran — nor is it clear that Israel has the ability to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure on its own. For its part, Iran — in spite of its recent weapons purchases and highly publicized missile tests — clearly is in no position to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. military.

With neither side willing or able to confront the other in the conventional military sense, both will be looking for alternative means of achieving its goals. For any nation-state, its intelligence services are an important weapon in the arsenal — and it now appears that a covert intelligence war between the United States and Iran, first raised by Stratfor as a possibility in March 2006 , is well under way. So far, the action in this intelligence war has been confined mainly to Iraq and Lebanon. However, recent events — including the mysterious death in January of a top Iranian nuclear scientist, who was believed to have been a target of Mossad — indicate that this quiet war is escalating, and soon could move to fronts beyond the Middle East …

Because Iran’s conventional military forces — though among the best in the region — are clearly no match for those of the Americans or others, the sophisticated and highly disciplined intelligence service, and its ability to carry out covert campaigns, is a key component of national security. In the past, kidnappings and assassinations — carried out with sufficient deniability — have proved an effective way of eliminating enemies and leveraging the country’s geopolitical position without incurring unacceptable risk.

But Strategic Forecasting stops short in either of the two analyses cited above of recommending a compelling strategy for addressing the Syrian and Iranian threat inside Iraq, even though they have said that the success of OIF depends upon such a strategy.

In The Iran War Plans, I provided a fairly pedestrian analysis in which I suggested that a land invasion of Iran would be costly and fraught with problems.  Moreover, I pointed out that if the goal of such military action is to destroy the Iranian nuclear enrichment program, the transport aircraft to deploy Soldiers and Marines to the sites are too slow, cannot carry the requisite fuel to get to some of the nuclear sites based on calculations I performed (and relying upon aircraft specifications in the public domain), and cannot move enough troops to accomplish the mission.  Destruction of the enrichment sites will require heavy involvement of U.S. air power, probably to the exclusion of everything else.

Thus the boundary conditions are as follows.  The human costs of a land invasion would be high.  Iran is at war with both Iraq and the United States, involving covert and intelligence operations and other military and additional assistance.  The Iranian strategy is succeeding.  Assuming the accuracy of the Strafor assessment – “So long as the Iranians continue to follow this policy, the U.S. strategy cannot succeed

Earth moving equipment constructing sand berms around Haditha in order to prevent the influx of foreign fighters into the city.

On January 13th I wrote a short article entitled Sand Berms Around Haditha, linking to a story published by AFP.  Except for one particularly clever reader, this story got almost no attention.  Perhaps it should have.  With all of the noise and fury of the Baghdad security plan, the small things can get buried, but sometimes it is the small things that can teach us the big lessons if we’re not to hurried to pay attention.

This little story fascinated me from the beginning.  Consider what is occurring here.  Heavy equipment – enough of it to construct an earthen berm around a city – has been moved half way around the world into a desert in Western Iraq.  This equipment needs trained operators, and each piece has hundreds of grease fittings that require attention every day.  The engine and hydraulics need continual maintenance, and this maintenance itself requires a trained staff to pull it off.  The fuel and repacement parts must be available, and the security must be provided for those trained staff to effect equipment repair and maintenance.  Why would the United States Marines even consider something like this?

In Concerning the Failure of Counterinsurgency in Iraq, I pointed out that:

The battlefield, both for military actions and so-called “nonkinetic

ABC News has broken a report about al Sadr fleeing Iraq to Tehran, Iran, where he has family.  This is reported to have occurred two to three weeks ago, and would not be different behavior than other elements of the insurgency, whether Sunni or Shi’a.  In The Enemy Reacts to The Surge, I discussed the fact that AQI had left Baghdad for the Diyala Province under orders from Al Masri.  In The Surge and Coming Operations in Iraq, I pointed out that there were a large number of insurgents who were said to be heading towards Syria.  The Mahdi army was ordered to lay low and avoid a direct confrontation with the U.S. forces, and U.S. checkpoints were positioned, probably too late, in an attempt to catch the insurgents as they fled to the surrounding areas.  The politicians, religious leaders and tribal leaders of the Diyala Province had requested that their province be subject to the same security plan as Baghdad.

The insurgents’ intention is to wait out the surge, and with the corruption of the Iraqi political scene with militia and Iranian influence, when the surge is finished, the Iraqi government may not be capable of continuing the security provided by the U.S. forces.  According to one military official, Al Sadr is afraid that “he will get a JDAM dropped on his house.”  But there may be more to the story than simply seeking safety in Iran.  There are fractures in al Sadr’s political and militia operations, and it isn’t clear whether they will join the political process.  However, the departure of al Sadr is not expected to be permanent.

A ragtag but highly motivated militia that fought U.S. forces twice in 2004, the Mahdi Army is blamed for much of the sectarian strife shaking Iraq since the Samara shrine was bombed by Sunni militants a year ago, and thus they have been targeted by the Baghdad security plan.  Two key members of al Sadr’s political and military organization were killed last week, the latest of as many as seven key figures in the al Sadr organization killed or captured in the past two months.  The deaths and captures came after al Maliki, also a Shi’ite, dropped his protection for the organization.  Shi’ite leaders insist that the Shi’ite militias flourished because the U.S. and its allies could not protect civilians, and as I have pointed out numerous times, the force size from the cessation of conventional operations was inadequate.  The charges are probably correct, although not the only reason that security was not forthcoming.  Sectarian strife has been brewing for many years.

It remains to be seen what use the U.S. makes of this opportunity.  As I have discussed before, the surge is not long or large enough to bring permanent security to Iraq, and it is dubious whether Iraqi security forces can purge itself of sectarian influences enough to step into the gap.

Taking al Sadr out early in the war and counterinsurgency would have been preferable, but destruction of his political and military machinery and marginalization of him and his influence might come in a close second in terms of its effect on pacification of Iraq.

I have extensively covered and commented on rules of engagement for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I doubt that there are any other weblogs for which seven articles have been published under the subject tag.  The comments (totaling in the hundreds now) range across the spectrum, but one thing has become clear.  The commenters (and this author) are talking past each other because of failure to engage the discussion at its root: pre-theoretical commitments.

Permit me a bit of philosophical meandering, and forgive me for what will be a long article.  The problem lies not in whether the ROE are “right” or “wrong,” as there are NCOs, officers, and civilians who, regardless of the so-called “evidence” that there are problems, will deny it and assert with full confidence that the ROE are fine, or regardless of the testimony in favor of the current ROE, will assert that there are problems.  This is not surprising, and points to commitments or beliefs that philosopher Alvin Plantinga would call properly foundational or basic, not being subject to “proof” since they are in fact used as axioms or presuppositions to prove the consequent(s).

So that we don’t remain in the realm of the incomprehensible to most people, let’s tackle a couple of examples, the first coming from my sniper coverage.  There has been an evolution even during OIF in how the sniper threat is treated when potential non-combatants are in the vicinity.  The first example comes from Camp Habbaniyah and Lt. Col. Desgrosseilliers’ Battalion after it had sustained a sniper attack.

Within eight minutes, the jump team slid to a stop in front of the surgical unit at an air base near Camp Habbaniyah. Desgrosseilliers joined several jump-team Marines and orderlies in carrying the wounded man inside on a stretcher.

After a few minutes, Grant came out, blood all over his jumpsuit, and sat on the ground, wordless.

Later a doctor came out and told Navy corpsman George Grant it looked as if the Marine would live, that he’d been stabilized and would be flown to a larger hospital. 

Desgrosseilliers emerged and stood silent as Mueller gathered the members of the jump team in a circle and told them that they’d done a good job and he was glad they were safe.

Earlier in the war, maybe, or under a different commander, the Marines might have returned heavy fire in the general direction of the sniper to make him stop.

This time, they hadn’t fired, not even once. No one could see exactly where the shots were coming from, and a stream of bullets into the town could have hit innocent civilians and seriously damaged Desgrosseilliers’ plan to calm the area.

Back in camp, he said he was proud of his men for being so disciplined.

“I think the insurgency is trying to get us off our message by getting us to return fire and maybe kill some innocent people,” Desgrosseilliers said. “But it’s just not going to work.”

The second example describes a soldier’s reaction to a non-lethal standoff weapon that causes the skin to feel as if it is at a very high temperature – the “ray gun.”

Airman Blaine Pernell, 22, said he could have used the system during his four tours in Iraq, where he manned watchtowers around a base near Kirkuk. He said Iraqis often pulled up and faked car problems so they could scout U.S. forces (italics mine).

“All we could do is watch them,” he said. But if they had the ray gun, troops “could have dispersed them.”

Before we query ourselves concerning these examples, there are a few interesting revelations that have developed over the last few weeks concerning ROE.  First, a Washington Times commentary appeared on January 26th, entitled Untie military hands, which I discussed in my last article on ROE and in which Admiral James A. Lyons outlined a set of conditions that must be met before the enemy could be engaged.  Since I have discussed this I will not rehearse the arguments here.  Subsequently to this (beginning on the next day and extending until just recently), there has been a flurry of activity on this web site from military network domains.  Some of this activity came from repeat visitors and came in from referrals or direct access, but of the ones that came in via “organic” means (e.g., Google), it is possible to see the word searches that brought the readers to my site, what articles they read and how long they stayed (among other things such as network location, information about their computer, etc.).

Since I believe that denoting the specific network domains, locations and keywords that were used could possibly be divulging information that should remain undisclosed, I will not publish that information.  However, I can say that rules of engagement has been a top interest of serious readers for a couple of weeks, and the readers didn’t quickly leave this site.  Some serious time was spent studying the issues of ROE.  The culmination seems to be seen in a recent press release by Major General William B. Caldwell.  In this press release, Caldwell takes direct aim at the Washington Times commentaries:

Two separate articles from Jan. 26 editions of The Washington Times offer contradictory assertions concerning rules of engagement for U.S. forces in Iraq. The first article asserts that the rules are too specific and demanding, placing troops at risk. The second article argues that the rules are vague and confusing, endangering troops who must make life and death decisions in an instant.

Both assertions are wrong.

Contrary to the claim in “Untie military hands,” the rules of engagement in Iraq do not require U.S. service members to satisfy seven steps prior to using force. Instead, the overriding rule for all service members is that nothing in our rules of engagement prevents our troops from using necessary and proportional force to defend themselves.

This foundational concept of U.S. rules of engagement (ROE) is provided to every service member on a pocket-size ROE card. More important, service members are trained to understand this rule and its application in life or death situations. While I cannot rule out the possibility that a leader at a lower level may have issued the restrictive guidance stated in the article, such guidance is in direct conflict with both current ROE and command policy.

The law of armed conflict requires that, to use force, “combatants” must distinguish individuals presenting a threat from innocent civilians. This basic principle is accepted by all disciplined militaries. In the counterinsurgency we are now fighting, disciplined application of force is even more critical because our enemies camouflage themselves in the civilian population. Our success in Iraq depends on our ability to treat the civilian population with humanity and dignity, even as we remain ready to immediately defend ourselves or Iraqi civilians when a threat is detected.

If someone levels an AK-47 at our troops, or if our forces receive hostile fire, the current ROE unambiguously allow our troops to fire immediately in self-defense. In either situation, our forces are trained to recognize the threat and respond with appropriate force to eliminate it. This does not mean “firing wildly”; instead, the individual perceiving the threat identifies the source of that threat, and engages with disciplined shots. “Positive identification” of a threat has nothing to do with membership in a particular ethnic or sectarian group, and has everything to do with recognizing hostile intent. U.S.Iraq have never had limitations beyond that.

“Vague rules,” on the other hand, asserts that vague rules of engagement endanger our troops. The article focuses on the words “use minimum force necessary to decisively eliminate the threat.” Although this phrase articulates the self-defense principles of necessity and proportionality — principles that are especially relevant in the current counterinsurgency fight — it neither appears nor is discussed on the ROE card issued to U.S. service members in Iraq.

We (the public) seem to be in the middle of a bare-knuckles brawl between the Washington Times commentaries and OIF command.  It would seem that at least some of the brawling is targeted towards gaining the understanding and sympathy of the civilian population (as is the case with some of the word searches I cited).  Let’s think a bit about the examples I give above and the Multi-National Force web site press release on ROE.

Regarding the charge of “firing wildly” at perceived threats, a better example of this than the U.S. forces might be the Iraqi troops.  The now deceased Marine Captain Robert Secher describes this for us in one exchange with an enemy sniper.

Anytime an American fires a weapon there has to be an investigation into why there was an escalation of force. That wouldn’t have stopped us from firing, but it prevents us from just firing indiscriminately. We have to have positively identified targets. That is why I am now a big fan of having the Iraqis with us. They can fire at whatever the hell they want, we call it the “Iraqi Death Blossom.” These guys receive one shot and the whole unit fires at everything in sight until the attached American unit gets them to control their fire. That’s fine with me.

Apparently, Captain Secher felt safer with the Iraqis and their ROE than he did with his own.  Note that in an instance such as this the U.S. ROE prevents even the firing in the direction of the sniper shots for fear of civilian casualties.    Note also that when it is understood that the ROE places U.S. troops in an environment that is less safe than otherwise would be the case if we adopted more Iraqi-like ROE, the discussion usually shifts from what is perceived as “right” to a more utilitarian approach.  When the discussion shifts to the utility of the ROE (e.g., heavy-handed tactics that creates more insurgents than you kill, failure to “win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis,” etc.), the conversation is advanced, because at least the pre-theoretical commitments are laid bare.  If the focus of the discussion becomes what works or doesn’t work versus what is right or wrong, at least there is clarity.

Leaving this instance for a moment and turning to an instance that may be clearer than this one, another observation about Caldwell’s press release is that it focuses on the neat, clean, decisive action of “distinguishing” the enemy.  For the mathematically inclined, it is the Heaviside step function in Caldwell’s equation.  It is a one or zero.  It is on or off.  Either the enemy has been clearly identified and is leveling an AK-47 at you, or they are non-combatants worthy of protection.  It is as simple as that.  Or is it?

In my opinion, the best, clearest, most informative and most compelling war reporting from Iraq is coming from Michael Yon, Bill Ardolino, and David Danelo and Andrew Lubin of US Cavalry On Point.  Turning at the moment to David Danelo’s recent article A Day in Ramadi:

The patrol left Camp Hurricane Point an hour ago.  We have two missions; pass out candy in a friendly neighborhood and “strongpoint

The Small Wars Journal has a fascinating discussion thread that begins with a Washington Post article by reporter Thomas Ricks, entitled “Officers with PhDs Advising War Effort.”  Says Ricks:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals — including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders — in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.

Army officers tend to refer to the group as “Petraeus guys.” They are smart colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq.

Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and is letting them try to wage the war their way.

“Their role is crucial if we are to reverse the effects of four years of conventional mind-set fighting an unconventional war,” said a Special Forces colonel who knows some of the officers.

But there is widespread skepticism that even this unusual group, with its specialized knowledge of counterinsurgency methods, will be able to win the battle of Baghdad.

“Petraeus’s ‘brain trust’ is an impressive bunch, but I think it’s too late to salvage success in Iraq,” said a professor at a military war college, who said he thinks that the general will still not have sufficient troops to implement a genuine counterinsurgency strategy and that the United States really has no solution for the sectarian violence tearing apart Iraq.

The related conversation in the discussion thread at the Small Wars Journal ranges from doctrinal observations on counterinsurgency strategy to personal reflections on the public’s view of the military concerning whether there is sufficient brain power in the conventional military to develop a strategy to pull off a victory in Iraq.

I do not find it at all odd that ‘warrior-philosophers’ or ‘warrior-scholars’ would be involved in the development of strategy, while at the same time I see no compelling argument to suggest that they are situated any better than their predecessors or the balance of the military to develop the going-forward doctrine for OIF.

While a wildly unpopular view, I have been critical of the recently released counterinsurgency manual on which General Petraeus spent much of the previous couple of years developing.  In War, Counterinsurgency and Prolonged Operations, I contrasted FM 3-24 with both Sun Tzu (The Art of War) and the Small Wars Manual, regarding the understanding of both of the later of the effect of prolonged operations on the morale of the warrior, and the reticence of the former on the same subject.  In Snipers Having Tragic Success Against U.S. Troops (still a well-visited post), I made the observation that while snipers were one of two main prongs of insurgent success in Iraq (IEDs being the other), FM 3-24 did not contain one instance of the use of the word sniper.  The retort is granted that FM 3-24 addresses counterinsurgency on a doctrinal level rather than a tactical level, but the objection loses its punch considering that (a) the Small Wars Manual addresses tactical level concerns, and (b) the fighting men from the ‘strategic corporal‘ to the field grade officer work with tactical level concerns on a daily basis.  If FM 3-24 does not address tactical level issues, one must question its usefulness.

I have also questioned the Petraeus model for Mosul, stating that at all times and in all circumstances, security trumps nonkinetic operations, politics and reconstruction.  The question “what have you done to win Iraqi hearts and minds today,

It has been reported that American and Iraqi forces posted north of Baghdad are preparing checkpoints to net any insurgents who flee Iraq’s capital city to avoid an expected anti-terrorist dragnet there.  But this action might be late, since much insurgent relocation activity has already been reported.  AQI was previously reported to have been leaving Baghdad on orders directly from Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who wanted the fighters to avoid a direct house-to-house battle with U.S. forces.

The Sadrists have been ordered to “lay low” and avoid direct confrontation with the U.S., and reportedly there have been a “large” number of militants who have fled to Syria to avoid being trapped and to await the outcome of the upcoming U.S. operations.  Relying on the people who are affected most deeply to know the situation on the ground, since Diyala politicians, tribal and religious figures have demanded that their province be included in Baghdad security plan, it appears conclusive that there has been a comprehensive enemy reaction to the security plan, this reaction primarily being relocation.

Just yesterday, the Islamic State of Iraq issued a press release, one purpose of which was to communicate the desire to “consolidate … the Mujahideen under one banner.”  This might be more than a little wishful thinking.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted that four wars are taking place in Iraq: [1] a Shi’a-Shi’a war in the south, [2] a sectarian war in Baghdad, [3] an insurgency against U.S. troops, and [4] a war with AQI.

This is a gratuitous estimation of the complexity of the situation.  There are no less that eight significant wars occurring within the borders of Iraq at the present.  First, there is the sectarian violence in and around Baghdad (locations where there is mixed religious tradition living together), and the Sunnis are losing that battle to the Shi’a.  Second, there is the war that AQI is waging against the U.S. and Iraqi security forces.  Third, there is the war that AAS is waging against the same, but there is the added complexity that AQI and AAS are warring with each other – especially in the Anbar province – with each group fighting for supremacy.  Fourth, there is the war of terrorism being waged by foreign fighters.  This war knows almost no boundaries, and most of the foreign fighters are purchased by the aforementioned groups to wage war on not only the U.S. and Iraqi security forces, but each other.  According to one well-placed source, most of these fighters are jihadists who will end their lives as suicide bombers (as opposed to snipers or IED-makers), and they are purchased from and through Syrian elements just across the border, elements that operate primarily as a money-making operation.  Fifth, there is the Sunni insurgency in Anbar, coupled with the tribal fight to deny them safe haven.

In Hope and Brutality in Anbar, I discussed the factious nature of the tribal elements and the fact that there is a criminal element to their policing of the region.  The Sunni insurgency is still dominated by Sunni diehards, Sadaam Fedayeen, and other Baathists who cannot accept that they are no longer in power in Iraq.  Some of these fighters are loyal to AQI or AAS, and some are not.  There is internecine warfare among the tribes, Sunni insurgents and other elements of the population in Anbar.  Sixth, there is the war between the Shi’a and Kurds for control of Kirkuk and its copious oil supply.  Seventh, there are ongoing operations between the Turkish forces and the Kurds, and finally, there is the larger, more macroscopic support system for all of the above in Syria and Iran.  In other words, Iran and Syria are at war with the U.S. through proxy fighters.

One of the detriments of living in an open society such as America is that because political support is necessary for war-making, even strategic decisions such as the Baghdad security plan become splattered across the front page of newspapers the world over.  This gives the enemy time to react and flee the coming crackdown.  On the other hand, it might be a better option to take the enemy on in Syria than in central Baghdad.  Accidentally (i.e., through no planning by the U.S.), there is a unparalleled opportunity that presents itself for incorporation into U.S. strategy for the coming security campaign.

I have gone on record suggesting that without border control with Syria and Iran, the counterinsurgency in Iraq cannot be won.  I have also gone on record saying that there aren’t enough U.S. troops to effect this border security (while I have also questioned the size of the so-called “surge”).  The answer (if there is one), I have suggested, is incursions across the border to destroy both the insurgents and their safe haven.  This is true now in the superlative degree with them congregating in collected locations.  Assuming that the U.S. has reliable human intelligence, the use of sensor fuzed weapons and other cluster munitions can be used to destroy entire encampments of terrorists.  This action would rely on air power, thus freeing ground forces to perform interdiction operations (and other border incursions that are necessary).  For these other, non-air asset border incursions, significant use can be made of the U.S. Marines, a significant portion of which is located in the Anbar Province, within hours of the Syrian border.

The terrorist and jihadist elements are also said to be coming across the border from Saudi Arabia and Jordan into Iraq.  However, these means of ingress are small compared to Syria.  Moreover, both of these regimes have a fundamentalist Islamic element within their borders that could easily be set off against their respective regimes.  Border incursions into Saudi Arabia and Jordan could undermine the current regimes which, while duplicitous at times towards the U.S., are friendlier than potential replacement regimes.

The situation we face with these two countries is not unlike the situation with Moqtada al Sadr.  My intelligence source indicates to me that the U.S. should have taken on al Sadr before the anti-Iranian forces inside Iraq had taken him on as their “poster child.”  Taking out al Sadr at the present would mean, paradoxically, removing one of the last Shi’a anti-Iranian influences in Iraq (and probably the most powerful).

This doesn’t mean that al Sadr, the supporter of Hezballah during the recent Isreal-Lebanon war, should not be taken on directly.  In fact, General Casey has indicated that U.S. forces will be stationed in Sadr City (although providing security is far different than taking out the leadership of the Sadrists, an action which I have advocated).  But to accomplish the above, i.e., border security with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, suppression of the Sadrists, will require more troops than are currently deployed to Iraq.  And hence the focus comes back to the force size.

Without the troops to effect the mission, the only option left to win OIF is extremely aggressive offensive operations against the insurgency, beginning with border incursions into Syria.  The next steps (e.g., the politically costly moves of border incursions into Jordan and Saudi Arabia, border incursions into Iran) will have to be decided based on exigencies on the ground.  Operations against the insurgents inside Syria might have such a strategical (in terms of numbers) and demoralizing affect that operations in Jordan become unnecessary.  With AQI and AAS denied access to jihadists and suicide bombers, continued operations by them becomes more dangerous.  They must then fight rather than hire someone to do it for them.

But without the first step of “closing with and destroying the enemy by fire and maneuver” in Anbar and inside the Syrian borders, we aren’t taking the required steps in winning OIF, and therefore all other exigencies and potentialities become moot.  Without aggressive offensive operations, the enemy will wait out “the surge,” rendering it inconsequential.

Ultimately, the problem of Iran must be dealt with, and the notions discussed above are considered to be only a temporary amelioration of the problem.

It has been reported that American and Iraqi forces posted north of Baghdad are preparing checkpoints to net any insurgents who flee Iraq’s capital city to avoid an expected anti-terrorist dragnet there.  But this action might be late, since much insurgent relocation activity has already been reported.  AQI was previously reported to have been leaving Baghdad on orders directly from Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who wanted the fighters to avoid a direct house-to-house battle with U.S. forces.

The Sadrists have been ordered to “lay low” and avoid direct confrontation with the U.S., and reportedly there have been a “large” number of militants who have fled to Syria to avoid being trapped and to await the outcome of the upcoming U.S. operations.  Relying on the people who are affected most deeply to know the situation on the ground, since Diyala politicians, tribal and religious figures have demanded that their province be included in Baghdad security plan, it appears conclusive that there has been a comprehensive enemy reaction to the security plan, this reaction primarily being relocation.

Just yesterday, the Islamic State of Iraq issued a press release, one purpose of which was to communicate the desire to “consolidate … the Mujahideen under one banner.”  This might be more than a little wishful thinking.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted that four wars are taking place in Iraq: [1] a Shi’a-Shi’a war in the south, [2] a sectarian war in Baghdad, [3] an insurgency against U.S. troops, and [4] a war with AQI.

This is a gratuitous estimation of the complexity of the situation.  There are no less that eight significant wars occurring within the borders of Iraq at the present.  First, there is the sectarian violence in and around Baghdad (locations where there is mixed religious tradition living together), and the Sunnis are losing that battle to the Shi’a.  Second, there is the war that AQI is waging against the U.S. and Iraqi security forces.  Third, there is the war that AAS is waging against the same, but there is the added complexity that AQI and AAS are warring with each other – especially in the Anbar province – with each group fighting for supremacy.  Fourth, there is the war of terrorism being waged by foreign fighters.  This war knows almost no boundaries, and most of the foreign fighters are purchased by the aforementioned groups to wage war on not only the U.S. and Iraqi security forces, but each other.  According to one well-placed source, most of these fighters are jihadists who will end their lives as suicide bombers (as opposed to snipers or IED-makers), and they are purchased from and through Syrian elements just across the border, elements that operate primarily as a money-making operation.  Fifth, there is the Sunni insurgency in Anbar, coupled with the tribal fight to deny them safe haven.

In Hope and Brutality in Anbar, I discussed the factious nature of the tribal elements and the fact that there is a criminal element to their policing of the region.  The Sunni insurgency is still dominated by Sunni diehards, Sadaam Fedayeen, and other Baathists who cannot accept that they are no longer in power in Iraq.  Some of these fighters are loyal to AQI or AAS, and some are not.  There is internecine warfare among the tribes, Sunni insurgents and other elements of the population in Anbar.  Sixth, there is the war between the Shi’a and Kurds for control of Kirkuk and its copious oil supply.  Seventh, there are ongoing operations between the Turkish forces and the Kurds, and finally, there is the larger, more macroscopic support system for all of the above in Syria and Iran.  In other words, Iran and Syria are at war with the U.S. through proxy fighters.

One of the detriments of living in an open society such as America is that because political support is necessary for war-making, even strategic decisions such as the Baghdad security plan become splattered across the front page of newspapers the world over.  This gives the enemy time to react and flee the coming crackdown.  On the other hand, it might be a better option to take the enemy on in Syria than in central Baghdad.  Accidentally (i.e., through no planning by the U.S.), there is a unparalleled opportunity that presents itself for incorporation into U.S. strategy for the coming security campaign.

I have gone on record suggesting that without border control with Syria and Iran, the counterinsurgency in Iraq cannot be won.  I have also gone on record saying that there aren’t enough U.S. troops to effect this border security (while I have also questioned the size of the so-called “surge”).  The answer (if there is one), I have suggested, is incursions across the border to destroy both the insurgents and their safe haven.  This is true now in the superlative degree with them congregating in collected locations.  Assuming that the U.S. has reliable human intelligence, the use of sensor fuzed weapons and other cluster munitions can be used to destroy entire encampments of terrorists.  This action would rely on air power, thus freeing ground forces to perform interdiction operations (and other border incursions that are necessary).  For these other, non-air asset border incursions, significant use can be made of the U.S. Marines, a significant portion of which is located in the Anbar Province, within hours of the Syrian border.

The terrorist and jihadist elements are also said to be coming across the border from Saudi Arabia and Jordan into Iraq.  However, these means of ingress are small compared to Syria.  Moreover, both of these regimes have a fundamentalist Islamic element within their borders that could easily be set off against their respective regimes.  Border incursions into Saudi Arabia and Jordan could undermine the current regimes which, while duplicitous at times towards the U.S., are friendlier than potential replacement regimes.

The situation we face with these two countries is not unlike the situation with Moqtada al Sadr.  My intelligence source indicates to me that the U.S. should have taken on al Sadr before the anti-Iranian forces inside Iraq had taken him on as their “poster child.”  Taking out al Sadr at the present would mean, paradoxically, removing one of the last Shi’a anti-Iranian influences in Iraq (and probably the most powerful).

This doesn’t mean that al Sadr, the supporter of Hezballah during the recent Isreal-Lebanon war, should not be taken on directly.  In fact, General Casey has indicated that U.S. forces will be stationed in Sadr City (although providing security is far different than taking out the leadership of the Sadrists, an action which I have advocated).  But to accomplish the above, i.e., border security with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, suppression of the Sadrists, will require more troops than are currently deployed to Iraq.  And hence the focus comes back to the force size.

Without the troops to effect the mission, the only option left to win OIF is extremely aggressive offensive operations against the insurgency, beginning with border incursions into Syria.  The next steps (e.g., the politically costly moves of border incursions into Jordan and Saudi Arabia, border incursions into Iran) will have to be decided based on exigencies on the ground.  Operations against the insurgents inside Syria might have such a strategical (in terms of numbers) and demoralizing affect that operations in Jordan become unnecessary.  With AQI and AAS denied access to jihadists and suicide bombers, continued operations by them becomes more dangerous.  They must then fight rather than hire someone to do it for them.

But without the first step of “closing with and destroying the enemy by fire and maneuver” in Anbar and inside the Syrian borders, we aren’t taking the required steps in winning OIF, and therefore all other exigencies and potentialities become moot.  Without aggressive offensive operations, the enemy will wait out “the surge,” rendering it inconsequential.

Ultimately, the problem of Iran must be dealt with, and the notions discussed above are considered to be only a temporary amelioration of the problem.

Anbar is a province where there is hope, but this hope seems a dim prospect when torture houses are still in existence.  Anbar is still a restive place, with corruption a way of life, the Syrian border still porous, suicide bombers still crossing into Iraq, and Mujahideen fighters still active in the cities.

U.S. Marines assigned to Golf Company, Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, patrol through the streets of Haditha, Iraq, looking for weapons caches.

Reliable sources are indicating that the insurgency in and around Baghdad is slowly being defeated.  The composition of the insurgency is dynamic, and as the size of the various insurgent groups dwindles, al Qaeda, or rather, its successor organization, the “Islamic State of Iraq,” absorbs the radical and hard-core elements into its ranks.  The diehard Baathist elements are joining under the leadership of al Qaeda, and according to Major General Richard Zilmer, most insurgents who are battling U.S.-led forces in Iraq’s Anbar province are local Iraqis loyal to al Qaeda, and not foreign fighters.  These insurgents want to build a caliphate similar to the Taliban’s Afghanistan regime.

Taking on an increasingly important role in Anbar are the Sunni tribes.  While there is still a very active insurgency, tribal leaders were responsible for more than 2,000 men joining the police in recent months and turning the Al Qaim area near the Syrian border, once infested by al Qaeda, into a relatively secure location.  Yet even the increased cooperation of the local tribal leaders brings with it a mixture of blessing and curse.  With the increase in influence of tribal leaders comes corruption and the attendant largesse.

Some Iraqi politicians and Anbar residents who oppose the U.S. presence describe the confederation, known as the Awakening, as a divisive group that pits tribes against each other, uses police officers as armed guards to protect tribal territory and harnesses American support to consolidate its power.  One journalist describes the ‘Awakening’ as a group of gangsters, asserting that the Awakening’s leader, of the Sattar of the Albu Risha tribe, is reputed to have amassed a fortune as part of a criminal network that robbed travelers on the desert highways of Anbar.

The factious nature of the tribal elements creates an unstable basis for government, and leads ultimately to a divided defense against the insurgency.  The insurgency takes advantage of this and continues its campaign of intimidation and torture to suppress the population in Anbar while at the same time stirring up sectarian strife in and around Baghdad, thus causing more retaliation against the Sunnis by Shi’ite militia, and so the cycle goes.

This campaign of torture and intimidation exemplifies brutality at its worst.  Iraqi police and Marines recently completed “Operation Three Swords” south of Fallujah, the purpose of which was to detain members of murder and intimidation cells within the rural area of Zaidon and the villages of Albu Hawa, Fuhaylat and Hasa.  During the operation, members of the Fallujah police Department and Coalition Forces discovered a torture house and rescued three individuals.  The house had blood-stained walls, and the torture devices included shackles, chains, syringes, rifles, knives, chord, clubs and a blow torch.  The condition of the torture victims was said to be dire.

Torture, whether at the hands of the Sunnis or Shia, is a commonly practiced means to intimidate and brutalize the enemy in Iraq, and in fact, throughout the Middle East and parts of Asia.  Palestinians are fleeing Iraq, and probably for good reason.  More than 600 Palestinians are believed to have died at the hands of Shia militias since the war began in 2003, including at least 300 from the Baladiat area of Baghdad. Many were tortured with electric drills before they died.

The historically successful operations to pacify an area have included security as the primary consideration.  There has recently been a significant degree of success in the pacification of Haditha, but this success has required the construction of sand berms, with controlled checkpoints as a means of ingress into and egress from the city.  With focused leadership and isolation from the rogue elements coming across the border from Syria, cities can be pacified one by one.

While it has been strongly recommended that the borders with Syria and Iran be sealed because of the dynamic battlefield space created by open borders, it is also recognized that there are not enough troops to secure the borders.  Therefore, offensive operations against insurgent safe havens inside Syria are necessary to cause the cessation of the stream of fighters from Syria and other locations (Jordan, the ostensible ally of the U.S., presents a particular problem, as does Saudi Arabia, and border incursions by U.S. troops might be problematic).

A U.S. official recently acknowledged that the vast majority of suicide bombers came across the border from Syria, and that they received training for their task within Syria as well as inside Iraq itself.  The official further admitted that “We have been wholly unsuccessful in affecting Syrian behaviour with regard to the passage of these elements.”  There is a recent attempt to close the borders with Syria, but this effort might be more effective at stopping fleeing refugees than in stopping the flow of jihadists into Iraq.

Whether suicide bombers coming in from Syria, or co-opted Sunni mujahideen working for al Qaeda, the tactics are the same, and involve the intimidation of the local population.  The defeater for this intimidation has always been the removal of the rogue elements, and the affect of the battle between these two forces was recently manifested in a remarkable portrait of Iraqi life in a report directly from Iraq by Andrew Lubin.

Not unlike a meet-and-greet patrol, a census operation generally involves handing out candy to children, shaking hands with parents, and doing some generic waving and smiling. This one, into a slightly different part of the city than yesterday (but only 400 yards away), had a bad feel to it from the start.

Instead of approaching, the children actively waved us off as we offered candy. They held their hands in front of their faces so we could not photograph them. Parents and adults withdrew from the street and shut their doors, except for those who fixed us with hostile, threatening stares.

We pressed on.  In two houses, we visited Iraqis and performed the normal routine of census operations.

By the time the Marines got the third house, the reason for the apparent fear became obvious.  A census operation turned into a gunfight between Marines (along with Iraqi forces) and insurgents.

While two Marines and several IP’s stood guard in a courtyard, an insurgent in the adjacent courtyard tossed a hand grenade into ours. You could hear the hiss as it was lobbed in the air, and it landed in the lap of a seated Marine. Reacting quickly, he slapped it out of his lap, and as it rolled to his feet, it exploded.

Although protected by his body armor, shrapnel ripped into LCpl “Smith’s

It is one thing to support a surge of troops, and quite another to have the national discipline to prepare for it ten years ago.

For approximately four years, since the cessation of conventional operations in the Asia / Middle East theatre, U.S. forces have trained and equipped for counterinsurgency operations.  In fact, under the Clinton administration, focus on large forces and heavy armor gave way to less armor, smaller, less armored vehicles, and special forces (along with a reduction in the overall size of the military).  This is why the phrase ‘up-armored’ HMMWV exists.  This has also left the armed forces less prepared for large-scale, conventional operations.

Nearly four years in Iraq have hammered US army and marines into a skilled counter-insurgency force but has left it unready for war against a conventionally armed foe, US generals warn.

Arguing for big budget increases and more troops, leaders of both military services have made the case in recent days that the US military faces greater risk today if it is called to respond to another major conflict.

“What we are developing right now is the best counterinsurgency force in the world, both army and marine,” General James Conway, commandant of the marine corps, told lawmakers Tuesday.

But “that’s essentially what they’re focused on,” Conway added, because troops have little time to train for anything else between tours to Iraq.

“So we need to be able to train toward other major contingency types of operations, and we’re just not doing it right now,” he said.

General Peter Schoomaker, the army chief of staff, echoed Conway’s concerns at hearing before the House Armed Services Committee.

“I have no concerns about how we are equipping, training and manning the forces that are going across the berm into harm’s way. But I do have continued concerns about the strategic depth of our Army and its readiness,” he said.

Lieutenant General Stephen Speakes, an army deputy chief of staff, told defense reporters this week none of the army’s combat brigades are rated as ready for high intensity conflict.

“If you take a look at the forces not deployed to combat, whether they are active guard or reserve, they have substantial equipping shortfalls, and also some issues with training and manning,” he said.

“What that means then is they are not optimized to be ready to fight a high-intensity conflict,” he said.

“We have been very successful focusing both equipping and training and manning on the units that are going to combat, but those units have been focused on low intensity conflict,” he said.

“Their training program has been almost exclusively focused to that end, and even they are not high intensity conflict certified,” he said.

A “surge” of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq ordered by President George W. Bush will add to the squeeze, particularly if the demand for more troops continues to climb to pacify areas beyond Baghdad, they said.

“If it is indeed a plus-up, it is going to make our future more difficult,” said Conway.

The generals were reluctant to spell out the risk posed by another major challenge elsewhere in the world, referring lawmakers to classified assessments submitted by the militaries.

But in general terms officials said the US military response to crisis elsewhere is likely to be slower and incur more US casualties than called for in US war plans.

But the problems with small force projection and a paucity of equipment are more far reaching than a postulated war with another enemy (the dual containment philosophy).  The problems are manifested in the here and now regarding the so-called “surge” of troops to support OIF.

Boosting U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 would create major logistical hurdles for the Army and Marine Corps, which are short thousands of vehicles, armor kits and other equipment needed to supply the extra forces, U.S. officials said.

The increase would also further degrade the readiness of U.S.-based ground forces, hampering their ability to respond quickly, fully trained and well equipped in the case of other military contingencies around the world and increasing the risk of U.S. casualties, according to Army and Marine Corps leaders.

“The response would be slower than we might like, we would not have all of the equipment sets that ordinarily would be the case, and there is certainly risk associated with that,” the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Conway, told the House Armed Services Committee last week.

President Bush’s plan to send five additional U.S. combat brigades into Iraq has left the Army and Marines scrambling to ensure that the troops could be supported with the necessary armored vehicles, jamming devices, radios and other gear, as well as lodging and other logistics.

Trucks are in particularly short supply. For example, the Army would need 1,500 specially outfitted — known as “up-armored” — 2 1/2 -ton and five-ton trucks in Iraq for the incoming units, said Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for force development.

“We don’t have the [armor] kits, and we don’t have the trucks,” Speakes said in an interview. He said it will take the Army months, probably until summer, to supply and outfit the additional trucks. As a result, he said, combat units flowing into Iraq would have to share the trucks assigned to units now there, leading to increased use and maintenance.

Speakes said that although another type of vehicle — the up-armored Humvee — continues to be in short supply Army-wide, there would be “adequate” numbers for incoming forces, and each brigade would receive 400 fully outfitted Humvees. But he said that to meet the need, the Army would have to draw down pre-positioned stocks that would then not be available for other contingencies.

Still, U.S. commanders privately expressed doubts that Iraq-bound units would receive a full complement of Humvees. “It’s inevitable that that has to happen, unless five brigades of up-armored Humvees fall out of the sky,” one senior Army official said of the feared shortfall. He expects that some units would have to rely more heavily on Bradley Fighting Vehicles and tanks that, although highly protective, are intimidating and therefore less effective for many counterinsurgency missions.

Adding to the crunch, the U.S. government has agreed to sell 600 up-armored Humvees to Iraq this year for its security forces. Such sales “better not be at the expense of the American soldier or Marine,” Speakes told defense reporters recently, saying U.S. military needs must take priority.

Living facilities in Iraq are another concern for the additional troops, who would be concentrated in Baghdad, Army officials said. The U.S. military has closed or handed over to Iraqi forces about half of the 110 bases established there after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Decisions are being made on where to base incoming units in Baghdad, but it is likely that, at least in the short term, they would be placed in existing facilities, officials said.

Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new top U.S. commander in Iraq, has requested that additional combat brigades move into Iraq as quickly as possible. But accelerated deployments would mean less time for units to train and fill out their ranks. Brigades are required to have an aggregate number of soldiers before deploying but may still face shortages of specific ranks and job skills.

Meanwhile, the demand for thousands more U.S. forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan is worsening the readiness of units in the United States, depleting their equipment and time to train, Army officials said. “We can fulfill the national strategy, but it will take more time and it will also take us increased casualties to do the job,” Speakes said.

Army Chief of Staff Peter J. Schoomaker testified last week before the House Armed Services Committee that, regarding readiness, “my concerns are increased over what they were in June.”

“To meet combatant commanders’ immediate wartime needs, we pooled equipment from across the force to equip soldiers deploying in harm’s way,” he said. “This practice, which we are continuing today, increases risk for our next-to-deploy units and limits our ability to respond to emerging strategic contingencies.”

Schoomaker called for additional funding to fix “holes in the force” and “break the historical cycle of unpreparedness.”

The equipment shortages are pronounced in Army National Guard units, which have, on average, 40 percent of their required equipment, according to Army data. Senior Pentagon and Army officials say they expect to have to involuntarily mobilize some National Guard combat brigades earlier than planned to relieve active-duty forces. But the Guard as a whole is not expected to return to minimum equipment levels until 2013, Army figures show.

The Army seeks to increase its permanent active-duty ranks by 65,000 soldiers by 2012, creating six new combat brigades at a total estimated cost of $70 billion.

A number of problems have plagued OIF: the naive trust in the healing powers of democracy, the unreadiness of the new Iraqi armed forces to take over security of Iraq without the necessary training and equipment, COIN doctrine that took its cue from forty year old counterinsurgency strategy flowing from Vietnam rather than looking to the holy war that the jihadists are fighting, and other problems too numerous to mention.  This naivety created the milieu for the deployment of a force that was too small to bring security to a country the size of Iraq, and equipped for a conflict that would not last as long as this one has.

The problems run from the preparations for OIF to the present, where senior officers find it implausible that the available equipment will match the needs of U.S. troops in the coming months.  It is one thing to support a surge of troops, and quite another to have the national discipline to prepare for it ten years ago.

Thus does one senior military officer write me to ask, “Does America support the war but not the troops?”