"America's Failure In Iraq" explores the involvement of the United States in Iraq beginning with the Gulf War of 1991, under the "leadership" of President George H.W. Bush and Colin Powell. It continues through the post-war years of the impotent United Nations sanctions, the events of September 11, 2001, and the ineptitude of our nation's senior leadership, including Colin Powell again, that culminated with the US invastion of Iraq in the spring of 2003. The way the Gulf War was terminated by the first President Bush was a dissaster of monumental proportions. But the invasion of Iraq by his son 12 years later, for no valid reason and with a fraction of the forces needed to properly execute the mission militarilly, led the United States into a "mini-Vietnam" scenario that has split our nation down the middle again. The socialist left who were in college (or diapers in the case of Barack Hussein Obama) during Vietnam are now running the country, and using almost the same justification for turning American on its head today as they did then. What Mike O'Brien observed while based in Baghdad, and traveling throughout the country, made him realize the "reconstruction" of the Iraqi government, primarilly the Ministries of Defense and Interior that are responsible for the security of the nation and its people, is a sham. The waste of US money is beyond description, while the incompetence of American military and diplomatic personnel, and civilian contractors, is deplorable. They are all there to make as much money as they can as fast as they can. Add to this the complete failure of the US political and military leadership to protect the Iraqi population, primarilly General George Casey who did nothing while the country went down the drain, is pathetic. Because of the abysamal planning of the invasion, primarily the small number of forces sent there, and the complete lack of action on the part of President Bush and his advisors to adapt to the changing situation on the ground in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead who would be alive today if we had never gone there in the first place. To think we can "tranisiton" from Coalition oversight and dominance of the country, over to Iraqi control of its own destiny in the midst of a civil war and a terrorist killing field, is a farce at best and a dissapointing exersize in futility at worst.

America's Failure In Iraq

By Michael M. O'Brien

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Michael M. O'Brien
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-8796-5

Chapter One

A Free Pass

On the evening of April 6, 1991, I dropped by to visit my mother at our family home in Bethesda, Maryland. The TV was on and suddenly the show was interrupted by the network announcing a Special Report about to be broadcast. Within a few seconds President George H.W. Bush came on the air and announced he was ordering the cessation of all hostile action in Iraq, and that he had ordered all American troops to stop any further advances and action against Iraqi forces. He went on to say he had ordered the immediate return of American soldiers home from the battlefield.

I was dumbstruck. I turned to my mother and said this was the worst news I had ever heard. Why on earth were we not going all the way to Baghdad? Why on earth were we letting Saddam Hussein go? Why on earth were we letting him off the hook for his invasion of Kuwait? I couldn't understand why we were stopping our troops half way to Baghdad, when we had Saddam by the short hairs, his troops sprinting back to Baghdad as fast as their "camels" could take them, and the world watching us as we kicked him from one side of the dessert to the other on CNN. What had gotten into the President? What had happened? Indeed, what was he smoking?

It seemed as if the nation had gone into a drug-induced euphoria over hearing the news. But I was not happy. To me this was the worst thing the President could have done. I remember saying it was probably the worst political-military decision of the century. I have never regretted my words.

Shortly afterward General Norman Schwarzkopf, the CENTCOM (Central Command) Commander and commander of all allied forces in theater, was making statements to the effect that the President's decision to end hostilities was a mistake. About two days later he was "taken behind the wood shed" by Bush and we never heard another thing from Norm about it being a mistake. But in the January 20, 1992 issue of Newsweek the story became very clear. The night before the President's announcement General Colin Powell, then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Schwarzkopf, were directly asked by the President for their recommendations. According to the Newsweek story, Powell strongly recommended ending hostilities, while Schwarzkopf was ambivalent. He had the chance to say we should continue to press forward, which is what he thought we should do, but he wimped out and went along with Powell. That was why he was making his statements to the press. But it was too late by then. The cat was out of the bag. The horse was out of the barn.

Why did Bush do it? There are many reasons thrown about, but the one that has been heard the most is the "power vacuum" theory. I for one have never bought into it. The theory goes something like this: If we had captured Saddam Hussein and removed him from power that would have created a "power vacuum" in Iraq with the head of the country gone. The theory goes on that this would have led to the countries surrounding Iraq to swarm in, while at the same time civil unrest would have broken out inside Iraq itself. I don't buy that theory, and never did, for one very simple reason-we had about half a million allied soldiers right there, in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, at the end of the war. What were the odds that Iran and Syria would have invaded Iraq with half a million United States forces standing there with everything they had brought over with them? What are the odds that Sunni and Shi'ite radicals would have started fighting each other with that many US forces there to stop them? None of the power vacuum theories hold up against the fact there were 500,000 United States troops on the ground with the new M1A1/2 Abrams tank to stop anything that would have started in Iraq at that time.

There is another theory, equally as weak, that was being thrown around at the end of the Gulf War. That was the issue of the United Nations resolutions. True, the resolutions may have specifically prevented the US from continuing to pursue Saddam and his forces. But hadn't we already gone beyond the limits of the resolutions? And even if the UN resolutions specifically prevented pushing any further toward Baghdad, what would have been wrong with continuing to press Saddam and demand his surrender? What would have prevented the United States from getting another resolution from the Security Council to pursue Saddam until his capture, in order to prevent him from getting away with what he had done and doing something else later?

The fact is the UN resolutions were weak, they are always weak, they mean nothing in practical terms, and they are merely political props so heads of state can fall back on them to say they have world backing. States can always do what they want to do, and what they need to do, without UN approval. Why does the United States need the approval of the UN to do what it feels is necessary in the first place? Are we afraid of the UN and what it will say against us? You bet! That is exactly why we defer to the UN any time we want to do something to defend ourselves or our allies. When we have a weak leader in the White House he always has to go to the UN for permission to do anything. This is another reason for the decision of President Bush that fateful night. He wanted the world and the UN to like him, to think he was a nice guy, to let them know he really cared what they thought about his actions. He certainly didn't want to do anything that might upset the mighty UN.

In the final analysis President Bush stopped hostilities because he was a weak person and deferred to Colin Powell for decisions he should have had the capacity to make himself as Commander-In-Chief. In the end Powell simply told him what to do. Colin Powell is a liberal and a peace lover. Being a peace lover is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is disastrous if it is the main thing affecting his decisions as a four-star general and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States. Not to say that generals don't love peace, but peace should not be a general's primary objective. A general's primary objective should be the total defeat of the enemy. With defeat he can assist his political leader achieve his primary objective, which is the peace that comes only after the enemy's total defeat. But Colin Powell never really knew what he was. He wore a uniform but acted like a diplomat. He tried to be both when he should he have focused on what he was being paid to do, wage war. Instead, he wanted to achieve peace before achieving military victory. He put the cart before the horse. His priorities were backward. And for that we are paying the price today, and will continue to for years to come. (Today Powell claims he's a Republican but acts like a liberal Democrat. He still doesn't know what he is.)

Colin Powell deserves credit for one major thing, however, the use of overwhelming force to defeat the Iraqi army during the Gulf War. When Iraq invaded Kuwait on the morning of August 2, 1991, the world stood in shock primarily due to its disbelief in Saddam's stupidity. He had been rattling his saber for months, but no one thought he would actually invade Kuwait. But when he did invade the response of the United States was to get UN approval to defend Kuwait and kick Iraq back across the border. It was Colin Powell who espoused the use of overwhelming force to do this. For this he will go down in history as a brilliant military leader, but the concept of overwhelming force is nothing new. It's been around forever. US Army doctrine and training has always called for a force ratio of at least 3/1 if attacking an enemy who is in a defensive position. This meant if we were going in to attack Iraqi forces in Kuwait and kick them back across the Iraqi border, we would have to go in with at least three times as many troops as they had on the ground. With complete air superiority and 37 days of non-stop bombing, the Iraqi army was devastated and no match for our forces. Powell knew this and still said we needed half a million soldiers there when the bombing ended and the ground attack began. He was completely correct.

Powell got his way, as he always did, and the troops were sent over. But then why didn't we use them to their full effect after all the trouble we went through to get them there? Why didn't we use them to capture and topple the Saddam regime when we knew he was a scumbag and was killing his own people? Did President Bush send half a million troops over there to kick Saddam out of Kuwait because he had invaded a neutral country, or was it so Kuwait could continue to ship oil to the US? If so, then our entire reason for going over there was truly disingenuous after all. It wasn't to rid the world of Saddam Hussein, it was to get him out of Kuwait so we could continue to get their oil. We really didn't care at all about Saddam Hussein. We just wanted Kuwait oil, and he was getting in the way. All the talk of atrocities committed by Saddam meant nothing to President Bush and Colin Powell because we could have taken him out then and there. We sent 500,000 troops there. Why did we bother? Instead, we left him alone after he went back to Baghdad with his tail between his legs.

The response to the "power vacuum" theory is this: we had enough troops on the ground to stand up to anything that Iraqi insurgents, Iran, or any other threat could have thrown against us. The reasons Bush gave us for pulling out and leaving Saddam in power don't hold up. We had the forces in place.

What is the use of massing overwhelming force if you don't use it? The United States had nearly half a million troops on the ground in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and later in Iraq, and stopped. Why? We have never gotten a straight answer from anyone. The President said he couldn't go any further, but if the sanctions prevented him, as he said then, why did he ask Powell and Schwarzkopf what they thought? If the sanctions were that specific he didn't need their opinion. He asked them because he knew he had the option to continue if he wanted to, but he also asked them because he wanted to hear the answer they gave him, and they all knew it. The President, wanting to be loved by the media, stopped aggressive hostilities without giving any thought to what the consequences would be for anyone else. Colin Powell started off on the right foot by massing overwhelming force in Saudi Arabia, but then lost his nerve and backed off once we got ourselves into the fight and started killing Iraqi forces by the thousands. Isn't that what war is all about? Isn't that why Powell was a career Army officer? But Powell's media popularity had long since gone to his head by this time. He was their pawn now.

If we had used the troops we had sent there, captured Saddam Hussein, and waited for the dust to settle, we would not be in the mess we are today in Iraq, and in that entire part of the world. We would have had the forces in place to protect the Iraqi people while they decided for themselves what government they wanted, and then we would have been there to help them achieve that goal, with the number of US forces on the ground to protect them while they worked to get there. This could have been done, and only a fool would have thought otherwise. With half a million soldiers on the ground, who would have tried to stop us from protecting the Iraqi people while they decided their own destiny? The answer is-no one. Everyone knows it but is afraid to say so.

Then there's Norman Schwarzkopf. He had the opportunity to tell the President to continue on toward Baghdad, but he failed to do his duty. Then he had the nerve to blame the President for his decision after he was given the chance to speak his mind but didn't have the courage to. Too little, too late. General Schwarzkopf is looked upon as a hero. Perdue Chicken should use him as their spokesman. I hope he enjoys watching current events in Iraq on TV. He had a hand in creating these events along with Powell and Bush. There is no United States general officer who could have failed to achieve the success Schwarzkopf did with all the tools he had at his disposal. He was given 37 days of non-stop bombing by the US Air Force to soften up military targets in Iraq, and at the same time given half a million soldiers with their full complement of equipment to fight with, all while the Iraqi armed forces were being blown away by the US Air Force without any air cover of their own. Bozo The Clown could have gotten the same results that ol' Norm did. But when it came to really being tough, to stand up for what he believed in when the President asked for his opinion, he chickened out. Schwarzkopf is as much a weenie as Powell is, and they both got paid millions after the war to tell everyone how great they were.

The fact is, our modern day political and military leaders are not men of courage or fortitude. They "talk the talk," but can't "walk the walk." They are collectively afraid of the media and what people will think of them if they make the tough, but necessary, decisions needed of men in their positions. They can't cut the grade. Military officers become increasingly afraid and weak as they advance in rank, for the simple reason they don't want to upset their careers from further advancement. One has to wonder where their loyalty to their soldiers lies. Making full colonel is a very hard thing to do, and making Brigadier General is just about impossible. To rise to the rank of 1-star general is a feat few achieve. But making it to 4-star general is harder to do than getting struck by lightning. There is only one way to get there and that is to never, ever, say anything that will raise eyebrows, anything that is against the "party line." To say what is really going on is professional suicide if one wants to become a general officer. It has been this way since the Second World War.

General officers were not as timid and shy during the Civil War or later. They were often very courageous and spoke their minds. Grant was a perfect example. President Lincoln gave him command of all the Union Armies, even though he was known to have a drinking problem, because he got results. Lincoln was heard telling his senior military staff that he would buy a case of liquor for any officers who would fight as well as Grant did. Military results, military success-that was what Grant got and delivered to his political commander, because Lincoln stayed out of his way. Lincoln took those results and transformed them into political goals and objectives. One did his job, while the other did his. They worked well together, and stayed in their respective "swim lanes" where they each belonged.

But things started to change during World War II and Korea. The strong generals started to get slapped down by the weak ones, or by politicians who had their priorities backward. Look what happened to General George Patton, who was furious when Eisenhower wouldn't let the US Army go into Berlin. "Ike" wouldn't let him because he was a political general. Roosevelt had cut a deal with Stalin allowing the Russian army into Berlin first, and also giving Eastern Europe to "Uncle Joe" as a bonus. Look where things ended up. Was Patton wrong? General Douglas MacArthur wanted to go after the Red Chinese army during the Korean War. Granted, he was talking about going nuke, which wasn't the greatest idea, but he had a point about addressing the communist Chinese and North Korea while we were there to do something about them. He got sacked by Truman, the same guy who had gone nuke a few years before, but that was OK. And then we went into Vietnam to stop the very thing MacArthur was trying to prevent more than a decade earlier communist Chinese expansion. So who had it wrong, MacArthur or Truman?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from America's Failure In Iraqby Michael M. O'Brien Copyright © 2009 by Michael M. O'Brien. Excerpted by permission.
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