Iraq War Exit Strategies (Part 1)

In 'till we win (G.W. Bush), orderly exit (most Democratic and Republican candidates for office), immediate and safe withdrawal (Military Families Speak Out), immediate withdrawal-screw Iraq (too many voices, with no logical plan)... These are the sentiments I most frequently hear amongst my friends and associates. So which strategy is right? None of them or all of them?

Without defining what 'win', 'orderly', 'immediate', or 'safe' mean, how can any of these policies be the best or most appropriate one? Mr. Bush seems to define a win as achieving all military and nation building objectives, at whatever the cost (because we have to stop the terrorists over there, before they come here). Our Senators and Representatives would like to define 'orderly' as whatever politically expedient way they can show support for our troops without tipping over the basket of eggs, that represent our sorrowful diplomatic status with the rest of the middle-east and radical Islam. Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), an organization I belong to, takes a very diplomatic approach to 'immediate and safe' by wanting an immediate conclusion with the reality that we will not, in the near-term abandon Iraq, and that significant withdrawal would jeopardize those that remain. The 'screw Iraq crowd is just to uneducated about reality to spend the time trying to categorize their position.

I am not a great enough mind to develop all of the arguments on each side of these issues. But I will make some observations that color my view of the obvious arguments and how we should approach them. First, we do not live in a vacuum, and therefore for every action there will be an equal and opposite reaction. Second, like the sign on a fine china shop says on the door, 'You break it, You own it' (I only wish Mr. G.H.W. Bush had taken G.W. to one of those shops). Third, but probably not last, 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'. Enough of the adages, I think the point is served, that our Leadership has undertaken choices which have an impact on our Soldiers and the American people, and will have a long lasting effect on us.

Our concerns with the war is little served by the question of 'should we have entered into a war in Iraq'? We already broke it, and now that we own it, what are we going to do with the million shards of hate, distrust, dishonesty, dis ingenuousness, deceit, and corruption that have evolved. The piece we broke was not a pretty piece (after all Saddam Hussien will go down as one of the most brutal dictators in the modern age), But it was the piece that held together the collection of all the vying parts of secular and sectarian forces together.

Perhaps, a greater issue, is the affect our decisions have had on the middle-east, in general, and our ability to deal with radical Islam, specifically. For it was radical Islam that was the rallying point of our President, that led us into this quagmire. 'Fight the terrorists over there, before we have to fight them here'. At least that was the excuse, after WMD was eliminated as a righteous excuse for invading a sovereign country. With Saddam invading and declaring wars on Kuwait and Iran, he at least proved that he was an equal-opportunity despot. His Sunni centered Baath party waged war on Sunni dominant Iran, and he was able to mollify the Shii' majority in a Sunni ruled dictatorship. What other stabilizing affects he had on other secular oriented Islamic kingdoms may be far beyond our Western understanding. What is clear is that every thing we have done to insert ourselves in the middle-east, either to support Israel against Palestine and Jordan, to support an illegal overthrow of the government, by the Shah of Iran, or to gain favor with the Saudi by selling weapons in return for bases, to monitor and control Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, etc. etc. etc., has done nothing but inflame Muslims, regardless of their secular distinction. When we push one way, an Islamic force pushes back another way.

The last issue is 'nation building'. We are so naive to believe that the method we have adopted to rule our country, is so superior that it is absolutely intuitive that every other country in the world would benefit by our form of government. Democracy, in any form similar to ours, has only existed for a mere three hundred years amongst the French, English, and US. Hundreds of cultures, thousands of countries for five Milena have existed for more consecutive years, than our form of democracy. We have been quite successful showing that other forms of government don't work, but we have very little evidence that we know anything about how to 'install' our form of government. That would say to me that what does work is much more dependent on culture, than ideal. And, at best, the most we can hope for is an amalgamation of what is culturally acceptable to those that are governed, and the ideal of how those that are governed should be respected.

In Part 2 of this post I will discuss some specifics of how other's portray our strategy and how they predict that strategy will affect our ability to extricate ourselves from this debacle.

Contractor Soldiers-For-Hire

A recent posting on Military.com was headlined "Slideshow: A Bloody Business". I viewed the slideshow and descriptions, and two thoughts hit me immediately. First, I could see that they were doing dangerous work, providing services to our own military forces. The second thought was based on a picture of a contractor holding a pistol to the head of a supposed Iraqi insurgent, with the comment that he was trying to obtain information regarding other contractors that had been kidnapped.

The slide show was presented in regard to a book written by Col. Gerald Schumacher, titled "A Bloody Business". Not understanding the point-of-view of the slideshow, I entered the forum to see what people were saying about the slideshow. What I found totally supprised me. Most of the comments were directed against Col. Schumacher (as an informed source of the job of the contractors) or critical of the private contractor Crescent Securities (unprofessional thugs).

I have always been critical of the cronyism attached to Vice President Richard Cheney's association with Halliburton, parent company of KBR (Kellog, Brown, & Root) according to Wikipedia. KBR is, by far the largest private contractor serving US interest in Iraq. They are the major contractor providing services to our troops (most visually, they are in charge of most food services for our soldiers in all Operating Bases), as well as transportation of many goods and fuel from Kuwait to all parts of Iraq. Halliburton is widely known as the largest contractor of private oil field services, in the world. Crescent Security is one of the sub-companies of KBR, employed to protect their transportation network.

Halliburton, and all of its iterations operate under 'sole-source' contracts that are never put up for bid by the US government. How much influence did Cheney's previous employement and position on the Board of Directors of Halliburton have on our contracting decisions? How much does George W. Bush's previous ownership and director positions, with the oil industry, have to do with Halliburton having no-bid contracts to provide services to the oil interests and military supply interests in Iraq.

As I followed the thread of discussion regarding the job and quality of work regarding Crescent Security, it became obvious that the whole concept of this security force undermines the job our brave soldiers do. (one of the posts had to do with one of the senior security operatives being killed, a later post described that he was killed by coalition forces as their convoy approached a checkpoint at near to 100 MPH without headlights). My position is that if I was the soldier seeing a convoy approaching in this manner I would have 'shot first and asked questions never'.

I will attempt to get all of the links to Military.com, the slideshow "Slideshow: A Bloody Business", and the forum thread forum: A Bloody Business (my comments are near the bottom), included in this post in the appropriate places. But, if I miss, or you would like more info, please send me a comment, and if you send your email, I will send it direct.

I find Military.com to be a valuable source of information. They are most definitely an advocate of all who are currently or previously served in any branch of the military. They are not afraid to tell it like it is, good or bad. This issue just hit my hot button.

Additonal Refererences: (1) Washington Post.com, "Audit of KBR Iraq Contract Faults Records For Fuel, Food", (2) ,USA Today, "Largest Iraq contract rife with errors".