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Sun. May 18, 2003

Where Was The Plan?

Where Was The Plan? – From the New York Times, via Yahoo (hey, why should I point you to a site that requires registration when it will quickly disappear from their archives anyway?): “’Next week, or by the second weekend in May, you’ll see the beginning of a nucleus of a temporary Iraqi government, a government with an Iraqi face on it that is totally dealing with the coalition,’ General [Jay] Garner said during a visit to Basra.”

For over a month now, that has been the oft-stated plan of the coalition; there will be a fairly rapid transition to an interim Iraqi government. One would assume this approach was the result of many months of pre-war discussion. That “plan” has been swiftly put back in the drawer.

“In an abrupt reversal, the United States and Britain have indefinitely put off their plan to allow Iraqi opposition forces to form a national assembly and an interim government by the end of the month.”

OK, so one month in, we’re on to Plan B, and some new civil administrators. And one can’t help but begin to wonder if they’re simply making up the reconstruction of Iraq as they go along.

We’ve all known for many months war would likely come. Any reasonable person had to also know that the US led coalition would win in some indeterminate amount of time. But we also all knew that, as soon as that war was over, Iraq was going to need massive humanitarian aid and a nearly complete civil overhaul. We knew that, above and beyond the invasion forces, it would take a lot of people, some of them with guns (known as “police”). And another plan of a complexity almost equal to the invasion plan.

Let’s all be thankful the invasion itself wasn’t run at this level of efficiency.

It’s surprising to me that such an image conscious administration didn’t clue in on the fact this Post-War era would be critical to the long term impressions of this war. And plan for it, in great detail. Because no matter how shiningly the military won the war, the lasting impression left by, oh, say, November 2004, will be based on how shiningly we handled post-War Iraq.

And so far, the evidence is that the Democrats will be handed a silver baseball bat with which to pound on Bush at reelection time. You’d think that would have been motivation enough to do about 500% more than they have so far.

Motivation aside from the fate of the Iraqi people, of course. While it is a great step to have removed Saddam as their judge, jury, and executioner, we also have Geneva Convention obligations to provide security for their society until they can do so for themselves. Not only are we arguably failing that test, we seem to have shown up for class without having done any homework at all.

With great efficiency and speed, the Army and Marines blew through mile after mile in their bold campaign, and often abandoned or bypassed sites of great intelligence interest. They couldn’t string their manpower out by leaving behind forces to secure those sites, they had to move on. But there was no one, and no plan, to take care of that task. As a result, by the time follow-on investigators got there, the vast majority of the sites had been looted, burned, and stripped.

In some ways, this goes back to what we thought was the well beaten horse of Rumsfeld and the force size. A week into the war, many claimed we’d “gone in too light,” on the basis of a pause for a three day sandstorm and what turned out to be a fatal pasting of the Republican Guard from the air. Those naysayers were supposedly proven wrong by the speedy taking of Baghdad against much lighter than expected resistance.

On the basis of the task of invasion, the force was proven sufficient. But the task was always known to be more than just invasion, and the force is now proving too light. Oh, yes, there’s more arriving: “With the arrival of the 1st Armored Division, about half the combat power of the active-duty Army is in Iraq.” Now that’s a cheery thought, isn’t it? And as others have mentioned, “active-duty Army” is not the only resource we have to secure Iraq. The National Guard has performed that task well in Bosnia and elsewhere. But none have been called up. It wasn’t in the plan.

And there’s been no evident or significant “follow-on force” of a humanitarian nature, either. Many areas are still without clean water, due to war damage, and looting (in Basra, several neighborhood purification and pumping stations were stripped of their equipment). Electricity is still a problem for many, though it apparently wasn’t exactly a stable commodity under Saddam either. Hospitals are suffering shortages of most basic supplies, either due to looting or being overwhelmed by patients. And then there’s the basic lawlessness we hear about in many disturbing reports. However, all of these things were fairly predictable, at some level.

But there was no plan to deal with them.

It’s almost as if once the main invasion wave went through and the war was won, they expected to simply guide a self healing process of some type. The reality is that the Iraqi society was one where, for decades, you got your stuff from Saddam. Your bread, your ration tickets, your job, and even the electricity and water. Suddenly, Saddam is gone, and while those people may think that’s a good thing, they also move directly to the next question: who’s going to give us our stuff now?

Imagine the look they would give you when you say, “you are.”

But this is the mindset left by decades of dictatorship. There is a major league culture shock going on in Iraq, as well as a need to be provided with the things the regime used to give the people … but in a more benign manner. While our manner is certainly more benign, we’re not delivering the goods. And it is our obligation.

George Bush made no bones about it during the 2000 Election, he’s not into nation building. But now, he has to be. He’s now wrestling a two headed beast of his own creation. In order to win reelection, it’s obvious the US economy is the big issue where he must prove success. And that’s going to be hard enough.

But now, he’s got the economies of two nations to resurrect. Just one may not be enough.

Better get a Real Serious Roll Up The Sleeves Plan, on the ground and rolling. You haven’t got long before the partisan punches start landing. And the Iraqi people probably have even less time.