I know, I know, this has been done before. But still, Tacitus' Seven Questions about what to do with Iraq are worth answering.
1) What is your primary value with regard to Iraq? Secondary?
Primarily, I want Iraq to be a democracy, not a theocracy or a dictatorship, not only to provide an example to the rest of the Arab world that there is a way forward, but to allow the Iraqi people to prosper and have control over their own lives. Secondary to this is that Iraq must be stable, without insurgents and terrorists running all over the place. However, I do recognize that sometimes democracy can be a little bit rough and tumble. As democracy grows, and Iraqis inevitably figure out that it's a better system than what they had before, violent insurgency and terrorism will gradually become a thing of the past. (Behind these first two, my third objective for the U.S. in Iraq would be to establish a permanent military base there, so that we can 1) better defend Iraq against any would-be agressors, either from states or terrorist groups, and 2) to let Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, et. al. that we are not going to turn a blind eye to their support of terrorism, or their acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, any longer; to somewhat mangle Voltaire, it will "encourage the others."
2) What sort of state and society do you prefer in Iraq if you leave?
As far as a government, I would probably prefer some kind of federal union (either along the lines of the current 18 Iraqi provinces or along new provincial lines for Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish Areas). I would also like to see a parliamentary, bicameral government (the Swiss model, I think, is ideal) , with elections along the British model (elections must be held at least once every five years).
As far as Iraqi society, I would like it to be democratic, peaceful, and tolerant (so wouldn't everybody), but which does not support terrorism, oppress women or religious minorities, or lives under the thumb of theocracy. The question of Islam is a thorny one; ideally, I would like to see a deal similar to what's in place right here in the USA: a recognized place for religious faith, and a guaranteed right to practice religion, but at the same time, which makes religion completely independant of the levers of government power. For example, if Iraq wanted to have shari'a law, I would have no problem with it, as long as 1) the Iraqi people (not the clerics) freely chose it through the democratic process, and 2), the people retained the right to change their minds if they don't like how it turns out.
3) What are you unwilling to do to achieve goals 1 and 2?
-Commit any egregious human rights violations (i.e. Stalinist mass slaughter of all who oppose our might, "burning the village in order to save it," mass imprisonments, etc.)
- Establish any kind of "strong-man" or "Saddam Lite."
- Cut ANY deals with terrorist or insurgent groups that do not include their total surrender and disarmament.
4) What immediate action would you take upon assumption of command?
- Redeploy some U.S. troops (50-60% of current total strength) out of Shiite and Kurdish areas, and put them in the Sunni Triangle.
- Bring back the Free Iraqi forces that the INC had established. Use them and the Kurdish Peshmerga alongside U.S. units as translators and local liasons.
- Accelerate the recruiting and training of Iraqi police and army soldiers. In particular, Locate english-speaking junior officers and NCO's from Saddam's regular Army who were not Baathists, and send them to U.S. officer and NCO schools. Once their training is complete, use them to train more officers and NCOs.
- Lean on Syria to stop accepting Saddam's hidden money and weapons caches, and stop allowing foriegn jihadis to pass through on their way to Iraq. Establish checkpoints on the Iraq-Syrian border that all traffic have to pass through. Detain anyone smuggling weapons, money, or terrorists into or out of Iraq. Announce that, if necessary, the U.S. will begin mining the border.
- Declare any non-Iraqi terrorist entering Iraq to be an "illegal combatant" for the purposes of the Geneva Convention, and send them to Guantanamo Bay.
- Get a 24-hour Iraqi Satellite TV network up and running, in Arabic, to keep Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya from monopolizing the news. NOW.
- Find out what the Saddamites are paying as rewards for attacks on coalition troops and civilians. Offer 50% more for info leading to the arrest of known militants, as well as per-item bounties for arms cashes (i.e. $20 bucks for an AK-47, $100 for a SAM, $5 for an IED, etc.)
- Encourage the new Iraqi government to repudiate its foriegn debts (about $194.1 billion worth of debt and pending contracts.) They're called "odious debts" for a reason. (This will also let the Russians and French know that perfidity has a consequence, as they were big creditors for Saddam.) Work with the Iraqis and the UN to restructure reperations payments arising out of the first gulf war.
- Establish a micro-loan program to allow Iraqis to restart their old businesses, or start new ones.
- Establish an Iraqi Works Progress Adminstration to 1) employ Iraqis, 2) repair infrastructure to make Iraq more attractive for investment, 3) clean up the environmental damage the Hussein regieme has done, and 4) get Iraqis used to working with one another.
- Begin work on restoring the Marshlands in the south of Iraq.
- Begin investigating genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed by the Hussein regieme. Establish a mixed tribunal of American, British, Iraqi, and Kuwaiti judges, as well as a joint prosecutorial staff, and begin indicting former regieme leaders.
- Send out feelers to the Governing Council and local/tribal leaders about securing permanent basing rights in Iraq for 1-2 Army divisions, an Air Force wing, and maybe some Marines, as well as propose a mutual defense pact (the U.S. will defend Iraq against any act of agression by any state or terrorist group).
- Visit Iraq again. Stay for a few days, meet with ordinary Iraqis as well as U.S. troops. Make a major speech announcing that we are staying in Iraq until the job is done.
- Above all, reassure the Iraqi people that we are not going to throw them to the wolves, that we will stay as long as they want us there. And they DO want us there.
5) What long-term action would you take?
As far as Iraq goes:
- As noted before, establish a permanent military presence in Iraq, and continue training and Iraqi Army and Police force. Keep Iraq moving slowly towards self-government. (i.e. a constitution, free elections, national and provinicial governments, etc.) Once it has become clear that the Iraqi government is strong enough to conduct general law enforcement and put down any Baathist or terrorist flare-ups, I would gradually take U.S. troops out of enforcement mode and keep them on their reservations, just letting thr Iraqis know that we're there if they need us.
- Sign and ratify the aformentioned defense pact with Iraq (i.e. The U.S. military will defend Iraq in case of foreign invasion or terrorism).
- Keep up cultural exhange (i.e. VOA broadcasts, Marshall scholarhips, academic and technology exchanges).
- Sign a free-trade agreement with Iraq.
Not much new. The deeper changes, I think, will have to come within the U.S. government itself. We must understand that we are facing an enemy that is just as subtle and ruthless as the Soviet Union was. We need to restructure the U.S. government to fight radical Islamism just as we confronted communism.
Departmental Changes:
State Department:
- Retain Powell (he's a very capable diplomat), but fire everyone at the deputy, assistant, and undersecretary levels, with maybe a few exceptions for people who have followed the Commander-in-Chiefs orders without bitching to the Washington Post every 10 minutes. Make it publicly clear that the basic policy of the Iraq war in particular, and the war on terror in general, is no longer up for debate anywhere in the government, and that people who do not agree will either keep it to themselves or turn in their resignations. In America, policy flows down, not up.
- I would probably bring Wolfowitz over from Defense and make him deputy Secretary of State (Second behind Powell). This will shock a lot of people (i.e. Europe) but it will also bring some clear-eyed analysis to State, as well as convince the rest of the world that we really are serious. I would then fill all the vacant leadership posts with people who were experts in their area (paying especially close attention to the Public Diplomacy chief), and who understand the stakes involved.
- In addition, I would establish an Executive Undersecretary of State for Administration and Planning, who would be responsible for reforming the State Department to better communicate with other countries and people (expanding the Foreign Service, providing more opportunities for mid-career training, and most importantly, eliminating the tenure system for Foreign Service Officers so that they can be fired for insubordination or incompetence.) I wonder if this guy's free...
- Right now, State is divided along along career lines (i.e. Political, Economic, Administrative, etc.). I would change the basic structure of the State Department so that Regional Chiefs (Western Hemisphere, African, European/Eurasian, Near Eastern, South Asian, East Asian/Pacific) and some Functional Chiefs who deal with worldwide issues (Public Diplomacy, Global Affairs, Arms Control, and International Organizations, as well as the new Administration/Planning post) would be at the top. Regional Assistant Secretaries would be responsible for everything in their region (Political, Economic, Trade, Agriculture, Consular, Cultural). Most of the Functional areas are pretty much self-evident.
- The one that isn't is Public Diplomacy. Let's face it, the U.S. does a piss-poor job of getting its message out to the rest of the world. The fine people at the United States Information Agency Alumni Association have a lot of reform ideas, all of which I would probably implement. Most important will be a doubling of the U.S.'s Public Diplomacy budget, along with continued support for programs like VOA and Radio Sawa.
Defense:
- We're running short on troops. Let's just admit it. Gen. Shinseki (ex-Army Chief of Staff) may have been an empty suit, (Rumor has it he spent too much time sucking up to Congress because he's being groomed to replace Sen. Inouye) but he had it right when he said "beware a 12-division strategy for a 10 division army." We had a 12-division Army in the Gulf War, all-volunteer, we could easily do that again. I would add those two divisions, possibly more if we could afford it and get enough new soldiers.
- At the same time, I'd scrap the "Total Force" doctrine that requires the U.S. to activate Reserve and Guard troops for any kind of sustained military operation, which, as I've noted before, is nothing but a Vietnam-era hangover. These repeated troop call ups are too damaging to the U.S. in terms of economics (these reservists and Guardsmen have jobs which they have to leave) and public safety (many reservists and Guardsmen are police officers, firefighters, EMT's, and doctors); but most of all, they are not fair to our Guard and Reserve soldiers, who have lives and families outside the military, and who did not sign up to be called to active duty for two years straight. I would transfer most of our serious combat capability to the active duty force, and I would entice current Guard and Reserve troops to go back to active duty with bonuses. I'd keep some reserve forces around, (a real "contingency" force), but I'd confine the National Guard to civil defense and homeland security missions.
- As far as divisions go, I would also create a dedicated peacekeeping division, drawn mostly from the Military Police and Civil Affairs branches, (MP's are trained to deal with civilians in ambiguous situations, and Civil Affairs soldiers are experts in everything from school rebuilding to administering courts.)
- And if the Army bitches and moans and tries to fight this...well, we could always use more Marines...
- Air Force can pretty much stay as is (though, based on how much ground forces will be needed in future campaigns, I would seriously start pushing for a replacement for the A-10 over the much-overhyped Joint Strike Fighter). I would also keep the Navy as is, but with the addition of more littoral-area capability (i.e. these).
Intelligence
- Get rid of George Tenet. It's time for new blood.
- Find the idiot or idiots who set up Mr. Wilson's perfunctory joke mission to Niger and fire their asses too. This was a blatant case of the CIA slanting intelligence to fit their own policy, rather than the president's. (The president is an elected policymaker. He does not answer to the CIA for what he does with intelligence. If he wants to believe certain pieces of intelligence and not others, that's his business. The CIA answers to the President, who in turn answers to the voters.) It comes down to the same issue that I brought up with the State Department. Policy flows down, not up.
-Expand the Clandestine Service (Human Intelligence.) The terrorists already know how to fool our technical intelligence. Only human beings can tell what Saddam or Osama's next intentions are.
- I think William Odom hit it on the head in Fixing Intelligence. Basically, what Odom wants to do is break up the intelligence community into different functional areas. (CIA would be broken up. The Director of Central Intelligence would continue to be the president's Intelligence advisor, but there would be seperate agencies for human intelligence (CIA's Directorate of Operations), signals intelligence(NSA), imagery intelligence(NGA which apparently is NIMA's new name), military intelligence (DIA), as well as establishing a seperate counter-intelligence agency that takes over the FBI's CI functions. (I'd probably establish a seperate agency to do open-source intelligence as well. Why pay for a spy or a satellite to get information that's already out there for free?)
Other
- All of these recommendations, obviously, require more people. (Specifically young people, who want to serve their country.) That's why the National Security Education Program (currently under the thumb of leftist professors) needs a thorough revamping. In fact, I would propose making the NSEP into as big a program as ROTC, and with the same trade-off: the government will pay for part of college (all of it in the case of someone we really need, like an Arabic major), in exchange for civilian service in national security after graduation (in the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, DIA, etc). And I would establish a new rule that any institution which discriminates against students on ROTC or NSEP scholarships, or against students seeking government or military employment will lose federal funding. (It's called the Solomon Amendment, people. Get used to it.)
We all need to remember that Iraq is just one part of a larger war, a war that may last for the next 20 years or more. It's time to start planning accordingly.
(Oh, and have the Democrats figure out that unless they pull their heads out of their asses on the war on terrorism they will continue to lose ground in Congress. But what are the odds of that happening?)
6) At what point would you declare your plan a failure?
If a majority of the Iraqi people become hostile and join the opposition, then it'll be time to go. But if we treat the Iraqis with respect, and let the world know we are dealy freakin' serious about staying in Iraq (i.e. re-elect Bush in a landslide), we will get a lot fewer problems.
7) How much time are you willing to allot to your occupation?
As long as necessary. In fact, having a permanent military presence in the Middle East, much as we have had with Germany, Japan and Korea might not be such a bad thing after all.
Bonus) How will you pay for it all?
Well, thanks to the wonderful folks at Citizens Against Government Waste, I've made up a sheet with about 400 or so programs which could be cut or restructured to save money; $135.8 billion in the first year, $1.03 trillion over five years. (Not to mention that, by my guess, maybe 1/3 of the $328 billion in discretionary spending in this years omnibus spending bill is pork.) More than enough to do the reconstruction, give Iraq a hefty chunk of change, and maybe help out with the deficit to boot.
Wow.
That took a long time and a lot of thought.
Maybe rebuilding a country isn't so easy after all.
E-mails welcome.
Posted by Thief at December 9, 2003 05:19 PM