Rumors of American Defeat in Iraq are Greatly Exaggered, Part 1

Retired General Barry McCaffrey, now an Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at the United States Military Academy, has toured Iraq several times since 2003. General McCaffrey was an early critic of the administration's war plan and is not known to be a member of the "Donald Rumsfeld Fan Club". According to the Belmont Club blog...

• MSNBC described McCaffrey as skeptic on the war as early as 2003.
• The New Republic called General McCaffrey Secretary Rumsfeld's "most outspoken critic" in 2004

General McCaffrey took his most recent tour of Iraq between April 13 and 20 of this year. Slate Magazine has printed the memorandum where he describes his findings. Anyone interested in American policy towards Iraq going forward should read the whole thing; General McCaffrey doesn't waste a sentence in his writing. His key findings with respect to America's level of effort in Iraq are as follows...

1. Neither American servicemen and servicewomen nor America's armed forces as a whole in Iraq are broken. Here is the entirety of General McCaffrey's first finding...

The morale, fighting effectiveness, and confidence of U.S. combat forces continue to be simply awe-inspiring. In every sensing session and interaction - I probed for weakness and found courage, belief in the mission, enormous confidence in their sergeants and company grade officers, an understanding of the larger mission, a commitment to creating an effective Iraqi Army and Police, unabashed patriotism, and a sense of humor. All of these soldiers, NCOs and young officers were volunteers for combat. Many were on their second combat tour - several were on the third or fourth combat tour. Many had re-enlisted to stay with their unit on its return to a second Iraq deployment. Many planned to re-enlist regardless of how long the war went on.

Their comments to me were guileless, positive, and candidly expressed love for their fellow soldiers. They routinely encounter sniper fire, mortar and rocket attacks, and constantly face IED's on movement. Their buddies have been killed and wounded. Several in these sessions had also been wounded. These are the toughest soldiers we have ever fielded. It was a real joy and an honor to see them first-hand.

2. Unfortunately, the rest of the government is not living up to the standard set by the armed forces (and, as McCaffrey later mentions, the CIA)...

The U.S. Inter-Agency Support for our strategy in Iraq is grossly inadequate. A handful of brilliant, courageous, and dedicated Foreign Service Officers have held together a large, constantly changing, marginally qualified, inadequately experienced U.S. mission. The U.S. influence on the Iraqi national and regional government has been extremely weak. U.S. consultants of the [Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office] do not live and work with their Iraqi counterparts, are frequently absent on leave or home consultations, are often in-country for short tours of 90 days to six months, and are frequently gapped with no transfer of institutional knowledge....The U.S. Departments actually fight over who will pay the $11.00 per day per diem on food. This bureaucratic nonsense is taking place in the context of a war costing the American people $7 billion a month - and a battalion of soldiers and Marines killed or wounded a month.

The State Department actually cannot direct assignment of their officers to serve in Iraq. State frequently cannot staff essential assignments such as the new [Provincial Reconstruction Teams] which have the potential to produce such huge impact in Iraq. The bottom line is that only the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces are at war. This situation cries out for remedy.

3. Beyond inter-agency cooperation, the element most needed for facilitating success in Iraq is increased resources for reconstruction...

CENTCOM and the U.S. Mission are running out of the most significant leverage we have in Iraq - economic reconstruction dollars. Having spent $18 billion - we now have $1.6 billion of new funding left in the pipeline. Iraq cannot sustain the requisite economic recovery without serious U.S. support. The Allies are not going to help. They will not fulfill their pledges. Most of their pledges are loans not grants.

It would be misguided policy to fail to achieve our political objective after a $400 billion war because we refused to sustain the requirement to build a viable economic state. Unemployment is a bigger enemy then the AIF. It is my view that we will fail to achieve our political-military objectives in the coming 24 months if we do not continue economic support on the order of $5-10 billion per year. This is far, far less than the cost of fighting these people.

4. "There is a rapidly growing animosity in our deployed military forces toward the U.S. media"...

We need to bridge this gap. Armies do not fight wars - countries fight wars. We need to continue talking to the American people through the press. They will be objective in reporting facts if we facilitate their information gathering mission...