WASHINGTON: Winning the war in Iraq will require at least a decade of US military involvement, spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and adopting a new strategy that would see more US troops killed, a top military analyst in Washington has said.
Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Centre for Strategic Assessments, said the US military has little chance of winning the counter-insurgency war in Iraq unless it focuses on protecting Iraqi civilians, instead of killing guerrillas.
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Current US operations, based on the same military offensive tactics that failed in Vietnam, are making “little progress” in defeating some 20,000 Iraqi rebels and their few hundred foreign allies.
“During the Vietnam War, US strategy focused on killing insurgents at the expense of winning hearts and minds. This search-and-destroy strategy ultimately failed, but it evidently continues to exert a strong pull on the US military,” Krepinevich wrote.
The practice has undercut security of everyday Iraqis, and, in turn, deprives US troops and the Iraqi government of popular support.
“Even when an attack manages to inflict serious insurgent casualties, there is little or no enduring improvement in security once US forces withdraw from the area,” wrote Krepinevich, a former US Army lieutenant colonel who wrote a respected critique of the US counter-insurgency effort in Vietnam.
Bahrain Tribune
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