Our civilian leaders have been saying it for months: Iraq is now
the center of the war against terrorism. But for just as long, our
military leaders have been approaching the battle for Iraq as a
small, contained insurgency. November dealt American commanders a
blow sufficient to alter their static plans. For months, we have
relied too much on winning hearts and minds, and now we need to
just focus on winning.
November will be remembered as a particularly bloody month,
brightened for the troops — no matter what the media tell you —
by the President’s surprise Thanksgiving visit. It was an act of
leadership, pure and simple. Dubya’s resolve is being tested, but
it isn’t flagging.
We see it again and again. The feeling the troops have for the
President — the guys in the worst places, who go in harm’s way —
is exactly the reverse of what they felt for Lil’ Billy. They
admire him, and cheer him without reservation. Contrast the
President’s Thanksgiving drop-in with Miz Hillary’s visit to
Afghanistan and Iraq. (Yes, I know Sen. Harry Whatsisname from New
Mexico or wherever was with her. He probably felt only a bit better
than the troops who were “volunteered” to shake hands with the lady
impersonating the author of Living History. Some day we
may actually discover who wrote the best selling revisionist
history in living memory.) The troops that were turned out to greet
her looked like they would rather be alone at midnight in some dark
Tikrit alley than smiling for publicity photos. Think how easy it
would have been for her to take a tray and sit with the guys in the
chow hall, to talk to them and actually learn something from them.
But why bother? She wasn’t there to learn, to encourage the troops
or bring them a message from home. Hers wasn’t an exercise in
leadership. It was to craft campaign tools for 2008.
While Hillary was cornering troops for photo-ops, our Army
leaders were taking a page from the Israelis’ book on urban
counter-insurgency operations. It’s good because our army
commanders in Iraq have been operating in a tactical vacuum for
months. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the Iraq contingent
now, has been content to let his men sit in garrison, venturing out
on vulnerable patrols, and on “hearts and minds” missions. Now,
after bloody November, the tactics have changed.
According to the New York Times’s latest miscalculation of the situation,
“…the new approach appears to be succeeding in diminishing
the threat to American soldiers. But it appears to be coming at the
cost of alienating many of the people the Americans are trying to
win over.” It’s unfortunate that we have to look to the
Washington Post for a better view. But the writer is not
one of the Post’s usual suspects. It’s a real soldier.
No one can mistake Gen. Wayne Downing for one of the grumpy old
generals such as Barry McCaffrey and Wesley Clark who still insist
that the war plan was wrong. They apparently agree that we need a
half million troops provided — and commanded — by the U.N. and
the Axis of Weasels to make things right in Iraq. Downing is a spec
ops guy, a very real soldier who has been there and done that. His
point — His point — in an op-ed in Sunday’s Post — boils
down to this: win the damned war and worry about hearts and minds
later.
Downing says that our new tactic — “well-coordinated cordon and
search operations prompted by the best available intelligence;
willingness to enter known insurgent strongholds and directly
engage the enemy even though these areas might be heavily
populated; destruction of insurgents’ homes with smart bombs; and
sweep operations that round up all likely suspects and turn them
over to trained Arab interrogators…” — is both daring and
risky. How will we know if the crackdown is working?
Downing poses four measures of success. Do the insurgent attacks
abate? Do we catch Saddam and Izzat Ibrahim, a top aide thought to
be planning the insurgent attacks? Does the situation improve
enough to establish Iraqi security forces to police the Sunni
Triangle? Does the majority of the Sunni population see the light
and begin to cooperate with the Coalition to rebuild the
country?
Downing’s tests are the best statement yet of what our goals
should be in the next year. But as Downing points out, time is not
on our side. One warrior-intellectual has been telling me for
months that we should be doing what we have now begun to do. That’s
the soldier’s view. What the president needs to do is put more heat
on our generals to increase the pace. The danger in the passing of
time is that the 2004 presidential election will serve as an
incentive for the insurgents — for Saddam and his allies in Syria,
Iran and elsewhere — to wait us out. If the election goes against
Mr. Bush, they know from what the gaggle of Democratic presidential
wannabes are saying that they will be able to cut a deal, and from
that deal perhaps victory can come for them.
Downing’s measures of success are the mirror image of what the
enemy’s have to be. To succeed, Saddam only has to not fail, and
this he has not done yet. Saddam’s principal measure of success is
the passage of time. Can he stay alive and out of American hands
until January ‘05? Can the U.N., the EUnuchs and the rest intervene
to slow or stop the Coalition’s efforts to defeat the insurgents?
Can the Vietnam and Mogadishu models he is trying to copy work by
bleeding America long enough to defeat our resolve? Can Saddam and
his pals continue to flow money and arms to the insurgents through
Syria and other nations to make this so?
We have our measures of success, and the enemy has his. In the
midst of a presidential campaign, we are always vulnerable to
confusion about our motives, and our resolve. As Gen. Downing said,
our new tactic is both daring and risky. To reduce the risk, we
have to do more, and faster.
