The Danger Ahead in Iraq for the US

America’s defeat in the Vietnam War was cause for profound soul searching in the Pentagon particularly. One of the outcomes of that soul searching was the appointment of the Gates Commission by the Congress to review and recommend an alternative military manpower policy. The thinking in some quarters at the time was that the public oversight that resulted from the draft that furnished the military with which that conflict was prosecuted represented a burden that made it a more difficult war for the US. That was in the sense that American society’s high sensitivity to the high casualty rate in the war eroded public support for the Nixon White House and tied is hands extensively. The Commission’s recommendations for a new military manpower policy well steeped in tenets of the marketplace was meant to by-pass a repeat of such scenario and make things not so difficult for America’s military establishment and its commander-in-chief in future conflicts. When the policy was adopted by the Congress, its outcome is the current all-volunteer force, AVF.

But the paradox of the AFV is that it violated one of the central tenets of raising military manpower by the state since the French Revolution, by detaching national defense from society. The AVF solved what was considered as the problem of public oversight of war prosecution and squarely made it the responsibility of the Pentagon. No one has cared to examine the down side of such a military establishment. For one, it makes military adventures possible and even easy. The mounting casualty rate in Iraq is hardly evident.

Perhaps the invasion and occupation of Iraq might excite such examination. That aside, there is another serious issue inherent in America’s presence in Iraq, which hasn’t attracted the right attention that it deserves. Any serious analyst of military events would discern from the several errors chalked by the White House and the Pentagon under then Defense Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, on Iraq that planning for the invasion and occupation of Iraq was probably done only on the best case scenario, i.e. successful invasion and occupation. There certainly was no contingency plan for possible withdrawal in the event that the invasion or the occupation failed.

Even in dreamland, only few people will imagine that a mega power like the US will insert its enormous military machine in a region so far away from the continental US without a contingency plan for its withdrawal. But this is the considered concern in some quarters. To pile on the machine already in Iraq is certainly the easy part. The bad news is that the White House’s antecedence of pig-headedness since the war makes it absolutely impossible for anyone to embark on such a plan during the life of the Bush administration without running the risk of hashing frenzy for the media. Such frenzy is the least of the dangers that lay ahead.

Given the continuing deterioration of its military fortunes in Iraq, can the US still afford an expeditious withdrawal of its military machine from Iraq? Withdrawal from Iraq, which will certainly become expedient in a matter of time runs the risky of being hasty because of the likelihood that the withdrawing forces, will face sustained harassment as they withdraw. Many types of equipment might be abandoned, and they will fall into the hands of the pursuers. In deed, the over-looked aspects of this conflict of choice will continue to plague it for as long as it lasts.