we do not have an articulated policy
Be careful what you "articulate," Rascal, it might come back to bite you. :^)
August 22, 2002 9:00 a.m.
Are We Taking Counsel of Our Fears?
Some Iraq considerations.
Never take counsel of your fears."
President Bush would do well to heed Confederate general "Stonewall" Jackson's admonition as the doomsters' chorus over Iraq reaches a crescendo. Only a few months ago, remember, the doomsters were predicting that, like the British and Soviets before them, American soldiers would face a quagmire in Afghanistan. Their warnings peaked just in time for the Taliban to collapse.
Michael Kelly did a hilarious send-up of the doomsters in his November 14, 2001, column for the Washington Post: "Good evening, and welcome to 'All is Lost,' the nightly public affairs program produced by National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.," The piece featured a memorable cast of characters assembled to discuss Afghanistan and America's war against terror: the fabled newsman who was there when Saigon fell, the scientifically trained impartial scholar, the bureau chief of a second-rate regional monopoly newspaper who is desperate to be hired by the New York Times, the European-affairs analyst who loathes America and prays for its swift destruction, and a chorus that periodically chants "utterly hopeless... doomed...a colossal failure... no hope."
Of course, it's one thing to make fun of NPR's pomposity, but what about the many military experts who oppose a possible war against Iraq? The short answer is provided by Gerald Frost in his August 14 piece for the Wall Street Journal, "The 'Experts' Often Are Wrong": they "should certainly be listened to, but with considerable caution."
European experts, as Frost notes, were wrong in their predictions about the 1991 Gulf War. But the record of American experts when it came to the war was no better. At the time I compiled a file, long since lost, of what the experts were saying before the beginning of hostilities (as opposed to after the war, when suddenly everyone seemed to agree that the Iraqi military was terrible). As a participant in the "military reform" debate of the 1980s, I was especially interested in what the so-called "reformers" were predicting.
It's important to remember that before the Gulf War, many U.S. experts praised Iraq for having fought a skillful war against a numerically superior Iran. The Iraqi army had perfected defensive tactics that inflicted massive casualties on the attacking Iranians. Employing extensive minefields and other obstacles, Iraqi defenders channeled the Iranians into killing zones, where they then destroyed them with the massed fires of artillery or by armored counterattacks. Finally, in April 1988, the Iraqis launched their Tawakalna Ala Allah offensive, which, in five major battles over four months, drove the Iranians back from the Al Fao Peninsula.
In criticizing the U.S. military for not effecting all the reforms they had been pushing throughout the 1980s, the reformers failed to pay sufficient attention to the remarkable changes in doctrine and technological advances that had taken place within the U.S. military over the previous decade. Thus, shortly after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, former senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart published an op-ed declaring that the U.S. military was ill-equipped to take on Iraq because it had not implemented the sort of changes he and Bill Lind had called for in their 1986 book, America Can Win: The Case for Military Reform.
Edward Luttwak, the often-brilliant defense iconoclast (who once claimed that as a consultant to the United States Army, he was paid a great deal of money to insult that service), opined that U.S. forces would bog down in the desert, the U.S. military's high-tech equipment would not work, and U.S. forces would suffer high casualties. Mr. Luttwak later claimed he had merely been trying to stimulate more innovative thinking on the part of the U.S. military, but the public evidence in support of his claim is a bit thin. There were many other such examples.
Military officers also have been cited as opposed to launching a war against Iraq. But as I argued in my last piece for NRO, "With Eyes Wide Open," the views of military officers reflect an institutional propensity to hedge against uncertainty. As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell opposed the early use of force against Iraq. In 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff argued against Gen. Douglas MacArthur's proposed Inchon landing. Even the Marines ? who ultimately provided the units that spearheaded the amphibious assault that was to reverse the course of the Korean War ? up to that point had expressed concern about the risks of the operation. Both President Lincoln and Gen. William T. Sherman were skeptical of Ulysses Grant's bold plan to march down the west bank of the Mississippi River, cross below Vicksburg, abandon his supply lines, and invest the city from the east. These examples ? among many others ? show that military officers can be wrong, too.
There are many risks associated with a war against Iraq. But the risks may well be greater if Saddam is allowed more time to develop and deploy weapons of mass destruction. Prudence dictates that a decision for war should be based on a careful comparison of the two sets of risks. But we should also bear in mind that the experts who provide a pessimistic assessment of a potential war with Iraq can be as fallible as anyone else. As Mr. Frost observes, the experts' "attachment to particular doctrines, which they hope will be validated by events, can mar their judgment." This was the case in 1991. It is the case today.
Mackubin Thomas Owens is professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is currently working on a book tentatively entitled Sword of Republican Empire: A History of U.S. Civil-Military Relations. |
