This is part one of a series. Read part two here, part three here and part four here.
Early in the morning of February 2, the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction released Hard Lessons, a summary of all that has gone wrong in postwar Iraq. Hard Lessons may be the single most dismaying state paper released by an American official in the post-Vietnam era.
This is a document that reflects incredibly poorly on just about every Iraq war decision maker, and it is all the more depressing for being so vividly – pungently – written. This is our most authoritative and most detailed single volume on what went wrong in Iraq.
Six years, four thousand lives and hundreds of billions of dollars later, we seem at last to have stabilized Iraq. This weekend’s elections occurred peacefully, and the US goal of an Iraq that does not threaten its neighbors or its people now looks within reach. Yet we all have to be haunted by the question: Did it have to take so long and cost so much?
Inspector General Stuart Bowen’s damning study strongly suggests the answer: No. I should probably mention here that Bowen is a friend of mine, and that his son Marshall is a sometime contributor to this site. This kind of acknowledgement is often couched in an apologetic tone, as if one’s personal knowledge of the integrity and devotion of a public servant somehow detracts from the objectivity of one’s assessment of his work. That way of looking at things seems to me upside down: It is precisely because I know and admire Bowen that I take his criticism of our Iraq errors so closely to heart.
Here are some of his “hard lessons”:
One of the crucial background failures of the Iraq war was the collapse of the National Security Council system. It’s natural for bureaucracies to disagree. It’s the job of the National Security Adviser to broker those disagreements – or, when they cannot be brokered, to bring disagreements to the president for ultimate decision. That did not happen in 2002-2005, leaving the government paralyzed in indecision. Instead:
The machinery of interagency planning in the National Security Council largely sat idle, leaving open the fissure between planning for war and planning for war’s aftermath. (9)
The immediate consequence of the NSC’s idleness was to leave undecided how postwar Iraq would be governed. Would there be a rapid transition to Iraqi control? Would the US military govern Iraq? Or would some kind of civilian transitional authority be instituted? The decision went unmade until 10 days after the fall of Baghdad.
Bowen describes
a planning process that had been fragmented from its beginning. For nearly a year, the NSC exercised loose coordination over separate efforts by State and Defense and did not seek the participation of post-conflict experts at USAID. The marked separation between civilian and military preparations, which had existed since late 2001, was followed by further fragmentation within the interagency planning process, which had begun in earnest in August 2002. Even as officials thought they were moving toward an integrated master plan, the building blocks of that plan were being developed in a piecemeal fashion that rendered risks and needs less visible. (16)
This fragmentation of effort isolated officials and deprived them of the information they needed to form intelligent plans.
All the interagency Iraq planning groups worked in secret. Few knew the others existed. Officials justified the extreme secrecy on the grounds that ongoing diplomatic negotiations would be undercut if Saddam knew that postwar planning was well underway. (64)
This explanation may have made sounded plausible or at least passable in Washington. It is doubtful however that it impressed anyone in the Middle East.
While postwar planning efforts progressed under strict secrecy, the build-up of troops and materiel around Iraq’s borders continuedÑa necessary threat to make diplomatic negotiations credible in the eyes of Saddam. (64)
In this atmosphere of self-inflicted ignorance, realistic assessments of the problem gave way to wishful thinking.
With military, political, and democratization plans developed out of sight of the Humanitarian Working Group, its members could consider only in general terms how reconstruction might help legitimize a new Iraqi state. … In the absence of direction from above, the working group … developed a set of core judgments about postwar Iraq. “It was taken as an assumption,” one participant said, “that the war would be brief, war damage would be minimal, and oil revenues would finance almost all of reconstruction.” They also assumed that the political people would somehow “pull a Karzai out of the hat,” and that the Iraqis would take care of the rest.
MORE TO COME
30 responses so far
1 Bulldoglover100 // Feb 2, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Thanks David…depressing for me to read and for the families of those 4000 soldiers, I cannot even begin to imagine how they will feel when they read this account.
You said:
In this atmosphere of self-inflicted ignorance, realistic assessments of the problem gave way to wishful thinking.
and then the ball was picked up by politicans and party hard liners and all of a sudden we had the MSM backing every move we made…in stead of perhaps reporting the honest facts so that other choices may have been made.
Where are Americans suppose to go for news & truth? Fox sells out for the GOP and MSNBC sells out for the Dems. and it is hard to believe everything they say. I really wish I had a place where I could believe what I am being told.
2 JJWFromME // Feb 3, 2009 at 5:05 am
The fact that you don’t even allude to Iraqi deaths is telling. I don’t think we disrespect our own soldiers by calling attention to the five separate epidemiological studies that showed that the war caused hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/11/deaths_in_iraq_1.php
3 JJWFromME // Feb 3, 2009 at 5:21 am
On that same page (64): “There was a reluctance to pull that all together, Feith explained, because, while youre saying that you want to resolve this dispute through non-military means, theres a sense that youre contradicting yourself if youre not only planning for the war but planning for the postwar. It’s not only Saddam he’s worried about, it’s the American public. This stuff is all in Packer’s *Assassin’s Gate* (which you mentioned in another post). Packer argues that there was a whole ideology of secrecy–something I find convincing. How does the NSC deal with whole bureaucratic departments that are that are both fiercely ideological and secretive? There’s ample evidence that they were ideological and secretive in *Assassin’s Gate*, but you can find it reported elsewhere. Here’s the State Department’s Robin Raphel (notice she makes no mention of the NSC): http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1022-06.htm
And here’s the Guardian reporting on the secrecy of Feith’s office during the runup to the war: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jul/17/iraq.usa (Read especially the section that begins with quotes from John Pike.)
4 JJWFromME // Feb 3, 2009 at 5:30 am
Also, we had a stunningly incurious president. This is Jay Garner describing a meeting with Bush a mere days before the invasion: “GARNER: So then I briefed the president the second week in March on what our organization was like and what–
FRONTLINE: What were the president’s concerns? What kind of questions was he asking?
GARNER: The first thing he asked me, he wanted me to tell him about myself. I told him my background, and Secretary Rumsfeld told him my background.
Then he began asking me questions. ‘OK, what are you going to do during reconstruction?’” (Wasn’t it kind of late in the game for these kinds of questions?!) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/interviews/garner.html
5 Robert Graves // Feb 3, 2009 at 6:02 am
I discovered that I had to buy the book to read it. Why is this? Shouldn’t something as important as Mr. Frum thinks it is be public domain material, available to us via download or through the US Government Printing Office for a nominal fee? How much is Bowen getting from the sale of his book? Anything? Does Bowen own the material in the book? If so, is he free to use it as he wishes, or are there restrictions? Does anybody know the answers to these questions?
6 gblittle // Feb 3, 2009 at 6:17 am
Robert, try this link for the PDF:
http://www.sigir.mil/hardlessons/pdfs/Hard_Lessons_Report.pdf
I’ve already started reading it. Pretty interesting.
7 JJWFromME // Feb 3, 2009 at 7:34 am
Also, I would cite the influence of certain defense intellectuals, most prominently Andy Marshall and Albert Wohlstetter, contributing to everyone’s false confidence. You can’t knit a sweater with a blowtorch. Similarly, you can’t build a nation with weapons systems, no matter how geeked out they are: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=from_fantasy_to_fiasco
8 JJWFromME // Feb 3, 2009 at 9:00 am
About the secrecy that George Packer discusses in *Assassin’s Gate*: among intellectuals there is some speculation about this. Packer even jokes about the name of Feith’s office: the “Office of Special Plans.” The name itself is designed to fly under the radar. We start to get down into some pretty obscure (but actually fundamental) aspects of political philosophy. This piece from a magazine across the pond is pretty interesting: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7335 I liked the old conservatism Skidelsky describes near the end much better than our new nationalistic and secretive one.
9 sinz54 // Feb 3, 2009 at 9:12 am
This comes as no surprise. In the prelude to war with Iraq, you had three extraordinary personalities and skilled bureaucratic infighters: VPk Cheney, SecDef Rumsfeld, and SecState Colin Powell. Arrayed against these three political prizefighters were a President Bush who had never displayed any coherent foreign policy vision of his own; and a weak National Security Adviser, Condi Rice, who just wasn’t in the same league as Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Powell when it came to getting his or her way with the government bureaucracy. Condi Rice was largely sidelined in Bush’s first term. The Bush Administration’s policies tended to just fall out of the conflicts between Powell on one side versus Cheney and Rumsfeld on the other. What Bush needed was a powerful National Security Adviser of the Kissinger or Scowcroft who could either knock heads together or impose his own vision, rather than letting State and Defense run away with the ball.
10 sinz54 // Feb 3, 2009 at 9:20 am
There were two fundamental assumptions, made by the neo-conservatives, that underlay Bush Administration postwar policy in Iraq: The first, and most critical, assumption was that the Iraqis would be so happy to be liberated from Saddam that they would all just pitch in peacefully and build a new state themselves. The possibility of sectarian conflicts was belittled. (William Kristol: “There’s been a certain amount of pop sociology in America … that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni….Iraq’s always been very secular.”) The second assumption was that the U.S. could just decapitate the top of the Iraqi government (Saddam and his advisers), leaving the rest of the Iraqi government (especially the civil service and police) intact. Both of these assumptions turned out to be false. al-Qaeda was able to provoke long-simmering conflicts between Sunnis and Shiites. And after Saddam fell, the looting of government offices (which Rumsfeld dismissed as “Democracy is messy”) and the collapse into anarchy left Iraq with basically no functioning government at all.
11 narciso // Feb 3, 2009 at 9:24 am
There was a split, State wanted an retread like Pachachi,
last seen the arguing UN resolution in the aftermath of the ‘67 war, which you agree was a just war. CIA wanted
a strongman, like the late Republican Guard commander
General Sammarai, or failing that, their old contact Iyad Allawi. Defense was more in line with Chalabi, Istribadi, Talibani, et al. In the end they got the worst of both worlds, State’s occupation plan, which stifled Iraqi democratic ambitions with a Defense imprimatur from Bremer
12 Chekote // Feb 3, 2009 at 9:37 am
From the Guardian: Iraq could yet be a model for Arab states
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/03/comment-iraq-elections
Thank you President Bush and thank you neocons for insisting that democracy, freedom are not exclusively Western values.
13 JJWFromME // Feb 3, 2009 at 9:38 am
A fundamental neoconservative assumption was that democracy was more powerful than nationalism, which it is not. Also that institutions would spring up magically by themselves, which they of course did not. Democracy didn’t just spring out of Thomas Jefferson’s head and grow like the magic beans in Jack and the Beanstalk. Institutions and relationships of trust between institutions and the people were built over generations. John Bolton’s statement that Iraqi’s should have just been given “a copy of the Federalist papers” and told “Good luck” was breathtakingly arrogant and clueless: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/04/paxman_vs_bolto.html Just how breathtaking was the continued cluelessness? Check this out: “Micromanaging and emulating U.S. institutions was also the instinct of Jay Hallen, the clueless 24-year-old in charge of reopening the Baghdad stock market. His approach was to create one patterned after the New York Stock Exchange. (No, it didn’t work.) Nor was Hallen the only inexperienced twentysomething CPA staffer given responsibilities for which he was utterly unprepared. Six of the “ten young gofers” that the CPA had requested from the Pentagon to handle minor administrative tasks found themselves managing Iraq’s $13-billion budget. Where did the Pentagon recruit them? From the Heritage Foundation; they had sent their resumes there, looking for work in that conservative think tank.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401329_pf.html Now that’s cluelessness.
14 David Frum // Feb 3, 2009 at 12:21 pm
In response to Robert Graves’ question:
Stuart Bowen of course receives no payment for this work. It’s a government report. The price of the published edition covers the cost of printing. The report can be downloaded free at http://www.sigir.mil/hardlessons/default.aspx
15 dragonlady // Feb 3, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Is anyone else having trouble logging into this website? I have to keep going to the confirmation link in my email and log-in from there. The site is not taking my log-in. I don’t think I’ve written anything offensive since all my replies have been posted.
16 dragonlady // Feb 3, 2009 at 12:53 pm
sinz54, I think you captured pretty well the dysfunction of the NSC with strong personalities. Lot of this was detailed in Woodward’s books. While these are important lessons to digest so we don’t repeat the mistakes, let’s remember Iraq just had successful local elections and have some sembalance of a representative government. They won’t be a Jeffersonian type democracy any time soon but if we commit to any intelligent exit strategy and robust diplomacy, we should have fledging democracy in the Middle East which will impact the region for decades to come, hopefully in a positive manner.
17 Chekote // Feb 3, 2009 at 1:05 pm
dragonlady. You are not alone in having logging problem. I agree that it is important to learn from our mistakes but I would like to see the recent Iraqi elections get more coverage. In the article I posted from the Guardian (of all places) the Islamic parties suffered defeats. This bodes well for Iraq in the long run. All the predictions that democracy would lead to ayatollahs taking over are unfounded. Once people get a taste of freedom, there is no turning back.
18 Chekote // Feb 3, 2009 at 1:07 pm
JJW, what is about Iraqi having a chance to live in a free, democratic country bothers you? Also, please do not link anything from Andrew Sullican. He disgraced himself with his obsession with Palin’s medical records.
19 JJWFromME // Feb 3, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I think there’s a direct relation between this: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/11/deaths_in_iraq_1.php
And this: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090131/world/iraq_us_bush_shoe_offbeat
20 Chekote // Feb 3, 2009 at 1:50 pm
JJW, Would you feel better if Iraqis were still dying at the hands of Saddam Hussein? I thought that people on the Left were for human rights?!
21 JJWFromME // Feb 3, 2009 at 2:05 pm
OK, next North Korea? How about Sudan? Bill Kristol says all of the above: http://thinkprogress.org/colbert-42806/ (Sorry the transcript is a bit garbled, but you get the idea). There are a lot of things you can do to avoid invading, conquering and occupying a country in the middle of the middle east–a ridiculous idea on its face. And over trumped up charges too: http://policingwingnutwelfare.blogspot.com/2009/01/lots-of-evidence-no-wmd-and.html
22 JJWFromME // Feb 3, 2009 at 2:35 pm
By the way, I was for the operation in Afghanistan. I thought the CIA and special forces did a great job. But when I heard about Iraq, my first thought was, “this is crazy.” My first thought was right.
23 sinz54 // Feb 3, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Chekote: Nothing is wrong with Iraqis having a chance at democracy–in principle. What was wrong was that the Bush Administration vastly underestimated the time and effort required. As a result, the American effort was too small for the task, and expectations were too high. The Iraqis were close to civil war at several points. Well, we Americans *did* get plunged into civil war–in 1860. From 1789, when we first won our independence from Britain, till 1865, when our Civil War ended, 76 years had elapsed. That’s how long it took us to truly achieve a peaceful, harmonious “UNITED States.” Now if Bush had reminded Americans of our own precedent, and suggested that building a stable, peaceful democracy in Iraq would likewise take a very long time, and probably couldn’t be accomplished without much bloodshed, the American people and their representatives could have had an honest debate over whether it was worth the effort in American blood and treasure. Instead, ahead of time, the Bushies made it seem artificially quick and easy and almost painless–and America suffered when that proved not to be the case.
24 sinz54 // Feb 3, 2009 at 7:22 pm
JJWfromME: Interestingly, the Kristol-type neoconservatives had dissented sharply from President Reagan’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Lebanon after a terrorist attack killed 241 U.S. Marines there. These folks thought that Reagan should have ordered a full-scale invasion to restore order in Lebanon. If Reagan had done that, the U.S. would likely have walked right into a jihadist counterinsurgency war, and his presidency would have likely ended up just as much of a failure as George W. Bush’s had. But Reagan kept his eye on the ball–dealing with the Cold War–and accepted the loss of the Marines without massive retaliation.
25 Chekote // Feb 3, 2009 at 8:05 pm
sinz. The reality is that many people were inaccurate in their prediction regarding the Iraq War. I remember thousands of tents being set up in Jordan because “experts” predicted that millions of Iraqis would flee to Jordan. Never happened. There were predictions that it would take six months to topple Saddam and that at least 10,000 soldiers would be killed. Never happened. The problem was that nobody had good intelligence on Iraqi. Did the Bush administration make mistakes. Sure. And we should learn from it. However, I believe that Iraq has the opportunity to change the course the Middle East has been on. Also Reagan’s retreat in Lebanon emboldened the jihadists.
26 ireign // Feb 4, 2009 at 10:10 am
The reality is its a war. You cannot accurately predict how a war will go. With the benefit of hindsight, of course there are things we could have done differently but I think overall its hard to make the claim that better planning would have make everything great. In general, our fundamental assumption that the shia were pro-American and that the shia and sunni would come together after we deposed Hussein was wrong. If the Iraqis truly wanted “democracy” and were willing to put aside sectarian differences, the war would have gone better.
27 ireign // Feb 4, 2009 at 10:13 am
By most accounts, we did a pretty good job in Afghanistan in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the place is still a mess.
28 JJWFromME // Feb 4, 2009 at 10:37 am
“The reality is its a war.” Yes, but let’s distinguish what happens on the battlefield from what happens during the planning. If the war plan was written in crayon, and the war proceeds as if it was written in crayon, is it wrong to look to the parties who ran the planning, and ask “what were you thinking?” In this case, there are tons of clues as to what they were thinking–as well as *not thinking* about. Not to have a public discussion (and yes, assign some blame) and to just say “bygones,” would be a joke in a democracy such as ours. And as for Afghanistan being a mess, there are messes and then there are Messes: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/11/deaths_in_iraq_1.php
29 ireign // Feb 4, 2009 at 11:28 am
JJW, we could have had the planning possible but if we don’t have leaders in Iraq and the Iraqi people’s support to stem waives of violence, crime, looting, etc. than there is a limit to what US “planning” can do.
For example, if Al-Sadr instead of running a militia killing more moderate clerics tried to work with the US we would have been in better. If Al-Sistani was more vocal and commanded more support, we would be in better shape.
Our fundamental assumption that the majority of Iraqis were secular and pro-western was not true. That is an intelligence failure. Better planning would have helped but it would not have fundamentally altered a situation that was hurt by us being wrong regarding a fundamental assumption.
30 JJWFromME // Feb 4, 2009 at 11:49 am
Blame it on the Iraqis and ignore our own poor, or even nonexistent, planning? As I said in the other thread that’s what John Bolton proposed we do and I find that unconscionable:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/04/paxman_vs_bolto.html
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