The list of blunders that the United States made: before, during and following the early-on military success in the Iraq War is a long list. It is a litany of ignorance, stupidity, mendacity, mismanagement and malfeasance that must be written about and discussed, if only to bring the list before the public eye and to hold the issues “up to the lamp of truth.”
The litany of blunders began long before the onset of Iraq War hostilities. Among these was the misguided and unnecessary destruction of Iraq’s non-military infrastructure during the Gulf War. Virtually every aspect of a modern culture was attacked. President George H. W. Bush said something about bombing Iraq back to the Stone Age.
What a terrible thing to say! What a callused, unfeeling and anti-humanitarian position! Such statements – and the ensuing human suffering that they lead to – are the words of barbarians, not modern heads of state.
The death and destruction that were visited upon the Iraqi people – as separate from Iraq’s armies and war material – was unthinkable, cruel and, from a strictly military point of view, unnecessary. Among other things, it embittered the Iraqi populace and huge, important segments of the entire Islamic world against the United States.
The embargo and blockade that were put in place after the Gulf War amounted to another gaff of incalculable proportions. These actions damaged the common people of Iraq, not its leaders, and these misguided actions set the stage for behind-the-scenes malfeasance of the lowest and most despicable sort, as the later revelations regarding criminal acts by those administering the United Nations’ relief efforts showed. Food and medicine for oil did not work as planned.
The encouragement by the United States of an uprising by the Shiites in southern Iraq following the Gulf War was a mistake. The greater blunder was the fact that the United States let Saddam’s armies slaughter the Shiite forces. Too late, apparently, the United States’ policy makers decided that widespread instability could follow such an uprising. Such instability would have strengthened Iran’s leadership role in the Middle East. It also might have encouraged an uprising by the Kurds in the northern part of Iraq (and, possibly, those Kurds in Turkey and Iran, as well).
A Saddam-led Iraq suddenly seemed more desirable than a divided Iraq in the throes of a potential three-way civil war.
The setting up of so-called free flight zones and the intermittent bombing of Iraqi territory during the time between the end of the Gulf War and the onset of the Iraq War serve as other examples of small-minded miscalculation.
All of the above blunders actually strengthened Saddam’s control over Iraq and its people. In addition, it fostered negative sentiments against the United States in large segments of the Iraqi populace and in diverse groups around the world. Bearing this litany in mind, let us proceed to an enumeration and discussion of the subsequent blunders that occurred during and – especially – after the collapse of the Iraqi army in the Iraq War.
The quantity and quality of pre-war intelligence data were far below the standards that should be achieved prior to a nation, any nation, going to war with another country. Some of the intelligence data that were used were “cooked.” Information supplied by Chalabi and others with so-called inside sources was often fabricated.
Some of the available information was misinterpreted by people within the intelligence communities and by the military and administration officials. Some of the intelligence data that should have been viewed as red flags for caution were ignored altogether or shunted into the background of the rush-to-war mentality.
Perhaps history will sort out a relatively accurate picture of the roles that cooking, misinterpretation, ignorance, deception and mendacity played in the months and weeks leading up to the onset of the Iraq War hostilities.
The decision to go into the war with a relatively small military force was an incalculably bad choice. Those military leaders who advocated a larger force were ignored; or, even worse, maligned. In part, the small force arguments failed to understand the deep, historical and contemporary animosities between the Sunni and Shiite populations.
A failure to plan for the aftermath of the formal hostilities was another major blunder.
Shock and Awe, the bombing campaign at the beginning of the Iraq War, was a cultural blunder of incalculable dimensions. While it may have added some military value to the campaign and even saved some American lives at that time, the devastation that it caused, the loss of civilian lives and the turning of millions of Iraqis against the United States offset any possible military advantage. Americans are still dying because of that blunder.
Damage to the civil infrastructure was extensive. This, coupled with a number of other civil blunders, chiseled in stone the fact that rebuilding Iraq’s civilian infrastructure and, thus, returning the Iraqi people to a more-or-less acceptable level of culture-comfort, would be a long and expensive process. That would have been so without the looting and the insurgency that followed.
In fact, other than the suggestion that the Shock and Awe bombing made certain that billions of dollars in rebuilding contracts would be available to the select, favored contracting companies, it is difficult to supply a rationale for the Shock and Awe campaign. It was military excess to the extreme and the Iraqi civilian population bore the brunt of the casualties, just as surely as the civilian infrastructure bore the brunt of the damage. It was a war crime in the most fundamental sense of that term.
Establishing effective, friendly and constructive post-war relations with every Iraqi citizen, every Iraqi family, every clan and every religious group was made more difficult than it needed to be. It was as if the United States military used the Iraqi civilian population and infrastructure as a demonstration of military power and sophistication. But, so many of the so-called smart bombs and pinpoint bombing missions went astray that it seems superficial, at best, and misleading, at worst, to call the overall result one of military sophistication. Barbarism seems more apt.
No attempt will be made to sort the postwar blunders into a hierarchy. All were first-magnitude mistakes, each with far-reaching consequences. I will list and discuss them in the order in which they occur to me, with the caveat that such an ordering is arbitrary.
The chaos that followed the end of the strictly military campaign phase of the war was due to a number of miscalculations, most of which were the result of ignorance on the part of the military and civilians who were in charge of the military campaign and – more importantly – of the post-military operations’ period and its challenges.
By failing to appreciate the role that families and clans play in Iraqi life, the United States military and occupation leaders – for it did become an occupation no matter what anyone says to the contrary – ignored and missed key opportunities to relate to some of the most fundamental power bases in Iraqi society. Ignorance and hubris were equally responsible for this vital blunder.
By failing to appreciate and to utilize the power and the stabilizing effect that working with and through the religious leaders, specifically, and the religious communities, generally, might have had, the United States military and occupation leaders ignored or failed to appreciate what could have been one of the most effective stabilizing elements of Iraqi society.
By terminating all of the members of the Baathist Party, irrespective of their rank or loyalty to Saddam Hussein, the United States military and occupation leaders ensured that civil chaos would follow, that no effective government was in place and that the period of adjustment to the post-war situation would be long and difficult, if not impossible. Most of those who belonged to the Baathist party did so in order to have jobs. Only a small minority was fully and ideologically dedicated to the old regime.
By firing all of the members of the Iraqi Army and by not providing them even the pay many of them had earned, a literal army of potential enemies was created. Apologists for this disastrously unwise move have said that the army melted away. Some soldiers did leave their posts; but the Iraqi military hierarchy could have brought almost all of the army back into being. The military rolls and rosters existed, at least early on. Discipline could have been restored. The military could have been used to establish and maintain law and order. Instead, many of them contributed to both the short-term chaos and the long-term insurrection.
By dismissing the Iraqi police forces, en masse, civil disorder was assured, especially since Saddam released up to 100,000 hardened criminals out of his prisons and onto the streets at the onset of the war, or just before that. The police could have helped to keep law and order. Instead, some of them became part of the initial lawlessness and some joined the insurrection.
By firing and failing to use Iraq’s extensive intelligence and counter-insurgency agencies, vital members of the regime were turned from potential resources into adept enemies. Many people working in these agencies possessed the knowledge and skills that were necessary for the smooth functioning of a workable post-war period. Once again, potential friends were turned into enemies. Many of them joined the insurrection.
The failure to seal Iraq’s borders with Iran, Syria and Jordan was an indefensible oversight. It allowed the free-flow of personnel and materiel across those borders. In part, this blunder came about because of the inadequate number of U. S. troops in Iraq.
With at least one hundred thousand criminals roaming the streets of Iraqi cities, with the government in effect in dissolution, with no military, police or intelligence personnel on duty, is it any wonder that the immediate post-war period was one of sacking, pillaging, theft and general civil disorder? I think not. Perhaps the wonder is that some semblance of civil order was ever restored.
During the period of maximum civil disorder, the National Museum was robbed. Most of the millions of historic artifacts simply disappeared. Some of these were among the oldest and most valuable artifacts in the world. No effort was made by the United States military to protect the National Museum and its treasures or any other historic sites. Only the Oil Industries building was guarded; thus, another blunder was perpetrated, since the protection of that building, only, added fuel to the charge that the war was about oil.
In addition, the range and extent of the pillaging of the civilian infrastructure was extensive and incredibly damaging. Electric generating plants, in many cases, were stripped and carried away, piece by piece. Something similar happened with oil and gas pumping facilities. Nearly every aspect of a modern, functioning society was compromised by the lawlessness, the theft, the pillaging and the destruction.
In essence, the Iraqi media were accorded the same kind and level of treatment as that visited upon the other aspects and elements of the formal Iraqi government. Instead of effectively using the media to help with the orderly transition from the conflict to the re-building phases, the media were fired and dispersed, with many fearing for their lives. In fact, at least one of the major media centers was heavily damaged.
The result of the above blunders – and too many more to enumerate – was that Iraq, as a modern, functioning society was destroyed. Potable water was not available; neither was reliable electricity. Major sewer systems no longer worked. Food and medicine were either unavailable or in short supply. Suffering was manifest at nearly every level of the society. Actual or potential friends, by the millions, became covertly or openly hostile. The post-war initiatives toward peace and stability were lost.
The cumulative effect of the blunders can never be assessed. What the course of the post-war period in Iraq without these blunders might have been will never be known with a high degree of accuracy. Officially, for months, the administration refused to acknowledge the blunders or to try to correct most of them, either at all or until it was much too late.
It is the surviving Iraqi people and the country of Iraq that have suffered immeasurably from this litany of blunders. It is the thousands who have died or who have been maimed, unnecessarily, that have paid the highest price for these blunders, including the over 3,200 American dead and 24,000 wounded.
The mistakes that were made prior to January 2001 belong to Bush I, to Clinton and to their administrations. The litany of blatant blunders made since January of 2001 belongs to Bush II and to his advisors, especially Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, several generals and L. Paul Bremer. The buck stops at the highest levels of leadership. Ultimately, the mistakes are those of moral, political, religious, historical and economic ignorance, with a solid measure of hubris, as well.
Bush’s image in history as a Warrior President, which, in my opinion, was one of the key reasons for the Iraq War, has been tarnished beyond redemption. If he and other members of his cabal are never tried for high crimes and misdemeanors, a great injustice will have been done. But then, except for five highly partisan Supreme Court justices, Bush never would have been President. In the opinion of many non-partisan legal scholars, George W. Bush was not elected President by the American voters in 2000. He never should have been President.
Author Note: Hal Mansfield was born in Fort Collins, Colorado. After serving in the U. S. Army, he graduated from Colorado State University, in 1958. He received his Ph.D. from The University of Denver, in 1974. In 1993, he retired from Fort Lewis College, where he taught psychology, statistics and writing for 18 years. In addition to fiction writing, part of his retirement regimen includes researching, thinking through, and writing about critical contemporary social issues. After a “life-time” in Colorado, including the last 31 years in Durango, he recently moved to Green Valley, Arizona. Some of his writing efforts have appeared in “The Durango Herald” since the mid-1970s, as well as in” Solar Age Magazine,” “crimemagazine.com” and “Crossroads: A Journal of the Southwest.”