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U.S. Army Documents Warn of Occupation Hazards
The War After the War
by Jason Vest
March 19 - 25, 2003
After a victory in Iraq, the transition from soldier to cop may be harrowing for the U.S. military.
(illustration: Roberto Parada)
Despite the sanguine way George W. Bush and his chamberlains talk about a post-war Iraq, senior military officers are worried.
According to recent unpublicized U.S. Army War College studies being read with increasing interest by some Pentagon planners, "The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious."
And that's especially true if occupation force soldiers are not retrained to be "something similar to a constabulary force" and imbued with the understanding that "force is often the last resort of the occupation soldier." The War College studies explore in detail a troubling paradox: While all experts agree that stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq would be a protracted endeavor, "the longer a U.S. occupation of Iraq continues," one of the studies notes, "the more danger exists that elements of the Iraqi population will become impatient and take violent measures to hasten the departure of U.S. forces."
One study broaches the subject of suicide attacks against U.S. soldiers. "The impact of suicide bombing attacks in Israel goes beyond their numbers," it says, "and this fact will also capture the imagination of would-be Iraqi terrorists."
Yet Bush and some of his top advisers have consistently preached that laying the foundation for post-blood-and-sand Iraq really won't be that much of a chore. In a recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Dubya's tone was upbeat as he rattled off a succinct post-Saddam checklist for the U.S. Army: Deliver medicine to ailing Iraqis, hand out emergency rations, destroy weapons, secure Iraq from those who would "spread chaos" internally, and mind the oil fieldsbut not for "a day more" than necessary.
Indeed, after the speech, a "senior administration official" told one reporter that a transition from U.S. military to U.S. civilian control over Iraq would take only a few months. Testifying before the House Budget Committee earlier this month, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz dismissed Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki's suggestion that a U.S. occupation force might run to the hundreds of thousands; in a recent interview with the Voice, a senior Pentagon official dismissed General Shinseki's comments as "bullshit from a Clintonite enamored of using the army for peacekeeping and nation-building and not winning wars."
But at a time when the U.S. Army is a case study in multitaskingfighting the Global War on Terrorism (or GWOT, in Milspeak), keeping watch on the Korean peninsula, peacekeeping in the Balkans, chasing Islamic rebels in the Philippines, saddling up for more action in Colombia, to name but a few choresa number of military professionals are quietly venting spleen about how disingenuous they believe the Bush administration is being with the public about post-war Iraq....
source
The War After the War
by Jason Vest
March 19 - 25, 2003
After a victory in Iraq, the transition from soldier to cop may be harrowing for the U.S. military.
(illustration: Roberto Parada)
Despite the sanguine way George W. Bush and his chamberlains talk about a post-war Iraq, senior military officers are worried.
According to recent unpublicized U.S. Army War College studies being read with increasing interest by some Pentagon planners, "The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious."
And that's especially true if occupation force soldiers are not retrained to be "something similar to a constabulary force" and imbued with the understanding that "force is often the last resort of the occupation soldier." The War College studies explore in detail a troubling paradox: While all experts agree that stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq would be a protracted endeavor, "the longer a U.S. occupation of Iraq continues," one of the studies notes, "the more danger exists that elements of the Iraqi population will become impatient and take violent measures to hasten the departure of U.S. forces."
One study broaches the subject of suicide attacks against U.S. soldiers. "The impact of suicide bombing attacks in Israel goes beyond their numbers," it says, "and this fact will also capture the imagination of would-be Iraqi terrorists."
Yet Bush and some of his top advisers have consistently preached that laying the foundation for post-blood-and-sand Iraq really won't be that much of a chore. In a recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Dubya's tone was upbeat as he rattled off a succinct post-Saddam checklist for the U.S. Army: Deliver medicine to ailing Iraqis, hand out emergency rations, destroy weapons, secure Iraq from those who would "spread chaos" internally, and mind the oil fieldsbut not for "a day more" than necessary.
Indeed, after the speech, a "senior administration official" told one reporter that a transition from U.S. military to U.S. civilian control over Iraq would take only a few months. Testifying before the House Budget Committee earlier this month, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz dismissed Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki's suggestion that a U.S. occupation force might run to the hundreds of thousands; in a recent interview with the Voice, a senior Pentagon official dismissed General Shinseki's comments as "bullshit from a Clintonite enamored of using the army for peacekeeping and nation-building and not winning wars."
But at a time when the U.S. Army is a case study in multitaskingfighting the Global War on Terrorism (or GWOT, in Milspeak), keeping watch on the Korean peninsula, peacekeeping in the Balkans, chasing Islamic rebels in the Philippines, saddling up for more action in Colombia, to name but a few choresa number of military professionals are quietly venting spleen about how disingenuous they believe the Bush administration is being with the public about post-war Iraq....
source
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