Explaining the Perception of Failure in America's War on Terrorism

Amanda Jeffers

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Appendices . . - Copyright Releases (if applicable) Table of Contents

List of Graphs vi

List of Figures vii

Abstract viii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Chapter 2: Is the U.S. Winning or Losing the War On Terrorism? Introduction 4

Part 1: Bush Administration Objectives, Strategy and Metrics in the War on

Terrorism 5

Defining the Enemy 5

Key Goals and Strategy 7

Bush Administration Metrics for Success 8

Critics and the Need for New Metrics 10

Metrics Are Political 14

Part 2: Theories of Failure in the WOT and Implications for Policy

Introduction 17

The Optimists 18

The Pessimists 20

Explaining Why Public Support for War Declines 23

The Triumph of Failure 27

Conclusion: Failures Trump Successes 28

Chapter 3: Understanding the Perception of Failure in Iraq and Implications for the War on Terrorism Introduction 30 The Decision to Invade Iraq: Was the War a Mistake? 33 IV Declining Public Support for the War in Iraq (2003-06) 45

Part 2: Post-Surge Iraq: Perceptions of Failure Despite

Success on the Ground (2007-present) 48

The Surge 48

Evidence of Success in Post-Surge Iraq 53

Part 3: Explaining the Perception of Failure in Iraq 56

Conclusion: Implications for the War on Terrorism and Lessons for Obama 67 Chapter 4: Success and Failure in the War in Afghanistan Introduction 70

Parti: The Bush Administration in Afghanistan:

America's Forgotten War 72

Operation Enduring Freedom: Failure Masquerading as Success 72

Public Opinion on the War in Afghanistan:

From Success to Failure (2001-2008) 85

Part 2: President Obama's 'Necessary War:' A 'New' Strategy Emerges 88

An Initial Assessment of Success and Failure in Afghanistan 99

Public Opinion, Afghanistan, and Obama 106

Conclusion: Explaining the Perception of Failure in Afghanistan 110

Chapter 5: Conclusion 113

Bibliography 123

v List of Graphs

Graph 1: Approval of Bush's Handling of Iraq (2003-06) 45

Graph 2: Does Bush Have a Clear Plan in Iraq? (2003-06) 46

Graph 3: Is (Will) the U.S. Losing in Iraq? (2005-07) 47

Graph 4: How Well is the Iraq War Going? (2003-2008) 47

Graph 5: Approval of Bush's Handling of Iraq (2006-08) 55

Graph 6: Favour or Oppose the War in Afghanistan? (2006-08) 86

Graph 7: How Well are Things Going in Afghanistan? (2006-08) 87

Graph 8: Afghan Perceptions of Performance (2005-09) 105

Graph 9: Favour or Oppose the War in Afghanistan? (2008-10) 107

Graph 10: How Well are Things Going in Afghanistan? (2009) 108

Graph 11: Approval of Obama's Handling of Afghanistan (2009) 109

VI List of Figures

Figure 1: Enemy Initiated Attacks Against Coalition and Partners, (2004-08) 54

Figure 2: ICSD Map of Taliban Controlled Districts (2009) 100

vn Abstract

This paper addresses the question, is the U.S. winning the War on Terrorism (WOT), and how do we know? While essential for demonstrating progress and maintaining public support, metrics are political and as a result there will be no consensus on which are the most appropriate. In trying to understand why public support for the WOT declined it is more important to focus on the pressures that compel leaders to pursue similar but often risky and counterproductive policies, rather than on the mistakes and failures of the Bush administration. While expectations of future success matter most in maintaining public support for war, once established the perception that the U.S. was losing has and will continue to be difficult to overcome due to the public's tendency to overvalue failures and undervalue successes. These findings are explored further through two case studies. The Iraq War reveals an interesting paradox: public support for the war, which is widely believed to be a function of how the war is going, continued to decline even in light of substantial successes made since the surge. That strategy is now being implemented in Afghanistan, and these findings allow us to predict that, despite progress in achieving the Obama administration's objectives in the region, public support for the war and the president's handling of it has and will continue to decline. Obama, like Bush did in Iraq, will face increasing pressure to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan before fragile gains can be cemented, and America may once again abandon the Afghans to fight it out among themselves.

vin 1

Chapter 1: Introduction

One of the most important but relatively neglected aspects of America's War on

Terrorism (WOT)1 is the question of how to measure success and failure. Is the U.S. winning or losing the WOT, and how do we know? This paper will address the challenges faced by both the Bush and Obama administrations to demonstrate success, or at least progress, in the WOT. The Obama administration is now responsible for winning the war in Afghanistan, which has regained its place as the key battlefield in the larger

WOT. Despite its renewed efforts to end the unpopular war in Iraq and win the war in

Afghanistan, the Obama administration faces the same challenges and dilemmas as its predecessor in demonstrating progress to Americans and maintaining public support for these ongoing wars.

Chapter 2 will look at the question of how to measure success or failure in the

WOT by exploring some competing theories that try to explain why the U.S. is losing. It is clear that there are no objective metrics to measure success because a person's choice of which metrics are most appropriate is largely political. Most scholars believe that the

U.S. is losing the WOT, but much of the literature is devoted to the debate between optimists, who denounce the U.S. response to 9/11 as an overreaction to exaggerated threats, and pessimists who claim that the terrorists are winning due to the long list of

U.S. mistakes and failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the optimists sit back and mistakenly claim that we should do almost nothing, so-called alternatives proposed by

11 have chosen to use the phrase War on Terrorism (WOT) throughout to describe the comprehensive set of military, political, economic, and legal measures undertaken by the U.S. in response to the 9/11 attacks, which was also known as the War on Terror and the Global War on Terrorism under the Bush administration, and is now referred to as the Overseas Contingency Operation by the Obama administration. 2

pessimists differ more in terms of rhetoric than substance and ignore important successes

while focusing on failures which may have been inevitable.

Once the successes achieved under Bush and now Obama are taken into account a

more important question emerges: how do we explain the dominant perception of failure

in the WOT in light of the many significant successes achieved in both Iraq and

Afghanistan? This question will be explored in light of the ongoing debate over why U.S.

public support for military interventions seems to inevitably decline as the war drags on,

focusing on the debate between John Mueller and Christopher Gelpi and Peter Feaver

over whether the U.S. public is casualty or defeat-phobic. While Gelpi and Feaver

correctly point out that the public will tolerate more casualties than the conventional

wisdom suggests, failures will trump successes in the publics overall perception of who's winning. Once established, the perception of failure is difficult to overcome.

Chapter 3 will address this paradox by looking at success and failure in Iraq under the Bush administration, both before and after the 2007 surge. While the decision to launch the Iraq War quickly became a topic of intense debate, the war was inevitable in the aftermath of 9/11. The key mistake was not invading Iraq, but that the Bush administration had no strategy for post-Saddam Iraq, having already declared victory in

2003. By 2006 it was clear that the U.S. was losing in Iraq and the public's perception of failure reflected the dismal results on the ground. While the perception of failure in Iraq is generally assumed to be a function of how badly the war was going, we find the same perception of failure even after the substantial successes achieved since the surge.

Among the key lessons for the Obama administration will be that success in Afghanistan after eight years of neglect is possible, but may not be enough to reverse the dominant

perception that the U.S. is losing in Afghanistan.

Chapter 4 will look at success and failure in Afghanistan under the Bush

administration before exploring the prospects of success moving forward, both in terms

of whether Obama can win or at least responsibly end the war, and more importantly,

whether the perception of failure can be overcome. While the Bush administration was

initially successful in convincing Americans that the U.S. was winning in Afghanistan, it

had essentially lost the war by the time attention shifted to Iraq. As the Iraq case

demonstrates, making the region a top priority and committing sufficient resources to

successfully implement General McChrystal's new counterinsurgency strategy may not

be enough to convince Americans that the U.S. is winning in Afghanistan, and therefore

the larger WOT. Significant successes on the ground and real progress toward achieving

the administration's key objectives may not be enough to overcome the perception of

failure. While the Obama administration is making every effort to demonstrate progress,

an already war weary public may withdraw their support for continuing the war because

they believe the war is unwinnable or that the price of victory is too high after eight years

of neglect.

In Chapter 5, we will return to the dilemma facing policymakers both in terms of winning the WOT and demonstrating progress along the way. What are the implications of these findings for policymakers? While the Obama administration must develop a more credible way of demonstrating progress, the public will continue to focus on the overwhelming impact of failures and ignore important successes. Obama, like Bush, will face increasing pressure to withdraw from the region before achieving his key objectives. 4

Chapter 2: Is the U.S. Winning or Losing the War On Terrorism? A Review of the Literature

Introduction

This chapter will provide an overview and assessment of the literature on whether

the U.S. is winning or losing the WOT, and how do we know, in order to better

understand the challenges involved in demonstrating progress and maintaining public

support. Part 1 will assess efforts by both the Bush administration and its critics to

develop metrics to demonstrate success or failure. As the literature confirms, there is no

consensus on what metrics should be used, as both sides of the debate can argue their

case based on different metrics. Despite many significant successes, the Bush

administration failed to convince the majority of Americans that it was winning the WOT

and the metrics it used were frequently cited by critics as contributing to this failure. As

Johnson and Tierney argue, perceptions of victory and defeat are not always based on the

actual results on the ground because psychological biases often determine a person's

choice of metrics and information. While it has chosen to emphasise different metrics, the

Obama administration is facing the same challenges as its predecessor in demonstrating progress in the WOT.

Part 2 will address the debate over why the Bush administration failed to win, or at least make significant progress toward winning, the WOT. Explanations that focus on the specific mistakes and failures of the Bush administration are popular but neither the optimists nor pessimists can provide us with prudent policy recommendations because both ignore the more important structural reasons why public support for war seems to inevitably decline, even despite significant successes. The perception that America is losing the WOT will, and indeed has, outlived the Bush administration. 5

Part 1: Bush Administration Objectives, Strategy and Metrics in the WOT

The most common approach in the literature to measuring success or failure in the

WOT is to compare the stated goals and objectives with the results on the ground. Did the

Bush administration achieve, or at least make significant progress toward achieving its

key objectives in the WOT, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq? Here we will briefly discuss the

Bush administration's objectives and strategy in the WOT as well as the metrics it used most frequently to demonstrate progress. Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are vital

to winning the WOT, we must also look at metrics used in both these conflicts as well as how each relates to the larger WOT. Critics of the Bush administration pointed to failures

at each stage of the strategy's conceptualization, implementation and, most important for our purposes here, in developing metrics to accurately judge if the U.S. was winning.

Defining the Enemy

The 2002 National Security Strategy (NSS) states that, "progress in the struggle against global terrorism will be evident by the persistent accumulation of successes -

some seen, some unseen."2 It brought together the key concepts and ideas that defined the

"Bush Doctrine" and revealed the key assumptions guiding the administration's response to 9/11: there is no distinction between terrorists and those states that support or harbour them,3 the U.S. has the right to act pre-emptively against the threat posed by terrorists and their state sponsors, spreading democracy is the long term antidote to the underlying causes of terrorism,5 and, the U.S. will act unilaterally when necessary to protect its

2 White House, "National Security Strategy of the USA, " Sept. 2002, p. 5 http://www.globalsecuritv.org/militarv/librarv/policv/national/nss-0209.20.pdf. 3 WH, "NSS," 2002, p. 5 4 WH, "NSS," 2002, p. 15 5 WH, "NSS," 2002, p. 15 6

national security.6 Both the 2002 NSS and 2003 National Strategy for Combating

Terrorism (NSCT) state that the U.S. is fighting a 'different kind of war,' but a war

nonetheless, and the enemy is defined as "terrorism."7

Early critics were quick to point out the conceptual difficulties involved in

declaring a "War on Terrorism," which as they insisted, is a tactic that has been around

for centuries and cannot be defeated outright. Others pointed out that the use of the term

"war" cast the entire U.S. response to 9/11 in overly militaristic terms when the real

battle was for 'hearts and minds.'9

The Bush administration addressed these criticisms in the 2006 NSCT, which

outlined a refined strategy based on its better understanding of the enemy. It opens by

stating that, from the beginning the WOT, ".. .has been both a battle of arms and a battle

of ideas."10 The enemy is no longer defined as terrorism, but, ".. .a transnational terrorist

movement fuelled by a radical ideology of hatred, oppression and murder."11 It also

acknowledged that the U.S. must, ".. .continue to refine our strategy to meet the evolving 1 -y threat." Critics of the Bush administration tended to ignore these refinements, but it

6 WH, "NSS," 2002, p. 6 7 The 2002 NSS defines terrorism as: "premeditated, politically motivated violence against innocents." (p. 5). The 2003 NSCT offers a slightly refined definition: "premeditated, politically motivated violence against non-combatant targets by sub national groups or clandestine agents." White House, "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism," 2003, p. 1. http://www. state.gov/documents/organization/60172.pdf. 8 Pillar, Paul, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 2003)

9 Mockaitis, Thomas R. "Winning Hearts and Minds in the 'War on Terrorism, " in Mockaitis, Thomas R., and Rich, Paul B. (ed.), Grand Strategy in the War Against Terrorism. (Portland OR: Frank Cass Publications, 2003). The authors point out in the books preface that winning 'hearts and minds' means addressing the root causes of unrest upon which an insurgency feeds, such as poverty and oppression. By addressing these causes, states can hope to wean moderates away from extremists and gain their assistance in getting actionable intelligence on the enemy.

10 White House, "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, " 2006, p. 1 http://www.globalsecuritv.org/securitv/library/policv/national/nsct sep2006.pdf 11 WH,'W5Cr,"2006,p.l 12 WH, "NSCT," 2006, p. 1 7 was clear by 2006 that the administration had come a long way in its understanding of the enemy and the need to change course.

Key Goals and Strategies

The 2003 NSCT and 2006 NSCT laid out the key objectives and strategies to win the WOT. Both represented a two-pronged strategy that sought to defeat the current generation of terrorists, and over the long term, create a world free of terrorist safe havens and sources of support. The 2003 NSCT focused on identifying and defusing terrorist threats before they reached U.S. shores with the aim of disrupting, degrading, and ultimately destroying terrorist organizations.14 These goals, and the strategies to achieve them, were further refined in the 2006 NSCT. Again, the underlying theme was that the Bush administration would pursue idealistic goals through a strategy that was both realistic and pragmatic.15 While the 2003 NSCT focused on simultaneously defeating terrorists and addressing the underlying conditions that give rise to terrorism, the 2006 NSCT focused on several short term priorities, while acknowledging that the only long term solution to defeat terrorism was through the spread of 'effective democracy.'16

13 WH, "NSCT," 2003, p. 11 14 WH, "NSCT," 2003, p. 2 15 Crenshaw, Martha, " The War On Terrorism: Is the US Winning? " (Feb. 10, 2006) p. 1-7. http://www.realinstitutoelcano.Org/analisis/l 051/1051 Crenshaw US War_Terrorism.pdf.) Marsha Crenshaw correctly points out that it may not be possible to achieve idealist goals with realist means as the 2006 NSCT recommends, pointing out that, "the ambitiousness of U.S. goals is not matched by a feasibility of means," because it is not possible to defeat all forms of extremism. Democracy and military force, for example, cannot defeat terrorist groups largely autonomous of state support. 16 WH, "NSCT," 2006. Effective democracies are defined here as more than freely elected governments. They are states that: "honour basic human rights, are responsive to their citizens, exercise sovereignty and maintain order within their borders, resolve conflicts peacefully, have an independent and impartial judicial system, limit the reach of government, and protect civil society." Effective democracies, the Bush administration claimed, "... will counter the underlying conditions that breed terrorists, such as political alienation, grievances that can be blamed on others, subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation, and an ideology that justifies murder." (p. 9-10) The 2003 NSCT acknowledged that victory will, ".. .not occur as a single,

defining moment," but rather be evident when, ".. .our children can live free from fear

1 7

and the threat of terrorist attacks does not define our daily lives." It points out that

progress has been made on many fronts, noting the successful liberation of Afghanistan

and ongoing efforts to capture or kill members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. By 2006, the Bush administration argued that it had made significant progress so far, noting that; countries like Afghanistan and Iraq that were once part of the problem were now part of the fight against terrorism, and making progress in building democracies; the Al Qaeda network had been seriously weakened by the capture or killing of much of its leadership,

and the loss of its Afghan sanctuary, there was unprecedented international cooperation on fighting terrorism, and a growing consensus that terrorism is never justified; and

Americans were safer due to improvements in homeland security through key reforms and the transformation of government bureaucracies.19 These are important successes which were often ignored by the Bush administration's critics and largely dismissed by the American public as politically motivated rhetoric.

Bush Administration Metrics for Success

Donald Rumsfeld's infamous October 16, 2003 memo to top Defence officials, which acknowledged that the U.S. lacked metrics to know whether it was winning the

WOT,20 was frequently cited as evidence of the Bush Administrations failure to clearly define its strategy for winning the WOT and develop metrics to demonstrate progress along the way. Talking to reporters after the memo was made public, Rumsfeld explained 17 WH, "NSCT," 2003, p. 12 18 WH, "NSS," 2002, p. 5 19 WH, "NSCT," 2006, p. 3-4 20 Rumsfeld's memo was reproduced in USA Today on Oct. 22 2003, the full text of memo available at http://www,defense.gov/news/Oct2003/d20031016sdmemo.pdf 9

that he was referring to the problem of how to develop metrics to make sure the U.S. is

capturing or killing more terrorists than were being recruited, a phenomena he insisted

was too complex to measure. However, he explained, the U.S. did have metrics to

measure success in capturing and killing terrorists, disrupting terrorist finances, and for

the success of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.22 The problem then, is not that the

Bush administration lacked metrics. As Douglas H. Walker pointed out, "[m]easured by

traditional military methods, the United States scored quick victories in both Afghanistan

and Iraq."23 Rather, the problem, as Walker concludes, is that the administration failed to

convince the American public and the world at large that it was winning the WOT based

on the successes it had achieved.

The approach to measuring success in the WOT, Iraq, and Afghanistan embraced

by most members of the Bush Administration, especially the President, is typically

referred to as a 'body count approach' which emphasised traditional military metrics such

as comparing the number of dead and injured on each side. Among the most frequently

cited metrics were: the number of terrorists captured or killed, the number of U.S.

casualties, the number of attacks or 'incidents' against U.S. and allied forces, and the

21 "Secretary Rumsfeld Media Stakeout following Briefing for Senators, " DOD News transcript, Oct. 22 2003 http://www,defense.gov/transcripts/transcript,aspx?transcriptid=3043 22 "Secretary Rumsfeld Media Stakeout following Briefing for Senators, " DOD, 2003 Walker, Douglas Lt. Com., " Developing Metrics for the Global War on Terror, " (Paper submitted to the Naval War College, Newport R.I. Feb. 14, 2005, p. 1) http://www.dtic.mil/cgi- bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA464335&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf 24 Walker, '"Developing Metrics for the Global War on Terror, " 2005 25 Woodward, Bob, State of Denial: Bush At War HI, (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2006) According to Bob Woodward, President Bush loved to keep scorecards and from the beginning of the WOT frequently asked for body counts outlining the number of terrorist captured or killed, even though Rumsfeld, Rice, and others cautioned against using body counts as an accurate measure of progress (p. 482). 26 Kagan, Frederick W., "Measuring Success," (Armed Forces Journal, January 1, 2006) reproduced for AEI 2008: http://www.aei.org/include/pub print.asp?pub!D=23669 While slightly more meaningful than the relatively low number of U.S. casualties, Kagan argues that using attacks or incidents was especially misleading in Iraq because no distinction was made between incidents initiated by insurgents or by 10

number of terrorist attacks worldwide. Reference was also made to the number of trained

and equipped security and police personnel in Iraq, and later Afghanistan. Not

surprisingly, perhaps the most important metric from the administrations perspective was

the lack of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, whether this success was explained by

fighting the terrorists abroad before they reach U.S. shores, as the President frequently

stated, or due to improvements in homeland security and efforts to protect critical

infrastructure. For the administration's critics however, successes like these were not

convincing, in part because the metrics used were not sufficient to demonstrate progress

in a war against a global Islamic insurgency where hearts and minds, not armies and

territory, were key to winning the war.

Critics and the Need for New Metrics

In his 2007 report to Congress, Raphael Perl pointed out that there was still no

common set of criteria for measuring the success of U.S. counterterrorism operations.

"Uncertainty with respect to both strategies and measurements makes it difficult to

describe progress accurately and demonstrate progress to the public or U.S. allies." As

Perl emphasized, the search for appropriate metrics is important.

How one perceives and measures progress is central to formulating and implementing anti-terror strategy. The perception of progress has a major impact on establishing priorities and allocating resources. The parameters used to measure success can also set the framework for measurement of failure.

Coalition forces, and they also did not discriminate between massive bombings which killed many people and failed attempts (p 1 of 4). 27 Kagan, "Measuring Success," 2006. As Kagan argues, measuring the number of trained and equipped Iraqi security forces was not much of an improvement over the number of U.S. verses insurgent casualties because such numbers revealed very little about their capabilities and effectiveness, (p. 1) 28 Perl, Richard, "Combating Terrorism: The Challenge of Measuring Effectiveness, (CRS Report for Congress, March 12, 2007, p. 2-3) http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33160.pdr 29 Perl, "Combating Terrorism, " 2007, p. 3 11

Critics of the Bush administration had little difficulty in turning its so-called successes into failures and they argued convincingly that the U.S. was actually losing.

Many members of the academic community were sceptical of the Bush administration's metrics and some proposed new or alternative criteria which they claimed offered a more accurate indication of whether the U.S. was winning. Rather than indicate success, critics argued, the metrics used by the Bush administration were misleading and reflected its general lack of understanding of both the terrorist threat and the best strategy to address it.

Daniel Byman was among the earliest to address the problem of metrics in the

WOT and delivered a strong critique of the body count approach. He developed an alternative set of metrics and suggested we should be sceptical of the administration's claims of progress, especially over the longer term in what will be a generational struggle. While a body count approach that focuses on the number of captured or killed terrorists is tempting because it claims to provide a concrete measure of success, as

Byman argued, it is deeply flawed and misleading. As he pointed out, we do not know the total number of Al Qaeda terrorists active before (or even after) 9/11 and many of those captured or killed have been low level, easily replaced recruits. Such an approach also failed to take into account the impact of U.S. and allied operations on the terrorist's morale, recruitment, fundraising, and ability to conduct sophisticated attacks. A more accurate measure of how America is really doing, Byman argues, should instead focus on five 'genuine' measures of success: denying terrorists freedom to operate, maintaining a high level of domestic support for U.S. counterterrorism efforts, the status of the enemy's

30 Byman, Daniel, "Scoring the War on Terrorism, " The National Interest, Summer 2003, p. 75-84. 31 Byman, "Scoring;' 2003, p.76 32 Byman, "Scoring," 2003, p. 75-76 12

leadership and command structure, disrupting recruitment, and whether terrorists are

committing attacks.33 While significant progress has been made in denying Al Qaeda and

its allies a permissive environment in which to operate, victory will require that the U.S.

come to grips with the fact that it is fighting a global Islamic insurgency, not a distinct

terrorist organization, that seeks to inspire and coordinate other groups and individuals.34

To win the WOT, Byman argued, the U.S. must do more to address the terrorists ability

to attract new recruits, while continuing to focus on dismantling the Al Qaeda network's

complex and diffuse leadership and organizational structure. As Byman concludes, the

U.S. must develop systematic measures to gauge the success of its counterterrorist effort over the long-term or risk misunderstanding important aspects of the overall struggle.

Despite the limited data available and disagreements over appropriate methodology,

Byman concluded, "...it is still better to struggle with less precise categories and poor

'in data than to rely exclusively on a body count approach to the problem."

Michael Stohl also rejected the body count approach. He argued that both the

Bush administration and the scholarly community have failed to provide adequate criteria and data for measuring success in the WOT in a way that accounts for the importance of no public perceptions and attitudes toward both terrorist and counterterrorist actions. The body count approach typical of the U.S. government and media does not, Stohl argued, take into account the meaning of the statistics they cite regarding the number of terrorist

33 Byman, "Scoring, " 2003, p.76 34 Byman, "Scoring," 2003, p.77-80 35 Byman, ' "Scoring,'' 2003, p 80 36 Daniel Byman, "Measuring the War on Terrorism: A First Appraisal, " in Current History, Dec. 2003, p. 411-416. 37 Byman, " 'Measuring," 2003, p. 76. 38 Stohl, Michael,'' Winners and Losers in the War on Terror: The Problem of Metrics,"" (Paper presented at the International Studies Association, San Diego, California, USA, March 22, 2006) a_apa researchcitation/0/9/9/9/6/p99962 index.html. 13

arrests or attacks. Although there has not been a second attack on U.S. soil, both the

number of attacks and deaths from terrorism worldwide has increased since 9/11 because,

Stohl suggests, we are actively engaging the terrorists abroad.

Frederick Kagan offers a similar critique of the Bush administration's metrics in

the Iraq War, arguing that the Bush administration's body count approach, whether based

on the number of U.S. verses enemy casualties or the number of trained and equipped

Iraqi security and police forces, did not provide a clear indication of whether America

was winning.40 In order to measure progress in Iraq, he suggested, we must understand

the basic nature of the Iraqi insurgency and that the real battle was for the hearts and

minds of Iraqis. The Bush administration repeated the mistakes of Vietnam, Kagan

argued, by focusing on a body count approach which made it impossible to know if

current policies were working and left the American public with no way to measure

success.41

As mentioned earlier, Douglas H. Walker has argued that traditional military

metrics are no longer sufficient to measure progress in the WOT. Victory will be defined

by U.S. public opinion Walker points out, not the complete elimination of global terrorist

organizations. Therefore, war planners must identify 'non-traditional centers of

gravity,' such as the will of the American people, terrorist morale, and hearts and minds,

that more accurately reflect the enemy's strengths and weaknesses.43

iv Stohl, "Winners and Losers," 2006, p. 6-10 40 Kagan, "Measuring Success," 2006, p. 1 Kagan, "Measuring Success," 2006, p. 3 42 Walker, "DevelopingMetrics," 2005, p. 4 43 Walker, "Developing Metrics," 2005, p. 3 These types of metrics are at least as important as traditional military metrics like armies, military equipment, or territory but are not open to direct attack or easily quantifiable (p. 10). 14

Metrics Are Political

Johnson and Tiemey present two models of how the public perceives victory and

defeat in modern conflicts, where as they point out dominant perceptions of who won are

not always based on the actual outcome on the battlefield. Their analysis focuses on the

question of how we can account for widespread perceptions of failure despite successes

on the ground, and vice versa. "People's beliefs about winners and losers, both during an

event and after it is over, can be influenced as much by psychological biases as they are by the actual material changes on the ground." Understanding public perceptions of victory and defeat is important, they argue, because perceptions shape policy options and decision making. "Hints of failure can produce a self- fulfilling prophecy, whereby public or congressional discontent leads to reduced U.S. military expenditure or a withdrawal of

American troops, thus increasing the probability of a bona fide defeat on the ground."

In the first model, which the authors call "score-keeping," judgements of victory or defeat are based on the outcome on the ground according to a scorecard of material gains and losses, so that the perception of who won matches the material outcome.

Johnson and Tierney believe this is how people ought to evaluate who won, but only in cases where everyone else is also score-keeping otherwise their biases may affect the outcome.47

44 Johnson, Dominic and Dominic Tiemey, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 5 45 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 15 46 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006. The authors point to five metrics for achieving material victory (absolute gains, relative gains, achieving core aims, price of peace, and the optimal policy) and point out that scorekeeping incorporates the first three, in effect measuring each side's strategy. In order to be accurate, they argue, we must also include the importance and difficulty of each aim and resulting gain, so the overall scorecard will not be entirely objective (p. 24-31) 47 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 33-34 15

However there are cases, like Iraq and the WOT, where score-keeping has little

explanatory power because perceptions of success or failure often depend on, "... who the

observers are, when and where they evaluated the outcome, and how it was reported to

them."48 Material gains and losses often fail to explain people's dominant perception of

who won, which can also be influenced by mind-sets, salient events, and social

pressures. Mind-sets, such as expectations of success and cognitive dissonance affect

the choice of metrics and selection of information. Salient or symbolic events, such as the removal of Saddam Hussein's statue, can shape perceptions by soliciting strong

emotions, even if they do not represent tangible gains or losses.51 Social pressures, such

as manipulation by the media and political leaders can also shape perceptions by pushing pubic opinion towards a particular way of thinking that, for example, pushes a particular metric or distorts a source of information. Observers can also be influenced by a

consensus among the majority of the population and may feel pressure to accept the popular view of an outcome. The interplay of these biases, the authors conclude, determines the choice of metrics and information, both of which become highly subjective.

The problems include the ambiguity of what constitutes an appropriate metric; the difficulty of receiving, selecting, and interpreting information; the difficulty of accurately matching metrics with relevant information; and the difficulty of determining when a particular war or crisis started and ended.54

Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 36 49 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win, 2006, p. 37-8 50 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006. Cognitive dissonance refers to the tendency for people to suppress evidence or information that is inconsistent with their core beliefs so metrics are selected to demonstrate the' right' side won (p. 53-6) 51 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 62-3 52 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 67 53 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p.75 54 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 42 16

Johnson and Tierney conclude that observers can score-keep or match-fix and the

relative contribution of each framework can vary, but in the complex conflicts of today,

including the WOT, match-fixing provides short-cuts which can endanger both the

national interest and democratic ideals.55 They identify four sources of variation that

increase the likelihood that observes will match-fix, which are ranked according to

importance: decisiveness of the conflict, ambiguity of the dispute, relative power of the

state (people tend to match-fix against the stronger side), and regime type as people in

democracies are more likely to match-fix against themselves.5

Based on the empirical evidence, the authors argue that perceptions of success

and failure in the WOT were shaped by both score-keeping and match-fixing, which

explains why there was no consensus on whether U.S. is winning. While Americans were partially responsive to material gains and losses, such as U.S. casualties, many viewed

Iraq and the larger WOT through biased lens. Mindsets, especially political partisanship, appear to be the dominant explanation for diverse perceptions and shape all

stages of the evaluation process. Symbolic, but irrelevant, events and media and elite manipulation inflate the information people receive and how they interpret it. The authors conclude by predicting that, ironically, in the case of the WOT the diversity of perceptions may eventually mean that the average perception of who won is similar to scorecard result, observers biases may cancel each other out. Yet, like the optimists and

Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006. p. 76 Johnson and Tiemey, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 85-8 Johnson and Tiemey, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 254 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win.. 2006, p. 283-4 17

pessimists, Johnson and Tierney's advice to policymakers is to manage public

perceptions through better risk communications strategies.59

As the previous discussion illustrates, the Bush administration's body count

approach was not sufficient to measure progress in the WOT nor convince Americans

that their government was winning. The metrics used by the government to demonstrate

progress also provided critics with evidence of failure. The problem of measuring success

or failure in the WOT is not a problem of metrics. The problem is that there is no

consensus on which metrics should be used, because the choice of metrics often depends

on whether you support the current government and its counterterrorism policies or not.

Part 2: Theories of Failure in the WOT and Implications for Policy

In part 2 we will look at several theories that attempt to explain why the U.S. is losing the WOT. First we will look at the debate between optimists and pessimists who disagree about the extent of the terrorist threat and focus on failures, but offer no useful alternatives. Then we will move on to theories that focus on how and why the American public tends to believe the U.S. is losing the WOT, despite the long list of significant successes since 9/11. In measuring success and failure in the WOT, public perceptions matter, and may not necessarily reflect who is actually winning based on the results on the ground. Failures have a more overwhelming impact on overall perceptions of who is winning than successes.

Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win , 2006. The authors make seven suggestions to do this: be seen to control events, focus on one achievable metric, point to the achievement of core aims after a dispute, beware of rising expectations through rhetoric, exaggerate past government failures, explain why defeats occur and who is to blame, and finally, accept or encourage an image of defeat to mobilize additional resources (p. 291-293). 18

The Optimists

Optimists believe the U.S. is winning the WOT because today's Al Qaeda has

been seriously downgraded and no longer poses a significant threat to Americans. Fawaz

Gerges, for example, argued that Al Qaeda, ".. .is a shadow of its former self and no

longer capable of planning, organizing or launching strategic operations on the scale of

9/11." He argued that the attacks attributed to Al Qaeda since 9/11 represented 'acts of

desperation and weakness.' Regarding Iraq, Gerges argued the war had become 'a

lightning rod for extremists' and the only strategy for success was to withdraw.61

James Fallows agreed and argued that it was time to declare victory in the WOT because Al Qaeda's ability to inflict direct damage on the U.S. had been sharply reduced do to its own mistakes and the success of the U.S. and allied operations. The real threat

from Al Qaeda is not so much what it can do to harm Americans, Fallows argued, but arises from Americans tendency to overreact, and he added that the only thing keeping Al

Qaeda going now was American mistakes, especially the Iraq War.63 The solution,

Fallows suggests, is for U.S. leaders to declare victory in the WOT, while helping the

American public recognize that terrorists can inflict damage but not destroy the U.S.64

Fallows also argued that a standing state of war with no clear end point makes it more

Gerges, Fawaz, "Acts of Desperation: Even as it lashes out, Al Qaeda is a Shadow of its Former Self, " The LA Times, Dec. 23, 2002. http://pages.slc.edu/~fgerges/edessavssingle.php?id=57 Withers, James, "Iraq 'Lightning Rod' for Extremists, Says Sarah Lawrence Professor,"'The Review Press, Dec. 16, 2004 http://fgerges.com/editorial-articles.php?id=25 62Fallows, James, "Declaring Victory" The Atlantic Online, Sept. 2006 p 1-14 http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200609/fallows victory "Fallows, "Declaring Victory, " 2006. p. 2 64Fallows, "Declaring Victory, " 2006. p. 10-11 19

likely that the U.S. will overact in ways that hamper its ability to go after the terrorists by

working with key allies in Muslim world.

Similarly, John Mueller has argued that the terrorist threat is exaggerated or

'overblown' by political elites and the media in order to gain public support for

government policies and by 'risk entrepreneurs' who profit from unnecessary defence

spending. Like the other optimists, Mueller argued that a better approach to fighting

terrorism would instead focus on reducing the public's fear of terrorism and the tendency

of government to overreact.66 A more sensible approach to fighting terrorism, he argued,

would focus on international policing because terrorism is and should be treated as a

criminal problem. Mueller recommends that U.S. leaders focus their efforts on

informing the public that the U.S. can easily survive a potential terrorist attack, on pursuing relatively inexpensive and "limited preventative or protective measures" against terrorists both at home and abroad, and taking steps to reduce the public's fear by pointing out the unlikelihood of dying in a terrorist attack, when compared with other more dangerous threats like driving or, ".. .drowning in a toilet."6 Mueller goes so far as to argue that most of the money and effort devoted to counterterrorism, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was unwise and wasteful.

65 Fallows, James, "Can We Still Declare Victory", The Atlantic Online, August 2006, p 2 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/08/can-we-still-declare-victory/51799

66 John Mueller, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. (New York: Free Press^ 2006, p. 4-7) 67 Mueller, Overblown, 2006, p. 5 68 Mueller, Overblown, 2006, p. 144 69 Mueller, Overblown, 2006, p. 13 70 Mueller, Overblown, 2006, p. 5 20

From the perspective of the optimists then, the U.S. is winning the WOT but this

does not mean that they supported the policies pursued by the Bush administration, which

they argue were largely overreactions that have done more harm than good.

Frank Harvey offers a convincing critique of the optimist case, arguing that there

is no evidence to support Mueller's central claim that U.S. officials strategically

exaggerate the threat of terrorism to gain public support. Rather, as Harvey points out,

leaders are compelled to pursue policies that often have unintended consequences

because of pressures that result from the public's rising expectations of security, the

overwhelming influence of even small failures, and probability neglect.71 Mueller's

policy recommendations, namely for U.S. leaders to focus on downplaying the terrorist

threat, will actually increase public fear by raising questions about the governments

commitment to public safety. The optimists, according to Harvey, not only

misunderstand the origins of public fear and offer bad advice, but fail to answer the key

questions of what level of threat we should live with, what policies should be pursued,

and at what cost, and therefore contribute little to the debate.

The Pessimists

Pessimists, on the other hand, believe there is good reason to worry and argue that

although degraded, Al Qaeda and those groups inspired by its ideology retain both the

intent and capability to attack the U.S. and therefore defeating them should be the

Harvey, Frank, The Homeland Security Dilemma: Fear. Failure and the Future of American Insecurity. (New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 127. As Harvey explains, in the case of the WOT, probability neglect refers to the public's inability to accurately evaluate the risks of terrorism and probability they will be directly affected (p. 51). Leaders will prioritize the publics emotional, not statistical, reactions to terrorism (P- 63) 72 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma, 2008, p. 137 73 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 134-7 21

government's top priority. They believe that the terrorists are winning due to the

monumental failures of the U.S. government, especially under the Bush administration.

In their book, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon lay out the pessimist case,

arguing that the failures of the Bush administration have contributed to the likelihood of

another attack on the scale of 9/11 or worse should terrorists gain access to WMD. In

what has become the conventional wisdom, they attribute the Bush administration's

flawed assumptions and corresponding foreign policy mistakes to the influence of

powerful neo-conservatives,74 who believed that Al Qaeda could not have successfully

committed the 9/11 attacks without the help of a state sponsor, and who were determined

to go to war to remove Saddam Hussein (even before 9/11). For Bush and his neo-

conservative allies, they argued, the most paramount threat facing the U.S. was that rouge

states like Iraq would supply terrorists with WMD. These flawed assumptions resulted

in the Bush administration's failure to treat the elimination of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as

a priority and to not having committed enough troops to win the war in Afghanistan. 6

In the lead up to the war in Iraq, Benjamin and Simon argue, the Bush

administration falsely assumed that the American military would be greeted as liberators

so did not seriously consider the question of how to provide security in post-Saddam Iraq.

The war drained U.S. resources and energy that could have been used in Afghanistan and

against Al Qaeda.77 Outraged by U.S. actions in Iraq and inspired by bin Laden's

Among the neo-conservatives, the authors point to Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Richard Perl and others whose worldview centered around the threat posed by states and the need to use military force to fight terrorism and spread democracy. 75 Benjamin Daniel, and Steve Simon, The Next Attack The Failure of the War on Terrorism and a Strategy for Getting It Right. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005), p. 144-9 76 Benjamin and Simon, The Next Attack. 2005, p. 160 77 Benjamin and Simon, The Next Attack. 2005. p. 176-7 22

ideology, more Muslims are joining the jihadist insurgency and this, the authors predict,

will lead to more numerous and deadly attacks.78

For all these reasons, pessimists argue, it is no longer possible to maintain that the

U.S. is winning the WOT. In order to be successful, Benjamin and Simon suggest, the

U.S. must embrace a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy centered on four goals:

prevent terrorist attacks by capturing and killing terrorists and disrupting terror cells, prevent terrorists from gaining access to WMD, recognize that we cannot prevent all

attacks, but must protect targets that would result in catastrophic damage, and stop

creating new terrorists by addressing those grievances that lead to radicalization.79 While these goals are very similar to those outlined by the Bush administration, Benjamin and

Simon, argue that the U.S. can do better on each front, which will require understanding that the threat of terrorism is transnational and involves fighting individuals and small groups and that the response must focus on better intelligence and law enforcement cooperation with our allies.

The problem with the pessimist argument is that their policy recommendations are similar to the policies pursued by the Bush administration and are likely to result in the same perception- that the U.S. is losing the WOT. Differences are in terms of priorities, tactics, timing, and of course rhetoric, in pursuit of similar goals. The pessimists also ignore the successes achieved by the Bush administration and focus on mistakes that may have been inevitable. The point here is that there are no policy alternatives that guarantee success and all involve risks and costs.

Benjamin and Simon, The Next Attack. 2005, p. 139-40 Benjamin and Simon, The Next Attack. 2005, p. 197 Benjamin and Simon, The Next Attack. 2005, p. 197 23

The Bush administration's critics tended to ignore important successes and have

not come up with an alternative strategy to win the WOT, but we cannot simply do

nothing and hope for the best, as optimists argue. If the current strategy is failing and

public opinion remains convinced that the U.S. is losing the WOT, what can be done to

reverse this trend?

Explaining Why Public Support for War Declines

In their 2006 article, "Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the War in

Iraq, " Christopher Gelpi, Peter Feaver, and Jason Reifler challenge John Mueller's

influential thesis that the U.S. public is casualty phobic, arguing instead that,

.. .the U.S. public's tolerance for the human costs of war is primarily shaped by the intersection of two crucial attitudes: beliefs about the tightness or wrongness of the war and beliefs about a war's likely success.. .Ultimately however, we find that beliefs about the likelihood of success matter most in determining the public's willingness to tolerate Q 1 U.S. military deaths in combat.

As the authors point out, the American public is casualty sensitive- it recognizes

U.S. casualties as part of the cost of war, but most analysts of U.S. public opinion tend to

disagree that the public is casualty-phobic. There is a scholarly consensus, the authors

conclude, that multiple factors may be at work at the same time in determining public

support for war and the rate at which it will decline more quickly, and this consensus can best be understood as, "...an evolution of three interlocking (but not necessarily

successive) debates."82

The first debate focused on whether increasing casualties affects public support for war according to, ".. .a fixed pattern of inexorable decline," as Mueller suggests or

Gelpi, Christopher, Peter Feaver, and Jason Reifler, "Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the Iraq War," In International Security, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Winter 2005-06) p. 7-46, p. 7 Gelpi, ' "Success Matters,"" 2006, p. 11 whether the public instead views casualties and the use of force through a rational cost- benefit analysis.83 Writing about public opinion and the Vietnam War in 1968, Jeffrey

Milstein and William Mitchell found that public support declined as the U.S. military commitment expanded and as casualties increased, but support climbed again when the burden was shifted to the Vietnamese. Mueller, built upon their work, the authors pointed out, with a landmark study which compared public opinion during the wars in Vietnam and Korea and found that, ".. .public support dropped reflexively and more important inexorably," as the number of U.S. casualties increased.84

That public support declines as casualties mount came to be seen as the conventional wisdom, but this view was challenged by a number of scholars who argued during the Cold War that a "rational public" was capable of weighing the complexities of foreign policy and responding to elite debates. Gelpi and Feaver cite Alvin Richman, who saw the public as utilizing a simple "ends-means" calculation, and Eric Larson, whose analysis found that, ".. .a complex cost-benefit calculation fit the data better than a

or reflexive, logarithmic response."

As Gelphi and Feaver point out, the cost benefit model is not in itself a rebuttal of

Mueller's casualty phobia thesis and has itself given rise to the second debate in the literature: assuming the pubic uses something like an economic cost-benefit calculation about war, how sensitive are casualty numbers in determining their support for war?86 In more recent work, but writing before 9/11, Mueller accepted the cost-benefit model, but argues that, "... the public saw so little benefit in most military missions that in effect the

83 Gelpi, "Success Matters, " 2006, p. 11 84 Gelpi, "Success Matters," 2006, pi 1 85 Gelpi, "Success Matters, " 2006, p. 12 86 Gelpi, "Success Matters," 2006, p. 12-13 25

cost-benefit calculation was functionally equivalent to a casualty-phobic posture."

Similarly, Louis Klarevas endorses the cost benefit model but argues that in some missions the public's sensitivety to casualties is so high that even a trivial number of

casualties can produce the "Somalia Syndrome," or a precipitous drop in public support

for mission, as happened after the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu in 199388

However, the authors argue that most scholars disagree, concluding that, "while demand is not completely inelastic, it is not as price sensitive as to approximate casualty phobia."89

While most scholars agree that multiple factors may shape the elasticity of demand for military missions, they differ in terms of the relative importance of certain factors or conditions under which the number of casualties will cause public support for any given mission to decline more rapidly or slowly, which encompasses the third debate. Gelpi and Feaver briefly discuss a number of other studies undertaken to identify what factor(s) have the most influence on the public's casualty sensitivity. While maintaining that expectations of future success are paramount in determining public support for war, they admit that little progress has been made in assessing the relative importance of these factors, as most studies (including their own) also show that other factors matter too.91

First, Bruce Jentleson argues that the "pretty prudent public" basis its casualty tolerance on the "principal policy objective (PPO)" or foreign policy goal of the military mission. He concludes that while the public is likely to support traditional military

87 Gelpi, "Success Matters, " 2006, p. 13 88 Gelpi, "Success Matters, " 2006, p. 13 89 Gelpi, "Success Matters, " 2006, p. 13 90 Gelpi, "Success Matters, " 2006, p. 14 91 Gelpi, "Success Matters, " 2006, p. 15-16 26

missions, for example wars against a state engaged in aggressive action towards the U.S.

or its allies, and deem them worthy of substantial costs, humanitarian interventions or

missions focused on regime change will enjoy public support only if the costs are

relatively low. Alternatively, Eric Larson argues that public casualty tolerance follows

domestic elite casualty tolerance so that public support for any given mission will be

robust in face of mounting costs when there is a consensus among domestic elites in

support of the mission, when elites are divided, however, even a small number of

casualties will cause public support to quickly decline.93 Steven Kull takes another view,

arguing that public support will be more robust if the public sees that other countries also

support the mission, either because they conclude that the mission must be worth the cost if other nations support it or merely prefer to have other nations share the burden so the

U.S. does not have to bear all the costs.

Finally, Gelpi and Feaver identify expectations of success as the crucial factor in explaining casualty sensitivity. "When the public believes that the mission will succeed, it continues to support the mission, even as costs mount. When the public thinks victory is unlikely, even small costs will cause support to plummet."95 While their conclusion that the government can maintain public support for a costly, even unjustified war, if they are able to convince the public that the U.S. will emerge victorious makes sense in theory, the overwhelming influence of past failures on public perceptions will make this difficult, if not impossible.

Gelpi, "Success Matters," 2006, p. 14 Gelpi, "Success Matters, "2006, p. 15 Gelpi, "Success Matters," 2006, p. 15 Gelpi, "Success Matters, "2006, p. 16 The Triumph of Failure

Frank Harvey's Homeland Security Dilemma (HSD), or the theory that the more

security you have the more security you need, predicts that, "... public perceptions of

progress in the global war on terror will be defined almost exclusively through the prism

of failures."96 The HSD explains why public approval of the Bush administration's

foreign and security policies declined over time, despite the fact that there had been no

terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11. Exaggerated public perceptions about the

terrorist threat are the direct result of probability neglect, Harvey argues, whereby the

public is predisposed to, ".. .overvalue the negative effects of failures and undervalue (if

not completely ignore) the positive effects of successes."98

Perceptions of success and failure, Harvey argues, are based on expectations.

"When high and rising expectations are combined with the overwhelming impact of

failures, support for the war effort is expected to decline much more rapidly."99 The

public, regardless of the risk communication strategies proposed by optimists and

pessimists alike, will continue to fear a second terrorist attack and any attempt to

downplay this threat will raise, not lower, public fears.100 This creates a dilemma for

Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 11. Harvey lists the six components of the HSD: 1. rising public expectations and standards for measuring government performance, 2. failures trump successes, 3. exaggerated public perceptions of the terrorist threat are a direct consequence of probability neglect, 4. politicians are motivated to respond to these pressures, 5. the public is less willing to make sacrifices in the name of security, 6. multi-lateral approaches to international security are becoming less effective because of the self-interest of U.S. allies (p. 11). 97 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 9-11

98 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 26. Here Harvey identifies the top ten reasons for the triumph of failure: according to prospect theory, people perceive a greater loss from failures than a corresponding gain from successes, they have a tendency to overestimate failures, the costs of small failures add up, successes are ignored or unmeasurable, successes against terrorists prove their capacity to attack us, successes are dismissed as politically motivated, and the media and critics downplay government successes and exaggerate its failures, (p. 25-45). 99 Harvey. The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008. p. 48 100 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 11 28

policy makers who must continue to spend more to achieve the illusion of perfect security

which the public demands, but this will also raise public expectations and standards for measuring government performance.101

Harvey concludes that more attention must be devoted to understanding how the public thinks about success and failure in WOT. While leaders will continue to struggle to find more credible ways to communicate successes, public support will continue to

decline because peaks in confidence are short-lived and even major successes, like the capture of Osama bin Laden, are unlikely to reverse the downward trend. 102 While

Harvey acknowledges that current foreign and security policies involve ".. .costs, risks, and unintended consequences," as he has pointed out there are few better alternatives.103

As Harvey has argued, "Washington's priorities are largely pre-determined by the opportunities and constraints imposed on American leaders by the structural features of the international system."

While the HSD does not tell us how to win the WOT its power lies in its ability to accurately describe the post 9/11 security environment in which policy makers operate and helps define the role of public perceptions and expectations in formulating policy.

Conclusion: Failures Trump Successes

The implications of these debates is that the U.S. still lacks objective metrics to measure progress in the WOT. The analysis of the theories on the role of public opinion and perceptions of success and failure suggests that even pursuing the right mix of policies may not be enough to win the WOT because failures will always trump successes

101 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 16 102 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 50 103 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma, 2008, p. 167-8 104Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008. p. 168 in terms of public perceptions. The perception that the U.S. is losing the WOT and the

dilemma facing policymakers results less from the Bush administration's failures, of which there were of course many, than from the structures of the international system,

which as Harvey argues play a significant role in determining whether a state's foreign

and security policies succeed or fail. Therefore the perception of U.S. failure in the

WOT will outlive the Bush Administration. The perception that the U.S. is losing in

Afghanistan and the larger WOT is thus likely to continue, and Obama may be forced to end the 'necessary war' before it has been won.

'Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 169 Chapter 3: Understanding the Perception of Failure in Iraq and Implications for the War on Terrorism

Introduction

Understanding the American public's perception of failure in Iraq is key to answering the question of whether the U.S. is winning the WOT because the Bush administration's blunders in Iraq were the most frequently cited evidence that the U.S. was losing the WOT. The government's ability to communicate successes to the

American people is key to winning, but the Bush administration clearly failed to do this in Iraq. The purpose of this chapter is to challenge the popular view that declining support for the war in Iraq and the lingering public perception of failure can best be explained as a function of how badly the war was going. While the perception that the war was a failure is consistent with the dismal results on the ground from the onset of the

Iraqi insurgency in late 2003 to the height of violence and despair in the summer of 2006, significant successes since the 2007 surge have not been enough to convince Americans that the war was a success or reverse the downward trend in public support. Public opinion studies have shown that public support for the Iraq War continued to decline despite major successes on the ground after the surge, and in the final analysis, the war will be remembered as a failure, both in its own right and as the main reason why the

U.S. is losing the larger WOT.

Part 1 will identify the various failures that led an increasing majority of

Americans to no longer support the Iraq War. While a majority of Americans initially supported the war and President Bush's popularity soared to new heights in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, as the U.S. became bogged down in Iraq in 2003-04 many Americans began to question whether the Bush administration had made the right 31 decision in taking the country to war. By the fall of 2003, President Bush's approval ratings began to decline as an increasing majority of Americans believed that the

President did not have a clear plan to bring the war to a successful conclusion. Despite some significant successes on the ground, by 2006, the majority of observers believed that the war was unwinnable and it was time for U.S. combat forces to withdraw, despite the dire consequences this would mean for Iraq and the region.

Part 2 will explore why the dominant perception that the War in Iraq was a failure has not been significantly challenged by obvious signs of progress, if not success, on the ground since the 2007 surge. The Bush administration's controversial surge strategy, along with the Sunni Awakening and other factors, contributed to a level of security and stability in Iraq that allowed the U.S. to begin withdrawing its combat forces. However, the perception that the U.S. failed in Iraq had become so embedded in the public mindset by 2006 that any successes achieved in recent years were unlikely to, and have not, resulted in the perception of success in Iraq.

To explain this paradox, Part 3 will look at various theories in the literature that aim to explain why the public's perceptions of victory or defeat may not necessarily match the material outcomes on the ground, as Johnson and Tierney's "match-fixing" model demonstrates. The ongoing debate in the literature over the extent to which various factors such as casualties and expectations of success explain declining support for the

Iraq War will also be addressed, in order to better understand the relative influence of these and other factors in determining whether the U.S. is winning or losing in Iraq and the larger WOT. While numerous factors influence public perceptions of who's winning, the overwhelming influence of failures over successes means that the long awaited 32

withdrawal of American forces from Iraq is more likely to be perceived as evidence that

the U.S. ultimately failed there, rather than was successful in finally ending a difficult

and costly war.

Finally, the implications of this perception of failure in Iraq will be addressed as it relates to the larger WOT. The implications for the Obama administration will also be discussed. While there are high expectations on the Obama administration to end the war in Iraq and re-focus attention on the worsening conflict in Afghanistan, these policies were developed in the late Bush administration and made possible largely due to the successes resulting from the surge and related progress in Iraq. While much of the literature on Iraq has focused on the mistakes and failures of the Bush administration in launching what many believe was a disastrous and unnecessary war, the new administration is likely to face the same dilemmas and challenges in demonstrating success as the main battlefield in the WOT shifts to Afghanistan.

These findings have important implications for President Obama's war in

Afghanistan and the larger WOT. While it is generally assumed that the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan today is a direct result of the Bush administration's decision to make Iraq the major battlefield in the WOT, Obama's efforts to end the war in Iraq and comprehensive strategy for winning the war in Afghanistan may not be enough to reverse the trend of declining support for that war, even if he is able to achieve major progress in defeating Al Qaeda and achieving most of his administration's objectives in the region.

The Decision to Invade Iraq: Was the War a Mistake?

While many have appropriately questioned the decision to make Iraq the major battlefield in the WOT, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was inevitable in the post-9/11 political 33 climate because of the strong consensus that existed on the need to eliminate the possibility that Iraqi WMD would fall into (or be deliberately placed in) the hands of terrorists determined to attack the U.S. and it's allies. Yet, many observers continue to believe that the Iraq War was unnecessary and the Bush administration's greatest mistake in fighting the larger WOT. Optimists and pessimists alike have criticized the decision to invade Iraq arguing that; the justification for war was based on faulty intelligence, and the Bush administration chose to invade Iraq before devoting enough time and effort to resolving the crisis diplomatically. In hindsight, the decision to invade Iraq may have been a mistake and the war a distraction from the larger WOT, but once the country collapsed into violence as the insurgency intensified, withdrawal was never a viable policy option. Iraq had become, even if it was not before the invasion, a key battleground in the larger WOT and threatened to become a terrorist sanctuary that posed a greater threat to the U.S. and the region than the Taliban's Afghanistan. Unfortunately, so much of the debate became focused on whether the war was a mistake that little attention was paid either to how to win the war or, perhaps more importantly, how to maintain pubic support after the Bush administration's key justifications for it collapsed.

Among the key criticisms of the Iraq War during Bush's first term was that the war was unnecessary because the President's key justifications for invading Iraq (because of its WMD and ties to Al Qaeda) turned out to be based on faulty intelligence. At the time of the invasion however, the U.S. and the U.N. had ample evidence to suggest that

Iraq had WMD capabilities, the nerve agent sarin and mustard gas were used in the war against Iran and on Iraq's Kurdish population in the 1980's,106 and the country was

106 Council on Foreign Relations, "Terrorist Havens: Iraq, " December 2005 http://www.cfr.org/publication/9513 justifiably featured on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. While ultimately the Iraq Survey Group report concluded that Iraq had no WMD, as Frank

Harvey points out, the debate at the time was never about whether the intelligence definitely established the presence or absence of WMD stockpiles but which of the following arguments was more convincing in the lead up to war: either Saddam's regime did not continue to develop WMD after U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998 and had gotten rid of the weapons U.N. inspectors documented he had in 1991, or Saddam did have the weapons cited in these reports and would continue to develop more in absence of further

1 OR inspections. Every member of the U.N. Security Council, including France and

Russia, endorsed the second interpretation by unilaterally passing Resolution 1441 and while this assumption turned out to be false, no one at the time thought Saddam was bluffing.109 No one doubted that Iraq had WMD capabilities and posed a significant threat to U.S. and international security in the post-9/11 world. Only in hindsight can critics blame the Bush administration for relying on faulty intelligence.

Another popular criticism was that the Bush administrations case that Saddam

Hussein had significant ties to Al Qaeda proved to be exaggerated, although there is no doubt that his regime was a sponsor of terrorism. As evidence, the Council on Foreign

Relations pointed out that the Iraqi regime, .. .provided headquarters, operating bases, training camps, and other support to terrorist groups fighting the governments of neighboring Iran, as well as to hard-line Palestinian groups [and] had commissioned several failed terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities.110

107 COFR, "Terrorist Havens: Iraq, " December, 2005 Frank Harvey, "President Al Gore and the 2003 Iraq War: A Counter/actual Critique of the Conventional 'Wisdom'," Canadian Defense and Foreign Affairs Institute, November, 2008, p. 8. www.cdfai.org 109 Harvey, "President Al Gore and the Iraq War, " 2008, p. 8 COFR, "Terrorist Havens: Iraq, " 2005 35

While this evidence is well known, many critics of the Iraq War have focused

instead on the questionable claims made by Vice President Cheney and a few members of

the Bush administration who went too far in asserting that Iraq was involved in the 9/11

attacks.

In what has become the conventional wisdom, Daniel Benjamin and Steven

Simon condemned the Iraq War and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of

powerful neo-conservatives within the Bush administration, who believed that Iraq was

responsible for 9/11. Prominent neo-conservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Donald

Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and others believed that Al Qaeda could not have masterminded

and carried out such a sophisticated attack on the U.S. without the help of a state sponsor

like Iraq. This misperception was strongly held despite evidence to the contrary, the

authors argue, because of the tendency of neo-conservatives to believe that only states represent a serious challenge to national security and the best way to deal with the phenomena of terrorism was to focus on state sponsors. But most members of the Bush

administration and the intelligence community did not share Cheney's assertion that Iraq played a key role in 9/11 and questioned the other evidence he cited of a significant relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.11 As Philip Gordon writes, the principal

strategic thought underlying the Bush administration's strategy in the WOT was the link between terrorists and state sponsors.

111 Benjamin and Simon, The Next Attack. 2005, p. 139-40 112 Cheney, Dick, Transcript of Cheney's September 14, 2003 interview with Tim Russet available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244/ Among the points Cheney discussed was that the man behind the 1993 World Trade Center attack was Iraqi and "probably" received funding and safe haven from Iraq, the claim by the Czech government that head 9/11 bomber Mohamed Atta met with senior Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, and that Saddam was trying to acquire uranium in Africa. Cheney also said that he and members of the intelligence community believed Saddam had reconstituted nuclear weapons and had nuclear capabilities, despite the IAEA report that Iraq did not have a nuclear program. 36

While this was indeed a real problem, the belief that terrorists stood alongside Saddam Hussein as central actors in a single global war was a fantasy, and the argument that this alliance provided a good justification for the costs and risks of invading Iraq was preposterous and misled many ill

Americans into believing the war was worth the risks.

While Gordon is correct in calling the Saddam-Al Qaeda alliance a 'fantasy,' the

Bush administration was successful in convincing Americans that the greatest threat to

the nation after 9/11 was the potential link between terrorists, rouge states, and WMD.

There is little doubt, however, that the focus on misperceptions held by Cheney and

others contributed to the American public's loss of credibility and trust in the Bush

administration, and by his second term, few found official claims that the U.S. was winning the WOT credible, especially as the situation in Iraq (and Afghanistan) began to

deteriorate.

While much of the literature focuses on the mistakes and failures of the Bush

administration, as Frank Harvey points out, the belief that the decision to invade Iraq was, "...a product of the political biases, mistaken perceptions, misguided priorities, intentional deceptions and grand strategies...," of President Bush and prominent neoconservatives is based on a number of "flawed assumptions" and significant logical and historical errors.114 Harvey's analysis questions the assertion that a Bush administration dominated by powerful neoconservatives was a necessary condition for the Iraq War by way of a counterfactual historical analysis in which he argues that similar decisions would have been made under a Democratic President, Al Gore.115 Proponents of this "neocon" thesis overstate the power and influence of President Bush and a few advisors, who, as Harvey points out, did not have the capability to radically alter U.S. 113 Philip Gordon, "Winning the Right War," Survival, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Winter 2007-08), p. 17-46, p. 31-33. 114 Harvey, "President Al Gore and the Iraq War, " 2008, p. 1 115 Harvey, "President Al Gore and the Iraq War, " 2008, p. 1-3 37 foreign and security policies without the support of fellow politicians and the public. As evidence he points to statements made by Al Gore and his advisors showing that they would have followed a similar course of action as the Bush administration because they shared the same misperceptions about the threat posed by Iraq; a Democratic administration would have faced the same pressures to invade because there was strong bipartisan support for the war; and there was an international consensus on the threat posed by Iraqi WMD.116

Another popular criticism of the war pointed to the Bush administration's failure to pass a second U.N. Resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, and some have suggested that a pre-emptive war to bring about regime change in Iraq was the Bush administration's preferred policy all along. Many observers, especially outside the U.S., tended to agree with the French position that not enough attention was devoted to resolving the crisis diplomatically, and that the U.S. should have at least given weapons inspectors more time to uncover evidence of WMD before restoring to an invasion.

Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech before the U.N. Security Council on February 5,

2003 summed up the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq and for

Americans, who had just been attacked on 9/11, the Iraq War was an easy sell, even if

Americas allies preferred to drag their feet:

We know Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression... given what we know of his terrorist associations and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time and a place and in the manner of his choosing when the world is in a much weaker position to respond? The United States will not and cannot

Harvey, "President Al Gore and the Iraq War, " 2008, p. 5-13 38

run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11 world.117

In hindsight then, the fact that no WMD were found and that there were no

significant ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda is irrelevant because the perceived threat of

Saddam providing terrorist with WMD was a sufficient reason to go to war after 9/11. A

pre-emptive war to finally rid the world of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was an

easy sell in the post 9/11 political climate. In fact, as Harvey has argued, public pressure

to protect America made it inevitable that any U.S. politician would prefer to exaggerate

any potential threat rather than doing nothing. There was also a consensus on the

threat posed by Iraqi WMD and ample evidence of Saddam's deception, sponsorship of

terrorism, and brutality towards his own population.

The decision to invade Iraq was not based on any new evidence about the threat

posed by Iraq but rather, 9/11 changed the perception of the threat from one that was

containable to one that posed enough of a potential threat to security that it must be

addressed through regime change. Looking back, there is no shortage of evidence

available to critics that invading Iraq was a mistake. However, the war seemed necessary

at the time based on the available evidence. What was problematic for the Bush

administration was not its decision to invade Iraq, that was justified, but the effect that

these false and misleading claims would have on public trust and confidence, which no

doubt contributed to its inability to maintain public support for the war in Iraq.

117 Colin Powell, Transcript of Powell's U.N. Presentation, " February 6, 2003 CNN.com http://edition,cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/spri.irq.powell.transcript Powell would later admit in a 2004 interview that the case he made before the U.N. was inaccurate and based on sources that were wrong and in some cases "deliberately misleading." Powell, Colin, Interview with NBC's Meet the Press, May 16, 2004 transcript at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4992558 118 Harvey, "President Al Gore and the Iraq War, " 2008, p. 7 39

Part 1: Iraq War Objectives and Strategy: From Success to Failure 2003-06

While the U.S. was successful in invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein's

regime, the Bush administration failed to come up with a strategy for the Post-Saddam

period. Within weeks of the invasion, public opinion turned against the war as an

increasing majority of Americans doubted that the President had a strategy to defeat the

insurgency and stabilize the country. As violence reached its height in 2006, a majority of

Americans had concluded that all was lost and withdrawal was the only option, but the

Bush administration clung to its belief that the only exit strategy was victory.

While the official objectives of the Iraq War evolved somewhat overtime, largely

due to the fact that the Iraqi regime was found to have no WMD,119 we can divide them into two basic categories: first, the military objectives related to the invasion itself and achieved with lightning speed during Operation Iraqi Freedom where the Baath regime fell in less than three weeks, and second, the more difficult objectives of the Post-Saddam period, namely fighting the insurgency and rebuilding Iraqi institutions in order to create a self-sufficient, free and democratic nation. Not surprisingly, the military objectives of the war were achieved with relative ease as U.S. forces quickly swept through Iraq and entered Baghdad with little resistance. America's vast military superiority made for a quick and seemingly decisive victory. While the Bush administration won the war, it would soon be clear that it had no real strategy for winning the peace.

119 Woodward, Bob, Plan of Attack. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004) The initial goals, objectives and strategy in Iraq was laid out in an August 2002 National Security Presidential Directive. According to that document, the goal of the U.S. invasion was to eliminate Iraqi WMD and related materials and delivery programs so it would no longer constitute a threat to the region and the world. Also, removing Saddam Hussein's regime would end his tyranny over the Iraqi people and Iraq's sponsorship of terrorism (p. 154- 5). After the release of the Iraq Survey Group's "Duelfer Report," in October 2003 which said no WMD had been found, emphasis shifted to the secondary goals of the war, freeing the Iraqi people and preventing Iraq from becoming a base for terrorism. 40

Within weeks of the fall Baghdad and the symbolic end of Saddam Hussein's

regime with the toppling of his statue on April 9, 2003 excitement over the promise of a

free Iraq began to dissipate as the county quickly collapsed into chaos and violence.

Rather than announce a plan to deal with the aftermath of the invasion, Bush announced

the end of major combat operations in his May 1 "Mission Accomplished" speech, a

claim that was at best premature. The violence that ensued over the next three years

would make the goal of creating a free and stable Iraq almost impossible.

However, early calls for a quick withdrawal were premature and such a policy

during the initial stages of the insurgency, even if to wait until after the transfer of power

in 2004 elections, would demonstrate once again that the US would cut and run rather

than fight. The problem however, as critics correctly pointed out, was that the Bush

administration had no strategy for post-Saddam Iraq and despite what the neo-

conservatives had promised, U.S. forces were not greeted as liberators but instead seen as

occupiers.

Whether do to the mistaken belief that U.S. soldiers would be welcomed as

liberators, as some members of the administration had claimed, the Bush administration

did not have a clear strategy or enough troops to stabilize Post-Saddam Iraq. Many of the

early decisions made by Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) would be

almost instantly criticised for destabilizing Iraq, especially the decision to disband the

Iraqi Army, after which many ex-soldiers did return home with their guns to join the

insurgency.120 Broad de-Baathification also meant that key government Ministries, such

as Defense and the Interior (which controlled the police) ceased to function. In late 2003,

Bremer told Vice President Cheney that the U.S. does not have a military strategy for

120 Woodward, State of Denial. 2004, p. 211 41

victory in Iraq. Cheney concurred, saying that, ".. .the Pentagon's mindset is that the war's over and they are now in the 'moping-up' phase. They fail to see that we are in a major battle against terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere." ' The CPA period, which began on

May 16, 2003, was harshly criticized as an attempt to make Bremer a General MacArthur in change of Iraq and characterized by frustration as U.S. and Coalition forces remained hold up inside the safety of the Green Zone while the country fell apart. Within days of the selection of the Interim Iraqi Governing Council on July 13, 2003, General Abizaid was warning that the U.S. faced, "a classical guerrilla-style campaign," a fact that the

199 administration was reluctant to admit. As a result, it took at least another year before classical counter-insurgency strategies began to be employed.

The strategy during Bush's first and early second term was basically to begin to hand over responsibility for security to Iraqis and much emphasis was put on U.S. efforts to train the new Iraqi security forces and the police. However, this would take time and the level of violence would get much worse before the Iraqis were capable of providing for their own security. To complicate things, these recruits, along with officials of the new government, were frequently attacked by the insurgents.

With no military strategy to win in Iraq high hopes were placed on the outcome of number of elections that took place throughout 2005, which President Bush had predicted would be "a turning point" in the war and "the beginning of the end of terrorism in 19^

Iraq." On January 30, 2005 Iraqis voted to choose representatives for the newly- formed and transitional 275-member Iraqi National Assembly, which became the first

121 Woodward, State Of Denial. 2006, p. 265 122 "In Iraq, Military Forgot the Lessons of Vietnam." Washington Post 07/23/2006 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dvn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072200444 pf.html 123 Woodward, State of Denial. 2006, p. 435 42

freely elected government in Iraq in April of that year. The January elections were a

landmark event and while voter turnout was higher than expected, they were boycotted

by the Sunni political parties, and despite efforts to increase their representation in the

new government, many disenfranchised Sunnis continued to choose violence over the political process.

To sort out this mess, Philip Zelikow was sent to Iraq in 2005 to advise Secretary

of State Rice on the situation on the ground, the State Department having taken over

responsibility for Iraq from Defense the previous year. He concluded that the U.S. lacked

"an articulated, comprehensive, unified policy" in Iraq, and not enough attention was being paid to the political side of fighting the insurgency. What was needed, Rice and

Zelikow believed, was to focus on winning Iraqi hearts and minds.124 Zelikow concluded that, while there had been progress on security, the insurgency had adapted, and the momentum that followed the 2005 elections had dissipated as Iraqis became disillusioned with the U.S. Thinking of what success would mean in Iraq, Zelikow laid out four goals or milestones which would come to define the mission during Bush's second term: an insurgency weakened enough that it could be contained by the Iraqi government without large scale U.S. help, an independent Iraqi government capable of preventing the country from becoming a significant base for terrorism and capable of withstanding Iranian interference, that serves as an example of democracy in the region, and that is moving towards economic self sufficiency. For Zelikow, failure meant not achieving these goals by the time Bush left office.125 Later that year, Zelikow advised Rice that three key tests lay ahead for Iraqis: to "establish a truly national government, check communal violence

Woodward, State of Denial. 2006, p. 389-90 Woodward, State of Denial. 2006, p. 413 43

and develop a security bargain that can sustain Shia and Sunni moderates, and get the

new government off to a visibly promising start." This would require a substantial

change in strategy.

Rice announced the new "clear, hold, and build" strategy in October 2005 when

she testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, explaining that in addition

to clearing areas of insurgent control, U.S. forces would need, "to hold them securely,

and to build durable Iraqi institutions."127 This new emphasis was at odds with the

strategy that had been followed by Rumsfeld and the Pentagon when the Defense

Department was in charge, which centered on transferring responsibility for security to

the Iraqis so U.S. forces could withdraw.

A month later, the White House released its "National Strategy for Victory in

Iraq," which stated that the mission of U.S. troops is to win the war and promised that

they would not be brought home until that mission is complete. U.S. forces would be withdrawn only as the "political process advances and Iraqi security forces grow and gain

experience."129 Success in Iraq would be measured by accomplishing a series of milestones or benchmarks similar to those described by Zelikow. However, progress on these benchmarks depended largely on the ability of the Iraqis to meet very ambitious goals before a basic level of security and stability had been achieved on the ground.

Despite high hopes that elections would bring stability to Iraq, on February 22,

2006 Al Qaeda in Iraq attacked one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines, the Golden Mosque in

Samarra, setting off an unprecedented cycle of sectarian violence and retribution that

126 Woodward, State of Denial. 2006, p. 452 127 Woodward, State of Denial. 2006, p. 418 128 Woodward, State of Denial. 2006, p. 418 129 National Security Council, "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," November 30, 2005, p.2 http://www.washingtonpost.cony wp-srv/nation/documents/Iraqnationalstrategyl l-30-05.pdf 44

would make 2006 the deadliest year yet, and seemed to confirm fears that a civil war was

imminent.

In August, General Abizaid testified before Congress and admitted that sectarian

violence may erupt into civil war. A Pentagon report released September 1, 2006 echoed

this concern, pointing out that the period between mid-May and mid-August 2006 was

the most violent and deadliest in over two years,130 despite many signs of progress on the

political and economic fronts, and the death of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Musab al-Zarqawi

on June 8. According to the report,

Sectarian tensions increased over the past quarter, manifested in an increasing number of execution-style killings, kidnappings, and attacks on civilians, and increasing numbers of internally displaced persons. Sunni and Shi'a extremists... are increasingly interlocked in retaliatory violence and are contesting control of ethnically mixed areas to expand their existing areas of influence... Breaking the cycle of violence is the most pressing goal of Coalition and Iraqi operations.131

By late 2006 it was obvious that the U.S. was losing the fight against the insurgency and frustrated Americans, especially Democrats, demanded that the government set a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces. Rather than setting a timetable, the Bush administration insisted that the only exit strategy was victory and made continuous but unsuccessful attempts to demonstrate progress, but as discussed earlier the body count metrics it employed were insufficient to convince a majority of Americans.

While the government had acknowledged the need to focus on winning Iraqi hearts and minds, the violence in recent months made it clear that this effort had failed.

Department of Defense, "Measuring Security and Stability in Iraq ", Report to Congress, August 2006. http://www.defense.gov/home/features/Iraq_Reports According to the Report, the average number of weekly attacks against the Coalition, Iraqi Security Forces, and Iraqi civilians since May 20 had increased by 15% and while attacks targeting the Coalition represented the majority (63%) of attacks, Iraqi civilians suffered the most casualties, up 51% over the previous quarter. 131 DOD, "Measuring Security and Stability in Iraq," 2006. p. 3 45

Declining Public Support for the War in Iraq (2003-2006)

It was clear that the perception of U.S. failure in Iraq reflected real failure on the ground during this period. After more than three years of seemingly endless violence in

Iraq, the American public no longer supported the Bush administrations handling of the war nor did they believe the President had a clear plan for bringing the war to a successful conclusion.

The Bush administration was not able to reverse the downward trend in public support for it's handling of the Iraq War, which a majority of American's disapproved of beginning in May 2004 and by the close of 2006, the percentage who disapproved soared to 75%. (See Graph 1) 132

Graph 1: Approval of Bush's Handling of Iraq (2003-2006)

-Approve %

°"^^W^W^^WW^W^WW^W^Wfe 2003 2004 2005 2006

The downward trend in approval for the President's handling of the war was not surprising because during the same period an increasing majority also believed that the

President did not have a clear plan for bringing the war to a successful conclusion.

132 Graph 1 is based on data from a CBS/NY Times poll which asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of George W. Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq," published in American Enterprise Institute, Studies in Public Opinion, "Public Opinion and the Iraq War" http://www.aei.org/docLib/Public%20Qpinion%20Iraq.pdf (last updated July 23, 2008), p. 152-154. The same question was also asked over a similar time period by Gallup/NYT/USA Poll and reached similar conclusions, also in AEI, "Public Opinion and the Iraq, " 2008, p. 154-55. 46

Americans were split on this question in December 2003, but afterwards an increasing

majority believed the President did not have a clear plan. (See Graph 2)133

Graph 2: Does Bush Have a Clear Plan in Iraq (2003-06)

50 45 40 35 30 25 -•— Yes % 20 15 10 5 0 Sept Oct Dec Apr Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Feb Jul Sept Dec Mar Nov

2003 2004 2005 2006

Finally, the public's perception that the U.S. was losing (or had lost) the Iraq War

also reflected the dismal situation on the ground. By the close of 2006 a majority of

Americans had concluded that the U.S. was losing in Iraq and that the war was unwinnable. A CNN/ORC poll asked: "Do you think the U.S. is winning or not winning

in Iraq," and while Americans were relatively spilt on this question in May 2004, by

November of 2006 those who believed the U.S. was not winning had increased from 46% to 61%, and this number held relatively stable until late August 2008.134 Graph 3 shows,

similarly, that the number of Americans who believed the U.S. was losing in Iraq increased from 34% in December 2005 to 52% by December 2006. An ABC

News/Washington Post poll also revealed that more Americans believed that the U.S. would ultimately lose in Iraq, the percentage of those who believed the U.S. would

133 Graph 2 is based on data from a PSRA/Pew Research Center poll which asked, "Do you think George W. Bush has a clear plan for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion," published in AEI, "Public Opinion and the Iraq War," 2008, p. 158. A similar trend is evident when a similar question was asked by Gallup/CNN/USA Today and ABC News/Wash Post polls taken over the same timeframe, also published in AEI, "Public Opinion and the Iraq War" 2008 p. 158. Interestingly, the public did not believe that the Democrats in Congress had a clear plan either, and the same sources as noted above report that by the end of 2006 65% believed they do not have a clear plan either, PSRA/Pew Research Center and ABC News/Wash Post polls in AEI, "Public Opinion and the Iraq War" 2008, p. 159. 134 CNN/ORC poll published in AEI, "Public Opinion and the Iraq War," 2008, p. 49 47 ultimately win in Iraq dropped from 60% in December 2005 to 34% in December 2006

(see Graph 3) 135

Graph 3: Is (Will) the U.S. Losing in Iraq (2005-07)

60 i

50 - ->»- —

40 - ^^~•" — *—" » Losing % 30 - —-— Will Lose % 20 •

0 - Dec 15-18 Dec 7-11 Jan 10-11 Apr 12-15

2005 2006 2007 2007

In pre-surge Iraq then, the perception of failure reflected failure in terms of the results on the ground. In a Pew survey taken in February 2007, two-thirds of respondents

(67%) said the war in Iraq was not going well, the highest percentage to date (see Graph

136 4).

Graph 4: How Well is the Iraq War Going? (2003-08)

-Well %

135 Graph 3 is based on an ABC News/Washington Post poll which asked, "All told, do you think the United States is winning or losing in Iraq" and "All told, do you think the United states will win or lose the war in Iraq," both published in AEI, "Public Opinion and the Iraq War" 2008 p. 89. In this poll the percentage who believe neither side is winning does not rise above 10% during this period, but when similar questions were asked by Gallup/CNN/USA Today an increasing majority believed neither side was winning from the fall of 2004 to Dec 2006, AEI, "Public Opinion and the Iraq War" 2008, p 88. 136 Graph 4 is reproduced from PEW Research Publicans, "Public Attitudes Toward the War in Iraq: 2003- 2008," March 19,2008, http://www.pewresearch.org/pubs/770/iraq-war—five-years-anniversarv 48

Part 2: Post-Surge Iraq: Perceptions of Failure Despite Success on the Ground (2007-present)

While the perception of U.S. failure in Iraq and declining support for the

President's handling of the war during the pre-surge period was consistent with the dismal results on the ground, major successes on the ground since the 2007 surge have not been enough to change the public's perception that the Iraq War was a failure or to reverse the downward trend in public support. The surge and other factors that contributed to a more secure and stable Iraq today will be discussed next, followed by a more in depth look at why public support for the war continued to decline despite major and substantial successes on the ground in post-surge Iraq.

The Surge

By the fall of 2006, the desperate situation in Iraq and what to do about it had become a frequent topic of debate and Democrats, who would gain control of the House and Senate that November, loudly asserted that it was time to leave Iraq. However, the

Bush administration stressed that withdrawal would be a disaster. In response to critics,

Bush stated:

We're not leaving, so long as I'm the president. That would be a huge mistake. It would send an unbelievably terrible signal to reformers across the region. It would say we've abandoned our desire to change the conditions that create terror. It would give the terrorists a safe haven from which to launch attacks.

This debate came to a head with the release of the influential Iraq Study Group

(ISG) report on December 6, which warned of equally dire consequences if the Bush administration did not change course. It argued that, despite the massive U.S

137 "Media ignored Bush's vow that "[Wje're not leaving" Iraq "so long as I'm the President" Media matters for America, August 22, 2006. http://mediamatters.org/research/200608220005 49

commitment, the situation on the ground continued to deteriorate, largely due to the

worsening sectarian conflict, and argued that if this continued, the consequences would be severe.

A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe. Neighbouring countries could intervene. Sunni- Shia clashes could spread. Al Qaeda could win an important propaganda victory and expand its base of operations. The global standing of the United States could be diminished. Americans could become more polarized.138

The ISG report was presented as a new approach to achieve the Bush

administrations key objectives (an Iraq that can govern, sustain and defend itself) and offered a number of key recommendations: First, the U.S. must launch a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus around the goal of supporting a stable Iraq, which would require engaging Iran and Syria and addressing key regional issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Second, the U.S. must work with Iraq's leaders toward achieving national reconciliation, establish security, and make progress on governance by supporting its efforts to achieve specific objectives or milestones, while making it clear that continued U.S. political, military, and economic support would depend on progress toward these goals. While supporting a short-term redeployment or "surge" of U.S. combat forces to stabilize Baghdad and speed up the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, the report concluded that the primary mission of U.S. forces should evolve to supporting the Iraqi Army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations so that all U.S. combat brigades, not needed for force protection, could

138 James A. Baker and Lee. H. Hamilton (Co-Chairs), "The Iraq Study Group Report," released December 6, 2006, p. 6. http://media.usip.org/reports/iraq studygroup report.pdf 139 Baker-Hamilton, "ISGR" 2006, p. 32-41 140 Baker-Hamilton, "ISGR" 2006, p. 41-48 50 be out of Iraq by early 2008. The ISG report rejected a number of proposals being

debated at the time, including immediate withdrawal and significantly increasing the number of U.S. troops, which they argued would be unsustainable and delay the Iraqi government taking over full control of their country.142

In what many considered a rebuff of the ISG report, the Bush administration did not follow its recommendations but rather announced its controversial decision to send more troops to Iraq, referred to as "the surge," which many Democrats rejected as an escalation of the conflict, arguing that withdrawal was the only sensible option to end the war.

On January 10, 2007 Bush announced:

Tonight in Iraq, the armed forces are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror- and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.143

In that speech, Bush stated that the rising tide of violence during 2006 had overwhelmed the political gains made since the successful Iraqi elections in 2005 and the

U.S. could no longer accomplish its mission solely through continued efforts to train Iraqi security forces. The new strategy addressed the most urgent priority- security, especially in Baghdad, and the President admitted that previously there had not been enough

American or Iraqi troops to secure neighbourhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents.144 In order to help the Iraqi security and police forces put an end to sectarian

141 Baker-Hamilton, "ISGR," 2006, p. 48-50 142 Baker-Hamilton, "ISGR" 2006, p. 49-50 143 Bush, "We Need to Change our Strategy in Iraq, " 2007 144 Bush, "We Need to Change our Strategy in Iraq, " 2007 Here Bush admitted that previous efforts to secure Baghdad had failed because insurgents and terrorists quickly returned to areas from which they had been cleared, but this time the U.S. and Iraqis would have enough forces in place to hold (and build) these areas. He also stated that, unlike the previous years where political and sectarian interference prevented 51

violence, the President announced that 20,000 additional U.S. troops would be deployed

to Iraq, the vast majority to Baghdad. While pointing out that this new strategy will not

mean an immediate end to violence, President Bush stated that,

.. .overtime we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murders, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents. When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas.145

In addition to efforts to secure Baghdad, an additional 4,000 U.S. troops would

be deployed to Anbar province where Al Qaeda was based and the second most

dangerous place in Iraq. These troops would assist local tribal leaders who had recently

demonstrated their willingness to take on Al Qaeda.

The announcement of a new strategy in Iraq was quickly condemned by critics

who were against any increase in troops due to their belief that the war could not be won

militarily, and they would continue to demand that the President set a timetable for

withdrawal, but the Bush administration was firmly against this. Despite its unpopularity,

the surge strategy was a turning point for the Bush administration in its conduct of the

Iraq War and demonstrated that the government finally recognized that progress in Iraq

would depend first on achieving security, and that this goal required more American boots on the ground.

Before looking at the evidence of success in Iraq during the post-surge period, it

is necessary to mention two other factors which no doubt contributed to success during

U.S. and Iraqi forces from entering the most violent neighbourhoods, Prime Minister Maliki had assured the U.S. that such interference would no longer be tolerated. 145 Bush, "We Need to Change our Strategy in Iraq, " 2007 52

this period: the Sunni Awakening and the cease-fire with influential Shiite Cleric

Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army. As the International Crisis Group pointed out,

Many factors account for the reduction in violence: the surge in some cases benefited from, in others encouraged, and in the remainder produced, a series of politico-military shifts affecting the Sunni and Shiite communities.. .The surge is one element in a set of mutually reinforcing dynamics.

The Sunni Awakening refers to a movement which began in 2007 when tribal elements in Anbar and former insurgents, known as the 'Sons of Iraq,' who had previously rejected both the occupation and the Iraqi political process, began to openly cooperate with

U.S. and Iraqi forces and against Al Qaeda in Iraq, by mid-2007 driving it out of all major strongholds, and began engaging in local politics, policing, and economic activity.

While the alliance between Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda in Iraq was held together by little more than a shared desire to oust the U.S. occupation, after the loss of its leader al

Zarqawi in June 2006, the terrorist group increasingly resorted to random, savage, and violent attacks, especially against Shiites, and seemed to forget the need to maintain its alliance with the local population and other insurgent groups, who came to see their tactics as "unnecessary and even counterproductive." As the International Crisis Group report concludes, Al Qaeda in Iraq was obviously weakened and had suffered major setbacks.

The movement turned out to be its own worst enemy, overreaching, alienating its constituency and creating an extremely hostile environment for itself even prior to the surge. The U.S. shift to more classical and effective counter-insurgency tactics along with the deployment of additional troops... and its more nuanced understanding of the range of insurgent groups helped it capitalize 1 • • 149 on this opportunity.

International Crisis Group, "Iraq After the Surge I: The New Sunni Landscape, " Middle East Report No. 74, April 30, 2008, p. I http://www.crisisgroup,org/home/index.cfm?id=54l5&l=l 147 ICG, "Iraq After the Surge I," 2008, p. 1 148 ICG, "Iraq After the Surge /," 2008, p. 5-6 149 ICG, "Iraq After the Surge I," 2008, p. 9 53

Muqtada al Sadr, leader of the radical Shiite Sadist movement and its paramilitary wing the Mahdi Army, also played a central role in the rise of sectarian violence, this time Shiites against Sunnis, in and around Baghdad and his declaration of a unilateral cease-fire in August 2007 contributed to success during the surge period. Not unlike Al Qaeda in Iraq, al Sadr and his militia, "...overreached, resorting to brutal methods, exploiting their new power through corruption and theft and alienating their own constituency. Faced with these reversals at the same time as more aggressive U.S. troops,

Muqtada made a tactical shift, calling on the Mahdi Army to halt its operations."150

While President Bush and members of his administration made repeated attempts to credit the surge as the key to progress during this period, there is no doubt that these events also played a key role.

Evidence of Success in Post-Surge Iraq

While the surge understandably led to increased fighting and casualties for both sides initially, slowly over the next several months violence began to subside. The

Brookings Institution's "Iraq Index, " last updated in December 2009, does a good job of demonstrating progress on the political, economic, and security fronts and below we will look at three measures that point to evidence of success: the decline in enemy initiated attacks against the Coalition and its partners, the decline in U.S. troop fatalities, and the decline in the number of Iraqi civilians killed.

Not surprisingly, as violence and attacks decreased (see Figure 1) we see a similar decline in U.S. troop fatalities, which peaked in 2007 at 903 then decreased to 314 in

International Crisis Group, "Iraq's Civil War: The Sadrists and The Surge, " Middle East Report No. 2, February, 27, 2008, p. 2. http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5286 54

2008 and 149 in 2009. Iraqi civilians killed also peaked at 34,500 in 2006, dropping to

23,600 in 2007, 6,400 in 2008, and 2,800 in 2009. 151

Figure 1: ENEMY-INITIATED ATTACKS AGAINST THE COALITION AND ITS PARTNERS

m Attacks Against Iraqi Infrastructure and Government Organizations

Despite these and other obvious signs of progress support for President Bush's handling of the war did not significantly improve for long and the percentage that did approve remained between 20 and 30% in the post surge period (see Graph 5).152

1 O'Hanlon, Michael, Ian Livingston, "The Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq, " December, 11, 2009, p. 6. http://www.brookings.edu/iraqindex. The graph reproduced above is from data published by U.S. Department of Defense in their Quarterly Report to Congress, "Measuring Stability & Security in Iraq," March 2008. The U.S. troop and Iraqi civilian casualty figures are from the Brookings report and appear on page 13 and 14 (based again on DOD data) and 4 (based on a report by Iraq Family Health Survey Study Group) respectively. 152 Graph 5 is based on data from a Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll which asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling of the situation in Iraq," published in American Enterprise Institute, Studies in Public Opinion, "Public Opinion and the Iraq War," http://www.aei.org/docLib/Public%20Qpinion%20Iraq.pdf (last updated July 23, 2008), p. 154-155. 55

Graph 5: Approval of Bush's Handling of Iraq (2006-2008)

45 40 35 30 25 20 -Approval % 15 10 5 0 Jan | Feb j Apr | Jun | Jul | Aug | Oct Jan | Jan | Feb | Mar | May [ Aug Feb 2006 2007 2008

On January 1, 2009, weeks before Obama took office, the U.S. successfully

transferred responsibility for security from Coalition forces to the government of Iraq.

On February 27, 2009, Obama announced a plan to begin a phased drawdown of U.S.

combat forces to be competed by August 31, 2010, at which time U.S. forces would have

a more limited mission, that focuses on training the Iraqi security forces, force protection,

counterterrorism operations, and supporting capacity building efforts. According to

the Defence Department's March 2009 report to Congress, "Iraq continues to make

progress, as Iraqis increasingly choose the political process over violence" and on

January 31, 2009 successful Provincial elections took place and were deemed creditable

and legitimate.154 The overall security situation continued to improve in 2009, with

security incidents at the same low levels as in early 2004. This resulted from a number of

factors, "...including effective Coalition and Iraqi counter-terror operations, increasing

capabilities of ISF, and the rejection of violence and extremism by the Iraqi people."155

While progress continued to be made the authors were unsure as to how durable the gains

153 Obama, Barack, "Remarks of President Barack Obama - Responsibly Ending the War in Iraq, " February 27, 2009 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press office/remarks-of-president-barack-obama- responsablv-ending-the-war-in-iraq/ 154 Department of Defense, "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq ", Report to Congress, March 2009 p. iii-iv www.defenselink.mil 155 DOD, "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, " 2009 p. iv 56

were because major sources of instability in the country had not been addressed and Iraqi

leaders continued to disagree on the future of the country and refused to share power and

resources. The Iraqi government must continue to build legitimacy by providing basic

services and improve security, "as well as the continued resolution of political, ethnic,

and sectarian divisions."156 The country recently faced another national election and

continues to suffer from insurgent and terrorist attacks. It is entirely possible that gains

made over the last few years could be lost, but the U.S. is sticking to its' schedule for

withdrawal. The future of Iraq is now in the hands of the Iraqi people.

Part 3: Explaining the Perception of Failure in Iraq

As demonstrated in Part 2, successes on the ground in post-surge Iraq were not

enough to overcome the perception that the war was a failure. Part 3 will explore this paradox further, first by revisiting Johnson and Tierney's "match-fixing" model and their

argument that public perceptions of success and failure in Iraq were influenced as much by political partisanship, symbolic events, and manipulation by political elites and the media than by the actual material outcome on the ground. Secondly, we will look at the

ongoing debate in the literature over the relative influence of various factors, such as mounting casualties and expectations of success, in explaining declining support for the

Iraq War. Gelpi and Feaver offer a convincing critique of Mueller's thesis that the

American public is casualty phobic, or that public support declines as casualties increase.

While their conclusion that the government can maintain public support for a costly, even unjustified war, if they are able to convince the public that the U.S. will win makes sense in theory, the Iraq case demonstrates that the overwhelming influence of past failures will

DOD, "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, " 2009 p. vii make this difficult, if not impossible. The trend of declining support is likely to persist,

despite successes on the ground.

As noted in the previous chapter, Johnson and Tierney present two models of how people determine who is winning. They point out that when material outcomes are not clear, as in the Iraq War, people tend to "match-fix" so that perceptions of which side is winning are based instead on subjective and biased metrics and information.157

Perceptions of victory and defeat result from the competition between the reality on the ground and biases produced by mind-sets, salient events, and social pressures. Any attempt to judiciously weigh up gains and losses for each side is in conflict with deep-seated cognitive and motivational biases... [OJbservers searching for an evaluation- pushed by elite manipulation, pulled by the media- fall back on cognitive shortcuts and gut feelings to make their way through the complex information available to them.]58

In the case of Iraq, Johnson and Tierney studied public opinion polls that asked

Americans who was winning and gauged their support for President Bush's handling of the war up to the end of 2004. Their analysis concluded that Americans were both "score- keeping" and "match-fixing," which they argue explains why there was no consensus on whether the U.S. was winning.15 At the end of 2004, they correctly pointed out, that the

U.S. record in Iraq in terms of material gains and losses was decidedly mixed and events on the ground were important in determining who was winning. While the Bush administration was successful in overthrowing the Iraqi regime, it was not able to provide a basic level of security or prevent mounting U.S. casualties, which did have a negative impact on the public's confidence in progress.160 As the authors argued, according to most polls, perceptions that the U.S. was succeeding peaked at over 50% in the initial

Johnson and Tiemey, Failing To Win, 2006, p. 38-39 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 19-20 Johnson and Tiemey, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 243-4 Johnson and Tiemey, Failing To Win, 2006, p. 258 58

weeks of the invasion, then fell sharply afterwards when the end of major combat

operation was announced and the focus of the mission shifted to counter-insurgency.161

They also point out, as other have, that the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003

led to a brief spike in overall support for the war, but like other major successes, this shift

was short-lived and not enough to reverse the downward trend.162 "Score-keeping," they

conclude, does play a significant role, but "many observers' perceptions were partially or wholly shaped by match-fixing factors."163

Johnson and Tierney conclude that mind-sets, in particular political partisanship,

appear to be the dominant explanation for perceptions of success or failure in Iraq and

shaped all stages of the evaluation process, while symbolic events and elite and media manipulation inflated the information people received and how they interpreted it. They predict that in the end observers' biases may cancel each other out so that the average perception may be similar to the score-card result.164 However, as the authors point out, as time goes by, "dominant perceptions about who won tend to become the established wisdom."165

The authors offer some advice for policy makers which they suggest can help them better manage perceptions of victory and defeat: be seen to control events, focus on one achievable metric, emphasize achievement of core aims, beware of rising expectations through rhetoric, exaggerate past government failures, explain defeats and

161 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 247-8. The authors cite as evidence results from a Time/CNN poll conducted between March 2003-March 2004 which asked, "In your opinion has the military campaign against Iraq been successful, unsuccessful, or somewhere in between?" 162 Johnson and Tierney. Failing To Win. 2006, p. 270 163 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 259. The authors point out that the key match-fixing factors that influenced perceptions were mind-sets or demographics, political partisanship, cognitive dissonance, beliefs, and analogies, salient or symbolic events and the rally effect, and social pressures such as elite and media manipulation. 164 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 282-3 165 Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win. 2006, p. 6 who is to blame, and accept or encourage an image of defeat to mobilize additional

resources.166 While they offer some good advice here, the public is likely to see through

these attempts to demonstrate progress, especially when government critics and the media

are simultaneous focused on mistakes and failures that will inevitably occur and use

alternate metrics that show the government is not making sufficient progress.

In an earlier article, Tierney also pointed to the existence of a "quagmire mentality" among the American public which leads them to view "civil war interventions" as failures and demand withdrawal despite successful outcomes on the

ground.167 For Tierney, this quagmire mentality represents a link between Feaver and

Gelphi's argument that expectations of success are key to maintaining public support for war and Bruce Jentleson and Rebecca Britton's argument that Americans will oppose

1 ftR wars in which the goal is regime change. He argues that there are three factors, independent of the civil war mission itself, that produces this quagmire mentality: U.S. values promote using metrics that are difficult to achieve, for example in Iraq he notes that victory became less about regime change than about Iraq becoming a democracy based on U.S. standards,169 the lessons of Vietnam that the U.S. loses these types of wars and will get bogged down in an unwinnable conflict, and negative perceptions encouraged by elites and the media. In particular, he notes the tendency of American leaders (both Democrats and Republicans) who attempt to mobilize public support

".. .with predictions of rapid success and grandiose rhetoric of transforming the target

166 Johnson & Tierney, Failing To Win, 2006, p. 291-94 1 7 Dominic Tierney, "Quagmire: American Defeatism in Civil War Interventions, " March 2006 (Paper presented at International Studies Association, San Diego, CA. p. 2) http://www.allacademic.eom/meta/p mlaapa research citation/l/0/0/0/4/pagesl00042/pl00042-l.php 168 Tierney, "Quagmire, 2006, p. 2 169 Tierney, "Quagmire, 2006, p. 18 170 Tierney, "Quagmire, 2006, p. 1 60

171

society." This was especially true in the case of Iraq. Tierney notes that in Iraq,

confidence that the war would be successful evaporated almost instantaneously when the

mission was redefined as one of counterinsurgency and nation building rather than a war

against Iraq.172 Americans are likely to judge even a successful outcome in Iraq on the ground- steadily falling rates of insurgent attacks, the establishment of a reasonably representative and moderate government, and substantial economic growth- as nevertheless being a failure. Since perceptions of success are one of the key factors determining public approval for a mission, the quagmire mentality may prove to be the driving force for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.173

The argument that perceptions about the war in Iraq were largely the result of one's

political affiliation is borne out by the polls and helps explain why the metrics used by

the Bush administration to demonstrate progress were not deemed credible by many

Americans. We can expect a similar pattern to play out now in the debate over

Afghanistan, with an increasing number of Republicans questioning whether President

Obama has the right strategy to win that war, which a majority of Americans no longer

support.

Now, we return to the ongoing debate among scholars about the relative importance of various factors which influence public support for U.S. military interventions, namely the debate between John Mueller and Christopher Gelpi and Peter

Feaver about whether the U.S. public is, above all, casualty- or defeat-phobic. Gelpi and

Feaver's model is more convincing and, as they argue, public expectations of success, not casualty rates, are more important in explaining why support for the war declined.

Tiemey, "Quagmire, 2006, p. 23 Tierney, "Quagmire, 2006, p. 7 Tierney, "Quagmire, 2006, p. 2 61

In their analysis, Gelpi and Feaver studied the impact of U.S. casualty rates on the

aggregate level of presidential approval between January 2003 and November 2004. They

concluded that, under the right conditions, the public will continue to support the war

even in face of mounting casualties. While the American public is not indifferent to

casualties, it is a cost they are willing to pay if they believe the U.S. will ultimately win.

Their study revealed that the public's willingness to tolerate casualties and continue to

support President Bush varied substantially, depending on the context in which the

casualties occurred, recognizing the possibility that U.S. casualties will have different effects on presidential approval during different phases of the war because there were

1 7S

substantial differences in public expectations of success.

During the "major combat" phase of the war, which began with the invasion of

Iraq and ended with the toppling of the Baath regime in April 2003, presidential approval increased despite the relatively high number of U.S. casualties suffered, which they argued is consistent with the 'rally round the flag' effect, whereby the public rallies to support the President despite rising casualties because they believe the U.S. mission will succeed.176 In the second phase of the war, which covered the occupation period (May

2003-June 2004), presidential approval dropped steadily as the number of U.S. casualties increased. As the authors point out, as the insurgency intensified Americans became less 1 77 confident about the chances of success as the situation on the ground deteriorated.

During this phase, the authors argued, casualties had no impact on presidential approval, which they note is particularly striking given the amount of coverage in the media during

174 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 8 175 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 20 176 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 18-19 177 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 19 62

this period on passing the milestone of 1,000 U.S. combat deaths in Iraq.178 In the third

phase, which began with the June 2004 transfer of sovereignty to Iraq and ended with the

2004 U.S. presidential election, the U.S. continued to suffer casualties at the same rate as

during the occupation, however presidential approval remained at about 50%.179 During

this period, the authors argued, tolerance for casualties actually increased. These findings,

...seem to call into question the notion that casualties have a consistent or inexorable effect on president approval. Even if one dismissed the shift from major combat to occupation as the fading of a 'rally round the flag,' the second shift after the transfer of sovereignty remains a puzzle.180

As the authors point out, Mueller's hypothesis that public support falls as

181

casualties increase does not explain the Iraq War data.

To better understand the process by which individuals form attitudes toward the

war in Iraq, Gelpi and Feaver conducted a series of surveys between October 2003 and

October 2004 which gauged the extent to which various factors identified in the literature

shaped public attitudes. Public attitudes as to whether Bush made the right decision in

invading Iraq and whether the U.S. would ultimately succeed work together in

determining a persons threshold for the human cost of war, the authors conclude, but

attitudes toward expectations of success matter more. "This implies that the president

can garner the support from a majority of those who are moderately sceptical of the war's justification by persuading them that victory is very likely." While their advice makes

178 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 22 179 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 19 1SU Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 19 181 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p 20 None of the variables, the authors say, associated with the war identified by Mueller are statistically significant except perhaps the volume of media coverage of Democratic presidential candidates. 182 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 24 183 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 36 184 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 37 63

sense in theory, it may prove impossible to raise expectations of success, in light of past

failures.

While these two factors are most important in shaping attitudes about the Iraq

War, the authors also find indirect support for other factors identified in the literature as key to maintaining public support for war, such as Jentleson's principle policy objective

of the mission, Larson's perceived elite consensus supporting the war, and Kull's level of multi-national support for the mission. The other factors identified in the literature have only a modest direct impact on casualty tolerance but, the authors point out, they are still important through their impact on respondents views about the lightness of the war and prospects of success.185 In conclusion, the authors state that the key trade off for the Bush administration was the public's willingness to keep fighting verses their demand to withdraw regardless of the consequences. They determined that as long as the public continues to believe the U.S. will ultimately win, they will continue to support the war despite the other factors.186 This, of course, does not mean that support will never decline.

Writing in 2008, Gelpi, Feaver and Jason Reifler noted that public opinion had turned sharply negative and that there has been substantial pressure on the Bush administration to beginning withdrawing from Iraq. While Mueller and others have suggested that declining support for the war from 2005 to 2007 was further evidence that

Americans were reacting to climbing casualty rates, Gelpi and Feaver found that public support dropped faster than Mueller's model would predict and instead argued that this decrease was better explained by falling expectations of success.

185 Gelpi, "Success Matters, 2006, p. 38 186 Gelpi, "SuccessMatters", 2006, p. 45 187 Christopher Gelpi, Peter Feaver, Jason Reifler, Paving the Human Costs of War: American Public Opinion & Casualties in Military Conflicts. (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009) p. 6. The political process never seemed to accelerate with success compounding success.. .prominent milestones in the development of a functioning government did not result in a dramatic lessening of violence. While U.S. casualty rates ebbed and flowed,.. .violence appeared to worsen with countless warnings that Iraq was slipping into uncontrollable sectarian civil war.

Contrary to Mueller's hypothesis, the decline in public support was not constant

or monolithic, and public support did briefly rebound in late 2005, for example when the

Bush administration made efforts to answer charges that it had no strategy for victory in

Iraq. As the authors explain, these gains were eroded by the overall lack of progress in

stabilizing Iraq over 2006,189 which the President himself admitted when announcing the

surge strategy. While the public agreed with the Bush administration that it was too early

to tell if the surge was succeeding in early 2007, by that summer, even the Pentagon

conceded that progress fell short of their goals.

The Baghdad clock was moving too slowly for the Washington clock however, and as a consequence, political elites sharply criticised the conduct of the Iraq war and a growing portion of the public expressed similar doubts...This erosion of support is exactly as our theory would predict.190

These findings have important implications for policy. As Gelpi and Feaver

argued, communicating presidential resolve is crucial to maintaining public support and it is advisable to focus on the future rather than the past. In Iraq, the public's willingness to keep fighting had more to do with their belief that the war was winnable than whether they believed the decision to invade Iraq was right or wrong. While public opinion is a constraint on policy, as the authors point out, " it is not so limiting a constraint as to

Gelpi, Feaver, Reifler, Paving the Human Costs of War. 2009, p. 242 Gelpi, Feaver, Reifler, Paving the Human Costs of War. 2009, p. 242-3 Gelpi, Feaver, Reifler, Paving the Human Costs of War. 2009, p. 243 65

preclude even a fairly hawkish foreign policy- so long as that hawkish policy is perceived

as successful."191

So public perceptions of whether the U.S. is winning or losing in Iraq were not

necessarily based on the results on the ground. The key to understanding declining

support for the war is that expectations for success began to collapse almost immediately

and even successes achieved during the surge were not enough to significantly boost

public confidence, but why? Why was the Bush administration not able to convince a majority of Americans that the surge would, and was, working?

Frank Harvey's Homeland Security Dilemma, discussed in the previous chapter, points to the tendency of failures to trump successes in terms of perceptions about who is winning. "Public perceptions of progress in the global war on terror [and Iraq] are defined almost exclusively through the prism of failures."1 As Harvey explained, due to probability neglect, the public will always overvalue the impacts of losses while undervaluing the benefits from gains. This helps explain why Iraq will be remembered as a failure despite the numerous successes on the ground since the surge. Important successes; such as the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003, better turn out and less violence than expected in the January 2005 elections, and the U.S. air raid that killed

Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June of 2006, were not enough to overcome the perception that the U.S. was losing.

Harvey goes on to list the top ten reasons why people are biased towards the perceptions of failure in the WOT, and these points are relevant when considering the staying power of the perception of failure in Iraq. As discussed above, probability

191 Gelpi, Feaver, Reifler, Paving the Human Costs of War. 2009, p. 261 192 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 11 193 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 26 66

neglect means that losses appear larger than gains, so that, ".. .our overall assessments of

progress in the global war on terror, or in Iraq and Afghanistan, will always and

inevitably depend on the fewer and smaller failures, never the larger and more numerous

successes." 4 Because the effects of failures are overestimated the cost of even small

failures can rapidly mount to dwarf more numerous gains and significant successes.195

Successes, on the other hand, are often ignored because they are difficult to measure,

one's definition of success and metrics will always be subjective, and because the public tends to ignore or reject official claims of success as politically motivated rhetoric.196

Harvey also notes that we exaggerate our incompetence and downplay our successes as it is the role of the Western media to question official claims of success. As Harvey concluded, an increasing number of Americans now believe the terrorists are winning because of the impact of our failures, especially in Iraq.1 7

Harvey explains that successes and failures are fundamentally connected to expectations and Americans expected the Iraq War to be short and relatively painless. In a poll taken on March 20, 2003 only 8% of Americans believed the Iraq War would last more than a year and only 11% thought that more than 1,000 troops would be killed.198

The expectation was that it would be a quick war with relatively few American casualties. As Harvey concludes, we need to better understand how the public thinks about success and failure in the WOT. "In the absence of systematic research on how these stories, images, and events interact to push perceptions in one or the other direction,

Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 26-7 195 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 30 196 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 31-2 197 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 42 198 Saad, Lydia, "Many Americans Say History Will Judge Iraq War a 'Failure'," March 20, 2008 http://www.gallup.coni/poll/105217/manv-americans-say-historv-will-iudge-iraq-war-failure.aspx 67 leaders will continue to face a difficult uphill battle in their efforts to establish some balance in public perceptions of victory and defeat." 199 The Iraq case clearly demonstrates the difficulty in overcoming the perception of failure because, as Harvey points out, the problem is that, ".. .peaks in confidence and approval are short-lived and troughs are virtually impossible to reverse."200

Conclusion: Implications for the War on Terrorism and Lessons for Obama

Perhaps the strongest criticism of the Iraq War was from Richard Clarke, Michael

Scheuer and others who argued from the beginning that Iraq was not (or should not be) part of the larger WOT, and that the U.S. should have instead focused on fighting Al

Qaeda and winning the war in Afghanistan. For many critics, Iraq was a dangerous distraction from winning the larger WOT and because the Bush administration 'took its eye of the ball' and launched an 'unnecessary' war, the Taliban and Al Qaeda had free reign to re-establish their presence along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

A related criticism is that the U.S. occupation of Iraq served to boost the terrorist cause and make Iraq a breeding ground for terrorists. As many critics pointed out, while

Saddam Hussein's regime was a well know sponsor of terrorism, there was no significant

Al Qaeda or jihadist presence in Iraq until after the U.S. occupation. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq inspired a new generation of Islamic terrorists who would leave

909

Iraq as hardened fighters to continue the struggle against the U.S. and its allies. Iraq also became a base for Al Qaeda in Iraq leader al-Zarqawi, offering him up a battlefield from which to continue bin Laden's war against the U.S. 199 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 50 200 Harvey, The Homeland Security Dilemma. 2008, p. 50 201 Byman, Daniel, The Five Front War: A Better Way to Fight Global Jihad. (Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2008) p. 228 202 Byman, The Five Front War. 2008, p. 228 68

But it is impossible to guess how successful the WOT might have been had the

U.S. not invaded Iraq. The Bush administration was largely successful, at least initially,

in convincing most Americans that the war in Iraq had become the central front in the

WOT, even after the key justifications for the war were revealed to be based on faulty

intelligence. And no one doubted in 2003-2004 that the world's remaining superpower

could successfully fight and win two wars simultaneously.

While many of these critics make good points, they have also failed to present

any realistic alternatives for winning the Iraq War and tended to focus on the need to

withdraw despite the consequences this would have meant. While Iraq perhaps should not

have been made the main battlefield in the WOT, the U.S. was years into the war before

this realization was made and inspiring a new generation of terrorists was an inevitable

part of any attempt to occupy a Muslim country. The fact that many Iraqis would

eventually reject the violent tactics and vision of Al Qaeda in Iraq should be seen as a

major victory, but critics largely ignore this point.

Critics who focused on the mistakes and failures of the Bush administration in

Iraq may be tempted to ignore the importance of lessons related to the difficulty of

demonstrating success in these types of conflicts. Many observers may prefer to forget

about the 'Iraq debacle' and conclude that the war was little more than a regrettable mistake made because of the influence of a small group of neo-conservatives who were

able to dupe the public into going to war against a regime that posed no significant threat and then failed to plan for what to do once Saddam was no longer in power. While the war no doubt made the struggle against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda more difficult, it did boost terrorist recruitment and strained relations with allies key to fighting the WOT, again it is impossible to predict what would have happened if the U.S. had not taken its

eye off the ball in Afghanistan and became bogged down in Iraq.

While many commended President Obama for the decision to begin the

withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq and refocus attention on Afghanistan, these

policies were born in final months of the Bush administration. Despite huge expectations

of a new direction in the WOT, the Obama administration is following fundamentally the

same strategies in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan, as its predecessor. Despite Obama's

initial popularity and the sense that such a switch was long overdue, the new

administration will face many of the same dilemmas and pressures as its predecessor and

Obama can not simply reverse many of Bush's unpopular policies. A key lesson for

President Obama and his administration is that they will be unable to achieve a consensus on appropriate metrics for demonstrating progress in Afghanistan, and any successes on the ground are unlikely to affect the overall perception of failure and the resulting loss of public support for the Afghan war. It seems that Obama is aware of the need to have a successful strategy and to redefine what victory in Afghanistan will mean, something the

Bush administration took years to recognize. It will be key for the Obama administration to develop a strategy to communicate progress in Afghanistan. It seems likely based on the U.S. experience in Iraq that public support for the Afghan war and approval of

Obama's handling of it and the larger WOT will decline, and this is already occurring. 70

Chapter 4: Success and Failure in the War in Afghanistan

Introduction

In light of what we have learned about the challenges involved in measuring

success in, and maintaining public support for, both the Iraq War and the larger WOT,

this chapter will address the likelihood of success in Afghanistan, both in terms of

whether General McChrystaPs new counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy can achieve real

success on the ground and, perhaps more importantly, whether the perception of U.S.

failure in Afghanistan can be overcome.

While there is no real debate that the Bush administration, 'took it's eye off the

ball' in Afghanistan when it decided to launch the Iraq War and, as a result, conditions on

the ground quickly deteriorated, making the region a top priority and committing

sufficient resources to successfully implement McChrystal's COIN strategy may not be

enough to convince Americans that the U.S. is winning in Afghanistan, which has regained its place as the key battlefield in the larger WOT. As the Iraq case suggests,

significant successes on the ground and real progress towards achieving the

administration's key objectives in the region may not be enough to overcome the perception of failure. While the Obama administration is making every effort to demonstrate progress in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and has released new metrics to measure progress, many Americans have turned against the war. An already war weary public may withdraw their support for continuing the war effort either because they believe the war is unwinnable or deem the price of victory too high after eight years of neglect. 71

Before discussing the current situation in Afghanistan and prospects for success,

Part 1 will look at the Bush administration's successes and failures in Afghanistan.

While the Afghan War was initially hailed by many observers as a stunning military victory, it became increasingly clear that the U.S. and its allies were losing as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regained the momentum. By the time the U.S. became distracted in Iraq, the Bush administration had already made significant strategic blunders that doomed its efforts to achieve its key objectives in the war and the prospects to secure and stabilize the country afterwards. During Bush's second term, the need to do something to address the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda was widely recognized, but his administration was unwilling, or more likely, unable, to divert resources form Iraq.

While Iraq served as a distraction to winning the war in Afghanistan, it also served as the focus of criticism of the Bush administration. Americans believed things were going relatively well there until 2006, when Afghanistan became as statistically dangerous for U.S. troops as Iraq and failure could no longer be ignored. When Bush left office, Americans still believed invading Afghanistan had been the right thing to do and was worth the effort, but it had become clear that the current strategy was failing.

It will be extremely difficult to overcome this perception of failure and we can expect the trend of declining public support for the war in Afghanistan to continue, despite renewed efforts by the Obama administration to accomplish many of the same goals in the region that the U.S. committed to in 2001. This will be explored in Part 2.

While it is certainly possible (and likely) that McChrystal's COIN strategy will lead to progress in the region, the U.S. and its allies are in the midst of one of the largest offensives since 2001, results on the ground were decidedly mixed by the end of 2009 72

and things are expected to get worse before they get better. While the Obama

administration has stated that it is too early to gauge the success of its new strategy, the

public is already losing confidence in Obama's handling of the war and the chances for

success, despite recent signs of progress.

Part 1: The Bush Administration in Afghanistan: 'America's Forgotten War'

While the war in Afghanistan was initially hailed by many observers as a stunning

military success, where victory was achieved quickly and at a relatively low cost, it was

clear by early 2002, when both official and public attention shifted to Iraq, that the Bush

administration had not achieved many of its key objectives. By the end of 2001,

Operation Enduring Freedom was essentially over and declared a success by the Bush

administration, but conditions on the ground would continue to deteriorate for the next

eight years. As the U.S. became bogged down in Iraq, Al Qaeda and the Taliban returned

to launching attacks from their safe haven in Pakistan and U.S. led counterterrorism

efforts failed to prevent them from regaining the momentum.

Operation Enduring Freedom: Failure Masquerading as Success

After 9/11 President Bush made it very clear that the U.S. would make no distinction between terrorist organizations and states that harbour them, and with the

country and the world united behind them, the U.S. and its allies launched Operation

Enduring Freedom on October 7, 2001. The key objectives of the mission were: to disrupt, and if possible destroy, Al Qaeda, to eliminate the Taliban regime, and, once the fighting was over, to establish conditions that would foster stability and security, thereby preventing the country from once again becoming a terrorist sanctuary. The Afghan

203 Lt. Col. G.K. Herring, "The War in Afghanistan: A Strategic Analysis, " U.S. Army War College, April 7, 2003, p. 1-25. Herring writes that the operation in Afghanistan included six strategic objectives: to 73

War would also demonstrate U.S. resolve in the larger WOT. However, the strategy

developed to achieve these objectives seemed more the result of careful efforts to avoid

U.S. casualties (and thereby, it was believed, maintain public support) by relying on

Afghan and NATO allies, rather than to actually defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

However, by 9/11 it may have already been too late. Michael Scheuer has argued

that because the U.S. had no plan for going after Al Qaeda and the Taliban before 9/11, it

lost the opportunity to launch a next day 'decapitation strike' and possibly it's only

chance to eliminate much of the top Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership.204

This inexcusable delay afforded al Qaeda and Taliban leaders an unexpected lull to further dispense personnel, military stores, and funds.. .America probably lost the war against Al Qaeda on 11 September because the U.S. military had been caught completely unprepared.205

While the war in Afghanistan was probably not doomed to failure from the beginning, the strategy embraced by the Bush administration was. Three days after 9/11,

CIA Director George Tenet outlined the strategy for the war, which Scheuer argues was chosen because it appealed to the American mindset to rely on foreigners to do most of the fighting, not because it was based, ".. .on the governments vast repository of knowledge of Afghanistan." 206 The Tenet plan rested on direct assistance to the

disrupt and destroy the Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, to convince and if necessary compel the Taliban to stop supporting terrorist organizations, especially Al Qaeda (and when they refused, to remove them from power), to demonstrate that the U.S. was not at war with the Afghan people or Islam, to demonstrate U.S. resolve in the larger war on terrorism, to build international support for the war in Afghanistan, and to stabilize the county and prevent the re-emergence of Al Qaeda and the use of that country as a terrorist sanctuary (p. 2-3). 204 Scheuer, Imperial Hubris. 2004, p. 24-5 205 Scheuer, Imperial Hubris. 2004, p. 25-6 206 Scheuer, Imperial Hubris. 2004. The U.S. intelligence community had been deeply involved in Afghanistan since the 1979 Soviet invasion. The CIA effort there, Scheuer pointed out was, "...the largest, most expensive, and most well-publicized covert action programme in U.S. history." (p. 28-9) 74

Northern Alliance, who, along with a small group of CIA operatives and Special

Forces backed up by airpower, would go after Al Qaeda and the Taliban. For its proponents, the benefits of the Afghan model were clear:

In Afghanistan, regular army units were brought into the theatre only after Special Forces units and the Northern Alliance had diminished much of the Taliban's hold on the region. Why send 100,000 men to bring down a targeted nation-state or extra national dissident group, when a thousand elite trained and ably equipped ground pounders could effect the same outcome with actionable intelligence, keen judgement, timing, and when needed, outside theatre support?

Operation Enduring Freedom began officially with a bombing campaign on

October 7, 2001. By early November, U.S. backed forces had broken through the Taliban line at Kunduz and moved south, taking Kabul on November 13 and on December 7, the

Taliban regime surrendered. A handful of American intelligence agents and Special

Forces, along with their Afghan allies, had defeated the Taliban, or so it seemed. That same month, Hamid Karzai was chosen to lead the interim government of Afghanistan, and the Bush administration proudly declared that Afghanistan was now a key ally in the

WOT.

While Operation Enduring Freedom was labelled a success by the Bush administration, the war can more accurately be defined as a failure because the administration's key objectives were not achieved. This failure was most evident during the battle of Tora Bora, where top Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders were not defeated, but

As Scheuer explains in Imperial Hubris, at the time of the U.S. invasion, the Northern Alliance controlled about 10-15% of northern Afghanistan and was heavily dependent on its charismatic commander, Ahmed Shah Masood who was killed by the Taliban days before 9/11, and money and arms from neighbouring countries. He also points out that the Northern Alliance was dominated by the Tajik ethnic minority and therefore had no potential to serve as the basis of a democratic government in the Pashtun dominated country (p. 33-35) 208 Peter Thomsen, "The Ascent of Knowledge-Based Warfare, " in Eric Handley (ed.), Beyond Shock and Awe: Warfare in the 21st Century. (New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2006, p. 97) 75 rather, allowed to escape to Pakistan where they would continue to operate and plan attacks with relative impunity. At Tora Bora, the U.S. again relied on local warlords to do most of the fighting. Looking back on the Pentagon's decision not to send the only U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan, 1,200 Marines, to Tora Bora in November 2001, the

CIA's Gary Berntsen would later recall that General Franks, "...was either badly misinformed by his own people or blinded by the fog of war. I'd made it clear in my reports that our Afghan allies were hardly anxious to get al-Qaeda in Tora Bora." 209

Approximately 600 Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, including key leaders, escaped to

Pakistan in the first days of the battle and hundreds more would escape over the next few weeks. 10 Nevertheless, the battle of Tora Bora was declared a victory by the Bush administration on December 17, and the war was largely considered to be over. '

Speaking of Afghanistan in December 2002, Rumsfeld was optimistic about the future: "It is encouraging. They have elected a government through the Loyal Jirga process. The Taliban are gone. The al Qaeda are gone." In February, 2003 the Bush administration announced that the U.S. military was moving to stability operations, and on May 1, the same day as Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech regarding Iraq,

"Ex-CIA Agent Says US Missed bin Laden in Afghanistan," Financial Times, 1/3 2006. 210 "How Al Qaeda Slipped Away," Newsweek 8/19 2002. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-lGl- 90424366/al-qaeda-slipped-away.html. There were also widespread reports in the media that Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) and warlords allied to the U.S. helped Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and hundreds of their fighters escape and settle in Pakistan, see also for example, "Blunders that Let bin Laden Slip Away," Daily Telegraph, 2/23 2002 http://www.prisonplanet.com/blunders_that let bin laden slip_awav.htm 211 On March 2, 2002 U.S. and Afghan forces took part in one of the largest offensives during the war, Operation Anaconda, which was largely considered a 'mopping up operation' against remaining pockets of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the Shah-i-Kot valley. The mission was heralded by General Tommy Franks as, "an unqualified and absolute success." "U.S. Canadian Troops Reflect on Fighting in Operation Anaconda," Radio Free Europe, 3/20 2002 http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1099140.html However, it is widely reported in the media that, as in Tora Bora, nearly all the Taliban escape to Pakistan. "Al-Qaida Evaded U.S. Siege, Afghans Claim," The Guardian, 3/15 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/mar/15/afghanistan.rorvmccarthv 212 Donald Rumsfeld, Interview Larry King Live, CNN 12/18 2002 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0212/18/lkl.00.html 76

Rumsfeld announced an end to major combat operations in Afghanistan and declared that

the period of stabilization and reconstruction had begun.213 Despite these public claims of

success, The Washington Post would later report, that privately: "The Bush

administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for

Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit US ground troops to hunt him down

was its gravest error in the war against Al Qaeda."214

By the fall 2002, U.S. intelligence sources were reporting that Al Qaeda and

Taliban forces were returning to Afghanistan, regrouping, reopening terrorist training

TIC

camps, and launching attacks against U.S. forces. Despite these reports, both official

and public attention had already shifted to the impending war with Iraq. In the months

ahead, most of the U.S. intelligence assets and operatives, troops and equipment,

including Predator drones, were redeployed to Iraq.

Early criticism of the Afghan War focused on why the U.S. had not committed

more ground troops. Richard Clarke and others have argued that fear of American

casualties and the upcoming Iraq War were to blame. Clarke argued that there was no

doubt that the U.S. could have brought true stability to Afghanistan with a larger force,

making the return of the Taliban and Al Qaeda virtually impossible, but, he laments,

ni "Rumsfeld Declares Major Combat Over in Afghanistan," Fox News, 05/01 2003 http://www.foxnews.eom/storv/0.2933.85688.00.html 214 "US Concludes bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight," Washington Post 4/17 2002 http://www. washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dvn/A62618-2002Aprl 6 215 "Though Scattered, Qaeda Fighters Said to Return to Afghanistan," New York Times 9/10 2002 http://www.nvtimes.eom/2002/09/l 0/international/asia/10QAED.html?pagewanted=l 216 "How A 'Good War' in Afghanistan Went Bad, " New York Times, 8/12 2007 http://www.nvtimes.com/2007/08/12/world/asia/12afghan.html7_Fl 217 Interview with Richard Clarke, PBS Frontline 6/20 2006 http://www.pbs.org/wgbli/pages/frontline/darkside/interviews/clarke.html 77

instead the Bush administration chose to invade Iraq.218 But even before the U.S.

invaded Iraq, fear of U.S. casualties prevented the Bush administration from pursuing a

strategy designed to actually defeat the enemy. This failure to commit enough troops was

repeated in Iraq, in part because the administration falsely believed the Afghan model had

been a success. While we will never know what may have happened in Afghanistan had

the U.S. not invaded Iraq, as Robert Blackwill, who headed Afghanistan and Iraq policy

at the National Security Council, has argued,

.. .where we find ourselves now may have been close to inevitable, whether the U.S. went into Iraq or not. We were going to face this long war in Afghanistan as long as we and the Afghan government couldn't bring serious economic reconstruction to the countryside, and eliminate the Taleban's safe havens in Pakistan.219

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan during this period, James Dobbins, would later point to a few fatal mistakes made in late 2001 that would shape the

future of Afghanistan. While continuing to hunt down Al Qaeda and the Taliban,

U.S. troops would not do any peacekeeping or play any role in providing security for the country at large, and were opposed to any other force playing this role outside Kabul. The result of these policies, as Dobbins concluded, "...was to prolong the disorder in Afghanistan and increase the odds against a stable government. The absence of American or international peacekeepers guaranteed that the writ of new Karzai government would extend, at best, to Kabul itself."220

Clarke, Richard, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terrorism. (New York: Free Press, 2004) p. 278-9 219 "How a Good War Went Bad, " NYT 8/12/07 220 Fallows, James, "Bush's Lost Year," The Atlantic Monthly, October 2004 9 (p. 1-6. p. 3) http://www.globalsecurity.ore/org/news/2004/0410-lost-vear.htm In early 2002, Rumsfeld had rejected Powell's' proposal to have the U.S. join the small international peacekeeping force in Kabul and instead the 8,000 U.S. troops that arrived this year are used solely to hunt down Al Qaeda and Taliban, leaving most of the country in the hands of local warlords. "How a Good War Went Bad, "NYT 8/12/07 78

In addition to losing the war then, the Bush administration also failed to win the

peace. Efforts to stabilize Afghanistan were hampered by a number of factors, in

particular, the inability of NATO and the U.S. to provide a basic level of security, the

continued role of Pakistan as a safe haven, and the inability of the Karzai government to

provide for the needs of the Afghan people.

The post-war plan was, like in Iraq, to help the Afghans secure the country

themselves, but progress was painfully slow. While Kabul remained relatively stable, the

rest of the country was left in the hands of various insurgents and warlords. The post-war

strategy was to put different countries in charge of different priorities; the U.S. would

train a 70,000 member Afghan National Army (ANA), Japan would disarm militias,

Britain would focus on counternarcotics, Italy on reforming the judiciary, and Germany

would train a 62,000 member police force.221 A senior White House official would later

tell the New York Times that dividing tasks among different countries was a mistake.

"We piecemealed it. One of the problems is when everybody has a piece, everybody's

piece is made third and fourth priority. Nobody's piece is first priority. Stuff didn't get

done."222 By the end of 2006, for example, the ANA had only 36,000 troops,223 and it

would be well into 2008 until any were deemed capable of operating independently.224

Progress in training the Afghan police was even slower and their reputation for

corruption, brutality, and systematic abuse drove some Afghans into the arms of the

Taliban. The mission was further complicated by the restrictions national governments

221 "How a Good War Went Bad, " NYT 8/12/07 222 "How a Good War Went Bad, " NYT 8/12/07 223 Livingston, Ian D., Heather Messera, and Michael O'Hanlon, "The Afghan Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post 9/11 Afghanistan, " December 22, 2009 http://www.brookings.edU/~/media/Files/Programs/FP/afghanistan%20index/index.pdf 224 Livingston, Messera, and O'Hanlon, "The Afghan Index," 2009 79

placed on their forces, with some governments not allowing their troops to take part in

hunting down Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. Unlike Iraq where the U.S. was in charge of

the mission, in Afghanistan the situation was more complex, leading to tensions among

allies that distracted them from the task at hand:

In Washington, officials lament that NATO nations are unwilling to take the kinds of risks and casualties necessary to confront the Taliban. Across Europe, officials complain that the United States has never focused on reconstruction, and they blame American forces for mounting air attacks on the Taliban that cause large civilian casualties, 99S turning Afghanis against the West.

In 2004, the New Yorker published a damning report on U.S. strategy done for

the Department of Defense in 2002 by unconventional war expert Colonel Hy Rothstein,

which revealed key flaws.

While Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has described the US military to be mostly reliant upon unconventional forces, Rothstein sees a reliance on heavy aerial bombing that results in large numbers of civilian casualties. He sees a poor effort at winning the hearts and minds of Afghans, and many mistakes such as allying with corrupt, drug- 99ft

dealing warlords who oppress the population.

Writing about the limits of the Afghan model, Stephen Biddle argued that there was actually much close combat, ".. .the war as a whole was much more orthodox, and 997 much less revolutionary, than most now believe." Taliban fighters quickly adapted to

U.S. tactics and were increasingly able to elude surveillance and survive air strikes, 99R forcing the U.S. to rely on more conventional, close-quarter fighting.

2ii "How a Good War Went Bad, " NYT 8/12/07 226 "The Other War: Why Bush's Afghanistan Problem Won't Go Away," The New Yorker 4/5 2004 http://www.newvorker.com/archive/2004/04/12/040412fa fact 227 Biddle, Stephen, "Toppling The Taliban in Afghanistan," in Jan Angstrom and Isabelle Duyvesteyn (ed.) Understanding Victory and Defeat in Contemporary War. (New York: Routledge, 2007, p. 187-205), p.188 228 Biddle, "Topping The Taliban," 2007, p. 188. By the time of Operation Anaconda in March 2002, for example, Biddle argued, "...al Qaeda forces were practicing systematic communications security, dispersal, 80

From July to October 2006, NATO assumed responsibility for security across all

of Afghanistan and during this period there were about 37,000 troops from more than 37

countries in Afghanistan. By comparison, in the spring of 2006 there were 144,000 U.S.

and 17,200 Coalition troops fighting in Iraq. While the number of U.S. troops deployed

to Afghanistan increased steadily during the Bush administration, from 5,200 in 2002 to

30,100 in 2008, so did the number of U.S. military fatalities suffered each year, which

rose from just 12 in 2001 to almost 98 in 2006 and continued to rise afterward, reaching

117 in 2007 and 239 by October 2009.230

As violence peaked in Iraq during the spring of 2006, the Bush administration was

apparently caught-off-guard by the strongest Taliban offensive since 2001. The New

York Times would report that in 2006, Afghanistan was nearly as statistically dangerous for U.S. troops as Iraq. During this year there was a four-fold increase in suicide bombings over the previous year, and the number of roadside bombs doubled. 191 U.S. and NATO soldiers died in 2006.232 These trends would continue over the next few years.

With clear evidence of failure, the public was now questioning official claims of success in Afghanistan, and while still focused on Iraq, critics could point to many failures.

Efforts to stabilize Afghanistan were further complicated by the continued presence of Al Qaeda and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan, and because the Karzai government had, for some observers, become more of an obstacle to progress, than a

camouflage discipline, use of cover and concealment, and the exploitation of dummy fighting positions..." (p. 191) 229 O'Hanlon, Livingston, "The Iraq Index, " 2009, p. 23 230 National Priorities Project, "Quick Facts about U.S. Military Operations in Afghanistan, " July 2, 2009 at http://www.nationalpriorities.org/print/7201 Troops levels cited here are from the Pentagon's Boots on the Ground report to Congress http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40682.pdf. Casualties figures are from http://www.icasualties.org 231 "How a Good War Went Bad, " NYT 8/12/07 232 "How a Good War Went Bad, " NYT 8/12/07 81

reliable partner in the fight. While Pakistan had long provided sanctuary and support for

Al Qaeda and the Taliban, in 2006 the U.S. officially stepped up efforts to pressure

President Musharraf to go after Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters along the border. In July

2006, a joint U.S., NATO, and Afghan intelligence report concluded that,

The insurgency cannot survive without its sanctuary in Pakistan, which provides freedom of movement, communications for command and control, and a secure environment for collaboration with foreign extremist groups. The sanctuary in Pakistan provides seemingly endless supply of potential new recruits.

Also problematic, by the summer of 2006 it had become clear that President

Karzai was losing support among both Afghans and some of his regime's foreign backers

(including the U.S.) due to corruption, the failing economy, and an overall lack of justice and security. Summing up the situation in June, one Western diplomat concluded:

There is an awful feeling that everything is lurching downward. Nearly five years on, there is no rule of law, no accountability. The Afghans know it's all a charade, and they see us as not only complicit but actively involved. You cannot fight a terror war and build a weak state at the same time, and it was a terrible mistake to think we could.

The number of Afghan civilians killed from U.S. and NATO airstrikes almost tripled between 2006 and 2007 according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which also pointed out that these casualties contributed to falling support for the Afghan government among Afghans and their increasing objection to the presence of international troops.

General David McKiernan, Commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan until 2009, would

233 Rashid, Ahmed, Decent into Chaos. The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan. Afghanistan, and Central Asia. (New York: Penguin Group, 2008, p. 367-68) 234 "Afghan Leader Losing Support," Washington Post 06/26/2006 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dvn/content/article/2006/06/25/AR2006062500866.html 235 "Afghanistan: Civilian Deaths From Airstrikes," Human Rights Watch 9/8 2008 http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/09/07/afghanistan-civilian-deaths-airstrikes 82

later admit that the U.S. had been fighting the war with too few ground troops which had

forced it to rely more on airpower, costing more civilian lives.

As the Bush administration entered its final year in office, 2008 opened with a

dire report from the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, who told

Congress in late February that the security situation in Afghanistan had continued to

deteriorate, with the Karzai government controlling only about 30 percent of the county,

the Taliban controlling 10% and the rest in the hands of various warlords.237 Other

sources would later reveal that this estimate seriously underestimating the extent of

insurgent influence.

Despite a growing consensus among Bush administration officials that the

situation in Afghanistan had become critical, little had been done over the last few years

because the U.S. was unwilling, or more likely unable, to divert resources from Iraq. In

April 2008, JCS Chairman Michael Mullen admitted this when he told Congress,

"...requirements exist that we simply cannot fill and won't likely be able to fill until

conditions improve in Iraq."238 While Bush was heavily criticized for not sending more troops to Afghanistan before leaving office, as the previous chapter suggests, the decision to re-focus on the Afghan War depended on first achieving (and being optimistic about the likelihood of maintaining) security and relative stability in Iraq. Despite the need to

send more troops to Afghanistan, this would have required pulling a significant number

236 "UN: 1,445 Afghan Civilians Killed in 2008 Violence," AP 9 16 2008 http://www.foxnews.eom/wires/2008Sepl6/0.4670.ASAfghanistan.00.html 237 "Afghanistan Mission Close to Failing- US," Guardian 2/29 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/29/afghanistan.terrorism 238 "Busy in Iraq, US Faces Surging Violence in Afghanistan," McClatchy Newspapers 4/15 2008 http://www.mcclatchvdc.com/2008/04/15/33799/busy-in-iraq-us-faces-surging.html 83

of troops out of Iraq, and the Bush administration had no desire to risk jeopardizing the

fragile gains that had been made there over the last year and a half.

June 2008 was the deadliest month to date for U.S. and Coalition troops in

Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion with a total of 46 combat deaths, 28 of them

American (this number almost matches the 29 U.S. troops killed in Iraq during the same month) and U.S. commanders admitted that the number of violent incidents had risen

about forty percent over the previous year, a clear sign of the Taliban and Al Qaeda's resurgence.239 In July, the 5001 U.S. solider was killed in Afghanistan and President

Bush announced that more troops would be sent by the end of that year.240 By the fall of

2008, the situation in Afghanistan was much more dire than the one the U.S. faced in

October 2001:

Violence has increased dramatically and now paralyses much of the country in the south and east. Not only are the number of casualties and attacks the highest since 2002, but the psychological effect of violence has been profound. Spectacular operations like the Taliban's attack on Kabul's Serena Hotel and on Kandahar's prison have sent powerful messages that the momentum is on its side. 241

In September, as part of a broader review on Afghanistan policy, General David

McKiernan had said that he would need as many as 15,000 troops beyond the 8,000 that

Bush had committed to be deployed in early 2009.242 Before leaving office the Bush administration also announced plans to double the size of the ANA, restructure the U.S.

239 "U.S. Deaths Rise in Afghanistan," Washington Post 7/2 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dvn/content/article/2008/07/01/AR2008070103070.html 240 "Bush Concedes Tough Month in Afghanistan," AP 7/2 2008 http://www.thefreelibrarv.com/Bush+concedes+%60tough+month'+in+Afghanistan-a01611575834 241 Vanda Felbab-Brown, "The Weak, the Bad and the Ugly: Policy Options in Afghanistan," October 28, 2008 http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/1028 afghanistan felbabbrown.aspx 242 "Bush Administration Reviews Its Afghanistan Policy, Exposing Points of Contention," NYT 09/22/2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/washington/23policv.html 84

military command there, and increase the number of intelligence agents on the ground to

hunt down Al Qaeda and Taliban militants.243

In mid-October, as the Presidential election approached, top officials from the

Bush administration and Afghan experts from NATO and the U.N. briefed advisors for

presidential candidates John McCain and Barak Obama about the need for the incoming

president to have a plan for Afghanistan on the table upon taking office and it was

reported that both campaigns promised to send more troops and also discussed

negotiating with the Taliban and expanding the war to Pakistan. Among the policy

options being debated at the time was a military surge combined with the enlargement of

the ANA (the Bush option), arming tribal militias, and reaching out to moderate

Taliban.245 All of these options, of course, involved risks and none offered a guaranteed path to victory.

When the Bush administration left office the deteriorating situation in

Afghanistan and Pakistan had become the Obama administration's top foreign policy priority, and they inherited quite a mess. While the Bush administration could be blamed

for the current situation and failures to date, Americans would look to the new President to win what he would call America's "necessary war." Before moving on to discuss the current situation in Afghanistan, we will briefly look at public opinion on Afghanistan under the Bush administration.

243 "Bush Administration Reviews Afghan Policy," NYT 09/22/2008 244 "McCain and Obama Advisors Briefed on Deteriorating Afghan War," NYT 10/30 2008 http://www.nvtimes.com/2008/10/31/world/americas/31iht-31policy.17405861.html 245 Felbab-Brown, "The Weak, the Bad and the Ugly" 2008. As the author points out, each of these options was problematic. This effort would require more troops that the U.S. can immediately deploy and the ANA is not yet ready to take on the Taliban. The country's tribal leadership has been weakened by the Taliban, who would play a role in any negotiations, and it is unlikely the Taliban would accept anything less than full participation in the Afghan government and control of the south and east. 85

Public Opinion on the War in Afghanistan: From Success to Failure (2001-2008)

The Iraq War dominated the Bush presidency, both in terms of official priorities

and public discourse. As a result, there were fewer public opinion polls taken about

American attitudes towards the war in Afghanistan during the Bush administration, which

was often not distinguished from the WOT. However, as was the case in Iraq,

overwhelming public support for the war began to fade as the war progressed, the key

difference being that a majority of Americans never believed that the war in Afghanistan

was a mistake, at least not until recently. The decision to invade Afghanistan was never a

topic of debate so it came as no surprise that a strong majority of Americans believed that

war was worth fighting during the Bush administration.246

As with Iraq, there was strong majority support during the combat phase of the

war. While conditions in Afghanistan were clearly beginning to deteriorate by late 2002,

Americans remained relatively optimistic and many believed that the war had been

largely successful by the time the U.S. invaded Iraq. After that, Afghanistan did become,

as many critics labelled it, 'America's forgotten war.' During the combat phase, from

Oct 7, 2001 through May 1, 2003 an overwhelming majority of American's approved of

the war, with the percentage who disapproved never rising above 11%. Approval of the war started to decline slowly thereafter, but by December 2003 only 25% of Americans

947 disapproved verses 71% who approved. By comparison in late 2003 57% of Americans

246 American Enterprise Institute, Studies in Public Opinion, "America and the War on Terrorism, " updated July 24, 2008 http://www.aei.org/docLib/20050805 terror0805.pdf According to a Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll taken between November 2001 and August 2007, the percentage of Americans who believed the war was a mistake increased from 9% in 2001 to only 25% during this period (p.5). A majority of Americans (55%) still believed the war was worth fighting during the final months of the Bush administration, verses 39% who said it was not, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken on December 11-14, 2008. "Afghanistan," PollingReport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.html AEI, "America and the War on Terrorism, " 2008, p. 58 86

already disapproved of Bush's handling of Iraq. By 2006, when Afghanistan became

as dangerous for U.S. troops as Iraq, American attention began to return to the situation

there and by mid-2006 a slight majority for the first time opposed the war (See Graph

6).24 This trend would continue until late 2008, when a slight majority again approved of the war, perhaps because both Republicans and Democrats seemed united in the need to refocus on Afghanistan and pledged to finally send more troops in recognition that the

current effort was failing.

Graph 6: Favour or Oppose the War in Afghanistan? (2006-08)

54 -| 52 - ^""* 50 - 48 - *^~\ ^^ —«— Favour % | 46 - ^-\ __*-^^' 44 - ^\«—-——- "" 42 - 40 - 9/22-24 2006 1/19-212007 7/27-29 2008 12/1-2 08

During the first year of the war, from October 2001 through October 2002, a large majority of Americans believed that the war in Afghanistan was going either very well or somewhat well, but confidence began to fall in early 2002, when attention shifted to Iraq.

Americans were optimistic about how well the war was going in its first year, even though it was clear that many top Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders had escaped. The Bush administration labelled the war a success and Americans believed them. In October

2002, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 70% of Americans believed the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda had been successful overall,250 and even by

January 2006 A Pew Research Center poll found that 52% still believed that the war was

248 AEI, "America and the War on Terrorism, " 2008, p. 154-55 249 Graph 6 is based on data from a CNN/ORC poll taken between September 2006 and December 2008 which asked, "Do you favour or oppose the war in Afghanistan," published in "Afghanistan," Pollingreport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm AEI, "America and the War on Terrorism, " 2008, p.57 87

mostly a success. 51 This number would drop to 45% by the end of the year when it

became clear that the U.S. had lost the momentum, and Americans became increasingly

pessimistic about the chances of success.

During the final years of the Bush presidency, an increasing but still slight

majority of Americans believed the war was going either very badly or moderately badly

(See Graph 7) 252

Graph 7: How Well Are Things Going in Afghanistan? (2006-08)

50 -| 48 - *--—__ "—-—____ 46 - 44 - *~~~~"-~--^ ""----~^ | —•— Well % | 42 - """---• 40 - 38 - 36 - 9/15-17 2006 7/25-27 2008 8/21-23 08

As was the case in pre-surge Iraq, the perception that the Bush administration was losing in Afghanistan reflected the dismal situation on the ground, but in Afghanistan public support for the war declined slower because by early 2002 both official and public attention had shifted to Iraq and the war in Afghanistan was generally considered over.

By the end of 2006, it was clear that the U.S. was losing and Americans, as a result, were more pessimistic. President Obama would find it more difficult than he likely anticipated to maintain public support for the war in Afghanistan, he struggled even to convince a majority of Americans that he had a clear plan to win (or at least end) the war.

251 AEI, "America and the War on Terrorism, " 2008, p.57 252 Graph 7 tracks the results of a USA Today/Gallup poll taken between September 2006 and August 2008 which asked, "In general, how would you say things are going for the U.S. in Afghanistan: very well, moderately well (combined as well here) moderately badly, or very badly?" published in "Afghanistan, " Pollingreport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm 88

Part 2: President Obama's 'Necessary War:' A 'New' Strategy Emerges

By the end of Obama's first year in office, his administration had clearly laid out

its key objectives in Afghanistan (and Pakistan), General McChrystal began to implement

his new counterinsurgency strategy, new metrics were announced that are more

appropriate, yet still controversial, to measuring progress in Afghanistan than the Bush

administration's body count approach, and an additional 51,000 U.S. troops were either

on the ground or soon to be deployed. Yet, during this period support for the war and the

President's handling of it declined. As happened in post-surge Iraq, this negative trend is

likely to continue even if the U.S. achieves significant progress in the region.

On January 22, 2009, as he had emphasized during his campaign, President

Obama announced that the battle against terrorism would now be refocused away from

Iraq and towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. He named Richard Holbrooke as the special

envoy to the region, a move that reflected his belief that the future of Afghanistan was inexorably linked to Pakistan. During meetings with the new administration in early

February, the Defense Department admitted that it lacked a strategy for victory in

Afghanistan and began a full strategic review of the war, which would stress the need to refocus the mission on counterinsurgency and securing the population, a lesson the Bush

administration had learned in Iraq.254 On February 18, Obama announced that 17,000 additional troops would be deployed to Afghanistan, and stated that Afghanistan, ".. .has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires."

253 Obama, Barak, "On A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, " March 27, 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/Remarks-bv-the-president-on-a-new-strategy-for-Afghanistan- and-Pakistan/ 254 "Secret Report Recommends Military Shift in Afghanistan," NBC News 2/4 2009 255 Obama, Barak, "Statement by the President On Afghanistan," White House Press Release, Feb 17,2009 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-afghanistan 89

President Obama formally announced his administration's new strategy for

Afghanistan and Pakistan on March 27. In a speech to the nation, Obama declared that,

".. .America must no longer deny resources to Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq."

He stated that the U.S. has, "...a clear and focused goal in the region: to disrupt,

dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to

either country in the future."257 Having recognized that getting Pakistan onside would be

key to long term stability in the region, Obama argued that Al Qaeda and its allies were

the single greatest threat to Pakistan and promised military assistance to help that country

root out the terrorists.258 He added that the government of Pakistan must demonstrate its

commitment to this task, concluding that, ".. .after years of mixed results, we will not,

OCA

and cannot, provide a blank check."

To succeed in Afghanistan, Obama argued, the U.S. and its allies, ".. .must

reverse the Taliban's gains, and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan

government."260 In addition to the 17,000 troops committed in February to help train the

Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), Obama announced that an additional 4,000

troops would be deployed in the spring to speed up efforts to increase its size and

capabilities, so Afghans could begin to take over responsibility for security, allowing

U.S. troops to begin withdrawing.261 In March 2009, the ANSF consisted of about 83,000

256 Obama, "On a New Strategy for Af-Pak," 2009 257 Obama, "On A New Strategy for Af-Pak," 2009 258 In addition to military assistance, Obama also committed $1.5 billion each year for the next five to help the Pakistani people by building roads, schools, hospitals, and democratic institutions. He also announced that high ranking officials from the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan would meet regularity to discuss common security and economic issues and work together to improve intelligence sharing and military cooperation along the border. 259 Obama, "On A New Strategy for Af-Pak," 2009 260 Obama, "On A New Strategy for Af-Pak," 2009 261 Obama, "On A New Strategy for Af-Pak," 2009 Afghan National Army (ANA) and 80,000 Afghan National Police (ANP), and Obama

announced that the goal was to build up the ANA to 134,000 and the ANP to 82,000 by

2011. As part of the training effort, U.S. or coalition forces would be partnered with

every Afghan unit in both the army and police.263

Speaking of the problem of corruption in the Afghan government, Obama

announced that the U.S., ".. .will seek a new compact with the Afghan government that

cracks down on corrupt behaviour, and sets clear benchmarks, clear metrics for

international assistance so that it is used to provide for the needs of the Afghan

people." Peace, Obama stated, would depend on reconciliation among former enemies

and he mentioned similar efforts in Iraq that reconciled former adversaries to successfully

isolate and target al Qaeda. To achieve this aim, the U.S. and its allies would work with

the Afghan government and local leaders and in every province. Those Taliban who represented what he called the "uncompromising core" would be met with force and defeated.

In addition to the military "surge," Obama promised to significantly increase the number of civilians on the ground across the country to "...advance security, opportunity and justice," and help Afghans build an economy not dominated by illicit drugs. This effort would be supported by major investments in State Department and foreign assistance programs. Obama also asked that NATO countries provide, ".. .not simply troops but rather clearly defined capabilities: supporting the Afghan elections, training

6 "Factbox: Afghan National Security Forces," Reuters, 27/03/2009 http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSISL112818 263 Obama, "On A New Strategy for Af-Pak" 2009 264 Obama, "On A New Strategy for Af-Pak," 2009 265 Obama, "On A New Strategy for Af-Pak" 2009 91

Afghan security forces, a greater civilian commitment to the Afghan people."266 The U.N. must also improve its efforts to strengthen the country's institutions and better coordinate

international action and assistance for the region.

In adopting this new strategy, Obama stressed that, unlike the Bush

administration,

.. .we will not blindly stay the course. Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable. We'll consistently assess our effort to train Afghan security forces and our progress in combating insurgents.. .And we will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress towards accomplishing our goals.267

The announcement of these new metrics would not take place until the fall of

2009, but generally they represented a shift away from counting the number of insurgents killed and towards protecting the population. To further distance itself from the Bush administration, officials had stopped using the phrase "Global War on Terror" when referring to the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, the term "Overseas

Contingency Operations" was adopted, in part to acknowledge that the U.S. did not face a single, monolithic enemy but rather a number of different insurgencies,268 some with

266 Obama, "On A New Strategy for Af-Pak," 2009 267 Obama, "On A New Strategy for Af-Pak," 2009 268 General McChrystal would stress this point in his 2009 assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. He argues that, while aided by foreign fighters and directed by a few senior leaders based in Pakistan, most insurgent fighters are Afghans. The primary objective of the insurgents, he argues, is to control the Afghan people and expel international forces by destroying their will to continue the fight. The insurgent groups which are the biggest threat to the mission are: the Quetta Shura Taliban led by Mullah Omar and based in Pakistan, which has a growing presence and influence in Kandahar and the surrounding area, the Haqqani Network which aims to regain control of its traditional base in Khowst, Paktia, and Paktika, and the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin which aims to negotiate a major role for itself in a future Taliban government. McChrystal, Stanley General, "Commander's Initial Assessment," 8/20 2009, p. 2-6. http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/politics/documents/Assessment Redacted_0921O9.pdf?hpid=topnews local and others with transnational causes. However, despite all the rhetoric of the need

to change course and implement a 'new' strategy to finally win in Afghanistan, the

Obama administration was essentially pursing the same strategy that Bush had followed

in Iraq and his administration had laid out for Afghanistan in the fall of 2008, a surge in

U.S. troops to provide security and root out Al Qaeda and to speed up the training of the

ANSF so that Afghans become capable of doing it themselves. When compared with the

alternatives, this policy makes sense. However, not everyone believed that Obama's

announcements would be sufficient to achieve his administration's objectives. For many

it was a good start, but only a start. Ret. Lt. Col. John Nagl and others would criticize

Obama's announcements as, "a mere down payment on what needs to be done."270 The

Afghan Defense Minister, General Wardak, expressed similar concerns, stating that the

President's announcement fell short of expectations.271

In May, the Obama administration announced the nomination of Lt. Gen. Stanley

McChrystal, who replaced General McKiernan as top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan.

While this decision was controversial, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained, "We have a new strategy, a new mission, and a new ambassador. I believe that new military leadership is also needed."272 In his initial assessment of the situation, McChrystal

concluded that while success was possible, it could not be achieved by merely "doubling

269 '"Global War On Terror' Is Given New Name," Washington Post March 25, 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dvn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818 270 "Afghan Strategy May Fall Short on New Army,"Military.com 4/3 2009 http://www.militarv.com/news/article/April-2009/afghan-strategv-mav-fall-short-on-new-annv.html 271 "Afghan Defense Chief Unhappy with Obama Plan," Council On Foreign Relations, Interview with General Abdul Rahim Wardak, 4/16 2009 http://www.cfr.org/publication/19116/afghan defensechief unhappv_with_obama_plan.html 272 "McChrystal to Replace McKiernan in Afghanistan," 5/11/2009 Army Times http://www.armvtimes.com/news/2009/05/military mckiernan mcchrvstal 051109w 93 down" on the previous strategy. "Success demands a comprehensive counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign." Such a strategy, he argued, must recognize that the Afghan population is the key objective, not seizing terrain or killing insurgents, and winning their support required protecting them from the dual threat of a resilient insurgency and, ".. .a crisis of confidence among Afghans- both in their government and the international community- that undermines our credibility and emboldens insurgents."275 While he acknowledged that more resources would be required,

McChrystal did not say how many more troops would be needed, adding that,

".. .focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely. The key take away from this assessment is the urgent need for a significant change in our strategy and the way we think and operate." He warned that if the U.S. does not regain the momentum within the next year, it will likely face defeat.276

To implement his strategy, McChrystal outlined four pillars which, as he points out are nothing new but rather represent a renewed commitment to pursuing the basic principles of counterinsurgency: to improve the size277 and effectiveness of ANSF through greater partnership with IS AF mentors at every level, to prioritize responsible and accountable governance at all levels, to gain the initiative and reverse the

273 McChrystal, "Commander's Initial Assessment, " 8/20 2009 For too long McChrystal argued, International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan (ISFA) has been too focused on protecting its own forces and too reliant on tactical wins that cause collateral damage and therefore risk strategic defeat, and pointed to the need to interact more closely with Afghans while also improving the unity of effort and command between ISAF and the international community (p. 1 -2) 274 McChrystal, "Commander's Initial Assessment," 2009, p. 1-1 275 McChrystal, "Commander's Initial Assessment," 2009, p. 1-1 276 McChrystal, "Commander's Initial Assessment" 2009, p. 1-2 277 McChrystal, "Commander's Initial Assessment" 2009, p. 2-15. He argued that the ANA must grow to 134,000 by the fall of 2010 (earlier than the 2011 deadline Obama had set to reach this target) and then grow to a new target strength of 240,000. Similarly, the ANP must grow to 160,000 by 2011, not 82,000 as Obama had stated. insurgency's momentum through a series of operational stages, and to prioritize

resources so they target the most vulnerable areas. Success for McChrystal would be

achieved when the government of Afghanistan enjoyed the support of its people and

could control its own territory.279 ISAF, McChrystal noted, must also develop metrics to

gauge progress in achieving these objectives and to make necessary adjustments,

clarifying the difference between operational and strategic metrics.280

Anthony Cordesman has written extensively on the need for new metrics for

Afghanistan and worked with McChrystal on this effort. He has developed a

comprehensive list of metrics which he argues are critical to implementing the shape,

clear, hold, and build strategy. These include improvements in three key areas: first, he

stresses the need to provide estimates of insurgent influence by province, which must be updated annually to show where influence is expanding or contracting, as well as levels of Afghan support and opposition to the insurgents; second, rather than the past emphasis on kinetics or tactical victories against insurgents, Cordesman argues it would be wise to apply the "Abrams test" from Vietnam, in which a given area is not deemed ready for the

"hold" stage unless you can go there in a normal vehicle and not ready for the "build" stage unless its safe to walk around at night; and finally, he argues that such data must be mapped relative to population density in key areas with emphasis on detailed polling of

278 McChrystal, "Commander's Initial Assessment" 2009, p. 1-18-1-19. This new strategy would, McChrystal explained, evolve in three stages, which he noted, would be increasingly led by Afghans: first, gain the initiative in those population centres most at risk by working with the Afghan government and local communities and gain their support, diminish insurgent access and influence, and make the government more accountable and responsive to the needs of the people; second, as ISAF and ANSF capabilities improve over the next two years, strategic consolidation can begin as security operations expand, thereby increasing the percentage of Afghans who feel secure and have access to basic services and finally, once the insurgency no longer poses an existential threat, sustained security efforts can begin to ensure that the gains made remain durable and ISAF forces can transition to a training, assistance, and advisory role as the ANSF are increasingly able to defeat the remaining pockets of insurgency on their own.278 7 McChrystal, "Commander's Initial Assessment,"2009, p. 2-15 280 McChrystal, "Commander's Initial Assessment," 2009, p 2-20 95

Afghan perceptions.281 These points would influence the administrations choice of

metrics, although Cordesman would later complain that, ".. .the Obama administration

still has to demonstrate that it is more effective than the Bush administration in creating

detailed plans of action, actually implementing them, and providing transparency as to

their cost, risk, and effectiveness."

In September, the Obama administration released both quantitative and qualitative

metrics to measure progress toward its key objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan.283 In mid-June the U.S. had stopped releasing the number of insurgents killed, reflecting

McChrystal's belief that the military must instead focus on protecting Afghan villagers rather than body counts. The metrics to measure progress on the first objective, to

disrupt terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and degrade their ability to launch international attacks, remains classified (although the President continues to mention

success in killing insurgents in both countries). There metrics to achieve other objectives such as defeating the insurgency, securing the Afghan population, and developing the

ANSF have been made public. These include: the degree to which security operations are integrated into the overall COIN campaign, the level of insurgent-related violence, percentage of the population living in districts under insurgent control and where "clear,"

"hold" and "build" operations are underway, and the level of trust and confidence in the

ANSF and their effectiveness in security and counterinsurgency operations. The

281 Cordesman, Anthony, "The New Metrics of Afghanistan," published by The Center for Strategic & International Studies, August 7, 2009 http://csis.org/publication/new-metrics-afghanistan 282 Cordesman, Anthony, " 'Shape, Clear, Hold, Build and Transfer:' The Full Metrics of the Afghan War, " February 18, 2010, p. 3. http://csis.org/files/publication/100302 afghanmetrics combined.pdf 283 "Evaluating Progress in Afghanistan-Pakistan, " Foreign Policy 16/09 2009 http://www.foreignpolicv.com/articles/2009/09/26/evaluating_progress_in Afghanistan and Pakistan 284 "U.S. Stops Releasing Body Count of Afghan Insurgents," The Associated Press, 07/27 2009 http://www.cbc.ca/world/strory/2009/07/27/us-afghanistan-insurgents.html 285 "Evaluating Progress in Afghanistan," Foreign Policy, 2009 96 metrics in support of other key objectives in the region were also laid out and included the effectiveness of Afghanistan and Pakistan's counterinsurgency capabilities and progress towards a more capable, accountable, and effective government in both countries. While a significant improvement over the body count approach, there would be no consensus that these were the right metrics.

Some members of Congress complained that these metrics were too vague and pointed to the difficulty of measuring progress towards creating stable and accountable governments and the effectiveness of foreign security forces in counterinsurgency operations. Similarly, while supportive of the metrics to measure the percent of the population living in insurgent-controlled areas and new emphasis on the perceptions of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, others have pointed out that without concrete body counts, ".. .the Obama administration will probably be able to claim that it is making 'progress' in the war effort, no matter what happens on the ground, positive or negative."288 While this is true, as Frederick Kagan has pointed out, the new metrics,

"...indicate a continued commitment to a serious and properly-resourced counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan." As Kagan argues, the metrics announced are less important than the administration's continued commitment to achieving its key objectives in the region, despite pressure to abandon them or define down success. The point is that the new metrics reflect the administration's shift from the failing

286 "Evaluating Progress in Afghanistan" Foreign Policy, 2009 287 "How's the U.S. Doing in Afghanistan? Congress members say Obama benchmarks are too vague," Christian Science Monitor, 17/09 2009, http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/257171 288 Tiedemann, Katherine, "What the White House's Af-PakMetrics List Doesn 't Say, " Foreign Policy, 19/09 2009 http://afpak.foreignpolicv.com/posts/2009/09/16/what thewhite house s afpak metricslist doesntsay 289 "Fred Kagan on Afghan Metrics," The Weekly Standard 16/09 2009 http://www.weeklvstandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/09/fred kagan on afghan metrics.asp 97

counterterrorism approach measured in body counts to a counterinsurgency approach

measured by areas under and capable of maintaining government verses insurgent control

which, while vague and subjective, are more appropriate to measure progress in the

current struggle. This does not mean, however, that it will be any easier to demonstrate

success to the public, who will remain pessimistic as long as U.S. and civilian casualties

continue to mount.

On December 2, President Obama stated that while there had been some progress over the last year, Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders have been killed, Pakistan is involved in its largest offensive against these enemies in years, and presidential elections, while marred by fraud, ".. .produced a government consistent with Afghanistan's laws and constitution," the situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. He announced that an additional 30,000 U.S. troops will be deployed to Afghanistan in early 2010, but added that, after 18 months (July 2011) U.S. troops would begin to return home. While announcing a timetable for withdrawal was controversial, the Obama administration stressed that it was a necessary step to demonstrate to the Afghan government that they would ultimately be responsible for their own security, and would later stress that any drawdown would, of course, take into account conditions on the ground.

However, this move will inevitably complicate efforts to demonstrate U.S. resolve and commitment to the people of Afghanistan (and Pakistan). Despite the earlier focus on

2 Obama, Barak, "Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on Way Forward for Afghanistan and Pakistan, " 12/01/2009 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-offlce/remarks-president-address-nation- wav-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan 291 This was the same argument put forth by the Iraq Study Group in December 2006 when the authors stressed that the U.S. must not make an open-ended commitment to keeping a significant number of U.S. troops in Iraq and wanted the Bush administration to announce that after a temporary surge, most U.S. troops would leave Iraq by early 2008. The Bush administration, of course, refused to set a timetable for withdrawal and it is unclear whether the same level of progress would have been made if Iraqis had been given a heads up that the U.S. would be leaving in a year. 29 Obama, "Remarks by the President on Way Forward for Af-Pak," 2009 98 how to win in Afghanistan, by the fall of 2009 Obama seemed to be bowing to public pressure to end the war prematurely and define down what success would mean. Critics argued that like Bush, Obama was not doing enough to win the war and bring true

stability to the region. He had clearly and publically opposed, for example, becoming wrapped up in a decade long nation-building effort because, ".. .it set goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests."293 However, it seems unlikely that McChrystal's COIN strategy can be divorced from the task of nation-building. Frederick Kagan, for example, has argued that achieving the administration's goals will require not only a shift to counterinsurgency and a troop surge, but real efforts to build an Afghan state with a representative government.294 Similarly, as Cordesman points out, ".. .the tasks that NATO/ISAF and the U.S. must perform in Afghanistan go far beyond the normal limits of counterinsurgency. They are equivalent to armed nation building...," and therefore must include efforts to develop effective governance at the national and local level, develop the economy and move towards development, and establish the rule of law. Winning in

Afghanistan, he concluded, will take longer and require substantially more U.S. forces than the administration has committed so far. Writing in early 2010, Cordesman concluded that,

Nine months after President Obama announced a new strategy in Afghanistan, the U.S. still seems undecided as to how to actually shape and implement that strategy and how to measure success. President Obama may have made his decisions, but it is far from clear that his

Obama, "Remarks by the President on Way Forward for Af-Pak, " 2009 294 Kagan, Frederick, "Planning Victory in Afghanistan," National Review Online, 09/02/ 2009 p. 3 http://www.aei.org/article/100020 295 Cordesman, Anthony, "The Afghanistan War: Can We Win? " July 22, 2009 http://csis.org/publication/afghanistan-campaign Administration has agreed upon how to act upon them, or has the right mix of civil-military capabilities to do so.296

The Obama administration's loudest critics are arguing that the U.S. should

withdraw immediately because Afghanistan has become Obama's Vietnam, an

unwinnable quagmire, a course of action he rightly rejected because of the risks inherent

in abandoning the region. While not advocating an immediate withdrawal, some officials,

such as Vice President Joe Biden and some Democrats in Congress, would prefer a more

narrowly defined counter-terrorism approach, where U.S. forces would focus mainly on

907

fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But, as McChrystal had stressed, the

counterterrorism approach had failed over the last eight years, in part because its

emphasis on killing insurgents was counterproductive, it led to unnecessary civilian

casualties, when what was required was winning the trust and support of the Afghan people. McChrystal's COIN strategy is the right approach to winning the Afghan War, but as seen in Iraq, having the right strategy and achieving important successes may lead to success on the battlefield, but even this is no guarantee that the public perceives these

successes as victory.

An Initial Assessment of Success and Failure in Afghanistan

General Petraeus stated in late 2009 that officials should wait until December

2010 to gauge the success of McChrystal's new COIN strategy. He pointed out that progress in the region would come slower that it did in Iraq and warned Americans that they could expect to see an increase in violence and casualties in the spring and summer

Cordesman, " 'Shape, Clear, Hold, Build and Transfer:' The Full Metrics of the Afghan War, " 2010 297 Boot, Max "How We Can Win in Afghanistan; The McChrystal Way is the Only Way, " Commentary (November 2009) Vol. 128, Issue 4, p. 11-16, p. 11 100

of 2010 as operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban intensify. While there are some

signs of progress, the results to date are mixed, and many indicators show that the U.S. is

still losing. Between January and September 2009, the International Council on Security

and Development reported that the Taliban had achieved a permanent presence in about

80% of Afghanistan, up from 72% in November 2008, and also noted a sharp increase in

Taliban activity in the previously stable north. (See Figure 2)299

Figure 2: ICSD Map of Taliban Controlled Districts- 2009

AFOHAKISTA* HAP ICiSMSES

As Cordesman has pointed out, while these estimates focused on entire districts under insurgent control when their influence was often more localized, they were an improvement over the focus NATO/ISAF had placed on measuring insurgent control in terms of tactical victories against insurgents, which he argues, ".. .grossly minimize

298 "Petraeus: Wait until December 2010 to Gauge U.S. Success in Afghanistan," CNN 12/09 2009 http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/09/petraeus.afghanistan/index.html Figure 2 is reproduced from "Eight Years After 9/11 Taliban now has Permanent Presence in 80% of Afghanistan," International Council on Security and Development, 9/10 2009 http://www.icosgroup.net/modules/press releases/eight years after 911 101 insurgent success by focusing on the limited number of districts (13 out of 365 in a recent

U.S. report) where there had been major clashes."

To combat the growing Taliban influence, the Obama administration embarked on its first major offensive on July 2, 2009, and under the leadership of General McChrystal,

4,000 Marines and 650 Afghan security forces launched Operation Khanjar, part of a larger effort to restore Afghan government control in the lower Helmand River Valley, a

Taliban stronghold and the world's largest opium producing region. According to many reports the battle was indecisive as Taliban fighters blended into the local population or simply moved into surrounding areas.

As the fighting intensified, the July death toll for Coalition troops reached 75, a record high for any month during the Afghan War at that time, and a record 43 U.S. troops were killed.302 In fact, by the fall of 2009 insurgents had killed at least 70

Coalition soldiers in every month since June, and Coalition forces were seeing an increase in sophisticated attacks. For example, there was a series of deadly, coordinated attacks against army and police facilities in Pakistan, which U.S. and

Pakistani officials said, demonstrated, "...the expanded range and effectiveness...and increasing sophistication of a syndicate of military groups who employ commando tactics and display inside knowledge of Pakistani security structures."304 This spike in fatalities

Cordesman, "The New Metrics of Afghanistan," August 7, 2009 301 "U.S. Marines launch key operation in Southern Afghanistan." Reuters 7/2 2009 http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5605Z120090702 The British-led Task Force Helmand was also pursuing the Taliban in the north of the province, known as Operation Panthers' Claw. 302 "July Worst Month in Afghanistan, Best in Iraq," Voice of America 7/31 2009 http://wwwl.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2009-07-31-voa52-68746947.html 303 "October Marks Deadliest Month for U.S. in Afghanistan," Wall Street Journal, 10/28 2009 http://online.wsi.com/article/SB125665317258910425.html 304 "Pakistan Attacks Show Tighter Militant Links," NYT 10/15/2009 http://www.nvtimes.eom/2009/l 0/16/world/asia/l 6pstan.html 102

mirrors what happened in Iraq following the 2007 surge, and violence will get worse

before its gets better.305

Cordesman has documented these trends and has illustrated the rise in security

incidents in each of the five Regional Command (RC) areas between 2008 and 2009

(violence peaked in all areas during the summer of 2009, especially in the lead up to

presidential elections in August) noting in particular the rising intensity of conflict in RC

East (33%) and RC South (100%).306 While RC Kabul remains relatively stable,

insurgents have demonstrated their ability to launch major attacks, and fighting, while at

relatively low levels, intensified in RC West (70%) and RC North (70%). It is clear then

that at the end of 2009 efforts to clear insurgents in the East and South had produced

more violence and, of course, more casualties. Coalition and U.S. casualties peaked in

2009 to 520 (from 295 in 2008) and 316 (from 155 in 2008) respectively.307 Afghan

civilian casualties also rose from 2,118 in 2008 to 2,259 in 2009, although the percentage

killed by pro-government forces had decreased over the previous year from 39% to 24%,

but the percentage killed by insurgents increased from 55% to 69%.308

In February 2010, 15,000 ISAF troops, including five Afghan brigades, launched

"Operation Moshtarak" in Marjah which was reported in the media, "...as the decisive

operation in the war-think Stalingrad or the Battle of the Bulge. It will 'break the backs of

the Taliban,' according to military strategists, and will turn the tide of a conflict that has

jU> "U.S. Deaths Hit a Record High in Afghanistan," Washington Post 7/22 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dvn/content/article/2009/07/21/AR2009072103390_pf.html 306 Cordesman, "Shape, Clear, Hold, and Transfer: The Full Metrics of Afghanistan, " 2010. 307 Coalition, U.S. Casualty figures are taken from http://www.icasualties.org/OEF / 308 Livingston, Messera, and O'Hanlon, "Afghan Index" (updated March 22, 2010) http://www.brookings.edU/~/media/Files/Programs/FP/afghanistan%20index/index.pdf 103

been looking increasingly desperate as of late." But counterinsurgency is less about

winning tactical battles, even major ones, and more about the success of longer-term

efforts to create the conditions under which political and economic reconstruction can begin. In the early stages of the battle it was reported that Taliban were, ".. .alternating

between bravado and a shoulder-shrugging dismissal of the entire operation." After

about a week of fighting, Taliban fighters began to mount a stiffer resistance and as

Marine Commander Lt. Col. Brian Christmas pointed out, "It looks like they want to stay

and fight but they can always drop their weapons and slip away. That's the nature of this war."311 As the fighting continued into late February, a new civilian chief was appointed

in Marjah and promised to begin restoring Afghan government control. In mid-March,

CENTCOM announced that the current effort would be extended to Kandahar, where

shaping operations had already begun:

The Marjah operation has served as proof of principle for operations in Afghanistan, and commanders are working to adopt the principles in other areas of the country... operations in Afghanistan's Helmand province have proved that the counterinsurgency strategy does work.

Frank Harvey has argued recently that the battle of Marjah is perhaps, ".. .NATO and Washington's best hope for achieving an important tipping point [and] arguably one of the last chances to prove to the public and sceptical politicians that solutions to the complex Afghanistan puzzle actually exist."313 He pointed to a number of factors that distinguish this operation from those which had come before it: unlike previous

309 "Marjah: Not living up to all the hype," Globalpost.com 02/15 2010 http://www.globalpost.com/prinit/5525652 310 "Marjah: Not living up to all the hype," Globalpost.com 2010 311 "Marines target Taliban holdouts in Marjah," The Associated Press 21/02/2010 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3550584 312 "Commanders Apply Marjah Lessons To Other Regions," American Foreign Press Service, 19/03/2010 313 Harvey, Frank, "A Crucial Test for the West's Afghan Strategy, " National Post 11/03 2009 http://www.nationalpost.com/story-printer.html 104

operations, a significant number of the ANSF are actively involved (it's not just that a

token number of Afghans participate but that they are also increasingly capable of

operating independently), the objective is not to kill insurgents but to secure the

population and maintain control of the area (in addition to clear, we must also hold and

build), rather than a quick military victory the goal is to minimize civilian casualties by

adopting new rules of engagement, and perhaps most importantly, there is a commitment

to post-conflict reconstruction and development.314 As Harvey argued, while the clear,

hold, and build objectives will be difficult to achieve, the current"...approach makes

sense when compared with every other alternative. In light of past mistakes and failed

projects, this plan is about all we have left."

As witnessed in Iraq however, pursuing the right strategy and its successful

implementation may not be enough to maintain public support for the war, especially in

light of rising U.S. casualties and attacks. While on the right track in their efforts to clear

and hold the population centres in the south and east, more time will be required to

determine the long term success of efforts to build credible Afghan governance.

In terms of progress in creating a more capable and accountable Afghan

government there are some signs of hope. Progress has been made in increasing the size

and effectiveness of the ANSF. The size of the ANA, for example, increased from 79,068 in December 2008 to 100,131 by December 2009 and, more importantly, the percentage deemed capable of operating independently and/or leading counterinsurgency operations at the battalion level with international support rose from less than 5% in May 2008 to

314 Harvey, "A Crucial Test," National Post, 2010. As Harvey explains, by stating its intent to protect civilians, NATO has paradoxically raised expectations, "...so each of the 15 civilian casualties killed in Marjah in the first week of operations will have a significantly larger impact on public opinion and related perceptions of failure—press coverage throughout the first weeks of the operation illustrate this point." 315 Harvey, Frank, "A Crucial Test," 2010. 50% in May 2009. While relatively little progress has been made in fighting corruption

within the Afghan government,317 Afghan perceptions offer reason for hope. For

example, the percentage of Afghans who believe their country is heading in the right

direction rose from an all time low of 40% in January 2009 to 70% by December and

during the same period, performance rating for various entities also increased

substantially: for President Karzai from 52% to 71%>, for the Afghan government from

48% to 61%, and for the U.S. in Afghanistan, a more modest increase from 32% to 38%

(see Graph 8) 318

Graph 8: Afghan Perceptions on Performance (2005-09)

90 80 • Hamid Karzai % 70 60 -•— Afghan Gov't % 50 40 U.S. in Afghanistan % 30 20 -x— Is Afghanistan Moving in 10 the Right Direction? % 0 Jan Dec

2005 2006 2007 2009 2009

Perhaps most telling, Afghans overwhelmingly preferred the current government

(90%) to the Taliban (6%) and 69% continue to believe that the latter remains the biggest

316 Livingston, Messera, and O'Hanlon, ''Afghan Index," 2010. By May 2009 much less progress had been made in increasing the size and capabilities of the ANP, and only 44% of ANSF had been assigned Coalition partners and mentors. P. 14-15. 317 Livingston, Messera, and O'Hanlon, "Afghan Index," 2010 For example, Afghanistan's rank in Transparency International's Annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which ranks countries on the level of perceived corruption, rose from 176 out of 180 countries ranked in 2008 to 179 in 2009 (p. 27). 318 Graph 8 is based on data from ABC News/BBC/ARD Poll, "Afghanistan: Where Things Stand," taken between March 2004-December 2009, in Livingston, Messera, and O'Hanlon, "Afghan Index, " 2010, p. 38 threat to the country, with the U.S. and Afghan government representing the biggest

threat to a mere 4% and 2% respectively.

If, as the Obama administration has argued, winning over the Afghan population

and building up the ANSF so it can take over responsibility for security by July 2011 is

the key objective, then there has been significant progress since early 2009. However,

these successes seem less significant in light of record casualties and rising security

incidents. Until these numbers begin to fall, and the country is relatively stable, the key building phase cannot begin. It is clear by April 2010 that ISAF operations are still in

what McChrystal called the "gain the initiative" stage in securing the major population

centers, and it remains to be seen when the key stages of "strategic consolidation" and

"sustained security efforts" can begin and whether progress on these much more difficult tasks can be achieved before U.S. forces begin to withdraw. The real question is whether the U.S. will be a full partner in these efforts or whether the Afghans will once again be

abandoned and left to sort things out among themselves.

Public Opinion, Afghanistan, and Obama

Despite having a new President in office pursuing a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy designed to finally win the war in Afghanistan, support for

Obama's handling of the war declined over 2009 and many Americans, especially

Democrats, were for the first time declaring that the war was a mistake and not worth fighting.

During Obama's first year in office, the public was divided on the war in

Afghanistan, with a slight majority approving or disapproving of the war as the year

Livingston, Messera, and O'Hanlon, "Afghan Index, " 2010, p. 39-40. The second biggest threat was drug traffickers, at 11% in December 2009. 107

progressed. While the percentage of Americans who approved of the war rose slightly

after Obama released his new strategy in March, it dropped over the summer as the

fighting intensified during the build up to the now maligned presidential elections, only to

recover slightly in December when Obama simultaneously announced that he was

sending more troops and that they would begin to be withdrawn only 18 months later.

(See Graph 9).320

Graph 9: Favour or Oppose the War in Afghanistan? (2008-10)

60 50 40 30 - Favour % 20 10 0 Jul | Dec Feb j Apr | May | Jul Aug j Sep Oct Nov Dec Dec Jan 2008 2009 2010

In the weeks before Obama announced his new strategy for Afghanistan and

Pakistan in March, an increasing number of Americans (42%) believed that the decision to invade Afghanistan was a mistake, up significantly from 30% in February and the highest percentage since the question was first asked in November 2001. In August, for the first time, a slight majority of Americans (51%) believed the war was not worth fighting (especially without a creditable Afghan partner) and this trend continued until

December when a slight majority again believed the war was worth fighting.

320 Graph 9 is based on data from a CNN/ORC poll taken between September 2006 and January 2010 which asked, "Do you favour or oppose the war in Afghanistan," published in "Afghanistan," Pollingreport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm 321 "In U.S., More Optimism about Iraq, Less about Afghanistan," Gallup 3/18 2009 http://Gallup.com/poll/116920/optimism-iraq-less-afghanistan.aspx. 322 ABC News/Wash Post poll in "Afghanistan," PollingReport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.html The percentage of Am en cans who believe the war is going well would continue

to fall under Obama as it had under Bush. In March, the percentage who believed the war

was going well dropped to 38%, the lowest percentage since Gallup first asked this

question in September 2006.323 While a slight majority would say the war was going

either very well (4%) or moderately well (50%) in July, by late August those who

believed the war was going moderately well fell back substantially to 34% (See Graph

10). 324

Graph 10: How Well are Things Going in Afghanistan? (2009)

60 -, ^-*»^ 50 -

40 - •-——_ ^^^ ^""^-^ —*- ^ . _____^ . 30 - |—•—Well % 20 -

10 -

0 - Jan 30-Feb 1 Mar 14-15 Jul 10-12 Aug 31-Sep 2 Nov20-22

2009

In late January and early February 2009, Americans were split on what to do in

Afghanistan with 48% wanting to keep a significant number of troops in Afghanistan until the situation improves, even if it takes many years, and 47% wanting the President to set timetable for withdrawal and stick to it, regardless of situation on ground. In the weeks leading up to Obama's March 27 strategy announcement, 67% of Americans said they approved of Obama's handling of the war, but this number began to fall shortly

323 "In U.S., More Optimism about Iraq, Less about Afghanistan," Gallup 3/18 2009 http://Gallup.com/poll/116920/optimism-iraq-less-afghanistan.aspx Gallup/USA Today poll taken March 14-15 324 Graph 10 tracks the results of a USA Today/Gallup poll taken between September 2006 and November 2009) which asked, "In general, how would you say things are going for the U.S. in Afghanistan: very well, moderately well (combined as well here), moderately badly, or very badly?" published in "Afghanistan," Pollingreport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm 325 USA Today/Gallup taken between January 30 and February 1, 2009 published in "Afghanistan," Pollingreport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm afterwards and by late October a slight majority (56%) now disapproved of his handling

of the war.326 Similarly, a CBS News/NYT poll found that while 58% approved of

Obama handling of the war in early April, this percentage fell to 38 % in mid November,

recovering again to 48% in December (see Graph 11)327 This drop may be in part

explained by the fact that a majority of Americans (63%) had concluded by mid-

November that Obama did not have clear plan for bring the war to a successful

conclusion, despite his efforts to explain it. 328

Graph 11: Approval of Obama's Handling of Afghanistan (2009)

70 -i 60 - *• > • 50 - 40 - •— ^^^^ —•— Approve % 30 - 20 -

o - Apr 1-5 Apr 22-26 Aug 27-31 Sep 19-23 Oct 5-8 Nov 13-16 Dec 4-8 2009

Given the trends outlined above, it is no surprise that Americans are still pessimistic about the prospects of success in Afghanistan. As the Iraq case suggests, the perception of failure, once established, will be difficult to overcome. Obama is now facing the same difficulties in demonstrating progress as his predecessor.

326 CNN/ORC poll in "Afghanistan," Pollingreport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm 327 Graph 11 is based on data from a CBS News/NYT poll taken between April and December 2009 which asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Obama is handling the situation in Afghanistan?" published in "Afghanistan," Pollingreport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm 328 ABC/Washington Post poll published in "Afghanistan," Pollingreport.com http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm 110

Conclusion: Explaining the Perception of Failure in Afghanistan

There is no mystery as to why public support for the Afghan War dwindled under the Bush administration. Things were going badly on the ground, and as a result, public support for the war and the president's handling of it, plummeted. It is also clear that the

U.S., after eight years of neglect, has now finally adopted the right strategy to bring the war to a successful conclusion and should have a sufficient number of troops on the ground to implement it (100,000 by 2010). New metrics have also been established to measure progress in areas key to achieving the administrations objectives, but which metrics are the most appropriate remains a controversial issue due to their political and subjective nature.

While a sense of optimism had returned to America following the election of a new president, who had after all opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning and had long recognized the need to make Afghanistan (and Pakistan) the top priority, it would not last long. Despite all the rhetoric of change, in Afghanistan the Obama administration is essentially following the same strategy that led to success in Iraq under Bush, and is facing the same challenges in demonstrating success and maintaining public support.

As Peter Feaver argues, in Iraq the public turned against the war not because the rationale for war disappeared but because over the course of the war, especially after

2006, Americans became increasing pessimistic about whether the U.S. would win. 29

Americans are now pessimistic about Afghanistan and Obama is running out of time. As

Feaver argues, "...Obama is living on borrowed time in Afghanistan because the public is

Feaver, Peter, "Is Obama Losing Public Support for Afghanistan? " Foreign Policy 3/13 2009 http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/13/is Obamalosing public support for Afghanistan March 13, 2009. Ill fairly pessimistic about the situation there." The danger, he continues, is that perceptions about the prospects for success in Afghanistan are trending negative and, at least in the short run, there is little reason for Americans to be optimistic. Also at work,

Feaver notes, is the lack of an elite consensus on what to do, and the public is equally split between supporting increasing, decreasing and leaving the same number of troops in

Afghanistan.

As Feaver suggests, the Obama administrations efforts to define down success may backfire, because the message to the public involves acknowledging that,

.. .previous goals are unattainable ("success as you previously understood it is impossible") and then persuading the public that new goals are worthwhile ("here is a better measure of success") and more attainable ("The things that doomed the earlier effort won't doom this one"). That is not an impossible hurdle to clear, but it is a very high one.

Throughout 2010 the Obama administration will no doubt be able to point to significant successes but, as the Iraq case suggests, the perception of failure will be difficult to overcome. Successes on the ground will not necessarily mean that American perceptions will change. While it is clear that multiple factors are at work in contributing to falling public support for the Afghan War and the president's handling of it, any successes that the administration has and will achieve will not be enough to reverse these trends because of the tendency of failures to trump successes in terms of the public's perception of who's winning.

The decision that may prove fatal is that, by setting the July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing, Obama may not have sufficient time to produce the desired outcomes of the new strategy, which will require a substantial U.S. and international presence until

330 Feaver, "Is Obama Losing Public Support," 2009 331 Feaver, "Is Obama Losing Public Support, " 2009 112 the Afghan government can provide for its own security. So, the major challenge moving forward is that, as we have learned in Iraq, public support will drop faster than even significant successes can prop it up- because failures will always trump successes in the public's assessment of whether the U.S. is winning- and if America is perceived to be losing, Obama may have no choice but to abandon the Afghans, which would hand the insurgents their biggest strategic victory since expelling the Russians. 113

Chapter 5: Conclusion

So is the U.S. winning or losing the WOT and how do we know? It is clear from the preceding analysis that there is still no consensus on metrics to measure success and failure in the WOT because metrics are political. While the Bush administration claimed to be winning in Iraq and the larger WOT, the successes it pointed to were not enough to convince an increasingly pessimistic public that sufficient progress was being made to maintain their support. Obama now faces this same challenge, and while he has stressed the need for transparency and proper metrics, Americans remain as divided now over whether the U.S. is winning or losing the WOT as they were under Bush.

In order to understand why so many Americans believe the U.S. is losing the

WOT, it is important to look at the structural reasons why public support for war declines, rather than focus on the long list of mistakes made by the Bush administration

(or that have and will inevitably be made by the current administration.) While scholars continue to debate which factor should take precedence in explaining why public support for war declines over time, it is clear that it does. As Harvey predicts, public support for the WOT will continue to decline unless the government can credibly communicate signs of success, but this will be increasingly difficult because peaks in confidence are short lived and even major successes are unlikely to reverse the downward trend for long. This allows us to explain why the perception that America is losing the WOT has outlived the

Bush administration and to predict that this trend will continue, despite the successes achieved in Iraq to date and any successes made in Afghanistan today and in the years to come. 114

These findings were then explored further by looking more closely at success and failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iraq case clearly demonstrates that once established, the perception of failure is difficult to overcome. While the perception that the U.S. was losing in pre-surge Iraq made sense, significant successes achieved post-surge have not been enough to convince Americans that the war was a success. The Iraq case also explains why the public's perception of success and failure does not necessarily reflect the material outcome, so that success on the battlefield will not be enough to convince the public that the U.S. is winning. Perceptions about whether the U.S. was winning or losing in Iraq were shaped as much by political partisanship than by a careful analysis of the results on the ground.

When looking at why public support declined in Iraq, Gelpi and Feaver correctly point out that public attitudes about whether Bush made the right decision in attacking

Iraq and whether the U.S. will ultimately succeed there work together in determining the public's willingness to continue the war, attitudes about expectations of future success matter most. As the American public became increasingly pessimistic about the chances for success in Iraq many concluded it was not worth fighting. Whether the war was ultimately a success or failure depended on maintaining the public's support to keep fighting rather than to withdraw and live with the consequences. The Bush administration's surge strategy, while successful in winning or at least responsibly ending the war, was not enough to convince a majority of Americans that they actually won.

Thus, failures trump successes in terms of perceptions and the public will remember Iraq

(and the Bush presidency) as a failure. 115

We have seen a similar dynamic play out in Afghanistan. Looking now at

Afghanistan, it is clear that the U.S. is losing that war and the Obama administration is left to deal with the consequences of eight years of neglect. The challenges there today are similar but more complex than the U.S. faced in 2001 and clearly there are no easy solutions, but the current strategy is the right one. However, it will be extremely difficult for the Obama administration to overcome the dominant perception of failure in

Afghanistan, and we can expect the trend of declining public support to continue as the war rages on. While it is certainly possible that the McChrystal's COIN strategy will lead to lasting progress in the region, it's too early to tell. While clear, hold, and build worked in Iraq, the clearing stage continues in Afghanistan and with it casualties continue to rise.

What is clear is that the public is already losing confidence in Obama's handling of the war and the chances for success. Setting a date for withdrawal may have helped Obama maintain support for the war among some Democrats but as Republicans have charged, it may also lose him the war. While the Obama administration is clearly running out of time to convince Americans that its efforts are succeeding, the insurgent groups can simply wait for the U.S. and international community to leave. While Obama should stay the course, the biggest challenge may not be in Afghanistan or even Pakistan, but in convincing Americans that the U.S. can and should continue to see the region and the larger WOT as its top foreign and security priority and worth all the costs and sacrifices made since 2001.

In conclusion, I have chosen to answer three hypothetical questions which highlight the major findings of this study. First, this study contends that any and all metrics of success or failure in the WOT are political, should they not therefore be 116

disregarded? Is this study not equally guilty of employing political metrics which it

argues are objective? And, in any event, does it not have an obligation, as an academic

study, to make judgements that some metrics are better ~ or more objective than others?

While the metrics in the War on Terrorism (WOT) are subjective, they should not be

disregarded. The point is that because there are no objective metrics, there will be no

consensus on which metrics are the most appropriate and therefore the government will

not be able to convince everyone that the U.S. is winning the WOT (or the wars in Iraq

and Afghanistan) by demonstrating progress towards its key objectives based on official

metrics alone. The metrics embraced by the Obama administration, which reflect the

change in strategy from counterterrorism (measured in body counts) to counterinsurgency

(where Iraqi and Afghan perceptions are key because they measure the extent to which

the population will, when the chips are down, support the government or the insurgent

groups) are an improvement, but not everyone will agree that this is the right approach

and therefore that these are the right metrics.

It is clear from this study that there are no truly objective metrics. As discussed in

Chapter 2, even if observers are score-keeping according to an assessment of material

gains and loses, to be accurate, as Johnson and Tierney point out, they still need to take

into account the importance and difficulty of each aim and resulting gain (which is

subjective) so that the overall scorecard, even if based on something as quantifiable as relative casualty figures, will not be entirely objective. As Johnson and Tierney have argued, in the WOT score-keeping has little explanatory power because perceptions of success and failure often depend on who the observers are, when and where they evaluated the outcome, and how it was reported to them. Thus, the fact that the U.S. has 117

killed thousands of terrorists and/or insurgents since 9/11 will be a clear sign of progress

in the WOT for some, while others can and have argued that, not only does this approach

fail to take into account terrorist/insurgent recruitment and their ability to launch

sophisticated attacks, but in carrying out this approach the U.S. has occupied two Muslim

countries, thereby creating a new generation of terrorists and has also killed far too many

civilians, which jeopardizes the long term success of the WOT. The problem, as the

preceding analysis has demonstrated, is not that the government lacks metrics, but that

because there is no consensus on which metrics are most appropriate, one's choice of

metrics often depends on whether you support the current government's policies or not,

and therefore are largely political. If you believe that the goals and/or strategy being

pursued are flawed, it is easy to employ different metrics that demonstrate this failure.

This does not, however, mean that all metrics should be disregarded, rather it is meant to point out that there are no perfect set of metrics, which, if only we could

discover them, would allow officials to demonstrate victory in the WOT, just as there is no perfect strategy that guarantees success. As discussed in Chapter 2, metrics are

important. They are necessary, for example, to determine if the current strategy is working or not and we must not forget that the government's ability to communicate

success to the public is key to maintaining their support. The real problem, as Harvey has argued, is that, do to probability neglect, the public will always overvalue failures and ignore successes in their perceptions of progress in the WOT. This was clearly the case in post-surge Iraq where the perception that the U.S. was losing was not significantly challenged by evidence of success and this is the key lesson for Obama in Afghanistan. 118

Having clarified that there are no objective metrics in the WOT, I contend that the new metrics announced by the Obama administration, reflecting its shift away from a counterterrorism approach measured in body counts to a counterinsurgency approach measured in terms of winning hearts and minds, are an improvement over those employed by the Bush administration because hearts and minds are key to winning the

WOT. While these types of metrics are certainly vague and subjective, as Byman has argued, it is better to struggle with imprecise metrics and poor data than to rely on a body count approach that is inappropriate in these types of conflicts. Metrics are designed to measure whether the strategy being employed is working, but government critics and the media will convince an increasingly pessimistic public that their government has made mistakes, and could, of course, do better on all fronts.

However, as this study demonstrates, having the right strategy and the right metrics will not mean that the Obama administration will find it any easier to demonstrate success because the public will remain pessimistic about the chances for success in light of past failures and even in spite of future successes.

Second, is the real problem in this so-called "War on Terrorism" that at bottom it deals with insurgencies and counter-insurgencies, the exact causes of which - and solutions to them - are nearly impossible to define with any degree of clarity and certainty? The problem is that developing and implementing a successful counterinsurgency strategy takes time and getting it right tends to involve a lot of trial and error, something Americans have little stomach for. The real problem rests less with the fact that insurgency and counterinsurgency are at the heart of the WOT

(insurgency, like terrorism, existed long before 9/11), and has more to do with the 119 tendency of failures to trump successes in terms of the public's perception of who's winning, so that public support for the WOT (and by extension the wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan) collapses before real progress can be made and continues even in light of significant successes. The perception of failure, once established, becomes difficult to overcome, especially when success involves transforming a failed state, if not into a democracy, then at least an ally in the WOT- a state capable of dealing with terrorists (or insurgents) within its borders and providing for the basic needs of its citizens so they are not vulnerable to viewing terrorism or insurgency as an viable alternative to the political process.

At the heart of the so-called WOT are the two real wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in both cases the U.S. faced insurgent groups whose primary goal is to expel the U.S. and then, defeat the U.S.-backed governments. Because the terrorists and/or insurgents will always adapt and develop new tactics, the strategy to defeat them must change accordingly, but the Bush administration was, of course, slow to admit its efforts were failing. Unfortunately, Americans believed that in both wars they were fighting terrorists so their early response to 9/11 focused almost exclusively on capturing and killing them

(counterterrorism), until late 2005. By this time, it had become clear that, in addition to clearing areas of insurgent control, success would require holding these areas and building effective political institutions and security forces, and ultimately, transforming failed states. While recognizing that they were fighting an insurgency in Iraq as early as

2004, it would be 2007 before the surge strategy was announced (reflecting the Bush administration's realization that effective counterinsurgency would require more U.S. troops on the ground because the Iraqis were not yet capable of defeating the insurgency on their own) and it would be well into 2008- five years into the war- before it could be argued with confidence that the U.S. had regained the momentum and the Iraqis were capable of providing for their own security and preventing their country from becoming a terrorist sanctuary. In Afghanistan, a properly resourced counterinsurgency strategy has only just begun and Obama is running out of time to convince Americans that it will and is working.

While it is difficult to determine the exact causes of insurgency and even more difficult to first develop and then successfully resource and implement a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy, it is not impossible. The problem is that this takes time and the public, even if the U.S. ultimately succeeds, is likely to nonetheless judge the war as a failure because they are opposed to these types of wars, as Tierney's "quagmire mentality" demonstrates, and more importantly, because expectations of future success are key to maintaining public support, once established, the perception of failure will be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.

Finally, is the real policy lesson to be learned here that in any and all conflicts in future, the U.S. (and the West in general) has taught indigenous dissidents and other domestic and external 'spoiler' groups how to turn these conflicts into insurgencies and thereby how to outlast us? Thus, the real lesson is to avoid any and all interventions in future? Absolutely not. The biggest threat to Americans (and the world at large) is the same today as it was on 9/11: the nexus of terrorism, failed (not 'rouge') states, and

WMD. While smaller groups have always employed asymmetrical warfare when fighting a stronger opponent- including terrorism and insurgency, the game changer was that after

9/11 it became clear that individuals (not just states) could and would, even without the help of a state sponsor, kill thousands of people (Americans) if they were to gain access

to WMD. This means that the U.S. is more, not less, likely to intervene militarily where

and whenever it feels its national security is at stake. While the legacy of the Iraq War

may be that, at least until there is a second terrorist attack on U.S. soil, many Americans

are opposed to future interventions, this does not mean that the key lesson is to avoid

them. Rather, before invading a country to force regime change, the U.S. government

(and Western democracies in general) should understand that the public is opposed to

these types of wars, and it cannot count on their support once it becomes clear that the

U.S. is losing.

Given these realities, the real policy lesson is not to avoid all interventions (as the

optimists suggest, because such a belief would signal a return to pre-9/11 attitudes that

the risks of terrorism are exaggerated and any action is an overreaction, i.e. Mueller's

"Iraq syndrome"), but that even necessary interventions, and especially those that involve

counterinsurgency, will have immense risks (and opportunity costs) that cannot easily be

predicted. Success in the WOT depends not only on developing and successfully

implementing an effective counterinsurgency strategy, which by all accounts takes at

least a decade, but on keeping the public convinced that the mission will be successful

over the long term, which is extremely difficult because of the triumph of failure, or the

tendency of failures to trump successes in the public's perception of who's winning.

While the insurgents and 'spoiler groups' have learned from their successes in

Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. (and the West) has also learned from theirs. Hopefully the

important lessons and not just the obvious failures will be remembered: that the U.S. can be successful in ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if it has the political will to stay the course, but despite the governments best efforts to demonstrate success (and despite achieving actual successes on the ground) the public will, in the final analysis, believe that the U.S. lost these wars because of the triumph of failure. While we are predisposed to focus on our mistakes, we also seem destined to repeat them if we do not learn the right lessons. BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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