Iraq: Mission Not-So-Accomplished

“So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.“
– President Barack Obama, August 31, 2010

Back in 2003, a friend of mine, an unabashed liberal was grilling me about the wisdom of the impending invasion of Iraq. He was highly skeptical, and in fact believed the worst about the motives of the Bush Administration. He argued the coming war was ginned up on flimsy intelligence and would be a complete disaster. He wanted to know what I thought, as someone who covered the Pentagon and the debate about the war on a daily basis.

As a journalist, I avoided giving my opinion. In fact I wasn’t sure I had an opinion. One of the luxuries of being a reporter, who strives for objectivity, is that you don’t have to have an opinion. My job was to examine all sides of the issue, try to bring facts to bear on the debate, hold people accountable, and let the chips falls where they may. I didn’t need to decide if the invasion was the right thing to do. And honestly, I didn’t know.

My friend pressed me. I must have some opinions, he insisted. What did I think? When he would make his impassioned argument against the invasion, I would simply tell him what the senior leaders would offer as counterarguments, but I wouldn’t volunteer what I thought. That just frustrated him
Finally the week before the invasion, I allowed that if I had to get off the fence, I would come down on the side of believing the war was probably justified. I thought most Iraqis would welcome liberation but just couldn’t say it, and that Iraq, and the world, would be likely better off in the end.

But I did say I was wary about the intelligence, which I knew from long reporting experience is always imperfect. And I was also acutely aware of the unforeseen, unpredictable, and unintended consequences that can be set into motion once a war begins. I was just glad I wasn’t the president and I didn’t have to make such a weighty decision.

As for the weapons of mass destruction, I knew that many smart people in the Pentagon were honestly convinced they were there. I knew commanders who had access to intelligence I did not, and who were certain they would face, at the very least, poison gas on the battlefield.

And while I was wary about all the things that could go wrong, I also knew that sometimes — despite all the uncertainties of war — it’s not always mission impossible.  I remembered well all the dire predictions before NATO went to war over Kosovo in 1999. The standard military line was that the strategy was deeply flawed. You can’t bomb an enemy into submission. It would take substantial ground troops. And there would be heavy casualties. And afterward NATO forces would be subject to constant guerilla attacks, from snipers and rebel holdouts.

But the reality was, after 78 days, NATO DID win, without a single allied casualty. It was messy, and many civilians were killed. And the Chinese embassy was bombed by mistake. (Many n the region are still convinced that was deliberate.) But the alliance prevailed. It wasn’t “mission impossible” after all.
So flash forward to Iraq. It certainly seemed plausible back in 2002, that an invasion to topple Saddam Hussein might work. It certainly seemed Saddam was intent on acquiring WMDs even if he didn’t have them yet, he certainly acted as if he were hiding them. So when my friend pressed me, I conceded that I thought the war was justified, albeit with the same reservations many people had. I hoped for the best.
Now as the U.S. tries to tentatively declare victory and head home, I believe what I came to believe later in 2003, namely that Iraq will be better off in the end, will remain a mess for the foreseeable future. And the price the U.S. paid, in lives, in money, in national prestige is one we would not have paid had we known the cost going in.

So over the years I have seen smart people who were “wrong for the right reasons,” that is, they made reasonable decisions based on the best information available at the time, but were wrong in the end. And I’ve seen others who were “right for the wrong reasons,” meaning they jumped to conclusions based on incomplete, or even erroneous, information, but turned out to have jumped to the right conclusion.

And after all this, I have come to believe two things about the Iraq war right now: Iraq is not ready for U.S. troops to leave. And it is time for us to go.

Tags: Iraq, Misson Accomplished, Obama