Wolfowitz Contradicts Shinseki over Iraqi Occupation
STRATFOR ^ | Feb 28, 2003 | Staff
Posted on 02/28/2003 8:29 AM PST by Axion
Wolfowitz
Contradicts Shinseki over Iraqi Occupation Summary http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/853859/posts
Feb 28, 2003
U.S. Army Chief of Staff Erik Shinseki said Feb. 25
that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed in Iraq following a war.
However, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz contradicted that statement
on Feb. 27, saying Shinseki's estimates were "wildly off the mark." When two
important figures like this contradict each other, it always has strategic
significance.
Analysis
An interesting fight has broken out
over the U.S. Army chief of staff's contention that Iraq would be occupied by
hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops following a war. Gen. Erik Shinseki made
that statement Feb. 25 at a Congressional hearing, without any immediate
contradictions. Then, at hearings on Feb. 27, Democrats began attacking Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on the question of the war's cost -- at which
point Wolfowitz broke with Shinseki, saying that his estimate was "wildly off
the mark" and that the actual number of occupation forces would be closer to
100,000 troops.
The debate over the cost of the war is not particularly
interesting. The Democrats know perfectly well that the cost of the war depends
on how long the war lasts, how hard the fighting is and so on. Since no one
knows that, a definitive answer is impossible. At the same time, the Bush
administration has run the numbers along several contingencies and know more
than officials want to tell Congress. Both sides are playing dumber than they
are. It is wearying, but not important.
A split within the Defense
Department on the scope of the occupation, however, is important. Shinseki is a
careful man: He did not become chief of staff of the Army by casually throwing
numbers around Congressional hearings, nor was his statement, widely circulated,
immediately repudiated by civilian defense officials. From the evidence, it is
clear to us that Shinseki was expressing defense policy as he knew it -- and the
Army chief of staff, charged with personnel planning, certainly would have to be
in the loop on a long-term deployment issue of that magnitude.
That make
Wolfowitz's statement hard to fathom. Wolfowitz is also a careful man who knows
these things will come back to bite him. Even under pressure from Congressmen
looking to score points, Wolfowitz is not one to leave the Army chief of staff
looking like a liar or fool, nor is he likely simply to buckle under hard
questioning. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, the Army plan and the plan of
the Office of the Secretary of Defense seem to be off by a couple of hundred
thousand troops -- a large part of the U.S. Army.
We suspect that the
explanation for this mismatch lies in the definition of the term "occupying
forces." Strictly speaking, occupying force are those charged with maintaining
order and providing services in an occupied country. Troops in Kuwait, for
example, are not occupying forces. They are based in Kuwait, but their mission
is outside of the country; so, there can be troops occupying Iraq and troops
based in Iraq and the missions are completely different.
If the Stratfor
theory on the long-term U.S. strategy in Iraq is correct, U.S. troops will have
two roles to play there. There will be an occupation force charged with managing
Iraq's internal security and other issues. There also will be other troops based
in Iraq -- not reporting to the occupation commander, but reporting to a
war-fighting commander whose primary responsibility will be for operations
outside of Iraq.
From Shinseki's point of view, looking at the aggregate
numbers, the part of the U.S. Army that he will have to carve out of his
manpower pool will run to the hundreds of thousands, and they will be eating
their meals in Iraq. From a technical point of view, calling them occupying
forces is "wildly inaccurate" because only a hundred thousand will be busy
occupying the country while the rest will have other missions. From Wolfowitz's
point of view as a strategic planner, it is that force that represents the
striking power.
None of this is, of course, as innocent as it appears.
Wolfowitz -- and President George W. Bush -- simply don't want to lay the
long-term cards on the table at this time. They would rather be accused of
attacking Iraq without reason than being viewed as being engaged in a long-term,
well-thought-out campaign against other countries in the region. They certainly
don't want to express the strategy during a cat fight with congressional
Democrats.
All of this points at a core problem. The Bush
administration's desire to make Iraq appear a stand-alone operation, without any
strategic purpose behind getting rid of a very bad man, is highly vulnerable to
attack from many directions. It's only virtue is that it keeps the
administration from getting involved in complex questions that can complicate
the war. It also makes officials look -- at one and the same time -- simplistic,
devious and incompetent. When the deputy secretary of defense and the chief of
staff of the Army cannot, within 48 hours of each other, provide Congress with
consistent information -- and Wolfowitz must cover the strategy by making
Shinseki look like he doesn't know what he is doing -- the situation is getting
out of hand.
Once the war is concluded, if it is concluded well, these
contradictions will be forgotten and the next strategic steps will unfold -- or
so the administration's theory goes. That may be correct, and indeed, much of
this is simply Washington chatter, of no consequence outside of Washington.
Nevertheless, the intense strains of unarticulated strategic plans are
showing.
