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11. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War – Volume 1: Invasion – Insurgency – Civil War, 2003-2006

Author:
Joel D. Rayburn and Frank K. Sobchak
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The Iraq War has been the costliest U.S. conflict since the Vietnam War. To date, few official studies have been conducted to review what happened, why it happened, and what lessons should be drawn. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War is the Army’s initial operational level analysis of this conflict, written in narrative format, with assessments and lessons embedded throughout the work. This study reviews the conflict from a Landpower perspective and includes the contributions of coalition allies, the U.S. Marine Corps, and special operations forces. Presented principally from the point of view of the commanders in Baghdad, the narrative examines the interaction of the operational and strategic levels, as well as the creation of theater level strategy and its implementation at the tactical level. Volume 1 begins in the truce tent at Safwan Airfield in southern Iraq at the end of Operation DESERT STORM and briefly examines actions by U.S. and Iraqi forces during the interwar years. The narrative continues by examining the road to war, the initially successful invasion, and the rise of Iraqi insurgent groups before exploring the country’s slide toward civil war. This volume concludes with a review of the decision by the George W. Bush administration to “surge” additional forces to Iraq, placing the conduct of the “surge” and its aftermath in the second volume. This study was constructed over a span of 4 years and relied on nearly 30,000 pages of hand-picked declassified documents, hundreds of hours of original interviews, and thousands of hours of previously unavailable interviews. Original interviews conducted by the team included President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and every theater commander for the war, among many others. With its release, this publication, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War, represents the U.S. Government’s longest and most detailed study of the Iraq conflict thus far.
Topic:
Defense Policy, History, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, and Army
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

12. Parameters VOL. 48 NO. 3 Autumn 2018

Author:
Antulio J. Echevarria II, Eric B. Setzekorn, Richard G. Malish, Kelly A. Grieco, Vinay Kaura, Paul E. Vera Delzo, Richard Milburn, and Brandon T. Euhus
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The Autumn issue of Parameters opens with a forum featuring two contributions that highlight some important Challenges for USCivil-Military Relations. The first contribution, “Policy Revolt: Army Opposition to the Korea Withdrawal Plan” by Eric Setzekorn, argues senior US Army leaders adopted a Fabian strategy of indirect resistance to Carter’s desire to reduce the number of troops stationed in Korea. The strategy worked. But the author leaves us wondering whether that success was a positive development for US civil-military relations. The second article, “The Walter Reed Scandal and the All-Volunteer Force” by Richard Malish, provides intriguing evidence that the American public might have put the AVF on a pedestal high enough that it harms civil-military relations. Our second forum, On Alliances and Coalitions, offers three essays addressing the importance of integrating disparate perspectives under a common strategy. The first article, “Fighting and Learning in the Great War: Four Lessons in Coalition Warfare” by Kelly Grieco, describes the key insights the United States and its allies drew, or ought to have drawn, during the First World War. All of these, as Grieco shows, have immediate relevance today. The second contribution to the forum, Vinay Kaura’s article “India-US Relations: From Distant Partners to an Alliance” suggests American and Indian interests are converging in a manner that makes an alliance between them, hitherto inconceivable, now a worthy objective. Paul Vera Delzo’s “Toward a Whole-of-Government Approach: Revamping Peru’s Strategy Process” describes how Peru can obtain greater efficiency and effectiveness from its strategies by integrating all government agencies. The final forum, On Clausewitz, presents two articles that challenge nontraditional interpretations of On War. Richard Milburn’s “Reclaiming Clausewitz’s Theory of Victory” takes on Emile Simpson’s “Clausewitz’s Theory of War and Victory in Contemporary Conflict” (Parameters Winter 2017–18). Milburn rejects Simpson’s view and maintains Clausewitz’s theory of victory remains relevant in the twenty-first century. Brandon Euhus’s “A Clausewitzian Response to ‘Hyperwarfare’ ” urges military planners to remember the human dimension of war, as expounded upon by military writers from Thucydides to Mao Zedong, is ultimately the decisive one.
Topic:
Security, International Affairs, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, and Army
Political Geography:
India, North America, Korea, and United States of America

13. Executive Summary: The U.S. Army in the Iraq War, Vol. 1

Author:
Joel D. Rayburn and Frank K. Sobchak
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Originally commissioned by Chief of Staff of the Army General Raymond T. Odierno, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War is the Army’s interim examination of military operations in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. This study, published in two volumes, is a narrative history that tells the story of U.S. forces in Iraq, mainly from the perspective of the theater command in Baghdad and the operational commands immediately subordinate to it. It focuses at the operational level of war, exploring the decisions and intent of the senior three- and four-star commanders and how these decisions effected the course of the war over time. This work was built from over 30,000 pages of previously unavailable declassified documents and hundreds of hours of interviews with senior defense leaders. While the Army will eventually publish a comprehensive, official “Green Book” history that describes Operation Iraqi Freedom in greater depth, this study is being released now in order that key lessons, insights, and innovations from this period of the conflict are available to the next generation of Soldiers and leaders to study, learn from, and adapt to ensure the future readiness of our Army and the Joint Force.
Topic:
Armed Forces, Military Affairs, Army, and Iraq War
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

14. Special Operations Today: FSR Interviews LTG Cleveland (Ret.) Former Commanding General, USASOC

Author:
Charles Cleveland
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Lieutenant General Charles T. Cleveland, an Army Special Forces Officer, relinquished command of the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) and retired after 37 years of military service on 01 July 2015. He previously commanded the Special Operations Command Central and Special Operations Command South as well as the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-North during Operation Iraqi Freedom. LTG Cleveland is a native of Arizona and a 1978 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. His military awards and decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Legion of Merit Medal.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, War, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, Interview, Army, and Special Operations
Political Geography:
Africa, North America, Panama, and United States of America

15. Profiles in Security: CW5 Wendy A. Wayman

Author:
Wendy A. Wayman
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Wendy Ann Wayman never imagined she would still be serving her country more than three decades after enlisting in the United States Army, let alone rise to rank of Chief Warrant Officer 5 and become the first Command Chief Warrant Officer for Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). Born and raised in Aberdeen, South Dakota, CW5 Wayman has traveled the world and advised the highest-ranking military leaders in the United States. She has also amassed a legion of professional colleagues who describe her using such phrases as “no one better,” “shaping the future of military intelligence,” “a consummate professional,” “my dear mentor,” and “a complete badass.” The Fletcher Security Review is honored to feature INSCOM Command Chief Warrant Officer, CW5 Wendy Wayman’s “Profile in Security."
Topic:
Security, Military Affairs, Interview, and Army
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

16. 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