Army War College Study Blasts U.S. War on Terrorism

[scoone]

WASHINGTON (*******) - The Iraq invasion was "an unnecessary preventive war of choice" that has robbed resources and attention from the more critical fight against al Qaeda in a hopeless U.S. quest for absolute security, according to a study recently published by the U.S. Army War College.

The 56-page document written by Jeffrey Record, a veteran defense expert who serves as a visiting research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, represents a blistering assessment of what President Bush calls the U.S. global war on terrorism.

Pentagon officials on Monday said Record was entitled to his opinion, but reiterated Bush's view that Iraq is the "central front" in the war on terrorism.

Record urged U.S. leaders to refocus Bush's broad war to target Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America, and its allies. Record said the Iraq war was a detour from real anti-terrorism efforts.

Record criticized the Bush administration for lumping together al Qaeda and President Saddam Hussein's Iraq "as a single, undifferentiated terrorist threat."

"This was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between the two in character, threat level and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action," Record wrote.

"The result has been an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al Qaeda," Record wrote.

Faculty at the Army War College, an academic institute run by the Army since 1901, produce analyzes of military and national security issues, with scholars encouraged to take a critical look a existing policies.

Lawrence Di Rita, the top Pentagon spokesman, said, "There's no question he's entitled to his views."

"People are publishing stuff all the time. That's the value of kind of having people throw analysis out there. You learn even from analysis you don't agree with. I don't even want to characterize it as something I don't agree with because I just haven't read it," said Di Rita, adding that he does not know if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld plans to read the document.

[Pojo]

Its no secret that Osama bin Laden has now become a much much lower priority and the afgan effort has somewhat let up. Its time to get back on the horse and finish al Qaeda off for good.

[Durandal]

Can you send me the link to this article please?

Thanks in advance.

[NcDeuce]

We did go to the Phillipines, Georgia, Yemen, and other nations that everybody seems to forget about...

[UkrainianAmerican]

call me ignorant, but exactly what so bad about creating a new front to fight the radical Islamists on?
It spreads THEM out much more then it does us. They wanna go fight us in Iraq, let em. They are dying there at a pretty high rate. Imagine if these same terrorists had time to attack our civilians.

[Ian H]

True, but what the guy is saying is that there was no need to go to Iraq. Those countries and Afghanistan should have been kept as the priority. Personally I agree, Iraq was not the massive threat Bush said it was, even to local Gulf states. That said I can't think of an alternative policy to contain it, given the unpopularity of sanctions and no fly zones. Unfortunately, in politics there are no simple answers, and it really pisses me off to hear politicians of all 'flavours' going on as if there were. I suppose its the short term nature of modern democracy. Everything works on an x year long cycle, which tends to inhibit real long term planning.

Erm, way off topic there, sorry, but I won't delete it cos its worth saying.

[Uncle Sam]

Well, it's a little too late to turn back now. I think we need to focus on, what's gonna happen next, more than, what already happened. ya know ??

[duck]

Anyway, I remember a (ABCnews? CNN?) poll where 75% of the intake held Saddam responsible for 9/11. What's wrong in following public opinion?

[Dave the Dawg]

Can you send me the link to this article please?

Thanks in advance.
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.htm

[usa320]

I think too many people forgot their own "public opinion" about the war on terror as the years since 9-11 passed.

Not me.

I am still as pissed off at the terrorists as i was then.

If nothing else the war has showed us how brutal they really are.

[Pille1234]

from janes.com


The emperor's new clothes

JID subscribers are unlikely to be in any doubt about our assessment of the Iraq campaign. It has long been our view that the available intelligence did not provide a justification for military intervention by the USA and its allies, no matter how appalling Saddam Hussein may have been as a leader.

Our main concern, however, was that the invasion of Iraq was a dangerous distraction from the very real threat posed by international terrorists, particularly Al-Qaeda and its network.

The recent damning assessment of the global war against terrorism prepared under the auspices of the US Army War College by Dr Jeffrey Record makes for sobering reading. His assessment of the current strategy being pursued by Washington leaves little room for doubt that not only is the global war on terrorism failing in its key objectives, but that the invasion of Iraq is further undermining the USA's homeland security.

As the report observes: "The war against Iraq was a detour from, not an integral component of, the war on terrorism; in fact, Operation 'Iraqi Freedom' may have expanded the terrorist threat by establishing a large new US target set in an Arab heartland." Dr Record also goes on to point out that the mounting costs of the occupation of Iraq are having a serious impact upon the USA's homeland security requirements.

The report assesses the cost of the Iraq campaign at around US$150bn in funds already authorised or requested, although the author also observes that there is "no end in sight" - which is true both of the costs and the actual conflict. He then highlights an estimated shortfall of $98.4bn in federal funding for "emergency response agencies" in the USA over the next five years.

The Record report proposes a fundamental re-evaluation of US aims and objectives in the war against terrorism. It suggests that 'rogue states' need to be handled very differently to terrorist groups and that not all 'terrorist organisations' pose a threat to US security interests. As Dr Record posits: "Terrorism may be a horrendous means to any end, but do the Basque ETA and the Tamil Tigers really threaten the USA?"

Dr Record's conclusion, which is well worth quoting in full, is that the USA's "global war on terrorism as presently defined and conducted is strategically unfocused, promised much more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate US military and other resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security. The USA may be able to defeat, even destroy, Al-Qaeda, but it cannot rid the world of terrorism, much less evil."

This view is almost identical with those being expressed by the experienced security specialists, intelligence sources and serving military personnel who provide JID with information and analysis.

456 of 926 words

[End of non-subscriber extract.]

[usa320]

Also note that the opinions of this one scholar, who i believe isnt even in the military, more than likely dont reflect that of the US Army war college.

[Royal]

Glad to see someone talking sense for once.

Iraq had f**K all to do with 9/11, and were a minor regional threat, well contained by the enforcement of the 'no-fly zones'. If US forces are not overstretched (as UK forces certainly are) why are no many NG serving in Iraq?

If anywhere else should have been invaded for harbouring Al Qaida, it was Pakistan - but they're an 'ally' and Gen Musharaf is 'on-side', so we could never have done that.

Sadaam was a suitable bogeyman, no one was going to cry for him, so it was a good way of distracting public attention from our inability to find OBL, to contain Al Qaida on the Afghan side of the border and destroy them and also to finally defeat the Taliban.

We're there now so we have a moral obligation to leave Iraq a better place than we found it, but the bottom line is that we should never have invaded in the first place.