Too Little, Too Late
By: Mark Poloncarz
Date: January 17, 2006
Next Tuesday, President Bush will present his State of the Union address to the nation. In past addresses he was guaranteed a complicit crowd that would stand and clap on cue, but not this year. This will be his first address before a democratically controlled Congress, and perhaps because of this fact, the president may present a more sobering description of reality in Iraq to the people of the United States than during any previous State of the Union.
It could be said that this address is the most important speech the president will give during these final two years in office. It just might be his last chance to sell the notion that the War in Iraq can be won; that the proposed troop surge will actually turn the tide of this growing sectarian battle.
While the president has been all over TV in the last week trying to make the sale on the need for the surge and how it will make a difference in Iraq, he definitely is not finding any willing takers. Very few people, certainly not most democrats, independents or for that matter many republicans, are buying the argument that an increase of over 21,500 troops into Iraq, 17,500 alone in Baghdad, will make a difference. While he may have recently admitted that mistakes were made by him in carrying out this war, that alone will not be enough to change the public's perception of this war and its ultimate outcome.
However, even before he sets foot in the Capitol the president finds himself in conflict with the Army's recently issued new field manual on how to defeat a counterinsurgency. A field manual that was co-authored by the same man to whom the president now has entrusted the carrying out his policy, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. A field manual that on its face states that the present surge will not be enough to defeat the insurgency.
The field manual will never find itself on the New York Times best seller list, but it is a well-drafted book on the dynamics of an insurgency, the methods insurgents use, and how to combat them. It is the first time the Army has updated its field manual on counterinsurgency in over 20 years, and as it is co-written by General Petraeus, a man considered the foremost U.S. expert on counterinsurgency, you would think that its basic principles would be followed by the administration. Unfortunately they are not.
The field manual notes that in prior conflicts, "planners assumed that combatants required a 10 or 15 to 1 advantage over insurgents to win." However, instead of making a comparison of counterinsurgents to insurgents, the manual suggests examining the number of security forces to inhabitants in any given area ("troop density"). As stated by the manual in section 1-67, "Most density recommendations fall within a range of 20 to 25 counterinsurgents for every 1000 residents," and that "Twenty counterinsurgents per 1000 residents is often considered the minimum troop density required for effective COIN (counterinsurgency) operations."
If we are to believe the Army's own field manual, a manual published on December 15, 2006, in an urban area the size of Baghdad at least 120,000 troops are needed to wage an effective campaign. Presently there are about 132,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, but roughly half of those are in non-combat positions. So even after the surge is fully implemented, there will still not be enough combat troops in the entire country to meet the minimum recommended counterinsurgency levels for just Baghdad. In other words, the troops are too few to keep the peace under our military's own guidelines. I don't think the president will highlight this point when he addresses the nation.
Moreover, another portion of the manual will probably be omitted from the president's speech, and the title to that section says it all: "Counterinsurgents Should Prepare for a Long-Term Commitment." In Section 1-134, the manual notes that any counterinsurgent "operations demand considerable expenditures of time and resources" and that the local population "must have confidence in the staying power of both the counterinsurgents and the HN (home nation) government." Based on recent events and the fragility of the Iraqi ruling coalition, it is doubtful that Iraqis have any confidence in the al-Maliki government, the U.S. surely doesn't.
Finally, and perhaps more importantly considering today's political climate, the manual notes in section 1-136 that "gaining and maintaining U.S. public support for a protracted deployment is critical." While the U.S. public may support the troops, it is doubtful that anything the president says next Tuesday will sway public opinion towards supporting a long counterinsurgency operation in the heart of Baghdad. Two years ago such an argument would have been possible, but not today. It's too late in the game for the president to ask for the American public to continue such a campaign. The troop surge is too little, and too late.
So next Tuesday President Bush will address our nation and call for additional sacrifice from our troops and their families, a sacrifice that our own military states will be inadequate to address the current sectarian civil war in Baghdad. Perhaps if the president and his advisors took the advice of our military leaders, or read their field manuals, we would be facing a different situation in Iraq today, but that is not the case.
Mark Poloncarz, a founding member of the WNY Coalition for Progress, is comptroller of Erie County, New York.
© Mark C. Poloncarz, 2007.
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the WNY Coalition for Progress.
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