Operation Iraqi Freedom Operation Iraqi Freedom A Strategic Assessment Thomas Donnelly The AEI Press Publisher for the American Enterprise Institute W ASHINGTON, D.C. Available in the United States from the AEI Press, c/o Client Distribution Services, 193 Edwards Drive, Jackson, TN 38301. To order, call toll free: 1-800-343-4499. Distributed outside the United States by arrangement with Eurospan, 3 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8LU, England. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Donnelly, Thomas, 1953- Operation Iraqi Freedom: a strategic assessment / Thomas Donnelly. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8447-4195-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Iraq War, 2003. I. Title. DS79.76.D66 2004 956.7044'3—dc22 2004013262 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 1 2 3 4 5 Cover photograph caption: Two U.S. soldiers watch the area from the top of their headquarters in Falluja, November 2003. © 2004 by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C. 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Printed in the United States of America Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ix PROLOGUE: THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD, 1991 xiii PART I THE POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC SETTING 1 The 1991 Gulf War 6 Containment under Clinton 9 Smart Sanctions and Containment, “W” Style 15 The Making of the Bush Doctrine 17 The Road to War 20 PART II MILITARY PLANNING 29 Planning for Iraq after 9/11 32 The Need for Speed 38 “Go Early, Go Ugly” 46 PART III MAJOR COMBAT OPERATIONS 52 Into Iraq 53 Piercing Saddam’s Shield 58 On to Baghdad 67 Removing the Regime 77 PART IV THE COUNTERINSURGENCY CAMPAIGN 85 Postwar Chaos 87 The Counterinsurgency 88 The War That Hasn’t Happened 99 PART V IRAQI FREEDOM: AN ASSESSMENT 103 Politics, Not as Usual 103 A Doctrine in Search of a Strategy 107 A Spike—or the New Baseline? 111 NOTES 115 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 125 v Acknowledgments This work, imperfect as it may be, would not have been possible but for the assistance and friendship of a great many people. I would particularly like to thank the members of the U.S. military who made my trip to Iraq in June and July 2003 so productive. My travel was purely unofficial, yet as always, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines went out of their way— without waiting for approval from Washington or Tampa—to get me where I wanted to go, give me a couch or a cot to sleep on and as many MREs as I could stand, and, most valuably, share their time and their stories. There are too many to thank individually, but I owe special debts to Lieutenant General David D. McKiernan and his staff, the staff of V Corps, and Lieu- tenant General David Petraeus and the troopers of the 101st Airborne Division. I also owe a debt of nearly two decades to retired General Carl Vuono, former chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and his personal staff, who gave me a truly superior military education. A second group of friends and colleagues provided guidance and advice; some of them will be appalled at what I have made of their sage counsel, but they nonetheless deserve my gratitude. They include Andrew Bacevich of Boston University; Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; Peter Feaver of Duke University; military consultant Colonel Robert Killebrew, USA (Ret.); Thomas Keaney of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; Richard Kohn of the University of North Carolina; William Kristol of The Weekly Standard; my former colleague on the House Armed Services Committee staff, Jim Lariviere; my former col- league and coauthor at Army Times, Sean Naylor; Gary Schmitt at the Project for the New American Century; and Michael Vickers of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Further thanks are due to Steve vii viii OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM Metz of the U.S. Army War College and Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who provided valuable feedback on the draft of this report. Finally, this report is not simply mine but a product of many people at the American Enterprise Institute. No scholar or writer works in a vac- uum, and I am immensely grateful to AEI. Chris DeMuth and David Gerson perform a most mysterious magic—the care, feeding, and leading of an academic institution—with great aplomb. And last, but hardly least, something much more than thanks is due to my AEI colleagues who have worked with me on Iraq issues through the war: Danielle Pletka, Richard Perle, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Molly McKew, Katherine Smyth, Frances Tilney, and, in particular, Vance Serchuk. THOMAS DONNELLY American Enterprise Institute June 2004 Executive Summary More than a year after President Bush declared “mission accomplished” in the invasion of Iraq, a fuller victory in the war remains elusive. That is, in large part, because a fuller understanding of the war remains elusive. This report is an attempt to enlarge our understanding of Operation Iraqi Freedom, to point us in the right direction by analyzing where we have said we want to go and trying to find out where we are now. The report offers four key observations: • The Iraq campaigns—both the conventional invasion to topple Saddam Hussein and the current counterinsurgency meant to provide security for the political reconstruction of Iraq—are just two parts of the so-called “war on terrorism.” This war, properly understood, is a struggle to build a decent, more democratic and liberal, and less violent order throughout the “greater Middle East,” that giant swath of the planet that extends from West Africa to Southeast Asia. The collapse of the traditional order, upon which past U.S. policies of contain- ment and power-balancing rested, began twenty-five years ago, with the multiple crises of 1979. It required the attacks of September 11, 2001—and more importantly, the decisions made by President George W. Bush—to redirect American security and military strategy toward rebuilding the regional order to achieve a more durable peace. • Military planning for the invasion did not fully reflect the administration’s change of policy. In effect, President Bush asked for a campaign to achieve “regime change,” but what he got was ix x OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM a campaign of “regime removal.” This is not simply a scholastic distinction. Getting rid of Saddam and his henchmen was the easier part; replacing a well-entrenched dictatorship—in a region which knows little else—with a more representative form of government is proving to be, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it, a “long, hard slog.” The Pentagon’s desire to fight a rapid war undercut its ability to fight a decisive war. • The conduct of the invasion shaped the difficulties of the counterinsurgency campaign. The “just-in-time” nature of the plan magnified the challenges of even relatively minor prob- lems, such as the resistance of the Saddam fedayeen in the south of Iraq or the delays caused by an unexpectedly persis- tent sandstorm. And Turkey’s failure to permit a northern inva- sion of Iraq contributed to the difficulties of projecting force beyond Baghdad, into the notorious “Sunni Triangle,” the most significant area of resistance. • The counterinsurgency, despite these troubles, has been remarkably successful. The two essential elements for com- pleting the victory in Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi public opinion, have held firm despite the level of casualties and the missteps of the Bush administration. The insurgency has only succeeded in driving some lesser members of the international coalition out of the country; even the United Nations has returned to con- tribute to the reconstruction of Iraq. Taken together, these four observations suggest that the Bush admin- istration has charted the correct strategy in Iraq, but has failed to match its military means to its political ends. While the failure to provide adequate security has yet to prove fatal to the larger reconstruction mission in Iraq, the issue remains in doubt. It is uncertain whose side time is on, and the absence of a greater sense of urgency gives hope to the insurgents—whose first goal, after all, is simply to stave off defeat. Most importantly, the administration seems not to appreciate President Bush’s fundamental insight: In the effort to transform the greater Middle East, our security interests and our political principles are EXECUTIVE SUMMARY xi in alignment. As Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has observed, this struggle is a marathon, but we have a military—indeed, an entire national security bureaucracy—built for sprints. In Iraq and in the larger war, including in Afghanistan, the disparity between ends and means has begun to matter. We must either take the steps necessary to wage a long war or pursue a more limited victory. But that is simply a euphemism for defeat. Prologue The Road to Baghdad, 1991 On March 6, 1991, three days after signing a cease-fire ending Operation Desert Storm, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf awoke with the sinking feeling that he had been “suckered” by the Iraqi generals he had negoti- ated with at the border town of Safwan. At the same time, President George H.