CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

unconvinced. Danielle Pletka, of the American Enterprise Institute, argued: ‘They were
so casualty averse. They did nothing but bomb empty buildings.’ 60 Similarly, Richard
Perle, later to be a leading architect of the 2003 invasion policy, claimed that ‘(t)he
Clinton administration was totally risk averse. They allowed Saddam over eight years
to grow in strength. He was far stronger at the end of Clinton’s tenure than at the
beginning.’ 61*
More recently still the conduct of the US-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan yield
further examples of how risk-aversion and an unwillingness to commit sufficient troops
on the ground (and at most risk) impacts on the conduct of operations, with undesirable
moral consequences. The debate about US strategy in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in
particular Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s over-ruling of military advice on the numbers
of ground troops needed, and the inadequacy of plans for post-conflict control of the
country will continue to rage. They are well documented elsewhere but we should just
consider those aspects with direct relevance to this section. A later section will consider
the implications on the possible over-reliance on and over-confidence in the efficacy of
high-technology weapon systems. Of direct relevance here, though, is the argument
advanced by some critics of the US-led operation that inadequate troop levels,
especially post-conflict, contributed directly to the two most morally outrageous
incidents of the war: the systematic abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and the
massacre of civilians at Haditha. Thomas Ricks argues that both the lack of post-
conflict governance planning and its poor implementation on the one hand, and the
inadequate numbers of US (especially regular) troops played their part at Abu Ghraib:
Even within the military effort confusion reigned, especially in the ambiguous
but crucial area where military operations supported the functions of the civilian
occupation authority. Most crucially, the detention of prisoners was supposed to
be an Iraqi function – but because there was no Iraqi government, it became the
task of the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority). And because the CPA lacked
the personnel, resources, or inclination to handle the job, it had the military do it,
even though military commanders didn’t report to the CPA. This was one
reason the situation at the Abu Ghraib prison would get out of hand in the
following months: No one was really in charge of overseeing it. 62
* In fact the considerable evidence gained from the 2003 invasion suggests that Perle’s assessment was
widely inaccurate.
266