Was Iraq a mistake?

[S2]

Rugmop Reply

Oh boy.

Another dim bulb.

[rugmop]

Oh boy.

Another dim bulb.

Such introspection is laudable. You mustn't feel too disappointed though. It's probably not your fault you're dim. Have you sought psychiatric assistance?

[Guest]

Has there ever been an unbiased discussion thread about Iraq War here, or did it always revolved around: one side crying oil, the other side quoting non-American oil contracts. One side saying saving Iraq from Saddam tyranny, other side saying what about Robert Mugabe. One side bringing the technical violation of US invasion, the other side bringing on the numerous Iraqi violations of UN resolutions.

It is more like two camps, each side trying to weaken the other side by all means required just to makesure that they are on the top of the argument. Not so much of a discussion. I hate recent/current day history, it is full of ****, people are heavilly influence and/or biased depending where they are from, and will go out of their way to show how insignificant and idiotic is the other side view.

[Officer of Engineers]

That's because we're living it and in more than a few cases here, people were/are decision makers within these wars. There are no neutrals, especially those in uniform.

[Guest]

I can understand that, but do you have the same respect for the pro-Russian opinion of say a Russian officer involved in planning of military operations in Georgia or Afghanistan.

[Officer of Engineers]

We have a Russian Naval Infantry Captain on this board and I am hoping he is safe. He has most certainly earned this board's respects and while we may disagree on certain viewpoints, we more than respect his professional opinion and judgement.

[Blademaster]

By the way, is the Russian naval infantry the same thing as the Marines?

[osage18]

Has there ever been an unbiased discussion thread about Iraq War here, or did it always revolved around: one side crying oil, the other side quoting non-American oil contracts. One side saying saving Iraq from Saddam tyranny, other side saying what about Robert Mugabe. One side bringing the technical violation of US invasion, the other side bringing on the numerous Iraqi violations of UN resolutions.

It is more like two camps, each side trying to weaken the other side by all means required just to makesure that they are on the top of the argument. Not so much of a discussion. I hate recent/current day history, it is full of ****, people are heavilly influence and/or biased depending where they are from, and will go out of their way to show how insignificant and idiotic is the other side view.

How about another side of the coin: We shouldn't have invaded Iraq because we didn't possess the necessary troops, technical and tactical ability, proper equipment or general strategy to do it right. In this sense, I mean, if you can't do it right, you shouldn't do it. Because of our inability to heed this warning, thousands have been killed and wounded and a Trillion Dollars will be spent. It's easy to be an armchair quarterback, but the outcome of Iraq was totally predictable and completely plausible. I'm not talking Oil, UN sanctions, WMD, Military-Industrial complex, Neo-Conservative jingoistic hubris, 9/11, terror or any other issue. The bottom line is that we weren't prepared or capable of getting in right. Therefore, we shouldn't have done it.

[Gun Grape]

By the way, is the Russian naval infantry the same thing as the Marines?

Yes.

Both of us Soldiers of the sea

And I hope he is well. Where ever he may be.

You cannot believe the joy I have had being able to pick his brain at times.
Hope to be able to do it again.

It would be like OoE having discussions with a warsaw pact latrine digger.

[zraver]

How about another side of the coin: We shouldn't have invaded Iraq because we didn't possess the necessary troops, technical and tactical ability, proper equipment or general strategy to do it right.

slow your roll, we had the troops, technical and tactical ability, we had the equipment and strategy. We did roll over Saddam's Iraq in just a few weeks. The occupation was in my opinion badly handled in the begining especially on a political level but that is not what you were talking about.

In this sense, I mean, if you can't do it right, you shouldn't do it.

Some times the effort is required with or without perfect marks. Saddam's Iraq was 5x more dangeorus to iraqi citizens and iraq's neighbors than the current war.

Because of our inability to heed this warning, thousands have been killed and wounded and a Trillion Dollars will be spent. It's easy to be an armchair quarterback, but the outcome of Iraq was totally predictable and completely plausible.

perhaps, here I agree with you. But the failings under the Rumsfeld DoD do not make the venture worthless. All things ust be judged by more than jsut intention, out come plays a roll as well.

I'm not talking Oil, UN sanctions, WMD, Military-Industrial complex, Neo-Conservative jingoistic hubris, 9/11, terror or any other issue. The bottom line is that we weren't prepared or capable of getting in right. Therefore, we shouldn't have done it.

I am 100% opposed to your views on this issue.

[Shek]

How about another side of the coin: We shouldn't have invaded Iraq because we didn't possess the necessary troops, technical and tactical ability, proper equipment or general strategy to do it right. In this sense, I mean, if you can't do it right, you shouldn't do it. Because of our inability to heed this warning, thousands have been killed and wounded and a Trillion Dollars will be spent. It's easy to be an armchair quarterback, but the outcome of Iraq was totally predictable and completely plausible. I'm not talking Oil, UN sanctions, WMD, Military-Industrial complex, Neo-Conservative jingoistic hubris, 9/11, terror or any other issue. The bottom line is that we weren't prepared or capable of getting in right. Therefore, we shouldn't have done it.

We had the troops, but we didn't deploy them.

We had the technical ability.

We had the tactical ability.

We had the proper equipment, although there's always room to improve.

We lacked a grand strategy, but not because the components weren't available. State had loads of planning available that the Rumsfeld OSD ignored that gave us the Phase IV we saw. The military had enough expert knowledge to have resourced it properly, but once again, between the wrong CENTCOM Commander at the wrong time and OSD, we flubbed this up.

The bottomline is that we could have been prepared and could have gotten enough right to where we wouldn't have had to have spent 5 years to return back to where we were at the beginning of the summer of 2003.

There still would have been experiential learning on the COIN side, but it could have been in an environment where terrorism and extreme sectarianism didn't exist and therefore complicated the COIN piece.

[JAD_333]

The bottom line is that we weren't prepared or capable of getting in right. Therefore, we shouldn't have done it.

Just to add a thought to Zraver and Shek's responses, we were capable of getting it right. That's clear from current ops.

Another thing, you are looking at the early phase of the war thought a rear-view mirror. I doubt very many people knew how badly the occupation would go ahead of time. The first inkling was the inability, or lack of effort, to stop the looting and secure munition dumps.

You are either one of those who feel lied to because no large caches of WMD were found or one who those who realizes that WMD was a pretext, and that the fundamental reason for the war was positioning within the region where terror organizations had their roots. Saddam was an important, but secondary reason.

[Bigfella]

Just to add a thought to Zraver and Shek's responses, we were capable of getting it right. That's clear from current ops.

Another thing, you are looking at the early phase of the war thought a rear-view mirror. I doubt very many people knew how badly the occupation would go ahead of time. The first inkling was the inability, or lack of effort, to stop the looting and secure munition dumps.

You are either one of those who feel lied to because no large caches of WMD were found or one who those who realizes that WMD was a pretext, and that the fundamental reason for the war was positioning within the region where terror organizations had their roots. Saddam was an important, but secondary reason.

JAD,

I would argue that if we had known how shambolic the organization of the reconstruction effort actually was then a lot more of us would have predicted precisely what did happen. That would'nt have required any hindsight.

There were hints here & there, but it took quite a while to really join the dots. Had this been handled with anything resembling competence then I think that flaws in military tactics would have been a lot less important.

Unfortunately most of us (yours truly included) simply assumed that a nation with the financial & human resources that America has would be able to deploy those resources as effectively in pursuit of reconstruction as it did in pursuit of destruction (so to speak). This was something that could have been handled a infinitely better from day one. Obviously in an environment as complex as Iraq there would have been missteps, but most of the worst mistakes were aviodable without benefit of hindsight.

[osage18]

zraver, shek, JAD 33, in order to prevent redundancy, I'll only respond once. Bigfella has good points, as well.

Just to add a thought to Zraver and Shek's responses, we were capable of getting it right. That's clear from current ops.

I didn't say that we weren't much better at COIN than we used to be. You are correct, we are clearly winning militarily. Some units (namely Petraeus' 101st Airborne) were using the current strategy in 2003 with incredible success. Unfortunately, we didn't have the troop strength to execute this throughout the country. When Rumsfeld decided that the "light footprint" was the way we could reduce casualties, the opposite actually occured; plausibly predictable by anyone who knew anything about COIN. That is why we are currently doing just the opposite of the "light footprint".

Another thing, you are looking at the early phase of the war thought a rear-view mirror. I doubt very many people knew how badly the occupation would go ahead of time. The first inkling was the inability, or lack of effort, to stop the looting and secure munition dumps.

Yes, the inability to stop the looting and secure the ammunition dumps was a clossal failure...two situations that SHOULD HAVE BEEN anticipated by the planners of the invasion. Again, I'd infer that we didn't have the enough troops to accomplish this. These leads back to my point that the plan was poor.

You are either one of those who feel lied to because no large caches of WMD were found or one who those who realizes that WMD was a pretext, and that the fundamental reason for the war was positioning within the region where terror organizations had their roots. Saddam was an important, but secondary reason.

Then why didn't the President just say that? Why bring up WMD if we weren't sure? IIRC, there were no terrorists in Iraq before we got there. If your "fundamental reason" is correct, then why was "the plan" by Rumsfeld to have most of the invading force home by Christmas 2003? Or was that not actually the plan?

Of course I feel lied to; but I'd rather the truth is that we were just wrong about the WMD, not that it was a lie or a pretext. I'll stand by my position that it should have been determined in the (hasty) planning process that we didn't have a good plan for after the regime collapsed and we shouldn't have embarked on the mission until we were completely ready, with the right plan, right amount of troops, the proper equipment and adequate training. The invasion was over pretty quickly and I spent the rest of 2003 trying to perfect "Civil-Military Operations" and chase insurgents around; neither of which me or my unit was particularly good at. Had we trained on non-lethal effects, CMO and COIN prior to deployment, we probably would have been much better off. It all ties back into my point that we (collectively, as a military, namely the Army and Marines, plus the civilian elements like State) weren't trained or prepared for this venture. Wrong endevor, wrong time.

[Shek]

I didn't say that we weren't much better at COIN than we used to be. You are correct, we are clearly winning militarily. Some units (namely Petraeus' 101st Airborne) were using the current strategy in 2003 with incredible success. Unfortunately, we didn't have the troop strength to execute this throughout the country. When Rumsfeld decided that the "light footprint" was the way we could reduce casualties, the opposite actually occured; plausibly predictable by anyone who knew anything about COIN. That is why we are currently doing just the opposite of the "light footprint".

Thus, we had the capability and didn't use it!

Yes, the inability to stop the looting and secure the ammunition dumps was a clossal failure...two situations that SHOULD HAVE BEEN anticipated by the planners of the invasion. Again, I'd infer that we didn't have the enough troops to accomplish this. These leads back to my point that the plan was poor.

The final plan assumed much more risk than the plan that was on the shelf. However, we didn't even execute the final plan. There were significant departures from it such as stopping the TPFDL (in addition to FRAGOing the TPFDL), disbanding the Iraqi Army, and deeper de-Ba'athification than necessary.

I'll stand by my position that it should have been determined in the (hasty) planning process that we didn't have a good plan for after the regime collapsed and we shouldn't have embarked on the mission until we were completely ready, with the right plan, right amount of troops, the proper equipment and adequate training. The invasion was over pretty quickly and I spent the rest of 2003 trying to perfect "Civil-Military Operations" and chase insurgents around; neither of which me or my unit was particularly good at. Had we trained on non-lethal effects, CMO and COIN prior to deployment, we probably would have been much better off. It all ties back into my point that we (collectively, as a military, namely the Army and Marines, plus the civilian elements like State) weren't trained or prepared for this venture. Wrong endevor, wrong time.

We had doctrine, outdated, but it existed. We had folks on the ground making it happen. When you trace back the failures, it wasn't a matter of capability or capacity, but failures in the specific personalities.

As far as CMO, non-lethal effects, etc., we could both go into the CALL database and pull nearly a decade's worth of lessons from the Balkans, all of them available online. Units had enough mid-to-senior grade NCOs and company and field grades with experiences in these exact same operations.

Bottomline, we had the capacity to capability, unlike your argument, but we were hindered by poor decisions during execution. More time, more training, more anticipitation about equipment, etc., could have helped, but it didn't create the poor performance in 2003 that led to five years of hard fighting - poor decisions in how to use capacity and capability did.