More US soldiers are being killed in Iraq and many more Iraqis are dying in exchanges of fire. On both sides the injuries mount, so much so that few incidents are now even reported. One exception was the killing of the police chief in the town of Khaldiya, Colonel Khedeir Mekhalef Ali, this week. His appointment two months ago to run the new 600-strong police force had been supported by community leaders who were increasingly concerned at the common lawlessness becoming endemic in central Iraq; his assassination was probably carried out by criminal elements rather than guerrilla forces.
The significance of this lies in the existence of two simultaneous security problems for the United States: the threat to its troops from guerrilla elements and the much wider problem of lawlessness. The issue is also demonstrated by the thousands of people taken into custody in the last five months. The majority of them are detained under suspicion of a wide range of crimes, but there are currently 4,400 in detention suspected of being linked to guerrilla activity.
The logistics of overstretch
Perhaps the most pointed indication of the problems faced by US forces comes not from the figures for casualties but from much more mundane evidence related to the ostensibly simple matter of logistics (see Jonathan Weisman and Renae Merle, Wearing Out and Adding Up, Washington Post, 13 September 2003). As has been widely reported, the cost of the Iraq occupation and planned reconstruction has escalated alarmingly, and the small print of some of the requests from the military is really quite revealing.
Several examples of this are worth noting. First, the issue of body armour. A full suit costs $5,000 and the US army wants 60,000 of them at a cost of $300,000,000 to enable it to equip every front-line soldier at risk in Iraq with such protection. The nature of the security problem means that this is now considered essential, as is the need to maintain armoured vehicles at far higher levels of activity than were ever anticipated.
Second, because of the persistent threat from snipers and roadside explosive devices, US troops are making huge use of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a tracked armoured vehicle that would normally drive about 1,200 kilometres a year and would have its tracks, costing about $22,000, replaced annually.
There are about 600 of these vehicles in Iraq and their use averages the equivalent of over 22,000 kilometres a year, with their tracks having to be replaced every two months. Replacement and support costs will run to about $230 million in 2003. Just to keep up with the demand, Goodyear is currently running three shifts a day, seven days a week, at the Red River Army Depot in Texas.
A third example of the USs logistical problems is the armys request for an additional 595 heavily-armoured Humvee jeeps at a cost of nearly $250,000 each. Fourth, there is particularly heavy wear and tear on the armys helicopters, especially in terms of the corrosive effect of sand on the rotor blades and engines. Army aviation support in Iraq has already used up $1.3 billion in spare parts in the last six months, more than three times the annual spending for the armys entire aviation force in an ordinary year.
The elements of a quagmire
The nature of the attacks, and the constant risk of casualties, mean that US forces are concentrating on highly-mobile armoured patrols operating from heavily protected bases. As one army official remarked (quoted in the Washington Post piece cited earlier): Heres a blinding flash of the obvious, there is no front line out there. Moreover, the continuing threat of attacks means that the army is scarcely involved in crime control, and with a hopelessly ill-equipped and under-resourced police force, crime remains rampant. Even the rise of warlords is now a distinct possibility.
In the face of this disorder and insecurity, the decision to disband the regular Iraqi army is now seen as a double disaster not only did it put hundreds of thousands of unemployed ex-soldiers back into the community, damaging the economy, but it meant that at least some of them could be ready recruits for the anti-occupation insurgency now under way.
The US occupation authorities have belatedly started to recruit and train a new, smaller army but progress is extraordinarily slow. The plan is for an army of 40,000 to be available, but this will not be fully formed until at least a year from now. Even the initial components, four battalions of around 3,000 troops, will not be ready until early 2004. (Theola Labbé, Iraqs New Military Taking Shape, Washington Post, 16 September 2003).
The overall predicament faced by the army goes a long way to explain why some of the most senior officers in the US military have been so vigorous in their insistence that their government goes back to seek support at the United Nations. Their hope is that some kind of Security Council resolution will be agreed that will entice other states to contribute significant military forces. Such action is a measure of the deep concern within the US military, a concern that seems not to be shared by the Pentagons leadership, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.
What has become really significant in Washington in recent weeks has been the divergence between a White House, under pressure from the military, seeking a way out of the Iraq morass through an international sharing of the burden, and the persistent views of the neo-conservative security community. This group sees the problems in Iraq in a markedly different light, and is deeply suspicious of any sharing of control of Iraq, especially with the UN.
Current neo-conservative thinking may best be summarised as more of the same, and is strangely reminiscent of the early days of the Vietnam war, when the answer to increasing insurgency by Vietnamese nationalist-communist forces was to call for rapid increases in US troop levels, based on the confidence that enough forces could ensure that the war could be fought and won on American terms.
Security versus ideology
The current neo-conservative agenda requires that the US administration takes three steps. The first is a substantial increase in spending in Iraq, certainly many tens of billions of dollars to guarantee power supplies, public services and a developing economy. It is recognised that this would be a political gift to the Democrats, but the neo-conservative view is that large sums of money must be spent now to help prevent a further security deterioration over the next six-nine months that could help cost George Bush re-election in late 2004.
The second item on the neo-con agenda is for a substantial increase in US personnel on the ground in Iraq, especially from the state department. The latter is the target of particular anger which sees its public officials as reluctant to volunteer for service in Iraq; an analogy is even drawn with the early years of the cold war when the whole culture of government service was redirected towards the need to triumph in the contest with the Soviet Union. The neo-conservatives believe that the war on terror is the cold wars equivalent and successor, that Iraq is central to this war and that the US government and its officials must evince far higher levels of patriotism.
The third neo-con requirement is for a substantial increase in US forces on the ground in Iraq, as many as two full divisions. With support troops, this might entail an additional 50-60,000 troops in Iraq or the immediate region far too many for the US army to sustain for any length of time, given its commitments in Afghanistan and east Asia.
In response, the neo-conservative argument is straightforward: America must expand its military force now, primarily by increasing the size of the army. More use of reservists and national guard units may help in the short term, but there is no alternative to recruiting far more regular soldiers. The predicament was summed up admirably in a recent editorial of the Washington-based Weekly Standard (Do What it Takes in Iraq, William Kristol and Robert Kagan, 1-8 September 2003):
The simple fact is, right now, there are too few good guys chasing the bad guys hence the continuing sabotage. There are too few forces to patrol the Syrian and Iranian borders to prevent the infiltration of international terrorists trying to open a new front against the United States in Iraq. There are too few forces to protect vital infrastructure and public buildings. And contrary to what some say, more troops dont mean more casualties. More troops mean fewer casualties both American and Iraqi.
What lies behind neo-conservative thinking is the belief that it is absolutely essential for the United States to maintain control of Iraq. A significant input of international elements to Iraq would challenge this objective, and carries the risk of unacceptable UN involvement. In this perspective, it is clear that neo-conservative circles recognise the extent of the American predicament in Iraq and respond by recommending more of the same. That such a response is highly likely to make matters worse, not better, is simply not acknowledged.
