Pentagon
Planning, Not Diplomacy,
Sets U.S.
Agenda on Iraq
by
Michael T. Klare
Dissident Voice
February 23, 2003
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 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 (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2001). He can
be reached at: mklare@hampshire.edu