Rumsfeld's style of operation, Herbits wrote, was the Haldeman model,
arrogant." He was "often abusive" in meetings and "He
diminished important people in front of others."
"…Summary. Did Rumsfeld err with the fundamental political
calculations of this administration, not getting the post-Iraq rebuilding
process right within 18 months?"
Abizaid
On October 27, 2003, Abizaid, on the video screen with Bush, Rice, Card,
Rumsfeld and Myers at the White House, said that they needed to bring
back officers from Saddam's army. In the summer of 2004 Abizaid told Armitage,
"Can't win it militarily."
Gingrich
In November 2003 Gingrich gave an interview in which he said the U.S.
was going "off the cliff" in Iraq. He said that the postwar
model should have been what the U.S. did in Afghanistan, quickly installing
Hamid Karzai.
Garner
In February prior to the invasion, Garner gathered some 200 people at
the National Defense University. Their analysis included, "Current
force packages are inadequate for the first step of securing all the major
urban areas, let alone for providing interim police… We risk letting
all the major areas, let alone for providing interim police…We risk
letting much of the country descend into civil unrest [and] chaos whose
magnitude may defeat our national strategy of a stable new Iraq, and more
immediately, we place our own troops, fully engaged in the forward fight,
in greater jeopardy."
Garner went to the United Nations headquarters in New York because he
felt the more the war was a coalition effort the better for all. He was
shot down.
Garner reported mostly to Rumsfeld, and Bush never obtained his real
thoughts and observations. Feith reporting to Rumsfeld had four persons
funneled on to Garner's team to keep an eye on Garner. At Garner's last
meeting with the president, Bush slapped Garner on the back, "Hey,
you want to do Iran?" Garner replied that Cuba was more interesting.
Bush laughed, you got it. You got Cuba."
Miller
In March 2004 Rice sent Miller to Iraq. On a Humvee patrol of Sadr City
in Baghdad, Miller thought, "Screaming poverty, no fresh water, few
working sewers. People were living in hovels and throwing trash and human
waste in their front yards.'
Translators
The shortage of translators was unconscionable, Miller thought. Division,
brigade and battalion commanders were all asking for translators. American
patrols were unable to communicate with the Iraqis and seemed uninterested
in what the Iraqis thought, felt or wanted.
Months later, the problem still had not been solved. Kids were dying
because of the shortage. Miller said, "I think we fucked it up."
Zelikow
Phillip Zelikow, was an old friend of Rice, who had coauthored a book
with her. She hired him as counselor to the State Department.
The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union had left
Rice and Zelikow optimistic. It was possible to get foreign policy right.
Rice sent Zelikow with a team to Iraq. On Rice's 14th day as Secretary
of State, Zelikow presented her with a memorandum."At this point
Iraq remains a failed state shadowed by constant violence and undergoing
revolutionary political change…The insurgency was being contained
militarily but it was quite active leaving Iraqi civilians feeling very
insecure, Zelikow said.
Overall Rice read, the United States effort suffered because it lacked
an articulate, comprehensive, unified policy.
David Kay
Kay was the expert selected to seek the weapons of mass destruction.
After an exhaustive search he concluded that there were none. In his conversations
with the president he was astonished by what he saw as the lack of inquisitiveness
on the part of the president. Kay said he thought Saddam never believed
the U.S. would actually invade. But more important, more than he feared
the U.S., he feared the Shiites and Kurds who lived in Iraq. He knew that
they in turn feared him because they thought he had WMD.
Hagel
Hagel had met with the president and mentioned themes from histories
and biographies he had read. He said that it was important that the president
get some outside opinions. In a subsequent meeting with Hadley, whom Bush
had said he left such matters to, Hagel made his pitch that Iraq was a
much bigger mess than they were acknowledging, and the administration
should be doing more on security, training, governance and infrastructure.
Kissinger
The influence of Kissinger is referred to. He had unrestricted access
to Cheney and the president. He is a hawk on this issue. He said that
a radical Islamic or Taliban-style government in Iraq would be a model
that could challenge the internal stability of the key countries in the
Middle East and elsewhere. Afghanistan wasn't enough, he said. They wanted
to humiliate us, he said and, "We need to humiliate them." Gerson
understood that Kissinger viewed Iraq purely in the context of power politics.
It was not idealism.
Jeffrey
Jim Jeffrey told Rice that he had serious problems with General Casey's
"Campaign Plan".
War was no longer just the application of lethal firepower from guns,
artillery and bombs. The larger task and the more enduring one was the
concerted effort to win the hearts, minds and support of the Iraqi people.
That meant not only solving the immense security problem. It meant improving
the daily lives of average Iraqis. It meant that it would take much more
than physical security to win the war, and the political and economic
conditions would be decisive to get to the peace.
Sites
There were 946 suspected WMD sites but they were never prioritized.
Rice and Rumsfeld
Rice and Rumsfeld, who did not hit it off too well, took different approaches
to the problems presented. Rumsfeld sometimes would not return Rice's
phone calls.
There was a question as to which one was in charge. Rumsfeld seemed to
be very hands-on. Bush said to Garner, referring to Bremer, "Rumsfeld
chose him just like he chose you."
NSPD-24, which had set up Garner's office, had specifically put the
authority and responsibility for postwar planning for Iraq in the Defense
Department. Incidentally Garner had wanted to internationalize the post
war effort but could not prevail. Although Rumsfeld had sought control
of reconstruction he had opposed the use of the language, "clear,
hold and build as our strategy" in the president's Veteran's Day
speech. He commented, "Clear we're doing." He meant the military.
"It's up to the Iraqis to hold. And the State Department's got to
work with somebody on the build."
Powell and Armitage
Doubt never seeped into the president's public rhetoric. And as far
as Powell's and Armitage's experience went, he was the same in private.
"But the president was at the center. Armitage was baffled. "Has
he thought this through?" Armitage asked Powell. "What the president
says in effect is we've got to press on in honor of the memory of those
who have fallen. Another way to say that is we've got to have more men
to fall to honor the memories of those who have already fallen."
"Powell and Armitage understood the White House saw the State Department
and its diplomats as appeasers. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice to some extent,
would not allow State to engage in diplomacy because diplomacy was considered
a weakness."
"Powell said Bush and Cheney didn't dare express reservations. Armitage
agreed 'They cannot have any doubt about the correctness of the policy
because it opens too many questions in their minds' ".
Experts
In September 2004, after the number of enemy-initiated attacks jumped
by 1000 over the previous month, the White House communications director
called a meeting of experts from the various departments.
Several experts suggested that the president carefully acknowledge some
mistakes in Iraq, arguing that it is human and powerful to admit a mistake.
No, Bartlett said, closing the door, making it clear the president was
not going to talk about mistakes. "Do you want to inspire or inform?"
one of the generals at the meeting asked. Both, Bartlett said. "You
probably can't do both", the general said and he cited Reagan who
shied away from the facts but gave uplifting speeches.
Inaugural Speech
Rumsfeld
After Afghanistan was attacked, Bush asked Rumsfeld what the military
could do immediately. "Very little, effectively", replied Rumsfeld.
When George W. Bush was searching for a Secretary of Defense, Cheney
suggested Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld determined to change the entire U.S. military, transform it
into a leaner, more efficient, more agile, more lethal fighting machine.
He was a workaholic and so hands-on that he exasperated those who worked
with and under him. In Baghdad, on December 6, 2003, Rumsfeld told Bremer,
"It's clear to me that your reporting channel is now direct to the
president and not through me. Condi has taken over political matters.
I think that's a mistake. The last time the NSC got into operational issues,
we had Iran-contra. But she seems to have jumped into this with both feet."
"Rumsfeld's impossible to deal with", Bremer told a colleague.
Rice made Blackwill her point man for Iraq. The problem she told Blackwill
"was the dysfunctional U.S. government." He understood because
he had attended meetings where Armitage and Feith sat across from each
other in the Situation Room. The hostility between them was enormous.
Woodward asked Rumsfeld about troop levels. He said that the 90,000
additional troops scheduled to be flown into Iraq in 2003 was determined
by General Franks to be unnecessary and that he had made a recommendation
to the president and that they had agreed with it.
Bush
Woodward had several interviews with Bush
In December 2001, at the end of the interview, Bush volunteered, "I
know it is hard for you to believe, but I have not doubted what we're
doing. I have not doubted what we're doing…There is no doubt in my
mind we're doing the right thing."
In another interview at Crawford in August 2002, Bush said, "If
my confidence level declines it will send ripples throughout the whole
organization…
"I don't need people around me who are not steady. And if there's
kind of hand-wringing attitude going on when times are tough, I don't
like it.
In a radio address Bush said "Evidence of 'real progress' was lost
in the news reports and pictures of violence. 'In the past three years,
Iraqis have gone from living under brutal tyrant to liberation, sovereignty,
free elections, a constitutional referendum, and last December, elections
of a fully constitutional government."
After the invasion when Baghdad had been reached quickly and success
seemed assured, Bush landed dramatically on the aircraft carrier Lincoln
in a military flight suit as a passenger in a Navy plane. The speech had
borrowed from MacArthur's speech, "the "guns are silent".
In a draft of the speech that Rumsfeld had seen, there was the phrase
Mission Accomplished which Rumsfeld had gotten them to take out. But it
was left on the sign on the deck.
Bush continued to pour out the optimism. In a speech in Chicago, he
said, "Yet we have now reached a turning point in the struggle between
freedom and terror". "Iraq", he said, "demonstrated
that democracy is the hope of the Middle East and the destiny of all mankind."
On July 2, 2003, when questioned by a reporter, Bush said, "There
are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave
prematurely." He swung his arm across his chest emphatically as he
spoke. "My answer is, "Bring 'em on. We've got the force necessary
to deal with the security situation."
On December 3, 2004, Bush had called in his speechwriter, Gerson, to
prepare his second inaugural address. Bush's goal now was to dramatically
alter the American foreign policy mind-set as radically as it had at the
beginning of the Cold War. Bush told Gerson that he wanted to set one
idea in stone, that "The future of America and the security of America
depends on the spread of liberty."
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. marveled that Bush could change American foreign
policy so significantly into a doctrine of what amounted to "preventive
war" - a war to stop a war. "To do this without igniting a national
debate shows remarkable leadership skills", Schlesinger said.
Planning
What emerges from the book is that there was little or no planning for
post-war Iraq before and after the conclusion of the formal hostilities.
There also seems to be a lack of understanding of the intricacies of
Iraqi society and a simplistic approach that accordingly lumped all of
its multiple segments into one body that could be drawn together to support
a democratic government without difficulty.
There was no particular planning for the economic well being of the
country, including water, sewerage, electricity, transportation, education
and medical and hospital care, or recognition of what the failure to supply
these essentials would do to the political structure of the country.
The problem of security was treated naively and there was no particular
provision for the maintenance of a police force. With the disbanding of
the Iraqi army and the de-Bathification carried out to dismissing even
the lowest level officials, the result was not only the creation of a
tremendous number of unemployed citizens, but also the elimination of
the enforcers of security in the society.
What this book points up is that planning for a war should include more
than plans for military conquest.
The aftermath may be more difficult and, of course, lack of internationalization
becomes even more evident in this phase.
