Fwd: Scheduling War - By Michael T. Klare

[Mark Pavlick]

>
>Scheduling War
>By Michael T. Klare
>
>Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at
>Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and the author of Resource Wars: The
>New Landscape of Global Conflict (2001 Owl Books / Henry Holt).
>
>For months, the attention of much of the world has been focused on the
>diplomatic contest at the United Nations over the wording of Security
>Council resolutions on Iraq and the scope of UN weapons inspections.  This
>has led many observers to conclude that the pace and timing of the coming
>showdown with Iraq has largely been determined by the dynamics of diplomatic
>debate in New York.  But nothing could be further from the truth: from the
>very beginning, the timing of the war with Iraq has been set by the evolving
>character of the American war plan.
>
>It is now apparent that the White House gave its initial approval for a war
>with Iraq some time ago, well before President Bush uttered his "axis of
>evil" statement in February 2002.  By the spring of 2002, the
>Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), General Tommy R.
>Franks, was well advanced in early preparations for a war, and was meeting
>regularly with senior Pentagon officials in Washington to develop the basic
>plan of attack.  By this point, senior American officials were also meeting
>with military and government leaders in friendly Middle Eastern countries to
>secure permission to deploy U.S. troops on their territory in anticipation
>of an assault on Iraq.
>
>But this is when an internal Pentagon struggle over timing and tactics
>arose.  Many senior officials in Washington, led by Defense Secretary Donald
>Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, favored an
>innovative plan of attack that would require a relatively small invasion
>force of approximately 50,000-75,000 U.S. combat troops.  This plan, modeled
>on the war in Afghanistan, would have relied on the heavy use of American
>airpower combined with the extensive use of U.S. Special Forces and "proxy"
>armies made up of anti-Hussein Kurds and Shiites.  This plan was
>particularly attractive to many Administration officials because it could be
>implemented quickly, by the early fall of 2002, thus reducing the risk that
>international diplomacy and domestic protest would be able to erect any
>barriers to a U.S. attack.
>
>The "Afghanistan Redux" plan was opposed, however, by many senior military
>officers -- uncomfortable from the beginning with the idea of invading Iraq
>and occupying Baghdad -- who feared that the small American invasion force
>would be chewed up by Iraqi armored divisions.  They lobbied instead for a
>more conservative plan, entailing the deployment of about 200,000 American
>combat troops, backed up by a powerful armada of ships and planes.  This
>plan, sometimes called "Desert Storm Lite," would have required an
>additional several months to put into motion, pushing the theoretical
>starting date for a war into February 2003.
>
>All last summer, senior Administration officials fought over which of these
>plans (or variations thereof) should be adopted.  On one side in this debate
>were the Administration "chickenhawks" (so called because they had largely
>avoided military duty over the course of their careers) like Rumsfeld,
>Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith (the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy); on
>the other side were career military officers, led by General Franks of
>CENTCOM.  According to some reports, Franks was repeatedly sent back to his
>headquarters in Florida to redesign the attack plan because his proposals
>were considered too conservative (i.e., too slow) by the chickenhawks in
>Washington.
>
>>From what can now be determined, it appears that President Bush finally
>made a decision on which of these invasion plans to follow in late August or
>very early in September.  Possibly fearing the political fallout of a
>battlefield disaster, should a lightly-equipped U.S. invasion force confront
>heavily-armed Iraqi forces, Bush selected the more conservative plan favored
>by Tommy Franks.  At that point, the countdown to war began in earnest as
>preparations got underway for the deployment of some 200,000 U.S. combat
>troops to the Middle East.
>
>But no matter how eager the chickenhawks were to go to war, it is not
>possible to move 200,000 troops and all their equipment to a battlefield
>8,000 miles away overnight.  It takes time: six months at a minimum.  So,
>when President Bush gave the go ahead in late August, the earliest starting
>time for the initial attack automatically became late February or early
>March of 2003, some two to three weeks from now.  So, since, early
>September, everyone in the know in Washington has been aware that the war
>will break out sometime around March 1st, give or take a few days.
>
>It was only after these decisions had been taken that President Bush went to
>the United Nations in New York and pleaded for one last effort to disarm
>Saddam Hussein through vigorous UN action.  Because his forces would not be
>ready to strike for another six months, Bush evidently concluded that he had
>nothing to lose by giving the UN more time to act, even though he clearly
>believed that UN action was pointless.  At the same time, going to New York
>and asking for UN action allowed him to quiet those domestic critics
>(including some senior Republicans) who felt that a veneer of international
>support was necessary to lend a degree of legitimacy to the planned U.S.
>invasion.
>
>All last fall, it appeared that U.S. diplomats led by Secretary of State
>Colin Powell were in agony over the slowness of deliberations at the UN
>Security Council.  But while there is no doubt that Powell genuinely sought
>international backing for the attack, he was never quite as anxious about
>the pace of events as he appeared to be because he knew that the fighting
>could not begin until February 2003, at the earliest.  It is only now, with
>the onset of battle but weeks ahead, that Powell is truly concerned about
>the tempo of diplomatic action  hoping, it appears, to obtain a second UN
>resolution authorizing the use of force before the troops commence their
>attack.
>
>Clearly, it has been the pacing of U.S. war preparations and not the
>political environment at the United Nations that has shaped Administration
>strategy over the past few months.  Until now, the White House has been able
>to conceal this underlying reality because so many eyes were focused on
>developments in New York.  Once the fighting begins, however, the outright
>cynicism and deceitfulness of the U.S. strategy will quickly become
>apparent, further turning world opinion against the United States.