The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq

by Thomas E. Ricks

  Listening to this veteran of the Iraqi military and politics, I think the security situation is worse than it appears from a distance, and the slow unraveling of 2009 is likely to accelerate in 2010 as American’s sway wanes and Iraqis vie for post-American power.

  IRAN WINS

  By contrast, I think Iranian influence, already powerful, will grow. Iran is the big winner in this war, as I said at the end of the hardcover edition of this book. “They have run circles around us since the beginning and now they are really in charge,” agreed Alexander Lemons, the Marine sergeant who was unusually involved in Basra and other parts of the south.

  It is striking to me how uneasy American officials are about discussing the Iranian role in Iraq. This is not because they know so much that is classified, but rather, I think, because the facts of the matter make them uncomfortable: Iran has been empowered by the American invasion of Iraq and the capture and hanging of Saddam Hussein, who led Iraq in eight years of war with Iran, from 1980 to 1988. The Americans transferred much power in Iraq from the Sunnis to the Shiites, who are not universally allies of the government in Tehran but are certainly closer to it than was the Baath Party.

  A veteran Iraqi intelligence official interviewed by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius in mid-2009 predicted that in five years, “Iraq will be a colony of Iran.”

  A few weeks after his first e-mail, that infantry officer who had written to me on his return from a year of fighting in western Baghdad sent me a note that came to the same conclusion. “When I was in Iraq,” he wrote,

  I read a bunch of books to include Robert Baer’s The Devil We Know, which is about Iran’s growing influence in the Mideast. Baer’s first two sentences in Chapter 2, ‘How Iran Beat America,’ are: ‘Iraq is lost. Iran won it.’ Given what we’ve seen in classified reports and in the revolving door of Iraqi army commanders in select Baghdad neighborhoods, his thesis is spot on. Plus, Shia militiamen have melted into the army and police over the past few years making it much easier for them to create Shia havens throughout the city. It’ll be interesting to see where Baghdad is in about 5 years.

  Anyone who still talks of an American “victory” in Iraq should be asked to address this question: For many years to come, the government in Baghdad is not likely to be stable or very democratic, but almost certainly it will be closer to Tehran than to Washington. What part of that constitutes success for the U.S. government?

  2010: HOW THIS DOESN’T END

  The national elections scheduled for early in 2010 will tell us a lot about Iraq’s direction, especially in the two to three months after the actual voting. One of the most acute observers of the Iraq war, British defense analyst Toby Dodge, notes that it is clear in retrospect that the national elections of 2005 “actually hastened Iraq’s descent into civil war.” An additional complication will come if, as is widely expected, Defense Secretary Robert Gates steps down in late spring 2010, depriving the Obama administration of its only top official who has dealt closely for several years with the intricacies of the situation.

  In stable countries, elections tend to be the end of contention and the beginning of compromise. That isn’t the case in Iraq, where there tends to be a “winner take all” mentality. This is how New York Times reporter Alissa Rubin put it recently as she left Iraq after years of living in Baghdad:

  ... Army checkpoints—legal ones—are the only ones that stop you, but huge posters of Imam Ali punctuate the streets, a signal that this is now Shiite-land. Imam Ali is revered as a founder of the Shiite branch of Islam, but a poster of him is also a silent rebuke to Sunnis, a way of marking territory, of reminding them that the Shiites run things now. It is a sign of victory as much as peace.

  And victory in Iraq almost always begets revenge.

  In my five years in Iraq, all that I wanted to believe in was gunned down.

  Sunnis and Shiites each committed horrific crimes, and the Kurds, whose modern-looking cities and Western ways seemed at first so familiar, turned out to be capable of their own brutality.

  I thought about this observation when a small firefight broke out in Baqubah between Iraqi soldiers and police officers in November 2009. It was a minor, murky affair, and I couldn’t determine what provoked it. But I wondered if it was a portent of the Iraq of 2010. A few weeks later, when thirteen people affiliated with an Iraqi political leader in eastern Anbar province were murdered, the vice president of Iraq charged that the slaughter had been carried out by Iraqi soldiers.

  President Obama’s troop withdrawal plan will be hostage to the behavior of Iraqis during the aftermath of the election. It is possible that things will go quietly—after all, they went better in the spring and summer of 2009 than I thought they would. If Iraq indeed is quiet in 2010, then the American pullout likely will be able to proceed as planned, with a swift drawdown in the first half of the year. But if Iraq reverts to form and the security situation appears to be unraveling quickly, then it will be difficult to maintain pace of the planned pullout. That would be doubly difficult for American policymakers because it likely would mean that there aren’t enough troops available for the parallel and intensifying effort in Afghanistan.

  It would be even tougher for Iraqis. As one longtime observer, Joost Hilter-mann of International Crisis Group, put it,

  . . . just as Odierno will be pulling out his first combat brigades, starting in March, Iraq will be entering into a period of fractious wrangling over the formation of a new government. If Iraqi national forces fail to impose their control, an absence of political leadership could thus coincide with a collapse in security; if politicians and their allied militias resort to violence, the state, including its intelligence apparatus so critical for maintaining internal stability, could fracture along political, ethnic, and sectarian lines.

  For those reasons, I suspect 2010 may come to rival as a turning point two earlier times in this war—2003, when the invasion occurred and gave rise to an insurgency, and 2007, when the American military finally became effective in its operations in Iraq.

  The basic problem facing Iraq is that all the problems that have divided Iraqis for many years are still hanging fire, unresolved and threatening to lead to renewed fighting. Pessimists argue that Iraqi politicians have learned how to use this turbulence to further their own goals. “Perhaps the biggest challenge,” warned security analyst Michael Eisenstadt,

  is that key political parties have successfully exploited ethnosectarian grievances as a means of mobilizing support. These parties have a vested interest in perpetuating the political status quo and would stand to lose a great deal if a post-sectarian style of politics in Iraq were to emerge as a result of a successful reconciliation process.

  In other words, they now have a stake in perpetuating violence and tradition. Peace and stability threaten their positions of power and influence. So the real question, I think, is not whether there will be violence in Iraq for many years to come, but how severe the violence will be, and how disruptive to neighboring countries.

  So, to once more evoke General Petraeus’s famous question during the invasion of Iraq about eight years ago, How does this end? I think the question was best answered over the last year by his successor as the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. Odierno, who said one day in Baghdad that

  it’s not going to end, okay? There’ll always be some sort of a low-level insurgency in Iraq for the next five, 10, 15 years. The issue is, what is the level of that insurgency? And can the Iraqis handle it with their own forces and with their government? That’s the issue.

  That indeed is the issue, and is the reason that we are likely to see tens of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq for many years to come. The U.S. government may say they are not combat troops, and we may not pay attention to them. But they will be there.

  APPENDIXES

  These four documents capture key points in the American approach to the Iraq war during late 2006 and early 2007.

  The first is the conclusion
in August 2006 of Col. Pete Devlin, the senior Marine intelligence officer in Iraq at the time, that al Anbar Province had been lost.

  The second is the mission statement Lt. Gen. Odierno received from Gen. Casey upon becoming the number two officer in Iraq in December 2006.

  The third is a briefing Odierno gave to Gen. Petraeus two months later and represents almost a complete reversal of what Casey had told Odierno to do.

  The last is Petraeus’s summary of how to fight in Iraq. It is dated June 2008 but captures the changes in the tactics and disposition of U.S. forces that began 18 months earlier.

  A. COL. DEVLIN’S INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT

  State of the Insurgency in al-Anbar I MEF G-2 SECRET/REL MCFI//20310816

  17 Aug 06

  General Situation: As of mid August, 2006, the daily average number of attacks exceeds 50 per day in al-Anbar Province This activity reflects a 65% increase in averall attack numbers since I MEF assumed control of the province in February. intensifying violence is reflected in the preponder-antly negative outlook of the Sunni population, in the continuing inability to develop adequate Iraqi security forces, and in the near complete failure of reconstruction and development projects across western Iraq. The social and political situation has deteriorated to a point that MNF and ISF are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar.

  Social Collapse: Underlying this decline in stability is the near complete collapse of social order in al-Anbar. The tribal system has wholly failed in AO Raleigh and Topeka, and has only limited effcacy in AO Denver. Prominent leaders have exiled themselves to neighboring Jordan and Syria, including some leading imams. Despite the success of the December elections, nearly all government institutions from the village to provincial level have disintegrated or have been thoroughly corrupted and infiltrated by al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) of criminal/insurgent gangs. Violence and criminality are now the principle driving factors behind daily life for most Anbar Sunni; they commit violence or crime, avoid violence or crime through corruption and acquiescence, or become victims.

  Isolation from Baghdad: Already embroiled in a daily fight for survival, al-Anbar Sunni have little hope for national reconciliation or re-integration into the national polity. From the Sunni perspective, their greatest fears have been realized: Iran controls Baghdad and Anbaris have been marginalized. True or not, this paranoia directly undermines Sunni willingness to envision a unified Iraq under the current structure. These fears also are reinforced by actions of the Shi‘a-dominated government, including the failure to pay (SF in al-Anbar, attacks by official Shi’a paramilitary groups against Sunni civilian targets in Baghdad, the unwillingness to confront the Jaysh al-Mandi, bureaucratic attacks on popular Sunni political and military leaders, and minimal support for local government institutions and initiatives from Ramadi to al-Qa’im. This sense of isolation directly undermines Sunni willingness to work within IG and MNF defined social and political boundaries.

  Lack of Resources: Although recent reports appear to confirm the presence of natural gas and some oil reserves along the western Euphrates river valley, there is no prospect for exploitation or development of these resources in the foreseeable future In the absence of security, even the most aggressive investors are unwilling to risk an al-Anbar venture. Wealthy expatriate Ba‘athists talk a strong game of support from Amman and Damascus, but have been unwilling to reinvigorate the al-Anbar ecanomy from their accounts. The only resource that matters - oil - is in the hands of the Shi’a government. From the Sunni perspective, oil is the source of real power in Iraq. With oil money comes government largesse, structured public investment, personal position.

  and cronyism. Because they lack faith in the political system, many Sunni see the only way to regain control of Iraqi oil is through violence. This sentiment directly feeds the insurgency and is used to justify violent criminal behavior. Anbaris have begun overtly to blame the province’s inadequate resource allocation, from the national power grid, for example, to sectarian motivations in Baghdad ministries.

  Al-Qaida in Iraq: AQI is the dominant arganization of influence in al-Anbar. surpassing nationalist insurgents, the Iraqi Government, and MNF in its ability to control the day-to-day life of the average Sunni. Transitioning to a primarily Iraqi organization in late 2004, AQI has become an integral part of the social fabric of western Iraq. With this “I Iraqification” came devolution to low-level, semi-autonomous, and criminally financed cells of varying loyalty to the larger AQI organization. While this diffusion has weakened the original Salafi zeal of AQI writ large, it has eliminated the opportunity for a decapitating strike that would cripple the organization - this is why the death of Zarqawi had so little impact on the structure and capabilities of AQI, especially in al-Anbar.

  AQI effectively has eliminated, subsumed, marginalize¢ or co-opted all rationalist insurgent groups in al-Anbar. This very deliberate AQI campaign against rival insurgent groups began shortly after nafional elections in December 2005, when nationalist insurgent groups cooperated to prevent AQI from disrupting polling throughout al-Anbar Faced with this blatant challenge to their hegemony, AQI destroyed the Anbar People’s Council of Mohammed Mahmoud Latif through a highly efficient and comprehensive assassination campaign, thereby eliminating the sole rival nexus of insurgent leadership in al-Anbar. Following this calculated purge, AQI cunningly employed their greater financial resources, superior organization, proven leadership, and brutal tactics to consolidate their hold on most other nationalist insurgent cells in al-Anbar. Parallel to this effort, AQI enacted a tactical alliance with the small Ansar al-Sunna cells operating in some parts of al-Anbar, particularly in the Haditha Triad

  Al-Anbar Sunni now see an entrenched, Iraqi AQI that in some cases has taken on the mantle of nationalism, or more recently, “defender of the faithful” against the Iranian-backed Shi’a. Although most al-Anbar Sunni dislike, resent, and distrust AQI, many increasingly see it as an inevitable part of daily life and, in some cases, their only hope for protection against a possible ethnic cleansing campaign by the central government.

  The remaining core of AQI Salafirts retain the capability to guide the organization, in broad terms, they can shift resources, fund specific groups, and mass combat power for short “campaigns” by pulling in disparate cells from across western Iraq The zeal of the vanguard remains relatively intact - there can be no realistic expectation that AQI will negotiate with the IG or MNF short of accepting absolute surrender and ascension to power, The perceived indecisiveness and moral weakness of both the IG and MNF directly feed the resolve of AQI, as well as the grudging acceptance of AQI by the populace. As long as the status quo between the central government and the al-Anbar Sunni remains, AQI is an intractable problem. Sunni Outlook: From the al-Anbar Sunni perspective, there is little hope that the status

  quo will lead to a better future. The economy in western Iraq provides bare sustenance to the average citizen while enriching criminals, insurgents, and corrupt officials The potential for economic revival appears to be nonexistent. Violence and fear are the dominant factors in daily life, reinforcing a prediction for survival behavior nourished under the sanctions period. This behavior in turn feeds criminality and corruption and undermines faith in government institutions.

  Increasingly, there appears to be little chance for national reconciliation with the Shi’a. Deep-seated fears of Iranian domination have been realized and embodied in the central government. Although more trust has been placed in MNF to protect and support the average citizen, there is little hope that American troops will remain long enough to provide true stability. Faced with the prospects of an increasingly brutish future, there is every reason to support the insurgency.

  Tactical and Operational Considerations: The Sunni outlook underlies the dramatic increase in attacks since February. However, several tactical and operational considerations have contributed to the rise in violence. Despite some success in isolated areas of the province, the insurgency
has strengthened in the past six months. Insurgent groups are better organized, increasingly achieve effective operational security, have improved their capabilities to cache and distribute weapons, and have refined and adapted their tactics. Control of criminal enterprise means the majority of insurgents are now financially self-sustaining at the lowest levels. Broad control of the illicit oil trade from Bayji provides millions af dollars per year to AQI, while official profits appear to feed Shi’a cronyism in Baghdad.