Every war teaches a lesson. The U.S. learned in Vietnam that all its military might, billions spent, its decadelong persistence, a president’s career and 50,000 casualties could not overcome the liability of an ambivalent ally and the opposition of a thoroughly dedicated foe fighting on its own soil. The pain of that lesson is carried in the nation’s soul and psyche, very close to the surface, these three decades later.
Iraq is teaching a lesson, too. Nineteen months after U.S. troops pushed into Iraq, quickly overcoming the country’s haphazard forces and toppling the bogeymen in charge, Iraq is a house of bloody horrors. Violence erupts here, there and anywhere, at any time, killing U.S. troops (1,280 as of Dec. 9), allied troops, Iraqi police, civilians – whoever.
Insurgents, whether homegrown or immigrants, number in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands. Intelligence is so poor, no one knows. And besides, Iraq’s borders have never been secured, so today’s number could be wildly off tomorrow.
The heavily fortified Green Zone that’s supposed to be the safe haven and headquarters of our people there regularly comes under attack. The relatively short stretch of road between Baghdad and the Baghdad airport isn’t secure and never has been. A reporter recently back from Iraq referred to it as “a death zone.”
Sens. Chuck Hagel, a Republican, and Joe Biden, a Democrat, returned from Iraq last week. Both characterized the situation as bad and getting worse, with Biden calling it “utter chaos.” Biden said that, behind closed doors and out of earshot of higher-ups, troops and officers repeatedly told him we have too few troops in Iraq to secure the country.
The plane carrying Biden, Hagel and several other senators home undertook wild missile-evading gyrations just after takeoff. Asked if missiles had been fired at them, the pilot said he didn’t know but always takes evasive action when he sees warning flares.
Just this week, the New York Times reported on a leaked memo from the CIA station chief in Baghdad. The story begins:
“WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 – A classified cable sent by the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief in Baghdad has warned that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and may not rebound any time soon, according to government officials.
“The cable, sent late last month as the officer ended a yearlong tour, presented a bleak assessment on matters of politics, economics and security, the officials said. They said its basic conclusions had been echoed in briefings presented by a senior C.I.A. official who recently visited Iraq.”
The Bush administration held out hope that an offensive to wrest control of Fallujah from insurgents this fall would greatly suppress violence and enhance security ahead of elections to be held in January. Former national security official Richard Clarke this week described the actual situation during a speaking engagement in New York:
“Fallujah might participate in an election in January, but not in January of 2005. In order to liberate the city to hold an election we destroyed the city where 300,000 people had called their home. Again, not exactly what the administration has told you. They have told you we liberated it to have an election but the reality is we have destroyed it.”
Stepping back to assess the larger picture, Clarke added this:
“We all hope there will never be another terrorist attack in the United States. But there could be, since we have not eliminated the terrorist threat. Instead, we have gone off and made it worse by invading Iraq. There could be, because we are stimulating people to join terrorist organizations by our activities in Iraq. There could be because we are spending money destroying Iraq rather than creating homeland security here at home.”
The truth is that Iraq is causing us to relearn lessons of past wars. First, as no less than then-Gen. Colin Powell postulated in the Desert Storm era, it’s necessary to go in with overwhelming force in pursuit of a clearly defined objective, with a clearly defined exit strategy. Second, from Vietnam, if the people we’re trying to help want more than anything for us to be gone and/or the killing to end, no amount of largesse, propaganda and force will bring success.
The new and unique lesson of the Iraq war is, never allow an incompetent president and his incompetent aides and appointees to take the country to war.
