US Military Admits to Mistakes in Iraq, Afghanistan by R. Jeffrey Smith of The Center for Public Integrity.
When President Obama announced in Aug. 2010 the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, he complimented the soldiers who had served there for completing “every mission they were given.” But some of military’s most senior officers, in a little-noticed report this spring, rendered a harsher account of their work that highlights repeated missteps and failures over the past decade, in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
There was a “failure to recognize, acknowledge and accurately define” the environment in which the conflicts occurred, leading to a “mismatch between forces, capabilities, missions, and goals,” says the assessment from the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. The efforts were marked by a “failure to adequately plan and resource strategic and operational” shifts from one phase of the conflicts to the next…
Comments
It isn't a bad paper, but I wonder how the authors anticipate their recommendations being implemented? If there is no plan to implement the recommendations, then they are simply observations versus lessons learned.
One of my favorite quotes in the report was actually a footnote, "Defense Secretary Stimson, "If there is one outstanding lesson to be gained from prior American experiences in military government, it is the unwisdom of permitting any premature interference by civilian agencies with the Army's basic task of civil administration of occupied areas...in those important American experiences in military government (Civil War, Philippine War, and WWII) where civilian influence was permitted to be exercised, the results were, respectively, demoralizing, costly, and ludicrous." Miller Memorandum, 23 July 1942.
One of the more important lessons this paper touched on was the importance of getting transitions right, which requires detailed planning based on understanding of the environment, and then (not mentioned in the paper) enforcing the plan. There must be a unified focus on achieving agreed upon objectives to facilitate transition to another command, civil control, or simply another phase in the operation. The only mission I seen this done effectively was during JTF LIBERIA, and that was a tribute to both the military, State Department, and UN leaders involved in that mission.
I was recently reminded by someone at work a lesson the gray beards teach, or used to teach, and that is the most important thing you can do as a planner is get the command and control right, then all else will follow. That is more of observation than a lesson, and like many who participate in SWJ I have experienced some terribly ineffective command and control relationships. Supported and Supporting is usually a cop out instead of prefered arrangement, because someone in charge (or maybe no one is) doesn't want to make a hard decision concerning OPCON, TACON, etc. Getting the command and control right between GPF and SOF is still problematic, there is no meaningful command and control within the interagency, and instead of command and control in a coalition we usually just have mutually acceptable agreements. Hell of a way to fight a war.
jkhutson: But the original plan was written to be of long duration. What actually happened though was in the negotiation of the TOR the deputy SOCPAC commander came up with the idea to call it Balikatan and make it six months, not a year. But again the reason I know we planned it longer the 6 months and a year was because by the end of the 6 months we began rotating forces in anticipation of the long duration we had recommended and planned. But there was no "changing at the last minute" from a one year to a long duration -in fact at the end of the 6 months in the TOR we actually withdraw the bulk of the forces and put the then slimmed down JTF 510/ARSOTF into a caretaker mode and it was not until really 2005 that we began to ramp up again. We did a number of security assistance functions and some training and some advising on Mindanao but again it was not until 2005 that we went to Jolo. As a side note and to show you we were thinking long term, we actually planned for operations throughout all of Mindanao in 2001 and in fact proposed initial deployments to Jolo and Tawi- Tawi and central Mindanao but PACOM and DC only had the stomach for Basilan (because that was the initial location of the US hostages being held by the ASG). Interestingly A/1-1 was preparing for deployment to Jolo while we were on Baslian in 2002. I will stand by the point that the original plan was written to be of long duration not one year. But politics (Manila, PACOM, and DC) intervened and there were subsequent execute orders for various periods of time. But the statement that the original operation was envisioned for one year and was changed at the last minute to a long duration mission is patently wrong. If anything it would be more correct to say the original operations was established at 6 months by the negotiated during the terms of reference and it evolved over time into a long duration after a series of negotiations, assessments and follow-on orders. The idea that there was a "last minute change" indicates to me that the researchers for the report did not talk to those who were actually involved in the operation. Which of course is unsurprising for OEF-P.
@ Dave Maxwell: I was at USARPAC at the time, and you are correct that we all believed the SF operation in Mindanao would take several years, but when we originally went in it was called a one-year operation. If I remember correctly (and I may not) it was because of a post-Subic-Bay Philippines law that wouldn't allow foreign forces in the country for longer than that.
This was not unlike our "one-year" involvement in IFOR to stop the war in Bosnia. At the end of the year we just reflagged to SFOR and stayed on. (I had the pleasure of serving with "COL Frido" there too.)
I received the referenced report which was obtained by Inside Defense.com along with some insightful comments from a friend. (my favorite is this one:)
"Overall I would say a study like this is an important exercise to complete, but as its sub-title indicates it mostly finds that the “enduring lessons from the past decade of operations” are remarkably similar to what I believe nay War College professor would say are actually enduring lessons of military operations regardless of the decade examined."
In reading through the report I have to take one issue with the Philippines.
Excerpt:
QUOTE: In Iraq, the scope and mission of Security Force Assistance (SFA) needed in light of the CPA’s decision to disband the Iraqi security forces was not anticipated in planning. Sufficient institutions to address the SFA requirements were not established until the following year, and resources were slow to be provided, both in terms of trainers and needed equipment. For example, weapons for the Iraqi forces were difficult to procure because of US export legislation that did not consider large-scale urgent SFA requirements. Similarly, the Operation ENDURING FREEDOM – Philippines (OEF-P) effort was believed to be limited in duration to about a year; this was changed at the last minute and became an effort spanning over ten years. While successful, this was another unanticipated requirement for conducting foreign internal defense over a long period of time. Resourcing was complicated by a number of different and partially overlapping authorities for SFA. In Iraq and Afghanistan, myriad elements of building partner capacity were conducted by different organizations with distinct missions and little integration of their efforts. END QUOTE
First, there was no such thing as SFA when OEF-P began as that concept was invented much later. OEF-P was and is a fundamental Foreign Internal Defense Operation. But second, it is incorrect to say that OEF-P was believed to be limited in duration to about a year and "was changed at the last minute." I can recall then COL Fridovich at the end of the initial assessment in OCT-NOV 2001 telling ADM Blair in response to his question of how long that it would require a 10 year effort to see effective results. None of the planners or those executing OEF-P beginning in 2001-2002 thought it was a one year operation and the campaign plan developed by then-COL Fridovich and his team at the end of the assessment did not envision a 1 year operation. I do not know who the researchers spoke with but I do not think they spoke with anyone who was actually responsible for planning the initial operation and developing the campaign plan.