ISG goes with hope over history

Michael Gordon, NY Times:

The military recommendations issued yesterday by the Iraq Study Group are based more on hope than history and run counter to assessments made by some of its own military advisers.

Ever since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has struggled in vain to tamp down the violence in Iraq and to build up the capacity of Iraq’s security forces. Now the study group is positing that the United States can accomplish in little more than one year what it has failed to carry out in three.

In essence, the study group is projecting that a rapid infusion of American military trainers will so improve the Iraqi security forces that virtually all of the American combat brigades may be withdrawn by the early part of 2008.

“By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq,” the study group says.

Jack Keane, the retired acting Army chief of staff who served on the group’s panel of military advisers, described that goal as entirely impractical. “Based on where we are now we can’t get there,” General Keane said in an interview, adding that the report’s conclusions say more about “the absence of political will in Washington than the harsh realities in Iraq.”

The experience of American commanders shows the difficulties in rapidly handing over security responsibilities to Iraq. In June, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, developed a plan that called for gradually drawing down the number of American brigade combat teams by December 2007, to just 5 or 6 from the 14 combat brigades that were deployed at the time. In keeping with this approach, American troops in Baghdad began to cut back on their patrols in the capital, calculating that Iraqi security forces would pick up the slack.

But no sooner did General Casey present his plan in Washington than it had to be deferred. With sectarian violence soaring in Baghdad, the United States reinforced its troops there. More American soldiers are now involved in security operations in Baghdad than Iraqi troops.

Now, the Iraq Study Group is essentially taking General Casey’s plan off the shelf and carrying it further. The group’s final military recommendations were not discussed with the retired officers who serve on the group’s Military Senior Adviser Panel before publication, several of those officers said.

Military experts say there are several difficulties with the panel’s recommendation. First, it underestimates the challenge of building a capable Iraqi security force. After several years of desultory efforts, the United States has taken steps to upgrade and better prepare the teams of American advisers who are assigned to Iraqi units. But training the Iraqi Army is more than a matter of teaching combat skills. It requires transforming the character of the force.

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“They came up with a political thought but then got to tinkering with tactical ideas that in my view don’t make any sense,” General McCaffrey said. “This is a recipe for national humiliation.”

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This bad military advice probably explains why Democrats are so happy with the report. Those Democrats who have been saying "I told you so," are just fooling themselves since they did not predict the course of the war and to the extent they attempted to they got it wrong by predicting Stalingrad like resistance by Saddam. The fact is that not even the Iraqi resistance and its various components predicted the course of the war. For one, the Saddamites did not plan to lose, much less have a need for an insurgency.

As good an analysis as Gordon does in this piece, he still overstates the current fight. He is conflating the current enemy surge of activities in Baghdad with violence in the country as a whole which is much lighter and where the turnover to the Iraqi security forces has been successful. What has happened is the enemy has concentrated its forces in Iraq with the media attention that comes with violence in an area where the media is congested. In turn the media has been following the enemy script in its reporting on the violence.

What has happened with the ISG report is that they have achieved consensus on the only way to insure a US defeat by doing it in Washington rather than letting the military finish the job in Iraq. They are letting impatience determine the outcome. History has shown that it takes longer to defeat an insurgency. That is why weak forces use them. If we do not defeat this insurgency then we will see many more of them. The Democrats think every war will devolve into an insurgency that cannot be won. They are trying to make that a self fulfilling prophesy.