G
gilliam
Guest
From 2Slick’s Blog
Heres a good question I get from time to time- “What went wrong with the plan for Iraq?”
It’s a fair question, but I do think that people today lack a true understanding of the nature of war. There seems to be very little historical perspective these days. Everybody wants a “quick and dirty” smackdown followed by immediate withdrawal. “War is fine as long as nobody gets hurt.” It just doesn’t work like that- in fact, it’s* never* worked like that. As a people, I think we Americans have become a little bit spoiled in that sense. Having said that, I do think there were some “miscalculations” made in this war- here’s my take on it…
When I was home between tours, I saw a Bill O’ Reilly segment where he boasted that he had the “real scoop” on what went wrong with the pre-war planning. His premise- “Chalabi said the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators and immediately take charge of their country and yadda yadda.” But the Iraqis didn’t do this- and disaster followed. Well, Bill was close- but he way oversimplified it, and he made no effort to talk about what we were doing to fix it- which was a little disappointing coming from Bill. And I’m not sure why he continues to call the current situation a “disaster” (compared to what, Bill?), but I digress…
It is true that we were mislead by the “uberintellectual” Iraqis (Chalabi is the most often cited), but my experience tells me that these people (even Chalabi) were not lying. They actually believed that the Iraqi people would rise up, thank us, take charge, and live happily ever after. This was an elitist view. Most of these “elites” were exiles who could speak freely and give us their honest assessment- some were Iraqi citizens who were using the Internet and communicating their thoughts at great risk to their own lives. In any case, they were all well-educated, but they proved to be pretty out of touch with the less-educated masses.
Saddam never took many polls during his reign, and I’d be pretty skeptical about any that he did take since he won every “election” by a 100% margin (uncontested of course- they were all “Saddam- yes or no”). He certainly never took a poll that asked “OK, Mr. Joe Iraqi- the US invades and chases me out of power. What will you do?” The fact is nobody really knew what they would do, and so the only thing we (or anybody else) had to go on was the assessment given to us by the Iraqi elites.
As I mentioned, the elites were convinced that Iraqis would stand up for “love of country” and unite against evil. They were wrong. Sure, there were some brave souls who did exactly what was expected- but for the most part, “Joe Iraqi” wanted food for his family and he’d prefer not to be killed. That was pretty much it. He’d grown used to the idea that if he keeps his mouth shut and does nothing, then he’s got a better chance of living. The insurgents reinforce this idea several times every day (just watch the news).
In retrospect, I’d say it’s pretty silly to think that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis would have had this great “love of country,” since the overwhelming majority were brutally oppressed by this country’s government for the better part of 30 years. Nobody’s going to love such a country. We would have done well to understand that these Iraqis needed a whole new country to love- and it takes a great deal of time to build a whole new country. But I won’t fault those who didn’t realize this initially- I sure didn’t see it. I read books and all that- and I believed Chalabi and the gang. Hindsight is indeed 20/20.
Many Iraqi “intellectuals” were still in denial, even after the invasion. I remember in the first months of the occupation- whenever a car bomb went off or insurgents slaughtered civilians in a school yard, the Iraqi professors that I worked with would say, “They’re not Iraqis. Iraqi people simply wouldn’t do that”- they just couldn’t fathom that Iraqi people would do such things. Well, now we know better.
There is more and it is well worth the read
Heres a good question I get from time to time- “What went wrong with the plan for Iraq?”
It’s a fair question, but I do think that people today lack a true understanding of the nature of war. There seems to be very little historical perspective these days. Everybody wants a “quick and dirty” smackdown followed by immediate withdrawal. “War is fine as long as nobody gets hurt.” It just doesn’t work like that- in fact, it’s* never* worked like that. As a people, I think we Americans have become a little bit spoiled in that sense. Having said that, I do think there were some “miscalculations” made in this war- here’s my take on it…
When I was home between tours, I saw a Bill O’ Reilly segment where he boasted that he had the “real scoop” on what went wrong with the pre-war planning. His premise- “Chalabi said the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators and immediately take charge of their country and yadda yadda.” But the Iraqis didn’t do this- and disaster followed. Well, Bill was close- but he way oversimplified it, and he made no effort to talk about what we were doing to fix it- which was a little disappointing coming from Bill. And I’m not sure why he continues to call the current situation a “disaster” (compared to what, Bill?), but I digress…
It is true that we were mislead by the “uberintellectual” Iraqis (Chalabi is the most often cited), but my experience tells me that these people (even Chalabi) were not lying. They actually believed that the Iraqi people would rise up, thank us, take charge, and live happily ever after. This was an elitist view. Most of these “elites” were exiles who could speak freely and give us their honest assessment- some were Iraqi citizens who were using the Internet and communicating their thoughts at great risk to their own lives. In any case, they were all well-educated, but they proved to be pretty out of touch with the less-educated masses.
Saddam never took many polls during his reign, and I’d be pretty skeptical about any that he did take since he won every “election” by a 100% margin (uncontested of course- they were all “Saddam- yes or no”). He certainly never took a poll that asked “OK, Mr. Joe Iraqi- the US invades and chases me out of power. What will you do?” The fact is nobody really knew what they would do, and so the only thing we (or anybody else) had to go on was the assessment given to us by the Iraqi elites.
As I mentioned, the elites were convinced that Iraqis would stand up for “love of country” and unite against evil. They were wrong. Sure, there were some brave souls who did exactly what was expected- but for the most part, “Joe Iraqi” wanted food for his family and he’d prefer not to be killed. That was pretty much it. He’d grown used to the idea that if he keeps his mouth shut and does nothing, then he’s got a better chance of living. The insurgents reinforce this idea several times every day (just watch the news).
In retrospect, I’d say it’s pretty silly to think that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis would have had this great “love of country,” since the overwhelming majority were brutally oppressed by this country’s government for the better part of 30 years. Nobody’s going to love such a country. We would have done well to understand that these Iraqis needed a whole new country to love- and it takes a great deal of time to build a whole new country. But I won’t fault those who didn’t realize this initially- I sure didn’t see it. I read books and all that- and I believed Chalabi and the gang. Hindsight is indeed 20/20.
Many Iraqi “intellectuals” were still in denial, even after the invasion. I remember in the first months of the occupation- whenever a car bomb went off or insurgents slaughtered civilians in a school yard, the Iraqi professors that I worked with would say, “They’re not Iraqis. Iraqi people simply wouldn’t do that”- they just couldn’t fathom that Iraqi people would do such things. Well, now we know better.
There is more and it is well worth the read