In 1999, the Pentagon wargamed an invasion of Iraq:
from the National Security archives at George Washington University
Post-Saddam Iraq - The War Game
"Desert Crossing" 1999 Assumed 400,000 Troops and Still a Mess
Anthony Zinni (ret.), conducted a series of war games known as Desert Crossing in order to assess potential outcomes of an invasion of Iraq aimed at unseating Saddam Hussein...
The results of Desert Crossing... drew pessimistic conclusions regarding the immediate possible outcomes of such action. Some of these conclusions are interestingly similar to the events which actually occurred after Saddam was overthrown. The report forewarned that regime change may cause regional instability by opening the doors to "rival forces bidding for power" which, in turn, could cause societal "fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines" and antagonize "aggressive neighbors." Further, the report illuminated worries that secure borders and a restoration of civil order may not be enough to stabilize Iraq if the replacement government were perceived as weak, subservient to outside powers, or out of touch with other regional governments. An exit strategy, the report said, would also be complicated by differing visions for a post-Saddam Iraq among those involved in the conflict.
(full report)
Among those "interesting similarities" would be the radicalization of the Pakistan-India conflict, the expansion of Iranian regional clout and real power, the destabilization of world oil markets, and the renaissance of al-Qaeda despite the pummeling it just took in Afghanistan.
As the
Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2006:
In its Desert Crossing games, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials assumed the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.
"The conventional wisdom is the US mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," said Thomas Blanton, the archive's director. "But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops."
About 144,000 US troops are now in Iraq, down from a peak of about 160,000 in January.
After 9/11 the world stood with the United States. In less than two years George Bush destroyed all that good will with America's singular, dishonest, and reckless destruction of Iraq for what the whole world knew lay undrilled beneath Iraq's terrain.
Our enemies in the region exploded, because of Iraq and because of George Bush. The Iraqi people bled and died as pawns in a power vacuum created by George Bush. American, Saudi, Kuwaiti, Iranian, and Syrian backed forces jostled for power and lay that nation to waste while George Bush took no serious steps to quell the violence. Al-Qaeda came to Iraq and expanded its cells around the world, always growing both weaker and wider in a sickening paradox. Neighbors turned on neighbors and violence and disease spread, while Americans lost interest and turned off CNN.
Under constraints of inadequate manpower, faulty equipment, and lack of centralized planning, I think it says something about the abilities of our troops on the ground and of the strength of America's residual goodwill in the world that Iraq and the region around it didn't get much much worse, as was foreseen by Zinni's 1999 wargame. Against all odds the center held and shockingly George Bush took the credit, even when he was too busy to greet the coffins coming home.
It was not until he lost Congress that he allowed even an outdated token of wisdom to infect his Iraq policy. He granted a tiny token surge and redeployed US troops in-country back to the hottest hotspots.
Of course the surge raised those total troop numbers just a bit, but they never reached anywhere near the 400,000 that the Desert Crossing exercise had assumed the working minimum. Desert Crossing also assumed that such an invasion would have enlisted the support of several key hemispheric allies--like Turkey and the rest of NATO--before dropping US troops into that stew pot. But it was too late for that too.
What
was he thinking to do all this? Only two explanations exist for this insanity. Either the logic of Donald Rumsfeld's hard-held (and irrational) faith in the brilliant future of low-manpower missions won over the entire Bush war council... or they wanted the mission to fail. Since we know
they planned to invade other countries after Iraq (like Iran, Somalia, Syria), we have to conclude that the whole bunch of them simply bought into Rumsfeld's delusions because it suited what they wanted to believe.
Imagine that mindset for a second: thousands were dying and still they chose to ignore facts and embrace their prejudices.
But why would they
want to believe in a policy so apparently opposed to reality and common sense? Well, folks, despite the vague perverted reassurance we've felt these last 8 years that, regardless of his evil plans, at least someone as smart & tough as Cheney was calling the shots in the White House... they all actually were taking their intellectual cues from George W Bush. He wasn't Cheney's puppet; he wasn't Rove's. They actually let him be in charge. They were grown ups, many of them with post graduate degrees, who had taken oaths to protect this country and yet they still let George Bush have whatever he wanted.
And here's
what he wanted (from Russ Baker's piece in Common Dreams):
Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.
"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me:
'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said,
'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, '
If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." ...
In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow...
According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush's beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House - ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. "
Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade."
Bush's circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: "They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at {Thatcher} and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches."
(full story)
It was a positively Romantic notion Bush held, a fantasy of omnipotence--like a child playing war with toy tanks and toy soldiers that just happened to reallly bleed. As Russ Baker explained in a
later article at TomPaine.com, the fantasizing, and the public denial of his fantasies, continued up through the planning for Iraq:
Despite such mounting evidence {as the
Downing Street Memos}, Bush resolutely maintains total denial. In fact, when a British reporter asked the president recently about the Downing Street documents, Bush painted himself as a reluctant warrior. "
Both of us didn't want to use our military," he said, answering for himself and British Prime Minister Blair. "
Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."
Yet there's evidence that Bush not only deliberately relied on false intelligence to justify an attack, but that he would have willingly used any excuse at all to invade Iraq. And that he was obsessed with the notion well before 9/11—indeed, even before he became president in early 2001.
(full story)
When the Bushies pranced into the White House eight years ago, they were full of childish pronouncements like "the grown ups are finally in charge." Of course an adult wouldn't have to assert he was "all grown up." Thanks to 9/11 and his (again) immature willingness to exploit it, no one challenged the boy-president for over four years--not the press, not the preening sycophants he brought in to run our country, not even the Democratic leadership. Those who did raise their voices... well, we didn't raise them loud enough or use them effectively enough. The insanity spread for years.
By now, thousands of Americans have died; tens of thousands face life-altering injuries; at least tens but probably hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died because of this man's vanity. The blood is impossible to measure and the death tallies are too large to count. The odds are wildly against him ever being held to account for the damage he has done, if mostly because the worst of it was done by the hands of our enemies whom he has merely made stronger with his ignorance and obstinacy.
But there are more crimes still--moral and
de jure--the politicization of the Justice Department and other bureaucracies, the authorization of torture, the betrayal of state secrets, the abuse of civil rights, the bungling of the Katrina crisis, the incitement of deep social divisions, the looting of the public treasury, the decay of social and commercial infrastructure, and finally the exaltation of political dishonesty. The depths of this president's combined tyranny and incompetence boggle the mind. How have we survived this? We must be established on a very firm foundations. His term draws too slowly to an end and the world celebrates, confident that America will do better now. Yet where does that faith come from? How is it we're able to elect one good man president only now and suddenly hope reignites? Yet that seems to be the news from the world: there's a real expectation of curtailing tyranny and terror now. Rebuilding prosperity at home seems within our grasp.
I believe it; I love it, but I do not understand it. In a very technical sense, I have
faith in America. And so I live in gratitude. I think I see much of the rest of the world doing the same.
Bad as it's gotten; abused as we are... the world's people cling to hope and smile at the smallest steps toward progress. Because of one election, the world welcomes America and the American example home, like optimism is their birthright, like happy endings are inevitable. We elect one good guy once and before he even gets close to taking over, a whole planet seems to breathe a sigh of relief. We should be awed by their faith in us; we should be humbled.
For all the horrors done in my name; for all the suffering caused directly and indirectly by my tax dollars; for all the terrorists motivated, recruited, and armed by the hatred of George W Bush's policies; for all the damage Bush did to America's reputation and good will, humanity still--and perhaps naively still--looks to the United States to lead the way to a better tomorrow. How can this be? How are we all so lucky that the world hasn't risen yet in arms to topple the last standing superpower? History all but demands this to happen. And yet they don't turn on us.
I don't have any answers for these questions. I only know I'm thankful this autumn that my country woke up enough to dump the neocons. I'm thankful that the world is tolerant and peaceful enough to let its leading superpower screw up this bad and still get a second chance. I'm grateful that hope is stronger than despair and jealousy combined. It gives me confidence that the violent nihilists who murdered dozens of innocents in India this week solely for the thrill of creating havok will lose their struggle. Those who seek to build peace have the power to be stronger if only the peaceful sides find the leaders to guide the way. That's one hell of an endorsement of human nature.
For eight years Americans have been shackled to a leader who has no such faith in the goodness of people. Despite his words, his policies have broadcast his true beliefs--that people are worthless and terror is strength. That pawns are expendable and wealth is its own reward. Many throughout the world, both our enemies and our allies, followed his sick lead or bent to his will. They marched, they plotted, they lied, they made others bleed, and a vicious few drew profits from the blood.
Now we have a chance to do it different. The world, the west, our country, our party, even just my few readers here at DU--we have another chance to help our democracy be a force for hope in the human journey. It's a long uncertain road. It runs through the dark terrain beyond our sight. I don't know the course we'll take--we'll probably disagree with each other a lot at each fork in the road. But incredibly, undeservedly, we have a new chance in the years ahead to fix the wrongs and build the hopes that make life sweet and loving. It's not a done deal; the game hasn't changed that much. In so many ways, from so many perspectives, Barrack Obama is just a cosmetic change from the dull piracy of George Bush. He's just a man, a politician in a suit, a deal-cutter, a millionaire with a gift for oratory and a candor that is less than perfect. The USA is still an empire and our enemies have not weakened yet. We still stand ready to bomb our enemies and we know collateral blood will stain his hands too. The real differences come back down to stylistics and hope.
Of course, hope matters one hell of a lot.
So I'm just saying that, for me, I hope we, as a country, as a people, use this chance that history is granting us to make better choices this time around. We are blessed with great power and we have used it badly. We have not truly atoned for our sins. I don't think we have the political will or resilience to atone for what our president has done. The collateral blood stains my hands too.
Yet my hope trumps all that. I want to commit my one little voice in DU toward pushing for a saner and kinder world. I believe we'll be mostly successful in all that. I'm just writing this tonight so that I don't ever forget the past that brought us here.
--Bucky Rea
Houston, Texas
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