Bobzhuman

( I am sending this letter from Mike Walker, Col. USMC retired, to share an answer that he had written to a friend who had asked Mike, "Can we win in Iraq?")

All,

"Can we win in Iraq?"

This was a response to a friend who posed the question
above. Attachment is the same as below.

Semper Fi,

Mike

A long answer:

I. Can we win?

Tough question but the answer is “Yes,” the war is
still ours to win or lose. I feel we finally found
the complete answer on how to win in mid-to-late
2004. By complete answer it is meant that to win in an
insurgency, you must win along two lines of operation,
one winning the political battle in Iraq and the
other winning the military battle in Iraq, ignoring/putting
aside for now the need to win the political battle in
the United States. Of the two, the political fight in
Iraq, as in almost all insurgencies, is more important
than the military fight.

By not adopting the right military course of action,
establishing a strong Iraqi security force centered on
the army and directed by an Iraqi national command
authority, we muffed the ball early in the game. Even
worse, we did not start with a clean slate in
mid-to-late 2004 but instead had to play catch-up to
get us back to where we should have been in
mid-to-late 2003. In other words, welost/squandered
more than a year in winning the military fight, in my
opinion.

II. The Record on Winning the Political Fight

I have to give Ambassador Bremer very high marks for
providing a decisive victory over the Saddamists in
the political fight. He made a misstep by not
getting rid of Muqtada Sadr in regards to the Shi'a but it
was not a fatal error as the Shi'a were for the first
time given a say in ruling Iraq commensurate with their
position in the country. He also masterfully
avoided a civil war by keeping the Kurds from seceding from
Iraq.

The Saddamists made a fatal miscalculation when they
assumed that the Shi’a, Kurds, and “traitor” Sunni’s
would be unable to set up a government. With the
abolishment the CPA occupation regime in June 2004
concurrent with creation of the Iraqi interim
government as directed by UNSCR 1546, the concept
that the Iraqis could rule themselves without the
Saddamists was put to the test. In reality, the
hospitals ran, school were open and, in general, the
government functioned quite well. They passed the
test with flying colors and the momentum only grew.

Working to completely fill the requirements of UNSCR
1546, elections were held in December of 2004 which
led the formation of the transitional Iraqi
government and to the subsequent ratification of the Iraqi
constitution in October 2005. Building upon these
successes, the January 2006 elections culminated in
the establishment of a sovereign Iraqi government in
June 2006. These results have yielded a great
victory for the people of Iraq and have made a shambles of
the political strategy of the enemy.

As the Nobel winner and famed political economist
Douglass North has argued, governmental institutions
as political bodies are critical in shaping a
nation. In Iraq we have achieved “winning the hearts and
minds” democratic and political reforms to an extent
never reached during the Korean War, the Vietnam
War, or the involvements in East Timor, Haiti, Somalia,
or Lebanon. Even the lauded successes in the Balkans
pale in comparison to the political/governmental
successes reached in Iraq, and for that matter, also
in Afghanistan. This result is equally or more so a
tribute to the determined will of the Iraqi people
to rid themselves of their Saddamist past and their
asymmetrical “Cannot be Stopped, Will not be Stopped”
strategy, as it is to the remarkable efforts of the
United Nations and the Multi-National Forces in
Iraq.

III. The Record on Winning the Military Fight

As stated above, we “goofed” this one up right from
the start. That story is for another time. What
needs to be addressed is that we finally got it
right.


When I was in al Anbar in 2004 on my second tour in
Iraq, there were NO Iraqi Army units in the governorate.
The entire Iraqi Army ground forces in April 2004 consisted of one
“special forces” battalion and two infantry battalions, the
three of which barely totaled 2,000 troops. They
didn’t have a single tank in the whole outfit. In
April 2004, there was no functioning Iraqi national
military chain of command, no Iraqi command, control, and
communications system, no Iraqi military strategy,
no Iraqi general staff, only an ineffective ministry of
defense. The local paramilitary troops, called the
Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC), were locally
recruited, 100% Sunni units, and completely
infiltrated and compromised by the Saddamists. When
the fighting started they stayed in their barracks,
went home, or went over to the enemy. They had to
be disbanded. Today there is a full Iraqi Army
Division in al Anbar with more than a dozen combat
battalions, supported by Iraqi armor. Even more surprising is
that units are officers by Shi’a, Kurd, and Sunni
officers. No Shi’a Army General has ever held a
position of authority in al Anbar, ever, until now
that is.

We are finally on the road of having an effective
Iraqi Security force centered on a strong army that
can defend itself against its neighbors. It is
security force that is subordinate to the elected
government and that has a national command authority
which is carrying out a national defense strategy
that is implemented through a national command, control,
and communications system. It has been a painful
two years since the “light finally went on” in 2004, but
it is the road to success.

IV. How long will it take?

The truth is that we will not be able to leave until
the Iraqi security forces take over. That won’t
happen until late 2007 or early 2008 at the
earliest. The Iraqis will probably fighting for years after
that before the insurgency is finally crushed. This is
also a tough message to accept. It is going to be
along fight.

Perhaps citing some historical precedents will help.

It seems every century or two there is a violent
movement of Jihad/Crusade that moves across the
Islamic world. It began in 7th -8th centuries and
continued through the Christian crusades. It reared
its head again with the fall of Byzantine Empire and
subsequent invasion of southeastern Europe in the
Middle Ages and was also prevalent in the 19th and
20th centuries:

The Barbary Wars ran from 1801-1816, the first time
the US entered a fight against an Islamic state.

The Quing Dynasty in China fought repeated Islamic
uprisings in Yunan Province from 1821 to 1855 to
1873. The Quing fought against an Islamic Jihad in
Turkmenistan which they annexed to their empire
renaming the region Sinkiang or New Province in the
1840’s. They also fought Islamic Jihads in Shensi
Province from 1862-1877.

The Russians fought against an Islamic Jihad in
Chechnya from 1834-1859.

The British fought a losing campaign in Afghanistan
against a Jihad there from 1839-1842 before
returning for a successful campaign in 1878-1880. They fought
the Mahdi Army (if that name sounds familiar is
should, it is what Muqtada Sadr has named his
militia in Iraq) in the Sudan from 1883-1898. During the
Iraq Mandate period from 1920-1932, the British Army had
to put down Islamic uprisings in 1920, 1921-22,
1927-28, and 1930-31.

The Italians fought against a Jihad called by a
Mullah in Somalia from 1899-1905. They fought against a
Jihad in Libya from 1921-931.

The Spanish and French fought a Jihad in the Rif
Mountains of Morocco from 1921 through 1925
suffering over 10,000 killed in action.

The point here is not to weigh the merits of the
wars above but to point out that these were all long
fights, ranging from four to twenty-five years in
length with most lasting over a decade. We should
expect the global war on terrorism to last quite a
while


V. Four things we need to do to close this out:

A. Reinforce Success both Politically and
Economically


This has been an area of great accomplishments. The
political campaign is always superior to that of the
military in an insurgency. Our successes to date
have put us, not the insurgents, on the road to victory.
We cannot afford to let up on our support to the
Iraqi people in the areas of economics, governance, and
democracy. We have achieved great success on the
political front. We need to work harder in the
economic arena, especially in private sector
development. There can be no political freedom if
the people have no economic freedom.

B. No Justice – No Peace

Saddam and his henchmen must feel the full weight of
justice in Iraq. His regime must be seen for what
it was, a brutal and murderous tyranny. There cannot
be an unhindered progressive advance in a new Iraq
until the crimes of the past are dealt with. All of
the Saddamists’ false trappings of legitimacy must be
discredited and removed from the body politic in
Iraq. We must make a concerted effort to publish the
large quantity of documentary evidence (video, photo, etc)
that detail in the most horrible way the crimes of
the Saddamist regime. We are helping to lose the war by
failing to do this.

C. The Iraqi Security Forces must lead the Way

The Iraqi Army must be returned to its proper place
in society. We were tardy in making this happen but to
again quote Sir Winston Churchill, "Americans can
always be counted on to do the right thing...after
they have exhausted all other possibilities." We
need to continue to support the
staffing, equipping, and training of a national army. There
must be a strong emphasis on combat operations
defined by human intelligence vice firepower. It must be a
professional army whose sole purpose is to protect
and defend Iraq first before any ethnic or religious
loyalties. We must work to instill a military
culture that embraces subordination to constitutionally
empowered civil authority.

D. Both Fight and Negotiate for a Better Future

This war will end at a “tipping point” when our
enemies realize that the gains possible through
peace will greatly outweigh any potential gains brought by
war. To reach that point we must exploit the
fractious nature of the insurgency. This dictates a
diverse and sophisticated solution to end the
fighting. We need to support the Iraqi government
asit exploits the gaps and seams in the insurgent
mosaic. This will require an amnesty policy that it
done properly will be distasteful to all parties.
We need to eliminate al Qaeda in Iraq.

We need to eat this insurgent elephant one bite at a
time. This can be done by region, by city or town,
byinsurgent group or groups, but must be done within a
framework of Iraqi national unity and progress.
The Iraqi government, the ISF, and MNF-I must couple the
besting of the enemy on the battlefield by
continuing with a dialogue of engagement in the pursuit of
peace. That dialogue must be built upon the maxim that all
wars end and that all parties can ill afford to
waste more lives and time in putting off the real job
facing us in creating a new, democratic, peaceful, and
prosperous Iraq.

Semper Fi and God Bless,

Mike