L

conflict, and unity of effort and command. essons Encountered: Learning from
They stand alongside the lessons of other wars the Long War began as two questions
and remind future senior officers that those
Excerpts from from General Martin E. Dempsey, 18th

LESSONS
who fail to learn from past mistakes are bound Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: What

LESSONS ENCOUNTERED
to repeat them. were the costs and benefits of the campaigns
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what were the

R strategic lessons of these campaigns? The

ENCOUNTERED
Institute for National Strategic Studies at
the National Defense University was tasked
to answer these questions. The editors com-
The Institute for National Strategic Studies
Henry Kissinger has reminded us that the study of history offers no manual posed a volume that assesses the war and
(INSS) conducts research in support of the
analyzes the costs, using the Institutes con-

Learning from the Long War

LESSONS ENCOUNTERED
academic and leader development programs of instruction that can be applied automatically; history teaches by analogy,
siderable in-house talent and the dedication
at the National Defense University (NDU) in
Washington, DC. It provides strategic sup-
shedding light on the likely consequences of comparable situations. At the
strategic level, there are no cookie-cutter lessons that can be pressed onto ev- Learning from the Long War of the NDU Press team. The audience for
this volume is senior officers, their staffs, and
port to the Secretary of Defense, Chairman ery batch of future situational dough. The only safe posture is to know many
the students in joint professional military
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and unified com- historical cases and to be constantly reexamining the strategic context, ques-
education coursesthe future leaders of the
batant commands. INSS also interacts with tioning assumptions, and testing the appropriateness of analogies. Armed Forces. Other national security pro-
other U.S. Government agencies, other edu-
fessionals should find it of great value as well.
cational institutions, and the broader nation-
al security community. It includes the Center
for Strategic Research, Center for Technology
R The volume begins with an introduction that
addresses the difficulty of learning strategic
and National Security Policy, Center for the At times during the Long War, civil-military tension was compounded unnec- lessons and a preview of the major lessons
Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Center for essarily. Civilian decisionmakers can benefit from a better understanding of identified in the study. It then moves on to an
the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the complexity of military strategy and the militarys need for clear planning analysis of the campaigns in Afghanistan and
Center for Complex Operations, and NDU
guidance. Senior military officers for their part require a deep understanding Iraq from their initiation to the onset of the
Press.
of the policy/interagency process, an appreciation for the perspectives of civil- U.S. Surges. The study then turns to the Surg-
ian counterparts, and a willingness to embrace, and not resist, the complexi- es themselves as tests of assessment and ad-

R ties and challenges inherent in our system of civilian control. aptation. The next part focuses on decision-
making, implementation, and unity of effort.
The volume then turns to the all-important
Jacket designed by Chris Dunham
U.S. Government Printing Office
R issue of raising and mentoring indigenous se-
curity forces, the basis for the U.S. exit strate-
gy in both campaigns. Capping the study is a
Four-star generals and admirals are masters of Service and joint warfighting,
Cover photo: U.S. Army Soldiers with Echo chapter on legal issues that range from deten-

Hooker and Collins

but at the most senior levels, other attributes are necessary. These include in-
Company, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 172nd In- tion to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.
teragency acumen; media savvy; a detailed understanding of congressional
fantry Brigade, prepare to clear building The final chapter analyzes costs and benefits,
relations; a strong grasp of the defense planning, programming, and budget- dissects decisionmaking in both campaigns,
during combined training exercise with Iraqi
ing system; and skill in multinational environments. and summarizes the lessons encountered.
soldiers near Bahbahani, Iraq, June 6, 2009
(DOD/Kim Smith) Supporting the volume are three annexes:

R one on the human and financial costs of the

Long War and two detailed timelines for his-
tories of Afghanistan and Iraq and the U.S.
A lesson here for future senior officers is that there is no substitute for lifelong campaigns in those countries.
learning. The study of history, a broad grasp of all the instruments of national
power with their strengths and weaknesses, confidence and a decisive charac- The lessons encountered in Afghanistan and
NDU Press ter, and a fair portion of prudence and humility are all helpful when dealing Iraq at the strategic level inform our under-
260 Fifth Avenue with future commitments and challenges. Edited by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins standing of national security decisionmaking,
intelligence, the character of contemporary
Fort Lesley J. McNair
Washington, DC
Continued on back flap
 LESSONS
ENCOUNTERED
 LESSONS
ENCOUNTERED
Learning from the Long War

Edited by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.
September 2015
Published in the United States by National Defense University Press. Portions of
this book may be quoted or reprinted without permission, provided that a stan-
dard source credit line is included. NDU Press would appreciate a courtesy copy of
reprints or reviews.

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely

those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Depart-
ment of State, Department of Defense, or any other agency of the Federal Govern-
ment. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lessons encountered : learning from the long war / edited by Richard D. Hooker, Jr.,
and Joseph J. Collins.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
1. National securityUnited StatesHistory21st century. 2. United States
Military policyHistory21st century. 3. Afghan War, 2001- 4. Iraq War, 2003-
2011. 5. United StatesArmed ForcesOperations other than warHistory21st
century. 6. United StatesHistory, Military21st centuryCase studies. 7.
Strategy. I. Hooker, Richard D., editor of compilation. II. Collins, Joseph J., editor of
compilation.
UA23.L484 2015
355'.033073dc23
2015030056

National Defense University Press

260 Fifth Avenue (Building 64)
Suite 2500
Fort Lesley J. McNair
Washington, DC 20319

NDU Press publications are sold by the U.S. Government Printing Office. For order-
ing information, call (202) 512-1800 or write to the Superintendent of Documents,
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 20402. For GPO publications
online, access its Web site at: http://bookstore.gpo.gov.

Book design by Chris Dunham, U.S. Government Printing Office

Cover photo: U.S. Army Soldiers with Echo Company, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 172nd
Infantry Brigade, prepare to clear building during combined training exercise with
Iraqi soldiers near Bahbahani, Iraq, June 6, 2009 (DOD/Kim Smith)
Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared
with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as
wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this [war]
as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be
avenged.

Abraham Lincoln, November 10, 1864

Source: United Nations
Source: United Nations
 Contents

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins

Chapter 1

Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Joseph J. Collins

Chapter 2

Strategic Assessment and Adaptation: The Surges in

Iraq and Afghanistan.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Frank G. Hoffman and G. Alexander Crowther

Chapter 3

National-Level Coordination and Implementation:

How System Attributes Trumped Leadership.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Christopher J. Lamb with Megan Franco

Chapter 4

Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan

and Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
T.X. Hammes

ix
Chapter 5

9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict.. . . . . 345
Nicholas Rostow and Harvey Rishikof

Chapter 6

Reflections on Lessons Encountered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins

Annexes

A. The Human and Financial Costs of

Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Sara Thannhauser and Christoff Luehrs

B. Afghanistan Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

C. Iraq Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

About the Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

x
 Acknowledgments

T
his volume was a great team effort that enabled us to accomplish a
2-year project in only 10 months. The first acknowledgment goes to
the nearly one dozen people who wrote chapters and annexes. Next
we thank Lieutenant General Thomas D. Waldhauser, USMC, Director for
Joint Force Development, Joint Staff J7, and Major General Frederick Padilla,
USMC, President of the National Defense University (NDU). They were a crit-
ical sounding board and gave great advice to the team.
Many others helped us and gave unselfishly of their time and effort. A
number of senior officers and civilians gave hours of their time to provide
interviews (or written responses) for this project. Among them were General
Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Honorable Ste-
phen J. Hadley, former National Security Advisor; General Lloyd J. Austin III,
USA, Commander, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM); General David
Petraeus, USA (Ret.), former Commander, USCENTCOM, and command-
er in Iraq and Afghanistan; General James N. Mattis, USMC (Ret.), former
Commander, USCENTCOM; Admiral James G. Stavridis, USN (Ret.), former
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe; General Stanley A. McChrystal, USA
(Ret.), former commander in Afghanistan; General John R. Allen, USMC
(Ret.), former commander in Afghanistan; Lieutenant General Douglas E.
Lute, USA (Ret.), former Deputy National Security Advisor and now U.S. Am-
bassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; the Honorable Michle
Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; Dr. Michael Mazaar
of RAND, a former member of the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff s Com-
manders Action Group; and John Wood, a long-serving member of the Na-
tional Security Council Staff.
The authors also had access to over 100 additional senior officer interviews
conducted by organizations such as the Center for Military History (CMH),

xi
Acknowledgments

Military History Institute (MHI), Combat Studies Institute (CSI) at Fort Leav-
enworth, and Chief of Staff of the Armys Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) Study
Group. We would like to thank Dr. Donald Wright of CSI, Dr. Conrad Crane
of MHI, Colonel E.J. Degen, USA, of CMH, the leader of the Armys opera-
tional study of Operation Enduring Freedom, and Colonel Joel Rayburn, USA,
the leader of the Armys OIF study, for their assistance in facilitating access to
these interviews, which allowed the authors to exploit previous research on
Afghanistan and Iraq, thus saving months of work in the process.
As always, the Center for Complex Operations (CCO) staff earned our
deepest appreciation. Some commented on chapters, while others transcribed,
took notes, edited, scheduled, or pointed out errors. CCO Deputy Bernie Car-
reau provided management and expert commentary. Giorgio Rajao, Nathan
White, Fulbright scholar Hiram Reynolds, Maxwell Kelly, Michael Davies, and
Major Claude Lambert, USA, a graduate student at George Mason Universi-
ty, took notes, made expert comments, and worked on formal summaries or
transcripts of multiple interviews. Captain Sam Rosenberg, USA, a graduate
student in Georgetowns Security Studies Program, did excellent work on the
timelines and fact-checking. The CCO staff who participated in this project
also include Michael Miklaucic, Dale Erickson, Sara Thannhauser, Christoff
Luehrs, Talley Latimore, Connor Christensen, Ryan Lester, and Jonathan Re-
ich. Becky Harper worked tirelessly behind the scenes to direct support to the
project, the projects workers, and two complex conferences.
In addition to the authors and the support staff, the team wants to extend
its appreciation to the many people who read the manuscript and commented
on the chapters. We owe our special gratitude to our senior reviewers, who not
only commented on the manuscript as a whole but also sat with us for a long
day discussing it in detail, the academic version of trench warfare. Our se-
nior reviewers were Professor Richard Betts of Columbia University; Professor
Dan Caldwell of Pepperdine University; Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster,
USA, of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC); Major
General Rick Waddell, USAR, who is both director of the NDU renowned
Capstone Course and Deputy Commander of U.S. Southern Command; and
Lieutenant General David Deptula, USAF (Ret.), who is is the Dean of the
Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Power Studies.

xii
 Acknowledgments

Our chapter reviewers, who also made great and detailed contributions,
include John Wood of the Near East South Asia Center, Dr. Pete Mansoor of
The Ohio State University, Ryan Henry and Linda Robinson of RAND, Rob-
ert Perito, Dr. Jack Kem of the Combined Arms Center, the Honorable James
Baker of the Court of Military Appeals, and Amy Belasco of the Congressional
Research Service.
A number of other invited reviewers went above and beyond and sub-
mitted detailed comments on the manuscript. The editors and authors want
to thank in particular Professor Cynthia Watson of the National War Col-
lege, who read the manuscript twice; Professor Steve Brent and Professor
Sorin Lungu of the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and
Resource Strategy; Colonel Tim Ryan, USA (Ret.), of the Joint and Coalition
Operational Analysis Division, J7, Joint Staff; and Lieutenant Colonel John
Gallagher, USA, Lieutenant Colonel Blair Sokol, USMC, and Colonel Charlie
Miller, USA, of the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Others
who weighed in at our review conference include Norine MacDonald, Queens
Counsel; Major Dave McNatt, USA, TRADOC Army Capabilities Integration
Center; Major Erica Iverson, USA, TRADOC; and Colonel Joel Rayburn.
The Small Wars Journal (SWJ), for the last decade led by Dave Dilegge
Marine, journalist, and entrepreneurpublished a review essay by one of our
authors on lessons learned and invited reader responses. Among those who
contributed their thoughts were Dr. John Fairlamb, Dr. Jeff McCausland, Jeff
Goodson, Brian Petit (who sent along his own book), Keith Nightingale, Da-
vid Ronfeldt, Dr. John Kuehn, and many others on the SWJ blog whose use of
aliases prevent us from naming them. National War College faculty members
and alumni added powerful and precise commentary. Thanks also to Colonels
Dave Arnold, USAF; John Hall, USA; Ivan Shidlovsky, USA; Andrew Niel-
sen, USAF; and Mark Roberts of the Department of Homeland Security for
their expert commentary. Professors Dan Dailey and Mark Clodfelter of the
National War College mixed intelligence and strategic commentary in appro-
priate proportions. The Army War Colleges Steve Metz also lent us his con-
siderable wisdom. Lastly, Jerry Lynes of J7 was supportive through every step
of the process.
A final note of thanks goes to our friends and partners at NDU Press. The
skillful work of Dr. William T. Eliason, Dr. Jeffrey D. Smotherman, Dr. John

xiii
Acknowledgments

J. Church, Joanna E. Seich, and Erin L. Sindle, along with Lisa M. Yambrick,
made this a better book.
The editors and authors alone are responsible for any errors of fact or in-
terpretation. This work is theirs alone and does not purport to represent the
assessment, interpretation, or views of the Department of Defense, Joint Staff,
or National Defense University.

xiv
 Introduction
By Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

N
ot learning from wars can be catastrophic. The next cohort of na-
tional security leaders may not achieve the sublime mental state en-
visioned by T.S. Eliot, but they must make every effort to learn the
lessons of the Long War. For that reason, in his second terms Strategic Direc-
tion to the Joint Force, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E.
Dempsey charged senior officers to apply wartime lessons learned to provide
best military advice and inform U.S. policy objectives and strategic guidance.1
Major General Gregg F. Martin, USA, thenPresident of National Defense
University (NDU), wrote:

In addition to continuing to analyze and teach the lessons of past conflicts,

[NDU] must research, disseminate, and teach the strategic and opera-
tional lessons of over 10 years of war. These efforts will play an important
role in both improving the quality of strategic leadership and performance
of our graduates and contributing to new national and military security
strategies and innovative operational concepts to meet emerging needs.2

1
Hooker and Collins

This volume represents an early attempt at assessing the Long War, now in
its 14th year. Forged in the fires of the 9/11 attacks, the war includes campaigns
against al Qaeda, major conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and operations in
the Horn of Africa, the Republic of the Philippines, and globally, in the air
and on the sea. The authors herein treat only the campaigns in Afghanistan
and Iraq, the largest U.S. efforts. It is intended for future senior officers, their
advisors, and other national security decisionmakers. By derivation, it is also
a book for students in joint professional military education courses, which
will qualify them to work in the field of strategy. While the book tends to fo-
cus on strategic decisions and developments of land wars among the people,
it acknowledges that the status of the United States as a great power and the
strength of its ground forces depend in large measure on the dominance of the
U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force in their respective domains.
This assessment proceeds from two guiding sets of questions about the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The core set of questions was suggested by the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: What did we gain? What did we lose? What costs
did the United States pay for its response to 9/11, particularly from operations
in Afghanistan and Iraq? How should the answers to these questions inform
senior military leaders contributions to future national security and national
military strategy? The second set of questions proceeds from the first: what are
the strategic lessons learned (or lessons encountered, as the British and the
authors of this work prefer) of our experience in Operation Enduring Freedom
(OEF) in Afghanistan, and Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and New Dawn in
Iraq.
This inquiry is constrained by a number of factors. First, the conflicts in
Afghanistan and Iraq continue. Our combat forces withdrew from Iraq in
2011 and that campaign was formally brought to a close, but it was reopened
because of the advances by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
since 2014. Thus, this book reviews two incomplete stories. Second, focus-
ing on the primary operations in Iraq and Afghanistan leaves the lessons of
secondary, but still important, operations for another day. For example, the
advisory and assistance experience in the Republic of the Philippines may
well provide important lessons for the future. Indeed, future U.S. operations
in this war are much more likely to resemble what our trainers and advisors
did in the Philippines than what their comrades did in Iraq or Afghanistan.

2
 Introduction

Third, in asking the questions posed above, the book may pay inadequate
attention to the nearly 50 nations that have been involved with the United
States as coalition partners in various theaters. Warfare today is coalition war-
fare. While this book focuses on the United States, nothing here should be
seen as devaluing the contributions of host nations or coalition partners. Fi-
nally, our primary audience is future senior military officers who will work at
the strategic level in peace and war: the Chairman, Service chiefs, combatant
commanders, their senior staff officers, and all thosemilitary and civilian
who interact with interagency partners, the National Security Council, and the
President. Given its focus and audience, this study does not include an exam-
ination of the tactical and operational levels of these conflicts.3
This inquiry must also contend with the difficulties of learning from his-
tory, an arduous task under any circumstances. Great effort is no guarantee of
learning the right lessons. There are numerous cases of great powers making
significant efforts to learnonly to fail. The French had one of the greatest
armies of the 19th and 20th centuries but twice learned the wrong lessons from
wars against Germany, including a world war in which they were part of the
victorious alliance. The causes of faulty learning are varied but include lack
of imagination, poor information, misperception, stress, organizational pref-
erences, bureaucratic politics, and inflexible military doctrine.4 Ideology and
personal experience may enlighten or blind the observer to lessons.5 As noted
by military historian Jay Luvaas:

We should understand the reasons why military men in the past have
failed sometimes to heed the correct lessons. Often it has been the result
of an inability to understand local conditions or to accept another army
or society on its own terms. Sometimes the guidance to observers has
been so specific that the major lessons of the war went unheeded simply
because observers had not been instructed to look in different directions.
. . . Sometimes, doctrine has narrowed the vision or directed the search,
as in the case of the French army after World War I. Often, there has
been a failure to appreciate that once removed from its context, a specif-
ic lesson loses much of its usefulness.6

3
Hooker and Collins

Henry Kissinger has reminded us that the study of history offers no

manual of instruction that can be applied automatically; history teaches by
analogy, shedding light on the likely consequences of comparable situations.
But each generation must determine for itself which circumstances are in fact
comparable.7 Strategic lessons from comparable cases can appear to present
the student with conflicting advice. Adam Gopnick, comparing the onset of
the two world wars, wrote:

The last century, through its great cataclysms, offers two clear, ringing,
and, unfortunately, contradictory lessons. The First World War teaches
that territorial compromise is better than full-scale war, that an hon-
or-bound allegiance of the great powers to small nations is a recipe for
mass killing, and that it is crazy to let the blind mechanism of armies
and alliances trump common sense. The Second teaches that searching
for an accommodation with tyranny by selling out small nations only
encourages the tyrant, that refusing to fight now leads to a worse fight
later on, and that only the steadfast rejection of compromise can prevent
the natural tendency to rush to a bad peace with worse men. The First
teaches us never to rush into a fight, the Second never to back down
from a bully.8

At the strategic level, there are no cookie-cutter lessons that can be pressed
onto every batch of future situational dough. A lesson from one era or locale
may not fit another. The only safe posture is to know many historical cases and
to be constantly reexamining the strategic context, questioning assumptions,
and testing the appropriateness of analogies. The lessons of OIF and OEF will
join those of other wars, competing for the attention of future decisionmakers
and, no doubt, at times confounding them. The difficulty of learning lessons
from history, however, should not stop us from trying to learn. Indeed, the
rewards of successful learningthink Franklin D. Roosevelt in the run-up
to World War II or John F. Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisiscannot be
overestimated. A final caveat: ones enemies can learn faster and better. The
defeated will often learn better than the victors.
For national security professionals, technical and tactical lessons are rel-
atively easy to digest, but operational and strategic lessons are much more

4
 Introduction

difficult, though not impossible, to capture. Lessons for military or national

security strategy are the most important lessons of all, and the ones that mili-
tary observers often ignore. In the Armed Forces, one often hears, even from
senior officers, that certain strategic subjects are above my pay grade. That
is sometimes true, but at the highest levels of command, the larger strategic
lessons must be the focal point of study and education. Carl von Clausewitz
reminded his readers that policy, politics, statecraft, and military affairs come
together at the highest levels:

To bring a war or one of its campaigns to a successful close requires

a thorough grasp of national policy. On that level, strategy and policy
coalesce: [the general who] is commander in chief, is simultaneously a
statesman . . . but he must not cease to be a general. On the one hand, he
is aware of the entire political situation; on the other, he knows exactly
how much he can achieve with the means at his disposal.9

President Kennedy covered similar themes in his 1961 instructions to the

Joint Chiefs. Disappointed by senior officers who looked narrowly at issues
during the Bay of Pigs crisis, he wrote, While I look to the Chiefs to present
the military factor without reserve or hesitation, I regard them to be more than
military men and expect their help in fitting military requirements into the
over-all context of any situation, recognizing that the most difficult problem in
Government is to combine all assets in a unified, effective pattern.10
Finally, for senior officers and their civilian masters, learning from his-
tory is complicated by the nature of organizational life. It is one thing for an
individual to experience a phenomenon, learn from it, and apply lessons to
a subsequent experience. When generals and admirals talk about learning,
however, they are talking about distilling experience, drawing complex con-
clusions, debating them, resolving differences, packaging lessons, and then
inculcating them into the force through doctrine, training, exercises, and joint
professional military education.11 The Armed Forces can forget lessons that
are not institutionalized, that lose bureaucratic sponsorship, or that are mis-
applied in the future. The retention, nurturing, and propagation of relevant
lessons are difficult at the tactical and operational levels but even more so at
the context-sensitive strategic level.

5
Hooker and Collins

In a similar vein, the failure to inculcate lessons can cause the apparent
repetition of national security disasters, commonly referred to as history re-
peating itself. For example, the decisionmaking pathologies associated with
Athens Sicilian expedition in the Peloponnesian Wars, the introduction of
U.S. combat troops into Vietnam in 1965, and the invasion and occupation
of Iraq in 2003 all demonstrate the difficulties of learning, institutionalizing,
and consistently applying even well-known or obvious strategic lessons. Sadly,
faulty learning and poor decisionmaking echo throughout the ages, but so do
the cases of accurate learning, adaptation, and innovation.
Encountering lessons is relatively easy; understanding and institutionaliz-
ing them over time is more difficult, especially in the realm of national strat-
egy. The ultimate value of this volume should be determined by the future se-
nior officers and national security decisionmakers who refine and internalize
its strategic lessons. Those leaders must then ensure that the lessons are passed
down to succeeding generations and applied under appropriate circumstanc-
es. If this book assists future military and civilian decisionmakers, it will have
achieved its goal.
This book is an edited volume but not a collage of independent efforts.
The authors worked together for 10 months and twice met in conference along
with expert commentators. At the same time, the authors do not necessarily
agree on all the key assessments.
The book is divided in this manner: chapter one focuses on the early,
pre-Surge years in both campaigns. Chapter two continues the chronological
thread but focuses on assessment and adaptation in the Surges in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Chapter three examines decisionmaking at the national level and
implementation. Chapter four discusses security force assistance, the coali-
tions development of indigenous armies, and police forces. Chapter five ana-
lyzes the complex set of legal issues attendant to irregular conflict, including
detention and interrogation policy. Chapter six develops the capstone conclu-
sions of the study and isolates the most important lessons. Supporting these
chapters are three annexes: one on the human and financial costs of war, and,
for reference, two others on the key events in both campaigns.
To orient the reader, the lessons encountered in these chapters are divided
into a few functional areas: national-level decisionmaking, unity of effort/uni-
ty of command, intelligence and understanding the operational environment,

6
 Introduction

character of contemporary conflict, and security force assistance. Clearly, each

observer of the Long War would characterize his lessons in a different man-
ner, but the following observations are what the contributors of this volume
thought to be most important.12

National-Level Decisionmaking
Strategic lessons begin with decisionmaking, which here entails efforts at
shaping goals, developing strategies, crafting plans at the national and depart-
mental levels, and developing ways to carry out those plans. Every chapter in
this book raises observations and lessons on these complex processes. Here are
the lessons encountered in this study:

n Military participation in national decisionmaking is both

necessary and problematic. Part of this comes from normal civ-
il-military tension, but many instances in the Long War also
show unnecessary misunderstandings. Civilian national security
decisionmakers need a better understanding of the complexity of
military strategy and the militarys need for planning guidance.
Senior military officers for their part require a deep understand-
ing of the interagency decisionmaking process, an appreciation
for civilian points of view, and a willingness to appreciate the
complexities and challenges inherent in our system of civilian
control.13 Both civilian and military planners should cultivate the
art of backward planning, starting with the desired political end-
state and working back toward the present.14
n In a similar vein, inside the Pentagon, future senior officers

also need to study cases in wartime decisionmaking. The case

of Iraq is particularly instructive. In the run-up to the Iraq War,
the Secretary of Defenseas is his legal prerogativeinterjected
himself into the military-technical aspects of war planning to a
high, perhaps unprecedented degree. History will judge the wis-
dom of this managerial technique, but it serves as a reminder to
future senior officers that the civil-military relationship, in Eliot
Cohens term, is characterized by an unequal dialogue.15 Secre-
taries of Defense in the future can leave war planning to the com-

7
Hooker and Collins

batant commander and the Joint Chiefs or, like Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, dive into the details with a regular stream of questions
and memoranda. Senior officers need to be ready for either meth-
od, or a hybrid of both.
n Vigorous discussion and clearly presented military perspec-

tives are essential for successful strategy. The best military advice
should be provided without fear or favor, but always nested with-
in a larger appreciation of the strategic context and its political,
economic, diplomatic, and informational dimensions. This con-
versation must be carried on in private, not in the public square.
n In most cases civilian leaders will look for a range of suitable,

feasible, and acceptable military options, with clear cost and risk
estimates. In cases where the objective is poorly defined, military
leaders should press for clarity. In so doing, senior officers must
remember that civilian policymakers generally lack a military
planning background and that formulating policy goals is usually
based on discussion and consensus. In this milieu, persuasive ar-
guments matter and will often prevail.
n Four-star officers are presumed to be masters of joint warfare,

but at the highest levels, knowledge of the interagency commu-

nity, the press, and Congress, as well as defense budgeting and
international affairs, are also critical. Not every successful flag
officer will be well equipped in these fields. In some of the cases
examined in this volume, lack of experience in these areas prob-
ably inhibited success.
n While the civilian leadership remains firmly in charge of the

policy process, senior military figures also have an obligation to

provide their military expertise and, if necessary, their respectful
dissent to help prevent strategic disaster. In this regard, military
officers like their civilian counterparts do not shed personal and
professional values when they reach the top. Whenever the use of
force is contemplated, the advice they bring to bear must come
with a firm moral-ethical component.
n National security is a highly personalized process where trust

is the coin of the realm. That trust may take years to evolve but

8
 Introduction

can be lost in a day. Good working relationships between civil-

ian and military partners, despite differences that may arise on
specific issues, will go far toward resolving the natural tension
inherent in the civil-military relationship.
n Senior military planners must pay more attention to the link-

age between political and military objectives. Civil and military

planning for postconflict stability operations was inadequate.
Poor postconflict planning set back operations in Afghanistan
and Iraq. The worst failing in Iraq was, early on, an inadequate
number of troops on the ground to establish order and initiate
stability operations. This failure sped the onset of an insurgency
that evolved into a sectarian civil war.
n Policy and strategy are highly sensitive to budget, election,

and news cycles. The health of the Nations economy is also a key
factor. Career military officers are not always attuned to these re-
alities, but civilian decisionmakers are. Awareness of and flexibil-
ity with respect to this reality will improve the quality of military
advice.

Unity of Effort/Unity of Command

The best strategic decisions exemplify unity of command on the military side
and unity of effort in all areas. The campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq suffered
from significant problems in this regard, both in the military and in the inter-
agency aspects of the operations.

n Whole-of-government efforts are essential in irregular con-

flicts. The military must improve its efforts to reach across de-
partmental divides. The Department of State and U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) have improved over time
but need to work harder on planning for expeditionary activi-
ties. Unfortunately, emphasis on working whole-of-government
issues is fading across the U.S. Government, except in the field
of joint concept and doctrine development.16 For popular sup-
port and policy effectiveness, the national security system must

9
Hooker and Collins

routinely generate vertical and horizontal unity of effort at every

level.
n The United States was often unable to knit its vast interagen-

cy capabilities together for best effect.17 The implementation of

national decisions by various agencies and departments was a
continuing problem for senior officials. The inability to integrate,
direct, prioritize, and apply capabilities in the optimal manner
diminished success as much as any faulty strategy or campaign
plan. The converse is also true: our greatest successes were those
pockets of interagency collaboration stimulated by innovative
leaders.
n Continuous monitoring of strategy implementation is part of

the portfolio of the National Security Council, Office of the Sec-

retary of Defense, Joint Staff, and field commanders. At nation-
al, theater, and high commands, U.S. departments and agencies
must work closely early on to develop performance metrics and
use them consistently over time to manage the conflict. Hon-
est periodic reassessments should be meticulously planned and
ruthlessly executed. This is important for combat, personnel, lo-
gistics, and replacement training and education. Short tours are
likely to be a constant, and we need to ensure that new personnel
and units know the physical territory and demographics of their
areas of operations.
n Unity of command is a key tenet in the principles of joint op-

erations and remains relevant to how the Armed Forces use com-
bat power across a range of operations. Unity of command is a
time-proven American tradition that has been applied to great
effect in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. This prin-
ciple, however, seems to have been bypassed in the development
of disjointed command and control structures in the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.18 Indeed, General David Petraeus noted that we
did not get the strategy and command and control architecture
right in Afghanistan until 2010.19 Creating unity of command
within large coalitions will remain a high point of military art.

10
 Introduction

Intelligence and Understanding the Operational Environment

Intelligence in war is always problematic. Not only are understanding, analy-
sis, and prediction difficult, but the thinking enemy also attempts to deceive us
at every twist and turn. In these two campaigns, the difficult mission of intel-
ligence agencies has been compounded by the need for additional intelligence
on the indigenous population.

n Neither national nor military intelligence in Iraq and Afghan-

istan was a success in supporting decisionmakers. Intelligence on
Afghanistan itself was initially scant and not actionable. In Iraq,
prewar intelligence was wrong about weapons of mass destruc-
tion, the Iraqi police, and the state of Iraqi infrastructure. U.S.
forces had little information on tribal dynamics and the poten-
tial role of Iran. In both wars, U.S. intelligence failed in telling
battlespace owners about the people whom they were protecting.
The effects of these shortcomings were grave.
n The biggest advances in intelligence came in improved sup-

port for the warfighter at the tactical level, and the intimate re-
lationship that developed between special operations forces and
all-source intelligence. General Martin Dempsey stated that a
captain at a remote site in Afghanistan in 2008 had more access
to national technical means and high-level intelligence than he
had as a division commander in 2003.20
n Neither national-level figures nor field commanders fully un-

derstood the operational environment, including the human as-

pects of military operations.21 To fight, in Rupert Smiths term,
war among the people, one must first understand them. We were
not intellectually prepared for the unique aspects of war in Iraq
and Afghanistan. In both conflicts, ethnic, religious, and cultur-
al differences drove much of the fighting. Efforts to solve this
problemHuman Terrain Teams and the Afghanistan-Pakistan
Hands Program, for examplecame too little and too late. Our
intelligence system was of little help here primarily because the
Intelligence Community did not see this as its mission. The need
for information aggregation stands as an equal to classical all-

11
Hooker and Collins

source intelligence. Our lack of understanding of the wars seri-

ously retarded our efforts to fight them and to deal with our in-
digenous allies, who were often more interested in score-settling
or political risk aversion than they were in winning the war.
n Understanding the operational environment calls for a whole

array of fixes, such as improving language training, predeploy-

ment training, area expertise, and reforming the intelligence/in-
formation apparatuses. The Armys regionally aligned forces con-
cept appears a step in the right direction. The renewed emphasis
on the human domain and human aspects of military operations
should be reinforced and sustained over time. There can be no
substitute for excellent joint professional military education, re-
inforced by dedicated self-study by career officers and noncom-
missioned officers. For senior officers and advisors, every dollar
spent on civilian graduate education in policy sciences and histo-
ry is returned many times over.
n U.S. leaders must also know themselves and the social, politi-

cal, and systemic constraints that will affect the ability to respond
well to the threat. If we ask more than the public and its represen-
tatives in Congress can bear or the national security system can
provide, our ability to counter the threat will be handicapped. For
example, public support for war depends on the perception that
we are defending vital or important U.S. interests. Even in those
cases, political support for policy or strategy in war is short-lived
and can be extended only by success.
n In the same vein, future senior officers and policymakers must

understand constitutional, domestic legal, and international legal

norms. This is fundamental to honoring their oath to the Con-
stitution. Moreover, if the United States is seen as violating these
norms, it damages U.S. standing and undercuts the legitimacy of
our policy.
n To address legal norms and intelligence-gathering, planning

for military operations must include detention planning. Policy-

makers and joint force commanders must sort out the complex

12
 Introduction

legal and practical issues in advance of arrival in the country in

question.

Character of Contemporary Conflict

The analysis of these two campaigns reinforced a number of lessons about the
nature of war and the character of contemporary conflict. Again, few of these
lessons are new.

n When conventional warfare or logistical skills were called for

in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Armed Forces generally achieved
excellent results. At the same time, the military was insensitive
to needs of the postconflict environment and not prepared for
insurgency in either country. Our lack of preparation for dealing
with irregular conflicts was the result of a post-Vietnam orga-
nizational blindspot. Military performance improved over time.
Indeed, field-level innovation on counterinsurgency showed an
admirable capacity for learning and innovation. Furthermore,
the development of Army and Marine Corps doctrine on coun-
terinsurgency and the inculcation of the doctrine into the force
was an excellent example of systemic adaptation. The doctrine for
counterinsurgency and stability operations needs revision, and
this work is well under way.
n In a similar manner, with great fits and starts and a great deal

of managerial attention, the acquisition system of the Depart-

ment of Defense was able to create, field, and deploy the equip-
ment needed to turn the military we had into the military we
needed. Long-term planning in the Services for future wars can
retard warfighting adaptations in the near term. The speed of bat-
tlefield learning was admirable, and the speed of technological
innovation in this war was satisfactory.22
n A prudent great power should avoid being a third party in a

large-scale counterinsurgency effort. Foreign expeditionary forc-

es in another countrys insurgency have almost always failed. Ex-
ceptions to this rule came only where the foreign expeditionary

13
Hooker and Collins

force controlled the government and did not have to contend

with insurgents who possessed secure sanctuaries.23 At the same
time, it should be remembered that the wars in Iraq and Afghan-
istan did not begin as insurgencies, but evolved in that direction.
The Armed Forces must be ready for combat across the spectrum
of conflict, and irregular wars on the low end of the spectrum will
remain the most frequent form of conflict that they encounter.
n Another salient issue in irregular conflicts is the question of

sanctuary. In Iraq and Afghanistan, our enemies exploited base

areas in adjacent countries. This presents the United States with
a dilemma. Does the Nation violate international understandings
about the sanctity of borders, or does it allow an enemy to have
secure bases from which to launch attacks?
n Wars that involve regime change are likely to be protracted

conflicts. They require a substantial, patient, and prudent inter-

national effort to bring stability and foster reconstruction, espe-
cially in the wake of weak, corrupt, or failed states. These exercises
in armed nation-building are complex, uncertain, and, with the
passing of time, increasingly unpopular in the United States. In
the often used words of General Petraeus, progress in such con-
flicts will be fragile and reversible. Nevertheless, regime change
and long-duration stability operations will at times be necessary.
The alternatives are inaction or kinetic success followed by po-
litical chaos. In the view of the editors, there was an option not
to invade Afghanistan or Iraq, but there was never a politically
acceptable option to leave Afghanistan or Iraq shortly after the
conclusion of the initial phase of major combat operations.
n Long and complex conflicts are likely to be coalition efforts,

which lend legitimacy and ease manpower and material require-

ments. Coalitions also confound unity of command and may
hurt unity of effort. On balance, sound coalitions of the willing
contribute more to success than they detract from it. In the mod-
ern world, they are also a foolproof guide to public support and
acceptance. Robust coalitions endure and show international
support, which is somewhat self-replicating. Lesser coalitions are

14
 Introduction

a reminder of perceived illegitimacy and an indicator of serious

problems.
n In a counterinsurgency, success will depend in part on the

political development of the host government, whose weakness,

corruption, and ineffectiveness are ironically an important fac-
tor in the development of the insurgency. There are few assets in
the State Department or USAID inventory to mentor and assist
a host government in political development. In collateral areas,
such as humanitarian assistance, development, rule of law, and
reconstruction, State and USAID have more assets, but far fewer
than large-scale contingencies require. Ideally, the United States
should have a civilian response corps, but the urge to develop
whole-of-government capabilities is waning. As former National
Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley notes, there needs to be a na-
tional discussion on these critical issues.24
n Strategic communications was a weak point in our perfor-

mance in Washington, DC, and in the field. Making friends,

allies, and locals understand our intent has proved difficult. At
times, the situation on the ground will block good messaging.
However, our disabilities in this areapartly caused by too much
bureaucracy and too little empathystand in contradistinction
to the ability of clever enemies to package their message and beat
us at a game that was perfected in Hollywood and on Madison
Avenue. War crimes and clear evidence of abuse of locals or de-
tainees have further hobbled our efforts, especially when every
person with a cellular phone is a photojournalist. This is not a
psychological operation or public affairs issue. Strategic commu-
nications is a vital task for commanders and senior policymakers
at every level.

Security Force Assistance

Security force assistanceespecially the building of indigenous police and
military forcesis a key strategic activity, which in Iraq and Afghanistan was
the centerpiece of the coalition exit strategy. It was also an area where success-

15
Hooker and Collins

es followed a painful process of trial and error, and coalition approaches were
often mismatched with the local population and circumstances.

n In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States developed host-na-

tion ministries and military forces modeled on Western institu-
tions and structures. In Iraq, initial efforts focused on creating an
army to defend the country from external enemies. In Afghani-
stan, the decision to focus on a national army and police force, al-
beit at the insistence of the government of Afghanistan, increased
tensions with local tribes and ethnic groups. The political, eco-
nomic, social, and cultural conditions of these countries made
U.S. approaches problematic and perhaps unsustainable without
a significant long-term presence.
n Whenever possible, U.S. forces should be placed in a sup-

porting role to the host nation. U.S. assistance should usually

be framed as transactional and conditional, based on shared
objectives and situational variables.25 Where possible, the host
nation must take ownership of the training effort and associat-
ed architecture. It must be held accountable for its progress and
shortcomings.
n Improving our ability to teach others to defeat an insurgency

or terrorists is likely the key to future U.S. participation in irregu-

lar conflicts. U.S. advisors can only train what they know. Before
they deploy, advisors must be educated culturally and politically
to organize ministries and/or train forces that fit the operational
environment and local needs. Except for the special operations
forces, the United States is not well organized to accomplish this
mission. The Services generally do not reward individuals for this
kind of service. Two possibilities commend themselves: the Unit-
ed States can form military assistance groups, or it can develop
and refine ways to prepare conventional units for this mission in
a rapid and effective manner. The ad hoc approach to preparing
advisory and assistance forces should not be our primary meth-
odology.

16
 Introduction

In conclusion, this book is an assessment of two unfinished campaigns,

written for future senior officers, their key advisors, and other national se-
curity professionals. The lessons identified here emerged from a study rich
in strategic context and immediate circumstances. Any application of these
lessons must be done with an understanding of situational context, particular
circumstances, and mission at hand. The lessons identified here will be theirs
to debate, accept or reject, refine, and institutionalize. They will have to mix
them generously with the lessons of other wars and apply them appropriately,
guided by their mission and the situation at hand. Learning strategic lessons
will be difficult but not impossible. In the future, the national interest and the
lives of our men and women in uniform will be hostage to how well we have
learned and institutionalized these strategic lessons.

Notes

1
Martin J. Dempsey, 18th Chairmans 2nd Term Strategic Direction to the Joint Force (Wash-
ington, DC: The Joint Staff, n.d.), 4, available at <www.jcs.mil/portals/36/Documents/
CJCS_2nd_Term_Strategic_Direction.pdf>.
National Defense University 2020 Design Paper, unpublished, December 2012.
2

3
For operational lessons, see Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA), Decade
of War, Volume 1: Enduring Lessons from the Past Decade of Operations (Suffolk, VA:
JCOA, June 15, 2012), available at <http://blogs.defensenews.com/saxotech-access/pdfs/
decade-of-war-lessons-learned.pdf>. As this book was being prepared, two teams of Army
officers were working on operational histories of the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
4
For an earlier discussion on the problems of learning, see Joseph J. Collins, Desert
Storm and the Lessons of Learning, Parameters (Autumn 1992), 8392.
5
David Petraeus, Lessons of History and Lessons of Vietnam, Parameters (Autumn
1986; reprinted Winter 20102011), 4850.
6
Jay Luvaas, Lessons and Lessons Learned: A Historical Perspective, in The Lessons of
Recent Wars in the Third World: Approaches and Case Studies, volume 1, ed. Robert Harka-
vy and Stephanie Neuman (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1985), 68.
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 27.
7

8
Adam Gopnick, The Big One: Historians Rethink the War to End All Wars, The New
Yorker, August 23, 2004, 7879.

17
Hooker and Collins

9
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 111112.
10
National Security Action Memorandum no. 55, Subject: Relations of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff to the President in Cold War Operations, June 28, 1961. In General Petraeuss and
General Lloyd Austins conception, general and statesman is the correct formulation, but
in their interviews for this volume, they stressed the importance of the general first getting
the military advice right, based on the facts on the ground and other considerations. Da-
vid Petraeus, interview by Joseph J. Collins and Nathan White, March 27, 2015; and Lloyd
Austin, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., April 7, 2015.
For a precis on the learning organization, see John Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a
11

Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 2005), 6, 1011, 215223. Nagl attributes much of his discussion on learning
theory to Richard Downie, Learning from Conflict: The U.S. Military in Vietnam, El Salva-
dor, and the Drug War (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998).
12
For an example of how an evaluator would have shifted emphasis, Lieutenant Gener-
al David Deptula, USAF (Ret.), noted in correspondence with the editors, I offer that
perhaps more attention could have been given to the issue of the importance of greater
encouragement and consideration of options at the strategic level. Also, greater attention
could have been given to the important topic of the applicationor lack thereofof the
tenets of joint doctrine/operations in the context of organization and employment. The
complete failure of strategic communications/perception management and an anachronis-
tic structure for the optimal application of a whole-of-government approach are also areas
that I believe deserve greater attention and elaboration.
13
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey in his interview for this
study offered the following guidelines (in shortened paraphrasing) for participants in the
national decisionmaking system: Learn the civilian national security decisionmaking sys-
tem. The military starts with objectives and works toward options. The civilian leadership
begins with options and works backward toward objectives. Military leaders must accom-
modate this system and offer options that are suitable, feasible, and acceptable. Civil-mili-
tary or interdepartmental friction is not necessarily bad. Accept it and embrace it. Develop
relationships and then build trust with civilian contemporaries. Be prepared to engage in
national discussions and speak on grand strategy issues. The most persuasive arguments
normally win. Most big decisions are made in conjunction with budget cycles. Adapt to the
leadership style of the President and Secretary of Defense, but above all, in every decision,
maintain your moral compass. Martin E. Dempsey, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr.,
and Joseph J. Collins, January 7, 2015. For a collateral discussion of civilian and military
decisionmakers talking past each other, see Janine Davidson, Civil-Military Friction and
Presidential Decision-Making, Presidential Studies Quarterly 43, no. 1 (March 2013).
14
John Allen, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr. and Joseph J. Collins, January 27, 2015.
Eliot Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New
15

York: Free Press, 2002), 208224.

18
 Introduction

For a table showing the decline of unity of effort organizations and initiatives, see Linda
16

Robinson et al., Improving Strategic Competence: Lessons from 13 Years of War (Santa
Monica, CA: RAND), 117119.
17
Some close observers believe that in any conflict or postconflict situation, the United
States should have one person, military or civilian, who is in charge of all American policy
and people in the theater in question. See, for example, Stanley A. McChrystal, interview
by Joseph J. Collins and Frank G. Hoffman, April 2, 2015. General David Petraeus recom-
mended that in complex contingencies, we should make better use of existing headquar-
ters, even if they have to be repurposed. See David Petraeus, interview by Joseph J. Collins
and Nathan White, March 27, 2015.
18
For example, in Afghanistan in 2006, Combined Forces CommandAfghanistan passed
control of the ground fight to the International Security Assistance Force, and operations
became fragmented among the U.S. Central Command commander; Supreme Allied
Commander, Europe; and U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) commander.
As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates notes in his memoir, efforts in Afghanistan
during 2007 were being hampered not only by muddled and overambitious objectives but
also by confusion in the military command structure (page 205). Furthermore, Gates
adds that command relationships in Afghanistan were a jerry-rigged arrangement [that]
violated every principle of the unity of command (page 206). The problem persisted even
after Secretary Gates ordered it rectified in the summer of 2010, nearly 9 years after the
war started. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the often raw relationships between conven-
tional forces, who were battlespace owners, and various types of special operations forces
(SOF, such as theater SOF, USSOCOM-subordinated SOF, non-U.S. SOF, and so forth)
were common complaints. This problem improved over time but is still an issue. Efforts
to bridge the gap between conventional and SOF must continue. The editors thank Major
Claude Lambert, USAa strategist and intern in the Center for Complex Operations at
the National Defense Universityfor this observation.
Petraeus, interview.
19

20
Dempsey, interview. In his interview for this volume, General Lloyd J. Austin III, U.S.
Central Command commander, noted that intelligence support to the warfighter was
light years ahead of where it was in 2003. Austin, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr.,
April 7, 2015.
21
This was a major point first made in JCOA, Decade of War, Volume I: Enduring Lessons
from the Past Decade of War (Suffolk, VA: JCOA, June 15, 2012), 25. It was also a major
finding in Robinson et al., 5971.
22
The problems in developing and fielding the equipment that matched current warfight-
ing requirements are discussed in Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War
(New York: Knopf, 2014), 115148. General Austin lauded in particular rapid equipment
fielding efforts, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, and advances
in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Austin, interview.
In the past, among the great failures in third-party expeditionary force participation in
23

19
Hooker and Collins

insurgencies are the French in Indochina and Algeria and the United States in Vietnam.
One can find many successes against insurgents that used unconscionable tactics. The
two great successes among great power efforts were the United States in the Philippines
(18991902) and United Kingdom in Malaya. There have been many cases in which the
United States achieved positive outcomes when it did not have to use a major expedition-
ary force.
Stephen J. Hadley, interview by Joseph J. Collins and Nicholas Rostow, October 7, 2014.
24

Dempsey, interview.
25

20
 1

Initial Planning and Execution in

Afghanistan and Iraq
By Joseph J. Collins

A
l Qaedas 9/11 attacks on the United States had devastating effects.
Not only were nearly 3,000 people killed at the World Trade Center,
the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, but also the physical
and emotional security of the United States was shattered by a major foreign
attack on the homeland for the first time since the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor. Fear of the next attack, the desire to punish the enemy, the pressure
of military preparations, the urgent need to improve homeland security, and
a never again attitude animated the policy of the United States. The North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), for the first time, invoked Article 5 of
its charter, which proclaims that an attack on one is considered an attack on
all. Frances Le Monde, not always an American partisan, proclaimed in an ed-
itorial, Nous sommes tous Amricains.1 The United States crossed the thresh-
old from the postCold War era to an era of global conflict that came to be
known as the Long War or the war on terror. Afghanistan and Iraq were the
two largest campaigns in this war. While the military was the dominant tool,
these campaigns involved all of the Nations intelligence, defense, diplomatic,
developmental, informational, and financial instruments of statecraft.
This chapter analyzes the U.S. decision to go to war in Afghanistan in
2001, operations in Afghanistan through 2008, the coercive diplomacy with
Iraq, the planning for the Iraq War, and U.S. operations there through 2006.
The aim of the chapter is to develop observations or perspectives to help future
senior officers and other national security professionals contribute to national
security and military strategies.2 Subsequent chapters complete the analysis,

21
Collins

and the volume is capped off by a discussion of the strategic lessons of the two
campaigns.

War in Afghanistan: The First Few Years

Once the Taliban refused to surrender Osama bin Laden and close the terror-
ist training camps in Afghanistan, there was never a question of whether the
United States would use force against al Qaeda and the Taliban; it was only a
question of when it would go to war. Congress acted quickly and granted wide
authority to use force. In part, the Authorization for Use of Military Force gave
President George W. Bush the power to use all necessary and appropriate
force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned,
authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Septem-
ber 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent
any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such
nations, organizations or persons.3
Afghanistan is a forbidding place to make war. The so-called graveyard
of empires is landlocked, mountainous, and fractious. By 2001, it was the vic-
tim of two decades of nationwide fighting, followed by 5 years (19962001) of
disastrous Taliban rule.4 The Taliban were strongly backed by Pakistan. They
were religious zealots who fought well against other Afghan groups but were
ineffective and ruthless governors. Aside from being serial violators of human
rights, the Taliban adopted bin Laden and his al Qaeda henchmen, allowing
their country to play host to the worlds most dangerous terrorist organization.
Their 5-year rule further impoverished and damaged Afghanistan in many
areas, especially health care and education. Only three countriesPakistan,
Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emiratesrecognized this highly authori-
tarian and ineffective government.
A small group of American officialsincluding Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) George Tenetunderstood the al Qaeda threat
based in Afghanistan. These officials advocated a strong national policy to-
ward al Qaeda but were unsuccessful in moving the White House to effective
action during either the Presidency of William Clinton or President George
W. Bushs first 7 months in office. In August 2001, the CIA warned Bush in a
general way about an imminent al Qaeda attack on the United States involving
aviation. The United States had never effectively retaliated against previous al

22
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

Qaeda attacks, and it did not take concrete steps to prepare for an attack after
the Agencys August warning. The attacks on 9/11 were in part an intelligence
and a homeland security failure, but they were also a failure of the national se-
curity bureaucracy to adapt to a new and growing threat.5 For its part, prior to
9/11, the U.S. Armed Forces were primarily focused on high-tech, convention-
al warfare. Their long-range vision papers, Joint Vision 2010 (1996) and Joint
Vision 2020 (2000), barely mentioned counterterrorism or counterinsurgency
as major defense requirements. Combating al Qaeda was not a major focus of
the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review, which was in the final draft stage in the
days prior to the attack.6 On September 11, 2001, Americas national security
leadership was simply on the wrong page.
It is not clear what Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar or al Qaedas
leaders thought would happen in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps
bin Laden thought that the Bush administration would conduct a lengthy in-
vestigation, treat this act of terrorism as a law enforcement issue, and be slow
to respond. The United States had failed to take significant retaliatory action
after other terrorist attacks: the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Leb-
anon, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the 1996 Khobar Towers
attack in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 Embassy bombings in East Africa, and the
2000 bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. The Taliban and al Qae-
da may have believed the United States would only strike with its airpower and
cruise missiles, as it had done frequently in Iraq and once in Afghanistan after
the 1998 Embassy bombings. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar may have
believed that the United States might attack on the ground but that it would get
bogged down just as the Soviet Union had. After the fact, bin Laden suggested
that drawing the United States into Middle Eastern and Southwest Asian wars
and thus draining its power was an integral part of the al Qaeda strategy.7
With the Pentagon and World Trade Center sites still smoldering, the
President met with his advisors at Camp David on September 15. Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton presented three generic options
to the President and his advisors: a cruise missile strike, a cruise missile attack
with airstrikes, and boots on the ground with cruise missile and air attacks.
Neither President Bush nor Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was com-
fortable with the presentation and found the idea of a deliberate buildup of
U.S. ground forces to be too slow even to contemplate. Rumsfeld character-

23
Collins

ized the presentation as unimaginative and unoriginal.8 The President wanted

a plan that featured the rapid use of military force and the insertion of troops
on the ground as soon as possible.
It should be noted here that some Defense officials believed that the ter-
rorists likely had the help of a state sponsor and that Saddam Husseins Iraq
was the most likely suspect.9 The issue of simultaneously attacking Iraq was
brought up at Camp David by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,
but the suggestion had little support among the National Security Council
(NSC) principals and was sidelined by the President. The timing was not for-
tuitous. However, on September 26, President Bush asked Rumsfeld in private
to look at the shape of our plans on Iraq and asked for creative options.10 In
any event, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) planning for a potential
war in Iraq would begin in earnest in November 2001 before the conclusion of
the initial fighting in Afghanistan.11
On September 21, USCENTCOM Commander General Tommy Franks,
USA, briefed the President on a plan to destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan and re-
move the Taliban government.12 Despite recent air and missile attacks against al
Qaeda in Afghanistan, USCENTCOM had no preexisting plans for conducting
ground operations there. The September 21 plan emerged after extensive dia-
logue, but Secretary Rumsfeld also asked for broader plans that looked beyond
Afghanistan.13 In all of his planning commentary, the Secretarys stated goal
was not to seek revenge but to prevent another attack on the U.S. homeland.
However, all the participants in the briefing agreed that real-time intelligence
about Afghanistan was in short supply.14 The plan also depended heavily on
access to facilities in nearby countries and support by U.S. airlift and sealift.
The basic concept was to put U.S. Army Special Forces and CIA operators
with Northern Alliance forces and anti-Taliban forces in the south, exploiting
the combination of U.S. airpower, tactical advice, communications, and expe-
rienced Afghan resistance forces.15 The plan also featured making humanitar-
ian food drops and, later, having U.S. and coalition conventional forces mop
up and go after the remaining Taliban and al Qaeda elements.16 In President
Bushs hopeful words, We would [then begin to] stabilize the country and
help the Afghan people to build a free society.17
The air war and humanitarian food drops, coordinated from the Com-
bined Air Operations Center in Saudi Arabia, began on October 7, but Special

24
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

Forces personnel, delayed by helicopter issues and weather, did not arrive in
the north until October 19. When they arrived, they joined a small number of
CIA paramilitary officers already on the ground. With Special Forces advising
Afghan ground commanders and calling in airstrikes, the Taliban defenses un-
raveled, and Afghanistans major cities fell quickly. A combined force of Spe-
cial Forces, Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, Navy and Air Force attack air-
craft, and Northern Alliance infantry and horse cavalry under General Abdul
Rashid Dostum captured Mazar-e-Sharif on November 9. At the same time,
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage gave an ultimatum to Pakistani
authorities; as a result, he secured their full cooperation in fighting al Qaeda,
access to their critical ground lines of communication, and promises (albeit
short-lived ones) to restrain the Afghan Taliban. In short order, Herat in the
west, Kabul in the center, and Kandahar in the south fell to the resistance.
Army Rangers conducted raids and a Marine brigade seized a base south of
Kandahar. Later, in the December battle at Tora Bora, a CIA-advised Afghan
ground element eliminated an al Qaeda stronghold where bin Laden may have
been present. A CIA officer there requested help from U.S. ground forces, but
his request was disapproved by General Franks. Secretary Rumsfeld did not
learn of this request until after the battle, but it is far from clear that the inser-
tion of a U.S. battalion or brigade, even if it were available, would have made a
difference in that mountainous terrain.18
In less than 10 weeks, the United States and its partners were able to ac-
complish significant military objectives without a large-scale ground invasion
and without alienating the Afghan people. While the operation was successful,
it was not decisive. The Taliban had been defeated and ousted and al Qaedas
bases and organizational structure in Afghanistan had been destroyed, but the
Taliban and al Qaeda leadership, along with many of their senior cadre, es-
caped, mostly into Pakistan. For its part, Pakistan would be helpful in round-
ing up foreign radicals and members of al Qaeda, but it generally accommo-
dated the Afghan Taliban, with major pockets of Taliban settling near Quetta
in Baluchistan, in Waziristan, in other areas in northwest Pakistan, and, later,
in Karachi.
With the help of the Germans and the United Nations (UN), an interna-
tional conference in Bonn, Germany, established an Afghan Interim Admin-
istration with Hamid Karzai as its leader, backed by a multi-ethnic cabinet.19

25
Collins

The interim government quickly began to work on organizing a Loya Jirga,

a nationwide assembly of tribal leaders, and preparing a draft constitution.
While the formation of the government looked impressive, the truth was that
the Afghan government was invisible in the countryside and had few police
officers or army forces under its control. The country had been devastated by
24 years of war. The warlords and narcotics traffickers, who did have thou-
sands of men under arms, often called the shots in the 34 provinces. The le-
gal, health, and educational systems were in shambles, as were many aspects
of civil society. (More than a decade later, revisionists argue that the United
States could have avoided much pain in Afghanistan by leaving immediately
upon forming the new government. That argument ignores the fact that the
country was destitute. Taliban and al Qaeda forces would have returned in
short order.20)
The United States and its coalition partners, who formed the Internation-
al Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the Kabul region, became a stabilizing
presence and a hedge against terrorist attacks and Taliban operatives, but the
international communitys light footprint5,000 coalition and 10,000 U.S.
troops focused on counterterrorismwas inadequate to secure nearly 30 mil-
lion Afghans in a state as large as Texas. Years later, in his memoirs, President
Bush wrote that although he had changed his mind and embraced nation
building in Afghanistan, We were all wary of repeating the experience of
the Soviets and the British, who ended up looking like occupiers. This [light
footprint] strategy worked well at first. But in retrospect, our rapid success
with low troop levels created false comfort, and our desire to maintain a light
footprint left us short of the resources we needed. It would take several years
for these shortcomings to become clear.21

Stability Operations
Allied commanders and diplomats who arrived in Afghanistan in January
2002 were astounded by the devastation that nearly two and a half decades
of war had wrought. The country also had suffered mightily from 5 years of
Taliban mismanagement and authoritarian rule, further complicated by a few
years of drought. The country they found was only 30 percent literate, and
80 percent of its schools had been destroyed. The Taliban severely restricted
female education and did little for that of males. Twenty-five percent of all

26
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

Afghan children died before the age of 5. Only 9 percent of the population had
access to health care. The professional and blue collar work forces had virtually
disappeared.22 The former Afghan finance minister, noted scholar, and later
president, Ashraf Ghani noted that:

Between 1978, when the Communist coup took place, and November
2001, when the Taliban were overthrown, Afghanistan (according to
a World Bank Estimate) lost $240 billion in ruined infrastructure and
vanished opportunities. While the rest of the world was shrinking in
terms of spatial and temporal coordination, the travel time between Ka-
bul and every single province in the country significantly increased. . . .
Millions of Afghan children grew up illiterate in refugee camps, where
they learned that the gun rather than the ballot was the key instrument
for the acquisition of power and influence.23

The government of Afghanistan and its coalition partners had a relative-

ly easy time of it from 2002 to 2004. Although starting from rock bottom in
nearly every category, progress was made in security, stabilization activities,
and economic reconstruction. Pushed by foreign aid, post-Taliban Afghani-
stan had nearly a decade of double-digit economic growth per year. From 2003
to 2005, the U.S. leadership team, led by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and
Lieutenant General Dave Barno, USA, focused on teamwork and elementary
organization for counterinsurgency operations, albeit with very small forces.
General Barnowho moved his office next door to the Ambassadors office in
the Embassyunified the field commands and divided the country into re-
gional areas of responsibility, where one colonel or general officer would com-
mand all maneuver units and Provincial Reconstruction Teams.24 Secretary
Rumsfeld described the Khalilzad-Barno field relationship as a model of how
civilian-military relations should work.25
Barno was a self-taught expert in counterinsurgency. Although he initially
had only a small force of 14,000 soldiers to work with, he concentrated on the
Afghan people, not the Taliban, and worked along five lines of effort: defeat-
ing terrorism and denying sanctuary, enabling the Afghan security structure,
sustaining area ownership, enabling reconstruction and good governance,
and engaging regional states, especially Pakistan. Underpinning these efforts

27
Collins

was an emphasis on information operations, which Barno saw as a Taliban

strength and a coalition weakness.26
Pursuant to U.S. initiative and a series of NATO decisions, the ISAF man-
date was increasingly enlarged until it took over all the regions of Afghanistan.
The drive behind NATO expansion was designed to energize the alliance and
relieve the United States of the two-war burden.27 Initially in control of only
the 200 square miles around Kabul, in the fall of 2004, ISAF took charge of the
regional command in the north. In the spring of 2006, it took over in the west.
In the summer of 2006, ISAF control moved into the south, parts of which,
especially in Helmand Province, were Taliban strongholds with little govern-
ment presence and influence. In the fall of that year, ISAF took over fighting
and stability operations in the east, marking its command over coalition forces
in the entire country. By 2006, most U.S. combat forces were put under the en-
larged and empowered ISAF. In November 2009, the coalition stood up ISAF
Joint Command to supervise combat operations, a task that had become too
much for ISAF, which spent most of its time on policy, planning, and politi-
co-military affairs.
While NATO action brought the Alliance on line in Afghanistan, it also
magnified the caveats issued by countries to limit the activities of their forces.
Many NATO nations did not allow their forces to engage in offensive combat
operations. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Den-
mark, the Netherlands, and a few others did most of the fighting and com-
bat advising.28 Still, the international coalition in Afghanistan was a power-
ful force in both operations and training. When Barack Obama was elected
in 2008, NATO nations and other coalition partners provided 30,000 of the
68,000 conventional forces in country.
The advent of ISAF and NATO in Afghanistan created a complex rela-
tionship between the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and the USCENT-
COM commander. While the latter remained in command of U.S. forces there,
the former became responsible for supervising the strategic guidance, which
came through NATOs Joint Forces Command in Brunsuum, the Netherlands.
At the same time, after 2007, the ISAF commander was an American general
responsible both to his NATO superiors and to USCENTCOM. Complicating
matters, it took ISAF and NATO a few years to take over the training of the
Afghan army and police from the United States. The NATO-ISAF regime also

28
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

did not see Pakistan as part of its area of influence, magnifying the all too pow-
erful tendency to look at Afghanistan and Pakistan as separate issues.29
General John P. Abizaid, USA, who commanded USCENTCOM for near-
ly 4 years, admired the strength of the coalition, but he noted in an interview
in 2007 that the command arrangements in Afghanistan violated the principle
of unity of command; he would have preferred that unity of regional efforts
stay within CENTCOMs purview.30 In a similar vein, the seams between con-
ventional and special operations forces (SOF) were a problem, but one that
improved over time.
From 2003 to 2005, the relationship between Ambassador Khalilzad, born
in northern Afghanistan to Pashtun parents, and President Karzai was close
and productive. The government of Afghanistan, with much help from the
international community, conducted nationwide Loya Jirgas in 2002 and 2003,
passed a modern constitution modeled on the 1964 Afghanistan constitution,
and held fair presidential and parliamentary elections in 2004 and 2005, re-
spectively.31 The new constitution was highly centralized and gave the pres-
ident much of the power that the king held in the constitutional monarchy
from 1964 to 1973. While the Kabul government was weak in capability and
nationwide coverage, it was responsible for national and local policy, as well
as all significant personnel appointments, to include provincial and district
governors. Warlords still played major roles in Afghanistan, but with Japanese
funding and UN leadership, the central government confiscated and cantoned
all heavy weapons. This process was called disarmament, demobilization, and
reintegration. By 2004, major fighting between contending warlords that fea-
tured the use of heavy weapons ceased to be an important issue. The UN mis-
sion, with the support of the government of Japan, performed yeomans service
on this major project.
Afghanistan attracted a fair amount of international aid, but far less than
the Balkan nations did after their conflicts in the 1990s. U.S. security and
economic assistance from 2002 to 2004 was a modest $4.4 billion, but nearly
two-thirds of that sum went to economic assistance, with only slightly more
than one-third to security assistance. Afghanistan ranked poorly when com-
pared to other nation-building efforts. RAND Corporation experts noted
that in the first two postconflict years, the international community provided

29
Collins

$1,400 per capita for Bosnia and over $800 for Kosovo but less than $100 for
Afghanistan.32
The Bush administration had hoped that the UN and international finan-
cial institutions such as the World Bank would lead reconstruction and sta-
bilization. It learned that the international actors would follow only in areas
where the United States led. Initiatives by so-called lead nationsGermany
for the police, Great Britain for counternarcotics, and Italy for law and jus-
ticewere often disappointing. Similarly, the U.S. buildup of the Afghan Na-
tional Army lagged, and police development in the first few years was slow
and unproductive. By 2008, 70 percent of U.S. assistance funds was assigned
to security or counternarcotics.33 In the first 2 years after the expulsion of the
Taliban, fighting was infrequent and at a low level. In 2004, nationwide, the
worst weeks had about 100 security incidents. By 2009, after 4 years of Taliban
offensives, the worst weeks topped 900 incidents.34
From 2002 to 2003, under the guidance of finance minister Ashraf Ghani,
the Afghan government swapped out the several currencies in use across the
country, established a single stable currency, negotiated international con-
tracts for a nationwide cellular phone service, and began to work on economic
reconstruction. With the help of the international community, there was rapid
reconstruction in health care and education. The United States and interna-
tional financial institutions rebuilt most of the ring road around the country,
improving travel and commerce. Access to medical care was extended from
9 percent of the population under the Taliban to more than 60 percent of the
population by 2010.35 Spurred by foreign aid, rapid licit economic growth
began and has continued, but it exists alongside a booming illegal economy
marked by bribery, smuggling, and narcotics trafficking.
To make up for inherent weakness in the Afghan government, various
countries followed the U.S. lead and set up Provincial Reconstruction Teams
(PRTs), which had varying names when led by coalition partners. The generic
purposes of the PRTs were to further security, promote reconstruction, facil-
itate cooperation with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and interna-
tional organizations in the field, and help the local authorities in governance
and other issues. These small interagency elements were initially established
in a third of the provinces but rapidly went nationwide. At their height, these

30
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

26 teamshalf led by U.S. alliesplayed a key role in reconstruction and

development.
PRTs consisted of a headquarters, a security element, civil affairs teams,
diplomats, aid and assistance experts, and, where possible, agricultural teams.
Many U.S. PRTs were commanded by Navy and Air Force officers. Without
a nationwide peacekeeping force, these teams were often the only way that
diplomats and government aid professionals could get out to the countryside.
From 2002 to 2009, the U.S.-hosted PRTs were instrumental in helping to
disburse nearly $2.7 billion of Commanders Emergency Response Program
(CERP) money and other PRT-designated funds.36
The PRTs were, on balance, a positive development. They did, however,
exacerbate interagency tensions within the U.S. Government. In 2002, pro-
viding diplomats and development experts to each of the eight initial PRTs
consumed many hours of meetings at the deputies committee level.37 The
PRTs remained a recurring problem with NGOs, which were reluctant to have
military forces in the humanitarian space. Some donors found the PRTs a
convenient excuse for ignoring the need to build Afghan government capac-
ity. As the years passed, the Afghan government tried to grow in budgetary
capacity, a key to improving management. It complained that the money go-
ing directly to NGOs and PRTs kept aid funds outside of the Afghan bud-
get and prevented the government from managing business through its own
budgetary control mechanisms. It became a vicious cycle: the government of
Afghanistans corruption and lack of management capacity became an excuse
for bypassing it, which in turn ensured that it would not develop capacity.
Toward the end of his presidency, Karzai, initially a fan, had become a critic
of PRTs in general.
While many observers objected to the military flavor of these teams, the
need for large-scale security elements dictated that condition. Regional com-
manders after 2004 controlled maneuver forces and PRTs in their region.38 By
2009, the U.S. Ambassador put civilian leadership at the brigade and Regional
Command levels, creating a civilian hierarchical structure that mirrored the
military [chain of command].39 Later, the U.S. Government in Afghanistan
also used District Support Teams, with representatives from the Department
of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and Depart-
ment of Agriculture, to go with deployed military units or other security to

31
Collins

hotspots to work directly with Afghan government representatives. There were

19 of these teams in Regional CommandEast alone. In a similar vein, the U.S.
National Guard fielded nine Agribusiness Development Teams with military
and state university agronomists to help Afghan agriculture and animal hus-
bandry enter the 21st century.
In terms of reconstruction and development, the coalition, reinforced
by the UN and international financial institutions, did outstanding work and
markedly improved Afghanistans lot. Through the end of fiscal year 2009,
nearly $40 billion of U.S. foreign and security assistance was pledged or de-
livered to Afghanistan. Other nations or international financial institutions
delivered at least $14 billion of economic assistance through fiscal year 2008.40
Although there are no reliable figures for its allies expenditures, the United
States devoted more than half its total aid to security assistance.
Progress in education, health care, road-building, and some areas of ag-
riculture was good. A RAND study, citing NATO statistics, noted the military
and development wings of allied nations had built or repaired thousands of
kilometers of roads.41 While it is fair to note that the areas under the most Tal-
iban pressure received the least amount of aid, there were significant accom-
plishments. Five million refugees returned, and school enrollment increased
six-fold from Taliban days, with 35 percent of the student body being female.
(For its part, the Taliban burned or bombed over 1,000 schools from 2007
to 2009.) USAID alone, through the end of 2008, spent over $7 billion help-
ing the Afghan people.42 Among its accomplishments were 715 kilometers of
major highways built, 670 health clinics built or refurbished, 10,600 health
workers trained, over 600 schools constructed, more than 60 million school
textbooks purchased, and 65,000 teachers trained in various courses. From
time to time, these projects caused local frictions, but in significant ways they
also transformed life for many Afghans.
In all, from 2001 to 2005, the coalition did well, but it did not do enough.
Despite significant economic progress, poverty remained widespread, and the
insurgents did their best to interfere with aid workers and disrupt their efforts
at progress. Neither Afghan government capacity nor anticorruption efforts
improved to an appreciable level. Some areas, especially in southern Afghan-
istan, had little coalition or Afghan government presence. Poppy cultivation
and drug production increased despite coalition efforts. Warlords, even those

32
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

co-opted by President Karzai, remained independent and often toxic power

brokers. The level of international aid was not enough to stem the tide of an
insurgency designed in part to render such aid ineffective. In many areas, but
particularly in the southern and eastern parts of the country, the Taliban, from
its sanctuaries in Pakistan, covertly began to restore its infrastructure, unim-
peded by absentee or ineffective government structures.

The Situation Deteriorates, 20052009

From 2002 to 2005, the Taliban rebuilt its cadres with drug money, donations
from the Gulf states, extortion, and help from al Qaeda.43 Their sanctuaries in
Pakistan enabled them to rearm and retrain. By 2005, the Quetta Shura Tal-
iban (led by Mullah Omar), the Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (under Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar), and the Haqqani Network (led initially by Jalaluddin Haqqani
and his son, Sirajuddin) were all working together to subvert the Karzai re-
gime and wear down the coalition. All three of these groups continue to swear
at least nominal allegiance to Mullah Omar and to coordinate major plans, but
they are distinct operational entities with their own territories of interest in
Afghanistan and independent fundraising mechanisms. Mullah Omar is also
revered by the Pakistani Taliban, who have opposed Pakistans government
since 2006.44 In 2005, the Afghan governments lack of capacity and the allies
light footprint scheme allowed many districts and a few provinces to fall under
the shadow control of the Taliban. Some provinces, such as poppy-rich Hel-
mand, had little government or coalition presence before 2006.
In 2005, encouraged by the U.S. attention to its troubled war in Iraq, the
Taliban began a nationwide offensive to regain its influence. From 2004 to
2009, there was a nine-fold increase in security incidents nationwide and a
forty-fold increase in suicide bombing, a technique imported from Iraq. Con-
flict spread to most of the 34 provinces, but 71 percent of the security inci-
dents in 2010 still took place in only 10 percent of the more than 400 districts
nationwide.45 The war in Afghanistan remains primarily a war over control of
Pashtun areas in the eastern and southern portion of the country, but Taliban
subversion and terrorism also became important factors in many other prov-
inces. Efforts to combat narcotics growth and production generally failed or
met with only temporary success. As corruption inside Afghanistan increased,
Taliban revenue increased accordingly.

33
Collins

With lessons learned from al Qaeda in Iraq, the flow of components from
Pakistan, and some later support from Iran, the use of improvised explosive
devices (IEDs) became the Taliban tactic of choice.46 IED strikes rose from
300 in 2004 to more than 4,000 in 2009. In later years, more than half of all
U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan resulted from IEDs.47 Suicide bombers, almost
unknown before 2004, became commonplace. By 2009, there were Taliban
shadow governments of varied strength in nearly all provinces. Even in areas
dominated by the government or government-friendly tribes, Taliban subver-
sion or terror tactics became potent facts of life.
Beginning in 2005, the Taliban added more sophisticated information op-
erations and local subversion to their standard terrorist tactics. Night letters,
a SovietAfghan warera method of warning or intimidating the population,
made a comeback, in some places as early as 2003. Letters were aimed at stu-
dents, teachers, those who worked for Americans, and even children who frat-
ernized with Americans.48 In addition to subversion, terror tactics remained
standard for the Taliban. In October 2008, for example, the Taliban stopped a
bus in the town of Maiwand in the western part of Kandahar Province, forcibly
removed 50 passengers, and beheaded 30 of them.49
A UN study noted that in 2010, civilian casualties had increased by 10
percent from the previous year. The UN also noted that three-quarters of the
civilian casualties were caused by anti-government enemies, a marked in-
crease of 53 percent from 2009.50 While the population appreciated coalition
restraint, the terror tactics of the Taliban kept many Afghans, especially in
Pashtun areas, on the fence. Civilian casualties drove a wedge between the
United States and the Karzai government, which began to harshly criticize the
coalition while often ignoring the Talibans reckless, inhumane behavior.
How did the war effort in Afghanistan deteriorate? First, in the early years,
there was little progress in building Afghan capacity for governance, security,
or economic development. There was little Afghan government and admin-
istrative capacity, and much economic and security assistance from the coa-
lition bypassed the Afghan government. Nations and international organiza-
tions found it more convenient to work through NGOs and contractors. Over
the years, these habits continued, and corruption among Afghan government
officials increased. Key ministers, such as Ashraf Ghani (Finance), Abdullah
Abdullah (Foreign Affairs), and Ali Jalali (Interior), resigned over time. After

34
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

the departure of Ambassador Khalilzad in 2005, Karzai lost his closest con-
fidant on the American side. Subsequent AmbassadorsRonald Neumann,
William Wood, and Karl Eikenberrydid fine work but did not have the close
relationship with Karzai that Khalilzad had. At the same time, Karzai lost faith
in his American allies, who were often driven to distraction by Karzais unfair
and one-sided tirades. The leaking of sensitive cables in the WikiLeaks scandal
undoubtedly contributed to the breakdown in trust between Karzai and the
U.S. Government and its representatives.
Second, there was also substantial government corruption in Afghanistan,
often tied to police operations or the drug trade. Karzai took the lead in deal-
ing with the so-called warlords, the regional strongmen. Many of them ended
up in the government, which was both a blessing and a curse. Others contin-
ued their viral existence in the provinces, often using their local power and
cunning to take money from reconstruction projects or even from U.S. securi-
ty contracts. Money-laundering through Kabul International Airport became
well developed. Later, as assistance increased, journalists discovered that pal-
lets of convertible currencies were being moved to the United Arab Emirates
by individuals, corporations, and even Afghan government officials.51 Presi-
dent Karzais brothers and some of his immediate subordinates also became
the subject of corruption investigations, especially after the Kabul Bank fell
apart in 2010.
The drug trade fueled corruption and funded part of the Taliban opera-
tion. The United Kingdom, the United States, and the United Nations focused
on various strategies to block the narcotics traffic but to no avail. Various at-
tempts at crop eradication were particularly dysfunctional. Brookings Institu-
tion analyst Vanda Felbab-Brown offered this bleak assessment: The counter-
narcotics policies pressed on the post-Taliban government prior to 2009 had
serious counterproductive effects not only on the Afghan economy but also
on the counterinsurgency, stabilization, anticorruption, and rule of law efforts
being pursued in Afghanistan by the United States and its allies.52
Third, U.S. intelligence was a problem in the beginning and throughout
the war. Human intelligence in particular was difficult to gather. While nation-
al and local intelligence learned more about the enemys forces, the military
leadership had inadequate information about the population that U.S. forces
were protecting, a central focus of the campaign. The necessary rotation of

35
Collins

units compounded this situation. In 2010, Major General Michael T. Flynn,

USA, the senior intelligence official in theater, wrote:

Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence commu-
nity is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy. Having focused
the overwhelming majority of its collection efforts and analytical brain-
power on insurgent groups, the vast intelligence apparatus is unable to
answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S.
and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade. Ignorant
of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers
are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations
between various development projects and the level of cooperation
among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find
answerswhether aid workers or Afghan soldiersU.S. intelligence
officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level
decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis, and information they
need to wage a successful counterinsurgency.53

Combat units were slow to develop cultural awareness, and Human Ter-
rain Teams and other specialists who tried to make up for this defect were
often unable to bridge the information gap in their areas of concern. Units
frequently knew the enemy situation, but not the people whom they were
supposed to protect.54 Compounding these factors, the senior-most U.S. com-
manders in Afghanistan had an average tenure of less than 13 months, nearly
matching that of their combat soldiers.55 In Afghanistan, neither generals nor
sergeants had much time for on-the-job learning and even less for reflection.
The lack of information on local people and conditions hampered coun-
terinsurgency efforts, which were further complicated by troop rotations.
Years later, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, USA, a veteran of the fighting
in Operation Desert Storm as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan, summed up the
effects of not knowing the human terrain:

In Afghanistan, coalition forces struggled to understand local drivers

of conflict and instability. Coalition forces sometimes unintentional-
ly empowered predatory and criminal actors, fostered exclusionary

36
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

political and economic orders, and alienated thereby key elements of

the population. The Taliban, regenerating in safe houses in Pakistan,
portrayed themselves as patrons and protectors of aggrieved parties in
Afghanistan.56

Fourth, coalition arms, aid, trainers, and advisors ended up being insuf-
ficient in number, speed, and efficiency. The U.S. light footprint strategy, rein-
forced by a few years of low-level fighting, proved in retrospect to be inade-
quate to the task and the capacity of the threat. U.S. and allied combat troops
fared well militarily, but the coalition was unsuccessful in building the capacity
of the Afghan security forces, especially the police. Responsibility for police
training bounced from Germany to the State Department to the Department
of Defense (DOD) to a combined NATO-U.S. lead under Lieutenant General
William Caldwell, USA, who finally stabilized police training.
The Afghan police remained an especially weak link in the security chain,
and the Taliban made attacking them a priority. From 2007 to 2009, Afghan
security forces killed in action (3,046) outnumbered U.S. and allied dead in
those 3 years (nearly 800) by more than three to one. More than two out of
every three Afghan servicemembers killed were policemen.
The coalition operations in Afghanistan also became an exemplar of con-
tractorization, with more Western-sponsored contractors, many of them
armed, than soldiers in country. This in part reflected the limitations of a rel-
atively small volunteer force and the ravages of protracted conflict. In the end,
reliance on contractors proved both boon and burden. Contractors extended
the forces capabilities but at great cost to the nation. The legal regime that
controlled contractors was also problematic.
In all, from 2004 to 2008, there were insufficient coalition forces or Af-
ghan national security forces to conduct what became known as a strategy
to clear, hold, build, and then transfer responsibility to Afghan forces. The
Taliban had a wide pool of unemployed tribesmen and former militia fighters
to recruit from, as well as greater latitude in picking targets. Over time, the
coalition also became increasingly unsuccessful in gaining Pakistani cooper-
ation to control the Taliban and the permeable Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
By 2009, the insurgency spread from its home base in the Pashtun areas in the
south and east to the entire nation. Ironically, the war spread geographically in

37
Collins

part because of the greater presence and more vigorous activities of coalition
forces in the south and east after 2009.
Taliban penetration of many areas deepened over time. In areas with
scant Pashtun population, the Taliban also used motorcycle squads and IEDs
to make headway in controlling the population. In areas under their control,
Taliban judges administered sharia-based (and ethnically and tribally com-
patible) judgments, trumping Karzais broken and corrupt civil courts. The
Afghan people had little love for the Taliban, but insecurity and government
ineptitude made the general population hesitant to act against them.
It is not literally true that initial U.S. operations in Iraq in 2003 stripped
Afghanistan of what it needed to fight the Taliban. Indeed, 2004 was the last
good year for Afghan security. While some intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance assets and Special Forces units were removed from Afghan-
istan, most of the assets needed to continue what appeared to be a low-risk
operation there in the short term were wisely fenced by Pentagon and US-
CENTCOM planners before the invasion of Iraq.57
It is fair to say, however, as the situation in Afghanistan began to decline
after 2005, the greater scope and intensity of problems in Iraq worked against
sending reinforcements or adequate funds to Afghanistan. National decision-
makers knew that there were problems in Afghanistan, but the problems in
Iraq were so much greater and of a higher priority that they deferred the prob-
lems in Afghanistan until after the success in 2008 of the Surge in Iraq. An-
other policy fault plagued U.S. war efforts: while U.S. fortunes declined in two
wars, DOD leadership refused until 2006 to expand the end strength of the
Armed Forces. For a short time, hoping against experience, the Pentagon even
slightly reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan when NATO took over command
and control of the mission there in 2006.
Funding for the war did grow, usually matching modest increases in troop
strength. In the first 3 years of the U.S. commitment (20012003), expenditures
averaged $12 billion per year; in the next 3 years, $18 billion per year; and for
20072009, $48 billion per year.58 Even as the funding picture for development
assistance improved, it was not always done effectively and efficiently. At times,
the military, with its CERP funds and stability operations mindset, was out of
sync with the longer term view of USAID officials in Kabul or in the PRTs. Years
later, both civil and military elements were criticized by the Office of the Spe-

38
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

cial Inspector General for Afghanistan, who criticized USAID in Afghanistan

in particular for creating projects that were not Afghan-supportable.59 In the
end, the logic of stability operations and peacetime development assistance often
will remain at odds. Both war and simultaneous reconstruction are inherently
wasteful. Armed nation-buildinga term popularized by the Center for Strategic
and International Studies Anthony Cordesmanis for neither the faint of heart
nor the impatient.
Also complicating the war was the fact that the regional powersSaudi
Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, India, Russia, and Chinadid little to help the situa-
tion. Each had its own interests and timetables. Iran and Pakistan were actu-
ally part of the problem, and the other four were unable to further a solution.
Pakistan was wary of American staying power and hedged its bets, allow-
ing the Afghan Taliban to operate from its territory with minimal interference.
Its objectives were to restore some sort of strategic depth in Afghanistan and
block the spread of Indian influence, which grew daily with billions of dollars
in Indian aid and commercial contracts. India worked hard to earn contracts
in Afghanistan and forged a logistical alliance with Iran to work around Pa-
kistans geographic advantages. In a vicious circle, Indian success fueled Pa-
kistani insecurity and tended to increase its attachment to the Afghan Tali-
ban. In turn, the more Pakistan did for the Afghan Taliban, the more Pakistan
alienated the people and the government of Afghanistan. Ironically, the more
Pakistan supported the Afghan Taliban, the easier it was for India to expand its
influence in Afghanistan. Pakistan, in its defense, would remind its interlocu-
tors (and correctly so) that Pakistan has lost more soldiers and civilians in the
war on terror than any other nation on Earth.60
Iran was no friend of the Taliban, and it worked (often with bags of cash)
with authorities in Kabul and Herat in the western part of Afghanistan both to
spread its influence and to improve trade and border control. Iran cooperated well
during the Bonn Process but was alienated early in 2002 when President Bush de-
clared the country to be a part of the axis of evil. Tehran has also erratically aided
the Taliban to ensure serious American problems, if not outright defeat.
China, for its part, seemed interested only in exploiting Afghanistans
strategic minerals and played a minimal role before 2010. Now that China
has major financial interests, Afghan officials hope that it will work harder for
peace and stability, exerting a more positive influence on Pakistan, its close

39
Collins

ally. China is poised today to help Afghanistan develop its mineral deposits
but to date has little taste for security cooperation there.
Saudi Arabia tried hard to use its good offices to end the war but was
frustrated by the Afghan Talibans refusal to break relations with al Qaeda, a
sworn enemy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Russia and China exploited
commercial contracts, and Russia began slowly to improve counternarcotics
cooperation with the coalition. In later years, Russia participated with other
nations in the region in forming a northern logistics route.
In all, by 2009 the regional powers were not the primary cause of the war
in Afghanistan, but their policies had not worked toward a solution. Pakistan
is particularly noteworthy here. While the U.S. policy has been one of patient
engagement to wean Islamabad from its dysfunctional ways, analysts from
other countries could be openly bitter. One Canadian military historian who
served in Afghanistan wrote that Pakistan was behind the external support to
the insurgents in southern Afghanistan and that it was a country with a 50-
year history of exporting low-intensity warfare as a strategy.61
American officials tended to be more circumspect in public, but even
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, who devoted
tremendous effort to working with the Pakistani military leaders, unleashed a
broadside right before he retired in 2011, The Haqqani Networkwhich has
long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani government and is, in
many ways, a strategic arm of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence Agencyis
responsible for the September 13th [2011] attacks against the U.S. Embassy in
Kabul. He went on to detail Haqqani attacks on Afghan and American targets
and concluded that it is difficult to defeat an insurgency with a secure sanctu-
ary in a neighboring country.62
By the end of the Bush administration, security in Afghanistan was down,
as was Afghan optimism about the future. From 2005, Karzais popularity had
declined at home by a third. His standing in the West also fell after widespread
fraud occurred in the 2010 presidential elections. His habit of criticizing the
coalition and the United States was galling. Bad feelings were multiplied by
his reluctance to criticize the Taliban and his habit of referring to them as our
brothers. In 2008, polls showed Afghan confidence in the United States and
its allies had been halved. Many Afghans believed that the Taliban had grown

40
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

stronger every year since 2005, and incentives for fence-sitting increased,
along with fear and disgust at government corruption.63
In the Bush years, the lack of progress came at a price: 630 U.S. Service-
members died, and the United States spent $29 billion in Afghanistan on se-
curity assistance, counternarcotics, economic development, and humanitarian
assistance. With the Iraq effort finally back on a more solid footing, President
Bushs deputy national security advisor, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute,
USA, conducted an assessment of the campaign in Afghanistan. He concluded
that more troops and resources were needed, but in the final days of the ad-
ministration, the President decided quietly to pass the Lute assessment on to
the Obama administration. He decided that the new strategy would have a
better chance of success if we gave the new team an opportunity to revise it as
they saw fit and then adopt it as their own.64
In early 2009, Ambassador Eikenberry returned to Kabul and noticed the
changes in Afghanistan since his departure as the military commander there
in 2007. He opined that the security situation deteriorated, especially in the
south; training of the army and police lagged; the challenge of the Pakistani
sanctuary had increased; and the level of mistrust between President Karzai
and the United States was peaking, as was Afghan government corruption,
complicated by a glut of foreign aid and assistance. Ambassador Eikenberry
found the Taliban enjoying increasing amounts of political support inside of
Afghanistan.65
We now turn to the conflict in Iraq, beginning with a short comparison of
the two campaigns.

Comparing the Two Campaigns

The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq had significant commonalities and dif-
ferences.66 Both began as conventional conflicts with the aim of regime change.
Both turned into protracted insurgencies compounded by nation-building
activities. In Afghanistan, U.S. Army Special Forces on horseback calling in
close air support might seem highly unconventional, but when considering
the whole pictureAfghan infantry and cavalry facing entrenched Taliban
fighters along well-established frontlines, air support, coalition activity, and
so forththe initial campaign that culminated by December 2001 with the
capture of Mazar-e-Sharif, Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and Jalalabad was, on

41
Collins

balance, a conventional force-on-force fight.67 The Iraq invasion was clearly a

modern, conventional assault. Both conflict zones featured powerful regional
actors on their borders who were often more a part of the problem than the
solution. Sectarian violence was a real threat in both countries but especially
so in Shia-majority Iraq, which had long been under the boot of the largely
Sunni Baathists.
There were also many differences between the two conflicts. The retalia-
tory war in Afghanistan was a come-as-you-are, hot-blooded affair, while the
deliberate, preventive war in Iraq was the result of a decade-long crisis and was
actively planned for more than a year. Although smaller and slightly less popu-
lous than Afghanistan, Iraqs location, oil wealth, and potential for weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) proliferation made it a vastly more important nation
than Afghanistan in the U.S. strategic calculus. Afghanistan was impoverished
and had been at war for over two decades before the U.S. invasion. Iraq had
the potential to be rich but was stifled by the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was
more a damaged state than it was an underdeveloped one. It still possessed great
oil wealth, an educated population, and relatively modern infrastructure in its
urban areas. Afghanistan had none of that, and still does not. The embryonic
Afghan civil elite, middle class, and governmental bureaucracy had ceased to
exist after a decade of war with the Soviet Union, followed by a civil war that
continued up to the U.S. invasion. In 2009, USCENTCOM Commander Gen-
eral David Petraeus, USA, stated, Given the fact that you have police who cant
read the law that they are enforcing, local government officials who cant read
the directives that have been sent to them . . . that does create a few handicaps
and challenges that certainly werent present to the same extent in Iraq, to put it
mildly.68
Iraqs conflictual relationship with the United States began in the first Gulf
War and continued, albeit at a lower level, right up to the U.S. invasion in 2003,
a 13-year struggle. The United States was not distracted from Afghanistan and
lured into Iraq. Indeed, the quick march to war in Afghanistan took a few
weeks, but the movement to war for a second time with Iraq was more than a
decade in the making.
One final difference is the character of the two wars. The retaliatory war
against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan was a classical just war. It at-
tracted a large and willing coalition of U.S. allies and partners. It had more en-

42
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

during popularity with the American people than the conflict in Iraq. The war
in Iraq was a preventive war, unpopular abroad, and, in short order, unpopular
at home as well. It temporarily hurt U.S. standing around the world, and it
drove a wedge between the United States and two of its closest allies, France
and Germany. The issue of legitimacy retarded the development of the coali-
tion force in Iraq, but over time, it grew to be a large and effective field force,
with nearly three dozen partners and two-fifths of the division headquarters
commanded and dominated by allied nations. To understand the 2003 inva-
sion of Iraq, it is necessary to begin with the first Gulf War.

Context of the War in Iraq

After favoring Saddam in his war with Iran, the United States was shocked
when the unpredictable dictator invaded Kuwait, a state that he owed billions
of dollars to for its support in the Iraqi struggle with Iran. In August 1990, the
United States organized a vast international coalition and in the following year
forced Saddam from Kuwait. Down but not out, Saddam managed to put down
subsequent rebellions in the south (among the Shia) and the north (among the
Kurds) of Iraq. Today, the coalitions failure to finish the job in Iraq in 1991
is often seen as a huge mistake. Critics have argued that Saddam was on the
ropes and that he was ripe for not just a knockdown, but for a knockout blow.
In 1991, however, President George H.W. Bush and his National Security Ad-
visor, Brent Scowcroft, saw it differently. Years later, they wrote:

While we hoped that a popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam,

neither the United States nor the countries of the region wished to see the
breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term bal-
ance of power at the head of the Gulf. Breaking up the Iraqi state would
pose its own destabilizing problems. . . . Trying to eliminate Saddam,
extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violat-
ed our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging
in mission creep, and would have incurred incalculable human and
political costs. . . . We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad, and,
in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed. . . . Had
we gone the invasion route [in 1991], the United States could conceiv-
ably still [in 1998] be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.69

43
Collins

From 1991 to 2003, Saddam continued to rule Iraq, brutally putting down
sporadic revolts and turning the Iraqi state into a money-making enterprise
for himself and his cronies. Public and private infrastructure decayed. The
regular Iraqi army and air force remained formidable by regional standards
but much less potent than in 1990. Following a doctrine of dual containment
for Iran and Iraq, the United States and coalition partners kept Saddams re-
gime constrained by using their air forces to enforce UN-supported (but not
explicitly authorized) no-fly zones in the northern and southern thirds of
the country. This required complex and continuous air operations run out of
the Gulf statesespecially Saudi Arabiaand Turkey. On a daily basis, en-
forcing the two no-fly zones required up to 200 aircraft and 7,500 airmen. In
all, 300,000 sorties were flown. In 2002 alone, Iraq attacked coalition aircraft
on 500 occasions, 90 of which resulted in coalition airstrikes, some of which
were calculated to be helpful in a potential future conflict.70 For the U.S. Air
Force, there was precious little rest in the decade between the first and second
gulf wars.
Saddams regime was also subject to strict economic sanctions, and the UN
later came to provide food and medicine for the Iraqi people in return for reg-
ulated oil exports in the oil-for-food program. Over the years, Saddam found
a way to profit from the sanctions, stockpiling cash and building palaces as
the Iraqi economy withered. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, UN investigators
exposed many people (including some foreign government and UN officials)
who had taken bribes of one sort or another for cooperating with Saddam. As
the 20th century came to an end, however, Saddam had convinced many in the
West that the UN-approved sanctions were hurting the people and especially
the children of Iraq.71 The sanctions regime was on thin ice. Indeed, the steady
unraveling (and outflanking) of international sanctions became a subsidiary
factor in the litany of reasons to go to war with Saddam.
After Operation Desert Storm in 1991, UN inspectors hunting WMD
played a long cat-and-mouse game with Saddams military and intelligence
bureaucracies. In 1998, Saddam unilaterally ended the inspections, raising
suspicion in the West and at the UN that he was accelerating his WMD pro-
grams. President Clinton later conducted punitive strikes on Iraq with the tacit
support of many nations in the UN Security Council. Prodded by Congress, he
later declared regime change in Iraq to be U.S. policy.

44
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

The George W. Bush administration was composed of many veterans of

the first Gulf Warincluding Vice President Richard Cheney and his chief
of staff, Lewis Scooter Libby; National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
and her deputy Stephen Hadley; Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz;
and NSC staff member Zalmay Khalilzadall of whom saw Saddam as an
ugly piece of unfinished business from their collective past.72 In retrospect,
the shock of 9/11 and anxiety about future strikes encouraged the U.S. Gov-
ernment to take counsel of its fears about Iraq, which had roots in terrorism,
Saddams reputation as a regional aggressor who had used chemical weapons,
and, most importantly, his apparent WMD possession and research programs.
Despite the suspicions of some in the Pentagon, Saddam never had an
operational relationship with al Qaeda. Iraq had neither supervised al Qaeda
assets nor conducted joint terrorist operations. At the same time, his active re-
lationship with terrorists of all stripes was a concern and was never in doubt.73
He was among the most active supporters of Palestinian terrorism. The Muja-
hideen-e-Khalq, a leftist, anti-Iranian terrorist/military force, was resident in
Iraq, conducted operations against Iran, and cooperated with Saddams para-
military and armed forces. Also, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who became al Qae-
das leader in Iraq, was resident for a time in a remote Kurdish-controlled sec-
tion of northern Iraq with his small terrorist group before the U.S. invasion. He
had visited Baghdad and received medical treatment there.74
Zarqawi did not have an operational relationship with Saddams intel-
ligence force, but they clearly had communications and a symbiotic coexis-
tence. Initially, Zarqawi was independent and not yet a subordinate of Osa-
ma bin Laden. However, the similarities between Zarqawis and bin Ladens
organizations attracted the attention of U.S. friends in Kurdistan, who made
U.S. planners aware of it. In the run-up to the war, the radical Zarqawi was
cooperating with both the Baathist regime and al Qaeda. After establishing
his reputation as the most energetic Salafist terrorist leader in Iraq, he later
merged his group with al Qaeda and became its emir in Iraq.75 (After the
invasion, the CIA examined the files of Saddams intelligence apparatus. Mi-
chael Morrell, former Deputy Director of the Agency, noted that the United
States never found anything in the files of the Iraqi intelligence service, or
any other Iraqi ministry, indicating that there was ever any kind of relation-
ship between the Iraqis and al Qaida.76)

45
Collins

Despite the obvious decay in his regime, what to do about Saddam was an
important issue for the new Bush administration. In all, it was not just WMD
either. The Iraq threat also included Saddams past regional violence, his multi-
faceted relationships with terrorists, and his outlandish tyranny. The complete
Iraq threat was, in the words of Under Secretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith,
WMD and the 3 Ts, which stood for terrorism, threats to neighbors, and tyr-
anny. Saddam was a threat not only inside Iraq but also abroad due to the ab-
sence of all restraints on his aggressive tendencies.77
After the 9/11 attacks, Saddams regime took on a more ominous appear-
ance. Early on, some Bush administration officials believed it was likely that
Saddam was involved with 9/11, and they saw new reason to be concerned
about him and his WMD programs. When terrorists can strike the U.S. home-
land and cause mass casualties, terrorism ceases to be only a law enforcement
issue. In the introduction to the 2002 National Security Strategy, Bush stated,
The gravest danger our Nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and
technology. Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons
of mass destruction, and evidence indicates that they are doing so with deter-
mination. The United States will not allow these efforts to succeed.78
Because of the new threat from al Qaeda and the dangers of WMD prolif-
eration, the President embraced the so-called doctrine of preemptionwhich
experts saw as a doctrine of preventive warand declared Iraq (along with
North Korea and Iran) a member of the axis of evil.

Preparation for War

Planning for a potential war against Iraq was largely sidelined during the first 2
months of fighting in Afghanistan. In November 2001, however, on the edge of
achieving initial military success in Afghanistan, President Bush again asked
Secretary Rumsfeld to begin planning in secret for potential military opera-
tions against Iraq. That mission was passed quickly to USCENTCOM, now
headed by General Franks.79 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General
Richard B. Myers and Vice Chairman General Peter Pace played a support-
ing role, with the activist Secretary of Defense exercising his legal authority
to be the direct supervisor of the combatant commanders. While most De-
fense secretaries in recent memory chose to work war-planning issues with the
combatant commanders through the Chairman, Secretary Rumsfeld played a

46
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

hands-on role in the development of the details of the battle plan and the flow
of the invasion force.
Over the next 14 months, Franks and Rumsfeld remained in frequent con-
tact. Not only were there dozens of briefings and face-to-face conversations,
usually with the Chairman or Vice Chairman in attendance, there also was a
steady stream of memos (known as snowflakes) from the energetic Secre-
tary who posed probing questions for the Pentagon and USCENTCOM staffs.
Rumsfeld wanted to conduct a quick, lightning-like operation in Iraq, fol-
lowed by a swift handover of power to the Iraqis, as was done in Afghanistan
in 2001. He did not want a large-scale, ponderous operation such as Desert
Storm, which he saw as wasteful and outmoded. In his memoir and frequently
in conversations, the Secretary criticized the wastefulness of Desert Storm by
pointing out that more than 80 percent [of the ammunition shipped to the-
ater] was returned to the United States untouched.80
Secretary Rumsfeld also did not want U.S. troops unnecessarily bogged
down in a long, costly, manpower-intensive peace operation. He was vitally
interested in force modernization and transformation, which further pre-
disposed him against prolonged military operations.81 In some ways, the war
in Afghanistanwith a small U.S. force on the ground ably assisted by CIA
paramilitary forces, mated to superb communications, high-tech air assets,
precision-guided munitions, and timely intelligencewas a conceptual model
for what Rumsfeld wanted to see in the new Iraq war plan. In February 2003, a
few weeks before the invasion, he stated in New York:

If the United States were to lead an international coalition in Iraq . . . it

would be guided by two commitments. Stay as long as necessary, and to
leave as soon as possible. . . . We would work with our partners as we are
doing in Afghanistan to help the Iraqi people establish a new government
that would govern a single country, that would not have weapons of mass
destruction, that would not be a threat to its neighbors. . . . The goal would
not be to impose an American style template on Iraq, but rather to create
conditions where Iraqis can form a government in their own unique way
just as the Afghans did with the Loya Jirga. . . . This is not to underesti-
mate the challenge that the coalition would face. . . . General Franks in
an interagency process has been working hard on this for many months.82

47
Collins

Throughout their dialogue and into the deployment of the force, Rumsfeld
urged a small force and a lightning-fast operation. Later, he shut down the mil-
itarys automated deployment system, questioning, delaying, or deleting units
on some of the numerous deployment orders that came across his desk.83
Franks may have briefed the President on his war plan as many as 10 times.
He started using a modified version of the old 1003V war plan but then de-
veloped three new varieties: a generated start plan, a running start plan, and
a hybrid plan. In the end, the last version, Cobra II, was strongly influenced
by edits from the field.84 It called for an initial combat force of about 140,000
troopsone-third the size of the force in the plan that was on the shelf when the
administration came to power. In the end, General Franks insisted that the plan
was a USCENTCOM plan and not the concoction of anyone in Washington:

The sessions in the White House, the sessions with Rumsfeld were initi-
ated by me and my staff and then critiqued and questioned by the White
House or by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). But there was
not a leadership role wherein we would walk in and the President or
Rumsfeld would say, Now here is how I would like to do this and here
is what Im thinking. That never happened. That never occurred. . . .
They were there to listen, and we would spend hour upon hour with me
doing what I am doing right now, talking. . . . So it was asking questions,
receiving answers, and . . . these sessions . . . went on repetitively over
the course of 14 months.85

The main strike elements of the plan were a few thousand special oper-
ators and three ground divisions (one U.S. Army mechanized division, one
Marine division, and one British armored division), along with elements of
three other Army divisions and an Army parachute infantry brigade that was
later inserted into the fray. Given the effects of previous air operations and the
need to be unpredictable, the notion of a long, preliminary air operation was
discarded, aiding the element of surprise on the ground. A high level of allied
hesitancy no doubt encouraged an already reluctant Turkish government
faced with strong public opinion against the warto disallow the use of its
territory to launch a northern front in Iraq with the U.S. 4th Infantry Division,
which the Iraqis saw as a potent threat. Consequently, much of the divisions

48
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

assets loitered at sea, which had the salutary effect of forcing the Iraqis to hold
a significant portion of their army in the north.
Unlike in Afghanistan, the CIA lacked an extensive set of relationships
with movements in Iraq.86 Much critical intelligence about Iraq was not verifi-
able against sources on the ground. The United States had excellent technical
intelligence but apparently lacked a network of agents in the country. There
were grave limits on the U.S. ability to confirm judgments that it believed were
true. Faulty intelligence estimates on the status of WMD were compounded
by numerous mis-estimates that complicated the postconflict phases of the
operation.
For their part, the Joint Chiefs of Staffstatutory military advisors to the
Secretary of Defense, President, and National Security Councilalso met with
the President twice on the war plan, the second time in January 2003. Army
Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki commented in the second meeting that
the on-scene force was small and that it would be important to keep rein-
forcements flowing, but all of the chiefs supported the basic plan.87 None of
them brought up specific misgivings about Phase IV, postcombat stability op-
erations, but that issue would be raised by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) a month
later in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
The administrations key congressional effort, however, had already taken
place. In October 2002, President Bush sought congressional approval for a
prospective military operation against Iraq. Propelled by a post-9/11 threat
perception, the resolution passed both houses handily. More than half of the
Senate Democrats and 81 House Democrats voted along with Republicans to
authorize military force.88 The Congressmen and Senators no doubt remem-
bered the political penalty assigned to those legislators, mostly Democrats,
who had voted against the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, which
passed the Senate by only five votes.89

International Support and WMD

On the international front, Secretary of State Colin Powell, with the strong
backing of the United Kingdom and other U.S. allies, convinced the President
in August 2002 to exhaust diplomatic efforts before going to war. Late in 2002,
with strong U.S. support, weapons inspections restarted, and Saddams regime
again interfered with them. After 400 inspections, however, the UN personnel

49
Collins

came to no firm conclusions. Their cautious on-scene report was drowned out
by many other briefings about Iraqi WMD, including one by Secretary Pow-
ell. In all, the existence of a large stockpile of chemical weapons and missiles
and, perhaps more importantly, active missile, biological, and nuclear research
programs became the overriding reason for invading Iraq and the reason that
brought together many different U.S factions and international partners in
their desire to forcibly oust Saddam and his regime.
On the eve of the 2003 war, despite the many disputes on such details as
the purpose of aluminum tubes in grainy imagery and reports of the poten-
tial transfer of uranium oxide (yellowcake), most international intelligence
agencies believed, as did former President Clinton, that Saddam still possessed
a major chemical weapons stockpile, a significant missile force, and active re-
search and development programs for biological and nuclear weapons. There
is nothing in credible sources to support the notion that the WMD threat was
concocted by U.S. Government officials and then sold to a gullible public, nor
is it clear that a small number of Iraqi sources tricked the U.S. Government
into its beliefs.90 No special offices within the Office of the Secretary of De-
fense or secret advisors created the dominant perception of the danger of Iraqi
WMD. There were many holes in the knowledge base, but senior officials and
analysts were almost universally united in their core beliefs. As the lead key
judgment in the Intelligence Communitys October 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate on WMD in Iraq stated, We judge that Iraq has continued its weap-
ons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and
restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles
with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have
a nuclear weapon during this decade.91
This perception was aided and abetted by Saddam himself, who wanted
the great powers and his hostile neighbor, Iran, to believe that he had WMD
programs and stockpiles. His use of chemical weapons against Iran and
the Kurds, who were Iraqi citizens, also gave weight to the danger of Iraqi
WMD programs. Saddams destruction of his stockpiles and the suspension
of much of his research and development work fooled the West, as well as
his own generals.92 In his eyes, this deception was critical to Iraqi security.
According to the U.S. Joint Forces CommandInstitute for Defense Analyses
(USJFCOM-IDA) project on Iraqi perspectives, Saddam walked a tightrope

50
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

with WMD because, as he often reminded his close advisors, they lived in a
very dangerous global neighborhood where even the perception of weakness
drew wolves. For him, there were real dividends to be gained by letting his
enemies believe he possessed WMD, whether it was true or not.93
Saddam also had many reasons to convince the great powers that he had
destroyed these weapons and that the UN should end the sanctions. Inside his
regime, a tangled web of lies and secrecy confused even his own generals. Ac-
cording to the USJFCOM-IDA study, The idea that in a compartmentalized
and secretive regime other military units or organizations might have WMD
was plausible to . . . [the Iraqi generals].94 Saddams record of deception was
a key factor in why intelligence analysts continued to believe in Iraqi WMD.
His own duplicity and the U.S. inability to penetrate it were factors in his un-
doing. Former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, years after the mis-
take, stated, Thinking back, I now wonder if our mistakes may have been
in not considering whether the reason that Saddam Hussein was so secretive
about his weapons of mass destruction capabilities was not because he had the
weapons and wanted to conceal them, but because he did not have them and
wanted to hide that.95
While Secretary Powell was successful in restarting weapons inspections
in Iraq, he was never able to build a consensus for decisive action in the UN
Security Council. In mid-January 2003, with CIA Director Tenet at his side,
Powell gave a highly publicized briefing on Iraqi WMD programs to the Se-
curity Council. He was later embarrassed to discover that some details that he
highlighted were incorrect.
When in the following month UN inspections came to naught, the die was
cast for war without the blessing of many key U.S. allies or the UN Security
Council. Iraq was declared to be in material breach of UN Security Council
Resolution (UNSCR) 1441, which demanded that Iraq give a detailed account-
ing of its WMD programs. With urging from its closest ally, Great Britain,
the United States decided to try for yet another resolution, one that might
explicitly authorize the use of force. The attempt broke down for lack of allied,
Russian, and Chinese support. The failure of this risky diplomatic move cast
doubt on the legitimacy of the preventive war that the United States and Great
Britain were planning. Adding to the sting of rejection was the fact that France
and Germany led the way in trying to block the resolution. Later, U.S. failure

51
Collins

to find either WMD stockpiles or active research and development programs

compounded the damage to U.S. credibility, further retarding efforts to gain
international support.
Of the nations in the Middle East, only Israel, Kuwait, and Qatar were
openly behind the coalition effort; many other regional states, such as Saudi
Arabia and Bahrain, privately supported it. Of major U.S. allies, only the Unit-
ed Kingdom was ready to provide a significant military formation for combat
operations.96

Military and Interagency Postwar Plans

In many of his war-plan briefings to the President, General Franks mentioned
Phase IV, the transition period after the end of major combat operations. In-
deed, he did not underestimate the work that might have to be done. On two
occasions, Frankss memoir indicates that he told first the Secretary of De-
fense and then the President and National Security Council that Phase IV
might require up to 250,000 troops, over 100,000 more combatants than were
in the initial invasion force. He also noted that this phase might last for years,
although he did believe that it might be done more quickly with a smaller
force under the right circumstances.97 Despite these estimates, USCENT-
COM was not adequately prepared for the postmajor combat difficulties that
it faced in Iraq.
It was ironic that DOD civilian leadership severely criticized General
Shinseki when he mentioned a similar level of effort (several hundred thou-
sand) in response to questions about postcombat troop requirements in a
February 2003 Senate hearing. These estimates were consistent with the out-
side estimates of USCENTCOMs land component headquarters and its Phase
IV planners. While it has never been confirmed, Secretary Rumsfeld and Dep-
uty Secretary Wolfowitz may have been worried about not alarming Congress
on the eve of the war. It is clear that they expected a relatively quick, easy, and
inexpensive occupation. They were also conscious of inflated cost and casualty
estimates in previous conflicts such as Operation Desert Storm.
Frankss many briefings to the President did not cover critical postwar
issues that were not ordinarily in the militarys sphere of competence: gover-
nance, constitutions, sectarian relations, and so forth. He emphasized tasks that
the military had to do in the short run: security and humanitarian assistance.

52
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

Some analysts have criticized Franks for not being interested in postwar Iraq,
an area where many in uniform believed that civilians should dominate deci-
sionmaking. Most war planning was handled by Franks and his staff, but most
military postwar planning efforts were left to USCENTCOMs land component.
Franks announced his retirement soon after the fighting, and this act negatively
affected perceptions concerning his enthusiasm for postmajor conflict stabil-
ity operations.98 Years later, Franks explained his focus on the combat phase of
the operation:

The key that unlocked the door in Iraq was the removal of the regime
and so the force level initially was planned to remove the regime. So we
said, depending on whether we see the left end of the continuum, peace
breaking out, or the right end, tending toward chaos, we will continue
to modify both the structure and the number of troops involved in Iraq
until we win, that is, that the Iraqis are able to take charge of their own
destiny. That was the plan from the beginning to the end and that is the
way that we looked at Phase IV in every iteration. . . . You dont know
what you are actually going to find.99

While USCENTCOM and its land component had Phase IV plans, some
of the divisions making up the forceincluding the 3rd Infantry Division, the
main attack divisiondid not have them. Division planners wrote in their af-
ter action review that the division had not been fully and completely briefed
on the highly detailed postwar plan of its higher headquarters, the land com-
ponent command.100 The Marine headquarters, I Marine Expeditionary Force,
and its divisional element under Major General James Mattis did formulate
plans and standard operating procedures. After the seizure of Baghdad, how-
ever, they were redeployed to the south, a less contested area in the immediate
postcombat phase.101
The Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) plan did
not generate supporting division plans, and this represented a shortcoming.
In all, while the military did begin to plan for this issue before civilians did,
the USCENTCOM and CFLCC Phase IV planning efforts were not an effec-
tive guide for immediate postconventional combat military policy, were not
shared fully with implementing units, and did not make adequate allowances

53
Collins

for supporting civilian entities in the reconstruction and stabilization busi-

ness. In CFLCCs defense, however, it is important to note that it was never
able to supervise Phase IV operations. It was sent home early, an unusual
decision (discussed below).102
While war planning was in high gear from November 2001 until March
2003, civilian planners in the interagency community were not included in the
close-hold war-plan briefings. Civilian planners, for the most part, did not be-
gin to make meaningful independent contributions until the summer of 2002.
By then General Franks had briefed the President six times on the battle plan.
Thus, instead of a military plan being built to line up with a national plan, the
interagency work on Iraq generally followed in the wake of the war plan. Post-
war issues were broken up and handled by different groups that sometimes
worked in isolation from one another for security reasons or for bureaucratic
advantage.
The NSC-led Executive Steering Group did valuable work to attempt to
break down agency barriers and pull together the strands of a postwar plan,
concentrating on humanitarian and economic issues. They began their work
in the summer of 2002, following up on a Pentagon-run interagency effort.
The planning efforts of the Pentagon were so powerful and the nature of war so
uncertain that the Presidentwith the concurrence of Secretary Powell, first
in October and then in December 2002put the Pentagon in charge of initial
postwar operations, a fairly typical pattern in U.S. military history.
Although the outline of the postwar plan was approved in October 2002,
the President did not formally approve the organization that would carry out
initial stabilization and reconstruction activities, the Office of Reconstruc-
tion and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), until December 2002. It was not
brought into existence until January 2003. This office was subordinated to the
Secretary of Defense, who put it under USCENTCOM.
Policy queuing was a natural and unavoidable problem. Not all planning
efforts can be seamlessly started or terminated with optimal timing. One rea-
son for the slow start in postwar planning had to do with diplomacy. The
tentative scheme to manage postwar Iraq was approved in October 2002, but
little could be done as diplomats attempted in vain to solve the problem with-
out recourse to arms. One can plan war in secret, but to do postwar planning
and programming, diplomacy must be winding down and war must be nearly

54
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

inevitable. In a recent interview, Stephen Hadley, who served President Bush

first as deputy and then, in the second term, as National Security Advisor,
lamented the fact that diplomatic efforts retarded postwar planning:

The dilemma was the following: the President wanted coercive diplo-
macy; he wanted to prepare a war plan, and to be seen preparing forces
in order to give strength to the diplomacy. But he was hopeful that Iraq
could be resolved diplomatically, and that Saddam could be convinced
either to change his policies or to leave. There were a lot of people who, of
course, didnt believe that. They thought that Bush came in with the set-
tled intention to go to war, and that diplomacy was just a cover. . . . But
the dilemma was, if we started, and it became known publicly that we
were planning for a post-conflict, post-Saddam Iraq, everybody would
say: See, we told you, the diplomatic effort is not real, theyre already
preparing for war. And we would undermine our own diplomacy. So we
had a dilemma, you had to delay the post-war planning as much as you
could because you didnt want to jeopardize the diplomacy, but you still
want enough time to develop the postwar plan.103

According to Hadley, another problem with postwar planning was imple-

mentation. Summarizing a study that he had commissioned, he reflected on a
basic problem with civil planning:

But what you didnt understand was that while military plans were
being developed by CENTCOM, there was a system for translating
those military plans into operational orders all the way down to the
squadron level. There wasnt an established way of taking that post-
war planning and putting it into the process, and implementing orders
all the way down to the squadron level. So, you did all the planning,
but it had no legs.104

According to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, the Presidents

designation of the Pentagon as the lead on postwar issues appeared to stream-
line the chain of command, but it also dampened interagency cooperation.105
It also caused intense friction between State and Defense over who would be

55
Collins

assigned to ORHA. The disruptive tension between clear lines of command

and interagency cooperation continued when ORHA was replaced by the Co-
alition Provisional Authority (CPA) led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer. The
head of the CPA emphasized his status as the Presidential envoy and did not
report consistently to or through either the Secretary of Defense or National
Security Advisor.106
The President received several major civilian briefings that were relevant
to postwar issues, all of which were arranged by the NSC-driven Executive
Steering Group. In January, based on interagency deliberations, Elliot Abrams
of the NSC and Robin Cleveland of the Office of Management and Budget
briefed the President on potential humanitarian issues during and right after
the war. The work of this interagency group focused mainly on humanitarian
assistance and the handling of refugees and internally displaced persons. The
groups initial estimate of reconstruction costs was only a few billion dollars.107
In early February, the NSC staff briefed the President on postwar relationships
in Iraq, and on February 24, 2003, the President was briefed on the status of
the Iraqi oil industry and the oil-for-food program.108
On February 28, 2003, Lieutenant General Jay Garner, USA (Ret.), briefed
the President and his advisors on the initial estimates of his interagency ORHA
team, which reported to Franks and the Secretary of Defense and was to be the
lead office in postwar operations.109 Because Garner had only been hired in
January, his briefing was not detailed. Indeed, Garners team was only partially
formed when it deployed. In all, his staff officers did not have time to develop
relationships with their peers in OSD Policy or on the Joint Staff.
Immediately before the war began, the NSC staff briefed the President
in two sittings on the postwar reconstruction, governance, and security plans
that had been cleared by the deputies and principals. The essence of the plan
briefed to President Bush was essentially to turn over power quickly to an Iraqi
entity, administer the country through the Iraqi ministries, use the existing
police and military to help run the country, and pay for most reconstruction
by using Iraqi funds, mainly from the sale of oil. This briefing was entirely in
keeping with Garners plans, as well as the DOD approach. In a few weeks,
however, it would be completely overcome by events and scrapped without
further interagency discussions.

56
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

One final briefing deserves highlighting. On March 4, 2003, the President

and NSC reviewed for a final time the U.S. and coalition objectives in Iraq.
This was one of the last major briefs before the war began, and in retrospect, it
was an important symbol of how high U.S. hopes were for postwar Iraq.110 The
formal goals for the Iraq policy had been laid out in October 2002 and were
frequently mentioned in planning guidance to USCENTCOM. The desired
endstate was an Iraq that:

n does not threaten its neighbors

n renounces support for, and sponsorship of, international

terrorism
n continues to be a single, unitary state

n is free of WMD, their means of delivery, and associated

programs
n no longer oppresses or tyrannizes its people

n respects the basic rights of all Iraqis, including women and

minorities
n adheres to the rule of law and respects fundamental human

rights, including freedom of speech and worship

n encourages the building of democratic institutions.111

The major combat operations, which began on March 23, 2003, went well.
The Iraqis never significantly challenged the invading forces vulnerable supply
lines. The overwhelming power of U.S. and British forces quickly accomplished
tactical objectives, and the major conventional fight was over by mid-April,
months ahead of schedule. The only real surprise during the fightingand a
bad omen for the futurewas the sporadic but vigorous resistance put up by
paramilitary irregulars, such as the Fedayeen Saddam. The much-anticipated
bloody battle for Baghdad and the use of WMD did not happen, and the pre-
dicted flood of refugees never took place due to the speed of the operation and
the attacking forces avoidance of many cities and towns.
On May 1, 2003, after landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lin-
coln, President Bush stood in front of a banner that proclaimed Mission Ac-
complished and stated, Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the
battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.112 He then told

57
Collins

the allies and the UN that their help was now needed and could be provided in
safety. Although Franks had talked of the possible need for a long occupation,
and many others warned of the complexity of postcombat events, some offi-
cials in OSD at the urging of the Secretary of Defense were soon speaking of a
rapid turnover and withdrawal, with the invasion force possibly being reduced
to 25,000 to 30,000 by August 2003.113
In May, war A was ending, but war B was about to begin. The United States
had a complex, flexible plan for war A but no such plan for war B. War A was
a rapid, high-tech, conventional battlewar, American style. War B would
become a protracted conflict, an insurgency with high levels of criminality
and sustained sectarian violence; it was just the sort of ambiguous, irregular
conflict that the American public finds hard to understand and even harder to
endure. The military was not initially prepared for insurgency and took more
than a year to adjust well in the field. In 2006, the drastic increase in sectarian
violencein some eyes, a Sunni-Shia civil warcompounded the insurgency
and cast a pall over coalition military efforts until the Surge began early in
2007. Political development and progress in reconstruction both continued to
lag behind military efforts.

Pitfalls in Decisionmaking and Initial Execution

Underlying nearly all of these mistakes was a series of faulty assumptions.114
These initial assumptions were a thread that ran through many missteps, and
thus it is important to ask where assumptions come from. In every case, as-
sumptions are affected by wishful thinking, stress, predispositions of the key
actors, uncertainty, and the process used to arrive at decisions. In complex
national security operations, intelligence estimates also play a vital role. In the
case of Iraq, intelligence was faulty on WMD, the state of Iraqi infrastructure,
and the usefulness of Iraqi police and military. Later, other shortfalls came
in the provision of information about Iraqi tribal structures, as well as in the
interests and intentions of neighboring states. Secretary Rumsfeld and Under
Secretary Feith also complained that while intelligence did include the possi-
bility of civil disturbances, it never predicted the possibility of an insurgen-
cy.115 Incorrect, incomplete, or dated intelligence contributed in large measure
to the assumptions that infected what became a best case war plan.

58
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

The core assumption held by many leaders in the national security estab-
lishmentand nearly all of the civilian leadership in the Pentagonwas that
war in Iraq would be difficult, the peace relatively easy, and the occupation
short and inexpensive.116 This assumptionas implicit as it was powerful
was reflected in many leadership statements, actions, and planning priorities.
Right up to the start of operations, the amount of time and effort spent on the
major combat operation war plan was impressive; the amount of time and
effort placed on postwar planning was relatively slight in comparison. Battle
plans had branches and sequels, and combat troops were prepared for eventu-
alities. The postwar plans had little such flexibility built into them.
The supporting assumptions were five in number. First, the war was ex-
pected to include tough fighting and end in a climactic battle. Most senior
national security officials expected (and realistically so) that Iraqi Freedom
would be a fight that could include the use of chemical or biological weapons.
The battle for Baghdad in particular was seen as the logical bloody end to
months of combat. Every DOD, State Department, and CIA expert expected
battle-related refugees and internally displaced people or populations to be a
major complicating factor in the war and its aftermath. These judgments were
prudent, plausible, and consistent with previous conflicts. But none of them
came to pass.
Second, leaders were repeatedly told by exiles that U.S. soldiers would be
seen as liberators, welcomed with sweets and flowers, as renowned scholar
Kanan Makiya told President Bush.117 General Abizaid called this the Heroic
Assumption. He criticized it because he believed that the liberation theme
was connected in the minds of many decisionmakers with the liberation of
Europe in World War II. Abizaid rightly believed that Iraq was not France.118
In the minds of many, the fact of liberation would also facilitate early with-
drawal. Our most senior leaders apparently believed this and frequently said
so. General George W. Casey, Jr., USA, later stated, CENTCOM bought into
it. Franks bought into it. It was down to the tactical level. . . . Rumsfeld pushed
that. . . . It was in everyones mind that we were getting out of there.119 No one
was able to estimate the time that it would take for humiliation and impatience
to turn appreciative welcomes into hatred for occupiers. It proved to be a pain-
fully short interval.

59
Collins

While wiser heads had predicted a short honeymoon,120 many officials

such as Abizaid, Feith, Khalilzad, and Garner wanted a quick turnover of
governmental authority to Iraqis. Indeed, this was the plan approved by
President Bush just days before the invasion. It did not come to pass. There
were significant situational difficulties. There was no Iraqi equivalent of a
Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. An international conference to legitimize
an appointed government, as the UN-sponsored Bonn Conference did with
Afghanistan, proved difficult to organize in the prevailing international cli-
mate. Many Iraqis were wary of a rapid turnover becoming Baathism without
Saddam. Others worried about Shia domination. The Kurds worried about
both of these scenarios and also kept one eye on Turkey.121 Throughout it all,
the rivalry between Iraqi externals, such as Ahmed Chalabi, and internals
was also a factor. In a similar vein, the few hundred Iraqi National Congress
exiles led by Chalabi were not well or widely employed and accomplished
little when they were brought into theater to help put an Iraqi face on coali-
tion efforts. To complicate matters, there was another group of externals that
had sought shelter in Iran during Saddams regime. By mid-May 2003, any
sense that Western-based Iraqi exiles or other externalsstrongly distrusted
in any event by the CIA and Department of Statemight come to lead Iraq
had evaporated in the spring heat.
The rapid turnover of power to Iraqis was key to the U.S. postwar plan,
but it could not be arranged in advance or imposed by fiat. Khalilzad and Gar-
ner wanted to begin by holding a nationwide meeting of notables on May 15,
2003, a follow-up to three previous conferences in February and April 2003.
Bremer, who had supplanted both of these officials, thought that such a meet-
ing would be risky and canceled it; he also doubted the move to turn over
elements of governmental authority rapidly to some sort of interim Iraqi body.
In addition, he asked the President to end Khalilzads status as a Presidential
envoy under the premise that having two envoys would be confusing. Howev-
er, removing Khalilzad took away the administrations de facto representative
to all elements of Iraqi society. Khalilzads popularity in Iraq and his status as
an empathetic American of Muslim background were impossible to duplicate.
Powell and Khalilzad were both surprised by this personnel shift, which was
proposed by Bremer and approved by the President without benefit of inter-
agency deliberation.122

60
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

Pursuant to UNSCR 1483, from May 2003 to June 2004 the United States
and its coalition partners became the legal occupiers of Iraq, a fact that became
more intolerable to many Iraqis as time passed and the dreams of reconstruc-
tion failed to come true. As Bremer settled into the headquartersquickly
canceling the nationwide meeting to prepare for an interim government, in-
stituting de-Baathification, and disbanding the old Iraqi armyevery major
element of the plan briefed to President Bush right before the invasion had
been abandoned because of changes on the ground without comprehensive
reconsideration by the NSC principals.
In his back-brief to Rumsfeld (but not to President Bush), Garnerwho
had complained to Bremer in Baghdad about these three policy initiatives
referred to them as the three tragic decisions.123 In place of a quick turnover
to Iraqis, a staple of prewar planning, the United States now had a full-scale
occupation of Iraq without the requisite increase in resources to carry it off.
Deprived of the assistance of over 100,000 Iraqi soldiers, the imbalance be-
tween aspirations and on-hand assets would continue up to the Surge.124 The
President approved these changes to postwar policythe three tragic deci-
sionsand he bears direct responsibility for not calling in all hands to create a
new, well-balanced policy toward Iraq.
A third supporting assumption was that the Iraqi people hungered for
democracy and human rights and that this hunger would suppress the urge to
settle scores or to think in narrow tribal or sectarian terms. This presupposi-
tion undoubtedly was also enhanced by Iraqi exiles, many of whom had not
been home in decades. This assumption had some validity, but it lived along-
side the widely held perception that the United States and its partners were
foreign occupiers and that democratic forms of government were a Western,
Christian imposition on Islamic Iraq.
In the end, few Iraqis understood that democracy, in addition to majority
rule, meant tolerance of and respect for minority rights. Baathists and al Qae-
daaffiliated terrorists were able to create, magnify, and exploit sectarian ten-
sions faster than the local government was able to imbue Iraqis with the spirit
of democracy and unity. After the failure to find WMD, the White House
against Pentagon advicepounded the democracy drum so loudly that in the
minds of many, creating a democracy in Iraq, rather than bolstering national
security, had become the centerpiece of U.S. policy.125

61
Collins

A fourth assumption was that Iraq without Saddam could manage and
fund its own reconstruction. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq had not been dev-
astated by over 20 years of war, and its middle-class, educated population
was mostly intact. If there were damages from the war, oil could pay for
its modest reconstruction, a process that would be made easier by a small
invading force and a highly successful effort to avoid collateral damage. In
truth, unknown to policy planners and U.S. intelligence agencies, the coun-
trys prewar infrastructure was in disastrous shape. It was further devastat-
ed by the conventional battle that took place from March to May 2003 and
by the looting and insurgency that followed the end of combat operations.
Billions of dollars for reconstruction were required and later provided by
the coalition or the international community, but any progress made was
marred by a lack of security, inadequate capacity, and the ill effects of the
insurgency. Compounding all of this, neither ORHA nor CPA had the right
people or assets to make their presence felt throughout the country. Despite
great personal sacrifices on the parts of hundreds of Americans and their
allies, both organizations were often ineffective.126 Few among them had any
detailed knowledge of the Iraqi milieu.
Finally, based on the best available U.S. intelligence, as DOD and NSC
officials had briefed the President, U.S. officials assumed that they would re-
ceive great help from the Iraqi police, the army, and the ministries, all of which
were seen by many experts as salvageable, malleable, and professional. None
of those things turned out to be true. The police were corrupt, ill trained (by
Western standards), and not at all concerned with the rule of law. The virtual
evaporation of the army during the war and its formal disbanding by Bremer
(which surprised many outside the Pentagon), and even the de-Baathification
that was ordered (and then expanded by Iraqis on the ground) did nothing to
replace a system in which all national leadership had flowed from the Baath
party.127 The Sunni minoritydominant in the army and the partywas alien-
ated and became fodder for the insurgency. The ministries, deserted by cadres
and looted repeatedly, did not continue to function effectively as had been
hoped. It did nothing for their effectiveness when the coalition asked most
ministries to report not to Iraqi authorities, but to the CPA. On top of all this,
the urge for sectarian score-settling that was encouraged by al Qaeda in Iraq
was strong. Later, the Shia-dominated Iraqi government did little to dampen

62
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

sectarian violence and often encouraged it by Shiite militias, sometimes from

within Iraqi security forces and ministries.
Sadly, much of the post-invasion state of affairs had been predicted. Many
government and civilian experts had spoken well and loudly about the dangers
of postwar Iraq, but their warnings were not heeded. For example, in Sep-
tember 2002, 33 of the most renowned U.S. international relations scholars,
many of them normally considered right-wing realists, signed an open letter
declaring the war with Iraq is not in Americas national interest.128 Many an-
alysts believed that the war and the subsequent peace would both be difficult.
Planners and senior decisionmakers could have made better use of the report
by the Department of State Future of Iraq Project, the 2002 National Defense
University workshop Iraq: Looking Beyond Saddams Rule,129 or the Army
War Colleges Strategic Studies Institute report titled Reconstructing Iraq: In-
sights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario,
all of which were U.S. Governmentsponsored efforts.
The Army study, previewed at a conference in December 2002, conclud-
ed that Iraq presents far from ideal conditions for achieving strategic goals.
. . . Rebuilding Iraq will require a considerable commitment of American re-
sources, but the longer U.S. presence is maintained, the more likely violent
resistance will develop.130 The study went on to recommend that the U.S. mili-
tary prepare in detail for 135 postwar tasks. Senior NSC staff officials tried but
failed to get the Army study briefed to interagency partners.131
Planners in OSD Policy, led by Deputy Assistant Secretary Christopher J.
Lamb, also did a study on the significant potential for widespread lawlessness
in postwar Iraq.132 The OSD Policy leadership passed this study to the Pen-
tagons uniformed leadership and asked them to send it to USCENTCOM.
The command did not respond to the analysis and likely did not have enough
troops on hand to solve the security problems that arose after the completion
of conventional operations.
The declassified January 2003 Intelligence Community Assessmenta
document of lesser stature than a full National Intelligence Estimateon post-
war Iraq also concluded that building an Iraqi democracy would be a long, dif-
ficult, and probably turbulent process, with potential for backsliding into Iraqs
tradition of authoritarianism. It went on to highlight postwar Iraq as an envi-
ronment offering opportunity to al Qaeda and to note the high probability of

63
Collins

sectarian violence, score settling, and Iranian meddling.133 Warnings on vari-

ous aspects of the plan were also made by Representative Ike Skelton (D-MO),
former USCENTCOM Commander General Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.), as
well as Secretary Powell, Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), former National Secu-
rity Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and others.
In addition to a complex set of sensitive, inaccurate assumptions, another
problemin part related to the sensitive assumptions, but at the same time
a separate issuewas the inability of the coalition and the United States to
put enough security forcesU.S., allied, or Iraqion the ground to control a
country the size of California and create the security needed for governance
and reconstruction. The small initial USCENTCOM combat force accepted
significant risk in its rear area, but it accomplished its mission. The forces ade-
quate to win the war, however, were not sufficient for providing local security,
enabling reconstruction, defeating the insurgents, or protecting the popula-
tion. General Abizaid, then USCENTCOM deputy commander, stated in a
recent interview, I went to Baghdad right after it had been captured, and I was
shocked at how little control there was in Baghdad. I went to the [3rd] Division
Commander, and then I went to Lieutenant General McKiernan [Land Com-
ponent Commander Lieutenant General David McKiernan, USA] and I said,
hey you have got to get control of whats going on in Baghdad. You may think
the war is over, but the war isnt over yet.134
Sadly, while looters were demonstrating the inadequacy of the force on
hand and implicitly encouraging insurgents, General Franks, responding to an
inquiry by the Secretary of Defense, changed his mind and off ramped the
nearly 20,000 Soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division, ending its land, air, and sea
movement toward Iraq and leaving the in-country troops without reinforce-
ments.135 The guidance from Washington to its forces was to take as much
risk getting out of the country as you took getting into the country.136 General
Abizaid concluded, For all intents and purposes, we were still fighting in Iraq,
and everyone else was saying how glad they were that [the war] was over with.
We were going to turn it into Bosnia, except it wasnt Bosnia, it was Iraq.137
DOD civilian leadership did not want to admitperhaps for public re-
lations or legal reasonsthat by mid-summer 2003, there was an insurgency
going on. General Abizaid, the new USCENTCOM commander, publicly and
clearly stated that there was an emerging guerrilla war there.138 The August

64
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

2003 bombing by insurgents of the Jordanian embassy, the destruction of the

UN headquarters, the attempted assassination of Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz
in Baghdad, and the assassination of Shiite faction leader Ayatollah Moham-
mad Baqir al-Hakim left little doubt that a new type of war was beginning.
Indeed, as one senior officer joked, the varieties of insurgents later became as
numerous as the flavors of Baskin-Robbins ice cream.139

The Campaign, 20032006

The campaign for Iraq from the summer of 2003 to the beginning of the 2007
Surge is a well-told tale. From the summer of 2003 to the summer of 2004,
the President appointed Ambassador Bremer and the CPA as the civil leader-
ship. As already noted, on orders from or with the concurrence of Washington,
Bremer launched a de-Baathification initiative, disestablished the Iraqi army
(which had melted away during the fighting), and ended the movement by
Garner and Khalilzad to quickly form an interim Iraqi government. The Unit-
ed States formally occupied Iraq, a fact legitimized in UN Security Council
resolutions after May 2003.
On the military side, the large and general officerfilled CFLCC, built
around 3rd Army headquarters, was the principal planner for Phase IV and
was to take charge after the shooting stopped. It appears that this headquarters
was too big for the desired strength of U.S. occupation forces. The USCENT-
COM chief of staff told Army historians that Franks and others were inter-
ested in lowering the size of the military footprint in Iraq in line with prewar
planning for a very brief period of military operations after toppling Saddam
Hussein.140 General Franks ordered CFLCC replaced with a smaller combined
joint task force, built around the arriving V Corps staff. This move confound-
ed Army Vice Chief of Staff General Jack Keane, who had filled CFLCC with
the best and brightest of the Armys senior officers to maximize their service
in both Phase III and Phase IV of the operation.141 A Baghdad division com-
mander noted that V Corps was not suited to the mission and observed that
the forces in the capital were a bit adrift, engaged in what was a bit of almost
discovery learning as they transitioned from maneuver elements in a grand
fight to governing a fractious capital city.142
The U.S. force, commanded by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, USA,
and his small headquarters, Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF 7), tried to

65
Collins

bring order to a complex insurgency in a large country beset by disgruntled

Baathists, Shiite militias, restless Sunni tribes, and al Qaeda cadres, all vying
for power and chafing under the coalitions presence. To become capable, San-
chezs organic corps headquarters built up from a strength of 280 to a strength
of 1,000 over a years time.143 General officer strength went from 3 to nearly 20
on hand in roughly the same period. To compound command issues, Bremer
and Sanchez did not work smoothly together.
There were a few positive developments on the ground during Sanchezs
command. Saddam was captured in December 2003. Another highlight was
the movement of a brigade of the 1st Armored Division to the south of Bagh-
dad to secure the lines of communication. General Abizaid stated that the
best division fight of the war is the way that [thenMajor General Martin]
Dempsey handled his division in that period of combat. I dont think he has
ever gotten enough credit for that. He sent a brigade down to Najaf and Kar-
bala, and they severely damaged Muqtada al-Sadrs militia, thus securing the
lines of communication to the south.144
Despite such isolated bright spots, the insurgency spread and the ruthless
pursuit of insurgents was often counterproductive. Years later, H.R. McMaster
noted, in Iraq, an inadequate understanding of tribal, ethnic, and religious
drivers of conflict at the local level led to military operations (such as raids
against suspected enemy networks) that exacerbated fears or offended the
sense of honor of populations in ways that strengthened the insurgency.145
Thousands of Iraqis were incarcerated during this period, and the explo-
sion in the prison population led indirectly to overcrowding and problems at
Abu Ghraib prison. This overcrowding was a contributing factor in the na-
tional disgrace that emerged in the spring of 2004 with the publication of hun-
dreds of pictures of a small group of U.S. Soldiers subjecting detainees to cruel
and degrading abuse. Scooter Libby, the Vice Presidents chief of staff, summed
up the devastating effect the photos would have on strategic communications:
This just goes against every message we are trying to send. The war grew
increasingly unpopular at home and abroad.146
Around the same time, in response to the murders and mutilations of
U.S. contractors, CJTF 7, with approval from higher authorities and over the
initial objections of local Marines, began a comprehensive offensive in Fallu-
jah, a Sunni insurgent stronghold not far from Baghdad. Partway through the

66
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

bloody operation, with the concurrence of a reluctant USCENTCOM, Ambas-

sador Bremer stopped the battle to prevent the carnage from destroying the
cohesion of the Iraqi Governing Council.147
Some elements of the situation improved with time: the CPA gave way to
an interim government in the summer of 2004, and then three sets of elections
were held in 2005 for an elected Iraqi government. Bremer was replaced in
the summer of 2004 by Ambassador John Negroponte, and the undermanned
headquarters of Lieutenant General Sanchez was replaced by a four-star head-
quarters under General George Casey, ably mentored by General Abizaid, a
former Middle East foreign area officer who had been USCENTCOM depu-
ty commander or commander for over 18 months. Caseys headquarters now
also had a subordinate, separate corps headquarters, Multi-National Corps
Iraq, to supervise the fight.
Casey commanded for 30 months through the tenures of 3 Ambassa-
dors and 3 Iraqi governments. He had a succession of warfighting corps
commanders under himLieutenant Generals Thomas Metz, John Vines,
Peter Chiarelli, and Raymond Odiernoas well as two commanders for
police and army training, Lieutenant Generals David Petraeus and Martin
Dempsey. Sanchez and Casey were ably assisted by counterterrorist forces of
the JSOC under Lieutenant General Stanley A. McChrystal, USA. Multi-Na-
tional ForceIraq (MNF-I) was established in the spring of 2004. Caseys
description shows the complexity of the coalition force: At the time [of his
assumption of command] MNF-I consisted of around 162,000 coalition forc-
es from 33 countries, organized into five Multi-National Division and one
Multi-National Brigade area[s] of operation in northwest Iraq. Two of these
five divisions were commanded by coalition members and contained most of
the non-U.S. forces. The United States was responsible for three multinational
division areas, the Marine sector in the west, and a brigade area of operations
in the northwest.148
General Casey quickly published a full campaign plan, which was out in
August 2004. His initial priorities were setting the conditions for the election
and building Iraqi security forces and institutions, while respecting Iraqi sov-
ereignty in all things.149 The command also went to work on terrorist and mi-
litia strongholds in Samarra and Sadr City.

67
Collins

The problem of Fallujah did not go away. Working closely with the new in-
terim government under Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, General Casey turned his
attention to the destruction of the insurgent base there. In November 2004, with
the support of the Allawi government, Marines and Army forces reattacked the
reinforced stronghold. It was one of the costliest battles of the war. Between the
two offensives in Fallujah, U.S. forces lost nearly 150 killed and 1,000 wounded.
This time, the Iraqi government stood up under the strain of a major battle.150
In other areas, while still awaiting the new counterinsurgency doctrine,
many unitsfor example, the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul in 2003, the
Marines in Anbar, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar, and various
battalions inside fractious Baghdadbegan the practice of counterinsurgency
operations, despite being short of supporting resources. From 2005 on, coali-
tion forces improved their operations against the insurgents and laid the secu-
rity groundwork for successful nationwide elections and the further develop-
ment of Iraqi security forces. While repetitive tours stressed the ground forces,
learning and experience counted when they returned to Iraq. Throughout
this period, the command worked closely with the Embassy and the emerg-
ing Iraqi government. The training of police and army units improved, as did
partnering between U.S. and Iraqi units.
Nationwide, however, violence continued to grow from around 500 vi-
olent incidents per month in July 2003 to 2,500 in January 2005, the month
of the first successful Iraqi election. In February 2006, Iraq exploded in
sectarian violence after the bombing of the Shiite al-Askari mosque (also
called the Golden Mosque) in Samarra; total security incidents grew to
over 1,400 per week in the worst periods.151 Shiite militias went on the
warpath after the bombing, and al Qaeda exploited the alienation of the
Sunni from the Shia-dominated Iraqi government under Nouri al-Maliki.
The government could not control the fighting. Iraqi soldiers and police-
men were too few in number and inadequate in capacity to get the job
done.152 In June 2006, al Qaeda chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in
an airstrike. Unfortunately, his demise did not lessen al Qaedainspired
violence. By the end of 2006, more than 50 Iraqi civilians were being killed
in the fighting every day.153
It was increasingly clear that there were insufficient troops on the ground
to clear, hold, and build, while simultaneously standing up the Iraqi security

68
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

forces.154 The coalition could no longer wait for the maturation or growth of
Iraqi security forces to fix the growing violence. Any number of close ob-
servers, civilian and former military, opined that the coalition needed more
troops. According to his memoir, Bremer also told President Bush or his key
deputies on a few occasions, including during his predeployment orientation,
that security was poor and more troops were needed. Bremer concluded that
the United States had become the worst of all things: an ineffective occupier.
Near the time of his departure in the spring of 2004, he asked Rumsfeld for one
or two more divisions; he did not receive a reply, most likely because neither
Sanchez nor Abizaid had asked the Secretary to add more troops.155 In 2006,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace, an inter-Service team
of colonels, as well as an unusual combination of scholars, retired officers, Ac-
tive-duty generals, and National Security Council stafferswith the encour-
agement of the Presidentbegan to look for the way out. Their story is in the
next chapter.
The self-imposed cap on troops no doubt had much to do with the small
size of U.S. ground forces. Neither the regional commander nor the theater
commander, however, asked for more troops, favoring limiting the size of the
U.S. forces in country. In any case, the United States did not have the ground
troops in its base force to support the kind of troop rotations and in-country
force levels necessary in both Afghanistan and Iraq to create the appropriate
level of security and move toward success. Even when the President surged
forces and civilians to Iraq, the question was not how many, but how many
more the United States could afford to send. The protracted nature of the Iraq
and Afghanistan commitments made Soldiers, Marines, and special operators
endure an excessive number of rotations. For example, in the fall of 2007, 4
years before the war ended in Iraq, General Casey told the Senate:

Over 1.4 million American troops have served in Iraq or Afghanistan;

more than 420,000 troops have deployed more than once. The [Active]
Army has a total of 44 combat brigades and all of them except one . . .
[based in South Korea] have served at least one tour of duty . . . and the
majority of these 43 brigades have done multiple tours: 17 brigades have
had two tours . . . 13 brigades have had three tours . . . and 5 brigades
have had four tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.156

69
Collins

By 2014, of the 72 Active and Army Reserve Component Brigade Combat

Teams, 2 had deployed once, 24 had deployed twice, and 44 had deployed 3
or more times. Of that last category, 26 brigades had deployed 4 or 5 times.157
The Army and Marine Corps later tried to ameliorate this multiple deployment
problem after 2006 with a rapid buildup of the Active-duty personnel. Unfor-
tunately, the enlistment of too many substandard recruits who required legal or
moral waivers later became a source of its own set of problems for the Army.158
From 2003 to 2007, reconstruction and stabilization activities in Iraq, a part-
ner to the military side of counterinsurgency, made slow progress. The condition
of Iraqs infrastructure, including its oil industry, represented another prewar in-
telligence failure. Iraq needed much more reconstruction than anticipated, and
in the early years there was precious little oil revenue to pay for it. Reconstruc-
tion was a struggle, compounded by the rapidly expanding demands of a liber-
ated Iraqi population. Indeed, after the expenditure of many billions of dollars,
electricity and oil production in 2007 still only matched prewar levels.159 Toward
the end of the U.S. presence, the bulk of reconstruction and construction financ-
ing came from the Iraqi government, which coalition advisors pushed to spend
their growing surpluses on the needs of their own country.
In the early years, Iraqi capacity even to accept, operate, and maintain
completed projects was wanting. According to a 2007 U.S. Government re-
port, after the United States spent nearly $6 billion and completed nearly 3,000
reconstruction projects, the new government of Iraq had agreed to take pos-
session of just 435 of them, worth only half a billion dollars. The rest remained
idle or had been turned over to weak local governments.160 In his final report,
Stewart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, high-
lighted the key role of security in enabling reconstruction and concluded that
the lessons of the various periods of reconstruction from 2003 to 2009 taken
collectively . . . underscore the need for the U.S. Government to reform its
approach to contingency relief and reconstruction operations and to develop
greater capacity to execute them.161
In all, U.S. forces in Iraq in 2007 and in Afghanistan in 2008 were at an
impasse. In both cases, there was a significant gap between the host coun-
trys objectives and preferences and those of the United States. In Iraq, after
the destruction of the Golden Mosque in 2006, the addition of open sectar-
ian warfare and the growing strength of al Qaeda made the slow buildup of

70
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

Iraqi forces inadequate by itself to bring stability to Iraq. The elections that
were pursued with great diligence also created a highly sectarian government
that expressed majority views but did nothing to protect minority rights. It
served neither U.S. interests nor the long-term welfare of the Iraqi people. In
Afghanistan, by the end of the Bush administration, years of insufficient fund-
ing and increasing Taliban momentum left the coalition unable to clear, hold,
and build. More forces were needed quickly to provide a space to build up
the Afghan police and army forces needed for the United States to begin to
withdraw from the Hindu Kush. First in Iraq and later in Afghanistan, the ad-
dition of more coalition forces would be necessary before the endgame could
be reached in either country.

Observations and Lessons

Lessons involving decisionmaking, intelligence and knowledge of the opera-
tional area, and the character and conduct of war itself were encountered in
these conflicts.

Decisionmaking
Military participation in national decisionmaking is both necessary and prob-
lematic. Part of the difficulty comes from normal civil-military tension, but
many instances in the war on terror also show unnecessary misunderstand-
ings. Civilian national security decisionmakers need a better understanding of
the complexity of military strategy and the militarys need for planning guid-
ance. Senior military officers for their part require a deep understanding of the
interagency decisionmaking process, an appreciation for the perspectives and
frames of reference of civilian counterparts, and a willingness to embrace and
not resist the complexities and challenges inherent in the system of civilian
control.162
In a similar vein, inside the Pentagon, future senior officers also need to
study cases in wartime decisionmaking. The case of Iraq is particularly in-
structive. In the run-up to Iraq, the Secretary of Defense, as is his legal pre-
rogative, inserted himself into the military-technical aspects of war planning
to a high, perhaps unprecedented, degree. History will judge the wisdom of
this managerial technique, but it serves as a reminder to future senior officers

71
Collins

that the civil-military relationship, in Eliot Cohens term, is characterized by

an unequal dialogue.163
The U.S. Government also needs a better system for managing the imple-
mentation of interagency decisions and then exporting interagency efforts and
unity of effort to the field. Good interagency policy decisions are often made,
but execution is usually done by stovepiped departments and agencies.164 Se-
nior officers need to be able to participate in and assist with managing imple-
mentation of interagency systems.
Unity of command and effort in Iraq and Afghanistan were often lacking.
Indeed, General Petraeus noted that we did not get the strategy and command
and control architecture right until 2010.165 In both Kabul and Baghdad, the
arrangements have not always worked as well as they did with Lieutenant Gen-
eral Barno and Ambassador Khalilzad in Kabul or with General Petraeus and
Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad and Kabul. Other, better arrangements may
be possible. In a similar vein, the interagency community and command in
Afghanistan were slow to see the importance of Pakistan to the solution of
problems in Afghanistan. NATO nations (and headquarters) were sometimes
reluctant to deal with Pakistan, which was outside of their mandate.166

Intelligence and the Operational Environment

Neither national nor military intelligence in Iraq and Afghanistan was a suc-
cess in supporting decisionmakers. Intelligence on Afghanistan itself was
scant and initially not actionable. In Iraq, prewar intelligence was wrong in a
number of areas.
The biggest advances in intelligence came in improved support for the
warfighter at the tactical level and the intimate relationship that developed
between SOF and all-source intelligence. General Dempsey has stated that a
captain at a remote site in Afghanistan in 2008 had more access to national
technical means and high-level intelligence than he had as a division com-
mander in 2003.167
Neither national-level figures nor operational commanders fully under-
stood the operational environment, including the human aspects of military
operations and the importance of Pakistans milieu to the solution of Afghani-
stans problems. To fight, in Rupert Smiths term, war among the people, un-
derstanding them is a primary task.168 The United States was not intellectually

72
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

prepared for the unique aspects of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Efforts to solve
this problemthe Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program, for examplewere
insufficient and came too late to have a profound effect. Moreover, these efforts
were inorganic adaptations, something apart from the normal unit activities.
This devalued their potential contributions.169 The intelligence system was of
little help here. The need for information aggregation stands as an equal to
classical all-source intelligence. This problem calls for a whole array of fixes,
from improving language training, predeployment training, and area expertise
to reforming the intelligence/information apparatuses.

Character and Conduct of War

When conventional warfare or logistical skills were called for, the U.S. Armed
Forces usually achieved excellent results, but the military was insensitive to the
needs of the postconflict environment and not well prepared for insurgency in
either country. Military gains were not connected to political objectives. The
lack of preparation for dealing with irregular conflicts was a result of failing to
learn and internalize post-Vietnam lessons. Military performance improved
over time. Indeed, field-level innovation on counterinsurgency showed an ad-
mirable capacity for learning and innovation. Later on, the development of
Army and Marine Corps doctrine on counterinsurgency and its inculcation
of the doctrine in the force were excellent examples of systemic adaptation
under fire. In a similar manner, with great fits and starts and lots of managerial
attention, the DOD acquisition system was able to create, field, and deploy
the equipment needed to turn the military that existed into the military that
was needed to fight these wars. The focus on preparation for future wars can
retard warfighting adaptations in the near term. Even with bureaucratic resis-
tance, however, the speed of battlefield learning and technological innovation
in these wars was admirable.170
A prudent great power should avoid becoming a third-party expedition-
ary force in a large-scale counterinsurgency. Large-scale foreign expeditionary
forces in another countrys insurgency have almost always failed, except when
the foreign power was the de facto government and the local insurgents had
no sanctuaries.171 At the same time, it should also be remembered that the U.S.
participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan did not begin as insurgencies
but evolved in that direction. It is not possible for a superpower to disregard

73
Collins

completely the possibility of future large-scale counterinsurgency or stability

operations.
Another salient issue in irregular conflicts is the question of sanctuary. In
Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. enemies exploited base areas in adjacent countries.
Some world-class experts believe that such sanctuaries make success nearly
impossible for the counterinsurgents.172 This situation presents the United
States with a dilemma: Does it violate international understandings about the
sanctity of borders, or should it respect borders and allow the enemy to rest,
recover, and reattack at will?
Wars that involve regime change are likely to be protracted conflicts. They
will require a substantial, patient, and prudent international effort to bring
stability and foster reconstruction, especially in the wake of weak, corrupt,
or failed states. These exercises in nation-building are complex, uncertain,
and, with the passing of time, increasingly unpopular at home. In the words of
General Petraeus, progress in such conflicts will always be fragile and revers-
ible. Nevertheless, regime changes and long-duration stability operations will
sometimes be necessary. The alternative may be kinetic victory followed by
political chaos. This author does not believe that coalition forces could have or
should have left Afghanistan or Iraq right after the conclusion of major combat
operations.
In a counterinsurgency, success will depend in part on the political devel-
opment of the host government, whose weakness, corruption, and ineffective-
ness are, ironically, an important factor in the development of an insurgency.
There are few assets in the State Department or USAID inventory to men-
tor and assist a host government in political development. In collateral areas,
such as humanitarian assistance, development, rule of law, and reconstruction,
State and USAID have more assets, but still far fewer than these contingencies
required. Ideally, the United States should have a civilian response corps, but
the urge to develop whole-of-government capabilities is waning.
Getting better at teaching others how to handle an insurgency is likely
to be one of the most important ways for the United States to participate in
irregular conflict. Outside of SOF, the Armed Forces are not well organized to
accomplish the training mission.

74
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

Notes

Le Monde editorial, September 13, 2001.

1

2
This chapter draws heavily on two of the authors previous works: Choosing War: The
Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath, Institute for National Strategic Studies Occa-
sional Paper 5 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, April 2008); and Understanding War in
Afghanistan (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2011).
3
For the full text of Public Law 107-40, To authorize the use of United States Armed
Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States,
September 18, 2001, see <www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ40/html/PLAW-
107publ40.htm>.
4
On Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires, see Seth Jones, In the Graveyard of Em-
pires: Americas War in Afghanistan (New York: Current AffairsNorton, 2009); and David
Isby, Afghanistan: Graveyard of EmpiresA New History of the Borderland (New York:
Pegasus-Norton, 2010). The common expression is an exaggeration, but it is indicative of
the fact that the Hindu Kush is a crossroads of history and that Afghanistan is a difficult
place in which to fight.
5
For background on the U.S. Government and imminent al Qaeda threats, see Final Re-
port of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), 254277. For her appreciation of the August
warning, see Condoleezza Rice, No Greater Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington
(New York: Crown, 2011), 6370. For a mention of the difficulty of target-relevant intel-
ligence in Afghanistan, see Chief of Staff of the Armys (CSAs) Operation Iraqi Freedom
(OIF) Study Group, interview of General John Abizaid, September 19, 2014.
6
The two joint vision documents that outlined the long-range vision of the Joint Chiefs
and the Quadrennial Defense Review 2001 document can be found at <www.dtic.mil/
jv2010/jv2010.pdf>; <www.fs.fed.us/fire/doctrine/genesis_and_evolution/source_materi-
als/joint_vision_2020.pdf>; and <www.defense.gov/pubs/qdr2001.pdf>.
7
A complete strategy of al Qaeda is laid out in Bruce Reidel, The Search for Al Qaeda: Its
Leadership, Ideology, and Future (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, 2010),
121133. Reidel believes that al Qaeda sought as a first strategic step to entice the United
States to engage in bleeding wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown (New York: Penguin, 2011), 358359.
8

9
This perceptual bias toward Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attack can be seen in the
Camp David intervention by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, but it was also
mentioned by Under Secretary Douglas Feith to thenLieutenant General John Abizaid,
who were together overseas on September 11, 2001. Abizaid noted this in his interview
with the OIF Study Group.

75
Collins

Rumsfeld, 425; Rice, 8687. President Bush does not mention the September 26 con-
10

versation in his memoir. He dates his request to Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to review Iraq
war plans to two months after 9/11. See George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York:
Crown, 2010), 234.
11
General Tommy Franks clearly thinks that his work on Iraq began in November. His
first major meeting with the President came in December 2001. See Pete Connors, Inter-
view with General (Ret.) Tommy Franks, Fort Leavenworth, KS, June 23, 2006.
Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books
12

HarperCollins, 2004), 252.

13
The best guide to the Pentagon planning can be found in Douglas J. Feith, War and
Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: HarperCol-
lins, 2008), 6378. Rumsfeld and Feith credit Wolfowitz with raising the profile of special
operations forces working with Afghans in the initial plan.
14
Franks, 211.
15
Rumsfeld, 358372.
16
Franks, 268272.
17
Bush, 194.
Gary Berntsen with Ralph Pezzulo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and al Qaeda
18

(New York: Three RiversRandom House, 2005), 278288; Rumsfeld, 403.

For a full account of the Bonn process by the U.S. lead negotiator, see James F. Dobbins,
19

After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Potomac Books,

2008), 1116.
The notion of the value of a quick exit from Afghanistan is developed in Daniel Bolger,
20

Why We Lost: A Generals Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (New York:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), especially xiiixvii, 416426. For a critique of his
thesis, see Joseph J. Collins, The Long War: Four Views, Small Wars Journal, January 5,
2015, available at <http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-long-war-four-views>.
21
Bush, 207.
22
On comparative development, see the UN Development Programs Human Development
Index and report, available at <http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/>. This report includes
economics, education, health, security, and many other factors. Afghanistan has consistent-
ly been in the bottom 10 countries in the world. Along with the CIAs World Factbook, there
are many statistics on Afghanistan on assistance and aid on the U.S. Agency for Interna-
tional Developments (USAIDs) Web site at <http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/index.aspx>.
Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States (New York: Oxford University
23

Press, 2008), 75.

On his strategy for counterinsurgency, see David W. Barno, Fighting the Other War:
24

Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan, Military Review (SeptemberOctober 2007).

76
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

Ibid. See also Rumsfeld, 684. The conventional wisdom that David Barno and Zalmay
25

Khalilzads successors did not get along well is disputed by the individuals in question.
See, for example, Peter Connors, Interview with Ambassador Ronald E. Neuman, Fort
Leavenworth, KS, August 24, 2009.
Donald Wright, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring
26

Freedom, October 2001September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute
Press, May 2010), 245247.
27
For the Secretary of Defense perspective, see Rumsfeld, 689690.
28
For studies on the evolution of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commit-
ment to Afghanistan, see Andrew Hoehn and Sarah Harting, Risking NATO: Testing the
Limits of the Alliance in Afghanistan (Santa Monica: RAND, 2010), 2540. For an excellent
analysis of NATO in Afghanistan, see David Auerswald and Stephen Saideman, NATO
in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2014).
Despite the formal prohibition for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF),
29

General Stanley A. McChrystal as commander of U.S. Forces kept in close contact with
the Pakistani military leadership. Stanley A. McChrystal, interview by Joseph J. Collins
and Frank G. Hoffman, April 2, 2015.
30
James Embrey and Thomas Riley, Exit Interview with General John P. Abizaid, Carl-
isle, PA: U.S. Army Military History Institute, 2007, 5.
31
The current constitution of Afghanistan, Year 1382, can be found in English at <www.
afghan-web.com/politics/current_constitution.html> and its 1964 predecessor at <www.
afghan-web.com/history/const/const1964.html>.
James Dobbins et al., Americas Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa
32

Monica, CA: RAND, 2003), 146, 157158.

U.S. Embassycompiled statistics, 2009, provided by former Ambassador William
33

Wood.
34
ISAF briefing material, Security Incidents, Afghanistan JOIIS NATO SIGACTS, 2004
to September 2009, unclassified.
USAID statistics available at <http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/index.aspx>. Also see
35

presentation by General David Petraeus, Royal United Services Institute, London, October
15, 2010, available at <www.rusi.org/events/past/ref:E4CB843C349F2E>.
Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy,
36

RL30588 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, August 17, 2010), 8890,
available at <http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL30588_20100817.pdf>.
The author participated in at least five sessions of the deputies committee where the
37

recruitment and provision of agreed-on State Department and USAID personnel was
an issue akin to pulling teeth. The problem was few personnel and the inflexibility of
the State and USAID personnel systems. The posting of State and USAID employees to

77
Collins

combat zones, especially for duty outside the Embassy, remained an issue throughout
the war. By the end of the Afghan Surge, over 500 diplomats and U.S. Government spe-
cialists were in the field, and over 1,500 civilians were under Chief of Mission authority
in Afghanistan.
38
Prior to 2004, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams had a chain of command separate
from troop units. This was ended by Lieutenant General Barno, in part to create more
unity of command and in part to free up civil affairs assets.
39
Written comments of an anonymous Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe staff
officer to the author, November 18, 2010.
40
U.S. figures to 2009 come from Katzman, table 21, 91. Foreign data are adapted from
Ian Livingston et al., Afghanistan Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security
in Post-9/11 Afghanistan (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, October 4,
2010), table 3.15, available at <www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30588.pdf>.
41
Hoehn and Harting, 33.
42
USAID Web site, available at <http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/index.aspx>.
43
Most observers believe that narcotics and criminal activity are the Talibans best source
of financingup to $500 billion per year by the highest estimates. Ambassador Richard
Holbrooke, the first Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, often mentioned
in public that he believed that donations from wealthy people in the Gulf were the Tali-
bans biggest source of revenue. One instance where Holbrooke mentioned this assessment
was the Washington, DC, New Ideas Forum, October 1, 2010, authors notes.
44
For a superb analysis of the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, see Hassan Abbas, The Tal-
iban Revival: Violence and Extremism on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2014).
45
Data from U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), various briefings.
On Iran, see Lara Setrakian, Petraeus Accuses Iran of Aiding Afghan Taliban, ABC
46

News, December 15, 2009, available at <http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Afghanistan/

gen-petraeus-iran-backing-iraq-militias-afghan-taliban/story?id=9346173>.
For data on casualties and causes of death, see Livingston et al., tables 1.21, 1.22, avail-
47

able at <www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Programs/FP/afghanistan%20index/index.
pdf>.
48
Examples of night letters can be found in USCENTCOM release, available at <http://
centcom.dodlive.mil/2010/08/29/taliban-aims-to-hinder-development-by-threatening-ci-
vilian/>.
49
Testimony of former Under Secretary of State James K. Glassman before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, March 10, 2010. The original report of the 2008 beheadings
can be found in Carlotta Gall and Taimoor Shah, Taliban Behead 30 Men from Bus, New
York Times, October 19, 2008, available at <www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/world/asia/19i-
ht-19afghan.17083733.html>.

78
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Afghanistan: Mid

50

Year Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict 2010 (Kabul: UNAMA, August
2010), 1, available at <http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/Publication/Au-
gust102010_MID-YEAR%20REPORT%202010_Protection%20of%20Civilians%20in%20
Armed%20Conflict.pdf>; and Livingston et al., figure 1.29.
51
Greg Miller and Josh Partlow, U.S., Afghanistan Plan to Screen Cash at Kabul Airport
to Prevent Corruption, Washington Post, August 20, 2010, available at <www.washington-
post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/20/AR2010082004049.html>.
52
Vanda Felbab-Brown, Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counter-
insurgency and State Building in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution
Press, 2013), 161. The standard work on the ways in which narcotics funded the Taliban
and al Qaeda is Gretchen Peters, Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban
and al Qaeda (New York: St. Martins Press, Thomas Dunne Books, 2009).
Michael T. Flynn, Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for
53

Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Center for a New American
Security, 2010), 7.
54
For a thoughtful critique of human terrain teams, see Ben Connable, All Our Eggs in
a Broken Basket: How the Human Terrain System Is Undermining Sustainable Military
Cultural Competence, Military Review (MarchApril 2009), 5764.
55
The author thanks Major Claude Lambert, USA, for this insight, April 2015.
H.R. McMaster, Continuity and Change: The Army Operating Concept and Clear
56

Thinking about Future Warfare, Military Review (MarchApril 2015), 79.

Conversations with various Active and retired senior officers from USCENTCOM and
57

U.S. ForcesAfghanistan, 2008.

Adapted from Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on
58

Terror Operations Since 9/11, RL33110 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service,
March 2011), 16.
59
Statement of John F. Sopko, Lessons Learned from Oversight of the U.S. Agency for
International Developments Efforts in Afghanistan, testimony before the Subcommittee
on National Security, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House
of Representatives, April 2014, available at <http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/up-
loads/2014/04/Mr.-John-F.-Sopko-Testimony-Bio.pdf>.
Pakistani officialswho tend to speak from the same talking pointsare proud of their
60

post-2006 operations against the Pakistani Taliban, but they are apparently blind to the
connection between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, as well as the ill effects of their
support of the Afghan Taliban or their standing in Kabul and their competition with India
there. As the years passed, Indias stock rose and Pakistans fell in Kabul.
61
Sean Maloney, Afghanistan: Not the War It Was, Policy Options (November 2010), 44.
62
Statement of Admiral Michael Mullen on Afghanistan and Iraq before the Senate

79
Collins

Armed Services Committee, September 20, 2011, available at <www.armed-services.

senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Mullen%2009-22-11.pdf>.
63
Various ABC-BBC and Asia Foundation Polls, 20052009. For January 2010 ABC-BBC
polls, see <http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1099a1Afghanistan-WhereThings-
Stand.pdf>; and for October 2009 Asia Foundation polls, see <http://asiafoundation.org/
resources/pdfs/Afghanistanin2009.pdf>.
64
Bush, 228.
65
Don Wright, Interview with Karl Eikenberry, Fort Leavenworth, KS, April 30, 2012.
66
Two books that treated both conflicts equally well were Dan Caldwell, Vortex of Con-
flict: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2011); and John Ballard, David Lamm, and John Wood, From Kabul to Baghdad
and Back: The U.S. at War in Afghanistan and Iraq (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press,
2012).
67
For an interesting dissection of the initial Afghanistan campaign, see Stephen D. Biddle,
Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare, Foreign Affairs (MarchApril 2003), available
at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/58811/stephen-biddle/afghanistan-and-the-fu-
ture-of-warfare>.
Pete Connors, Interview with General David Petraeus, Fort Leavenworth, KS, May
68

2009.
George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf,
69

1998), 489.
Suzanne Chapman, The War before the War, Air Force Magazine (February 2004),
70

available at <www.afa.org/magazine/Feb2004/0204war.asp>.
For one such report on how sanctions hurt children, see M. Ali and Iqbal Shah,
71

Sanctions and Childhood Mortality in Iraq, The Lancet 355, Issue 9218 (May 27, 2000),
18511857.
72
A number of these officials were behind a movement for regime change as U.S. policy,
and some had even publicly opined about military options against Iraq. For example, see
the series of articles in the Weekly Standard of December 1, 1997, that were bannered on
the cover page as Saddam Must Go: A How-to Guide, with individual pieces by Wol-
fowitz, Peter Rodman, and Khalilzad, all of whom served as senior Bush administration
officials in the run-up to the 2003 war.
On the Saddamal Qaeda connection, see Stephen Hayes, The Connection: How al
73

Qaedas Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America (New York: Harper
Collins, 2004).
74
In his memoir At the Center of the Storm, George Tenet confirms the activities of
Zarqawi in Iraq and his relationship with Saddams regime. See the extensive excerpts
from the memoir in William Kristol, Inadvertent Truths: George Tenets Revealing
Memoir, Weekly Standard, May 14, 2007, available at <www.weeklystandard.com/content/

80
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

public/articles/000/000/013/615cglnt.asp>. On terrorist affiliations with Saddam, see also

Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Knopf,
2006), 295296.
75
An Arab experts account of the inner workings of Zarqawi and al Qaeda can be found
in Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of Al Qaeda (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2006), 179206.
Michael Morell with Bill Harlow, The Great War of Our Time: The CIAs Fight Against
76

Terrorism from Al Qaida to ISIS (New York: Twelve-Hachette Book Group, 2015), 8889.
77
Feith, 283.
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The
78

White House, September 2002).

For a complete examination of planning, see Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, Co-
79

bra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Pantheon, 2006),
75117.
80
Rumsfeld, 428.
81
One of the most developed arguments about how transformation ideas affected the war
plan can be found in James Kitfield, War and Destiny: How the Bush Revolution in Foreign
and Military Affairs Redefined American Power (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005).
Secretary Rumsfelds clearest presentation on his postwar strategic conceptlight
82

footprint, quick occupation, a preference for a short-term presencecan be found in his

Beyond Nation Building speech at the Intrepid Museum, New York City, February 14,
2003, less than a month before the war began. This speech is available at <www.defense.
gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=337>.
For an example of Army shortages connected to interrupted or curtailed deployments,
83

see Kitfield, 146.

84
1003V was the existing pre-9/11 war plan. The only book to cover the critical inputs
to the plan made by Lieutenant General McKiernan and his staff at the land component
command is Gordon and Trainor, 75117.
Pete Connors, Interview with General (Ret.) Tommy Franks, Fort Leavenworth, KS,
85

June 2006.
86
Feiths memoir is highly critical of intelligence. See, in particular, 222224, 517518.
87
Gordon and Trainor, 101.
88
Vote count in Feith, 358359.
In a case of historical irony, many mainstream Democrats in the 2008 election were
89

penalized politically for their vote to authorize and support the second Gulf War, just as
their predecessors were penalized for not supporting the first Gulf War.
90
U.S. Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons

81
Collins

of Mass Destruction (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 2005).
This group, the so-called Silberman-Robb Commission, concluded in its transmittal letter
that there was no indication that the Intelligence Community distorted the evidence
regarding Iraqs weapons of mass destruction. What the intelligence professionals told you
[President Bush] about Saddam Husseins programs was what they believed. They were
simply wrong. For a brief restatement, see Laurence H. Silberman, The Dangerous Lie
that Bush Lied, Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2015.
91
The declassified key judgments of the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate can be
found at <http://fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html>. It should be noted that the Bu-
reau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department objected to the timing and crit-
icality of the Intelligence Communitys judgment about Iraqs nuclear program. While this
author maintains that we went to war on agreed-upon intelligence, some at the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) believed that analysts there had been pressured or overlooked.
See, for example, Paul Pillar, Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq, Foreign Affairs
(MarchApril 2006).
92
For a readily available summary of the U.S. Joint Forces CommandInstitute for
Defense Analyses study referred to in the text, see Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Wil-
liamson Murray, Saddams Delusions: The View From the Inside, Foreign Affairs (May
June 2006), 226. Ironically, during the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, the CIA and Army
technical experts collected thousands of abandoned yet lethal munitions from all around
Iraq. See C.J. Chivers and Eric Schmitt, CIA Is Said to Have Bought and Destroyed Iraqi
Chemical Weapons, New York Times, February 15, 2015, available at <www.nytimes.
com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have-bought-and-destroyed-iraqi-chemical-weap-
ons.html?_r=0>.
93
Woods, Lacey, and Murray, 91.
94
Ibid., 92.
David Rothkopf, Can Obamas Foreign Policy Be Saved, Foreign Policy (September
95

October 2014), 50.

96
A former senior National Security Council (NSC) official told the author in October
2007 that he believed the Pentagon was not eager initially to have combat forces from
allies other than Australia and the United Kingdom but wanted maximum allied partici-
pation in Phase IV operations in Iraq.
97
Franks, 366, 393.
98
This was the opinion of senior generals in the Pentagon, as reported to the author in the
fall of 2014 by a former White House official.
99
Connors, interview with Franks, 8.
The 3rd Infantry Division after action review is available at <www.globalsecurity.org/
100

military/library/report/2003/3id-aar-jul03.pdf>.
101
For a precis of the Marine Phase IV planning effort, see Nicholas Reynolds, Basrah,

82
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

Baghdad, and Beyond: The U.S. Marine Corps in the Second Iraq War (Annapolis, MD:
Naval Institute Press, 2005), 4246, 145156.
The most complete account of postwar planning is in Nora Bensahel et al., After Sadd-
102

am: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008). The
author was a reader and commentator on this study. A shorter version can be found in
Nora Bensahel, Mission Not Accomplished: What Went Wrong with Iraqi Reconstruc-
tion, Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 3 (June 2006), 453473.
103
Stephen J. Hadley, interview by Joseph J. Collins and Nicholas Rostow, October 7, 2014.
104
Ibid.
105
Rice, 192.
Conversations and correspondence with a senior Joint Staff planner and a former senior
106

NSC official, September 2007. Secretary Rumsfeld was frustrated by Bremers reporting
and finally told the President and all concerned that Bremer no longer reported to him.
See Rumsfeld, 527.
Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq
107

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 276277. The author was the Defense Department
representative on that group.
Correspondence with a former senior NSC official in September 2007; on the oil brief-
108

ing, Woodward, Plan of Attack, 322323.

Bob Woodward, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III (New York: Simon & Schuster,
109

2006), 131133.
110
Woodward, Plan of Attack, 328329.
NSC Memorandum, signed by Condoleezza Rice, APNSA, SUBJECT: Principals Com-
111

mittee Review of Iraq Policy Paper, October 29, 2002, as reproduced in Feith, 541543.
For transcription of the speech, see Bush makes historic speech aboard warship, CNN.
112

com, May 1, 2003, available at <www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/01/bush.transcript/>.

On plans for rapid drawdown, see Gordon and Trainor, 98, 103, 464; Woodward, State
113

of Denial, 162. Many in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) continued to argue
for a rapid turnover well into the Coalition Provisional Authroity period. See L. Paul
Bremer with Malcolm McConnell, My Year in Iraq (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006),
168170, 188, 205206.
On assumptions, see also, Caldwell, 111126; and chapter six in this volume. There
114

are major interpretive differences between this chapter and the more granulated analysis
in chapter three of this volume. The readers are invited to compare both approaches and
make up their own minds.
On the CIAs failure to predict insurgency, see Rumsfeld, 463464, 520521; and Feith,
115

517518.
116
These assumptions were reflected in numerous statements by Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld,

83
Collins

and Wolfowitz. They were also reflected by actions taken by various members of the
national security team. For example, reaction by civilian leaders to the accurate judgments
by General Shinseki (and USCENTCOM planners) as to the need for a large postwar
force, the rush to begin postcombat withdrawal planning in the midst of looting, and the
insistence that the Iraqis could pay for much of their own reconstruction all suggest that
many leaders expected the peace to be easy relative to the war and that reconstruction
would not be expensive. For many other officials, these assumptions remained unspoken
but no less powerful. The sources of these assumptions included poor intelligence, the
opinions of Iraqi exiles, and the policy predispositions of the members of the national
security team. The dominant effect of assumptions was noted in David Petraeus, interview
by Joseph J. Collins and Nathan White, March 27, 2015.
Accounts of Kanan Makiyas meeting with the President and the Vice Presidents
117

subsequent public declaration that we would be met as liberators can be found in George
Packer, The Assassins Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 9798.
An Iraqi migr who lived in the United States for many years, Makiya wrote Republic
of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Los Angeles: University of California Press, updated
edition, 1998), a guide to the horrors of Saddams regime.
118
OIF Study Group interview with General Abizaid.
Interview of General George W. Casey, Jr., May 19, 2014, filed in General Raymond T.
119

Odierno, Chief of Staff of the Army Archives, 9.

In the authors personal conversations with him in 2003 and thereafter, General Abizaid
120

has been a continuing supporter of a rapid turnover to Iraqi control and broadening
international participation. See also Gordon and Trainor, 163, 314. Khalilzad, Wolfowitz,
Feith, and Garner were all dedicated proponents of rapid turnover. Many in the Depart-
ment of State, as well as Ambassador Bremer, saw that up to 2 years of occupation would
be a necessary phase in the operation. State had even floated a paper to that effect in the
months before the war. However, a rapid turnover of power to some sort of Iraqi author-
ity had been approved by the NSC and the President in the days before the war but was
abandoned in the aftermath of the fighting and the difficulty in finding Iraqi partners.
On the issue of why rapid turnover to an unelected Iraqi government was problematic,
121

see Bremer, 162167. There remained adherents of rapid turnover to Iraqis in the Penta-
gon and NSC well into the year of occupation.
On this surprise decision, see Roger Cohen, The MacArthur Lunch, New York
122

Times, August 27, 2007, 17. This article recounts Khalilzad and Powells surprise that the
quick turnover concept had been abandoned and that Khalilzad had been ousted as a
Presidential envoy to Iraq, not at an NSC meeting, but at a luncheon discussion between
the President and Bremer. Bremer clearly envisioned a long occupation; see Feith,
496497.
123
Woodward, State of Denial, 219.
124
In his interview for this volume, Hadley highlighted the problems of not having the

84
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

assistance of 100,000 or more Iraqi soldiers to assist the coalition in the postcombat envi-
ronment.
125
Feith, 475477.
For a precis on organizational and personnel problems, see Bensahel, Mission Not
126

Accomplished, 460466; and Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 115119.

Ironically, some psychological operations and countercommand and control activities
127

encouraged the Iraqi army to dissolve and for the soldiers to desert, while other plans
were relying on Iraqi army units to remain intact to be used for reconstruction. See, for
example, Gordon and Trainor, 145146; and interview, former NSC official, August 15,
2007. The poor staffing and consequent bureaucratic surprise generated by the orders on
de-Baathification and disbanding the Iraqi army were associated with a lull in NSC staff
activism in managing day-to-day activities in Iraq. Sadly, Bremer was unfairly blamed for
these decisions, which he had brought with him from Washington.
Published as an advertisement on the op-ed page of the New York Times, September 26,
128

2002, emphasis in the original. The author thanks Christoff Luehrs for reminding him of
this important statement.
The National Defense University report of its November 2002 workshop Iraq:
129

Looking Beyond Saddams Rule highlighted the complexities of the postwar era and
recommended a strong emphasis on postwar security. Copies of this report were pro-
vided directly to selected offices of OSD and Joint Staff leadership by memorandum on
December 16, 2002. The author participated in the conference; his office funded it and
helped to design it.
Conrad C. Crane and W. Andrew Terrill, Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and
130

Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies
Institute, February 2003), vvi.
131
Discussions with a former senior NSC staff official in September and October, 2007.
132
Feith, 362364.
Intelligence Community Assessment: Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq, January
133

2003, as summarized in an unpublished document of the Senate Select Committee on

Intelligence and in the Washington Post, May 20, 2007, A6.
134
In the OIF Study Group interview.
Gordon and Trainor, 462. In a postwar interview with the Combat Studies Institute,
135

General Franks admitted that he made a mistake in off-ramping the 1st Cavalry Division,
an action that previously had been suggested by Rumsfeld. See Connors, interview with
Franks, 9.
136
OIF Study Group interview with General Abizaid.
137
Ibid.
138
See, for example, the transcript of Secretary Rumsfelds July 13, 2003, appearance on

85
Collins

ABCs This Week, available at <www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcrip-

tid=2842>. Compare that to the transcript of General Abizaids remarks at the Pentagon
on July 16, soon after he assumed command, on the nature of the guerrilla war, available
at <www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2845>. In his memoir,
Rumsfeld salutes Abizaids forthrightness on this subject and acknowledges post facto that
the generals position made sense. Rumsfeld complained about faulty intelligence in regard
to the prospect for insurgency in Iraq. See Rumsfeld, 521522.
A comment on an earlier draft by an anonymous major general with multiple tours in
139

Iraq and Afghanistan, February 2015.

Donald Wright and Timothy Reese, On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign (Fort
140

Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 2008), 145.

141
Ibid., 146.
Martin E. Dempsey, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins, January
142

7, 2015.
143
Ibid.
144
OIF Study Group interview with General Abizaid.
145
McMaster, 8.
On Abu Ghraib, see Tom Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New
146

York: Penguin Press, 2006), 197200, 238240, 258261, 296297. The Libby quotation is
in Hadley, interview.
The USCENTCOM perspective on the first battle in Fallujah can be found in Embrey
147

and Reilly, Exit Interview with General John P. Abizaid, 2729.

George W. Casey Jr., Strategic Reflections: Operation Iraqi Freedom, July 2004February
148

2007 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, October 2012), 2024.

149
Ibid.
Among the best coverage of the battle in Fallujah was a series of articles by Dexter
150

Filkins of the New York Times. A summary of some of his best coverage can be found in
Dexter Filkins, My Long War, New York Times Magazine, August 22, 2008. In it he sur-
veys the material covered in his book The Forever War (New York: Knopf, 2008).
See the commands statistics in Wright and Reese, On Point II, 101; and Ricks, photo
151

collection.
Joseph J. Collins, The Surge Revisited, Small Wars Journal, November 4, 2013, 1, avail-
152

able at <http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-surge-revisited>. One of the best books

on the Surge, written from the command post perspective, was Pete Mansoor, Surge: My
Journey with General Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 2013).
This figure was cited by Petraeus, interview. By the end of the Surge, levels of violence
153

had been reduced by 90 percent.

86
 Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq

In a rare tiff between the theater commander and a Secretary of State, George Casey told
154

the Secretary of State that she was out of line prescribing a strategy of clear, hold, and build,
the first two of which were military tasks. The Secretary stood her ground. See Rice, 373.
According to Bremer, his complaints to Cabinet officers or the President on poor
155

security and/or the lack of troops started before he entered the theater and continued
throughout his tenure. See Bremer, 12, 14, 71, 106, 170, 221, 228. The report of Bremers
2004 memorandum requesting more troops can be found on 357358.
Army figures cited by Senator Ted Kennedy in the Congressional RecordSenate, vol.
156

153, pt. 18, September 19, 2007, 24,846. The effect on units was greater than the effect on
individual soldiers who leave Active duty, and if they stay often do not remain in a unit
beyond 2 to 3 years. By 2012, over half of the members of the Active Army and Reserve
Components had more than one deployment. The effects of wounds, post-traumatic stress
disorder, traumatic brain injuries, and deaths are discussed in HQDA, Army 2020: Gener-
ating Health and Discipline in the Force Ahead of the Strategic Reset (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 2012), annex B.
157
Official U.S. Army statistics provided to the author by Dr. Robert Rush, an Army historian.
HQDA, Army 2020, 148156. These pages show the behavioral and criminal problems
158

associated with low-quality recruits.

The monthly U.S. Government statistics are promulgated in a comprehensive Power-
159

Point briefing. See, for example, The Iraq Weekly Status Report, compiled from various
sources by the Department of State, Bureau of Near East Affairs, October 17, 2007.
For a mid-2007 report, see Dana Hedgpeth, Report Says Iraq Lags on Rebuilding: Spe-
160

cial Inspector Derides Iraqi Governments Lack of Responsibility, Washington Post, July
29, 2007, A19.
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Hard Lessons: The Iraq
161

Reconstruction Experience (Washington, DC: SIGIR, 2009), 324.

On the problems of civil-military interaction in national security decisionmaking, see
162

Martin E. Dempsey, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins, January 7,
2015. For a collateral discussion of civilian and military decisionmakers talking past each
other, see Janine Davidson, Civil-Military Friction and Presidential Decision-Making,
Presidential Studies Quarterly 43, no. 1 (March 2013).
Eliot Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New
163

York: Free Press, 2002), 208224.

General McChrystal, for one, believes that in all cases, there should be one person,
164

military or civilian, in charge. McChrystal, interview.

165
Petraeus, interview.
For example, in Afghanistan in 2006, Combined Forces CommandAfghanistan passed
166

control of the ground fight to ISAF, and operations became fragmented between the com-
mander, U.S. Central Command, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and commander,

87
Collins

U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). As former Secretary of Defense Robert

Gates notes in his memoir, efforts in Afghanistan during 2007 were being hampered not
only by muddled and overambitious objectives but also by confusion in the military com-
mand structure. Furthermore, Gates adds that command relationships in Afghanistan
were a jerry-rigged arrangement [that] violated every principle of the unity of com-
mand. Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Knopf, 2014),
205206, 478. The problem persisted even after Gates ordered it rectified in the summer of
2010, nearly 9 years after the war started. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the often raw re-
lationships between conventional forces, who were battlespace owners, and various types
of special operations forces (theater, USSOCOM-subordinated, non-U.S., and so forth)
were common complaints. This problem improved over time but is still an issue. Efforts
to bridge the gap between conventional and special operations forces must continue. The
authors would like to thank Major Claude Lambert, USA, for this observation.
Dempsey, interview. General Lloyd Austin noted that intelligence support to the warf-
167

ighter was light years ahead of where it was in 2003. Lloyd Austin, interview by Richard
D. Hooker, Jr., April 7, 2015.
General Sir Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
168

(New York: Knopf, 2007).

This salient observation was contributed by Nathan White of the Center for Complex
169

Operations, based on his own field research.

The problems in developing and fielding the equipment that matched current warfight-
170

ing requirements are discussed in Gates, 115148. General Austin, in his interview for this
book, lauded in particular rapid equipment fielding efforts, the Joint IED Defeat Organi-
zation, and advances in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
In the past, among the great failures in third-party expeditionary force participation in
171

insurgencies are the French in Indochina and Algeria and the United States in Vietnam.
One can find many successes against insurgents that used unconscionable tactics. The
two great successes among great power efforts were the United States in the Philippines
(18991902) and the United Kingdom in the Malaya. There have been many cases in
which the United States achieved positive outcomes when it did not have to use a major
expeditionary force.
Steve Metz of the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute made this observa-
172

tion in an email to the author, January 6, 2015.

88
 2

Strategic Assessment and Adaptation:

The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan
By Frank G. Hoffman and G. Alexander Crowther

War is the greatest test of a bureaucratic organization.

James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy, What Government Agencies Do and Why

They Do It

I
n December 2004, Donald Rumsfeld responded to a Soldiers question
about the lack of adequate armored vehicles in Iraq by claiming that you
go to war with the Army you have, not the one youd liked to have. While
pilloried for his glib reply, the Secretary was essentially right: all nations go
to war with the military forces they have developed to face a range of possi-
ble threats. Rarely are they optimized for the particular crisis or conflict in
which they are engaged, and even when they are, adaptive adversaries can be
counted on to present unanticipated challenges. Historian Victor Davis Han-
son observed, As a rule, military leaders usually begin wars confident in their
existing weapons and technology. But if they are to finish them successfully, it
is often only by radically changing designs or finding entirely new ones.1
While we go to war with the army we have, we do not necessarily win
that war with the same army or initial strategy. Per Carl von Clausewitz, war
is a duel whose outcome is the result of competing strategies in which both
sides interact. Throughout recorded history, military leaders who have been
successful have often had to recognize that their initial plans were necessarily
not successful and thus altered their forces (organizationally, doctrinally, or
weapons and equipment) to adapt as needed.2 Victory often depends on which

89
Hoffman and Crowther

side can recognize problems or gaps in performance and implement changes

faster by an altered strategy and adapting its forces. Despite this well-grounded
observation, only recently has interest arisen on how strategies and military
organizations adapt during war.
The two protracted conflicts examined in this volume have spawned a
number of studies on the nature of operational adaptation by military orga-
nizations.3 The Joint Chiefs of Staff have also identified adaptation as a key
lesson learned from the last decade of conflict.4 However, strategic adaptation,
historically and during this era, remains largely unexplored.
This chapter begins with an overview of the literature on assessment and
adaptation. After this brief examination of the current state of affairs, we es-
tablish an analytical framework for both strategic assessment and adapta-
tion that serves as the basis for our subsequent analysis of the major strategic
adaptations of Operation Iraqi Freedom (the Surge of 2007) and Operation
Enduring Freedom (2009). The outcomes of these two adaptations are then
summarized. The chapter concludes with insights relevant to the joint war
fighting community.

Assessment
Strategic assessment represents a crucial element in a states ability to adapt
strategy to changing wartime conditions, which in turn plays a critical role in
determining the outcome and cost of wars.5 Yet it is an understudied area, one
in which senior military officers must be prepared to make substantive contri-
butions. A major shortfall in the conduct of our national security system has
been the lack of appreciation for a continuous assessment of strategy imple-
mentation. Our national security mechanisms should not stop at the issuance
of a Presidential decision. Instead, an end to end approach must be con-
sidered that encompasses policy formulation, strategy development, planning
guidance, resource allocation and alignment, implementation oversight, and
performance assessment based on feedback loops.6
Figure 1 offers a model of a continuous strategic performance cycle and
identifies where the focus of this chapter resides in that process. Research un-
derscores the reality that functional agencies resist rigorous evaluation, and
the National Security Council (NSC) system must ensure effective mecha-
nisms and metrics for oversight and performance assessment.7

90
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Figure 1. Strategic Performance Cycle

Policy
Formulation

Implementation Strategy
Oversight: Development
Assessment

Resource Planning
Alignment Guidance

The importance of campaign and operational assessment is well known

to the American military community. Critical issues involved in strategic as-
sessment include evaluation of intelligence, likely international consequences
of proposed actions, proposed operational plans to obtain defined political
objectives, and a states relative capabilities and how well they relate to the
potential requirements in the proposed strategy.8 The role of metrics in oper-
ational assessments and their complexity in accurately measuring progress in
counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns is also recognized. So too is the poten-
tial danger of politicization of metrics to satisfy bureaucratic or institutional
politics.
During the Vietnam War, U.S. military operations were assessed using
new techniques derived from systems analysis and the operations research
community. Derived from the physical sciences, operations research proved
its worth in World War II, but was less valuable in capturing the more political
and socioeconomic aspects of the Vietnam War.9 The assessment of progress
in Vietnam was oversimplified in one sense by body counts and kill ratios but
was also confused by an overabundance of sources and myriad metrics.10 Mili-

91
Hoffman and Crowther

tary Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) used statistics as a substitute for

understanding the war.11 An extensive reporting system was eventually crafted
to better capture vast amounts of data from the hamlet level and aggregated
up to the provincial and corps levels. As the MACV strategy was increasingly
challenged, there was strong pressure to generate favorable indicators to but-
tress the appearance of progress.12
American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan faced similarly daunting re-
quirements for data collection.13 The challenges involved in selecting, collect-
ing, and analyzing metrics, both physical and from human sources, in combat
theaters are significant. Holistic analyses of the myriad political, sociocultural,
and economic factors relevant in combatting insurgencies and civil wars are
rare. The volume of data is not the objective in assessments. The goal is to be
able to monitor progress and adapt as necessary. As General James Mattis,
USMC, observed of his experience in Iraq:

Its a very humanistic war, this war amongst the people. So its hard to
measure, but the indicators that I would consider most significant were
when I walked down the street, did people look me in the eye and shake
my hand? That was more significant than whatever. There was almost
an over-quantification. We had a checklist of 77 questions to ask police
in each station. We went out and asked those questions, and one of them
that had the most yess, when the fighting broke out badly against us,
they joined the enemy.14

American experience and official doctrine are limited, resulting in in-

ventive but ad hoc solutions.15 The analytical community attempted to craft
and promulgate regular indices to promote an understanding of strategic and
operational effectiveness. Moreover, reflecting a lesson from Vietnam, the re-
lationship between quantitative metrics and domestic political support for a
protracted conflict was well recognized:

Only by tracking progress can we know whether a strategy is working.

And only by examining a range of indicators can we determine how to
adjust a strategy that may require improvement. Priorities must be set.
Metrics can help in determining what they should be. Assessing progress

92
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

is also important because the perception of progress has an effect on the

sustainability of the war effort.16

Operational metrics and campaigns assessments are necessary but not

sufficient. An operational assessment may provide valuable insights into the
progress of a strategy or campaign plan, but it should not be confused with a
national strategic-level assessment, which must incorporate a larger perspec-
tive involving international risks, coalition dynamics, and national resources.
It must also account for domestic political constraints, resourcing, and oppor-
tunity costs. The policy community must be prepared to engage in strategic
assessments, but the two cases studied here suggest that it is handicapped by a
similar lack of grounded analytical structures and processes.

Adaptation
Historians identify the failure to adapt as a principal contributory cause of
poor organizational effectiveness in conflict.17 They fault institutions over in-
dividuals and focus on organizational elements in their analyses. Adapting to
unexpected circumstances tests the organization, revealing weaknesses that
are partly structural and partly functional, whose full potential for disaster
may not previously have been noticed.18
Scholarship in this field has been principally focused on operational and
tactical, rather than strategic, adaptation. It is not enough to be tactically ef-
fective.19 Historian Williamson Murray has stressed the importance of getting
the strategy right, as any campaigns operations and tactics can always be fixed
later. But good tactics cannot compensate for a poor strategy. As he puts it, No
amount of operational virtuosity [can] redeem fundamental flaws in political
judgment. . . . it is more important to make correct decisions at the political
and strategic level than it is at the operational and tactical level. Mistakes in
operations and tactics can be corrected, but political and strategic mistakes
live forever.20 That said, strategic adaptation is also necessary.
This chapter is oriented at the strategic level to offer insights on the drivers
and process of change at the strategic and national level of government.21 There
were numerous forms of operational and tactical adaptations made in both
wars, including organizational changes (for example, Human Terrain Teams
and Provincial Reconstruction Teams), enhanced integration of special opera-

93
Hoffman and Crowther

tions forces with general purpose units, and materiel changes such as enhanced
body armor and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.22 There were also
doctrinal adaptations including the rapid development of appropriate COIN
doctrine. But this project and chapter are focused at the higher level of strategy.
This chapters definition for adaptation is based on that of Theo Farrell, a
leading scholar on military change. He defines adaptation as change to strate-
gy, force generation, and/or military plans and operation that is undertaken in
response to operational challenges and campaign pressures.23 The two Surge
decision cycles examined herein certainly meet this definition for changes to
strategy, the Services that generated forces, and military plans.

Analytical Framework
For an analytical framework, we modified Risa Brookss four attributes of stra-
tegic assessment and adapted them to this study.24 To extend her attributes to
incorporate the strategic changes generated by the assessment, we added a fifth
element. The five factors are defined as follows:

n Performance assessment mechanisms capture the quality of

institutional structures and processes devoted to evaluations of
our intelligence of enemy capabilities and capacities, as well the
evaluation of our own political and military activities and prog-
ress. Due to the political-military character of irregular conflicts,
such mechanisms must also include a capacity to assess the in-
terdependent political, diplomatic, and developmental activities
consistent with effective counterinsurgency.
n Collaborative information-sharing environment describes the

routines and conventions of dialogue associated with exchang-

ing information at the apex of decisionmaking. Key to informa-
tion-sharing is the degree of openness and how forthcoming par-
ticipants are about options and assessments not favorable to their
preferred policy outcomes. Collaborative does not mean that all
participants were comfortable. But the process should allow per-
spectives to be shared in a climate where parties are free to ex-
plore options, test assumptions, and debate merits of options.

94
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

n Strategic coordination captures the overall structure and

mechanisms of the government used to develop and make policy
decisions. These aspects influence how well policy is defined, how
military strategies are tested, and how well they are coordinated
with diplomatic activities and other aspects of the state. Without
strong integrating mechanisms, senior leaders may not be aware
of disconnects between the respective elements of a strategy,
questionable assumptions, unintended consequences, or incon-
sistent objectives.25
n Decision authorization clarity captures how state leaders ar-

ticulate and promulgate decisions and how they are unambigu-

ously communicated. Within this dimension, the allocation of
decisionmaking flexibility, prerogatives to subordinates, and ac-
countability for constituent pieces of a larger strategy are allocat-
ed and defined.
n Strategic coherence evaluates the inherent logic of the pro-

posed adaptation and its linkage of ends, ways, and means. Co-
herence integrates the use of all instruments of national pow-
erdiplomatic, informational, military, and economic tools. A
coherent strategy matches the diagnosed problem to the select-
ed approach and allocates commensurate responsibility and re-
sources in relation to the mission and strategy.26

This set of factors is crucial to creating a foundation for understanding

adaptation at the strategic level. Simply stated, one cannot understand stra-
tegic-level adaptation without considering the mechanisms and institutional
capacity for strategic assessment and for implementing a change in strategy.
The criteria employed in our evaluation of the strategic adaptations in this case
study are presented in table 1.

Iraq Assessment and Adaptation

After the defeat of the Iraqi army in 2003, the United States and coalition part-
ners occupied Iraq under the direction of the Coalition Provisional Authority
(CPA)27 led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer,28 while the Department of Defense
(DOD) took the U.S. Government lead for matters relating to Iraq. Due to

95
Hoffman and Crowther

Table 1. Assessment and Adaptation Analytical Framework

Assessment and Criteria

adaptation factors

Performance assessment Did the National Security Council have a process to

mechanisms gather and independently monitor relevant metrics
and data on collected on progress and costs?

Collaborative informa- Did the process allow perspectives and intelligence

tion-sharing environment to be completely shared in a climate in which
parties were open and free to explore options,
assumptions, and debate merits of options?

Strategic coordination Were all relevant parties present and engaged,

positions defined, and shared in a timely way? Did
the process produce both strategic options and
Department positions to meet policy requirements?
Were these integrated and coordinated?

Decision authorization clarity Was a clear Presidential decision issued in writing

with timely guidance regarding implementation
and responsibilities?

Strategic coherence Did selected strategy and adaptation resolve the

diagnosed problem and logically balance or align
end, ways, and means?

insufficient planning for the occupation of Iraq29 and interpersonal frictions

in Washington,30 there were a number of interagency disagreements on how
to proceed. Two major parts of the misunderstandings were the first two CPA
orders, which called for de-Baathification and dissolution of Iraqi security
forces. The upshot of these two orders was the political alienation and eco-
nomic disenfranchisement of Sunni Arabs in Iraq, who had been the ruling
elite since the early 1800s.31 Because there were not enough forces to occupy
the entirety of Iraqi population centers, these Former Regime Elements had
time and space to recover and organize their forces for a campaign against
the coalition.32 Iraqi Kurds and Shiite Arabs had previously organized their
own militias. The two different Kurdish political parties fielded the Peshmer-
ga, while a variety of Shiite militias were active, including the Badr Corps of
the Hakim family and the newly established Muqtada al-Sadrs Jaish al-Mahdi
(JAM). By July 2003, General John Abizaid, USA, commander of U.S. Central

96
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Command (USCENTCOM), stated that he thought that the coalition might

face an insurgency.33
As the violence built between 2003 and 2006, the U.S. Government peri-
odically sought to modify its approach to problems on the ground. In keeping
with the policy formulation, strategy development, and planning guidance
sections of the continuous strategic performance cycle described earlier, the
Bush administration published a series of documents designed to delineate and
achieve national goals in Iraq. As time passed without overall success, however,
there was a widespread recognition that there was a lack of effective interagency
collaboration,34 and the focus changed across the U.S. Government. The Bush
administration first published the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq on Feb-
ruary 26, 2003. January 2004 saw the beginning of a coordinated interagency
process involving both the State and Defense Departments to transfer author-
ity from the CPA to an interim Iraqi government.35 DOD stood up Multi-Na-
tional ForceIraq (MNF-I) in May 15, 2004,36 while John Negroponte became
the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq on June 23, 2004, taking charge of U.S. Embassy
Baghdad on June 28 when CPA Chief Administrator L. Paul Bremer left Iraq.37
As it became apparent that current COIN doctrine (which had not been
updated since Vietnam) was inadequate to guide operations in Iraq, the Army
published Field Manual (FM) (Interim) 3-07.22, Counterinsurgency Opera-
tions, in October 2004. Reappraisal and modification of the military approach
would continue through 2006. As U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalil-
zad arrived in July 2005, he initiated a full management review of the U.S.
Mission in Iraq.38 When the U.S. Government realized that a military-centric
COIN campaign was insufficient, it expanded its scope and worked to improve
interagency capability and stability operations and published:

n DOD Directive 3000.05, Military Support for Stability, Se-

curity, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations, No-
vember 29, 2005
n an updated National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, November 30,

2005
n an interagency approach National Security Policy Decision 44,

Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction

and Stabilization, December 7, 2005.

97
Hoffman and Crowther

In addition to these national efforts back home, General George W. Casey,

Jr., USA, who became the overall commander in Iraq on July 1, 2004, ordered
the creation of a Counterinsurgency Center in Taji to teach coalition units to
deal with the situation on the ground in Iraq.
The Iraqis had been making some political headway, promulgating a con-
stitution, creating several interim governments, and holding a country-wide
election at the end of 2005. Altogether these efforts codified an interagency
approach that emphasized a combination of military and nonmilitary efforts
toward stabilizing Iraq.
In spite of (and perhaps because of) these efforts to forge a solution to
stabilize the situation in Iraq, these documents actually had little impact on the
U.S. effort, and things were still not going well at the end of 2005. The Sunnis,
for instance, bitterly contested the new constitution governing the country.
The main issue continued to be the political alienation of the Sunni elite from
the Iraqi government and their unwillingness to cooperate with U.S. and Iraqi
leaders in charting a new way forward.
General Casey stood up a Red Cell to provide an external critique of op-
tions and plans, while he and Ambassador Khalilzad integrated DOD and State
Department planning to better align their operations by forming an MNF-
I/U.S. Embassy Iraq Joint Strategic Plans and Assessments cell in February
2006.39 On February 22, 2006, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) bombed the al-Askari
mosque in Samarra, north of Baghdad. This event triggered a civil war be-
tween Sunni and Shiite Arabs across Iraq. Violence continued to rise through-
out the country after the attack. Sunni insurgents continued the fight against
coalition forces, but al Qaedaaffiliated terrorists also added the Shiite popula-
tion to their target list. The insurgent bombing of the golden dome in Samarra
was designed to further ignite sectarian conflicta goal that it accomplished.
Shiite militias ramped up death squad activity and began the sectarian cleans-
ing of Baghdad. By late 2006, Sunni Arabs realized that they were losing the
war. They also chafed under the influence of AQI, which attacked, mutilated,
and killed Iraqis who did not behave according to its strict rules. AQI proved
incapable of protecting the Sunni Arab population from Shiite militias and
the coalition. This situation led some Sunni Arabs, in particular several tribes
in Anbar Province, to seek rapprochement with the coalition. Although the
tribal rebellion was known as the Anbar Awakening, it was a movement that

98
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

would later spread throughout the country with the full support of General
David Petraeus, USA, and MNF-I. This development, combined with a new
COIN approach manifested through the Surge, enabled the coalition to tamp
down violence in an attempt to provide the conditions needed for Iraqi elites
to develop a political solution to the conflict.
During 2006, the Iraqi government attempted to control the situation. On
March 16, the Council of Representatives met for the first time. Ibrahim al-Ja-
fari, the former prime minister in the Iraqi Transitional Government, was nom-
inated as the candidate for prime minister under the permanent government of
Iraq. He was a divisive figure who failed to obtain enough support and reacted
to terrorist attacks with heavy-handed tactics employed by increasingly Shi-
ite-dominated security forces. Evidence suggests that Jafari directed a campaign
of sectarian cleansing that further inflamed the communal struggle and brought
Iraq to the brink of civil war. On April 22, Nouri al-Maliki, a compromise can-
didate, was approved as the prime minister. Although Maliki had the support
of the majority of the Council of Representatives, he was a Shiite, which limited
Sunni Arab support and diminished Kurdish support for his government.
The year 2006 was a watershed year for the review of U.S. strategy in Iraq.
Not only did the Army and Marine Corps rewrite their COIN doctrines, but
the NSC, State Department, and DOD also reviewed the overall Iraq strategy.
ThenLieutenant General Petraeus, who had taken command of the Com-
bined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth after his second tour in Iraq, drove
the rewrite of COIN doctrine.40 He cooperated with thenLieutenant Gener-
al James N. Mattis, USMC, who had also returned from Iraq and was com-
manding the Marine Combat Development Command. This was a fortunate
pairing. As Conrad Crane, one of the main authors of the new manual, stated,
The creation of the new Army/Marine Corps COIN manual resulted from
the fortuitous linkage of two soldier-scholars with similar backgrounds and
interests who had been forged in the crucible of Iraq to change their respective
services, and were given simultaneous assignments where they could make
that happen.41
The result was the December 2006 edition of FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency.
Although this was a big step toward conceptualizing counterinsurgency, it had
both supporters and critics. The COIN community welcomed serious thought
about the issue, having been frustrated by Secretary Rumsfelds continuing

99
Hoffman and Crowther

questioning that current operations had anything to do with insurgency.42 The

more conventional community, however, thought that too much emphasis on
counterinsurgency was dangerous. They were personified by thenLieutenant
Colonel Gian Gentile, USA, who later stated, This hyper emphasis on coun-
terinsurgency puts the American Army in a perilous condition. Its ability to
fight wars consisting of head-on battles using tanks and mechanized infantry
is in danger of atrophy.43 Some thought that the doctrine was too soft on
insurgents, while others believed that the U.S. population and its military were
incapable of mustering the patience required for victory. A critique more spe-
cific to Iraq was that the doctrine was not appropriate for a civil war where the
United States had to act as an honest broker rather than taking sides with the
government.44 These various critics remarked on the new manual after its pub-
lication and, in a more limited form, continue to publish their commentaries
to this day.
Because of continued controversy over Iraq, publications discussing the
situation proliferated through the year. One good example was Stephen Bid-
dles Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon in Foreign Affairs. In this article, Bid-
dle argues that turning over the responsibility for fighting the insurgents to
local forces, in particular, is likely to make matters worse.45
As part of ongoing efforts to embrace and codify an approach to the situa-
tion in Iraq, the Bush administration continued to publish strategies, doctrines,
and studies. On March 16, 2006, President George W. Bush published a new
National Security Strategy. This policy document reflected the 2005 National
Strategy for Victory in Iraq with three tracks (political, security, and economic)
and three pillars to the security track (clear, hold, and build).46 However, this
was an update of the current strategy rather than a full strategic review.47
Also during that time, Congress officially announced the formation of the
Iraq Study Group (ISG). The Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Center for the Study of the Presidency, and James A. Baker III Institute for
Public Policy at Rice University were asked to assist the bipartisan group. The
ISG would work through 2006, observing spiraling violence and working to
identify strategic options for the President. As the situation deteriorated, the
studies and recommendations continued. President Bush would not suffer
from a lack of advice. Although each analysis provided a different list and used
varying phraseology, the options boiled down to five:

100
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

n pull out of Iraq

n do less to force the Iraqis to do more

n do the same

n do more of the same (that is, the same approach with more

troops)
n go all in with a different strategy and a new operational concept.

Although President Bush did not favor one option over the others at this
point, he did make it clear that he wanted to win the war.48
On July 11, 2006, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released Re-
building Iraq: More Comprehensive National Strategy Needed to Help Achieve
U.S. Goals. This report stated:

that there were three problems with the National Strategy for Victory
in Iraq: First, it only partially identifies the current and future costs of
U.S. involvement in Iraq, including the costs of maintaining U.S. mil-
itary operations, building Iraqi government capacity at the provincial
and national level, and rebuilding critical infrastructure. Second, it
only partially identifies which U.S. agencies implement key aspects of
the strategy or resolve conflicts among the many implementing agen-
cies. Third, it neither fully addresses how U.S. goals and objectives will
be integrated with those of the Iraqi government and the international
community, nor does it detail the Iraqi governments anticipated contri-
bution to its future security and reconstruction needs. In addition, the
elements of the strategy are dispersed among the [National Strategy for
Victory in Iraq] and seven supporting documents, further limiting its
usefulness as a planning and oversight tool.49

As the studies piled up, 2006 showed that there would be no end in sight
for U.S. efforts in Iraq, and the U.S. Government was still looking for a way to
prosecute the war successfully.
Biddle asserts that in the spring and summer of 2006, there was a dawn-
ing realization at the White House that a new approach was needed in Iraq.50
Peter Feaver claims that during the late spring, the NSC staff started an inter-
nal review.51 During the April/May timeframe, Megan OSullivan and Peter

101
Hoffman and Crowther

Feaver realized that the failure they saw unfolding in Iraq was not the mes-
sage or its implementation; the problem was the strategy. Although they did
not envision an analysis at the level of Dwight Eisenhowers Project Solari-
um,52 they saw a need to have a no-kidding debate at the principals level.
As preparation, they held an offsite at Camp David with friendly critics of
the administrations policy in Iraq, including Michael Vickers from the Cen-
ter for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (who advocated accelerating the
training and transition approach), Eliot Cohen from the School of Advanced
International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University (who provided a histor-
ical perspective and argued for the need for accountability among senior mil-
itary leadership), Robert Kaplan from the U.S. Naval Academy (who provided
perspectives on past successful counterinsurgency campaigns), and Freder-
ick Kagan from the American Enterprise Institute (who advocated a double
down or Surge strategy). Kagan and Vickers were in opposition, with Vickers
explaining how Iraq could be won with fewer troops and Kagan as a proponent
for additional troops and a clear-hold-build approach.53
By the end of May and beginning of June, it became obvious the NSC
would not get the bottom-up review it desired. Instead, the administration
relaunched the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq. This highlighted a two-
part approach: a Casey/Khalilzad strategy to gain control of Baghdad (a joint
U.S.-Iraqi military operation featuring large unit operations) together with a
100-day political plan for Prime Minister Maliki (that is, legislative initiatives
that met with U.S. approval). The result of this interim approach was that there
was still no full review of U.S. strategy in Iraq.
At this point, General Casey and Ambassador Khalilzad were developing
the 2006 Joint Campaign Plan while Casey was asking important questions
about the effort in Iraq. As early as March 13, 2006, he had directed the MNF-I
staff to look at the changing nature of violence54 and was asking if something
had changed to cause the coalition to alter what it was doing.55 By April, he was
asking if Iraq was in a civil war, but he decided that it was not.56 Despite his
questioning about the nature of change in Iraq, or more precisely because of
his continuing belief that the nature of the war had not changed, General Ca-
sey was still dedicated to the original plan of transition, producing an updated
campaign plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom transition to Iraqi self-reliance on
April 28.57

102
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

As the military part of this plan, the government of Iraq and coalition
attempted to gain control of Baghdad. Maliki announced the launch of Op-
eration Together Forward I (OTF I), the newly formed governments plan to
secure Baghdad, on June 13, 2006. An Iraqi-led operation, OTF I included 13
Iraqi Army battalions, 25 Iraqi National Police Battalions, and 10 Coalition
Forces battalions. Altogether, nearly 50,000 Iraqi and Coalition troops were
involved in the operation21,000 Iraqi police, 13,000 Iraqi national police,
8,500 Iraqi army soldiers, and roughly 7,200 Coalition forces.58 OTF I was a
nascent attempt to provide protection to the population of Baghdad. At the
same time, General Casey was reexamining his approach. One of his primary
focuses in July 2006 was to rethink strategic priorities in Iraq.59 By mid-July,
he was considering the pros and cons of putting more coalition forces into
Baghdad to support OTF I.60 Even so, he continued to believe in the plan to
transition security responsibilities to the Iraqis, meeting with the Joint Com-
mittee for Coalition Drawdown on July 16, and reporting to General Abizaid
and Secretary Rumsfeld on July 18 on how the current situation was impacting
drawdown plans. In spite of his desire to transition, by late July he recognized
that he would need to keep more coalition troops in Iraq longer than originally
intended.61
Even with OTF I efforts, over 3,400 Iraqi civilians died in Baghdad in
July.62 President Bush announced that he and Maliki would move more U.S.
and Iraqi forces into Baghdad:

Our strategy is to remain on the offense, including in Baghdad. Under

the Prime Ministers leadership, Coalition and Iraqi leaders are modify-
ing their operational concept to bring greater security to the Iraqi capi-
tal. Coalition and Iraqi forces will secure individual neighborhoods, will
ensure the existence of an Iraqi security presence in the neighborhoods,
and gradually expand the security presence as Iraqi citizens help them
root out those who instigate violence.63

This movement of more forces into Baghdad, called OTF II, started on
August 7, 2006. An additional 6,000 Iraqi security forces and 5,500 coalition
forces were sent to Baghdad. Although protect the population was not yet the
strategy for the entirety of Iraq, OTF II called for forces to move into neigh-

103
Hoffman and Crowther

borhoods, clearing the area of extremist elements, holding cleared areas se-
curely, and building up essential services and infrastructure. Yet OTF II placed
a far greater emphasis on the pace of clearing operations, rather than holding
and rebuilding cleared neighborhoods.64 As part of OTF II, the U.S. military
extended tours for a Stryker Brigade from Alaska by 4 months at the request
of Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, USA, the Multi-National CorpsIraq
(MNC-I) commander. This politically charged last-minute extension, which
cut against the grain of General Caseys desire to draw down U.S. forces in
Iraq, demonstrated the pace of the rapidly deteriorating security situation in
Baghdad.
Even with the incapacity of the coalition to stem the violence, the U.S.
military and diplomats in Iraq remained positive. On August 26, the Effects
Assessment and Synchronization Board Composite Assessment was that we
are on track to achieve some but not all elements of Joint Campaign Plan Phase
I by early 2007, that the campaign plan remains valid, even as conflict has
grown more complex.65
In the end, however, insufficient forces were on hand to secure Baghdad,
and many Iraqi security force units and leaders proved to be either undepend-
able or excessively sectarian. The results were disheartening, and violence
jumped more than 43 percent between the summer and October 2006.66 On
October 19, Major General William Caldwell, USA, the MNF-I spokesman,
admitted that the campaign in Baghdad had not met our overall expecta-
tions.67 By the beginning of November 2006, OTF II was considered a fail-
ure and was abandoned.68 Regardless, OTF II did demonstrate attributes that
would contribute to the eventual success of the Surge the next yearconcen-
tration on security in Baghdad, flooding the zone with forces to protect the
population, and using clear tactics as a prelude to holding and rebuilding
neighborhoods.
By September 2006, old doubts in Washington were compounded by the
failure of both the political and military plans for Iraq. The disquiet over the
situation overcame bureaucratic inertia and personal agendas, so the real
strategic review started at the end of the month. This review was quiet, re-
flecting the desire of the Bush administration to avoid a public discussion in
the run-up to the midterm elections in November. Few even in the NSC knew
about it. This process would discover that distressingly few assumptions

104
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

remained plausible.69 Three other strategic reviews were also conductedby

Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, USA, before assuming command of
MNC-I, by the Council of Colonels working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
within the State Department by Counselor Philip Zelikow and Coordinator
for Iraq David Satterfield.70
Even as doubts grew, Secretary Rumsfeld continued to press ahead with
the current strategy of transition, rejecting a recommendation by General
John Keane, USA (Ret.), of a Surge Plan presented at the Defense Policy Re-
view Board in September.71
General Peter Pace, USMC, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called
for a Council of Colonels, which paralleled the NSC review, between Septem-
ber and December 2006. The council produced three major alternatives: go
big by adding troops, go long by adding advisors, or go home.72 Unfortu-
nately, by the time the council finished, Layers of bureaucracy had sanded off
the sharp edges of the analysis done by Paces review team. Instead of present-
ing a clear alternative, the Joint Chiefs temporized.73
As part of the NSC review process, National Security Advisor Stephen
Hadley traveled to Iraq in order to address the Maliki question. Operation
Iraqi Freedom was perceived as failing because of Maliki for three possible
reasons:

n Maliki was the Shiite prime minister of Iraq as opposed to the

prime minister of Iraq who was a Shia
n little institutional capability existed under Maliki

n Maliki was surrounded by bad advisors.

Although Hadley did not return with a specific answer, he did return with
a classified memorandum for President Bush. This memo was reported to have
addressed four major issues: what steps Maliki could take, what we could do
to help Maliki, how to augment Malikis political and security capabilities, and
how to move ahead.74
On November 10, President Bush held an NSC meeting to launch a for-
mal deputy-level Iraq strategy review led by Deputy National Security Ad-
visor [Jack Dyer] Crouch and involving senior participants from all the key
departments and agencies, including the Departments of State and Defense,

105
Hoffman and Crowther

the [Joint Chiefs of Staff], the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,
the Treasury, Vice President Dick Cheneys office, and the NSC staff.75 The
President had authorized the Joint Staff, DOD, Department of State, and NSC
to work together for the formal review. The government needed to revisit the
entire logic of the operations in Iraq and develop a series of options. The White
House made it clear going into this process that there was no tolerance for
defeat and withdrawal. Each one of the organizations produced papers for the
review, which took place out of the public eye.
The NSC staff used its part of the review as an excuse to examine the
assumptions that it had created for the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.
This turned out to be a sobering exercise. In the end, the NSC team lost faith
in some assumptions and actually believed the opposite of others. The various
efforts resulted in a merged product which provided several options: tough it
out (that is, more of the same), accelerate train and transition operations, hun-
ker down (get out of cities and stay on forward operating bases), or ramp up.76
The NSC, Joint Staff, and State Department spent November discussing
the options; Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld continued to hold the line. On No-
vember 6, the New York Times reported that Rumsfeld sent a classified memo-
randum to the President, reportedly articulating above the line options (that
could and, in several cases, should be combined with others) and below the
line, or less attractive, options.77 These less attractive options included con-
tinuing on the current path, moving a large faction of U.S forces into Baghdad
in an attempt to control it, increasing Brigade Combat Teams and U.S. forces
in Iraq substantially, and setting a firm withdrawal date. The above the line
options reportedly included declaring that with Saddam Hussein gone and
Iraq a sovereign nation, the Iraqi people could govern themselves, telling Iran
and Syria to stay out, assisting in accelerating an aggressive federalism plan,
moving toward three separate statesSunni, Shia, and Kurdor trying a Day-
ton-like peace process.78 So Rumsfelds reported above the line options were
more of the same, while he did not support other newer options.
Although President Bush desired to keep the review out of the election,
the election nevertheless had a large impact on the review. The day after the
Republicans lost control of Congress in the 2006 mid-term, President Bush
announced that he had accepted the resignation of Secretary Rumsfeld and
was nominating Robert Gates as his successor.79 Secretary Rumsfeld, now a

106
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

lame duck, agreed to stay for the transition and eventually departed on De-
cember 18, 2006.
During the same period, President Bush started referring to a new way
forward for Iraq. Although everyone now knew that a strategic review was
under way and that there would be a new approach, the President had not yet
made up his mind on which approach to take. There was no shortage of op-
tions covering the spectrum, from the full withdrawal that Congress wanted to
doubling down and going for a win. As several commentators have mentioned
about the Bush decisionmaking process, different staffs would work out an
entire problem and then, having reached consensus, would brief the President.
This review was different. During the Iraq relook, as appropriate, key actors
took individual issues to the President rather than reaching overall consensus
first. The President gave a key piece of guidance early in December when the
NSC asked him, What is the U.S. role in population security? The President
stated that it was mission number one. All proposals logically flowed from this
statement.80
On December 6, 2006, the Iraq Study Group released its official report to
the President, Congress, and public. This report considered four options: pre-
cipitate withdrawal, stay the course, more troops for Iraq, and devolution to
three regions. It also made 79 specific recommendations. It discussed the need
for a new external approach titled Building an International Consensus and
a new internal approach titled Helping Iraqis Help Themselves. The diplo-
matic approach called for a New Diplomatic Offensive to put the problems
into a regional context and to deal with issues in that region. The report also
stipulated Iraqi milestones and new efforts for national reconciliation and gov-
ernance. Additionally it addressed security, calling for a new Military Strategy
for Iraq that required accelerated Iraqi control of security and embedding
more advisors in the security forces.81 It also called for changes in the police
and criminal justice system, a new approach to U.S. economic and reconstruc-
tion assistance, the use of U.S. personnel, and U.S. intelligence.82
The report had supporters and detractors. On December 7, Foreign Af-
fairs hosted a roundtable to discuss it.83 Stephen Biddle, Larry Diamond, James
Dobbins, and Leslie Gelb debated the issue. Biddle stated that the report offers
the political groundwork for a complete withdrawal more than it offers a sus-
tainable solution to the conflict.84 Diamond stated, The seduction of a com-

107
Hoffman and Crowther

prehensive approach . . . is that everything can seem equally urgent, and thus
priorities may be difficult to discern. He also asked, What matters most?85
Dobbins agreed with the report in that the need to move toward a smaller U.S.
presence and a more limited U.S. mission in Iraq is equally clear, and that it
is fairly obvious that one must try to move toward a level of engagement that
could be sustained for the five to 10 years it may take to end the violence and
stabilize Iraq.86 Gelb lauded the good bipartisan politics, a courageous analy-
sis of the bleak situation in Iraq, and a compendium of useful policy steps, but
argued that it leaves the United States without an overall strategywhich will
put the country in the position of having to confront the tough decisions all
over again five months from now. He also criticized the middle-way approach
adopted by the Iraq Study Group as sending two messages: that the United
States is leaving, and its staying, which means that neither Americans nor
Iraqis would know which way the United States was really going.87
Different actors took different lessons from the report. People who want-
ed to withdraw used it to demand withdrawal. People who wanted a more
Iraqi-centric political approach used it to demand that. Overall, the Iraq Study
Group provided bipartisan top cover for the President to use should he choose
to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, but it did not provide a feasi-
ble strategy for him to adopt. It was dead on arrival in the Bush White House.
Another event generated more viewpoints for President Bush to consider.
On December 11, 2006, the President met with retired General Wayne Down-
ing, USA, of U.S. Special Operations Command, former Vice Chief of Staff
of the Army General Jack Keane, and former commander of U.S. Southern
Command General Barry McCaffrey, USA. Defense intellectuals Stephen
Biddle and Eliot Cohen were also invited. Perhaps the most important input
came from General Keane, who advocated changing the strategy from General
Caseys clear and transition approach to protecting the population and put-
ting more forces into Iraq to achieve that goal. President Bush considered the
strategy review produced by the NSC, ISG, Joint Staff, and the meeting with
defense specialists. As a background to his thoughts, on December 18, 2006
ironically, the day that Secretary Rumsfeld left officethe Pentagon reported
that attacks were averaging 960 a week, the most since the reports began in
2005. With this in mind, on December 20, the President publicly articulated
for the first time that the United States was not winning the war in Iraq.88 On

108
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

the same day, Secretary Gates visited Iraq and took a look at the situation on
the ground. After his return, he delivered a proposal from General Casey for
a two-brigade mini-Surge to President Bush, who disagreed with the idea as
insufficient to alter the trajectory of the war.89 The year ended with General
Keane and Frederick Kagan publishing an op-ed in the Washington Post titled
The Right Type of SurgeAny Troop Increase Must Be Large and Lasting.
The op-ed discussed 30,000 soldiers for 18 months to bring security to Bagh-
dad, the essential precondition for political compromise, national reconcilia-
tion, amid economic development.90
This wide spread of input from disparate actors gave President Bush a va-
riety of options: end the Iraq operation, do less and allow the Iraqis to assume
more responsibility for the war effort, continue along the current path, do
more of the same, undertake a different approach with the same force struc-
ture, and significantly increase activity while changing the overall approach.
While the President was deep into examining strategic alternatives, his senior
military advisors, particularly the Joint Chiefs of Staff and commanders in the
region, were against larger U.S. forces on the ground. General Abizaid and
General Casey were united against a significant troop increase because they
shared a viewpoint that held U.S. forces were part of the problem, not the solu-
tion to Baghdads woes, while some of the Joint Chiefs were concerned about
the institutional state of the Army and Marine Corps after 4 years of conflict.
In the end, the President chose to go for the win. On January 10, 2007,
President Bush announced a New Way Forward in Iraq.91 It is clear that we
need to change our strategy in Iraq, the President stated in a nationally tele-
vised broadcast. He continued, So my national security team, military com-
manders, and diplomats conducted a comprehensive review. We consulted
Members of Congress from both parties, our allies abroad, and distinguished
outside experts. He demonstrated that he clearly understood why:

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There
were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods
that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too
many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders
reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes.
They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.

109
Hoffman and Crowther

The President next talked about how the United States would change its
strategic approach:

So America will change [its] strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their
campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the peo-
ple of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. . . .
Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and
secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to
help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the
security that Baghdad needs.

President Bush then clarified that U.S. forces would now participate in the
full clear-hold-build process:

In earlier operations, Iraqi and American forces cleared many neigh-

borhoods of terrorists and insurgents, but when our forces moved on to
other targets, the killers returned. This time, well have the force levels
we need to hold the areas that have been cleared. In earlier operations,
political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces
from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectar-
ian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light
to enter those neighborhoodsand Prime Minister Maliki has pledged
that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.

President Bush then emphasized the interagency nature of the new ap-
proach:

We will give our commanders and civilians greater flexibility to spend

funds for economic assistance. We will double the number of Provincial
Reconstruction Teams. These teams bring together military and civilian
experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strength-
en the moderates, and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance. And
Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice will soon appoint a reconstruc-
tion coordinator in Baghdad to ensure better results for economic assis-
tance being spent in Iraq.

110
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

He also directly mentioned his analysis of the wide range of options that
he had received:

We carefully considered these proposals. And we concluded that to step

back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear the coun-
try apart, and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale. Such a
scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even lon-
ger, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal. If we increase our
support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current
cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.

During late 2006, another change was occurring on the ground in Iraq.
The Sunnis of Anbar Province had had enough of al Qaeda in Iraq and turned
on them. At the same time, the Sunnis decided that the United States was the
only actor in Iraq that was neutral enough for them to trust. The end result was
that the Sunnis sided with the coalition, formed self-defense units called Con-
cerned Local Citizens (which eventually became the Sons of Iraq) that coop-
erated with the coalition, and identified AQI actors on the ground so that the
coalition could target them. This Awakening played a large part in bringing
down violence in Iraq. The Awakening began before the decision on the Surge;
however, the Awakening and Surge were mutually reinforcing.92
In the first half of 2007, the five Surge brigades deployed to Iraq. MNC-I
and the Iraqi security forces cleared Baghdad neighborhood by neighborhood
and then remained behind to secure the Iraqi people from insurgent and mi-
litia violence. Lieutenant General Odierno conceptualized fighting the Battle
of the Baghdad Belts, which would enable friendly forces to isolate Baghdad
from neighboring regions of instability, where AQI and other groups had cre-
ated safe havens. Violence reached a zenith in December 2006, remained at
those high levels while the Surge forces arrived and began operations, and
then began a precipitous drop in June 2006 after MNC-I launched Operation
Phantom Thunder, the beginning of the surge of offensive operations that
continued until the following summer. The Green Zone received 40 to 60 rock-
et and mortar rounds a day. Where coalition forces had previously cleared
areas and then left the Iraqis to fend for themselves, U.S. forces now remained
in cleared areas in more than 75 joint security stations and combat outposts,

111
Hoffman and Crowther

assisting the Iraqi security forces to hold and build. Although progress was
slow and difficult to perceive, coalition and Iraqi security forces were taking
back the city.
The next turning point occurred when Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of
the Jaish al-Mahdi militia, declared a ceasefire on August 29.93 JAM fighters
had instigated a gun battle at the holy shrines in Karbala that killed several
hundred people, leading to wide condemnation from the Shiite community
in Iraq. Since the Surge had already succeeded in lessening the threat to Shi-
ite areas, JAM was no longer needed as the security force of last resort. Sadr
bowed to public pressure and took his forces out of the fight. Violence dropped
off immediately while indirect fire in the Green Zone ceased almost entirely.
The third major event during the first half of the Surge occurred during
September 1011, 2007, when Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and General Pet-
raeus testified before Congress. Many in Iraq, both coalition and Iraqi, thought
that Congress might take advantage of the hearings to confront the President
and force him to bring U.S. forces home. In the event, Crocker and Petraeus
were able to convince Congress that enough progress had occurred and was
continuing to warrant a continuation of the Surge. Many in Iraq were relieved
when the two returned to Baghdad.
The Surge continued through late 2007 and into the new year. In early
2008, with violence ebbing, Iraqi politicians were finally able to make progress
on a reform of the de-Baathification decree, amnesty legislation, delineation of
provincial powers, a budget, and a redesigned Iraqi flag. These developments
demonstrated that the assumption underpinning the Surgethat political
progress was incumbent upon improved securitywas accurate.
The next spring, Prime Minister Maliki finally had enough with the Jaish
al-Mahdis control of Basra, the oil capital of Iraq. He triggered Operation
Charge of the Knights in Basra, which the coalition supported to the full extent
of its capabilities. After a rough start, the operation successfully cleared the
militia presence from Basra. JAM responded by launching rockets into the
Green Zone from Sadr City, which triggered the battle of Phase Line Gold
to bring Sadr City under control. After a month of hard fighting, the Jaish
al-Mahdi was a spent force, and Iraqi security forces occupied Sadr City in
May 2008 without firing a shot. By the end of the Surge in July 2008, vio-
lence had dropped to levels not seen since early 2004. The United States and

112
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Iraq signed a pair of agreements that defined their bilateral relationship. This
included a Status of Forces Agreement that stipulated the departure of U.S.
forces from Iraq by the end of 2011.
In late 2009, the last of the coalition partners departed Iraq, and U.S. forc-
es started to reorganize for a transition to a new security arrangement. On
September 1, 2009, the United States declared the end of Operation Iraqi Free-
dom and the beginning of Operation New Dawn. On January 1, 2010, MNF-I,
MNC-I, and Multi-National Security and Training CommandIraq combined
to form U.S. ForcesIraq (USF-I). During 2011, when it became obvious that
American forces would depart Iraq in their entirety by the end of the year,
USF-I continued the drawdown. On December 18, 2011, the last U.S. forces
in Iraq departed. The remaining forces were reorganized under the Office of
Security CooperationIraq under a lieutenant general and subordinate to U.S.
Embassy Iraq. The mission was declared over.

Afghanistan Assessment and Adaptation

This section details the historical record of the Obama administrations as-
sessment process and the resulting adaptation in strategy and force levels
in Afghanistan in 2009.94 It should be kept in mind that unlike the previous
case study, this was a new administration, one in which routines, processes,
and personalities had not yet gelled. The President campaigned, however, on
an explicit platform that viewed the war in Afghanistan as a war of necessi-
ty, compared to the invasion and subsequent insurgency in Iraq. The Bush
administration had conducted an exhaustive review in late 2008, recognizing
that events in Afghanistan were not trending in a positive way.95 The Afghan
government did its own internal assessment and believed that nearly half of
the countrys 364 districts (166) were completely or substantially controlled by
the Taliban.96 The late 2008 American review, led by Lieutenant General Doug-
las Lute, USA, recommended a fully resourced COIN approach and additional
force levels to implement it. President Bush did not commit to a decisive shift
in strategy or force levels, given pending change in administration, and de-
ferred to the incoming President.97
Within a few weeks of taking office, President Barack Obama requested
that former Central Intelligence Agency analyst Bruce Riedel conduct a quick
strategic assessment of the situation in Afghanistan.98 Riedel had recently

113
Hoffman and Crowther

completed a manuscript on the ongoing conflict with al Qaeda including Op-

eration Enduring Freedom. Riedel quickly assembled a small team, conducted
a number of working group meetings with Office of the Secretary of Defense
(OSD) and State Department representatives, and produced an overall scan of
the current campaign strategy and its effectiveness. National Security Advisor
General James L. Jones, USMC (Ret.), regional envoy Richard Holbrooke, and
USCENTCOM Commander General Petraeus participated in group sessions
over Riedels report. Ultimately, Riedel briefed President Obama.99 In short
order and with no debate, the President approved force levels needed to help
secure the upcoming Afghan election and dampen a Taliban resurgence.
The results of the review, however, were not debated. Moreover, the re-
sourcing increase was not scrutinized by the NSC. The President did not
engage any external insights or meet with his major military advisors. He
approved the troop increase of 17,000 for Afghanistan and issued a hurried
statement in late March 2009.100 The Presidents speech clarified why the Na-
tion was taking additional actions and with what priorities. He concluded, If
the Afghan government falls to the Taliban or allows al Qaeda to go unchal-
lenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many
of our people as they possibly can.101
Both the principal policy aim and national security interest of the United
States were articulated in this statement, but it was a compromise between
fully resourced counterinsurgency and preventing an environment in which al
Qaeda could return. It was based upon the recognized increased inroads that
the surging Taliban was making and its long-term impact. The administration
concluded that al Qaeda and Taliban leadership shared common bonds that
could support terrorism from inside Afghanistan. Were the Taliban to succeed
in toppling the government of Hamid Karzai and regain control of the major
urban centers, it would embolden extremism in general and al Qaeda in par-
ticular. Thus, core U.S. interests were at risk.102
The initial assessment offered clarity on goals, in particular an emphasis
on disrupting terrorist networks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Next, the
review expanded the scope of the campaign to recognize the interdependent
nature of both countries and the need to consider the strategy and operations
from a regional perspective. Mr. Holbrookes appointment as envoy with a
portfolio over both countries reinforced this aspect of the strategy.103 Finally,

114
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

the new strategy defined the goals for enhanced governance in Afghanistan
and greater partnership capacity in counterinsurgency in that countrys grow-
ing security force.
Given the lack of progress in Afghanistan, Secretary Gates believed that
the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander, General Da-
vid McKiernan, USA, was miscast in a role that required a different mindset.
No one thought ill of McKiernan, but many thought a change in leadership
was warranted. Subsequently, Mr. Gates announced General McKiernans re-
lief on May 9, 2009, and President Obama announced the selection of Lieu-
tenant General Stanley A. McChrystal, USA, to replace him. McChrystal, then
serving as Director of the Joint Staff, was quickly approved by the Senate and
took up his post. He was directed to conduct a thorough evaluation of opera-
tions in Afghanistan and report back.
McChrystal formed a multidisciplinary team and oversaw a truly strategic
assessment rather than merely a campaign or an operational evaluation. His
strategic assessment was designed to be more than a purely military assess-
ment.104 The commanders personal involvement and the nontraditional per-
spectives from scholars and coalition members made this a notable effort. The
civilian academics brought in diversity and served as a valuable resource in
formulating and debating the contents of the assessment.105 The end product
was a better plan for conducting a comprehensive counterinsurgency inside
Afghanistan, which the team perceived as its assigned task.106
In late August 2009, McChrystal delivered his initial assessment. His stra-
tegic review recognized the critical importance of the effectiveness of the Af-
ghan National Security Forces and sought to elevate the importance of gover-
nance. The review made clear that additional resources were needed to blunt
the Talibans evident momentum but that those forces should focus on those
critical areas where vulnerable populations are most threatened.107 This plan
stressed the importance of governance to the success of the campaign, not just
population security or other counterinsurgency related lines of effort.
McChrystal was told to wait until after the Afghanistan election and then
submit his report via the chain of command.108 When he did, the report soon
found its way to the media, despite its classified and sensitive nature.109 The
report did not skirt with niceties or hedge on its conclusions: Failure to pro-
vide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher

115
Hoffman and Crowther

overall costs, and ultimately a critical loss of political support. Any of these
risks in turn are likely to result in mission failure.110 McChrystal made clear
that his call for more forces was predicated on the adoption of a strategy in
which troops emphasize protecting Afghans rather than killing insurgents or
controlling territory. Most starkly, the report stated that what was needed most
was an entirely reshaped strategy. Inadequate resources will likely result in
failure, he noted; however, without a new strategy, the mission should not be
resourced.111 McChrystal explained that success is achievable, but it will not
be attained simply by trying harder or doubling down on the previous strate-
gy. He concluded that the key takeaway was the urgent need for a significant
change to the U.S. strategy and the way that we think and operate. He and
Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry translated their assessment into their own
integrated campaign plan in August of that year even before Washington could
assess the assessment.112
McChrystals report kicked off a renewed White House strategy review
that began with a far broader and blank canvas. It soon became apparent that
there were different camps forming on the future of U.S. policy and strategy
in Afghanistan, with civilian and military perspectives starting to emerge.113
A scheduling opportunity existed in October for the President to meet with
McChrystal in Denmark.114 This marked the first opportunity for the President
to have a one-on-one meeting with his field commander. This was followed by
a video teleconference session in which McChrystal presented his findings to
the NSC. The general requested additional force levels and outlined his ideas
on how to implement a counterinsurgency approach.115 This session initiated a
second but more formal strategy review by the Obama administration.116
The President, with the assistance of his National Security Advisor, began
a deliberate and extended review process that included nine meetings of the
NSC principals and some 25 hours of discourse.117 The President personally
chaired these meetings and consistently demonstrated a willingness to chal-
lenge his assumptions as well as those of others in his Cabinet, immersed him-
self in detailed intelligence reports and policy details, and repeatedly asked
probing questions.
Several different coalitions among the Cabinet members emerged. Sec-
retary Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen,
and both USCENTCOM and ISAF commanders consistently supported the

116
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

comprehensive COIN approach and the concomitant requirement for 40,000

troops to execute that plan. The ISAF commander submitted three force levels
for consideration, one for 85,000 troops, his preferred option of an increased
end strength allocation of 40,000, and a smaller option of 8,500. The latter
option would have added additional training and advisory capacity but would
have had no additional combat power to offset Taliban inroads or increased
population security in Afghanistan. This was derided by some in the NSC as
a typical Goldilocks approach, two throwaway courses of action, and the
preferred option for 40,000. The President desired true options, ones in which
the ways of the strategy options were different, not only the means. On one oc-
casion the President chided his Cabinet for not satisfying his expressed desire
for real options.118
A second option was introduced by Vice President Joe Biden to rescope
the U.S. objectives in Afghanistanan option often turned into shorthand as
counterterrorism (CT). He was supported by NSC staff members in develop-
ing this option, which focused on a narrower policy endstate, keeping pressure
on al Qaeda, reducing force presence in Afghanistan, and relying more on
special operations, drone strikes, and high-value targeting. This school was
concerned about long-term national security issues and economic health risks
driven by the U.S. economic situation. The CT option was efficient but may
not have been effective. Even with a diminished objective, ISAF, the interna-
tional community, and U.S. civilians from supporting agencies would have to
consolidate their staffs and offices back to Kabul and a handful of consulates.
Intelligence sources that enabled a precise CT campaign would be more ex-
posed with fewer bases and troops to defend them, and less able to continue
supporting U.S. special operations forces. Thus, the resources most needed
to hold Afghanistan together would end up too far away from the areas that
mattered to contribute to a positive outcome. This counterterrorism strate-
gy would be unlikely to hold Afghanistan together, degrade the Taliban, or
reduce al Qaedas freedom of action.119 However, this option would not have
required a troop increase.
A third option emerged during debates, and a minority camp emerged
that stated the real problem all along was Pakistan, the source of much of the
Pashtun-dominated Taliban insurgency and a secure sanctuary for it. Eiken-
berry and Holbrooke held to this perspective. After a preliminary meeting

117
Hoffman and Crowther

with NSC deputies in which the Ambassador expressed strong reservations

about the proposed strategy, he was asked by General Jones to craft an offi-
cial cable to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ambassador Eikenberry sent
his cable as requested. Like McChrystals classified theater assessment, this
highly sensitive cable was promptly leaked to major media outlets.120 The Am-
bassadors candid evaluation of the critical U.S. ally, Hamid Karzai, as an
improbable partner did not endear him to the Afghan leadership. Moreover,
Eikenberrys strong reservations in the cable were not coordinated with his
military partner in Kabul.121 The cable argued that the better answer to our
difficulties could well be to further ratchet up our engagement in Pakistan.122
The cable was at odds with the militarys perspective of what counterinsur-
gency could achieve and directly contradicted the logic of both Petraeus and
McChrystal on the efficacy of a comprehensive politico-military solution via
counterinsurgency.123
Each of the options presented alternative goals, with requisite and distinct
means to advance U.S. security interests. The full-scale counterinsurgency
camp argued that the goal for U.S. policy should be to preserve Afghanistans
sovereignty and current constitutional government and defeat the Taliban in-
surgency in cooperation with building that countrys institutions including its
military and police force. For the CT school, large-scale operations and exten-
sive nation-building were beyond U.S. national interests, which were defined
narrowly as not allowing al Qaeda to have the freedom of action to plan future
attacks against the U.S. homeland. The administration was more concerned
with al Qaeda, not the Taliban. Eikenberrys preference was better defined in
terms of what it would not doit would not ensure the survival of the Afghan
capital, and it would not ensure that al Qaeda shifted back into Afghanistan
and reestablish its base infrastructure there. His emphasis was a shift toward
resolving Pakistans support to destabilizing networks in both Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
While the three options produced a useful delineation of alternative ways
and means, there was still a strong consensus among all the participants that
the United States had a vital interest in degrading al Qaedas capacity to threat-
en American citizens or allies. This ensured some common ground for the
assessment. The only option that the President unilaterally removed from the
table was an Afghan withdrawal.124

118
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

The Vice President continued to oppose increased force levels and the
supporting strategy, retaining his position that reduced force levels, lower
costs, and a renewed but narrow approach directed at al Qaeda were better.
Key staffers including Lieutenant General Lute and Deputy National Security
Advisor Thomas Donilon preferred the CT/al Qaeda connection and contin-
ued to pepper the Pentagon and ISAF with questions between major meetings.
Their active role questioned the traditional honest broker role of the Nation-
al Security Advisor and his team in the interagency process.125
During NSC debates, the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State sup-
ported a substantive COIN campaign with a Surge. Their position aligned
closely with the views of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, USCENT-
COM, and ISAF. Secretary Gates was willing to adapt his views on U.S. goals
and consider options less expansive than his military leaders. He was joined by
Secretary Clinton, who saw the militarys proposed troop increase, combined
with a civilian surge and diplomatic efforts, as crucial to a transition process
that would both strengthen the Afghan government and increase leverage for
a diplomatic solution.126
In response to Presidential discomfort with the responsiveness of the Joint
Staff, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Cartwright,
USMC, produced a hybrid option that increased troop levels by 20,00025,000
and employed them somewhat more narrowly in population protection rather
than offensive clearing operations. This was an option that neither the Chair-
man nor field commanders wanted to have presented to the NSC, as it did
not reflect their conception of counterinsurgency.127 The development of this
option and information exchanges between the OSD, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
NSC staff complicated interpersonal and institutional relations.
The internal debate on force levels spilled out again in the media. Gen-
eral McChrystal, speaking in London at the International Institute for Stra-
tegic Studies, talked about ongoing efforts in Afghanistan. During the ques-
tion-and-answer period, however, he explicitly rejected counterterrorism as
an option, despite the fact that it was an option under consideration in ongo-
ing NSC discussions. The White House was not happy with a public critique of
the internal council options.128 Media sources continued to describe the con-
tending camps and the Presidents desire for an exit strategy.129 The military
came off as if they were pressuring President Obama in the media to limit the

119
Hoffman and Crowther

range of options that he could consider.130 The President (and his White House
staff) complained to both Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen about what
appeared a concerted effort to box him in.131 While not a deliberate campaign,
the number of statements by senior military officers that made their way into
the press influenced the candor of internal deliberations.
Given the strains of a decade at war, civil-military relations would natu-
rally be tense. Both Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen had to counsel sub-
ordinates about American traditions with regard to civil-military relations and
how to be candid in counsel but far more discreet in public commentary.132
The Chairman later made civil-military relations and professionalism an issue
in his speeches and lectures.133
President Obama sought out the collective perspective of the Joint
Chiefs early in the review. He held a full meeting with the Joint Chiefs on
October 30 at the White House. The President received the chiefs collec-
tive support for the shift in strategy, increased force levels, and resourcing
ISAF, although some of them expressed a lack of support for protracted
nation-building.134
During the course of the debates, the literature shows that President
Obama became dissatisfied with the production of options that met his desired
outcomes within the temporal and resource constraints he believed were polit-
ically feasible. He expressed his key objectives and the outline of his preferred
strategy. This approach was discussed by officials and became the focal point
for subsequent deliberations. Rather than select a discrete option from this
menu, the President developed a hybrid option that sought to balance con-
tending viewpoints. To restrain an expansive if not expensive solution, Presi-
dent Obama downgraded U.S. goals from the outright defeat of the insurgency
in Afghanistan to the disruption of the Taliban and its effectiveness. To satisfy
the Pentagon and ISAF request, he approved an additional 30,000 troops for
ISAF and permitted Secretary Gates to generate another 3,000 at his own dis-
cretion. The Presidents final decision incorporated a faster deployment and
peak of the increased force levels and incorporated a withdrawal timeline that
surprised military officials. A phased withdrawal timetable, beginning in July
2011, was part of the strategy.
The specificity of the timeline presented a wrinkle. This issue was debated
at an NSC meeting with the President, who held firm to the desire to both

120
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

increase resources, but hold the theater commander to a fixed amount of time
to demonstrate results, and terminate active U.S. fighting forces. The articula-
tion of a fixed end date to U.S. participation in Afghanistan was not desired by
military officials, who wanted subsequent assessment cycles and results on the
ground to dictate the vector and pace of American force levels. The President
asked for and received support for this final strategy, although subsequently
some principals believed that its starker deadline was questionable.135 Some re-
ports suggest that military commanders believed they could generate demon-
strable progress by the timeline and further extensions would be authorized to
complete the mission.136
The timeline issue for the announced withdrawal issue raised concerns
in some circles. Reportedly, NSC discussions on the issue suggest that the
Service chiefs were consulted and supported it under the assumption that a
deadline put the Afghan government on notice in terms of enhancing gover-
nance and building up the Afghan army.137 This temporal element was briefed
to USCENTCOM and ISAF in late November.138 Senior administration offi-
cials were quick to suggest that any withdrawal starting in mid-2011 might
be limited and would be conditions-based. In a brief public comment, Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy Michle Flournoy clarified, The pace, the na-
ture and the duration of that transition are to be determined down the road by
the president based on the conditions on the ground.139
The President elected to roll out his decisions and garner public support
by delivering a major speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on
December 1, 2009. He made it clear that he recognized Afghanistan is not
lost, but for several years it has moved backwards and that the Taliban had
gained momentum. He stated U.S. forces lacked the full support they needed
to effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and better secure
the population.140 He noted, too, that the commander in the field in Afghani-
stan had found the security situation more serious than he anticipated and that
the President found the status quo unsustainable:

I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake

in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism
practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11,
and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This

121
Hoffman and Crowther

is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone,

we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here
from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts
of terror. And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards,
and al Qaeda can operate with impunity.141

The President noted that the strategy would keep the pressure on al Qae-
da, in not only the short term with U.S. forces but also the long term by in-
creasing the stability and capacity of partners in the region. In the end, Our
overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda
in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten Ameri-
can and our allies in the future. . . . We must reverse the Talibans momentum
and deny it the ability to overthrow the government.142 The bumper stick-
er for the strategy became to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda, but
notably the task was expanded by reference to safe havens in Pakistan. This
became the central logic of the strategic communications plan. The strategy
was articulated further in congressional testimony that week by Cabinet of-
ficials,143 the Chairman,144 and the political and military leaders seeking to
execute it.145
General McChrystal did not survive in his post long enough to see his
operational design applied. Indiscreet comments from his staff published in
Rolling Stone forced the President to accept his resignation in June 2010.146
General Petraeus, who was appointed to replace him, continued the campaign
he had helped frame while commander of USCENTCOM.
All in all, the strategic adaptation developed for Afghanistans Surge was
a product of a protracted evaluation of U.S. interests, policy aims, and sup-
porting strategies. Some found the sessions too extended and inconclusive,
but they did include the kind of strategic discourse needed to produce a clear
strategy.147 President Obamas deliberate style strived to reassess U.S. policy
and strategic requirements, including fundamental assumptions.148 Some par-
ticipants believed that the review was useful but too drawn out and reflected a
lack of Presidential commitment.149 The President observed that he was more
engaged than was typical in deliberations and felt compelled to generate his
own option. Ironically, the administration largely ended up where the Lute
review of 2008 had finished a year earlier.

122
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Iraq Outcomes
There is an ongoing discussion about whether the Surge in Iraq succeeded
and whether it was worth the effort. As a holistic approach, there are a wide
variety of both continuities and differences to examine. Peter Feaver identi-
fies several:

the surge of military forces, the surge of civilian forces, the prioritiza-
tion of population protection, the emphasis on the bottom-up politi-
cal accommodation that harnessed the so-called Tribal Awakening of
Sunni tribes in al-Anbar Province that had begun to fight back against
al-Qaida in Iraqs predations, the increased special operations attacks
on al-Qaida in Iraq and on rogue Shiite militias, the greater decentral-
ization and diversification of efforts beyond the Green Zone.150

Although each of these efforts has its proponents and its critics, it is im-
possible to disaggregate any one part of the Surge approach. In the long run,
the Surge did not resolve Iraqs problems. No external military force can re-
solve another countrys political issues in the modern world;151 however, ex-
ternal forces in this case reduced violence dramatically, which provided an
opportunity for the Iraqis to resolve their internal political issues. The fact that
Nouri al-Maliki did not take the opportunity to unite Iraq does not diminish
the military results of the Surge.152
The first question is to ask why President Bush took so long to make a de-
cision. It appears that he was reluctant to impose himself on the decisionmak-
ing of his senior subordinates. His own history and background as a product
of the Vietnam era made him uncomfortable with getting into the details of
decisions about the use of the military.153 History suggested to him that there
was a fine line between setting strategy and micromanaging combat. He con-
sciously sought to avoid constraining his generals or impacting their abilities
to win the war. Furthermore, the President valued loyalty and was accused of
surrounding himself with people who placed a premium on conformity over
debate or dissent.154
Feaver writes, One study notes that President Bush mentioned delegating
the decision on troop levels to his ground commanders in 2006 more than
thirty times in that year alone.155 It took the political disaster of losing control

123
Hoffman and Crowther

of Congress to get the President to override his subordinates in order to seek

the ends he desired.156
As for the results of the Surge, the major result was a large-scale decline
in violence. Figure 2 shows how much violence dropped over time. Another
way to measure the decline is in U.S. casualties (see table 2). By either of those
measures, the Surge was a success. Another way of examining success is to
compare results to articulated goals. The Surge was clearly defined from the
beginning. According to a fact sheet provided by the White House when Pres-
ident Bush announced the Surge:

The Presidents New Iraq Strategy is Rooted in Six Fundamental

Elements:

1. Let the Iraqis lead;

2. Help Iraqis protect the population;
3. Isolate extremists;
4. Create space for political progress;
5. Diversify political and economic efforts; and
6. Situate the strategy in a regional approach.157

By this definition, the Surge was a success; it did achieve all of these objectives.
If, however, we examine what President Bush defined as success in the
body of the same fact sheet, we see he states:

Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved.
There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But vic-
tory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab worlda function-
ing democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects
fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people. A democratic
Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists
instead of harboring themand it will help bring a future of peace and
security for our children and our grandchildren.

124
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Figure 2. Weekly Enemy-Initiated Attacks Against Coalition and Partners

Source: Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq (Washington, DC: The Brook-
ings Institution, November 30, 2011), 4, available at <www.brookings.edu/~/media/Centers/saban/iraq%20index/
index20111130.PDF>.

Table 2. Total U.S. Military Fatalities, by Year

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

486 849 846 822 904 314 149 60 53

Source: Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq (Washington, DC: The Brook-
ings Institution, November 30, 2011), 7, available at <www.brookings.edu/~/media/Centers/saban/iraq%20index/
index20111130.PDF>.

It would be difficult to define Iraq as being a functioning democracy that

polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human lib-
erties, and answers to its people. By this measure, the Surge was not a success.
The final cost in lives in Iraq operations between 2003 and 2011 was 4,486
Americans, 218 coalition partners, and at least 103,775 Iraqis.158 Some find it
hard to assess whether this price was worth paying. Others tend to give credit
to external forces such as the Sunni Awakening. But as Peter Mansoor has not-

125
Hoffman and Crowther

ed, Without the surge, the Awakening would have been much more limited
in its scope and impact.159

Afghanistan Outcomes
Naturally, after such an extended debate associated with the revised strategy
in Afghanistan, we must ask, Did the Surge Work?160 That is a more com-
plex question than it seems since the number of variables are high, as are the
number of actors. At this point, we can at least document the outcomes. Some
context is necessary for a start. From 2004 to 2009, there was a 900 percent
increase in security incidents across Afghanistan, and a 40-fold increase in
suicide bombings. The conflict had spread throughout the country, but the
violence was more concentrated with over 70 percent of all security incidents
in 2010 taking place in only 10 percent of the countrys 400 districts.161
This concentration of violence continued during the Surge period. In-
creased force levels and penetrations into Helmand Province generated resis-
tance and higher casualty totals for friendly and coalition troops, as well as for
the Taliban. The total U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan were 317 in 2009
and spiked in 2010 to 500 killed in action (KIA) with the heavier operational
tempo in the south. The 20102012 casualty totals reflect higher force levels
directly engaging Taliban-held territory including both Helmand and Kanda-
har provinces.162
The campaign design supporting the ISAF Surge centered resources in
key districts and subdistricts including Nawa, Marjah, Garmser, and Nad Ali.
Before the Surge decision was reached, these districts were essentially Taliban
bases with little Afghan or coalition presence. The Taliban imposed its will
and judicial writ and built up its forces there and tried to rebuild. During early
2010, the deployment of coalition forces permitted the initiation of a serious
and deliberate offensive to clear these districts of antigovernment elements
and insurgents. The well-embedded Taliban resistance attempted to defend its
strongholds and caches of supplies.
A dramatic turnaround like in Iraq may have been hoped for. Certainly,
the significant impact obtained in Iraq back in 2007 raised expectations. Noth-
ing of the sort occurred, but clear progress was made. The Taliban withdrew
where it was directly confronted, and its momentum was checked. While the
change in the level of violence is not as dramatic as in Iraq, the Talibans in-

126
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

fluence waned, and ISAF efforts provided a breathing space for the Afghan
government to build up institutional capacity.
The Talibans coercive impact steadily declined in Helmand and Kandahar.
After some tough battles in Helmand, some clear results could be discerned
in the physical security domain. By May 2011, the Marines in Nawa had gone
more than 12 months without a serious battle. The force in Nad Ali reported
an 85 percent reduction in incidents by June 2010. Garmser, long a hot spot,
had been tamed, with security attacks falling by 90 percent in the spring of
2011. Taliban attacks in Marja dropped by half, from almost 1,600 in 2011
to 782 in 2012. More than security improvements were noted. By early 2012,
bazaars and shops had reopened with new wares to sell. Even in places where
U.S. forces had withdrawn, violence levels decreased. To be sure, the Taliban
had not been entirely defeated, but its efforts had been checked, and time for
security force development and government reforms had been gained.
Violence ultimately fell dramatically in cleared areas. Of the coalitions
nearly 3,500 KIA, almost half (1,505) occurred in just two provinces, Helmand
and Kandahar.163 In table 3, the human costs for the United States leading up
to and subsequent to the Surge period are depicted. U.S. fatalities had doubled
in 2009 while U.S. policy and strategy were being reassessed. The arrival of
the Marines at the end of 2009 and the steady flow of other U.S. forces in 2010
eventually expanded ISAF capacity to thwart Taliban intrusions and to con-
duct clearing operations. In addition to American losses, coalition fatalities
doubled from 2006 to the 3 years of escalated activity, from 54 KIA in 2006 to
roughly 100 a year from 20092011.164
The same trend holds for indigenous security forces as well. As noted in
table 4, the number of Afghan army/police fatality totals doubled from 2009 to
2011, and doubled again in 2012 as Afghan forces rapidly expanded capabili-
ties and became more engaged.
While American and ISAF casualty totals are a common metric, we must
also evaluate Afghanistans losses. Here a different story emerges, which shows
a steady total of Afghan civilians killed and wounded. This statistic appears
to reflect the Talibans deliberate shift to avoid well-prepared ISAF troops and
to concentrate on attacking softer targets and the local population. Figure 3
depicts both killed/wounded civilian totals from 20092013.165

127
Hoffman and Crowther

Table 3. U.S. Military Casualties by Year Through 2012

Year U.S. Killed in Action U.S. Wounded in Action

2001 11 22
2002 49 74
2003 45 99
2004 52 217
2005 98 268
2006 99 403
2007 117 748
2008 155 795
2009 311 2,144
2010 499 5,247
2011 414 5,204
2012 310 2,877

Source: Susan G. Chesser, Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians, R41084 (Washington, DC: Congres-
sional Research Service, December 6, 2012); <http://icasualties.org/OEF/index.aspx>.

Table 4. Afghan National Army/Afghan National Police Fatalities, 20072012

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Army 209 226 282 519 550 1,200
Police 803 880 646 961 1,400 2,200
1,012 1,106 928 1,480 1,950 3,400

Source: Ian S. Livingstone and Michael OHanlon, Afghanistan Index: Also Including Selected Data on Pakistan (Wash-
ington, DC: The Brookings Institution, October 2014), figure 1.20, available at <www.brookings.edu/~/media/Pro-
grams/foreign%20policy/afghanistan%20index/index20141029.pdf>.

Another commonly used metric in counterinsurgency is the raw num-

ber of incidents initiated by the insurgents.166 This is a crude measure of the
outputs of the insurgency and its ability to plan/conduct attacks. It counts the
number of attacks, but not their scale or lethality. Data show that the pattern
of attacks mirrors the annual campaign season in Afghanistan and that the
number was not necessarily reduced by the surge adaptation. The increases in
2010 as Surge forces arrived and began operations reflect increased force size
and activity levels by ISAF in clearing contested areas.

128
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Figure 3. Afghan Civilian Casualties, 20092013

6,000
Killed Wounded
5,000

4,000
Casualties

3,000

2,000

1,000

0
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

An element in the overall adaptation selected in 2009 was the increased

emphasis on professionalizing the Afghanistan security forces and increasing
their capabilities to deal with the Taliban.167 Increased assistance levels and im-
proved training resources were made available in the summer of 2010. By the
fall of that year and over the past few years, there has been a measurable and
clear progression in units able to be either independent of coalition assistance
or effective with simply advisors.168 Table 5 depicts these performance levels
over time.169
Troop levels, incident rates, and casualties are only a crude measure of inputs
and effort on the security front. As a limited counterinsurgency-based strategy,
other lines of effort must also be assessed. There were dramatic results obtained
in the developmental and economic portions of the strategy, too. The other war
was not neglected.170 A number of nonmilitary achievements include:

n Over 715 kilometers (km) of the Kabul to Kandahar to Her-

at Highway were reconstructed, and another nearly 3,000 km of
paved and gravel roads were laid.
n Almost 700 clinics or health facilities were constructed or re-

furbished, and over 10,000 health workers were trained with over
$6 million of pharmaceuticals distributed.

129
Hoffman and Crowther

Table 5. Assessed Capability Levels of Afghan National Army, 20102013

Rating November April August December October March

Levels 2010 2011 2011 2011 2012 2013
Indepen- 0 1 1 7 20 35
dent with
advisors
Effective 47 56 60 68 72 99
with
advisors
Effective 35 55 56 63 22 16
with
partners
Develop- 46 32 22 16 7 10
ing
Awaiting 18 13 19 10 25 6
fielding

n 670 schools were constructed or refurbished and staffed with

65,000 teachers trained in modern teaching methods, and some
60 million textbooks were printed and distributed nationwide.
n School enrollment was 600 percent higher than before 2002,

and between 33 and 40 percent of the students in Afghanistan are

female. Some 11.5 million children are attending school across
the country, more than 10 times the number in 2001. Of those
11.5 million students, 4.7 million are female.
n Almost 500,000 hectares of land received improved irrigation.

n Some 30 million head of livestock were vaccinated/treated.

n Over 28,000 loans were made to small businesses, 75 percent

to women.
n Over 500 Provincial Reconstruction Team quick impact proj-

ects were completed.171

Not all of these improvements are tied to the additional resources the
President authorized, but they do demonstrate the substantial achievements
beyond security. In 2002, only 6 percent of Afghans had access to reliable elec-
tricity. Roughly 28 percent of the population has access to reliable electricity,
including more than 2 million people in Kabul.172 Less than 10 percent of the
country had access to rudimentary health care when the war started, and by

130
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

2009, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials claimed this num-
ber had increased to 65 percent.173 Afghanistans infant mortality rate was cut
by 25 percent. Schools are staffed by more than 180,000 teachers trained to Af-
ghan standards, and more than 52,000 candidates enrolled in Afghan teacher
training programs.174 These education programs are limited, with many teach-
ers unqualified by U.S. standards.175
Key performance parameters for other major objectives should also be
factored in, including improving the quality of national and provincial gov-
ernance, decreasing levels of corruption, and decreasing Pakistans negative
influence inside Afghanistan. Quantitative data for these objectives are not
evident, but most interviewees believe progress has been made. Progress on
the corruption front, however, has been limited. A September 2013 report
from the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction claimed
the United States has no discernable plan to fight corruption in Afghanistan,
following more than a decade of American involvement.176
All in all, one could question whether the progress made to date is sus-
tainable given Afghanistans limited overall capacity of government, its limit-
ed economy, and the capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces. Reports
today, years after the 2010 troop increase and resulting influx of attention,
now depict greater violence or increased Taliban threats against civilians.177
Yet the Afghan National Army (ANA) is still fighting and gaining compe-
tence despite high losses. There is little doubt of the Surges impact on re-
versing the Talibans momentum in 2010 or how the new strategy bolstered
ANA competence and confidence.178 Whether it can sustain this capability
over time remains to be seen.
Overall, the campaign was similar to Iraq in that the military compo-
nent delivered what it was designed to do. It bought space and time required
for institutional development of a weak state and fragile leadership. It was
not strategically effective in that the Karzai government struggled to en-
hance its capacity or minimize the perception of its corruption. The strategy
was sound in design but was dependent on both U.S. civilian capacity that
proved insufficient and changes from the Karzai leadership that were always
problematic at best. In this respect, Ambassador Eikenberry may have been
proved correct.

131
Hoffman and Crowther

Evaluating Assessment and Adaptation

This analytical effort now turns to the evaluation phase. This is not a compara-
tive analysis between two administrations.179 The strategic context and person-
alities and timing of these two different cases varied in many ways. What we
hope to identify here are common themes and issues attendant to strategic as-
sessments and strategic adaptations. We again apply our analytical framework
of the five assessment/adaptation decision factors to guide the evaluation.

Iraq
Performance Assessment Mechanisms. Assessments were widespread on
Iraq long before the Surge decision was made in December 2006. Assessments
began almost immediately after the bombing of the mosque in Samarra on
February 22, when General Casey asked what civil war would look like and
considered convening another Baghdad-based Red Cell to take a look at the
question.180 Khalilzad and Casey formed the Joint Strategic Planning and As-
sessments cell in February 2006.181 Casey continued to ask the right questions
throughout the summer of 2006.182 By the fall of 2006, when it became obvi-
ous that efforts in Iraq were failing, the National Security Council, Congress,
and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all developed their own analytic
groups to assess the situation in Iraq.
Collaborative Information-sharing Environment. The main obstacle to a
government-wide reassessment seems to have been Secretary Rumsfeld, who
refused to approve a formal effort.183 As such, groups such as the NSC per-
formed private assessments. This slowed interagency communications but
did not prevent them as Interagency Working Groups, deputies committees,
and principals committee meetings all continued on their regular schedules.
Communications between Washington and Iraq were constant. The MNF-I
chronology refers to a constant series184 of secure video teleconferences be-
tween MNF-I and the NSC, the Secretary of Defense, and the President. Casey
also returned to Washington periodically to render reports to Congress and
the Secretary of Defense. Communications within Iraq were also robust, with
Casey meeting regularly with his senior officers as well as visiting all of his
units deployed throughout Iraq.
Strategic Coordination. The NSC had already been deeply involved in
Iraq decisionmaking before the events of 2006. In her role as National Security

132
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Advisor, Condoleezza Rice produced the initial National Strategy for Victory in
Iraq in 2003 and produced an updated version in 2005. The NSC knew that the
wheels were coming off in Iraq in early 2006,185 but felt bureaucratically blocked
from performing a full-scale reassessment. The NSC eventually produced one
of the several assessments of the situation in Iraq in late 2006. To participants
on the NSC staff, the interagency coordination system performed well; they
argued their view [strongly], they interacted directly with the President, their
needs were addressed, and at the end of the day they came on-board.186 In
terms of strategic coordination, the Bush Surge can be seen as a thoroughly
structured decision process with intense Presidential engagement.187
The Surge decision in Iraq was no less controversial inside the Bush ad-
ministration, and the President was personally engaged in the formulation of
the policy and details behind the strategy. While the President had a strong
instinct on where he wanted to go in terms of the Surge, his Cabinet was
much more divided. The NSC had done estimates on troop requirements, and
numerous staff members favored the Surge. The National Security Advisor
worked to ensure the Presidents staff gave him all the options, not only what
they thought he wanted or what the Defense Department would support.188
President Bush wanted his team to be on board, but key NSC members
were reluctant. The Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State
were not completely sure that they agreed with the Presidents decision. There
were senior-level inputs from Defense and State that argued Iraq was essen-
tially a civil war that was best to be avoided.189 As noted earlier, the combatant
and theater commanders were against the Surge, as were the Chairman and
the Joint Chiefs.
Decision Authorization Clarity. In 2006, Iraq decisionmaking was under-
stood, but more than one actor was making strategic decisions. Specifically,
Secretary Rumsfeld ran the war while President Bush gave strategic guidance.
His guidance was direct but did not necessarily shape the way the war was be-
ing prosecuted. As an example, on his June 14, 2006, visit to Iraq, President
Bush, after receiving a briefing, stated, [W]e have to win.190 This was clear
guidance but not detailed enough to shape how the war was being fought. Sec-
retary Rumsfeld, on the other hand, was asking questions such as How many
[Iraqi security forces (ISF)] are there really? How many did the Iraqis really
need? Did we have an effective methodology for tracking their development?

133
Hoffman and Crowther

How was the ISF development effort integrated into the overall strategy?191
President Bush was not the sole decisionmaker until after the November 2006
elections, when he said of his nomination of Robert Gates as Defense Secretary,
Hell provide the department with a fresh perspective and new ideas on how
America can achieve our goals in Iraq.192 President Bush took charge of Iraq
decisionmaking and was clearly the sole decider about the future of Iraq be-
tween mid-November 2006 and the Surge announcement on January 7, 2007.
Strategic Coherence. The various military adaptations in Iraq in 2006
clearly failed to dampen insurgent violence.193 Political influence was even less
successful. Although Ambassador Khalilzad sought to influence Iraqi deci-
sionmaking in 2006, he failed, as seen by the length of time it took to form a
new government, a lack of national reconciliation efforts by the new govern-
ment, and a lack of cooperation on the part of Prime Minister Maliki, who did
not allow targeting of Shiite groups until December 2006. The new approach
announced in January 2007 was a logical and comprehensive whole-of-gov-
ernment approach, although the public face of the Surge was a larger U.S. mil-
itary force required to reduce the high levels of violence, which would allow
the political and economic efforts to succeed. Additionally, even though the
emerging Awakening in Anbar Province was not widely understood at the
time, it was consistent with the logic of the Surge decision, including increased
engagement, focus on population protection, and corresponding levels of po-
litical and economic cooperation. The Surge was executed over the next year
and a half and continued to adapt. It did succeed in buying time for a political
solution in Iraq.

Afghanistan
Performance Assessment Mechanisms. State-of-the-art operational assess-
ment leaves much to be desired, and there is little reason to believe that stra-
tegic assessment is any better. Multiple assessments by RAND, NATO Allies,
and Service schools have concluded that complex collection systems used in
Afghanistan did not meet the needs of policy or military decisionmakers. One
group of scholars argues that assessments often proceed from flawed assump-
tions with little real-world evidence. The varied cast of agencies performing
assessments can at once be criticized for being too complex in their method-
ology and too simplistic in their analysis. This has resulted in understandable

134
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

disenchantment with the assessments process.194 As noted by another study

on deficiencies in operational assessments:

The disconnect between counterinsurgency theory and the assessments

process that had plagued operations assessment in Vietnam re-emerged
and the result has been equally frustrating. The promise of technological
advancement and the effects-based framework to help make sense of
the vast amount of data coming from both theaters has fallen short.
Once again, the pitfalls in trying to quantify complex dynamics has [sic]
made the production of accurate and useful assessments a persistently
elusive aim.195

In particular, these analyses question the transparency and credibility of

the operational assessments. One scholar concluded, The flaws in the cur-
rently used approaches are sufficiently egregious that professional military
judgment on assessments is, rightfully, distrusted.196 The challenges in Af-
ghanistan were the complexity of the counterinsurgency effort and compli-
cations of a large coalition. An extensive effort was put into data collection,
but it was focused on operational and tactical data and was difficult to raise
to strategic audiences. The ingrained optimism of the U.S. military may be an
additional complicating factor.197
In Afghanistan, General McChrystal knew the critical important of as-
sessment and indicators at both levels of war and for different audiences. He
specifically understood that ISAF needed to identify and refine appropriate in-
dicators to assess progress, clarifying the difference between operational mea-
sures of effectiveness critical to practitioners on the ground and strategic mea-
sures more appropriate to national capitals.198 Both strategic and operational
assessments in Afghanistan were clouded by uncertainty over the mission. In
the presence of confusion over policy aims and strategy, the component agen-
cies tended to define their contributions and metrics in terms of inputs or
traditional tasks.199
McChrystals strategic review, augmented by volunteer scholars, is an ex-
ception that warrants more study. That report proved to be a truly strategic as-
sessment, even if its orientation focused narrowly on defining the requirements
for a fully resourced counterinsurgency effort. It answered the presumed ques-

135
Hoffman and Crowther

tion about defeating the Taliban to succeed in Afghanistan as opposed to clear

delineation of national interests, policy, and options. While the ISAF review
proved quite impressive, it lacked a broad enough charter and representation
to be the basis for subsequent NSC deliberations. Further study is warranted
to determine if future theater commands should be tasked to undertake such
strategic assessments given their priorities and largely military structure.
Collaborative Information-sharing Environment. In this portion of the
Afghanistan case study, we found limitations stemming from Pentagon prac-
tices in framing options and a desire by DOD and the Joint Staff to unite be-
hind the theater commands assessment and strategy rather than explore dif-
ferent missions and different strategies. The Presidents desire for disciplined
debate, his request for options, and his explicit discomfort with early portions
of the debate suggest that information-sharing was limited. The Presidents
reaching out to his staff and to the Vice Chairman to gain additional insights
and to push for more constrained options suggest that this component of the
process was not fully satisfied.
Additionally, there is considerable agreement among participants that the
candor and trust levels were corrupted early in the process and negatively im-
pacted the decisionmaking process. On several occasions, speeches, leaks, and
comments to the media or Congress inadvertently created the impression that
the military was maneuvering the President into a box.200 Civil-military rela-
tions are abetted by an open and professional tenor, which results in quality
discourse and sound policy decisions and strategies.201 This discourse is best
achieved in a climate of trust and candor, but this decision process was colored
by a lack of trust.
Strategic Coordination. In the case of Afghanistan initially, the NSC was
not aware of confusion over the mission, resource gaps, or inconsistent objec-
tives. However, with the personal involvement and pushing of the President,
discrete policy options were developed and debated. Ultimately, again with
the deliberate engagement of the President, a consensus between competing
factions on both the aim and ways of a strategy were hashed out.
If there were weak spots in the Surge adaptation, the new approach did
not create additional political leverage and conditionality for Karzai to reform
his government and mitigate levels of corruption and incompetence. There is
little doubt that security would be enhanced and that additional time could be

136
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

gained by slowing and reversing Taliban momentum. This injection of addi-

tional forces could lead to a reconsideration by Taliban leaders that the United
States was increasingly committed to securing its interests, which could lead
to mutually beneficial negotiations within Afghanistan. Furthermore, the NSC
decision did not assess and resolve the viability of the Afghan security forces
to meet their recruiting goals and minimum effectiveness within the resources
and timelines framed by the President. Creating sustainable Afghan National
Security Forces would clearly be a longer term but relevant issue if U.S. secu-
rity interests were to be served. Finally, the State Departments contributions
were long on promise and short on delivery. Both the strategic assessment
and oversight should have tested States capacity to actually support the plan.
Because of these nonmilitary elements, the strategic coordination phase was
deliberate and robust but less than fully satisfactory.
Decision Authorization Clarity. There appears little doubt that the Presi-
dent was fully immersed and invested in the final strategic decisions in 2009.
However, the six-page strategic memorandum President Obama purportedly
authored contained contradictions. The President apparently intended that the
lesson of unclear objectives from Vietnam would not be repeated, based on a
reading of Gordon Goldsteins Lessons in Disaster.202 While intended to reduce
ambiguity and reflect his commitment to the decision, the Presidents strategic
guidance evidences distinct tensions between the diagnosis of the problems in
Afghanistan and a limited allocation of resources and time.
Clarity was augmented by the discourse of the principals and the Presi-
dents direct question to each to expressly assent to the final strategy. The ISAF
commander may have had some questions from the inauguration through late
November as to what the new administration really wanted to achieve in Af-
ghanistan. That doubt or ambiguity was clarified during the Surge debate. Our
reading of the November 29 memo reinforces the clarity of the commanders
intent. The U.S. goal in Afghanistan was to deny safe haven to al Qaeda and
to deny the Taliban the ability to overthrow the Afghan government. The mil-
itary mission was defined in six operational objectives, which were to be lim-
ited in scope and scale to only what is necessary to attain the U.S. goal.203 In
case there was any question, the Presidents memo noted, This approach is not
fully resourced counterinsurgency or nation building.204 But at the same time,
the President articulated numerous military and civilian tasks at the opera-

137
Hoffman and Crowther

tional level that are fully consistent with a broad counterinsurgency approach.
The guidance instructs the military to reverse the Talibans momentum, deny
it access to and control of key population centers and lines of communication,
disrupt the insurgency and its al Qaeda allies, and degrade their capability to
the point where Afghan National Security Forces could manage the threat.
There is little doubt that the President reshaped the missions scale, authorized
resources for specific purposes, and introduced a temporal dimension fram-
ing a faster introduction of U.S. forcesand a planned assessment and with-
drawal. But while he narrowed the mission, he authorized a substantial force
to accomplish many challenging tasks in a tighter timeframe. Moreover, the
tighter timeframe was belatedly introduced into the debate. Overall, we judge
this element of the framework as only partially satisfied.
Strategic Coherence. The adaptations proposed by the Obama administra-
tion in 2009 sought to better align U.S. strategy with policy aims, but ended up
focusing almost entirely on the military meansthe size and duration of the
Surgerather than the possible ways. Despite references to the centrality of
Afghan politics and governance throughout the strategy review, there is little
evidence that alternative political strategies were considered.
As Secretary Gates noted, the concept of an efficient, corruption free,
effective Afghan central government was a fantasy.205 By 2009 there was
growing recognition that the highly centralized power structure of the Af-
ghan government created through the 2001 Bonn Agreement and 2004 con-
stitution was resented and becoming untenable.206 While McChrystals staff
was cognizant of the need for a bottom-up approach to complement efforts
to build the capacity of the central government, neither the 2009 campaign
plan nor the White Houseled review process generated alternative political
strategies to induce Kabul to devolve power, or bypass it by delivering U.S.
assistance directly to subnational governments.207 Despite a rhetorical nod
to working with the Karzai government when we can, working around him
when we must, U.S. strategy remained dependent on the willingness of the
Afghan government to implement reforms that involved reducing control
and ceding power to rivals. As in most counterinsurgencies, the central gov-
ernment proved reluctant to do so, and the Obama administration did not
integrate efforts to compel Kabuls cooperation or bypass it in pursuit of U.S.
policy goals.208

138
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

The Surge decision better defined U.S. core interests, policy, and plans.
Were that the total criteria, we would judge the strategy review a success. How-
ever, the decision was promulgated as both a Surge of military and nonmilitary
resources and a defined time limit. This had some utility in that a sense of
urgency was not only put in the deployment of troops, but it also generated
the perception of limited U.S. commitment to success in Afghanistan. This sig-
naled to both our allies and regional powers that American patience was wan-
ing and could be outlasted. This may have been necessary to satisfy domestic
politics, but there is an argument that this did not contribute to success. More-
over, the civilian and political components of the Surge were not as integrated
into the final strategy, leaving it less coherent in implementation.

Insights
Performance Assessment Mechanisms. Assessments in Afghanistan proved
more problematic due to that campaigns dynamics, producing numerous rec-
ommendations for innovative solutions.209 Assessment in both campaigns was
complex and evolutionary in development. NATO produced a major evalua-
tion of the transparency and credibility of assessment methods:

Like Vietnam, both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring

Freedom . . . have been relatively ill-defined campaigns with shifting
strategic end state objectives. In both of these campaigns, senior lead-
ers across the various coalition nations demanded reams of quanti-
tative data from their operational commanders which, in some cases,
may have been an attempt to compensate for a lack of operational and
strategic clarity and the inability to discern meaningful progress over
time.210

That study reports that at one time a regional command in Afghanistan

demanded that subordinate units collect and report some 400 different met-
rics. A senior assessment officer in Kabul estimated that there were more than
2,000 mandatory reportable quantitative metrics leveraged on subordinate
units across the theater in 2011.211 In Iraq, General Casey understood the need
to measure progress at the strategic level. He also faced the discrepancy be-
tween analysis and public opinion:

139
Hoffman and Crowther

Going into Iraq, we made a conscious decision not to use enemy casual-
tiesbody countto measure strategic progress. I believe that was the
right decision, but the unintended consequence was that our casualties
were reported and the enemys were not. It appeared to some domestic
audiences that the enemy had the upper handwhich was not at all
true. Over time, I began selectively reporting enemy losses to give a more
balanced picture of the situation to our home audiences.212

Impatience in Washington influenced assessment mechanisms, accord-

ing to a theater commander. General Casey has recounted that when looking
at ways to measure progress at the strategic level, he sought to demonstrate
steady progress toward an ultimate endstate. But as these major events took
months and even years to accomplish, I found that they did not compete with
the daily reports of casualties and violence as a means of expressing our prog-
ress. Over time and by virtue of the medias focus on visceral imagery and vi-
olence levels, casualties and violence became the de facto measure of strategic
progress in Iraq, and I should have forced a more in-depth discussion with my
civilian leadership about their strategic expectations.213
Continuous monitoring of strategy implementation is part of the portfo-
lio of the NSC, OSD, and Joint Staff (as well as any other agencies involved in
the conflict). Periodic reassessment is important and necessary for the suc-
cessful prosecution of an extended conflict and should include a total relook
of everything that went into strategy development, including intelligence and
assumptions. Optimistic progress reports should also be examined rigorously.
Reassessments must be brutally objective and consider external and diverse
viewpoints (including those of coalition partners).
New facts and a reassessment should have produced a strategy read-
justment for Iraq by mid-2006 when everyone in Washington knew that the
wheels were coming off in the country. A lack of mechanisms for routine mon-
itoring, and a lack of cooperation by the Secretary of Defense, prevented the
needed reassessment. The NSC and the deputys committee should routinely
develop those mechanisms rather than depend on ad hoc taskings. Oversight
and continuous evaluation must become more routine but not tie up valuable
executive time in tactical matters.

140
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

The Joint Staff evolved its structures to support operations and also pro-
vided resources to staff the NSC as needed. Unique assessment models (that
is, the council of colonels or the ISAF review team) were also employed to
stimulate strategic evaluation of ongoing wars. Further options for planning
cells or boards should be considered to stimulate the sustained capacity to op-
erationalize and continuously adapt ongoing U.S. strategies, and these struc-
tural options should examine representation beyond just military resources.214
Given the importance of this element to initiating adaptation, a detailed study
on assessments should be commissioned.215
Collaborative Information-Sharing Environment. Our understanding of
Iraq and Afghanistan was profoundly thin and unbalanced. Strategy is driv-
en by and serves politics, and military operations take place in the political
environment of the state in which an intervention takes place. Understanding
the strategic context of an intervention is the first fundamental requirement of
policy formulation.216 Based on numerous crisis management situations, the
importance of a deeply grounded understanding of the sociopolitical com-
plexities and cultural awareness in an operational area cannot be overlooked
in policy and strategy development.217
Given the complex nature of contemporary conflict, integrated strate-
gy development and assessment processes are necessary. This includes civil-
ian-military integration within the U.S. Government as well as allies, part-
ners, and nonmilitary and multinational partners. The tenor of deliberation,
candor, and transparency should focus on maximizing the value of policy/
strategic assessments in reviews. These processes should focus on providing
decisionmakers with coherent options that consistently align ends, ways, and
means and identify rather than obscure assumptions and risks.
It is important for senior military leaders to understand the decisionmak-
ing process and to participate in that process fully. American history contains
examples of problems in meshing civilian and military perspectives.218 As
General Casey noted, Civil-military interaction around matters of policy and
strategy is inherently challenging. The issues are complex, the stakes are high,
and the backgrounds of the people involved can vary widely.219
Underlying the discourse in policymaking is a degree of mutual respect
and understanding between civilian and military leaders, and the exchange
of candid views and perspectives in the decisionmaking process. Senior joint

141
Hoffman and Crowther

leaders must strive to sustain a professional relationship with civilian policy-

makers and avoid appearances of going around or trying to negate Presidential
decisions. The absence of actual friction inside policy debates would be suspect,
but it should never be publicly evident, at least from military professionals.220
The experience of the past 14 years suggests that effective civilian and
military interaction is (and always has been) critical to the framing of real-
istic policy objectives and effective strategy.221 Senior military leaders should
understand how decisions are made, and it is important for senior-most offi-
cers to develop relationships with other agencies and officials. Military leaders
should not expect this process to comport with military planning steps follow-
ing a linear progress or flow diagram, and they should not expect the process
to be without friction. The existing NSC system has inherent tensions built
into it, which make it uncomfortable but productive. The diverse cultures of
the NSC create friction and promote better decisions than a top-driven model
that ignores different perspectives. Instead of fighting the process or trying to
impose a military framework on civilian politicians, military leaders should
understand the process and embrace it.222 DODs education programs should
be adapted to better prepare officers to accept that reality and work in a more
iterative way rather than expect the current school model of progressive and
deductive reasoning.223 Colin Grays metaphor of the strategy bridge may be
an appropriate way of thinking about the traffic of options and assessments
between policy and operational details.224
Senior military leaders should understand that influence and trust go to-
gether and that just as networking and developing relationships with peers
are important to professional success, the same relationship-building will pay
dividends with civilian political leaders in terms of access, understanding, and
trust.225
Strategic Coordination. Since the projected future operating environ-
ment involves extensive interactions with interagency, coalition, and host-na-
tion partners, coordinating the development of strategy and implementation
among this disparate group of actors will have even greater salience. During
reassessment, as during strategy development, senior military leaders should
be prepared to challenge assumptions and vague policy aims, as well as offer
creative options (ways) to satisfy desired ends.

142
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

A President and his policy team need options. These should include a full
range of credible options, not just the preferred solution. Options not wholly
acceptable or valid for military reasons may still be viable to policymakers and
should be incorporated even when they are not preferred or not supported.
If the President does not believe in the validity of options provided by the
military, he will get them elsewhere. The military did not give President Bush
a range of options for Iraq in 2006 until he insisted on their development, nor
did they give President Obama a range of options for Afghanistan in 2009. The
military must give the President views and options as well as pros and cons,
but must also give him options because, at the end of the day, he is the account-
able decisionmaker. As General Martin Dempsey observed, Thats what being
Commander in Chief is all about.226 A failure to provide more than a single
solution will cede the initiative to the NSC staff or other outlets.
Since war should be approached holistically, strategic reassessments and
adaptations require a whole-of-government and a whole-of-coalition ap-
proach. This is particularly true in periods in which the United States is en-
gaged in longer term state-building projects where all instruments of national
power are being employed at the operational and tactical levels. Effective strat-
egy incorporates more than physical effects and application of military power.
As such, senior military leaders need to be able to participate in and shape
strategy discussions involving the use of all elements of national power, not
just military strategy.227
Senior military leaders must be prepared to serve as the principal strategists
in these assessments, ensuring a coherent linkage between desired policy objec-
tives and the art of the possible. Policymakers are not generally school-trained
in the military decisionmaking process or educated to follow linear planning
processes. Instead, they are inclined to search iteratively for general options
and reverse-engineer specific objectives. The military is trained to do exactly
the opposite. This complicates the strategic conversation that must occur in
two directions. Military leaders and their strategy cells must be able to clearly
explain the tie between military actions and political objectives (explanation
up) while providing subordinate staffs with guidance to ensure that military
actions support political objectives (guidance down).
Military leaders should not expect clear, linear processing as taught in se-
nior schools, according to General Mattis. An important insight for senior

143
Hoffman and Crowther

policy advisors is to understand how decisions are made and how information
is processed and evaluated in the policy/strategy process. Policymakers are not
hardwired for lockstep templates or well prepared to execute a military-style
decisionmaking process out of joint doctrine. Most NSC staff officials will not
be graduates of joint professional military education programs. Civilian po-
litical officials will often explore an array of options without defining a firm
political endstate. They may be more comfortable exploring the art of the pos-
sible and examining political factors and risks differently. They may be more
comfortable with ambiguity, political elements, and other intangibles. While
embracing the fluid and iterative nature of policy and strategy formulation,
some tense interaction should be expected in keeping a coherent strategy to-
gether, especially during the discourse tied to potential changes in strategy
that is inherent to both assessment and adaptation.
It is important for senior military leaders to learn how to work within that
culture/system and not fight it.228 As former Chairman Mike Mullen noted:

Policy and strategy should constantly struggle with one another. Some
in the military no doubt would prefer political leadership that lays out
a specific strategy and then gets out of the way, leaving the balance of
the implementation to commanders in the field. But the experience of
the last nine years tells us two things: A clear strategy for military oper-
ations is essential; and that strategy will have to change as those oper-
ations evolve.229

There is a role for actors outside the formal planning regime in the formu-
lation and refinement of strategy. The Iraq Study Group and external inputs
from think tanks and individuals such as General Keane, Eliot Cohen, and
Stephen Biddle are examples. Senior joint leaders may want to prevent sources
and options from reaching the President, but in doing so they may not serve
the policy community well and could lose initiative and influence in the pro-
cess.
Coalitions are notoriously difficult to manage but are superior to the alter-
native of fighting alone. Timely coalition inputs into any assessment process
are better than selling a strategic shift after the decision to do so. This may be
more important during strategic reassessments than in initial interventions

144
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

due to the political impacts among international partners when we are con-
sidering changing course and speed. According to Admiral James G. Stavridis,
USN (Ret.), former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and now the dean of
the Fletcher School at Tufts University, the valuable experience that U.S. policy
and military leaders acquired in coalition-building and coalition management
should be captured and incorporated into leadership development programs.
Strategic Coherence. At the national level, policies and strategy are in-
separable. National strategies must focus on achieving national (and therefore
political) objectives. Because war is a political act, military strategies have to
be embedded in and supportive of overall national strategies. The latter must
address the use of all elements of national power, must be coherent, and must
have a strategic logic that links the various parts of the U.S. Government into
a whole-of-government approach. Americans expect their senior officers to be
articulate in if not expert at these grand strategies, not only military strategy.230
Civilian officials expect inputs from military leaders to be truly expert in their
appropriate lane about the application of military force, but they also prize
advice from senior officials who understand how the different components of
U.S. power are best applied coherently.231
In the recent past, the development and conduct of U.S. strategy have
lacked a common understanding and appreciation for strategy among the
Nations leaders. Policy guidance should be specific enough to drive theater/
campaign plans and be clearly linked to larger national interests and regional
concernsand reflect an appreciation for logic, costs, and risks. Senior mil-
itary leaders must often prepare to serve as the principal strategist in these
assessments, ensuring a coherent linkage between policy desires (that is, ob-
jectives) and the art of the possible. Policymakers want options, but these need
to be real options: they must be feasible and suitable, not merely expedient.232
There are claims that U.S. strategic adaptations ignored the political side
of the Surge. We do not concur with that assertion but did find policy dis-
cussions too often focused on the familiar military component (force levels,
deployment timelines, and so forth) and too little on the larger challenge of
state-building and host-nation capacity. In 2006, MNF-I formed a Red Cell,
while MNF-I and U.S. Embassy Baghdad formed the Joint Strategic Plans and
Assessments Cell, which produced combined joint campaign plans. Civil-mil-
itary interactions by U.S. leaders in Iraq with Maliki were intense, with both

145
Hoffman and Crowther

civilian and military leaders meeting Maliki together to send the message that
the two sides sought the same results.233 The political strategy to influence Kar-
zai was less effective, but in both cases the political component of the over-
all strategic shift was recognized and incorporated into U.S. policy decisions.
Execution and capacity shortfalls in nonmilitary aspects of both surges were
evident. Politics and governance at the micro level appear to increasingly have
an influence on policy and strategy from the bottom up.234 If true, leadership
development in military education should account for this.
Complex and wicked problems created by U.S. involvement in Iraq and
Afghanistan require comprehensive and integrated solutions from the strate-
gy toolkit. Both strategically and now operationally, we can expect to employ
multiple tools in a synergistic manner. As Admiral Mullen observed, Defense
and diplomacy are simply no longer discrete choices, one to be applied when
the other one fails, but must, in fact, complement one another throughout the
messy process of international relations.235 Because all the elements of nation-
al power must be brought to bear simultaneously to achieve national political
objectives, in the future struggles of the asymmetric counterinsurgent variety,
we ought to make it a precondition of committing our troops, that we will
do so only if and when the other instruments of national power are ready to
engage as well.236
During the conduct of both these adaptation cycles, there was an over-
emphasis on military issues and insufficient focus on governance, econom-
ic, and information lines of efforts. The military got well ahead of the other
instruments of power. Military leaders at all levels must be completely frank
about the limits of what military power can achieve, with what degree of risk,
and in what timeframe.237 They should also ensure that required supporting
components are in place to ensure that military resources are not being risked
without commensurate support from other agencies.

Conclusion
As this chapters epigraph notes, war is an audit of how well states have for-
mulated policies and strategies, and how well prepared their armed forces and
other tools are. Indeed, we go to war with the army we have and with an initial
strategy. But we rarely win wars with the same force or the same strategy. Wars
also require leaders to assess progress, recognize shortfalls, and resolve gaps

146
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

in strategy or operational method as the conflict evolves. This assessment and

adaptation function is often overlooked. As one historian concluded, Over
the course of the past century and a half, adaptation in one form or another
has been a characteristic of successful military institutions and human societ-
ies under the pressures of war. Yet he notes, often leaders attempt to impose
prewar conceptions on the war they are fighting, rather than adapt their as-
sumptions to reality.238
The same needs to be said for the highest level of government, and the
nexus of policy and strategy. Prewar conceptions of the conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan were eventually reassessed, and strategies and instruments were
adapted to reflect reality on the ground and changed circumstances. The past
14 years suggest that the framing of policy and implementation of a coherent
strategy remain challenges for the U.S. policymaking community. The conduct
of two wars has been impressive in many respects, particularly the adaptations
needed to conduct counterinsurgency and the contributions of the all-volun-
teer force in a protracted conflict. At the same time, the U.S. Government has
revealed weaknesses in understanding the strategic context that it was operat-
ing inand with initial policy and strategy development. The assessment and
adaptation processes captured in this chapter reflect belated recognition that
the United States was losing in both conflicts and that adapted responses were
required.
The insights gleaned from these two cases suggest common themes for
consideration. The development, implementation, and reshaping of policy and
strategy remain worthy of detailed historical analyses and greater study. This
chapter also concludes that we still have room for improvement in bridging
the policy/strategy discourse that abets initial strategy development and its
subsequent adaptation when unanticipated environmental conditions emerge.
Ultimately, the Nations best interests are served when strategy decisions are
the product of a rigorous system in which civilian policymakers have options
and are informed about risks.239 Thorough examination of a full range of fea-
sible options is required in such reviews. The interplay of political factors, in-
cluding coalition and domestic politics, must also be incorporated. Moreover,
civil-military relations are an important professional ethic and part of the
educational process for both civilian and military leaders.240 The capacity to
oversee implementation, conduct assessments of progress, and alter strategy

147
Hoffman and Crowther

under fire during wartime is a clear contributor to strategic success. The case
studies suggest also that institutionalizing these capacities at the strategic level
would be valuable.
Future leaders should draw upon these cases to enhance their under-
standing of strategic decisionmaking and the assessment/adaptation process-
es inherent to national security. There is little reason to believe that strategic
success in the future would not depend on the same qualities that generated
successful strategy and adaptation in the pastproactive rather than reactive
choices, flexibility over rigidity, and disciplined consistency instead of impro-
visation in applying force in the pursuit of political goals.241

Notes

1
Victor Davis Hanson, The Father of Us All: War and History (New York: Bloomsbury,
2010), 123124.
2
Dan Caldwell, Vortex of Conflict: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 262263.
3
On operational adaptations, see Richard H. Schultz, The Marines Take Anbar: The Four-
Year Fight Against Al Qaeda (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013); James Russell,
Innovation, Transformation, and War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009); Theo
Farrell, Frans Osinga, and James Russell, eds., Military Adaptation in Afghanistan (Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 2013).
4
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Decade at War: Enduring Lessons from a Decade of Operations,
Vol. 1 (Suffolk, VA: Center for Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis, 2012); Elizabeth
Young, Decade of War: Enduring Lessons from a Decade of Operations, PRISM 4, no. 2
(March 2013), 123141.
5
Scott S. Gartner, Strategic Assessment in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997),
163.
6
Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), Turning Ideas into Action (Arlington, VA:
PNSR, September 2009), 101104.
7
For a distillation of National Security Council (NSC) process challenges, see PNSR,
Forging a New Shield (Arlington, VA: PNSR, November 2008), 221256.
8
Risa A. Brooks, Shaping Strategy, The Civil-Military Politics of Strategic Assessment
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008) 3435.
9
We thank Dr. T.X. Hammes for this insight.

148
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

10
John E. Mueller, The Search for the Breaking Point in Vietnam, International Studies
Quarterly 24, no. 4 (December 1980), 497519; Gregory A. Daddis, The Problem of
Metrics: Assessing Progress and Effectiveness in the Vietnam War, War in History 19, no.
1 (January 2012), 7398.
Gregory A. Daddis, No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in
11

the Vietnam War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 234.
Graham Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 19621967
12

(Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2006), 295.

13
For challenges in assessment of counterinsurgencies, see Anthony Cordesman, The
Uncertain Metrics of Afghanistan (and Iraq) (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic
and International Studies, May 2007); James Clancy and Chuck Crossett, Measuring
Effectiveness in Irregular Warfare, Parameters 37, no. 2 (Summer 2007), 88100; Jonathan
Schroden, Measures for Security in a Counterinsurgency, Journal of Strategic Studies 32,
no. 5 (October 2009), 715744; Jonathan Schroden, Why Operations Assessments Fail:
Its Not Just the Metrics, Naval War College Review 64, no. 4 (Autumn 2011).
Interview with Major General James N. Mattis, in Al-Anbar Awakening Vol. I: Ameri-
14

can Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq, 20042009, ed. Timothy S.
McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009),
38.
Ben Connable, Embracing the Fog of War: Assessment and Metrics in Counterinsurgency
15

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2012), xxi.

Jason Campbell, Michael E. OHanlon, and Jacob Shapiro, How to Measure the War,
16

Policy Review, no. 157 (October/November 2009), 1530.

Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War
17

(New York: Free Press, 1996).

18
Ibid., 222.
Allan R. Millett, Williamson Murray, and Kenneth H. Watman, The Effectiveness of
19

Military Organizations, in Military Effectiveness, The First World War, Vol. 1, ed. Allan R.
Millett and Williamson Murray (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988), 130.
Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, Lessons of War, The National Interest, Winter
20

1988/1989.
21
Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation: With Fear of Change (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2012), 2935. Murray notes that it is crucial to examine the problems
associated with adaptation at the strategic level because that is where statesmen and mil-
itary leaders have found the greatest difficulties, and where the costs for adaptation often
represent too high a price.
Christopher J. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for
22

Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare (Washington, DC: Institute for World Politics
Press, 2013); and Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew Schmidt, and Berit G. Fitzsimmons,

149
Hoffman and Crowther

MRAPs, Irregular Warfare and Pentagon Reform, INSS Strategic Perspectives 6 (Washing-
ton, DC: NDU Press, June 2009).
23
See Theo Farrell, Military Adaptation in War, in Military Adaptation in the Afghani-
stan War, ed. Theo Farrell, Frans Osinga, and James Russell (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2013).
24
Brooks, 3442.
On NSC evolutions, see David Rothkopf, National Insecurity: American Leadership in
25

an Age of Fear (New York: PublicAffairs, 2014), 148214. On proposals to adapt the NSC,
see Jack A. LeCuyer, A National Staff for the 21st Century (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic
Studies Institute, December 2012).
On coherence, see F.G. Hoffman, Grand Strategy: Fundamental Considerations, Orbis
26

58, no. 4 (Fall 2014), 479480.

L. Elaine Halchin, The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA): Origin, Characteristics,
27

and Institutional Authorities, RL32370 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service,

updated June 6, 2005).
President Names Envoy to Iraq: Remarks by the President in Photo Opportunity
28

After Meeting with the Secretary of Defense, May 6, 2003, available at <http://georgew-
bush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030506-3.html>.
Nora Bensahel et al., After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq (Santa
29

Monica, CA: RAND, 2006), xviixviii.

Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin,
30

2006). Chapters 8 and 9 describe in detail the descent into violence.

31
The Ottomans and the British both sought to rule Mesopotamia through Sunni Mus-
lims.
32
Ahmed S. Hashim, The Sunni Insurgency in Iraq (Washington, DC: Middle East Insti-
tute, August 15, 2003), available at <www.middleasti.org/scholars/editorial/sunni-insur-
gency.iraq>.
33
John Abizaid specifically stated that the opposition was conducting a classical guerril-
la-type campaign against us. Its low-intensity conflict, in our doctrinal terms, but its war,
however you describe it. See Department of Defense News Briefing, July 16, 2003, avail-
able at <www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2845>. See chapter one
of this volume for a broader discussion of this issue.
Christopher M. Schnaubelt, After the Fight: Interagency Operations, Parameters
34

(Winter 20052006), 48.

Sandy Cochran and Kelly Howard, comps., Multi-National ForceIraq Chronology
35

Reference, November 12, 2008, 17. Manuscript in possession of author. Hereafter, MNF-I
Chronology.
36
Ibid., 29.

150
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

37
Ibid., 35.
Bradford R. Higgins, Joint Strategic Planning in Iraq: Optimism is not a PlanNeed-
38

ed Changes for a Long War, in Towards a Comprehensive Approach: Integrating Civilian

and Military Concepts of Strategy, Forum Paper 15, ed. Christopher M. Schnaubelt (Rome:
NATO Defense College, March 2011), 134.
Ibid., 136. This was one of the results of the comprehensive review Zalmay Khalilzad
39

ordered in July 2005.

40
David Petraeus had previously commanded a division in the invasion of Iraq in 2003
and directed the rebuilding of Iraqi security forces as commander of Multi-National Secu-
rity Transition CommandIraq in 20042005.
41
Conrad C. Crane, Minting COIN: Principles and Imperatives for Combating Insurgen-
cy, Air & Space Power Journal (Winter 2007), 5.
42
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was still asking whether the United States was correct in
calling Iraq an insurgency as late as June 13, 2006, when he sent a snowflake (or Secre-
tary of Defense action note) to General George Casey, who replied on July 8, 2006, that
insurgency is very much a component of the struggle in Iraq. For Rumsfelds snow-
flake, see MNF-I Chronology, 297; for Caseys reply, see MNF-I Chronology, 303. In 2006,
General James L. Jones stated, he believed that Rumsfeld so controlled everything, even
at the earliest stages, that [the Joint Chiefs of Staff] were not generating independent mili-
tary advice as they had a legal obligation to do. See Bob Woodward, State of Denial (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 470.
43
Gian P. Gentile, Misreading the Surge Threatens U.S. Armys Conventional Capabili-
ties, World Politics Review, March 4, 2008, available at <www.worldpoliticsreview.com/
articles/1715/misreading-the-surge-threatens-u-s-armys-conventional-capabilities>.
44
Crane, 1923.
Stephen D. Biddle, Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon, Foreign Affairs, March/April
45

2006, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iraq/2006-03-01/seeing-bagh-

dad-thinking-saigon>.
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The
46

White House, March 16, 2006), 8.

47
Peter D. Feaver states that the review effort that produced the National Strategy for
Victory in Iraq was more of a tactical adjustment to an overall strategy that the Bush
administration believed to be fundamentally sound rather than a thoroughgoing reformu-
lationIraq Strategy 1.4 or 1.5, rather than 2.0. See Feaver, Right to Be Right: Civil-Mili-
tary Relations and the Iraq Surge Decision, International Security 35, no. 4 (Spring 2011),
100.
48
Bob Woodward, The War Within (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 4.
Joseph A. Christoff, Rebuilding Iraq: More Comprehensive National Strategy Needed to
49

Help Achieve U.S. Goals, GAO-06-788 (Washington, DC: Government Accountability

151
Hoffman and Crowther

Office, July 2006), available at <www.gao.gov/new.items/d06788.pdf>.

50
Stephen D. Biddle, interview by Frank G. Hoffman, January 23, 2015.
51
Peter D. Feaver, interview by G. Alexander Crowther, November 18, 2008.
52
Dwight D. Eisenhower realized soon after he took office that time was critical, but did
not see this as a reason for making a snap judgment. He wanted to make an informed
decision, which he thought would be possible only if a proper methodology was used.
He decided to conduct a systematic policy exercise that would review U.S. foreign policy
objectives and recommend a course of action. The exercise came to be known as Project
Solarium after the room in which Eisenhower made the decision to pursue it. See Tyler
Nottberg, Solarium for Today, The Eisenhower Institute, available at <www.eisenhower-
institute.org/about/living_history/solarium_for_today.dot>.
Fred Barnes, How Bush Decided on the Surge, The Weekly Standard, February 4, 2008,
53

available at <www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/658dwgrn.
asp>.
54
MNF-I Chronology, 264.
55
Ibid., 266.
56
Ibid., 275.
57
Ibid., 279.
Institute for the Study of War, Operation Together Forward I, available at <www.
58

understandingwar.org/operation/operation-together-forward-i>.
59
MNF-I Chronology, 301.
60
Ibid., 305.
61
Ibid., 309.
Edward Wong and Damien Cave, Iraqi Death Toll Rose Above 3,400 in July, New York
62

Times, August 15, 2006.

President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq Participate in Press Availability, The
63

White House, July 25, 2006, available at <http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/

news/releases/2006/07/20060725.html>.
64
Ibid.
65
MNF-I Chronology, 319.
Iraq Study Group Report (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, December
66

11, 2006), 15.

Al Pessin, U.S. Acknowledges Baghdad Security Plan in Trouble, 51VOA.com, Octo-
67

ber 19, 2006; Institute for the Study of War, Operation Together Forward II, available at
<www.understandingwar.org/operation/operation-together-forward-ii>.
68
Feaver, interview.

152
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

69
Feaver, Right to be Right, 102.
70
Ibid.
71
Barnes, How Bush Decided.
72
Peter Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the
Iraq War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).
73
Bing West, The Strongest Tribe (New York: Bantam, 2009), 202.
Text of U.S. Security Advisers Iraq Memo, New York Times, November 29, 2006,
74

available at <www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/world/middleeast/29mtext.html?pagewant-
ed=all&_r=0>.
75
Feaver, Right to Be Right, 104.
Feaver, interview; Stephen J. Hadley, interview by Joseph J. Collins and Nicholas Ros-
76

tow, October 7, 2014.

77
Rumsfelds Memo of Options for Iraq War, New York Times, November 6, 2006.
78
The Dayton process placed various Balkan actors on an airbase in Dayton, Ohio, where
the United States and other outside players assisted the actors to achieve a compromise.
This would require a neutral location where leaders from all sides could discuss the situa-
tion in isolation.
Press Conference by the President, The White House, November 8, 2006, available at
79

<www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24269>.
80
Feaver, interview.
81
Peter Mansoor points out that this was the main security conclusion of the report.
82
Iraq Study Group Report.
83
Stephen Biddle et al., Iraq: What Now? A Foreign Affairs Roundtable, Foreign Affairs,
December 7, 2006, available at <http://adps.foreignaffairs.com/discussions/roundtables/
iraq-what-now>.
84
Ibid.
85
Ibid.
86
Ibid.
87
Ibid.
Peter Baker, U.S. Not Winning War in Iraq, Bush Says for 1st Time, Washington Post,
88

December 20, 2006.

89
Barnes, How Bush Decided.
Jack Keane and Frederick W. Kagan, The Right Type of Surge, Washington Post,
90

December 27, 2006.

153
Hoffman and Crowther

Presidents Address to the Nation, The White House, January 10, 2007, available at
91

<http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-7.html>.
92
See Neil Smith and Sean MacFarland, Anbar Awakens: The Tipping Point, Military
Review, MarchApril 2008; John A. McCary, The Anbar Awakening: An Alliance of In-
centives, Washington Quarterly 32, no. 1 (January 2009); and Michael R. Gordon and Ber-
nard Trainor, The Endgame (New York: Pantheon, 2012), chapter 14; Mansoor discusses
the role of Petraeus and MNF-I in helping to spread the Awakening across large portions
of Iraq.
93
Al-Sadr Declares Ceasefire in Iraq, The Guardian (London), August 29, 2006, available
at <www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/29/iraq.usa>.
Perhaps the best overall source for the Surge discussion is found in John R. Ballard,
94

David W. Lamm, and John K. Wood, From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The U.S. at War in
Afghanistan and Iraq (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012), 214259.
95
Seth G. Jones, Afghanistans Growing Security Challenge, in State Building, Security,
and Social Change in Afghanistan, ed. Ruth Rennie (Washington, DC: The Asia Foun-
dation, 2008); Seth G. Jones, The Rise of Afghanistans Insurgency: State Failure and
Jihad, International Security 32, no. 4 (Spring 2008), 740; Antonio Giustozzi, Koran,
Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2008).
Carlotta Gall, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 20012014 (Boston: Hough-
96

ton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 196.

Ballard, Lamm, and Wood, 214225; Ambassador Douglas Lute, interview by Richard
97

D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins, March 11, 2015.

98
Bob Woodward, Obamas Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 8890; Peter
Baker, How Obama Came to Plan for Surge in Afghanistan, New York Times, December
5, 2009.
99
White Paper of the Interagency Policy Groups Report on U.S. Policy Toward Afghani-
stan and Pakistan, Washington, DC, March 27, 2009, available at <www.whitehouse.gov/
assets/documents/Afghanistan-Pakistan_White_Paper.pdf>.
Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, The White
100

House, March 27, 2009.

Ibid., 1. See also Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoir of a Secretary at War (New York:
101

Knopf, 2014).
Stephen D. Biddle, Is it Worth it? The Difficult Case for War in Afghanistan, The
102

American Interest 4, no. 6 (July/August 2009), 411.

On Richard Holbrookes role, see Vali Nasr, The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign
103

Policy in Retreat (New York: Doubleday, 2013).

Author discussion with Major General Gordon Davis, USA, November 25, 2014; Bid-
104

dle, interview.

154
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Matthew C. Brand, General McChrystals Strategic Assessment: Evaluating the Operation-

105

al Environment in Afghanistan in the Summer of 2009, Research Paper 2011-1 (Maxwell

Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, July 2011).
106
Biddle, interview.
COMISAF Initial Assessment, August 30, 2009, 1-11-3, available at <www.washing-
107

tonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092100110.html>.
Stanley A. McChrystal, My Share of the Task: A Memoir (New York: Portfolio, 2013),
108

330.
Woodward, Obamas Wars, 175183; McChrystal, 316338, on the review overall, and
109

333334, on the leak; Bob Woodward, McChrystal, More Forces or Mission Failure,
Washington Post, September 21, 2009.
110
McChrystal, 21.
Woodward, McChrystal, 1; Eric Schmitt and Thomas Shanker, General Calls for
111

More U.S. Troops to Avoid Afghan Failure, New York Times, September 21, 2009, A1.
Karl W. Eikenberry and Stanley A. McChrystal, U.S. Government Integrated Civil-
112

ian-Military Campaign Plan for Support to Afghanistan, August 9, 2009, available at <www.
comw.org/qdr/fulltext/0908eikenberryandmcchrystal.pdf>.
Scott Wilson and Ann Kornblut, White House eyeing narrower war effort; Top officials
113

challenge generals assessment, Washington Post, October 2, 2009; Rajiv Chandrasekaran,

Civilian, military officials at odds over resources needed for Afghan counterinsurgency,
Washington Post, October 8, 2009, A1; Peter Baker and Eric Schmitt, Several possible
Afghan strategies, none a clear choice, New York Times, September 30, 2009, A14.
Peter Baker, Obama Meets Top Afghan Commander as He Mulls Change in War Strat-
114

egy, New York Times, October 2, 2009, A1.

115
McChrystal, 350.
Peter Baker, Elizabeth Bumiller, and Thomas Shanker, Obama Hears Generals Troop
116

Request for Afghanistan, New York Times, October 9, 2009, A10.

Peter Baker, Inside the Situation Room: How a War Plan Evolved, New York Times,
117

December 6, 2009, A1; Anne Kornblut, Scott Wilson, and Karen DeYoung, Obama
Pressed for Faster Surge; Afghan Review a Marathon, Washington Post, December 6,
2009, A1.
Woodward, Obamas Wars, 278. See also Leon Panetta with Jim Newton, Worthy Fights:
118

A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (New York: Penguin, 2014).

Carter Malkasian and J. Kael Weston, War Downsized: How to Accomplish More with
119

Less, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2012.

M. Landler and J. Zeleny, U.S. envoys views reveal rifts on Afghan policy; Ex-generals
120

opposition bolsters the case for those skeptical of troop buildup, International Herald Tri-

155
Hoffman and Crowther

bune (London), November 14, 2009, 3; Eric Schmitt, U.S. Envoys Cables Show Worries
on Afghan Plans, New York Times, January 25, 2010, A1.
121
McChrystal, interview.
122
Schmitt, U.S. Envoys Cables Show Worry.
David Petraeus, interview by Joseph J. Collins and Nathan White, April 2, 2015; Stanley
123

A. McChrystal, interview by Joseph J. Collins, Frank G. Hoffman, and Nathan White,

March 27, 2015.
Woodward, Obamas Wars, 225; Peter Baker, How Obama Came to Plan for Surge in
124

Afghanistan, New York Times, December 5, 2009, A1.

Kevin P. Marsh, The Contemporary Presidency: The Administrator as Outsider: James
125

Jones as National Security Advisor, Presidential Studies Quarterly 42, no. 4 (December
2012), 827842. On the Secretary of Defenses concerns about an NSC process that takes
an advocacy position, see Gates, 385. Michle A. Flournoy, interview by Frank G. Hoff-
man and Joseph J. Collins, January 8, 2015.
Peter Baker and Thomas Shanker, A Pragmatist, Gates Reshapes Past Policies He
126

Backed, New York Times, September 21, 2009, A1; M. Landler and Thomas Shanker,
Clinton and Gates Join Forces in Debate on Afghanistan Buildup, New York Times, Octo-
ber 13, 2009, A8. On the Secretary of States views, see Hillary Clinton, Hard Choices (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 129149.
127
Woodward, Obamas Wars, 235237, 245, 272273.
John Burns, McChrystal Rejects Scaling Down Afghan Military Aims, New York
128

Times, October 2, 2009, A12; Woodward, Obamas Wars, 193194.

Elizabeth Bumiller and David Sanger, 3 Obama advisers favor more troops for Af-
129

ghanistan, New York Times, November 11, 2009, A6; Art Spillius and B. Farmer, Obama
Wants Exit Strategy in New Plan; Decision on More Troops to Include Option for Leav-
ing, The Daily Telegraph (London), November 13, 2009, A17.
130
Panetta, Worthy Fights; Woodward, Obamas Wars, 158159.
131
Woodward, Obamas Wars, 172174; Gates, 339, 350, 367.
Anne S. Tyson and S. Wilson, Gates Wants Leaders War Advice Kept Private; Admoni-
132

tion Follows Comments on War by U.S. Commander, Washington Post, October 6, 2009,
A1.
An Interview with Admiral Michael G. Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
133

Joint Force Quarterly 54 (3rd Quarter 2009). In this interview, the Chairman articulated
a traditional perspective on civil military relations: We execute policy. We do not make
it or advocate for it. That said, I realize my role is advising policy as Chairman, but that
advice is always private. And once the decision is made, we move out. Thats what our
military does, and we do it well. I would agree that we do need more of a focus on military
ethics and civil-military relations in our schoolhouses.

156
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Thomas Shanker and Helene Cooper, Obama meets Joint Chiefs to Review Afghani-
134

stan Strategy, New York Times, October 31, 2009, A7.

135
Clinton, 148.
136
Woodward, Obamas Wars, 338.
Ibid., 271. Woodward suggests that Gates was the first to put a timeframe of 1824
137

months for the U.S. commitment before withdrawals could begin. Lute, interview.
138
Petraeus, interview; McChrystal, interview.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Helene Cooper, Obama Adds Troops, but Maps Exit Plan,
139

New York Times, December 2, 2009, 1; Secretary Gates quoted in Huma Khan, Gates Says
Afghan Withdrawal Deadline May Be Delayed, ABC News, December 2, 2009.
Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghan-
140

istan and Pakistan, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, December 1, 2009, available
at <www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-for-
ward-afghanistan-and-pakistan>.
141
Ibid.
142
Ibid.
Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta, testimonies before the Senate Foreign Relations
143

Committee, December 3, 2009, available at <www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/afghani-

stan-assessing-the-road-ahead>.
Admiral Mike Mullen and General David Petraeus, testimonies before the Senate
144

Foreign Relations Committee, December 3, 2009, available at <www.foreign.senate.gov/

hearings/afghanistan-assessing-the-road-ahead>.
Karl Eikenberry, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, De-
145

cember 3, 2009, available at <www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/afghanistan-assess-

ing-the-road-ahead>.
Michael Hastings, The Runaway General, Rolling Stone, June 22, 2010; Michael Shear,
146

Ernesto Londono, and Debbi Wilgoren, Obama Leaving Options Open on Firing Mc-
Chrystal, Gibbs Says, Washington Post, June 22, 2010; McChrystal, 387388.
James P. Pfiffner, Decision Making in the Obama White House, Presidential Studies
147

Quarterly 41, no. 2 (June 2011), 244262.

Joel Achenbach, In His Slow Decision-Making, Obama Goes with Head, Not Gut,
148

Washington Post, November 25, 2009.

149
Gates, 362; Woodward, Obamas Wars, 279.
150
Feaver, The Right to Be Right, 91.
Meaning that, in the modern world, it is unlikely that either domestic audiences or the
151

international community would tolerate the significant levels of violence that it would take
to resolve political issues.

157
Hoffman and Crowther

There is a growing body of analysis that examines closely the success of the Surge.
152

Some argue that it was an unalloyed success, some that it delivered diminished violence,
and some that the Surge was a failure. There is also ongoing discussion that seeks to
identify how Maliki failed. Some assert that he could not deliver a unified Iraq because of
Sunni and Kurdish intransigence, some that he chose not to unify Iraq so that he could
rule over a Shiite-dominated country, and others that he did succeed.
Rich Lowry, Bushs Vietnam Syndrome, National Review, December 27, 2006, avail-
153

able at <www.nationalreview.com/article/219591/bushs-vietnam-syndrome-rich-lowry>.
154
Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 329.
Feaver, The Right to Be Right, 99n32, cites Heidi Urben, Decider vs. Commander
155

Guy: Presidential Power, Persuasion, and the Surge in Iraq, unpublished manuscript,
May 12, 2008.
His November 8, 2006, press conference indicated President Bushs feelings about a new
156

approach and the need for new leadership. He also changed his level of direct interaction
with Iraq. The MNF-I chronology shows that; between the mosque bombing of February
22 and the congressional elections, President Bush visited or had communications with
General Casey 13 times. Between November 2006 and the change of command on Febru-
ary 10, 2007, he directly communicated with Casey 10 times, or over double the amount
of direct interaction (once per 20 days before the elections, once per 9.5 days after).
The New Way Forward in Iraq, Fact Sheet, January 10, 2007, available at <http://
157

georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-3.html>.
Daniel P. Bolger, Why We Lost: A Generals Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan
158

Wars (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 276.

159
Mansoor, 2013.
Rajiv Chandrasekran, The Afghan Surge Is Over, So Did It Work? Foreign Policy,
160

October 2012.
Joseph J. Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: NDU Press,
161

2011), 72.
The total costs of the campaign are well below Iraqs level, including 1,840 battle deaths,
162

and over 20,037 wounded in action. See Operation Enduring Freedom, U.S. Casualty Sta-
tus: Fatalities as of October 24, 2014, available at <www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf>.
For a map depicting casualty levels by province, see Fatalities by Province, available at
163

<http://icasualties.org/OEF/ByProvince.aspx>.
164
Ibid.
Afghan civilian totals are from the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Com-
165

missioner for Human Rights, Afghanistan Mid-Year Report 2012: Protection of Civilians
in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UN, July 2012), 1, available at <http://unama.
unmissions.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=-_vDVBQY1OA%3d&tabid=12254&lan-
guage=en-US>.

158
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan (Washington DC: DOD, October
166

2014), A-3, available at <www.defense.gov/pubs/Oct2014_Report_Final.pdf>.

On the character of the post-2009 fighting in Helmand Province, see Rajiv Chandrase-
167

karan, Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan (New York: Knopf, 2012);
Jeffrey Dressler, Counterinsurgency in Helmand (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study
of War, 2011); Bing West, The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan
(New York: Random House, 2011).
Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan and United States Plan
168

for Sustaining the Afghanistan National Security Forces (Washington, DC: DOD, April
2010), 11, available at <www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Report Final SecDef 04 26 10.pdf>.
Adapted from Ian S. Livingston and Michael E. OHanlon, Afghanistan Index, October
169

29, 2014, 8, figure 1.9, available at <www.brookings.edu/~/media/Programs/foreign-poli-

cy/afghanistan-index/index20141029.pdf?la=en>.
Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Washington,
170

DC: Potomac Books, 2009).

171
Collins, 7071.
Fact Sheet: Bringing the U.S. War in Afghanistan to a Responsible End, The White
172

House, May 27, 2014, available at <www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/27/

fact-sheet-bringing-us-war-afghanistan-responsible-end>.
Jon Riley, NATO Operations in Afghanistan 20082009: A Theatre-Level View, in
173

British Generals in Blairs Wars, ed. Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron and Hew Strachan (Lon-
don: Ashgate, 2013), 246.
Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan Report (Washington, DC: DOD,
174

April 2014), 92, available at <www.defense.gov/pubs/April_1230_Report_Final.pdf>.

Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War
175

Through Afghan Eyes (New York: Metropolitan, 2014), 273.

Paul Shinkman, Corruption Plagues Afghanistan Ahead of U.S. Withdrawal, U.S.
176

News and World Report, December 27, 2013.

Spencer Ackerman, What Surge? Afghanistans Most Violent Places Stay Bad, Despite
177

Extra Troops, Wired.com, August 23, 2012, available at <www.wired.com/2012/08/af-

ghanistan-violence-helmand>; Matt Waldman, System Failure: The Underlying Causes of
U.S. Policymaking Errors in Afghanistan, International Affairs 89, no. 4 (2013), 839.
Stephen D. Biddle, Afghanistans Legacy: Emerging Lessons of an Ongoing War, The
178

Washington Quarterly 37, no. 2 (Summer 2014), 7386.

Kevin P. Marsh, A Tale of Two Surges: Conceptual Models of Foreign Policy and the
179

Decisions to Adopt Troop Surges in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (Ph.D. diss., North-
ern Illinois University, 2011).

159
Hoffman and Crowther

General George W. Casey Papers, Box #145, February 24, 2006, National Defense Uni-
180

versity Library Special Collections, Washington, DC.

181
Higgins, 136.
182
Casey Papers, Box #145, February 24, 2006.
General Casey states that he was informed about a review on Iraq by General Peter
183

Pace in October, but, from my perspective, it did not begin in earnest until after Secre-
tary Rumsfelds resignation in early November. See George W. Casey, Strategic Reflections
(Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2012), 135.
At least 92 personal discussions, secure video teleconferences, and visits between Feb-
184

ruary 2006 and February 2007.

185
Feaver, interview.
186
Hadley, interview.
187
Hadley, interview; Petraeus, interview.
188
Ibid.
189
Ibid.
190
Casey Papers, Box #145, June 14, 2006.
191
Casey, Strategic Reflections, 3738.
President Bush Nominates Dr. Robert M. Gates to be Secretary of Defense, The White
192

House, November 8, 2006, available at <http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/

news/releases/2006/11/20061108-4.html>.
Institute for the Study of War, Timelines of the Surge in Iraq: December 2005December
193

2008 (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War, n.d.), available at <www.under-
standingthesurge.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Surge-timeline-1.pdf>.
William Upshur, Jonathan Roginski, and David Kilcullen, Recognizing Symptoms in
194

Afghanistan: Lessons Learned and New Approaches to Operational Assessments, PRISM

3, no. 3 (June 2012), 89, available at <http://cco.dodlive.mil/files/2013/08/prism3-3.pdf>.
Emily Mushen and Jonathan Schroden, Are We Winning? A Brief History of Military
195

Operations Assessment (Alexandria, VA: Center for Naval Analyses, August 2014), ii.
Stephen Downes-Martin, Operations Assessment in Afghanistan is Broken, Naval
196

War College Review 64, no. 4 (Autumn 2011). For further evaluation of conflict trends in
Afghanistan, see Eric Gons et al., Challenges of Measuring Progress in Afghanistan Using
Violence Trends: The Effects of Aggregation, Military, Operations, Seasonality, Weather,
and other Causal Factors, Defense & Security Analysis 28, no. 2 (June 2012).
197
Lute, interview.
Cited in Jonathan Schroden, Operations Assessment at ISAF: Changing Paradigms, in
198

Innovation in Operations Assessment: Recent Developments in Measuring Results in Conflict

160
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

Environments, ed. Andrew Williams et al. (The Hague, Netherlands: NATO Communica-
tions and Information Agency, n.d.); McChrystal, 220.
We are indebted to Nathan White in the Center for Complex Operations at National
199

Defense University for this insight.

200
McChrystal; Panetta; and interviews with Flournoy, Lutes, Petraeus, and McChrystal.
Frank Hoffman, History and Future of Civil-Military Relations: Bridging the Gaps,
201

in The Past as Prologue: The Importance of History to the Military Profession, ed. William-
son Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006),
247265.
202
Rothkopf, 178179.
President Obamas strategic memorandum is provided as an annex in Woodward,
203

Obamas Wars, 385386.

204
Ibid., 387. Emphasis added.
205
Gates, Duty, 336.
J. Alexander Thier, The Making of a Constitution in Afghanistan, New York Law
206

School Law Review 51, no. 7 (2007), 574575.

Christopher D. Kolenda, Winning Afghanistan at the Community Level, Joint Force
207

Quarterly 56 (1st Quarter 2010), 3031. Kolenda was a key contributor to the McChrystal
strategic assessment.
To address the subnational governance issues identified during the strategy review
208

process, the U.S. Government launched the District Development Program in 2010 and
the Performance Based Governors Fund in 2011. Both depended on the cooperation of
the Afghan Independent Directorate for Local Governancepart of the presidents of-
ficeand faltered due to a lack of capacity and willingness at the national level to devolve
resources and power to provincial and district governments. See Max Kelly, Defeating
Insurgency at the Grass Roots: Building Local Governance Capacity in Afghanistan
(unpublished paper, 2011); and Michael Shurkin, Subnational Government in Afghanistan
(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2011).
209
Upshur, Roginski, and Kilcullen; Downes-Martin.
Ben Connable, Learning from the Vietnam-era Strategic Assessment Failure, in Inno-
210

vation in Operations Assessment, 16.

211
Ibid.
212
Casey, Strategic Reflections, 169170.
213
Ibid. Emphasis added.
Paul David Miller, Organizing the National Security Council: I Like Ikes, Presidential
214

Studies Quarterly 43, no. 3 (September 2013), 592606.

161
Hoffman and Crowther

Nathan White, Challenges to Adaptation of U.S. Assessment Practices for Counter-

215

insurgency in Afghanistan, International Studies Association conference paper, New

Orleans, LA, March 2015.
216
Petraeus, interview.
James G. Stavridis, The Accidental Admiral (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press,
217

2014), 64.
Frank G. Hoffman, Dereliction of Duty Redux? Post-Iraq American Civil-Military
218

Relations, Orbis 52, no. 2 (Spring 2008), 217235.

219
Casey, Strategic Reflections, 165.
Janine Davidson, The Contemporary Presidency: Civil-Military Friction and Presiden-
220

tial Decision Making: Explaining the Broken Dialogue, Presidential Studies Quarterly 43,
no. 1 (March 2013), 129145.
Linda Robinson et al., Improving Strategic Competence, Lessons from 13 Years of War
221

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, October 2014).

General Martin E. Dempsey, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins,
222

January 7, 2015.
223
Flournoy, interview.
Colin S. Gray, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (New York: Oxford University
224

Press, 2010).
225
Dempsey, interview.
226
Hadley, interview.
227
Dempsey, interview; reinforced in both Flournoy and Lute, interviews.
228
Dempsey, interview.
Admiral Mike Mullens Speech on Military Strategy, Kansas State University, March
229

2010, Manhattan, KS, March 3, 2010, available at <www.cfr.org/defense-strategy/admi-

ral-mullens-speech-military-strategy-kansas-state-university-march-2010/p21590>.
230
Dempsey, interview.
231
Dempsey, interview.
232
Petraeus, interview; Dempsey, interview.
Ali Khedery, Why We Stuck With Malikiand Lost Iraq, Washington Post, July 3,
233

2014.
Emile Simpson, War from the Ground Up: Twenty-First Century Combat as Politics (New
234

York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Admiral Mike Mullens Speech; Thom Shanker, Joint Chiefs Chairman Readjusts
235

Principles on Use of Force, New York Times, March 3, 2010.

236
Ibid.

162
 The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan

237
Ibid.
Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War, With Fear of Change (New York: Cam-
238

bridge University Press, 2011), 37.

239
Feaver, The Right to Be Right.
240
Robinson et al.
Richard Hart Sinnreich, Victory by Trial and Error: Britains Struggle Against Napo-
241

leon, in Successful Strategies, Triumphing in War and Peace from Antiquity to the Present,
ed. Williamson Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2014), 446.

163
 3

National-Level Coordination and

Implementation: How System
Attributes Trumped Leadership
By Christopher J. Lamb with Megan Franco

T
his chapter explains and evaluates how well the national-level deci-
sionmaking process guided the war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
President George W. Bush explained operations in Afghanistan and
outlined the administrations response to the terror attacks of September 11,
2001, when he addressed a joint session of Congress on September 20.1 The
President announced two great objectives: first, shutting down terrorist camps
that existed in more than a dozen countries, disrupting the terrorists plans,
and bringing them to justice; and second, preventing terrorists and regimes
that seek weapons of mass destruction from threatening the United States and
the world. The President stated that to achieve these objectives, the United
States would have to wage a lengthy war unlike any other we have ever seen.2
His strategy would use every resource at our commandevery means of di-
plomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, ev-
ery financial influence, and every necessary weapon of warto the disruption
and to the defeat of the global terror network. This unprecedented effort to
integrate every tool available would entail a broad geographic scope in which
every nation, in every region would be forced to decide whether it supported
efforts to defeat every terrorist group of global reach.
President Bushs speech was widely acclaimed, and over the next decade
and a half his intent has been achieved in some respects. The United States has
prevented another strategic attack by al Qaeda, greatly reduced the effective-
ness of that terrorist organization, and orchestrated many lesser operational

165
Lamb with Franco

successes. Even so, it became clear in the years following the Presidents speech
that the United States could not wage the war he described or achieve the goals
he set. Instead, as explained in previous chapters, the United States ended up
with extended campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq that squandered resources,
diminished public support for the war, and arguably generated as many terror-
ists as they eliminated.3 The United States has disengaged from its campaigns
in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the threat of catastrophic terrorism identified by
President Bush is still present.
In this chapter, we pose and answer fundamental questions. We ask how
senior leaders identified the problem confronting the Nation and how they in-
tended to solve it. We also address whether senior leader decisions constituted
a strategy and whether they were able to coordinate and implement their deci-
sions well. In the concluding section, we offer an overarching explanation for
why it was not possible for the President to execute the war effort he originally
described and why the U.S. performance in Afghanistan and Iraq has been so
problematic.
Our decisionmaking analysis was senior leadercentric. Our primary
sources were 23 senior leader descriptions of the decision process.4 We con-
centrate on issues that senior decisionmakers deemed critical and their ex-
planations for how they managed disagreements about how to proceed in the
wars. We adopt a choice-based approach to analyze senior leader decision-
making, consistent with their accounts that depict the decision process as a
purposeful activity designed to solve problems.5 Our approach has several
important implications that, from the reviews we have received to date, are
not obvious and need to be stated. Our purpose is not to criticize or defend
specific decisions that senior leaders made. Instead, we examine whether these
decisions met minimum requirements for good strategy, and if not, wheth-
er this shortcoming compromised the ability to achieve desired goals. We do
not argue that a different understanding or approach would have been better.
Instead, we consider whether leaders were able to execute their preferred ap-
proach as envisioned and adjust it in light of changing circumstances, and, if
not, why not. Similarly, we do not speculate about senior leader motives or
probe their psychological profiles. We take at face value their assertions that
they wanted a strategy to defeat terrorism and acted with that intent.6 Thus,
we do not consider, as many have, whether the President or members of his

166
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Cabinet were driven by a psychological need or other motives to address un-

finished business with Saddam Hussein left over from the first Gulf War.7 In
sum, we examine factors that limited the ability of senior leaders to generate
and implement coherent national strategy rather than argue in favor of alter-
native policies and strategies.
We concentrate on the first decade of war from 2001 through 2010 for
several reasons. The most consequential decisions were made fairly early on.
In addition, our primary sources deal mostly with decisions made during this
period. More to the point, important decisions made later in the decade about
how to wind down the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are taken up in other
chapters. Decisions to surge U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are taken up
in the previous chapter, and decisions on how to transition the lead to host-na-
tion forces are reviewed in a following chapter. We do not ignore decisions that
led to successes. On the contrary, we make a point of noting successes in each
decision area we investigate. However, in keeping with a lessons learned effort,
we focus on explaining problems rather than successes.
Our findings are organized into four categories that are interrelated but
examined sequentially: concepts, command, capabilities, and constraints. By
concepts, we mean the national strategy and concepts of operation that ex-
plain what the United States hoped to achieve in Afghanistan and Iraq and
how. Command denotes the collective attempts to orchestrate unified support
for implementing senior leader strategy and plans. Capabilities are the tools
(or means) needed to execute strategy and plans. The final categorycon-
straintscovers additional factors that senior leaders believe complicated the
war effort. The constraints include strategy conundrums and other social and
political factors that leaders believe limited the efficacy of the decisionmaking
process and outcomes.
The analysis reveals some significant limitations in national decisionmak-
ing that endured across the Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Two
are especially important. Many senior leaders admit we have not agreed on
the nature and scope of the terrorism threat or how to defeat it. They also are
in near-complete agreement that the United States was not able to act with
unified purpose and effort to achieve set objectives. We discuss the absence of
unified effort primarily in the section on command, but we also demonstrate
its impact in the section on capabilities. We also found a persistent inability to

167
Lamb with Franco

generate the full range of capabilities required for success, or in some cases, to
do so in a timely fashion. Overall, we conclude that critical strategy handicaps,
insufficient unity of effort, and, to a lesser extent, missing or late-to-need ca-
pabilities for irregular warfighting offer a compelling explanation for why the
United States was not able to fully achieve its goals in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Concepts
Following 9/11, President Bush and his senior advisors were preoccupied with
formulating a response to safeguard the Nation from more attacks. The desired
output from senior leader decisionmaking was an effective national security
strategy for protecting the country and defeating terrorism. Evaluating their
decisionmaking therefore requires identifying criteria for what constitutes
good strategy. We used the three basic elements of strategy that Richard Ru-
melt advocates: a penetrating diagnosis of the key problem to be solved, a cor-
responding guiding approach to solve the problem, and a set of coherent sup-
porting actions for implementing the approach.8 The analysis needs to identify
the root cause of the problem that must be dealt with to obtain success. The
preferred approach must overcome the problem based on an advantage or
asymmetry and be discriminating enough to direct and constrain action. The
supporting actions must be clear, prioritized, and feasible given scarce resourc-
es. Rumelt offers convincing explanations for how and why many leaders and
organizations ignore or otherwise fail to meet these elementary requirements.
In evaluating the strategy decisions that guided the war on terror, we
looked primarily at major decisions rather than official strategy documents.
As some senior leaders have confessed, despite all the energy that goes into
producing official strategy documents, they are generally ignored.9 They are
consensus products intended to serve bureaucratic and public policy purpos-
es.10 They tend to enumerate expansive and unrealistic strategic objectives.11
Real strategyto the extent it existsresides in the minds of the key decision-
makers. As General George W. Casey, Jr., USA (Ret.), advises, The decision-
making process at the national level is idiosyncratic at best, and not as rigor-
ous as the process military officers use. General Caseys experience with policy
and strategy in Washington taught him not to expect written direction from
civilian leaders.12 He referred to a few key policy documents but developed
his initial campaign plan based upon verbal discussions with the President and

168
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Secretary of Defense. Because real strategy is not codified, it sometimes can be

difficult to identify. Fortunately, senior leaders have shared a great deal of their
thinking on their strategy to combat terrorism.

Identifying the Root Problem

Senior decisionmakers viewed the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and
Iraq as extensions of the war on terror. Their assessment of the terror attacks
on 9/11 resolved a longstanding dispute about terrorism. For decades, pun-
dits argued over whether terrorists were capable of and inclined to launch
mass-casualty attacks. Some analysts believed most terrorists would not do
so because it would elicit a massive response and undermine political support
for their cause, thus proving counterproductive. Terrorists groups that wanted
mass casualty attacks were believed to be technically incapable of executing
them. Others experts were more pessimistic. They thought the proliferation
of knowledge in the information age was enabling catastrophic terror and
observed that some groups with technical competence such as al Qaeda were
advocating it.
The 9/11 attacks seemed to resolve this debate in favor of the pessimists.
Senior leaders in the Bush administration settled on the urgent need to pre-
vent another attack, particularly one involving the use of weapons of mass
destruction. In President Bushs 2002 State of the Union address, he noted
American forces in Afghanistan had found detailed instructions for making
chemical weapons, surveillance maps of American cities, and thorough de-
scriptions of landmarks in America and throughout the world. These findings
confirmed the war against terror would not end in Afghanistan and in fact was
only beginning. They also reinforced the Presidents conviction that we had
to destroy terrorist organizations and prevent terrorists and regimes who seek
chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States
and the world.13
These objectives served well as a summary agenda, but they did not pin-
point the nature and scope of the problem. Did the United States need to elim-
inate terrorism and its state sponsors everywhere, or just all terrorist groups?
Only terrorist groups with the capability to use weapons of mass destruction,
the intent to do so, or both? Or just the strain of Islamic extremist groups
that had perpetrated the 9/11 attacksor, more specifically, the organization

169
Lamb with Franco

that executed the attacks, namely, al Qaeda? The answers to these questions
carried major implications for the type of effort the United States would have
to mount and the resources required. Answers to these questions would deter-
mine whether an extended war in Afghanistan and intervention in Iraq were
necessary, and whether state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran, or states such
as North Korea with weapons of mass destruction that carried out terror at-
tacks, had to be defeated or otherwise engaged. The more broadly the problem
was defined, the greater the effort required to solve it.
In the short period between the 9/11 attacks and President Bushs speech
to Congress on September 20,14 the administration settled on an expansive
and somewhat artful phrase to depict the scope of the security threat. Pres-
ident Bush declared, Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and ev-
ery government that supports them. Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda,
but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global
reach has been found, stopped and defeated [emphasis added]. Conjoining
terrorists and state sponsors broadened the scope of the war well past al Qae-
da. Moreover, in this same speech, and often thereafter, the President cast the
struggle in terms of freedom and tyranny, between those who believe in prog-
ress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom and those who do not. The Presi-
dents definition of the problem and the enemies to overcome was broad but
limited by two clarifications. The expression axis of evil defined the short list
of noteworthy state sponsors of terrorism as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.15 The
other limitation was the expression global reach. This description indicated
that only terrorist groups capable of attacking the United States had to be de-
stroyed, rather than all terrorist groups, many of which had narrower agendas
that did not directly threaten the Nation.
A key predicate of President Bushs approach was the belief that successful
terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction would be calamitous. One
senior administration official later explained that the Presidents strategy was
broadly preventive and not narrowly punitive because senior leaders assumed
they were at war with a global network, that the terrorists were bent on mass
destruction rather than just political theater, and finally that sustaining a se-
ries of 9/11-type attacks could change the nature of our country.16 The dire
consequences of such an attack required the United States to take the offensive,
including preemptive military action and other extraordinary measures even

170
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

if the probability of a successful mass casualty terrorist attack was low. This
assumption was widely debated as the one percent doctrine.
After taking office, the Obama administration made a point of narrowing
the definition of the problem and thus the scope of the necessary response.
President Obama identified the need to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qae-
da in Pakistan and Afghanistan and prevent their return to either country in
the future, thus limiting the war geographically and redefining the list of ene-
mies the United States had to defeat. As Hillary Clinton puts it, By refocusing
so specifically on al Qaeda, as opposed to the Taliban insurgents . . . the Pres-
ident was linking the war back to its source: the 9/11 attacks.17 In this regard,
the scope of the war effort precipitated by the attacks on 9/11 was curtailed
under the Obama administration.
It is not clear from strategy pronouncements or tactics employed, howev-
er, that President Obama envisions the nature of the threat differently. Some
hoped the Obama administration would redefine the threat as a political prob-
lem whereby the enemy tried to get the United States to overreact in ways
that alienated support from other nations and thus restricted U.S. freedom of
maneuver and ability to marshal resources. The proper countervailing strate-
gy would be to maintain widespread support and isolate the terrorists within
the community of Islam (umma).18 In this vein, some argued for abandoning
controversial policies that alienated domestic and international opinion. Ad-
ministration officials believe they put more emphasis on international coop-
eration and strategic communication,19 but the major change in strategy did
not materialize.20 Perhaps the administration believed it had to first extricate
the United States from large-scale operations in Iraq and then Afghanistan. If
so, this has taken longer than anticipated and been set back by the rise of the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
What is clear in retrospect is that lack of agreement on the nature and
scope of the threat compromised strategy from the beginning. Members
of the Bush administration, for instance, disagreed about the scope of the
threat.21 Some argued the threat was broad and transnational and required
an equally broad response. Some others, who initially agreed with that view,
came to believe the threat was so broadly defined that it undermined inter-
national cooperation. They consider the term axis of evil regrettable be-
cause it made negotiating with those powers difficult and/or expanded the

171
Lamb with Franco

scope of the war on terror beyond what could be sustained politically at home
and abroad.22 Others believe lack of clarity about the nature and scope of the
catastrophic terrorist threat inclined leaders to focus on tactical operations
but left the main threat unaddressed, if not stronger.23 The contentious early
debate over whether the United States needed to eliminate the regime in Iraq
was a strong indication that the U.S. definition of the strategic threat was con-
tentious at best.
Looking back, several senior leaders acknowledge the United States still
has not identified its strategic problem well,24 and in particular its religious
origins. Some note the most threatening terror groups are found in deviant
strains of Islam, while others depict the problem as a clash within Islamic
civilization between Sunni moderates and Sunni extremists.25 Either way, the
United States has not recognized the religious connection. Islamic allies object
to the expression Islamic terror for the same reason Christians would object
to the expression Christian terror; they consider it an oxymoron and a gross-
ly counterproductive one that offends those whose support we seek and that
could be misconstrued to extend legitimacy to terrorists. It also is common
to acknowledge that non-Muslim voices are not credible in a debate over the
meaning, direction, and permissible behaviors within Islam.
In any case, this tension between frank acknowledgment that terror has
some popular appeal in Islamic communities and the political and strategic
communication advantages of ignoring that connection continues to compli-
cate U.S. strategy. General Martin Dempsey, who notes he has been accused of
being both anti-Islamic and pro-Islamic, observes, We as a Nation just havent
been able to have a conversation about . . . the threat of violent extremist orga-
nizations that also happen to be radical Islamic organizations.26 Furthermore,
he argues that until we understand the threat in its totality and find the right
vocabulary to describe it, we cannot defeat the threatat best, we can only
contain it.27

Choosing an Approach to Victory

The second key element of any effective strategy is agreement on how to solve
the root problem based on an advantage or asymmetry. When the root prob-
lem is poorly defined, the approach to solving it is equally problematic. This
proved true for overall strategy in the war on terror, and by extension, for the

172
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Senior leaders wanted to stop state
support for terrorism and thought that deposing some regimes that support-
ed terrorism would contribute to that objective. However, they disagreed on
how important it was to ensure that good governance followed the deposed
regimes. Was good governance in Afghanistan and Iraq an essential element of
the war on terror, or a distraction that wasted resources? This questionnever
answeredreveals confusion about the nature and origins of the catastrophic
terrorism threat and how it should be defeated.
The United States tried to create a comprehensive strategy for combat-
ting terror that would address such questions but never succeeded. The official
public strategy defined the problem too broadly with too many dimensions. It
lumped the assassin of President William McKinley in with al Qaeda and cited
underlying conditions of terror as diverse as poverty, corruption, religious
conflict and ethnic strife.28 The National Counterterrorism Center tried to
create a classified strategy, but failed.29 Departments and agencies could not
agree on a discriminating approach to defeating such a broad threat. Instead,
they agreed to a long list of objectives that left them free to pursue their own
priorities as they understood them. The failure to cohere around a common
understanding of the terror problem and its solution complicated the inter-
ventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In Afghanistan, the strategy was never clear. The President and his advi-
sors were cheered by news of terrorist leaders captured or killed,30 but other-
wise they had difficulty establishing objectives for the war effort. One early
telltale sign of this confusion was the disagreement about whether to welcome
or resist a rapid Northern Alliance seizure of Kabul. Some thought that if the
Northern Alliance was too successful it would precipitate intertribal fight-
ing and score-settling with the possibility that chaos would reign.31 Others
were happy to see a quick collapse of the Taliban, which they thought would
facilitate efforts to eliminate al Qaeda in Afghanistan. This difference of opin-
ion revealed uncertainty about what we were trying to accomplish. A friendly,
stable, effective Afghan government was preferable, but was it possible and
essential for success in the war on terror? Without an answer to this question,
it was difficult to answer a related question: how much priority should be given
to eliminating the Taliban? Too much concern with the Taliban would take the
focus off al Qaeda and might allow it to reemerge stronger elsewhere.32 The

173
Lamb with Franco

opposite concern was that failure to destroy the Taliban would give al Qaeda
an extended sanctuary and a new lease on life.33 The debate boiled down to dif-
ferences over the nature of the threat. Were the Taliban and al Qaeda allies of
convenience, or cohorts in a global campaign that was threatening the United
States? If they were allies of convenience, we could afford to bypass the Taliban
and concentrate on al Qaeda; if the Taliban were an intrinsic part of the global
terrorist network, they needed to be defeated.
During this initial period, senior military leaders understood their tacti-
cal objectivesattacking Taliban forces and capturing or killing terrorists
but they were uncertain about U.S. strategy for the war on terror.34 Over time,
the U.S. commitment to effective governance in Afghanistan increased, but
not because strategy was clarified. Instead, it resulted from ad hoc decision-
making in response to the reconstitution of the Taliban as an effective insur-
gent force. An ineffectual Afghan government left the Taliban and their ter-
rorist allies free to operate, which was not deemed acceptable. Even though
President Obama in his 2009 West Point speech narrowed the U.S. goal in
Afghanistan to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda, he specified three
subordinate objectives that tied al Qaeda to the fortunes of the Taliban and
Afghan government. He stated that we would deny al Qaeda a safe haven, re-
verse the Talibans momentum and prevent the overthrow of the government,
and strengthen Afghan capacity to take lead responsibility for the countrys
future. The three objectives were progressively less clear cut and more subject
to debate as to whether they had been achieved. Deny al Qaeda a safe haven
is easier to assess than the sufficiency of a strengthened Afghan government
and its security forces. More to the point, even a strong case for good progress
in all three objectives leaves open the question of whether the United States
was committed to a friendly, stable, and effective Afghan government or in-
stead wanted political latitude for an expeditious exit.35 As General Stanley
A. McChrystal, USA (Ret.), notes, the United States never had a clear strategic
aim in Afghanistan.36 Instead, it backed into counterinsurgency to prevent
tactical reversals to its counterterrorism agenda. It provided ever-increasing
amounts of support to Kabul, but the purpose and importance of the extended
Afghan campaign remained poorly understood, controversial, and not clearly
connected to the broader U.S. counterterrorism strategy.

174
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Lack of agreement on the nature and scope of the terror problem was even
more deleterious in the case of Iraq. The limited commitment of U.S. leaders to
a democratic government in Baghdad was telegraphed in the official list of U.S.
goals, which stated the desired endstate was an Iraq that encourages the build-
ing of democratic institutions.37 Over time, it became increasingly less clear
whether the United States was intervening in Iraq to punish a state sponsor of
terrorism, eliminate a potential source of weapons of mass destruction for ter-
rorists, or promote democracy and stimulate cultural changes throughout the
region to diminish the appeal of terrorism. The confusion led to divergent levels
of commitment to postwar reconstruction and governance,38 undermined pub-
lic support, and confused military commanders in Iraq about what they were
trying to accomplish. General Casey, the commander with the longest tenure,
admits that he did not understand the strategic goals of the intervention.39
Initially the Department of Defense (DOD) put all of its energy into devel-
oping plans to defeat Saddam Husseins military forces but resisted preparing
for a long, large American occupation to ensure good governance. During in-
formal conversations in the Pentagon, senior civilian leaders made it clear that
DOD needed to withdraw forces from Iraq so it could be prepared for possible
next moves in the war on terror.40 This made sense given the broad scope of
the war depicted by the President. However, Department of State leaders, as
well as the special envoy for Iraq and some military leaders, were convinced
that preventing chaos in Iraq was necessary and would require a substantial
U.S. commitment.
These unreconciled differences led to bitter infighting between the two
departments, especially about postwar planning.41 The two departments also
disagreed about using expatriate Iraqi leaders, disbanding (or not reconsti-
tuting42) the Iraqi army, and the extent of de-Baathification. Divergent views
on the need for nation-building also fueled much of the controversy over
appropriate operational concepts for the interventions in both Afghanistan
and Iraq. That debate polarized around two questions: whether the United
States should concentrate on counterterrorism or counterinsurgencyand if
the latter, which approach?
Some argued counterterrorismthat is, killing and capturing terrorists
and key supporterswas more important and practical than defeating insur-
gents. The United States developed a refined counterterrorist capability that

175
Lamb with Franco

has proved adept at identifying, targeting, and eliminating key terrorists.43 The
most controversial aspects of the counterterrorism operational concept are
the means used to acquire intelligence and the procedures for deciding which
individuals to kill. The great attraction of counterterrorism is that it directly
engages the enemy, manifests unambiguous results, and is less expensive in
lives and materiel than counterinsurgency.
No one objected to robust counterterrorism, although specific tactics and
operations were contested. The debate was about whether killing and captur-
ing individual terrorists were sufficient for solving the problem of catastrophic
terrorism. The Bush administration believed the answer was no and wanted to
force states to stop supporting terrorists. After the campaigns in Afghanistan
and Iraq led to insurgency and civil war, and especially after the failure to
find substantial weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Bush administration
broadened the agenda by placing greater emphasis on promoting democracy.
It was the first task identified in the 2006 National Strategy for Combating Ter-
rorism.44 The counterreaction from some in the Obama administration was to
argue the United States should retreat from nation-building and concentrate
on counterterrorism. Other Obama officials argued this made sense in Iraq,
but that counterterrorism in Afghanistan was insufficient for reasons nicely
summarized by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

The problem with this argument was that if the Taliban continued to
seize more of the country, it would be that much harder to conduct ef-
fective counterterrorism operations. We wouldnt have the same intelli-
gence networks necessary to locate the terrorists or the bases from which
to launch strikes inside or outside Afghanistan. Al Qaeda already had
safe havens in Pakistan. If we abandoned large parts of Afghanistan to
the Taliban, they would have safe havens there as well.45

Some argued that ignoring the insurgency in Iraq would be a mistake for
similar reasons. Chaos in Iraq would open the country as a staging base for
future terrorist plots and destabilize the Middle East, leading to more conflict
that terrorists could exploit.46
Those arguing that counterinsurgency was a necessary component of the
war on terror debated the most effective operational concept. Historically

176
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

there are two. One is to brutalize the population into abandoning support for
insurgents and informing the government on their identity and whereabouts.
If the population will not cooperate, it is isolated and punished. Economic
warfare, concentration camps, massacres, and wholesale slaughter have all
been used for this purpose. This approach is not politically sustainable in the
United States today or in most other countries, so the second approach was
adopted.
The U.S. counterinsurgency approach was to provide security for the
population so they are free from fear of reprisals, construct an elaborate in-
telligence apparatus to reveal and penetrate the insurgent organization, use
enough discriminate force to keep insurgents on the defensive without cre-
ating collateral damage that alienates the population, and make enough of an
effort to counter popular grievances to reinforce the legitimacy of the host
government and diminish the appeal of the insurgency. This approach re-
quires multiple elements of power working in harmony, deep sociocultural
knowledge of the target population, perseverance, and other subsidiary, situa-
tion-specific capabilities.
This type of counterinsurgency is much harder for an outside power such
as the United States intervening in another country such as Afghanistan or
Iraq. It is best to push the host-nation security forces to the front of the effort
because they know the country, culture, language, and insurgents better than
the United States ever could. The United States had to sell the second coun-
terinsurgency agenda to the host nation and transfer capabilities to execute it,
and do so well enough to generate enough progress to retain political support
at home and abroad.
A lite version of counterinsurgency puts less emphasis on the need to
protect and convince the population. Instead, the emphasis is on decapitating
the leadership of the insurgency. The hope is that if the insurgent or terrorist
organization is built around charismatic leaders, eliminating the leadership
will lead to the collapse of the organization. Scholarship on this issue is in-
conclusive,47 but this approach has not worked well in the ongoing war on
terror. When U.S. special operations forces (SOF) became adept at exploiting
all-source intelligence to target enemy leaders, some hoped that their profi-
ciency would collapse enemy organizations. High-volume special operations

177
Lamb with Franco

did degrade the terrorist and insurgent organizations but never rendered them
ineffective, as leaders in the SOF community came to understand.48
Rumelt argues that a strategic approach to solving a problem should be
based on an advantage or asymmetry. In part, the debate over counterterrorism
versus counterinsurgency addressed this issue. Those supporting counterter-
rorism believed it played to U.S. strengths, whereas counterinsurgency played
into the hands of the enemy. The rebuttal was that the scope of the problem
and the role played by state sponsors of terrorism left the United States with
no choice but to fight insurgents who supported terrorists and would do so
even more boldly if they controlled nation-states. The point to make here is
that neither the Bush nor the Obama administration resolved the debate, and
based their strategies on asymmetric U.S. advantages.

Supporting Actions to Implement the Chosen Approach

The third requirement for effective strategy is a set of prioritized actions that
are clear and feasible given scarce resources. Many discrete actions taken by de-
partments and agencies to advance the war effort were successful. The Central
Intelligence Agency executed the front end of Operation Enduring Freedom
well with SOF assistance. DOD managed the first phases of Operation Iraqi
Freedom with historic success. The Department of Treasury, Federal Bureau
of Investigation, and later the Department of Homeland Security embraced
new missions and changed their organizational cultures to execute those mis-
sions. SOF and the Intelligence Community tracked down individual terrorist
and insurgent leaders with increasing success. Other pockets of productivity
included seizing terrorist financial assets and strong cooperative agreements
with foreign governments.
As laudable as these high-performance supporting actions were, they did
not add up to strategic success because they were not orchestrated, replicated,
and reinforced in support of a good guiding strategy. Disagreement or confu-
sion about the threat and how it is to be addressed generates corresponding
disarray in the action agenda. Absent agreement on the root problem and ap-
proach to resolving it, decisionmaking proceeds ad hoc. This proved the case
in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Subordinates could not act upon Presidential
intent if the strategy for success was not clear. They had to wait to see what the
President would decide next. If circumstances would not permit delay, they

178
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

had to do what they thought best, which occasionally encouraged not only
innovation but also inconsistency and friction.
For example, in the first National Security Council (NSC) meeting on op-
erations in Afghanistan, policy positions were established on freeing women
from oppression and on humanitarian assistance. Womens rights were nec-
essary because we felt an obligation to leave [the Afghans] better off than
before. President Bush also asked whether U.S. forces could drop food before
bombs because he wanted to show the Afghan people that the U.S. intervention
was different from the earlier one by the Soviet Union.49 These policy prefer-
ences could have been part of a broader strategy to safeguard international po-
litical support for U.S. counterterrorism, or an element of counterinsurgency
strategy designed to secure enough Afghan popular support to operate against
terrorists in Afghanistan, or just personal preferences promoted by individu-
al senior leaders. Absent a clear overarching strategy, subordinates could not
make reasoned judgments about supporting actions and their relative priority.

Assumptions, Options, and Adjustments

The preceding argument is that the failure to identify the origins of the threat
and related failure to clarify the importance of ensuring good governance after
deposing regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq were key errors in strategy. Our
findings challenge other explanations for poor performance in Afghanistan
and Iraq, including the belief that senior leaders based their decisions on op-
timistic assumptions, made them without examining a sufficient range of op-
tions, or failed to adjust their decisions as circumstances changed. Planners
extol the virtue of clarifying critical assumptions, analyzing alternative courses
of action, formulating options in case assumptions prove wrong and in antici-
pation of subsequent developments (that is, answering the what if and what
next questions),50 and adjusting as the situation evolves. Military researchers
in particular are quick to observe when these prerequisites for good decision-
making are ignored or poorly conducted. Sometimes they are too quick, as-
suming rather than demonstrating senior leader assumptions.51
Assumptions, options, and adjustments are linked because assumptions
can drive options that then become courses of action to be adjusted as cir-
cumstances unfold. Space limitations preclude in-depth examination of all the
decisionmaking mistakes attributed to senior leaders in these areas, but we

179
Lamb with Franco

can assess some of the most prominent ones. One frequently cited example
of a flawed assumption was the expectation that Iraqis were hungry for de-
mocracy, would greet American forces as liberators, and would remain calm
and law abiding while their future was decided; that invading Iraq would be
like liberating France in 1944.52 General John Abizaid, USA (Ret.), refers to
this expectation as a heroic assumption that compromised operations in
Iraq.53 This thesis is made credible by senior leaders who downplayed the costs
and difficulties associated with occupying Iraq and emphasized they were un-
knowable.54
Where optimistic assessments were made, they appear to have been com-
munication strategies designed to dampen opposition to the war. Senior lead-
ers believed the ultimate costs of the war could not be predicted, and they
wanted to downplay them in testimony to Congress and the public because
they thought the war made strategic sense.55 Worrying about the potential for
civic unrest and general lawlessness is a routine concern of U.S. leaders plan-
ning foreign interventions, but American foreign interventions since World
War II reveal how difficult it is to predict the level of popular resistance to U.S.
forces.56 Organized insurgencies in response to intervention would be worst-
case scenarios at one end of the spectrum, whereas civil unrest and looting
are commonplace. In the case of Iraq, senior leaders were well warned about
and cognizant of the potential for lawlessness but not for organized insurgent
resistance.
In any case, leaders were not guilty of rosy expectations of Iraqi gratitude
and goodwill. They thought the majority Shiite population would welcome
Saddams ouster but the Sunnis much less so, and that in any case whatever
welcome U.S. forces received would not last. Intelligence on Iraq predicted a
short honeymoon period after deposing Saddam, and other national secu-
rity organizations expected the same. Decisionmakers in Defense, State, and
the White House worried about an extended American occupation precisely
because they thought it would be costly and irritate the local population. This
is why many senior leaders preferred a light footprint approach in both Af-
ghanistan and Iraq.57 As many commentators have noted, there were multiple
planning efforts prior to the war by State, Defense, and other national security
institutions that underscored how difficult the occupation might be.58 These
insights found a ready audience in the Bush administration, which came to

180
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

office disdaining extended nation-building missions and warning that the U.S.
military was most certainly not designed to build a civilian society.59
Yet there were deep disagreements among senior leaders about how best
and how fast to pass authority to the Iraqis while reducing U.S. presence.
The DOD solution was a short transition period for military forces with a
quick turnover of authority to Iraqi expatriates.60 Secretary of Defense Don-
ald Rumsfeld supported diverse efforts to anticipate nightmare scenarios that
might derail the war effort, so he was not averse to considering ways plans
could go awry.61 He knew extended occupations could be costly, complicated,
and counterproductive.62 His way of avoiding the problem was to transfer it
to the host nation to manage with assistance from other parties. He was well
known for his bicycle analogy,63 arguing that in teaching someone to ride a
bicycle you have to take your hand off the bicycle seat. Secretary Rumsfeld
argues the United States has a habit of trying to do too much for too long for
other countries, exhausting itself and irritating and corrupting the host nation:

I understood that there were times when the United States would not
be able to escape some national-building responsibilities, particularly
in countries where we had been engaged militarily. It would take many
years to rebuild societies shattered by war and tyranny. Though we
would do what we could to assist, we ultimately couldnt do it for them.
My view was that the Iraqis and Afghans would have to govern them-
selves in ways that worked for them. I believed that political institutions
should grow naturally out of local soil; not every successful principle or
mechanism from one country could be transplanted in another.64

In other words, Rumsfeld thought those who believed the United States
could export democracy and prosperity were the ones making rosy assump-
tions.65 He favored an early handoff to the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-
tion (NATO) in Afghanistan, which he got.66 In Iraq he wanted U.S. com-
manders to accept as much risk getting out of Iraq as they had taken getting
in. When commanders asked what that meant, they were told to accelerate
the withdrawal of forces.67 Rumsfelds staff warned him about postwar law-
lessness,68 but he believed it was best managed by parties other than the U.S.
military, preferably other countries or international organizations recruited

181
Lamb with Franco

by the State Department, and eventually the Iraqis themselves.69 In his mem-
oirs, Rumsfeld argues that he wanted State to take more responsibility for
the postwar effort (even though it was clear that the department could not
effectively do so) and notes he had recommended for months that Ambas-
sador L. Paul Bremerthe Presidents special envoy to Iraqreport to the
President through State and not Defense.70 He practiced what he preached,
discouraging preparations for postwar lawlessness, a four-star headquarters
to organize and oversee the occupation, and the flow of additional ground
forces to theater once victory over the Iraqi military was assured.71 In short,
Rumsfeld was skeptical about the ability of the United States to engineer a
stable and prosperous Iraq regardless of effort, and he wanted someone else
in charge of that mission.
The Department of State, including Secretary Colin Powell and Ambas-
sador Bremer, did not want an extended occupation of Iraq, either; in fact,
Bremer notes it was certain to be a short occupation.72 However, these lead-
ers believed that it would difficult to find others willing to take responsibility
for the future of Iraq and that the United States would have to do so since
it had engineered the war. After the acrimonious international debate over
deposing Saddam, it was important to stop the hemorrhaging of political sup-
port for the war on terror, something a chaotic Iraq would accelerate and a
stable Iraq would help reduce. Thus, State wanted the speed and scale of U.S.
postwar activities commensurate with the U.S. interests at stake. It thought the
quickest way out of Iraq was to make the maximum effort to stabilize it follow-
ing the termination of large-scale fighting, which meant a large ground force
for security, plenty of development assistance, and as much international sup-
port as could be mustered. Secretary Powell was well known for his approach
to overseas interventions, which postulated that a large force and effort early
on make them more manageable. He had no illusions about the possibility of
postwar disorder; he warned the President on just this point. Secretary Powell
and Ambassador Bremer repeatedly emphasized the importance of security
and lamented not only the unwillingness of DOD to provide more troops but
also States inability to provide the number, quality, and duration of civil ad-
ministrators needed to put Iraq back on its feet.73
In short, neither State nor DOD based their approaches to postwar Iraq on
wishful thinking. On the contrary, they worried about how difficult an occu-

182
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

pation could be. The fact that postwar governance and stability could be tough
and costly informed White House thinking on the extent to which the United
States should commit itself to a stable, prosperous, and democratic Iraq:

So, if we get rid of Saddam, what is our obligation to [the] Iraqi people?
Is it Saddamism without Saddam, or, putting it another way, a strong
military leader within the existing system that simply agrees that he will
not support terror, and will not develop [weapons of mass destruction],
will not invade his neighbors, and will be not quite as brutal to his own
people as Saddam was. Is that okay? There was a conversation, and the
Presidents view was we would get rid of Saddam Hussein for national
security reasons, not because we were promoting democracy out of the
barrel of a gun. We were going to have to remove him for hard nation-
al security reasons, but then what was our obligation to the Iraqi peo-
ple? And the President said: We stand for freedom and democracy. We
ought to give the Iraqi people a chance, a chance with our help, to build
a democratic system. And thats how the democracy piece got in, not
that it had to be a Jeffersonian democracy, not that it had to be in our
image, not that we wouldnt leave until the job is done, but we would
give them a chance. And once we got into it, we realized that there had
to be a democratic outcome because that was the only way you would
keep the country together.74

Thus, the President was committed to a good-faith but not an open-ended

effort.75 This limited commitment was understandable if good postwar gover-
nance was a desirable but not vital interest of the United States. The value of
good postwar governance was then relative to its cost, which was unknowable
in advance.76
Trying to assess the importance of a single planning assumption like how
difficult postwar governance would be quickly leads to debate about other cor-
ollary assumptions. It soon becomes clear that senior leaders disagree about
which assumptions were most important. While former Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates and General Abizaid underscore the assumption of short, rela-
tively easy occupations, former Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen J.
Hadley and Ambassador Bremer underscore the importance of the assump-

183
Lamb with Franco

tion that Iraqi units would hold together well enough to help with postwar
security.77 Former Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, and for-
mer Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith call attention to
the assumption that U.S. forces would alienate local populations (something
both the Bush and Obama administrations debated).78 A RAND study notes
that there were two key assumptions, one of which was that senior military
commanders believed civilian authorities would be responsible for the post-
war period.79 Still others questioned the assumption that democracy could be
imposed on foreign countries and cultures. Academics disagree on this issue
but generally assert that it depends on the country in question and the level
of commitment of the occupying power.80
The Presidents decision to give Iraqis a chance at democracy because it
was the right thing to do but not a vital interest meant State and DOD could
not ignore the postwar mission. However, it also left plenty of wiggle room for
disagreements about how the mission should be conducted. The two depart-
ments obliged. They disagreed over the importance of ensuring good gover-
nance in Afghanistan and Iraq, over the appropriate level of U.S. commitment
to this mission, over how it should be carried out, and over which department
would do what to execute postwar tasks. These disagreements should not have
been a surprise; they had been a longstanding bone of contention between the
two departments. Consistent with previous experience,81 President Bush did
not resolve the differences.
The President gave the lead for postwar planning to DOD to preserve
unified effort. But he also promised Ambassador Bremer that he would have
the authority and time he needed to stabilize Iraq (that is, take the Depart-
ment of State approach). As the situation deteriorated, State was increasing-
ly adamant about security and DOD was increasingly adamant about early
departure for U.S. forces.82 State increased its appeals for more troops, while
Rumsfelds generals told him irregular warfare was an intelligence-dependent
mission and that more troops would be counterproductive. President Bush
reiterated his promise to support more time and resources for Iraq when
Bremer worried that DOD was setting him up to take responsibility for failure
by pushing an accelerated schedule for turning over authority to the Iraqis.83
The NSC staff refereed the debates between State and DOD, looking for ways
to effect compromises. The views of the two departments were not reconciled

184
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

and the success of the postwar mission was compromisednot because of op-
timistic assumptions about Iraqi sentiments but because differences between
strong departments were not managed well, a topic we examine in great detail
in the next section of the chapter.
Another common complaint is that senior leaders fail to consider a wide
range of options. Academic research has long noted the deleterious tendency
to lock in on one option rather than considering a wide range of possibilities
before choosing a course of action.84 In general, senior leaders were sensible to
this danger.85 General Dempsey notes that friction and disagreement among
senior leaders are good because they ensure that a wide range of perspectives
is considered, and this certainly seems to describe decisionmaking in both the
Bush and Obama administrations. With a couple of exceptions, it is clear that
both administrations went to great lengths to make sure a range of options was
considered before making key decisions.
Criticism about a restricted range of options converges on two key deci-
sions. First, it is often asserted the Bush administration erred in not consid-
ering options for managing security better in Iraq after the end of large-scale
fighting with the Iraqi army. But as we have just argued, senior leaders did
not ignore an obvious problem area; they were just unable to resolve differ-
ences over what to do about it.86 The postwar lawlessness was widely antici-
pated even if the rapid rise of the Sunni insurgency was not, and the failure
to prepare for postwar civil unrest helped kick-start the insurgency. In turn,
the failure to prepare well for lawlessness was in part a result of the failure to
reconcile the two alternative approaches to managing the problem preferred
by the Department of State and the Department of Defense.
The second major complaint concerns bureaucracies deciding on a pre-
ferred course and then engineering White House approval without a fair hear-
ing of alternatives. This occurred in both the Bush and Obama administra-
tions and most notably when discussing whether to surge U.S. forces to quell
the insurgencies. These decisions are covered at length in the previous chapter.
However, to recapitulate, the charge is that the military produced too few and
too narrow of options.87 When President Bush raised the idea of more troops
going to Iraq . . . all of the chiefs unloaded on him, not only questioning the
value of additional forces but expressing concern about the impact on the mil-
itary if asked to send thousands more troops.88 Similarly, Pentagon war plan-

185
Lamb with Franco

ners resisted President Obamas request for every option and contingency
and instead, like characters in the Goldilocks story, provided three options
with the first and last grossly flawed so that only their preferred course of ac-
tionthe middle onemade any sense at all.89
Interestingly, it can be argued that the Pentagons premature closure on its
preferred options for the Surge relates to key assumptions. A major assump-
tion among uniformed and civilian defense leaders was that the mere presence
of U.S. forces alienated the population. General Abizaid made this point,90
and Secretary Rumsfeld agreed. He cites approvingly the analysis by Douglas
Feiththat the broader impression of an overbearing U.S. presence was more
to blame for unrest in Iraq than de-Baathification or the disbanding of the
Iraqi army. Senior military leaders in Iraqeven those who took counterin-
surgency seriouslyalso believed the U.S. presence was an irritant, which in-
clined them to focus on the goal of transferring capacity and responsibility for
counterinsurgency to host-nation forces. If our exit strategy ran through the
Iraqi security forces, it was logical to argue, we needed to double down on
the Iraqis and not on our own forces.91 Using American forces would signal
to Iraqis that the United States would always underwrite their poor decisions.
Those supporting the Surge questioned the veracity of this assumption,92
and when it was deemed a success in Iraq, defense leaders embraced the op-
posite assumption, arguing a larger U.S. presence could have a calming effect
by demonstrating resolve (not unlike the original military argument for going
in with a large force).93 Uniformed leaders with this viewpoint were promoted,
and new civilian leadership argued for a Surge in Afghanistan. Beyond the
Pentagon, however, many new civilian leaders in the Obama administration
thought the previous assumption about the irritating nature of a U.S. force
presence was more realistic. They argued that [m]ore troops and more fight-
ing would alienate Afghan civilians and undermine any goodwill achieved by
expanded economic development and improved governance.94
Some participants in the Surge decisions believe the White House mis-
interpreted the unanimity of opinion among defense leaders on the value of
a Surge as a military bloc determined to force the commander in chief s
hand.95 Some also argue there was a time lag that made the Pentagon resis-
tance seem worse than it was to the White House.96 There is room for debate
on these issues. The notable point is that the simple act of internally coordi-

186
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

nating a major departments position on a key issue for Presidential decision

can be or appear to be an attempt to limit the Presidents options. The percep-
tion that the military bureaucracy was cooking options was a major point of
friction between military and civilian authorities. However, it did not prevent
the White House from hearing alternative views.97 Therefore, in our view, the
major problem in decisionmaking was not generating options and alternative
views but the failure to reconcile those competing views productively. This was
true for postwar planning, and it proves true for most other key decisions we
review elsewhere in this chapter.
The last prerequisite for good decisionmaking we reviewadjusting deci-
sions in light of changing circumstancesseems to have been a much greater
challenge. One reason for this is that it was difficult to come up with good
indicators of success or failure. Before adjusting previous decisions, leaders
had to agree on how things were changing and why. This was difficult. The
same evidencefor example, levels of violencecould be used to support ar-
guments that we were winning or losing. The positive assessment was that the
opposition was making a pitched fight and would lose; the negative assessment
was that the opposition was mobilized and growing and could fill its ranks no
matter how many were killed. To make such complicated assessments of prog-
ress required an in-depth knowledge of Afghan and Iraqi politics and culture
that the United States lacked (a point we return to later).98
Difficulties finding clear-cut metrics for progress notwithstanding, it does
appear there were occasions when leaders resisted new evidence that chal-
lenged their existing convictions (cognitive dissonance). Secretary Rumsfeld,
for example, was slow to recognize the emergence of an insurgency99 in Iraq
even though he later applauded General Abizaid for bringing the changed cir-
cumstances to his attention.100 In addition, Hadley notes the White House was
slow to reassess options when the Iraqi army melted away.101 On the other
hand, in response to changed circumstances, the White House was willing to
pull in experts to learn about the demands of counterinsurgency. Command-
ers who applied time-tested counterinsurgency methods and enjoyed field
success as a result might find themselves briefing the President, Vice President,
Secretary of Defense, or other senior military and civilian leaders.102
Some leaders such as Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, and
other defense leaders complain the NSC process made it difficult to adjust

187
Lamb with Franco

policies in light of new developments.103 They argue National Security Advisor

Condoleezza Rice imposed compromises that obscured a clear articulation of
options on how to manage the war in Iraq. As we discuss, Dr. Rice denies this.
It is interesting that in the Obama administration, Cabinet officials sometimes
complained about the opposite tendency. Secretaries Clinton and Gates, for
instance, suggest the Obama administration looked at options in Afghanistan
from every conceivable angle and perhaps past the point of marginal addi-
tional benefit.104
We believe the record on senior leader adaptation to evolving circum-
stances is mixed. The innovative dimension of the Surge decisions is discussed
in the previous chapter, and we review other notable successes and failures to
innovate in the rest of this chapter. In summary, however, it seems clear that
the willingness to consider alternative options and courses of action in re-
sponse to evolving local conditions varied by leader, issue, and strength of the
organizational culture resisting change.
In sum, there is room for improvement on adaptability, something Gener-
al Dempsey and General McChrystal believe is quite important. They observe
that in dynamic irregular warfare challenges, the key to success is not prognos-
ticating well at the outset but adapting and innovating faster than the adver-
sary.105 The U.S. national security bureaucracy was not nimble in this respect.
The lack of a clear strategy and bureaucratic conflict contributed to sluggish
performance in Afghanistan and Iraq in several ways. For example, the lack of
coherent strategy was a major factor undermining the U.S. ability to command
and control the war effort for greatest effect. We examine this topic in the next
section.

Command
Unified effort is important because working at cross-purposes is inefficient
and often ineffective as well. The assumption that unified effort is useful re-
flects a decisionmaking bias in favor of coherence based on the principles
of rationality, causality, and intentionality.106 This bias inclines reformers to
advocate more systematic attempts to define objectives, establish knowledge
about the world, coordinate among different aspects of a decision, and exer-
cise control in the name of some central vision.107 The reformer perspective
that favors unified effort is consistent with our assumption that senior leader

188
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

decisionmaking was choice based and an instrumental activity designed to

defeat terrorism. It also is consistent with the purpose of this current volume:
identifying lessons from experience.
The conceptual failures reviewed in the previous section were a major im-
pediment to unified effort, but not the only one. Other organizational limita-
tions also diminished the ability of senior leaders to generate unified effort,
which was a multidimensional challenge. International cooperation required
diplomacy; partnership among the executive, judicial, and legislative branches
required political action; collaboration between executive branch departments
and agencies required Presidential intervention; coherent efforts within de-
partments and agencies required good leadership from Cabinet officials; and
so on. Here our focus is on unified effort within the executive branch, where
there were successes and failures.
To be clear, we are not talking about disagreements per se, but rather the
persistence of unresolved differences that lead to conflicting behaviors. Good
decisionmaking requires a range of views, but once a decision has been made
the entire organization needs to implement the decision with unified effort.
Sometimes this happened.108 However, senior leaders in both the Bush and
Obama administrations often cite friction between national leaders and orga-
nizations as the Achilles heel of the U.S. war effort. Few other topics gener-
ate so much piercing commentary from senior leaders as problems with the
chain of command and interagency coordination, which we refer to as vertical
and horizontal unity of effort issues.109 Beginning with vertical unity of effort,
we consider impediments to unified effort at three levelsdecisionmaking at
the national level (meaning between the White House staff and organizations
constituting the National Security Council); within departments and agencies,
particularly the Pentagon; and in the field (that is, Afghanistan and Iraq).

Vertical Unity of Effort

Vertical unity of effort refers to the lines of authority from the President down
through the departments and agencies of the national security system. Our
concern is with the way the Presidents guidance and instructions are commu-
nicated by senior leaders and implemented by subordinates in the executive
branch. The necessity and challenge of delegating authority in the national
security system have been well recognized for decades.110 The President can

189
Lamb with Franco

involve himself in a miniscule portion of the decisions made throughout the

national security system. Like all leaders commanding large organizations, he
must issue broad guidance and count on subordinates to implement the guid-
ance consistent with his intent and extant circumstances.
To make delegated authority work, there must be unity of command,
which the U.S. military considers a principle of war. The Constitution pro-
vides for unity of command by making the President commander in chief of
the Armed Forces and chief executive of the executive branch of government.
Nevertheless, multiple forces limit the Presidents ability to generate unified
effort. Problems arise when there is confusion about who is in charge of what;
when the Presidents guidance is neglected or reinterpreted; and when the
President is not able to review and issue clarifying instructions in a timely
manner as circumstances evolve. These types of complications to vertical unity
of effort were evident in the war on terror at multiple levels.
Confusion about who was in charge of various efforts arose early and con-
tinued throughout the war. President Bush was frustrated when he discovered
DOD and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) each thought the other had
the lead for operations in Afghanistan.111 The mixup was due in part to the
nature of the nontraditional threat, which required responses from multiple
departments and agencies and raised doubts about which organization would
lead the effort. President Bush and President Obama tried to eliminate such
uncertainty by assigning czars in Washington or special envoys overseas to
lead interagency missions. Some argue this practice led to bureaucratic conflict
in Washington and confusion abroad about who spoke for the President.112
In Afghanistan and Iraq, senior leader accounts suggest the performance of
czars and special envoys was mixed and changed over time.113 L. Paul Bremer
was the most controversial such figure. Bremers appointment did not sim-
plify the Presidents job. Instead, it accentuated disagreements among State,
Defense, and White House staffs about who was in the chain of command
between the President and Bremer. The origins of Bremers substantive policy
preferences were disputable.114 However, what seemed clear was that Bremer
was convinced that he worked for the President, even though his terms of
reference stated he worked for the Secretary of Defense.115 Senior DOD lead-
ers insist the confusion about Bremers reporting chain sidetracked the entire
mission in Iraq.116 President Obamas special envoy to Afghanistan and Paki-

190
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

stan caused similar consternation when, reporting to [Secretary Clinton] but

working closely with the White House, White House officials saw his [Rich-
ard Holbrookes] efforts to coordinate among various government agencies as
encroaching on their turf.117
Senior officials also offer examples of Presidential guidance being ignored,
exceeded, resisted, or misinterpreted to the detriment of coherence as it passed
through the bureaucracy.118 President Bush believed the Secretary of State
wasnt fully on board with [his] philosophy and policies,119 and the Vice Pres-
ident notes that on occasion both the Secretary of State and Secretary of De-
fense exceeded Presidential guidance.120 George Tenet asserts the Presidents
guidance on cutting funding to certain Iraqi exile groups was ignored.121 Sec-
retary Clinton argues that some of her initiatives were held up by White House
officials who wanted to be sure that State wasnt trying to usurp the White
Houses role as the primary coordinator of activity across the various agencies,
especially when it came to communications. Clinton states these officials were
out of step with the President, who had been asking for this kind of plan for
more than a year.122 The President and White House officials in both the Bush
and Obama administrations believed Pentagon leaders sometimes were not
supportive of the Presidents agenda. Cheney points to ongoing resistance in-
side the Pentagon and at [U.S.] Central Command to the surge strategy,123 and
both secretaries of State and Defense acknowledge the Obama White House
felt boxed in by Pentagon demands for more troops in Afghanistan.124
The trouble Presidents have ensuring unified effort down the chain of com-
mand is replicated at the level of Cabinet officials. Multiple sources, including
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicate the commander of U.S. Cen-
tral Command (USCENTCOM) would not take postwar planning seriously
as directed by himself and the Secretary of Defense.125 Big organizations are
just difficult to manage, states Secretary Rice in her memoirs. As Secretary
of Defense Bob Gates and I used to say to each other, only half-jokingly, You
never know what your building is doing until its too late.126 Unified effort
was also an issue among deployed military forces, which may surprise those
who thought Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act
of 1986 reforms solved the age-old military command problem of too many
high-ranking generals with a hand on the tiller.127 Secretary Gates is forthright
in acknowledging command relationships in Afghanistan were a jerry-rigged

191
Lamb with Franco

arrangement [that] violated every principle of the unity of command. Some

U.S. forces reported to the commander of the International Security Assis-
tance Force in Kabul, others to a separate U.S. three-star general, who in turn
reported to the four-star commander of Central Command, and still others to
the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).
The lack of joint command and control contributed to the inability of the
Army and Air Force, and to some extent the Marine Corps, to adequately co-
operate on the battlefield.128 Overlapping and ad hoc command arrangements
in Afghanistan also are a major reason SOF worked at cross-purposes with
larger campaign objectives. Kill/capture operations took precedence over the
indirect approach to counterinsurgency, even though there was broad agree-
ment among the U.S. national security and USSOCOM leadership that the
opposite was necessary.129 In 2008, a 6-week interagency review found that in
Kandahar Province alone there were 10 separate chains of command manag-
ing 10 separate warfighting efforts.
Similarly, before General McChrystal assumed command in Afghanistan
in 2009, he reviewed an incident where Afghan civilians were inadvertently
killed. He found:

There was an Afghan force that had a Marine Special Operations Com-
mand . . . element working with it, which didnt own the battlespace, but
was out there doing its own thing. There was a Special Forces regional
taskforce, which was also operating in the area, but was different from
the battlespace owner. And then there were the forces that dropped the
bomb which killed the civilians. He found that there were at least five
players in the proximity of the incident, but nobody was in charge. The
different entities didnt even have the requirement to keep each other
informed of what they were doing.130

This kind of disunity of command persisted until Secretary Gates ordered

it rectified in the summer of 2010, nearly 9 years after the war started.131 Gates
considered getting all American forces (including both special operations and
the Marines) under the U.S. theater commander [and] at last establishing uni-
ty of command, an accomplishment akin to securing the Holy Grail.

192
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Strong subordinate organizations resisted unified command, and their

cultures also undermined unified effort in other ways. General Casey was con-
cerned about the willingness of U.S. ground forces to embrace counterinsur-
gency principles. He thought Army and Marine Corps organizational cultures
would hamper our ability to accomplish the mission because they were fo-
cused on the use of force. He knew he was attempting to change deeply em-
bedded Service culture and that [he] would have to change the mindset of the
force, but underestimated how long this would take.132 Service cultures also
complicated coordination of air-ground operations. General Richard Myers,
USAF (Ret.), believes the lack of jointness in this area was a command failure
that cost brave Americans their lives. He told General Tommy Franks, USA,
then commander of USCENTCOM, that it was absolutely unacceptable, and
believes Franks took immediate action to fix the problem.133
As important as it is to pursue the senior leaders intent, subordinate units
also need the latitude to achieve objectives consistent with extant circum-
stances. While many brigade commanders never comprehended or supported
counterinsurgency doctrine, others improved on the preferred approach to
counterinsurgency.134 Then-Colonel Julian Alford, USMC, is a case in point.
His unexpected success in pacifying al-Qaim near the Syrian border in 2005
drew the attention of General Casey, who visited Alford repeatedly and asked
him to help educate other commanders on counterinsurgency methods.135
Other notable Marine commanders emulated Alford with success, including
Lieutenant Colonel William M. Jurney in Ramadi in 2006 and Lieutenant Col-
onel William Mullen III in Fallujah in 2007.136 Similarly, a series of Army field
commanders achieved unexpected counterinsurgency success by reaching out
to local authorities and indigenous forces to partner on securing the local pop-
ulations. Captain Jim Calvert in Qaim, Colonel Robert Brown in Mosul, Col-
onel H.R. McMaster in Tal Afar, and Colonel Sean MacFarland in Ramadi are
all notable in this respect. In essence they were challenging policy and strategy
established by superiors in their chain of command:

Instead of communicating an intention to leave Iraq to Iraqis, Mac-

Farland expressed commitment to their cause. He explained that if the
Iraqis stood up for themselves, he and his forces would stay until they
were secure from al Qaeda and the Persians [Iranians]. He promised

193
Lamb with Franco

to create a Sunni police militia that would become part of the Iraqi gov-
ernment but stay in Ramadi to protect their homes and families. To
do so, MacFarland required non-standard funding sources available
through interagency contacts. . . . In what MacFarland would later de-
scribe as the game changer, Ramadis police force increased from 150
to 4,000 in a matter of months. Consequently, intelligence and counter-
insurgency capabilities improved and eventually responsibility for secu-
rity operations began transitioning to the Iraqis.137

Simply put, MacFarland reversed existing policy, which was to tell the
Iraqis, You stand up, and well stand down.138 Instead, he promised, if you
stand up, well stand by you. The other successful field commanders did the
same.
The national security systems ability to learn and adapt to emerging con-
ditions is reviewed in the previous chapter. Here we note there were some ex-
amples of learning in the field that should be encouraged. Field commanders
were given the latitude to apply guidance as they thought local circumstances
demanded, and some did so in innovative and successful ways. The Chair-
mans white paper on mission command philosophy, derived from warfight-
ing experience over the past decade, explicitly argues the point that in complex
and dynamic environments, subordinates should be encouraged to innovate
more and given the latitude to do so.139
Innovation is risky when commanders intent is not well understood or
commanders are not inclined to give subordinates much latitude. It could be
misinterpreted as disloyalty to the chain of command and their preferred ap-
proaches. Concerning the decision to surge forces, General Casey concludes:

In retrospect, I believe that I should have directly offered the President

a broader range of options for achieving our objectives in Iraq. I had
discussed different options for improving the security situation with the
Secretary of Defense and Chairman. . . . In the end, I only presented the
President the course of action we selectedaccelerated transitionand
I believe that I should have offered him a wider range of options to meet
his policy needs.140

194
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

General Casey knew that his DOD superiors and all the Service chiefs
did not support the Surge and preferred greater efforts to hand off the security
mission to Iraqi forces. Providing realistic alternatives to their preferred ap-
proach for the Presidents consideration would require ignoring his superiors
policy preferences and could have been interpreted as jumping the chain of
command.
Alford, McMaster, MacFarland, and other successful field commanders
faced the same dilemma working under Casey.141 Yet they realized local Iraqi
leaders could not afford to support American forces and the new government
if the forces were trying to leave and the government looked like it would col-
lapse. Success required convincing locals that the United States was in it to
win it, defined as not walking away until the government could manage its
own security. Thus, these commanders had to turn the prevailing counter-
insurgency approach on its head. As noted previously, instead of stating U.S.
forces would stand down as the Iraqis took responsibility for security, they as-
sured local Iraqis that if they stood up to defend themselves, U.S. forces would
stand by them until the enemy was defeated. Some general officers such as
General McChrystal also innovated well in trying circumstances.142
Innovation needs to be recognized, rewarded, and quickly replicated. In
most cases the successes were recognized; they were so glaring they could
hardly be ignored. Lessons from successful commanders also were shared
both formally and informally (for example, Jurney learned directly from Al-
ford, and MacFarland from McMaster). However, the record on rewarding and
replicating these tactical successes was spotty. Some, but hardly all, successful
field commanders were promoted by their parent organizations, and some-
times only begrudgingly.
The replication of these successful examples was even more limited. Gen-
eral Casey was right to be concerned about U.S. ground forces accepting coun-
terinsurgency principles that ran against their organizational cultures. At best,
the U.S. military adopted proven counterinsurgency techniques slowly and
unevenly.143 More importantly, however, tactical successes were not replicated
because the methods they relied upon challenged prevailing policy and strat-
egy. Tactical partnering with local forces could fuel sectarian sentiments and
undermine formal Iraqi governmental structures that the United States was
committed to supporting. It also often involved working with local leaders

195
Lamb with Franco

with checkered pasts or who were judged by U.S. leaders or intelligence to be

marginal players, and it ran counter to the policy of transferring responsibility
for security to Iraqi military forces as fast as possible, which was based on the
assumption that the mere presence of U.S. forces was an irritant to be mini-
mized as a matter of priority.144 For all these reasons, the tactical successes of
Marine and Army field commanders in late 2004 and 2005 failed to prompt a
rapid reassessment of policy and strategy assumptions.
If mission command is going to take root and become a useful element
of U.S. military culture, we need to consider the broader organizational im-
plications of the concept. We need to better understand why some officers
are inclined to innovate and learn from others; what it would take to make
their examples more common if not the norm; and especially how to assess
and replicate more rapidly successful innovation from the bottom up when it
challenges existing senior leader assumptions.
It also needs to be acknowledged that innovation can backfire, especial-
ly where the commanders intent is not clear. Ambassador Bremer secured
wide discretionary authority from the President without clear guidance on the
purpose of occupying Iraq. His most controversial decisionshandling ex-
patriate Iraqi leaders, disbanding (or not reconstituting) the Iraqi army, and
de-Baathificationwere so contentious because it was not clear whether they
were consistent with Presidential intent.145 Indeed, some argue Bremer was
chosen because he was a take-charge kind of person who could operate with-
out guidance: In Bremer, the administration saw a hands-on and assertive
administrator: a veritable proconsul who would grab hold of the turmoil that
was Iraq and get the Bush administrations program there back on track.146
Some historical accounts lionize special envoys, czars, and other nation-
al security officials for working around the limitations of the current system
to generate good outcomes.147 Recent studies of the national security system,
however, warn that policy entrepreneurs constitute a roll of the dice. They
often have limited access to all available resources, rely upon questionable le-
gal authorities, pursue policies based on faulty but unchallenged assumptions,
and make poor use of subject matter experts and other institutional exper-
tise.148 Considered in the context of broader system attributes, turning over
decisionmaking to an assertive, high-profile special envoy is more akin to
mission roulette than mission command. Policy entrepreneurs such as Am-

196
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

bassador Bremer or Ambassador Richard Holbrooke are neither heroes nor

villains. They are courageous, experienced leaders forced by circumstances
and assignment to gamble the Nations welfare and their reputations without a
clear understanding of national objectives or much control over the combined
forces the United States can bring to bear upon the problems they are assigned
to resolve. When they succeed they are lionized; when they fail they are deni-
grated, and often their careers are destroyed.149 Forced to work with uncertain
authority, control, and situational awareness, the odds are not stacked in favor
of their success.
More oversight to ensure accountability is the usual fix for subordinates
generating poor outcomes, but in the current system, that tends to generate
charges of micromanagement. Everyone is in favor of good oversight in princi-
ple, which requires leaders to take responsibility for what happens under their
authority and fix problems rather than assign blame when things go awry. At
the same time, everyone loathes micromanagers far removed from the prob-
lem who tell their subordinates not only what to do but also how to do it. In
fact, it is more common for Washington insiders to rail about micromanage-
ment than lack of oversight. For example, a group of senior leaders with much
experience in both the Bush and Obama administrations has argued the Unit-
ed States has no hope of success in countering the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant unless it overcomes the crippling problem of tight Washington tactical
control of decisions in the field of the sort so beloved by bureaucratic Wash-
ington departments and power centers.150
Getting the balance right between helpful oversight and unhelpful mi-
cromanagement is difficult in the current system for multiple reasons.151 For
one thing, a clear difference between the two is often discernable only in ret-
rospect as the consequences of leader interventions (or lack thereof) emerge.
The White Houses orchestration of the Surge in Iraq and Secretary Gatess
insistence on producing Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles
are cases in point. Most people consider these interventions helpful oversight
in retrospect because they appeared to work. On the other hand, most peo-
ple now believe the CIAs Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation program
did not receive sufficient oversight even though it was approved by the Pres-
ident, Vice President, National Security Advisor, and U.S. Attorney General,
and reviewed by the chairmen and ranking Members of the Senate and House

197
Lamb with Franco

intelligence committees. Since no attack comparable to 9/11 has materialized,

the unpopular program is now often described as ineffectual and unnecessary.
It may be difficult to distinguish between good oversight and microman-
agement before outcomes are evident, but some general observations are possi-
ble. First, there is an interesting consistency in how senior leaders describe the
difference between helpful oversight and unhelpful micromanagement; they ap-
preciate the value of giving guidance more than receiving it. In times past, disar-
mament experts used to quip that a weapon is offensive or defensive depending
upon which end of the barrel a person stands at. Similarly, we can jest that leader
interventions are oversight or micromanagement, depending upon which end
of the guidance pipeline a person stands at. This witticism has an empirical ba-
sis; senior leaders complain about guidance from superiors but see their own
guidance to subordinates as helpful. They also demonstrate great sensitivity to
higher authority requesting information from their subordinates but themselves
seek unfiltered information from lower echelons of their organizations.
For example, Dr. Rice complained that Secretary Rumsfeld was hypersen-
sitive when her staff went to sources in the field and the Pentagon for rou-
tine information, but she also threatened to resign when she thought DOD
bypassed her to get Presidential approval on military commissions to try
detainees.152 Secretary Rumsfeld advocated delegated authority, but he also
handpicked senior general officers for positions in the Pentagon, objected to
the latitude Ambassador Bremer was given as the Presidents representative in
Iraq, tried to bypass the Ambassador in Poland,153 and subjected his own sub-
ordinatesincluding his Deputy Secretary of Defenseto such close scrutiny
that they were afraid to speak up without his permission. Fed up with the
National Security Council staff s micromanagement, Secretary Gates cut off
their contact with his forces in the field, but when he visited Afghanistan and
Iraq, he liked to meet with unsupervised lower ranking officers to get ground
truth.154 Gates also was frustrated that President Obama would not accept
the unanimous decision by his senior uniformed advisors on troop levels in
Afghanistan, but at the same time was dismayed that the entire uniformed
leadership of the Pentagon did not support his position on the urgent need
to acquire better armored vehicles and other material.155 Secretary Clintons
memoir suggests that she needed direct communication with the President to
overcome White House staff interference with her plans, but she also fought to

198
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

ensure Ambassador Christopher Hills weekly message to the President went

through her.156 General Franks threatened to resign over unwarranted interfer-
ence from the Secretary of Defense and bristled over critiques of his war plans
by Service chiefs, but he had a reputation for insisting on being well informed
on his subordinates activities and demanding stringent compliance.157
Another insight is that the higher one goes in the national security system,
the more pronounced the ostensible aversion to micromanagement, so much
so that the sentiment constrains good oversight. There is common agreement
that the White House (that is, NSC staff) should make policy but not get in-
volved in the details of managing national security issues. In noting his job
was to make sure plans were comprehensive and consistent with his strategic
vision, but not to manage logistics or tactical decisions, President Bush stated
he remembered how deleterious it was for President Lyndon Johnson to pick
bombing targets in Vietnam.158 Another historical example that White House
officials cite as a caution against micromanagement is the Iran-Contra Affair.
A Presidential Special Review Board headed by Senator John Tower investigat-
ed the incident during the Reagan administration and recommended several
corrective measures, including an injunction against NSC staff implementing
policy or conducting operations. In the same way that President Johnsons
picking bombing targets is invoked as shorthand for civilian meddling in mil-
itary matters,159 Iran-Contra is routinely offered up as substantiated proof that
the NSC staff should never delve into operational matters but instead leave
those details to Cabinet officials.160
Experience in the war on terror suggests that we have overlearned the
lessons of Iran-Contra, but senior leaders are slow to embrace this insight for
fear of being labeled micromanagers. Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley
are cases in point. Dr. Rice explains in her memoir how Iran-Contra informed
her views and those of her deputy, Hadley, who had served as counsel to the
Tower Commission. Together they resolved to carry out the Presidents agen-
da through and not around Cabinet secretaries.161 Thus, President Bush and
his national security staff began their tenure determined to make policy but
delegate well and let the system worry about implementation details. This
same commitment to empowering subordinates also inclined President Bush
to grant maximum flexibility to his man on the ground in Iraq, Ambassador
Bremer.162

199
Lamb with Franco

Yet when failure loomed, the President, Rice, and Hadley developed a
keen appreciation for the value of detailed oversight even though it meant be-
ing accused of micromanagement. Rice saw the White House needed better
connectivity with Bremer and his staff in Baghdad, and to get it she created
the Iraq Stabilization Group headed by a black belt in bureaucratic politics.
This led to intense friction with the Secretary of Defense, the accusation that
she was interfering in the chain of command, and also a short-lived reprimand
from the President. President Bush objected to Dr. Rice summoning Ambas-
sador Bremer to Washington to explain next steps in Iraq because he knew
there would be fallout from bypassing Secretary Rumsfeld, who was sensitive
to what he thought to be White House interference in the chain of command.
Rice told the President she could cancel Bremers trip, but added, Dont be
surprised when the United States has a new plan for Iraqs political transi-
tion that you havent seen. The President relented and asked when Bremer
was coming.163 Rice remained sensitive to the charge of micromanagement,
however, admitting she was far deeper into operational matters than [she
thought] wise. Yet she ended up being glad she intervened.164
Similarly, Hadley remains convinced that the Tower Commissions in-
junction against NSC staff getting involved in operations remains absolutely
true. At the same time, he admits that the Iraq strategy could not succeed
if we gave it to the bureaucracy to be executed in the ordinary course [of
business] because it would not get done in time. So he concludes, the one
thing weve learned since the Tower Commission report is that the NSC has
the responsibility to ensure that policy decisions . . . are actually implement-
ed and executed effectively. Hadley considers effective oversight of decision
implementation (that is, operations) a new frontier for the interagency pro-
cess, and he experimented with alternative means of providing it. First he
created an Afghan Operations Groupan interagency team with offices in
the Department of Stateand later he appointed a czar (Lieutenant General
Douglas Lute, USA) with a direct line to the President.165 Insider accounts of
decisionmaking indicate he later took a much more hands-on personal role in
engineering the White House intervention that led to the Surge.166
There will always be an eye of the beholder dimension to distinguishing
helpful oversight from unhelpful micromanagement. However, several insights
may assist future leaders on this difficult topic. First, experienced leaders make

200
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

a distinction between gathering information and intervening to direct subor-

dinate behaviors. Since authority can be delegated, but not responsibility,167 it
is incumbent upon leaders to stay well informed about progress toward objec-
tives, identifying anything or anybody that is impeding success. All leaders,
from the President to the local commander and Ambassador in the field, must
understand well whether the collective endeavor they supervise is succeeding
or failing. In arguing the Secretary of Defense has to master details and under-
stand issues, Secretary Gates distinguishes between micro-knowledge and
micromanagement. A poorly informed Secretary of Defense is a kept man
at the Pentagon, enjoying the trappings of power but without the knowledge
or influence to effectively lead.168 In essence this was the same point Dr. Rice
made to President Bush when he bristled at her bringing Ambassador Bremer
to Washington; the White House had to know what Bremer was planning to
do next. Getting such information from the bureaucracy can be difficult. Had-
ley notes that during the Obama administration, trying to get inside informa-
tion from DOD on options for a Surge cost two senior leaders their careers.169
When leaders do move beyond information collection to intervene with
amplifying guidanceespecially over the objections of subordinatesthey
need to make sure they do so for the right reasons. They should override sub-
ordinate concerns when they are convinced their broader field of vision gives
them insights that those further down the chain of command lack; that with
their privileged perspective they can see that the larger enterprise is at risk if
some particular actions are not taken. Micromanagement occurs when lead-
ers tell a subordinate what to do based on personal past experience or some
other prejudice rather than their broader field of vision. Good oversight is
based on contextual insights from a higher level, whereas micromanagement
second-guesses a subordinate without the detailed knowledge of immediate
circumstances that are known to the subordinate. The assumption here is that
requirements for success visible from the higher level drive and thus trump the
importance of outcomes at a lower level. If this assumption does not hold, as
is sometimes the case when tactical results enable strategic outcomes, leaders
must be especially averse to overriding subordinates with better knowledge of
local conditions.
Finally, many senior leaders believe a good decisionmaking process can
make helpful oversight more common and hurtful micromanagement less

201
Lamb with Franco

likely. For example, a common prescription for good teamwork is to promote

vibrant debate and information-sharing before the senior leader decision is
made, and unified effort to achieve the leaders intent and objective after he or
she makes the decision.170 Since information can be used to further the inter-
ests of subordinates rather than leaders (often referred to as the principal-agent
problem), mutual trust is essential to make this general approach worka
point emphasized in the Chairmans white paper on mission command.171 This
is true of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Delegated authority worked best
where trust was most prominent (for example, within some Ambassadorjoint
force commander pairings, some interagency field teams hunting high-value
targets, and within the U.S. military chain of command that allowed field com-
manders to apply general guidance in specific circumstances as they saw fit).
Trust relationships across organizational boundaries take time and often
prove fragile if not reinforced through relationships, process, and common cul-
tures. As SOF like to say, You cant surge trust. Yet properly nurtured, what
once was perceived as unhelpful micromanagement may eventually be seen as
helpful collaboration. General Frankss opinion of Secretary Rumsfelds super-
vision of his war plans evolved in this manner.172 Trust relationships also can
deteriorate. Trust levels between CIA Director George Tenet and the Bush White
House fell so far that cooperation between the two was impossible, and Presi-
dent Obamas confidence in DOD and uniformed leadership also deteriorated
over the course of his first administration. Similarly, some interagency task forc-
es chasing high-value targets collapsed when trust relationships were broken.173
Overall, mistrust was a significant problem at multiple levels of the national se-
curity system and especially during planning and execution of Iraq operations.174
As we have seen, vertical unity of effort was a problem even though the
U.S. national security system benefits from legal structures that ensure unity
of command and from common organizational normsespecially but not ex-
clusively in DODthat support unified command and effort. Generating hor-
izontal unity of effort across diverse departments and agencies with divergent
missions and cultures was even more difficult and more consequential as well.

Horizontal Unity of Effort

Stated broadly, horizontal unity of effort refers to the way discrete organiza-
tions cooperate for common purposes when they are not accountable to the

202
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

same authority, or when they are too far removed from a common authori-
ty to receive effective oversight. More narrowly, horizontal unity of effort in
national security discourse refers to how well departments and agencies in
the executive branch collaborate to accomplish national objectives or, in com-
mon parlance, interagency cooperation. The legal structures, authority rela-
tionships, and organizational norms in the national security system are much
better established for vertical than for horizontal unity of effort, so it is not sur-
prising the latter was more problematic. Poor horizontal collaboration was a
major performance impediment because so many of the subsidiary objectives
and tasks in the war on terrorsuch as attacking terrorist leaders, countering
their narrative and promoting ours (that is, strategic communications), and
interrupting terrorist financingdepended upon interagency cooperation.
Conversely, some of the greatest successes in the war on terror were the result
of collaboration across departmental lines.
DOD-CIA cooperation is most often cited as an example of interagency
success, both the operational collaboration at the beginning of operations in
Afghanistan and then the later and more general fusion of all-source intelli-
gence with special operations to hunt enemy leaders. Another important area
marked by notable interagency cooperation was some of the Department of
State and DOD partnerships forged between Ambassadors and theater com-
manders. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Lieutenant General David Bar-
no, USA, in Afghanistan (2003) and Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General
David Petraeus, USA, in Iraq (2007) made strenuous efforts to collaborate,175
which contributed to their making progress against the insurgencies during
their tenures.176 There were other interagency successes in countering terrorist
financing and securing international cooperation.177
Unfortunately, these types of success were as sporadic as they were criti-
cal. According to senior leader accountsand many lessons learned efforts
as well178interagency conflicts handicapped U.S. national security perfor-
mance. President Bush deplored interagency squabbling, argued it hurt his ad-
ministrations credibility, and noted he was unable to end it.179 His Cabinet-lev-
el officials also attributed poor outcomes to the lack of cooperation between
departments and agencies. Conflict between DOD and State was particularly
severe, but there was substantial friction between the National Security Advi-
sor and Cabinet officials. In the Bush administration, Secretary Gates was able

203
Lamb with Franco

to work well with Dr. Rice,180 and in the Obama administration, Gates worked
well with Secretary Clinton. However, even when those relationships were
relatively harmonious there was substantial conflict between other national
security components, including enduring tension between the White House
and Cabinet officials, between senior intelligence officials vying for control of
intelligence assets, and between Ambassadors and military commanders in
the field.
Successful interagency cooperation efforts took time to develop, had to
be nurtured, and were fragile and prone to deterioration. DOD-CIA coop-
eration is a case in point. The idea to embed SOF with the Northern Alliance
came from the CIA and worked well. However, as DOD flowed conventional
military units to theater, the ad hoc cooperation between the CIA and SOF
subsided, which contributed to command and control problems in Operation
Anaconda.181 Interagency cooperation in hunting important enemy leaders
has been maintained with great effort, but it too is subject to interruption.182
General McChrystal observes no interagency alliance was as infuriating or
as productive as his relationship with the CIA, and that more than once
he had to be stopped in moments of utter frustration, from severing all ties
with the agency.183 There is always a price to be paid for being slow to generate
interagency cooperation when missions demand it, and sometimes the price is
quite high. Many argue, for example, that the postwar administration of Iraq
was fatally flawed by interagency strife.184
Postwar planning was led by DOD. Putting one department or agency in
the lead is the typical U.S. Government means of managing interagency mis-
sions. Even if a good ad hoc working relationship has been forged on the fly,
leaders prefer designating a lead agency as soon as possible. The President
insisted on knowing whether DOD or the CIA had the lead for operations in
Afghanistan. DOD acknowledged the CIAs initial lead but demanded that it
transition to DOD as forces flowed to theater.185 The lead agency approach
can work when there is a consensus that one department or agency has the
preponderance of expertise needed to manage a mission. For example, oth-
er departments recognized the Treasury Department as the right lead for the
interagency effort to counter terrorism financing. However, the traditional
lead agency approach does not work well for nontraditional missions such as
counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, which by their very nature require

204
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

intense ongoing interdepartmental cooperation and have no obvious organi-

zational lead. In such circumstances, lead departments and agencies may re-
strict participation by others to minimize their ability to interfere, and those
not in the lead may restrict their support to save resources or avoid respon-
sibility for outcomes they cannot control. Thus, in the words of one seasoned
NSC staff person, lead agency almost always devolves into sole agency186
as centrifugal organizational forcesdesire for autonomy, different mandates
and cultures, personality conflictsmilitate against interagency cooperation.
Both postwar planning and the reconstruction effort led by the State De-
partment are good examples.187 DOD excluded State subject matter experts
from its postwar planning team fearing they would not support its light foot-
print approach that assumed a quick turnover to Iraqi authorities.188 Most
sources agree that State-DOD relations reached their nadir as a result. Ironi-
cally, State and Defense positions on the need for State Department expertise
on postwar reconstruction reversed over time but the interagency friction re-
mained. After State regained the lead for reconstruction in Iraq, Ambassador
Hill concluded the large number of Foreign Service personnel assigned to the
task was unnecessary and only done because the military wanted it that way.
DOD demanded that State step up and join the war effort by providing ever
greater numbers of personnel even though, in the Ambassadors view, find-
ing meaningful work for them was a challenge. The Ambassador wanted to
reduce U.S. presence and let the Iraqis work out their own future (the initial
DOD position), but most of all to diminish the overbearing role of DOD and
return the lead for bilateral relations to State.189
The importance and difficulty of generating interagency cooperation were
well recognized by senior leaders. It is doubtful any topic generates a greater
degree of senior leader consensus than the assertion that irregular warfare re-
quires effective orchestration of all elements of power, unless it is the related
observation that the United States failed to meet this requirement well. Senior
leaders in both the Bush and Obama administrations recognized the impor-
tance of interagency cooperation and offer examples of how the war effort was
compromised by inadequate unity of effort. Some commentators opine that
interagency conflict is a significant problem only in Washington, where big
egos and budgets are in play, or only in the field, where coordinated actions
count. In reality it was a liability at all levels of the national security system

205
Lamb with Franco

and among numerous departments and agencies, although some relationships

were more fraught with friction than others.
At the national level, conflict between the Department of State and DOD
was most remarked upon. There is a long history of such tension. Secretary
Gates noted that for most of his career, the Secretaries of State and Defense
werent speaking to one another.190 Dr. Rice, who served both as National Se-
curity Advisor and Secretary of State, considers infighting between the two
departments almost endemic. In an extended discussion, Rice explains the
quarreling as a result of the huge disparity in resources that requires State to
rely on DOD assets and the tendency of Defense to meddle in foreign policy.
Rice discounts cultural differences, but other observers believe they also play a
role. She also notes that during the first Bush term, State-DOD tensions were
exacerbated by personal distrust between Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell.191
During the Obama administration the relationship was less contentious, but
tension between the White House and DOD was more so. In both adminis-
trations, there were interagency cooperation problems between other depart-
ments and agencies besides State and Defense.
Poor relations among the White House, DOD, and Intelligence Commu-
nity (IC) are another longstanding problem area at the national level. Many
observers note the tendency for the IC and DOD to disagree about intelli-
gence priorities as well as the frequency of conflicts between the IC and White
House. The White House is concerned that the IC is trying to influence policy
with the way it shades its products or even playing politics with intelligence
assessments to the disadvantage of the White House. The IC (mainly CIA) in
turn worries that the White House wants to skew intelligence assessments to
support policy or, if things go poorly, blame the IC for poor assessments that
failed to predict critical factors. These types of allegations ignore the inherent
difficulties involved in predicting the future and divining the intentions and
capabilities that are the closely guarded secrets of other countries. When lead-
ers bandied these accusations about, they destroyed relationships, diminished
cooperation, and contributed to a poisoning of public discourse about U.S.
strategic options and progress in the war.192
Interagency collaboration is a significant problem in Washington where
the only person with the authority to resolve such disputes is the President.
Hence, it is not surprising to find interagency coordination is more of a prob-

206
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

lem the further the participants are removed from direct Presidential supervi-
sion. At the regional level, the struggle between State and DOD again stands
out.193 Secretary Rice complains that regional combatant commanders some-
times act quite independently, developing their own relationships with foreign
leaders and bringing their influence to bear on issues that at best cross and
at worst shatter the lines between diplomacy and security policy. The huge
disparity in resources that combatant commanders can marshal compared to
Ambassadors comes up in this context. Ambassador Hill recounts how a joint
task force commander and his staff shook their heads in disbelief when he ex-
plained State would have a hard time coming up with $12 million for the police
training program, and then went ahead and funded the effort themselves.194
The resource disparity between State and DOD may contribute to what
many fear is the militarization of foreign policy, but differences in organiza-
tional cultures also play a role. Combatant commanders are mission-focused
in a way that can incline them to run roughshod over what they consider mi-
nor problems. A passage from the deputy commander of USCENTCOM is
instructive in this regard:

When it came to slow, bureaucratic foreign diplomacy we couldnt waste

any time. We had immediate requests to make, and we couldnt afford
to go through a million proper foreign channels and wait for a response.
We were going to talk to who we wanted to, when we wanted to, and
get answers immediately. For most of our ambassadors overseas, this
was a culture shock. I would call and say we needed to talk to a certain
foreign minister, president, emir, or appropriate head of state. Id tell
them to go directly to that president and tell him that in two hours he
would be talking to Vice President Cheney or Secretary Powell, and to
be prepared to discuss issues such as runways, overflight rights, access
to ports and transportation systems, fuel at airports, security at airports
and seaports, and help with air defense. We talked to who we needed to,
got the answers we needed, and got the job done (emphasis added).195

State acquiesced to this way of doing business in the aftermath of 9/11

when a consensus in favor of forceful action helped smooth over historic inter-
departmental differences. State also agreed to a set of strategic communication

207
Lamb with Franco

themes for Operation Enduring Freedom even though they originated in DOD.
However, after a few weeks, State had second thoughts about the themes and
fought to revise them.196 By the time the United States was preparing for Op-
eration Iraqi Freedom, interagency differences of opinion on communication
themes were so sharp that none could be agreed upon. The United States went
to war with each department putting out its own storyline. Similarly, as time
passed State insisted that bilateral discussions with foreign governments revert
to well-established practices managed by State.
Interagency relationships in the field were also slow to develop, fragile,
and subject to great variance. We noted that the chemistry between our teams
of Ambassadors and joint force commanders was in some cases productively
catalytic but more frequently corrosive and sometimes explosive.197 The point
to make here is that interagency success and failure were not just a function
of personal relationships; even Ambassadors and joint force commanders in-
tent on working well together found it a challenge because their departments
assessed the situation differently and had different priorities and different cul-
tures. General Casey underscores this point. He notes Presidential guidance
emphasized that helping Iraq through the transition to democracy would take
the full commitment of all agencies, and that in all activities, the Chief of
Mission and Commander, USCENTCOM shall ensure the closest cooperation
and mutual support.198 Nevertheless, Casey asserts the guidance:

did not create the unity of command necessary for the effective integra-
tion of civil-military efforts in successful counterinsurgency operations.
The Ambassador and I would have to create the unity of effort required
for success. This would prove a constant struggle as the two supporting
bureaucraciesState and Defenseoften had differing views. Things
would get more complex as we increasingly brought the new Iraqi gov-
ernment into the effort. The political and economic effects, so necessary to
sustaining our military success, would be outside of my direct control.199

The often differing views of State and Defense ensured the large array
of small interagency groups assembled in Afghanistan and Iraq struggled to
be productive. Interagency high-value target teams were hit and miss but im-
proved over time. The same is true of Provincial Reconstruction Teams, al-

208
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

though they never reached high levels of effectiveness. Ambassadors objected

to State personnel reporting to military officers, but the teams were mostly
staffed by DOD personnel in any case.
Ambassador Ronald Neumann, former U.S. Pacific Command Com-
mander and Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair, and for-
mer USSOCOM Commander Admiral Eric Olson agree with General Caseys
contention that interagency unity of effort was a difficult proposition even
when senior leaders wanted to get along:

[We] know personally most of those involved in leading the long wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan. They are to a personwhether military officers
or civilian officialsdiligent and dedicated patriots. They have often
worked across departmental lines to integrate security, governance and
economic-assistance programs to achieve real successes. However, when
officials and officers in the field did not get along, the deficiencies of
the system allowed their disputes to bring in-country progress to a halt.
What is needed is an overall system that will make cooperation and
integration the norm, not the exception.200

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction agrees that

the inability to forge unified effort in the field remains a critical shortcoming
even after 15 years of war. He lamented the gap:

between high-level strategic documents and the various projects and

programs being implemented. This lack of implementation/operation-
al planningmaking sure that U.S. activities in Afghanistan actually
contribute to overall national goals therethreatens to cause agencies
and projects to work at counter purposes, spend money on frivolous
endeavors, or fail to coordinate efforts to maximize impact.201

General McChrystal agrees, arguing that the United States cannot do

something as difficult as Afghanistan without one person in chargesome-
thing the U.S. still doesnt have right.202 McChrystals insistence that the
problem demands a structural fix is noteworthy. He is lauded as an example
of how good leadership alone can overcome interagency conflicts because of

209
Lamb with Franco

his virtuoso performance in forging informal unified effort in the hunt for
senior terrorist and insurgent leaders. Yet one of his major strategic lessons
from years of war is that we cannot have unified effort without formal unity of
command. Neumann, Blair, and Olson concur, arguing this lesson has yet to
be learned and applied:

Despite thirteen years of experienceand innumerable opportunities

to learn lessons from both successes and mistakesthere have been few
significant changes in our cumbersome, inefficient and ineffective ap-
proach to interagency operations in the field. [Our] current decision
making framework is an ineffective, stove piped diplomatic, military
and intelligence chain of command relying on complex Washington de-
cision making procedures that operate by committee. It often produces
confusion, mixed signals and slow reactions.203

No remedial action has been taken to fix our deficiency in horizontal

unity of effort because the consensus that it is a major problem has not been
matched by agreement on what to do about it. The literature cites numerous
factors as sources of interagency conflict, inter alia, policy differences,204 per-
sonality clashes,205 organizational turf battles,206 resource disparities,207 and
differences in organizational mandates and cultures.208 Many senior leaders
believe enlightened leadership is sufficient to solve the problem. Senior lead-
ers underscore the importance of personal relationships and, by extension,
the importance of picking the right subordinates to lead important missions
that require interagency collaboration (that is, people who respect one another
and are inclined to work well together).209 Senior leaders also often state their
conviction that if they ensure good relations with a counterpart from anoth-
er department or agency, the resultant cooperation will trickle down to their
subordinates.
This was Secretary Gatess view, and it is a common one. Elaborating on
his observation that Secretaries of State and DOD tend not to get along, Gates
argues, When it comes to government, whether it works or not often depends
on personal relationships. He thought repairing interagency relationships
would be easy in part because he had a unique set of personal relationships
stretching back decades. He also knew that if he got along with Secretary

210
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Clinton, it would radiate throughout our departments and the rest of the gov-
ernment.210 Secretary Rumsfeld states similar things in explaining how early
tensions were resolved over whether DOD or CIA would lead operations in
Afghanistan:

There had always been deep-seated anxieties at the CIA about the much
larger Defense Department. Though I know Tenet did not feel this way,
some at the CIA did not want to be seen as subordinate to the Depart-
ment of Defense. Tenet and I were conscious of the challenge that all
presidents have in getting the various agencies of the government to
work jointly. But we both felt that close, visible personal cooperation
between the two of us at the top could ease them and encourage a joint
approach for those down the chain of command.211

Also discussing the DOD-CIA relationship, Lieutenant General Michael

DeLong, USMC (Ret.), who served as General Frankss deputy until he retired
in 2003, agrees with Secretary Rumsfeld on the importance of the senior leader
relationships following 9/11. He asserts close personal relationships between
USCENTCOMs uniformed leaders and the top civilians in the CIA and DOD
ensured the relationship between the CIA and the military was the best it had
ever been.212 Some strong personal relationships existed from the beginning,
and others were built over time. Secretary Clinton relates how some key staff
personalities supporting the President grew from a team of rivals into an
unrivaled team.213 Either way, as Secretary Rice notes, it helps enormously to
have Cabinet secretaries who work well together.214 Some senior leaders even
assert relationships matter most of all, and if you cant develop a relation-
ship of trust and credibility you wont be successful in making a contribution
to national security.215
Good senior leader relations are desirable, and when they are problematic,
interdepartmental cooperation can be abysmal. However, as General Casey
argued, good relationships are far from a sufficient condition for interagency
success. An obvious problem with asserting that interagency collaboration is
only a function of good personal relationships is the way many strong person-
al relationships degenerated when relied upon for interagency collaboration.
Many of the relationships touted in the preceding references deteriorated and

211
Lamb with Franco

became quite antagonistic. President Bushs national security team was consid-
ered a dream team216 because they knew and respected each other. However,
some relationships became problematic and others, such as Tenets relation-
ship with the White House staff, deteriorated beyond repair.217 Similarly, many
assumed that Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and General McChrystal would
work well together since they shared a common military background, but they
did not. In fact, the record suggests it is difficult to predict whether any given
Ambassadorjoint task force commander relationship will work.
Asserting that good interagency collaboration is a function of personal
relationships levies a heavyperhaps impossibleburden on leaders. It im-
plies the converse is also truethat if there is poor interagency coordination,
it must be a leadership problem. Dr. Rice makes just this point, stating, the
distrust between [Rumsfeld] and [Powell] . . . made the levels below the sec-
retaries largely incapable of taking decisions. Senior leaders try to avoid ad
hominem attacks,218 but if they argue collaboration is just a function of rela-
tionships, the failure to collaborate must be explained by reference to leader
relations. Someone must be responsible for the poor relationships that torpedo
interagency cooperation, and the people writing their memoirs tend to believe
they are not the source of the problem.
One way to sidestep the issue of personalizing interagency conflicts is to
blame the process for creating friction. Indeed, a poorly run national security
coordination process is the second most common explanation for poor inter-
agency collaboration in senior leader accounts. Secretary Gates was advised by
an experienced Pentagon leader that decisionmaking in the Pentagon is like
the old Roman arenagladiators come before the emperor to battle and you
decide who is the winner. Someone needs to make sure the process within the
arena is fair, transparent, and objective, which many believe it was not.219 If
we add and definitive, this assessment would summarize the complaints the
Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and his subordinates had about the way
the interagency decisionmaking process was run in the Bush administration.220
These leaders assert Dr. Rice made a point of seeking compromises instead
of elevating unresolved differences of opinion to the President for resolution.221
They believe the resultant compromises produced more than just ambiguity or
confusion. If one department was allowed to win the argument over strategy
and another the argument over tactics, the inevitable result was incoherence.

212
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Under Secretary Douglas Feith, for example, laments the interagency discord
of the kind that confounded the Presidents Iraq policy from the outset of the
Administration, and argues tension between State and DOD became worse
over time, in part because basic differences . . . were papered over again and
again and never actually resolved.222 These senior leaders also complain the
Secretary of State facilitated the tension by not disagreeing in meetings but then
making his case out of court with either the President or the press.223
The argument against consensus decisionmaking in interagency bodies
has been made many times, as has the assertion that some departments do
not play fair by trying to circumvent formal decisionmaking bodies.224 In
fact, Dr. Rice levies the same charge against DOD. She observes that Rumsfeld
and Powell did not confront each other face-to-face, let alone in front of the
President. Instead, she states:

Don [Rumsfeld] would send memos (snowflakes, we called them) that

implicitlyand sometimes explicitlycriticized what State or the NSC
was doing. Often those memos reflected discussions that had already
taken place, but they left the impression that it was Don imparting
new wisdom or making an important recommendation. In meetings,
he would ask Socratic questions rather than take a position. This led to
tensions with and frustrations for Colin [Powell].

In reality, it is common for Cabinet officials to press important issues for res-
olution by the President when they believe the Presidents inclinations favor
their positions, and to delay or otherwise end-run the process when they fear
a quick decision would go against them.
But as Dr. Rice insists, this tendency to accelerate, retard, or work around
the formal decisionmaking process was not the real problem. There is a more
fundamental supply/demand issue when it comes to Presidential adjudica-
tion. As Rice notes, the departments were generating more disputes than the
President could hope to resolve:

The NSC should intervene when there is a policy disagreement among

the departments or when they cannot coordinate among themselves.
But the NSC cannot do so on every single issue every day, or the system

213
Lamb with Franco

would grind to a halt, wallowing in inefficiency. Most of the time the

Department of Defense and the State Department need to find a way to
work togetherat all levels.225

Dr. Rice states that Defense officials did not appreciate this imbalance in
demand for Presidential decisions and the supply of Presidential time available
to adjudicate differences. According to Rice, DOD officials also did not appre-
ciate the political downside of numerous Presidential interventions. Secretary
Rumsfeld accused her of inserting herself in the chain of command, mistakenly
assum[ing] that I was substituting my own preferences for the views of the
principals . . . that I kept seeking consensus when the President should have
been given a decision memoso that he could just decide. In reality, she ex-
plains, the President was informed on the debates and either asked her to try
one more time to find common ground, or told me what he wanted to do. For
political reasons, including the way a Presidential resolution of a fight between
Cabinet officials would be portrayed in the press, it was often preferable to have
the National Security Advisor deliver the decision rather than the President.
Although most of the discussion about horizontal unity of effort in Af-
ghanistan and Iraq involves interagency coordination, there was a horizontal
unity of effort issue within DOD involving war plans that features prominent-
ly in senior leader accounts. It was a horizontal rather than vertical unity of
effort issue because the law assigns multiple senior leaders in DOD a role in
war plans. General Franks emphasizes the fact that the chain of command for
executing a plan runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense to the
combatant commander. He recognized the law gives the Chairman respon-
sibilities for reviewing combatant commander war plans and preparing joint
logistic and mobility plans in support of them, but he resented commentary on
his plan from the chiefs of staff of the military Services and Under Secretary
of Defense for Policy.226
Yet both the law and practical politics give the chiefs and Under Secretary
a role in war plans. By law the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy prepares
written policy guidance for contingency plans and reviews them for consisten-
cy. Congress instituted this requirement after surveying much historical evi-
dence supporting the contention that military plans and operations often are
not in sync with larger national policy and strategy objectives. USCENTCOMs

214
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

treatment of postwar planning justifies congressional concerns about the need

for a tight linkage between national strategy and military plans. Frankss lack
of interest in postwar planning was an irritant not only to the Chairman but
also to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, who tasked his own staff
with postwar planning and attempted to coordinate it with USCENTCOM.
The command was not interested, and either Feith or his superiors (the Dep-
uty Secretary of Defense or Secretary of Defense) chose not to press the issue
with Franks. In retrospect, the Under Secretary acknowledged he should have
contested the issue more forcefully.227
Similarly, the law mandates that the Chairman will present the views of the
Service chiefs concurrently to the President, National Security Council, Home-
land Security Council, or Secretary of Defense, as the case requires. The law
also requires the Chairman to communicate, as appropriate, the requirements
of the combatant commands to other elements of the Department of Defense.
For these and other reasons, including the political imperative for the President
to check with all the chiefs before launching a war, General Myers argues:

The Joint Chiefs had to be fully informed on the CENTCOM plan. We

all had a legal obligation to provide military advice to the President and
National Security Council, and this advice had to be based in part on
the details of the operational plan. No President or Secretary of Defense
would approve a war plan without getting the Joint Chiefs opinion.228

As Vice President Cheney notes, reforms in the Goldwater-Nichols law ensure

a clear division of labor between the military chiefs who prepare forces for the
future and the combatant commanders who employ them in current opera-
tions.229 Judicious tradeoffs in resource allocation must be made between pre-
vailing in current fighting and preparing well for future operations. Thus, the
Secretary of Defense and the President needed to hear both sets of opinions.
Franks and his deputy believed the chiefs were offering parochial rather
than constructive criticism of his war plan for Iraq: The Air Force representa-
tive insisted that the Air Force, not the Navy, should provide the main bomb-
ing support. The Navy insisted that more carriers were needed. The Army in-
sisted we needed more ground troops.230 Franks interpreted the comments
from the chiefs as narrow, partisan efforts to push their Services to the front

215
Lamb with Franco

of the fight so they could advance their share of the budget at the expense
of the mission. He worried that complaints from the chiefs would slow his
plan or force revisions that did not make sense from a joint perspective. He
later told Secretary Rumsfeld, No operation that is totally satisfying to any
one service is truly a joint operation. He insisted the issue at stake was unity
of command.231 It was his onerous job to make tradeoffs between the many
functional capabilities that the Services offered and integrate them into a plan
that would best accomplish the joint mission. Franks needed broader strategic
perspective from the chiefs, not a reiteration of Service preferences.
These bitter differences about the development of the Afghan and Iraq war
plans highlight a key problem for horizontal unity of effort. Well organized
and led, cross-functional teams can be productive. Yet there is always the dan-
ger that those representing the different functional areas of expertise will give
priority to protecting their parent organizations equities rather than assist-
ing in the process of making the necessary tradeoffs to produce an integrated
and coherent approach to solving the problem. Attention to two prerequisites
for success can help avoid this problem. First, it needs to be evident to all
members that the team leader is focused on team rather than personal or par-
ent organizational goals. Second, the functional representatives must transfer
their loyalty from protecting their parent organizations equities to success-
fully accomplishing the mission at hand. The two prerequisites are related. If
it appears that a leader is acting in a self-serving manner, members are more
apt to give priority to protecting their organizational equities, reasoning that
doing so is in the larger interest.
In the case of General Franks and his three-star subordinate Service com-
ponent commanders responsible for executing his plan, these prerequisites
were met and the team worked well. The President asked each subordinate
commander on the eve of the invasion of Iraq if he fully supported the joint
plan, and each responded he did. General DeLong asserts that Franks succeed-
ed because he made it clear he would not favor his own Service:

He was one of the most joint-oriented commanders I had ever met; he

never once favored his Army background. . . . [W]e achieved another
victory that few people realize, one that will have long-lasting repercus-
sions on our military for time to come: true joint operations. . . . The

216
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Afghan and Iraq wars exhibited the best examples of joint operations
I had ever seen. We broke the parochialism . . . due in large part to the
mood that Franks set.232

However, the cross-functional group one level up from Franks that was re-
sponsible for reviewing USCENTCOM plans did not work so well. There was
insufficient trust between team members and the Secretary of Defense. Franks
and DeLong insist the Service chiefs were not offering objective, balanced
feedback. The chiefs objected to the plan for Afghanistan and again to the plan
for Iraq for the wrong reasons, according to USCENTCOM leaders. They were
there to look out for [their] own serviceto raise money for supplies and
weapons, and to recruit and train [their] forces.233 Over time, the tension be-
tween Franks and the chiefs subsided as General Myers intervened to improve
the relationships. Myers believed one of [his] most important jobs would be
to keep Tom Franks and the Joint Chiefs talking to each other and pulling
together.234 Although the process was tortuous and took time, he seems to
have succeeded insofar as USCENTCOM received support it needed from the
Services. Even USCENTCOM came to believe that a better plan emerged from
all the give and take. According to DeLong:

This was a collaborative effort. As Franks said: This was not a Tommy
Franks plan. This was not a Don Rumsfeld plan. There was not friction
between Franks and Rumsfeld on this plan. This was a national plan. It
involved the service chiefs; it involved the service secretaries; it involved
the president himself; it involved Don Rumsfeld; it involved me; it in-
volved all of our staffs. I think we benefited from the fact that we had a
long planning cycle, an opportunity to get ready.235

In the case of the tension between Franks and the Under Secretary for
Policy Feith, it increased over time, as Secretary Rumsfeld failed to manage
this critical relationship. General Franks was offended by the mere presence of
the Under Secretary when he first briefed the Secretary of Defense on his con-
cept for the USCENTCOM war plan. Franks states that he generally ignored
Feith and that he was thankful that Rumsfeld never allowed Feith to interfere
in my business.236 Thus, with the Secretarys acquiescence, USCENTCOM

217
Lamb with Franco

made a point of excluding key elements of Rumsfelds staff from the planning
process. One consequence is that the chances for reconciling differences over
postwar planning were diminished.

Capabilities
The Presidents September 20, 2001, speech promising a lengthy campaign un-
like any other we have ever seen implied that nontraditional capabilities would
be required to defeat a nontraditional enemy. The President even cited exam-
ples. He mentioned law enforcement would need additional tools, and intelli-
gence capabilities to expose enemy plans would have to be improved. Over the
next decade, many new or augmented capabilities were used in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and elsewhere with great success. Some capabilities were resident in the
system but had to be pulled forward, proliferated, and employed better. This
was the case with SOF, which senior leaders extol as making a critical contri-
bution in the war on terror.237 Other capability sets were altogether new. Some
were or still are exceedingly controversial, such as enhanced interrogation tech-
niques. Others, such as the armed drone program managed by DOD, were so
successful that some decisionmakers wanted to alter strategy to take advantage
of them.238 And in some cases, such as Provincial Reconstruction Teams, per-
formance problems were ameliorated but too slowly.
Although increasing capabilities or developing new ones took resources,
in general this was not a major impediment. Congress generously made funds
available. As one Senator complained to the Secretary of Defense in 2005
about the slow development of a key capability:

Over the last two years, Congress has provided more than $200 billion in
supplemental appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . in
addition to the more than $400 billion we spend each year on defense.
. . . It is unbelievable, and quite frankly unacceptable, that American
personnel face shortages of anything at this point.239

The United States faced some technical challenges with new capabilities
but in general these were not insurmountable obstacles either. The far more
significant problem was that decisionmakers were unable to agree on the capa-
bilities needed, or else the departments and agencies resisted providing them.

218
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Departments and agencies often did not want to invest the time, effort, and
resources necessary for new or enhanced counterterrorist and counterinsur-
gency capabilities.
For example, following the attacks on 9/11, the Department of the Trea-
sury took its historical position of advising against attacking terrorist finances.
Treasury worried that doing so would invite retaliation on U.S. financial insti-
tutions. The President overrode that concern and insisted that Treasury lead
an effort to attack terrorist financing.240 To its credit, Treasury soon mounted
what is considered one of our most effective interagency counterterrorist ef-
forts. In other cases, the results were insufficient or downright unsatisfactory.
Failing to produce capabilities required for success is a matter of grave
importance. Senior leaders must ensure the means for executing their strategy
are available and consistent with the ways they choose to defeat the enemy. It
is not possible to catalogue and extract lessons from every capability that de-
cisionmakers had to manage in the war on terror. Here we concern ourselves
with capabilities that senior leaders stated were essential for success but were
unable to generate due to limitations in decisionmaking processes. There are
five such capability areas mentioned often by senior leaders as inadequate to
need, all of which are controversial to some extent: special intelligence, so-
ciocultural knowledge, strategic communications, specialized equipment, and
civil-military administrative capacity.

Special Intelligence
Senior leaders described U.S. operations in the war on terror, Afghanistan, and
Iraq as intel-dependent or intel-centric. The urgent requirement for good
intelligence was evident at several levels. First, superior, fine-grained, and
timely intelligencethe kind that special operations requirewas needed to
target terrorists and insurgents. Second, the enemys decisionmaking process
had to be penetrated well enough to anticipate plans and programs and foil
them, particularly given the enemys intent to launch mass casualty attacks and
use weapons of mass destruction. Finally, and at a deeper level, sophisticated
cultural, social, and political intelligence was needed to inform U.S. leaders on
what to target and when and how. The first-, second-, and third-order effects of
removing any given person from the battlefield as opposed to monitoring his
activities and plans had to be understood. Without this kind of intelligence, we

219
Lamb with Franco

would not be able to operate in a manner that would achieve success over the
longer term by reducing the popular support that sustains the enemys cause,
organizations, and agendas.
Concerning the first level of intelligence required, the United States was
able to produce a quantum leap forward in all-source intelligence integration
with ongoing operations. A major effort was mounted to develop new types
of intelligence and share more intelligencethat is, to move from the need-
to-know principle to a need-to-share approach. Over time, the fusion of
timely all-source intelligence and operations became a great success. When
mistakes were madeand many wereit was generally due to poor command
decisions about whether the available intelligence justified a decision to launch
an operation or, in the midst of an operation, which targets to engage. Despite
some notable and all-too-public failures during raids on enemy leadership
cadres, the fusion of timely all-source intelligence and operations allowed U.S.
forces to keep enemy organizations on the defensive and gave the United States
tremendous leverage.
How well we penetrated enemy plans and programs is shrouded in secrecy
for obvious reasons, but some general observations are possible. Best intel-
ligence indicated that 9/11 was just the first of a series of attacks against the
United States that al Qaeda wanted to execute. So in general, the dearth of suc-
cessful follow-on strikes against the U.S. homeland suggests the United States
did a good job of disrupting or anticipating enemy plans. The same can be
said for the U.S. ability to overcome organized resistance in Afghanistan and
Iraq. However, there are major exceptions. One was the failure to anticipate
the switch to guerrilla tactics following the defeat of the adversarys organized
military forces. CIA Director Tenet testified to Congress in March 2002 that
we were entering a second, more difficult phase of operations in Afghanistan
with smaller units that intend to operate against [us] in a classic insurgency
format.241 However, DOD did not act upon this insight.
Similarly, DOD was slow to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to the rise of
an insurgency in Iraq. Numerous experts warned of the potential for large-scale
civil unrest following the occupation of Iraq, including Secretary Rumsfelds own
staff.242 Secretary Rumsfeld argues DOD had to prepare for many possible ca-
lamities in Iraq, and that the first mention of possible protracted guerrilla war
was an op-ed by someone removed from the intelligence community.243 CIA

220
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Director Tenet argues the IC was prescient and predicted Iraqi patience with an
extended U.S. presence after an overwhelming victory would be short.244 Yet the
issue was not how right intelligence predictions of an uncertain future were,
but whether intelligence foresaw the possibility of large-scale civil unrest and
whether DOD prepared accordingly. If DOD had taken the postwar planning
mission seriously along with the warnings of potential civil unrest, it would have
been much better prepared to prevent or control the emergence of the insur-
gency. Among other things, it could have prevented the widespread looting and
lawlessness that the CIA believed encouraged the insurgency245 and done more
to secure the weapons and arms depots abandoned by the defeated Iraqi army,
which also contributed to the virulence of the insurgency.
The other major exceptions were the failure to uncover plans for the orig-
inal attacks on 9/11 and then later, in 2003, to accurately surmise Iraqs weap-
ons of mass destruction programs prior to invading the country. The com-
mon sense understanding is that the failure to anticipate a major attack on
the United States, or to get the principal casus belli for war with Iraq wrong,
is ipso facto a strategic intelligence failure. Such events are certain to generate
conspiracy theories, second-guessing, and numerous retrospective technical
insights on how the IC could have performed better.246 It is also common to
consider far less momentous intelligence issues in retrospect and declare the
intelligence was either right or wrong rather than more or less likely at the
time. For example, in recounting how U.S. planes missed an early attempt to
eliminate Saddam Hussein with bombs, President Bush states the intelligence
was wrong and a harbinger of things to come.247
The natural penchant for evaluating intelligence after the fact as right or
wrong is understandable. After the fact it is manifest that al Qaeda posed a
threat to the homeland, that an insurgency arose, and that Saddam was not
where we thought he might be at a particular point in time. Yet this natu-
ral tendency to grade intelligence predictions has unfortunate side effects.
It can have a caustic effort on relations between senior intelligence officials
and policymakers, encourage the blame game, and poison the decisionmaking
environment. In the worst cases, both sides end up parsing the written docu-
ments and recounting what they said in meetings to justify their records. Logic
is thrown out the window as senior leaders struggle to score debating points.
Certainly this happened in the Bush administration.248

221
Lamb with Franco

The third respect in which Afghanistan and Iraq were intel-dependent

national security missions touches upon the first two. Locating terrorists and
insurgents and penetrating the enemys decisionmaking process require yet
another capability area that bedevils the U.S. national security system: socio-
cultural knowledge. The United States lacked sufficient quantities of this kind
of expertise not only in the IC, but elsewhere as well. Moreover, it was difficult
to tap or generate sociocultural knowledge quickly, so throwing money at the
problem was a poor remedy. Because this shortfall went well beyond require-
ments for good intelligence, we treat it as a separate capability shortfall in the
next section.

Sociocultural Knowledge
Most senior leaders do not mention shortfalls in knowledge about the social
and cultural dimensions of Afghanistan and Iraq in their memoirs. DOD is an
exception. Both civilian and uniformed senior leaders came to regret how little
we knew about Afghanistan and Iraq, their populations, and current condi-
tions before invading those countries.249 Secretary Gates offers a representative
assessment:

Nearly always, we begin military engagementswarsprofoundly ig-

norant about our adversaries. . . . We did not grasp that after eight years
of war with Iran, the Gulf War with us, and twelve years of harsh sanc-
tions, the Iraqi economy, society, and infrastructure were shattered. The
facade of Saddams regime misled us with regard to what we were letting
ourselves in for, just as his facade with respect to possessing weapons of
mass destruction misled us. We had no idea of the complexity of Af-
ghanistantribes, ethnic groups, power brokers, village and provincial
rivalries. So our prospects in both countries were grimmer than per-
ceived, and our initial objectives were unrealistic. And we didnt know
that either. Our knowledge and our intelligence were woefully inade-
quate. We entered both countries oblivious to how little we knew.250

Even after we had been in country for some time, we found it difficult to
fathom the motives of host-nation officials or discern reliable indictors of pop-
ular behaviors.251 As one flag officer notes, we can find where a person is but

222
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

not have a clue where that person derived his strong feelings against the Unit-
ed States from.252 The sampling of influential scholarly literature we consulted
also tends to stress lack of cross-cultural knowledge as a major shortcoming
explaining poor results in Afghanistan and Iraq.253
What DOD leaders came to understand over time was that social, politi-
cal, and cultural knowledge was just as important, if not more so, than infor-
mation on military, economic, infrastructure, and institutional issues. Such
country-specific expertise became a scarce commodity after Afghanistan and
Iraq were invaded and occupied. What is often called regional expertise was
suddenly needed in large quantities by the diplomatic, intelligence, and mili-
tary communities. Unlike some colonial powers dealing with insurgencies in
decades past, the United States did not have a ready-to-hand group of loyal
administrators savvy in the ways of the foreign populations. In fact, the United
States had few regional experts who could speak local languages and knew the
current social and political scenes well.
The need for sociocultural knowledge is a staple in literature on irreg-
ular warfare, including counterterrorism. Assessing the 9/11 attacks, it was
evident terrorists were able to exploit both the conveniences of modern infra-
structure and their access to restricted social and political lines of commu-
nication that the United States could not tap or even monitor well. Terrorists
used the hawala money transfer system and a global network of mosques to
share resources and information. They also recruited from family, ethnic,
and religious communities that were not easily penetrated by Western in-
telligence. Whereas U.S. leaders tend to think of strategic communication
as a national-level enterprise, the terrorists promulgated their most effectual
propaganda largely at the level of the individual imam or tribal elder where
American credibility and influence are quite limited. Thus, in security, re-
cruiting, and communicating, traditional social networks provide our ene-
mies with significant advantages.254
These same types of advantages were exploited by insurgents in Afghan-
istan and Iraq. As General Myers noted, it was nearly impossible for a West-
erner to penetrate the convoluted webs of tribal and clan loyalty that made
up Iraqi society,255 and thus to know how best to influence key decisionmak-
ers and local populations. Calls for sociocultural expertise grew more urgent
as it became clear there would be no early exits from Afghanistan or Iraq.

223
Lamb with Franco

Field commanders taking casualties from improvised explosive devices (IEDs)

wanted to find the bombmakers and the bombs. Identifying the network of
contacts that supported bombmaking and better understanding what inclined
people to make or fail to report bombs required in-depth social, political, and
cultural intelligence. Moreover, as new brigades rotated in and replaced those
completing their tour of duty, they often had to reacquire sociocultural knowl-
edge the hard way, amounting to 12 one-year campaigns rather than one 12-
year campaign for U.S. forces.256 Soon brigade commanders were requesting
means to secure, retain, and transfer better sociocultural knowledge among
units. As General Peter Chiarelli, USA (Ret.), would later note, I asked my
Brigade Commanders what was the number one thing they would like to have
had more of, and they all said cultural knowledge.257
As field commanders such as General Chiarelli and General Petraeus were
promoted and added their voices to the chorus of irregular warfare experts
arguing for improved sociocultural knowledge, numerous programs were ini-
tiated to meet the demand, ranging from electronic devices that facilitated en-
try and storage of sociocultural knowledge to Human Terrain Teams, which
were small groups of social scientists trained to deploy with brigades and ad-
vise commanders on behaviors that would help them isolate insurgents from
popular support. These efforts were even better funded after the U.S. forces
adopted population-centric counterinsurgency concepts that required them
to understand popular sentiments well enough to interact with the indigenous
people in ways that inclined the populace to support rather than resist U.S. ob-
jectives. However, as the report A Decade of War argues, our ability to operate
in this domain was limited:

Because the traditional intelligence effort tended to focus on enemy

groups and actions, it neglected white information about the popu-
lation that was necessary for success in a population-centric campaign.
Local commanders needed to know information about ethnic and tribal
identities, religion, culture, politics, and economics. Intelligence prod-
ucts provided information about enemy actions but were insufficient for
other information needed at the local level.258

224
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

As an influential article further explains, in a counterinsurgency, small

units must supply key intelligence to higher commands rather than the other
way around. In large force-on-force conventional combat:

Satellites, spy planes, and more arcane assets controlled by people far
from the battlefield inform ground units about the strength, location,
and activity of the enemy before the ground unit even arrives. Informa-
tion flows largely from the top down. In a counterinsurgency, the flow
is (or should be) reversed. The soldier or development worker on the
ground is usually the person best informed about the environment and
the enemy.259

Thus, all soldiers must collect intelligence for higher level analysts who create
comprehensive narratives for each area that describe changes in the econo-
my, atmospherics, development, corruption, governance, and enemy activity
to inform higher levels in the chain of command.260
The critical importance of what came to be called human terrain or the
human domain was evident not only at the small-unit level but also in the way
U.S. leaders interacted with their host-nation counterparts. Prior to the war,
U.S. officials debated and disagreed about which Iraqi expatriates to support,
but in reality they were guessing about which ones might prove acceptable to
the Iraqi people.261 Once U.S. forces occupied Iraq, they had to appoint local
officials without understanding the political consequences.262 U.S. leaders were
split over whether to select a governing group for Iraq by fiat, via regional
caucuses, or through national elections. It was assumed that elected leaders
would be more legitimate,263 but elected leaders also might be more sectarian
and desire a future for Iraq different from what the United States preferred.
Indeed, the longer we stayed in Iraq, the more we realized our objectives were
not identical with those of host-nation leaders. Having U.S. interests prevail to
the extent possible meant we had to make our relationship with host-nation
leaders transactional and conditional,264 something that requires an adroit
mix of leadership, unified effort among all U.S. elements of power, and socio-
cultural savvy.
Defeating the insurgents, partnering with host-nation officials, and win-
ning popular support all were impossible tasks without a profound under-

225
Lamb with Franco

standing of local social and political relationships at all levels. The need for
cultural understanding has been cited as one of the top 5 lessons learned
from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,265 a view echoed by many senior lead-
ers.266 During his confirmation hearing before taking command of U.S. and
NATO forces in Afghanistan in June 2010, General Petraeus told Congress
that the decisive terrain in counterinsurgency was the human terrain.267 Gen-
eral Raymond Odierno, Chief of Staff of the Army, stated the main lesson he
learned in Iraq was that the best-equipped army in the world can still lose a
war if it does not understand the people it is fighting.268 General Robert Cone,
Commander of the Armys Training and Doctrine Command, argues, The
human domain must be the centerpiece of our future efforts,269 and the Army
has committed to making that so.270 In May 2013, the Chief of Staff of the
Army, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the USSOCOM command-
er signed a white paper that underscores the importance of human domains
and the need for better integrating human factors into the planning and exe-
cution of military operations.271
Despite all the high-level attention this capability area has received, there
are two reasons to be concerned that U.S. forces will not have superior socio-
cultural knowledge available in the future. First, sociocultural knowledge can-
not be surged. The language skills and knowledge of local social networks take
time to develop. Some experts insist no worthwhile sociocultural knowledge
can be generated quickly, while others believe there are different types and lev-
els of sociocultural knowledge that take different amounts of time and effort
to produce. Either way, no one recommends waiting until the conflict begins
and then trying to produce such knowledge on the fly. Figuring out how to
sustain and surge sociocultural knowledge at reasonable costs is a formidable
organizational challenge in the best of circumstances.
Second, the U.S. militarys traditional pattern of behavior on sociocultural
knowledge is reasserting itself. The military often develops sociocultural ex-
pertise at great cost and too late to ensure success. Leaders then abandon the
hard-won capability as part of postconflict budget reductions or out of defer-
ence to prevailing American strategic culture, which emphasizes readiness for
major force-on-force conflicts. From American colonists to American revolu-
tionaries to irregular operations during the Civil War to the Armys conflicts
with Native Americans to American interventions in the Philippines and Cen-

226
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

tral America to Cold War brush-fire conflicts to postCold War contingen-

cies during the 1990s and our recent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq,
this has been the costly pattern the United States has followed. And it is now
being repeated.
Much of the organizational architecture developed to provide sociocul-
tural knowledge to U.S. forces is being dismantled. The Armys Irregular War-
fare Center was closed in 2014, and the Human Terrain Team program is being
phased out. Those officers participating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands
Program are not being promoted at rates comparable to the rest of the Army.
The organizational and cultural reasons why DOD is turning its back on so-
ciocultural knowledge are complex but can be explained by the institutions
singular focus on conventional warfare. We return to this issue in discussing
material shortfalls, but the summary explanation is that American strategic
culture in general (to include Congress and public opinion) undervalues the
importance of irregular warfare skills such as sociocultural knowledge in favor
of concentrating on other factors such as technology, small-unit combat skills,
and large-scale military maneuver training.272 The unfortunate prognosis is
that the United States will remain deaf, dumb, and stupid as it engages the
world.273

Strategic Communications
Strategic communications is another capability area important for irregular
warfare. The reason is simple: without some element of popular support, it is
difficult for terrorists to survive and impossible for insurgents to do so. Hence,
every effort must be made to convince the population that any supporteven
passive supportis not in its interests. While this line of reasoning seems
straightforward and is supported by experts on irregular warfare, it was not
a proposition embraced by senior leaders. Many acknowledge the disastrous
implications of negative propaganda and perceptionsfor example, often cit-
ing the consequences of Abu Ghraib or rhetorical missteps such as the expres-
sion axis of evil274but only a handful give the importance of U.S. strategic
communications serious attention in their writings: Secretaries Rice, Rums-
feld, and Clinton and Under Secretary Feith. There are several reasons for this.
Americans are prone to believe that actions speak louder than words and
that success generates goodwill while failure does the opposite. Generals be-

227
Lamb with Franco

lieve that defeating the enemy will encourage friends and that failure to do
so emboldens enemies and inclines fence-sitters to lean toward the enemy.
The diplomats equivalent of this is to argue that policies generate support or
resistance and no amount of packaging or spin will fool our foreign counter-
parts.275 Beyond these generalizations, there are other objections to putting too
much stock in managing communications. U.S. foreign policy elites tend to
believe public opinion at best complicates a steady hand on the strategy tiller.
In turn, the public distrusts any U.S. Government management of information
for fear that it will be twisted and used in attempts to control the body politic.
Overall U.S. culture is not comfortable with managed information at all, pre-
ferring a free market place of ideas without interference from governmental
institutions.
Moreover, there is a wide consensus that strategic communications is not
an American strength. Some question whether it is even possible to have a
strategic communication strategy without a larger overarching strategy for the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Others believe we do not have the sociocultural
knowledge needed to assess our target audiences and message effects and that
we are too self-absorbed to focus on foreign audiences (suggesting, for exam-
ple, that the White House tends to confuse strategic communications with the
Presidents public affairs effort). Some also argue that American moralism and
unilateralism incline us to discount the value of strategic communications.
Americans tend to believe they and their government are different and better
and that our motives are transparent and thus easily discerned from our ac-
tions. Furthermore, many believe foreign cultures embrace double standards
that make it impossible for the United States to compete in strategic commu-
nications. Utter lack of restraint on the part of terrorists is seen as justifiable
frustration or evidence of U.S. weakness, whereas a rare case of excess force
on the part of American forces is seen as typical and evidence of massive ar-
rogance and evil intent. In other words, some suggest foreign attitudes are so
entrenched that attempts at persuasion are hopeless.
For all these reasons, we tend not to do strategic communications well
something more than 15 major reports are in unanimous agreement about.
Virtually all those reports conclude the U.S. Government does not have a stra-
tegic communications strategy worthy of the name, lacks the expertise to ex-
ecute a strategy, has no dedicated organization for doing so, and expends far

228
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

too little resources to mount a serious strategic communications effort. Con-

stant dollar spending on public diplomacy has declined since 1994 despite the
bump in spending following 9/11. By 2007, the United States was spending
about what France did on public diplomacy. DOD spent far more on television
and newspapers for U.S. forces than it spent on military information support
operations (formerly psychological operations). On top of all that, the three
primary strategic communication disciplines in the U.S. Governmentpublic
affairs, public diplomacy, and military information support operationsfeud-
ed with one another to a dysfunctional extent. Senior public affairs leaders
torpedoed the Office of Strategic Influence in the early days of the war on ter-
ror.276 After that, most of the effort was contracted out and earned a reputation
for spotty, if not deplorable, performance.
Even so, as victory proved elusive in Afghanistan and Iraq, DOD increas-
ingly emphasized the importance of strategic communications. The 2006 Qua-
drennial Defense Review emphasized that [v]ictory in the long war ultimately
depends on strategic communication by the United States and its internation-
al partners. DOD, and according to some accounts the CIA as well,277 spent
years trying to encourage the Department of State to take the lead and mount
a better strategic communications effort. By 2009, however, the lack of prog-
ress had disillusioned some DOD leaders. For example, the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff was fed up with the cottage industry that had grown
up around the strategic communications mission. Admiral Mike Mullen pub-
lished an article that argued the United States should just communicate its
strategic intent through its actions and normal coordination processes. Mul-
len stated that if the United States made good policies and ensured its actions
were consistent with those policies, it would not need a special effort to sell its
image aboard. He cited the Great White Fleets voyage around the world and
the Marshall Plan as examples. Americans could simply show up and do the
right thing because it is, well, the right thing.278 Admiral Mullens approach
was quite consistent with historic American norms and no doubt resonated
with many Americans who believe actions speak louder than words and do
not require a strategic communications bureaucracy for their interpretation.
Those who study irregular war and strategic communications argued the
contrary case. As one response to the admirals article noted, However benign
our behavior seems to us, it helps to explain it to others. The Great White

229
Lamb with Franco

Fleets mission was so open to misinterpretation that it created a first-class

war scare in Japan and the United States that had to be defused by careful
diplomacy. The Marshall Plan similarly was open to interpretation, with some
arguing it constituted a declaration of war by the United States for control of
Europe.279 Research indicating that many, if not most, Afghans do not know
about the events of 9/11 or relate them to the presence of American forces in
their country suggests that even in the information age, American interven-
tions are still subject to gross misinterpretation.280 Admiral Mullens frustra-
tion over poorly coordinated and poorly performing organizations currently
trying to do strategic communications was understandable. Yet many have
argued that abandoning a strong and specialized strategic communications
effort would be a mistake:

Because terrorists . . . can further their agenda in part by offering a

hostile narrative about the United States, we need to emphasize strate-
gic communications more rather than less. It is true that the American
example is a great one and that the world is often indebted to the United
States for its expenditures of blood and treasure. But it is also true that
our actions and intentions, even when strategically and morally sound,
will not always be easily recognized as such by foreign audiences, which
is why the image of a great nation needs its custodians, and those custo-
dians need a good organization to support them.281

Secretary Gates and CIA Director Leon Panetta finally found a willing
partner in Secretary Clinton, who made strategic communications an area of
emphasis. She argued the ideological battle is slow and incremental but im-
portant. It drove her crazy, she stated, that we were losing the communica-
tions battle to extremists living in caves. She had her staff develop a strategy
and a new Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. Despite
some initial resistance from White House staff, President Obama was support-
ive, and Secretary Clinton got the center and her strategy off the ground.282
While Clintons initiatives represented progress, the body of expert opinion
argues the United States still has a long way to go to improve performance in
strategic communications. Many argue that the independent U.S. Information
Agency that existed during the Cold War needs to be resurrected.283

230
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Specialized Equipment
Other departments and agencies developed or purchased new equipment for
operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but equipment shortfalls were a larger
concern for DOD and the hundreds of thousands of personnel it deployed
in those contingencies. DOD has a mission first culture, and superb efforts
were mounted to push new equipment forward to those fighting in Afghani-
stan and Iraq. Army and Marine ground forces at the small unit level received
the kinds of equipment previously only available to SOF: body armor, latest
generation night vision goggles, intra-squad communications gear, tactical
satellite radios, tactical unmanned aerial vehicles, and so forth. For example,
we went from having 8 unmanned aerial vehicles in Iraq in 2003 to 1,700 by
2008.284 To get these kinds of capabilities to the troops quickly, the Pentagon
created new organizations and streamlined procedures. Congress encouraged
these efforts by making copious amounts of funding available.
Nevertheless, in the course of adjudicating requests from commanders
in the field and figuring out the best way to respond, differences of opinion
emerged on what kinds of additional capabilities made the most sense and
how affordable they were. There were also complaints from Congress about
the speed with which the Pentagon fielded equipment to the troops. The issue
exploded like a flash bang grenade in the public consciousness when a young
Soldier complained to Secretary Rumsfeld that vehicles did not have sufficient
armor to deal with enemy ambushes. Rumsfeld was pilloried for his response
that you go to war with the Army you have. The comment was accurate but
begged the question of whether U.S. forces should have been better prepared
for irregular war, and worse, seemed to indicate nothing could be done to im-
prove the situation, which infuriated Congress and the public.
As it turned out, the real issue was not going to war with the Army we
had, but going to war with the bureaucracy we had. Both Secretary Rumsfeld
and Secretary Gates had to overcome entrenched resistance inside the Pen-
tagon to provide better armor for troops in the field.285 Gates in particular
ended up agreeing with General Frankss complaint that the Joint Chiefs of
Staff were so focused on future requirements that it skewed their ability to
offer good advice on fighting the war at hand. Given the laws clear division of
labor between the military chiefs who prepare their Services for the future and
the combatant commanders who employ them in current operations, it is not

231
Lamb with Franco

surprising that there is tension between the parties. The tension can be healthy
if both sides have an adequate voice in resource allocation decisions and if the
process enables Pentagon leaders to make judicious tradeoffs between the two
sets of priorities. Favoring one or the other too much puts American security
at risk, sooner or later. Secretary Gates argued that it was sooner. He waged a
sustained and public battle against the tendency to favor investments in future
military capabilities at the expense of doing what was necessary to win current
wars, a malady he labeled next-war-itis.286
Secretary Gates reached this conclusion after wrestling with the Pentagon
bureaucracy over a number of equipment issues, but especially tactical intelli-
gence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) assets and MRAP vehicles.287 In
the case of theater ISR, Gates contended with the Air Force. He created Task
Force ODIN (Observe, Detect, Identify, and Neutralize) to press for more ISR
delivered to theater with greater urgency. In the case of MRAPs, Gates con-
fronted the Army and Marines, and also his own staff. Both equipment issues
preoccupied him, but due to space limitations, we summarize only the MRAP
saga.288 These large, heavy vehicles were up to 10 times more expensive than
adding armor to Humvees and up to 3 times more expensive than up-armored
Humvees, but they were 400 percent more effective at preventing casualties if
hit by an IED. Commanders in the field wanted them, but senior civilian and
military leaders in the Pentagon did not. As one well-respected flag officer
argued, It is the wrong vehicle, too late, to fit a threat we were actually man-
aging.289
In reality, U.S. casualties from IEDs increased substantially in absolute
numbers from the time requests for MRAPs from commanders in the field
arrived at the Pentagon in mid-2004 until Secretary Gates intervened in May
2007. Gates heard multiple arguments against MRAPs, the most significant
[being] that no one at a senior level wanted to spend the money to buy them.
He overrode their objections and made MRAPs the Pentagons number-one
acquisition priority.290 After that, the acquisition system was able to field large
numbers of MRAPs within 18 monthsan accomplishment often described as
an industrial feat not seen since World War II. The costs were staggering$25
billion for the Iraq deploymentsbut MRAPs quickly made an impact. When
they began to flow to Iraq in November 2007, almost 60 percent of U.S. casu-
alties were attributed to IEDs. Just a little over a year later with 10,000 MRAPs

232
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

in country, only about 5 percent of casualties were attributable to IEDs, despite

the fact that insurgents were making a point of targeting MRAPs with IEDs
for symbolic reasons. Insurgents tried to defeat MRAPs by liberal use of their
most advanced IEDs, the use of which jumped 40 percent between February
and March 2008 as MRAPs entered Iraq in large numbers. Yet deaths from
those advanced IEDs dropped 17 percent during the same period. In short,
testimony by flag officers to Congress in March 2007 that MRAPs could cut
casualties by perhaps as much as two-thirds was well founded.291
The decision to deploy MRAPs has been applauded as a case of stellar
oversight and an example of egregious micromanagement. The Secretary and
Congress sided with field commanders and irregular warfare experts inside
the Pentagon who thought the vehicles were a bargain. Service chiefs and their
subordinates responsible for assessing requirements and building future mil-
itary capability thought MRAPs were a boondoggle. The case against MRAPs
was that they met a transitory requirement. They were not needed given the
plan to pull U.S. forces back and push Iraqis to the front of the fight. They were
not an elegant solution to IEDs, which required stopping those making and
emplacing the bombs. Besides, the enemy could just build bigger bombs, it
was argued. The expensive MRAPs also would threaten the future of the joint
light tactical vehicle, which was important for future forces.
The counterarguments were that MRAPs met the immediate need to re-
duce casualties. U.S. public support had plunged with rising casualties that
seemed disproportionate to the progress and stakes in Iraq. The argument that
the enemy would just build a bigger bomb makes no sense. By that logic, no
military anywhere would ever use armor for anything. Armor has value not
because it is invulnerable but because it makes the enemys job harder and our
job easier, which is what MRAPs did. Finally, replacing the crew of a Humvee
cost two to three times more than buying an MRAP ($2.5$3 million versus $1
million), so they were cost effective. Furthermore, Congress was eager to fund
the MRAPs and it was not self-evident they would decrement other programs
to do so.
It is impossible to definitely resolve the question of whether MRAPs were
worth it, but several conclusions do seem clear. MRAPs were never a silver
bullet for defeating IEDs or the only element of force protection important
in irregular warfare. Yet they were a valid requirement, saved lives, and made

233
Lamb with Franco

a difference even as insurgent violence was winding down. They would have
made a bigger contribution if deployed earlier. Secretary Gates was right to
cite the MRAP experience as prima facie evidence of the Pentagons inability
to balance conventional and irregular warfare capabilities, which he attributes
to the inertia inherent in large hierarchical organizations that militates against
adaptation. Like all large bureaucracies, military organizations:

force their members to apply numerous fixed techniques and procedures

in the erroneous belief that this would enhance effectiveness. Yet it has
just the opposite effect because the rank-and-file relies on a fixed routine
instead of using judgment and experience. The mission of the institution
is increasingly forgotten or ignored. The chiefs of various departments
or sections create veritable fiefdoms of power and influence and try to
devise ways to protect and expand their authority and power. They are
also often resistant to any change because change is considered a threat
rather than an opportunity.292

In the case of MRAPs, the Pentagons bureaucratic culture reinforced the ten-
dency to channel decisionmaking into enclaves where special interests pre-
vailed over broader strategic considerations. The only leaders in a position
to override these Pentagon organizational proclivities and intervene with
cross-cutting, integrative oversight over the diverse Pentagon functional areas
were the Secretary and his Deputy and the Chairman and the Vice Chairman.
Their divergent views on MRAPs were notable.
Secretary Gates (and the congressional armed services committees) could
see the need for the MRAPs, but the Chairman and Vice Chairman could not.
Most senior military officers writing about the war ignore the MRAP contro-
versy,293 yet it is a major feature in Secretary Gatess memoir. This difference
between the top civilian and military leaders on MRAPs is best explained by
the U.S. militarys aversion to irregular warfare. Secretary Gates, confronted
with this attitude, resolved to change it:

Beginning in the spring of 2007, I resolved to make senior civilian and

military leaders in the Pentagon lower their eyes from future potential
wars and turn aside from day-to-day politics and bureaucratic routine

234
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

to focus on the wars right in front of them, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Effectively waging war on our enemies on those battlefields would also
require successfully waging war on the Pentagon itself.294

Gates wanted the Pentagon to embrace preparedness for irregular warfare and
institutionalize niche capabilities for the same.295 It has yet to do so, and in
that regard, the MRAP case is a tell-tale event. It sends a clear warning sig-
nal about the Pentagons capacity for adaptation and fielding equipment in
response to nimble adversaries, particularly in nontraditional mission areas
such as irregular warfare.

Civil-Military Administrative Capacity

Another critical capability recognized as necessary for success in Afghanistan
and Iraq was the wide range of civil administrative skills necessary for im-
proving governance.296 These skill sets ranged from overseeing development
projects to training police forces to advising local politicians on how to run
fair elections. As Stephen Hadley notes, in the decades following Vietnam, the
United States reformed its military forces until they were the best in the world,
but it did not make a similar effort to develop the capabilities we need to do
post-conflict operations. The militarys small civil affairs force is mostly in the
Reserves, and it is insufficient to need. So these largely civilian capabilities
must be tapped elsewhere in the U.S. Government and private sector. Howev-
er, we have not developed a systematic way to identify, train, exercise, deploy,
do lessons learned, and improve these capabilities. We just havent done it.
And so every time we have one of these, whether its Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq,
or the 2011 Arab Awakening, we start from scratch.297
DOD, operating with a downsized and professionalized post-Vietnam
military, does not want to take on these responsibilities. At the same time,
it recognizes the importance, so it wants others to do them. When it became
clear that other countries, international organizations, and nongovernmental
organizations were unwilling or incapable of providing the requisite capabil-
ities for civil-military administration, a huge effort was mounted to have the
Department of State provide them. When it became clear State could not do
so, or at least not quickly and in sufficient quantity and quality, DOD argued
it should assume responsibility for some mission-critical civil-military duties.

235
Lamb with Franco

Police training is one such example. Disputes over who should control the
police training effort generated much friction between DOD and State. Devel-
opment projects were another area of contention, with differences of opinion
on whether projects should serve short-term military or political objectives
or longer term development goals. New organizations such as the interagency
Provincial Reconstruction Teams did not work well; there was squabbling over
which department should lead the teams and difficulty manning them. Often
the teams were de facto DOD constructs because only it had the manpower to
populate them.
In the past, such requirements led to the creation of new organizations
and mandates, but in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, we tried to meet the need
by obtaining more flexible authorities for DOD and State. These authorities
helped but did not solve the problem. The misadventures of the Coalition Pro-
visional Authority in Iraq and other ad hoc civilian assistance efforts have been
laid bare in inspector general reports that are hair-raising for the amount of
waste they document, but more so for the consequences of the mismanage-
ment.298 Over time, greater civilian capacity was generated and coordination
problems were ameliorated, but we never were able to produce sufficient quan-
tity or quality of personnel to meet the need.299
The failure to tackle this capacity shortfall is hard to explain. Senior lead-
ers characterized the issue as criticalindeed, a national imperative. Much
was written about it, but little was done. Pondering this inertia, Secretary
Gates and others made reference to Ambassador Robert Komers insights in
his classic study on Vietnam. Against great bureaucratic opposition, Komer
built and led a unique, large, hybrid civil-military administrative structure in
Vietnam (that is, Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support,
or CORDS) and used it to great effect, albeit too late to make a decisive dif-
ference in the war. Komer is not cited as a model for emulation so much as
for his explanation as to why too little was done too late to make a difference.
Like Gates, he blamed the failure on institutional inertia, but also cited a
shocking lack of institutional memory and the notable dearth of systematic
analysis of performance.300
Views differ on how best to overcome institutional inertia in this area.
Some leaders advocate an effective civilian reserve force that can be called up
in times of need.301 Others have argued we need standing capacity to launch

236
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

the effort and build upon, and that we had an appropriate start in the Depart-
ment of State but not sufficient funding. For example, James Stephenson, a
senior U.S. Agency for International Development official in Iraq, argued:

We still need to create the standing capacity to aid failing and failed
states, even those at war. . . . The State Department Coordinator for
Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) is supposed to lead this effort,
but Congress has repeatedly refused to provide adequate funding for S/
CRS to perform its mission. . . . Establishing such an organization is not
difficult; it requires only national will and funding from Congress. An
available field force of experienced, committed civilian practitioners is
already contemplated and within reach. S/CRS has planned for civilian
advance teams that would deploy both with the military and in circum-
stances where there is no military presence, but it has no funding to
adequately implement the concept. Without a standing capacity, our ci-
vilian response will continue to be ad hoc and, too often, inadequate.302

Stephenson criticized Congress for not providing funding, but others

question whether State was ever committed to the mission.303 The lack of
congressional action could reflect the fragile political support for the wars,
skepticism about the value of building new bureaucracy to deal with hopefully
transitory problems, the view that over time Provincial Reconstruction Teams
would prove capable of doing the job,304 or resistance from existing depart-
ments and agencies that wanted the mission. What is certain is that when it
comes to providing civil-military administrative capacity for irregular warfare,
we have retrogressed from the time Komer ran CORDS in Vietnam and seem
incapable of correcting the problem.

Constraints
National security decisionmaking often requires balancing one objective
against others. Senior leader accounts underscore the extent to which efforts
to achieve one goal were constrained by efforts to achieve another. Manag-
ing such strategic tensions was a major challenge. For example, several senior
leaders note the difficulty of convincing people in Iraq that this time the Unit-
ed States was serious about removing Saddam by force if necessary when the

237
Lamb with Franco

Nation also was compelled to pursue the normal diplomatic posturing that
suggested a lack of resoluteness.305 Similarly, Vice President Cheney argues
that waffling about U.S. commitment to prevail in Iraq shored up domestic
political support in some places, but it also made the job of our military lead-
ers in the field more difficult.306 Secretary Gates observes that in order to sup-
port General Petraeus on the Surge of military forces in Iraq, he had to suggest
ending it in Washington so it would not look like an open-ended commitment
to increased force levels.307 George Tenet notes the tradeoff between a postwar
Iraq leadership that had legitimacy and leaders we thought we could control.308
Under Secretary Feith relates concerns that advance work on postwar plan-
ning for Iraq might have undermined the public perception that we were giv-
ing the United Nations and diplomacy a real chance to succeed.309
General Myers also notes the way strategic objectives militate against
one another, generating paradoxes that require artful execution of strategy.
He believes it is impossible to eliminate such tensions but feels they can be
balanced and mitigated in the policymaking process,310 assuming a superior
decisionmaking process is in place. Unfortunately, as General Myers notes,
several other constraints complicated the decisionmaking process in Afghan-
istan and Iraq. Poor civil-military relations are a case in point. Several senior
military leaders note the uncanny ability of military and civilian leaders to
talk past one another, with the military demanding clear objectives and civil-
ian leaders wanting a range of options and associated costs before deciding
what could and should be accomplished.311 Misunderstandings fueled by these
political and cultural differences undermine trust, teamwork, and thus deci-
sionmaking.312
Another such factor raised by senior leaders is the broader political envi-
ronment prevailing in Washington.313 In ways not true following Pearl Harbor
or other national catastrophes, the public discourse over the war on terror
was damaged and has not recovered despite multiple national investigations
designed to clear the air with copious fact-finding.314 General Myers argues the
quality of the national strategy debate has been degraded:

Unfortunately, in my view, as a nation we havent been able to engage

in this public discourse since the summer before the 2004 national elec-
tions when the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan became much more polit-

238
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

icized, much more partisan. The strident and often vitriolic language on
both sides of the debate made such discourse difficult, if not impossible.
The media were just an amplifier for this partisan discourse. . . . Our
national security debate has to be elevated.315

Perhaps worse than the partisan politics is the tendency of senior leaders
to position themselves to be able to blame others for poor outcomes. The early
fault-finding over intelligence warnings of 9/11 was eclipsed by an even more
fractious debate over intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Tak-
en as a whole, finger-pointing is corrosive. Instead of a serious public debate
about national security issues of great consequence, there is a lot of postur-
ing to advance or undermine reputations that trivializes the issues at stake.
Feith argues the country was unable to have the strategy debate it needed
following 9/11, but even worse, the decision process was so flawed that it was
impossible to have a good strategy debate even within the administration.316
Hadley, Myers, and others believe this remains the case: We have not really
had a no-kidding, depoliticized conversation about what it takes to keep this
country safe, consistent with our laws and consistent with who we are as the
American people.317
If social mores have changed to allow unabashed criticism of colleagues in
memoirs, so too has the willingness to leak informationclassified or notto
the press, a trend that some note is an international habit as well.318 Leaders
who lament leaks often try to counteract their effect by leaking countervail-
ing information themselves. Some journalists and academics justify leaks as
a contribution to transparency, but this argument is suspect. The accuracy of
the leaked information has to be questioned, but it also is clear that leaks can
drive senior leaders into smaller decisionmaking groups with no note-takers
or notes taken, thus diminishing longer term historical transparency.319 In
any case, it is hard to find a single senior leader account that does not lament
leaks for the damage they do to the decisionmaking process. Leaks embittered
senior leaders toward one another, hurt careers, endangered operations and
operators, encouraged some senior officials to resign, undermined the U.S.
reputation overseas, and hurt national security.320 Tenet calls leaks the IEDs of
inside the Beltway warfare.321 Leaks help fuel the supercharged, ad hominem
political environment that trivializes matters of supreme importance. That,

239
Lamb with Franco

combined with the press penchant for racing to expose malfeasance before all
the facts are in, contributes to the tendency to regard any unfortunate event as
prima facie evidence of incompetence.
For example, Secretary Clinton notes the December 30, 2009, suicide
bombing that killed seven CIA officers produced quick criticism of poor tra-
decraft, forcing a quick defense of the agency by its director. General Franks
makes a similar point about intense criticism of Operation Anaconda, which
gave rise to complaints about breakdowns and blunders that cost lives. To
put the eight troops who lost their lives during the combat operation in per-
spective, he notes the hundreds of Americans killed in egregious World War
II accidents and asks, given the high stakes and the reality that war with a
determined enemy is unpredictable, whether we need a better sense of per-
spective about the costs of war.322 We must sympathize with senior leaders in
this regard. While it is important to confront calamities with transparency and
openness to assess how they can be prevented in the future, the immediate
cries of ineptitude can encourage the opposite: a rush to justify and move past
the episode. General Franks made a point of noting no matter how much he
disagreed with other leaders on occasion, he never doubted their loyalty or
motivations. That is probably a good starting point for analysis of any unfor-
tunate turn of events in the national security realm.

Conclusions
The analysis in this chapter challenges some popular explanations for what
went wrong in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some argue victory was impossible be-
cause host-nation officials we partnered with were flawed. However, the senior
leaders we consulted do not believe this was a critical factor. As General Pe-
traeus notes, You go to war with the Host Nation you have, not just the one
youd like.323 We also argue that flawed intelligence about the Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction, the dilapidated state of Iraqi public services, and other
intelligence shortcomings were not the main reason the United States found
it difficult to achieve its objectives. We certainly needed better and different
kinds of intelligence, but no one faulty intelligence prediction explains poor
performance in Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps the most common explana-
tions for failure that we challenge relate to individual decisionmakers and their
decisions.

240
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

When things go wrong it is natural to blame leaders, reasoning that

things would have gone better if they had made better decisions. This is espe-
cially true when senior leader decisions are controversial, as was the case with
Iraq. As commentators often note, Iraq was a war of choice that should not
have been initiated without being prepared for all likely developments, espe-
cially postwar lawlessness. It also is understandable that poor outcomes are
often linked to common decisionmaking errors such as erroneous assump-
tions, improper analogies, tunnel vision, and cognitive dissonance. Almost
by definition when things go badly, these types of limitations are in play to
some extent.
For example, at some level, it is true that senior leaders did not anticipate
how hard it would be to achieve what they set out to do. Shocked by 9/11, they
settled on the reasonable conclusion that in the information age it was increas-
ingly likely that terrorists operating with the avowed intention of attacking the
United States with weapons of mass destruction could do so. They wanted to
reduce that threat with an international campaign against terror that included
attacking not only the terrorists but also states inclined to support them, and
Iraq was a better target in that regard than Iran or North Korea. Full of con-
viction in the aftermath of 9/11,324 the widespread attitude was as much as it
takes for as long as it takes.325 What earnest, dedicated senior leaders discov-
ered was that much more than firm convictions and overwhelming resources
was required to pursue this agenda successfully.
It is clear from assessing and comparing diverse senior leader accounts
that U.S. leadership was not able to formulate a real strategy for victory, imple-
ment it with unified effort, or provide the capabilities necessary. It is stunning
to realize that after 15 years of war, senior leaders note that we still do not have
a strategy for defeating the enemy and in fact do not agree on who or what
the enemy is; that within weeks of 9/11, the President knew the U.S. response
would require an unprecedented integration of all elements of national power,
which he was unable to provide; that after immense amounts of spending, the
United States still could not field the capabilities experts argue are required for
success in irregular war; and worse, that so much magnificent effort and so
many resources were wasted for these reasons.
These limitations provide a better explanation for poor performance in
Afghanistan and Iraq than the assertion that any one decision, no matter how

241
Lamb with Franco

important, was flawed due to unrealistic assumptions, tunnel vision, or cogni-

tive dissonance. The collective explanatory weight of the three limitations we
identify is commensurate with the magnitude of the performance puzzle posed
by the history of the wars. The United States expended prodigious amounts of
blood and treasure, swept enemy forces from the field, and targeted terrorists
and insurgent leaders on an industrial scale, but exercised little influence over
outcomes. This reality is comprehensible when one realizes we had no guiding
strategy, worked at cross-purposes, and did not furnish the capabilities neces-
sary for irregular warfare. Many leaders were frustrated by such impediments
and, on occasion, they were able to mitigate or temporarily overcome them.
But in the main, these problems persisted through 15 years of war.
The first handicaplack of an adequate strategymay elicit yawns. The
cognoscenti often decry the lack of strategy but are ignored by senior leaders
who promulgate lists of goals and work toward them purposefully, believing
that should suffice. Yet as we have shownand as a significant number of se-
nior leaders now relate in their memoirsthe United States needs a strategy,
beginning with a precise definition of the problem posed by 9/11. Preventing
terrorists from obtaining and using weapons of mass destruction is a workable
ersatz definition, but it has lost support over time and never was sufficient for
guiding operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.326 The United States backed into
counterinsurgency to prevent tactical reversals to its counterterrorism agen-
da. Senior leaders never agreed on whether or why stabilizing those countries
was a vital interest. The failure to identify the problem we were trying to solve
condemned the United States to incremental decisions and half-hearted com-
mitment, and retarded unified effort and fielding capabilities needed to win
the wars.
Sociopolitical constraints help explain the absence of strategy. Senior
leaders do not put real strategy in official strategy documents because doing so
alienates important constituencies and opens them to criticism that they have
misdiagnosed the problem or chosen too narrow a means for solving it. The
political risks of real strategy are so onerous that it is now common to confuse
strategy with goal-setting and assume strategy is a big-picture overall direc-
tion divorced from any specific action.327 Leaking information about senior
leader deliberations, civil-military tensions, and poisonous partisan politics all
reinforce this trend, driving clear thinking further underground. Leaders want

242
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

deep discussions on problems and solutions, but promulgating discriminating

choices increases their political vulnerability.328
Another reason strategy is difficult to generate is that Presidents are suc-
cessful politicians but not necessarily good strategists, and they are more at-
tuned to the need to preserve political support than the importance of strategy.
This last point is critical because the U.S. national security system is Presi-
dent-centric. The President is the chief executive and commander in chief,
and only he can resolve contentious strategy issues among Cabinet officials.
But, as discussed earlier in this chapter, the President is also a commander in
brief who has limited time to devote to managing even the most important
security issues. Those close to President Bush note his effectiveness increased
during his second term as he devoted more time to managing Iraq,329 and that
effective war management fell off when a new President first underestimated
the importance of his personal involvement.330
The second handicapinsufficient unified command and effortis also
a shopworn shibboleth, but again, one with profound consequences. Our
greatest, most persistent, most deleterious implementation problem was our
inability to integrate the vast capabilities resident in the national system for
best effect. Indeed, we were not even able to achieve unified command of all
military forces in Afghanistan until 10 years of war had passed. This resultant
disunity of effort was a persistent source of trouble and wasted effort. From
the National Security Council to Ambassadors and field commanders in Af-
ghanistan and Iraq, we failed to productively resolve competing perspectives,
priorities, and practices. Thus, we often achieved less than possible or even
worked at cross-purposes, as was true in the case of postwar planning for Iraq.
In the past, we have sometimes overcome the costs of doing business this way
and managed to win ugly by attacking problems with astounding amounts
of resources. In Afghanistan and Iraq, this inefficient approach was unsus-
tainable, particularly because no one was sure how important success in those
endeavors was or how to measure it.331
The third handicapfailure to provide the capabilities demanded by ir-
regular warfareis more controversial but no less consequential. Special in-
telligence, sociocultural knowledge, strategic communications, specialized
equipment, and civil-military administrative capacity were essential but not
sufficient for success. Given the absence of a strategy and unified effort, a bet-

243
Lamb with Franco

ter effort to provide these capabilities would not have pacified Afghanistan or
Iraq. Even so, fielding these capabilities would have contributed to progress
and reduced the costs borne by those fighting the wars. Some senior leaders
mounted herculean efforts to squeeze better capabilities out of a reluctant bu-
reaucracy. We tried to highlight where they succeeded, but clearly the United
States still has shortcomings in these areas that will handicap any future irreg-
ular warfare operations it undertakes.
Senior leaders ultimately are responsible for these limitations, but it is also
important to acknowledge that leaders are not in complete control of outcomes
and that they are constrained to make their decisions within an organizational
and political system with behaviors they do not fully control. For these rea-
sons, good outcomes are not always the result of great decisionmaking, and
bad outcomes are not always the result of flawed decisionmaking. It also is im-
portant to note that the criteria and standards for judging senior leader deci-
sionmaking are biased toward high-profile failure and tend to shift depending
on whether commentators are looking forward or backward.332 In retrospect,
when it is clear actual developments were not well prepared for and handled,
critics often reverse-engineer senior leader decisions and conclude they must
have relied on biased assumptions and wishful thinking, and overlooked ob-
vious problems for which they should have better prepared. However, when
advising on future courses of action, pundits are more likely to sympathize
with the difficulty of predicting developments and assert that leaders have to
adjust quickly because some assumptions always prove wrong and unexpected
developments always arise.
Recognizing these biases, we examined the decisionmaking process as se-
nior leaders experienced and described it, and we assessed their national-level
decisionmaking with more enduring criteria. We asked whether they had a
strategy, implemented it with unified effort, and provided the means for its
execution. We believe it would have been much easier for the United States to
make the right decisions or recover from poor ones if these criteria were met.
From the decisionmakers own accounts, we know that these criteria were not
met and that performance in Afghanistan and Iraq suffered as a result.
These national-level coordination and implementation handicaps are so
serious that many senior leaders conclude the U.S. national security system
needs major reform.333 Fixing unified command problems is a case in point.

244
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Many leaders have called for reforms to correct the absence of any effective,
consistent mechanism that brings a whole interagency team to focus on a par-
ticular foreign policy issue.334 General Myers states the case clearly:

The issue to date, and certainly through my tenure in the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, is that below the President there is no one person, head of a
department, or head of an agency who has been tasked with or is re-
sponsible for the strategic direction and integration of all elements of
national power, so the United States can properly execute a strategy for
Iraq, Afghanistan, or a global counterinsurgency. And while there are
people who are tasked to do parts of this job, nobody brings it all togeth-
er. In particular, nobody has the authority and influence needed across
the whole U.S. government to be responsible, and held accountable, for
strategic planning and execution. We need some new constructs and
some new matrixed organizations.335

General McChrystal makes the same point. For complex problems such as
Afghanistan and Iraq, he warns, If you dont get a unity of command, you
are going to fail. He considers the confused military commands in Afghani-
stan lunacy but notes they were fixed after 10 years of war, something that
cannot be said for confused interagency command, which persists to this day.
Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Gates, Ambassador Neumann, Admiral Blair,
Admiral Olson, and others agree and propose reforms to fix the problem.336
However, the national security system may not be reformed any time
soon. Thus, as many argue, it is imperative for rising senior leaders to under-
stand the system we have, work within its limits, and attempt to mitigate its
shortcomings.337 On this score, a word of warning against complacency or de-
spair is in order. Complacency is the greater temptation. Many seem to believe
the United States is too large or powerful to fail, or hope the kinds of problems
identified here could be corrected with a simple change of leadership. It also
seems true that many practitioners have become inured to the systems short-
comings and are not aware of their impact. As one expert notes, we have a
pronouncement-practice gap; we promulgate strategy documents that postu-
late unified effort as an essential precondition for success, even though as a
government we have proven incapable of whole of government operations.338

245
Lamb with Franco

General Casey experienced this firsthand. He received Presidential guidance

emphasizing the need for the closest cooperation and mutual support339
among departments and agencies working in the field, but he was not given
the means to generate it. Similarly, we intone the virtues of jointness but do not
require it in the planning and execution of military operations.
Pessimism about these performance limitations is not helpful, either. We
have to hope they can be managed better if they are well understood by a new
generation of national security leaders. In this vein, it is worthwhile enumer-
ating some key insights from the analysis in this chapter that can assist future
leaders in managing complex national security problems.

n General Casey correctly notes national-level decisionmaking

was not as rigorous as the process military officers used, but that
does not mean it is incomprehensible. Senior leaders need to
study the national security system, its processes, and its strengths
and weaknesses so they can better participate in the process.340
n The U.S. national security system has many strengths. Over

the past 15 years of war, U.S. successes were usually a function of

departments and agencies conducting their core missions well, or
leaders finding ways to generate new levels of interdepartmental
cooperation on nontraditional missions. This suggests that de-
partments have deep capacities to execute their core missions,
but that we must recognize when a mission demands interagency
collaboration and make special provisions for it.
n Real strategy is hard. We pay so much lip service to strategy,

and so readily embrace public policy documents as a substitute

for strategy, that many senior leaders do not recognize its ab-
sence. Real strategy is not the result of compromise, even though
its execution can involve compromise. Real strategy requires
exacting depictions of the essential problem and a clear choice
among competing solutions to guide means developed and em-
ployed.
n The first step in real strategy is distilling the problem to its es-

sential elements, which is hard for both substantive and political

reasons. Not agreeing on the nature of the terrorist threat we are

246
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

trying to defeat cripples our performance. The U.S. shortfall in

sociocultural knowledge exacerbates this strategy limitation but
is not the sole reason for it. Instead, political and organizational
proclivities make this a common strategy failing.
n Americas well-diagnosed penchant for incrementalism and

gut calls is not a substitute for strategy. Real strategy in the cur-
rent system must emerge from the minds of senior leaders who
agree on its essential elements. The President and his national
security staff have no greater responsibility than ensuring this
happens, but busy and inexperienced Presidents and National
Security Advisors overwhelmed with managing day-to-day ac-
tivities often fail to perform this task.
n Trust is a prerequisite for good national security and military

strategy because it is a critical prerequisite for good teams. Trust

must be cultivated among senior leaders because the decision-
making environment in Washington and organizational cultures
throughout the national security system militate against it. Trust
takes time to build and is fragile. Providing a real range of viable
options to senior leaders increases trust; leaking information de-
stroys trust.
n No strategy for dealing with current or emerging threats,

however good, is likely to be fully successful without the ability

to generate better unified effort.341 Yet senior leaders should not
expect the formal national security staff process to resolve all im-
portant interagency differences. Presidents do not have the time
to referee all such disputes and are disinclined to accept the polit-
ical baggage that goes along with doing so. Working around the
system to engineer a direct relationship with the President can
produce a backlash from bypassed parties that leads to mission
failure. The key is to identify the most critical issues and ensure
they are resolved, and then be prepared to forge a new unified
effort in response to changed circumstances.
n Insufficient unity of effort is not just a civilian or interagen-

cy problem. It also is a challenge for the Pentagon and military

operations. DOD was not able to generate enough of a team ef-

247
Lamb with Franco

fort across its various fiefdoms for war planning, postwar plan-
ning, war resourcing, or command and control of military forces
in the field. These limitations compromised the effectiveness of
U.S. military operations and wasted resources. In this respect, the
Pentagon has a strategy formulation and execution problem of
its own that requires attention.
n Managing interagency operations well is a critical senior lead-

er skill. Complex security problems are now more common, and

complex problems are interdisciplinary and thus interagency
problems. Some of the greatest successes in the war were the re-
sult of collaboration across departmental lines. Interagency col-
laboration did not occur when leaders followed the traditional
lead agency approach or selected ostensibly compatible person-
alities. Managing across organizational boundaries is a complex
skill that requires, among other things, working hard to build re-
lationships with counterparts, comprehending the decisionmak-
ing styles of superiors, and developing trust within top leader-
ship circles.342 It also behooves senior leaders to study those cases
where predecessors have forged a high degree of interagency co-
operation.
n As we try to demonstrate by referring to a variety of success-

es and failures, including interagency high-value target teams,

postwar planning, and the MRAP experience, leaders who want
to manage complex, cross-functional (to include interagency)
problems well must curb organizational tendencies to maximize
autonomy. They must be prepared to take initiative and innovate,
not only within their functional areas of specialization but also
across Service and departmental boundaries.
n As we discussed when contrasting good oversight with poor

micromanagement, too many leaders advocate empowering

subordinates while restricting information flow and retaining
approval authority for problem-solving. To forge vertical unity
of effort and execute an effective mission command approach,
leaders must distinguish oversight from micromanagement:

248
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

n Good oversight requires leaders to stay well informed about

progress and identify any critical impediments. Leaders need to
worry less about controlling information flow and more about
identifying impediments to progress that jeopardize their mis-
sion. When they move to eliminate obstacles, leaders need to
make sure they override subordinate concerns only when their
broader perspective gives them insights their subordinates
lack.
n Deleterious micromanagement occurs when leaders over-

rule a subordinate based on personal past experience or some

other prejudice rather than their broader field of vision. In such
cases the leader fails to exploit his broader contextual under-
standing and also squanders the subordinates greater knowl-
edge of immediate tasks and circumstances.
n Senior leaders need to better appreciate the limits of the cur-

rent systems ability to understand foreign social and political

structuresand the fact that this kind of knowledge cannot be
generated quickly or organized well on the fly. Leaders must act
in advance to institutionalize an effective and expandable socio-
cultural knowledge base. New organizations to provide socio-
cultural knowledge seem expensive until the alternative is con-
sidered, something the past 15 years of war should have made
painfully clear.
n More generally, senior leaders charged with managing irreg-

ular war must be prepared to fight for capabilities they will need
to be successful. The U.S. national security system is not well
organized to conduct extended irregular warfare missions. The
departments and agencies dislike irregular warfare and resist cre-
ating organizations and programs to provide capabilities tailored
to its demands.

Some people hope we will just avoid irregular foes or complex contin-
gencies such as Afghanistan and Iraq because the system is not optimized for
performance in those circumstances. However, the senior leaders we consult-
ed agree that the need to manage such problems cannot be ruled out and may

249
Lamb with Franco

well be unavoidable. Others hope the system will be reformed to allow leaders
to employ its vast capabilities with greater success against such problems, but
emerging leaders most likely will go to war again with the system we have
rather than one we might prefer. Still others are counting on new leaders to
make the system work better, but that may depend on how well we educate
our rising leaders on the peculiar strengths and weaknesses of our national
security system.
Greater emphasis on senior leader education is justified given the nature
of the serious system handicaps identified in this chapter. The need for real
strategy, unified implementation of the same, and the ability to provide the
means required by ones strategy are so much a matter of common sense that
they may strike the reader as superficial bromides. It all seems so obvious. Yet
grasping and acting upon the obvious have exceeded our reach. Ambassador
Komer made this point about insights he offered on our performance in Viet-
nam: If these rather generalized lessons seem like restating the obvious, one
need only recall how little we actually practiced them.343 Indeed. That is the
thing about learning; it cannot be said to have taken root until it is applied.
Unless we act upon these often-repeated insights, we will endure and endure
again these same performance liabilities to the detriment of those we send into
harms way. If we fail to act upon these well-documented insights about our
performance, we are inviting, if not condemning, future leaders to relive and
relearn what so many brave men and women sacrificed to illuminate.

Notes

George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,
1

Washington, DC, September 20, 2001.

2
Ibid.
3
As noted in chapter six of the current volume, between 2004 and 2014, Islamic terrorist
groups increased from 21 in 18 countries to 41 in 24 countries. In retrospect, General
David Petraeus observes that a top lesson from the experience in the war is that one must
ask if what you are doing will take more bad guys off the street than it creates. David
Petraeus, interview by Joseph J. Collins and Nathan White, March 27, 2015.
4
The memoirs and interviews from senior leaders include George W. Bush, Decision

250
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Points (New York: Crown Publishers, 2010); Dick Cheney with Liz Cheney, In My Time:
A Personal and Political Memoir (New York: Threshold Editions, 2011); Condoleezza
Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown Pub-
lishers, 2011); Thomas J. Ridge and Larry Bloom, The Test of Our Times: America Under
Siege and How We Can Be Safe Again (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2009); Hillary
R. Clinton, Hard Choices (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014); Robert M. Gates, Duty:
Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Knopf, 2014); Donald Rumsfeld, Known and
Unknown: A Memoir (New York: Sentinel, 2011); George C. Tenet with Bill Harlow, At
the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: HarperCollins, 2007); Leon E.
Panetta with Jim Newton, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (New
York: Penguin, 2014); Henry H. Shelton with Ronald Levinson and Malcolm McConnell,
Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior (New York: St. Martins Press,
2010); Richard B. Myers with Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon: Serving on the
Front Lines of National Security (New York: Threshold, 2009); Tommy Franks, American
Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004); Michael DeLong with Noah Lukeman, A General
Speaks Out: The Truth about the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press,
2007); George W. Casey, Strategic Reflections: Operation Iraqi Freedom, July 2004Febru-
ary 2007 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2012); Stanley A. McChrystal, My Share of the
Task: A Memoir (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2013); Douglas J. Feith, War and Decision:
Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: Harper, 2008); L. Paul
Bremer with Malcolm McConnell, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006); and Christopher R. Hill, Outpost: Life on the Front-
lines of American Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014). We also benefited from
the projects personal interviews: Stephen J. Hadley, interview by Joseph J. Collins and
Nicholas Rostow, October 7, 2014; Martin E. Dempsey, interview by Richard D. Hook-
er, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins, January 21, 2014; John Abizaid, interview by Joel Rayburn,
September 19, 2014; Stanley A. McChrystal, interview by Joseph J. Collins and Frank G.
Hoffman, April 2, 2015; and Douglas Lute, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph
J. Collins, March 10, 2015.
5
A statement of method and a list of sources are available upon request. In short, we re-
lied on James G. Marchs observation that most decisionmaking theory typically assumes
decisions are either choice-based or rule-based. We adopted a choice-based decision-
making that pursues a logic of consequences whereby leaders attempt to select courses
of action that will improve their circumstances based on expected results. We thought this
was appropriate given that the 9/11 terror attacks were unprecedented in kind and effect,
and that neither President George W. Bush nor President Barack Obama was an experi-
enced foreign policy practitioner, factors that we presume made basic decisions about the
war on terror less subject to rule- and identity-based decisionmaking. See James G. March
and Chip Heath, A Primer on Decisionmaking: How Decisions Happen (New York: Free
Press, 1994), viiivix.
6
This does not mean we accepted all senior leader assertions at face value. They use
communication strategies on occasion and make weak arguments on others. For exam-
ple, while in office Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith told James Fallows

251
Lamb with Franco

that media reports of interagency friction among senior leaders was exaggerated: In our
interview Douglas Feith played this downmaintaining that press reports had exagger-
ated the degree of quarreling and division inside the Administration. But in his memoir,
Feith acknowledges the opposite. See James Fallows, Blind into Baghdad, The Atlantic,
January 1, 2004; and Feith, 53ff.
7
We acknowledge the abundant evidence that some senior leaders immediately focused
on Iraq after 9/11, but accept their explanations for why they did so. General Myers,
General Franks, and General DeLong do the same and also say they agree that Iraq was an
appropriate target given the U.S. strategy in the war on terror.
8
Richard P. Rumelt, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters (New
York: Crown Business, 2011).
9
Gates, 14, 446; Rice, 152153.
Christopher J. Lamb, Pentagon Strategies, in Challenges in U.S. National Security
10

Policy: A Festschrift Volume Honoring Edward L. (Ted) Warner, ed. David Ochmanek and
Michael Sulmeyer (Arlington, VA: RAND, 2014).
11
Lute, interview.
12
Casey, 165, 169170.
13
See Feith, 51; and Rice, 150, where she notes, In October 2001 wed seen credible
reporting that terrorists would again attack the United States, perhaps with a radiological
or nuclear weapon. The President sought in the 2002 State of the Union to place all of this
into context and to make clear that the United States could defend itself only by taking on
the proliferation challenge.
14
Bush, Address.
15
Four months later a senior administration official gave a speech that could be interpret-
ed as expanding the list to include Cuba, Libya, and Syria. ThenUndersecretary of State
John R. Bolton asserted there were three other state sponsors of terrorism that are pursu-
ing or that have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction or have the capability
to do so in violation of their treaty obligations. See John R. Bolton, Beyond the Axis of
Evil: Additional Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction, May 6, 2002, available at
<www.heritage.org/research/lecture/beyond-the-axis-of-evil>.
16
Feith, 507.
17
Clinton, 132133.
18
Myerss strategic arguments could be interpreted in this manner. Myers, 292298.
19
Clinton, 189, 199200.
Jack L. Goldsmith, Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency after 9/11 (New
20

York: Norton, 2012).

21
For example, see Shelton, 437ff, 441442, 444445.

252
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

22
Rice, 151.
23
Myers, 212214, 291, 298.
24
Rumsfeld, 723; Myers, 291. Myers sees the terrorist threat as the equivalent of a global
insurgency.
25
Abizaid, interview.
26
Dempsey, interview.
27
Ibid.
National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (Washington, DC: The White House, Febru-
28

ary 2003), 56.

29
Christopher Lamb and Erin Staine-Pyne, 9/11, Counterterrorism, and the Senior Inter-
agency Strategy Team: Interagency Small Group Performance in Strategy Formulation and
Implementation, IAS-003 (Washington, DC: The Simons Center for Interagency Coopera-
tion, April 2014).
30
Bush, Decision Points, 365; Rumsfeld, 528, 631; Cheney, 435436.
31
Tenet, 217218; also Cheney, 340341.
32
Myers, 212, 214.
33
Rumsfeld notes that General David Barno and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad made
this case when recommending the shift from counterterrorism to counterinsurgency op-
erations. See Rumsfeld, 686. See also Hy S. Rothstein, Afghanistan and the Troubled Future
of Unconventional Warfare (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006).
34
Myers, 213.
See Joseph J. Collins, After the Afghan Surge: Rapid Exit or Better Peace? Small Wars
35

Journal, July 15, 2014.

36
McChrystal, interview. The deleterious impact of the absence of a clear strategic aim is
his number one strategic lesson from 15 years of war.
See the discussion in chapter one and below where we note, the President committed
37

the United States to make a good-faith but not open-ended effort in Iraq.
The confusion about commitment led to some artful wordsmithing, with some em-
38

phasizing that we will be here as long as it takes to do the job, and not a day longer, and
others emphasizing, At the same time, we should make sure we dont leave a day earlier.
See Bob Woodward, State of Denial (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 209.
39
Casey, 154.
40
Conversations between the author and senior leaders in the Pentagon where he served
as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Resources and Plans during the first George
W. Bush administration.
41
Nora Bensahel, Mission Not Accomplished: What Went Wrong with Iraqi Reconstruc-

253
Lamb with Franco

tion? The Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 3 (June 2006), 453473.
Bremer thought reconstituting Saddams army would have set off a civil war. Bremer,
42

224.
Christopher J. Lamb and Evan Munsing, Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as an
43

Organizational Innovation, INSS Strategic Perspectives 4 (Washington, DC: NDU Press,

March 2011).
National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (Washington, DC: The White House, Sep-
44

tember 2006).
45
Clinton, 138.
For example, see National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington,
46

DC: The White House, March 2006), 12.

47
A noteworthy skeptic is Jenna Jordan, When Heads Roll: Assessing the Effectiveness
of Leadership Decapitation, Security Studies 18, no. 4 (2009), 719755; and Attacking the
Leader, Missing the Mark: Why Terrorist Groups Survive Decapitation Strikes, Interna-
tional Security 38, no. 4 (Spring 2014), 738.
48
McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 161162.
49
Rice, 91.
50
Planning for such possibilities is called branches and sequels in military planning
parlance. See Military Decision Making ProcessMultinational Planning Handbook,
Version 2.4Handbook, Supports MNF SOP Version 2.4 (Honolulu, HI: Multinational
Planning Augmentation Team Secretariat/U.S. Pacific Command, January 2009); see also
Field Manual 101-5, Staff Organization and Operations (Washington, DC: Headquarters
Department of the Army, May 1997). Assumptions for campaign planning should be
reasonable but are assumed to be true in the absence of proof. Arguably, planning
assumptions, which are often derived from strategic assumptions, are less speculative (for
example, whether an ally will allow U.S. forces to operate from its territory). Joint Publi-
cation 5-0, Joint Operation Planning (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, August 11, 2011),
IV-7.
51
For example, otherwise excellent studies by the Center for Strategic and Internation-
al Studies (CSIS) and RAND overemphasize flawed assumptions in the authors view.
See Anthony H. Cordesman, American Strategic, Tactical, and Other Mistakes in Iraq: A
Litany of Errors (Washington, DC: CSIS, April 19, 2006), available at <http://csis.org/files/
media/csis/pubs/060419_iraqlitany.pdf>; and Nora Bensahel et al., After Saddam: Prewar
Planning and the Occupation of Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008). See discussion in
previous notes.
52
Abizaid, interview. President Bush in his memoir notes the difficult but positive histo-
ries of postwar Germany, Japan, and South Korea. He explains that he understood Iraq
was different, but states, With time and steadfast American support, I had confidence
that democracy in Iraq would succeed. Bush, Decision Points, 357.

254
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

53
Gates, 115; Abizaid, interview.
54
Vice President Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz are most
frequently cited in this respect, but some sources (for example, Fallows) refer vaguely to
OSD officials, presumably meaning Feith or his special plans office. General Abizaid, for
example, specifically mentions Feiths optimism that Iraqis would welcome U.S. forces. See
Abizaid, interview. Yet RAND asserts that senior policymakers throughout the govern-
ment held to a set of fairly optimistic assumptions about the conditions that would emerge
after major combat and what would be required thereafter. RAND only cites Cheney and
Wolfowitz, however, and somewhat incongruously elsewhere underscores all the pessi-
mistic studies conducted by diverse elements of the bureaucracy. Bensahel et al., After
Saddam.
55
The authors office produced a short analytic piece for Wolfowitz prior to the war that
reviewed past predictions of casualties and war costs prior to U.S. interventions. The
memorandum demonstrated there was significant variance between predictions and actu-
al costs, and it received a compliment from the Deputy Secretary.
56
RAND, for example, somewhat inexplicably asserts senior leaders held rosy assump-
tions about how easy the postwar security challenges would be and yet notes, it should be
clear from U.S. interventions not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Bosnia, that
wars do not end when major conflict ends. Indeed, which is why it is suspect to assume
seasoned leaders were unaware of it. Similarly, it notes that wrong assumptions were not
unreasonable but were never seriously challenged . . . despite a predilection for question-
ing virtually all operational military assumptions from several directions, and despite the
existence of alternative analyses within the government. Ultimately, RAND concludes,
The problem, therefore, was not that the U.S. government failed to plan for the postwar
period. Instead, it was the failure to effectively coordinate and integrate these various
planning efforts. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 236237, 243.
57
Hadley, interview.
58
See Fallows.
59
Condoleezza Rice, Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest, Foreign Affairs,
January/February 2000. See also Feith, War and Decision, 101.
60
Rumsfeld, 482483; Franks, 393. Feith reviews the expatriate issue at length. He argues:
It is remarkable that key U.S. officials believed that the Iraqi externals were the chief danger
the United States had to guard against in post-Saddam Iraq. Yet the main idea behind the
transitional civil authority was precisely to guard against the externals dominating the
post-Saddam political scene in Iraq. Why should that have been a goal of U.S. policy at
all? When challenged on this point, top [Department of] State and CIA [Central Intelli-
gence Agency] officials responded that the leaders of the external groups were not skilled
enough and, moreover, lacked legitimacy. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and I considered States view
presumptuous and dangerous. We did not see what right or interest the United States had in
serving as Iraqs occupier for an extended period just because some U.S. officials labeled the

255
Lamb with Franco

external leaders illegitimate.

He also argues that the Department of Defense (DOD) was proved right insomuch as five
key expatriate Iraqis were later appointed and elected in Iraq and proved influential. See
Feith, 279, 281.
61
General Abizaid notes, as do many others, that Rumsfeld held meetings where everyone
was asked to identify their top 10 concerns about how the war effort might go awry. Abi-
zaid, interview.
62
Rumsfeld notes a sophisticated argument from his staff on this point and an early warn-
ing that the Department of State disagreed with it. Rumsfeld, 484. At the time, there was
discussion in Pentagon hallways that Rumsfeld also wanted U.S. forces out of Iraq quickly
so they could reconstitute and be prepared for whatever next steps in the war on terror the
President might direct.
63
Rumsfelds staff frequently heard him use this analogy, and Hadley states he heard it at
least 10 times until finally on the 11th time the President said: Yeah, Don, but we cannot
afford to have the bicycle fall over. Still, Hadley notes the President understood Rums-
felds point, stating, Casey and Rumsfeld are right. Ultimately, the Iraqis have to win this
and take over, but we cant get from here to there, given where we are; we need a bridge
to get the violence down and to allow people then to start the political process again.
Hadley goes on to note that that was what the Surge in Iraq was; it was a bridge. Hadley,
interview.
Rumsfeld notes he learned this lesson from the failed intervention in Lebanon in the
64

early 1980s. Rumsfeld, 483.

65
Feith also argues State was guilty of unrealistic assumptions for believing the United
States could run Iraq for years until a credible Iraqi leadership emerged. Feith, 277,
370, 468. Some retired generals also have argued the United States should have deposed
Saddam and then just left irrespective of conditions. General Dempsey disagrees. Like
President Bush, he argues such a course of action would not be consistent with who we
are as a nation. Out of a sense of both obligation, responsibility to protect although that
is not really doctrine, but also compassionwe will assist those who have been defeated
to reestablish themselves in a more moderate and inclusive, responsible way. Dempsey,
interview.
Rumsfeld pleads guilty to not having a plan for full-fledged nation building and insists
66

that such a plan and effort would have been unwise, well beyond our capability, and
unworthy of our troops sacrifice. Rumsfeld, 683.
67
Dempsey, interview; Abizaid, interview.
Rumsfeld believed in the value of second-guessing assumptions. Rumsfeld, 665ff; Feith,
68

48.
69
Feith notes DOD argued early on for international forces in both Afghanistan (97, 101)
and Iraq, where as early as February 2003, DOD was arguing that the sooner we get in-
ternational police in Iraq the better. But Feith concludes, U.S. diplomacy on Iraq lacked

256
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

consistency, conviction, energy, or creativity (249, 365).

Rumsfeld, 526ff. Rumsfeld states it is a canard that he cut State out of postwar planning
70

and explains that he wanted State more involved in the execution of the occupation. He
does not acknowledge that planning and execution are two different activities.
71
Rumsfelds staff even refused initially to accept the designation of U.S. forces as occu-
pierswhich conferred legal authorities as well as obligationsand instead insisted U.S.
forces were liberators, not because they made optimistic assumptions but because they did
not want U.S. forces obligated to the postwar security and development missions. General
Franks agreed with Rumsfeld on these points. Dempsey, interview; Abizaid, interview.
Rumsfelds preferences were rigorously consistent in this regard, as every source we
consulted emphasizes. Hadley, interview; Dempsey, interview; Abizaid, interview; Lute,
interview; Fallows.
72
Bremer, 125; see also 117.
73
Ibid., 125, 226.
74
Hadley, interview. Hadley goes on to note that as the United States got deeper into Iraq
its motives moved from altruism to opportunity. The idea that Iraq could become a model
for the Middle East began to take hold: because in the Middle East it was either Sunnis
oppress Shia, or Shia oppress Sunnis, and both of them beat up the Kurds. We wanted
to show that Sunni, Shia, and Kurds could work together in a democratic [framework],
develop a common future, where the majority ruled but the minority participated and had
protections.
75
This led to qualified statements of support for postwar governance. For example, Feith,
in his testimony to Congress, outlined five specific objectives for the postwar period, two
of which were war on terror objectives (eliminating weapons of mass destruction and
terrorists infrastructure), another two which were to reassure Iraqis we would neither
partition their country nor occupy or control them or their economic resources, and the
last which was to begin the process of economic and political reconstruction, working to
put Iraq on a path to become a prosperous and free country (authors emphasis). Having
made it clear that the commitment to postwar governance was limited, Feith stated that
the United States would need a commitment to stay as long as required to achieve the
objectives, but also a commitment to leave as soon as possible, for Iraq belongs to the
Iraqi people. See Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 43.
76
This is why General Dempsey notes senior military leaders must accept that in protract-
ed campaigns assumptions and objectives will change and they have to adapt the cam-
paign accordingly. Sometimes changing objectives is portrayed as mission failure, when
in fact in a protracted campaign the likelihood of renegotiating objectives is 100 percent.
Dempsey, interview.
77
Hadley, interview; Bremer, 27. Secretary Gates agrees, stating that the fundamental
erroneous assumption was that both wars would be short.
78
In the Bush administration, a major conceptual roadblock for the Surge was the

257
Lamb with Franco

widespread perception that the mere presence of U.S. forces alienated the population.
This thinking prevailed among senior civilian leaders in DOD. Secretary Rumsfeld, for ex-
ample, cites approvingly the analysis by Feith that concludes it was not de-Baathification
or the disbanding of the Iraqi army that gave rise to an insurgency but rather the broader
impression of an overbearing U.S. presence. Senior military leaders in Iraqeven those
who were taking counterinsurgency seriouslyalso believed the U.S. presence was an ir-
ritant, which inclined them to focus on the goal of transferring capacity and responsibility
for counterinsurgency to host nation forces. Some leaders in the Obama administration
believed the same way about a Surge of forces in Afghanistan, believing more troops and
more fighting would alienate Afghan civilians and undermine any goodwill achieved by
expanded economic development and improved governance. Rumsfeld, 514; Clinton,
140.
79
Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xviii.
80
Both Andrew J. Enterline and Alexander B. Downes note a range of opinions on the
topic. Enterlines analysis concludes, The survival of imposed democracy is by no means
assured. Instead, the survival of democracy is strongly conditioned by the process by
which the regime is imposed and the social and economic conditions present in the state
hosting the imposed polity. Downess more recent research published in 2013 is more
pessimistic, arguing that interveners will meet with little success unless conditions in the
target statein the form of high levels of economic development and societal homoge-
neity, and previous experience with representative governanceare favorable to democ-
racy. See Andrew J. Enterline and J. Michael Greig, The History of Imposed Democracy
and the Future of Iraq and Afghanistan, Foreign Policy Analysis 4, no. 4 (October 2008),
321347; and Alexander B. Downes and Jonathan Monten, Forced to Be Free? Why For-
eign-Imposed Regime Change Rarely Leads to Democratization, International Security
37, no. 4 (Spring 2013), 90131.
81
DOD routinely argues that it will take care of organized resistance and that the State
Department ought to provide for civil order after major operations are completed. The
typical pattern is that the issue is not resolved prior to the intervention, and when civil
unrest recorded by media embarrasses the White House, the President orders DOD to
step in and provide security. Often during the interregnum much damage is done to
host-nation infrastructure and U.S. reputation. This problem was recognized after the fact
in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and many other U.S. military interventions.
82
See Bremer, 106, 157, 188, 205209.
83
Ibid., 209.
84
Irving Janis and Alexander George have conducted classic scholarship in this area.
85
Virtually all senior leaders in memoirs emphasize their appreciation for and insistence
on a wide range of options being considered before making key decisions. See, for exam-
ple, Gates, 222; Casey, 22, 29, 143; DeLong, 22 (where he notes that the United States even
sought advice from the Russians about Afghanistan); Franks, 373, 389, 394.

258
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

As Fallows argues, the problems that arose in Iraq were precisely the ones its own
86

expert agencies warned against, so the Administration will be condemned for what it did
with what was known and not for what it failed to anticipate.
87
Lute, interview.
88
Gates, 39.
89
Clinton, 133.
90
Abizaid, interview.
91
Dempsey, interview.
92
For example, Cheney, 439.
93
General McChrystal makes this point in his interview, arguing the Surges should never
have been necessary. The Iraq Surge sent an important signal of resolve that was backed
up by the senior leaders; Afghanistan was much more problematic in that respect. Al-
though McChrystal thought it was essential to avoid losing Afghanistan, he believed that
it was not backed up by the same type of resolve, and people could feel it: Afghans could
feel it, the Taliban could feel it, and the allies could feel it. McChrystal, interview.
94
Clinton, 140.
95
Gates, 365.
Petraeus notes that senior military leaders were acting on and publicly supporting
96

previous Presidential decisions unaware that the President was actually reconsidering his
options, which made it seem as if they were making their case publicly so as to limit the
Presidents options, which was not the case. Petraeus, interview.
97
Bush demanded new options as the situation continued to deteriorate (or fail to im-
prove, according to some). As Hadley and Lute argue, if the Pentagon does not give real
options to the President, he will get them elsewhere. Bush, Decision Points, 364; Hadley,
interview; Lute, interview.
Joel Rayburn, Iraq after America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance (Stanford: Hoover
98

Institution Press, 2014).

99
Fallows recounts Rumsfelds answer on April 11, 2003, when asked why U.S. soldiers
were not stopping the looting: Freedoms untidy, and free people are free to make mis-
takes and commit crimes and do bad things. Theyre also free to live their lives and do
wonderful things, and thats whats going to happen here. Fallows believes the Secretarys
embrace of uncertainty became a reckless evasion of responsibility. He had only disdain
for predictions, yes, and no one could have forecast every circumstance of postwar Bagh-
dad. But virtually everyone who had thought about the issue had warned about the risk of
looting. U.S. soldiers could have prevented itand would have, if so instructed.
Abizaid notes he reported on the insurgency and need to get control and maintain
100

presence to the point where I thought I was going to get fired early. He also observes that
the Army, as well as Secretary Rumsfeld, wanted the war to be over. Abizaid, interview.

259
Lamb with Franco

Hadley, interview. Others also note the poor communications between the Pentagon
101

and the field at this juncture.

102
Bush, Decision Points, 365; Cheney, 430; Rumsfeld, 364.
103
Cheney, 440441, 449; see also discussion and notes below.
Gates observes that the decisionmaking process can be too stark and uncompromising,
104

and that some consensus is necessary. Gates, 384385; Clinton, 130, 133.
Dempsey, interview; McChrystal, interview. General McChrystal stated that strategi-
105

cally, his thinking evolved away from the direct use of military power to a focus on what
was in peoples minds. The winner, he thought, would be the person who understood the
problem the quickest and adapted to itthose who learned fastest.
The quotations and discussion in this paragraph draw upon March and Heath, 205206,
106

where they discuss the Garbage Can Model of decisionmaking. This model is more
valuable for its descriptive than its explanatory power, in the opinion of the author.
There are different approaches to decisionmaking that do not value unified effort so
107

much. Some practitioners (or pragmatists) argue leaders could and should exploit
impediments to unified effort to further their agendas. Still others believe advantages can
be found in the flexible implementation, uncoordinated actions, and cognitive confusion
that characterize lack of unified effort.
For example, there were noteworthy pockets of interagency success. The Institute for
108

National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University has published a set of such
studies, arguing they point the way forward for better interagency collaboration.
For example, see Bush, Decision Points, 88, where the President relates his frustra-
109

tion with interagency squabbling and how despite his efforts to eliminate it, nothing
worked; Rice, 16, 22, where she tied interagency friction to poor relations between Powell
and Rumsfeld and their mutual distrust, which led to dysfunction and nearly brought
things to the breaking point; Clinton, 24, where she notes, the traditional infighting
between State and Defense . . . in many previous administrations had come to resemble
the Sharks and the Jets from West Side Story; Rumsfeld, 525, 527528, where he blames
failures in Iraq on Rices inability to manage the interagency process correctly, explains his
repeated recommendations that they institute chances to improve the Presidents most
important national security body but states that there [was] little or no improvement
and that the dysfunction continued to undermine our nations policies; Gates, 92, 341,
where he acknowledges lack of institutional cohesion at the top of the government and
relates that upon arriving he and his staff found interagency planning, coordination
and resourcing are, by far, the weakest link for U.S. operations in Afghanistan; Myers,
301305, where he asserts that the United States cannot deal effectively with 21st-century
threats, that good integration in operations is the exception and not the rule, and that no
strategy is likely to be fully successful without better interagency coordination; Franks,
375376, where he notes, insufficient trust between the departments of State and
Defense, deep and inflexible commitment to their own ideas [that] was disruptive and

260
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

divisive, and a Washington bureaucracy that fought like cats in a sack; and McChrystal,
116, 118, where he admits that Early on, counterproductive infighting among the CIA,
State Department, Department of Defense, and others back in Washington threatened the
Afghan campaign, and that more than once, my most trusted subordinates had to stop
me, in moments of utter frustration, from severing all ties with our Agency Brothers.
Henry M. Jackson, The Secretary of State and the Ambassador: Jackson Subcommittee
110

Papers on the Conduct of American Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger, 1964), 78.
111
Rice, 92.
112
Gates, 295.
For example, Gates supported the idea of a war czar initially. Later, he conclud-
113

ed the person selected for the role was a disappointment. He believed the czar began
second-guessing commanders in the field, contributing to Presidential mistrust of the
uniformed military leadership, and leaking to the press (67, 338, 364, 430, 482, 500).
However, he did not like special envoys (295), while Secretary Clinton did (29). Hadley
believed the war czar worked well and only declined in effectiveness under the Obama
administration because the czars access to the President was curtailed. Hadley, interview.
For example, Abizaid believes Bremer thought the Iraqi army was anti-democratic and
114

that he had a decided preference for smaller Iraqi forces and in particular weak or no
Sunni forces. Thus, he clashed with General Petraeus when Petraeus was trying to build
up such forces in Mosul. He speculates that Bremer believed a continuance of organized
military power loyal to Sunni leaders would doom representative government in Iraq.
Abizaid, interview.
115
Ibid.
116
Rumsfeld, 510, 522523, 527, 532; Feith, 496ff.
117
Clinton, 29, 140141.
The ability of the President to get his policies implemented by the bureaucracy has
118

been identified as a key issue for many decades. See Jackson, 336. In the case of Iraq and
Afghanistan, both President Bush and President Obama believed the Pentagon resisted
their desire for alternative options for troop increases. Also, many senior Bush adminis-
tration leaders argue that Bremer exceeded the authority granted him by the President.
See, for example, Rice, 242; and Feith, 496497. Cheney (380381) asserts that Secretary
Powell exceeded the Presidents guidance on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and that
(478479) Secretary Gates did the same, speaking for himself and not reflecting U.S. pol-
icy, when he informed the king [of Saudi Arabia] that the president would be impeached
if he took military action against Iran. Cheney notes the President had not yet decided
about next steps on Iran, and Gates in effect was curtailing the Presidents options by sug-
gesting to a key ally that military operations were impossible. According to General Myers
(225), General Franks ignored guidance to prepare postwar planning. Finally, according to
Cheney (454), General Casey would not support the Presidents Surge.
119
Bush, Decision Points, 90.

261
Lamb with Franco

120
Cheney, 380, 478.
121
Tenet, 446.
122
Clinton, 190.
123
Cheney, 457.
124
Gates, 364365, 367; Clinton, 133.
125
Myers, 425.
126
Rice, 20.
Unless otherwise noted, citations in this paragraph are from Gates, 206, 478. For
127

discussion of the consequences of disunity of effort flowing from confused command

arrangements, see Christopher J. Lamb and Martin Cinnamond, Unity of Effort: Key
to Success in Afghanistan, Strategic Forum No. 248 (Washington, DC: NDU Press,
October 2009).
Abizaid, interview. Petraeus agrees the lines of authority were confused in Afghanistan.
128

Petraeus, interview.
McChrystal, interview. McChrystal observed that special mission units sometimes
129

would go in and hit a target, maybe there would be a firefight, but the impact on stability
of that area might be negative. For some data on this, see Lamb and Cinnamond, 7.
130
McChrystal, interview.
131
Lute, interview.
Casey, 62. Casey at least recognized the issue. Others, such as Gates, were altogether
132

surprised that the U.S. Army had forgotten after Vietnam how to do counterinsurgency.
Gates, 28.
133
Myers, 212.
Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York:
134

Penguin, 2006), 420424; Peter Baker, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White
House (New York: Anchor, 2013), 489490; Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret
White House History 20062008 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 3638; Michael
R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle
for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012),
240246.
135
Gordon and Trainor, 172173.
Frank G. Hoffman, Learning While Under Fire: Military Change in Wartime (Ph.D.
136

diss., Kings College London, 2015).

137
Lamb and Munsing, 31.
138
This policy was recognized and articulated by the President. Bush, Decision Points, 356.
139
Martin E. Dempsey, Mission Command, April 3, 2012.

262
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

140
Casey, 144.
Lieutenant Colonel William F. McCollough, USMC, is an example from Afghanistan of a
141

field commander who proved able to innovate and excel at counterinsurgency. See Michael
T. Flynn, Matt Pottinger, and Paul Batchelor, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence
Relevant in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2010), 13ff.
142
McChrystal, My Share of the Task; and other citations.
See Scott R. Mitchells revealing article, Observations of a Strategic Corporal, Military
143

Review, July/August 2012. The issue of whether commanders embraced counterinsurgen-

cy doctrine is reviewed at greater length in Christopher J. Lamb, James Douglas Orton,
Michael Davies, and Ted Pikulsky, Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation
for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare (Washington, DC: Institute for World
Politics Press, July 2013).
Gordon and Trainor, 172173. This is how Gordon and Trainor explain Caseys failure
144

to support Colonel Blake Crowe, who wanted to replicate Alfords success. Other histo-
ries, however, dispute the extent to which the chain of command supported, ignored, or
resisted the successful field commanders. For example, Ricks agrees with Gordon and
Trainor, but Major General John R. Allen, USMC, asserts the Marine Expeditionary Force
supported Colonel MacFarlands efforts. See Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheel-
er, eds., Al-Anbar Awakening, Volume I, American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Coun-
terinsurgency in Iraq, 20042009 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009),
229; and Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military
Adventure in Iraq, 20062008 (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), 6063.
After the fact, in his memoir, President Bush notes he was not comfortable with the option
145

of quickly turning over political control to Iraqi expatriates rather than holding elections, but
he seems ambivalent about the other two decisions. Bush, Decision Points, 249, 259.
Also, Rumsfeld had sought to block some of Jay Garners picks because they were
146

State Department Arabists who might be less than ardent supporters of Bushs bold plan
to remake Iraq. With Bremer, he would not have that problem. Michael R. Gordon and
Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New
York: Pantheon, 2006), 546.
See an account of Anthony Lake as a heroic policy entrepreneur in Ivo H. Daalder,
147

Getting to Dayton: The Making of Americas Bosnia Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings
Institution Press, 2000), 167ff. Daalder cites John Kingdon on policy entrepreneurs who
seize windows of opportunity. See John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public
Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984).
Forging a New Shield (Arlington, VA: Project on National Security Reform, 2008), 126,
148

146.
Hadley notes that he asked quite a few people to take the war czar job, and they all
149

turned it down understanding the risks involved: Douglas Lute was willing to do it. He is
a hero in my view. Hadley, interview.

263
Lamb with Franco

Ronald E. Neumann, Dennis Blair, and Eric Olson, A New Plan: Make U.S. Foreign
150

Policy Swifter, Stronger and More Agile, Defense One, September 20, 2014; and Dennis
Blair, Ronald E. Neumann, and Eric Olson, Fixing Fragile States, National Interest, Au-
gust 27, 2014.
Feith notes, No mathematical formula can tell the Secretary of Defense and the
151

President precisely where strategic supervision ends and improper micromanagement of

military operations begins. Rumsfeld seems to agree, arguing it is a process and that the
National Security Advisor must oversee the implementation of the presidents decisions,
ensuring that they are carried out effectively, which requires careful balance to avoid the
extremes of disengagement and micromanagement. Feith, 109; Rumsfeld, 324, 720.
Rice, 18. Feith claims Franklin Miller of Rices staff often reached directly into civilian
152

and military offices at the Pentagon rather than going through channelsasking ques-
tions, and giving what some took to be orders, in a way that flouted the chain of command
and therefore irritated Rumsfeld. Feith, 276. Stephenson agrees: Frank Miller continued
to hammer away at me. Bill Taylor helped us in every way he could, but I was under a
lot of pressure. We received a call from Sarah Lenti, an aide to National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice. Ms. Lenti wanted a status report every other day on each of the [U.S.
Agency for International Development] electricity generation projects including daily
movements (or not) of the V94. She also wanted a weekly telephone call. We were told
that Dr. Rice required briefings every other day. I thought it overkill, but we did it. It was
just one more example of what we referred to as the eight-thousand-mile screwdriver.
Stephenson, 116117.
153
Hill, 198.
154
Gates, 482.
Gates also resented the National Security Advisor giving the President advice on mat-
155

ters of mutual interest to the CIA and Defense without informing him. Gates, 352.
156
Clinton, 190; Hill, 357.
Rice, 18, 106, 245; Rumsfeld, 299300, 512, 523; Rice, 20, 242243; Delong, 20, 45;
157

Franks, 300, 545; Gates, 120, 122, 133, 361362, 364367, 578, 585586; Franks, 262,
300301, 440ff, 461462. See also Ricks, 33, where one disgruntled staff officer describes
U.S. Central Command as two thousand indentured servants whose life is consumed by
the whims of Tommy Franks; and Myers, 220, where he states that after one session with
the Secretary, Franks stormed into my office and threw his cap across the room. . . . He
said, Chairman, if these sessions continue like this, Ill quit. I dont need the hassle. For
issues involving Secretary Clinton and reporting from the field to the National Security
Council staff, see Gates, 482; and Hill, 357. For yet another example of this phenomenon,
see Steve Colls assertion that Admiral William J. Fallon was uneasy about video meet-
ings between President Bush and General Petraeus because the Admiral was Petraeuss
superior, and the videoconferences did not conform to a normal chain of command.
Coll, The Generals Dilemma: David Petraeus, the Pressures of Politics, and the Road
out of Iraq, The New Yorker, September 8, 2008. There are exceptions to the penchant to

264
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

safeguard information from subordinates. General Casey actually wanted his subordinates
to have direct contact with the National Security Advisor when she visited. Casey, 137.
158
Bush, Decision Points, 194195.
This sensitive issuecriteria for picking targetscame up in a discussion between
159

Secretary Rumsfeld and General Franks, and inclined Franks and his deputy to consider
Rumsfeld a micromanager. DeLong, 20.
There are many references to Iran-Contra in senior leader accounts from the past
160

decade. For several, see Rice, 14; Bremer, 245; and Gates, 352, where he asserts, no one
in the White House had any business going to the president with such a recommendation
without going through the established interagency process. This was part and parcel of an
increasingly operational National Security Staff in the White House and micromanage-
ment of military mattersa combination that had proven disastrous in the past.
161
Rice, 1415.
162
Ibid., 211212.
163
Ibid., 245; Rumsfeld, 242243.
164
Rice, 243245; Rumsfeld, 526; Feith, 470.
Hadley also asked the CIA to prepare an integrated plan for how all elements of U.S.
165

power could be harnessed to arrest the decline of Iraq. Hadley, interview; Tenet, 435.
166
See the previous chapters description of decisionmaking on the Surge.
Edgar F. Puryear, American Generalship: Character Is Everything: The Art of Command
167

(Novato, CA: Presidio, 2000), 280281.

Gates, 578. Others have made this distinction as well. See Gail Harris and Pam Mc-
168

Laughlin, A Womans War: The Professional and Personal Journey of the Navys First African
American Female Intelligence Officer (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 126.
He was referring to General Lute and Gen. James E. Cartwright, USMC. Hadley, inter-
169

view. Lute notes that the position he was in made it impossible to stay on the right side of
the Chairman. Lute, interview.
170
Feith makes this point, for example. Feith, 272.
The Chairmans white paper notes that delegated authority within broad commanders
171

intent works best within teams that share a high degree of trust. Dempsey, Mission Com-
mand.
172
Franks, 309, 341, 362, 384, 546; DeLong, 88.
173
Lamb and Munsing, 45.
Rice makes the point emphatically that the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense
174

did not trust one another (16), but the same was true of Pentagon leaders and Bremer,
and Bremer and many of his subordinates in the Coalition Provisional Authority (see, for
example, Stephenson, 3436).

265
Lamb with Franco

General Casey also emphasized that he viewed his relationship with Ambassador John
175

Negroponte as my most important relationship, and we spent quite a bit of time together.
Casey, 1011, 67.
Bush, for example, attributes the success of the surge to superb coordination between
176

our civilian and military efforts. Bush, Decision Points, 393.

177
Myers, 270.
For example, see Christopher S. Chivvis et al., Initial Thoughts on the Impact of the Iraq
178

War on U.S. National Security Structures (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2014); Elizabeth
Young, Decade of War: Enduring Lessons from a Decade of Operations, PRISM 4, no.
2 (March 2013); Matthew R. Hover, The Occupation of Iraq: A Military Perspective
on Lessons Learned, International Review of the Red Cross 94, no. 885 (Spring 2012),
339346; Todd Greentree, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: U.S. Performance and the Institu-
tional Dimension of Strategy in Afghanistan, Journal of Strategic Studies 36, no. 3 (March
2013), 325356; David Mitchell and Tansa George Massoud, Anatomy of Failure: Bushs
Decisionmaking Process and the Iraq War, Foreign Policy Analysis 5, no. 3 (July 2009),
265286.
179
Bush, Decision Points, 88.
180
Hadley, interview.
Rothstein, 176ff. Sean Naylors account of the operation records the breakdown in in-
181

teragency information-sharing, but other accounts attribute problems to lack of jointness

(or vertical unity of effort). See Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of
Operation Anaconda (New York: Berkley Books, 2005); and Mark G. Davis, Operation
Anaconda: Command and Confusion in Joint Warfare (Masters thesis, School of Ad-
vanced Air and Space Studies, 2004).
182
See Lamb and Munsing.
183
McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 118.
184
This is the thesis of Stephenson in Losing the Golden Hour.
185
Myers, 170171; Franks, 280; Rumsfeld, 375376.
Forging a New Shield, 160; cited in Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb, Deception,
186

Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major
Difference, INSS Strategic Perspectives 11 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2012), 114.
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), comp., Hard Lessons: The
187

Iraq Reconstruction Experience (Washington, DC: U.S. Independent Agencies and Com-
missions, 2009); SIGIR, Learning from Iraq (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 2013).
There is general agreement that the nadir of Defense-State relations occurred when the
188

Secretary of Defense rejected State experts willing to serve on its postwar planning team.
Rice, 210; Feith, 386389.

266
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

189
Hill, 295296, 334336, 348.
190
Cited in Clinton, 24.
191
Rice, 1522.
192
Tenet, 358, 364367; Rice, 198; Cheney, 367368, 404405.
Differences between the Departments of State and Defense at the regional level have
193

been the subject of some notable books by journalists who believe the tensions between
the departments and their disparities in resources have led to an increasingly militarized
American foreign policy. See Dana Priest, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace
with Americas Military (New York: Norton, 2003); and Stephen Glain, State vs. Defense:
The Battle to Define Americas Empire (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011).
194
Hill, 354.
195
DeLong, 28.
The author was assigned the lead within DOD for coordinating information operations
196

until the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy could find someone to do the job full-time
and stand up what came to be called the Office of Strategic Influence.
Rumsfeld states that Bremer and LTG Ricardo Sanchez, USA, were barely on speaking
197

terms and that LTG Karl Eikenberry, USA, moved his military headquarters out of the
U.S. embassy in Kabul [during Ambassador Neumanns tenure], reversing the close civ-
il-military linkage that Barno and Khalilzad had forged (510, 689). Bremer also notes that
he and General Sanchez were not in sync. It should be noted that Ambassador Neumann
indicates he worked well with Eikenberry. Bremer, 186; Ronald E. Neumann, The Other
War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009).
National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD), United States Government Opera-
198

tions in Iraq, May 11, 2004, available at <www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd051104.pdf>.

199
Casey, 78.
200
Blair, Neumann, and Olson.
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, High-Risk List, December
201

2014, available at <www.sigar.mil/pdf/spotlight/High-Risk_List.pdf>.

202
McChrystal, interview.
Blair, Neumann, and Olson concentrate on failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they
203

make the point that operations elsewhere were suffering from the same disunity of effort.
For example, concerning Yemen, Congressman Ted Deutch (DFL) noted, U.S. assistance
to Yemen totaled $256 million for Fiscal Year 2013, but these funds come from 17 different
accounts, all with very different objectives. He asked a fundamental question that went
unanswered: What exactly is our long-term strategy for Yemen? (1213).
General Abizaid, for example, notes the tendency of the press to put undue emphasis on
204

personality clashes between himself and Bremer or between Bremer and General Sanchez
when in reality the conflicts were about policy issues. Abizaid, interview.

267
Lamb with Franco

205
See Rices discussion of the personal differences between Rumsfeld and Powell (522).
For example, Franks argues tension between State and Defense arose from overlapping
206

missions (375), and Rice makes the same point (1516). For another example, Rumsfeld
argues State would not relinquish the police training mission to DOD even though it did
not have the attention, resources, and focus to do the mission successfully. In contrast,
Secretary Clinton quotes Secretary Gates as explaining their good relationship as the
result of his being willing to acknowledge that the Secretary of State is the principal
spokesperson for United States foreign policy (25).
207
This is a common thesis from Department of State leaders; see Rice and Hill.
Rice states endemic conflict between secretaries of State and Defense is not, as some
208

might think, because State is from Venus and Defense from Mars, referring to a popular
article that explained the organizational cultural differences between those two depart-
ments. Her evidence for the assertion was that often the secretary of state is more willing
to use force than the Pentagon. However, most observers do not consider willingness to
use military force a good indicator of cultural differences between State and Defense (15).
For example, Secretary Gates believes the wrong choice for Deputy Secretary of State
209

complicated unity of effort in the Obama administration (289). Many other senior leader
accounts similarly underscore the importance of choosing the right people to generated
unified effort (for example, Bush, Decision Points, 8990; Rice, 15; Rumsfeld, 299300,
687; McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 168).
210
Gates, 92.
211
Rumsfeld, 375376.
212
DeLong, 74.
213
Clinton, 28.
214
Rice, 15.
Dempsey, interview. General Dempsey also notes that developing trust requires under-
215

standing a superiors or colleagues leadership and decisionmaking style. He notes the three
Secretaries of Defense he has worked with are significantly different in this regard. Hadley
makes a similar observation, noting the difference between Rumsfeld and Gates, both of
whom were strong secretaries but with different styles. Gates was willing to be more of a
team player, and there was a level of trust between Gates, Condi and me. Hadley, interview.
The Bush All-Stars, New York Times, January 22, 2001. The Times noted that from the
216

Republican viewpoint, President George W. Bush has assembled a national security dream
team, featuring Dick Cheney as vice president, Colin Powell as secretary of state, Donald
Rumsfeld as secretary of defense and Condoleezza Rice as national security adviser.
217
Tenet, 358, 364365. See also Cheney, 404405, 416.
Even General Franks, known for being straightforward, made a point of saying he
218

never doubted the loyalty or the motivation of other leaders and that he did not want to
apportion blame for any perceived misdeeds (544545).

268
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

Gates, 21. See also Tenet, 447. Tenet asserts, We did not have . . . an integrated and
219

open process in Washington. . . . Quite simply, the NSC [National Security Council] did
not do its job.
Cheney, 449, 462463; Rumsfeld, 325329; Feith, 245, 250, 283, 385, 527. Rumsfeld
220

depicts several specific process limitations that he believed undermined unity of effort,
including an NSC penchant for avoiding detailed records to assuming agreement if no
objections to an NSC summary of conclusions were made explicit.
Bremer also noted Rice sought compromise over the two options for transfer of political
221

authority to Iraqis (205207).

222
Feith, 385.
223
Rumsfeld, 324; Feith, 62.
A classic argument to this effect is offered by Senator Henry Jackson: Organizing for Na-
224

tional Security: Inquiry of the Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery, Senator Henry
M. Jackson, Chairman, for the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate,
3 vols. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961); and Henry M. Jackson, ed.,
The National Security Council: Jackson Subcommittee Papers on Policy Making at the Presi-
dential Level (New York: Praeger, 1965).
225
Rice, 15.
226
Franks, 274277, 330.
The author raised the need to prepare for postwar disorder in a staff meeting with
227

Under Secretary Feith because of lessons learned in a study on Operation Just Cause
conducted by Fletcher School Professor Richard H. Shultz, Jr., for his office years earlier.
The study was later published as In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruc-
tion and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Montgomery, AL: Air Uni-
versity Press, 1993). Feith mentions the resulting postwar planning effort in his memoir
(362366).
228
Myers, 175.
229
Cheney, 452.
230
DeLong, 26.
231
Franks, 277278.
232
DeLong, 27, 135136.
233
Ibid., 26, 89.
234
Myers, 175.
235
DeLong, 88. See also Myers, 220.
Franks, 330. Feith notes that U.S. Central Command had advisors from State and CIA
236

but none from his office in the Pentagon, which he believes is one reason the schism
opened between USCENTCOM and Policy (371).

269
Lamb with Franco

From the President down, many senior leaders single out special operations forces for
237

praise and recognize their special importance in irregular war. Some also acknowledge
their overwhelmingly disproportionate casualty rates. Gates, for example, notes some spe-
cial mission unit casualty rates reached 50 percent. See Bush, Decision Points, 92; Cheney,
334; Shelton, 441; Gates, 267; Feith, 96, 112.
238
Secretary Clinton did not take this position, but see her discussion of drones (183184).
Senator John Kerry, cited in Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew J. Schmidt, and Berit G.
239

Fitzsimmons, MRAPs, Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform, Occasional Paper 6

(Washington, DC: NDU Press, June 2009), 6.
240
Shelton, 440441.
241
Rothstein, 97.
242
See discussion on postwar planning for large-scale civil unrest in Iraq in previous notes.
Rumsfeld, 521. Feith also asserts a major intelligence failure in not predicting the insur-
243

gency, and enumerates a list of CIA intelligence failures in Iraq (276, 517).
244
Tenet, 425.
245
Ibid., 433.
For example, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States
246

Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction made 74 recommendations on how to improve

intelligence, 69 of which were accepted and acted upon by the Bush administration.
247
Bush, Decision Points, 254.
See Tenets discussion of his debate with policy officials over whether Iraq and al Qaeda
248

had an operational relationship (350364, 371372, 480).

249
For example, Myers, 253; Franks, 354.
250
Gates, 589.
General Abizaid notes, for example, that we were slow to realize Iraqi leaders were un-
251

dermining our efforts to build a truly national army, observing that they wanted sectarian
forces and we werent smart enough to see it. It also has been observed that well after
the fact we realized school attendance was a good indicator of local violence. Locals kept
children home from school when they expected trouble.
252
McChrystal, interview.
For example, William Rosenau, Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Iraq and Afghan-
253

istan, Harvard International Review 31, no. 1 (Spring 2009); Young; John A. Nagl, Knife
Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice (New York: Penguin Press, 2014);
and Greentree.
David Tucker makes this case well, as have many others. See David Tucker and Chris-
254

topher J. Lamb, Restructuring Special Operations Forces for Emerging Threats, Strategic
Forum No. 219 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, January 2006).

270
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

255
Myers, 253.
256
Dempsey, interview.
General Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, Commanding General, Multi-National
257

CorpsIraq, Mapping the Human Terrain (MAP-HT) J/ACTD, FY 07 J/ACTD Candidate,

PowerPoint, undated.
Decade of War, Volume I: Enduring Lessons from the Past Decade of Operations (Suffolk,
258

VA: Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis, June 15, 2012).

259
Flynn, Pottinger, and Batchelor.
260
Ibid.
261
Feith argues this was a principal source of interagency discord (389401).
See DeLongs discussion of the Chalabi controversy (90) and Bremer on appointment of
262

local Iraqi officials (27).

263
Bremer describes this debate (224226).
264
Dempsey, interview.
Colonel Robert Forrester, deputy director of the Center for Army Lessons Learned,
265

cited in Drew Brooks, Lessons Learned in Iraq War Will Apply in Future Conflicts, The
Fayetteville Observer (North Carolina), January 1, 2012.
General Petraeus, for example, still lists understanding local culture, leadership, social
266

issues, politics, and human terrain as a primary requirement for future success in military
operations. In fact, he insists that it is necessary to really understand the country that
you are going to invade in a very granular and nuanced way. Lute makes the same point.
Petraeus, interview; Lute, interview.
Leo Shane III and Kevin Baron, Petraeus Confirmation Hearing, Live, Stars and
267

Stripes, June 29, 2010.

Doyle McManus, McManus: A smaller, smarter military: The best-equipped army in
268

the world can still lose a war if it doesnt understand the people its fighting, Los Angeles
Times, April 22, 2012.
David Vergun, Leaders Look at Army of 2020 and Beyond, Army News Service, Sep-
269

tember 14, 2002.

See also Dan Cox, An Enhanced Plan for Regionally Aligning Brigades Using Human
270

Terrain Systems, Small Wars Journal, June 14, 2012; and Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., Army
Makes Case for Funding Culture Skills beyond Coin, AOL Defense, July 2, 2012.
Raymond T. Odierno, James F. Amos, and William H. McRaven, Strategic Landpower:
271

Winning the Clash of Wills (Washington, DC: DOD, 2013).

Colin S. Gray, Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy: Can the American Way of
272

War Adapt? (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, March 1, 2006), 34.
273
McChrystal, interview.

271
Lamb with Franco

274
Bush, Decision Points, 89; Rice, 196197.
Ambassador Christopher Hill demonstrates the classic Foreign Service Officer attitude
275

while acknowledging the need to do better: greater public diplomacy became the cure for
why the popularity of the United States had fallen so precipitously during the time after
the Iraq invasion. Even though it was the policy that needed improvement, there was no
question that our diplomats needed to do a better job of explaining and reaching out to
nontraditional audiences (189190).
276
Feith, 171ff.
277
Clinton, 188189.
Mike Mullen, Strategic Communication: Getting Back to Basics, Joint Force Quarterly
278

55 (4th Quarter 2009).

Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security
279

State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), 324.

The author is indebted to Norine McDonald for this observation. See Yaroslav Tro-
280

fimov, Many Afghans Shrug at This Event Foreigners Call 9/11, Wall Street Journal,
September 8, 2011.
281
Schoen and Lamb, 118120.
282
Clinton, 190, 200201.
283
Feith makes this recommendation (511ff).
Gates, 266. Elsewhere in this volume we note General Dempseys assertion that an
284

Army captain had more access to national intelligence in 2008 than he did as a division
commander in 2003.
Rumsfeld considered the armored vehicle issue an acquisition problem (645, 648), but
285

Gates understood the problem was much larger and involved Pentagon decisionmaking
more generally. For a review of both see Lamb, Schmidt, and Fitzsimmons.
286
Thomas P. Barnett, Pentagon Malady: Next-War-Itis, Time, March 6, 2013.
287
The data in the following discussion come from Lamb, Schmidt, and Fitzsimmons.
On MRAPs, see especially Gates, 119126; for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnais-
288

sance, see Gates, 126135.

289
Lamb, Schmidt, and Fitzsimmons.
290
Gates, 118119.
291
Lamb, Schmidt, and Fitzsimmons.
292
Milan Vego, On Military Creativity, Joint Force Quarterly 70 (3rd Quarter 2013), 84.
Petraeus might be considered an exception of sorts since he went on record supporting
293

field commander requests for MRAPs. Kris Osborn, Petraeus Praises MRAPs, Defense
News, April 14, 2008, 4.

272
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

294
Gates, end of chapter 3.
295
Ibid., 448.
296
Bush, Decision Points, 381; Clinton, 149; Myers, 253, Bremer, 114, 125.
297
Hadley, interview.
298
SIGIR, Hard Lessons.
299
On quality, see Stephenson, 16.
Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-GVN
300

Performance in Vietnam (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1972).

301
Feith, 519.
302
Stephenson, 150151.
Hills memoir provides insights about the way career personnel in the State Department
303

think of this mission area. He resented the persistent calls for a civilian surge, believing
Iraq should be left to the Iraqis to run. He thought it was hard to find meaningful work for
all the civilian staff shoved into Iraq (335337).
Senior leaders argue the Provincial Reconstruction Teams eventually got the job done
304

(for example, Rumsfeld, 687), and they did improve and made a contribution. However,
close examinations of their performance identify numerous problems and unsatisfacto-
ry performance. One of the better such studies is a 2008 House Armed Service Com-
mittee effort: U.S. House of Representatives, the House Armed Services Committee,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Agency Stovepipes vs. Strategic Agility:
Lessons We Need to Learn from Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq and Afghani-
stan, April 2008.
Hadley, Bremer, and Feith, with Feith noting the concern originated with President
305

Bush. Hadley, interview; Bremer, 26; Feith, 317. This concern is overemphasized by these
leaders. General Franks told the President that regional leaders understood the United
States was conducting contingency planning but that the President had not yet made
a decision on whether to go to war (388). Similarly, even outside observers note other
countries knew the United States was planning military operations. Rather than detracting
from diplomatic efforts, this type of planning made U.S. threats credible and gave added
incentives for diplomats to reach agreements. There is no reason that would not hold
every bit as true for postwar planning as for the large-scale invasion and war planning. See
Fallows.
306
Cheney, 371, 457458, 460.
307
Gates, 50.
308
Tenet, 419.
309
Feith, 317; Hadley, interview.
310
Myers, 297.

273
Lamb with Franco

311
Dempsey, interview; Petraeus, interview.
McChrystal underscored the lack of team trust among senior leader echelons in partic-
312

ular. McChrystal, interview.

313
See Bremer, 209, 235236; Feith, 273, 514; Tenet, 364365, 443; Clinton, 188.
Laurence H. Silberman makes the argument, for example: The Dangerous Lie That
314

Bush Lied, Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2015, A13.

315
Myers, 297298.
316
Feith, 527.
317
Hadley, interview.
318
Clinton notes foreign leaks undermined diplomacy (165); Myers notes the same (182).
Hadley states that once or twice a week he would invite the Vice President, Secretary of
319

State, Secretary of Defense, Chairman, CIA Director, and Director of National Intelligence
to his office for candid discussions of tough issues with no note-takers and no leaks.
Other senior leaders also comment on the value of such small, restricted groups. Cheney,
for example, cites Hadleys small group meetings and observes the best decisionmak-
ing was done with no aides present to minimize the chance of leaks. Hadley, interview;
Cheney, 468.
For example, Cheney argues a State leak caused major problems (407) and that leaks
320

hurt careers (409); Bremer and the President note leaks are a persistent problem (Bremer,
227); Tenets resignation was fueled in part by what he believed were White House leaks
(481); Hadley argues leaks expose operational details that incur risks to the operations and
those executing them (Hadley, interview); Franks notes Rumsfeld insisted on working in
small groups because of leakers (344) and that leaks about Iraq war planning were incred-
ibly injurious (385) and complicated his relationship with senior civilians (441); DeLong
states leaks about Yemen hurt us (74); Gates notes leaks were a big problem, particularly
in the Obama administration (152, 370), which infuriated the President (298, 328), and
that in advance of the Osama bin Laden raid, everyone was terrified there would be a leak
that would spoil the operation (542).
321
Tenet, 434.
322
Franks, 382383.
323
David Petraeus, interview by Frank G. Hoffman, December 31, 2014.
Hadley mentioned the determination among national leaders immediately following
324

9/11 to defend the country, stating they were strong willed about it and, in retrospect,
should have listened a lot more carefully to our regional friends and allies seeking the
counsel of other countries. Hadley, interview.
325
Lute, interview; Franks, commenting on President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld (374).
Preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction is still a critical
326

objective but one that has lost its place of central importance. In discussing the future

274
 How System Attributes Trumped Leadership

security environment and risks, the Chairman has noted that the consequences of a ter-
rorist attack are relatively insignificant in terms of national survival. Martin E. Dempsey,
Risky Business, Joint Force Quarterly 69 (2nd Quarter 2013), 3.
327
Rumelt, 6.
328
This issue was briefly discussed in the opening of the chapter.
329
Hadley, interview.
330
Lute, interview; Petraeus, interview.
331
Rayburn.
Another indication that the impact of critical assumptions is often exaggerated is the
332

tendency to focus on just those ostensibly responsible for untoward developments. For ex-
ample, much greater attention has been paid to the assertion that nave optimism explains
the invasion of Iraq than to the assumption that a successful terrorist attack against the
United States with weapons of mass destruction would change the American way of life.
Yet the latter is a far more consequential assumption for the Bush administrations entire
approach to the war on terror, a critical difference between the Bush and Obama adminis-
trations, and a more foundational issue for future counterterror strategy.
The author concurs, but notes the methodology used in this chapter is biased toward
333

reform. The decisionmaking methodology we used was choice-based and assumes

decisionmaking is an instrumental activity. The corollary assumption is that unified effort
is useful, which reflects a bias in favor of coherence and in turn inclines us to sympathize
with reformers who advocate more systematic attempts to define objectives, establish
knowledge about the world, coordinate among different aspects of a decision, and exercise
control in the name of some central vision. This bias is probably appropriate for a lessons
learned effort but needs to be acknowledged. For a discussion of the bias, see March and
Heath, 205206.
334
Cited in Lamb and Munsing, 7.
335
Myers, 302.
McChrystal, interview. For Rumsfeld, see National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
336

Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Com-
mission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Including the Executive Summary (New
York: Norton, 2004); Neumann, Blair, and Olson; Secretary Gates noted in 2007 that if we
are to meet the myriad challenges around the world in the coming decades, this country
must strengthen other important elements of national power both institutionally and
financially, and create the capability to integrate and apply all of the elements of national
power to problems and challenges abroad (emphasis added). Robert Gates, Remarks as
Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Manhattan, KS, November 26, 2007.
Dempsey notes one such insight is that most changes are effected through budget
337

adjustments and thus in conjunction with budget cycles rather than events in the field.
Dempsey, interview.

275
Lamb with Franco

Kori Schake, QDR 2010: What Exactly Was the Point? in Economics and Security:
338

Resourcing National Priorities, ed. Richmond M. Lloyd (Newport, RI: Naval War College,
2010); and Kori Schake, Security and Solvency, Orbis 58, no. 3 (Spring 2014), 310325.
339
NSPD.
There are several good sources on national security system behaviors. See Forging a
340

New Shield.
341
Myers, 305.
342
Dempsey, interview.
Komers modern-day counterpart, Todd Greentree, makes the same point: There is
343

nothing revolutionary in the practical fixes suggested below. Most of the lessons were
learned in Vietnam and are being relearned today. See Greentree.

276
 4

Raising and Mentoring Security

Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq
By T.X. Hammes

S
ecurity force assistance played a leading role in both Afghanistan and
Iraq, where local security forces were often spoken of as our ticket
home or our exit strategy. The effort to raise, train, equip, field, and
advise army and police forces eventually became the center of gravity in both
theaters. Yet for some years, the effort was ad hoc, under-resourced, and com-
plicated by internal bureaucratic struggles in Washington and by corrosive
corruption and mismanagement within host-nation governments. If the Unit-
ed States were to undertake similar efforts in the future, the quality and effec-
tiveness of its security force assistance programs will again play a decisive role
in achieving successful outcomes.
While there are many similarities, there are also significant differences be-
tween the efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as between the army and po-
lice in each country. This chapter deals in turn with Afghan National Security
Forces (ANSF)the army, national police, and village police programand
then the Iraqi army and national police. It includes some discussion of the ef-
forts to establish effective ministries of defense and interior in both countries.
Each section tracks the effort chronologically, which most effectively
highlights some of the key issues the training teams struggled to overcome. As
with all lessons-learned efforts, this one focuses on the problems encountered
in the examined period. However, one remarkable success cannot be denied:
Starting from scratch in functionally destroyed nations, the coalitions, led by
the United States, raised, trained, and equipped an Afghan security force of
over 350,000 personnel and an Iraqi force of over 625,000. These are truly

277
Hammes

remarkable accomplishments and speak highly of the dedication and talent

of the military and civilian personnel who made this happen. It is even more
remarkable given the enormous obstacles they had to overcomefrom the
absence of institutions in both countries to the complex nature of U.S. bureau-
cratic processes. Subsequent events in both countries indicate that host-nation
politics will remain the dominant factor in the effectiveness of future advisory
efforts.

Afghan National Security Forces

The difficulties in raising these forces started at the beginning of U.S. involve-
ment in Afghanistan. The rapid U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks meant the
planners focused on defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda and understandably
had little time to consider postconflict governance. This oversight was exacer-
bated by the fact that senior leaders in the Department of Defense (DOD) did
not give much thought to who would govern Afghanistan and how after the
Taliban were removed.
Not until mid-October 2001 was Richard Haass, then with the Depart-
ment of State Policy Planning Staff, named the U.S. Governments coordinator
for the future of Afghanistan. He notes that there was a clear reluctance to
think about providing security or extending the reach of the central govern-
ment, which may have been based on the George W. Bush administrations
skepticism about nation-building.1 In fact, well before the initial campaign had
concluded, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had shifted the DOD focus.
On November 27, Rumsfeld called General Tommy Franks, USA, U.S. Cen-
tral Command (USCENTCOM) commander, to discuss the status of military
planningfor Iraq.2 The shift of resources further degraded planning for the
governance of Afghanistan.
Rather than attempt to govern as an occupying power, the United States
turned to the United Nations (UN). Under UN auspices, the International
Conference on Afghanistan (the Bonn Conference) was convened in Decem-
ber 2001. It established an Afghan Interim Authority, and on December 20,
2001, the UN adopted Security Council Resolution 1368, which established
the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).3 The original ISAF man-
date was to provide security for Kabul and train Afghan security forces. No
provision was made for an ISAF security presence outside of Kabul. For their

278
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

part, U.S. forces remaining in country were focused on the counterterrorism

mission of killing or capturing surviving members of al Qaeda and the Tali-
ban. In short, no one was responsible for the security of the Afghan people
except the Afghan Interim Authority, which had no national security forces
and had to contend with the numerous armed militias present in Afghanistan.
While the Bonn Agreement established a goal of a 50,000-person Afghan Na-
tional Army (ANA) and a 62,000-person Afghan National Police (ANP),4 it
provided no resources to meet those goals.
The next month, January 2002, at the Tokyo Donors Conference, the mis-
sion to develop Afghan security forces and disarm the militias was established
on a lead nation basis. Italy was responsible for establishing the legal system
drafting the laws and establishing the courts. Germany was responsible for
the police. The United Kingdom led the anti-narcotics efforts. Japan assumed
the mission of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of the
militias. The United States took on the job of raising the army.5

Afghan Army
Under the ISAF mandate to raise security forces, the United Kingdom (as the
first nation commanding) and then Turkey (as the second nation) did not wait
for the United States to start training Afghans. During each nations turn as
ISAF commander, it trained a single battalion (kandak). The U.S. effort started
in February 2002, when a team led by Major General Charles Campbell, USA,
USCENTCOM Chief of Staff, did an initial evaluation of Afghan plans for the
army. U.S. Special Forces, however, did not arrive to fulfill the U.S. mission as
lead nation for training the Afghan army until May 2002. Special Forces de-
tachments began to work with small units in various parts of the country. The
program was not centrally directed, nor did it attempt to build the national in-
stitutions necessary to develop an effective army. It was not until October 2002
that Major General Karl Eikenberry, USA, arrived as Chief of the Office of
Military CooperationAfghanistan (OMC-A) with the mission of building the
Afghan army. He realized the mission would require more resources than Spe-
cial Forces could provide; they had done well in forming platoons, companies,
and battalions, but the Afghan army needed to progress beyond battalions to
brigade-, corps-, and national-level functions. Eikenberry noted that the Af-
ghan army lacked a recruiting force, trainers, living facilities, equipment, and

279
Hammes

any form of logistics or personnel support, all of which are fundamental to

forming an army. OMC-A was literally building the Afghan armys supporting
base even as it was training and deploying the combat units of the army.
Eikenberry established Task Force (TF) Phoenix, which would use a U.S.
Army infantry brigade to train the Afghan army.6 Indicative of the expedient
nature of the effort, OMC-A received the 2nd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Di-
vision to execute its mission. The brigade consisted of the brigade headquar-
ters, one infantry battalion, and a logistics battalion. Upon arrival in country, it
was augmented by individuals and training teams from the Marine Corps, Na-
tional Guard, and nine different countries to form TF Phoenix. An essentially
ad hoc organization executing a mission it had not trained for, 2nd Brigade also
had a change of command only 2 weeks before it deployed in May 2003.
The brigade took over directly from the Special Forces units. It started by
establishing a centralized training location in Kabul. Up to this point, Special
Forces Soldiers had been training small units of Afghans in the field. TF Phoe-
nix focused on training at the company and battalion levels while starting to
build brigade and corps staffs. However, an infantry brigade is not manned
with personnel appropriate to establish national-level institutions, so that
mission was contracted out to Military Professional Resources, Incorporated
(MPRI). By the time the brigade left in December 2003, it was sending pla-
toons, companies, and kandaks out to conduct operations with the 1st Brigade
of the 10th Mountain Division. Working with MPRI, it was also forming the
brigade and corps staffs.
During this 6-month period, the task force also handed the 4-week basic
training course over to the Afghans, supported by American advisors. During
the same period, the French ran the officers course, and the British ran the
noncommissioned officer (NCO) course, each of which ran separately. When
NCO and basic training courses graduated, the NCOs joined the troops and
formed companies. They worked together on small-unit tactics until the lon-
ger officers course graduated, at which point the officers and the U.S.-embed-
ded training teams joined the companies. Three companies formed a kandak,
which began a unit-training program to prepare for combat. Given the sig-
nificant differences between the military cultures of Britain, France, and the
United States, there were inevitable issues when the officers, NCOs, and troops
began to work together. This problem was further exacerbated by the signifi-

280
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

cant number of officers who had been trained by the Soviets. Once certified,
the unit was paired with a U.S. battalion and deployed to the field. Some units
were also assigned to Kabul and thus did joint patrolling with ISAF.
A critical challenge for OMC-A was the integration of former mujahideen
fighters and commanders into the national army. Naturally, militia command-
ers and the political leaders they supported were reluctant to relinquish con-
trol to the national army. For the United States and donor nations, there was
serious concern about moving potential war criminals into the new Afghan
army. For the Afghans, the concern was the ethnic balance of the force and
the potential for its dominance by a single group. Thus, Eikenberry and his
Afghan counterpart had to carefully screen applicants prior to assigning them
to key billets. They then spent 3 weeks briefing every political leader in Ka-
bul, from the president and four vice presidents to cabinet members to faction
leaders.7 Those who were not integrated were theoretically processed by the
DDR program run by the Japanese.
The ongoing war and resultant lack of overall security, however, ensured
the Afghan DDR was not fully effective. Lorenzo Striuli and Fernando Ter-
mentini succinctly highlighted the requirements for a successful DDR pro-
gram. They noted:

n fighting in the theater of interest must be completely or at least

nearly ended, and a significant peacekeeping force must be de-
ployed to ensure no renewal of conflict
n all former fighting factions must be included in the process

because, without disarming all combatants, the potential for con-

flict renewal remains high
n sufficient resources must be assured for the duration of the

process because an incomplete reintegration of former belliger-

ents leaves a dangerous situation in postconflict societies.8

None of these requirements was achieved by 2002 in Afghanistan or even

by the end of 2014. As a result, despite a series of well-funded programs, ISAF,
the UN Development Programme, and the Afghan government have failed
to disarm the numerous militias that have plagued Afghanistan. The DDR ef-
fort succeeded in quarantining warlord tanks and artillery. However, it was

281
Hammes

functionally impossible to collect all the small arms, to include machine guns,
mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades. Thus, militia activities were curtailed,
but the militias could not be eliminated. In fact, some were incorporated into
the ANSF, and their loyalties remain split between the national government
and their militia leaders.
Despite the continued presence of the militias, TF Phoenix was tasked
with raising the Afghan army. As the task force expanded to meet the train,
equip, and advise mission, Brigadier General F. Joseph Prasek, USA, assumed
command. Even as TF Phoenix worked to field the new Afghan army, insur-
gents began their first attacks against the coalition and new Afghan govern-
ment in April 2002.
At the Bonn II Conference in December 2002, the Afghan government
and donor nations agreed the army would expand to include (1) 43,000
ground combat troops based in Kabul and four other cities, (2) 21,000 sup-
port staff organized in four sustaining commands . . . (3) Ministry of Defense
[MOD] and general staff personnel, and (4) 3,000 air staff to provide securi-
ty transportation for the President of Afghanistan.9 In contrast to the small
army envisioned by the Bonn II Conference, Afghan defense minister Marshal
Fahim called for a force of 200,000 to 250,000 troops to provide security for
the entire nation.10 Donor nations refused to consider this much higher num-
ber. Ironically, by 2011, ISAF was building the ANSF to a total of over 350,000
personnel.
Upon 2nd Brigades departure in December 2002, the expanded mission
was passed to a National Guard brigade. Throughout this period, MPRI con-
ducted the training for corps headquarters and the MOD.11 During the same
timeframe, the Taliban as well as local guerrilla groups continued a low-level
insurgency from bases inside Pakistan. By fall 2003, the U.S. strategy was clear-
ly failing. Taliban elements were moving freely through most of the south and
east, unchallenged by any Afghan government presence. Security had deterio-
rated to the point that the United Nations and aid organizations were pulling
their people out of the south and southeast.12 The Taliban had recovered from
its initial setbacks and was taking the offensive. As 2004 started, the situation
in Afghanistan was deteriorating as insurgent attacks increased steadily.
In response, from late 2003 to 2005 OMC-A focused on building the Af-
ghan National Army. Basic training was formalized and established at 8 weeks

282
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

with training base throughput capacity increasing steadily. Efforts continued

to build effective headquarters above brigade levelthat is, corps headquar-
ters and national institutions. By July 2005, however, the ANA had reached a
strength of only 24,300 trained and equipped, with 6,000 more in training
less than half the force authorized in the December 2002 Bonn Conference.
Over this period, training for the newly raised infantry battalions was stan-
dardized at 14 weeks (6 weeks individual training, 6 weeks advanced training,
and 2 weeks of collective training). Despite being undermanned and lacking
resources, OMC-A planned to complete training the then-authorized 46,000
soldiers by the fall of 2007.
In its June 2005 report on Afghan security, the Government Accountabil-
ity Office (GAO) noted that U.S. funding for the ANA started at only $179.2
million in 2002 but rapidly increased to over $2 billion by 2005. Despite the
major increase in funding, the GAO stated, efforts to establish sustaining in-
stitutions, such as a logistics command, needed to support these troops have
not kept pace. Plans for completing these institutions are not clear. It went on
to note the estimated total bill for police and army to be $7.2 billion, with $600
million needed annually for sustainment.13 The GAO report also noted that
OMC-A struggled with the numerous changes in the plan for the ANA as well
as consistent shortages of training personnel. OMC-A had never been staffed
at more than 71 percent of its approved personnel level.14
One of the key challenges was the steadily increasing level of violence
in Afghanistan. As attacks on Afghan and coalition forces increased, leaders
made the logical choice to increase the size of the Afghan army and police.
With each increase, more trainers were needed, but before each new require-
ment was filled, the increased threat led to plans for further increasing ANSF
strength.
On July 12, 2005, OMC-A was renamed the Office of Security Cooper-
ationAfghanistan (OSC-A). Despite the identified problems with manning
and planning, its responsibility was expanded to include the entire Afghan se-
curity sector. In addition to training the ANA, OSC-A would assume respon-
sibility for reforming the Afghan National Police.15 Inevitably, the expanded
mission required more resources. GAO noted that OSC-A requested $7.6 bil-
lion for 2007, more than the estimated total bill in June 2005.16 This amount
was to cover the cost of 70,000 ANA soldiers and 82,000 police, as well as the

283
Hammes

expansion and professionalization of the MOD and sustaining institutions.

Even as OSC-A raced to build the ANA, the Taliban were increasing their
attacks, requiring OSC-A to upgrade the equipment it was providing to ANSF.
In April 2006, OSC-A was redesignated as Combined Security Transition
CommandAfghanistan (CSTC-A). It retained responsibility for training the
army and police as well as mentoring the ministries of defense and interior.
Unfortunately, the security situation continued to deteriorate, particularly in
relation to attacks focused on ANSF and coalition forces. Improvised explosive
device incidents increased from 844 in 2005 to 2,215 by 2007.17
While North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reports indicated ma-
jor progress in training the Afghan army during 20072008, GAO was much
less optimistic. In its June 2008 report, it noted:

The United States has provided over $10 billion to develop the ANA
since 2002; however, less than 2 percent (2 of 105 units) of ANA units
are assessed as fully capable of conducting their primary mission. Thir-
ty-six percent (38 of 105) are assessed as capable of conducting their
mission, but require routine international assistance, while the remain-
ing ANA units (65 of 105 units) are either planned, in basic training, or
assessed as partially able or unable to conduct their primary mission.
Building an Afghan army that can lead security operations requires
manning, training, and equipping of personnel; however, U.S. efforts to
build the ANA have faced challenges in all of these areas. First, while
the ANA has grown to approximately 58,000 of an authorized force
structure of 80,000nearly three times the 19,600 Defense reported
in 2005the ANA has experienced difficulties finding qualified candi-
dates for leadership positions and retaining its personnel. Second, while
trainers or mentors are present in every ANA combat unit, less than half
the required number are deployed in the field. Defense officials cited an
insufficient number of U.S. trainers and coalition mentors in the field
as the major impediment to providing the ANA with the training to
establish capabilities, such as advanced combat skills and logistics, nec-
essary to sustain the ANA force in the long term. Finally, ANA combat
units report significant shortages in approximately 40 percent of critical
equipment items, including vehicles, weapons, and radios. Some of these

284
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

challenges, such as shortages of U.S. trainers and equipment, are due in

part to competing global priorities, according to senior Defense officials.
Without resolving these challenges, the ability of the ANA to reach full
capability may be delayed.18

In its 2008 report to Congress, CSTC-A stated it was working closely with
the Afghan government on three lines of operation to develop the ANSF: (1)
build and develop ministerial institutional capability; (2) generate the fielded
forces [sic]; and (3) develop the fielded forces.19 CSTC-A noted the target end-
strength for the ANA had been increased to 80,000 and the ANP to 82,000.20
This was yet another in a continuing series of rapid increases in target end-
strength for the ANA. It would also require fielding different kinds of units:
13 light brigades, a mechanized brigade, a commando brigade, a headquar-
ters and support brigade, enabling units and the initial operation of an air
corps.21
To assist in filling the shortage of trainers, the North Atlantic Council an-
nounced the formation of NATO Training MissionAfghanistan (NTM-A) as
an integral part of ISAF on June 12, 2009. NTM-A stood up formally on No-
vember 21 of that year. The command was a NATO organization that included
personnel from 37 nations and was led by a U.S. lieutenant general who was
dual-hatted as the commander of CSTC-A, which remained a U.S. command
and was the administrative conduit for U.S. funds.22 While providing a signif-
icant reinforcement in personnel, NTM-A also had an expanded mission to:

provide higher-level training for the ANA, including defence colleges and
academies, and [] be responsible for doctrine development, as well as
training and mentoring for the ANP. This will reflect the Afghan Gov-
ernments policing priorities and will complement existing training and
capacity development programmes, including the European Union Police
Mission and the work of the International Police Coordination Board.23

However, NTM-A would not provide advice or training for the Afghan
ministries. That mission remained the responsibility of CSTC-A. Keeping
track of the collective NATO and individual national caveats concerning train-
ing and funding added to the complexity of the mission.

285
Hammes

In August 2009, General Stanley A. McChrystal, USA, the new ISAF com-
mander, concluded his own initial commanders assessment. In particular, the
pessimistic report noted the failure to focus on the population, which General
McChrystal believed to be the center of gravity for the conflict:

[The Afghan government] and ISAF have both failed to focus on this
objective. The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of pow-
er-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various offi-
cials, and ISAFs own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support
their government. These problems have alienated large segments of the
Afghan population. They do not trust the [Afghan government] to pro-
vide their essential needs, such as security, justice, and basic services.24

In short, the NATO/ISAF effort in Afghanistan had lost ground since

2003. McChrystal stated that the size of the army needed to be 240,000, triple
the size noted in the 2008 CSTC-A report to Congress. In addition, the ANP
strength needed to almost double to 160,000.25 However, by 2010, the inter-
national community and the Afghan government had agreed to strengths of
only 171,600 for the ANA and 134,000 for the ANP. Furthermore, NTM-A was
manned at only 52 percent of its authorized strength.26
Even as the international community refused to expand the army to the
level McChrystal requested, the International Crisis Groups analysis of the
progress of the training program to date indicated continuing major problems:

Despite billions of dollars of international investment, army com-

bat readiness has been undermined by weak recruitment and reten-
tion policies, inadequate logistics, insufficient training and equipment
and inconsistent leadership. International support for the ANA must
therefore be targeted not just toward increasing the quantity of troops
but enhancing the quality of the fighting force. Given the slow pace of
economic development and the likelihood of an eventual drawdown
of Western resources, any assessment of the future shape of the army
must also make fiscal as well as political sense. Although recent efforts
to consolidate the training command structure under the NATO Train-
ing Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A) are encouraging, the U.S. emphasis

286
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

on rapid expansion of the army, in response to the growing insurgent

threat, could strain NTM-A resources and outpace the capacity of Af-
ghan leaders to manage an inherently unwieldy system.27

In its 2009 report to Congress, GAO noted significant progress for the
ANA in that 18 of its 72 units were now rated fully capable and 26 were capable
with support. (It did not say why the total number of units had decreased from
the 105 reported the previous year.) It noted that DOD identified the primary
limitation on progress as the shortage of training personnel. It had only half of
the 2,225 personnel needed to train the ANA at the approved level of 79,000
soldiers. This shortage was likely to get more severe with the newly approved
strength increase for the ANA.28
In 2010, the International Crisis Group noted that from 2008 to 2010, the
target date for 134,000 trained troops had been brought forward at least twice,
first from 2013 to 2011, and then to October 2010. While recruiting had kept
pace, shortfalls in NCOs and officers with specialized skills in medicine, trans-
portation, and logistics were hindering growth.29
Lieutenant General William Caldwell, USA, who commanded NTM-A/
CSTC-A from November 2009 to November 2011, noted that the following
elements complicated NTM-A efforts to raise and train the ANA:

n eighty-six percent illiteracy rate: required teaching recruits

and officer basic reading skills
n eighteen years of conflict: led to hoarding and survival men-

tality
n focus on quantity over quality in recruiting and training: re-

sulted in need for retraining

n ANA negative growth: resulted in creating a recruiting com-

mand
n leadership shortfalls and challenges: led to creation of multi-

ple schools and courses (officer/NCO schools)

n minimal oversight and accountability: required top-to-bot-

tom review of inventory processes and the inculcation of an ethos

of stewardship

287
Hammes

n struggling sustainment: required creation of a logistics system

from the national level to the local unit-level distribution
n high attrition: required extensive improvements to all soldier

support systems, including the recruiting system

n lack of a manufacturing base: required creation and develop-

ment of local suppliers; creation of the Afghan First program to

build indigenous manufacturing for ANSF uniforms, boots, and
other military materiel
n substandard pay: required constant dialogue with Afghan

leadership to increase pay in all ranks to a living wage to reduce

opportunities for corrupt behavior
n endemic corruption: mandated leadership changes, review of

ethical standards
n tribal tensions: presented unique assignment challenges

n substandard equipment: required immediate procurement,

acquisition, and maintenance efforts, including a mindset change

from replacement to repair
n inadequate standards to evaluate training and operations (35

percent weapons qualification rate): required creation and en-

forcement of standards
n numerous language barriers among themselves and NATO:

complicated training.30

Despite these challenges, Dr. Jack Kem, Deputy to the Commander of

NTM-A, reported that by August, the ANA had reached the October 2010
goal of 134,000 and the ANP was at 115,000, exceeding the goal of 109,000.
NTM-A had either corrected or managed the long list of problems while dra-
matically increasing the strength and competence of the ANA. New goals
had been established for October 2011 of an ANA of 171,600 and ANP of
134,000.31 A key part of the effort was a literacy program designed to bring 50
percent of the ANSF to third-grade reading and comprehension levels. One
reason for the emphasis on literacy was the ANA and ANP needed to be able
to read and write to operate in the way they were being trained. This empha-
sis on literacy training continued through 2010. GAO noted that ANA staff
members low literacy levels hinder their ability to use computers, effectively

288
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

manage staff functions, and exercise command and control. Partnering is es-
sential to provide necessary supervision and oversight of planning for supplies
(i.e., fuel and ammunition).32
ISAF still reported significant progress in establishing an accountability
system for vehicles and equipment. One major issue remained the ethnic bal-
ance of the forces. In a nation that is roughly 40 percent Pashtun,33 NTM-A
had only succeeded in raising the number of southern Pashtuns to 4 percent of
the force.34 Given the historic animosity between the southern Pashtun and the
Northern Alliance (Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, and so forth), this was not a surpris-
ing result. Most southern Pashtun perceived the ANA as an occupying force
and thus were resistant to joining. Insufficient numbers of southern Pashtuns
has remained a problem for ANA to this day.
Even as NTM-A met recruiting and training goals for 2011 early, the secu-
rity situation continued to deteriorate in some parts of the country. With the
withdrawal of ISAF looming and operational demands for troops in the field
increasing, the target strengths for both ANA and ANP were increased:

In August 2011, a larger target size of 352,000 (195,000 ANA and

157,000 ANP) was set, to be reached by November 2012. The gross size
of the force reached approximately that level by the end of September
2012, and remains at levels just below those targets. That figure does not
include the approximately 30,000 local security forces.35

Furthermore, there was some increase in reported capabilities with 7 per-

cent of the units reported as independent with advisors, as were 9 percent of
the ANP units. Also, the number of units had increased dramaticallyto 219
ANA and 435 ANP units.36 But the change of metric from fully capable in
2008 reports to independent with advisors in 2012 makes it difficult to com-
pare the actual capabilities of the forces at the two different times. Also during
2012, the Army and Marine Corps began deploying Security Force Assistance
Advisory Teams to facilitate the transition of all operations to Afghan forces.
The relative priority the Services placed on transition teams versus U.S. op-
erational units remained an issue. As was the pattern throughout our time in
Afghanistan, advisory teams were formed latesometimes actually in-coun-
tryand often without the appropriate mix of rank and skills.37

289
Hammes

GAO went on to state that there was little or no progress in developing the
critical ministries of Defense and Interior:

We have previously reported that limited capacity in the Afghan Min-

istries of Defense (MOD) and Interior (MOI)which oversee the ANA
and ANP, respectivelypresent challenges to the development and sus-
tainment of capable ANSF. For instance, MOI faced challenges, such as
a lack of consolidated personnel databases and formal training in prop-
erly executing budget and salary functions. In April 2012, DOD report-
ed that the MOD was assessed as requiring some coalition assistance to
accomplish its mission, an assessment unchanged since October 2010,
while the MOI was assessed as needing significant coalition assistance
an assessment unchanged since 2009. Additionally, DOD reported that
the ministries face a variety of challenges, including, among others,
MODs lack of human capital in areas requiring technical expertise and
MOIs continuing problems with corruption.38

By early 2013, GAO was reporting shortfalls in promised funding for fu-
ture Afghan security forces and inadequate staffing by the Services of the Se-
curity Force Assistance and Advisory Teams.39 Each of these failings had been
identified for years, but NATO had been unable to address them. At the end of
2014, NTM-A completed its mission and was replaced by a NATO-led mission
titled Resolute Support:

This mission will not involve combat. Its support will be directed primarily
to Afghan ministries and institutions, as well as the higher command level
of the Afghan security forces. . . . Approximately 12,000 personnel from
both NATO and partner nations will be deployed in support of the mis-
sion. The mission is planned to operate with one central hub (in Kabul/Ba-
gram) and four spokes in Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, Kandahar and Jalalabad.

Key functions will include:

Supporting planning, programming and budgeting;

Assuring transparency, accountability and oversight;

290
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

S upporting the adherence to the principles of rule of law and

good governance.40

Although NTM-A has become Resolute Support, the United States has main-
tained CSTC-A. However, its focus is on advising and assisting Afghans at the
ministerial level. CSTC-A no longer has a direct role in the training, equip-
ping, or employing ANSF.
A lively debate continues as to whether the ANSF can hold its own against
a resurgent Taliban. Few question the ability of the ANA to fight. In fact, the
fighting spirit and capabilities of the ANA have been demonstrated over the
last two fighting seasons. Despite increased attacks and high casualties, ANA
remains an aggressive, effective fighting force. This represents one of the most
positive aspects of the current situation. Unfortunately, many observers ques-
tion the ability of its institutions to sustain the combat forces. Thus, both the
U.S. and NATO missions will focus on assisting the ministries with these crit-
ical sustaining functions. While Afghan forces have clearly continued to fight
hard (as indicated by their casualties), the military outcome remains in ques-
tion. As NATO forces have withdrawn from the country, the security situation
has worsened. On July 9, 2014, for instance, the United Nations announced
that Afghan civilian casualties in the first half of 2014 surged to the highest
level since 2009.41 By the end of November 2014, the Washington Post report-
ed there were more attacks in Kabul during 2014 than in any year since the
U.S.-backed Northern Alliance seized the capital city in 2001.42 But the rate of
attacks fell off sharply in January and February of 2015. A key indicator will be
the results of the 2015 fighting season.

Afghan Police
Afghanistan has never had a strong or effective civilian police force. Whatever
progress was made in developing a civilian police force during the 1970s was
lost during the more than two decades of conflict that followed. Following
the defeat of the Taliban in the fall of 2001, anti-Taliban Northern Alliance
commanders were quick to exploit the power vacuum and filled many of the
district and provincial police forces with private militias that had little or no
police training or experience. The daunting challenge confronting police re-
formers in the spring of 2002 was to create an effective civilian police force

291
Hammes

from an untrained entity manned primarily by factional commanders and

their militias who had little or no equipment or infrastructure, who were un-
paid or underpaid, and who operated within the corrupt and factionalized
institutional structure of the Ministry of Interior (MOI).43
With this as a background, representatives of the Afghan people and
donor nations signed the Bonn Agreement on December 5, 2001. Annex I
included authority to raise a police force that all agreed should be a multi-
ethnic, sustainable, and countrywide 62,000-member professional police ser-
vice.44 As noted earlier, Germany assumed the lead nation role for forming
the Afghan police at the January 2002 conference in Tokyo. It acted quickly by
organizing a donor nations conference in Berlin by February. Germanys plan
focused on training senior police officers in a 3-year course and police NCOs
in a 1-year course at the Kabul Police Academy. It did not plan to provide any
training or mentoring for the vast majority of police officers who were ordi-
nary patrolmen.
U.S. leaders believed that police would be critical to maintaining order in
Afghanistan and that the German program was moving too slowly. So, despite
Germanys role as lead nation, the United States established a police training
program. For bureaucratic and legal reasons, the Department of States Bureau
of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement was designated as the pro-
gram manager for the Afghan police. Since the bureau lacked the personnel to
actually conduct the training, it contracted with DynCorp Aerospace Technol-
ogy to train and equip the police, advise the MOI, and provide infrastructure
assistance to include constructing several police training centers.45 DynCorp
had won previous contracts to train police forces in Bosnia and Haiti. The
initial U.S. program was a train the trainers program. Experienced Afghan
police officers completed a 3-week instructor development course taught by
DynCorp advisors. They then conducted the 8-week basic training course for
new police officers as well as the 2-week refresher program for veteran officers.
For comparison, in 2008, police in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a much more literate
and less violent society than 2002 Afghanistan, received 25 weeks of initial
training.46 Highway and border police each received an additional 2 weeks
of training. While this provided some basic skills training, the contract did
not provide for the essential post-training mentoring that had been critical in
other programs. For comparison, both the New York and Los Angeles police

292
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

departments require a 6-month basic training course and a significant period

of on-the-job, one-on-one mentoring before an officer is considered ready for
duty. Brazil reformed its police training in 2007 to require 380 to 500 hours
while Ukraine requires 6 months.47 Further exacerbating the problem in Af-
ghanistan, the requirement for interpreters cut the actual instruction time by
at least half, leading to an inevitable decrease in quality.
Even more damaging to the effort was the fact that U.S. trainers could not
vet the men who were assigned as police officers. Most were not trained police
but attained the jobs either because they were police after the collapse of
the Mohammad Najibullah government or because specific powerbrokers in
Afghanistan insisted they get the job. Many were illiterate and had never been
in a classroom.
By January 2005, Germany and the United States had trained more than
35,000 national, highway, and border police using the dual programs. They
expected to meet the goal of training 62,000 by December 2005.48 Despite the
optimistic projections, by July 2005 senior leaders believed the police training
was not progressing well. As part of the reorganization of the U.S. effort in
Afghanistan, responsibility for police training was transferred from the De-
partment of State to DOD so that OSC-A became responsible for training all
Afghan National Security Forces. At the time of the turnover, the ANP were
organized in multiple branches. The largest, the Afghan Uniformed Police,
were responsible for day-to-day law enforcement countrywide and scheduled
to increase from 31,000 to 45,000 personnel. The Afghan Border Police, with
18,000 personnel, were tasked with manning 13 border posts and patrolling
the border. Theoretically, the Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP)
were to be responsible for maintaining civil order in Afghans largest cities and
acting as a reserve for crisis. In fact, because its officers received more training,
better equipment, and better vetting than other police agencies, ANCOP were
often used as an auxiliary to the Afghan military in combat operations. The
last two branches were the Afghanistan Highway Police and Counter Narcot-
ics Police of Afghanistan.49 Due to exceptional corruption, the Afghan High-
way Police were subsequently dis-established.
In a further reorganization of the advisory effort, Germanys role of train-
ing and advising senior police officers was assumed by the European Union
Police Mission (EUPOL) Afghanistan in the summer of 2007.50 The EUPOL

293
Hammes

mission is to contribute to the establishment of a sustainable and effective

civilian police, which works together with the Afghan justice system to im-
prove the local populations safety. The mission monitors, mentors, advises and
trains at the level of senior management of the Afghan MOI, Afghan Ministry
of Justice, Afghan Attorney Generals Office, in Kabul and in several regions.51
Recently, the European Union decided to extend EUPOL Afghanistan to the
end of 2016.
EUPOL Afghanistan focused on training senior officials of the MOI and
senior police officers with an emphasis on coordination and cooperation
among various elements of the Afghan judicial system. Unfortunately, it was
unable to fill about half of the allotted training slots and actually assigned
many of their personnel to Provincial Reconstruction Teams rather than the
ANP training program.
The fact that CSTC-A also provided training and mentoring for senior
police officials created both coordination and execution problems since it and
EUPOL Afghanistan had fundamentally different understandings of the role
of police in counterinsurgency. Because it provided the bulk of both finan-
cial and personnel resources for the ANP, CSTC-A was the primary driver
of the police training program. In late 2007, it initiated the Focused District
Development (FDD) plan. Under this plan, all police officers were withdrawn
from a district, replaced with Afghan National Civil Order Police, and then
put through a 2-month training program before returning to their districts.52
CSTC-A was enthusiastic about the progress of those police units that had
participated in the program. A news release stated, Initial reviews suggest
that FDD is working, albeit slowly. Districts that have completed FDD have
experienced a 60 percent decrease in civilian casualties.53 This optimism may
have been premature. The January 2008 Afghanistan Study Group Report, led
by General James L. Jones, USMC (Ret.), and Ambassador Thomas R. Picker-
ing, noted:

The ANP are severely underfunded, poorly trained, and poorly equipped.
Many months go without pay because of corruption and problems with
the payroll system. In parts of the country the police are seen as a great-
er cause of insecurity than the Taliban. . . . U.S. assistance needs to

294
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

go beyond equipping and training, and be directed towards embedding

foreign police officers into Afghan units.54

In June 2008, a DOD assessment showed that not one Afghan police unit
out of 433 was fully capable of performing its mission; over three-fourths of
them were assessed at the lowest capability rating.55 In 2010, the Special In-
spector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) called into question
the validity of the mission-capable rating system in its entirety. It noted that
the Baghlan-e Jadid police district had been rated capable of independent op-
erations (CM1 in the rating system) upon completion of the FDD plan in June
2009. However, when the SIGAR team asked to visit the district, still rated
CM1, in March 2010, they were told it was not secure and overrun with in-
surgents to the point the Baghlan-e Jadid police force had withered away.56
The problems were not limited to the police. It is a well-established fact
that police reform must be accompanied by reform across the judicial system.
Unfortunately, it is also clearly more difficult to educate the large numbers
of judges, lawyers, clerks, and prison officials than it is to raise basic police
forces. This was further exacerbated by the fact that the U.S. Government pro-
vided massive resources to the police in comparison to the relatively limited
resources dedicated to supporting the other elements of the justice system.
Without effective court and prison systems, even competent police operations
have little or no impact on security. In its mostly pessimistic 2008 report, the
Afghan Study Group noted important advances in the Afghan justice system:
The heads of the major justice sector institutionsthe Supreme Court, the
Ministry of Finance, and the Office of the Attorney Generalhave all been
replaced with competent, moderate reformers.57 At the time, Transparency
Internationals Corruption Perception Index rated Afghanistan 172 out of
179 countries. Despite intensive efforts, the reformers had limited success. By
2013, Afghanistan was tied with Somalia and North Korea for last place.58
In his initial commanders assessment of August 2009, General McChrys-
tal noted that 8 years into the conflict, the ANP suffers from a lack of training,
leaders, resources, equipment, and mentoring. Effective policing is inhibited
by the absence of a working system of justice or dispute resolution; poor pay
has also encouraged corruption.59 He pushed for the police training contract
to be moved from State to DOD to improve the quality of the training. This

295
Hammes

decision meant DynCorp, which had been selected by State and had held the
contract for the previous 7 years, would not be eligible to bid on retaining it. In
response, DynCorp sued in Federal court. Despite numerous audits over the
years that indicated major problems with DynCorp trainers and the obvious
lack of progress on the part of the ANP, DynCorp won the suit and then won
the subsequent rebid of the contract.60 In effect, a Federal court overturned the
decision of the ISAF commander in Afghanistan and forced him to continue
using a contractor that had consistently failed to execute its mission.
McChrystal was not the only senior official who felt the ANP was not pro-
gressing. In March 2009, Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke characterized the
ANP as inadequate, riddled with corruption, and the weak link in the secu-
rity chain.61 In a joint report, the Royal United Services Institute and Foreign
Policy Research Institute noted that even by the Afghan governments own
admission, problems remain. Institutional and individual competence to tack-
le crime remains low, while corruption, police criminality and abuses of power
are pervasive. Failing to provide sufficient civil security, the police are unable
to fulfil their potential role as a key appendage to the reconstruction effort.62
The formal establishment of NATO Training MissionAfghanistan in No-
vember 2009 was an effort to correct some of these problems through better
coordination of ANSF training. Although NTM-A stood up and was tasked
with police and military training for Afghan forces, CSTC-A remained a sep-
arate command because NTM-A could not provide trainers for the minis-
tries nor could it administer the U.S. funds provided for the Afghan security
forces. Thus, NATO caveats and U.S. laws required the continued existence
of CSTC-A. However, to ensure the two commands worked well together, a
single officer was dual-hatted to command both organizations.
While improving the coordination of the various training elements, the
shift of police training responsibility to NTM-A highlighted an ongoing dis-
pute concerning the proper role of the ANP. Critics of ISAFs use of the po-
lice believed the ANP were being misused as little soldiers and improperly
assigned to isolated posts without backup and, as a result, suffered three
times the casualties of the ANA.63 They focused on the need for a police force
capable of enforcing the rule of law in postconflict Afghanistan rather than as
a counterinsurgency force. In contrast, proponents of assigning the police na-
tionwide as a paramilitary security force understood the need for professional

296
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

police but believed that until the security situation improved significantly, the
ANP had to focus on the counterinsurgency security mission. In fact, in those
areas that were relatively secure, to include most Afghan cities, there was a
critical need for an effective police force focused on the rule of law. At the same
time, the higher literacy requirements inherent in community policing mean
the training pipeline must be longer to allow for significant literacy education
of even patrol officers. However, such a force simply could not survive in heav-
ily contested districts. Many Afghan political and police leaders saw the police
in a different light. To them, the police had to focus on protecting the regime
and government personnelnot the population. This tension has never been
formally resolved.
Unification of the command enhanced the coalition strengths that assist-
ed the police training programsuch as the Italian Carabinieri trainers who,
unlike the British or Americans, were part of a professional national police
force. While former U.S. and British police officers brought experience to the
mission of training local law enforcement, they lacked the knowledge of oper-
ating in a national police force that maintains paramilitary capabilities.
Unfortunately, there were also numerous challenges. Despite the assign-
ment of CSTC-A/NTM-A as the de facto lead for police training, smaller
bilateral missions and the European Police Mission (EUPOL) [continued]
pursuing its own mandate.64 This divergence of national mandates for police
training reflected only one small aspect of the coordination issues involved in
conducting a counterinsurgency campaign with over 40 nations participating.
In addition to the problems created by dysfunction within the coalition
effort to support the police, the SIGAR noted that as late as January 2015,
the MOI was unable to track the number of personnel it employs or whether
they are getting paid. The U.S. response has been to once again attempt to
implement a fully functional electronic accounting and personnel tracking
system.65
This action, over 10 years into the effort to build an effective police de-
partment, highlights one of the problems the United States faces when train-
ing a foreign force. U.S. planners continually try to install relatively sophis-
ticated computerized systems to track personnel, pay, and equipment. The
transparency provided by such systems is seen by U.S. personnel both as a
management tool and an anticorruption tool. For instance, an effective sys-

297
Hammes

tem will show how many personnel are actually in a unitand thus eliminate
payment to ghost soldiers. It will also allow for more effective accountabil-
ity of equipment and consumables such as fuel. This reduces the losses to
black market activities. Unfortunately, many Afghans, to include senior offi-
cers, do not want this level of transparency. They require the funds acquired
through fraud to function in their organizationsand in too many cases,
simply to enrich themselves. Furthermore, the shortage of literate, numerate,
and computer-savvy personnel in the ANSF is simply insufficient to operate
and maintain these systems.

Local Police Initiatives

While not technically an element of the Afghan National Security Forces, any
discussion of Afghan security must include the various local police initiatives
that have been made across the country. The collapse of the Taliban govern-
ment left local policing in the hands of various warlords and militias. The men
who filled these jobs were not trained policemen. The United Nations initial
plan called for a national police force to be trained, equipped, and deployed
under lead nation supervision. Unfortunately, this project was started from a
low baseline and would inevitably take a great deal of time. With a deteriorat-
ing security situation and insufficient ANA/ANP forces to protect the rural
population, ISAF commanders from the local to the national level turned to
militia/local men to provide security. Over the last decade, the United States
and ISAF have made several attempts to form local militia units similar to the
Sons of Iraq concept that was successful in that country. These local militias
were referred to as police but, if trained at all, were trained as paramilitary
units by soldiers, not policemen.
A series of programs was tried: Afghan National Auxiliary Police (2005),
Afghan Public Protection Program (2007), Community Defense Forces (2009),
Community Defense Initiative/Local Defense Initiative (2009), Interim Secu-
rity for Critical Infrastructure (2010), Village Stability Operations (2010), and
finally, consolidation under the Afghan Local Police (ALP) Program (2010).66
Some reports from the field extolled the virtues of locally recruited police/mi-
litias.67 Other reports have consistently detailed abuses, such as corruption, as-
sault, rape, and murder, by local police/militias.68 This is inevitable in a nation
as diverse as Afghanistan where the coalition support to local programs varies

298
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

widely. In addition, in those areas with mixed populations with longstanding

animosities, the police/militias are seen as another source of power in local
conflicts. Even Special Forces teams living with the locals are hard-pressed to
understand the local politics well enough to ensure a neutral security force.
Despite these challenges, the policy of having Special Forces teams live with
ALP units resulted in major improvements in their performance and profes-
sionalism. The teams dedicated a great deal of effort to vetting the individual
militia members through local community leaders. This effort, plus their con-
tinued mentoring and presence, ensured that the ALP provided better security
than the numerous previous programs.
However, significant problems remained, in particular the difficulty of as-
suring the loyalty of ALP units to the government or their adherence to their
function as neutral enforcers of the law rather than as partisan militia in local
disputes. As a result, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul forbade U.S. diplomats from
meeting with tribal leaders to discuss tribal pacts, ruling out on-the-ground
contact with local defense groups concerning counterinsurgency and counter-
terrorism chiefly out of concern that local defense groups might spur intertrib-
al conflict and eventually oppose the national government.69
Each of the problems with the ALP has been magnified by the withdrawal
of the Special Forces advisors. In some areas, Special Forces were replaced by
Afghan special forces teams, which simply lack the resources available to their
U.S. counterparts. Because the ALP lacks supporting institutions to provide
pay, equipment, fuel, spare parts, and ammunition, some have been forced to
turn to extortion to survive.70

Continuing Problems
From the beginning, the police training program has suffered from a number
of significant problems. Insufficient manning, disagreement over the police
mission, corruption, and the weakness of the justice system have degraded the
program since its inception. The GAOs Afghanistan Security Report of March
2009 noted CSTC-A was short over 1,500 police trainers.71 Three years later, a
subsequent GAO report noted ANP instructor manning levels still reflected a
46.5 percent shortage.72 Despite the increased focus on ANSF development by
successive ISAF commandersGeneral McChrystal, General David Petrae-
us, USA, General John Allen, USMC, and General Joseph Dunford, USMC

299
Hammes

manning levels for police trainers never approached even the modest levels
requested by NTM-A. In his 2011 study, William Rosenau reported:

the capabilities, performance, and leadership of the Afghan National

Police (ANP)like other Afghan institutionsdiffered from district
to district, province to province, and region to region. In the view of a
British police advisor in Lashkar Gah, the ANP showed signs of a grow-
ing commitment to serving and protecting the public. Specialized police
units such as the Afghan National Civil Order Police (recruited on a
national basis and provided with intensive and sustained advice, train-
ing, and support) displayed considerable professionalism and prowess.
In many districts, however, the local police remained hobbled by drug
addiction, endemic corruption, and poor leadership.73

A different and equally significant disagreement has existed over whether

the police should be centrally controlled from the MOI in Kabul or should
be controlled locally in the form of local police. In some areas, district and
provincial police chiefs have become a power unto themselves. Lieutenant
General Abdul Raziq, the current chief of police for Kandahar Province, has
succeeded in reducing Taliban attacks in the province by two-thirds. However,
questions about Raziqs human rights record as well as the source of his new-
found wealth have followed him since he appointed himself as chief of police
of Spin Boldak.74
As early as 2006, when the United States began to advocate increasing
ANP strength from 62,000 to 82,000, some partner nations expressed:

concern that the focus of reform efforts is shifting away from establish-
ing a civilian police force to a paramilitary or counter-insurgency force.
. . . The most fundamental issue that must be resolved for police reform
efforts to succeed in Afghanistan is the need for a shared vision of the
role of the ANP, and a shared strategy on how to achieve that vision. In
particular, there is a need to reconcile the German vision of the police
as a civilian law and order force, and the U.S. vision of the police as a
security force with a major counter-insurgency role.75

300
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

Perhaps the greatest challenge in working with the MOI and the ANP
has been corruption. Despite focused efforts by donor nations and the ISAF
command element, corruption has remained a major issue for Afghanistan
as a whole and the police in particular. Organizations as disparate as Trans-
parency International, the World Bank, and the Asia Foundation have con-
sistently reported increasing levels of corruption in Afghanistan from 2005
to the present.76 The continuing and deleterious nature of corruption in the
ANP has been the subject of dozens of government, academic, and think-
tank reports. A recent Google search of the specific phrase Afghan police
corruption brought 226,000 hits. If one takes the quotes off, it brings over
1 million hits. Nor are there indications the Afghans have a plan for deal-
ing with this problem. In December 2013, Thomas Ruttig of Afghan Analysts
Network noted, The Ministry of Interiorknown for its systematic sale of
positionshas, according to the oversight body SIGAR, completely stopped
its anti-corruption reforms.77
Despite the prevailing corruption, Michelle Hughes, a former DOD official
who has field experience in 12 countries, reports there are reasons for both op-
timism and pessimism concerning the future of the ANP. On the positive side:

n The international communitys heavy investment in police ed-

ucation, training, mentoring, and equipping has led to a large,
increasingly effective police force.
n Public trust and confidence in the ANP are the highest they

have been in 7 years.

n The Afghan Minster of Interior has developed his own 10-year

vision to make the police an essential public service.

n Afghan officials are becoming the greatest proponents for the

professionalization of the police as a law enforcement service.

However:

n There has been little progress toward action to take the ANP
to the next level of professionalism. The effort continues to be ad
hoc, disaggregated, and poorly defined.

301
Hammes

n The MOI lacked an effective personnel management system.

Not surprisingly, the heavily automated one established by the co-
alition was less than successful. As a result, in late December 2014,
Resolute Support and the Afghan government unveiled the new Af-
ghanistan Human Resources Information Management System.78
n The MOI lacks the capability for planning, programming, and

budget execution.79

There are other developments that do not bode well for the police. Despite
repeated reports from U.S. Government agencies noting major deficiencies
and fraud in previous DynCorp contracts,80 the company was awarded new
contracts in 2015 to provide advisory, training and mentoring services to the
Afghan Ministry of Interior (MoI/Afghanistan National Police) and the Af-
ghanistan Ministry of Defense (MoD/National Army).81

Key Issues for the Future of ANSF

In April 2014, DOD expressed optimism concerning the ability of the Afghan
security forces to deal with the Taliban. Unfortunately, the optimism had to be
tempered with significant caveats:

ANSF capability is no longer the biggest uncertainty facing Afghanistan.

Since taking the lead for security operations nationwide in June 2013,
the ANSF demonstrated an ability to overmatch the Taliban consistent-
ly, with limited ISAF support. The sustainability of gains to date will be
dependent on a number of factors, to include: Afghan ownership of the
security and economic problems facing their country to date; the out-
come of the presidential elections and Afghanistans ability to reach in-
ternal political equilibrium, international financial support after 2014;
the ability of the new Afghan government to put in place the legal struc-
tures needed to attract investment and promote growth; and the size
and structure of the post-2014 U.S. and NATO presence.82

Later in the report, DOD noted that the logistics and facilities depart-
ments for the MOD and MOI still require coalition assistance and are expect-
ed to continue to require support in the near future.83

302
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

For its part, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) noted that funding
will remain a major challenge for the ANSF. The CRS noted the discrepancy
between currently pledged funds and those funds actually needed to maintain
the ANSF at the 352,000 men deemed necessary for security:

On the assumption that the post-2014 ANSF force would shrink to

228,000, it was determined that sustaining a force that size would cost
$4.1 billion annually. The United States pledged $2.3 billion yearly; the
Afghan government pledged $500 million yearly; and allied contribu-
tions constituted the remaining $1.3 billion. The Afghan contribution
is to rise steadily until 2024, at which time Afghanistan is expected to
fund its own security needs. However, the apparent U.S. and NATO
decision to keep the ANSF force at 352,000 produced revised funding
requirement levels of about $6 billion per year.

With respect to the funding requirements for a 352,000 person force, the
Administration has requested $4.1 billion for the ANSF for FY [fiscal
year] 2015. At the NATO summit, partner countries reaffirmed pledges
of about $1.25 billion annually for the ANSF during 20152017. The
$500 million Afghan contribution would apparently be required to
reach the $6 billion requirement for 2015, although Afghan government
revenues have fallen due to the election dispute, and it is not clear that
Afghanistan has the funds to honor its financial pledge for the ANSF.84

Perhaps an even greater challenge will be maintaining ANSF professionalism

and end-strength. As of late 2013, 31.4 percent of the Afghan National Security
Forces do not reenlist each year.85 With an end-strength goal of 352,000, ANSF
will have to recruit, train, and equip 110,528 new personnel every yearmore
than the 2013 recruiting goal for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps combined.86
In late 2014, SIGAR released a list of seven high-risk programs that are
particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, and, abuse. Number one on the list was
corruption and rule of law. Number three on the list was the Afghan Nation-
al Security Forces.87 All of this comes at a time of increasing disillusionment
among NATO and other ISAF members. In December 2014, the Alliance was
struggling to find 4,000 non-American troops for the coming year. It is 1,200

303
Hammes

short. . . . It would be a band-aid, however. There is no military solution to the

insurgency, as NATOs failure to defeat the Taliban shows.88
On January 1, 2015, ISAF completed its mission and the NATO-led mis-
sion named Resolute Support was launched to provide training, advice, and
assistance for the Afghan security forces and institutions.89

Iraqi Army
Prior to the invasion, Pentagon planners made a key assumption about the
Iraqi army. They believed that upon conclusion of hostilities, it would come
back on duty and thus provide for the security of Iraq. Ambassador L. Paul
Bremers decision to disband the army invalidated this assumption. The debate
about the decision to disband the army has been fully explored in numerous
sources. Its importance for this discussion is the fact that the planners had no
branch plan if this key assumption proved false.
With no viable security forces, the violence in Iraq steadily increased. Al-
most immediately upon disbanding the army, the Coalition Provisional Au-
thority (CPA), as the governing authority of Iraq, decided it had to build a
new one. However, it lacked the expertise to do so and thus had to turn to the
Pentagon to request personnel. The inevitable result was an ad hoc organiza-
tion. Furthermore, the disbandment of the army combined with the de-Baath-
ification decision created enormous difficulties for those tasked with raising
the new Iraqi army.
It was not until late May 2003 that Major General Paul Eaton, USA, was
tasked with creating that army. He would not execute the mission as part of
the U.S. Army but as a member of the CPA. He was briefed on his mission in
May and arrived in Baghdad on June 13. At that point, he had a staff of five and
minimal guidance. Nor was there any plan to provide additional resources.90
Upon arrival, Eaton was told the CPA had already determined that the
Iraqi army would be oriented toward foreign threats to its own borders.91 To
reassure its neighbors, its logistics support would all be provided by civilian
contractors whose contracts prohibited delivery of any support more than 80
miles from the home station of the Iraqi unit.92 In short, the new Iraqi army
would not have sufficient logistics support to be a threat to any of its neigh-
bors. However, it was unclear how civilian logistics firms would deliver sup-
plies to battalions and companies in combat.

304
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

The initial CPA plan was to create three motorized Iraqi divisions. At the
time, the CPA was envisioning a 3-year period before allowing control of Iraq
to revert to Iraqis. Thus, it allowed a year for fielding the first 12,000-man divi-
sion. Then it would dedicate the second year to the establishment of two more
Iraqi divisions.93 Eaton developed the Coalition Military Assistance Transition
Team (CMATT) joint manning document based on these planning factors.
The CPA also placed some distinct restrictions on Eatons efforts to raise a new
Iraqi army. No brigadier or higher from the old army could return since they
were also Baathists. (Keep in mind the Iraqi army had almost 10,000 brig-
adiers. By law, the U.S. Army can have no more than 231 total general offi-
cers from brigadier general to full general.) The army should also match the
ethnic/religious makeup of Iraq60 percent Shia, 20 percent Kurd, and 20
percent Sunni. (While Kurds are both Sunni and Shia, their primary identity
is Kurdish, and therefore the CPA sought ethnic/religious balance based on
the 60/20/20 formula.) Recruiting for the army specifically stated that it would
fight external enemies only and would not be involved in any actions against
the Iraqi people. While this made sense in reducing the Iraqis fear of a new
army, it created significant problems in early 2004 when the Second Battalion
was ordered to Fallujah to support coalition forces in their fight against Iraqis.
Finally, there was no punishment for desertion. At any point, a soldier could
simply decide he no longer wanted to be part of the army and leave without
fear of disciplinary action.
While the CPA struggled to reestablish the Iraqi army, the increasing vi-
olence drove coalition military commanders to take the initiative and begin
raising, training, and equipping Iraqi units for local security. Coalition ground
commanders needed Iraqis to augment their security efforts and did not feel
they could wait for the first Iraqi army units to be fielded. In the fall of 2003,
the CPA supported these decisions and allowed the establishment of Iraqi Civil
Defense Corps units. The training of these units, soon re-designated the Iraqi
National Guard, was determined by individual U.S. divisional commanders.
Initially, training periods varied from 3 days to several weeks. Employment
was also up to the individual commander. Some paired Iraqi National Guard
units with their own forces. Others left the units to operate on their own.
Eaton and his small team had to start from scratch: develop all Iraqi army
facilities, to include finding their own offices, phones, and computers; estab-

305
Hammes

lish recruiting offices; find trainers; procure every item of equipment for the
new soldiers and their bases; and have 1,000 men in training by August. While
building the Iraqi army, the team also had to build its own organizationthe
CMATT. Eaton requested and was promised military trainers, but only four
actually reportedtwo Britons and two Australians. Since Combined Joint
Task Force 7 (CJTF 7), the military command in Iraq, did not work for the
CPA, it could not be tasked to train Iraqi security forces (ISF) nor even re-
quired to provide augmentees to CMATT. This highlighted one of the major
problems CMATT faced. Nearly everything it needed had to come through
military channels, but it lacked influence in the Pentagon. CMATT worked
for the CPA under Ambassador Bremer, who did not have a good relation-
ship with Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, USA, the CJTF 7 commander.
Eaton believes a key issue in the slow start to training the Iraqi army was the
fact that CMATT was essentially an orphan in the military system. It lacked
a four-star sponsor who could force the Pentagon to take action in support of
the training effort.94
Partially due to personnel shortages, primary training responsibility was
outsourced to Vinnell Corporation. This was both a blessing and a curse. Vin-
nell had a good record working with Arabic-speaking soldiers and had provid-
ed training for the Saudi Arabian National Guard for 25 years:

[Vinnells] force-generation methods included the training of Iraqi offi-

cers in Jordan at a non-commissioned officers academy and a recruit
training academy in Kirkush, Iraq. Trained and equipped Iraqi forces
would then be used to train additional forces. The contractors would
deliver trained units and trained leaders to larger Iraqi army forma-
tions. Because of the Geneva Convention, as well as legal and regulatory
concerns, the contractors would not become embedded advisors once
the initial training was complete and Iraqi units moved on to combat
operations.95

Besides fielding and training the Iraqi units, Vinnell moved quickly to
provide essential services to the new Iraqi armyrecruiting, mess, laundry,
maintenance, refurbishing base buildings, and so forth. Unfortunately, by De-
cember 2003, it was obvious that an army trained by contractors alone was not

306
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

meeting the requirement. Training attrition in the First Battalion was nearly
50 percent. The April 2004 breakdown of the Iraqi Second Battalion when it
was ordered to Fallujah to assist U.S. forces confirmed the shortfalls in train-
ing, equipment, and leadership.96 What the Vinnell trainers could not do was
instill the soldiers ethos in the Iraqi recruits. In response, CMATT developed
a plan to use coalition noncommissioned officers to provide the soldier as-
pect of training. However, even when the joint manning document was pro-
duced, CMATT was manned at less than 50 percent strength. Furthermore,
many personnel were assigned for 3- to 6-month tours, which were too brief
for the personnel to truly understand the situation and have an impact. Again,
without a four-star sponsor to push the Pentagon, CMATT could not over-
come its low manning priority in the joint personnel system.
Compounding the training and personnel shortages, the slow release of
funding for facilities and equipment by the Pentagon continually disrupted
the plan. The slow construction of barracks meant that billeting space became
the pacing item for producing Iraqi army units. Since all military bases had
been thoroughly looted when the Iraqi army was dissolved, barracks rooms,
offices, mess halls, armories, ranges, medical facilities, motor pools, and other
facilities had to be built or refurbished so that Iraqi army units had somewhere
to move after basic training.97 Even when funding was released, the shortage
of contracting officers led to both delays and quality control problems on the
construction and logistical support contracts. The shortage of qualified trans-
lators contributed to further delays since, for good reason, the legally binding
contract was in Arabic but had to be translated to English for processing in
the CPA system. Inevitably, translation errors led to misunderstandings and
disputesfrom minor disputes over mess hall menus to major disputes over
the condition and date of turnover of major Iraqi bases from the contractor to
the Iraqi army.
Despite CMATTs severe shortage of personnel, the CPA decided that
the training for the Iraqi police was progressing so badly that it transferred
responsibility for the program to CMATT in March 2004. Just prior to that,
the CPA changed the tasking to CMATT from raising one division in 3 years
to raising three divisions in 1 year. The sudden requirement for the under-
strength CMATT staff to both triple the production of army units and revise
and implement a nationwide program to raise, train, and equip police obvi-

307
Hammes

ously had a negative impact on the entire training program for Iraqi security
forces. Beset with many problems at the outset, CMATT under Major General
Eaton was nevertheless able to establish a foundation for much of the rapid
expansion of the ISF that Multi-National Security Transition CommandIraq
(MNSTC-I) would lead over the next few years.
With the dissolution of the CPA and transfer of authority to the Iraqis
imminent, National Security Presidential Directive 36, dated May 11, 2004,
detailed the new command arrangements in Iraq. With respect to support to
the ISF, it stated, The Secretary of State shall be responsible for the continuous
supervision and general direction of all assistance for Iraq. Commander, US-
CENTCOM, with the policy guidance of the Chief of Mission, shall direct all
United States Government efforts and coordinate international efforts in sup-
port of organizing, equipping, and training all Iraqi Security Forces.98 In June
2004, CMATT was redesignated as MNSTC-I. Commanded by Lieutenant
General David Petraeus, it remained responsible for developing the MOD,
MOI, and ISFmilitary and police.
With only 45 days to prepare, General George W. Casey, Jr., USA, took
command of Multi-National ForceIraq on July 1, 2004. Indicative of the tur-
bulence he faced, he noted that in his 32 months in command, he served with
three Iraqi governments, two Secretaries of Defense, two Chairmen of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), two Ambassadors, four Multi-National Corps
Iraq (MNC-I) commanders, and two MNSTC-I commanders.99 Continuity
clearly was not a characteristic of the multinational effort in Iraq from June
2004 to February 2007. As he took over, Casey found there were only about
30,000 trained police on duty, only 3,600 of 18,000 border guards had weap-
ons, and only 2 infantry battalions had reached an initial operating capability.
His new plan called for 135,000 trained police, 32,000 border guards, and 65
infantry battalions.100
Believing he had eliminated the insurgent sanctuaries in Baghdad and
Fallujah in 2004, Casey concluded that the now 80 Iraqi infantry and special
operations force battalions, with embedded U.S. advisors, could begin to as-
sume the security mission. He was concerned that keeping U.S. forces in the
lead would hamper the willingness and ability of the Iraqis to take over. Thus,
he focused MNC-I on partnering with and mentoring the Iraqis. As part of
the process of forcing the Iraqis to lead, two U.S. brigades were withdrawn

308
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

from Iraq without replacement. Unfortunately, security continued to deterio-

rate, particularly after the al-Askari mosque bombing in February 2006. Casey
stopped the withdrawal of U.S. forces and focused on securing Baghdad. The
conflict was shifting from an insurgency against the government to a sectarian
civil war between Sunni and Shia.
On the positive side, the previous years of effort by MNSTC-I were be-
ginning to pay off in the rapidly expanding numbers of Iraqi security forces.
By January 2006, in its report to Congress, DOD stated 98 Iraqi and special
operations forces (SOF) battalions were conducting counterinsurgency opera-
tions across Iraq. Almost 107,000 Iraqi soldiers, sailors, and airmen had been
trained, and 82,000 police were in the field. This expansion followed a reduc-
tion in the number of U.S. Army combat brigades in early 2006 from 17 to
15.101 The report went on to cite numerous statistics to show the progress being
made in the political, economic, and security spheres in Iraq. But it could not
finesse the fact that the weekly total number of attacks had almost tripled in
the last 2 years.102
By late 2006, the Iraqi army had grown to about 138,000, an end-strength
increase of almost 30 percent in less than a year.103 Unfortunately, the early
decision to focus on building a light infantry force to face external enemies
meant the Iraqi army displayed serious weaknesses. It consisted almost entire-
ly of light infantry battalions supported by motor-transportation regiments.
It included only one mechanized brigade, part of which was equipped with
tanks and infantry fighting vehicles donated by Eastern European countries.
As a result, there was a wide disparity between the lightly equipped Iraqi army
forces and the more heavily equipped U.S. forces trying to accomplish similar
missions. In addition, the Iraqi army mirrored the sectarian and ethnic divi-
sions that plague the country. Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and Shiite Arabs usually
served in battalions that consisted largely or exclusively of their own groups.
Furthermore, there was no judicial system within the Iraqi Army to assure
discipline, and soldiers can refuse orders with impunity.104
The police forces grew even more rapidly, reaching a total strength of
188,200 by Novembera remarkable 129 percent growth.105 As could be ex-
pected with such rapid growth, both MOD and MOI forces were hampered
by immature logistics and maintenance support systems, sectarian and militia
influence, and the complex security environment.106

309
Hammes

DOD noted that 2007 witnessed the continued rapid growth of Iraqi se-
curity forces, with the army reaching 194,233 trained personnel and the police
reaching 241,960, with plans to expand to over 270,000 in the military and
over 307,000 in the MOI:

The Coalitions four main areas of emphasis in developing the MoD and
MoI and their forces remain . . . (1) developing ministerial capacity; (2)
improve the proficiency of the Iraqi forces; (3) build specific logistics,
sustainment and training capacities; and (4) support the expansion of
the MoD and MoI forces. Special problems within these areas include
corruption and lack of professionalism, sectarian bias, leader shortfalls,
logistics deficiencies, and dependence on Coalition forces for many com-
bat support functions.107

The history of the U.S. Surge in Iraq has been covered extensively else-
where and will not be covered in detail here. Yet it is important to note that
in addition to rapidly expanding the ISF prior to and during the surge period,
MNSTC-I, during the tenure of Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, USA,
from September 2005 to June 2007, also drove quality improvements that en-
abled Iraqi forces to play a key role in surge operations and hold their own
against anti-coalition forces. A strong focus on force generation paid major
dividends in this timeframe. MNSTC-Is extensive use of the foreign military
sales program also accelerated the flow of modern military equipment to the
ISF, transforming army and police units in about 2 years from a force mounted
principally in civilian pickup trucks to one equipped with 3,200 up-armored
Humvees by the end of 2008. Entire divisions, such as the 11th and 14th, were
assembled and employed in action in as little as 12 months.108 While many of
the problems cited above were not fully solved, ISF units nonetheless far out-
numbered U.S. and coalition troops, particularly in the crucial Baghdad oper-
ations, and on the whole performed successfully. They deserve a fair portion
of credit for the eventual success of the Baghdad security plan and the major
reductions in violence that followed across Iraq.
The rapid expansion of the ISF does not tell the full story. A major success
story of the Surge was the formation of the Sons of Iraq. By late 2007, 91,000
volunteers had signed up. By mid-2008, the Washington Post reported that vio-

310
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

lence had decreased from 1,400 incidents per day to only 200.109 With violence
decreasing to early-2005 levels, the concern among Sunnis turned to integrat-
ing the Sons of Iraq into the official security forces of Iraq. The Shia-dominat-
ed government was not eager to incorporate so many men who were recently
their enemies.110 Less violence and an army and police force of over 530,000
meant the Shia also perceived much less need for the Sons of Iraq as separate
forces. They did not want them integrated into the Iraqi army.111
Over the next year, violence continued to decrease even as U.S. forces
started to draw down. By early 2009, the steadily increasing application of re-
sources to raising and training the Iraqi army resulted in an army of almost
200,000, augmented by police forces of over 380,000. Operational units were
improving but still required coalition support for intelligence, communica-
tions, engineering, and close air support. There also remained serious con-
cerns about the ability of the MOD and MOI to execute the full range of their
duties. While retention and recruiting looked good for meeting future goals,
the ministries development was slow and uneven.112
By June 2010, Iraqi forces had grown to 625,000, and DOD believed they
were on track to achieve minimum essential capability in all areas except lo-
gistics and sustainment, with continued problems in planning, budgeting, and
procurement. Furthermore, while the ISF would not be ready to fight an exter-
nal enemy by the December 2011 deadline for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces,
they were sufficiently prepared for internal security.113 U.S. forces withdrew on
time, and the U.S. Governments interest in Iraq declined precipitously until
the sudden and rapid collapse of the two Iraqi army divisions responsible for
the defense of Mosul in June 2014.
This collapse illustrated the difficulty of overcoming cultural and political
realities when building another nations army. With the departure of American
advisors, the army became [former prime minister Nouri al-] Malikis private
militia,114 according to Major General Eaton. As such, it discriminated against
non-Shia, often functioning as an enforcement arm of Shiite political parties.
The political reality for the Sunni in particular meant that the Islamic State in
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) might in fact be the lesser of two evils. The U.S. advi-
sory effort was unable to change the culture of the Iraqi army. David Zucchina
of the Los Angeles Times reported, Officers in one of many units that collapsed
in Mosul, the 2d Battalion of Iraqs 3d Federal Police Division, said their U.S.

311
Hammes

training was useful. But as soon as their American advisors left, they said, sol-
diers and police went back to their ways. Our commanders told us to ignore
what the Americans taught us, Shehab said. They said, Well do it our way.115
Recent actions by the U.S., allied, and Iraqi governments have started the
rebuilding process for the Iraqi army. As both an indicator of the significant
challenges and a sign of sincere reform, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi stated
that a preliminary investigation has revealed 50,000 ghost soldiers on MOD
rolls. He expects the continuing investigation to find more such soldiers.116

Iraqi Police
Reconstituting the Iraqi police as a force that served and protected the Iraqi
people was always going to be a major challenge. Under Saddam, The [Iraqi
police] had been the bottom of Saddams bureaucratic hierarchy of security
agencies and suffered from years of mismanagement, deprivation of resourc-
es, and lack of professional standards. . . . Iraqis saw the [police] as part of a
cruel and repressive regime and described its officers as brutal, corrupt, and
untrustworthy.117
The complete lack of a U.S. plan for rebuilding the police greatly magnified
the already daunting challenge. With disorder rising in Iraq, the Departments
of Justice and State hastily initiated the process in May 2003 by dispatching a
six-member team of police executives to assess the needs of the Iraqi police.
That team recommended 6,000 international civilian police trainers and advi-
sors be recruited and deployed to Iraq immediately. On June 2, 2003, Ambas-
sador Bremer approved the plan but lacked the funds to implement it.118 This
was the first indicator the United States would consistently under-resource
police training in Iraq. Recognizing the importance of an effective police force
to the future of Iraq and seeing little progress to that point, USCENTCOM
Commander General John Abizaid, USA, recommended to Bremer that the
U.S. military assume responsibility for police training in September 2003. De-
spite his inability to resource the training through CPA, Bremer opposed the
transfer of responsibility, and thus training remained the responsibility of the
CPA for the time being.
Nonetheless, in October, CJTF 7 Commander Lieutenant General San-
chez told a senatorial delegation that 54,000 police were on duty. When
Bremer inquired about the police training, he was told, The Army is sweeping

312
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

up half-educated men off the streets, running them through a 3-week train-
ing course, arming them, and then calling them police.119 Bremer directed
Sanchez to stop training police. However, the CPA still could not provide a
viable alternative training program. It took until December 2003 for the first
24 police trainers to arrive. Not until March 2004 did the United States de-
cide to provide 500 police trainers through a DynCorp contract with the State
Department. In the same month, the Civilian Police Advisory Training Team
(CPATT) was established and subordinated to CMATT. Thus, the badly un-
derstaffed CMATT was given responsibility for both the army and the police.
While CMATT remained under the authority of the CPA and not the military,
the transfer of authority for the police highlighted a fundamental disagree-
ment between the military and the Departments of State and Justice police
trainers, who felt strongly that the training should focus on developing a com-
munity policing service dedicated to enforcing law and order:

The problem was that the U.S. military and State/DOJ [Department
of Justice] civilian police advisors had markedly different goals for the
Iraqi police. This divergence of views meant that there was no common
understanding among U.S. agencies about the mission of the Iraqi po-
lice. It also meant a divergence between the training provided to mem-
bers of the Iraqi Police Service and their utilization in the field.

State policymakers and DOJ police trainers were intent on creating an

efficient, lightly armed, civilian Iraqi Police Service (IPS) that utilized
community-policing techniques and operated in conformity with West-
ern, democratic standards for professional law enforcement.

Beyond utilizing the IPS in a counter-insurgency role, the U.S. military

was determined to create an internal Iraqi security force that could pro-
tect itself and deal with the insurgency and hostile militias, ultimately
permitting a U.S. withdrawal.120

The initial CPA training program had in fact focused on community po-
licing. To reinforce this point, they renamed the Iraqi National Police the
Iraqi Police Service. However, with the rising violence, the military com-

313
Hammes

manders responsible for security in Iraq believed the Iraqi police needed to
be a militarized counterinsurgency force able to support coalition forces in
the field. This was the primary driver behind CJTF 7s efforts to raise 54,000
local police. After the insurgency was put down, the force could be reoriented
to a community policing force. This disagreement was not resolved with the
transfer of police training to CMATT. Nor did the reorganization provide
any immediate increase in resources for the police. By June 2004, as the CPA
prepared to turn governance over to the Iraqis, there were still fewer than 100
civilian police trainers in Iraq.121 Upon the departure of the CPA, authority
over the police reverted to the Ministry of the Interior. However, MNSTC-I
remained the primary force behind recruiting, training, equipping, and field-
ing the police.
With the rising violence dramatically illustrated by the coordinated Sunni
attacks on coalition forces in Fallujah, Baghdad, Ramadi, Samarra, and Tikrit,
as well as the Mahdi army offensive in Najaf and Sadr City, the under-trained,
under-equipped Iraqi police collapsed in many areas. To fill the gap, MN-
STC-I Commander Lieutenant General Petraeus authorized 750-man police
battalions composed mostly of Sunnis who were former Iraqi special forces
soldiers. Once raised and equipped, they were immediately dispatched to fight
alongside coalition units. At the same time but without coordinating with the
United States, Minister of Interior Falah Hassan al-Naqib started recruiting
police commando units from the same source and using them in independent
operations. The appearance of Naqibs forces on the battlefield surprised the
coalition, but they proved effective.122
On May 3, 2005, there was another transfer of power as the Iraqi transi-
tional government replaced the Iraqi interim government. Bayan Jabr Solagh
(also known as Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi), a senior official of the Shiite Supreme
Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI), was appointed Minister of
Interior. He consolidated the numerous ad hoc police battalions/commando
units into the Emergency Response Unit (a special weapons and techniques
battalion), 8th Police Mechanized Brigade (3 motorized battalions), Public
Order Division (4 brigades/12 battalions), and Special Police Commando
Division (4 brigades/12 battalions).123 At the same time, Jabr appointed lead-
ers of the Badr Brigade, SCIRIs armed wing, to the ministry and key police
commands. He recruited thousands of Shia to replace Sunnis and effectively

314
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

turned the Iraqi police into a Shiite militia that was free to kidnap, torture, and
murder Sunnis.124
In response, MNSTC-I declared 2006 to be the Year of the Police and
started a major effort to reorganize training and discipline in the force. It con-
vinced the MOI to combine the U.S.-created public order battalions with the
Iraqi-created commando units in a single national police force that would be
named the Iraqi National Police. It would have more training and equipment
and serve as a backup to the Iraqi Police Service, the lightly armed street police
created by the State/Justice training team:

With this reorganization, the Ministry of Interior forces consisted of the

Iraqi Police Service, the National Police, the Department of Border En-
forcement, the Center for Dignitary Protection, and the MOIs portion
of the Facilities Protection Service. (The MOI is planning for the even-
tual incorporation of an estimated 150,000 members of the Facilities
Protection Service who currently reside in other ministries.)125

However, the deep civilian distrust of the new Iraqi National Police meant
this effort failed to curb the violence against Sunnisand the response of their
militias against Shias. The next major coalition effort to reform the police fol-
lowed the next transition of power between Iraqi governments in response to
the December 15, 2005, national elections. It took almost 6 months for the po-
litical parties to agree to the appointment of Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister
in May 2006. Due to political infighting, he was unable to name a new Minister
of Interior until June 2006. In an effort to reform the police, Jabr was replaced
as MOI by Jawad al-Bulani, who was given deputies from the Dawa, Badr, and
Kurdish parties. In effect, this was an effort to establish a set of checks and
balances within the MOI. Conspicuously absent was a Sunni deputy. Further
reinforcing Sunni concerns about the police, Jabr did not leave government
but merely moved laterally to the Ministry of Finance, where he controlled the
police funding and actual payment of police salaries.126
In October 2006, with clear evidence the Iraqi National Police were par-
ticipating in torture and murder, the United States took action. U.S. forces re-
moved the entire 8th Brigade of the 2nd National Police Division from duty and
arrested its officers. In 2007, all 9 Iraqi national police brigade commanders

315
Hammes

and 18 of 27 battalion commanders were replaced for sectarian behavior, and

all national police units were retrained by Italian Carabinieri.127 For some po-
licemen, it was the first training they had ever received. While this represented
a major effort to provide supervision and training to convert the Iraqi National
Police from an armed wing of the Shiite political parties to a genuine national
police force, there were still insufficient trainers to align with most Iraqi police.
The violence against the Sunni population continued.
At the same time that MNSTC-I, through CPATT, was working to im-
prove the quality of the Iraqi National Police, the long-term efforts to provide
training and mentoring to other police elements began to bear fruit. By No-
vember 2006, 117 training teams had been assigned to the Iraqi Police Service,
which consisted of patrol, traffic, station, and highway police who handled
law enforcement in the 18 provinces. As local police, the Iraqi Police Service
ethnic and religious makeup was generally representative of their communi-
ties.128 MNSTC-I also had Police Transition Teams (PTTs), National Police
Transition Teams, Border Transition Teams, and Customs and Border Support
Teams mentoring the various police agencies across the country. These police
transition teams were generally composed of 11 to 15 members. Three to four
of the members were contractor police trainers hired by the U.S. State Depart-
ment, while the rest consisted of military personnel. These teams conducted
joint PTT/Iraqi Police Service patrols in order to improve the performance of
the Iraqi Police Service.129
In conjunction with the efforts to mentor Iraqi police in the field, MN-
STC-I worked to develop the institutional skills necessary for the MOI to suc-
cessfully run the police forces. During 2006 and 2007, the ministry gradually
assumed responsibility for personnel, logistics, finances, and internal affairs.
Corruption and sectarianism created severe problems. By July 2007:

Iraqs MOI had become a federation of oligarchs with various floors of

the building controlled by hostile militia groups. According to the report,
police officials moved between floors protected by heavily armed body-
guards and internal power struggles were settled by assassination in the
parking lot. . . . the congressionally mandated Independent Commis-
sion on the Security Forces of Iraq stated that Iraqs MOI was crippled

316
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

by corruption and sectarianism, and posed the main obstacle to devel-

oping an effective police force in Iraq.130

The effort to build the MOI had suffered from the same tension as all advi-
sory efforts in Iraq. Some advisors focused on getting it done for them. Others
focused on helping them do it themselves. None had been able to address the
underlying political infighting among the Iraqis.
Yet by December 2007, the Surge meant that DOD could report reduced
levels of violence in most parts of Iraq. It could also report progress in police
force generation, police operational success, and reform efforts. The MOI con-
tinued to take on more responsibility for planning, budgeting, personnel, and
logistics. CPATT now fielded 247 PTTs but was still 17 percent short of re-
quirements. CPATT focused on Baghdad, placing a PTT in every station, but
in other parts of the country the ratio was as low as one PTT for seven police
stations. The MOI consisted of over 370,000 personnel in the ministry, Iraqi
Police Service, Iraqi National Police, and other elements. But in its quarterly
report to Congress, DOD had to admit that the Ministry remains hampered
by corruption, sectarianism and logistics deficiencies.131 While police forces
continued to grow quickly, there was little political will to reform.
Progress continued in most areas over the next year. The December 2008
DOD report to Congress noted that the MOI had demonstrated improved
performance in all ministerial functionsparticularly planning, budgeting,
and execution of the budget. It noted that despite poor performance in Basra
during March and April 2008, the Iraqi Police Service improved with each
subsequent operation. In addition, 18 of the 33 Iraqi National Police bat-
talions were capable of operating with only limited coalition support. Only
one battalion was rated at the lowest level. Another 13 battalions were being
formed with a stated goal of one Iraqi National Police brigade per province.
On the negative side, the MOI failed to coordinate its operations well with
MOD.132
By far the most important area of improvement was in depoliticizing the
MOI. In June 2006, Prime Minister Maliki replaced the highly sectarian Jabr
with Jawad al-Bulani, a technocrat who worked hard for 3 years to reduce the
political and actual fighting within the ministry. In 2009, the U.S. Institute of
Peace (USIP) reported that he had dramatically reduced the divisiveness with-

317
Hammes

in the ministry while also improving its effectiveness. The key question was
whether the reforms could be made permanent in order to withstand further
changes in leadership or government.133
Even as USIP was finalizing its report, Maliki was in the process of qui-
etly removing inspectors general in numerous Iraqi ministries. The New York
Times reported:

Whatever the precise tally, the events have begun provoking accusations
that Mr. Maliki, who has never been an advocate of having his govern-
ments inner workings scrutinized, might leave the posts vacant or stack
them with supporters of his party, Dawa. The secrecy surrounding the
moves has magnified suspicions that the government aims to cripple the
oversight mechanisms put in place after the invasion.134

The MOI continued to increase in strength. By October 2011, the Special

Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reported that the Iraq police had
325,000 personnel; Facilities Protection Service, 95,000; Training and Sup-
port, 89,900; Department of Border Enforcement, 60,000; Iraq Federal Police,
45,000; the Oil Police, 31,000; and the counterterrorism force, 4,200, for a total
of 650,000 police.135
After his 2010 reelection, Prime Minister Maliki did not reappoint Bu-
lani but instead personally assumed the roles of Minister of Interior, Minister
of Defense, and Minister of National Security. Throughout his 7-year tenure,
Maliki has implemented a divide-and-conquer strategy that has neutered any
credible Sunni Arab leadership. Under intensifying pressure from government
forces and with dwindling faith in a political solution, many Sunni Arabs have
concluded their only realistic option is a violent conflict increasingly framed
in confessional terms.136
This partially explains the rapid advance of ISIL into the Sunni-dominated
areas of western Iraq. The Iraqi military and police forces had been so thor-
oughly pillaged by their own corrupt leadership that they all but collapsed in
spring 2015 in the face of the advancing ISIL militants, despite roughly $25
billion worth of American training and equipment over the past 10 years and
far more from the Iraqi treasury. Now the pattern of corruption and patronage
in the Iraqi government forces threatens to undermine a new American-led

318
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

effort to drive out the extremists, even as President Barack Obama is doubling
to 3,000 the number of American troops in Iraq.137

Training Teams
In Afghanistan, the initial advisory effort consisted of the Central Intelligence
Agency and SOF teams inserted to support the Northern Alliance militias in
the campaign to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan. At this point, the advi-
sory effort was the main effort for U.S. forces in Operation Enduring Freedom.
Once the initial campaign was over, the emphasis shifted to operations con-
ducted by U.S. forces. As noted earlier, initial efforts to raise Afghan forces
were improvised. TF Phoenix took over training the Afghan army and was
followed by OMC-A. The commanders understood the need for advisors and
formed Embedded Training Teams (ETTs) to work with each kandak. The
teams were initially assigned to a kandak after it completed its training cycle,
but in March 2005, ETTs began to be assigned to kandaks on the first day
of training.138 When NATO became more involved in training Afghan forces,
they formed NATO Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams. In time, 27 na-
tions provided trainers to these 13- to 30-person teams, which were assigned
to kandaks as well as brigade and corps headquarters.139 Despite the interna-
tional effort, the ANA never received sufficient numbers of advisors. By 2008,
the GAO reported that:

While trainers or mentors are present in every ANA combat unit, less
than half the required number are deployed in the field. Defense officials
cited an insufficient number of U.S. trainers and coalition mentors in
the field as the major impediment to providing the ANA with the train-
ing to establish capabilities, such as advanced combat skills and logis-
tics, necessary to sustain the ANA force in the long term. Finally, ANA
combat units report significant shortages in approximately 40 percent of
critical equipment items, including vehicles, weapons, and radios. Some
of these challenges, such as shortages of U.S. trainers and equipment, are
due in part to competing global priorities, according to senior Defense
officials. Without resolving these challenges, the ability of the ANA to
reach full capability may be delayed.140

319
Hammes

In 2010, drawing on the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Sec-

retary of Defense directed the services to develop the Afghanistan-Pakistan
(AFPAK) Hands Program to improve the knowledge and continuity of the ad-
visors who were to be assigned to Afghanistan and Pakistan. On September 3,
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff published CJCS Instruction 1630.01,
directing the establishment of the program:

Afghanistan/Pakistan Hands: A cadre of military and civilian personnel

who receive regional language, culture, and counterinsurgency (COIN)
training for deployment to key billets in Afghanistan or Pakistan. APH
personnel are placed in key positions where they will engage directly
with Afghan and Pakistani officials and the population. Upon com-
pletion of their in-theater deployment, APH will be assigned to a key
out-of-theater billet where their in-country experience will be applied to
work Afghanistan or Pakistan regional issues.141

AFPAK Hands proved a success. As the commanders came to understand

the program, they began to request these personnel because the language, cul-
tural, and historical training they received made them more effective advi-
sors.142 The program could not provide sufficient numbers of advisors for the
large and rapidly growing Afghan National Security Forces, so the Services
continued to improve their own programs. In 2013, as U.S. forces shifted to
the advisory effort, GAO summarized how the United States had provided
advisors for ANSF:

In addition to conducting security operations, ISAF forces have long

been training and advising the ANSF both in training centers and at
unit locations after they have been formed and fielded. For the U.S.
contribution, DOD has used a variety of approaches to provide U.S.
forces to carry out the advise and assist mission. For example, prior
to 2010, the advising mission in Afghanistan was primarily conducted
with transition teams. These teams did not exist as units in any of the
services force structures and were instead comprised of company and
field grade officers and senior non-commissioned officers who were cen-
trally identified and individually selected based on rank and specialty.

320
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

As previously reported, the demand for these leaders created challenges

for the services because, among other things, the leaders were generally
pulled from other units or commands, which then were left to perform
their missions while understaffed. In part as a means of alleviating these
challenges, the Army developed the concept of augmenting brigade com-
bat teams with specialized personnel to execute the advising mission,
and began deploying these augmented brigades in 2010. In early 2012,
based on requests from ISAF as part of its shift to a security force as-
sistance mission, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps began to deploy
small teams of advisors with specialized capabilities, referred to as SFA
[security force assistance] advisor teams, which are located through-
out Afghanistan, to work with Afghan army and police units from the
headquarters to the battalion level, and advise them in areas such as
command and control, intelligence, and logistics. U.S. advisor teams are
under the command and control of U.S. commanders within ISAFs re-
gional commands.143

In Iraq, commanders at levels from battalion to division quickly grasped

the requirement to provide advisors and support to the units operating in their
areas until the Iraqi ministries could mature to the point they could do the job.
They did so on their own initiative starting with the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps
(later redesignated as the Iraqi National Guard). For its part, the Coalition
Provisional Authority integrated Iraqis into the CPA structure for running the
country. Upon the CPAs departure, the coalition continued to provide civilian
and military advisors at senior levels. It also attempted to provide advisory
teams down to the battalion level for Iraqi forces. Since this was a wartime
requirement with no corresponding peacetime force structure except for SOF,
the advisors were often drawn from the units in combat. Initially drawn from
the U.S. and willing coalition units in country, the advisors provided both ex-
pertise to the host-nation forces and insights to U.S. commanders on what
those forces and ministries were doing. Obviously, drawing officers from U.S.
units in combat was not an optimal solution. In response, the Pentagon direct-
ed the Services to build Military Training Teams to embed in Iraqi units.
Both the Army and Marine Corps had difficulty finding enough advisors
to fill the team billets. While the Services occasionally carefully picked advi-

321
Hammes

sors (including a few screened for command positions), the mission generally
fell to Reserve units. Initially, the advisors were organized into 39 10-man Ad-
visor Support Teams that were assigned to each of the newly raised Iraqi army
divisions.144 Over time, team sizes were increased, with the Marine Corps as-
signing up to 40 members per team.145 Unfortunately, these teams continued
to be formed for the most part by assembling individual augmentees, who
identified major problems with the program: they did not receive adequate
preparation before deployment; they lacked guidance and authority; and the
chain of command was rarely clear.146
As the Iraqi army improved, the training team focus changed from basic
skills to training the Iraqis to operate independently of coalition support. As
lower level units improved, the advisory focus shifted to higher level com-
mands and critical support functions until the time of the final withdrawal of
all U.S. advisory teams.
In both countries, similar efforts were made to provide advisors to the
police forces. However, as noted earlier, police advisory efforts were seriously
complicated by the divergence of views between military and civilian person-
nel concerning the proper training, equipping, and employment of police. An
even greater problem was the dispersion inherent in police operations. Unlike
military forces that generally functioned out of battalion or larger bases, many
police were assigned to small stations spread over the entire country. While it
was feasible to provide advisors to headquarters, provincial, district, and large
city police stations as well as special units like the ANCOP, it was simply im-
possible to provide advisors to most police stations to allow close advising and
joint patrolling. In response, some individual coalition combat units teamed
up with local police in both theaters. Furthermore, entire deployed military
police units were often tasked specifically to support the host-nation police.
In short, efforts were made to provide advisors whenever possible, but police
advising, by its very nature, is a much more challenging proposition than ad-
vising military forces. Police advisory efforts were therefore less effective than
armed forces advisory efforts.
In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the complete destruction of the security
forces institutions and infrastructure made it obvious that the newly formed
security forces would need U.S. advisors and trainers. Since there was no plan
to provide them for either country, initial efforts were ad hoc and took many

322
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

forms. As each theater matured, the process for assigning, training, equipping,
and deploying trainers became more formal. As requirements were clarified,
the Services attempted to move from individual assignment/deployment to
deployment as teams. Despite the clear importance of advisors to the effec-
tive functioning of host-nation forces, advisory duty was not seen as career
enhancing as service with a U.S. unit. This made finding personnel for the
teams even more challenging. Moreover, the presence of numerous coalition
partner nations in each theater drove a requirement for significant numbers
of officers and NCOs to be assigned as liaison teams between U.S. units and
the coalition units operating in proximity. The liaison effort also suffered from
ad hocracy.
Despite major efforts by the Services and deployed units, the advisory
effort never reached the required levels of personnel, often failed to match
needed skills to the assigned billets, and usually failed to provide effective team
training and uniform equipping prior to deployment.147 Yet advisors had a ma-
jor positive impactand the AFPAK Hands revealed the much greater impact
that could have been achieved by dedicating more resources and affording ad-
visory efforts a higher priority.

Insights
Iraq and Afghanistan are fundamentally different societies and presented very
different challenges to those trying to raise, train, and equip their security
forces. However, the most important insights that can be drawn from these
campaigns are the same.

Insight 1: Have a Plan

This painfully obvious lesson should not have to be stated. Yet in both cam-
paigns, efforts to establish security forces were ad hoc. While it may have been
excusable for initial plans to be based on hasty estimates and poor understand-
ings of the societies involved as well as the threats, the fact is that in both
countries, it took years before realistic plans were developed to provide appro-
priately sized forces.
For different reasons, in Afghanistan and Iraq there was no plan to es-
tablish host-nation security forces. When the requirement became obvious,
initial plans were not well grounded in reality, resulting in a severe underes-

323
Hammes

timation of the number of host-nation security forces required and an initial

failure to provide sufficient personnel and resources to train even those inad-
equate forces. It took 18 months to get 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, to
Afghanistan to start a serious training program for the army. Police training
and organization have remained serious problems up to the present. In Iraq, it
took months even to establish the CMATT, which was never properly manned
or funded but was nonetheless suddenly assigned responsibility for police
training almost a year after the invasion. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the
State Department decided to hire DynCorp to handle police training rather
than requesting assistance from the U.S. Department of Justices International
Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program, which was used to train
police in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In each case, successive plans increased the number of security forces to
be recruited, trained, and equipped, but resourcing never caught up with the
plan. Also in each case, command and control arrangements changed fre-
quently with the eventual assignment of all security force training to the mil-
itary command.
The lack of a plan meant that the key decisionwhether to keep the exist-
ing security forces and build on them or start from scratchwas not taken un-
til after Phase III operations. In both countries, the security forces were built
from the ground upand in Iraq, this reversed a major planning assumption.
At the same time, in both nations many militias remained active and outside
the command of the government. The planning process must decide which
elements of any existing security forces to retain and what role militias and
private military companies will play. While ideally neither entity will exist, in
reality the very instability that leads to outside intervention means the gov-
ernment has proved incapable of providing security. Inevitably, subnational
communities will turn to militias to defend themselves. Many businesses and
other nongovernmental organizations, both domestic and international, will
have no choice but to turn to private military contractors for security. In fact,
when militias were ordered disbanded, some simply reappeared as private se-
curity companies. They could not all be banned because the government sim-
ply could not provide security.
A key element of any plan must be the advise-and-assist effort. These pro-
grams require large numbers of senior officers and NCOs and thus place a

324
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

disproportionate strain on the personnel resources of the services and civil

organizations that provide advisors. The plan must account for providing suf-
ficient numbers with appropriate skills and provide time to train them before
deployment.
A final caution is that either building or improving another nations secu-
rity forces will take longer than planned.

Insight 2: Understand the Problem to Be Solved

A frequent error seen in dealing with interactively complex problems is a fail-
ure to clearly understand the real problem that has to be solved. In Iraq, initial
efforts were focused on creating an army to defend the country from external
enemies. This approach continued long after the insurgency was a clear and
rapidly growing threat. In Afghanistan, the effort to create a centralized army
and police force increased tensions between ethnic and tribal groups and the
central government. In both cases, attempts to solve the wrong problem exac-
erbated the underlying real problem of insurgency.
The initial misunderstanding of the problem was compounded by the often
repeated idea that host-nation security forces were our ticket out. This was
based on the incorrect assumption that if the United States could simply form
effective security forces, it would have accomplished the missiona fundamen-
tal misunderstanding of the political, social, and economic conditions in both
countries. The key insight is that security forces are essential but insufficient.
In both theaters, a serious effort to understand the problem was long de-
layed. In Iraq, it was not until Petraeus took over, and in Afghanistan not until
the 2008 Bush administration review, that the U.S. Government made a seri-
ous effort to understand each conflict and devise an appropriate solution. The
Obama administration conducted its own review in 2009 in its attempt to un-
derstand the problem. This highlights the fact that despite major efforts to un-
derstand a complex problem, planners may still define it incorrectly. The U.S.
efforts to transfer the population-centric approach used in Iraq to Afghanistan
did not result in the dramatic improvements in security seen in Iraq. Bluntly
stated, a flawed understanding of the political and social dynamics in Afghan-
istan led us to the approach of population-centric counterinsurgency. The
Afghanistan Surge did not significantly reduce the levels of violence there.148
In both nations, failure to understand the conflict cost lives and years of effort.

325
Hammes

Magnifying the difficulty of developing security forces is the fact that polit-
ical, economic, and social conditions define what is possible in each case. The
mission of the security forces can be clearly defined only after the problem is
understood. The lack of clarity was most noticeable in the different approaches
to police training taken by the State and Justice departments training teams
as opposed to those taken by the DOD team. But even within DOD, there was
strong disagreement about the mission and hence the force structure of both
the Afghan and the Iraqi armed forces. Similarly, due to a poor understanding
of the actual problems in Iraq, the initial plan for the army was to build an army
to fight a nonexistent external threat. Unfortunately, that army was not suffi-
ciently organized, trained, or equipped to deal with the actual internal threat.

Insight 3: Understand that the Situation Will Change and Develop

Branches and Sequels Concurrently with the Primary Plan
All insurgencies are wicked problems, the very nature of which means the
problems will change as various players interact with each other. These changes
often invalidate initial assumptions. Thus, a critical element of planning must
be developing branches and sequels to compensate for invalid assumptions.
In each theater, the deteriorating security situation led to rapidly changing
estimates of the situation and subsequent changes in planning. Each change
included an increase in the proposed size and composition of the host-nation
security forces. However, there is little indication that branch plans were de-
veloped to cover the eventuality that the situation would continue to worsen
and larger host-nation forces would be needed. Thus, each increase had to be
planned and executed from scratch.
The frequent changes led to reorganizations of the U.S. and coalition com-
mand arrangements. The confusion inherent in the constantly changing ar-
rangements was exacerbated by the short tours of most trainers. It was difficult
for the host-nation personnel to establish relationships with their coalition
counterparts. Furthermore, the mix of government and contract training per-
sonnel contributed to fragmentation of coalition efforts. Finally, the training
and mentoring establishments never received the number of personnel re-
quired by their tables of organization. Another complication was that person-
nel without the required knowledge or skill were often assigned in an effort to
fill those billets.

326
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

While these problems could not have been overcome by effective branch
and sequel planning, the impact could have been lessened by reducing the
time needed to respond to each change.

Insight 4: Understand the Culture That Drives the Societies in

Conflict
Coalition efforts in both nations seemed to be based on the idea of a two-sided
conflictthe government versus the insurgents. The reality in both cases was
much more complex. Ethnic, political, religious, institutional, and cultural dif-
ferences drove much of both conflicts. Coalition failure to understand these
underlying factors dramatically reduced the effectiveness of counterinsurgen-
cy efforts because the coalition failed to establish political structures appropri-
ate for the individual nations.
In fact, the historical record of outsiders overcoming deep ethnic, re-
ligious, and cultural schisms within any society is poor. This is not a new
factor, nor should it have been a surprise. In both nations, the United States
attempted to build ethnically balanced national security forces. In both na-
tions, there was great resistance to this idea. In Afghanistan, we still have not
succeeded in enlisting sufficient southern and eastern Pashtun to balance the
force ethnically. While the April 2014 DOD Report on Progress Toward Se-
curity and Stability in Afghanistan shows the ANA has succeeded in recruit-
ing Pashtuns in proportion to the population,149 other sources note that most
of the Pashtuns have been recruited from the north and that the southern
and eastern Pashtun remain severely under-represented150 and even viewed
as outsiders because they cannot speak the local version of Pashtu.151 This is
a particular problem since most of the security incidents occur in the south
and east.
In Iraq, shortly after our departure, Maliki began transforming the army
and national police into Shiite-dominated forces that answered to him. Again,
neither development should be surprising. In the past, decades of outside rule
have been required to create the national institutions that can manage sectari-
an and ethnic tensions (think India). Understanding the impact of these issues
requires a major effort during the initial phase of understanding the problem.
Failure to do so will often result in outsiders taking actions that magnify rather
than reduce those problems.

327
Hammes

Any proposed solution must be functional within the cultural context in

which it must operate. In both nations, the United States selected courses of
action that were not appropriate to those cultures. A Joint and Coalition Op-
eration Analysis report noted that the planned endstates were based largely
on U.S. expectations instead of those consistent with the host nation and mis-
sion. For example, the planned endstate for Afghanistan was envisioned as a
strong central government, despite only one instance of such a government in
Afghan historythe extremely repressive rule of Amir Abdul Rahman Khan
from 1880 to 1901and a lack of broad popular support for that system of
governance.152 Despite this history, the Afghans at the Bonn Conference chose
to adopt the 1964 Afghan constitution. Subsequent actions indicate the Hamid
Karzai government assumed that Afghanistan could best be ruled by a central
government with the power to reach into every district in the nation. This as-
sumption, questionable at best, drove the structure, training, and organization
of the MOD, MOI, and the security forces themselves. In a highly decentral-
ized, multiethnic, multicultural, multi-religious society, security forces of the
central government, especially those from a different group, are often distrust-
ed and actively resisted.
At the Loya Jirga, Karzai sought a government based on the Afghan con-
stitution of 1964. The Loya Jirga supported him. The constitution envisioned
an Afghanistan with a Western-style justice system and planned to develop
the police accordingly. Unfortunately, in 2002 Afghanistan lacked almost all
elements of a Western justice systemand thus the initial concept for policing
was severely flawed. Without effective courts and prisons to include sufficient
numbers of trained judges, lawyers, clerks, corrections officers, and other per-
sonnel, police can function only as a poorly trained and equipped paramilitary
security force.
In Iraq, the United States failed to understand the depth of the hostility
between the Shiite and Sunni communities. In creating a highly centralized
security force, it created a force that Maliki could control and use to suppress
Sunni political participation in the government of Iraq.
Perhaps the single most challenging cultural problem in both nations was
corruptionas the West understands it. Almost every after action report not-
ed corruption as siphoning off a major portion of resources as well as placing
unqualified personnel in key billets from district to national levels. The prob-

328
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

lem, of course, is figuring out what is considered corruption in the specific

culture and what is considered greasing the wheels or a moral obligation to
take care of family. In both countries, the reality remains that without the ex-
change of funds or favors, projects do not get completed. Clearly, we will have
to deal with corruption in future efforts. However, we must understand what
represents wasteful corruption and what represents necessary transactions
or even moral obligations for that society. We should remember that while
we may abhor contractors offering money to government officials to procure
contracts, an outsider might think the U.S. lobbying system looks remarkably
similar. Money is paid to a lobbyist or directly to an election campaign, and
certain laws or programs are approved.
One of the cultures we must take into account is our own. For instance,
DOD planning culture is based around accomplishing a mission. It assumes
that there is a solution for the problem and that the solution can be expressed
as an essentially linear plan. Unfortunately, both Iraq and Afghanistan are
distinctly nonlinear, interactively complex problems. Thus, the first and most
difficult step should have been to define the problem we were trying to solve
and then develop an agreed-upon solution. Instead, U.S. decisionmakers made
flawed assumptions about both countries and leapt immediately into military
planning. Not surprisingly, in both countries the U.S. understanding of the sit-
uation was slow to develop and then changed frequently. It was not until 2007
that the Office of the Secretary of Defense even openly stated that Iraq was an
insurgency/civil war. From this understanding, it devised the Surge that led to
a dramatic decrease in violence. While some may question the Surges long-
term impact, there is no question it provided the Iraqis with breathing space
to reach a political solution. The fact that they fell back to sectarian violence
several years after the departure of U.S. forces does not alter this observation.
Another U.S. cultural requirement is a senior sponsor for host-nation se-
curity forces. Ensuring sufficient resourcing from the Pentagon requires the
personal attention of a four-star officer. Throughout both wars, training secu-
rity forces was not a mission the U.S. Armed Forces were organized, trained,
or equipped well to execute. They were even less prepared to establish the nec-
essary civilian defense institutions to manage and supervise those forces. Thus,
the U.S. defense bureaucracy had to be forced to do something alien. Any at-
tempt to force a bureaucracy to execute a function outside its design requires

329
Hammes

senior leaders with the ability to force not only their organization but also oth-
ers to respond quickly to rapidly changing events. (Recall the lack of progress
in fielding Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles until very senior DOD
officials took personal interest.) It was not until the security forces programs
in both nations got this level of attention that resource shortages were alleviat-
ed. Unfortunately, particularly for police programs, personnel shortages were
never really solved.
The U.S. Government has a tendency to default to police as the frontline
in any counterinsurgency operation. This tendency was heavily reinforced in
the 2006 edition of Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency. Unfortunately, doc-
trinal attitudes about the police role in counterinsurgency are based heavily
on British experiences. In the primary casesMalaya and Northern Ireland
Britain was the governing power and had spent centuries establishing the Brit-
ish system of policing and justice. Thus, police were culturally less threatening
than army personnel to the native populations. However, in many parts of the
world, the police are the most oppressive and corrupt element of the host-na-
tion government.
As noted earlier, the Iraqi police were the bottom of the barrel of Saddams
security forces. Corrupt, hated, and trained only to enforce fear of the govern-
ment, these were the people to which the United States first gave weapons and
put back on the street with authority to use deadly force in its name. In Af-
ghanistan, various militia commanders simply declared their own people to be
the police force. A fundamental lesson is that the police are not the default se-
curity force in a counterinsurgency. The United States should field and support
police forces only in those areas where they are culturally appropriate. They
may not be appropriate nationwide. While police may be seen as legitimate
in better developed urban areas, they may be seen as a force of government
oppression in rural areas.

Insight 5: Structure Ministries and Forces Appropriate to the

Problem and the Societies in Conflict
In both countries, the United States developed ministries and forces modeled
on U.S. institutions. The political, economic, and social (cultural) conditions
of these countries made U.S. approaches problematic and unsustainable with-
out a significant U.S. presence. Compounding the problem was a failure to un-

330
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

derstand that the actual organization and functioning of the ministries of de-
fense and interior are inevitably tied to the political and social structures of the
host nations. This was particularly damaging since ministerial development is
both more critical and much more difficult than fielding forces. In both coun-
tries, the coalition attempted to establish apolitical, merit-based technocratic
ministries. The domestic political situations and vicious conflicts within the
governments meant this was an unattainable goal. The rapid takeover of the
Iraqi ministries by Shiite militants illustrates the fact that structures designed
and imposed by outsiders are unlikely to sustain themselves in this type of
political climate.
This fact dramatically complicates any advisory effort. U.S. advisors can
only train what they know, so advisors must be educated in different ways
to organize ministries and forces before they deploy. If U.S. advisors are to
assist existing ministries and forces, it is also essential they understand those
organizations and their cultures prior to deploying. Planners should assumed
developing and executing such a programto include basic language train-
ingwill take at least a year. If advisory tours remain 1 year in length, this will
effectively double the personnel requirement for advisory efforts.
From the outset, any program to raise, train, and equip a host-nation se-
curity force must be focused on how it must function after the departure of the
United States. Unfortunately, in both countries, the United States attempted to
build a national security enterprise modeled on its own. This was particularly
visible in how we organized and trained the armed forces. Like all militaries,
the U.S. Armed Forces are the product of unique historical and cultural con-
ditions. The success of U.S. forces is heavily attributed to both technology and
NCO leadership. Naturally, we sought to inculcate both those values into the
Iraqi and Afghan forces. Yet in both cultures, the concept of someone who is
socially and militarily inferior to another providing instruction, correction, and
honest advice to his social or military superior is an alien concept. While a pro-
fessional NCO corps has been essential to the success of the U.S. military, it has
been neither necessary nor desired in other successful militaries. In the same
vein, U.S. forces seek a technological edgeeven at the expense of much greater
training and maintenance requirements. A typical example was the selection of
the G222 transport aircraft for the Afghan air force. While this aircraft met a
definite Afghan need for in-theater airlift, its complexity was simply more than

331
Hammes

the Afghans could manage. As a result, despite a purchase price of $486 million
for 20 aircraft, all eventually were sold for scrap for $32,000 total.153
An integral and perhaps the most important part of any plan to build
another nations security forces are command relationships. In both theaters,
responsibility and command relationships for the vital mission of host-nation
security forces started as ad hoc arrangements. In both theaters, the early fre-
quent changes in host-nation civilian governments inevitably led to changes in
the host-nation personnel responsible for security. In Afghanistan, constantly
changing relationships between the national commanders and ambassadors
for coalition members, NATO command, and U.S. command caused confu-
sion and delays.
In both Iraq and Afghanistan, coalition trainers showed remarkable cre-
ativity and tenacity in trying to build armed forces in the image of the United
States. However, trying to impose a merit-based, technologically savvy, equip-
ment-intensive approach onto societies where relationships and social stand-
ing have a heavy bearing on organizational behavior proved a bridge too far.
One of the biggest shortcomings of the MOI and police training programs
was the imbalance of resources between police and other elements necessary
for a legal system. Police are only one piece of the rule of law. Without effective
courts, court administrators, and prison systems, police operations have little
effect. In both nations, U.S., coalition, and host-nation security personnel fre-
quently expressed frustration over the fact that those they arrested were often
released in a matter of hours. While these releases were at times legitimate,
they were often tied to corruption or incompetence in the rest of the legal sys-
tem. If there is not an effective method for trying and imprisoning violators,
then the Western concept of policing simply will not work.
Both police training programs were further hampered by the confusing
U.S. legal authorities concerning training police overseas. In an effort to pre-
vent perceived abuses such as torture and extrajudicial executions by U.S.-
trained police in the 1950s through the 1970s, Congress passed laws restricting
how U.S. support could be provided to overseas police. Given the continuing
need for police training globally, Congress included a long list of exceptions
to permit subsequent police training to be funded. In the intervening decades,
executive branch officials have had to be creative to work around those restric-
tions in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yet no matter how creative the work-

332
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

around, the result was less than ideal. These restrictive laws still exist and will
be the starting point for any future police training program. To date, they have
prevented the United States from developing a coherent international police
assistance program and instead force ad hoc programs to be developed each
time the need arises.
In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we found ourselves fighting a well-equipped,
aggressive insurgency. Yet we initially built police forces appropriate for com-
munity policing in an essentially pacified area. In both nations, there were
locations where such police were appropriate, but for the most part we failed
to match police training, equipment, and structure to the tactical situation
they faced. In fact, we consistently sent police to stations in contested or insur-
gent-controlled areas that infantry forces could not hold. The inevitable result
was that police suffered much higher casualty rates than either indigenous or
foreign military forces. It is essential that appropriate security conditions are
established before assigning community police. If the situation is too danger-
ous for police to operate effectively, security must be provided by military or at
least paramilitary police units until security conditions improve.

Insight 6: Develop Effective, Accurate, and Appropriate Metrics to

Inform Senior Decisionmakers
U.S. military culture combines two factors that reinforce each other and neg-
atively affect metrics programs. First, the Services enforce short tours. Almost
all after action reports from Vietnam highlighted the short tour as a major
deficiency. Many noted that the U.S. didnt have 10 years of experience in
Vietnam. It has one years experience ten times. In Iraq and Afghanistan, 1
year was considered a long tour, with many units spending only 6 months in
country and individual staff officers on tours as short as 3 months. Thus, plan-
ners should assume the Services will not impose long tours in future conflicts.
Short tours reinforce the second issue, which is optimistic reporting.
British ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles noted, the military system of
six-month combat tours seemed intentionally designed to compel officials to
produce overly positive assessments. The pattern was always the same. At the
beginning of each tour, the newly arrived commander would declare the situa-
tion grave. He would then implement a new short-term plan, which he would
declare a success.154

333
Hammes

To be fair, the short tours prevented a commander from gaining a deep

understanding of his area of operations. Thus, it was natural that he would be
uncertain at the beginning of a tour but gain confidence as his relatively su-
perficial understanding of the situation increased. And of course, the vast ma-
jority of successful military commanders are optimists by nature. Yet another
element of military culture reinforced the normal optimism of a successful
officer: the fitness report as commander in combat would be one of the most
important of an officers career and would be influenced heavily by his own
reporting of success or failure in his area. Thus, institutional approaches drove
commanders to overly optimistic reporting.
Despite these contradictions, metrics were considered central to the U.S.
commands understanding of the fight in both theaters. The United States ded-
icated a great deal of effort to developing an effective set of metrics to allow
commanders to understand the situation on the ground and track changes. Yet
as Lieutenant General Daniel Bolger, USA (Ret.), notes, The problem with
numbers in Afghanistan related to the overall difficulty of combat reporting.
All the computers and spreadsheets on earth couldnt change that basic old
rule: garbage in, garbage out.155
The lack of language skills, short tours, enforced optimism, and sheer
complexity of the political, social, and economic environment made accurate
measurement nearly impossible. Bolgers observation is strongly supported
by Ben Connables deeply researched Embracing the Fog of War: Assessment
and Metrics in Counterinsurgency, which revealed the fatal flaws in the system
ISAF used to track progress in the campaign and the ANSF.156 This problem is
not new. Similar reports concerning the Hamlet Evaluation System in Vietnam
questioned the reliability of the data collected there. The optimistic reporting
was partially responsible for General William Westmorelands 1967 declara-
tion that there was light at the end of the tunnel, just before the Tet Offensive
exploded across Vietnam.157
The durability of this problem is reflected by the wide discrepancy be-
tween the generally optimistic reports from the Pentagon and the often pessi-
mistic reports from GAO, CRS, and other independent organizations. Yet the
fact remains that metrics have been a major factor in political and military
decisions in wars such as these. It is critical that an effective method for de-
termining, reporting, and interpreting metrics be developed. As always, the

334
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

most difficult metrics will be those involving intangibles such as quality of the
force. In both theaters, the number of trained and fielded forces was closely
monitored. In both, the commanders struggled with evaluating the quality of
the forces and the quality of the interior and defense ministries.

Conclusion
No serious plans for indigenous forces had been prepared for either Afghan-
istan or Iraq. The mission to create those forces was assigned to ad hoc or-
ganizations that, despite herculean efforts, were constantly behind the power
curve. For the first few years, each plan was overcome by events before it was
even approved and resourced. Even when the emphasis shifted to indigenous
forces, the training commands and Embedded Training Teams remained well
understrength. Furthermore, the personnel system never really adjusted to
either place people with the right backgrounds into the commands or to pro-
vide time to assemble, properly train, and then deploy the Embedded Training
Teams as units.
The primary highlight of the entire training effort was the ingenuity,
adaptability, courage, and persistence of the personnel assigned. Working
against incredible handicaps, not the least of which was trying to create forc-
es that mirror-imaged those of the West, they succeeded in raising, training,
equipping, and deploying major security forces. The relative success or failure
of those forces rests with the political leadership of the host nations and the
continued provision of resources for those forces to operate according to the
organization and training they received.

Notes

1
Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 198.
2
Bob Woodward, Bush at War (London: Pocket Books, 2004), 300.
3
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368 (September 12, 2001), available at
<www.refworld.org/cgi-in/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=3c4e94557>.
4
Combined Security Transition CommandAfghanistan (CSTC-A), United States Plan

335
Hammes

for Sustaining the Afghanistan National Security Forces, June 2008, 5, available at <www.
defense.gov/pubs/united_states_plan_for_sustaining_the_afghanistan_national_securi-
ty_forces_1231.pdf>.
5
Tim Bird and Alex Marshall, Afghanistan: How the West Lost Its Way (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2011), 119.
6
Interview with Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, in Eyewitness to War Volume III:
U.S. Army Advisors in Afghanistan, ed. Michael G. Brooks (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat
Studies Institute Press, 2009).
7
Ibid., 40.
8
Lorenzo Striuli and Fernando Termentini, Afghanistan: Disarmament, Demobilization
and Reintegration, Rome, Analisi e Ricerche Geopoliticiche sullOriente, Osservatoria
sullAsia minor, central e meridionale, September 2008, available at <www.argoriente.it>.
9
Government Accountability Office (GAO), Afghanistan Security: Efforts to Establish
Army and Police Have Made Progress, but Future Plans Need to Be Better Defined (Wash-
ington, DC: GAO, June 2005), 6.
10
Bird and Marshall, 114.
11
Interview with Mike Milley, in Eyewitness to War Volume III, 95111.
Robert B. Oakley and T.X. Hammes, Securing Afghanistan: Entering a Make-or-Break
12

Phase? INSS Strategic Forum 205 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, March 2004), 4.
13
GAO, Afghanistan Security: Efforts, 3.
14
Ibid., 15.
15
Frederick Rice, Afghanistan Unit Takes on New Mission, Name, American Forces
Press Service, July 13, 2005, available at <www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx-
?id=16650>.
GAO, Securing, Stabilizing, and Reconstructing Afghanistan: Key Issues for Congressional
16

Oversight (Washington, DC: GAO, May 2007), 13.

17
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Progress in Afghanistan: Bucharest Summit
24 April 2008 (Brussels: NATO Public Diplomacy Division, 2008), 4, available at <www.
isaf.nato.int/pdf/progress_afghanistan_2008.pdf>.
GAO, Afghanistan Security: Further Congressional Action May Be Needed to Ensure
18

Completion of a Detailed Plan to Develop and Sustain Capable Afghan National Security
Forces (Washington, DC: GAO, June 2008, 3).
19
CSTC-A, 6.
20
Ibid., 4.
21
NATO, Progress in Afghanistan, 8.
22
National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, NATO Training Mission-Afghani-
stan, available at <www.forces.gc.ca/en/operations-supporting-docs/ntm-a.page>.

336
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

23
NATO, NATO Training MissionAfghanistan, April 4, 2009, available at <www.nato.
int/cps/en/natolive/news_52802.htm>.
Stanley A. McChrystal, COMISAFs Initial Assessment, August 30, 2009, 24, avail-
24

able at <www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB292/Assessment_Redacted_092109.
pdf>.
25
Ibid., 215.
26
Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR),
Actions Needed to Improve the Reliability of Afghan Security Force Assessments (Arlington,
VA: SIGAR, June 29, 2010), 2, available at <www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/2010-06-29au-
dit-10-11.pdf>.
International Crisis Group (ICG), A Force in Fragments: Reconstituting the Afghan
27

National Army, Asia Report 190, May 12, 2010, ii.

GAO, Afghanistan: Key Issues for Congressional Oversight (Washington, DC: GAO, April
28

2009), 20, available at <www.gao.gov/new.items/d09473sp.pdf>.

29
ICG, A Force in Fragments, 17.
Statement of Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV, USA, to the Committee on
30

Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland

Defense, and Foreign Operations, September 12, 2012, 23, available at <http://oversight.
house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Caldwell-Testimony.pdf>.
31
Jack Kem (Deputy to the Commander, NATO Training MissionAfghanistan), inter-
view by Greg Bruno, Long Road Ahead for Afghan Security Forces, CFR.org, August
17, 2010, available at <www.cfr.org/afghanistan/long-road-ahead-afghan-security-forces/
p22805>.
Department of Defense (DOD), Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Af-
32

ghanistan (Washington, DC: DOD, November 2010), 31, available at <www.defense.gov/

pubs/november_1230_report_Final.pdf>.
Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton: Princeton
33

University Press, 2010), 24.

34
Cheryl Pellerin, Afghan Security Forces Grow in Numbers, Quality, American Forces
Press Service, May 23, 2011, available at <www.defense.gov//news/newsarticle.aspx-
?id=64044>.
Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy,
35

RL30588 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, October 9, 2014), 2728,

available at <http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30588.pdf>.
GAO, Afghanistan Security: Long-standing Challenges May Affect Progress and Sustain-
36

ment of Afghan National Security Forces (Washington, DC: GAO, July 24, 2012), 2.
37
Ibid., 89.
38
Ibid., 6.

337
Hammes

39
GAO, Afghanistan: Key Oversight Issues (Washington, DC: GAO, February 2013), 20.
NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, Security-Risks.com, November
40

29, 2014, available at <www.security-risks.com/security-trends-south-asia/afghanistan/

nato-led-resolute-support-mission-in-afghanistan-3920.html>.
UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Afghanistan: Midyear Re-
41

port 2014: Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul: UNAMA, July 2014),
available at <http://unama.unmissions.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=m_XyrUQD-
KZg%3d&tabid=12254&mid=15756&language=en-US>.
Sudarsan Raghaven, Taliban Brings War to Afghan Capital, Threatening Stability and
42

Endangering Foreigners, Washington Post, November 30, 2014, available at <www.wash-

ingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-afghanistan-taliban-fighters-attack-foreign-com-
pound-in-capital/2014/11/29/f0aef902-77d4-11e4-a755-e32227229e7b_story.html>.
43
Andrew Wilder, Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police, Is-
sue Paper Series (Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, July 2007), vi, available
at <www.areu.org.af/Uploads/EditionPdfs/717E-Cops%20or%20Robbers-IP-print.pdf>.
Summary of the Afghan National Police, Program for Culture and Conflict Studies,
44

Naval Postgraduate School, available at <www.nps.edu/programs/ccs/National/ANP.

html>.
45
GAO, Afghanistan Security: Efforts, 8.
46
David H. Bayley and Robert M. Perito, The Police in War: Fighting Insurgency, Terror-
ism, and Violent Crime (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010), 112.
Peter C. Kratcoski and Dilip K. Das, eds., Police Education and Training in a Global
47

Society (Plymouth, UK: Lexington, 2007), 10, 192.

48
GAO, Afghanistan Security: Efforts, 19.
49
Wilder, 1113.
50
Summary of the Afghan National Police.
European Union External Action, What is EUPOL Afghanistan? available at <www.
51

eupol-afg.eu>.
52
CSTC-A, 4.
Afghan National Police, Institute for the Study of War, available at <www.understand-
53

ingwar.org/afghan-national-police-anp >.
54
James L. Jones and Thomas R. Pickering, co-chairs, Revitalizing our Efforts, Rethinking
our Strategies, Afghan Study Group Report, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Center for the Study
of the Presidency, January 30, 2008), 34. Emphasis in original.
GAO, Afghanistan Security: U.S. Efforts to Develop Capable Afghan Police Forces Face
55

Challenges and Need a Coordinated, Detailed Plan to Help Ensure Accountability (Washing-
ton, DC: GAO, June 18, 2008).

338
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

56
Brummet, 13.
57
Jones and Pickering.
58
Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2013, available at <www.
transparency.org/cpi2013/results>.
59
McChrystal, 215.
Spencer Ackerman, Mercs Win Billion Dollar Afghan Cop Deal. Again. Wired.com,
60

December 21, 2010, available at <www.wired.com/2010/12/controversial-firm-snags-an-

other-billion-dollar-afghan-police-deal/>.
Robert M. Perito, Afghanistans Police: The Weak Link in Security Sector Reform, U.S.
61

Institute of Peace Special Report, Washington, DC, August 2009, 2, available at <www.
usip.org/sites/default/files/afghanistan_police.pdf>.
Royal United Services Institute and Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), Reforming
62

the Afghan National Police (Philadelphia: FPRI, n.d.), i, available at <www.fpri.org/docs/

ReformingAfghanNationalPolice.pdf>.
63
Perito, Afghanistans Police, 1.
64
Michelle Hughes, The Afghan National Police in 2015 and Beyond, U.S. Institute
of Peace, Washington, DC, May 2014, 2, available at <www.usip.org/sites/default/files/
SR346_The_Afghan_National_Police_in_2015_and_Beyond.pdf>.
65
Missy Ryan, Afghan Police Problems Cited, Washington Post, January 12, 2015, A14.
66
Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan: Just Dont Call It a MilitiaImpunity, Militias, and
the Afghan Local Police (New York: Human Rights Watch, September 2011), 15, available
at <www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/afghanistan0911webwcover_0.pdf>.
David Axe, NATO Cancel Afghan Cop Program, Wired.com, April 10, 2008, <www.
67

wired.com/2008/04/nato-cancels-af>.
68
Human Rights Watch.
Daniel Glickstein and Michael Spangler, Reforming the Afghan Security Forces,
69

Parameters 44, no. 3 (Autumn 2014), 101.

Margherita Stancati, Left Unmoored, Afghan Local Police Pose New Risk, Wall Street
70

Journal, March 24, 2014, available at <http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405270230

4679404579459270523670760>.
GAO, U.S. Programs to Further Reform the Ministry of Interior and National Police
71

Challenged by Lack of Military Personnel and Afghan Cooperation (Washington, DC: GAO,
March 2009), 11.
DOD, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan (Washington, DC:
72

DOD, December 2012), 53, available at <www.defense.gov/news/1230_Report_final.pdf>.

William Rosenau, Acknowledging Limits: Police Advisors and Counterinsurgency in Af-
73

ghanistan (Alexandria, VA: Center for Naval Analyses; Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Uni-

339
Hammes

versity Press, 2011), 95, available at <www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/Police%20

Mentor_Layout%204.pdf>.
Declan Walsh, Powerful Afghan Police Chief Puts Fear in Taliban and Their Enemies,
74

New York Times, November 1, 2014.

75
Wilder, x.
Civil Military Fusion Center, Corruption and Anti-Corruption Issues in Afghanistan,
76

February 2012, 6; Transparency International.

77
Thomas Ruttig, Some Things Got BetterHow Much Got Good? Afghanistan
Analysts Network, December 30, 2013, available at <www.afghanistan-analysts.org/some-
things-got-better-how-much-got-good-a-short-review-of-12-years-of-international-inter-
vention-in-afghanistan>.
Terri Barriere, New automated personnel management system unveiled, NATO Af-
78

ghanistanResolute Support, RS News, available at <www.rs.nato.int/article/news/new-au-

tomated-personnel-management-system-unveiled.html>.
79
Hughes.
Bryan Rahija, Woes Continue for Afghan National Police Training Program, The Proj-
80

ect on Government Oversight, August 18, 2011, available at <http://pogoblog.typepad.

com/pogo/2011/08/woes-continue-for-afghan-national-police-training-program.html>.
81
DynCorp, DynCorp International Awarded Afghan Training and Mentoring Con-
tracts, January 8, 2015, available at <www.dyn-intl.com/news-events/press-release/dynco-
rp-international-awarded-afghan-training-and-mentoring-contracts/>.
DOD, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan (Washington,
82

DC: DOD, April 2014), 5, available at <www.defense.gov/pubs/April_1230_Report_Final.

pdf>.
83
Ibid., 27.
84
Katzman, 2728.
85
Ibid., 27.
DOD, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan (Washington,
86

DC: DOD, October 2013), 48.

87
SIGAR, High Risk List (Arlington, VA: SIGAR, December 2014), 1, available at <www.
sigar.mil/pdf/spotlight/High-Risk_List.pdf>.
88
Afghanistan: So long, good luck, The Economist, November 29, 2014, 36.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, Febru-
89

ary 27, 2015, available at <www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_113694.htm>.

90
Paul Eaton, interview by T.X. Hammes, October 14, 2014.
91
Authors personal experience when serving with the Coalition Military Assistance Tran-
sition Team in 2004.

340
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

92
Ibid.
93
Frederick Kienle, Creating an Iraqi Army from Scratch: Lessons for the Future, Amer-
ican Enterprise Institute, May 25, 2007, 2, available at <www.aei.org/publication/creating-
an-iraqi-army-from-scratch/>.
94
Eaton, interview.
95
Kienle, 2.
96
Ibid.
97
Eaton, interview.
National Security Policy Directive 36, United States Government Operations in Iraq,
98

May 11, 2004, 2, available at <http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd051104.pdf>.

George W. Casey, Jr., Strategic Reflections: Operation Iraqi Freedom July 2004February
99

2007 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2012), 13.

100
Ibid., 39.
DOD, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq (Washington, DC: DOD, February 2006),
101

34, available at <www.defense.gov/home/features/Iraq_Reports/docs/2006-02-Report.

pdf>.
102
Ibid., 27.
DOD, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq (Washington, DC: DOD, November
103

2006), 31, available at <www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010Quarterly-Report-20061216.

pdf>.
104
Ibid., 58.
105
Ibid., 31.
106
Ibid., 32.
107
Ibid., 3031.
Andrea R. So, A Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq Status Report,
108

Institute for the Study of War, Georgetown University, June 20, 2008, 2.
Timeline: The Iraq Surge, Before and After, The Washington Post, available at <www.
109

washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/thegamble/timeline>.
DOD, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq (Washington, DC: DOD, December
110

2008), iv.
111
Ibid., 31.
112
Ibid., 3132.
113
Ibid., viiiix.
David Zucchina, Iraq Troops Doubt Own Army Despite U.S. Training, Aid, Los Ange-
114

les Times, November 3, 2014, A1.

341
Hammes

115
Ibid.
Loveday Morris, 50,000 ghost soldiers found in Iraqs army, Washington Post, Decem-
116

ber 1, 2004, A14.

Robert M. Perito, The Iraqi Federal Police: U.S. Police Building under Fire, U.S. Insti-
117

tute of Peace, October 2011, 2, available at <www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR291_The_

Iraq_Federal_Police.pdf>.
Bruce R. Pirnie and Edward OConnell, Counterinsurgency in Iraq, 20032006 (Santa
118

Monica, CA: RAND, 2008), 49.

119
Ibid., 4950.
Robert Perito, Policing Iraq: Protecting Iraqis from Criminal Violence, U.S. Institute
120

of Peace, June 2006, 2, available at <www.usip.org/publications/policing-iraq-protect-

ing-iraqis-criminal-violence>.
William H. McMichael, Retired Civilian Police Officer Praises Troops, Slams U.S.
121

Government Planning, Army Times, May 7, 2007.

122
Perito, The Iraqi Federal Police, 45.
D. J. Elliott, Training the Iraqi National Police, The Long War Journal, July 3, 2007,
123

available at <www.longwarjournal.org/archieves/2007/07/iraqi_national_police.php>.
124
Perito, The Iraqi Federal Police, 56.
125
DOD, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, November 2006, 33.
126
Perito, The Iraqi Federal Police, 7.
John J. Kruzel, Reform, Training Initiatives Improve Iraqs National Police, American
127

Forces Press Service, October 31, 2007.

DOD, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq (Washington, DC: DOD, March 2007),
128

32, available at <www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010_March_2007_Final_Signed.pdf>.

129
DOD, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, November 2006, 3233.
Robert Perito and Madeline Kristoff, Iraqs Interior Ministry: The Key to Police Re-
130

form, U.S. Institute of Peace, July 2009, 1.

DOD, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq (Washington, DC: DOD, March 2007),
131

34, available at <www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010_March_2007_Final_Signed.pdf>.

132
DOD, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, December 2008, 3242.
133
Perito and Kristoff, 3.
James Glanz and Riyahd Mohammed, Premier Is Quietly Firing Fraud Monitors, New
134

York Times, November 17, 2008, available at <www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/world/mid-

dleeast/18maliki.html?=&_r=1&>.
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Quarterly Report to the
135

United States Congress (Arlington, VA: SIGIR, October 30, 2011), 54, available at <http://

342
 Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/sigir/20131001093855/http://www.sigir.mil/files/quarter-
lyreports/October2011/Report_-_October_2011.pdf>.
ICG, Make or Break: Iraqs Sunnis and the State, Middle East Report No. 144, August
136

14, 2013, iii, available at <www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/files/middle%20east%20

north%20africa/iraq%20syria%20lebanon/iraq/144-make-or-break-iraq-s-sunnis-and-
the-state.pdf>.
David D. Kirkpatrick, Graft Hobbles Iraqs Military in Fighting ISIS, New York Times,
137

November 23, 2014, available at <www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/world/middleeast/graft-

hobbles-iraqs-military-in-fighting-isis.html?ref=world&_r=1>.
Mirtha Villarreal, Embedded Training Teams Making History in Afghanistan,
138

DOD News, March 21, 2005, available at <www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx-

?ID=31140>.
NATO Headquarters Brussels, Fact Sheet: NATOs Operational Mentor and Liaison
139

Teams (OMLTs) October 2009, available at <www.nato.int/isaf/topics/factsheets/om-

lt-factsheet.pdf>.
140
GAO, Afghanistan Security: Further Congressional Action May Be Needed, 3.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 1630.01, Afghanistan/Paki-
141

stan Hands (APH) Program, September 3, 2010, 2, available at <http://citeseerx.ist.

psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=955C05A775806BB20F6B6906A1698E1B?-
doi=10.1.1.366.4268&rep=rep1&type=pdf>.
Steven Heffington, AFPAK to APAC Hands: Lessons Learned, War on the Rocks, Jan-
142

uary 7, 2014, available at <http://warontherocks.com/2014/01/afpak-to-apac-hands-les-

sons-learned/?singlepage=1>.
GAO, Security Force Assistance: More Detailed Planning and Improved Access to Infor-
143

mation Needed to Guide Efforts of Advisor Teams in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: GAO,
April 2013), 34, available at <www.gao.gov/assets/660/654289.pdf>.
William Rosenau et al., United States Marine Corps Advisors: Past, Present, and Future
144

(Alexandria, VA: Center for Naval Analyses, August 2013), 37, available at <www.hqmc.
marines.mil/Portals/138/Hip%20Pocket%20Briefs/CNA,%20USMC%20Advisors%20
Aug2013.pdf>.
145
Ibid., 40.
146
Ibid., 4649.
GAO, Iraq and Afghanistan: Actions Needed to Enhance the Ability of Army Brigades to
147

Support the Advisory Mission (Washington, DC: GAO, August 2011), 2, available at <www.
gao.gov/new.items/d11760.pdf>.
Tyler Jost, Defend, Defect or Desert? The Future of the Afghan Security Forces, Policy
148

Brief (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, January 2015), 4, available at
<www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNAS_Afghan_ANF_policybrief_Jost.
pdf>.

343
Hammes

149
DOD, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, April 2014, 38.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, Afghan National Security Forces: Afghan Corruption and the
150

Development of an Effective Fighting Force, testimony before the House Armed Services
Committees Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, August 2, 2012, available
at <www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2012/08/02-afghanistan-security-felbab-
brown#>.
Donald J. Planty and Robert M. Perito, Police in Transition in Afghanistan, U.S. Insti-
151

tute of Peace, February 2013, 5, available at <www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR322.pdf>.

Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA), Decade of War, Volume I: Enduring
152

Lessons from the Past Decade of Operations (Suffolk, VA: JCOA, June 15, 2012), 16.
Josh Hicks, A $486 million fleet, now $32,000 in scrap, Washington Post, October 13,
153

2014, A15.
Jack Fairweather, The Good War: The Battle for Afghanistan 200614 (London: Jonathan
154

Cape Ltd, 2014), 248.

Daniel Bolger, Why We Lost: A Generals Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan
155

Wars (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 391.

Ben Connable, Embracing the Fog of War: Assessment and Metrics in Counterinsurgency
156

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2012).

Terry H. Anderson, The Light at the End of the Tunnel: The United States and the
157

Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Diplomatic History 12, no. 4 (1988), 443462, available at
<http://dh.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/4/443.extract>.

344
 5

9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons,

and Irregular Conflict
By Nicholas Rostow and Harvey Rishikof

What I fear is not the enemys strategy, but our own mistakes.

Pericles1

Great cases, like hard cases, make bad law. For great cases are called great
not by reason of their real importance in shaping the law of the future, but
because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals
to the feelings and distorts the judgment.2

Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 1904

R
ather than examining all legal issues and controversies since 2001 that
have generated lessons,3 this chapter focuses on three in particular.
The first part of the chapter focuses on the use of force because it
helped frame the period that began on September 11, 2001. The next part con-
cerns detention policies because they have been a locus of controversy almost
from the moment of the first arrest or capture. Some commentators now con-
tend that the subsequent wish to avoid controversy associated with detention
appears to have led the United States more often than not to kill rather than
capture. The second part then examines interrogation policy and techniques
before moving on to the third part, which considers the legal impact of un-
manned aerial vehicles as an example of the effect of advanced technology on
law. The use of these vehicles has touched a nerve because of the novelty of the

345
Rostow and Rishikof

platform. The chapter concludes by summarizing the lessons identified and

makes recommendations for future handling of legal issues.

The Relevancy of Law and Lessons to Be Learned

Law permeates American strategy and tactics by defining the permissible
space in which the United States may act and prescribing how it should act.
The law, therefore, was relevant to the decision to engage in a war against
terror after September 11, 2001, and to all operations, including detention,
flowing from that decision.
The fact that law is important to Americans dates to the earliest English
settlements in the 17th century. Nearly two centuries later, in 1803, the Supreme
Court reminded its audience in Marbury v. Madison that The government of
the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not
of men.4 In implementation of this idea, the Constitution and laws apportion
authority within the government to make decisions for the United States. They
also definesometimes broadly, sometimes in infinite detailthe boundar-
ies limiting the reach of such decisions, identify permissible instrumentalities
available to decisionmakers, and clarify ways to use such instruments. In ad-
dition, as part of the supreme Law of the Land,5 treaty obligationssome of
which like the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the United Nations (UN) Char-
ter have been incorporated into U.S. law by statute6recognize that the United
States is part of a larger community.7 We recall these essential features of U.S.
Government and society because they imbue American strategy and tactics.
Senior political and military leaders are part of this system of values and need
to bear this fact in mind. The law grants substantive authority to act. It creates
process, which is essential to decisionmaking, good or bad. It embodies and
proclaims the values of a societythat is, the pattern of behavior deemed
right.8
Looking back over the past decade and a half and taking full advantage
of hindsight, we can begin to see what the U.S. Government did well, could
have done better, and should not have done at all. A starting point is the fact
that the 9/11 attacks seemed to come out of nowhere, leaving government
officials scrambling to prevent what they were certain would be addition-
al attacks and simultaneously trying to discover what had hit their country.
Adding to the pressure-cooker atmosphere, the anthrax attacks of September

346
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

1718, October 2, and October 9, 2001, and the crash of American Airlines
Flight 587 in Queens, New York, on November 12, 2001 (which turned out
to be a nonterrorist event), followed 9/11 in short order. In addition, daily
reports of numerous potential attacks against the United States at home and
abroad came to certain White House and other officials. The reports reflected
real-time information originating inside and outside the Nation. They includ-
ed little or no analysis in part because it was not clear that such analysis would
have predicted the September 11 attacks, and nobody wanted again to take the
risk of relying on such analysis. It was a time of extraordinary anxiety, and the
heightened focus on preventing future attacks, which has lessened over time,
still remains.9 Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) closed its
inquiry into the anthrax attacks in 2010,10 some commentators dispute the
2006 conclusion that one man, who committed suicide, was responsible for
the anthrax crimes.11
To say that after 9/11 government officials went to bed every night terri-
fied of a repetition of an attack when they awoke is a clich. It also is an un-
derstatement. This observation is not to excuse but to help explain. After all,
government officials during the Cold War probably feared they would wake up
to nuclear war.12 That said, we appreciate that an atmosphere of fear and the
reality of the increased stress it brings are obstacles to sound government deci-
sionmaking. Government officials report that the mood was to take any steps
deemed necessary to prevent additional attacks. Process and law appeared in
the circumstances almost as if they were expensive luxuries.13
Every aspect of the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks raised significant legal
issues. First, it was necessary to secure American public officials and govern-
ment buildings, clearly an executive branch responsibility under the Constitu-
tion. Second, the government employed all available resources to hunt for the
perpetrators of the attacks. In the first days after September 11, this effort took
a variety of forms, including what appeared to be indiscriminate arrest and
detention of suspects, which raised issues of probable cause.14
Third, once the government pinpointed the source of the attacks, an in-
ternational use of force became a likely option. Legal issues permeate all uses
of military force. Domestic and international authorities and rules, including
the international law governing the use of force (jus ad bellum) and the laws
of war (also known as Law of Armed Conflict or international humanitarian

347
Rostow and Rishikof

law) (jus in bello) govern. They frame the context in which policy, political,
and moral responsibilities are discharged in connection with an international
use of force.15
Fourth, intelligence collection and analysis, at home and abroad, was and
is essential in responding to terrorist attacks. How intelligence is collected
and against whom or what involves legal issues of the first importance. Since
2001, we have seen that how those legal issues are addressed affects the gov-
ernments credibility, the ability to prosecute, and relations with most import-
ant allies and friends. When an administration ignores or misinterprets the
law, it causes costly and unwanted distraction with long-lived effects. Leaks of
real secretshow the U.S. Government conducts intelligence collection and
operationshave further undermined the legitimate effort to shore up secu-
rity against future terrorist attacks. As intelligence operations against terror-
ists foreseeably may involve detention and interrogation, intelligence planning
needs to include detention and interrogation protocols just as military plan-
ning should.
Fifth, the last 14 years have been rife with detention issues. How should
one characterize as a legal matter those who are detained? How were they ar-
rested or captured? How long are they to be detained in a conflict with no fore-
seeable termination? What are appropriate means for holding terror suspects
pending prosecution or interrogation for intelligence purposes? What if the
urgent need for intelligence causes the adoption of interrogation methods that
make prosecution impossible or even violate domestic and international law?
The question of what to do with suspected perpetrators when captured in the
course of military or foreign intelligence operations should be examined early
in the operational planning process. After capture is not the optimal moment
to analyze policy options.
The U.S. Government disposes of an array of instruments with which to
combat terrorists. Not all are, or need to be, military or intelligence-related.
The Federal, state, and local response to terrorist attacks such as those carried
out in Oklahoma City in 1995 involved a variety of intelligence responses in
order, among other things, to determine whether the attack was international
or domestic, part of a program of attack or an isolated incident, and the action
of a large or small band. In the Oklahoma City bombing, law enforcement
methods brought the perpetrators to justice in the U.S. criminal law system,

348
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

which concluded with incarceration and execution. Had the perpetrators been
operating from a foreign country with the assistance of that country or from a
part of a country outside governmental control, it might have been necessary
for the U.S. Government to consider a military response.

The Use of Force

Uses of military force involve domestic and international law. The Consti-
tution is the principal source of authority for the President and Congress to
determine to use force internationally. As a matter of law, the United States
is committed by domestic and international law to respect the international
regime for the lawful use of armed force.

Afghanistan and Al Qaeda

U.S. domestic law governs how the United States takes decisions with respect
to the international use of force. Under the Constitution, executive power is
vested in the President, who also is commander in chief of the Armed Forces.16
Since the days of George Washington, scholars and practitioners, including
judges, have acknowledged that the President has the authority and respon-
sibility under Article II of the Constitution to direct the Armed Forces to de-
fend the country.17 The President may or may not seek congressional support
depending on the politics and situation of the moment.18 Attempts to legislate
an outcome of this political process in advance, as with the 1973 War Powers
Resolution, have failed.19 Politicians have not allowed the nominal law to con-
strain their constitutional, political options for addressing a crisis. The fate of
President Barack Obamas proposed resolution authorizing the use of force
against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) illuminates this point
about the Constitution in action:20 it appears that the proposal is not moving
forward in Congress and that both the President and Congress agree that the
President has sufficient existing authority, including the 2001 Authorization
for Use of Military Force, to direct military operations against ISIL and other
groups in the Middle East that the President determines threaten the United
States.21
The domestic authority to use force against the government of Afghani-
stan, al Qaeda, and others involved in some way with the 9/11 attacks came
both from the Presidents constitutional responsibilities under Article II and

349
Rostow and Rishikof

from a congressional resolution authorizing the use of the Armed Forces

against those responsible for the recent attacks against the United States and
its citizens.22 The United States treated the events as armed attacks, giving rise
to the right to use force in self-defense against the perpetrators and the gov-
ernment of the territory from which they cameAfghanistan.23
Having determined that al Qaeda, with the assistance or acquiescence of
Afghanistan, conducted the attacks, the President, independently of Congress,
could direct the Armed Forces into action against the known and suspected
perpetrators as a reasonable action given the absence of alternatives designed
to prevent a repetition and to bring the situation creating the right of self-de-
fense to an end.24 The attacks so shocked the government and the country that
it was clear that Congress would stand with the President and would want to
be seen as doing so. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force consti-
tuted both a statement of solidarity and authorization. As Justice Robert H.
Jackson wrote in his concurring opinion in the Steel Seizure Case of 1952, the
President operates at the zenith of his powers when explicitly supported by
Congress.25 Explicit does not mean by appropriations but by joint resolution.26
The 2001 authorization put President George W. Bush in the strongest possible
legal (and political) position to confront the attackers.
The resolution authorized the President to use all necessary and appro-
priate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines
planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred
on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to
prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by
such nations, organizations or persons. By its terms, this resolution fulfilled
the requirements of the 1973 War Powers Resolution.27 Not only did the 2001
authorization cement the domestic authorization for U.S. military operations
in Afghanistan in 2001, it also was broad enough to allow military operations
against those who carried out or supported the September 11 attacks, includ-
ing nations, organizations, or persons he determines . . . aided the terrorist
attacks in order to prevent a repetition.28 Both the Bush and Obama adminis-
trations have argued that this resolution authorizes military operations, even
more than 14 years after September 11, against entities the President concludes
may have had a role in the 2001 attacks and to prevent a repetition of them.
The resolutions language, they argued, also encompassed capture and inter-

350
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

rogation, which are foreseeable consequences of a use of force. The breadth of

the resolutions language was consistent with past open-ended congressional
resolutions authorizing the use of force.
The day after the attacks, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution
affirming the inherent right of self-defense at the same time it unequivocally
condemned the terrorism of the day.29 In response to the attacks, for the first
time in its history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invoked
Article 5 to render assistance to one of its members suffering armed attack.30

Iraq
In October 2002, Congress adopted a joint resolution authorizing the use of
force against Iraq.31 Its preamble harked back to Iraqs invasion of Kuwait in
1990. The 2002 resolution also made the following points in arguing the legal
case for the use of force: Iraq had not complied with UN Security Council
resolutions and continued to support terrorist organizations and attack U.S.
and other air forces implementing the resolutions; Iraq, having used weapons
of mass destruction before32 and having harbored and supported terrorists,
constituted a threat to the national security of the United States; Iraq had tried
to kill former President George H.W. Bush; and prior resolutions expressed
the sense of Congress supporting U.S. military enforcement of UN Security
Council resolutions adopted after the 1991 Gulf War.
The 2002 resolution authorized the President to use the Armed Forces of
the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order
to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continu-
ing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security
Council resolutions regarding Iraq.33 The resolution, like the 2001 Authori-
zation for Use of Military Force, specifically fulfilled War Powers Resolution
requirements.34 This resolution, therefore, provided congressional approval of
the 2003 campaign against Iraq and satisfied all domestic law requirements for
those military operations. Whether the President had authority to act without
such congressional authorization remains a hypothetical question and need
not concern us.
President Bush apparently thought the military buildup that turned out
to be preparation for the 2003 invasion would strengthen the hand of dip-
lomats.35 In 1991, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 687 that set

351
Rostow and Rishikof

forth the conditions Iraq had to meet in order to bring an end to the councils
authorization to use force to enforce the resolutions responding to Iraqs inva-
sion and purported annexation of Kuwait. The wording of the congressional
resolution aligned with this approach.36
Ultimately, the issue for the administration in 2003 was whether to in-
vade Iraq despite substantial international criticism and whether to take the
criticism and advice seriously. The United States proceeded to actafter all,
it alone had suffered attack on September 11against Iraq because the Presi-
dent and Congress saw the world through the prism of the attacks. Every risk
was magnified. The two political branches of the U.S. Government seemed
unwilling to seriously consider the advice of longstanding allies with different
perspectives on Iraq and the risks and consequences of an invasion.

International Law Governing the Use of Force in Afghanistan and

Iraq
Regarding the U.S. use of force in Afghanistan, the authorities are clear or
as reasonably clear as they ever are. Iraq was different. While the Presidents
domestic authority to order the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was clear and uncon-
troversial as a result of the congressional resolution of 2002, the international
legal authority was the subject of controversy, not least because of the advoca-
cy of preemptive self-defense in the 2002 National Security Strategy.37
As an independent state in the international system, the United States en-
joys all the legal rights other states do. The UN Charter sets forth fundamental
norms for international relations, binding on all states. They are part of U.S.
statutory law.38 The UN Charter provides that states may use force only in ex-
ercise of the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed
attack occurs or pursuant to UN Security Council authorization.39 The use of
the word inherent means that the Charter brought forward to the UN era the
customary law requirement that any use of force in self-defense fulfill the prin-
ciples of necessity and proportionality. Once a decision is made to use force,
military operations must conform to the laws of war.
A rule of reason operates with respect to the law governing the decision
to use force and conduct military operations. With respect to the principle of
necessity, force may be used in self-defense if an armed attack occurs when,
taking into account the totality of the circumstances, it is unreasonable to sup-

352
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

pose a nonforcible response will achieve the lawful goal of self-defensethe

end to the situation giving rise to the right to use of force defensively. What
is proportional force also must conform to a rule of reason: that minimum
degree of force reasonably calculated to achieve the lawful goal of force. As an
operational matter, the tactical use of force should distinguish between com-
batant and noncombatant targets. Civilians may not be targeted.40
Under the laws of war, prisoners must be treated with humanity, no mat-
ter whether they lawfully enjoy combatant status or not.41 Lawful combatants,
for example, are entitled to treatment as prisoners of war (POWs). Unlawful
combatants and others must be treated humanely but may be subject to prose-
cution for doing what would be lawful under the laws of war if done by lawful
combatantsfor example, killing. They do not enjoy combatant immunity.42
As we have seen, the United States, with the implicit endorsement of the
UN Security Council and the explicit concurrence of its NATO Allies, treated
9/11 as armed attacks to which it could respond with proportional uses of
force. This judgment should have provided the basis for categorization and
treatment of detainees from the outset, just as it did with respect to who or
what could be the target of military operations. Together with the congres-
sional resolution authorizing the use of force against the perpetrators, these
actions signaled international agreement with the U.S. Presidents decision to
give Afghanistan an ultimatum to deliver Osama bin Laden and other al Qae-
da leaders to the United States for trial or share in their fate.43
International legal authorities for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003
were more open to debate than U.S. domestic law authorities. Unlike in 1990
1991, the UN Security Council did not provide explicit authorization to use
force against Iraq in 20012003. The Security Council resolution on Iraq prior
to the invasion in March 2003, Resolution 1441 (2002), adopted on November
8, 2002,44 found Iraq to be in material breach of its obligations under prior
binding UN Security Council resolutions. Resolution 1441 was the ninth such
Security Council finding since 1991.
Whether it could or should be read as an authorization is a matter on
which experts have disagreed.45 Material breach, according to the Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties, which the United States always has re-
garded as an accurate statement of the customary international law of treaties
and thus binding on the United States, vitiates the multilateral agreement and,

353
Rostow and Rishikof

if all the parties agree, entitles one party to treat it as suspended or terminat-
ed.46 Resolution 1441 provided that unanimous agreement. On the other hand,
some have argued that the Security Council should have made that judgment,
not individual states acting on the basis of the view that the 1991 authorization
has continued in force because the Security Council had never rescinded it.47
A principal U.S. legal theory made much of this UN Security Council
finding of material breach. In 1990, the Council had authorized the use of
force against Iraq to uphold and implement its resolutions responding to Iraqs
August 1, 1990, invasion of Kuwait.48 After the 1991 Gulf War, Resolution 687
set conditions that Iraq had to meet for the authorization to use force no lon-
ger to be in effect.49 Those conditions not having been met, the United States
and the United Kingdom (and the Legal Counsel to the United Nations in the
1990s) understood the 1990 authorization to remain in effect in 2002.

Detention
U.S. detention policy and practice after the attacks of September 11, 2001, have
involved two unrelated but important elements. The first concerns domestic
detention. The second involved detention of those captured in or near theaters
of military operations against al Qaeda and its supporters and those suspected
of terrorist connections or activities and residing or transiting foreign coun-
tries. Though the two kinds of detention raise different legal issues, U.S. con-
duct in each of these areas suggests several lessons to be learned.

Domestic Detention
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the United States
relied on broad interpretations of statutes in order to detain aliens and U.S.
citizens. These statutes were written in a different era and context. As thenAs-
sistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff stated in 2001:

In past terrorist investigations, you usually had a defined event and

youre investigating it after the fact. Thats not what we had here. . . .
From the start, there was every reason to believe that there is more to
come. . . . So we thought that we were getting information to prevent
more attacks, which was even more important than trying any case that
came out of the attacks.50

354
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

He also noted, Were clearly not standing on ceremony, and if there is a

basis to hold them were going to hold them.51 Attorney General John Ash-
croft was more explicit still: We have waged a deliberate campaign of arrest
and detention to remove suspected terrorists who violate the law from our
streets.52 One assumes that he meant that persons who were suspected of ter-
rorism were arrested for nonterrorism offenses, not on the basis of suspicion
only.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, as amended, aliens
found either inadmissible or removable for terrorist activity are subject to
mandatory detention until deportation.53 According to a 2002 FBI affidavit
concerning the investigation into 9/11:

the FBI identified individuals whose activities warranted further inqui-

ry. When such individuals were identified as aliens who were believed to
have violated their immigration status, the FBI notified the Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS). The INS detained such aliens under
the authority of the Immigration and Nationality Act. At this point, the
FBI must consider the possibility that these aliens are somehow linked
to, or may possess knowledge useful to the investigation of, the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.54

Fourteen years after September 11, the logic of the affidavitthe assump-
tion that aliens who had violated their immigration status were or might be
connected to terrorist threatsis clear. In 2001, everyone wanted to know
what the FBI knew. Few questions were asked about the Bureaus factual basis
for arrests or how it obtained information. That is a lesson in itself. Govern-
ment reticence about answering legitimate questions, just like government in-
timidation of people to make them afraid to ask questions, puts the peoples
freedom and real security at risk.55
The government also invoked the Material Witness Statute as authority to
detain.56 In relevant part, the statute provides:

If it appears from an affidavit filed by a party that the testimony of a

person is material in a criminal proceeding, and if it is shown that it
may become impracticable to secure the presence of the person by sub-

355
Rostow and Rishikof

poena, a judicial officer may order the arrest of the person and treat the
person in accordance with the provisions of section 3142 of this title. . . .
Release of a material witness may be delayed for a reasonable period of
time until the deposition of the witness can be taken.57

In 2011, the Supreme Court held that motive is irrelevant in determining

whether a particular use of the statute was constitutional.58
The use of the Immigration and Nationality Act and Material Witness
Statute after 9/11 resulted in more than 1,000 arrests, ending in prosecutions
chiefly for document or immigration fraud. Some 400 persons were charged;
39 were convicted of terrorism-related offenses.59 While the constitutional
norm for arrest is probable cause leading to a judicial warrant, there are ex-
ceptions where reasonable suspicion exists.60 The Supreme Court has alluded
to the possibility of a broader exception when terrorism is suspected.61 At-
torney General Ashcroft defended the policy and practice by quoting Attor-
ney General Robert F. Kennedys willingness to arrest organized crime figures
for spitting on the sidewalk if it would help in the battle against organized
crime.62
In September 2001, the U.S. Government believed that if it did not act
quickly, another attack would follow. On the other hand, terrorist attacks or
other such shocks require professionalism and vigilance from everyone to
minimize unintended consequences, including and perhaps especially with
respect to the rule of law. The imperative of such vigilance in the context and
wake of chaos is another important lesson to be learned.

Detention as a Result of Armed Conflict

Detention is a foreseeable feature of military operations and counterterrorism
operations generally. It requires answers to three questions, preferably before
the operations take place: What are the circumstances of the detention, and, if
they involve an armed conflict, what kind of armed conflict is involved? What
are the rights and protections of the detainees? What is the appropriate gov-
ernmental department that should be responsible for the detention process?
In all cases, the state is responsible. It has to decide how to discharge that
responsibility. The Third Geneva Convention Relative to Prisoners of War sets
forth requirements that the responsible body must follow.63 In military opera-

356
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

tions, armed forces take and hold prisoners until the state decides otherwise.
The armed forces are not the only governmental body that may do so; the state
may designate other organizations as responsible or create an organization for
the purpose of exercising responsibility with respect to detainees.
The following sections provide possible answers to these questions within
the framework of what is commonly referred to as the war on terror and
define the detention options available to the United States under the laws of
war following the September 11 attacks. Those options include detaining the
alleged attackers and their co-conspirators as prisoners of war as a matter
of U.S. policy; detaining the alleged terrorist actors as unlawful combatants
engaged in combat or combat-related activities, therefore subject to prosecu-
tion; and detaining civilians to remove them from the battlefield for their own
protection. Regardless, treatment of detainees in the first two cases would be
governed by Common Article 3 of the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, which
means, at a minimum, humane treatment.64 Prosecution, whether in military
or civilian courts, would depend on admissible evidence.
The United States is a party to the most important treaties governing the
conduct of military operations, including the four Geneva Conventions of
1949, which are at the core of the laws of war. Article VI, Clause 2, of the
Constitution makes treaties part of the supreme law of the land.65 This clause
requires the United States to follow a treaty even if its language indicates that it
is not self-executing, meaning that it cannot be enforced in U.S. courts without
implementing legislation.66 Parts of the Geneva Conventions have been adopt-
ed as U.S. statutes in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.67
The 1949 Geneva Conventions are second only to the UN Charter in
terms of numbers of states-parties. Authoritative decisionmakers therefore
regard elements of the conventions as having become part of customary in-
ternational law, binding on all states and participants in the international
system whether they have become parties to the conventions.68 In 1977, an
international conference concluded two Protocols Additional to the 1949 Ge-
neva Conventions, Protocol I dealing with international armed conflict and
Protocol II dealing with noninternational armed conflict. The United States is
not a party to protocols I and II but regards elements as accurately codifying
customary international law. The protocols as a whole do not represent cus-
tomary international law.69

357
Rostow and Rishikof

One must evaluate the detentions during the Afghan and Iraq conflicts
through the lens of the laws of war. For much of the period 2001 to 2005, the
administration went to great lengths to avoid doing so.70 It further appears that
experts in the laws of war and the law governing interrogation were excluded
from the decisionmaking process.71 This result-oriented process led to erro-
neous decisions that have damaged the reputation of the United States and
compromised the international and multilateral effort to combat terrorism.
International Armed Conflict. The Geneva Conventions and Additional
Protocols of 1977 envision two types of armed conflict: an international armed
conflict and a noninternational armed conflict. An international armed con-
flict involves at least two states in armed conflict with each other.72 Additional
Protocol I will apply to the extent a state party to the conflict has ratified it
or regards specific provisions to be accurate restatements of customary inter-
national law. The United States has not ratified Additional Protocol I in part
because it confuses the distinction between military and civilian targets and
humane treatment of prisoners. The protocol would extend lawful combatant
status, as a matter of law, to those whom the United States and others regard
as terrorists or other unlawful combatants not entitled to POW status upon
capture. A farmer by day, fighter by night73 does not constitute a lawful com-
batant in the American view; rather, such a person is an unlawful combatant
directly participating in hostilities.74
The Third Geneva Convention sets forth in detail criteria for lawful com-
batant status. They include the following:

Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons

belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the
power of the enemy:

(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as mem-
bers of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps,
including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party
to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this
territory is occupied, provided such militias or volunteer corps, includ-
ing such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

358
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordi-

nates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and
customs of war.75

If one is captured when fighting but does not meet these and similar cri-
teria set forth in Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention, one is not a lawful
combatant and thus subject to prosecution for murder and/or accessory to
murder. Although such a person does not enjoy POW status, as a matter of
law, he must be treated humanely. A prisoner of war or someone held pursuant
to Common Article 3 is entitled to not only humane but also respectful treat-
ment.76 Detention of a POW lasts until the cessation of active hostilities,77 but
POWs undergoing judicial punishment may be repatriated before the end of
the sentence.78
If one is not a lawful combatant, one is a mere fighter or unprivileged
belligerent or unlawful combatant, not entitled to POW status upon capture.
A member of the armed forces in conflict with an unlawful combatant may
target the unlawful combatant in battlefield or other circumstances permit-
ting the use of lethal force. In addition, on capture, an unlawful combatant is
subject to prosecution for engaging in criminal acts that would be lawful for a
lawful combatant to undertake (for example, killing). Lawful combatant status
alone gives an individual the right to engage in hostilities without committing
murder or being an accessory to murder.79 The violent acts of an unlawful
combatant usually constitute criminal acts.80
The legal options considered above do not exhaust detention options or
issues. In Iraq, for example, the United States found itself detaining Iraqis and
others and having to categorize them by group affiliation and determine which
law(s) to apply. Providing adequate facilities for the number of persons de-
tained, maintaining security inside the facility as well as security from external
attack, and conducting status review consume resources and carry high stra-
tegic risk. If detention operations appear to be a failure and conducted con-
trary to law and morality, as was the case at Abu Ghraib in 20032004, public
support for the military campaign as a whole may erode and do so quickly. As

359
Rostow and Rishikof

a matter of policy, the United States could treat all detainees captured in con-
nection with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and global counterterrorism
operations as POWs.81 The detaining state could determine whether a conflict
is international or noninternational, what mix of international and domestic
law to apply, and whether treatment is humane under the Geneva Conven-
tions.82 In addition, it might decide to use tribunals to try alleged violators of
the laws of war.
Guantanamo Bay. One of the most important lessons to identify and learn
concerns the use of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as a detention facility for per-
sons captured in the war on terror. The decision to hold detainees there seems
to have been made to minimize the U.S. constitutional rights of detainees and
to maximize the governments freedom with respect to the treatment and inter-
rogation of such detainees. Despite the voluminous memoir literature covering
the period, we know little about how the decision was made and why.83 Douglas
Feiths memoir mentions the reason for establishing a facility at Guantanamo
Bay was to avoid detainee petitions for writs of habeas corpus. The goal was
to extract intelligence about future terrorist operations from those held there
without benefit of legal counsel or other due process. This plan failed because it
was predicated on a legal belief based in immigration law that a facility not on
U.S.-owned territory was outside the Constitution,84 which the Supreme Court
held to be incorrect.85 According to Feith and Donald Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld pre-
dicted that detention would become a serious political and legal issue and for
that reason did not want the Department of Defense to be responsible.86
The use of Guantanamo Bay as a prison for detainees has been severe-
ly criticized since 2001.87 It was not necessary to house detainees there. One
could just as easily have held them in theater or given responsibility for deten-
tion to our Afghan or Iraqi allies.88 Alternatively, one could have put detainees
in a facility in the territorial United States, as was the practice with respect
to POWs during World War II. The latter option would have had foreseeable
consequences. The government could have prepared for issues in advance and,
therefore, reduced their impact on policy and politics.
As the Supreme Court decided in 2004,89 detainees do have the right to
petition for a writ of habeas corpus. That decision has imposed resource costs
on the United States, but they apparently have not been high. Few detainees
have obtained their freedom using this avenue, although detainees have been

360
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

released pursuant to diplomatic agreement with other countries.90 The use of

ordinary district courts to try terrorist cases has proved feasible and success-
ful, but moving the detainees to the districts for trial has proved politically
impossible.91
The military commissions thus far have proved cumbersome and subject
to innumerable legal objections and practical difficulties. The United States
brought the first detainee to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002 and the last
in March 2008. The United States has held approximately 780 detainees there
since 2002. As of April 2015, 122 remained. Fifty-six are approved for release.
Military commissions have convicted eight (six by plea agreement). An addi-
tional 29 are designated for trial, and 34 are being held indefinitely. The annual
cost of the facility per detainee is approximately $3 million.92
Procedural and due process issues have hindered the prosecution at
Guantanamo. In 2012, the District of Columbia Circuit Court reversed the
conviction of Salim Hamdan on the grounds that the crime of material sup-
port did not exist as a war crime under international law at the time of the
conduct.93 Such issues were not anticipated but should have been because the
commissions had to be created from scratch, including creating workable and
fair rules of procedure.94 In response to critics, Congress in 2009 amended the
original 2006 Military Commissions Act. Critics continue to argue that the
government should try detainees in ordinary Federal courts and that the fail-
ure to do so is a sign that the cases are not strong. Defenders of commissions
point to security threats, the risk of disclosing classified information, and the
fairness of the amended procedures since 2009. Still an open legal question
is the extent to which constitutional guarantees apply to aliens detained at
Guantanamo.95 Pursuant to the Supreme Court holding in Hamdan v. Rums-
feld,96 Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies. Thus, detainees
are entitled to a hearing and trial before a duly constituted court vested with
procedural and judicial guarantees. Comparison between the procedural safe-
guards of the two courts yields few material differences. Differences that exist
include such subjects as search and seizure, a difference that reflects the char-
acter of armed conflict. In the end, the Supreme Court will determine whether,
as a matter of U.S. law, military commissions provide adequate due process.
If the court holds that they do, such a result still may not have an impact on
international opinion, which seems to have calcified in opposition.97

361
Rostow and Rishikof

For all the failings and headaches associated with the detentions, there
have been practical benefits to the detention experience. The United States has
learned how to build and maintain a first-class detention facility, suited to a de-
tention population unique to the American prison system. While the detention
facilities at Guantanamo Bay do not run on ordinary corrections principles,
this fact does not seem to put them at a higher risk of prison upheaval than oth-
er prisons. Visiting congressional delegations, the media, and the International
Committee of the Red Cross provide continual observation of the treatment of
detainees. Over time, the United States has learned how to operate such a fa-
cility and obtain information from detainees about plans for prison disruption.
Detainees no longer have information relevant to current terrorist operations.
Detention at Guantanamo has raised the question of duration. A war
against terror could last an extremely long time. Under the Third Geneva
Convention, prisoners of war may be held until the cessation of active hostil-
ities.98 Does the detaining power alone have the right to decide when release
will not result in a return to a battlefield? This question has yet to be answered,
even as the United States attempts to close the Guantanamo facility by send-
ing detainees elsewhere, knowing that some released detainees have resumed
fighting the United States and its partners.99
One of the most controversial U.S. practices at the facility is the imple-
mentation of a no-suicide policy. To prevent suicide, facility personnel must
conduct 24-hour surveillance of the detainees and force-feed them when they
go on hunger strikes.100 In addition, as a Federal district judge noted on No-
vember 7, 2014, common sense and decency have not always prevailed in the
treatment of detainees, even those in a physically debilitated condition as a re-
sult of hunger striking.101 Critics of the facility and practices there have threat-
ened to complain to doctors licensing boards alleging violations of profession-
al ethics. As a result, doctors have had to preserve anonymity.102
The Guantanamo Bay detention facilities remain unique among both U.S.
prisons and detention facilities for those captured in the course of hostilities.
They are expensive, due to the fact that over 2,000 personnel are caring for
fewer than 125 detainees.103 The facility now raises the question: what is the
U.S. standard for defining the meaning of treated humanely in Common
Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949? Is it the treatment those
detainees receive today in Guantanamo?104

362
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

Noninternational Armed Conflict. A noninternational armed conflict is

what the language suggests: confined within the borders of a country. The cat-
egorization depends on geography because the laws of war have not applied
in civil wars historically unless one side decides to abide by them, as in the
case of the American Civil War.105 Captives in civil wars in the past tended to
receive harsh treatment. Common Article 3, affording all persons captured
in a noninternational armed conflict humane treatment, did not formally be-
come the standard until 1949. Even under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the
detaining authority determines whether treatment is humane, although it may
be subjected to criticism if its treatment is not obviously humane. The United
States has been criticized more for housing detainees in Guantanamo Bay than
because of routine treatment methods. In 2002, the Bush administration an-
nounced that it would treat detained Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in a man-
ner consistent with the Geneva Conventions.106 According to Douglas Feith,
this position reflected his views and those of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, General Richard B. Myers, not the Department of Justice, General
Counsel of the Department of Defense, Counsel to the President, or Counsel
to the Vice President.107 The latter were reluctant to adopt a position that might
confer legitimacy on al Qaeda and Taliban activities and constrain the range
of interrogation options available.108 The position Feith and Myers successfully
opposed may have reflected a misunderstanding of the requirements of the
Geneva Conventions with respect to interrogation. In 20012002, the admin-
istrations process for preparing a position on law of war issues circumscribed
discussion, excluding those lawyersthe Judge Advocates General in particu-
larwho are most expert in the area. In this regard, an analogy might be a dis-
cussion of anti-trust law without the benefit of anti-trust lawyers. Feith, who
had studied the Geneva Conventions and the 1977 protocols in the 1980s, was
sufficiently expert to carry the day. Feith argued that the Geneva Conventions
specified how to treat those who were captured and whether they were entitled
to POW treatment. In any case, all were entitled to humane treatment.109
In 2006, well after the initial reaction to the 9/11 attacks and the over-
throw of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, the Supreme Court clarified the
U.S. position with respect to the legal character of the conflict with al Qaeda
and the treatment of its members or affiliates. The Supreme Court held that, as
a matter of U.S. law, the United States is engaged in a global, noninternational

363
Rostow and Rishikof

conflict with al Qaeda.110 As such, detainees are not entitled to POW status
as a matter of law but must be humanely treated consistent with Common
Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Of course, the fact that the United
States may deny alleged al Qaeda conspirators POW status operates as a floor
rather than a ceiling on its legally permissible treatment options. For poli-
cy reasons rather than legal obligation, the United States could have chosen
to afford al Qaeda detainees POW status and the accompanying protections
under international and domestic constitutional law. In addition, the United
States could arrest and prosecute detainees under domestic criminal law. As-
sembling a prosecutable case is sometimes difficult if interrogators and jailers
have mistreated the defendant. Evidence of criminality may be hard to find by
examining terrain and plumbing the memories of troops. Nonetheless, Federal
court trials of terrorists have succeeded.111 The court thus vindicated Myers
and Feith. A lesson to draw from this episode is that the government avoided
error because of the coincidence of Feiths expertise. A more inclusive legal
process would have made luck unnecessary.

Interrogation: Hard Cases Make Bad Law

After September 11, the U.S. Governments most important goal was to prevent
a repetition of the attacks. Therefore, as soon as arrests or captures were made,
the government sought information from detainees regarding future plans.
Leaders of the plot to commit the attacks of 9/11 and other al Qaeda members
were most likely to possess this information; hence, the label high-value de-
tainees applied.112 The detention of such persons and the pressing need for in-
formation seemed to justify enhanced interrogation techniques.113 The Presi-
dent himself chose the methods from a list.114 His conclusion, based on advice,
was that waterboarding would be an acceptable exception to all the norms
and laws regarding interrogation. In prior conflicts dating even to the Span-
ish-American War, the United States deemed such practices torture.115 These
actions were to be carefully monitored and were only applied to a handful
of the worst terrorists on the planet, including people who planned the 9/11
terrorist attacks and who, among other things, were responsible for journalist
Daniel Pearls death.116 To date, only Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) inter-
rogators have waterboarded detainees.117 The Agency instituted health proto-
cols to ensure that no permanent harm was done.118

364
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

The CIA and executive branch proclaimed the value of these interroga-
tions after the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammedan alleged master-
mind of the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration announced that high-value
detainees could provide information that would save thousands of innocent
lives and more than twenty plots [that] had been put in motion by al-Qaida
against U.S. infrastructure targets had been uncovered through these inter-
rogations.119 CIA Director George Tenet pointed to the capture and interro-
gation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as one of the greatest CIA successes and
wrote that none of these successes would have happened if we had to treat
KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] like a white-collar criminalread him his
Miranda rights and get him a lawyer who surely would have insisted that his
client simply shut up.120 Other administration officials followed the same gen-
eral line of explanation without disclosing the details of what the interrogation
disclosed.121
The interrogation program provoked outrage.122 Defenders point to ex-
treme circumstances as justificationfor example, the placement of a nuclear
weapon in a city.123 Defenders of enhanced interrogation techniques (later
deemed to be torture by President Obama124) need to make the case that alter-
natives would not have worked. Professional interrogators assert that all one
needs is time to obtain reliable information from most prisoners.125 The Bush
administration believed that time was what it lacked. According to Tenet, the
CIA obtained Justice Department approval for the interrogation techniques it
used and briefed the chairs and ranking Members of the congressional intelli-
gence committees.126
In 2014, the then-Democratic majority of the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence issued a report on the interrogations and CIA conduct. The
report disputed the Agency claim that only three detainees were subject to
waterboarding.127 The report also disputed that interrogation techniques had
proved an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining the cooperation
of detainees. In response to this conclusion of the committee majority, CIA
Director John Brennan stated, the cause and effect relationship between the
use of EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques] and useful information sub-
sequently provided by the detainee is, in my view, unknowable.128 The com-
mittee majority report also accused the CIA of systematic misrepresentations
about the program. Brennan denied this allegation.129

365
Rostow and Rishikof

Prohibition on Torture
Domestic and international law have relevancy to interrogation of those seized
in connection with international military and other operations. With regard
to those detained as a result of counterterrorism operations, including mili-
tary operations, since September 11 discussion has focused on the Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Pun-
ishment and implementing legislation in the United States.
The United Nations Convention against Torture defines torture as:

any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is

intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from
him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for
an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having
committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any
reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering
is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence
of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does
not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental
to lawful sanctions.130

The United States ratified the convention with a Senate-approved under-

standing that torture meant an act specifically intended to inflict severe phys-
ical or mental suffering resulting from the intentional infliction or threat of
infliction, or infliction or threat of infliction on a third person, of severe phys-
ical or mental pain or suffering.131 The Federal Torture Act implementing this
convention was adopted in 1994 and incorporated the understanding as stat-
utory language.132 The Torture Statute imposed criminal penalties on actions
against one who specifically intends to inflict severe physical pain or mental
pain or suffering.133 Since 1992, the United States also has been a party to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits torture
or . . . cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.134 The question
became: What is torture?

366
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

The Memoranda on Torture

For a number of years prior to the September 11 attacks, the CIA had sought
legal opinions as protection when undertaking missions that likely would be
particularly dangerous or politically controversial, or both. The claim of acting
in accordance with legal advice is a defense in the event of criminal investiga-
tions of CIA activities.135 The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel is the
executive branch authority on the meaning of U.S. law. Executive departments
and agencies therefore seek its legal opinion. In summer of 2002 and again in
May 2005, the CIA requested an Office of Legal Counsel opinion to safeguard
against potential criminal and civil penalties against individuals involved in
interrogating high-value detainees. The Office of Legal Counsel provided the
requested opinions in several controversial legal memoranda.136
These memoranda reviewed U.S. anti-torture statutes and proposed
interrogation techniques. First, they concluded that the Fifth and Eighth
Amendments of the Constitution do not extend to alien combatants when
held outside the United States.137 Second, they asserted that certain Federal
criminal statutes do not apply to properly authorized interrogations of ene-
my combatants.138 Third, the memoranda interpreted 18 U.S.C. 2340the
statute making it a criminal offense for any person outside the United States
to commit or attempt to commit torturenot to apply to interrogations con-
ducted within the United States or permanent military bases such as Guanta-
namo Bay.139 Furthermore, the memoranda interpreted 2340 to define tor-
ture narrowly, requiring intentional acts resulting in death, organ failure, or
serious impairment of bodily functions.140 Fourth, al Qaeda and associated
forces are not entitled to the protections that the Third Geneva Convention
provides to prisoners of war.141 By redefining the legal standard for torture to
equate with acts resulting in death or organ failure and ignoring the validity
of the Geneva Conventions, the memoranda seemingly put aside existing law
on torture. After arguing against what appeared to be settled law, the memo-
randa did not include an assessment of likely public, including international,
reactions.

Reactions to the Memoranda

Strong criticism greeted the June 2004 public release of the Office of Legal
Counsel memoranda on torture.142 Top administration officials immediately

367
Rostow and Rishikof

began to distance themselves from it. Congress and the administration acted
to strengthen the existing prohibitions on torture by U.S. officials. The memo-
randa were withdrawn, reaffirmed in 2005, and withdrawn again. Nonetheless,
in 2005, the Attorney General reaffirmed the lawfulness of the use of harsh
interrogation techniques. Ultimately, the Supreme Court reached conclusions
contradicting those in the memoranda. The memoranda nevertheless have
continued to be part of the debate about the legality of torture.143
Congress. During his nomination hearing for U.S. Attorney General, Mi-
chael Mukasey commented on the memoranda, stating that worse than a sin,
it was a mistake.144 Subsequent administration actions reflect such an opinion
of the memoranda. Much of the current legal framework for interrogating ter-
rorist detainees was established as a reaction to the memoranda. In 2005, Con-
gress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, commonly referred to as the Mc-
Cain Amendment,145 which sought to enforce U.S. international obligations by
explicitly prohibiting all executive departments and agencies from subjecting
detainees under U.S. Government control to cruel, inhuman, or degrading
treatment, consistent with international law.146 Additionally, the law limited
interrogation techniques only to those listed in the U.S. Army Field Manual.147
At the same time, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) publicly announced that the
bill did not rule out harsh treatment in case of an emergency such as imminent
attack or even when faced with a hostage rescue scenario.148
Hamdan. In June 2006, the Supreme Court held that the United States is
obligated to adhere to the prohibition on torture in Common Article 3 of the
1949 Geneva Conventions.149 In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld,150 the Supreme Court
held that Article 3 applied to the conflict with al Qaeda and prohibited subject-
ing detainees to violence, outrages upon personal dignity, torture, and cruel
or degrading punishment. Thus, Hamdan gave notice that the Office of Legal
Counsels memoranda were incorrect.
A year later, President Bush issued Executive Order 13340, reinforcing ex-
isting legal prohibitions on torture.151 However, another controversial Office of
Legal Counsel opinion overshadowed this order. The opinion concluded that
six enhanced interrogation techniques, when used with specified conditions
and safeguards, could be employed by the CIA against high-value detainees
belonging to al Qaeda without violating either the McCain Amendment or
Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.152

368
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

The Obama Administration. On January 22, 2009, on his second full day
in office, President Obama issued his own executive order concerning detain-
ee interrogation, rescinding Bushs order and closing many avenues for inter-
rogation left open by the Bush administration. The order banned enhanced
interrogation and instructed all U.S. agencies that the only authorized inter-
rogation techniques were those listed in the Army Field Manual. Much like
the Bush administrations executive orders and memoranda on torture, Pres-
ident Obamas stance also has met with criticism and provoked debate. Some
argue that his position on interrogation has gone too far, overly constraining
American efforts to obtain valuable information from terrorist suspects. Such
criticisms focus in particular on the Presidents rejection of enhanced interro-
gation techniques. The arguments claim that since all interrogation methods
used now must conform to the standards of the Army Field Manual, Americas
enemies can prepare themselves to resist these methods, thereby rendering in-
terrogations less effective sources of valuable intelligence. Furthermore, many
argue that, in the case of an emergency when time is of the essence, it may be
necessary to use harsh interrogation techniques to obtain necessary intelli-
gence.153

Lessons from Interrogation Policy

The magnitude of the September 11 attacks was unprecedented, as were the
shock and fear it generated. In this time of emergency, when suspects refused
to talk, it was to some extent inevitable that the Bush administration would
use extreme measures to obtain any information that could protect Ameri-
can lives, including extrajudicial means such as enhanced interrogation tech-
niques and torture. That such interrogation techniques will be used regardless
of the law (or their historical record of effectiveness) does not render them
legal. The U.S. interrogation policy brings us back to an important lesson from
the first decades of the 21st century: the need for a disciplined and inclusive
interagency process as a check on action that in retrospect seems impulsive
rather than carefully considered.154
First, some commentators believe it should be permissible to engage in
torture/enhanced interrogation techniques. Advocates of this position argue
that such techniques should be used only if circumstances require them and if
rigorous procedures, including congressional oversight, exist. In such a case,

369
Rostow and Rishikof

the government would be arguing that it was permitted by a legal doctrine

of necessity. Such procedural steps are necessary so as to publicly emphasize
compliance with domestic and international law. The U.S. Government should
seek to establish domestic rather than international procedures and processes
to follow before engaging in enhanced interrogations.155 This process should
include review by independent legal specialists, particularly given the complex
questions of international humanitarian law that interrogation inevitably rais-
es. Transparency also must be provided such that the other branches of gov-
ernment are capable of providing meaningful oversight of the interrogations.
Second, some argue that if the President is going to act extrajudicially, a
limited duration must be established under which the employment of extraor-
dinary measures such as enhanced interrogation may reasonably be used.156
The President cannot have an unlimited timeframe during which he legally
may act out of necessity as commander in chief; the ticking bomb actually
must tick. When the emergency passes and no threat to U.S. citizens seems
imminent, military and civilian personnel must be prohibited from engaging
in harsh techniques.
Third, military and nonmilitary personnel must be trained to conduct in-
terrogations in a manner that is consistent with domestic and international
law.157 They must be aware of the potential consequences of interrogation. Such
training is especially important given that U.S. law provides legal protections
against criminal and civil actions only when U.S. agents did not know that
the [interrogation] practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense
and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful.158 A good
faith reliance on advice of counsel is an important factor in considering the
reasonableness of such actions159 but is not a substitute for adequate training.
Fourth, the executive branch itself needs greater internal oversight so that
it is aware of the actions taken by the military or the Intelligence Community.
It took the senior levels of the Bush administration nearly 4 months to learn
of the shocking and clearly illegal events in the military detention facility at
Abu Ghraib.
Influencing the debate are the following questions and how they are an-
swered: Do the interrogation techniquestorturework? Such techniques
have been used since time immemorial, which suggests the perpetrators be-
lieve some useful information always will be obtained. Are such techniques

370
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

of interrogation politically defensible in a democracy, particularly the United

States? The Golden Rule is the norm but is not followed by many enemies of
the United States. Should the United States, as a matter of policy, follow that
rule whether enemies do so? Finally, what role should morality play? Is torture
consistent with what Americans think they are or what they think their gov-
ernment should do?
The exchanges among the majority and minority of the Senate Select Com-
mittee on Intelligence and the CIA have neither answered all the questions nor
put to rest the controversy about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques
and the effectiveness of such techniques. We conclude that the United States
should respect the normative regime against torture set forth in the conven-
tion and implementing statute, and that if a President deems it necessary to
authorize conduct that varies from that normative regime, he or she should be
prepared to defend the action by making a necessity defense. If the President is
not prepared to take that step, that fact would suggest that deviating from the
norm is not necessary or otherwise justified.160

High-Tech Sniping: The Targeted Killing Controversy

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, first the Bush administration and then the
Obama administration have insisted, without much controversy or opposi-
tion, that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, its
associates, and any state that supported it. This characterization of the conflict
does not mean law enforcement methods would never be used, especially as
the perpetrators had engaged in prosecutable crimes. Rather, it acknowledges
the need for a spectrum of methods to defend the country and prevent a repe-
tition of the attacks. As a result, from the outset, the conflict engaged the Pres-
idents constitutional authorities and responsibilities as commander in chief
and the use of U.S. armed force against al Qaeda. Determining lawful targets
for the armed forces takes place in this context.161
The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force explicitly gives the Pres-
ident power to target individuals determined to bear responsibility for the at-
tacks. The laws of war permit the targeted killing of lawful targets (indeed,
the laws of war prefer targeted killings because they demonstrably respect or
attempt to respect distinctions between combatants and noncombatants and
military and civilian targets), and the history of warfare is in large part the his-

371
Rostow and Rishikof

tory of soldiers trying to kill identifiable soldiers on the opposing side. At the
same time, applying the standard involves more than just applying a yardstick.
For example, a difficult issue of appraisal involves determination of who or
what might be considered to be directly participating in hostilities.162
The 9/11 attacks highlighted the danger posed by terrorist safe havens
in remote parts of the world. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), because of
their technological qualities, have come to be a weapon of choice in target-
ing commanders and leaders of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups at war
with the United States. They can loiter over a target for long periods, permit-
ting the acquisition of precise targeting data. They fire precision weapons,
thus permitting substantial limitation of collateral damage. They do not put
friendly pilots or soldiers at risk because they are unmanned. They can at-
tack persons hiding in areas difficult to reach by soldiers. For these reasons,
President Bush, and, more frequently, President Obama have used UAVs in
fighting terrorists. ThenCIA Director Leon Panetta called armed UAVs the
only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the Al Qaeda
leadership.163
Despite the advantages provided by UAVs and their demonstrated effec-
tiveness, their use has engendered much debate.164 So long as the targeted kill-
ing is carried out consistently with the legal principles from the laws of war set
forth in this chapter, we see no more difficulty with the practice than with the
sort of sniping that killed Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar.

The Lawful Target

The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force gave the President appropri-
ate guidance as well as discretion. Its grant of authority to use all necessary
and appropriate force165 limited the Presidents authority to use the military
instrument to those situations where police action, by the United States or the
state in which the terrorist is found, is impossible. It was neither necessary
nor appropriate to use the Armed Forces to track down and arrest Timothy
McVeigh for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Attacks by UAVs in London
or Paris or Moscow would be inappropriate as well as unnecessary. A use of
force against Osama bin Laden was necessary and appropriate given the law-
fulness of the target under the laws of war and the circumstances of his loca-
tion, including the lack of cooperation by the host government or inability of

372
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

the host government to discharge its international legal responsibilities with

respect to the use of force from its territory.
Military operations conducted by the United States must conform to U.S.
legal obligations. The Uniform Code of Military Justice incorporates that law
in so far as it is set forth in treaties to which the United States is a party, such as
the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, or in customary international law.166 U.S.
military operations are conducted with the benefit of legal advice offered by
Judge Advocates General assigned to commands in the field, the headquarters
of combatant commanders, and Washington, DC.
The principal sources of law in this area are the 1949 Geneva Conventions
and those sections of Additional Protocol I of 1977 that the United States re-
gards as an accurate codification of customary international law. At the core
of this body of law are the principles of necessity, proportionality, distinction,
and humanity.
Necessity. The military necessity requirement arises predominantly from
customary international law.167 Military objectives are defined in Article 52 of
Additional Protocol I as those objects which by their nature, location, pur-
pose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total
or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at
the time, offers a definite military advantage.168 This principle recognizes the
legitimate interest in ending hostilities through victory.169 At the same time,
since the first effort to codify a nations view of the laws of war during the
American Civil War, states have recognized that [m]ilitary necessity does not
admit of crueltythat is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering.170
Proportionality. The principle of proportionality requires that damage
to civilian objects . . . not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct
military advantage anticipated.171 Thus, belligerents are required to weigh
the military objective potentially achieved against the loss of civilian life and
damage to civilian property. When determining whether a belligerent met
this standard, one employs a reasonable commander standardthat is, one
must look at the situation as the commander saw it in light of all known cir-
cumstances.172
Distinction. The principle of distinction is central to the modern laws of
war. It obligates military commanders to distinguish between military and
civilian objectives.173 This principle requires combatants to discriminate be-

373
Rostow and Rishikof

tween military and civilian targets, direct their attacks at other combatants
and military targets, and protect civilians and civilian property to the extent
reasonable.174 Attacks that are not directed at military objects or that employ a
method or means of combat that cannot be directedso-called indiscriminate
attacksare forbidden.175 Belligerents must be distinguishable from civilians
and refrain from placing military personnel or materiel in or near civilian
objects or locations.176
While Protocol I directs belligerents to meet a feasibility standard in
regard to operationsfor example, those who plan or decide upon an attack
must do everything feasible to ensure they are not attacking civilians, civilian
objects, or items or individuals who enjoy special protection; to take all fea-
sible precautions when choosing weapons and tactics to minimize incidental
injury and collateral damage; and to select that military objective from among
those yielding a similar military advantage that may be expected to cause
the least danger to civilian lives and to civilian objects177the United States
certainly does not recognize this requirement as part of customary interna-
tional law however much it tries to adhere to it in operations and uses a quan-
tum of force that seems reasonable under the circumstances.178
Humanity. The principle of humanity or avoidance of unnecessary suf-
fering limits the ability of combatants to adopt certain means of injuring
the enemy.179 Consistent with the principle of necessity, inflicting suffering,
injury, or destruction not actually necessary for the accomplishment of legiti-
mate military purposes is prohibited.180 The humanity principle is comprised
of three parts: it prohibits use of arms that are per se calculated to cause un-
necessary suffering; it prohibits use of otherwise lawful arms in a manner
that causes unnecessary suffering; and those prohibitions apply only when
the unlawful effect is specifically intended.181
The State Department Legal Advisor, Harold Koh, explained the Obama
administrations position with respect to adherence to these principles in mil-
itary operations in 2010. He stated that the United States applied law of war
principles, including:

First, the principle of distinction, which requires that attacks be limited

to military objectives and that civilians or civilian objects shall not be
the subject of the attack; and

374
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

Second, the principle of proportionality, which prohibits attacks that

may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civil-
ians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, that would
be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage
anticipated.182

If a target is lawful under the laws of war, a state may use weapons, includ-
ing weapons delivered by UAVs against such targets. In this context, targeted
killing is no more than high-tech sniping. As a matter of international law,
when Afghanistan was unwilling or unable to take action against the perpetra-
tors of the 9/11 attacks and similarly unwilling or unable to prevent future at-
tacks, the United States not only had a right to use force in self-defense against
those perpetrators, but also in fact had no choice if it were to defend itself
against further attacks.
Critics have attacked the targeted killing program on the basis of its com-
pliance with the law of war principles of distinction, proportionality, and ne-
cessity. Yet UAVs are currently among the most precise weapons to hit remote
targets. Despite the sophistication of their technology, unmanned platforms
do not and cannot replace people in the evaluation process by which a lawful
target is identified, potential for civilian casualties is weighed, and after-action
results are considered. Unmanned platforms nonetheless make distinguishing
between military and nonmilitary targets and keeping collateral damage to a
minimum easier than historically has been possible. UAVs offer other specific
advantages that would seemingly make them preferable. They allow operators
to make target-engaging decisions absent fear of death or the fog of war.
They also allow for process in a way that other weapons systems do not. For
example, because a pilot is not in danger, the command center has additional
time to debate a strike and weigh the prudence of striking a particular target.
Achieving effective distinction between military and civilian targets is a
goal of contemporary laws of war. That UAVs provide an advantage to the side
possessing them seems undeniable. But inequality in means of warfare is not
disqualifying or illegal. Military commanders hope that the battle is unfair to
their advantage. Regardless of whether jihadists are considered lawful com-
batants or unlawful noncombatant fighters, terrorists who actively take part in
hostilities against the United States by plotting attacks are targetable.183

375
Rostow and Rishikof

Further addressing these principles, the White Houses May 23, 2013, fact
sheet, U.S. Policy Standards and Procedures for the Use of Force in Counter-
terrorism Operations Outside the United States and Areas of Active Hostilities,
states that compliance with these four principles is integral to the overall stan-
dard that the United States uses in deciding whether to undertake a targeting
operation against a particular terrorist target. That sheet asserts specifically:

[L]ethal force will be used outside areas of active hostilities only when
the following preconditions are met: First, there must be a legal basis
for using lethal force. . . . Second, the United States will use lethal force
only against a target that poses a continuing, imminent threat to U.S.
persons. . . . Third, the following criteria must be met before lethal ac-
tion may be taken:

1. Near certainty that the terrorist target is present;

2. Near certainty that non-combatants will not be injured or killed;
3. An assessment that capture is not feasible at the time of the
operation;
4. An assessment that the relevant governmental authorities in the
country where action is contemplated cannot or will not effectively
address the threat to U.S. persons;
5. An assessment that no other reasonable alternatives exist to effec-
tively address the threat to U.S. persons.

Finally, whenever the United States uses force in foreign territories, in-
ternational legal principles, including respect for sovereignty and the
law of armed conflict, impose important constraints on the ability of the
United States to act unilaterallyand on the way in which the United
States can use force.184

As currently conducted, unmanned attacks fall into two procedural cate-

gories. The Obama administration has tried to apply lessons it took from the
Bush administration experience. It has been transparent, or at least reasonably
transparent, with respect to determining who is targeted. After the targeted
killing of American Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011, the administration released legal

376
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

memoranda and a fact sheet providing parameters of its targeted killing proce-
dure. Paired with subsequent news reports, a rough sketch has emerged of an
intensive interagency process in which names are nominated and then debated.
Lawyers are present to help decide whether to engage the targets.
Al-Awlakis U.S. citizenship caused debate over whether targeted killing
was subject to constitutional due process protections. Some185 argue that indi-
vidual targets require notice before they are attacked.186 Others, like Samuel
Adelsberg,187 argue a neutral decisionmaker and additional inter-branch de-
liberation are required. Still others insist judicial review of targeting decisions
is required. A last group, to which the authors of this chapter belong, do not
consider such killings to involve judicial process at all. Being lawful targets as
a matter of the laws of war, combatants can be killed in military operations.
A leaked Department of Justice white paper argues that a lethal operation
against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al Qaeda or an as-
sociated force, in a foreign country, outside the area of active hostilities, does
not violate due process.188 Use of force in such circumstances is justified as an
act of national self-defense.189 Additionally, an al Qaeda leader is a member of
the cohort against whom Congress has authorized the use of necessary and
appropriate force.190 The fact that such a person also might be a U.S. citizen
does not alter this conclusion.191
This analysis is consistent with Supreme Court cases holding that the mil-
itary constitutionally may use force against a U.S. person who is part of ene-
my forces.192 Applying the Supreme Courts balancing approach in Mathews
v. Eldridge, the white paper concluded that lethal operations are permissible
(that is, the governments interest would outweigh the private interest of the
targeted citizen at issue), at least where an informed, high-level official of the
U.S. Government has determined that the targeted individual poses an immi-
nent threat of violent attack against the United States; where a capture opera-
tion would be infeasible (and where those conducting the operation continue
to monitor whether capture becomes feasible); and where such an operation
would be conducted consistent with applicable law of war principles. Similar
determinations were expressed by Eric Holder193 and President Obama.194 In
2010, Harold Koh noted that a state that is engaged in an armed conflict or
in legitimate self-defense is not required to provide targets with legal process
before the state may use lethal force.195

377
Rostow and Rishikof

Conclusions
It is impossible now to say when the era that began on September 11, 2001, will
end. Involved in continuous military and counterterrorism operations and
subject to repeated terrorist attacks, the United States, its friends, and allies
face a difficult future full of hard choices. How they should make those choices
is set forth in their respective constitutions and the laws adopted pursuant to
them. The body of relevant law includes international law. Our conclusions
embody lessons identified and to be learned from the first 14 years of the pe-
riod, which perhaps should be considered now as a condition of international
life rather than a long war.
First, of course, the United States and others should prepare themselves
for attack.196 Such preparation means practice, as if one were doing fire drills at
school, and development of plans for certain foreseeable situations involving
substantial numbers of casualties or shocking events, such as the January 2015
murder of the Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris, that do not involve large numbers
of people but strike at the heart of free expression.
Second, a regular and vigorous interagency decisionmaking process is
essential. When an event occurs, whether terrorist, military, or natural, the
pressure for speed will be enormous. That pressure squeezes out thinking and
common sense. The latter are essential to successful response.
Third, legal planning must be included as part of operational planning.
Thus, lawyers should be regarded as essential participants in the planning pro-
cess, preparing their clients for legal issues along the way and advising them
on how to address the issues as they come up. Such subjects as targeting, ar-
rest, and detention inevitably will be part of any military and counterterrorist
operations.
It is to be hoped that, as Philip Bobbitt has stated, We have entered a
period in which strategy and law are coming together.197 In any event, it is
desirable that we do so because the law expresses what society deems permis-
sible strategy and tactics. The fusion of law and policy is at the core of political
legitimacy and of the chief lessons we identify as important to learn in con-
templation of future conflict.
Lessons to be learned by the United States from the response to the 9/11
attacks are easier to identify than to learn and implement; the lessons cross
disciplines. They are not exclusively legal or military or tactical or strategic.

378
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

But because the law involves a process of authoritative decision, it is inextrica-

ble from what often is considered an exclusively policy process.

Embrace a Disciplined, Inclusive, Interagency Decisionmaking

Process
Such process contributes to good government in ordinary times.198 In a cri-
sis, when one may be tempted to treat them as time-consuming luxuries, it
is even more important. First impressions of reality usually are incomplete or
wrong.199 Particularly when, as in the case of the September 11 attacks, there
is fear that they constitute the first of a series of surprise attacks, the impulse
inevitably will be to seek shortcuts and demand instant results. A disciplined
and inclusive interagency decisionmaking process should fit the circumstanc-
es and not be sidelined. The process should not seek consensus for its own
sake, nor should it cut out those whose views are in a minority. It should en-
sure that issues presented to the President for decision reflect serious options,
different points of view, and appropriate analysis, including the foreseeable
consequences, costs, and benefits. And the options should be presented in a
timely fashion. Numerous examples exist where such an approach was lacking
in the period 20012014.200 The dearth of process in the early days of the Bush
administration was striking in the area of legal advice to the President. Coun-
terterrorism, moreover, is a concept and subject that attracts exploitation and
expansion to achieve unrelated objectives because of the difficulty in govern-
ment of resisting any idea labeled counterterrorism. A vigorous interagency
process can keep unrelated subjects off the agenda and focus the issues to be
addressed and choices to be made.

Embrace the Constitution and Fundamental International Norms

The Constitution has served the American people well for 228 years. For over a
century, the United States has made support for the international rule of law a
fundamental part of its foreign policy and a definition of its national interests.
In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the commencement of mil-
itary operations in Afghanistan in October 2001, the administration tried to
work around the Constitution in the way it held and treated detainees. It arrest-
ed large numbers of people using statutory authorities never contemplated to
be relevant to counterterrorism operations. Probably driven by fear of addition-

379
Rostow and Rishikof

al attacks and a belief that detainees had information about such attacks that
had to be extracted at all costs, the administration refused humane treatment
for all detainees despite the requirement of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.201
Administrations invariably find themselves enmeshed in unnecessary
controversy when they do not adhere to the Constitution and respect legal
standards. Decisions should not be made to avoid what, in the circumstances,
may appear to be constitutional inconveniences such as due process.202 One
hears in defense of the conduct in the immediate aftermath of the September
11 attacks that the country was not attacked again, even though some things
were done that courts subsequently held to be unlawful or an abridgement of
constitutional due process. When government officials seek to evade the Con-
stitution or fundamental international norms such as those governing the use
of force or the treatment of prisoners, the result, more often than not, is poor
decisionmaking and worse results. Another consequence is distortion of the
public debate. In such circumstances, the focus tends to be on legal require-
ments and procedures, not the substance of the policy.203

Prepare and Plan for Detention Operations and Foreseeable Legal

Issues in Advance
This third lesson has a number of parts. It concerns the need to include de-
tention planning during the development of a military campaign plan204 and
to assign the best people to detention operations. As the Abu Ghraib abuses
showed, failed detention policies can have strategic consequences.205 In the
course of developing a plan for the detention, interrogation, and treatment
of detainees, the United States also must sort out, to the extent it can in ad-
vance, the complex legal environment it almost certainly will confront during
military operations abroad. What kind of conflict is involved as a matter of
law? How should one categorize the enemy for purposes of the Geneva Con-
ventions and other relevant and applicable bodies of law? In the event of oc-
cupation of even a part of a country, one foreseeably may become involved in
detention operations not related to the battlefield. Afghanistan involved issues
of Afghan, U.S., and International Security Assistance Force jurisdiction and
applicable international law. Iraq brought home the complexity of meeting the
requirements of the Third (prisoners of war) and Fourth (civilians) Geneva
Conventions in an environment of ongoing violence, political upheaval, and

380
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

difficult logistics. The fact that the United States and its military partners are
party to different treaties containing rules for armed conflict, including deten-
tion and treatment of detainees, alone creates significant operational issues. It
is essential that, to the extent foreseeable and possible, commanders and their
operations not be trapped in likely legal thickets. Legal planning, therefore,
should be an integral part of military planning.

The authors would like to express their gratitude to Jesse Lemon, Brittany
Albaugh, Christopher Carlson, and Tara J. Pistorese for excellent research as-
sistance in connection with all phases of the development of this chapter. They
also would like to express their gratitude to Judge James E. Baker for reading
an early draft and providing most helpful suggestions. Of course, he bears no
responsibility for this chapter.

Notes

1
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (Baltimore: Penguin Books,
1972), 122.
2
Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 401 (1904) (Holmes, J., dissent-
ing).
3
See, for example, Benjamin Wittes, Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in an
Age of Terror (New York: Penguin, 2008).
4
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 163 (1803).
5
U.S. Const. art. VI.
6
The War Crimes Act of 1986 in part codified Common Article III of the Geneva
Conventions. 18 U.S.C.A. 2441. The United Nations Participation Act of 1945 (UNPA)
authorizes U.S. participation in the United Nations, including to fulfill UN Charter obliga-
tions specifically under Art. 41. 22 U.S.C.A. 287.
7
Some important attributessovereignty, for exampleof every country, including the
United States, result from the workings of the international system and international law.
See Morton A. Kaplan and Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach, The Political Foundations of
International Law (New York: Wiley, 1961).
8
Eugene V. Rostow, The Ideal in Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 1.
Also, Roman jurists thought law could not be defined at allthat it pervaded society

381
Rostow and Rishikof

too deeply, and in so many ways, that the idea of law could never be captured in a single
perspective. Ibid.
9
Conversation with C. Dean McGrath, Jr., Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of the Vice Presi-
dent, 20012005.
Department of Justice, Amerithrax Investigative Summary: Released Pursuant to the
10

Freedom of Information Act (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 2010), available at

<www.justice.gov/archive/amerithrax/docs/amx-investigative-summary.pdf>.
Jeanne Guillemin, American Anthrax: Fear, Crime, and the Investigation of the Nations
11

Deadliest Bioterror Attack (New York: Times Books, 2011), 245249.

12
On his last day in office, Secretary of State Dean Rusk remarked to his colleague Eugene
Rostow, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, that there had been no nuclear
wars on his watch, thus revealing the importance of that concern during his 8 years in
office.
See, generally, Gabriella Blum and Philip B. Heymann, Laws, Outlaws, and Terrorists:
13

Lessons from the War on Terrorism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010).

14
See the Constitution Project, Report on Post-9/11 Detentions (Washington, DC: Liberty
and Security Initiative of the Constitution Project, June 2, 2004), available at <http://con-
stitutionproject.org/pdf/report_on_post_9_11_detentions2.pdf>.
15
See, for example, Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of Interna-
tional Armed Conflict, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Laws of
war or law of armed conflict are more precise terms than international humanitarian
law and therefore preferred.
16
U.S. Const. art. II, 12.
17
See, for example, Harold Hongju Koh, The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power
after the Iran-Contra Affair (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Eugene V. Rostow,
President, Prime Minister, or Constitutional Monarch? McNair Paper No. 3 (Washington,
DC: NDU Press, 1989); Henry Bartholomew Cox, War, Foreign Affairs, and Constitutional
Power, 18291901 (Cambridge: Ballinger, 1984); Abraham D. Sofaer, War, Foreign Affairs,
and Constitutional Power: The Origins (Cambridge: Ballinger, 1976); Louis Henkin, Foreign
Affairs and the Constitution (Mineola, NY: Foundation Press, 1972); Edward S. Corwin, The
President: Office and Powers, 17871957 (New York: New York University Press, 1957); Rob-
ert F. Turner, The Constitutional Framework for the Division of National Security Powers
among Congress, the President, and the Courts, in National Security Law, ed. John Norton
Moore and Robert F. Turner (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2005), 779841.
18
Robert F. Turner, The Authority of Congress and the President to Use the Armed
Forces, in National Security Law, 843884; Marbury, 137; Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v.
Sawyer, 343 U.S. 578 (1952); Robert F. Turner, Truman, Korea, and the Constitution: De-
bunking the Imperial President Myth, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 19, no.
2 (Winter 1996), 533; Louis Fisher, The Korean War: On What Legal Basis Did Truman
Act? American Journal of International Law 89, no. 1 (1995), 21.

382
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

19
Turner, The Constitutional Framework; Turner, The Authority of Congress.
20
Letter from the President to Congress, February 11, 2015, enclosing a draft joint reso-
lution authorizing for 3 years the use of force, not including enduring offensive ground
combat operations.
Stephen W. Preston, The Legal Framework for the United States Use of Military Force
21

Since 9/11, remarks at the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law,
April 10, 2015, available at <www.defense.gov/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=1931>.
22
S.J. Res. 23, September 18, 2001. Pub.L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001) (hereafter Authori-
zation for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists or, AUMF).
23
Letter from John D. Negroponte, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations,
to the President, UN Security Council, October 7, 2001, available at <http://avalon.law.
yale.edu/sept11/un_006.asp>. Letter fulfilled obligation under Article 51 of the UN Char-
ter to report defensive uses of force to the Security Council.
James E. Baker, In the Common Defense: National Security Law for Perilous Times (Cam-
24

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., 635636 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). See also Baker,
25

4044.
26
War Powers Resolution, 50 U.S.C. 1547 (a) (1) (1973).
27
AUMF 2 (b) (1). On the constitutionality of at least parts of the War Powers Resolu-
tion, see Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983).
28
Emphasis added.
29
UN Doc. S/RES/1368 (September 12, 2001). The International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Advisory Opinion on the Israeli wall or security fence took a different view and denied
that the attacks that caused Israel to build the wall gave rise to an international law right
of self-defense. See Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, 2004 I.C.J. 136 (July 9), available at <www.icj-cij.
org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf>. On the limited import of an ICJ Advisory Opinion, see
Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, 1996 I.C.J. 226, 237,
para. 17 (July 8), available at <www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/95/7495.pdf>.
On September 12, 2001, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invoked
30

Article 5 (April 4, 1949), available at <www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.

htm>. Article 5 provides:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North
America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if
such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective
self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the
Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other
Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and
maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

383
Rostow and Rishikof

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be re-
ported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council
has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.
H.J. Res. 114, Oct. 16, 2002. Pub. L. 107-243, 116 Stat. 1498 (2002) (hereafter Iraq
31

AUMF).
32
Iraq repeatedly deployed chemical weapons during its 8-year war with Iran. The first
documented case was the November 1980 chemical bombing of the city of Susangerd. By
February 16, 1984, Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iran at least 49 times, killing
at least 109 and injuring hundreds of others. In 1991, the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) estimated that Iran had suffered thousands of deaths from Iraqs use of chemical
weapons. On March 16, 1988, the Iraqi regime used chemical weapons against its own
Kurdish population in the city of Halabja. The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 peo-
ple and injured 7,000 to 10,000 more. Margret A. Sewell, Freedom from Fear: Prosecut-
ing the Iraqi Regime for the Use of Chemical Weapons, St. Thomas Law Review 16 (2004),
365393.
33
Iraq AUMF.
34
Ibid.
(c) WAR POWERS RESOLUTION REQUIREMENTS
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATIONConsistent with section 8(a)(1) of
the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute
specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolu-
tion.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTSNothing in this joint resolution
supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.
35
Stephen J. Hadley, interview by Joseph J. Collins and Nicholas Rostow, October 7, 2014.
36
The authoritative U.S. view was set forth by State Department Legal Adviser William H.
Taft IV and his colleague, Todd F. Buchwald, in Preemption, Iraq, and International Law,
American Journal of International Law 97, no. 3 (July 2003), 557563. Articles by John
Yoo, Richard N. Gardner, Richard A. Falk, Miriam Sapiro, Thomas M. Franck, Tom J. Far-
er, and Jane E. Stromseth appeared in the same issue of the journal, discussing the same
subject from different points of view and therefore illuminating the scope of the dialogue
about legality. The U.S. Naval War College International Law Studies, 80 (2006), edited
by Richard B. Jacques, provides the same insights through articles by Ruth Wedgwood,
Thomas M. Franck, Nicholas Rostow, Yoram Dinstein, Marco Sassoli, W. Hays Parks, Jef-
frey K. Walker, Adam Roberts, Michael N. Schmitt, M.H. MacDougall, Wolff Heintschel
von Heinegg, Hyun-soo Kim, D.L. Grimond and G.W. Riggs, Alan Baker, Jean-Philippe
Lavoyer, John F. Murphy, Jan Hladik, David E. Graham, and Charles H.B. Garraway on
issues in international law and military operations arising from the Iraq campaign and
war on terror.
37
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The

384
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

White House, September 2002), 9, available at <www.state.gov/documents/organiza-

tion/63562.pdf>. The use of the term preemptive was unfortunate and seemed to mark a
break with the historical U.S. position that the international law of self-defense included
a right of anticipatory self-defense, as had been established by Daniel Webster in 1841
and adhered to by every administration since then. The documents establishing this
interpretation of international law are in the Caroline file, available at <http://avalon.law.
yale.edu/19th_century/br-1842d.asp>. As Professor Yoram Dinstein, formerly twice the
Stockton Professor of International Law at the Naval War College, frequently argues, if the
2002 National Security Strategy had used the word interceptive, it would have preempted
problems. The National Security Strategy is a political, not a legal, document.
38
UNPA.
39
UN Charter Article 51, which reads:
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective
self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the
Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
Measures taken by Members in exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately
reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsi-
bility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it
deems necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.
On the controversies over the meaning of armed attack, see Yoram Dinstein, War,
Aggression, and Self-Defence, 5th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011),
196277; Nicholas Rostow, International Law and the Use of Force: A Plea for Realism,
Yale Journal of International Law 34, no. 2 (Summer 2009), 549.
See Dinstein, Conduct, throughout; Myres S. McDougal and Florentino P. Feliciano,
40

Law and Minimum World Public Order: The Legal Regulation of International Coercion
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961).
41
U.S. courts, administrations, and the Department of Defense use the term unlawful
combatant. As a matter of law, there is no such person. One either is a combatant or a
noncombatant. If one is a combatant, one may, as a matter of law, engage in activities that
otherwise would constitute murder. If one is a noncombatant, one may not engage in such
conduct without incurring risk of prosecution. Fighter would be a more neutral term than
unlawful combatant and would make the distinction clear. The Obama administration
uses the term unprivileged belligerent, which approximates the same idea. See Ex Parte
Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942); Dinstein, Conduct, 33. Rather than insist on usage that readers
may find unfamiliar, we adopt the common parlance of lawful and unlawful combatants to
distinguish between combatants, who enjoy the privilege of killing as a matter of interna-
tional and domestic law, and noncombatants, who do not enjoy such privilege and are not
entitled, as a matter of law, to prisoner of war status on capture.
42
The Third Geneva Convention in effect contains a roadmap for treating detainees.
43
George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,

385
Rostow and Rishikof

Washington, DC, September 20, 2001.

44
UN doc. S/Res/1441 (2002), November 8, 2002.
45
Jane Stromseth, Law and Force After Iraq: A Transitional Moment, American Journal
of International Law 97, no. 3 (July 2003), 628.
46
Vienna Convention. The Constitution defines treaty more narrowly than international
law. Therefore, the United States is not a party to the Convention. Vienna Convention on
the Law of Treaties, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, 8 I.L.M. 679, entered into forceJanuary 27, 1980,
available at <http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/viennaconvention.html>; Robert
Dalton, Treaties and Other International Agreements, in National Security Law. With
respect to material breach, Article 60 of the Vienna Convention provides that:
A material breach of a bilateral treaty by one of the parties entitles the other to invoke the
breach as a ground for terminating the treaty or suspending its operation in whole or in part.
2. A material breach of a multilateral treaty by one of the parties entitles:
a. The other parties by unanimous agreement to suspend the operation of the treaty in
whole or in part or to terminate it either: i. In the relations between themselves and the
defaulting State, or ii. As between all the parties; b. A party specially affected by the breach
to invoke it as a ground for suspending the operation of the treaty in whole or in part in
the relations between itself and the defaulting State; c. Any party other than the defaulting
State to invoke the breach as a ground for suspending the operation of the treaty in whole
or in part with respect to itself if the treaty is of such a character that a material breach of
its provisions by one party radically changes the position of every party with respect to the
further performance of its obligations under the treaty. 3. A material breach of a treaty, for
the purposes of this article, consists in: a. A repudiation of the treaty not sanctioned by the
present Convention; or b. The violation of a provision essential to the accomplishment of
the object or purpose of the treaty. 4. The foregoing paragraphs are without prejudice to any
provision in the treaty applicable in the event of a breach. 5. Paragraphs 1 to 3 do not apply
to provisions relating to the protection of the human person contained in treaties of a human-
itarian character, in particular to provisions prohibiting any form of reprisals against persons
protected by such treaties.
Thus, Iraqs action, in the U.S. and United Kingdom (UK) view, meant that the 1990 UN
Security Council authorization to use force remained in force, allowing Member States
co-operating with the Government of Kuwait . . . to use all necessary means to uphold
resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore internation-
al peace and security in the area. UN doc. S/Res. 678 (1990), November 29, 1990. On
the UK view, see The Written Answer of the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, to a
Parliamentary Question on the legal basis for the use of force in Iraq, March 17, 2003, UK
Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Thomas N. Franck, What Happens Now? The United Nations after Iraq, American
47

Journal of International Law 97, no. 3 (2003), 613; Patrick McLain, Settling the Score with
Saddam: Resolution 1441 and Parallel Justifications for the Use of Force Against Iraq,
Duke Journal of International Law 13, no. 1 (2003), 233, 249. Paragraph 34 of UN Security

386
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

Council Resolution 687 (1991) (Decides to remain seized of the matter and to take such
further steps as may be required for implementation of the present resolution and to
secure peace and security in the region) meant the Security Council alone could decide
when the authorization in Resolution 678 (1990) could be invoked; for a different inter-
pretation of the Security Council Iraq resolutions, see Nicholas Rostow, Determining
the Lawfulness of the 2003 Campaign Against Iraq, Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 34
(2004), 1534; Sean D. Murphy, Assessing the Legality of Invading Iraq, Georgetown Law
Journal 92, no. 4 (2004), 173272; Jules Lobel and Michael Ratner, Bypassing the Security
Council: Ambiguous Authorizations to Use Force, Cease-fires and the Iraqi Inspection
Regime, American Journal of International Law 93, no. 1 (1999), 124 (absence of, or ambi-
guity in connection with, question of Security Council authority).
48
UN doc. S/Res. 678 (1990) (November 29, 1990); Taft and Buchwald, Preemption. See
also Rostow, International Law.
49
UN doc. S/Res. 687 (1991) (April 3, 1991).
Quoted in Stephen Dycus et al., National Security Law, 5th ed. (New York: Wolters Klu-
50

wer, 2011), 733.

51
Ibid., 734.
52
Ibid.
53
8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(B), 1227(a)(4)(B), as amended (2001).
Affidavit of Michael E. Rolince, U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immi-
54

gration Review, Immigration Court, quoted in Dycus et al., 739740.

55
On June 17, 2015, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that The Constitution
defines the limits of the Defendants [former prison wardens Dennis Hasty, Michael Zenk,
and James Sherman, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Federal Bureau of In-
vestigations Director Robert Mueller, and former Immigration and Naturalization Service
Commissioner James W. Ziglar] authority; detaining individuals as if they were terrorists,
in the most restrictive conditions of confinement available, simply because these individu-
als were, or appeared to be, Arab or Muslim, exceeds those limits. . . . Holding individuals
in solitary confinement twenty-three hours a day with regular strip searches because their
perceived faith or race placed them in group targeted for recruitment by al Qaeda violated
the detainees constitutional rights. See Turkmen, et al. v. Hasty, et al., Nos. 13-981, 13-
999, 13-1002, 13-1003, 13-1662 at *106-07 (2nd Cir. June 17, 2015), available at <www.ca2.
uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/16c71149-0fdd-4844-b140-d197f4bd3118/9/doc/13-
981_complete_opn.pdf#xml=http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/16c71149-
0fdd-4844-b140-d197f4bd3118/9/hilite/>.
56
18 U.S.C. 3144, as amended (1986).
57
Ibid.
Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd, 563 U.S. __ (2011), 131 S. Ct. 2074 (2011) (Efficient and even-
58

handed application of the law demands that we look to whether the arrest is objectively

387
Rostow and Rishikof

justified, rather than to the motive of the arresting officer.), quoted in Dycus et al., 757.
59
Dycus et al., 738.
60
The police may arrest based on articulable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is
about to be engaged in criminal activity. United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 702 (1983).
[R]easonable suspicion of criminal activity, short of probable cause, only warrants a
temporary seizure for the purpose of questioning limited to the purpose of the stop.
Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 498 (1983). Quoted in Dycus et al., 735. In 2006, Congress
amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to permit arrest and detention of aliens on
suspicion of illegal status.
61
Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001).
Quoted in Dycus et al., 738. British local authorities are said to use cameras installed as
62

part of the effort to fight terrorism to enforce recycling laws.

Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, August 2, 1949,
63

reprinted in Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, eds., Documents on the Laws of War, 3rd
ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 244ff.
64
Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick
in Armed Forces in the Field, August 12, 1949, Art. 3, reprinted in Roberts and Guelff,
198199:
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of
one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a
minimum, the following provisions:
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who
have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or
any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinc-
tion founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place
whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treat-
ment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment
pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are
recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.
An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may
offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

388
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

The Parties to the conflict should further endeavor to bring into force, by means of special
agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.
The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the
conflict.
This Common Article appears in the three other 1949 Geneva Conventions dealing with
Wounded, Sick, and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea, Prisoners of War, and
Civilians in Time of Armed Conflict. Ibid., 223224, 245, 302.
65
U.S. Const. art. VI.
66
Medellin v. Texas, 128 U.S. 1346 (2008).
Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the general article, allows the
67

military to import noncapital Federal criminal statutes and charge them in a military
court-martial. 10 U.S.C. 934. Art. 134 (1956). Thus, Article 134 incorporates the War
Crimes Act of 1996.
68
See, for example, Roberts and Guelff, 196. See also Dinstein, Conduct, chapter one; W.
Michael Reisman and Chris T. Antoniou, The Laws of War (New York: Vintage, 1994),
xixxxi; Theodor Meron, The Geneva Conventions as Customary Law, American Journal
of International Law 81, no. 2 (April 1987), 348370.
69
On the U.S. position with respect to parts of Protocols I and II, see Michael J. Matheson,
then Deputy Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State, The United States Position on the
Relation of Customary International Law to the 1977 Protocols Additional to the 1949
Geneva Conventions, American University Journal of International Law and Policy, vol.
2 (1987), 415, 419. See also Kenneth Anderson, Wall Street Journal Mistaken About the
Obama Administration and Protocol I? TheVolokhConspiracy.com, available at <http://
volokh.com/2011/03/08/wall-street-journal-mistaken-about-the-obama-administra-
tion-and-protocol-i/> (comments by John Bellinger III, formerly Legal Adviser to the
National Security Council, 20012005, and Legal Adviser to the Department of State,
20052009, on the Obama administration decision to be guided by Article 75 of Protocol
I, pertaining to humane treatment of detainees, even though the United States is not a
party to Protocol I, and Article 75 does not codify customary international law). See also
Nicholas Rostow, The World Health Organization, the International Court of Justice, and
Nuclear Weapons, Yale Journal of International Law 20, no. 1 (1995), 151, esp. 163173,
and citations therein.
70
Adam R. Pearlman, Meaningful Review and Process Due: How Guantanamo Deten-
tion is Changing the Battlefield, Harvard National Security Law Journal 6, no. 1 (2015),
255; but see Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir (New York: Sentinel,
2011), 563569, for a different view of the decisionmaking process.
71
Jack Goldsmith, The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment inside the Bush Administra-
tion (New York: Norton, 2007), 22.
72
Dinstein, War, 58.

389
Rostow and Rishikof

73
Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Study on Target-
ed Killings, Addendum, UN doc. A/HRC/14/24/Add.6 (May 28, 2010) (by Philip Alston).
See also Nicholas Rostow, The Laws of War and the Killing of Suspected Terrorists: False
Starts, Rabbit Holes, and Dead Ends, Rutgers Law Review 63, no. 4 (2011), 1215, 1225.
74
Dinstein, Conduct, 146155.
75
1949 Geneva Convention III Art. 4.
76
1949 Geneva Convention III specifies in detail how prisoners of war (POWs) are to
be treated, cared for, and protected. Article 75 of Additional Protocol I of 1977 sets forth
minimum Fundamental guarantees with respect to treatment. The Obama adminis-
tration has decided to follow this Article out of a sense that it is right. John Bellinger,
Obamas Announcements on International Law, Lawfareblog.com, March 8, 2011, avail-
able at <www.lawfareblog.com/2011/03/obamas-announcements-on-international-law>.
Common Article 3s requirements are set forth in note 66.
77
1949 Geneva Convention III Art. 118.
78
Ibid., Art. 115.
79
Jens David Ohlin, When Does the Combatants Privilege Apply? OpinioJuris.org,
August 1, 2014, available at <http://opiniojuris.org/2014/08/01/combatants-privilege-ap-
ply/>. See also Dinstein, Conduct, 3361.
80
Ibid.
Defense Department usage is enemy prisoners of war because it uses POW to mean,
81

among other things, a privately owned weapon.

In the U.S. case, the conditions of detainees in Guantanamo Bay are much improved
82

compared to when the facility consisted of essentially a fenced-in tennis court.

An exception is Douglas J. Feith, but he does not spend much time on the decision. See
83

note 108 below. See also Pearlman, Meaningful Review.

84
Douglas J. Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Ter-
rorism (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 159.
85
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723(2008).
86
Feith, 160; Rumsfeld, 561573.
Louis Begley compared it to Devils Island, the notorious French prison in Guiana
87

where Dreyfus was held. Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2009), 31ff (the United States own Devils Island in Guantanamo).
88
Rumsfeld, 561573.
89
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004).
Seven Uighurs contested a Combat Status Review Tribunal determination that they
90

were enemy combatants. The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals held that
there was insufficient evidence to hold them. The government therefore had to release

390
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

them, transfer them, or conduct a new hearing. Four eventually went to Bermuda. Huzaifa
Parhat v. Gates, 532 F.3d 836 (D.C. Cir. 2008).
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, 10 U.S.C. 801 note (2012);
91

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, 10 U.S.C. 801 note (2013).
92
There were 242 detainees in Guantanamo Bay at the beginning of the Obama Presiden-
cy. Department of Defense Office of Military Commissions, Human Rights Fact Sheet,
March 2015, available at <www.mc.Mil/home>.
93
Hamdan v. United States, 696 F.3d 1238 (D.C. Cir. 2012).
President Bush established the first postSeptember 11, 2001, military commissions
94

and accompanying guidelines. Military Order, November 13, 2001, Detention, Treat-
ment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism, Federal Register
66 (November 16, 2001), 57833, available at <https://federalregister.gov/a/01-28904>.
Jennifer K. Elsea, Comparison of Rights in Military Commission Trials and Trials in
95

Federal Court (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, March 21, 2014).
96
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006).
Ibid. A substantial number of lawyers and millions of dollars have been devoted to
97

making the commission a legitimate forum for prosecution.

98
Geneva Convention III, Art. 118; Roberts and Guelff, 289.
Carol Rosenberg, Why Obama Cant Close Guantanamo, Foreign Affairs, December
99

14, 2009, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136781/carol-rosenberg/why-

obama-cant-close-guantanamo>.
Senator Diane Feinstein, among others, has criticized this practice. See Andy Worth-
100

ington, Sen. Dianne Feinstein Urges Pentagon to End Unnecessary Force-Feeding

at Guantnamo, EurasiaReview.com, April 14, 2015, available at <www.eurasiareview.
com/14042015-sen-dianne-feinstein-urges-pentagon-to-end-unnecessary-force-feeding-
at-guantanamo-oped>. It is not evident that facility personnel have an alternative if the
detainees are not to be permitted to kill themselves.
101
Dhiab v. Obama, No. CV05-1457(GK), 2014 WL 5795483 (D.D.C. November 7, 2014).
In 2010, Nicholas Rostow was told this information officially during a trip to Guanta-
102

namo Bay as part of review, on behalf of the President and Secretary of Defense, of the
treatment of detainees.
James Risen and Matt Apuzzo, C.I.A. on Path to Torture, Chose Haste over Analysis,
103

New York Times, December 15, 2014, A1.

International Committee of the Red Cross, Treaties and State Parties to Such Treaties,
104

available at <www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/INTRO/475?OpenDocument>. Article 75 of

1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 Relating to the
Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, June 8, 1977, Art. 75, contains
a lengthy elaboration on Common Art. 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Roberts and

391
Rostow and Rishikof

Guelff, 463466.
Dycus et al., 235. See the Lieber Code, Instructions for the Government of Armies of
105

the United States in the Field (1863), originally published as General Orders No. 100, War
Department, Adjutant Generals Office, on April 24, 1863, reprinted in Dietrich Schindler,
The Laws of Armed Conflicts: A Collection of Conventions, Resolutions, and Other Docu-
ments, 4th rev. ed. (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2004).
106
Statement of the White House Press Secretary, February 7, 2002.
Feith, 161165; Lisa L. Turner, The Detainee Interrogation Debate and the Legal-Poli-
107

cy Process, Joint Force Quarterly 54 (3rd Quarter 2009), 4246.

108
Feith, 162.
109
Ibid., 161163.
110
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557, 630 (2006).
111
For example, United States v. Yunis, 924 F. 2d 1086, 1089 (D.C. Cir. 1991).
See Memorandum from Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney
112

General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, to John Rizzo, Senior Deputy
General Counsel, CIA 14 (May 10, 2005) available at <www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/olc/
techniques.pdf>.
John A. Rizzo, Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA (New
113

York: Scribner, 2014).

114
Hadley, interview.
Paul Kramer, The Water Cure, The New Yorker, February 24, 2008, available at <www.
115

newyorker.com/magazine/2008/02/25/the-water-cure>.
This insurance against harming the victim of waterboarding raises the question: did the
116

detainee know, and if so, did it affect the result of the interrogation? The silence on the
results of the waterboarding, except in most general terms, is deafening. See George Tenet
with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm (New York: HarperCollins 2007), 242.
CIA interrogators presumably were acting under a covert action finding. In addition,
117

they were acting pursuant to a legal opinion by the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice
Department.
U.S. Congress, Senate, Senate Select Intelligence Committee, Committee Study of the
118

Central Intelligence Agencys Interrogation Program, 113th Cong., 2nd sess., 2014, available
at <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/cia-interrogation-report/docu-
ment/>.
119
Tenet, 250.
120
Ibid., 255.
Richard Cheney, interview by Timothy Russert, Meet the Press, September 16, 2001,
121

available at <www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010916.

392
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

html>. Cheney stated, we have to work through sort of the dark side. Testimony of Cofer
Black to Joint House and Senate Select Intelligence Committee, September 26, 2002, avail-
able at <www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092602black.html>. Black stated, All I want
to say is that there was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves come off. Also
see James P. Terry, The War on Terror: The Legal Dimension (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 2013), 7377, who weighs the claims for the results of enhanced interrogation
against results. Terry, who served as Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff under Colin Powell pointed out that some advocates of the treatment of Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed believe that he provided valuable information that saved lives but un-
dermine their case because the plots he claimed to have helped foil were disrupted before
he was captured.
Stephen Grey, Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (New York:
122

St. Martins Griffin, 2006), 242243; Henry Shue, Torture, in Torture: A Collection, ed.
Sanford Levinson, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 55 (moral absolutism
recognized by the European Court of Human Rights); Jeannine Bell, Behind This Mortal
Bone: The (In)effectiveness of Torture, Indiana Law Journal 83, no. 1 (2008), 339 (arguing
torture is neither effective nor in a nations best interest); David Luban, Liberalisms,
Torture, and the Ticking Bomb, Virginia Law Review 91, no. 6 (2005), 142 (stating ticking
bomb scenarios are a device to rationalize and institutionalize torture); Jane Mayer, The
Dark Side (New York: Doubleday 2008), 213.
Fritz Allhof, Torture Warrants, Self-Defense, and Necessity, Public Affairs Quarter-
123

ly 25, no. 3 (July 2011); Alan M. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the
Threat, Responding to the Challenge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002); John T. Par-
ry, Torture Warrants and the Rule of Law, Albany Law Review 71, no. 3 (2009), 885906.
124
Zeke Miller, Obama: We Tortured Some Folks, Time, August 1, 2014.
Steven M. Klienman, The Promise of Interrogation v. the Problem of Torture, Valpara-
125

iso University Law Review 43, no. 4 (2009), 15771587.

126
Tenet, 242.
One member of the minority voted with the majority. Majority Report, 31 n. 145
127

reports that an overseas detention facility had equipment for conducting waterboarding.
The committee found no evidence that someone had been waterboarded at the site, but
committee suspicions were aroused by finding evidence of paraphernalia. The committee
majority did not believe what CIA said on the subject. See note 121, at 6.
CIA, Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by CIA Director John O. Brennan in response
128

to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Study on the Former Detention and In-
terrogation Program, December 11, 2014, available at <www.cia.gov/news-information/
speeches-testimony/2014-speeches-testimony/remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery-cia-di-
rector-john-o-brennan-response-to-ssci-study-on-the-former-detention-and-interroga-
tion-program.html>.
129
Ibid.

393
Rostow and Rishikof

United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
130

Treatment or Punishment, 1, G.A. Res. 39/46, U.N. GAOR, 39th Sess., Supp. No. 51, at
197, U.N. Doc. A/39/51 (1984). The UN Convention against Torture requires all signato-
ries to make torture a crime.
131
Dycus et al., 914.
132
18 U.S.C. 23402340A (2000).
133
Ibid.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Art. 7 (1966) (the United States
134

became a party in 1992), 999 U.N.T.S. 171.

Daniel L. Pines, Are Even Torturers Immune from Suit? How Attorney General
135

Opinions Shield Government Employees from Civil Litigation and Criminal Prosecution,
Wake Forest Law Review 43, no. 1 (2008), 93160; A. John Radsan, Sed Quis Custodiet
Ipsos Custodes: The CIAs Office of General Counsel? Journal of National Security Law &
Policy 2, no. 2 (2008), 201252.
Memorandum for John Rizzo, Acting General Counsel of the Central Intelligence
136

Agency, August 1, 2002, from Jay S. Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal
Counsel, Department of Justice (withdrawn December 30, 2004, by Acting Assistant
Attorney General Daniel Levin); Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the
President, from Jay Bybee, August 1, 2002 (withdrawn by Levin memorandum); Memo-
randum from John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, to
William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Military Interro-
gation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States, March 14, 2003,
available at <www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/yoo_army_torture_memo.pdf>. This memo
was produced by John Yoo and signed by Jay Bybee (withdrawn by Levin memorandum).
137
Haynes memorandum, 610.
138
Ibid., 1147.
139
Ibid., 12, 3247.
140
Ibid., 39, 1, 3647.
Executive Order 13440, Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3
141

as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelli-

gence Agency, July 20, 2007, available at <http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-13440.htm>.
Julie Angell, Ethics, Torture, and Marginal Memoranda at the DOJ Office of Legal
142

Counsel, Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 18, no. 3 (2005), 557568; George Harris,
The Rule of Law and the War on Terror: The Professional Responsibility of Executive
Branch Lawyers in the Wake of 9/11, Journal of National Security Law & Policy 1, no. 2
(2005), 409452; Luban, 14251453; The Bush Administration and the Torture Memo:
What on Earth Were They Thinking? Economist, June 17, 2004.
Reaction to Yoos memorandum by fellow Republicans within the Office of Legal Coun-
143

sel (OLC) is illuminating. Jack Goldsmith, who headed the OLC from 2003 to 2004, stated

394
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

that Yoos memo was riddled with error and a one-sided effort to eliminate any hurdles
posed by the torture law. Daniel Levin, who headed the OLC after Goldsmith, described
his initial reaction to Yoos memo as this is insane, who wrote this? See David D. Cole,
The Sacrificial Yoo: Accounting for Torture in the OPR Report, Journal of National Secu-
rity Law & Policy 4, no. 2 (2010), 455.
Nomination of Michael Mukasey to Be the Attorney General of the United States:
144

Hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Federal News Service, October 17,
2007.
Department of Defense Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurri-
145

canes in the Gulf of Mexico, and Pandemic Influenza Act, 2006 (P.L. 109-148); the Nation-
al Defense Authorization Act for FY 2006 (P.L. 109-163).
146
See generally 13 No. 2 Human Rights Brief 39-40 (2006).
147
See P.L. 109-148, Title X, Sec. 1002 (2005); P.L. 109-163, Title XIV, Sec. 1402 (2006).
S. Amend. 1556 to S. 1042, 109th Cong. (2005), reprinted in 151 Congressional Record
148

S8889 (July 25, 2005).

Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War Art. 3, August 12,
149

1949, 6 U.S.T. 3116, 75 U.N.T.S. 135.

150
548 U.S. 557 (2006).
151
Executive Order 13340.
Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Memorandum Regarding Application
152

of the War Crimes Act, the Detainee Treatment Act, and Common Article 3 of the Geneva
Conventions to Certain Techniques That May Be Used by the CIA in the Interrogation of
High-level Al Qaeda Detainees, July 20, 2007.
Luban, 1425 (ticking bomb scenarios rationalize and institutionalize torture); Kate
153

Kovarovic, Our Jack Bauer Culture: Eliminating the Ticking Time Bomb Exception to
Torture, Florida Journal of International Law 22, no. 2 (2010), 251.
154
See Goldsmith, 166168 (impact of fear).
See Alan M. Dershowitz, Is There a Torturous Road to Justice? Los Angeles Times,
155

November 8, 2001, B19 (judges should be allowed to issue torture warrants, thus
permitting the use of torture within our legal system rather than outside of the law);
but see Oren Gross, Are Torture Warrants Warranted? Pragmatic Absolutism and
Official Disobedience, University of Minnesota Law Review 88, no. 4 (2004), 1481, 1487
(preventive interrogational torture is far too complex to be addressed by definitional
juggling).
Philip B. Heymann and Juliette N. Kayyem, Long-Term Legal Strategy Project for
156

Preserving Security and Democratic Freedoms in the War on Terrorism (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 2004) (determining an emergency exception based upon President showing an
urgent and extraordinary need).

395
Rostow and Rishikof

See Charles Krauthammer, The Truth About Torture, Weekly Standard, December 5,
157

2005, available at <www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles/000/000/006/400rh-

qav.asp>.
158
P.L. 109-148, Title X, Sec. 1004; P.L. 109-163, Title XIV, Sec 1404.
159
Ibid.
As long ago as Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court opined that not only was the
160

government of the United States a government of laws, but that It will certainly cease to
deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested
legal right 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 163. At the same time, the court observed, by the
constitution of the United States, the President is invested with certain important political
powers, in the exercise of which he is to use his own discretion, and is accountable only to
his country in his political character, and to his own conscience 5 U.S. at 165166. In the
context of a Presidential decision to torture a detainee, these statements beg the question:
is such a decision a political act in which case the President is accountable politically, or is
it a violation of a legal right not to be tortured, in which case the President would be ac-
countable in a court? In our judgment, however one answers, the President is accountable
for his or her acts. Under the Constitution, there exists no unaccountable power. See also
Blum and Heymann, 130.
In law enforcement operations, the standards for the use of lethal force are entirely
161

different. Blum and Heymann, esp. chapter 4.

162
Dinstein, Conduct, 146152.
Pam Benson, U.S. Airstrikes Called Very Effective, CNN.com, May 18, 2009, available
163

at <www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/18/cia.pakistan.airstrikes>.
164
Blum and Heymann, chapter 4.
Joint Resolution, Authorization for Use of Military Force, September 18, 2001, Pub. L.
165

107-40 (S.J. Res. 23).

See, for example, Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare (Washington, DC:
166

Headquarters Department of the Army, 1956); Army Regulation 190-8, Enemy Prisoners
of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees, October 1, 1997,
1.1(b)(4) (stating that, should conflicts arise, the Geneva Conventions take precedence
over the regulation).
167
Ibid.
168
Protocol I, Art. 48; Roberts and Guelff, 447.
169
Ibid.
U.S. War Department, General Orders No. 100, the Lieber Code of 1863, Art. 16 (1863).
170

For example, the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War
on Land, Annex, Art. 23, prohibits treacherous killing or wounding or using weapons
causing unnecessary suffering. Roberts and Guelff, 77. The 1907 Hague Conventions are
part of customary international law. Dinstein, Conduct, 15.

396
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

171
Protocol I, Art. 51 (5)(b); Roberts and Guelff, 449.
Jeff A. Bovarnick et al., Law of War Deskbook (Charlottesville, VA: International and
172

Operational Law Department, U.S. Army Judge Advocates Legal Center and School,
2011), 156.
173
See generally Dinstein, Conduct, 8.
174
Bovarnick, 154.
175
Protocol I, art. 51(4); Roberts and Guelff, 448449.
176
Bovarnick, 155.
177
Ibid.
178
Ibid., 155156.
179
Ibid., 157.
180
Ibid.
181
Ibid.
Harold Hongju Koh, address to the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Interna-
182

tional Law, March 25, 2010, available at <www.state.gov/s/l/releases/remarks/139119.htm>.

183
Ibid.
The White House, Fact Sheet: U.S. Policy Standards and Procedures for the Use of
184

Force in Counterterrorism Operations Outside the United States and Areas of Active
Hostilities, May 23, 2013, available at <www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/
fact-sheet-us-policy-standards-and-procedures-use-force-counterterrorism>.
See Mike Dreyfuss, My Fellow Americans, We are Going to Kill You: The Legality of
185

Targeting and Killing U.S. Citizens Abroad, Vanderbilt Law Review 65, no. 1 (2012), 249.
186
Cf. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 597 (2004) (Thomas, J., dissenting).
Samuel S. Adelsberg, Bouncing the Executives Blank Check: Judicial Review and the
187

Targeting of Citizens, Harvard Law & Policy Review 6, no. 2 (2012), 437459.
Department of Justice, Lawfulness of Lethal Operation Directed against a U.S. Citizen
188

who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qaid or an Associated Force, published by

NBC News on February 4, 2013.
189
Ibid.
190
Ibid.
191
Ibid.
192
Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942).
Robert Chesney, Text of the Attorney Generals National Security Speech, March 5,
193

2012, Lawfareblog.com, available at <www.lawfareblog.com/2012/03/text-of-the-attor-

ney-generals-national-security-speech/>.

397
Rostow and Rishikof

Remarks by the President at the National Defense University, Washington, DC, May
194

23, 2013, available at <www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-presi-

dent-national-defense-university>.
195
Koh, address to the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law. In ad-
dition, Al Aulaqi v. Obama (D.D.C. 2010) seems to indicate that judicial inquiry into such
process is a nonjudiciable political question. In Al Aulaqi, Judge Bates held that Anwar
Al-Aulaqis lawsuit seeking to enjoin the U.S. Government from targeting his son was
nonjusticiable under the political question doctrine because [j]udicial resolution of the
particular questions posed would require [it] to decide complex issues such as whether
. . . Anwar Al-Aulaqis alleged terrorist activity render[ed] him a concrete, specific, and
imminent threat to life or physical safety and whether there are means short of lethal
force that the United States could reasonably employ to address any threat that Anwar
Al-Aulaqi poses to U.S. national security interests. These questions, Judge Bates stated,
would require the court take into account military, strategic, and diplomatic consider-
ationsfor example, to assess the merits of the Presidents (alleged) decision to launch an
attack on a foreign targetthat it was simply not competent to handle. Thus, the extent to
which due process conflicts with U.S. Governments targeted killing program may remain
in the realm of academics but not courts. Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta, No. 12-1192 (D.D.C. July
18, 2012).
196
Blum and Heymann, 189193.
197
Philip Bobbitt, Playing by the Rules, The Guardian, November 15, 2003.
Baker; Tower Commission, Report of the Presidents Special Review Board (New York:
198

Bantam Books, February 27, 1987), parts I and II.

This insight goes as far back at least as Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, bk. I, ch. I,
199

24.
200
For example, Hadley, interview.
Each of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 contains a common Article 3 require-
201

ment of humane treatment of persons detained who are not entitled to the protections
afforded prisoners of war, that is, combatants as defined in the Third Geneva Convention.
The conventions are reprinted in Roberts and Guelff. During the early part of 2002, there
was significant debate as to whether to consider treating captured Taliban or al Qaeda
personnel as prisoners of war under the Third Geneva Convention of 1949. The initial
decision to declare all captured enemy soldiers to be unlawful combatantsnot entitled
as a matter of law to be treated as prisoners of warappears to have been the result, at
least in part, of a mistaken reading of the Geneva Conventions. A memorandum went to
President Bush with a significant error. The memorandum stated that, under the Geneva
Conventions, an interrogator could ask only a prisoners name, rank, and serial number,
when in fact the convention provides that a prisoner of war is only required to provide
that information. The interrogator may ask whatever question he or she wishes. The
President naturally felt such constraints would have been untenable under the circum-
stances created by the September 11 attacks. But the Geneva Conventions would not have

398
 9/11 and After: Legal Issues, Lessons, and Irregular Conflict

imposed those constraints in the first place. Author conversation with William Lietzau,
former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Rule of Law and Detainee Policy.
Feith, 159, And government lawyers argued that a facility on non-U.S.-owned territory
202

would likely not be subject to habeas corpus petitions by detainees.

For example, the American debate about the 2011 Libya campaign for the most part
203

concerned the applicability of the War Powers Resolution, not the wisdom of the effort to
oust Muammar Qadhafi.
Martin E. Dempsey, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins, January
204

15, 2015.
When the Abu Ghraib story broke in the press, a 19-year-old Marine watching televi-
205

sion reports stated, Some assholes have just lost the war for us. Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco:
The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 290.

399
 6

Reflections on Lessons Encountered

Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins

T
his volume is an effort to capture, at the strategic level, useful lessons
from Americas long and painful experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Earlier chapters explore in detail a range of the important strategic di-
mensions and dynamics of these campaigns. In this chapter, we render an early
accounting of the costs and gains, followed by more general observations that
may inform the soldier/statesman and strategist when facing similar complex
challenges. In particular, we focus on three major strategic events: the deci-
sions to invade Iraq in 2003, to surge in Iraq in 2006, and to surge in Afghani-
stan in 2009. Our audience is that cohort of present and future senior military
leaders, as well as those advising them, who operate at the apex of civil-mili-
tary relations, the politico-military interface where all key strategic decisions
are made. The task has been daunting, not least because we find ourselves far
enough removed from events to lend a measure of clarity, but not so far as to
permit true objectivity. This is not history, at least not yet, nor is it revealed
truth. But it is, we hope, something of a beginning on a journey of discovery.

Two Campaigns: A Complex Balance Sheet

Iraq and Afghanistan loom large in the popular consciousness as the long,
grinding conflicts that, along with the economic collapse of 2008, dominated
American political life in the years following 9/11. Both were separate and
distinct cases, yet each was inextricably involved with the other, usually as a
competitor for resources. Both began as more or less conventional state-on-
state military interventions but evolved quickly into full-blown counterinsur-
gencies. Both involved large coalitions, massive security assistance programs,
and bitterly divided ethno-sectarian groups, challenging attempts to employ a

401
Hooker and Collins

comprehensive approach that could unite civil and military action across the
effort. Both featured weak, corrupt host-nation governments.
Yet there were also important differences. Iraq featured greater wealth,
a more advanced infrastructure, less daunting logistical challenges, different
tribal and ethno-sectarian dynamics, and more human capital. Afghanistan,
lacking oil and other natural resources, was desperately poor and vulnerable
to outside intervention, while its harsh climate and topography made mili-
tary operations difficult. As in Vietnam, the U.S. military was forced to adapt
its doctrine, training, and equipment in nonstandard ways, while the civilian
component strained to build host-nation capacity.
With this as context, we state unequivocally that the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq carried high costs in blood and treasure. More than 10,000 American
Servicemembers, government civilians, and contractor personnel have been
killed, and well over 80,000 have been wounded or injured, many seriously.
Veterans and Servicemembers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder
or traumatic brain injury add hundreds of thousands more to the casualty
count. Our allies and partners, not including host nations, count over 1,400
dead. In Iraq alone, at least 135,000 civilians were killed, mostly by terrorists
and insurgents.1 In Afghanistan, from 2009 to 2014, nearly 18,000 civilians
were killed, over 70 percent at the hands of the enemy.2 The effects of these
wars, at home and abroad, will be felt for many years to come.
The direct costs of these campaigns are $1.6 trillion, which in the main
were covered not by revenues but by deficit spending. More complex, long-
term estimates exceed $4 trillion.3 The U.S. Armed Forcesespecially its
ground forcesexperienced extraordinary stress and have yet to recover. That
process has suffered from the simultaneous challenges of sequestration, down-
sizing, and the requirements of new and pressing conflicts.
Fourteen years after 9/11, any attempt to accurately gauge political losses
and gains from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is problematic. The costs
appear high and the benefits slight, though long-term outcomes remain un-
certain. Iraq, thought to have been stabilized in 2011 when U.S. and coalition
troops withdrew, now faces partition and a strong pull into an Iranian orbit.
Though al Qaeda in Iraq was defeated, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL) has emerged as an even stronger threat, further destabilizing Iraq, Syria,
and the region as a whole. Afghanistan under the new Ashraf Ghani adminis-

402
 Reflections on Lessons Encountered

tration remains a work in progress, its future after the withdrawal of the Inter-
national Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in question.
Looking back at this remove, the costs seem clear, painful, and excessive,
while the benefits are unclear or still beyond the horizon. Throughout, the
Armed Forces performed with courage and competence, retaining the trust
and confidence of the American people. Yet success in both campaigns is elu-
sive. Progress in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the words of General David Petrae-
us, USA (Ret.), still appears fragile and reversible.
There have been solid gains. Saddam Husseins tyranny, aggression, and
lust for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are history. Al Qaeda in Afghan-
istan and Pakistan has been all but destroyed. The Taliban have been checked,
although their various branches remain a potent force in both Afghanistan
and Pakistan. Because of the dedicated work of our Intelligence Community,
Armed Forces, Department of Homeland Security, and national law enforce-
ment establishment, al Qaeda has been unable to repeat the catastrophic at-
tacks of September 2001. This is a crowning achievement of the Long War, and
one that should not be discounted.
Both Afghanistan and Iraq have been liberated from highly oppressive
regimes. They have also been introduced to democracy. More immediately,
both nations have received generous help in reconstruction. Afghanistan, for
example, had been at war for nearly 24 years before the United States and its
partners helped to oust the backward and highly authoritarian Taliban regime.
The devastation of the country in 2002 stands in great contrast to the effects of
U.S. and allied reconstruction efforts, which have significantly improved the
quality of life for Afghan citizens.4
Al Qaeda terrorism, however, has morphed from a single hierarchical or-
ganization to a set of interlocking networks. There are now al Qaeda rivals,
such as ISIL, that have significant capabilities, and there are other violent ex-
tremist organizations, especially in North Africa and the Horn of Africa, that
have declared themselves to be members or affiliates of al Qaeda. Lieutenant
General Michael Flynn, USA (Ret.), former head of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, noted, In 2004, there were 21 total Islamic terrorist groups spread out
in 18 countries. Today, there are 41 Islamic terrorist groups spread out in 24
countries.5 While we may have prevented major terrorist attacks against the
homeland since 9/11, we have no reason to be complacent.

403
Hooker and Collins

In geostrategic terms, our intervention in Iraq has accelerated the Sun-

ni-Shia conflict that now rends the Middle East. Saddam was an odious tyrant,
but his Iraq represented a powerful counterweight to Iranian hegemonic as-
pirations. Iran has been the winner, as a weakened and fractured Iraq, domi-
nated by Shia political forces, is now heavily influenced by Tehran. The intense
sectarianism that followed the U.S. departure from Iraq enabled the rise of
ISIL in the years that followed, with grave consequences for the region and
the world.
It is important to note that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan was originally a
counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign. Both interventions unseated existing
governments, to be replaced by new leaders, nascent governance structures, and
a bewildering array of international aid organizations that flooded these coun-
tries with money and advisors. A practical working democracy, competent min-
istries, and the rule of law did not materialize quickly, frustrating the desire to
hand over governance and security responsibilities and withdraw. In both cases,
the opposition was defeated but not destroyed. Over time, strong insurgent forc-
es were reconstituted to contest host-nation governance and coalition security
forces. U.S. leaders were slow to acknowledge the nature and character of these
conflicts as they evolved into true insurgencies, though subsequent adaptations
were rapid and effective, especially at the tactical and operational levels.
In Afghanistan, a sober assessment shows that while the Afghan people
are clearly better off than they were under the Taliban, and while Afghanistan
is no longer a safe haven for al Qaeda, the Taliban were not eliminated. In the
Hindu Kush, the new Ghani regime, backed by an army that has succeeded at
great costs in three fighting seasons, has reduced friction in the coalition and
is fighting hard to improve governance and reduce corruption. Nevertheless,
the future stability and prosperity of Afghanistan remain in some doubt. In
Iraq, in the 3 years subsequent to the U.S. withdrawal, the Nouri al-Mali-
ki government adopted intensely sectarian practices, weakened its army, and
opened the door for ISIL. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, our military efforts
were able to set conditions and create space for a resolution of the political
issues that had impelled both insurgencies in the first place. This must be seen
as a major accomplishment. Unfortunately, both the Iraqi and Afghan political
establishments lacked the will and capacity to fully exploit these gains. Internal
corruption and inadequate democratic structures, grafted onto traditionally

404
 Reflections on Lessons Encountered

authoritarian and tribal cultures, prevented stable power-sharing solutions

in Iraq and inhibited them in Afghanistan. Thus, the military gains achieved
were not enough to enable political solutions, despite the commitment of huge
sums and the sustained efforts over many years of coalition diplomats and
development experts. Herein lies a powerful lesson: by itself, the military in-
strument cannot solve inherently political questions, absent the total defeat of
an adversary and its reconstruction from the ground up. This is unlikely in all
but the most extreme cases.
There is, however, a larger context. The ideological and sociological seeds
of Islamist terrorism and insurgency are found in the larger war between fun-
damentalist and more moderate camps and a struggle for political modern-
ization in a greater Middle East much in need of reform.6 This suggests that
the conflict in which we have been engaged for the past 14 years will continue,
albeit in new forms.
The Long War has become a longer war; as Clausewitz noted, the results
of war are never final.7 Those who crave a final accounting of the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan will have to wait decades to get it. It is, however, possible to
offer judgments and observations that may be helpful to the rising generation
of senior military leadership. Both civilian and military leaders are required to
cooperate to make effective strategy, yet their cultures vary widely. As noted
elsewhere, the dialogue is an unequal one, with the power of decision resid-
ing exclusively with the President and the civilian leadership. Nevertheless,
the role of senior military leaders is critical. If military professionalism means
anything at all, those leaders possess expert knowledge not available anywhere
else. By law and precedent, they have a right to be heard. Navigating this ter-
rain represents the art of generalship at its most challenging. Success derives
from intellectual preparation, decades of experiential learning and high suc-
cess in leading complex military organizations, a decided character that is
sturdy and self-confident while also open to new ideas, an advanced grasp of
higher strategy, and a strong moral-ethical compass. Not all who rise to the top
of the military hierarchy are so equipped.

Case Analysis
While a comprehensive discussion of findings and observations is found in ear-
lier chapters and in a separate annex, Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring

405
Hooker and Collins

Freedom represent distinct case studies in how policy and strategy are made,
each a rich vein to be mined. Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, an urgent
consensus formed demanding a military response. In the case of Afghanistan,
time was short, and only limited interagency discussion took place before mil-
itary forces were in motion. In a sense, our approach to the campaign was al-
ways, in Helmuth von Moltkes felicitous phrase, a system of expedients as the
interagency community adapted and evolved to changing conditions and to the
reality that for many years, Afghanistan was a secondary priority to Iraq. Only
in 2010 did Afghanistan become the primary theater of war.
The opportunity for planning and preparation was far greater in the case
of Iraq. Here the case for war was less clear, the higher prioritization less con-
vincing, the military less enthusiastic. Perhaps the most basic of strategic
questionswhat is the problem to be solved?became a football to be kicked
around for the next several years, with the answer ranging from destruction of
WMD to preventing a nexus of terror to establishing democracy in the heart
of the Arab world. Many key assumptionsthat Saddams WMD program
presented a clear and present danger, that Iraqi reconstruction would pay for
itself, that the majority Shiite population would welcome coalition forces as
liberators, that working through Iraqi tribal structures could be safely ignored,
that a small footprint could be successful, that large-scale de-Baathification
was needful and practical, that a rapid transfer to Iraqi control was possible
proved unfounded, dislocating our strategy and the campaign. The failure to
plan adequately and comprehensively for the postconflict period ushered in
a new, dangerous, and intractable phase that saw a rapid descent first into in-
surgency and then into intense sectarian violence.8 National decisions linking
strategic success to corrupt and incapable host-nation governmentsthe pri-
mary drivers of the insurgencies in the first placeproved a major brake.
What was the appropriate role for senior military figures in this regard?
The answer lies partly in the degree to which military leaders at the politi-
co-military interface are expected to limit their advice to purely military mat-
tersto delivering best military advice only, leaving aside political, econom-
ic, legal, and other dimensions for others to weigh. This is a recurring theme in
civil-military relations, dating to the 1950s if not earlier, that has not yet been
fully resolved. Political leaders may believe, and some clearly do, that military
officers are ill-equipped to operate in this environment:9

406
 Reflections on Lessons Encountered

[M]ilitary officers are ill-prepared to contribute to high policy. Normal

career patterns do not look towards such a role. . . . half-hearted at-
tempts at irregular intervals in an officers career to introduce him to
questions of international politics produce only superficiality and pre-
sumption and an altogether deficient sense of the real complexity of the
problems facing the nation.10

An alternate perspective, voiced by President John F. Kennedy but with

roots in Clausewitz, holds that military officers engaged at the highest levels
have not only a right but also a duty to take into consideration the context of
critical national security issues, including their political, diplomatic, and eco-
nomic dimensions, lest their military advice be rendered useless or impracti-
cal. President Kennedy specifically urgedeven orderedthe military, from
the Joint Chiefs right down to academy cadets, to eschew narrow definitions
of military competence and responsibilities, take political considerations into
account in their military recommendations, and prepare themselves to take
active roles in the policymaking process.11
We take the latter view. For the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and combat-
ant commanders, there is no purely military question, no neat distinction
between different dimensions of strategy and policy. They are conjoined. In
this regard, we do not find in the record convincing evidence of vigorous de-
bate or respectful dissent from senior military leaders on the key questions
raised above, though admittedly all rise above the purely military. Nor do we
see them as apparent only in hindsight. The military operations leading to the
overthrow of Saddam were outstandingly successful, a tribute to superb mil-
itary leadership and to the Armed Forces as a whole. Nevertheless, the basic
assumptions upon which our national and campaign strategies for Iraq were
based were flawed, with doleful consequences.12 The primary responsibility
must lie with the political leaders who made them. But senior military leaders
also have a voice and real influence as expert practitioners in their fields. In the
case of the decision to invade Iraq, this influence was not used in full.
This dynamic speaks fundamentally to how we make strategy in Amer-
ica and how our civil-military relations are ordered. Despite criticism of the
military as praetorian or out of control,13 deference to civilian control is
real, especially when dealing with strong civilian personalities. The example of

407
Hooker and Collins

early success in Afghanistan with limited forces empowered proponents of a

similar approach for Iraq, as did the heavy support by the administration for
transformational thinking about armed conflict. In terms of organizational
culture, and our experience in Vietnam notwithstanding, the Armed Forces
were more predisposed to sharp, decisive, conventional operations than pro-
tracted irregular ones. These factors help explain, in part, the approaches tak-
en by senior military leaders in the run-up to Iraq.
A separate but related case is President George W. Bushs decision to surge
in Iraq in 2006, made against the recommendations of the military chain of
command. The ultimate success of the Surge remains open to debate. Some
argue that the Surge precipitated a major reduction in violence, creating con-
ditions for a political settlement that ultimately failed when U.S. forces with-
drew in 2011. Others see the crisis in Iraq today as evidence that the Surge
along with the Anbar Awakening were only tactical successes with temporarily
positive effects that were undone later by the political failures of the Maliki ad-
ministration. While these differing perspectives will not be resolved, the role
played by senior military leaders at this time illuminates both the strengths
and weaknesses of Americas unique approach to making strategy.
The year 2006 was difficult for the United States and the coalition in Iraq.
The February 22 bombing of the al-Askari mosque led to an extraordinary
spike in violence. By most accounts Iraq began to degenerate into open civil
war, a conflict that the new Maliki government was unwilling or unable to con-
trol. Several attempts to stabilize Baghdad failed. That summer, officials with
the National Security Council staff began to push for a policy review. In No-
vember, the administration was dealt a strong rebuff in the midterm elections,
leading to the resignation of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In early December,
the bipartisan Iraq Study Group released its report, stating that the situation
in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.14
Aware that the success of the campaign was in doubt, President Bush
reached out to a number of advisors, both in and outside the formal military
and political chains. He was provided essentially with three options: to acceler-
ate the withdrawal of American troops and the handover to Iraqi security forc-
es, to pull back from the capital and allow the factions to fight it out, or to surge
forces dramatically to regain the initiative and reestablish security.15 With some
variations, most senior military officials favored the first option.16 In the case of

408
 Reflections on Lessons Encountered

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, their views were undoubtedly colored by their Title 10
responsibilities to preserve a force weakened by years at war as well as concerns
about readiness to meet other contingencies should they erupt. Other senior
commanders genuinely believed that more U.S. troops would only inflame local
opposition from both sides. In the end, the President elected to surge five Army
brigades to the capital and 4,000 Marines to Anbar Province in western Iraq,
with a mandate to focus strongly on securing the population.
In so doing, President Bush chose not to adopt the military advice provid-
ed by the formal chain of command, opting instead for the Surge option rec-
ommended by outside advisors. Moving swiftly, he replaced Secretary Rums-
feld with Robert Gates, installed General Petraeus as his new field commander,
announced an increase in the size of the Army and Marine Corps, directed an
associated civilian surge, and expedited the deployment of the fresh troops.
To their credit, senior military leaders supported the Presidents decision and
its implementation, helping to enable a 95 percent reduction in violence and
setting conditions for an eventual transition to Iraqi control. This achievement
staved off defeat and a precipitous withdrawal, perhaps the best outcome avail-
able under the prevailing circumstances.
Any scholar assessing this period must confront the fact that in this case,
the President, as commander in chief, disregarded the best military advice
proffered by the Joint Chiefs, combatant commander, and theater command-
er. (To be fair, President Bush encountered opposition from the State Depart-
ment, Congress, and his own party as well.) Plumbing the depths of this par-
adox requires more space than we have here, but a true understanding has
many dimensions. Many of the three- and four-star generals engaged in Iraq
in 2006 spent most of their careers focused on conventional warfighting and
not on counterinsurgency; indeed, the debate on the efficacy and applicability
of COIN doctrine continues to this day. Most of them had specific responsi-
bilities and frames of reference that did not encompass the Presidents wide
field of view. It is also worth noting that by late 2006, the President had been
engaged and focused on Iraq for at least 4 years and was by then experienced,
highly knowledgeable, and possessed of his own firm views.17 The recommen-
dations of senior military leaders can be seen as grounded in their particular
backgrounds, sets of experiences, and personal perspectives, none of which
mirrored the Presidents.

409
Hooker and Collins

A fair rendering of this episode might conclude that at bottom, the sys-
tem worked as it should. For his part, President Bush was careful to solicit
the views and inputs of his most senior military and civilian advisors and
weighed them carefully. This give-and-take was clearly helpful to all con-
cerned. Yet he also went outside the circle of formal advisors to ensure that
all points of view were brought forward. His ultimate decision was clear and
unambiguous, and he generously supported the requests of his military com-
manders. Against strong opposition in Congress and much criticism in the
media, he displayed a persistence and determination that proved most helpful
to the theater commander and chief of mission charged with implementing
his strategy. In his time in office, much went wrong in Iraq, and observers
have found much to criticize. By any standard, and the ultimate outcome in
Iraq notwithstanding, this decision and its implementation must stand as a
high point in President Bushs administration and a successful example of
civil-military interaction.
Three years later, President Barack Obama found himself in a similar
quandary in Afghanistan. For several years, a resurgent Taliban had pressed
U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces. This prompted
an increase in troop strength in 2008, bringing the full contingent of coalition
forces to 68,000. As U.S. troop numbers in Iraq came down and as the se-
curity situation in Afghanistan worsened, the new administration authorized
another 21,000 U.S. troops in February 2009 and in June replaced General
David McKiernan with General Stanley A. McChrystal, who was thought to be
a commander with greater skills in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency.18
After conducting his own strategic review, McChrystal requested a further
40,000 troops, warning that failure to provide adequate resources risks . . .
mission failure.19
This episode provoked serious debate and discussion in the interagency
community and has been widely covered in the memoirs of senior officials.
At issue was the split between White House officials who opposed a large in-
crease and military officials who supported it. (Secretary Gates found himself
somewhat in the middle, straddling the divide and attempting to manage an
increasingly fractious process.)
A deeper question was the approach adopted by senior military officials
during policy deliberations. At the time and later, the President, his senior

410
 Reflections on Lessons Encountered

staff, and other civilian officials expressed dismay at apparent attempts to in-
fluence the militarys preferred course of action, partly by making the case
outside normal policy channels and partly by a failure to provide a range of
feasible options.20 Several events fueled this perception. A September 4, 2009,
Washington Post article quoted General Petraeus as stating that success in Af-
ghanistan was unlikely without many more troops. In a presentation given in
London on October 1 to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Gen-
eral McChrystal affirmed his recommended COIN strategy and his request
for troops, publicly airing his preferred course of action and refuting others in
advance of any Presidential decision. More damaging, however, was the leak
of McChrystals strategic assessment to the media, which essentially predict-
ed the war would be lost if ISAF was not heavily reinforced.21 In his memoir,
Secretary Gates described the President as infuriated.22 Though neither saw
any calculated plan, both Gates and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Admiral Mike Mullen, expressed frustration at these media missteps.
Understanding this period requires a grasp of a number of dynamic
interactions. The Obama administration was new, with its national security
team still shaking itself out. The President, Vice President, Chief of Staff,
and Secretary of State had just come from Congress, where aggressive ques-
tioning in committee was the norm, a sharp contrast to the previous 8 years.
As most new administrations are, the Obama team was keen to assert civil-
ian control. In contrast, the Secretary of Defense, Chairman, and U.S. Cen-
tral Command commander had extensive experience, their views shaped
by years of involvement in the Long War and particularly by the perceived
success of the surge in Iraq. Though a new four-star, General McChrystal
had served extensively in both Iraq and Afghanistan and probably believed
he had been given a mandate to move in a new direction as McKiernans
replacement. These and other factors contributed to quite different frames
of reference and at times a clash of perspectives that proved difficult for all
concerned.23
The final decision, to add an additional 30,000 troops to ISAF to resource
a population-centric COIN strategy, was announced by the President at West
Point on December 1. With NATO force additions, the total surged coalition
force was 140,000 personnel. This gave General McChrystal much of what he
had asked for, albeit with a limited timeline; the Surge troops would redeploy

411
Hooker and Collins

in only 18 months. However, the bruising contest had lingering effects. When
a Rolling Stone article quoting McChrystal aides as critical and even contemp-
tuous of White House officials was published 6 months later, McChrystal was
relieved and retired, as McKiernan had been, barely a year into his tour. At
least in part, the Presidents decision had its roots in the civil-military conflict
of the previous fall.24
As with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Iraq Surge in 2006, these
events represent policy- and strategy-making and civil-military relations at
their most complex and challenging. We ascribe no unworthy motives to any
of the key players. What seems clear, however, is that a perception formed in
the minds of senior White House staff that the military had failed to bring
forward realistic and feasible options, limiting serious consideration to only
one, and that it had attempted to influence the outcome by trying the case
in the media, circumventing the normal policy process.25 These unfortunate
developments affected both policy and strategy and fed lingering resentments
that would prove deleterious in the months and years to come.

Findings and Observations

In considering from a strategic perspective the key lessons from the Long War,
the scholar is almost compelled to say something about Americas long history
with counterinsurgency. Its roots in the American experience are deep. Where
successful, as in the settling of the American West and in the Philippines, the
methods used were often brutal and indiscriminate. More recently, in Viet-
nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, our experiences have on the whole been difficult,
costly, and indecisive. The ability of the enemy to fight from sanctuary, his
unwillingness to present himself for destruction by our superior technology,
the incapacity of host governments, and the loss of public support occasioned
by protracted and indecisive combat all militated against clear-cut success. The
historical record of large-scale, foreign expeditionary forces in counterinsur-
gencies is a poor one. While small-scale advise-and-assist missions have often
been successful, large-scale expeditionary force COIN efforts do not play to
American strengths and, if experience is any guide, are not likely to lead to
success in securing U.S. strategic objectives.
More broadly, the normal military preference for overmatching force in
armed conflict is often right, even as it commonly invokes opposition from

412
 Reflections on Lessons Encountered

civilian decisionmakers. Strong forces can smother friction, provide options,

and avoid long, protracted conflicts that in the end may be far more expensive
and casualty producing.26 Yet making this case persuasively may be difficult
when political leaders wish to portray lower costs, smaller footprints, more
transformational approaches, or more moderate courses of action that pro-
voke less violent criticism from either side of the political spectrum.27 Each
case is specific, but the lessons of history should not be easily discarded. Clear
objectives accompanied by ample resources intelligently applied, with strong
congressional and public support, typically evoke success.
The authors in this volume have attempted an assessment of strategic deci-
sionmaking in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it will be years before a full account-
ing is possible. Many key issues, such as the gradual evolution of command
and control structures, use of Provincial Reconstruction Teams, challenge of
coalition partner caveats, and many others, deserve a fuller and more compre-
hensive assessment. The foregoing discussion, supported by interviews with a
number of prominent civilian leaders and four-star officers, nevertheless sheds
light on U.S. successes and failures and suggests the following as concluding
thoughts for consideration.
Military involvement in national security decisionmaking at the best of
times carries an element of tension inherent in civil-military relations. At
times during the Long War, this tension was compounded unnecessarily. Ci-
vilian decisionmakers can benefit from a better understanding of the complex-
ity of military strategy and the militarys need for clear planning guidance. For
example, strategy often founders on poorly defined or overly broad objectives
that are not closely tied to available means, and here military leaders could and
should play a key role.
Senior military officers for their part require a deep understanding of the
policy/interagency process, an appreciation for the perspectives of civilian
counterparts, and a willingness to embrace, and not resist, the complexities
and challenges inherent in our system of civilian control. Vigorous debate and
a clear presentation of military perspectives are essential for informed and
successful strategy. Best military advice should be provided, nested within a
larger appreciation of the strategic context and its political, economic, diplo-
matic, and informational dimensions. This conversation must be carried on

413
Hooker and Collins

in confidence, respecting the prerogatives of civilian leaders with whom the

ultimate decision rests.
In most cases, civilian leaders look for a range of feasible options from the
military, framed by clear cost and risk estimates, each of which could achieve
the policy objective. In cases where the objective is unclear or unachievable,
military leaders should press for clarity or state clearly that available resources
could not support a successful outcome. Pressing for a commitment to suc-
cess, defined as achieving sustainable political outcomes worthy of the sacri-
fices made, does not abrogate the civil-military compact. Rather, it reflects the
gravity of any decision for war and the need for a determined commitment
to prevail.28 In so doing, it is helpful to consider that, in general, civilian pol-
icymakers do not come from a military planning background and that for-
mulating specific goals and objectives is often an iterative process based on
discussion and consensus.29 In this regard, domestic political considerations
often intrude and should be expected by military leaders.
In crafting policy and strategy, well-considered ideas matter and could
often carry the day. Though time is scarce and resources precious, prior prepa-
ration and rehearsal are always good investments. Informed and articulate
advocacy has a quality all its own, and skilled communicators with a convinc-
ing message are more likely to win acceptance. Department and agency cul-
tures and interests are real, and they matter. But their positions could change
through discussion and persuasion.
Policy and strategy take place in an operating universe that is highly
sensitive to budget, election, and news cycles. They set the rhythm, the ca-
dence, and the pace of political life. Career military officers are not always
attuned to these realities, whereas civilian policymakers are. Awareness and
flexibility with respect to this reality improve the quality and utility of mil-
itary advice.
The art of generalship at the highest levels must also encompass an ability to
understand and adapt to different Presidential and secretarial leadership styles
and modes. Within a general interagency framework, each constructs decision
settings composed of personalities and processes they find most helpful and
congenial. These may, and often will, vary significantly from one administration
to the next. At the four-star level, the ability to adapt to different civilian lead-
ership styles is critical and may spell the difference between success and failure.

414
 Reflections on Lessons Encountered

Four-star generals and admirals are practically by definition masters of

Service and joint warfighting, but at the most senior levels, other attributes
are necessary. These include interagency acumen, media savvy, a detailed un-
derstanding of congressional relations, a strong grasp of the defense planning,
programming, and budgeting system, and skill in multinational environments.
Normal career development patterns do not always provide opportunities to
build these competencies. Sustained tenure in high-level command positions
may also be a significant consideration.30 In a number of the examples dis-
cussed in this volume, gaps in these skill sets contributed to poor outcomes
that might have been prevented either by having different professional devel-
opment and military and civilian education opportunities or by applying more
refined selection criteria for specific, very high-level positions.31
At its core, strategy is all about making hard decisions, potentially raising
issues of great moral or ethical significance. While the ultimate power of deci-
sion rests firmly in civilian hands, senior military officials have a duty to sup-
port effective and successful policy and strategy and to offer their best military
advice and, if necessary, respectful dissent to help preclude strategic failure. As
one senior four-star officer put it when interviewed for this study, We have a
sacred responsibility to provide best military advice. If we fail we concede that
right.32 Admirals and generals do not, of course, set aside personal and pro-
fessional core values when they reach the pinnacle of responsibility. A strong
moral compass is imperative when considering questions of war and peace.
National security decisionmaking is a highly personal endeavor relying
heavily on trust relationships. These may take years to build but can be lost
overnight. In this regard, General Colin Powells admonition is useful: Never
let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your
ego goes with it. The interagency community at its apex is no place for hot
tempers or the easily annoyed. A calm and steady temperament can be a real
advantage. Todays policy adversary may be tomorrows policy ally. As much
as possible, senior leaders will find it advantageous to maintain good working
relationships with civilian partners, evenor perhaps especiallywhen they
find themselves on opposite sides of the issue.
If Afghanistan and Iraq are any guide, future wars will present national se-
curity decisionmakers with problems that will challenge their minds and souls.
A lesson here for future senior officers is that there is no substitute for lifelong

415
Hooker and Collins

learning. The study of history, a broad grasp of all the instruments of national
power with their strengths and weaknesses, confidence and a decisive character,
and a fair portion of prudence and humility are all helpful when dealing with fu-
ture commitments and challenges. There are no easy days and few simple prob-
lems for four-stars. Ultimately, they must deal with life-and-death decisions on a
big stage. And while history does not repeat itself, there are age-old patterns that
senior officers and politicians will always face. Sir Winston Churchill, writing in
the years between the world wars, leaves us with this cautionary reminder:

Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be
smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage
can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman
who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is
no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and un-
controllable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent or ar-
rogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant
Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculationsall take their seats at
the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war. Always re-
member, however sure you are that you can easily win, that there would
not be a war if the other man did not think that he also had a chance.33

Notes

1
Estimates of civilian dead in Iraq vary widely, with the low end at approximately
133,000. See Costs of War, The Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown Univer-
sity, May 2014.
2
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Afghanistan: Annu-
al Report 2014Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul: UNAMA, February
2015), 12, available at <http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20
rights/2015/2014-Annual-Report-on-Protection-of-Civilians-Final.pdf>.
3
Costing Iraq and Afghanistan is imprecise because methodology can vary widely. For
example, future interest payments and veterans care in the out years are counted in some
estimates and not in others. A detailed accounting of the costs related to the campaigns in
Iraq and Afghanistan is found in annex A of this book.

416
 Reflections on Lessons Encountered

4
Highlights include an increase in adult life expectancy from 42 to 64 years, a decrease
in maternal mortality from 1,600 to 327 per 100,000, a more than 10-fold increase in
school attendance (including a 36 percent increase for girls), an increase in 1-hour access
to health care from 9 percent to 60 percent, an increase in reliable access to electricity of
12 percent, and a growth in mobile phone subscribers from zero to 19 million. Statistics
provided from various sources including Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook,
available at <www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html>; U.S.
Agency for International Development, Afghanistan Country Profile; Ian S. Livingston
and Michael OHanlon, Afghanistan Index (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution,
February 10, 2015), 2023; Afghanistan, InternetWorldStats.com, available at <www.
internetworldstats.com/asia/af.htm>; and Jonathan Foreman, Good News from Afghani-
stan, Commentary, July 1, 2014.
5
James Kitfield, Flynns Last Interview: Iconoclast Departs DIA with a Warning, Break-
ing Defense, August 7, 2014, available at <http://breakingdefense.com/2014/08/flynns-last-
interview-intel-iconoclast-departs-dia-with-a-warning/>.
6
In the next century few things will matter more than the battle for the soul of Islam;
should fundamentalist brands triumph and become mainstreamed, the destabilizing
effects throughout the Islamic world and the community of nations itself will be almost
incalculable. R.D. Hooker, Jr., Beyond Vom Kriege: The Character and Conduct of Mod-
ern War, Parameters 35, no. 2 (Summer 2005), 11.
7
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1976 and 1984), book one, chapter one, 80.
8
David Petraeus, interview by Joseph J. Collins and Nathan White, March 27, 2015.
9
[O]n politico-military issues . . . military officers may have little background and no
strong views of their own. Douglas J. Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the
Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: Harper, 2008), 371.
John F. Reichart and Steven R. Sturm, ed., American Defense Policy (Baltimore: The
10

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 724.

11
Jerome Slater, Military Officers and Politics I, in Reichart and Sturm, 750.
General John Abizaid, former commander of U.S. Central Command, refers to the
12

Heroic Assumptionthe expectation that the liberation of Iraq would resemble the lib-
eration of France in 1944. Chief of Staff of the Army Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) Study
Group, interview of Abizaid (unpublished), September 19, 2014.
13
Historian Richard H. Kohn is a primary exponent of this view. See Richard H. Kohn,
Out of Control: The Crisis in Civil Military Relations, The National Interest, no. 35
(Spring 1994); The Forgotten Fundamentals of Civilian Control of the Military in Democrat-
ic Government, Project on U.S. PostCold War Civil-Military Relations, Working Paper
No. 11 (Cambridge: John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, June 1997); and The
Erosion of Civilian Control of the Military in the United States Today, Naval War College
Review 55 (Summer 2002).

417
Hooker and Collins

James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report (New York: Ran-
14

dom House, 2006), xiii.

15
George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown, 2010), 372.
16
In retrospect, I believe that I should have directly offered the President a broader range
of options for achieving our objectives in Iraq. I had discussed different options for im-
proving the security situation with the Secretary of Defense and Chairman. . . . In the end,
I only presented the President the course of action we selectedaccelerated transition
and I believe that I should have offered him a wider range of options to meet his policy
needs. George W. Casey, Jr., Strategic Reflections (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2012),
144.
17
In addition to weekly meetings of the National Security Council on Iraq, President
George W. Bush also received, and read, daily updates produced by the NSC Office for
Iraq and Afghanistan.
18
Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War (New York: Knopf, 2014), 346.
The President eventually ordered a troop surge of 30,000 as recommended by Secretary
19

Gates, announcing his decision at West Point on December 1, 2009. See Bob Woodward,
McChrystal: More Forces or Mission Failure, Washington Post, September 21, 2009.
During September several events fractured what little trust remained between the
20

senior military and the president and his staff. Gates, 367.
21
See Woodward, McChrystal.
22
Gates, 368. The chapter dealing with these events is titled Afghanistan: A House Divid-
ed.
Douglas E. Lute, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins, March 10,
23

2015. General Petraeus also described in some detail the chain of events that led to these
misunderstandings. Petraeus, interview.
24
Bob Woodward, Obamas Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 372373.
25
Lute, interview.
26
Ibid. For the United States, fighting a sustained conflict for less than vital national
interests is a waning proposition.
27
The authors are indebted to Professor Richard Betts for these insights.
28
Without strategy, there is no rationale for how force will achieve purposes worth the
price in blood and treasure. Richard Betts, cited in H.R. McMaster, The Uncertainties of
Strategy, Survival (FebruaryMarch 2015), 201.
29
Martin E. Dempsey, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins, January
7, 2015.
Four-star theater commanders in Afghanistan averaged 12.8 months in command,
30

compared to 17.2 months in Iraq and 30.8 months in Vietnam.

418
 Reflections on Lessons Encountered

31
A remarkable number of senior officers who played key roles in the Long War were
selected for advanced civil schooling at top graduate schools early in their careers. This
opportunity yielded rich dividends in their strategic development. They include Admiral
James G. Stavridis, USN (Ret.); General Petraeus; General Peter W. Chiarelli, USA (Ret.);
General Raymond T. Odierno, USA; General Dempsey; General Abizaid; and General
John R. Allen, USMC (Ret.). Former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff General Colin Powell might also be included. Other officers, most notably General
James N. Mattis, USMC (Ret.), enjoy reputations as lifelong learners and self-taught strate-
gists of the first rank.
32
Lloyd J. Austin III, interview by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., April 7, 2015.
Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (New York: Scribners, 1930,
33

rpt. 1958), 232.

419
 Annex A

The Human and Financial Costs of

Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq
Sara Thannhauser and Christoff Luehrs

T
his annex provides both an assessment of the human and financial
costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a baseline for assessing
broader strategic gains and losses from a decade-plus of war. It re-
views official U.S. Government data and private studies that attempt to capture
the direct costs of U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as some of
the related and projected costs associated with the operations such as health-
care and disability costs for veterans and interest on the debt. While the annex
focuses specifically on U.S. costs, it also briefly reviews costs incurred by our
allies, host-nation security forces, and local populations.
Many organizations, both public and private, have developed cost assess-
ments for the wars. Some document the expense solely in terms of casualties
and funds, while others attempt to include indirect costs such as environmen-
tal impact and macroeconomic costs. Individual governmental agencies (De-
partment of Defense [DOD], Department of Labor, and Department of Veter-
ans Affairs) have at various times issued numbers on the human and financial
costs of the wars, but there has been no official publically available systematic
report on war costs by these agencies. The Congressional Research Service
(CRS), Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and Government Accountability
Office (GAO) have published over 50 reports detailing the human and finan-
cial tolls. CRS has been relying on nonpublic DOD reports of war costs issued
to the four congressional defense committees, as well as CRS, CBO, and GAO.
In addition, Congress created the Office of the Special Inspector General for

421
Thannhauser and Luehrs

Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) and Special Inspector General for Afghanistan

Reconstruction (SIGAR) to document fraud, waste, and abuse.1
Academics and think tanks have also put forth considerable effort to doc-
ument and assess the cost of both wars. The Center for Strategic and Inter-
national Studies and Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments have
produced several studies that document the costs of the wars.2 The Watson In-
stitute of International Affairs at Brown University hosts the Cost of War Proj-
ect, which consists of more than 30 economists, anthropologists, lawyers, hu-
manitarian personnel, and political scientists working to compile and conduct
the first comprehensive analysis of these wars in terms of human casualties
and economic costs.3 Researchers in the John F. Kennedy School of Govern-
ment at Harvard University have published extensively on the financial legacy
of Iraq and Afghanistan, specifically highlighting how wartime spending deci-
sions will impact future national security budgets.4 Other organizations, such
as the Iraq Body Count, look specifically at the civilians harmed or displaced
by violence and how the wars have spilled into neighboring states.5
Given the number of estimates that exist, and the fact that each organi-
zation reaches its conclusions operating under varied assumptions and using
different projection calculations, it is challenging to come up with a single de-
finitive figure for the costs of the two wars. For the most part this annex relies
on numbers provided from official government sources. However, where gaps
exist in official data, this annex relies on figures and conclusions reached by
some of the academic studies listed herein. Finally, in reality, determining an
accurate ultimate cost sheet for the wars is an impossible endeavor at this point
as the war in Afghanistan is ongoing, while U.S. efforts in Iraq against the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Operation Inherent Resolve) were fund-
ed at $5 billion in the December 2014 Consolidated and Further Continuing
Appropriation Act, 2015, with a further $8.8 billion requested for fiscal year
(FY) 2016.6

Cost in Human Life

The number of U.S. Servicemember casualties of the campaigns in Iraq and
Afghanistan pales in comparison to other wars such as World War I and World
War II, nor does the toll from these campaigns come close to the cost in lives
associated with the wars in Vietnam and Korea. Undoubtedly, the reduction

422
 The Human and Financial Costs of Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

in casualty numbers and high survival rates for seriously wounded troops can
be attributed to the incredible advancements in the field of medicine, armored
vehicles, body armor, and the asymmetric nature of the conflicts. However, it
does not lessen the burden for those who lost loved ones or those whose lives
are altered due to limb amputations, traumatic brain injuries (TBI), chronic
severe depression, and/or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Moreover,
American soldiers were not alone in making the ultimate sacrifice; U.S. civil-
ian government personnel also gave their lives.7
Also shouldering the burden with U.S. soldiers and government employ-
ees were U.S. citizens, third-country nationals, and local nationals who served
as contractors to U.S. Government agencies.8 Finally, the cost of war must also
take into account the number of lives that were lost on September 11, 2001.
After all, it was the events of that day and the subsequent loss of 2,977 lives in
New York City, Washington, DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, that triggered
the ensuing decade of war and its aftermath.

DOD Personnel
According to its own casualty report, DOD deaths (both military and civilian)
reported for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom
(OIF), and their follow-on operations total 6,855 lives (see table 1 for a histor-
ical comparison).9 In August 2014, the United States lost its highest-ranking
Soldier with the death of Major General Harold J. Greene, USA. He was the
first American general killed in a combat zone since Vietnam.
Beyond the dead, 52,340 Servicemembers have been physically wounded
in the wars. According to the Veterans Health Administration, 1,158,359 vet-
erans of Afghanistan and Iraq have been treated for a wide range of medical
issues, the vast majority of them as outpatients.10 That number is likely to grow
while operations in both theaters continue. The most frequent diagnoses of
veterans have been musculoskeletal ailments, mental disorders, and Symp-
toms, Signs and Ill-defined Conditions.11 The three enduring and most debil-
itating ailments associated with these operations are traumatic brain injuries,
major limb amputations, and PTSD. In terms of TBI, figure 1 documents the
increase over the past decade of war. According to the Defense and Veterans
Brain Injury Center, in 2000 there were a reported 10,958 cases of TBI. Be-
tween 2005 and 2012 (the peak of the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan),

423
Thannhauser and Luehrs

Table 1. Overall Department of Defense Casualties (as of June 4, 2015)

Servicemember DOD Civilian Servicemember

Conflict Deaths Deaths Wounded in Action

World War Ia 116,516 204,002

World War II 405,399 670,846

Korean War 36,574 103,284

Vietnam 58,220 303,644

Operation Iraqi Free- 4,411 13 31,951

domb, c

Operation New 66 0 295

Dawnd

Operation Inherent 6 0 1
Resolvee

Operation 2,351 4 20,069

Enduring Freedomf

Operation 2 1 24
Freedoms Sentinelg

Total, 20012014 6,836 18 52,340

a. Defense Casualty Analysis System, Principal Wars in Which the United States ParticipatedU.S. Military Per-
sonnel Serving and Casualties (17751991), available at at <www.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/report_principal_wars.
xhtml>.
b. Department of Defense, Casualty Status, Fatalities as of June 15, 2015, 10 a.m. EDT, available at <www.defense.
gov/news/casualty.pdf>.
c. Operation Iraqi Freedom includes casualties that occurred between March 19, 2003, and August 31, 2010, in the
Arabian Sea, Bahrain, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia,
and the United Arab Emirates. Prior to March 19, 2003, casualties in these countries were considered under Oper-
ation Enduring Freedom. Personnel injured in Iraqi Freedom who die after September 1, 2010, will be included in
statistics from that operation.
d. Operation New Dawn includes casualties that occurred between September 1, 2010, and December 31, 2011, in the
Arabian Sea, Bahrain, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia,
and the United Arab Emirates. Personnel injured in New Dawn who die after December 31, 2011, will be included in
statistics from that operation.
e. Operation Inherent Resolve includes casualties that occurred in Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Ku-
wait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the Mediterranean Sea east of 25 longi-
tude, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea.
f. Operation Enduring Freedom includes casualties that occurred between October 7, 2001, and December 31, 2014,
in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, the Phil-
ippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
g. Operation Freedoms Sentinel includes casualties that occurred in Afghanistan after January 1, 2015.

424
 The Human and Financial Costs of Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

Figure 1. Traumatic Brain Injury Over Time, 20002014 (as of August 19, 2014)

35,000

30,000

25,000
Incident Diagnoses

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Q2
Total Severe or Penetrating TBI Moderate TBI Not Classifiable Mild TBI

Source: Hannah Fischer, A Guide to U.S. Military Casualty Statistics: Operation Inherent Resolve, Operation New Dawn,
Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom, RS22452 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Ser-
vice, November 20, 2014).

the average number of cases reported per year was 25,668.12 The vast majority
of TBI cases (85.8 percent) between 2000 and 2014 have been classified as
mild, with 8.6 percent classified as moderate, and 2.6 percent as severe or
penetrating.13
Figure 2 documents major limb amputations due to battle injuries in OEF
and OIF between 2001 and September 2014. From 2003 until the first quarter
of 2009, the majority of the major limb amputations due to battle injuries oc-
curred in OIF. In the second quarter of 2009, the trend changed and since that
time the majority of the major limb amputations due to battle injuries have
occurred in OEF. As of September 2014, 1,573 soldiers have lost a limb due to
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.14 By comparison, in Vietnam, 5,283 soldiers
lost a limb.15
Both figures 1 and 2 illustrate a dramatic increase in these injuries at the
height of the wars. Figure 3 documents the reported cases of PTSD among
Servicemembers who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and those who did
not. Between 2000 and 2014, there were a reported 36,321 cases of PTSD
among Servicemembers who did not deploy. During that same time period,
among soldiers who deployed to Afghanistan and/or Iraq, 128,496 cases of
PTSD were reported.16

425
Thannhauser and Luehrs

Figure 2. Major Limb Amputations Due to Battle Injuries in Operation Iraqi Free-
dom, Operation New Dawn, and Operation Enduring Freedom, 20012014 (as of
September 1, 2014)

300
Battle Injury, Major Limb Amputation

250

200

150

100

50

0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Total (OEF, OIF, OND) OEF OIF/OND

Source: Hannah Fischer, A Guide to U.S. Military Casualty Statistics: Operation Inherent Resolve, Operation New Dawn,
Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom, RS22452 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Ser-
vice, November 20, 2014).

Figure 3. Annual Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Diagnoses in All Services,

20002014 (as of September 5, 2014)

25,000

20,000
PTSD Cases

15,000

10,000

5,000

0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Total Incident cases (not previously deployed) Incident cases among OEF/OIF/OND deployed

Source: Hannah Fischer, A Guide to U.S. Military Casualty Statistics: Operation Inherent Resolve, Operation New Dawn,
Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom, RS22452 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Ser-
vice, November 20, 2014).

426
 The Human and Financial Costs of Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

Many observers have voiced concerns that repeated deployments and

shorter dwell times at home may have increased the mental health toll on
Servicemembers, even as ongoing studies grapple with the exact nature of the
causal link between the two.17 According to a CRS report, between 2001 and
2011, the rate of mental health diagnoses among Active-duty Servicemem-
bers increased approximately 65 percent.18 Between 2000 and 2011, diagnoses
of adjustment disorders, depression, and anxiety disorders (excluding PTSD)
made up 26 percent, 17 percent, and 10 percent, respectively, of all diagnoses.
Alcohol abuse and dependence disorders and substance abuse and dependence
disorders made up 13 percent and 4 percent, respectively. PTSD represented
approximately 6 percent of mental disorder diagnoses over this time period.19
According to a 2012 Medical Surveillance Monthly Report, beginning in 2010,
suicide has become the second leading cause of death for Active-duty Service-
members, behind only war injuries.20 Taken together, it is clear that in addition
to loss of life there is a significant psychological cost of these wars affecting
Servicemembers, veterans, and their families, and it will continue to have an
impact for years to come.

U.S. Contractors
Unique to modern U.S. wars are the tremendous contributions of contrac-
tors working alongside U.S. military and government personnel. More so
than any other wars in U.S. history, civilians worked together with military
counterparts in Afghanistan and Iraq, providing a range of services including
transportation, construction, base support, intelligence analysis, and private
security. According to CRS, over the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan con-
tractors accounted for 50 percent or more of the total military force.21 When
accounting for the contractors hired by other government agencies such as
the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (US-
AID), it is fair to say that there have been more contractors on the ground in
these countries than U.S. troopseven at the peak of these operations. And in
such service, many civilian contactors were killed or injured. According to a
report in the New York Times, the contractor with the highest war zone deaths
is the defense giant L-3 Communications: If L-3 were a country, it would have
the third highest loss of life in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq; only the United
States and Britain would exceed it in fatalities.22

427
Thannhauser and Luehrs

Unlike the easily accessible and reliable figures documenting the loss in
life of American Servicemembers, there is not an equally accurate account of
contractor casualties. Under the Federal Defense Base Act, American defense
contractors are obligated to report the war zone deaths and injuries of their
employeesincluding subcontractors and foreign workersto the Depart-
ment of Labor and to carry insurance that provides employees with medical
care and compensation. According to one expert, however, since many con-
tractors do not comply with even the current reporting requirements, the true
number of private contractor deaths may be far higher.23 Moreover, while con-
tractors have been killed in large numbers, a full and accurate accounting has
not yet been conducted by DOD, Department of State, and USAID (although
Congress instructed those agencies to do so).24 Consequently, the numbers in
table 2 are at best a sound, conservative estimate based on the Defense Base
Act case summary reports through March 2015.
The U.S. Department of Labors Office of Workers Compensation Pro-
grams Defense Base Act case summaries indicate that 1,592 contractors lost
their lives in Afghanistan, and 1,620 in Iraq (see table 2). In terms of con-
tractors injured in action, which the Department of Labor categorizes as lost
time 4 days or more, 13,813 were injured in Afghanistan and 18,309 in Iraq.25
Other initiatives to collect data on contractor casualties find that these num-
bers are conservative. Efforts to better capture contractor casualties are ongo-
ing. At the high end of the spectrum, the Cost of War Project estimates that
3,401 contractors died in Afghanistan and 3,481 in Iraq.26 More in line with
the Department of Labor numbers, an online blog called the Defense Base Act
Compensation Blog cites 3,187 contractor deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.27
However, the blog cites a much higher injured figure of 86,375.
Only a small proportion of contractors working on U.S. Government con-
tracts are U.S. citizens. In FY 2010, 24 percent of all contractors in Afghani-
stan and Iraq (including those working for DOD, State, and USAID) were U.S.
nationals, 44 percent were local Iraqis or Afghans, and 32 percent were from
third countries.28 A 2013 CRS report found that roughly 30 percent of DOD
contractors in theater were U.S. citizens in Iraq (early 2012) and Afghanistan
(early 2013), respectively.29 As a result, the bulk of contractor casualties are
non-Americans. The majority have been Afghan and Iraqi nationals working
under U.S. Government contracts.30 Nationals from Fiji, Turkey, Nepal, and

428
 The Human and Financial Costs of Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

the Philippines have also died while serving as contractors for the U.S. Gov-
ernment.
While there are numerous studies on the mental impacts of Afghanistan
and Iraq on Servicemembers, there is no parallel effort to capture the psycho-
logical toll on contractors. According to one report, injured contractors who
are U.S. citizens have had a more difficult time getting care than returning
Servicemembers. Contractors also lack the support network available to re-
turning troops through Tricare or the Department of Veterans Affairs. Their
care depends on getting workers compensation payments, and they have often
had to struggle with insurance companies to get quality care or even to get
medical bills paid.31

Coalition Partners, Host-Nation Civilians, Nongovernmental

Workers, and Journalists
In addition to American Servicemember fatalities, international coalition
partners recorded 1,449 dead in Afghanistan and Iraq (the largest group was
632 British soldiers killed).32 The groups that shouldered the greatest burden
in these wars, however, were the local populations and security forces of Af-
ghanistan and Iraq. As shown in table 2, it is difficult to provide exact num-
bers for these groups. Because different sources use different time periods and
methodologies to arrive at their numbers, the estimates provided here should,
to quote a CRS report on the subject, be viewed as guideposts rather than
statements of fact.33 The ranges provided for local populations and security
forces are based on (table 2, notes d, f) and represent conservative estimates
from 25,729 to 35,470 security forces and 158,415 to 191,000 civilians killed.
Beyond host-nation civilians, casualties were also recorded for nongovern-
mental (NGO) workers and journalists. According to the Cost of War Project,
393 NGO employees lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, and 246 journal-
ists were killed in both conflicts (table 2, note g).
It is far too early to assess the indirect impact of a decade-plus of war on
host-nation civilians. Like soldiers, many suffer the same physical and psy-
chological wounds from limb amputations to severe depression and PTSD.
However, they often lack the medical support services to treat and mitigate the
debilitating and devastating effects of these enduring injuries and ailments.
Moreover, the culture of violence and sectarianism remains ever present and

429
Thannhauser and Luehrs

Table 2. Overall Casualties, 20012015

Operation Iraqi Operation

Conflict Freedom Enduring Freedom Totals 20012015

Servicemembersa 4,483 2,353 6,837

DOD Civiliansa 13 5 18

U.S. Government 612 1015 1627

Civilians (non-
DOD)b

Allied Troopsc 319 1,130 1,449

Local Security 12,000 13,72923,470 25,72935,470

Forcesd

U.S. 1,620 1,592 3,212

Contractorse

Host- 137,000165,000 21,41526,000 158,415191,000

Nation Civiliansf

Journalistsg 221 25 246

NGO 62 331 393

Workersg

a. Figures as of June 15, 2015, 10 a.m. EDT. See Department of Defense, Casualty Status, available at <www.
defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf>. Operation Iraqi Freedom includes casualties that occurred between March 19,
2003, and August 31, 2010, in the Arabian Sea, Bahrain, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Persian
Gulf, Qatar, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Prior to March 19, 2003, casualties in these
countries were considered under Operation Enduring Freedom. Personnel injured in Iraqi Freedom who die after
September 1, 2010, will be included in statistics from that operation. Also included for Iraq are Operation New
Dawn (casualties that occurred between September 1, 2010, and December 31, 2011, in the Arabian Sea, Bahrain,
Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab
Emirates) and Operation Inherent Resolve (casualties that occurred in Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jor-
dan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the Mediterranean Sea east
of 25 longitude, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea). Enduring Freedom includes casualties that occurred between
October 7, 2001, and December 31, 2014, in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and
Yemen. Also included for Afghanistan is Operation Freedoms Sentinel (includes casualties that occurred in Af-
ghanistan after January 1, 2015).
b. No central data point for U.S. Government (USG) civilian fatalities was identified. Numbers are derived from
Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Significant Attacks Against U.S. Diplomatic Facilities and
Personnel: 19982013 (Washington, DC: Department of State, May 2014), available at <www.state.gov/docu-
ments/organization/225846.pdf>. Ranges reflect ambiguities in reporting U.S. citizen versus USG employee
deaths.
c. Figures as of June 11, 2015, available at <www.icasualities.org>.
d. There are multiple sources with considerable variation in data due to uncertain reporting. See Afghanistan In-
dex, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, available at <www.brookings.edu/about/programs/foreign-pol-
icy/afghanistan-index>; Human Costs of War: Direct War Death in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, October
2001April 2015, Costs of War, available at <www.costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/%28Home%20page%20fig-

430
 The Human and Financial Costs of Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

(Table 2 continued)
ures%29%20SUMMARY%20-%20Direct%20War%20Death%20Toll.pdf>; Iraq Index, The Brookings Institution,
Washington, DC, available at <www.brookings.edu/about/centers/middle-east-policy/iraq-index>.
e. Department of Labor, Defense Base Act Case Summary by Nation, accessed March 31, 2015, available at
<www.dol.gov/owcp/dlhwc/dbaallnation.htm>.
f. Iraq Body Count (IBC) records violent civilian deaths that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention
in Iraq. Its public database includes deaths caused by U.S.-led coalition forces and paramilitary or criminal at-
tacks by others. IBC is available at <www.iraqbodycount.org/about/>; Human Costs of War; United Nations
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Reports on the Protection of Civilians, available at <http://unama.unmis-
sions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=13941&language=en-US>.
g. Figures from Human Costs of War: Direct War Death in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, October 2001
April 2015.

the risk of new conflict is real as the recent advances of ISIL in Iraq have made
all too obvious. In fact, the Iraq Body Count notes that 2014 has been the
third deadliest year after 2006 and 2007 for Iraqi civilians.34 In Afghanistan,
the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported that 2014 saw
the highest number of civilian deaths and injuries recorded in a single year
since 2009.35

Cost in Dollars
How much does war cost? Experts have been devising elaborate methods to
account for not only the direct obligations of war, but also projected costs from
the interest on large promissory notes to the expanded long-term medical and
healthcare costs required to support veterans. Two of the most prominent
scholars in this area are Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda
Bilmes.36 Stiglitz and Bilmes examined both the operational direct costs and
future costs. They also delved into what they call the macroeconomic costs,
such as the impact of higher oil prices on weakening aggregate demand and
the link between oil prices and decisions of the Federal Reserve to loosen
monetary and regulatory policy prior to the financial crisis.37 Projections that
include these macroeconomic considerations into their accounting of finan-
cial costs reach total cost estimates of up to $4.4 trillion dollars.38 While these
costs are real, they are often not trackable and require numerous assumptions
for future projections.39 For the purpose of this project, this section of the an-
nex focuses on the direct obligations made to pay for the wars in Afghanistan

431
Thannhauser and Luehrs

and Iraq and provides examples for estimates of related costs for reference.
This section does not delve into the costs incurred by coalition partners.

Figure 4. Estimated War Funding by Operation Fiscal Year 20012015 Request (in
USD billions of Budget Authority)
$200

$150
Billions of Dollars

$100

$50

$0
FY01 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10 FY11 FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15
FY02 Req.a
Operation Cumulative Enacted*

Afghanistan/ $23 $17 $15 $21 $19 $31 $39 $56 $94 $107 $101 $86 $77 $58 $686
OEFb
Iraq/ $0 $51 $77 $79 $96 $131 $144 $93 $65 $47 $20 $8 $5 $5 $815
OIF/ONDc

Enhanced $13 $6 $4 $2 $1 $1 $** $** $** $** $** $** $** $** $27
Securityd

Othere $0 $0 $0 $7 $8 $7 $12 $7 $6 $5 $9 $7 $13 $10 $81

Total $36 $74 $96 $108 $124 $170 $195 $157 $165 $159 $130 $100 $95 $74 $1,609

*Cumulative enacted (FY01FY14). **Amounts to less than $200 million.

Source: Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, RL33110
(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, December 8, 2014).

a. Fiscal year (FY) 2015 reflects June 2014 request (amended) rather than initial placeholder request of $79.4 billion
for Department of Defense (DOD); reflects resources not scoring level. Excludes $5.5 billion requested for Operation
Iraqi Freedom in FY2015.
b. DOD refers to the Afghan War as Operation Enduring Freedom, primarily military and other operations in Af-
ghanistan as well as in-theater support in neighboring countries and other counterterror operations (for example, the
Philippines and Djibouti).
c. DOD referred to the Iraq War as Operation Iraqi Freedom until September 1, 2010, when U.S. forces transitioned
from combat operations to advising, assisting, and training Iraqi forces. The mission was renamed Operation New
Dawn, which ended December 31, 2011. On that date, all U.S. forces left Iraq; military personnel continuing to
provide in-theater support were assigned to Operationf Enduring Freedom. Excludes new Operation Inherent Resolve
request.
d. Enhanced Security covers cost of 9/11 attacks to DOD and New York City; referred to as Operation Noble Eagle
by DOD.
e. Other includes DOD funding designated for a war emergency or Overseas Contingency Operation that is not
tracked as a war cost, such as congressional additions for childcare centers, barracks improvements, additional C-130
and C-17 aircraft not requested, as well as unanticipated increases in basic housing allowances, fuel costs, modularity,
or restructuring of Army brigades. In recent years, Other includes transfers by Congress from base budget opera-
tion and maintenance expenses to Title IX war funding.

432
 The Human and Financial Costs of Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

Table 3. Costs of Major U.S. Wars (in 2011 USD billions)

World War I $334

World War II $4,104
Korea $341
Vietnam $738
Persian Gulf War $102
Iraq, Afghanistan, war on terror $1,529

Source: Stephen Dagget, Costs of Major U.S. Wars, RS22926 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, June
29, 2010), 2.

Notes: Figures for World War I through Persian Gulf War in fiscal year (FY) 2011 USD. Figures for Iraq, Afghanistan,
and war on terror from figure 4 converted to FY2011 USD.

Direct Overseas Contingency Operations Budget

In budget terms, the U.S. Government now describes the wars as Overseas
Contingency Operations (OCO). According to the latest comprehensive CRS
report on the costs of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Long War operations since
9/11, the United States has obligated $1.6 trillion in OCO funds, most directed
at DOD and Department of State.40 Figure 4 provides an overview of estimated
war funding by operation to date. Notably, operations in Iraq account for the
lions share of war costs, despite the fact that these figures do not yet include ap-
propriations for Operation Inherent Resolve. Taken together, these costs make
the campaigns since 9/11 the second most expensive war in U.S. history, as
shown in table 3. Counting only direct OCO appropriations, Americas longest
war has already cost twice as much as its second longest engagement, Vietnam.
Remarkably, a cost estimate for Vietnam that does account for additional costs
(increased troop levels, debt-servicing, veterans compensation, and pensions)
through the year 2000 arrives at a total of $1.2 trillion.41 This suggests that,
even when comparing long-term and related costs for Vietnam only to the
direct OCO appropriations since 2001, post-9/11 operations have already cost
more and are likely to far outstrip the largest Cold Warera campaign.

Ongoing Commitments and Future Costs

With over 52,000 U.S. Servicemembers wounded, many of them require ex-
tensive medical care, which becomes the responsibility of the Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA). According to a recent CRS estimate, the United States

433
Thannhauser and Luehrs

has spent $22.8 billion between 2001 and 2015 providing medical care to veter-
ans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.42 Beyond medical issues, some Service-
members were injured so severely that they require disability benefits. The VA
reported that over 700,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans received disability
compensation through September 2013 and that the average annualized cost
per patient rose from $8,100 to $12,900 between 2000 and 2013.43According to
one estimate, the United States has spent $35 billion in disability payments to
Iraq and Afghanistan veterans through the VA between 2001 and 2013.44 The
CBO puts the figure at $34 billion for 20012015.45 While difficult to predict
with a high degree of confidence, past experience suggests that these costs will
continue for some time, decades after the wars themselves have ended. Accord-
ing to Linda Bilmess estimate, the VA is projected to spend another $836.1
billion in medical care and disability benefits through 2053.46 Others have criti-
cized the underlying methodology for vastly exaggerating potential costs.47
A more conservative projection was offered by the Congressional Budget
Office, which released a report that projects the costs of veterans care from
2011 through 2020.48 The report cites two scenarios that operate under slightly
different assumptions. In the first scenario, CBO assumes a smaller force de-
ployed after 2013, which according to its estimate will result in $40 billion in
projected expenditures. In the second scenario, CBO assumes a larger force
presence post-2013, which drives its estimate up to $55 billion. Since the pub-
lication of this report, the United States has planned to leave 9,800 troops in
Afghanistan through 2015, with smaller troop levels planned for 2016 and
2017. Given those numbers, it is more accurate to cite CBO scenario two fig-
ures as it accounts for a significant presence past 2013.
The $1.6 trillion cited in figure 4 represents OCO appropriations made
from 2001 through fiscal year 2015. During the writing of this annex, $5 bil-
lion in OCO funds had been enacted for FY 2015 to fund Operation Inherent
Resolve in Iraq, with an additional $8.8 billion requested for FY2016.49

Total Costs
The direct cost, measured by budget authority, of $1.6 trillion is a baseline figure
when it comes to calculating the total costs of Americas post-9/11 campaigns.
The Cost of War Project puts the total economic cost at $4.4 trillion through
FY 2014.50 Bilmes projects a total cost of $4 to $6 trillion stating that this would

434
 The Human and Financial Costs of Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

make Afghanistan and Iraq the most expensive wars in U.S. history.51 Yet many
methodological issues remain, particularly in the absence of official statistics to
serve as a basis for projections. Moreover, the above quoted $4.1 trillion for
World War II represent direct appropriations only. A more comprehensive ap-
proach along the lines of Bilmes and Stiglitz or the Cost of War Project would
increase that figure dramatically. The fact remains that this has been the second
most expensive war in the Nations history by the most conservative estimates.

Other Costs and Constraints on the Future

There are many other costs associated with the wars. For example, a number
of researchers are looking at environmental costs. At this point, research into
these costs is preliminary at best, but there are some organizations that are
starting to document environmental impacts of the war on water and soil pol-
lution, toxic dust, greenhouse gas and air pollution from military vehicles, and
war-related destruction of forests and wetlands.52
Perhaps the most difficult cost to assess is the constraints placed on future
national security policymakers. The financial deficits incurred from the wars,
combined with a slow economic recovery, could give policymakers pause be-
fore electing to engage in similar operations in the future. The Barack Obama
administration has exercised great caution in applying military force (espe-
cially in terms of limiting American troop presence) in Libya, Mali, Syria, and
Iraq. In 2012, the Obama administration announced that it would rebalance
its national security priorities toward Asia, signifying a shift away from the
war efforts in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Yet as of 2015, the United
States is still engaged in Afghanistan (Operation Freedoms Sentinel) and reen-
gaged in Iraq (Operation Inherent Resolve) for which a combined $96 billion in
OCO funds have been requested for FY 2016 at the time of writing.53 The hu-
man toll and financial legacy of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will continue
to shape how U.S. policymakers respond to future crises, and how the United
States will reshape its military force.

Conclusion
Though the question that this annex attempts to answer appears basic in nature,
the reality is that it is a problematic endeavor to capture all the direct, related,
and projected costs associated with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As such

435
Thannhauser and Luehrs

this annex only offers a point of departure based on a conservative review of of-
ficial data and private studies. Two macro trends are obvious from the historical
tables. One the one hand, the survival rates of U.S. Servicemembers in military
operations have improved dramatically. On the other hand, those operations
have become increasingly expensive. These fundamental realities will impact
on future strategies as leaders decide if, when, and how to use military force.
In summation, the United States lost 6,837 Servicemembers, 34 to 45 gov-
ernment civilian employees, and 3,212 contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Over 52,000 soldiers and around 30,000 contractors were wounded or injured.
Conservative estimates of the death toll among host-nation civilians and secu-
rity forces range from 180,000 to almost 230,000. In terms of financial costs,
the United States has spent at least $1.6 trillion dollars on the wars with esti-
mates on the high end reaching almost three times that number. Operations
are ongoing and a more accurate reckoning will have to wait until they are
concluded. Nevertheless, these numbers do provide a baseline for assessing
broader strategic gains and losses from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Notes

1
See, for example, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), comp.,
Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience (Washington, DC: U.S. Independent
Agencies and Commissions, 2009); SIGIR, Learning from Iraq (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 2013).
2
Anthony H. Cordesman, The U.S. Costs of the Afghan War: FY2002FY2013 (Washing-
ton, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2012); Anthony H. Cordesman,
The Cost of the Iraq War: CRS, GAO, CBO, and DoD Estimates (Washington, DC: Center
for Strategic and International Studies, 2008); Steven M. Kosiak, Cost of the Wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, and Other Military Operations Through 2008 and Beyond (Washington,
DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2008); Todd Harrison, Impact of the
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the US Militarys Plans, Programs and Budgets (Washing-
ton, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2009).
3
See Watson Institute for International and Pubic Affairs at Brown University, available
at <http://costsofwar.org/>.
4
Linda J. Bilmes, The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan: How Wartime Spending
Decisions Will Constrain Future National Security Budgets, Faculty Research Working

436
 The Human and Financial Costs of Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

Paper Series 13-006 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School, March 2013), available
at <https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/workingpapers/citation.aspx?Pu-
bId=8956>.
5
Iraq Body Count (IBC) records violent civilian deaths that have resulted from the
2003 military intervention in Iraq. Its public database includes deaths caused by U.S.-led
coalition forces and paramilitary or criminal attacks by others. IBC is available at <www.
iraqbodycount.org/about/>.
6
Lead Inspector General for Overseas Contingency Operations, Operation Inherent
Resolve: Quarterly Report and Biannual Report to the United States Congress (Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 17, 2014March 31, 2015), 1617, avail-
able at <https://oig.state.gov/system/files/oir_042915.pdf>.
7
No central data point for U.S. Government civilians killed was identified. Numbers here
are derived from news reports and verified using the Department of State Diplomatic Se-
curitys Significant Attacks Against U.S. Diplomatic Facilities and Personnel: 19982013,
available at <www.state.gov/documents/organization/225846.pdf>.
8
For a breakdown of contractors by origin, see Moshe Schwartz and Jennifer Church,
Department of Defense Use of Contractors to Support Military Operations: Background,
Analysis, and Issues for Congress, R43074 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Ser-
vice [CRS], May 17, 2013), 2324.
9
Department of Defense Casualty Analysis System, Fatalities as of June 15, 2015, 10
a.m. EST, accessed at <www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf>.
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Analysis of VA Health Care Utilization among
10

Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and Operation New
Dawn (OND) Veterans (Washington, DC: VA, June 2015), 5, available at <www.publi-
chealth.va.gov/docs/epidemiology/healthcare-utilization-report-fy2015-qtr1.pdf>.
11
Ibid., 8. The phrase describes a catch-all category commonly used to diagnose outpa-
tient populations.
Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, DoD Worldwide Numbers for TBI [Trau-
12

matic Brain Injury], available at <www.dvbic.org/dod-worldwide-numbers-tbi>.

See Hannah Fischer, A Guide to U.S. Military Casualty Statistics: Operation Inherent
13

Resolve, Operation New Dawn, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom,
RS22452 (Washington, DC: CRS, November 20, 2014).
14
Ibid.
Ann Leland and Mari-Jana M-J Oboroceanu, American War and Military Operations
15

Casualties: Lists and Statistics, RL32492 (Washington, DC: CRS, February 26, 2010), 9.
16
Fischer.
Katherine Blakeley and Don J. Jansen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Other Mental
17

Health Problems in the Military: Oversight Issues for Congress, R43175 (Washington, DC:
CRS, August 8, 2013), 5357.

437
Thannhauser and Luehrs

18
Ibid.
19
Mental Disorders and Mental Health Problems, Active Component, U.S. Armed Forc-
es, 20002011, Medical Surveillance Monthly Report 19, no. 6 (June 2012), 1117.
Deaths by Suicide While on Active Duty, Active and Reserve Components, U.S. Armed
20

Forces, 19982011, Medical Surveillance Monthly Report 19, no. 6 (June 2012), 710.
21
Schwartz and Church.
Rod Norland, Risks of Afghan War Shift from Soldiers to Contractors, New York
22

Times, February 11, 2012.

Steven L. Schooner and Collin D. Swan, Dead Contractors: The Un-Examined Effect of
23

Surrogates on the Publics Casualty Sensitivity, Journal of National Security Law & Policy
(April 16, 2012).
24
Government Accountability Office (GAO), Iraq and Afghanistan: DOD, State, and
USAID Face Continued Challenges in Tracking Contracts, Assistance Instruments, and Asso-
ciated Personnel, GAO-11-1 (Washington, DC: GAO, October 2010), 41; see also Steven L.
Schooner, Why Contractor Fatalities Matter, Parameters 38 (2008), 78.
Department of Labor, Defense Base Act Case Summary by Nation, accessed March 31,
25

2015, available at <www.dol.gov/owcp/dlhwc/dbaallnation.htm>.

Human Costs of War: Direct War Death in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, October
26

2001April 2015, Costs of War, n.d., available at <www.costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/

(Home%20page%20figures)%20SUMMARY%20-%20Direct%20War%20Death%20Toll.
pdf>.
27
Civilian Contractor Casualty Count, Defense Base Act Compensation Blog, accessed
August 18, 2014, available at <https://defensebaseactcomp.wordpress.com/civilian-con-
tractor-casualty-count/>.
28
Schooner and Swan.
29
Schwartz and Church, 2425.
30
T. Christian Miller, Foreign Workers for the U.S. Are Casualties Twice Over, ProPubli-
ca.org, June 19, 2009.
T. Christian Miller, Contractors in Iraq are Hidden Casualties of War, Los Angeles
31

Times, October 6, 2009.

See Iraq Coalition Military Fatalities by Year and Afghanistan Coalition Military
32

Fatalities by Year, accessed at <http://icasualties.org/>.

Hannah Fischer, Iraq Casualties: U.S. Military Forces and Iraqi Civilians, Police, and
33

Security Forces, R40824 (Washington, DC: CRS, December 6, 2011), summary.

34
Iraq 2014: Civilian Deaths Almost Doubling Year on Year, available at <https://www.
iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2014/>.
35
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan

438
 The Human and Financial Costs of Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

Rise by 22 Percent in 2014, February 18, 2015, available at <www.unama.unmissions.org/

Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/2015/18_Feb_2015-Press%20Release_2014_PoC-an-
nual_report-Final-Eng.pdf>.
36
On calculating the costs of war, see Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes, Estimating the
Costs of War: Methodological Issues, with Applications to Iraq and Afghanistan, in Ox-
ford Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict, ed. Michelle Garfinkel and Stergis
Skaperdas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). On the long-term costs, see Joseph
Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Con-
flict (New York: Norton, 2008); Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, The Long-Term Costs
of Conflict: The Case of the Iraq War, in The Handbook on the Economics of Conflict, ed.
Derek L. Braddon and Keith Hartley (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011).
37
Neta C. Crawford, U.S. Costs of Wars Through 2014: $4.4 Trillion and Counting, Costs
of War, June 25, 2014, available at <http://costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/articles/20/
attachments/Costs%20of%20War%20Summary%20Crawford%20June%202014.pdf>.
38
Ibid.
For a discussion of differences in methodologies, see Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Af-
39

ghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, RL33110 (Washington,
DC: CRS, December 8, 2014), 3, including footnotes.
40
Ibid., summary. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates a slightly higher
total of $1.649 trillion in The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2015 to 2025 (Washington,
DC: CBO, January 26, 2015), 81.
Richard M. Miller, Jr., Funding Extended Conflicts: Korea, Vietnam, and the War on
41

Terror (Santa Monica, CA: Praeger Security International, 2007), 4267.

42
Ibid., 19.
CBO, Veterans Disability Compensation: Trends and Policy Options (Washington, DC:
43

CBO, August 2014), 1112.

44
Bilmes, 67.
CBO, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2015 to 2025 (Washington, DC: CBO, January
45

2015), 81.
46
Bilmes, 67.
CBO, The Cost of War: A Comment on Stiglitz-Bilmes, April 8, 2008, available at
47

<https://www.cbo.gov/publication/24762>.
Heidi L.W. Golding, Potential Costs of Health Care for Veterans of Recent and Ongoing
48

U.S. Military Operations (Washington, DC: CBO, June 27, 2011).

49
Lead Inspector General for Overseas Contingency Operations.
50
See Economic Costs, Costs of War, April 2015, available at <http://costsofwar.org/
article/economic-cost-summary>.

439
Thannhauser and Luehrs

51
Bilmes, 1.
See Environmental Costs, Costs of War, April 2015, available at <http://watson.brown.
52

edu/costsofwar/costs/social/environment>.
Amy Belasco, Defense Spending and the Budget Control Act Limits, R44039 (Washing-
53

ton, DC: CRS, May 19, 2015), 11.

440
 Annex B

Afghanistan Timeline

Pre-Soviet Intervention (18381978)

18381842 British forces invade and install Shah Shuja Durrani on

the throne. He is assassinated in 1842. A major part of
the British occupation forces are later destroyed near
Gandamak during retreat toward Jalalabad. British tri-
umph in subsequent fighting, but it is a pyrrhic victory.
They leave altogether in the fall of 1842, allowing the de-
posed Dost Mohammed Barakzai to retake throne.
18781881 Second Anglo-Afghan War. As a result of this war, treaty
is signed that grants Great Britain control of Afghan for-
eign affairs.
1919 Emir Amanullah Khan declares independence from
London. Third Anglo-Afghan War begins.
19261929 Amanullah attempts to modernize Afghanistan, intro-
ducing several social reforms. Effort backfires and re-
sults in civil unrest. Amanullah flees.
1933 Mohammed Zahir Shah made king and Afghan monar-
chy holds for next four decades.
1953 General Mohammad Daud Khan named prime minister.
His administration is remembered for his dependence
on Soviet economic and military assistance and for Hel-
mand Valley project, which greatly improved quality of
life in southwestern Afghanistan.

441
Annex B

1963 Mohammed Daud resigns as prime minister after border

dispute with Pakistan.
1964 Constitutional monarchy is introduced and ratified by
Zahir Shah in October, sparking political polarization
and power struggles.
1973 Mohammed Daud returns to become president after
seizing power in bloodless coup from his cousin, Zahir
Shah. President Daud later distances himself from Soviet
Union and seeks closer ties with West, as well as Saudi
Arabia, Iran, and Egypt.
1978 Daud is deposed. He and his family are killed in a
pro-Soviet coup. The Peoples Democratic Party comes
to power, but is stymied by internal disputes and revolt
by mujahideen groups.

Soviet Intervention (19791988)

1979 December Soviet army launches invasion to bolster communist Af-

ghan government.
1980 Babrak Karmal named ruler, supported by Soviet troops.
Various mujahideen groups increase opposition to Sovi-
et forces and fighting intensifies. The United States, Pa-
kistan, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia provide economic
and military aid to mujahideen.
1985 Mujahideen groups form alliance against Soviet forces.
Experts estimate that half of Afghanistans population is
now displaced by war, with many seeking refuge in Iran
or Pakistan.
1986 The United States provides mujahideen with Stinger
missiles, allowing them to shoot down Soviet aircraft.
Mohammad Najibullah named as new head of Sovi-
et-backed regime, replacing Babrak Karmal.

442
 Afghanistan Timeline

1988 Afghanistan, Soviet Union, the United States, and Paki-

stan sign peace accords, and Soviets initiate troop with-
drawal.

Red Army Retreats (19892001)

1989 Last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan. Civil war contin-

ues as mujahideen work to overthrow Najibullah and the
pro-Soviet regime.
1992 Najibullahs government falls, and destructive civil war
follows.
1996 Taliban fighters take Kabul and institute a brutal rule,
barring women from work outside the home and imple-
menting Islamic punishments that include public ston-
ing, amputation, and execution.
1997 Pakistan and Saudi Arabia recognize the Taliban regime
as legitimate. Taliban fighters now control approximate-
ly two-thirds of country.
1998 U.S. launches missile strikes against suspected training
bases of militant Osama bin Laden, the suspected leader
of al Qaeda. Bin Laden is thought to have planned and
financed the bombing of U.S. Embassies in Africa.
1999 United Nations (UN) Security Council adopts Resolu-
tion 1267, implementing financial sanctions against the
Taliban. The groups funding, travel, and arms shipments
are restricted in an effort to get the country to hand over
bin Laden for trial.
2000 October 12 USS Cole is attacked by suicide bombers while anchored
near port of Aden in Yemen. The attack is later attributed
to bin Laden.
2001 September 9 Ahmad Shah Masood, leader of the main opposition
to the Talibanthe Northern Allianceis killed in

443
Annex B

suicide attack by two al Qaeda operatives posing as

news reporters.

U.S.-Led Invasion (20012003)

2001 September 11 
Al Qaeda operatives hijack four commercial airlin-
ers, crashing two into the World Trade Center and one
into the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashes in a field in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Close to 3,000 people die in
the attacks.
2001 September 17 Pakistani government officials in Kandahar request the
surrender of bin Laden. Mullah Omar, the leader of the
Taliban, refuses.
2001 September 18 Congress passes a joint resolution authorizing use of
force against those responsible for attacking the United
States on 9/11.
2001 October 7 The United States and Great Britain begin bombing al
Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan. Training bas-
es in Kabul, Kandahar, Kunduz, Farah, Mazar-e-Sharif,
and Jalalabad are first to be targeted.
2001 November Taliban regime is rapidly defeated after its loss at Ma-
zar-e-Sharif to forces loyal to ethnic Uzbek leader Abdul
Rashid Dostum. Over the next week, Taliban strong-
holds are overtaken after coalition and Northern Alli-
ance offensives on Taloqan (11 November), Bamiyan (11
November), Herat (12 November), Kabul (13 Novem-
ber), and Jalalabad (14 November).
2001 November 14 UN Security Council passes Resolution 1378, which
calls for a central role for the UN in establishing an
interim government.
2001 December 5 Afghan factions agree to a deal in Bonn, Germany, for
interim government.

444
 Afghanistan Timeline

2001 December 9 Taliban abandons Kandahar, which is generally seen as

the end of the Taliban regime.
2001 December 317 Bin Laden is tracked to Tora Bora cave complex south-
east of Kabul. Afghan militias engage in a fierce 2-week
battle with militants. Bin Laden is thought to have left
for Pakistan on 16 December.
2001 December 20 
UN Security Council establishes the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO)-led International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) with Resolution 1386.
2001 December 22 The Afghan Interim Authoritycomposed of 30 mem-
bers and headed by a chairmanis inaugurated with a
6-month mandate followed by a 2-year Transitional Au-
thority, after which elections are held. Hamid Karzai is
sworn in as head of the interim government.
2002 January First deployment of ISAF in the Kabul region.
2002 January 11 First group of al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners are sent to
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
2002 March Operation Anaconda begins as troops move into the
Shah-i-Kot Valley in Paktia Province.
2002 April 17 President George W. Bush calls for the reconstruction of
Afghanistan. Congress appropriates over $38 billion in
humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to Afghani-
stan from 2001 to 2009.
2002 April Former King Zahir Shah returns, but makes no claim to
the throne. He dies in 2007.
2002 June 19 The Loya Jirga, or grand council, elects Karzai as head
of interim government. Karzai appoints members of his
administration, which is given a mandate to serve until
2004.
2002 November The United States creates a civil affairs framework to co-
ordinate reconstruction with UN and nongovernmental
organizations with hopes of expanding the authority

445
Annex B

of the Kabul government. Provincial Reconstruction

Teams (PRTs) are stood up first in Gardez and followed
by teams in Bamiyan, Kunduz, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kanda-
har, and Herat.
2003 March 20 The United States invades Iraq. This signals a pivot in
American foreign policy away from Afghanistan toward
the war in Iraq.

Elections and Return to Violence (20042008)

2004 January 4 Afghanistans Loya Jirga approves a new constitution

that creates a strong presidential system intended to
unite the countrys various ethnic groups.
2004 October 9 Presidential elections are held, and Karzai is declared
winner after getting 55 percent of the vote. His closest ri-
val, former education minister Younis Qanooni, receives
only 16 percent.
2004 December 7 Karzai is officially sworn in as president of Afghanistan
and begins a 5-year term in power.
2005 May 23 President Bush and Karzai announce the signing of a
military agreement to give American forces full use of
Afghan military facilities to prosecute the war against
Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. The agreement also solid-
ifies the strategic partnership between the United States
and Afghanistan.
2005 September 18 More than 6 million Afghans vote in first parliamentary
elections in more than 30 years. Nearly half of all Af-
ghans casting ballots are women, and 68 out of 249 seats
are set aside for female members of Afghanistans lower
house of parliament. In the upper house, 23 out of 102
seats are reserved for women, establishing this election
as the most democratic in the history of Afghanistan.

446
 Afghanistan Timeline

2005 December Newly elected Parliament opens.

2006 July Intense fighting erupts in southern Afghanistan during
summer months. Number of suicide attacks quintuples
and remotely detonated bombings more than double.
2006 October After expansions in September 2005 and July 2006,
NATO takes command in the east from a U.S.-led co-
alition force, and assumes complete responsibility for
security across the whole of Afghanistan.
2006 November At a summit in Riga, friction emerges between NATO
member states over troop commitments to Afghanistan.
Eventually, leaders agree to remove some national re-
strictions on when, where, and how Alliance troops may
be used.
2007 May Mullah Dadullah, an important Taliban military com-
mander, is killed during a joint operation by Afghan,
U.S., and NATO troops in southern Afghanistan.
2007 August UN reports that opium production is at a record high.
2008 June Karzai warns that Afghanistan will deploy troops into
Pakistan to combat Taliban militants if Islamabad fails
to take action against them.
2008 July 7 Taliban launch a devastating suicide bomb attack against
the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing more than 50.
2008 September President Bush deploys an additional 4,500 U.S. troops
to Afghanistan, in a move he calls a quiet Surge.
2009 January In testimony to Congress, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert
Gates describes Afghanistan as the Obama administra-
tions greatest test.
2009 February NATO countries pledge increased military commit-
ments in Afghanistan.

447
Annex B

New American Strategy (20092012)

2009 March 27 President Barack Obama announces an updated strate-

gy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. An additional 21,000
U.S. Government personnel will train and assist Afghan
security forces, and there will be increased support for
civilian development.
2009 April Responding to calls from U.S. military officials, NATO
members agree to send an additional 5,000 troops to
train troops and police.
2009 May 11 General Stanley A. McChrystal, USA, is named new U.S.
and ISAF commander after the exit of General David
McKiernan.
2009 July Marines launch major offensive in southern Afghanistan
involving 4,000 troops in Helmand Province.
2009 July 2 McChrystal issues a revised tactical directive that pro-
vides guidance and intent for employment of force, in-
cluding tighter controls over U.S. airstrikes.
2009 August 10 McChrystal and Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry re-
lease an Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan for
Support to Afghanistan, charting out the strategy to pro-
mote a more capable Afghan government and security
force.
2009 August 20 Presidential and provincial elections are tainted by wide-
spread Taliban attacks, spotty turnout, and claims of
fraud.
2009 October 20 Karzai declared winner of August presidential election,
after second-placed opponent Abdullah Abdullah pulls
out before the runoff takes place.
2009 December 1 President Obama announces a decision to surge 30,000
additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. He also states that
the United States will begin withdrawing its forces by

448
 Afghanistan Timeline

July 2011. NATO forces, around the same time, surge to

40,000.
2009 December An al Qaeda double agent kills seven Central Intelli-
gence Agency officials in suicide attack on a U.S. base in
Khost.
2010 February NATO-led forces launch Operation Moshtarak in an
effort to establish government control of southern Hel-
mand Province.
2010 June 23 McChrystal is replaced by General David Patraeus, USA,
who officially takes command of U.S. and ISAF forces in
July 2010.
2010 July Whistleblowing Web site WikiLeaks releases thousands
of stolen classified U.S. military documents covering
military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2010 August Karzai accuses private security firms of operating with
impunity and orders that they cease all operations. He
later relaxes the decree.
2010 September 18 Parliamentary elections are tainted by Taliban violence
and accusations of fraud, which delay the final results
until 31 October.
2010 November At a summit in Lisbon, NATO leaders agree to trans-
fer security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of
2014.
2011 January Karzai completes the first official state visit to Russia by
an Afghan leader since 1989.
2011 February Afghanistan Rights Monitor reports that number of ci-
vilians killed since the 2001 invasion hit unprecedented
levels. In 2010, at least 2,421 civilian Afghans were killed
and over 3,270 were injured in conflict-related security
incidents across Afghanistan.

449
Annex B

2011 April U.S.-based pastor burns a copy of the Koran and prompts
nationwide protests in Afghanistan. UN workers and
several Afghans are killed.
2011 April Approximately 500 prisoners, including many former
Taliban fighters, break out of prison in Kandahar.
2011 May 1 Bin Laden killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan.
2011 June 22 President Obama orders troop reductions of 33,000 by
summer 2012, including 10,000 by the end of 2011.
2011 July Karzais half-brother and Kandahar governor Ahmed
Wali Karzai is killed by an associate.
2011 September Ex-President Burhanuddin Rabbania key negotiator
in talks with the Talibanis assassinated.
2011 October As relations with Pakistan deteriorate after a number
of attacks, Afghanistan and India complete a strategic
agreement to increase security and development coop-
eration.
2011 November Karzai secures the permission of tribal elders to negoti-
ate a 10-year military agreement with the United States.
The proposed deal permits U.S. troops to stay in the
country beyond 2014.
2011 December At least 58 people are killed in attacks at a Shiite religious
site in Kabul and Shiite mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif.
2011 December 5 Pakistan and the Taliban refuse to attend the scheduled
Bonn Conference on Afghanistan. Pakistan boycotts the
event in response to a NATO airstrike that killed Paki-
stani soldiers on the Afghan border.
2012 January Taliban agrees to open an office in Dubai in preparation
for peace talks with the U.S. and Afghan governments.
2012 February At least 30 people killed in protests about alleged de-
struction of copies of the Koran at the U.S. airbase in Ba-
gram. Two soldiers are also killed in retaliatory attacks.

450
 Afghanistan Timeline

2012 March Taliban suspend talks and accuse Washington of not

fulfilling promises to take steps toward a prisoner swap.
Sergeant Robert Bales, USA, murders 16 Afghan civil-
ians during an unprovoked shooting spree in the Pan-
jwai district of Kandahar.
2012 April Taliban initiate their spring offensive with a bold at-
tack on diplomatic quarter of Kabul. The government
attributes attacks to the Haqqani Network. Afghan and
NATO security forces kill 38 militants.

NATO Withdrawal Plan (20122014)

2012 May NATO summit outlines plan to withdraw foreign com-

bat troops by end of 2014. France decides to withdraw
its combat mission by the end of 2012, a year earlier than
scheduled.
2012 July Donor countries pledge $16 billion in civilian aid to
Afghanistan through 2016. The United States, Japan,
Germany, and United Kingdom supply bulk of funds.
Afghanistan acquiesces to new measures aimed at coun-
tering government corruption.
2012 August U.S. military disciplines six Soldiers for destroying cop-
ies of the Koran and other religious texts in Afghanistan.
They do not face criminal prosecution. Three Marines
are also disciplined for a video in which the bodies of
dead Taliban fighters were desecrated.
2012 September The United States hands over Bagram high-security de-
tention facility to the Afghan government, but retains
custody over some foreign prisoners until March 2013.
2012 September The United States temporarily halts training new police
recruits to conduct background checks for possible ties
to the Taliban following a series of insider attacks on
foreign troops.

451
Annex B

2013 February Karzai and Pakistans Asif Ali Zardari reach an agree-
ment to work toward an Afghan peace deal within 6
months. They support the opening of an Afghan office
for negotiation in Doha and urge the Taliban to do the
same.
2013 March Two former Kabul Bank officials, Sherkhan Farnood and
Khalilullah Ferozi, are arrested for multimillion dollar
fraud that nearly caused the collapse of the entire Af-
ghan banking system in 2010.
2013 June Afghan security forces assume responsibility for all mil-
itary and security operations from NATO forces on the
same day officials announce that the Taliban and the
United States will resume negotiations.
2013 June Karzai halts security talks with the United States because
of the announcement of possible peace talks with the
Taliban. Afghanistan vows to conduct independent talks
with the Taliban in Qatar.
2014 January Taliban suicide attack strikes a restaurant in Kabuls dip-
lomatic quarter, constituting the worst attack on foreign
civilians since 2001. Among the 13 victims is the coun-
try director for the International Monetary Fund.
2014 February Start of presidential election campaign, marked by a rise
in attacks by the Taliban.
2014 April Presidential election results are inconclusive, and the
election goes to a second round between Abdullah Ab-
dullah and Ashraf Ghani, both candidates in the 2009
presidential elections.
2014 June Second round of voting in the presidential election be-
gins. More than 50 Afghans are reported killed through-
out the country in various incidents during voting.

452
 Afghanistan Timeline

2014 July Election officials initiate a recount of all votes cast in

Junes presidential runoff, following U.S.-mediated deal
to end the political impasse between candidates.
2014 August Despite U.S. mediation efforts by Secretary of State John
Kerry, Ghani and Abdullah continue to dispute election
results.
2014 September Ghani and Abdullah sign a power-sharing agreement,
ending 2-month audit of disputed election results. Ghani
is declared president.
2014 October The United States and United Kingdom formally end
combat operations in Helmand Province. Opium poppy
cultivation reaches record levels, according to U.S. ex-
perts.
2014 December NATO concludes its 13-year combat mission in Afghan-
istan. Despite the official end to ISAFs combat role, vio-
lence continues across much of the country.
2015 January NATO-led follow-on mission Resolute Support begins.
Approximately 12,000 personnel provide training and
support to Afghan security forces.
2015 March President Obama delays American troop withdrawal
from Afghanistan, following an appeal from President
Ghani.
2015 May Taliban representatives and Afghan officials meet in Qa-
tar for informal peace talks. Both sides agree to continue
the process at a later date, though the Taliban refuse to
halt fighting until all foreign troops leave the country.

Sources: Afghanistan ProfileTimeline, BBC News, May 7, 2015, available at <www.bbc.com/news/world-south-

asia-12024253>; Timeline: Major Events in the Afghanistan War, New York Times, June 22, 2011, available at <www.
nytimes.com/interactive/2011/06/22/world/asia/afghanistan-war-timeline.html?_r=0>; U.S. War in Afghanistan:
1999Present, Council on Foreign Relations, n.d., available at <www.cfr.org/afghanistan/us-war-afghanistan/
p20018>; The War in Afghanistan: A Timeline, CBS News, available at <www.cbsnews.com/news/the-war-in-af-
ghanistan-a-timeline/>; Ludwig W. Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press,
2012).

453
 Annex C

Iraq Timeline

Significant Events PreGulf War

15341918 Iraq territory is part of Ottoman Empire.

1917 Great Britain captures Baghdad from Ottoman Empire
during its Mesopotamian Campaign in World War I.
1920 Great Britain, with support of the League of Nations, es-
tablishes modern state of Iraq.
1932 Iraq becomes fully autonomous state and admitted into
League of Nations.
19391945 Great Britains military forces reoccupy Iraq during
World War II.
1958 July 14 Brigadier General Abd al-Karim Qasim topples monar-
chy in military coup, establishing the Republic of Iraq.
1963 February 9 Former Colonel Abd al-Salam Muhammad Arif be-
comes new head of government after former Prime Min-
ister Abd al-Karim Qasim is overthrown and executed.
1964 July Iraqi government nationalizes many key industries and
businesses.
1966 April President Abd al-Salam Muhammad Arif is killed in he-
licopter crash; his brother, Abdul-Rahman Arif, replaces
him.
1968 July 17 Baathists topple Abdul-Rahman Arif s government;
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr assumes presidency.

455
Annex C

1970s Saddam Hussein begins to gain power and influence

within the Baath Party and government.
1970 March Saddam completes an agreement with Kurdish leader,
Mulla Mustafa al-Barzani, which effectively recognizes
Kurdish identity and guarantees Kurdish independence
within next 4 years.
1972 April Saddam secures Iraq-Soviet Friendship treaty in Mos-
cow.
1972 June Iraqs government nationalizes oil fields of Iraq Petro-
leum Company.
1974 Iraqs government grants limited autonomy to Iraqs
Kurdish region.
1979 Saddam forces President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr to re-
sign.
19801988 Iran-Iraq War spans 8 years. Iraq claims victory, but
there is no clear winner.
1988 March Iraqs military attacks Kurdish town of Halabjah with
poison gas, killing thousands of civilians.
1990 August 2 Iraq invades Kuwait, prompting United Nations (UN) to
impose economic sanctions in response to act of aggres-
sion.

Operation Desert Storm, 19901991

1990 August 6 UN Security Council passes Resolution 661 that plac-
es economic sanctions on Iraq. Resolution 665, passed
soon after, authorizes embargo to enforce sanctions.
1990 November UN Security Council passes Resolution 678 that de-
mands Iraq withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991.
It empowers states to use military force to oust Iraq from
Kuwait after deadline.

456
 Iraq Timeline

1991 January 12 U.S. Congress authorizes use of military force in conflict.

1991 January 1617 Allied air campaign of Operation Desert Storm begins.
Military operations to engage Iraqi forces in Kuwait in-
volve coalition of 30 countries.
1991 February 23 Ground phase of Operation Desert Storm begins.
1991 February 28 Iraqi forces withdraw from Kuwait and Iraqi govern-
ment accepts all UN resolutions passed resulting from
invasion of Kuwait.
1991 March/April Kurdish rebels in north and Shiite tribes in south rebel
against central Iraqi government. Saddams forces stifle
rebellion with force.
1991 April 3 UN Resolution 687 passes, which set framework for
ceasefire and created UN Compensation Fund.
1991 April 6 Ceasefire terms are agreed upon between Iraq and allied
forces.
1991 April 7 Operation Provide Comfort begins to protect and assist
Kurds in northern Iraq.
1991 June 9 First chemical weapons inspection in Iraq conducted by
UN Special Commission on Iraq.
1992 August A no-fly zone banning flights from Iraqi planes is imple-
mented in southern Iraq.
1993 April Saddams agents fail in attempt to assassinate former
President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait.
1993 June U.S. Government conducts military strike on Iraqi Intel-
ligence Services headquarters in response to assassina-
tion attempt on President Bush.
1995 April Iraqs oil exports moderately resume in oil-for-food
program under UN Security Council Resolution 986.
1995 October Saddam succeeds in winning referendum, which grants
him power to remain president.

457
Annex C

1996 The United States expands southern no-fly zone, just

south of Baghdad.
1997 January 1 Operation Northern Watch implemented.
1998 October Iraq refuses to further cooperate with UN Special Com-
mission to Oversee the Destruction of Iraqs Weapons of
Mass Destruction (WMD).
1998 December U.S. and British military planes launch bombing cam-
paign, Operation Desert Fox, intended to destroy and
dismantle Iraqs WMD programs.
1999 February A senior Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid
Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, killed in Najaf.
1999 December UN Security Council Resolution 1284 orders establish-
ment of UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection
Commission, which replaces UN Special Commission.
Iraq does not accept resolution.
2001 February U.S. and British warplanes conduct bombing campaigns
in attempt to immobilize Iraqs air defense.
2001 September 11 Al Qaeda terrorists attack World Trade Center in New
York and Pentagon with passenger airplanes, killing ap-
proximately 3,000 people. Another hijacked plane, in-
tended to strike the White House, is brought down in
rural Pennsylvania after brave actions by passengers.

20022003

2002 September 12 At UN General Assembly meeting, President George W.

Bush asks world leaders to confront the grave and gath-
ering danger of Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair
also releases report on Iraqs military capability.
2002 October Congress, by wide majority, authorizes use of military
force in Iraq.

458
 Iraq Timeline

2002 November 8 UN Security Council unanimously passes Resolution

1441. Iraq later agrees to weapons inspections, and UN
weapons inspectors return.
2003 February 5 Secretary of State Colin Powell delivers presentation be-
fore UN Security Council, arguing that Iraq has WMD
and advanced weapons programs.
2003 March 18 Diplomatic process ends and arms inspectors leave Iraq.
President Bush gives Saddam and his sons 48 hours to
leave.
2003 March 19 Allied forces bomb military targets and attempt to kill
Saddam.
2003 March 20 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq begins. Effort is named Opera-
tion Iraqi Freedom.
2003 April 9 Saddams rule is toppled and Baghdad comes under di-
rect U.S. control.
2003 May 1 President Bush declares end of combat phase in Iraq on
aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, under banner that
reads Mission Accomplished.
2003 May 23 Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) announces that
all public-sector employees affiliated with Baath Party
are to be removed from their positions.
2003 July 22 Saddams sons, Uday and Qusay, are killed in Mosul in
gun battle with Soldiers from 101st Airborne Division.
2003 August Prominent Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr
al-Hakim is killed by car bomb in Najaf. One hundred
twenty-four people also killed.
2003 August 7 Car bomb at Jordanian embassy kills 18 people.
2003 August 19 Suicide bomber targets UN headquarters in Baghdad,
killing 22 people and wounding at least 100. The UN
Special Representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, is
killed.

459
Annex C

2003 December 14 Saddam, on the run for nearly 9 months, is captured by

U.S. troops.

Insurgency

2004 January Central Intelligence Agency former chief weapons in-

spector David Kay testifies at public congressional hear-
ings that U.S. intelligence agencies failed to detect disar-
ray and decline of Iraqi WMD program.
2004 March During Shiite religious festival, suicide bombers kill 140
people in Baghdad and Karbala.
2004 March 31 Four private security contractors killed in Fallujah.
2004 April 28 Photos emerge that show American Soldiers forcing
Iraqi prisoners into abusive and sexually humiliating
positions at Abu Ghraib prison.
2004 AprilMay Mahdi army and other Shiite militias loyal to cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr engage coalition forces.
2004 June 28 CPA hands over its ruling power to interim government
headed by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
2004 August U.S. forces and insurgents loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr fight in Najaf.
2004 November U.S. forces lead offensive against pro-Saddam insur-
gents in Fallujah. A previous offensive in April 2004 was
stopped for political reasons.
2005 January 30 Approximately 8 million Iraqis vote in elections for Iraqs
newly formed National Assembly.
2005 April Iraqi parliament selects Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as
president. A Shiite, Ibrahim Jaafari, is selected as prime
minister.
2005 May Civilian deaths from bombings and shooting related in-
cidents rise to 672, up from 364 in April.

460
 Iraq Timeline

2005 June Massoud Barzani is selected as the president of the

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
2005 August The draft version of the new constitution is accepted by
Shiite and Kurdish negotiators. Sunni representatives re-
fuse.
2005 October 15 Iraqi citizens vote for new constitution that will create
Islamic federal democracy. The new constitution is ap-
proved.
2005 December First government and parliamentary elections take place
since allied invasion.

Civil Unrest

2006 January UN estimates that more than 34,000 civilians killed in

December violence in 2006, more than three times official Iraqi
death toll estimates.
2006 February 22 Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, one of the most import-
ant Shiite mosques in the world, is bombed. That event
unleashes a wave of civil unrest and violence throughout
the country.
2006 April 22 President Talabani forms new government with Shiite
compromise candidate Nouri al-Maliki to end political
stalemate. Maliki becomes prime minister.
2006 May and June UN reports that more than 100 civilians are killed each
day.
2006 June 7 U.S. airstrike kills al Qaedas leader in Iraq, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi.
2006 November Iraq and Syria reestablish full diplomatic relations. Car
bombings in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in
Baghdad result in one of the deadliest attacks in Bagh-
dad since 2003.
2006 November 5 Saddam is sentenced to death by hanging.

461
Annex C

2006 December 30 Saddam is executed.

20072008

2007 January 10 President Bush announces the Surge strategy in Iraq. He

orders over 20,000 Army and Marine forces to Bagh-
dad, its suburbs, and Anbar Province. Iraqi forces and
U.S. Government civilians also surge. Together with the
Sunni Awakening, the Surge markedly reduces insurgent
and sectarian violence in Iraq.
2007 February Over 100 people killed in bombing attack in Baghdads
Sadriya Market.
2007 August Political alliance formed supporting Prime Minister Ma-
likis government between Kurdish and Shiite parties.
Sunni parties refuse to join.
2007 September Security contractors with Blackwater kill 17 civilians in
Baghdad.
2007 December 16 Great Britain transfers responsibility for Basra Province
to Iraqi forces.
2008 January 13 Iraqs parliament passes legislation permitting some for-
mer Baath party officials to work in public sector.
2008 March 2 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes first Irani-
an president to visit Iraq since Iraq-Iran War.
2008 March 24 Prime Minister Maliki orders Iraqi forces to disarm
al-Sadrs Mahdi army in Basra, resulting in several hun-
dred causalities.
2008 September 1 
U.S. military forces transfer responsibility of Anbar
Province to Iraqi forces. This is the first Sunni province
returned to central government.
2008 November Iraqs parliament approves security agreement with the
United States, which states all U.S. troops are scheduled
to leave Iraq by end of 2011.

462
 Iraq Timeline

20092011

2009 January Iraqs security forces assume responsibility for security

in Baghdads Green Zone.
2009 February 27 President Barack Obama starts gradual withdrawal of
U.S. forces. Approximately 50,000 troops to remain in
Iraq until 2011.
2009 June 30 U.S. forces withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities and
transfer security duties to Iraqi troops.
2009 July Massoud Barzani is reelected president.
2009 December Islamic State of Iraq claims responsibility for suicide
bombings in Baghdad and attacks in August and Octo-
ber that kill nearly 400 people.
2010 January A former senior official in the Saddam government,
Chemical Ali Hassan al-Majid, is executed.
2010 March 7 Parliamentary elections take place.
2010 August 31 Last U.S. combat brigade leaves Iraq.
2010 September A year after relations soured between Syria and Iraq, the
countries restore full diplomatic relations.
2010 November Talabani is reappointed president and Prime Minister
December Maliki retains his position.
2011 January Al-Sadr returns to Iraq.
2011 February Kurdistans oil exports recommence after disagreement
between KRG and central government over contracts
with foreign firms and allocation of oil revenues.
2011 December 18 U.S. military forces complete withdrawal.

463
Annex C

Post-U.S. Withdrawal

2012 March Arab League holds first major summit in Iraq since fall
of Saddams government.
2012 April KRG oil exports stop due to continued disagreement
with central government oil contracts.
2012 September Former Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi is sen-
tenced to death. He pursued safe haven in Turkey.
2012 November Iraqs arms deal with Russia is canceled after allegations
of corruption within Iraqi government.
2012 December President Talabani suffers stroke and is treated in Germa-
ny. Sunnis take part in mass demonstrations throughout
Iraq, protesting central governments marginalization of
the Sunni minority.
2013 April Iraqi troops attack a Sunni antigovernment protest camp
in Hawija, resulting in over 50 casualties and sparking
riots in surrounding areas.
2013 July Hundreds of al Qaeda members, including senior lead-
ers, escape from jails in Taiji and Abu Ghraib.
2013 September 
KRG parliamentary elections take place. Kurdistan
Democratic Party wins the elections. Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claims responsibility for series of
bombings that hit Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan.
2014 January Proal Qaeda fighters take control of Fallujah and Ra-
madi after months of fighting in Anbar Province. Iraqi
forces are able to retake Ramadi.
2014 April The Islamic Dawa Party, led by Prime Minister Maliki,
wins a plurality at parliamentary election, but is unable
to win a majority.
2014 June ISIS seizes Mosul and other key towns in a lightening
offensive. Thousands of civilians flee. The United States

464
 Iraq Timeline

and Iran both offer assistance to Iraqi government. ISIS

renames itself the Islamic State and declares an Islamic
caliphate covering territories in Syria and Iraq.
2014 September Haider al-Abadi forms more diverse government, in-
cluding Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Kurdish leadership
tables its independence referendum. The United States
announces and implements new strategy against Islamic
State. U.S. Armed Forces launch airstrikes in support of
Iraqi forces near Baghdad.
2014 December Iraqi government and Kurdish leaders sign agreement
on sharing Iraqs oil revenue and military assets.
2015 January U.S.-led coalition completes over 900 airstrikes against
Islamic State.
2015 March Islamic State fighters lay waste to Assyrian archaeologi-
cal sites in Nimrud and Hatra.
2015 April Iraqi security forces regain control of Tikrit from Islamic
State.
2015 May Islamic State seizes Ramadi.

Sources: Iraq ProfileTimeline, BBC News, available at <www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14546763>;

Timeline of Key Events in Iraq and Afghanistan, Institute for the Study of War, July 16, 2010, available at <www.
understandingwar.org/reference/timeline-key-events-iraq-and-afghanistan>; Timeline of Major Events in the Iraq
War, New York Times, October 21, 2011; Phases of Conflict: Chronicling the Iraq War, Washington Post, 2005;
The Iraq War: 20032011, Council on Foreign Relations, 2014, available at <www.cfr.org/iraq/timeline-iraq-war/
p18876>; Hala Fattah, A Brief History of Iraq (New York: Facts on File, 2009); Ronald J. Brown, Humanitarian Op-
erations in Northern Iraq, 1991 with Marines in Operation Provide Comfort (Washington, DC: Government Printing
Office, 1995); Michael A. Schiesl, The Objectives of United States Military Intervention in Northern Iraq Between Oper-
ation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Army Command and General Staff College,
2003); John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 1998); John Yoo,
International Law and the War in Iraq, American Journal of International Law 97 (2003), 563576; Adam Clymer,
Congress Acts to Authorize War in Gulf; Margins Are 5 Votes in Senate, 67 in House, New York Times, January 13,
1991; The Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm Timeline, Department of Defense News, August 8, 2000, available
at <www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45404>; Remarks of President Barack ObamaAs Prepared for
Delivery: Responsibly Ending the War in Iraq, Camp LeJeune, NC, February 27, 2009, available at <www.whitehouse.
gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Responsibly-Ending-the-War-in-Iraq/>.

465
 Contributors

Dr. Richard D. Hooker, Jr., is the Director for Research and Strategic Support
and Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the Na-
tional Defense University (NDU) in Washington, DC. As a member of the Se-
nior Executive Service, Dr. Hooker served as Deputy Commandant and Dean
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Defense College in Rome
from September 2010August 2013. He is a member of the Council on For-
eign Relations, International Institute of Strategic Studies, and Foreign Policy
Research Institute, and is a Fellow of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed
Forces and Society. Dr. Hooker taught at the United States Military Academy
at West Point and held the Chief of Staff of the Army Chair at the National
War College. He served with the Office of National Service at the White House
under President George H.W. Bush, with the Arms Control and Defense Di-
rectorate at the National Security Council (NSC) during the administration of
William J. Clinton, and with the NSC Office for Iraq and Afghanistan during
the administration of George W. Bush. While at the NSC he was a contrib-
uting author to The National Security Strategy of the United States. His areas
of expertise include Defense Policy and Strategy, the Middle East, NATO/
Europe, and Civil-Military Relations. Dr. Hooker graduated with a BS from
the United States Military Academy in 1981 and holds an MA and Ph.D. in
International Relations from the University of Virginia. He is a Distinguished
Graduate of the National War College, where he earned a Master of Science in
National Security Studies and also served as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow.
His publications have been used widely in staff and defense college curricu-
la in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, and include
more than 50 articles and 3 books on security and defense-related topics. Dr.
Hooker has lectured extensively at leading academic and military institutions
in the United States and abroad. Prior to his retirement from Active duty, Dr.

467
Contributors

Hooker served for 30 years in the U.S. Army as a parachute infantry officer in
the United States and Europe. While on Active duty he participated in mili-
tary operations in Grenada, Somalia, Rwanda, the Sinai, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq,
and Afghanistan, including command of a parachute brigade in Baghdad from
January 2005 to January 2006. His military service also included tours in the
offices of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Secretary of the Army, and Chief
of Staff of the Army.

Dr. Joseph J. Collins is the Director of the Center for Complex Operations
in INSS. He joined the National War College faculty in 2004 as Professor of
National Security Strategy, where he taught military strategy, U.S. domestic
context, and irregular warfare. He also directed the colleges writing program.
Prior to his decade at the National War College, Dr. Collins served for 3 years
as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations, the Pen-
tagons senior civilian official for peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and
stabilization and reconstruction operations. His team led the stability opera-
tions effort in Afghanistan. From 19982001, he was a Senior Fellow in the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he did research on eco-
nomic sanctions, military culture, and national security policy. In 1998, Dr.
Collins retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel after nearly 28 years of military
service. His Army years were equally divided between infantry and armor as-
signments in the United States, South Korea, and Germany; teaching at West
Point in the Department of Social Sciences; and a series of assignments in the
Pentagon, including Army Staff Officer for NATO and Warsaw Pact strategic
issues, Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Army, Military Assistant to
the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy during Operation Desert Storm, and
Special Assistant and Chief Speechwriter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. Dr. Collins has also taught as adjunct faculty in the graduate divisions
of Columbia University and Georgetown University. He is a life member of the
Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Collins holds a Ph.D. in Political Science
from Columbia University and a BA from Fordham University. He is also an
honor graduate of the Armys Command and General Staff College and holds
a diploma from the National War College. Dr. Collinss many publications in-
clude books and articles on the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Operation Des-
ert Storm, contemporary U.S. military culture, defense transformation, and

468
 Contributors

homeland defense. His most recent publications include Choosing War: The
Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath (NDU Press, 2008) and Understand-
ing War in Afghanistan (NDU Press, 2011).

Dr. G. Alexander Crowther is the Deputy Director of and Cyber Policy Spe-
cialist in the Center for Technology and National Security Policy in INSS. He
has extensive government service, including a decade each in the Cold War,
postCold War, and post-9/11 eras. He has worked as a Western Hemisphere
specialist, strategist, and political advisor. He served overseas eight times: three
times in Latin America, twice in Korea, twice in Iraq, and once in Belgium. He
has a variety of awards from the Department of Defense and Department of
State as well as the Canadian government. His work at the strategic level in-
cludes tours at the Army Staff, Joint Staff J5 (Strategic Plans and Policies), and
as a Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War
College. He was personally selected to be a Counterterrorism Advisor for the
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Political Advisor for the Multi-National CorpsIraq
Commander, and Special Assistant for the Supreme Allied Commander, Eu-
rope. He was an International Security Studies Fellow at the Fletcher School
of Law and Diplomacy. He is also an Adjunct Senior Political Scientist at the
RAND Corporation and an Adjunct Research Professor of National Security
Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute. Dr. Crowther has a BA in Internation-
al Relations from Tufts University, an MS in International Relations from Troy
University, and a Ph.D. in International Development from Tulane University.

Dr. Thomas X. Hammes is a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Strate-
gic Research in INSS. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Univer-
sity. His areas of expertise include military strategy, future conflict, and insur-
gency. Dr. Hammes graduated with a BS from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1975
and holds an MA in Historical Research and a Ph.D. in Modern History from
Oxford University. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the Canadian National
Defence College. His publications include The Sling and the Stone: On War in
the 21st Century (Zenith, 2006) and Forgotten Warriors: The 1st Provisional
Marine Brigade, the Corps Ethos, and the Korean War (Modern War Studies,
2010). He has also published 14 book chapters and over 120 articles. His pub-
lications have been used widely in staff and defense college curricula in the

469
Contributors

United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Dr. Hammes has lec-
tured at leading academic and military institutions in the United States and
abroad. Prior to his retirement from Active duty, he served for 30 years in the
U.S. Marine Corps to include command of an intelligence battalion, infantry
battalion, and Chemical Biological Incident Response Force. He participated
in military operations in Somalia and Iraq and trained insurgents in various
locations.

Dr. Frank G. Hoffman is a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Strate-
gic Research in INSS. Prior, he was Deputy Director of the Office of Program
Appraisal in the Department of the Navy from August 2009 to June 2011. Dr.
Hoffman was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps
in 1978. From 19781983, after graduating from both The Basic School and
Infantry Officer Course, he served in a variety of line and staff positions in
the 2nd and 3rd Marine divisions. He was a company commander and Head
Tactics Instructor at the School of Infantry at Camp Lejeune from 19801982.
From 19831986, he was assigned to Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC)
and served as a resource analyst. He transferred to civilian service, continuing
at HQMC until 1991 as a defense analyst. From 19911998, he served at the
Marine Corps Combat Development Command at Quantico, Virginia, as a
national security analyst. He represented the Marine Corps on the Defense
Science Board and Commission on Roles and Missions in 1995. Dr. Hoffman
was then the Special Assistant to the Commanding General for national secu-
rity affairs and the Director of the Marine Strategic Studies Group for 2 years.
In 1999, the Secretary of Defense appointed Dr. Hoffman to the staff of the U.S.
National Security Commission for the 21st Century, where he developed the
commissions recommendations for the Department of Homeland Security.
He served as a research fellow from 2001 to 2008 in the Center for Emerging
Threats and Opportunities at the Marine Warfighting Laboratory where he
was responsible for conducting assessments on future threats. He worked with
U.S. Joint Forces Command, Allied Command Transformation, and British,
Australian, and Israeli partners on alternative futures and wargames and ex-
perimentation activities. While at Quantico, Dr. Hoffman conducted studies
on future threats, developed Service and joint concepts, and was a member of
Strategic Vision Group, which wrote the Marine Corps Vision and Strategy

470
 Contributors

2025. He was also a chapter author for Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency.
He served on the 2004 Defense Science Board for postconflict stability opera-
tions and lectured extensively at professional military education institutions in
Japan, Taiwan, Austria, Denmark, Israel, and the United Kingdom. His publi-
cations include Decisive Force: The New American Way of War (Praeger, 1996),
10 book chapters, and 100 essays and articles in foreign policy and academic
journals. Dr. Hoffman graduated with a BS in economics from the Wharton
School at the University of Pennsylvania, an MEd from George Mason Uni-
versity, an MA in security studies from the Naval War College; and an M.Phil.
and Ph.D. from Kings College London.

Dr. Christopher J. Lamb is the Director of the Center for Strategic Research in
INSS. He conducts research on national security strategy, policy and organiza-
tional reform, defense strategy, requirements, plans and programs, and special
operations forces. Prior to joining INSS, Dr. Lamb served as the Deputy As-
sistant Secretary of Defense for Resources and Plans. He was responsible for
strategic planning guidance, transformation planning guidance, contingency
planning guidance, the Information Operations Roadmap, and oversight of
combatant commander contingency planning. Dr. Lamb also has served as Di-
rector of Policy Planning in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Deputy Director for Military
Development on the Department of States Interagency Task Force for Military
Stabilization in the Balkans, and Director for Requirements and Plans in the
Office of the Secretary of Defense. He led the Project for National Security Re-
form study of the national security system from 20072008, which produced
the landmark report Forging a New Shield. Prior to joining the Department of
Defense, Dr. Lamb was a Foreign Service Officer with tours in Haiti, the Ivory
Coast, and the Pentagon. Dr. Lamb received his doctorate in International Re-
lations from Georgetown University in 1986. From 1993 through 1998 he was
an Adjunct Professor in the National Security Studies program at Georgetown
University. Dr. Lamb is the author of numerous articles and books, many of
which are used in joint professional military education courses. His recent re-
search includes collaborative studies on national security and defense reform,
interagency teams, military requirements and transformation, and special op-
erations forces.

471
Contributors

Mr. Christoff Luehrs is a Research Analyst with the Center for Complex Oper-
ations in INSS. His work focuses on lessons learned from interagency opera-
tions in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the School
of International Service at American University. Mr. Luehrs previously worked
for the Center for Technology and National Security Policy in INSS on its Sta-
bility Operations Seminar series. Originally from Germany, Mr. Luehrs served
in the German army, including a tour with NATOs Stabilization Force in Bos-
nia-Herzegovina. He holds a BA in War Studies and History and an MA in
International Relations from Kings College London.

Dr. Nicholas Rostow is a University Professor at NDU and a Distinguished Re-

search Professor with the Center for Strategic Research in INSS. He specializes
in international and national security law and affairs and U.S. Government
and international decisionmaking in foreign and national security policy. He
is also a Senior Research Scholar at the Yale Law School. Prior to joining NDU
in September 2010, Dr. Rostow served for more than 4 years as University
Counsel and Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs and tenured full professor at
the State University of New York. His public service positions include General
Counsel and Senior Policy Adviser to the U.S. Permanent Representative to
the United Nations from 20012005; Charles H. Stockton Chair in Interna-
tional Law at the U.S. Naval War College in 2001; Staff Director of the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence from 19992000; Counsel and Deputy Staff
Director to the House Select Committee on Military/Commercial Concerns
with the Peoples Republic of China from 19981999 (the Cox Committee in-
vestigation of high technology transfers to China); Special Assistant for Na-
tional Security Affairs to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush,
and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council under Colin Powell and
Brent Scowcroft from 19871993; and Special Assistant to the Legal Adviser
in the Department of State from 19851987. In this latter capacity, he served
as Counsel to the Presidents Special Review Board (Tower Board), investigat-
ing the role of the National Security Council staff in the Iran-Contra Affair,
and wrote a substantial portion of the Tower Board report (appendix D). Dr.
Rostow has taught in the College of Law at the University of Tulsa, Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the Naval War College.
He graduated from Yale with a BA summa cum laude, a Ph.D. in history, and

472
 Contributors

a JD. His publications are in the fields of diplomatic history, international law,
and issues of U.S. national security and foreign policy.

Ms. Sara Thannhauser is a Counterterrorism Specialist at the Department of

the Treasury. From 2009 to 2014, she was a Research Fellow with the Center
for Complex Operations in INSS, where she worked on national security is-
sues involving irregular conflict, interagency affairs, and lessons learned from
modern conflicts. Her duties included field research in Iraq and Afghanistan
with both diplomats and military personnel. She assisted the Joint Staff and
Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy on counterinsurgency doctrine
and policy in North Africa. Ms. Thannhauser also served as staff editor for
the journal PRISM. She holds an MA in International Affairs from American
University and a BA summa cum laude from Saint Bonaventures University.

473
 L
conflict, and unity of effort and command. essons Encountered: Learning from
They stand alongside the lessons of other wars the Long War began as two questions
and remind future senior officers that those
Excerpts from from General Martin E. Dempsey, 18th

LESSONS
who fail to learn from past mistakes are bound Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: What

LESSONS ENCOUNTERED
to repeat them. were the costs and benefits of the campaigns
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what were the

R strategic lessons of these campaigns? The

ENCOUNTERED
Institute for National Strategic Studies at
the National Defense University was tasked
to answer these questions. The editors com-
The Institute for National Strategic Studies
Henry Kissinger has reminded us that the study of history offers no manual posed a volume that assesses the war and
(INSS) conducts research in support of the
analyzes the costs, using the Institutes con-

Learning from the Long War

LESSONS ENCOUNTERED
academic and leader development programs of instruction that can be applied automatically; history teaches by analogy,
siderable in-house talent and the dedication
at the National Defense University (NDU) in
Washington, DC. It provides strategic sup-
shedding light on the likely consequences of comparable situations. At the
strategic level, there are no cookie-cutter lessons that can be pressed onto ev- Learning from the Long War of the NDU Press team. The audience for
this volume is senior officers, their staffs, and
port to the Secretary of Defense, Chairman ery batch of future situational dough. The only safe posture is to know many
the students in joint professional military
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and unified com- historical cases and to be constantly reexamining the strategic context, ques-
education coursesthe future leaders of the
batant commands. INSS also interacts with tioning assumptions, and testing the appropriateness of analogies. Armed Forces. Other national security pro-
other U.S. Government agencies, other edu-
fessionals should find it of great value as well.
cational institutions, and the broader nation-
al security community. It includes the Center
for Strategic Research, Center for Technology
R The volume begins with an introduction that
addresses the difficulty of learning strategic
and National Security Policy, Center for the At times during the Long War, civil-military tension was compounded unnec- lessons and a preview of the major lessons
Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Center for essarily. Civilian decisionmakers can benefit from a better understanding of identified in the study. It then moves on to an
the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the complexity of military strategy and the militarys need for clear planning analysis of the campaigns in Afghanistan and
Center for Complex Operations, and NDU
guidance. Senior military officers for their part require a deep understanding Iraq from their initiation to the onset of the
Press.
of the policy/interagency process, an appreciation for the perspectives of civil- U.S. Surges. The study then turns to the Surg-
ian counterparts, and a willingness to embrace, and not resist, the complexi- es themselves as tests of assessment and ad-

R ties and challenges inherent in our system of civilian control. aptation. The next part focuses on decision-
making, implementation, and unity of effort.
The volume then turns to the all-important
Jacket designed by Chris Dunham
U.S. Government Printing Office
R issue of raising and mentoring indigenous se-
curity forces, the basis for the U.S. exit strate-
gy in both campaigns. Capping the study is a
Four-star generals and admirals are masters of Service and joint warfighting,
Cover photo: U.S. Army Soldiers with Echo chapter on legal issues that range from deten-

Hooker and Collins

but at the most senior levels, other attributes are necessary. These include in-
Company, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 172nd In- tion to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.
teragency acumen; media savvy; a detailed understanding of congressional
fantry Brigade, prepare to clear building The final chapter analyzes costs and benefits,
relations; a strong grasp of the defense planning, programming, and budget- dissects decisionmaking in both campaigns,
during combined training exercise with Iraqi
ing system; and skill in multinational environments. and summarizes the lessons encountered.
soldiers near Bahbahani, Iraq, June 6, 2009
(DOD/Kim Smith) Supporting the volume are three annexes:

R one on the human and financial costs of the

Long War and two detailed timelines for his-
tories of Afghanistan and Iraq and the U.S.
A lesson here for future senior officers is that there is no substitute for lifelong campaigns in those countries.
learning. The study of history, a broad grasp of all the instruments of national
power with their strengths and weaknesses, confidence and a decisive charac- The lessons encountered in Afghanistan and
NDU Press ter, and a fair portion of prudence and humility are all helpful when dealing Iraq at the strategic level inform our under-
260 Fifth Avenue with future commitments and challenges. Edited by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins standing of national security decisionmaking,
intelligence, the character of contemporary
Fort Lesley J. McNair
Washington, DC
Continued on back flap