Deployment Roundup, Part II

8/14/2007 11:26:00 PM UTC +0300

1. Morale is likely to be a serious problem if the United States does not reduce it's deployed troop strength in the near term. Military personnel tend to believe in what they are doing, and are accepting of deployments. However, we now have significant numbers of troops--particularly in the Army--who are doing third and even fourth tours in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Furthermore, the Army has been forced to dig as deep as the inactive reserves, which is a group of people who, across the board, are not interested in being in the military any longer. You can't take someone who has resigned from the Army away from their civilian life for 12-15 months and expect them to be happy about it. If current manning levels are to continue, the other services will need to dig deeper to make up for the Army's current over-manning. I can say from my own experience that there are resources within the Air Force that remain largely untapped. The Air Force is picking up some slack by producing more one-year deployments, however the United States occupation of Iraq is reaching the end of what is reasonably manageable in terms of longevity.


2. Previous failures in raising the Iraqi Army and Police are not accurate predictors for the success of future similar efforts. For example, attrition has been a consistent problem in the Iraqi Army, however the enactment of new measures to resolve this problem will yield different results from those previously achieved. Every effort to secure Iraq, whether it be unique or similar to efforts attempted in the past, will be somehow different, as a result of developments as broad as political climate to availability of equipment. One cannot simply say that because we have failed in the past, we will continue to fail.


3. Building a nation like Iraq takes a much longer time than most Americans are willing to tolerate. Perhaps the Bush administration is to blame for the generally unrealistic notions people have about how long the occupation of Iraq will need to last, but nonetheless, the American people should be prepared to take a decade to see any tangible return on our efforts. Just installing in all the necessary infrastructure will take several years. One also cannot assume that because Iraq is still regularly subject to terrorist attacks, that the building of infrastructure is significantly hindered. Establishing a functioning government and shutting down terrorist organizations in Iraq are, generally speaking, independent tasks. It would be incorrect to assume that because one of these tasks may meet with limited success, that the other is not perfectly on track.


4. The end of our involvement in Iraq is not simply a success/failure paradigm. People talk about how Iraq has been a failure, but it's not so black and white. If the United States were to pull out of Iraq immediately, there are some places that would have a good chance of remaining secure. In particular, the Kurdish region to the North is generally well-defended, and has been standing for some time now with relatively little US assistance. As such, the question we need to consider is what level of assistance will provide a reasonable amount of security in Iraq, while not over-burdening the American taxpayer. This is not an easy question to answer, which is probably why so many people avoid it altogether.


5. The United States is ultimately attempting to impose radical change on the Iraqi culture. Saddam Hussein was (arguably) successful at establishing a functioning government, but that society was based on ultimate authority rather than personal incentives. We've completely pulled the rug out from under the entire Iraqi people. The Iraq Army historically operated by intimidating troops and their families with death, prison, and torture, yet now we expect Iraqis to accept that they must form a military and be internally driven to do whatever is necessary to support their nation. There are similar changes taking place in commerce, utilities, resource management, etc. Such a transition will ultimately take generations, because there are thirty-year-old Iraqi citizens who have never experienced any other way of life. Perhaps a more accurate way of looking at the occupation of Iraq is as the United States providing Iraq an opportunity to build the sort of country that it wants to have. Our aim is to simply prevent external forces from having an undue influence on this process, not telling Iraq how to run their country.

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