No one is gonna like this.
It has become absolutely clear that since the Decider decided he needed to make some more war decisions back in October/November, that our friend Fred Kagan and a hive of bullet point experts have been working overtime over at AEI. A Month ago they released a bare-bones PDF entitled "Choosing Victory," and last night while we were chatting away about Kristol’s perrdy smile, Kagan was updating that PDF. (link to AEI summary page here, full PDF here.)
I’m pretty sure this is what we’ve been waiting for, the little number that Chrimpy will be perusing over the weekend. I can only hope he reads it at least as carefully as I did, though I fear there are too few color pictures (mostly maps), and those are all at the beginning.
Bottom line: remember that house-to-house open urban warfare that everyone feared before the war in 2002 that never came to pass because Saddam’s army melted away? Yep. I’ll look at some of Kagan’s ‘likely’ scenarios after the blip, and get a better picture.
As discussed yesterday, Kagan, Kristol and the folks at AEI have been working quite closely with Bush over the last few months. Jr. didn’t like so much having his father try and take his army men away, so he’s become BFF with some n’er do well’s from the neighborhood, and they’ve been cooking up something in the garage.
The AEI report, "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq – Phase I Report" is... well, it’s a plan. The large-font words and bullet points are very dry, and hardly convey the true scale of death, destruction (and don’t forget the re-construction!) that will surely follow in wake of its attempted implementation. I say ‘attempted’ because, as well all know in a war, if Bush tries it, it’s going to fail. Since it is a PDF, rather than quote extensively, I’m just going to examine, cumulatively, the results of following the steps outlined therein, drawing from what the author’s term the "most likely" enemy responses would be (with maybe a few "most dangerous" responses thrown in, if they seem more likely to me), and see if I can draw a picture of Iraq, and our commitment there, one year from now.
I recommend that everyone go click through the report, it won’t take you but five to ten minutes, and then you’ll be at least up to speed with the President when he announces it next week. It begins with a couple of pages with the word "Victory" at the very top, so I’m sure that will have our Leader smiling happily and clapping in his chair. After re-capping what an absolute clusterfuck the whole enterprise is, including such an easy to understand breakdown of the various factions involved (though without Ed Helm’s helpful mnemonic devices), that hopefully everyone in Washington can finally get their heads around just exactly how hot the water is getting. The authors take pains to re-assure that the army won’t be broken and that this deployment it do-able, and they offer some helpful Caveats (I’m sure the Generals got a laugh from "Military commanders will adjust it (the proposal) to the changing circumstances on the ground"). After a few colorful maps that look more like a Tom Delay Gerrymander Special than a city we were supposed to have 'liberated', it becomes clear that our focus is no longer Iraq, but Baghdad, a populous mid-size city with a million terrified residents.
Finally we get to "Phases of Operation," – the plan.
Phase I: Deploy (by March)
Phase II: Prepare (by June)
Phase III: Clear critical terrain (by Sept.)
Phase IV: Hold cleared areas and transition to Iraqi Control
So, if we follow Mssrs. Kagan (and Kristols!) plan, we should be ‘transitioning to Iraqi control’ by this time next year. But what happens between now and then? I’ll skip through the ‘details’ of who gets moved where, except to note that it requires calling up lots more reserves and extending deployments to 15 months from twelve to cover the gap while we recruit and train 30,000 new troops a year for the foreseeable future ("The President must call for young Americans to volunteer to defend the nation in a time of crisis" I kid you not).
On to Phase I - a massive re-deployment of fighting men to the center of Baghdad, doubling our force in the city to 35,000. While this is going on, between now and March, the report expects likely counter efforts, and considers sectarian cleansing ‘by all sides’ and enemy fortification to be the ‘most dangerous’ of outcomes. I’d say we’ll get all of that at least. More G.I.’s equals more targets. Sectarian violence and cleansing operations are going to get worse no matter what we do, so there’s that, and when we roll in, either the militia’s are going to roll out, or dig-in. And they ain’t going to leave before the shooting starts.
So now it’s March, time to turn the ol’ A.C. on...oops! No electricity, I forgot. Moving on.. Time to "Isolate." What that means exactly in military terms is not clear, I’m guessing it means "try and figure out who the bad guys are." They are clear about likely responses:
- Extremists "surge" (chasmnote: are they allowed to copy us like that?) with more suicide bombings and a murder campaign against civilians. Locals go to ground and focus on indirect attacks (IED’s, Indirect Fire, and civilian attacks). All militant groups continue to infiltrate Iraqi police and Army forces.
So... what? After they’ve infiltrated the police and army, that’s when we’ll get around to training them? I think some of their "Most Dangerous" warnings might come to pass also, see if you don’t agree:
- Extremist cells generate high violence and intimidation before the US forces have the ability to develop effective security measures. Positive perception of the government and hopes for security discredited. Extreme violence against civilians, driving tens of thousands of Baghdadis out of mixed neighborhoods.
Ok, so now it’s June. It’s a hundred an fucking twenty-two outside, we have some ideas about who we need to go after, the profile roughly figuring to be anyone "male" and "sixteen to forty." The enemy has had some time to bunker down, kill and terrorize tens of thousands of civilians, and stage an increasing number of attacks against our sitting ducks, er, forces, but at least we have it narrowed down. Time for Phase III: Clear.
The authors are surprisingly vague on what ‘clear’ entails. They’ve been waiting for this moment their whole lives, you’d think they’d be more clear about ‘clear.’ At first I thought it would be the dreaded house-to-house searching, urban fighting, arresting and ‘imprisoning’ of all the bad guys we ID during Phase II. Of course, it will include plenty of that – in the nice neighborhoods. A clue as to what Phase III is all about comes later in the document, under the heading "Reconstruction, Tier 1." The first two bullet points explain "clearing" a little better:
- Every clearing operation should be accompanied by a set, fully funded reconstruction package
- Restore essential services immediately: sewer, water, electricity, and trash removal services.
You start to get the feeling there’s going to be a lot of trash to remove. Falluja kind of trash. AKA, rubble.
But don’t you worry! There will be plenty of money, lots and lots of money. Money for a decade-long military expansion, money for new APC’s, guns and bullets. We’re gonna need more bullets. Money for new buildings, and sewers, and schools, and to re-re-re-restore electricity. And Kagen is careful to point out we will need lots and lots of auditors there to make sure the money gets to the "right" people.
So there you have it: Our Pan for Victory. More. More troops, more fighting, more death, more destruction and finally, more money.
Now it won’t come as quite a shock when the Decider decides to tell us what decisions he’s made.