Petraeus: Bad At His Job

A lot of liberal bloggers are circulating this David Petraeus op-ed from late September 2004, at the height of election season, where he praises the progress of the Iraqi security forces. This is clearly the work of a partisan political official and not a neutral observer, coming in on the side of the President at his hour of need.

But it's also important to understand what Petraeus' role was back in 2004 and 2005. He was in charge of training and strengthening the Iraqi security forces. His particular focus was the Army and the police. And so I think it's very instructive to compare what he was saying about those forces three years ago and the realities of the forces from the recently released Jones Report. Because if you see that three years after the "tangible progress" Petraeus claimed to be making, the Iraqi Army is still 12 to 18 months from being able to take over security operations, and that the Iraqi police force is "dysfunctional," it would lead you to question just how capable a commander David Petraeus is in the first place.

Kevin Drum gets to the heart of this today.

He was the guy in charge of training the Iraqi army and police back in 2004-05, and this op-ed was happy talk of a spectacular order. For all intents and purposes, none of the stuff he talked about ended up happening. Three years later, the Iraqi army is still barely functional and the Iraqi police forces, by all accounts, are so thoroughly corrupt and sectarian that we'd be better off if they didn't even exist. Since Petraeus was the guy who set up their initial training, he deserves to be held to account for what happened.

Here are some of the numbers Petraeus was throwing around back in 2004:

Nonetheless, there are reasons for optimism. Today approximately 164,000 Iraqi police and soldiers (of which about 100,000 are trained and equipped) and an additional 74,000 facility protection forces are performing a wide variety of security missions. Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished.

Here's The Jones Report, and let me highlight this bit from the executive summary.

ISF Defined. The Iraqi security forces are composed of two major components: the Iraqi military (Army, Special Forces, Navy, and Air Force), which MNF-I estimated in a June report to encompass more than 152,000 service members and which operates under the authority of the Ministry of Defense...

The Washington Post article lists the National police force at around 25,000. OK, so Petraeus claimed there were 164,000 police and soldiers back in 2004, and now, after 3 years of training and equipping and recruitment, there are only about 10,000 more? And yet throughout his op-ed, he talks about how training is moving smoothly and new forces are coming on-line virtually every day, including "5,000 police officers a month" from nine training facilities in Jordan? Good work, Dave.

Moving on. Here's Petraeus happily discussing how the Iraqi forces are "in the fight."

Six battalions of the Iraqi regular army and the Iraqi Intervention Force are now conducting operations. Two of these battalions, along with the Iraqi commando battalion, the counterterrorist force, two Iraqi National Guard battalions and thousands of policemen recently contributed to successful operations in Najaf. Their readiness to enter and clear the Imam Ali shrine was undoubtedly a key factor in enabling Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to persuade members of the Mahdi militia to lay down their arms and leave the shrine.

In another highly successful operation several days ago, the Iraqi counterterrorist force conducted early-morning raids in Najaf that resulted in the capture of several senior lieutenants and 40 other members of that militia, and the seizure of enough weapons to fill nearly four 7 1/2-ton dump trucks.

Within the next 60 days, six more regular army and six additional Intervention Force battalions will become operational. Nine more regular army battalions will complete training in January, in time to help with security missions during the Iraqi elections at the end of that month.

Yet the executive summary of the Jones Report states that the security forces cannot maintain the fight at all without Americans in the lead:

The Commission finds that in general, the Iraqi Security Forces, military and police, have made uneven progress, but that there should be increasing improvement in both their readiness and their capability to provide for the internal security of Iraq. With regard to external dangers, the evidence indicates that the Iraqi Security Forces will not be able to secure Iraqi borders against conventional military threats in the near term.

While severely deficient in combat support and combat service support capabilities, the new Iraqi armed forces, especially the Army, show clear evidence of developing the baseline infrastructures that lead to the successful formation of a national defense capability. The Commission concurs with the view expressed by U.S., Coalition, and Iraqi experts that the Iraqi Army is capable of taking over an increasing amount of day-to-day combat responsibilities from Coalition forces. In any event, the ISF will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently over the next 12-18 months.

In particular they need help in command and control, equipment, fire support, logistical support, intelligence, and transportation. Yet these are precisely some of the areas Petraeus was touting back in 2004. Here he is talking about equipment:

Outfitting hundreds of thousands of new Iraqi security forces is difficult and complex, and many of the units are not yet fully equipped. But equipment has begun flowing. Since July 1, for example, more than 39,000 weapons and 22 million rounds of ammunition have been delivered to Iraqi forces, in addition to 42,000 sets of body armor, 4,400 vehicles, 16,000 radios and more than 235,000 uniforms.

Yet they apparently won't be ready to go it along for another FIVE YEARS, depsite all of these tangible pieces of progress in the pipeline when Petraeus was in charge.

Here's the closing remarks of Petraeus back then, sounding much like now:

There will be more tough times, frustration and disappointment along the way. It is likely that insurgent attacks will escalate as Iraq's elections approach. Iraq's security forces are, however, developing steadily and they are in the fight. Momentum has gathered in recent months. With strong Iraqi leaders out front and with continued coalition -- and now NATO -- support, this trend will continue. It will not be easy, but few worthwhile things are.

There's the General, arguing for continued commitment to the war effort and talk of momentum and progress. The results are in. David Petraeus FAILED in his singular duty to train, arm, equip, and maintain the Iraqi security forces. He was rewarded by being given the entire coalition effort to command. And now he's spinning that too, lying about the facts in an attempt to cover over the more unsightly reality.

The Iraqi Army's main problem, according to the Jones Report, is a deficiency of LEADERSHIP and DISCIPLINE, exactly what General Petraeus was charged with providing. The Ministry of Interior is "a ministry in name only," deeply sectarian and dysfunctional. Their police force is only working well in homogenous areas, and is compromised by militia and insurgent infiltration. Petraeus was in charge of that, too. The National Police have proven themselves to be operationally ineffective and unable to provide any security, and they ought to be scrapped. Yep, Petraeus' gig, too. The Border Patrol? Same thing, and I'm running out of synonyms.

The Jones Report is an indictment of the man who is leading US forces in Iraq, proof that he fits the Bush Adminstration mold perfectly; a political hack whose incompetence is no hindrance on his falling upward.