Four days before the fall of Kabul in November 2001, Osama bin Laden was still in town. The Al Qaeda leader’s movements before and after September 11 are difficult to trace precisely, but, just prior to the attacks, we know that he appeared in Kandahar and urged his followers to evacuate to safer locations in anticipation of U.S. retaliation. Then, on November 8, he was in Kabul, despite the fact that U.S. forces and their Afghan allies were closing in on the city. That morning, while eating a meal of meat and olives, he gave an interview to Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who was writing his biography. He defended the attacks on New York and Washington, saying, “America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, and Iraq. The Muslims have the right to attack America in reprisal.” Six months later, when I met Mir in Pakistan, he told me that the Al Qaeda leader had, on that day, appeared to be in remarkably good spirits.
Kabul fell on November 12, and bin Laden, along with other Al Qaeda leaders, fled to Jalalabad, a compact city in eastern Afghanistan surrounded by lush fruit groves. (He was quite familiar with the area, having maintained a compound in a Jalalabad suburb in the 1990s.) Tracking bin Laden closely was Gary Berntsen, a bear-sized CIA officer with a pronounced Long Island accent, who arrived in Kabul on the day it fell. Berntsen had been serving in Latin America on September 11 when he was yanked to run the CIA’s fast-moving ground operations in Afghanistan. It was a perfect job for an operative with a distinctly independent and aggressive style.
By November 14, Berntsen was receiving a stream of intelligence reports from the Northern Alliance that the Al Qaeda leader was in Jalalabad, giving pep talks to an ever-growing caravan of fighters. Berntsen dispatched an eight-man CIA team to the city. To provide them with local guides, he made contact with Hazarat Ali--an Afghan commander, longtime opponent of the Taliban, and nose-picking semi-illiterate. Ali sent three teenaged fighters to escort the U.S. team into Jalalabad, which was now crawling with fleeing Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters.
But bin Laden wasn’t in Jalalabad for long. Following the fall of Kabul, Jalalabad descended into chaos; no one was in charge for at least a week. Abdullah Tabarak, a Moroccan who is alleged to be one of bin Laden’s bodyguards, reportedly told interrogators that, during the month of Ramadan, which began on November 17, bin Laden and his top deputy, Egyptian surgeon Ayman Al Zawahiri, left Jalalabad and headed about 30 miles south. Their destination was Tora Bora, a series of mountain caves near the Pakistani border. Berntsen’s team remained one step behind them, for now.
Tora Bora was not yet a familiar name to many Americans. But what would unfold there over the subsequent days remains, eight years later, the single most consequential battle of the war on terrorism. Presented with an opportunity to kill or capture Al Qaeda’s top leadership just three months after September 11, the United States was instead outmaneuvered by bin Laden, who slipped into Pakistan, largely disappeared from U.S. radar, and slowly began rebuilding his organization.
What really happened at Tora Bora? Not long after the battle ended, the answer to that question would become extremely clouded. Americans perceived the Afghan war as a stunning victory, and the failure at Tora Bora seemed like an unfortunate footnote to an otherwise upbeat story. By 2004, with George W. Bush locked in a tough reelection battle, some U.S. officials were even asserting, inaccurately, that bin Laden himself may not have been present at the battle.
The real history of Tora Bora is far more disturbing. Having reconstructed the battle--based on interviews with the top American ground commander, three Afghan commanders, and three CIA officials; accounts by Al Qaeda eyewitnesses that were subsequently published on jihadist websites; recollections of captured survivors who were later questioned by interrogators or reporters; an official history of the Afghan war by the U.S. Special Operations Command; an investigation by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and visits to the battle sites themselves--I am convinced that Tora Bora constitutes one of the greatest military blunders in recent U.S. history. It is worth revisiting now not just in the interest of historical accuracy, but also because the story contains valuable lessons as we renew our push against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Print
COMMENTS (20)
Did someone say "dithering"?
Excellent compilation of the known facts by the ever-credible Bergen. "Fury"'s "Kill Bin Laden!" is absoultely worth a read.
Did someone say "dithering"?
Excellent compilation of the known facts by the ever-credible Bergen. "Fury"'s "Kill Bin Laden!" is absoultely worth a read.
"The Al Qaeda leader, who is now nearing his fifty-third birthday..."
Really? I thought it was a truism of the global intelligence services that he's dead.
"The Al Qaeda leader, who is now nearing his fifty-third birthday..."
Really? I thought it was a truism of the global intelligence services that he's dead.
If something is "a truism of the global intelligence services", it's sure to be wrong.
The record speaks for itself going back at least to the times when it was a truism of the global intelligence services that Chaing Kai-shek was winning the Chinese Civil war, North Korea wasn't going to move South, etc., etc., etc.
If something is "a truism of the global intelligence services", it's sure to be wrong.
The record speaks for itself going back at least to the times when it was a truism of the global intelligence services that Chaing Kai-shek was winning the Chinese Civil war, North Korea wasn't going to move South, etc., etc., etc.
Franks' explanation of why he denied the request for troops never made sense. To claim that sending in the Rangers would only have been tenable if there was absolute proof that Bin Laden was at Tora Bora? When in the fog of war, do you have absolute proof of anything that the enemy is doing? Either Franks is the stupidest military commander who ever lived, or he knew very well at the time that the information they had at the end of 2001 was as close to "absolute proof" as you could ever hope to get regarding the whereabouts of a guy like OBL.
And the idea that frantic logistical planning for Iraq by CentCom in Washington, was somehow a material interference to a boots on the ground tactica ... view full comment
Franks' explanation of why he denied the request for troops never made sense. To claim that sending in the Rangers would only have been tenable if there was absolute proof that Bin Laden was at Tora Bora? When in the fog of war, do you have absolute proof of anything that the enemy is doing? Either Franks is the stupidest military commander who ever lived, or he knew very well at the time that the information they had at the end of 2001 was as close to "absolute proof" as you could ever hope to get regarding the whereabouts of a guy like OBL.
And the idea that frantic logistical planning for Iraq by CentCom in Washington, was somehow a material interference to a boots on the ground tactical operation a half world away is fantasy. Larger boots on the ground tactical operations than this were going on 24 hours a day in Afghanistan while all this super-secret Iraq planning was underway. Theatre commanders were more than capable of handling Tora Bora, the only thing standing in their way was the lack of approval from their superiors to go ahead with it. This is why the failure to bet Bin Laden continues to eat at the people who were there.
Here's a question that you can be SURE was considered behind closed doors at the very highest levels in Washington:
If Bin Laden had been killed in December 2001, and Al Qaeda not only "decapitated but left with only the miniscule last portion of its tail", what appetite would Americans have had for the invasion of Iraq?
It's a good question zaiquiri. If it was considered "at the very highest levels" and answered "not much", then those making the decision were mistaken in my view.
At the time, most reasonably aware Americans knew we had been in a more-or-less continuous state of war with Iraq since deciding to play for a tie in 1991. Massive amounts of polling data by Gallup shows consistent majority support, usually about 2:1 and at times approaching 3:1, in favor of using military force to end the reign of Saddam Hussein for years before 9/11. Perhaps smaller numbers, but surely lots of folks, were then as now aware that Iraq is a great deal more strategically important than Afghanistan. And although I don' ... view full comment
It's a good question zaiquiri. If it was considered "at the very highest levels" and answered "not much", then those making the decision were mistaken in my view.
At the time, most reasonably aware Americans knew we had been in a more-or-less continuous state of war with Iraq since deciding to play for a tie in 1991. Massive amounts of polling data by Gallup shows consistent majority support, usually about 2:1 and at times approaching 3:1, in favor of using military force to end the reign of Saddam Hussein for years before 9/11. Perhaps smaller numbers, but surely lots of folks, were then as now aware that Iraq is a great deal more strategically important than Afghanistan. And although I don't have any handy polling data to prove it, I'm pretty sure that in 2002-2003 a great many Americans were sick and tired of being jerked around by Arabs, as epitomized by Saddam the Great.
I tend to agree with Powell: actually winning in Afghanistan in 2001, when victory was within reach at Tora Bora, would most likely have made the Iraq invasion an easier sell. The two strongest reasons for opposing the invasion were: 1. The war against AQ and the Taliban in Afghanistan was not yet won; and 2. The Bush administration was the most militarily incompetent since President Madison. But #2 was not yet definitively proved, so #1 at the time was the strongest reason for skepticism on Iraq. Had Tora Bora ended with Bin Laden's obituary, many moderates would have been more willing to move on to Saddam.
I tend to agree with Powell: actually winning in Afghanistan in 2001, when victory was within reach at Tora Bora, would most likely have made the Iraq invasion an easier sell. The two strongest reasons for opposing the invasion were: 1. The war against AQ and the Taliban in Afghanistan was not yet won; and 2. The Bush administration was the most militarily incompetent since President Madison. But #2 was not yet definitively proved, so #1 at the time was the strongest reason for skepticism on Iraq. Had Tora Bora ended with Bin Laden's obituary, many moderates would have been more willing to move on to Saddam.
Robert Powell:
"At the time, most reasonably aware Americans knew we had been in a more-or-less continuous state of war with Iraq since deciding to play for a tie in 1991. Massive amounts of polling data by Gallup shows consistent majority support, usually about 2:1 and at times approaching 3:1, in favor of using military force to end the reign of Saddam Hussein for years before 9/11."
The first sentence is undoubtedly true, but I think you hedge too much, Bob, in saying "most reasonably aware Americans." I can't think of one friend, liberal, conservative, moderate, unaligned or apathetic, who said they thought otherwise, at the least as a matter of F-P. I don't doubt your next sentence, eithe ... view full comment
Robert Powell:
"At the time, most reasonably aware Americans knew we had been in a more-or-less continuous state of war with Iraq since deciding to play for a tie in 1991. Massive amounts of polling data by Gallup shows consistent majority support, usually about 2:1 and at times approaching 3:1, in favor of using military force to end the reign of Saddam Hussein for years before 9/11."
The first sentence is undoubtedly true, but I think you hedge too much, Bob, in saying "most reasonably aware Americans." I can't think of one friend, liberal, conservative, moderate, unaligned or apathetic, who said they thought otherwise, at the least as a matter of F-P. I don't doubt your next sentence, either. But, in 2002, a few Gallup polls and a small number of others showed a different result when asked what they felt and thought when the questions pertained to their attitude and feelings about actually invading Iraq. Those were much more evenly divided between in favor and not in favor (or in doubt) about the prospects for success, indeed whether it was a good idea at all to launch an invasion.
Perhaps smaller numbers, but surely lots of folks, were then as now aware that Iraq is a great deal more strategically important than Afghanistan. And although I don't have any handy polling data to prove it, I'm pretty sure that in 2002-2003 a great many Americans were sick and tired of being jerked around by Arabs, as epitomized by Saddam the Great."
Surely? If by lots you mean thousands, I'd be willing to concede the point. Frankly, try as I have and do, though I would be relieved to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Iraq is of vital strategic importance in the war on terror, I don't yet see a healthy robust body of evidence to support the claim with the confidence you express.
Don't get me wrong. It is a very good thing now that we are in possession (if not comfortably in control) of Iraq. It has taken a long time to get to this point, with great cost, if not ruin, of public confidence in the government, the military, and diplomacy, to get the job - any job! - done right. I pray daily for such miracles and fortuitous events that will succeed in cutting off Islamism (of the Al Qaeda and Khamenei/Nasrallah/ brands) at its knees, or better yet cause it to fatally stumble and fall. I believe it will happen at some point, hopefully sooner than later (Marty's entry for today sheds considerable light on the state of things in Iran). But we must get it into our heads that ... view full comment
Don't get me wrong. It is a very good thing now that we are in possession (if not comfortably in control) of Iraq. It has taken a long time to get to this point, with great cost, if not ruin, of public confidence in the government, the military, and diplomacy, to get the job - any job! - done right. I pray daily for such miracles and fortuitous events that will succeed in cutting off Islamism (of the Al Qaeda and Khamenei/Nasrallah/ brands) at its knees, or better yet cause it to fatally stumble and fall. I believe it will happen at some point, hopefully sooner than later (Marty's entry for today sheds considerable light on the state of things in Iran). But we must get it into our heads that for whatever reasons under heaven Americans still, really, prefer to stick our heads in the ground, and can't wait to be unburdened of sustained bitter conflicts elsewhere in the world. We just haven't the stomach for it (collectively, that is).
I think the NATO air campaign over Kosovo in 1999 had unintended consequences. The Serbs stopped being bad neighbors, and not one American life was lost. I'm simplifying the first part, of course. But air power now seemed to the Pentagon to have no limits to what it could do. I remember discussing 'Fahrenheit 911' when it came out, and rolling my eyes at Michael Moore's supposition that there was a conspiracy to let Al Qaeda slip away from Tora Bora for the sake of some natural gas pipeline. "We thought we could topple the Taliban and get Bin Laden on the cheap. We thought we could let the Pakistanis on the border do our dirty work", I pontificated. Still, good work by Peter Bergen in ... view full comment
I think the NATO air campaign over Kosovo in 1999 had unintended consequences. The Serbs stopped being bad neighbors, and not one American life was lost. I'm simplifying the first part, of course. But air power now seemed to the Pentagon to have no limits to what it could do. I remember discussing 'Fahrenheit 911' when it came out, and rolling my eyes at Michael Moore's supposition that there was a conspiracy to let Al Qaeda slip away from Tora Bora for the sake of some natural gas pipeline. "We thought we could topple the Taliban and get Bin Laden on the cheap. We thought we could let the Pakistanis on the border do our dirty work", I pontificated. Still, good work by Peter Bergen in trying to stick to the facts.
Tg--
The polling I refer to was done about twice a year between '92 and '03, question being "would you favor or oppose invading Iraq with US troops in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power?" Pretty unambiguous. Always a majority said "favor", with the number in '93, when it had become obvious that Saddam wasn't going to fall on his own as we'd hoped but moreover, obviously not affected by any confusion over who was behind the future 9/11 attacks, was over 70%.
More anecdotally, I covered the Ross Perot campaign in Connecticut and Massachusetts before the '92 election (the one his votes threw to Clinton), and found that after the budget deficit, the failure of Bush 41 to "finish ... view full comment
Tg--
The polling I refer to was done about twice a year between '92 and '03, question being "would you favor or oppose invading Iraq with US troops in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power?" Pretty unambiguous. Always a majority said "favor", with the number in '93, when it had become obvious that Saddam wasn't going to fall on his own as we'd hoped but moreover, obviously not affected by any confusion over who was behind the future 9/11 attacks, was over 70%.
More anecdotally, I covered the Ross Perot campaign in Connecticut and Massachusetts before the '92 election (the one his votes threw to Clinton), and found that after the budget deficit, the failure of Bush 41 to "finish the job in Iraq" was the issue that motivated the most Perot supporters. This was a frequently heard complaint in many other places as well, particularly in the traditionally Republican states. Lots of people who opposed the liberation of Iraq insisted that public support for the policy was a result of manipulation of the ignorant by the Bush Administration aimed at blaming Saddam for 9/11. It seems to me that the evidence shows otherwise.
As far as Iraq's strategic importance, I really don't have any way to judge the level of public awareness about that then or now. But it seems blindingly obvious to me that having an overt enemy in the form of an aggressive, neo-Stalinist police state sitting on top of the fulcrum of the world economy was an intolerable geo-strategic situation. I don't know about "the war on terror", which has always struck me as more of a political construction than a real war. It seems to me that most of our successes in that regard have been the result of good intelligence and diligent police work. But states matter, and changing an active enemy in Iraq to an ally representing the first Shi'ite-dominated democracy in world history has already changed the game in many ways, not least as it seems to be encouraging the democracy movement next door in Iran.
Interesting thesis that supportive public opinion justifies the invasion of another state, either morally or tactically. But at least in that regard one ought to consider the state of public knowledge. If the public were asked today, with the benefit of hindsight, whether it would favor expending the lives, broken bodies and treasure it has cost us to remove Saddam Hussein given that there were no WMDs either in or imminently in Iraq and no operational connection between Saddam Hussein and Islamic terrorism, what do you suppose the American people would say? Seems blindingly obvious.
The question then returns to the state of public knowledge and Bush administration claims about WMDs, ter ... view full comment
Interesting thesis that supportive public opinion justifies the invasion of another state, either morally or tactically. But at least in that regard one ought to consider the state of public knowledge. If the public were asked today, with the benefit of hindsight, whether it would favor expending the lives, broken bodies and treasure it has cost us to remove Saddam Hussein given that there were no WMDs either in or imminently in Iraq and no operational connection between Saddam Hussein and Islamic terrorism, what do you suppose the American people would say? Seems blindingly obvious.
The question then returns to the state of public knowledge and Bush administration claims about WMDs, terrorists in Iraq, and the probable costs and duration of a conflict. I believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et alia intentionally lied about the state of our knowledge on these matters to precipitate war. I think that makes them war criminals by customary definition. You think they were merely mistaken and misled by the available intelligence. No point in rehearsing those arguments, but one's views about the relevance of public opinion ought surely to be affected by one's views of the information given to the American people by Bush and company.
You have repeatedly stated that it is somehow obvious that having an odious government sitting on a pool of oil is an intolerable strategic situation. I don't find that obvious at all. We have in Saudi Arabia an "ally" (a fomenter of international terrorism thus far much more dangerous and successful than Saddam Hussein) sitting on a larger pool of oil and able to regulate its production to keep market prices within bounds, which it regularly does at our behest if not absolutely to our advantage. The Iraqi regime, whoever governs, has but one possibility for its oil, to sell it into the world market. As that oil is a commodity, its impact on supply and price is the same regardless of who governs there. Hence, it would seem rather to be of almost no strategic importance that Saddam Hussein had oil, except to the extent that it enabled him to pursue other ambitions that were at the time effectively checked. As far as I know, Iraqi production remains well below its level prior to the war. So if the notion is that removing Saddam Hussein was important to maintaining the flow of Iraqi oil, that is a demonstrable failure. What then does it mean to say that an odious government on top of a pool of oil is intolerable? Does one just wave one's hands and this is so or should there be some concrete outcomes from this purportedly intolerable situation that make it so?
We have next door to Iraq a far more dangerous regime producing far more oil with a much more advanced nuclear capability and the clear determination to become a nuclear-armed power. This state unquestionably meddles abroad, sometimes as far away as South America, and is an orchestrator and financier of terrorism. By the Robert Powell doctrine of strategic intolerability, it would appear that we must then invade Iran and remove its government. Blessedly, we are likely to find a more hospitable environment for real democracy than in Iraq, once we have knocked off the mullahs. Yet, you are quite clear that even bombing Iran would be a strategic mistake, a view I share. There must be more to the R. Powell doctrine than meets the eye.
Finally, we do not yet know whether Iraq will remain either whole or a democracy, to the extent that it is one, or even a US "ally" (about as much as Pakistan perhaps, which enables Taliban fighters engaged with American troops in Afghanistan?), after we are gone. As to the collateral benefits of this nascent democracy, it is at least as arguable that our invasion of Iraq accelerated the nuclearization of Iran as it did its democracy movement. I have a very knowledgeable Persian friend in Paris who is published (and consulted widely) on the political evolution of Iran and Islamism.
When Bush invaded Iraq, he expressed to me his hope that Iran would follow, although I doubt he meant that seriously. By the time Bush's war had gone very far, he regretted his support of that invasion. His view, among others, is that the threat implied by the Iraq invasion merely allowed the mullahs to consolidate their hold for longer than otherwise.
I would say that the R. Powell doctrine requires rather more explanation to be plausible.
"More anecdotally, I covered the Ross Perot campaign in Connecticut and Massachusetts before the '92 election (the one his votes threw to Clinton), and found that after the budget deficit, the failure of Bush 41 to "finish the job in Iraq" was the issue that motivated the most Perot supporters. This was a frequently heard complaint in many other places as well, particularly in the traditionally Republican states. Lots of people who opposed the liberation of Iraq insisted that public support for the policy was a result of manipulation of the ignorant by the Bush Administration aimed at blaming Saddam for 9/11. It seems to me that the evidence shows otherwise."
You really do believe that is how ... view full comment
"More anecdotally, I covered the Ross Perot campaign in Connecticut and Massachusetts before the '92 election (the one his votes threw to Clinton), and found that after the budget deficit, the failure of Bush 41 to "finish the job in Iraq" was the issue that motivated the most Perot supporters. This was a frequently heard complaint in many other places as well, particularly in the traditionally Republican states. Lots of people who opposed the liberation of Iraq insisted that public support for the policy was a result of manipulation of the ignorant by the Bush Administration aimed at blaming Saddam for 9/11. It seems to me that the evidence shows otherwise."
You really do believe that is how it went. I -a pacifistic liberal no less- "favored" using military force, if and when necessary to remove (no, destroy, liquidate) Saddam and his sons and cronies, even if it required occupation of an indefinite time. In fact, I strongly favored going all the way to Baghdad and uprooting the monster and regime, since we had gone to all that trouble to assure a swift decisive victory. I thought the idea of pulling out immediately once Saddam's army had been defeated was just loony, and incomprehensible.
To suggest that people who believed - still believe! - that public opinion was not only manipulated but grossly manipulated by the Bush administration and a duped MSM. I wasn't surprised or shocked however. Even the most righteous and necessary wars need a massive amount of persuading to convince Americans the enterprise is both justified and absolutely necessary. Manipulation of public opinion is inevitable, and essential.
It wasn't manipulation that alarmed me, it was the careening, topsy turvy, intoxicated way Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice went from argument to argument, case to case, attitude to "attitude," haranguing and harassing, stomping feet and rent garments. Publicly bandying about invasion scenario after scenario, alighting at the gasping end on "shock and awe." My misgivings then fears then alarm was simply, exactly, and nothing but "this is an impending train wreck staring at is full face. Is anybody really listening, paying attention, caring that we are about to wholesale invade a Middle Eastern country not having soberly considered the myriad ways this could all go to hell (would go to hell I imagined)." Then we invaded and it went to hell right on schedule, which is to say within days of "victory."
To say those who opposed military action "opposed the liberation of Iraq" is a crock of s**t and I'll stop there before my blood pressure touches red line.
RE: Gallup polls taken in 2002 to 2003 showing overwhelming support of an imminent invasion, David Moore (former Vice President of the Gallup Organization and Managing Editor of the Gallup Poll from 1993 until 2006) writes in his 2008 book, "The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls:"
"Contrary to media reports on that climate of war opinion, three CNN/USA Today/Gallup polls conducted in the months leading up to the war and immediately after the war began showed that a majority of Americans were not calling for war.7 The second of these polls, conducted in February 2003, about a month before the invasion, showed an evenly divided public —about three in ten Americans ... view full comment
RE: Gallup polls taken in 2002 to 2003 showing overwhelming support of an imminent invasion, David Moore (former Vice President of the Gallup Organization and Managing Editor of the Gallup Poll from 1993 until 2006) writes in his 2008 book, "The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls:"
"Contrary to media reports on that climate of war opinion, three CNN/USA Today/Gallup polls conducted in the months leading up to the war and immediately after the war began showed that a majority of Americans were not calling for war.7 The second of these polls, conducted in February 2003, about a month before the invasion, showed an evenly divided public —about three in ten Americans wanted the United States to at- tack Iraq, three in ten were opposed, and four in ten did not care one way or the other. That this divided state of public opinion was not measured by the other media polls and that neither CNN, USA Today, nor Gallup emphasized the public’s ambiv- alence about the war reveals much about the way that media polls manufacture public opinion for their own purposes."
Bob, and others in attendance, I sincerely apologize for my harsh language, and for re-starting the merry-go-round. I renounce anything inflammatory I said or implied. My opinion and views are really much a quibble skirmish. Bob, you are welcome to have the last word if you like. To all a very fine holiday tomorrow, and my best wishes for the new year. We can (and no doubt will) take to cudgels again another day.
Peace Out,
Tom
Bob, and others in attendance, I sincerely apologize for my harsh language, and for re-starting the merry-go-round. I renounce anything inflammatory I said or implied. My opinion and views are really much a quibble skirmish. Bob, you are welcome to have the last word if you like. To all a very fine holiday tomorrow, and my best wishes for the new year. We can (and no doubt will) take to cudgels again another day.
Peace Out,
Tom
"My opinion and views are really a quibble, not a skirmish."
"My opinion and views are really a quibble, not a skirmish."
Tom-I'm not completely clear whether or not you're saying that your strong support for regime change in Iraq was "grossly manipulated by the Bush Administration" or not, but the point of my example was to demonstrate, I think irrefutably, that there existed a very strong and consistent current of opinion over a period of over a decade that did so. It's not clear to me how "Bush/Cheney lies" could have persuaded 70% of the thousands polled in 1993.
I share completely your frustration with the way this policy was executed, and said so at the time on these pages. Although I supported regime change since before 1991, I went into this thing with grave, and subsequently justified, trepidation. Hope ... view full comment
Tom-I'm not completely clear whether or not you're saying that your strong support for regime change in Iraq was "grossly manipulated by the Bush Administration" or not, but the point of my example was to demonstrate, I think irrefutably, that there existed a very strong and consistent current of opinion over a period of over a decade that did so. It's not clear to me how "Bush/Cheney lies" could have persuaded 70% of the thousands polled in 1993.
I share completely your frustration with the way this policy was executed, and said so at the time on these pages. Although I supported regime change since before 1991, I went into this thing with grave, and subsequently justified, trepidation. Hope your, and everyone's holidays are great. I'm having Christmas myself.
roi--the only "Powell Doctrine" that has any relevance here is the one developed by Colin from the excellent contemporary scholarship at the Army War College. If it had been applied more exactly to the liberation of Iraq, particularly in terms of sufficient force and realistic exit strategy, we would all be better off.
In the interest of brevity (hopefully), and to avoid going over old ground, I'll take a few of your points which I'm surprised haven't been already made clear:
--supportive public opinion hardly justifies war. But it is one of the essential components of the real "Powell Doctrine", and in this case bears on the essentially elitist argument that the public was somehow hoodwinked into thinking we should try to achieve a satisfactory conclusion to the long-running Iraq crisis.
--I have never once stated that "having an odious government sitting on a pool of oil is an intolerable strategic situation", and am in complete agreement with your take on our relationship with the Saudis. Iraq was not just "an odious government", but a very special case. The particulars would make for a fair sized essay, but I'll just list a few of the more obvious--Iraq was and had been in a virtual state of war the United States, Israel, and a number of our other allies for years (decades in the case of Israel); the pool of oil is perhaps even larger than the Saudis' according to some experts, and moreover Iraq has the population, the resources, the infrastructure, and under Sadaam or his heirs the intention, to represent a real threat to control the whole region. There's plenty more, but enough for now...
--I am certainly, consistently and publically, against starting a war with Iran. On the other hand, the threat represented by Iran must be confronted, best in my view by effectively supporting the democratic elements in Iran that are the only real hope of regime modification or change. There was no such option in the case of Iraq, any more than there was an option in anything other than fantasy to "contain" it over time. Perhaps the single most effective thing we've done in that regard was to foster the first Shi'ite-dominated democracy in world history next door in Iraq. Influence is a two-way street, and currently there is in my view a much greater chance that Iraq will influence events in Iran in meaningful ways much more than vice versa.
Regards, Bob
Mr. Powell,
What can I say? I just don't see that Iraq presented any special threat or risk to us once you take imminent WMDs and operational terrorism out of the equation. And, even if I grant that it did, I am certain that it would not have been possible to lead the US into the war without tying Saddam Hussein to imminent threat of WMDs or to operational terrorism or both. Had anyone suggested in 2003 that we invade Iraq because it posed at threat to take control of the region, or was a particularly odious government on top of a lot of oil, I think they would have been regarded as mad. This is a country that we defeated in four days when it was far more powerful and better organized.
As f ... view full comment
Mr. Powell,
What can I say? I just don't see that Iraq presented any special threat or risk to us once you take imminent WMDs and operational terrorism out of the equation. And, even if I grant that it did, I am certain that it would not have been possible to lead the US into the war without tying Saddam Hussein to imminent threat of WMDs or to operational terrorism or both. Had anyone suggested in 2003 that we invade Iraq because it posed at threat to take control of the region, or was a particularly odious government on top of a lot of oil, I think they would have been regarded as mad. This is a country that we defeated in four days when it was far more powerful and better organized.
As far as the continuous state of war, again, even if we grant that that was so, the cost to us of patrolling the no-fly zone and enforcing the sanctions was almost trivial compared to what we ended up spending in lives and treasure in the invasion. I would guess that the training deaths in West Germany during the height of the cold war exceeded the casualties we were suffering in Iraq. We won the cold war because we generally tried not to let the enemy exhaust us -- with the singular exception of Vietnam -- but to exhaust the enemy. We were exhausting Iraq at de minimis cost to ourselves. Had we wanted to, we could have made the sanctions ironclad by having the oil sales handled by UN auction with the proceeds transferred to the UN for distribution. We never even bothered. The only reason to invade Iraq rather than just tighten up the sanctions and wait was the threat that Iraq was in imminent possession of WMDs or was providing material support for terrorism (a state of affairs we tolerate in the case of Iran because the terrorism has not been directed at us).
Best wishes for the New Year,
R
roi--
You are certainly entitiled to your opinion, which I am sure is shared by many. But with all due respect, when it comes to evaluating the level of threat posed by Ba'athist Iraq I prefer to go with the analysis of the entire Clinton national security team which inherited the problem, and spent eight years trying to find some way short of invasion to manage it. At the end of the day they, to a man and woman, supported the regime change policy as the only practical way forward.
Having had the experience of presiding over the deaths of perhaps a million of the most innocent and vulnerable Iraqis by means of the sanctions regime, which had by the end deteriorated into the farcical "Oi ... view full comment
roi--
You are certainly entitiled to your opinion, which I am sure is shared by many. But with all due respect, when it comes to evaluating the level of threat posed by Ba'athist Iraq I prefer to go with the analysis of the entire Clinton national security team which inherited the problem, and spent eight years trying to find some way short of invasion to manage it. At the end of the day they, to a man and woman, supported the regime change policy as the only practical way forward.
Having had the experience of presiding over the deaths of perhaps a million of the most innocent and vulnerable Iraqis by means of the sanctions regime, which had by the end deteriorated into the farcical "Oil for Fraud" program that actually tightened the regimes grip on power, the Clinton team had no more faith than I did that the UN was going to sustain any kind of effective regime. In point of fact, by 2002 deals had already been signed by Iraq with Total/Elf, Rosneft, and PetroChina that would have put Saddam's regime back in the driver's seat, hell-bent to re-invigorate its WMD program, a process that the authoritative Duelfer Commission estimated would take "about six months". This was never a problem that was going to be amenable to pin-prick missile strikes.
It's also worth pointing out in this context that the Israeli security establishment, which has a well-deserved reputation for deep and realistic assessment, rated Saddam's Iraq the number one threat to the State of Israel. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and others lived in constant fear of that state's potential for regional domination, with very good reason and from a position of great knowledge.
It was important to me at the time that due recognition be taken of the fact that Iraq was the only country since the Korean War to attempt the invasion, rape, and annexation of a neighbor, and the fact that this action came in the most geo-strategically important place in the world only increased the concern. To just shrug that off with some kind of transparently futile and eminently collapsing sanctions regime seemed to me tantamount to criminal negligence.
In terms of public support, I put a lot of stock in the data indicating significant majority support for "regime change by invasion" which had persisted for twelve years, only the last year of which had been under the Bush Administration. I shared the frustration expressed by Tom at the frenzied blizzard of statements by them in 2002 which in the end produced less consensus than justification fatigue. At the time I felt they would make statements that would prove to be unfounded, which would give opponents of the policy something to focus on to discredit the whole operation. That's about what happened. All they really needed to do was assert that we could no longer tolerate this lingering disaster, and based on solid evidence going back twelve years, I believe public support would have been just about the same as it was.
Happy New Year to you too.
Mr. Powell and Tgossard have put things as I would have.
Mr. Powell and Tgossard have put things as I would have.
but better. Additionally it is my opinion that our (the US and coalition) collective embrace and witness to basic human rights would have been much better served by finishing the job in 91. As it was our allegiance to some sort of imperial sensitivity per Iraq and the ME had the effect of confirming the most cynical arguments of indictment for those that would leverage such. This was Bush II's biggest blind spot in failure to account. That Saddam's most energetic domestic foes were dispatched under the umbrella of cease fire is an obscenity the likes of which warrants shame.
but better. Additionally it is my opinion that our (the US and coalition) collective embrace and witness to basic human rights would have been much better served by finishing the job in 91. As it was our allegiance to some sort of imperial sensitivity per Iraq and the ME had the effect of confirming the most cynical arguments of indictment for those that would leverage such. This was Bush II's biggest blind spot in failure to account. That Saddam's most energetic domestic foes were dispatched under the umbrella of cease fire is an obscenity the likes of which warrants shame.