In coming weeks, Gen. David H. Petraeus plans to make television
appearances to report progress on the ground in Iraq.
Petraeus' predecessor as commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. George
Casey, was reluctant to go on TV, and that attitude filtered down to
commanders below him. The Princeton-educated Petraeus, 54, sees the benefits
of explaining directly to the American people what he sees happening in Iraq,
and he suggested that he make himself available to the media.
Once he begins his reports, Petraeus is expected to give regular updates.
Petraeus' assessment is likely to be given added weight because he has
been candid about the gravity of the situation in Iraq. Upon taking command
on Feb. 10, he warned that, if American and Iraqi forces did not work
together, Iraq was "doomed to continued violence and civil
strife." While he believes the effort can succeed, he then said,
"The situation in Iraq is dire. The stakes are high. There are no easy
choices. The way ahead will be very hard."
Petraeus' candor has even extended to publicly listing what he sees as
assumptions that turned out to be wrong and "mistakes . . . made by
both political and military leaders during the course of Operation Iraqi
Freedom."
At President Bush's press conferences, the media constantly demand that
he list mistakes in Iraq. But the media virtually ignored Petraeus'
devastating analysis, delivered in an 11,269-word written response to
questions posed by the Senate Armed Services Committee. While UPI ran a complete
story, only the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times mentioned
Petraeus' Jan. 23 written statement, running snippets inside their
papers.
In his detailed analysis, Petraeus, who was elevated to commander of forces
in Iraq by President Bush on the recommendation of Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates, said the U.S. military was slow to recognize and react to the
evolving threat in Iraq.
"What began as an insurgency has morphed into a conflict that includes
insurgent attacks, terrorism, sectarian violence, and violent crime,"
he said in his written response.
Petraeus said the underlying problem in Iraq was that the national elections,
expected to unify the country behind a legitimate Iraqi government, did the
opposite.
"The elections hardened sectarian positions as Iraqis voted largely
based on ethnic and sectarian group identity," said Petraeus.
Particularly after the Feb. 22, 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara,
Petraeus said, the U.S. government underestimated the security challenges in
Iraq. The U.S. also "overestimated its ability to create new security
institutions following the disbandment of the Iraqi security forces."
It is now conventional wisdom that de-Baathification and the disbanding of
the Iraq military were mistakes. De-Baathification was intended to remove
former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's henchmen, but Petraeus said the
problem was there was no way for Baathists to reconcile with the new regime
and therefore no reason to support the new government.
"To be fair, Ambassador [Jerry] Bremer intended to execute
reconciliation . . . and gave me permission to do so on a trial basis in
Ninevah province," said Petraeus, who served previous tours in Iraq.
Petraeus did not take issue with the decision to disband the Iraqi military.
He said it was far larger than Iraq needed and was top heavy with unnecessary
officers. However, he said the move to dissolve the military was made without
the simultaneous creation of a stipend and pension program for those in the
Iraqi army and without an announcement of how the military would be
reconstituted or how former soldiers could rejoin and reclaim their careers.
A stipend was announced five weeks later, but it did not cover senior
officers, and by that time, there were already protests outside the Green
Zone. That "undoubtedly created tens of thousands of former soldiers
and officers who were angry, feeling disrespected, and worried about how they
would feed their families," Petraeus noted.
"This action likely fueled, at least in part, the early growth of the
insurgency and anti-coalition feeling," Petraeus wrote. The prison
abuse at Abu Ghraib and in other "less sensational but still damaging
cases" further inflamed the insurgency and damaged the credibility of
the coalition in Iraq and around the world as well, he observed.
Petraeus said a number of assumptions and assessments did not bear out.
Among them was "the assumption that Iraqis would remain in their
barracks and ministry facilities and resume their functions as soon as
interim governmental structures were in place," said Petraeus.
"That obviously did not transpire," he said. "The
assessment of the Iraqi infrastructure did not capture how fragile and
abysmally maintained it was [and this challenge, of course, was compounded by
looting]."
Most Iraqis did greet the Americans as liberators, even in most Sunni Arab
areas, Petraeus said. But he wrote that "there was an underestimation
of the degree of resistance that would develop as, inevitably, a Shi'a
majority government began to emerge and the Sunni Arabs, especially, the
Saddamists, realized that the days of their dominating Iraq were over."
For the first 15 months or more in Iraq, the U.S. had "an inadequate
military structure," Petraeus said. The strategy pursued after the
bombing of the Al Askariya Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 "was
unable to arrest the spiraling violence and rise of harmful sectarian
activities," he said. "Repeated operations in Baghdad, in
particular, to clear, hold, and build did not prove durable due to lack of
sufficient Iraqi and Coalition Forces for the hold phase of the
operations."
Beyond that, "We took too long to develop the concepts and structures
needed to build effective Iraqi security forces to assist in providing
security to the Iraqi people," Petraeus said. "We obviously had
inadequate plans, concepts, organizations, resources, and policies for the
conduct of Phase IV [stability and reconstruction] operations; consequently,
we were slow to move into Phase IV operations."
As outlined in a Nov. 8, 2006 NewsMax article, "Bush
Policies Will Not Change," the president will not give up on Iraq no
matter how tough the situation gets.
In response to a question during his confirmation hearing, Petraeus said
passage of a non-binding congressional resolution denouncing Bush policies in
Iraq would not have a "beneficial effect" on troop morale.
Asked if the resolution would show the enemy that the American people were
divided, Petraeus said it would.
Ronald Kessler is
chief Washington correspondent of NewsMax.com. View his previous reports
and get his dispatches sent to you FREE via e-mail. Go Here Now.
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