Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” - Prof. Joel Hayward's ...

Starting with a Blank Sheet: Principles of War for a New Century
saying that 4th ID troops tried hard to look “mean <strong>and</strong> ugly” while sitting on <strong>the</strong>ir vehicles
“with weapons pointed directly at civilians.” 443 They usually rousted “suspects” in <strong>the</strong>
middle of <strong>the</strong> night, using foul language <strong>and</strong> force, which embarrassed <strong>the</strong> males in front
of <strong>the</strong>ir families <strong>and</strong> led to a “blood debt” attitude of hatred for <strong>the</strong> Americans. Tellingly,
he titles one of his chapters “The Descent into Abuse,” which is a sobering condemnation
of <strong>the</strong> US military in Iraq as it documents dozens of cases of abuse of <strong>the</strong> population; that
population whose hearts <strong>and</strong> minds we were supposedly trying to win. The wrong troops
were employing <strong>the</strong> wrong tactics.
It should also be noted it has become a matter of faith to most ground officers in <strong>the</strong>
US <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir supporters in <strong>the</strong> press that too few ground troops were deployed to Iraq
from <strong>the</strong> very beginning. In mid-2006 a number of retired ground generals called for
Rumsfeld’s head while solemnly intoning that <strong>the</strong>y knew all along that Rumsfeld’s
strategy was fatally flawed. Not one of <strong>the</strong>se generals said so at <strong>the</strong> time. They waited
until <strong>the</strong>y were comfortably retired before opening <strong>the</strong>ir mouths. 444 In truth, however,
<strong>the</strong> serious problems experienced in Iraq seem not to have been a problem of having too
few ground troops, but ra<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> wrong types of troops; while also having those troops
poorly led.
For example, during <strong>the</strong> looting of Baghdad after <strong>the</strong> fall of <strong>the</strong> regime, <strong>the</strong> more than
40,000 US troops present in <strong>the</strong> city were not given orders to stop <strong>the</strong> looters: “it was not
our mission” one infantry lieutenant stated, while <strong>the</strong> 3rd Infantry Division’s after-action
report states bluntly: “<strong>the</strong>re was no guidance for restoring order in Baghdad.” 445
As for <strong>the</strong> egregious abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib, <strong>the</strong> problem again was not
insufficient troops. Although <strong>the</strong>re were but 360 army reservists serving as jailors <strong>the</strong>re,
<strong>the</strong> real problem was that some units, like <strong>the</strong> 4th ID, dumped thous<strong>and</strong>s of prisoners into
<strong>the</strong> system who clearly should not have been detained <strong>and</strong> imprisoned in <strong>the</strong> first place. 446
Regarding <strong>the</strong> tinderbox of Fallujah, Ricks argues that <strong>the</strong> city’s populace was “known for
<strong>the</strong>ir cultural conservatism <strong>and</strong> xenophobia considered intense even by o<strong>the</strong>r Iraqis.” 447
How would inserting more foreign infidels, especially aggressive ones like <strong>the</strong> 4th ID,
into that cauldron have made things better? As it was, Fallujah had four different units
“h<strong>and</strong>ling it” for <strong>the</strong> year following April 2003. Small wonder <strong>the</strong> troops were unable to
establish a rapport with <strong>the</strong> local population. Again, this was not a problem of too few
boots on <strong>the</strong> ground.
In short, all of <strong>the</strong>se instances were problems of leadership, not a paucity of ground troops.
Better leadership <strong>and</strong> policy decisions – developed from an underst<strong>and</strong>ing of <strong>the</strong> nature
184
<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror”