Iraqi Civil War: Now With Better Drive Shafts

David Ignatius reaches a truly bizarre conclusion about Iraq:

This U.S. training mission in Iraq was the heart of the Baker-Hamilton report's recommendation last December. And it still seems to me the right way forward. American troops cannot stop a civil war in Iraq, but they can teach soldiers how to fix drive shafts, maintain engines and order spare parts. That's a basic mission that Congress should reaffirm, even as it questions the surge of more U.S. troops into Baghdad. Time is the strategic resource now; Congress and the administration need to agree on ways to add some minutes to the clock.

This is a kind of awesomely topsy-turvey inversion of the dictum that war is politics by other means. Here, somehow, the political objectives can be screwed up and military objectives can be non-existent and somehow that can all be made allright if only we really, really nail down the logistics. But whether or not it's a good thing for any given group of soldiers to know how "to fix drive shafts, maintain engines and order spare parts" (or anything else) is entirely dependent on the political issues. The Iraqi Army circa 1990 was, despite its problems, much more functional than the 2006-vintage Iraqi Army and, indeed, was an unusually high-functioning military organization for the Arab world. But guess what? We turned out to be fighting against it and even later it was an instrument of Saddam Hussein's will, used to crush Kurds and Shi'a insurgents.

Better training of Iraqi troops, in short, might be a good idea if it were a means of resolving Iraq's political problems. But Ignatius doesn't think it is. He thinks we "cannot stop a civil war in Iraq." But so why do we want these highly trained Iraqi soldiers running around? What's that supposed to accomplish?

Comments

Ignatius is falling back on some questionable assumptions, such as the idea that there is a meaningful Government Of All Iraq and that soldiers we are training are working for it. The civil war involves our Very Legitimate Pals the Government Of All Iraq putting down a rebellion fomented by Bad Guys who, whatever else they may appear to be (sunni and/or shia and/or kurd and/or whatever), are really best understood as simply being In Cahoots With Al Qaida.

If you assume all these nonsensical things, then what he is advocating makes sense. If you don't, then Ignatius looks like the idiot he has been from the beginning of this mess.

Posted by jimBOB | May 21, 2007 9:31 AM

I had the same reaction, I guess Ignatius felt obliged to write something nice about the military's efforts there after his tour of the facility. But even with kick ass US trained logistics, if the Iraqi Army doesn't believe in the government and the it lacks legitmacy with most of the people, what's the point?

If we had a functional law abiding moderately competent Iraqi government to support, I'd be all for continuing economic and military aid after the troops leave. But that doesn't exist now. That's clock we're playing against not the well justified impatience of the American and Iraqi people.

Posted by AJ | May 21, 2007 9:32 AM

I think the basic dynamic at this point is a sort of unfocussed, aimless, yet pressingly anxious desire to *make recompense*. When no substantive recompense is possible.

We fucked up Iraq, on a historic scale. We invaded the wrong country, on false pretexts, we destroyed all of the civil institutions they had, and we killed hundreds of thousands of their citizens.

All for nothing.

And now we're going to leave, because it's the best thing for everyone--they want us to go, and we only make things worse by staying. Worse for them, and far, far, worse for us.

So what do you do as you are walking away from a horrendous, tragic, culpable mistake? What does the Mercedes driver do on a third-world country lane after accidentally running over the farmer's sheep, the sheep-dog, two shepherds, and the eldest son?

Well, you peel off a couple of twenties, maybe, and hold them out in a futile gesture. Aimed to stave off immeasurable anger that you know you fully deserve.

That's what Ignatius is doing.

Posted by ignoble | May 21, 2007 9:42 AM

But so why do we want these highly trained Iraqi soldiers running around?

I can't believe how stupid you are sometimes, Matt. If we teach them to fix the drive shafts and maintain their engines, they won't be "running" anywhere. They'll be driving. How addled by BDS do you have to be not to recognize that?

Posted by Jim Henley | May 21, 2007 10:03 AM

As the US fails, the war supporters just grab phrases as random, and use them as arguments. There is no meaning other than denial.

Posted by Barry | May 21, 2007 10:09 AM

So according to Ignatius, the only thing preventing Iraq from turning into the peaceful, pro-US, pro-Israel, Swiss-style democracy that BushCo. imagined it would become is that its soldiers are deficient in auto-mechanics?

As usual, there are the passages that could have (and probably did) come straight from stories the WaPo (and the NY Times, and TIME, and Newsweek) published four decades ago during the Vietnam War:

Vehicles are assembled in orderly lines that seem to stretch for miles. There is an army in embryo here, waiting to be claimed by a functioning country.

We pass a squadron of Iraqi soldiers who have just been issued M-16 rifles to replace their old Saddam Hussein-era AK-47s. They hoist the American-made weapons and let out what sounds like a spontaneous cheer. "The M-16s are telling them there's a change," says Capt. Matthew Sparks. In procuring U.S. weapons for these soldiers, the idea was that America would be around for many years to help train and supply a friendly Iraqi military.. . .

Incidentally, regarding Ignatius' claim that the "America's military genius has always been in logistics," the armies that out-performed everyone at this in the 20th century were the ones Germany sent to fight both world wars. It didn't do them much good in the end. And one thing he doesn't mention is that this approach of building an army rather than a functioning representative government is only too typical of the "nation building" we engaged in during the Cold War, training the armies and secret police of the despotic client regimes we supported all over the globe.

Posted by JJB | May 21, 2007 10:24 AM

regarding Ignatius' claim that the "America's military genius has always been in logistics," the armies that out-performed everyone at this in the 20th century were the ones Germany sent to fight both world wars.

Not really true, JJB.

(Reminds me of a scene in 'Band of Brothers' - as the paras are driving past an endless column of German POWs, one of them stands up in the truck and shouts: "Hey, you! That's right, you stupid Kraut bastards. That's right. Say hello to Ford! And General fuckin' Motors! You stupid fascist pigs. Look at you! You have horses! What were you thinking?")

Posted by ajay | May 21, 2007 10:35 AM

ajay

Yes, it is true. Read any book by a reputable historian (Barbara Tuchman, Alistair Horne, Robert Massie are three that come to mind) and you won't be reduced to quoting made-up dialogue from an American TV show. The fact that the Germans were even able to launch the Ardennes Offensive in December 1944 is a testament to their ability to marshall their (by then) dwindling resources and utilize them to devastating effect. What ended up defeating them in both world wars was the preponderence of manpower and material supplies that we were able to bring against them. The delivery of these resources was hardly a model of efficiency.

Posted by JJB | May 21, 2007 11:07 AM

All right, let's go way off topic here! But JJB, you're overstating your case. The German military was in many ways a logistical disaster -there was never a clear chain of command, a lot of infighting among various factions (a hallmark of Nazi rule, which was surprisingly inefficient), and worst of all, as has been documented by almost every reputable historian, the German Army had a surprisingly large number of different vehicle and weapons types which created huge headaches. Read Martin Van Creveld's "Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton", Rommel in particular comes in for a great deal of criticism. And that's not even mentioning the various idiocies that plagued the German Army on the Eastern Front. In World War II I would give higer marks to the Russians, who managed to transport their entire industrial base East of the Urals, and still kept the Red Army supplied. Richard Overy's "Why the Allies Won" is also very good on this subject.

Posted by vanya | May 21, 2007 11:29 AM

He's desperate to find that mythical middle where the US stays in and somehow, by training better truck mechanics I guess, unshits the bed. That way we support the troops by keeping up the sending of $billions into defense contractors' pockets, Something Happens and presto, it's Jefferson in the Desert if we can just hang on another six months.

It's not called a quagmire for nothing.

Posted by eRobin | May 21, 2007 11:36 AM

Hey fatty, he says 'american troops' cannot stop civil war in iraq.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | May 21, 2007 11:41 AM

Not sure about the US but German logistics in Operation Barbarossa were based on pure fantasy - that's why Germany failed.

Posted by novakant | May 21, 2007 11:48 AM

There is a weird subtext that would have you believe the Iraq was a country of mud huts and dirt paths before we got there, hence the need to import truck drivers from Arkansas.

Iraq was a pretty modern secular state with functioning universities, hospitals and yes auto repair shops before April Gillespie greenlighted the invasion of Kuwait. The time to stop Saddam was before he started, everything that has come to be since 1991 was the result of that miscommunication, if miscommunication it was.

Through the 1980's Iraq was in effect an American client. In 1987 we simply allowed it to send two Exocet missiles into the USS Stark. Not only did we not retaliate against Iraq, pretty much our response was to shoot down an Iranian Airbus on a scheduled civilian flight Iran Air Flight 655 the next year. And in a echo of the Tenet/Franks/Bremer Medal of Freedom thing give the Captain and crew of the USS Vincennes medals for doing so.

That Bush pushed back after the Kuwaiti invasion had to be a shock to Saddam. He had been a helpful CIA stooge holding back Iranian style fundamentalism for decades, had if truth be known genuine claims against the al-Sabah's who ruled Kuwait, and assurances from the US Ambassador to Iraq that the US didn't have a dog in this fight. After getting a free pass on shooting up an American warship you really can't blame Saddam for assuming he had a free hand to pick up Kuwait.

The response to the attack on the Stark should have been focused and violent, starting with the destruction of the airbase from which that Mirage jet launched. Iraq declared war on the United States and the Reagan Administration just blinked. If his administration actually had the cojones they delight in displaying today we could have stopped this whole c-f in its tracks.

As a Navy Veteran I found it profoundly shocking that we could just accept a missile attack on a Navy warship as just some sort of mistake. Everything wrong with our current policy in the Middle East is picked up one way or another in the following:

"The administration argued that to withdraw from the gulf would be to surrender America's role as leader of the free world, and that if oil shipments were disrupted, prices would soar, adversely affecting the U.S. economy. As one Western diplomat put it, if the U.S. backed out, it wouldn't "have enough credibility to float a teacup." Furthermore, the Soviet Union had increased its naval presence in the gulf, and the fear was that if the U.S. faltered, the Soviets would gain the upper hand in the region -- and growing Soviet influence in the region would pose a long-term threat to the West's oil supplies. "We will not be intimidated," said Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. "We will not be driven from the gulf." He described the attack on the Stark as a "horrible error," and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was quick to apologize for the "unintentional incident." Evidently, the Mirage pilot had mistaken the Stark for an Iranian tanker. Iraq promised to pay compensation to the families of the 37 slain seamen, and reparations for damages to the frigate. Officially the United States was neutral in the Iran-Iraq conflict, but the administration had decided that geopolitic considerations required that Iraq not lose the war. In the aftermath of the Stark incident, the rhetoric coming out of Washington was of a forgiving nature where Iraq was concerned, while growing increasingly hostile in reference to Iran."

Since when did the US simply allow brutal dictators to pay blood money to excuse an outright attack on a US Naval Ship? Well I guess the answer is '1987' and 'Reagan Administration'.

Heckuva job, Ronnie.

Posted by Bruce Webb | May 21, 2007 12:36 PM

vanya,

If you want to talk about logistical disasters, let's talk about the Russian military in any war it's ever fought. The 1914 Battle of Tannenberg and their 1939-40 war against Finland are splendid examples. The Russo-Japanese War is another.

As to Germany's military being "a logistical disaster," just how did they manage to outmanuever and/or annihilate the British, French, and Russian armies, and conquer almost the entire European continent by August 1942? Was their seizure of Norway a logistical disaster? What about their conquest of Crete? Churchill was so impressed by that he demanded his generals form paratrooper units similar to the ones the Germans used so successfully.

As inefficient and corrupt as Nazi rule was, the Wehrmacht had an astonishingly efficient system of preparing for war that was handed down to them from the days prior to German unification. If you want to believe otherwise, go ahead. The historical record says you're wrong.

Incidentally, Ignatius might want to consider whether the inability to provide our soldiers in Iraq with adequate body and vehicle armor is evidence of logistical genius. So might everyone else.

Posted by JJB | May 21, 2007 12:46 PM

"Evidently, the Mirage pilot had mistaken the Stark for an Iranian tanker."

Evidently the Reagan Administration assumed that Americans bye and large would simply accept this at face value. There is no way in hell to mistake a Perry class frigate for an Iranian tanker even 40 miles away by air, and if the target really was a tanker there was no reason for the Mirage not to get much closer before launch. Moreover I don't recall that Iraq was in the game of attacking tankers on a large scale to begin with, both sides had too much to lose. Saddam tested the US to see whether it had stones and we failed the test. The rest as they say is History.

Posted by Bruce Webb | May 21, 2007 12:46 PM

jjb I don't really have a dog in this fight but this is a little strong

"how did they manage to outmanuever and/or annihilate the British, French, and Russian armies,"

The Germans let the British get away, let the French disband and did not in any meaningful way "annihilate" any Army except that of Poland. I'll give you 'outmanuever' but a competent army should have been able to eliminate the British Army at Dunkirk.

The US Army landed in Morocco in November 1942 by May 1945 Germany had surrendered. When push came to shove the Wehrmacht got both pushed and shoved and German efficiency got revealed as just having the temporary advantage of interior lines of supply and communications.

Posted by Bruce Webb | May 21, 2007 1:01 PM

German logistics in Operation Barbarossa were based on pure fantasy - that's why Germany failed.

Don't know what you're talking about here. The Germans conquered vast sections of the Soviet Union, surrounding and capturing millions of Red Army troops in the process. That they ultimately failed to defeat the Soviets had less to do with logistics involved in the offensive and more to do with trying to vanquish a foe with vastly superior resources and occupying its territory while also fighting against another foe in several different theatres, then stupidly declaring war on yet another country with vastly superior resources.

I agree with Bruce Webb that the attack on the USS Stark was not an "accident." Remember that it happened as the Iran/Contra scheme was unraveling, and Saddam was learning that we'd been providing his Iranian enemies with material and intelligence. Saddam was definitely sending a message there, and the Reagan administration meekly accepted this punch in the nose from him.

Posted by JJB | May 21, 2007 1:04 PM

Bruce Webb,

I would not use the US landings in North Africa and the subsequent campaign as a example of American logistical, tactical, or strategic superiority over the Wehrmact. As to "advantage of interior lines of supply and communications," did the French and British lack that in May 1940? And the Germans did not allow the French armies to "disband," they put them in POW camps. When you surround and capture an army, you have annihilated it, and the Germans most certainly did do that to the French in May and June of 1940.

Allowing the British to escape from Dunkirk was a military blunder that, again, had nothing to do with logistics. The fact that the Brits were trapped there shows just how good was the Germans' logistical ability. Just why they did not take advantage of their success is a mystery, and thank God they didn't.

Posted by JJB | May 21, 2007 1:14 PM

The fact that the Germans did well in Barbarossa doesn't mean that their logistics were any good. The Soviets simply screwed up even worse than the Germans did.

Any army that refuses to deliver winter clothing to troops campaigning in Russia in the fall has obviously got some problems.

Posted by AlanC9 | May 21, 2007 1:26 PM

JJB, I don't think many serious military historians would agree with you. You are confusing logistics (where the consensus is that the Germans screwed up often and with serious consequences) with tactics, battle planning and training, where the Germans were generally superior. Maybe you need to broaden your reading - beyond the sort of popular generalist historians you cite and read some historians who really understand modern warfare. As Imentioned before, Van Creveld is a good place to start - I believe his book is required reading at our military academies. Forgive me if I take his conclusions more seriously than I take yours.

Posted by vanya | May 21, 2007 1:47 PM

The fact that the Germans did well in Barbarossa doesn't mean that their logistics were any good.

Actually, yes, it does.

Anybody have anything to say about the Ignatius article? Perhaps the lesson ought to be that no matter how good your logistics, if the task you're striving to achieve is beyond your means, no amount of planning or efficiency of execution will bring you success.

Posted by JJB | May 21, 2007 1:53 PM

Maybe you need to broaden your reading - beyond the sort of popular generalist historians you cite and read some historians who really understand modern warfare.

Thank you. That's very funny. Take a look at the three historians I cite again and repeat that bit about their not understanding modern warfare. We could all use a good laugh.

Sorry this thread got hijacked, but that's not my fault. Bye-bye.

Posted by JJB | May 21, 2007 2:00 PM

JJB doesn't know what he's talking about.

Posted by novakant | May 21, 2007 2:04 PM

JJB:

"I agree with Bruce Webb that the attack on the USS Stark was not an "accident." ... "

So what do you guys think about the Israeli attack on the Liberty?

Posted by James B. Shearer | May 21, 2007 2:21 PM

I'm curious why Iraqi units aren't logistically self-sufficient now. There are Iraqi Army units that have been armed, trained, and have operated effectively in combat -- isn't harder to get them to fight effectively than handle their own logistics effectively?

I wonder if the Iraqi government has requested that these units be dependent on the U.S. for logistics, as an indirect means for the Iraqi government to assure that these units don't turn against them.

Posted by Fred | May 21, 2007 2:39 PM

BTW, here is General Petraeus's recent letter to the people of Iraq.

BTW, I am reminded of something Kaus wrote in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in Iraq: it would have been better if Iraq's first constitutional government had been elected for a shorter term than four years, so if they proved incompetent, the Iraqi people could toss them.

Posted by Fred | May 21, 2007 4:32 PM

"....fix drive shafts, maintain engines, and order spare parts."

For sheer fantastic stupidity, it's unrivaled.

Posted by kafka | May 22, 2007 12:30 AM