GailForce: Reflections on Ending the Iraq Conflict and Implications of the “One Percent” Issue

There has been lots of news on the national security front over the last few days; the death of Libya’s Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, President Obama’s announcement of bringing home all Iraqi troops in time for the holidays, and Secretary of State Clinton’s visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the midst of all of this, some media pundits have wondered now that the wars seem to be winding down, what would be the fall out of a situation where only 1% of the population has participated in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is what I’d like to address in this blog.

The answer is pretty simple to me. You now have a situation where 99% of the U.S. population is either under or misinformed on security issues. Since the mainstream media now prefers to devote most of their time covering the antics of misbehaving sports or entertainment figures, they spend very little time on in depth coverage of national security issues. In the ongoing debates of various Presidential candidates, very little mention is made of national security and foreign affairs.

In this environment that means the only way the 99% can get up to speed is either to form opinions based only on media sound bites or take the time to research the issues themselves. While there have been some excellent national security stories in the print media it’s been my observation most of the people I run into don’t take the time to read them. I have a long time fascination on the topic and even I don’t always have the time to do in depth research or a lot of reading on various topics.

Even the print media shows signs of not really understanding some of the nuances of national security. Case in point, today I was reading a New York Times article on Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta which stated: “Mr. Panetta has not shown his hand about how he plans to transform the military or his vision for what war will look like in the future. But his very appointment signaled the growing integration of intelligence and armed forces”.

What bothered me was “the growing integration of intelligence and armed forces”. I’ve been seeing that issue raised in more and more articles lately. What the heck? Last figure I saw stated that 85% of the intelligence community resides within the Department of Defense. The bulk of the intelligence community is now and always has been involved in support to the military. The media gives the impression that the CIA is the only intelligence organization and tends to forget about the 16 other organizations.

Why should I care? Easy, in this upcoming era of budget cuts well meaning people might advocate getting rid of large portions of the intelligence community based on faulty assumptions they are making no significant contributions to national security. I’m not beating up on the CIA or minimizing their role. That organization always treated me very well when I was working for the government; I just want to make sure people are aware that there are thousands of other intelligence analysts, many in their late teens and early 20’s working very hard in various Department of Defense intelligence organizations. It frustrates me when they don’t receive their well deserved recognition.

Let me state right up front I am not saying the intelligence community should not take any budget cuts; only that Congress and the public do due diligence and research before they start slashing or more harm than good can happen.

The other problem I see with the 99% is lack of knowledge of the history of a national security problem. Case in point, media reports keep saying bringing the Iraq troops home ends a 10 year conflict. Actually it’s a 20 year plus conflict. People seem to forget the first Gulf War never ended because Saddam Hussein did not abide by the agreed upon conditions for ending the conflict. All through the 1990’s the U.S. and its allies conducted extensive military operations in support of the UN sanctions. At times things got pretty heated. I talk about this in more detail in my book A Woman’s War but here are some brief summaries of some of the operations:

• Jan. 13 & 18, 1993 strikes were conducted against selected air defense targets.
• Jan. 17, 1993 Navy launched 44 TLAM cruise missiles against Zaafaraniyah Nuclear related facility.
• June 27, 1993 Navy strike against Iraqi Intelligence headquarters.
• Oct. 1994 in response to threat of Iraqi troops against Kuwait U.S. Central Command deployed over 28,000 troops and 200 additional aircraft.
• Sept. 1996 Operation Desert Strike launched 12 cruise missiles against surface to air missile sites and command and control facilities.
• Dec. 1998 Operation Desert Fox aimed at installations associated with WMD and Iraq’s command and control network. On just first day 280 cruise missiles were launched, almost as many as was used in first Gulf War.

I’ve always felt that President Clinton’s administration did not get enough credit for keeping Saddam Hussein in a box. I thought the question that should have been asked before putting troops on the ground in 2003 was had the UN sanctioned policies of the Clinton administration in the 1990’s neutralized Iraq and was it still a threat? I also would not have put the WMD issue at the top of any argument for going to war. Saddam was not very forthcoming on the status of his WMD program and went out of the way to be uncooperative. He certainly was acting like someone who if he no longer had any assembled weapons wanted to maintain the capability to produce those weapons in the future. I just think the stronger argument would have been his overall lack of cooperation after the first Gulf War.

I also feel that many have the impression that the Bush administration came in with an agenda to take out Hussein and used a very weak excuse. In order to really understand the mindset of some defense analysts of that time, you have to understand as I mentioned that every day through the start of the second Gulf War, the U.S. and its allies were engaged in a war with Iraq. I was part of Central Command’s Naval staff during much of the 1990’s and while my co-workers dedication to the issue is unquestioned, every now and then someone would wonder why we hadn’t finished the job during the first Gulf War and marched into Baghdad. If you’ve been involved in daily combat operations with an opponent for over 10 years at that point, would you not be inclined to look for any excuse to take them out? I agree with that well known quote about understanding history so you don’t make the same mistakes in the future or if something was done correctly incorporate the lessons learned.

Think, I’ll end here. As always my views are my on.