LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

Initial Planning and Execution in Afghanistan and Iraq
sectarian violence and often encouraged it by Shiite militias, sometimes from
within Iraqi security forces and ministries.
Sadly, much of the post-invasion state of affairs had been predicted. Many
government and civilian experts had spoken well and loudly about the dangers
of postwar Iraq, but their warnings were not heeded. For example, in September
2002, 33 of the most renowned U.S. international relations scholars,
many of them normally considered right-wing realists, signed an open letter
declaring the “war with Iraq is not in America’s national interest.” 128 Many analysts
believed that the war and the subsequent peace would both be difficult.
Planners and senior decisionmakers could have made better use of the report
by the Department of State Future of Iraq Project, the 2002 National Defense
University workshop “Iraq: Looking Beyond Saddam’s Rule,” 129 or the Army
War College’s Strategic Studies Institute report titled Reconstructing Iraq: Insights,
Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario,
all of which were U.S. Government–sponsored efforts.
The Army study, previewed at a conference in December 2002, concluded
that “Iraq presents far from ideal conditions for achieving strategic goals.
. . . Rebuilding Iraq will require a considerable commitment of American resources,
but the longer U.S. presence is maintained, the more likely violent
resistance will develop.” 130 The study went on to recommend that the U.S. military
prepare in detail for 135 postwar tasks. Senior NSC staff officials tried but
failed to get the Army study briefed to interagency partners. 131
Planners in OSD Policy, led by Deputy Assistant Secretary Christopher J.
Lamb, also did a study on the significant potential for widespread lawlessness
in postwar Iraq. 132 The OSD Policy leadership passed this study to the Pentagon’s
uniformed leadership and asked them to send it to USCENTCOM.
The command did not respond to the analysis and likely did not have enough
troops on hand to solve the security problems that arose after the completion
of conventional operations.
The declassified January 2003 Intelligence Community Assessment—a
document of lesser stature than a full National Intelligence Estimate—on postwar
Iraq also concluded that building “an Iraqi democracy would be a long, difficult,
and probably turbulent process, with potential for backsliding into Iraq’s
tradition of authoritarianism.” It went on to highlight postwar Iraq as an environment
offering opportunity to al Qaeda and to note the high probability of
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