redlightning
Banned
I know this never would've been plausible, but what would've happened to Iraq today if the Americans had been able to stabilize and establish the new government country enough to withdrawal as planned within eighteen months?
WI: US Withdrawals Peacefully from Iraq by 2004
- Thread starter redlightning
- Start date
The invasion would have had to have been closer to a US backed palace coup to get you there.
Iraq would still be headed for an explosion because in the end minority rule by terror can only go on so long in the modern age, plus you had too many terrorists there, too radicalized a security force and too divided a society.
Iraq would still be headed for an explosion because in the end minority rule by terror can only go on so long in the modern age, plus you had too many terrorists there, too radicalized a security force and too divided a society.
Cook
Banned
This of course was the principal problem. The "planning" for post-invasion Iraq was, to say the least, thin; in fact it was almost non-existent, consisting of little more than "hand over to civilian Iraqi government". The reason for this was that it was, bluntly, a rushed job and done down to a budget; the US was to invade and withdraw at low cost, in terms of military forces used, casualties sustained and overall financial expenditure. Had planning for a realistic occupation of Iraq been enacted, the invasion force would have been much larger - well over a quarter of a million men, probably closer to 400,000.
More to follow...
More troops don't solve the problem without major planning on what they do post war as in COIN and very few in the military understood COIN in 2002. There were a few in the army left from Vietnam, but they weren't in the right positions in 2001 in either the army, the Pentagon or the WH.
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Puzzle
Donor
Even then the whole WMD thing would probably stop them from pulling out that quickly. It was an article of faith in the national security establishment that they were there, when the US didn't find them there'd be enough institutional inertia to keep searching.
jmc247
Thanks for that previous post. Back in those days i was not long retired & still following the military publications/news closely. What the text from the http://foreignpolicy.com/ item describes was quite clear at the time. What is incredblly ironic is the USMC, which technically had no mission there & should have been off doing its amphibious warfare thing was better prepared than the Army for the counter insurrgency mission. Post Viet Nam the doctrinal documents had been preserved, some minimal instruction kept alive in the officers schools, and a revival of sorts occured. During my active service in the 1970s & 80s a counter insurgency exercise of battalion or larger scale was run once or twice a year. The type of mission varied widely in these, but despite the focus on the WWIII NATO mission we still did some CI training, and the quantity increased. After the Warsaw Pact dissolved CI training continued to increase & tho we never became experts in it; to many other missions, it was always on the table. ie: every 'Korean War' scenario I remember training in had a CI component of some sort embeded in it.
There were a lot of complex reasons why the USMC kept up this residual capability. Not sure I could articulate all of them & certainly wont try now. But the fact is the effort was made, particularly in officer education on the subject. We did not go into Iraq in 2003 as experts on it, but my peers who were there some six years after I retired at least had a clear idea of the basics and what direction to go to get a grip on the problem.
Thanks for that previous post. Back in those days i was not long retired & still following the military publications/news closely. What the text from the http://foreignpolicy.com/ item describes was quite clear at the time. What is incredblly ironic is the USMC, which technically had no mission there & should have been off doing its amphibious warfare thing was better prepared than the Army for the counter insurrgency mission. Post Viet Nam the doctrinal documents had been preserved, some minimal instruction kept alive in the officers schools, and a revival of sorts occured. During my active service in the 1970s & 80s a counter insurgency exercise of battalion or larger scale was run once or twice a year. The type of mission varied widely in these, but despite the focus on the WWIII NATO mission we still did some CI training, and the quantity increased. After the Warsaw Pact dissolved CI training continued to increase & tho we never became experts in it; to many other missions, it was always on the table. ie: every 'Korean War' scenario I remember training in had a CI component of some sort embeded in it.
There were a lot of complex reasons why the USMC kept up this residual capability. Not sure I could articulate all of them & certainly wont try now. But the fact is the effort was made, particularly in officer education on the subject. We did not go into Iraq in 2003 as experts on it, but my peers who were there some six years after I retired at least had a clear idea of the basics and what direction to go to get a grip on the problem.
redlightning
Banned
It was a gut reaction to invade Iraq. The war resolution authorizing the invasion came almost a year after 9/11 had occurred in 2002. I personally believe it was more about Bush trying to save face to the rest of the world and Americans from the humiliation of having allowed the largest attack on the American mainland and terrorist strike in history. It was also paranoia of how enemies of the United States might take advantage of the country's weakness and vulnerability following 9/11. Much of it was hysteria on league with the Red scares of the 1950's which clouded the rationality of the whole country. A war like that, especially for Congress to too authorize military action comes only from an irrational one.