Must Read

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | February 11, 2008, 9:47AM

Back in the summer of 2005, just as journalists were toiling to produce the first books on what had gone so horribly wrong in Iraq, the Army was handed a thorough study by the RAND Corporation, its federally-financed research arm.

And it came, as one might expect, to some sharp conclusions. It faulted the President and Condoleezza Rice, Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon, Colin Powell's State Department, and Gen. Tommy Franks' Central Command for a variety of shortcomings, all essentially for their role in not adequately preparing for securing postwar Iraq. The report provided a strategy for how the Army and the government in general might avoid a similar plight the next time around (the short version: try preparing for the aftermath).

Unclassified versions of RAND reports are regularly made public, and the researchers had hoped a version of this report would be too. But, as The New York Times reports this morning, the Army wasn't happy with the product. So they buried it. The reason, an Army official explains, is that the report was just too gosh darn informative:

“After carefully reviewing the findings and recommendations of the thorough RAND assessment, the Army determined that the analysts had in some cases taken a broader perspective on the early planning and operational phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom than desired or chartered by the Army.... Some of the RAND findings and recommendations were determined to be outside the purview of the Army and therefore of limited value in informing Army policies, programs and priorities.”

Another Pentagon official, this one whispering to the Times anonymously, gives another version:

A Pentagon official who is familiar with the episode offered a different interpretation: Army officials were concerned that the report would strain relations with a powerful defense secretary and become caught up in the political debate over the war. “The Army leaders who were involved did not want to take the chance of increasing the friction with Secretary Rumsfeld,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to alienate senior military officials.

Of course, the report still isn't publicly available, and from what the Times describes, it would make for interesting reading. Overlaying the various critiques of the agencies, the report cites a general principle (The Cheney Principle of Prewar Bravado?) that explains the general failure:

One serious problem the study described was the Bush administration’s assumption that the reconstruction requirements would be minimal. There was also little incentive to challenge that assumption, the report said.

“Building public support for any pre-emptive or preventative war is inherently challenging, since by definition, action is being taken before the threat has fully manifested itself,” it said. “Any serious discussion of the costs and challenges of reconstruction might undermine efforts to build that support.”

Iraq

Admin Backs Down on Permanent Bases in Iraq

Paul Kiel | February 6, 2008, 5:56PM

Did this fight really end before it started?

Iraq

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | February 4, 2008, 9:40AM

At the very least, if the Bush Administration expires and we are still at war only in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can count ourselves lucky.

The New York Times reports on the latest treasure unearthed by Wikileaks, a 2005 27-page document showing the U.S. military's Rules of Engagement in Iraq. Most worrying of all, the rules allowed for cross-border raids into Iran or Syria:

In a section on crossing international borders, the document said the permission of the American defense secretary was required before American forces could cross into or fly over Iranian or Syrian territory. Such actions, the document suggested, would probably also require the approval of President Bush.

But the document said that there were cases in which such approval was not required: when American forces were in hot pursuit of former members of Mr. Hussein’s government or terrorists....

It stated that the American commander engaged in the pursuit, however, should consult with top commanders in Baghdad, “time permitting.”

The Times notes that it's unknown whether this ever happened or whether the rules are any different now. Hold your breath.

But there are other interesting aspects to the document. Certainly the preoccupation with former members of Saddam Hussein's government, rather than foreign terrorists, was not reflected in the administration's rhetoric at the time.

And then there's this:

Apparently in a carryover from the intelligence failures of the Iraq invasion in early 2003, the document says the United States Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, gave American commanders in Iraq the authority to attack mobile “W.M.D. labs”; such labs for making germ weapons were later determined not to exist.