Casualties? What Casualties, We're in the Base-Building Business Here

Two stories in the news today go pretty far to clarify the real reasons why we're in Iraq. First we learn that early in the war, the rush to Baghdad was more important than the safety of our troops:

From the first days of the invasion in March 2003, American forces had tangled with fanatical Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary fighters. Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, who was leading the Army's V Corps toward Baghdad, had told two reporters that his soldiers needed to delay their advance on the Iraqi capital to suppress the Fedayeen threat in the rear.

Soon after, General Franks phoned Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of allied land forces, to warn that he might relieve General Wallace.

The firing was averted after General McKiernan flew to meet General Franks. But the episode revealed the deep disagreements within the United States high command about the Iraqi military threat and what would be required to defeat it.

The paramilitary Fedayeen were numerous, well-armed, dispersed throughout the country, and seemingly determined to fight to the death. But while many officers in the field assessed the Fedayeen as a dogged foe, General Franks and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld saw them as little more than speed bumps on the way to Baghdad. Three years later, Iraq has yet to be subdued. Many of the issues that have haunted the Bush administration about the war — the failure to foresee a potential insurgency and to send sufficient troops to stabilize the country after Saddam Hussein's government was toppled — were foreshadowed early in the conflict. How some of the crucial decisions were made, the behind-the-scenes debate about them and early cautions about a sustained threat have not been previously known.

This is all taken from a new book called "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," by Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor. Gordon and Trainor have multiple sources, and they really get at the priorities of the military commanders:

Determined to spur his ground war commanders to renew the push toward Baghdad, Gen Franks flew to Gen McKiernan's headquarters on March 31, where he delivered some harsh criticism. Only the British and the Special Operations Forces had been fighting, he complained.

The most memorable moment came when Gen Franks said that he did not want to hear about casualties, even though no one had mentioned any, recalled several participants in the meeting. He put his hand to his mouth and made a yawning motion, as if to suggest that some casualties were not of major consequence to the attack.

The whole idea was to get to Baghdad as quickly as possible, taking the country and occupying it, without a thought as to the consequences after the invasion was over. So why was there this need to occupy so quickly? Certainly there was a PR component to it; the Administration didn't want to get bogged down in a longer war (good job with that one). But if we read between the lines of this Reuters article, it becomes clear:

The United States may want to keep a long-term military presence in Iraq to bolster moderates against extremists in the region and protect the flow of oil, the Army general overseeing U.S. military operations in Iraq said Tuesday.

While the Bush administration has downplayed prospects for permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid told a House subcommittee he could not rule that out.

Abizaid said that policy would be worked out with a unified, national Iraqi government if and when that is established, "and it would be premature for me to predict."

We had to get to Baghdad to make it seem like the war was over so we could start moving in the infrastructure for the permanent bases. We've been setting these up for years. This is from March of 2004:

From the ashes of abandoned Iraqi army bases, U.S. military engineers are overseeing the building of an enhanced system of American bases designed to last for years.

Last year, as troops poured over the Kuwait border to invade Iraq, the U.S. military set up at least 120 forward operating bases. Then came hundreds of expeditionary and temporary bases that were to last between six months and a year for tactical operations while providing soldiers with such comforts as e-mail and Internet access.

Now U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 "enduring bases," long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years. The bases also would be key outposts for Bush administration policy advisers.

As the U.S. scales back its military presence in Saudi Arabia, Iraq provides an option for an administration eager to maintain a robust military presence in the Middle East and intent on a muscular approach to seeding democracy in the region. The number of U.S. military personnel in Iraq, between 105,000 and 110,000, is expected to remain unchanged through 2006, according to military planners.

"Is this a swap for the Saudi bases?" asked Army Brig. Gen. Robert Pollman, chief engineer for base construction in Iraq. "I don't know. ... When we talk about enduring bases here, we're talking about the present operation, not in terms of America's global strategic base. But this makes sense. It makes a lot of logical sense."

The Coalition Provisional Authority had the mandate to build these bases when they assumed control in 2003. When it was split up into pieces following the handover of power, the purse strings fell into the hands of the Defense Department. The 2005 supplemental appropriation for Iraq included money for "permanent facilities" for military troops. There are about 172,000 different articles about permanent bases in Iraq, so I could go on and on.

The truth is that we probably wanted a little chaos in the country so we could distract the public from the setting up of permanent infrastructure, shifting our Middle Eastern forces in Saudi Arabia (a major contention for Bin Laden and the Wahhabists) into Iraq. This is probably more chaos than the White House expected or wanted. But it provides the same kind of cover.

There is no way we will ever have security in Iraq so long as we're building a permanent occupying presence there. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman of California, has asked for a clarification from the
White House on this issue.

...Military tools are inadequate to transform Iraq into a fully functioning democratic state capable of providing security and services for its people. This can only be accomplished through aggressive diplomacy to forge true power-sharing among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds.

And true power-sharing will not happen as long as Iraqis suspect the United States will maintain permanent military bases in Iraq and harbors designs on Iraqi oil.

I, therefore, urge you to make clear personally to the Iraqi people that the United States does not seek permanent military bases in Iraq and that Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqi people. Your continuing failure to clarify U.S. intentions provides an excuse for certain Iraqis to avoid compromise and jeopardizes our ability to succeed in Iraq.

Congresswoman Harman needs to keep pressing this. Email her and let her know we have her back.