The Plan for Iraq

I've started looking at the strategy document that was issued yesterday. Pretty much what you'd expect from anyone that was willing to see what was being done in Iraq. Though I must say, it's about time the administration has actually published the strategy. They could have stifled a lot of screeching by the tin-foil-beany set by coming out with this early.

As to the actual strategy:

- Our Strategy for Victory is Clear
• We will help the Iraqi people build a new Iraq with a constitutional, representative government that respects civil rights and has security forces sufficient to maintain domestic order and keep Iraq from becoming a safe haven for terrorists. To achieve this end, we are pursuing an integrated strategy along three broad tracks, which together incorporate the efforts of the Iraqi government, the Coalition, cooperative countries in the region, the international community, and the United Nations.
• The Political Track involves working to forge a broadly supported national compact for democratic governance by helping the Iraqi government:
- Isolate enemy elements from those who can be won over to the political process by countering false propaganda and demonstrating to all Iraqis that they have a stake in a democratic Iraq;
- Engage those outside the political process and invite in those willing to turn away from violence through ever-expanding avenues of participation; and
- Build stable, pluralistic, and effective national institutions that can protect the interests of all Iraqis, and facilitate Iraq’s full integration into the international community.
• The Security Track involves carrying out a campaign to defeat the terrorists and neutralize the insurgency, developing Iraqi security forces, and helping the Iraqi government:
- Clear areas of enemy control by remaining on the offensive, killing and capturing enemy fighters and denying them safe-haven;
- Hold areas freed from enemy influence by ensuring that they remain under the control of the Iraqi government with an adequate Iraqi security force presence; and
- Build Iraqi Security Forces and the capacity of local institutions to deliver services, advance the rule of law, and nurture civil society.
• The Economic Track involves setting the foundation for a sound and self-sustaining economy by helping the Iraqi government:
- Restore Iraq’s infrastructure to meet increasing demand and the needs of a growing economy;
- Reform Iraq’s economy, which in the past has been shaped by war, dictatorship, and sanctions, so that it can be self-sustaining in the future; and
- Build the capacity of Iraqi institutions to maintain infrastructure, rejoin the international economic community, and improve the general welfare of all Iraqis.

Yeah, the bulleting doesn't copy from PDF very well, so I changed the topic headers to green for clarity. You should read the rest, it's not like it's rocket science.

The politics, as expected, clicked into an immediate response from Reid and Pelosi:

Critics dismissed the public relations offensive as too little, too late.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called on Bush to release a strategy establishing military, economic and political benchmarks that must be met.

“Simply staying the course is no longer an option,” Reid said. “We must change the course.”

For the first time, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California endorsed a call by Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, for a speedy withdrawal.

“Clearly, the president fails to understand that a new course is needed in Iraq,” Pelosi said.

You have to love these types of statement. First the screech that the administration has no policy, and when it's placed cleanly and neatly in their lap, they claim it's a failure and that a new strategy is needed. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything different from politicians.

Then Pelosi jumped on the Murtha retreat strategy and endorsed that.

After the president spoke, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, announced that she is now backing the call by U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

That's a reversal for Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, who two weeks ago rejected Murtha's call for an exit strategy.

Then there is John Kerry's comments:

Providing the Democrat Party’s response to Wednesday’s President Bush speech on Iraq, which was delivered from the US Naval Academy, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said that members of the president’s administration “always use the troops when making speeches”. Kerry further said: “The troops don’t belong to the administration”.

Kerry advised that the “debate is not about an artificial date for withdrawal” from Iraq. Defending the Democrat position, Sen. Kerry stated that Democrat leaders now believe in the upcoming Iraq elections. He further said that if the Iraq elections are successful, the US should begin to withdraw its troops. Kerry said “I can’t tell you what motivates the president or the administration” and added “withdrawing troops will lead to success”.

Not about an artificial date for withdrawal? Wasn't the Murtha plan for a withdrawal in the next six months? Oh wait, it wasn't a withdrawal, it was a "redeployment." So Kerry is completely correct.

I have several snide comments about Kerry's motivations, but you probably can figure those out on your own.

I also ran across an editorial in WaPo, and like usual, nothing is good enough for the naysayers. Hoagland starts by getting the real requirement for the endgame completely wrong.

An effective endgame strategy must center on making U.S. withdrawal the primary catalyst for change in Iraq, rather than a grudging response to the political pressures at home and continuing losses in Iraq.

The primary catalyst must be Iraqi's own secure and stable democracy, not the threat of the US military bailing out on them. Yes, threatening to leave would make the Iraqi's react quickly, but it wouldn't create an environment that would be stable. Without that stability, you could easily end up with a situation as bad or worse than what was in place with Saddam. The US must spark the Iraqi's own sefl-interest to get them to succeed, not threaten to abandon them.

Both the speech and the strategy document restate and refine Bush's still-firm commitment to finishing what he has started in Iraq. But they also understated or avoided the concrete details of the risks that any form of withdrawal, hedged or precipitous, will raise.

Making withdrawal a catalyst for change means equipping Iraqi forces with lethal U.S. weaponry -- something the Pentagon is reluctant to do. It means letting an elected Iraqi government run its own internal intelligence organization -- something the CIA is reluctant to do. It means taking the kind of big risks on Iraqis that Bush has been reluctant to take since the beginning of the war.

Understating the risks of the withdrawl is an interesting thought, though seeing that this is a strategy paper I don't see a risk analysis being the primary focus. The paper is a plan of action at a high level. Hoagland can't seem to get that bit. As for arming the Iraqi forces with US military weaponry, why and who's going to pay for it? I can see why the Pentagon is reluctant to do it. The cost of giving them the equipment is quite high.

Further in the article:

Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, confirmed that he has been urging the Pentagon to begin arming Iraqi units with standardized U.S. vehicles, rifles and other equipment to replace the hodgepodge of obsolete weaponry that the previous Iraqi interim government bought from former Soviet satellites in often dubious deals.

One quick way to accomplish this would be for U.S. units that are withdrawn to leave behind at least a portion of their equipment. Warner is considering legislation that would authorize that step if the Pentagon can work out details, he indicated.

"Yes, there are risks. But we have to take them, to say to the Iraqis: 'It's yours. You're a fully sovereign nation.' That will be the tipping point," says Warner.

Leave our equipment behind is such a brilliant idea. No chance that our military might need it? That detail seems to be totally unaddressed here. But why bother with particulars, since Hoagland seems to want them from the president.

The CIA is understandably reluctant to release their present intelligence operations. If you're responsible to the military to provide that information, you don't want to hand the operations to someone else that may mess it up. Especially when you will still take the blame. I see no reason why the Iraqi government can't have their own system though, especially if it's run in concert with the CIA. It potentially could be more effective than at present.

Bush did make his first significant admissions that -- in the classic Washington phrase for refusing to assign responsibility -- mistakes were made. He highlighted failures in organizing Iraqi police and security forces into small units that were lightly armed with discarded Soviet-made weapons, if they were armed at all. Nothing more would be needed in the wake of a rapid U.S. battlefield victory and the centering of power in the hands of an occupation authority, it had been assumed.

Ah yes, the usual Washinton insider complaint that the president doesn't immediately assume all blame or nail down who the failure was. Mistakes were indeed made, and were reacted to and fixed. Does pointing a finger really get you anything in these scenarios?

Hoagland at least completes his op-ed correctly though:

Americans still have a limited understanding of -- and ability to mold -- Iraqi society. Neither wars nor speeches can change that. But the president needs to return to this subject again in the near future and demonstrate a deepening awareness that the war in Iraq must be fought first of all on Iraqi terms, by Iraqis, for Iraqi reasons.

I'm not sure the president needs to demonstrate the awareness. I think his statements to date show his awareness already, and that he understands that the Iraqis must bring stability to their country out of self interest.