THROUGHOUT THE CONFLICT, President Bush has said that Iraq is just about to turn the corner; stability is about to be restored…if only we stay a little bit longer. At any moment, one can identify some indicators that are looking better but others that are looking worse. Violence in one place may be going down, but it may be going up in others. Five years into the war, statements that the country is just about to turn the corner—even when they come from the professional military—ring hollow, especially when seen within the broader landscape. Of course, in the uncertain world of Iraq, nothing is certain; it is possible that staying longer could make a difference. But the likelihood of this—five years into the war—looks small.
Unfortunately, five years after the invasion, with hundreds of billions having been spent and thousands of casualties, things are not much better. In 2007, Iraq ranked 178th out of 180 countries worldwide in terms of corruption. Only Somalia and Myanmar (formerly Burma) were worse.1 Iraq’s top anticorruption official fled the country after thirty-one of his agency’s employees were killed in a three-year period.2 The U.S. troop “surge” appears to have improved the security situation in Baghdad, but the violence has migrated to other regions. On December 2, 2007, suspected al Qaeda militants attacked the Shiite village of Dwelah, killing thirteen Iraqis (including three children), torching homes, and forcing hundreds of families to flee.3 Al Qaeda has moved into northern Iraqi regions such as Diyala with its usual brutality. On December 3, 2007, three young women in Diyala Province were murdered for refusing to marry members of al Qaeda.4 Meanwhile, radical Sunni and Shiite extremists are still killing dozens of civilians every month in areas beyond where U.S. forces are located. And tensions are high in the north, with Turkish forces attacking Kurdish separatists. For the United States, 2007 proved the deadliest year of the war.5
On the political front, Iraq now has a religious government—whereas it had secular governments for eighty years prior to the U.S. invasion. This vastly complicates the challenges of bringing political stability to different parts of society. So far, Iraq’s own government has not been able to unite the country. Furthermore, the Iraqi government plans to cut the number of items in the food ration from ten to five in January 2008 due to “insufficient funds and spiraling inflation,” which could cause even more social unrest.6
For the United States, the skyrocketing costs of the war are driving the tempo of decisions and limiting the scope of action. America might have been able to bring a greater semblance of peace and security to Iraq had we been willing to commit sufficient military resources in 2003.7 But from the start, we have fought the war without inconveniencing ourselves too much. We paid a small group of Americans to bear the burden.
Today, America is engaged in a debate about our exit strategy. Few argue, at least openly, for a permanent Iraq occupation, even if U.S. troops were to retreat to a set of safe military bases scattered around the country.8 Few argue that we should expand our commitment and draft young Americans to go to war over Iraq. The question, then, centers on how and when to withdraw. Staying longer may not make things better; it could make them worse. The majority of Iraqis, in fact, believe that the security situation will get better once the U.S. military withdraws.9 While the British have enjoyed a better reputation, as they prepared to withdraw from Iraq, the majority of the Iraqis from Basra, the part of the country the British occupied, view their occupation unfavorably: 85 percent believe that it had an overall negative effect, 56 percent that it contributed to the overall level of militia violence, and two thirds think security will improve after the British turn over control of the province to Iraqi forces (in mid-December 2007). Only 2 percent believe that the British have had a positive effect on the province.10
Opponents of a rapid exit policy point to the chaos and violence that might follow. According to them, the country would likely split into three regions. The largest part, the Shiite south, might fall within Iran’s orbit of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni governments might then come to the assistance of the Sunni center, providing the wherewithal for continued conflict. The Kurdish-controlled north might break away, and Turkey, long adamant that there should not be a separate Kurdish state, might intervene to prevent it.11
These outcomes have frightened most U.S. politicians from declaring support for an immediate withdrawal. But the analysis should not begin with this scenario. The relevant questions are simple ones: Would things be better, or worse, if we were to leave in six months, a year, or two years? Would the situation improve enough to justify the costs—both the human toll and the economic one—of staying? A number of experts have already suggested that chaos is virtually inevitable whether we withdraw today or withdraw in two years’ time.
While there is a heated political debate about when and how we should exit, the Bush administration seems to be preparing for a long-term presence. The United States has established hundreds of military bases in Iraq since 2003. Many of these have been handed over to the Iraqis, but several are massive compounds that appear to be designed for long-term U.S. occupation. The largest include Al-Asad, the main supply base for troops in Al Anbar Province, about 120 miles west of Baghdad (housing about 17,000 troops and contractors); Al-Balad (also known as Camp Anaconda), which is the U.S. military’s main air transportation and supply hub (housing about 22,500 troops and several thousand contractors); Camp Taji (which has the largest shopping center in Iraq); and Al-Talil, in the south, a key stopping point for supply convoys from Kuwait. The United States has also been constructing a huge new embassy complex in Baghdad, which is more than six times the size of the UN complex in New York.
These key U.S. bases are vast. Al-Balad/Anaconda is 4.5 miles wide and 3 miles long—requiring two bus routes. Al-Asad and Al-Talil are even bigger: nearly 20 square miles each. Even in the vicinity of Baghdad, the base complex Victory/Liberty is so big that it accommodates a 140-mile triathlon course. At the center of these bases are large and sophisticated military airfields, with double runways of 10,000–12,000 feet that can accommodate many aircraft, including fighters, drones, helicopters, and large transport planes.
The bases are largely self-sufficient in terms of utilities, including power, phone systems, heating/cooling, and hospital facilities protected by highly fortified perimeters. Whereas clean water, electricity, or quality medical care are in short supply in the rest of the country, the bases are islands of fully functioning amenities. They include sports facilities, department stores, fast-food restaurants (including a 24-hour Burger King, a Pizza Hut, and Baskin Robbins ice cream outlets), a Hertz Rent-a-Car, movie theaters, air conditioning, satellite Internet access, cable television, and international phone service. The bases have reinforced concrete buildings, hardened protective bunkers, extensive concrete barracks for troops, large internal road systems, and elaborate electronic systems that are rarely, if ever, installed in temporary basing facilities. It is difficult to break out from DOD accounts precisely how much has been spent on constructing these bases, but it runs easily into the billions of dollars. Much of the construction has been built by U.S. contractors. The House Appropriations Committee noted in a March 13, 2006, report that the budgetary requests for the bases were “of a magnitude normally associated with permanent bases.”12 Congress voted overwhelmingly against the use of funds for constructing permanent bases in the 2007 supplemental defense bill; however, construction has continued because the Bush administration has parried whether the current bases are considered “permanent.”
Although Americans have differing views of our intentions, Iraqis see our actions as suggesting a long-run presence—if only for forays from protected fortifications. But whatever our intentions, we may not have the final say, unless we are willing to spend even more economic, and political, capital.
The calculations in this book form an essential part of an analysis of an exit strategy. The stated cost of our staying in Iraq for another month at current levels is now in excess of $12 billion. Based on our analysis, the total costs are probably twice that—some $25 billion per month. Staying another two years would thus cost some $600 billion. The human toll is even greater—far larger than the dollar sums paid in compensation to bereaved families. There are also the opportunity costs: more money and energy spent in Iraq means we have less to spend elsewhere.
Finally, there are the political costs—the continuing decline in American standing around the world and the increasing disillusionment of American citizens with foreign entanglements. Iraq has proved such a humiliating failure that, when we finally do leave, many Americans may be tempted to withdraw from engagement in the world anywhere else. This may yet prove to be the ultimate tragic cost of Iraq, because (as we argued in the previous chapter) American leadership is important for addressing a host of global problems confronting the modern world.13
The prospects of a fundamental change of direction in the next year or two are at best questionable. The Iraq Study Group report put it forcefully: “Despite a massive effort, stability in Iraq remains elusive and the situation is deteriorating…. The ability of the United States to shape outcome is diminishing [italics added].”14 Although the number of insurgents through much of 2004–06 was estimated at 20,000, by March 2007, the number of Sunni insurgents alone (including “part-time supporters”) was put at 70,000.15 While the surge did manage to reduce the civilian death toll compared to the period before the surge, it still remains high, especially outside of Baghdad. In Baghdad by August 2007, deaths were down to 550 (a three-month toll of 2,050, still almost twice that of the first three months of 2006); the overall rate for the country remains high (800 in October, for a three-month total of 3,300, compared to 2,250 for the first three months of 2006).16 Even with the surge, the number of insurgent attacks was higher by the end of 2007 than it was two years earlier—rising from 62 per day in early 2005 to 91 in late 2007.17
As this book goes to press, there is some optimism that, at last, the surge may eventually have an effect in reducing the number of violent attacks and deaths.18 It is, of course, impossible to know whether this is more than a temporary lull. But even if an increased presence of U.S. troops were to succeed in reducing the scale of violence, what does it mean? It does not mean that without the American presence, violence would be contained. It does not mean that an American departure would be accompanied by any less violence next year than would have been the case this year. It may simply mean there is a degree of rationality in the insurgents’ strategy. Knowing that there is a good chance that America will leave after Bush departs, it makes sense for the insurgents to lie low, to husband their resources, to wait until after his departure. If U.S. troops are required to maintain the peace, is America willing to commit, for years to come, 100,000 or more troops to Iraq? Is it willing to add that number and more (to provide the logistical and other support) to the size of the standing forces, so that America is able to meet the other challenges it faces around the world?
In short, five years into the war, we have not created a safe and stable Iraq. Despite our failures in the region, a number of delusions continue to surround the prospect of America’s departure from Iraq.
Departure Delusions
THE FIRST DELUSION posits that we cannot leave before our “mission is accomplished” because it would lead to a loss of American credibility. Our enemies would know that we don’t have staying power and, in the future, they would be less afraid of our might. Our role in the world would be compromised, and we would wield less influence. The world without the United States acting as a credible policeman would be an increasingly dangerous place. Our supporters in Iraq would be annihilated, and, given all the brutal militia and terrorists now actively killing and kidnapping in Iraq, our withdrawal would make the flight from Saigon look easy by comparison.
The “credibility” argument is a sign of sloppy reasoning. Yes, there will be some loss of credibility if we depart now; but if our analysis is correct, the alternative—staying another year or two or three—will not reduce significantly the chaos and violence that will follow our departure. Then, our “loss of credibility” will be even greater. If we leave now, we will have shown that America could not prevail even with five years of fighting; in two more years, we will have shown that America could not prevail even after seven years.
There is a related risk. If we delay departure, we may not be able to choose the timing. We have pushed for democracy in Iraq. But, apart from the Kurdish north, there is overwhelming opposition to the presence of American forces. Overall, 78 percent of Iraqis oppose our presence. This opposition is as high as 97 percent for the population in Sunni areas and 83 percent in the Shia areas.19 The democratically elected government could, at any time, ask us to leave. It is almost inconceivable that we would remain in the country under these circumstances. The departure could hardly be more ignominious, as we left with our tail hanging between our legs.20
The second delusion is even more dangerously flawed: that if we leave before our mission is accomplished, those who sacrificed their lives will have died in vain. The fallacy in this reasoning is one of the central tenets of economics. There is a set of simple aphorisms that describe this point, including: “Let bygones be bygones.” To economists, these expenditures are known as sunk costs. In fact, there is an old joke among economists about a driver asking for directions to some destination. The reply? “I wouldn’t start from here.” None of us would have chosen to begin from here—but here we are. So the question is, what do we do, given where we are now? It makes no sense to send even more young Americans to die in vain.
A third delusion is that we “owe” it to Iraqis to help rebuild their country, given the damage we have inflicted, and that we should not leave until we have finished the task. As the expression goes, “You broke it, you fix it.” We obviously cannot bring back to life those who have been killed; but in this view, it would be immoral if we were to leave before we at least repaired the damage inflicted on the Iraqi economy. Yet having accomplished so little in the past five years—we were not even able to spend the Iraqi reconstruction funds effectively or to improve living conditions for average people, despite spending three times the amount per Iraqi that the United States spent per European in the Marshall Plan—there is little reason to believe that much progress is in store in the next year or two.
Even if, by staying longer, we do succeed in reducing temporarily the level of violence, there is little assurance that violence might not flare up after we depart. Vaunted “benchmarks”—like the creation of an effective coalition government—may provide an illusory guide to what will happen after we depart: there may be a broad consensus among Iraqis about the desirability of getting the United States out of the country, but not on the aftermath.
Conversely, a high level of violence does not necessarily mean that that level will be all the greater upon our departure. Indeed, as we have already noted, most Iraqis believe that we have contributed to the violence and that the level will fall after our departure. Our presence in Iraq may be impeding reconciliation efforts that are almost surely a precondition for successful reconstruction. If that is the case, a speedy departure would save both American and Iraqi lives. We should accept some responsibility for what we have done; but there are many ways to help Iraq, including support for multinational reconstruction efforts (probably not managed by Halliburton or other U.S. contractors with a demonstrated record of failure).
Misguided Exit Strategies
STAYING IN IRAQ in order to maintain our credibility, or so that those who have already died will not have died in vain, or so that we can finally repair the damage from our invasion, are three of the more obviously fallacious reasons offered for remaining. More thoughtful—but also flawed—are two widely discussed strategies for framing our exit. The first holds that the U.S. government needs to define some reasonable objectives and then leave as soon as we can credibly claim to have accomplished those objectives. But are there any objectives for which there is a reasonable possibility of accomplishment within, say, a two-year horizon? The art of setting goals lies in making sure they are attainable. Otherwise, only disappointment can result.
When we went into Iraq, the Bush administration offered a well-articulated objective: A free Iraq would inspire the creation of newly democratic states in the Middle East that would join the United States in the war against terrorism and perhaps even be willing to sign a peace agreement with Israel. The reality of the Middle East is now dominated by the increasing popularity of extremist factions such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood (in Egypt). Where there has been a democratic election—in Palestine—the voters supported the terrorist-linked Hamas Party.
Today, even the more modest goal of a stable and democratic Iraq appears unattainable.21 Few experts ever expected a strongly unified state; but some hoped that Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds would see mutual benefits in creating a workable federal system with high degrees of autonomy. Yet even this hope has eluded the country, and there are few signs of progress. A broader consensus now supports plans to define more limited benchmarks for Iraq and to threaten to leave if the country fails to meet them. These goals are far short of a democratic flowering of the Middle East; they focus on intermediate steps in Iraq that are supposed to indicate progress toward achieving more fundamental goals—steps like the passage of an oil law dividing revenues, or the creation of an effective domestic police force.
A simple notion underlies this approach: If we set clear goals, Iraqis will have a strong incentive to act in a concerted way to satisfy them. If they do not succeed, we should wash our hands of the whole matter. In both the Democratic and Republican parties, there seems to be some faith that this will work. But this approach is also flawed: it treats the Iraqi government and people as if they were a single, rational individual. In fact, there are almost surely members of the current Iraqi government who want it to fail. If they believe that the United States will carry out its threat of withdrawal, the prospect provides them with increased incentives to engage in delaying tactics. To the extent that the U.S. policies coincide with the interests of one group or another, it is almost inevitable that others will believe that they could cut a better deal if America left. Thus, the benchmark approach is almost doomed to failure.
Moreover, our threat of withdrawal has not been credible.22 If Bush himself were to order U.S. forces out of Iraq, it would be admitting defeat on his own watch. No president wants to do this; not Johnson during Vietnam, and certainly not George W. Bush. For those in Iraq who favor U.S. withdrawal, their best strategy is to persuade America’s voters that the price of staying in Iraq is too high. Vietnam understood this and ultimately convinced the United States to leave.
The Political Economy of Leaving
THE DIFFICULTY THAT Bush has faced in leaving Iraq provides an example of a widely discussed phenomenon. This phenomenon, known as “the risk of escalating commitment,” states that those undertaking a war—or any other failed project—have a tendency to extend commitments when they should be cutting their losses. The risk of escalating commitment has several root causes. Earlier, we noted that rational decision making includes “treating bygones as bygones.” But there is extensive evidence that in large organizations, this often does not happen. The problem is particularly severe because those making the decisions do not fully bear the consequences of their mistakes. In the case of Iraq, although the probability of salvaging the war may be small, leaders may undertake a strategy with a low probability of success because the potential gain from saving their reputation is large (whereas if they fail, their reputation will not be much lowered). They do not bear the brunt of the costs—either the economic costs or the cost in lives.
In December 2006, President Bush was given a clear opportunity to change course: the bipartisan Iraq Study Group results, combined with strong voter reaction in the 2006 election, provided an opening for an early exit. Many Republicans hoped that a quick withdrawal would reduce the likelihood that Iraq would be a pivotal issue in the 2008 election. With voter sentiment more than two to one against the war, Republican leaders had every reason to want the issue off the table. Instead, the president remained adamant about staying in—even as one after another member of his own party urged a major change in course.
Bush’s stance will place his successor in a difficult position. If the new president orders a rapid departure, he (or she) will be blamed for the chaos that might follow. Bush and his team will say (and believe) that had his successor shown the resoluteness that he had shown, things would have turned out differently. If no rapid departure is ordered, the Iraq war will quickly become the new president’s war. At that point, the risk of escalating commitment will again set in. If thousands more Americans are killed and wounded, the new president will have to explain his (or her) mismanagement of the war. The war will sap the energy of the next administration and divert attention away from the myriad other critical problems that our country faces.
The prescription, then, is clear: Unless there is a marked change in the likelihood of peace and security as a result of the continued presence of U.S. troops between the time these words are written and the new president comes into power, there should be a rapid withdrawal. Americans will need to be told the ugly truth: there is no easy way out of the tragedy that has unfolded in Iraq.
Why America’s Continued Presence May Make Matters Worse
BY NOW, A massive amount has been written on the sources of America’s failure, based on the disastrous consequences of a few key decisions. Paul Bremer’s decision to dissolve the Iraqi armed forces, combined with the failure to secure munitions supplies and to restart the economy, created large numbers of disaffected, unemployed, and armed Iraqi soldiers—an explosive recipe for creating an insurgency.23 The de-Baathification program—firing those affiliated with Saddam Hussein’s party, even if they had joined the party only out of necessity—not only increased disaffection but also deprived the country of people capable of managing vital parts of the economy. The deployment of troops to protect the oil ministry and production facilities, while failing to safeguard Iraq’s magnificent antiquities and stores of munitions, reinforced cynicism that the invasion was simply a ploy for taking over lucrative resources. Rumsfeld’s refusal to allow competitive bidding for billions of dollars of reconstruction money—instead, relying on the usual cabal of Washington Beltway defense contractors—led to delays that resulted in a plummeting standard of living and squandering of our only real opportunity to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
There was, however, a more fundamental problem with America’s military strategy—a lesson we should have learned from Vietnam. We had a number of contradictory stances: we wanted to “shock and awe” Saddam Hussein’s followers into subservience, but at the same time, we knew that we had to win their backing. We wanted to promote democracy, but we knew that America was not popular in the Middle East. Similarly, the Bush administration never fully grasped that a majority of the citizens—the Shiites—might not only favor a radical Islamic government (of the kind that we were opposing in Iran and Afghanistan), but even see itself as an ally of Iran. As we have noted, our intervention has led, for the first time in the history of modern Iraq, to a religiously inclined government, making the task of national reconciliation and forming a unified, if federal, government, all the more difficult. Stiglitz raised these dilemmas with one of the senior Bush officials responsible for Iraqi reconstruction shortly before his departure for Iraq in 2003. The official acknowledged that there might have to be a re-education of the Iraqis; he assumed that we could do that—and that we had the time to do it. America’s decades of steadfast and often one-sided support of Israel had earned the enmity of almost all Arabs, whether Sunnis or Shiites—it was one thing that united them. And since Bush had taken office, relations deteriorated further, spurred on by actions such as Bush’s unremitting backing of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who was anathema in the Arab world.
We miscalculated the consequences of our actions and their costs—and we designed our policies in ways that were self-defeating. Even with the best of strategies, we might have been defeated; but with the strategy that we adopted, failure was almost inevitable. We expected that our presence in Iraq would galvanize Iraqis to support our efforts; but our presence changed the environment in ways that instead incentivized many Iraqis to oppose us.
First, the administration assumed a partial equilibrium model, which did not take into account that the supply of those fighting us was endogenous, that is, it could be affected by what we did.24 With a fixed supply, killing one enemy would reduce the number of enemy soldiers by one. With a supply that responds to actions, killing one enemy could actually increase the number of enemy soldiers. There is a general consensus now that U.S. actions led to an increase in the supply of insurgents. In particular, al Qaeda had no significant presence in Iraq before our entry—the secularist Hussein would not have tolerated such a strong fundamentalist group. Today, it appears to be one of the main sources of the insurgency. Indeed, our very presence in Iraq provides fuel for the insurgency. America is seen not as the liberator, but as the occupier. In any country, it is noble to fight for one’s freedom against the occupier.
What is clear is that any occupation government—or at least any government that we approve of—almost surely will be viewed as a puppet and may well not survive our departure. Like it or not, we have become toxic. The United States has no credibility, and neither does any government that we help install. Nor does the current government have enough credibility in Iraq to bring all the disparate groups together. Iraq risks joining the list of failed states—countries whose governments are unable to provide the basics required for society to function, including maintaining law and order. With each senseless killing, the cycle of recrimination and revenge continues, and with it the likelihood that more violence and chaos will erupt upon our departure.
The fact that our presence, which should have united Iraqis against us, has failed to bring the various factions together illustrates the depth of the fissures in Iraqi society. But even if those within the country could unite temporarily in their common cause against the United States, it does not mean that they will act in a concerted way after we leave. Some analysts suggest that, once we leave and the Iraqis can turn their attention toward living with each other, they will find common ground. That may be the case—though there is little evidence to support such a sanguine view—but it is also possible that the fissures that have increased during the five years of our occupation run so deep that reconciliation will not be easy; the risk is that the longer we stay, the deeper the fissures, and the harder the task of national reconciliation.
Second, much of our thinking about Iraq was inflected with the old-style deterrence thinking that dominated military strategy during the Cold War. A strong America deterred the USSR from using its weapons. An aggressive America in Iraq would, in this theory, deter opposition. But again we applied the model incorrectly, and again it became increasingly clear that the model itself was inappropriate.
Deterrence theory is based on the assumption that all participants behave rationally. In a rational model, an individual makes the decision to join the insurgency or not by looking at the consequences—what are his or her “life prospects” in each of the alternatives. That in turn is affected by perceptions of the likely winner and what a “victory” might look like. In Iraq, there is no reason to join the side of the occupying forces and the government that the United States installed. The United States has not been able to create jobs, get the economy working, or maintain law and order. We noted such serious mistakes as dissolving the army and excluding former Baathists from key positions. Those left jobless by these moves had no incentive to support the current government but every reason to support the alternative: the insurgency. The larger the number of individuals in the insurgency, the higher the probability of its success, and therefore the more individuals that will continue to join it.
In any war, there is “collateral damage”—the loss of life and property of innocent bystanders. In this war, where winning the support of the Iraqi people was critical, the magnitude of the collateral damage—and the degree of sensitivity of the United States to it—required careful attention. America might view an individual who is unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and so dies as “unfortunate”; but the Iraqis may see such “accidents”—when they occur frequently—as evidence of a pattern of deliberate disregard for Iraqi life and property. It is easy for the opposition to exploit such perceptions. They can also make it easier to recruit insurgents, or at least enhance one’s willingness to help insurgents.25 The U.S. military keeps detailed count of its own dead and injured26 and goes to enormous lengths to rescue American soldiers if they are in danger. This stands in marked contrast to how Iraqis are sometimes treated. The readiness of the Bush administration to discount the only studies using statistical techniques to estimate “excess” deaths of Iraqis—studies that show deaths in excess of half a million27—reinforces perceptions that there is a double standard.
These arguments are reinforced by the failure of judicial procedures. If good individuals are treated badly (e.g., tortured), then there is little incentive to be good. One risks being tortured whether one supports the insurgency or not. What may matter is the differential accuracy of the two “judicial” systems. If they punish only those who are complicit with the occupation, and we punish many who are not complicit with the insurgency, individuals have an incentive to join the insurgency. What matters is the relationship between our punishment and their punishment, and, most important, the accuracy with which punishments are levied.28
There may exist a tipping point, such that when that threshold (measured in terms of the fraction of the population in the insurgency) is crossed, the equilibrium to which the society converges is not the one in which groups co-exist peacefully within a single country.29 That is, as more people join the insurgency, the likelihood of success for the American vision of a united Iraq diminishes. No one wants to be on the losing side of any conflict. What is true for Iraq is also true for America, and the Iraqi insurgents know this: The fact that the United States has not been able to “pacify” the country after five years may not have discouraged Bush and Cheney. No doubt, they believe their own rhetoric of optimism. But to most Americans—increasingly, even to many American troops—the prospects of an American “victory” are dim. To many, our ambition at this point should be more modest: to leave with dignity. The remaining questions are tactical: how fast we can get our troops home and the implications of various levels of withdrawal; they are no longer strategic questions about how to succeed and win.
These conclusions about our ability to deter the insurgents are strengthened once one takes into account certain other “non-rational” behavioral responses. For the Iraqi side, the fact that individuals are willing to commit suicide means that the usual kinds of deterrence strategies not only may be less effective, but may even be counterproductive.30
Every society is likely to react strongly against outsiders who are insensitive to cultural mores. Most of our young soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen have performed with great sensitivity, showing empathy to the Iraqi and Afghan people and their terrible plight. Letters we have received show how much our troops want to improve the situation and how hard they are working to alleviate the suffering of local communities. The stories that circulate in the Iraqi media and by word of mouth are the exceptions: cases of U.S. soldiers detaining, interrogating, humiliating, and even torturing innocent Iraqis. But these stories have shaped Iraqi public opinion. Naturally, Iraqis are outraged and our enemies, such as al Qaeda, are clever at exploiting this outrage.
The asymmetry here is that the wrongful conviction of an innocent creates a martyr, which is not offset by the rightful conviction of the guilty (or even the rightful release of the innocent). That is why we should be attentive to procedures associated with arresting and holding those accused of wrongdoing. U.S. policy has conspicuously failed to do this. We are currently holding 26,000 alleged “insurgents” in U.S. custody, with another 37,000 in Iraqi custody.31 But it is not clear how we define insurgents. Many of those imprisoned may have been indifferent to the United States before we arrested them; internment may make them into active insurgents when they are released.
In addition, we have greatly harmed our own interests by asking Iraqis to share our antipathy to “insurgents.” For example, during the battle of Fallujah, Iraqi doctors said that the United States opened fire on emergency workers, stretchers, vehicles, and hospitals—supposedly because they were treating wounded who included a number of insurgents. Dr. Salam Ismael, a surgeon working in Fallujah shortly after the first U.S. sieges on the city, describes the intense frustration in a recent British documentary film. “How did we know who was an insurgent and who was not?” he asks. “Do you think we could stop a person with his leg blown off to ask if he was a member of an insurgency faction? And even if he was—I swore the Hippocratic oath to treat anyone, regardless if he is American or Iraqi, insurgent or not.”32
There is a growing sentiment that things have gotten to the point where we cannot turn them around, at least not without commitments of resources and personnel well beyond the levels that America is willing to make. The tipping point has been reached. Staying another two years will simply add another 1,000 or more American bodies to the 4,000 who have already died in vain, and another 10,000 or more casualties to the 60,000 who have already been injured. When framed the correct way—not whether we should leave, but when we should leave—exit becomes simpler. It is a bleak situation. Leaving sooner rather than later is the only way to stop it from getting worse.
As this book goes to press, there is in America a wave of relief: the “surge” seems to have succeeded in reducing violence, especially in Baghdad, and with the reduced violence and the increasing economic problems facing the nation, the war in Iraq has ceased to be the number one issue for many voters. But, as we noted, it is not that the violence has ceased: every week there are reports of attacks that kill twenty-five or more people, attacks that almost anywhere else would be headline news. It is only that in Iraq, we have become so inured to massive violence that when it becomes slightly less pounding, it seems acceptable. Nor does reduced violence today tell us much about what will happen after our departure, whether that departure occurs in six months or six years. The military would like to claim credit for the reductions in violence—the surge of troops. To the extent that this is the primary cause, it is troubling: does it mean we will have to maintain these troop levels to sustain the relative quiet? There are also numerous other factors (e.g., the willingness of Iran to provide support), many of which are outside our control. In short, we are unconvinced that the observed reduction in violence has fundamentally changed the analysis of this chapter. The critical question remains: Will matters be substantially better upon our departure two, or six, years from now, enough better to justify the deaths and casualties in the interim?