A Testament to Cluelessness

Now comes the news that in his final days in the bunker, Donald Rumsfeld had acknowledged even to himself "the situation in Iraq has been evolving" and it was time to think about doing things differently. Here are a bunch of bad ideas and a few belated good ones that Rumsfeld floated Nov. 6 in a memo to the White House, two days prior to being shown the door.

It is a testiment to how out of touch Rumsfeld was, and his failure to recognize basic fundamentals, apparently from the very beginning.

"Publicly announce a set of benchmarks." OK. But then you have to meet them and everyone picks them apart and looks for you to fail. The enemy then can plan accordingly, coincident with the American media and political opposition, to undercut your best intentions. Actions speak louder than words. Let everyone figure out what's working when it works.

"Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds." What's been the big holdup? Training up Iraqi forces was the answer 3 1/2 years ago. This was no secret.

"Initiate a reverse embeds program ... by putting one or more Iraqi soldiers with every U.S. and possibly Coalition squad, to improve our units’ language capabilities and cultural awareness and to give the Iraqis experience and training with professional U.S. troops." Again, why are we talking about this now? Language and cultural problems have been huge since the start, and greater integration of U.S. and Iraq Army units, as opposed to civilian interpreters, would have great benefits for both sides.

"Aggressively beef up the Iraqi MOD and MOI, and other Iraqi ministries critical to the success of the ISF — the Iraqi Ministries of Finance, Planning, Health, Criminal Justice, Prisons, etc. — by reaching out to U.S. military retirees and Reserve/National Guard volunteers (i.e., give up on trying to get other USG Departments to do it.)" Rumsfeld was the one who insisted on running Iraq. Why was he complaining now?

"Conduct an accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases. We have already reduced from 110 to 55 bases. Plan to get down to 10 to 15 bases by April 2007, and to 5 bases by July 2007." What? Was he out of his mind?

"Retain high-end SOF capability and necessary support structure to target Al Qaeda, death squads, and Iranians in Iraq, while drawing down all other Coalition forces, except those necessary to provide certain key enablers for the ISF." See above re misplacement of Rumsfeld's mind, only how about increasing instead of just retaining Special Operations capability?

"Initiate an approach where U.S. forces provide security only for those provinces or cities that openly request U.S. help and that actively cooperate, with the stipulation being that unless they cooperate fully, U.S. forces would leave their province." In other words, start playing hard to get. Works in high school.

This next one is actually a good idea. It took him 3 1/2 years to figure this out: "Stop rewarding bad behavior, as was done in Fallujah when they pushed in reconstruction funds, and start rewarding good behavior. Put our reconstruction efforts in those parts of Iraq that are behaving, and invest and create havens of opportunity to reward them for their good behavior. As the old saying goes, 'If you want more of something, reward it; if you want less of something, penalize it.' No more reconstruction assistance in areas where there is violence." As the old saying goes, was Rumsfeld asleep at the wheel?

"Position substantial U.S. forces near the Iranian and Syrian borders to reduce infiltration and, importantly, reduce Iranian influence on the Iraqi Government." I hate to sound like a broken record, but I thought of that one 3 1/2 years ago, and I'm just a lame-ass civilian.

"Withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions — cities, patrolling, etc. — and move U.S. forces to a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) status, operating from within Iraq and Kuwait, to be available when Iraqi security forces need assistance." I can't believe Murtha didn't like this guy. This is straight from the Cut-and-Run playbook.

More drivel. Here's a good one though. "Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period." You mean they weren't paying people off? What the heck do we give all that money to the CIA for anyway?

"Initiate a massive program for unemployed youth. It would have to be run by U.S. forces, since no other organization could do it." A little late for the Job Corps, especially since you'd mainly be creating a big fat car bomb target for al Qaeda. But if they actually intended to seriously address the massive unemployment that has fueled the insurgency, better late than never.

"Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis. This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not 'lose.'" As mentioned above, how about just shutting up and doing it?

"Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist." Yeah, like that. Put a cork in Rumsfeld's mouth. Better yet, shove him out the back door.


At this point in the memo, Rumsfeld draws a line over his "less attractive options." This list does indeed consist mainly of stinkers ... "Continue on the current path" and "Dayton-like process" and "Set a firm withdrawal date" and "three separate states."

But the "less attractive options" also include the two vital moves without which Iraq will be difficult if not impossible to get under control. They are as moving a large force into Baghdad to control it, and increasing forces in Iraq substantially.

These options were unattractive to Rumsfeld because, having become stuck on stupid, he insisted on going to war with a downsized post-Cold War army, and insisted that politicaly and psychologically traumatized Iraq could sort itself out. He and President Bush did not move to expand the Army in the fall of 2001, when they could have had all the recruits they wanted and a blank check from Congress. So Rumsfeld didn't have the forces to put into Iraq, and he no longer had the political capital to raise a larger force.

Now we get to see whether Bush with his new SecDef Robert Gates will even try to get the wherewithal to win in Iraq out of this new Congress, war-weary but quite possibly willing to try almost anything to avoid an U.S. humiliation. I'm guessing no. That takes us back to Rumsfeld's prefered "above the line" options. Can it be done with the earnest and judicious application of some of those measures?

God, I hope so.

Links:

Here's the whole thing, if you need more.
Here's the NYT's report on same.
Powerline and I have a significantly different take on this.
Dan Riehl puts a finer point on it.
Surber sees Rumsfeld going all CYA and I think he's on to something with that. That would explain how lame all this is. And Surber's right about NYT et al using this vs. Bush.
Juan Cole trips over a couple of trees and thinks he sees a forest: Rumsfeld = Saddam.
I agree with a lot of Andrew Sullivan's quick take, except consider this. Maybe the White House wants this out.
Prairie Pundit looks beyond the beltway to the current Sunni-Shia dynamic.