Six years later, we still aren't debating the Iraq war honestly

Thu, 03/19/2009 - 11:10am

By Peter Feaver

It is the 6th anniversary of the opening salvo in Operation Iraqi Freedom. There are lots of questions raised by the war, but I want to focus on a question that may seem academic but is in fact closer to the quintessence of the policymaker's challenge than any other: what would the world have looked like if President Bush had not decided to reenergize the challenge to Hussein which led to the Iraq war?

That is a vitally important question from a policymaking perspective, because it gets to the heart of the policymaker's conundrum: deciding what to do under conditions of imperfect information and great uncertainty (think our current situation in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, even Iraq, still). Such decisions require thinking systematically about alternative scenarios. This kind of counter-factual analysis can quickly spin out of control, so I will stick to things we can know with some moderate degree of confidence. I start the clock not in March 2003, but whenever the Bush team decided to focus on Iraq, sometime back in 2002 (or earlier, if Woodward's account is accurate).

What would be different? We might not, of course, have paid the horrific costs of the Iraq war -- the human and financial toll. (I say "might not" instead of "would not" because the unfolding of other decision-paths might have led us back to an Iraq confrontation). Our relations with our allies might be less strained (though not free from strain since the conventional wisdom among the allies was hardening against the Afghan war well before Iraq was on the table). I am even willing to consider the possibility that we might have made far more advances against Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda/Taliban leaders in Afghanistan -- though I think the left-wing blogosphere greatly exaggerates this case. And our armed forces would be considerably less strained.

Few people in the anti-Iraq war faction honestly assess the other side of the ledger. The Iraq sanctions, which were collapsing, would likely have totally collapsed and this, the Duelfer Report makes clear, would likely mean that Iraq's WMD program would have accelerated (and so, ironically, would have started to actually match the degree of threat claimed by the Bush administration and Congressional Democrats and every other intelligence service).

We would be even more uncertain about the true condition of Iraq's arsenal because the UN inspection regime would have remained collapsed (it was the Bush push for war that revived inspections), and we certainly would not have the unfettered access to Hussein and the Iraqi military-industrial complex that the war granted us. The Libyan WMD program would likely still be a menace -- for while the negotiations that produced the Libyan deal preceded the Iraq war, it is simply implausible that they would have succeeded absent the coercive impact of the Iraq war example. The Iranian nuclear program would likely have culminated, because the 2007 NIE suggests that Iran suspended its nuclear program in 2003 "primarily in response to international pressure," and the only international pressure that was noteworthy was the toppling of the Iraq regime. The flowering of democracy in harsh soil -- the Cedar Revolution and the Color Revolutions -- I think would likely not have happened, though I am willing to hear a plausible case to the contrary.

Other events and non-events would probably have unfolded much as they did. We would still face the international financial crisis we face today; I have not read a plausible and persuasive account that blames this on the Iraq war. And I think the Bush administration also likely would have kept up all the other Global War on Terrorism activities that contributed to the surprising success of no further successful al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S. homeland.

That is not a complete reckoning, of course, but it begins the kind of analysis that is missing in so much of the commentary on the Iraq war. I believe reasonable people can look at that ledger (or a more complete version of it) and conclude that the Iraq war was not worth it. I also believe reasonable people can look at that ledger and conclude that the Iraq war was a defensible gamble or even the right decision. However, I do not think that reasonable people can seriously look at that ledger and conclude, as so much of the angry-shout part of the commentariat does, that all of the evidence stacks up on only one side of the balance sheet.

Six years into this long war, it is high time we started having an honest debate about it, and that honesty requires a great deal more humility, on both sides of the debate, about the decisions that were made and the paths that were not taken. 

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Honest Debate

by Donald Connelly on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 3:27pm

Humility and honest debate are long overdue on many topics, but especially about Iraq. I you say, too much of the public debate centers around highly partisan accounts that do not take into account the context and complexity of the issues and options involved. Therefore, we stand to learn little from our experiences in Iraq.

I suggest that the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (TISS) sponsor an Iraq War Study Project to begin such a debate. I would begin the project with a series of symposiums called something like, “Fateful Decisions: political-military decision-making in the Iraq War.” The Project leaders could pick 6-10 particularly important and ill-understood decisions. For example, I find the appointment of AMB Bremer and the shift from the short occupation approach of DOD to the lengthy reconstruction /occupation strategy advocated by DOS very murky. I would then assign each decision to a symposium organizer who would then assemble researchers and participants to conduct a symposium on all aspects of the issues and options, implications and consequences of these key decisions. I would also have TISS use its influence to get as much documentation as possible declassified and put into the public domain.

Perhaps such a humble military-political-academic complex could acquire warranted influence in the councils of government.

Dr. Donald B. Connelly
US Army Command and General Staff College

An honest debate

by wolfboy on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 3:29pm

So, the same Dr. Feaver who believes that the Iraq war was the critical precursor to pro-democracy movements in Ukraine and Georgia is making a heartfelt plea for more humility in the debate? May I suggest you may not be the best candidate to deliver this message?

As for an honest debate, please let’s start by not pretending that the critical decision was whether to press for inspections backed by force, which was widely supported (although, ironically, undermined by the Bush administration itself, which actually wanted an invasion with or without inspections). Rather the key decision was to kick out the inspectors and launch the war.

I am happy to acknowledge that the example of the Iraq war may have played a significant role in the disarmament decision of Libya (though other knowledgeable individuals decline to endorse your view of its essential role), and in the weapons development suspension of Iran (though you are wrong to say that the only noteworthy pressure was the Iraq invasion). You, in turn, would be more credible if you acknowledged that your thesis is undermined by North Korea's construction of nuclear weapons during this period.

You would be more credible too if you acknowledged that other courses of action were available, such as a Saddam exile or a successful conclusion to inspections followed by continued intrusive monitoring backed by force, but without sanctions.

As long as I am offering suggestions, how about:

acknowledging the obvious fact that our efforts in Afghanistan were significantly impaired by the diversion of attention and resources to Iraq;

dropping the myth that the Bush line on Iraq was endorsed by “every other intelligence service” (it is enough to consider that Powell’s UN case, which was presumably the best the administration had to offer, was overwhelmingly based on false assertions not accepted by other countries and, in some cases - such as the aluminum tubes - transparently implausible to experts);

and finally, avoiding misleading links such as this (citing one individual's October 2001 view - which is not even what you represent it to be - as evidence for declining support of allies even as an eventual large international contribution was just beginning to take shape).

I still do not see any

by Steve Moore on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 10:03am

I still do not see any legitimate reason for conducting the Iraq War, with all due humility.

#1 - Many armchair strategists, such as myself, and my friends, many of us who are veterans of the armed forces of the United States, could see that there would be insurmountable security and (at least initially) logistical problems involved in the invasion, especially using the small number of personnel available. It doesn't make us feel better to have been right about those things. On the contrary, thousands of our former peers are now dead and many young men and women crippling injuries which they will bear for the rest of their lives. And there is no end in sight.

#2 - The obsession about WMD's was never very convincing, and certainly the evidence never justified the invasion. Skepticism was common everywhere, apparently, except in the US government. Ditto the alleged evidence of Saddam's involvement with 9/11, Al Qaeda, Nigerian Yellowcake, or what have you.

I won't accuse anyone of being dishonest here, because I don't think that was the case. I think the leadership cadre of our country was over-emotional, imprudent, and subject to groupthink pressures of wish fulfillment, fantasy, and fear.

Nevertheless the invasion was clearly a mistake, because none of the rationales for the invasion turned out to be justified, and second, none of the promised outcomes have come to pass, and third, because it cost enormous loss of life, loss of US prestige worldwide, possibly a loss of our moral compass, and, of course, an enormous waste of money.

The only meaningful (that is, not loaded) counterfactual is this: what would it be like if we had not invaded Iraq? Probably, in such case, Saddam or his sons would still be running a police state. That is all.

The sun will come up tomorrow and obviously life will continue to be worth living. Things will inevitable "get better" in the Arab world. As any such improvement takes place, I will expect the diehard supporters of the war to take credit. But "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" is still bad logic, in any case. Even so, I would rather have the pro-war crowd taking credit for improvement than having desperate attempts at spin six years on. And I would rather that my country not engage in any more foolish, stupid, wasteful and unnecessary wars.

The conduct of the war

by kareric on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 11:29am

Assuming for the sake of argument that Mr. Feaver is correct in supporting the decision to attack Iraq, he can't possibly believe that the manner in which the war was conducted was responsible. Donald Rumsfeld contemptuous contention that you go with the Army you've got, not the Army you'd like said it all.

The war was paid for "off budget" so that the true costs never confronted the American people. Indeed, if, as was the case in most wars, the public was asked to accept new taxes to cover the war, the outcry against it would have been deafening.

But more to the point, the decision to appoint incompetent administrators and strategists and to fail to properly supply and support the troops could fairly described as murder and maiming of our own soldiers. At least 3,500 Americans died unnecessarily. Mr. Feaver simply ignores this. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and a host of others deserve to be condemned even if the decision to attack could otherwise be justified.

It's very human to guess what

by J Thomas on Sat, 03/21/2009 - 10:53pm

It's very human to guess what things would be like if they were different. Hard to be sure, though. If things were only different, how would they have to be?

So for example, suppose that we did nothing, and the sanctions on iraq broke down, and Saddam started a new nuclear program to replace the one that was dead. And three years later we got solid evidence of it and we wound up going to war. Afghanistan would be three years more mature, without the iraq war to interfere. Iraq would have imported weapons which would make the invasion harder. The world would have believed our true evidence about the iraqi nuclear program. Etc. Hard to be sure how it would have come out, but I can't help thinking we'd be better off with truth on our side than with the lies we wound up with. But Bush might likely not have been better off. Without the war he might likely have lost in 2004 and the 2006 war would belong to whichever democrat won the nomination. But then, the democrats might have nominated somebody who couldn't win against Bush even then.

If only we could repeat the experiment many times while changing only one thing. In a hundred worlds everything goes just like ours except for tiny random effects, and in another hundred Bush gets a special blast of neutrinos to the brain that gets him to call off the iraq war. Compare the results.

But we can't do that. We'll never know how things would have turned out if they were different. We can only guess.

Meanwhile, we tend to judge right behavior based on common sense and on morality. The iraq invasion failed on both grounds.

Did you support it because you thought the nukes were an issue and you disagreed with the anonymous CIA agents who said the data was falsified and stovepiped? There were many ways it could have gone but two main ones. One way, the info was legit but CIA agents were leaking lies because they wre against israel, or because they were democrats and wanted to delay the war until a Democrat president could get the political benefits from it, or something like that. The other way, the WMD evidence was lies and the anonymous CIA agents were leaking the truth. Which seemed more likely? Why did it seem more likely?

Did you support the war because you thought it would be good for israel, and you only jumped on the WMD bandwagon because the focus groups said that was the line the US public was most likely to go with? Then shame on you. When you go along with a lie because it's good for you in the short run, what can you expect in the longer run? Should people decide you're a liar? Or will they give you the benefit of the doubt and think you're just very, very gullible?

Did you support the war because you didn't know any science? The best estimate was that Saddam could have a nuke in 5 years. How long did it take the USA to make our first nuke, with little prior knowledge? Three and a half years, spending $1 billion and using 1930's-trained physicists. When the CIA estimates that somebody can have a nuke in 5 years they are saying that for all they know the program might start sometime next year.

There are cases where the data is highly ambiguous and yet you must choose quickly. This was not one of them. The people who supported the iraq war were people who wanted it, and who didn't much care about the facts. None of them should be influential in government or writing op-eds at this point. In an unknown real world they could have been right by accident. But as it turned out they were wrong, and they violated both common sense and morality.