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551. The Bypass: Ahmad Chalabi, Dick Cheney and the Disbanding of the Iraqi Army

Author:
Michael Wackenreuter
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
On March 12, 2003, a week before the invasion of Iraq, a Principals Committee meeting of the National Security Council was held at the White House to formally decide the fate of the Iraqi Army.[1] The participants, having all received extensive briefings on the subject prior to meeting, voted unanimously and with little discussion that after disbanding the Republican Guard, the “regular soldiers” of the Iraqi Army would be called “back to duty.”[2] In spite of this decision, on May 23, 2003, L. Paul Bremer III—President Bush’s “special envoy” in Iraq—announced Coalition Provisional Authority Order No. 2, “Dissolution of Entities.” Among the relevant entities to be dissolved by the decree was the Iraqi Army.[3] In an interview with the journalist Robert Draper at the end of his presidency, President Bush commented on this apparent dissonance when he remarked, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.” When asked further of his reaction when he found out about the decree, Bush replied, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’”[4] Having endured significant criticism over CPA Order No. 2, Mr. Bremer was quick to defend himself, providing letters to The New York Times to and from the president “in order to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush’s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House.”[5] Such a puzzling exchange over such an important topic serves to illustrate a larger point. That is, despite its centrality to America’s involvement in Iraq, from the emergence of the insurgency onward to its current conflict with ISIS, it still remains unclear how and why the decision to disband the Iraqi Army was made. In this paper, I demonstrate that the impetus for CPA Order No. 2 came from the prominent Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, and was carried out under the authority of Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney by a small group of Chalabi’s supporters in the Office of the Vice President and the Pentagon. I do so first by establishing the lengths to which those in the vice president’s office, in concert with like-minded officials at the Defense Department, were willing to go in order to support Chalabi, who favored disbanding the army. Secondly, I identify the striking similarities between the events surrounding the order and other instances involving the vice president that involved a bypass of the normal interagency policy-making process...
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, History, Army, Baath Party, and Iraq War
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

552. Choosing to Return? Prospects for Durable Solutions in Iraq

Author:
Rachel Sider
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Abstract:
In the aftermath of the rapid advance of Daesh through central parts of Iraq, a humanitarian crisis of significant proportion remains. Since March 2015, over 458,000 people have returned to their places of origin. Many have been driven by government guarantees of improved security coupled with a lack of access to land, food and income generating activities in displacement sites. They have returned under precarious conditions, without the support required to ensure progress towards durable solutions, and they rely on assistance to recover and rebuild. Efforts must be made to ensure that returns are safe, dignified and sustainable. This paper outlines the current situation and provides recommendations for the Government of Iraq, UN agencies, donors and NGOs.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Humanitarian Aid, Reconstruction, and Refugees
Political Geography:
Iraq

553. Defeating ISIL Requires US Leadership Now

Author:
Edward M. Gabriel
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Ambassadors Review
Abstract:
As a member of the Council of American Ambassadors, I have written before in CAA publications on Syria and radicalism in the Levant—once in September of 2013,1 and again in September of 2014.2 Nearly a year later, I am disheartened to see that US leadership continues to be timid in its struggle with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) and Syria, in spite of our warnings and prediction that if the United States didn’t define and lead the effort in this fight, radical elements would take over against our interests. This didn’t have to be the case and doesn’t have to be in the future. However, the problem cannot simply be wished away and we can’t wait two long years for a new administration to take action.
Topic:
Political Violence, Islam, Religion, and Violent Extremism
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Arab Countries, and Syria

554. Enabling Others to Win in a Complex World: Maximizing Security Force Assistance Potential in the Regionally Aligned Brigade Combat Team

Author:
Liam P. Walsh
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Beginning in 2013, the U.S. Army began an effort to “engage regionally and respond globally.” A central tenant of this strategy, building upon National strategic guidance, is the necessity to build partner capacity. Army units, through the regionally aligned forces concept, may find themselves conducting security force assistance (SFA) missions across the globe as a means to achieve these ways. However, after examining the Army’s SFA mission in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM from 2003-10, it becomes apparent that institutional and organizational shortcomings plagued the Army’s initial efforts in this critical aspect of the campaign. Many of these shortcomings remain in the Army today, particularly within the Army’s core formation—the brigade combat team (BCT). This monograph examines the Army’s role in conducting SFA in Iraq, drawing key lessons for the Army’s experience there, and then provides recommendations as to how the Army can better optimize the BCT to conduct SFA, while still retaining its core mission to fight and win America’s wars.
Topic:
National Security, War, Military Strategy, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Iraq and United States of America

555. The Human Terrain System: Operationally Relevant Social Science Research in Iraq and Afghanistan

Author:
Dr. Christopher Sims
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The Human Terrain System embedded civilians primarily in brigade combat teams (BCTs) in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2007 and 2014 to act as a collection and dispersal mechanism for sociocultural comprehension. Set against the backdrop of the program’s evolution, the experiences of these social scientists clarifies the U.S. Army’s decision to integrate social scientists at the tactical level in conflict. Based on interviews, program documents, material from Freedom of Information Act requests, and secondary sources, this book finds a series of limiting factors inhibiting social science research at the tactical level, common to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Complexity in integrating civilians into the military decision-making cycle, creating timely research with a high level of fidelity, and making granular research resonate with brigade staff all contributed to inhibiting the overall effect of the Human Terrain System. Yet, while high operational tempo in contested spaces complicates social science research at the tactical level, the author argues that there is a continued requirement for a residual capability to be maintained by the U.S. Army.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, War, Military Strategy, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, and United States of America

556. Using Target Audience Analysis to Aid Strategic Level Decisionmaking

Author:
Dr. Steve Tatham
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The author explains how sophisticated social science research and behavioral profiling can be used to warn us of impeding issues and how that information might be used by senior strategy makers as a tool for testing and refining strategy. He makes a compelling case that the science of Target Audience Analysis (TAA) is now so well advanced that it must become a key component of future strategic decision-making. The author views social media as just another communication conduit, and sees this as a continuum of wrong activities being undertaken. In Iraq and Afghanistan, he saw how big public relations and marketing companies cost the U.S. taxpayer millions of dollars in ultimately failed communication and propaganda campaigns. Social media, he argues, has become yet another blank checkbook for companies who rely on creative energy rather than empirical understanding to produce communications campaigns. Instead, he argues for far greater resource in TAA and greater understanding by federal agencies of what is and is not possible or desirable in their communication efforts. To this end, he looks in particular at the U.S. Agency for International Development relief work in Pakistan and argues that the communication objectives set at the start of the projects are almost unattainable, even naive in their presumptions.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Social Media
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq

557. The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan: Why the ANSF Will Not Hold, and the Implications for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan

Author:
Dr. M. Chris Mason
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were lost before they began, not on the battlefields, where the United States won every tactical engagement, but at the strategic level of war. In each case, the U.S. Government attempted to create a Western-style democracy in countries which were decades at least away from being nations with the sociopolitical capital necessary to sustain democracy and, most importantly, accept it as a legitimate source of governance. The expensive indigenous armies created in the image of the U.S. Army lacked both the motivation to fight for illegitimate governments in Saigon, Baghdad, and Kabul and a cause that they believed was worth dying for, while their enemies in the field clearly did not. This book examines the Afghan National Security Forces in historical and political contexts, explains why they will fail at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war, why they cannot and will not succeed in holding the southern half of the country, and what will happen in Afghanistan year-by-year from 2015 to 2019. Finally, it examines what the critical lessons unlearned of these conflicts are for U.S. military leaders, why these fundamental political lessons seem to remain unlearned, and how the strategic mistakes of the past can be avoided in the future.
Topic:
Security, Democratization, Politics, Military Strategy, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam

558. Examining the Future of Authoritarianism in the Arab World

Author:
Joseph Sassoon
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Dr. Joseph Sassoon has spent the past few years working to improve our understanding of authoritarian governments that are typically inscrutable to outsiders, focusing first on the Ba‘th Party under Saddam Hussein for his book Saddam Hussein’s Ba‘th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime and, more recently, conducting a comparative analysis of eight authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. Dr. Sassoon’s comparative analysis, which he recently finalized during a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, looks at differences and commonalities among these coercive governments and will be published in his forthcoming book, Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Republics.
Topic:
History, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Interview, and Baath Party
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Arab Countries, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia

559. The Rise Of The IS (Islamic State) In Syria And Iraq After The Arab Spring

Author:
Alper Y. Dede
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternative Politics
Institution:
Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Abstract:
The Arab Spring is a social movement triggered by a complex set of social, political and economic factors. Despite the initial success of the Arab Spring in ousting some of the bureaucraticauthoritarian status-quo oriented regimes, mass mobilization of people could not oust all dictatorships and introduce meaningful reforms toward more democratization in the region. Worse, the mass protests that started as part of the Arab Spring later deteriorated into utter chaos and even civil war in some parts of the region. With the disappearance of state authority in those places, sub-state actors gained ground, challenging the stability and order that were once provided by authoritarian regimes through coercion. The IS’s sudden expansion has mainly resulted from large scale instability in Iraq and Syria and the disappearance of nation-state borders between the two states. The IS, which emerged as a sub-state actor, is currently in the process of becoming a proto state. Thus, this paper has two simultaneous research goals. The first is to establish the link between lack of institutionalization of the Arab Spring and its failure to bring about positive and meaningful political change in the region with the power vacuum created in the region and subsequent emergence of sub-state actors and groups like the Al- Qaeda in Iraq and the IS (Islamic State) in Iraq and Syria. The second is to study and evaluate the emergence and growth of the IS in conjunction with the deteriorating security situation in Iraq and Syria, and how the international involvement with the IS might have shaped the tactics and the course of action that the IS has taken since the IS captured the city of Mosul in June 2014, shocking the whole world. Assessment of the IS’s AP AP the rise of the IS (islamic state) in syria and iraq 169 military, economic and political prospects will also be provided in the concluding section. Keywords: The Arab Spring, the IS (Islamic State), Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi, Abu Bakr Al
Topic:
Social Movement, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Arab Spring, and Institutionalism
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

560. Iran’s Failed Foreign Policy: Dealing from a Position of Weakness

Author:
Thomas Juneau
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Middle East Institute (MEI)
Abstract:
In this MEI Policy Paper, Thomas Juneau examines Iran’s role in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and the Arab-Israeli conflict to explain why Iran is not a “rising regional hegemon” but rather a “mid-sized regional power frustrated at not reaching its ambitions.”
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Power Politics, Nuclear Power, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Yemen, Palestine, and Syria