Pentagon Planning, Not Diplomacy, Sets U.S. Agenda on Iraq

http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2003/0302milplan.html

Pentagon Planning, Not Diplomacy, Sets U.S. Agenda on Iraq
By Michael T. Klare
February 17, 2003

Editor: Tom Barry, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)



 0302milplan.pdf [printer-friendly version]



The Pentagon's schedule for war will likely mean that the UN inspection
process in Iraq is nearing its conclusion. As planned, the United States
appears to moving steadily toward an invasion of that country aimed at
removing Saddam Hussein and installing a new, more pliant government. The
Bush administration argues that the timing of this move is a response to the
imminent exhaustion of the inspection process. In fact, it is the other way
around: The inspections were allowed to move forward by Washington only so
long as they did not interfere with the pace of U.S. military preparations.
Now that U.S. forces are ready to strike, the inspections can be dispensed
with entirely.

For months, the attention of much the world has been focused on the
diplomatic contest at the United Nations over the wording of Security
Council resolutions on Iraq and the scope of UN inspections process. This
has led many observers to conclude that the pace and timing of the coming
showdown with Iraq has largely been determined by the dynamics of diplomatic
debate in New York. However, it is not diplomacy that has determined the
timing of war but rather the outcome of disputes within the administration
over the nature of the war plan to be followed.

From the available evidence, namely the accounts of those with access to
senior administration officials, President Bush gave his approval for the
initiation of advance planning for a war with Iraq at some point following
the 9/11 terror attacks, and certainly before his "axis of evil" statement
in February 2002. By the spring of 2002, newspapers were reporting that the
Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), General Tommy R.
Franks, was well advanced in early preparations for a war, and was meeting
regularly with senior Pentagon officials in Washington to develop the basic
plan of attack. By this point, senior American officials were also meeting
with military and government leaders in friendly Middle Eastern countries to
secure permission to deploy U.S. troops on their territory in anticipation
of an assault on Iraq.

But this is when an internal Pentagon struggle over timing and tactics
arose. Many senior officials in Washington, led by Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, favored an
innovative plan of attack that would require a relatively small invasion
force of approximately 50,000-75,000 U.S. combat troops. This plan, modeled
on the war in Afghanistan, would have relied on the heavy use of American
air power combined with the extensive use of U.S. Special Forces and "proxy"
armies made up of anti-Hussein Kurds and Shiites. This plan was particularly
attractive to many administration officials because it could be implemented
quickly--by the early fall of 2002--thus reducing the risk that
international diplomacy and domestic protest would be able to erect any
barriers to a U.S. attack.



Afghanistan Redux Plan
The "Afghanistan Redux" plan was opposed, however, by many senior military
officers--uncomfortable from the beginning with the idea of invading Iraq
and occupying Baghdad--who feared that the small American invasion force
would be chewed up by Iraqi armored divisions. They lobbied instead for a
more conservative plan, entailing the deployment of about 200,000 American
combat troops, backed up by powerful armada of ships and planes. This plan,
sometimes called "Desert Storm Lite," would have required an additional
several months to put into motion, pushing the theoretical starting date for
a war into February 2003. (The terms "Afghan War Redux" and "Desert Storm
Lite" appear in an article by Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks in the
Washington Post for July 31, 2002.)

All last summer, senior administration officials fought over which of these
plans (or variations thereof) should be adopted. On one side in this debate
were the administration "chicken hawks" (so called because they had largely
avoided military duty over the course of their careers) like Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith (the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy); on
the other side were career military officers, led by General Franks of
CENTCOM. According to some reports, Franks was repeatedly sent back to his
headquarters in Florida to redesign the attack plan because his proposals
were considered too conservative (i.e., too slow) by the chicken hawks in
Washington.

From what can now be determined, it appears that President Bush finally made
a decision on which of these invasion plans to follow in late August.
Possibly fearing the political fallout of a battlefield disaster should a
lightly equipped U.S. invasion force confront heavily armed Iraqi forces,
Bush selected the more conservative military strategy favored by Tommy
Franks. At that point, the countdown to war began in earnest as preparations
got underway for the deployment of some 200,000 U.S. combat troops to the
Middle East.

But no matter how eager the chicken hawks were to go to war, it is not
possible to move 200,000 troops and all their equipment to a battlefield
8,000 miles away overnight. It takes time: six months at a minimum. So, when
President Bush gave the go ahead in late August, the earliest starting time
for the initial attack automatically became late February or early March of
2003. Since early September everyone in the know in Washington has been
aware that the war will break out sometime around March 1st, give or take a
few days.



Nothing to Lose by Going to the UN
It was only after these decisions had been taken that President Bush went to
the United Nations in New York and pleaded for one last effort to disarm
Saddam Hussein through vigorous UN action. Because his forces would not be
ready to strike for another six months, Bush evidently concluded that he had
nothing to lose by giving the UN more time to act, even though he clearly
believed that UN action was pointless. At the same time, going to New York
and asking for UN action allowed him to quiet those domestic critics
(including some senior Republicans) who felt that a veneer of international
support was necessary to lend a degree of legitimacy to the planned U.S.
invasion.

All last fall, it appeared that U.S. diplomats led by Secretary of State
Colin Powell were in agony over the slowness of deliberations at the UN
Security Council. But while there is no doubt that Powell genuinely sought
international backing for the attack, he was never quite as anxious about
the pace of events as he appeared to be because he knew that the fighting
could not begin until February 2003, at the earliest. It is only now, with
the onset of battle but weeks ahead, that Powell is truly concerned about
the tempo of diplomatic action, struggling now to obtain a second UN
resolution authorizing the use of force before the troops commence their
attack.

Clearly, it has been the pacing of U.S. war preparations and not the
political environment at the United Nations that has shaped administration
strategy over the past few months. Until now, the White House has been able
to conceal this underlying reality because so many eyes were focused on
developments at the UN headquarters in New York. Once the fighting begins,
however, the outright cynicism and deceitfulness of the U.S. strategy will
quickly become apparent, further turning world opinion against the United
States.

(Michael T. Klare <mklare@hampshire.edu> is a professor of peace and world
security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and the author of
Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (Owl Books / Henry
Holt). He is a frequent contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (online at
www.fpif.org) on military affairs. Information for this article was obtained
from The New York Times for April 28, July 5, 10, and 29, and Sept. 21 and
23, 2002; The Washington Post for July 28 and 31, and Sept. 21, 2002; and
the Los Angeles Times for Sept. 10, 2002.)