Semi-Daily Journal

Why do people with valid points to make feel compelled to gild the lily? By much the same arithmetic he uses, 39000 people in the NYPD probably amounts to about 7-8000 officers on the street at any one time. No one would claim that Iraq isn't far more than 4.5 times as hard to police than NY (well, someone might), so why bother with to compare 39K with 28k?
I admit it's not in the Stephen Moore class, but still...

Why do people with valid points to make feel compelled to gild the lily? By much the same arithmetic he uses, 39000 people in the NYPD probably amounts to about 7-8000 officers on the street at any one time. No one would claim that Iraq isn't far more than 4.5 times as hard to police than NY (well, someone might), so why bother with to compare 39K with 28k?
I admit it's not in the Stephen Moore class, but still...

Gild the lily? Maybe. I thought you should compare the 39000 NYPD to the 133000 for 22 million Iraqis.

All the more reason that the Iraqi troops needed to be coopted and managed, not dismissed.

As long as we're quibbling about numbers, a better comparison would be 39,000 NYPD vs 56,000 U.S. soldiers (This is the number of "combat-trained troops available for security duties.")

Also, bear in mind that the 28,000 figure for available U.S. troops assumes 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week. A more realistic shedule including days off and/or shorter shifts would cut the number available still further.

Fatalities

American soldiers 241
British soldiers 18
Coalition soldiers 5
---
264 Since May 2

American 380
British 51
Coalition 5
---
436 Since March 20

Wounded

American soldiers ~2179 Since March 20

Note: American forces have fallen to 130,000
British forces have risen to 11,000

Who cares if it is not a proper analogy? His point is that the current situation is unsustainable. What are we going to do about it? Bush has cavalierly at best, fraudulently at worst, put us into this mess. It's either escalation or humiliation; we either treat this as a war (not merely what is going on in Iraq) but a war against terrorism. By escalation I do not mean merely putting 500,000 troops in Iraq, but a total transformation of our national and international policies: coalition building, fiscal restraint, energy policies that begin the rapid transition away from oil . . . A NEW ADMINISTRATION, freer trade. If you read any of the smarmy apologists like Safire or Brooks in the NYT or anyone in Washington DC, you hear these calls to buck up and stay the course, but no one wants to deal with the fact that this country is a war and what being at war means. Where is the call for shared sacrifice? Do we even have an articulated goal? Can the Republicans, with their purported hatred of all things governmental (but cost plus contracts for their contributors) even articulate a goal for government? They have not done it to date. I don't think they are capable of doing it. But that leaves it to us to do so right hear in the cyber agora of ideas. No one has all the answers (which in the end is the great self delusion of the neo-cons, because they actually believe -- no, know -- they have all the answers; but open exchange and open debate will set a course. But it rests in democratic values, not in the elitist paranoia of the Bush Aministration. Hey, I know I sound vague and speak in generalities, but comments that nit pick the analogy are off the point. What are we going to do? We can't just walk out right now, as people like Robert Sheer, would have us do. We're in it. How do we make good out of this situation? Open dabate for one; but push the ball forward, not to the side.

We have won the war. Why not simply set a date for national elections in Iraq, and pull all American troops out of the country? Let the Iraqi people build, we have rid them of the dictatorship. Iraq is no threat to America, and we surely done enough for Iraqis in ending the dictatorship.

We have not won the war. That is a Bush lie. Saddam receded into the desert. The war is going on right now. It seems to be a war of attrition. We move out and civil war will ensue. We get blamed for the whole mess. It does nothing for us. The Taliban will make a come back in Afghanistan. Terrorist networks will flourish in Iraq. It radicalizes the extreme Palastinian groups against Isreal. It makes Sharon more resolved. This is kind of what the neo-cons want anyway, so they move into Syria and Iran. Kill, kill, kill, subject, subject, subject. They thought it would be a cake walk. It is not. Especially when it is undermanned (and I am not advocating we do so), underfunded and no one in this country is asked to sacrifice for a common good (which remains unarticulated).

Emma,

We ought to at least entertain the possibility that thousands, or tens of thousands, of Iraqis would die as the result of a near-term withdrawal of US troops. They do not live in a nice neighborhood. Baathists are obviously itching to reassert their authority, and very likely to want to punish Iraqis who have cooperated with the US - even if that cooperation was merely an effort to feed their families. Shiites have been very restrained, presumably because it is in Iran's interest for the US to leave as soon as possible. Think for a minute what that might mean. Iraq's Sunni minority has collectively run rough-shod over the Shiites and Kurd, its true, but individual Sunni are not all culpable and should not be left to the slaughter. It could not, under any international set of norms, have been the liberty of Iraqis that we were fighting for. Having incidentally pried the Iraqi citizenry out from under a lethal dictator, it would be pretty cynical to now declare that we had done them a big favor and scoot on out of the country. We took over their country for reasons that are not clear, but certainly for "our own" reasons. We have a responsibility to put them on some sort of stable footing now, before we cut out.

Cal and Harris

Actually both of you have good points. I am thinking of responses to each point. However, if you are right and we have to remain in Iraq, there should be a massive effort at pacification and nation building to avoid the grinding problem faced by the French in Algeria or Russians in Afghanistan. What strikes me as beyond forgiveness is that the war was not necessary. Iraq was contained, we were not threatened by Iraq. Certainly a brutal dictator is gone, but attacking countries simply because there are brutal dictators is not American policy. The costs of lives shattered and hundreds of billions spent make no sense unless Iraq was a direct threat to America.

Did anyone else notice that the administration's response to the helicopter shootdown was not that it was a desperate act of dead enders. Now it is "stay the course," which simply means more of the same. To give some perspective following WWI, after the Turks left Baghdad it took 2 weeks for the electricity to be restored by the British. Somehow we still can't do it after 6 months and power in the rest of Iraq is just now being restored. During WWII planning for what would happen following the liberation of Europe began in 1943. This included the occupation of Germany. Rather than a rhetorical commitment to democracy there was a clear program for the liberation of Europe. In Iraq it has all revolved around Chalabe and the Iraqi National Congress. Why? Because he spoke _good_ English, appeared on the right panels and was an amusing lunch time companion.

Did anyone else notice that the administration's response to the helicopter shootdown was not that it was a desperate act of dead enders. Now it is "stay the course," which simply means more of the same. To give some perspective following WWI, after the Turks left Baghdad it took 2 weeks for the electricity to be restored by the British. Somehow we still can't do it after 6 months and power in the rest of Iraq is just now being restored. During WWII planning for what would happen following the liberation of Europe began in 1943. This included the occupation of Germany. Rather than a rhetorical commitment to democracy there was a clear program for the liberation of Europe. In Iraq it has all revolved around Chalabe and the Iraqi National Congress. Why? Because he spoke _good_ English, appeared on the right panels and was an amusing lunch time companion.

Those of you saying that we 'must' stay in Iraq seem to be missing what Edward Luttwak is pointing out.

* We don't have the soldiers/police to do what we have decided we 'must' do.

* That is apparent to the Iraqis, even if it isn't to us. We 'must' realize this because:

* When the Iraqis decide we 'must' leave. we really truly 'must', otherwise we'll really, truly be slaughtered.

Wesley Clark has some interesting thoughts on Iraq, American foreign policy and the role of the military. It is a perspective worth reading.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0311.clark.html

" During WWII planning for what would happen following the liberation of Europe began in 1943. This included the occupation of Germany."

Glad to see you back, Lawrence. I thought you'd drowned on your kayaking trip.

But, the planning you refer to above turned out to be a major fiasco for the U.S. It was known as the Morgenthau Plan, and its purpose was to destroy Germany as a modern state, to reduce it to a "pastoral" existence as a farmland.

It was Harry Dexter White's plan, meaning it was Stalin's. After about two years of starving Germans, the geniuses of the Truman administration finally admitted they'd been fools to listen to White and Morgenthau. That's the genesis of the Marshall Plan, which cost American taxpayers 2% of GDP to repair the damage we'd done. Very sordid history. Maybe George W. knows a little history after all?

If we stay, then we must do the job right. Sitting at check points, taking and giving fire, with no hope of creating a working country and no plan to leave is just intolerable. Leaving when there is every chance that Iraq may fall into chaos, perhaps dragging some neighbors along is intolerable. Chaos in the Mid-East is intolerable in part because, though Iraq posed no apparent threat to the US prior to the latest war, chaotic conditions in that region would make a heck of a hiding place and breeding ground for terrorism, which could threaten the US. That leaves pacification, as Emma suggests (though we don't like that word anymore - too Vietnam-ish). How? Well, we need help. We also know the price of help. Surrender control. Then we can look for UN and Security Council members' support in imposing order in Iraq. If we don't have the resources to do it alone, but we have both an interest and an ethical compulsion to stay and do the job, then we had better get ready to pay the price. Sadly, I don't think we will. The first option, sitting in Iraq, shooting and being shot at, without much hope of doing anything constructive, seems the path we are on. All the wells and schools in the world won't make Iraq a fit place to live, in the absence of peace.

Edward Luttwak!

The male Arianna Huffington, whose track record includes predicting Sadamm Hussein would defeat the coalition amassed by Geo. H.W. Bush in Gulf War I.

That Japan would become the world's economic superpower, and the U.S. would be a third world country by 2020 with: "the relentless erosion of the entire economic base of American society."

I'd always thought the Morgenthau Plan was *Morgenthau's*...

Was the Bretton Woods agreement also Stalin's idea too? If so, we owe Uncle Joe an enormous amount for doing so much to fuel capitalist growth in the third quarter of the twentieth century...

And most of the Marshall Plan money (80%?) went to Germany's *victims*, not to Germany...

Not only are the numbers off - as earlier posters have correctly pointed out - but NY police do a great many things that the troops in Iraq are not asked to do. So even the adjusted numbers don't get us to a useful comparison.

Maybe a useful comparison would be with the hundreds (dozens?) of NY police that are on anti-terrorist duty? There are terrorist targets in NYC too, lest one forget.

And the NYPD has a support echelon too..

K Harris,

Do you really think the UN can control Iraq?

Do you really think that if the trouble makers over there saw the UN blue helmets they would suddenly have a change of heart (after the UN headquarters bombing)?

Do you really think much useful help would be forthcoming from the French and the Russians if we surrendered control?

So are we supposed to pay for the enterprise, which is what the Europeans want, keep our forces there, as they are the only capable of accomplishing anything anyway, but put them under the control of the UN or France/Russia, for that will make everything run smoothly?

It's our problem, and we have to solve it. No one else will or can.

Dan,
Alright,
lets redo the numbers:

NYC:
8Mil population, in 5 boroughs
39k trained police
"One of the ten safest cities in the U.S."

Iraq:
26Mil population, country the size of CA.
56k combat-ready soldiers acting as police, most untrained for police work, most don't speak or read Arabic.
"400,000 soldiers pink-slipped by Bremmer"
"5mil AK-47s"
"thousands of SAMs"
"Iraqi Police rioting over 60% paycuts"

Folks, this comparison of NYC police to the Iraqi occupation force is ridiculous.

NYC is not just protected from anarchy by 39K NYPD officers in blue. By any reasonable calculation you would need to count the thousands of state and federal police such as the FBI, BATF, Federal Marshals, INS, Customs Agents, Airport screeners etc. that also serve in the NYC region. Plus there's the Coast Guard, Navy Army and Air Force that also provide security to the NYC area. You probably need to double the 39K number to come up with a reasonable number of individuals involved in the security of NYC.

In Iraq, the US military is serving ALL of these security roles, not just the role of the NYPD. It's no wonder they are stretched thin.

Dan Ryan writes: "Not only are the numbers off - as earlier posters have correctly pointed out - but NY police do a great many things that the troops in Iraq are not asked to do."

And the troops in Iraq are doing things the police don't have to do. Like escorting gas tankers and other transportation by civilians. Or trying to get electricity working or otherwise help to arrange repairs.

One of the worse ironies of this War in Iraq is that when all will be said and done, the US will be left with very little (financial) room for maneuver if there is really important war to be fought. In their urge to "starve the beast", this Administration and their apologists are actually also doing their best to deprive America of the means to defend itself and its interests a decade from now (and even today and tomorrow...)

After all, the military budget was already in 2001, 33% of the Federal Budget. When the beast starves, who is to pay for that? What convices these people that tomorrow's retirees (the baby-boomers, of all) will vote for feeding the US military over themselves?

I am not a big fan of war myself, but I would never advocate leaving the US military toothless. An other round of tax-cuts anyone?

It's not irrational or defeatist for me to say that, since Bush has screwed things up worse than I can figure out a solution for, the most sensible first step is simply to get Bush out of there before he does more harm.

What I hear Bush apologists saying is, first, that since we're in a war the commander-in-chief should be untouchable, and second, that unless I have a solution to the problem I should just shut up.

What this amounts to saying is that Bush should be rewarded for failure.

What I said from the beginning (July-August 2002) was that even if I supported the war, I wouldn't be able to believe that Bush was capable of doing the job. Someone whose performance has been mediocre or poor on small jobs shouldn't be asked to do a big job.

I think that my judgement at that time has been pretty well confirmed by now, but it was always spun as "partisan, personal hatred of Bush".

Another comment.

Is anyone else struck by how the Administration is blurring the definitions of "terrorist" and "terrorism" by labeling these attacks on US troops as terrorist attacks, and by labeling the attackers as "terrorists"

Terrorism is usally defined as deliberate attacks on civilians. Attacks on military targets, and inadvertent collateral damage to civilians is generally not considered terrorism.

The UN and Red Cross bombings are clearly terrorism. But not the shooting down of helicopters or attacks on US troops.

If attacks on military targets during a war are terrorism, then the US invasion of Iraq was a massive terrorist attack too. The US military is the worlds leading expert in the use of remotely triggered explosive devices. I don't see any moral difference between the US using cruise missiles and smart bombs against Iraqi troops, and Iraqi rebels using remotely triggered roadside bombs against US troops.

furthermore, I don't remember seeing any surrender or peace treaty yet.

" I'd always thought the Morgenthau Plan was *Morgenthau's*...'

Virtually nothing done by Treasury was Morgenthau's, he seems to have mostly been a schmoozer. With FDR being the chief schmoozee. White was the power behind that throne--and made a great deal of mischief in the role, including inducing Japan to attack the U.S.

BTW, The Marshall Plan was only called that because Truman thought even Republicans wouldn't dare vote against something with that name on it. The actual plan was credited to Acheson by Clark Clifford, but the driving force behind it was probably Will Clayton.

And I take note of your change of subject away from the Morgenthau Plan to Bretton Woods.

The thing that makes me furious about this mess is exemplified by David Brooks in the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/opinion/04BROO.html

“The president will have to remind us that we live in a fallen world, that we have to take morally hazardous action if we are to defeat the killers who confront us. It is our responsibility to not walk away. It is our responsibility to recognize the dark realities of human nature, while still preserving our idealistic faith in a better Middle East.”

Nothing is more infuriating than the moralizing of an armchair warrior. The US did not invade to avenge the murder of Iraqis by their government. Brooks refuses to acknowledge what we all know: The US invaded because the President somehow came to believe that it was in our national security interest to do so.

Brooks can bray about “morally hazardous action”; perhaps he is picking up the morality banner dropped by Bill Bennett. He is wrong. We invaded and won. Then the US disbanded the Iraqi Army. Someone, maybe the Hussein government, destroyed other institutions of government. Someone, maybe just a bunch of idiots, destroyed huge parts of the infrastructure of the country. Now we have to stay and fix what is broke, without regard to who broke it. That is what conquering countries have to do.

It is easy to be morally righteous about wars, and about their consequences. What Brooks, and this morally and fiscally bankrupt administration, cannot do is figure out how we can live up to our obligations at a cost we can actually pay.

We are in a fine mess if the errors of current US policy are so obvious that even Edward Luttwack can make a convincing criticism.

On where to go from here, I would like to stress that the US certainly has the means to pay for a decent occupation of Iraq. The problem is that we don't want to.

I personally don't think it is practical to try to hand the problem over to the UN. Why would anyone take the hot potato ? I am assuming that there is no way that the US will accept foreign command over US soldiers.

On White P Sullivan is being unreasonable. If you say White it is perfectly reasonable for Brad to talk about Bretton Woods where White clearly played a leading role. Your claim that he had an equally leading role in the Morgenthau plan is not supported by the evidence you presented (none). I would say the burden of evidence suggests that White was a KGB agent traitor who (perhaps by accident) served the interests of the USA and the world.

Finally, dear fellow commenters

I am impressed. We might be floating on a plexiglass sheet on top of the tar pit from hell, but we our plexiglass sheet is more tarpit worthy than any other I can think of. The comments here are so far superior to general open access comments on the web as to be amazing.

ps that means you too P.S.

I would like to add to Masaccio's criticism of Brooks that, for all the brave talk about "morally hazardous action," etc. Bush has not in fact asked anyone, other than our troops, to make any sort of sacrifice for this cause.

I guess that, for example, actually asking taxpayers to pay for our Iraq policy requires more courage than W has.

>>The Marshall Plan was only called that because Truman thought even Republicans wouldn't dare vote against something with that name on it.<<

Truman put it the other way: "Can you imagine its chances of passage by a Republican Congress in an election year if it were called the Truman Plan?"

I would like to add to Masaccio's criticism of Brooks that, for all the brave talk about "morally hazardous action," etc. Bush has not in fact asked anyone, other than our troops, to make any sort of sacrifice for this cause.

I guess that, for example, actually asking taxpayers to pay for our Iraq policy requires more courage than W has.

So, let's see. According to Patrick Sullivan:

(1) The fact that the Truman Administration very seriously underspent on Germany's early reconstruction somehow excuses the Bush Administration doing the same thing.

(2) The fact that Luttwak was incredibly wrong on the Gulf War somehow proves that he's also wrong in his infinitely more convincing argument that the US has not remotely enough troops to keep successful control of Iraq -- which was excruciatingly obvious before he piped up. (Particularly, I may add, if the Sunnis and Shiites decide to start going after each other, which they almost certainly will the moment we tentatively begin packing up to leave -- and maybe before then.) If you think Luttwak's wrong on this particular point, Patrick, let's see your actual evidence.

The US is now attached to what appears to be a first-class tar baby, thanks to the neocons' insistence that it was really Britney Spears. And since our volunteer Army's current troop levels seem likely to drop seriously further as reinlistment drops, the administration now appears to be facing two choices next year: either abandon Iraq as a failure or reinstitute the draft.

Lise's numbers (thanks for the regular updates in a fact-poor environment) show that while British fatalities were roughly in line with Amereican ones during the invasion, they have been twice as high since - in an inherently less hostile Shia area. The difference is that the British Army takes peacekeeping seriously with lots of risky foot patrols in direct and humanising contact with civilians, fewer alienating roadblocks and vehicle sweeps.

Any updates on whether the maverick General Petraeus of the 101st Airborne, a British-style peacekeeper, is still doing well in northern Iraq?

" On White P Sullivan is being unreasonable. If you say White it is perfectly reasonable for Brad to talk about Bretton Woods where White clearly played a leading role."

Not in the context of Lawrence's claim (which I was clearly responding to):

" To give some perspective ....During WWII planning for what would happen following the liberation of Europe began in 1943. This included the occupation of Germany. "

Or are you suggesting that the Iraq war necessitates a reordering of the international monetary system?

I don't think the Professor is disputing that George C. Marshall was not the author of "The Marshall Plan", but, from Clark Clifford's "Counsel to the President" (p. 143):

" Acheson's crowning glory in that glorious spring of 1947 was the Marshall Plan."

Page 144 reads:

" I suggested to the President that...we name his proposal the Truman Concept or the Truman Plan.

"....No, he said. 'We have a Republican majority in both Houses. Anything going up there bearing my name will quiver a couple of times, turn belly up, and die. Let me think about it a little.' A day or so later we returned to the subject. 'I've decided to give the whole thing to General Marshall,' he said. 'The worst Republican on the Hill can vote for it if we name it after the General' "

" So, let's see. According to Patrick Sullivan:

" (1) The fact that the Truman Administration very seriously underspent on Germany's early reconstruction somehow excuses the Bush Administration doing the same thing."

Give it up, Bruce. The context is Lawrence's explicit comparison of the two things. As was Paul Krugman's in his silly column a few weeks ago. And both were trying to make Bush come out the worse. Lawrence wrote:

" During WWII planning for what would happen following the liberation of Europe began in 1943. This included the occupation of Germany. Rather than a rhetorical commitment to democracy there was a clear program for the liberation of Europe. In Iraq...."

I would suggest that usual suspects not make ahistorical claims if they don't like having to eat them.

ooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh.

Who's next, Patrick - Wolfowitz, with his 'no history of ethnic strife' revision of Balkans history, or Rice, with her comparison of Iraq to alleged post-WII German attacks on US troops?

What more is there for me to "give up", Patrick? I'M not defending Truman's foot-dragging on this subject; I've never regarded him as strategically brilliant. I'm criticizing YOUR obsessive defense of Bush's foot-dragging and ridiculous over-optimism about this particular occupation and reconstruction. And I await your defense of Wolfowitz's statements on that subject before Congress (as described above). I'm also still waiting for you to provide any actual evidence against Luttwak's claim that our forces are disastrously light on the ground.

(Incidentally, Barry, I presume you meant "Wolfowitz's 'no ethnic strife' revision of IRAQ'S history".)

One of the big fears going into Iraq was the country would break up into smaller states dominated by majority ethnic groups. A multistate result is starting to look more inevitable. The Kurds have defacto control of northern Iraq. With demands for troops in Baghdad and further south, Kurdistan will be left to the Kurds. As long as Iraqi Turks are protected and insurrection inside Turkey is not promoted, the Turks may leave them alone with no more tension than with Greece.

No matter how fast or slow the US tries to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis, it is clear that the Sunnis will dominate the Baghdad area and the Shias will dominate in the south of Iraq. Without the military strength for one region to impose hegemony, the two regions will naturally be governed separately. The best US hope would be a loose confederation of 3 states.

The US could pull out today and leave this solution on the ground. Or we could stay another 3 to 5 years at the cost of 1000 soldiers per year and then get out with the same situation on the ground. All that remains is to draw the new boundaries. The only positive mission we could accomplish would be to clean up the large caches of weapons so groups that fought civil war battles in the future would at least have to rearm in order to do it.

The Bush administration is still convinced that Iraq is a single country that has no major disagreements among the factions. It never was and that is one reason why excessive force was used to make it cohesive.

I agree with Bakho on this -- one way or another, Iraq will end up broken into three separate nations. The only question is whether the US tries to arrange this peacefully, or whether we leave after (or even before) setting up some kind of wobbly Weimar-style "unified democracy" and Iraq promptly breaks down into civil war afterwards.

By the way, the fact that the Iraqi Kurds are still afraid of Turkey may actually be good news for us -- it makes it more likely that they'll want US forces to stay there pemanently as a buffer, which would allow us to also use Kurdish Iraq as a badly-needed base for military operations elsewhere in the Middle east. (The showdown with Iran over its own very real Bomb program seems to be coming closer and closer.)

WWII planning, which began in 1943, involved "civil affairs." Patrick insists on saying it was something else. Civil affairs planning involved what do specifically following combat. That is instituting some form of public order, resumption of public utilities like water, sewage, and electricity, and trying to feed the population. Patrick refers to another type of planning which was what to do with Germany. Patrick has heard of the "Morgenthau Plan." OK you don't need to be a rocket scientist to note there was a plan in the "Morgenthau Plan." What was the "Bush Plan." If it deserves to be called a plan it went something like this: "Grateful Iraqi's enthusiastically greet American troops; high levels of cooperation lead to the restoration of all basic utilities; oil revenues go to feeding the poplulation and rebuilding the country; 6 months later troop levels reduced to 30k; (maintained to threaten Iran and Syria)."
Oh and "mission accomplished; victory parades September, October or November 03; President turns to election campaign." All of this can be found in speeches and testimony from the administration. Of course this was not a plan; but a set of interconnected hopes and dreams.

WWII planning, which began in 1943, involved "civil affairs." Patrick insists on saying it was something else. Civil affairs planning involved what do specifically following combat. That is instituting some form of public order, resumption of public utilities like water, sewage, and electricity, and trying to feed the population. Patrick refers to another type of planning which was what to do with Germany. Patrick has heard of the "Morgenthau Plan." OK you don't need to be a rocket scientist to note there was a plan in the "Morgenthau Plan." What was the "Bush Plan." If it deserves to be called a plan it went something like this: "Grateful Iraqi's enthusiastically greet American troops; high levels of cooperation lead to the restoration of all basic utilities; oil revenues go to feeding the poplulation and rebuilding the country; 6 months later troop levels reduced to 30k; (maintained to threaten Iran and Syria)."
Oh and "mission accomplished; victory parades September, October or November 03; President turns to election campaign." All of this can be found in speeches and testimony from the administration. Of course this was not a plan; but a set of interconnected hopes and dreams.

Sorry about the double post. One further thing; a plan, like those developed in WWII, is about what you need to do to accomplish a goal. This administrations concept of a plan is fundamentally at odds with this concept-its "plans" don't involve the necessity of action on their part but of the necessity of action by others. "Grateful" Iraqi's, Turkey, whatever.

Interesting comments, but still does not address real question of how we get there from here. Is the best we can come up with is an organized, peaceful plan to split Iraq into 3 countries?
I opposed this war originally because I believed it would do more harm to US interest than anything Saddam could ever do. Is there any hope that we can create a Iraq that will not be controled by extreme Muslims that hate the US ?
I would love to hear some ideas that a new administration could use that would keep the right wing nuts from claiming the Dems lost Iraq.

Lawrence has now matched his level of ignorance established before his kayaking trip, where he conjured up a naval task force arriving in Greece in early April of 1946. A task force that didn't exist until August of 1946!

The U.S. plan for Germany was filled with hilarious contradictions that had tragic results.

For instance, the de-nazification plan led to arrests of any former party members (Morgenthau is on record favoring having them shot on the spot of their arrest with no judicial process whatsoever!). Yet the plan also relied on Germans to rebuild their own infrastructure. And most of the skilled people had to have joined the Nazi party to retain their jobs.

So, you had some officials arguing with others along the lines of: "How am I supposed to get the [railroad, electric power, coal mines....] operating when you keep coming and taking my employees away from me at gunpoint?" It was not even controlled chaos.

To make a comparison with Iraq is risible.

Lawrence should enjoy Ann Coulter's latest column:

---------------quote-------------
The Democrats' urgent need for an "exit strategy" apparently first arose sometime after 1993, when Bill Clinton sent all those U.S. soldiers to Bosnia – who are still there. The Democrats' conception of a "plan" is like the liberal fantasy that there's a room somewhere full of unlimited amounts of "free" money that we could just give to teachers and hospitals and poor people and AIDS sufferers and the homeless if only the bad, greedy Republicans would give us the key to that wonderful room. Republicans should claim the "plan" is in that room. In a lockbox.

It's interesting that after we've finally gotten liberals to give up on seven decades of trying to plan an economy, now they want to plan a war. Extra-credit question for the class: Comparing a peacetime economy with a war, which do you think is more likely to shoot back at the planners and require subsequent readjustments? No, no, not the usual hands from the eager YAFers in the front row. Are there any liberals in the back rows who want to take a stab at answering this one? Paul Krugman?

Needless to say, the Democrats have no actual plan of their own, unless "surrender" counts as a plan. They just enjoy complaining about every bombing, every attack from Muslim terrorists, every mishap.
-------------endquote------------

P. Sullivan: "The U.S. plan for Germany was filled with hilarious contradictions that had tragic results.

"For instance, the de-nazification plan led to arrests of any former party members (Morgenthau is on record favoring having them shot on the spot of their arrest with no judicial process whatsoever!). Yet the plan also relied on Germans to rebuild their own infrastructure. And most of the skilled people had to have joined the Nazi party to retain their jobs.

"So, you had some officials arguing with others along the lines of: 'How am I supposed to get the [railroad, electric power, coal mines....] operating when you keep coming and taking my employees away from me at gunpoint?' It was not even controlled chaos.

"To make a comparison with Iraq is risible."

Really? Compare Bakho's comments from five threads up:

"Dan Ryan is very correct about the troop numbers. 100,000 should be enough but the mission was severely flawed from the beginning. Iraq was a failure to read history and learn from it.

"Successful occupations have relied on co-opting the existing governmental structure and using force to control its actions. Alone, 100,000 troops are inadequate, but if used to control a civilian authority, they may be more than adequate. Once control is achieved, reform is possible. The biggest flaw was the public announcement of 'regime change' as the goal for Iraq. This announcement encouraged all government workers to leave, both good and bad. If they all stayed, then we could have selectively kept the good and fired the bad. Ideally, the Saddam loyalists would be removed and less loyal but productive and efficient technocrats, needed to implement policy details, kept. The US did not do this. Our goals were de-Baathification first, govern second. Both goals fail if the priorities are not reversed.

"The allied occupation of Germany started with the high minded ideal that only those that had no documented ties to the Nazis would be allowed to participate. A questionnaire was developed to do this. Confronted with 13 million questionnaires that would require years to vet, the project was abandoned in favor of immediate stabilization. While this let some Nazi sympathizers slip through the cracks, it provided stability and a climate that could punish the worst offenders.

"There are parallels to the de-Baathification of Iraq and the de-Nazification of Germany. De-Baathification may be the most important long-term goal, but may be impossible if important short-term goals are unmet. By dismissing the army and all the security forces, the US has allowed the Baghdad area to destabilize and degenerate into an enclave for Iraqi partisans and stealth attacks. Instead of using US assets to control Iraqi forces to retain order, we are in the position of using our own troops at the bottom level of maintaining order., This policy ignores the history of successful occupations.

"The post war occupation of Japan was accomplished with the cooperation of Emperor Hirohito. The German occupation of France in WWII kept the French police force intact. The occupation of India by Britain depended on loyalty from regional leaders. The numerous occupations of Britain by invading forces depended on the invaders gaining loyalty of local rulers. The occupation of the Philippines by the US required the support of civilian institutions. The North Vietnamese kept the civilian authority in the South intact while systematically removing selected individuals for “re-education”. History is rich with examples of such occupations. The US has ignored history lessons by dismissing the Iraqi army.

"(The alternative to co-opting local government is genocide or expulsion of peoples from the occupied land as the US did with its native population. However, that is not our goal in Iraq and this model has no parallels for Iraq.)

"Failure to gain support of local leaders supported by the people allows for armed insurrection such as the Russian experiences in Chechnya. Dependence upon corrupt leaders or puppets can worsen the insurrection as proved by US policy in Vietnam, Cambodia in the 1970s or the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. The clumsy attempts by some administration officials to install Chalabi as a puppet in Iraq were non-starters.

"It is interesting that in his 7 points for success in Iraq, General Clark relies historically successful occupations to suggest policy. Two of his points are:

"1) 'Recall the Iraqi Army to duty right now. If given good pay, good training, and solid background checks, Iraqi civilians can also help fill the intelligence and security gap.'

"2) 'Give the Iraqis a rising stake in our success. Iraqis, appointed by representatives from Iraq's 50 elected regional councils, should name an interim government even while a constitution emerges. That is what our Founding Fathers did. If we give the interim government control over oil revenues and transfer authority on an ongoing basis, it will be easier for the Iraqi people to see that those blowing up pipelines are sabotaging their future. If we give civilians a stake in stemming the violence, they will help us solve this problem.'

"The Bush administration approached Iraq with a flawed understanding of what an occupying power could accomplish and the numbers and types of citizen personnel they would need to accomplish their goals. The policy failures are clear. Civilian authority was not maintained. It was dismissed. This eliminated the reform option (easier) and made replacement (harder) necessary. Dismissing Iraqi assets requires replacing them at least temporarily with Americans (requires more personnel).

"Had we kept the government running and insisted that workers remain on the job until individually replaced, the estimates of shorter occupation and fewer troops could have been correct. Like so many other incompetent Bush policies, Iraq has been outrageously botched."

As for Patrick's quotation of Ann Coulter, the fact that he regards as a wise policy guide a woman who's been canned from NRO and flayed by David Horowitz for being ridiculously far to the Right provides us with a better understanding of why his own policy views are so frequently strange (and why he keeps trying to use rhetorical demagoguery to change the subject when that subject gets too uncomfortable). Note that Coulter herself is frantically trying to change the subject away from the fact that the White House's Iraq occupation strategy proved ludicrously wrong by saying "everyone would do the same thing." Now I eagerly await her (and Patrick's) own suggestions as to how we remedy the situation, especially given the fact that troop levels will be nosediving early next year as reinlistment drops.

How refreshing to have one of the usual suspects standing up for NRO!

But, Bruce, you really have a problem with focusing on the topic at hand. Lawrence (to whom I was responding) didn't make any points about the Nazi occupation of France, nor about the British in India (though you might want to check out "Gunga Din" if you think that was a less problematic occupation than that of Iraq). Lawrence made the same comparison Krugman did a few weeks ago, post-WWII Germany to Iraq, and argued that Bush looks bad in the comparison.

So, that's all we need to talk about. Unless we are trying desperately to change the subject, that is. And indisputedly, Iraq--six months in--is not the chaotic mess Germany was. Truman, and his aides, made one blunder after another. People literally starved thanks to our "plan" in 1945-46.