Tag Archives: Iraq

Boots on the ground [war]

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I’ve just finished reading Obama Wars by Bob Woodward which centered around the Obama administration’s decision to add troops to Afghanistan. It made me curious how troop strength had ebbed and flowed through the last ten years of war.

A quick search on the internet found a 72 page paper prepared for the Congressional Research Service, Troop Levels in the Afghan and Iraq Wars, FY2001-FY2012: Cost and Other Potential Issues by Amy Belasco. This paper provides an analysis of troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan and the costs associated with those troups.

Below is a table and graph of “boots on the ground” as measured through 2009 and estimated through 2012. Though the announced strategy is to begin drawing down troops in Afghanistan this July, the paper doesn’t project any reduction this or next year. The report also notes that…

“Although Boots on the Ground is the most commonly cited measure of troop strength, that measure does not include over 100,000 other troops deployed in the region providing theater- wide support for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), the Afghan War, and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the Iraq War.”

Average Monthly Boots On the Ground in Afghanistan and Iraq: FY2002-FY2012
Reported FY02-FY08, Estimated FY09-FY12, Rounded to Hundreds
Percentage Change
Fiscal
Year/Country		 Afghanistan Iraq Total Annual Since
FY2003		 Since
FY2008
FY2002 5,200 0 5,200 NA NA NA
FY2003 10,400 67,700 78,100 1402% NA NA
FY2004 15,200 130,600 145,800 87% 87% NA
FY2005 19,100 143,800 162,900 12% 109% NA
FY2006 20,400 141,100 161,500 -1% 107% NA
FY2007 23,700 148,300 172,000 7% 120% NA
FY2008 30,100 157,800 187,900 9% 141% NA
FY2009 50,700 135,600 186,300 -1% 139% -1%
FY2010 63,500 88,300 151,800 -19% 94% -19%
FY2011 63,500 42,800 106,200 -30% 36% -43%
FY2012 63,500 4,100 67,500 -36% -14% -64%
Average Monthly Boots On the Ground in Afghanistan and Iraq: FY2002-FY2012
A Belasco. (2009, July 2). Troop Levels in the Afghan and Iraq Wars, FY2001-FY2012: Cost and Other Potential Issues [pdf]. Available: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/

More estimates in real life

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Constraints

(July 2008) “There are some 146,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, down from a peak of 170,000 in 2007” — Reuters

“Although no decision has been made, by the time President Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, at least one and as many as 3 of the 15 combat brigades now in Iraq could be withdrawn or at least scheduled for withdrawal, the officials said. The most optimistic course of events would still leave 120,000 to 130,000 American troops in Iraq.” — NYT

(July 2007) “More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts… The numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis — all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars.” — LA Times

Goal

“(O)n my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war… ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected.” — Barack Obama

Estimate

“Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month” — Barack Obama

Target

“…that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010” — Barack Obama

A lot of attention has been placed on the target of sixteen months and whether Obama will stick to it. Obama has said, “I am going to do a thorough assessment when I’m there,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll have more information and continue to refine my policy.” This has been called a “flip flop” or “reversal”.

But this is a simplistic interpretation of both Obama’s position and the nature of a target. The target is informed by the estimate in an attempt to attain the goal. The target should change as new information provides better estimates and if the adjusted target better attains the goal.

comparitive us force levels by the congressional research serviceIt is not the target but the estimate and goal that need to be debated.

Who are the military experts? Does this estimate represent a consensus among these experts? What are the assumptions surrounding this estimate? Does a range of 1-2 brigades per month represent the full range of uncertainty? What are the set of risks that might scuttle this estimate?

What does safety mean in the context of a war? What does it mean to ensure our “interests” are “protected”? What kinds of events would threaten our interests and change the redeployment schedule?

As long as our public debate focuses on positional bargaining around targets we will continue to miss the point.

Estimates in real life

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The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs, begins:

“Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.”

The nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations concluded:

“(M)ost of the key judgments have since been debunked as inaccurate, false, or misleading. ”

“According to the Senate committee’s July 2004 report, analysts who wrote the NIE relied more on an assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) than on an objective evaluation of the information they were reviewing. This group-think dynamic, the report states, led analysts, intelligence collectors, and managers to ‘interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program’ and led them to ‘ignore or minimize evidence that Iraq did not have an active and expanding program.'”

A vast majority of senators did not read the whole report but only the summary or how that summary was represented by the administration.

“It’s probably pretty hard to say with 100 percent certainty how many read it,” the senior staffer said. “You can say with 100 percent certainty that it’s less than 10.” — The Hill

The unlikely became possible, the possible became probable, the probable became fact and the “facts” rallied a country to war.

Honesty, loyalty, and service

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I just found out that the ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, is an alumnus of my school, Whitman College.

It’s an interesting coincidence because I’ve been thinking alot about Renee Montagne’s February 7th NPR story:

Like his military counterpart, Lt. Gen. David Petreaus, the new top general in Iraq, Crocker raised questions about the conduct of the war. Now, Crocker and Petreaus are being asked — perhaps too late — to correct it.
…
Crocker and Petreaus will be sent to fix the troubled post-war situation that they warned of four years ago. [Barbara] Bodine [, former ambassador to Yemen,] wonders where the United States might be today, had Crocker and Petreaus been appointed earlier in the war.
“It will be one of the inevitable speculations of history,” she says.

As Demarco and Lister say in Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects, it can be futile to be the only one in the room acknowledging risk.

It really is so late.

Is it too late for professionals with relevant experience, appropriate authority and a willingness to entertain complexity?