Postwar Iraq a U.S. failure, report says’Winning the peace’ requires as much attention as devoted to ousting HusseinBy PAUL KORING
Thursday, July 28, 2005 Page A10
WASHINGTON — Gross failures by President George W. Bush’s administration to adequately plan for postcombat reconstruction and nation-building in Iraq contributed to the widespread insurgency still gripping that country, according to an independent study released yesterday.
“Prewar inattention to postwar requirements — or simply misjudgments about them — left the United States ill-equipped to address public security, governance and economic demands in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, seriously undermining key U.S. foreign policy goals and giving early impetus to the insurgency,” the report says.
That conclusion, by a Council on Foreign Relations task force co-chaired by two former national security advisers, paints a stark picture of failure to grasp the magnitude and importance of the tasks beyond war-fighting that has left the United States in danger of losing the peace both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“War-fighting has two important dimensions: winning the war and winning the peace. The United States excels in the first. But without an equal commitment to stability and reconstruction, combat victories can be lost,” says the report by the task force, chaired by Brent Scowcroft, who served in the administration of Mr. Bush’s father, and Samuel Berger, who had the same role when Bill Clinton was president.
Mr. Bush, who came to office in 2000 openly scornful of nation-building, has since recognized the serious threat that failed and collapsing states pose to U.S. and global security. But, the report concludes, that recognition has yet to be matched by the commitment of money, effort and strategic policy thinking required.
“A lot of time was lost in the immediate aftermath” of the stunning collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Mr. Berger said at a news conference unveiling the report that makes a series of recommendations designed to improve U.S. readiness for the postwar challenges.
“Dramatic military victory has been overshadowed by chaos and bloodshed” more than two years later, the report says. “We had a small insurgency that has grown into a large insurgency,” Mr. Berger added.
The Bush administration and senior U.S. military officers insist that the insurgency is waning and that Iraqi forces are increasingly capable of handling the nation’s security, indicating that significant reductions in the more than 135,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq can be expected next year. The task force, however, concludes the White House still needs to undertake a major overhaul of how it prepares and delivers postcombat reconstruction and nation-building.
The report recommends:
The State Department, rather than the Pentagon, lead all civilian reconstruction and stabilization efforts;
The National Security Adviser be in charge of the military and civilian postcombat roles;
The United States push for a multilateral reconstruction fund under the auspices of the G8, the group of major industrialized nations that includes Canada;
The creation of an “active response corps” of civilians expert in reconstruction and civil institutions that could be rapidly deployed to fill the postconflict vacuum.
Although top U.S. commanders are belatedly and grudgingly accepting the need for change, peacekeeping and nation-building are still widely regarded in the United States as secondary tasks or roles for second-string militaries, such as Canada’s.
The current mess in Iraq is not the first evidence of the mixed U.S. record on nation-building. Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been involved in efforts to build or rebuild failed states including “Somalia, Cambodia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, and East Timor, among other places,” the report says. “Few of these interventions can be defined as completely successful.”
That needs to change, the report says. “The United States can no longer afford to mount costly military actions and then treat peacekeeping with anything less than the same seriousness of purpose,” it states.
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