With the crumbling order and mounting chaos of Iraq daring to threaten President Bush’s political legacy, in the last few months he has routinely called for a “surge” in US combat forces—five brigades or approximately 21,500 more soldiers would be deployed; 18,000 in Baghdad and the rest would be sent the Anbar province in the far west of the country. The addition of these forces would bring the overall number of US troops inside Iraq to over 150,000, roughly comparable to the previous peak of 160,000 seen during the Iraqi elections of December 2005. After years and years of outright falsehoods on Iraq, the man who incited armed aggression against US troops with a hearty “bring ’em on” and trumpeted our efforts as “mission accomplished” is back with another turn of phrase sure to fail in conception, execution, and resolution, and with enormous consequences for everyone—the US, Iraq, the Middle East, and, likely, the rest of the world. So, what is “the surge”? Before we chase this particular rabbit down the hole and through the looking glass to evaluate the prospects of success for a “surge,” some background on the recent debate to increase US troops in Iraq.

The Carnage Surge: Casualties and Costs

Back in September I discussed Iraq to illustrate that fundamentally Al Qaeda is winning the US’s “War on Terror” by changing Western societies for the worse while the Middle East is pregnant with authoritarianism and violence [see “Righteousness and Blowback in the Democratic Transformation of the Middle East,” September 19, 2006]. Since then the horrendous toll of the war the US has waged in Iraq since 2003 in the name of democracy and security has been become significantly more bloody and costly. Although I am primarily going to focus on the Bush’s current proposal for a surge of US forces, the surge that is most evident in today’s Iraq is that of death and destruction. So, to begin with, a quick update on casualties and costs of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” as of today:

Iraqi civilians killed: There is a range of estimates on this figure. Iraq Body Count, which confirms through media reports, estimates 54,432 to 60,098. However other studies, such as by the British journal The Lancet, and one by Johns Hopkins University reports data from public health and other medical sources that indicates in excess of 600,000 have been killed since hostilities began in 2003.

US soldiers killed: 3,059; Total coalition soldiers killed: 3,312. As a frame of reference, in the entirety of Gulf War I the US lost only 148 soldiers. During the initial phase of Gulf War II, from March 20, 2003 to May 1 (Bush’s “mission accomplished” speech on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln) 140 US troops were killed.

US non-mortal casualties: 47,657. This includes all types of injuries and sickness not only those directly attributable to combat with enemy forces. 

US funds spent on Iraq since 2003: Upwards of $400 billion, but probably more as data is incomplete and debt hasn’t fully been tabulated. Current spending on Iraq is approximately $8 billion/month or $300 million/day. [These figures should also be compared with what the insurgency and terrorist groups are earning and spending on their war efforts. A classified report leaked to the New York Times back in November estimated that oil smuggling totals $25 million-$100 million, and kidnapping ransoms have yielded around $36 million.]

Total US Cost of War in Iraq: Estimates of what the conflict will cost by the time it has ended—and that assumes it will end—vary, but are all astronomical. The conservative American Enterprise Institute gives the most optimistic assessment, $1 trillion, but measurements by economists Jeffrey Sachs and Linda Bilmes total $2 trillion by 2015. [By comparison, during the Vietnam War, from 1965 to 1975, the US spent $655 billion in 2006 inflation-adjusted dollars.]

The Urge to Surge: Bush Cares…. About His Own Legacy

As the President first began to foist the fable of transforming Iraq into a friendly democracy with bountiful oil production to finance the government and maintain the growth for the energy-intensive world economy, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was making the case that the US could achieve victory through a much more modest use of US soldiers then ever previously imagined. The US public has demonstrated that despite the appeal of the tough talk of politicians, it is highly averse to casualties. The October 1993 “Blackhawk Down” incident in Somalia when 19 US soldiers were killed during the Battle of Mogadishu in a firefight with local militiamen (who lost over 1,000 in the firefight) brought back into focus the Vietnam Syndrome—that the US public would not send its soldiers off to fight and die in places where the interests were not deep and the costs were not clearly worth it. 

To address this reticence, Rumsfeld highlighted the great US military success story of this generation, the previous conflagration with Iraq at the beginning of the 1990s, to propel the notion that the US could easily overthrow Saddam Hussein and without much cost. However, a closer look at Gulf War I indicates that there was substantially more force deployed during Gulf War I than in Gulf War II; in the former, the US-led multinational coalition used nearly 500,000 troops to defeat Iraq. Moreover, the mission in this case was only to liberate Kuwait and though much of Iraq’s military was destroyed in the process of fleeing, US forces did not attempt to go into Iraq. 

Within weeks of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration directed the military to begin planning for a strike against Saddam Hussein. Once the Taliban regime was overthrown in Afghanistan by the end of 2001, the US military started to transfer resources to and devise more concrete plans for Iraq. High profile, highly credible military professionals stated that despite innovations such as smart munitions and cyber-warfare—notably the dramatic “revolution in military affairs” (RMA) that excites the most cold-blooded and nerdy of military types—the troop levels required to successfully carry out the mission of invading, occupying, and securing Iraq would be considerable, i.e., more than that was being suggested by Rumsfeld and his cadre. By the time the build up to Gulf War II was chugging along in 2002, the US Army member on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, stated he thought “something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” would be necessary. The debate of how many troops was resolved in the way that all kings handle bad news; shoot the messenger. Shinseki was lambasted by Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, in the media for his lack of faith in the “shock and awe” inspired by US military prowess and the rose-colored—though entirely wrong—notion that US troops would be “greeted as liberators,” as promised by Iraqi conman Ahmad Chalabi (who hadn’t been in his own country in decades and couldn’t win an election to the Iraqi parliament when he had an overwhelming financial advantage and was one of a handful of well-known candidates) and neoconservative and Under Secretary of Defense, Donald Feith. Unsurprisingly, Shinseki was replaced shortly thereafter with a more agreeable officer. Nevertheless, the debate persisted and took on new urgency in the aftermath of the toppling of the Hussein regime when looting spread and US forces seemed powerless to stem violence let alone police the streets.

Over the course of 2006, in the face of mounting attacks on US soldiers as well as Iraqi civilians, it became apparent that US policy was not having the desired effect. At this juncture, three options were being mulled in military and political circles:

“Go Big”: Send a much larger military force—increase the number of troops by 100,000 to 200,000—to conduct an aggressive counter-insurgency operation throughout Iraq (particularly urban areas) and still have sufficient forces to maintain public security and order.

“Go Long”: Send additional forces—20,000-30,000 more troops—to bolster security in high-risk areas (particularly Baghdad) but otherwise redeploy US forces to stay on bases and speed the training of Iraqi forces.

“Go Home”: A phased withdrawal for US forces out of Iraq; most to bases within the region.

Since the invasion in 2003, Bush mindlessly restated that the US must “stay the course” and branded proposals to withdraw as unpatriotic and cowardly “cut and run.” But even he (or rather his advisors) became convinced to revisit the subject of US troop levels in 2006. Two US domestic political moments have stimulated him to address the issue: First, the November 2006 US Congressional elections were a wholesale repudiation of Bush’s plans for Iraq—exit poll data shows that well over a majority of Americans wish to determine a way to scale back our military forces in, and overall commitments to, Iraq. Second on December 6, 2006, the final report of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), a bi-partisan commission comprised of veteran diplomats and government officials, also advocated a change in policy that included concentrating on a strategy based primarily on the training of Iraqi troops and the departure of most, if not all, US forces by the end of 2007. Although the ISG did state that it would “support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training mission,” in the end, the ISG report critiqued and essentially rejected this plan: “adding more American troops could conceivably worsen those aspects of the security problem that are fed by the view that the United State presence is intended to be a long term ‘occupation.’”

Bush, never one to admit a mistake even in the face of widespread political opposition or even substantial empirical evidence, continued to dismiss any ideas of those who would disagree with him regardless of the issue. Against this backdrop it was quite predictable that Bush would disregard the ISG report and recommendations. One has to wonder if he even read it. Set aside for a moment its conclusions pointing toward withdrawal, within the document are at least two painful revelations: First, much of the data that frame or measure what’s what in Iraq are misreported. For instance, in one day in July 2006, the number of attacks by Iraqi insurgents was initially and officially reported as 93 attacks. A subsequent review that compared data from several different sources showed that the actual number totaled 1,100. The second aspect to mortify even the most patient of US citizens is to consider the personnel that have been assembled by the administration to manage the war. Much has already been said and written about the bungling by the top leadership in the Bush administration in directing the war—Rumsfeld was designated scapegoat after the November 2006 elections, though principal architect Dick Cheney remains in his vice presidential bunker only occasionally emerging to hold a fundraiser or shoot helpless birds and obsequious underlings—but I am referring to the nuts-and-bolts professionals who make US policy go. The US embassy in Iraq has over 1,000 personnel working there; guess how many speak Arabic? Six. The Defense Intelligence Agency provides the analysis upon which the military bases its planning and operations. At present it has fewer than ten analysts with more than two years experience analyzing the insurgency in Iraq. This does not bode well for any next steps. But perhaps the cardinal sin of the ISG report in the eyes of Bush is that it does not use the term “victory,” and instead phrases the best-case scenario as a “responsible transition.”

Once it became clear in November and December 2006 that most Americans and the ISG were leaning towards the “Go Home” option—and signaling that W’s administration will best be remembered for the debacle in Iraq and the decline of US political influence globally—Bush started to invoke “the surge”, but this latest single-word solution is only a panacea to simplify and distort the situation. In his January 10 speech to officially unveil his so-called new strategy, he announced the surge with the premise, “If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.” Boilerplate at best, this is the same logic, if not the exact same rhetoric, he has used time and again since 2003 to justify increases in US force levels.

Surging Ahead: Pro, Con, and It Doesn’t Matter What You Think

Fundamentally, the decision to “surge” has been made—it will happen, it is happening; Bush has signed the order for more troops and the US Congress can do very little, and will do even less, about it. Constitutionally speaking, the Congress has the power of the purse and can, through budgetary means, make fighting the war impossible. However, politically, no one in Congress is realistically prepared to vote to cut of funds from US soldiers in a war zone. Nevertheless, for those of you keeping your scorecards for the 2008 elections up to date, here is a quick list of who stands where:

Against the Surge—the Public, Democrats, Traditional Republicans, and the US Military: The results of the November 2006 elections coupled with surveys of US public opinion show most oppose the surge—a recent CNN poll states 66% of Americans are opposed, and 53% think Congress should actively work to stop Bush from sending more troops. Accordingly, many politicians have indicated their opposition to the surge. Democratic presidential candidate hopefuls Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois as well as the entire Democratic Party leadership (Representative Nancy Pelosi, etc.) are obviously against it. However, so are several traditional conservative Republicans such as Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. Brownback has already declared his intention to run for president, and hopes to find traction with US voters as a GOP candidate who believed in the war but has lost faith in Bush to deliver victory. Colin Powell, who had been trotted out to be the diplomatic front-man (Secretary of State) for this war in early 2003 but is now critical of it has concluded that: “I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work.” And another traditional Republican who has served as National Security Advisor (though to President George H. W. Bush), Zbigniew Brzezinski, has characterized the surge as “a political gimmick of limited tactical significance and of no strategic benefit. It is insufficient to win the war militarily. It will engage U.S. forces in bloody street fighting that will not resolve with finality the ongoing turmoil and the sectarian and ethnic strife, not to mention the anti-American insurgency.” Furthermore, some notable military experts, as well the US military high command, also fall into this category. General Joseph Hoar testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that, “the addition of 20,000 troops is too little, too late,” and the Washington Post reports that “White House officials [are] aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” 

For the Surge—Bush, Neoconservatives, and Wanna-Bes: In addition to Bush and his inner circle are an eclectic lot. For example, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut; the perfect Democrat in Republican eyes—he votes with them and yet is a readymade foil and cliché stereotype to spotlight when elections come. Then there is also Republican Rudy Giuliani who is trying to burnish his image as a statesman and, as was clear from his tenure of mayor of New York City, never met a proposal for increased force he didn’t like.

Beyond the Surge—the Roman Solution and Imperial Strategists: There are also those who say the surge does not go far enough. During the Roman Empire, the solution to violence resistance to rule was to respond with overwhelming force to slaughter enemies. In the first century BC, Julius Caesar pursued this strategy during his military campaign in Gaul (which would today be France and Belgium); when his troops were defeated in 54-53 BC, he quickly sent in twice as many. Currently Senator John McCain of Arizona is the strongest proponent for many, many more US troops to be sent into Iraq. There are also those with military backgrounds advocating this strategy; Thomas Hammes, former US Army Colonel and author of The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century, has dismissed the surge as a “dribble” and called for 300,000 troops over the next four years as a first step.

Ever since preliminary findings of the Iraq Study Group have been leaked and critics of Bush policy in Iraq have become more vocal, it would appear the president has not remotely considered decreasing the size of US forces in Iraq, but instead has been working to commit us more deeply to the war, if not expanding it.

While Bush administration told us in late 2006 that they were still “thinking” or "reviewing policy", they were actually instituting changes in personnel that were would make the surge a fait accompli. On November 15, General John Abizaid, the top US military commander in the region, testified before Congress that there was no need for more troops. On January 4, Bush ousted Abizaid, and General George Casey, the chief of the US-led forces in Iraq, both of who had followed Bush’s folly for years until even they winced at the prospect of this recent surge. [General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also gone on the record that the president is sending more troops than the Pentagon has requested.] At the same time, Bush installed two military commanders whose experience and specialties are suggestive as to the course of future policy. The first is a no-brainer: Lt. General David Petraeus, considered one of the more visionary army commanders today, he co-authored the military’s new doctrine on counterinsurgency this past fall. Petraeus’s tactics call for high levels of military in urban settings to root out opponents, hold territory, and protect civilians and infrastructure thereafter—sounds like a surge, huh? Then there’s the new overall commander of US forces in the Middle East, Admiral William Fallon, the first member of the Navy to head a regional command.

[Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems odd to have your most senior military leader in a region represented by the most underutilized branch of the military currently performing operations in Iraq. When does it make sense to have a Navy official in charge? When aircraft carriers and cruise missiles are doing the lion’s share of fighting. To me, that sounds like preparation for an attack on Iran, but that analysis is for another time.]

Lastly, the final question is not one of opinion, but of facts. Where one stands on the issue politically is mostly irrelevant after a decision has been made. In this regard, criticism or alternatives to Bush’s plan are meaningless. Bush himself is dismissive that Congress can limit his power as commander-in-chief to implement the surge. As he told 60 Minutes on January 14, “Now, I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I made my decision, and we’re going forward.” Thus, long before the surge was even publicly debated, it was a foregone conclusion.

The Surge on the Sly: Military Contractors

Before evaluating the chances of success for the surge, one final bit of context: while we fixate on US troop levels which may ratchet up slightly, over the last three years the presence of military contractors in Iraq has soared. US soldiers do the majority of fighting and dying for US interests in Iraq, but they are not alone, there are also a huge and growing number of those who work for corporations performing military tasks.

Historically, mercenaries have always been a factor on the battlefield—there is a long tradition of hiring military forces stretching back to the ancient Greeks, up through the Middle Ages that, despite some drop off in the late 20th century, continues. In the 1990s a new incarnation of mercenary developed, spread, and prospered—the private military company (PMC). These entities differ from traditional mercenaries in that they have corporate structures and identities that, theoretically, should make it more accountable from a management perspective and more palatable from a political one. Many PMCs currently work with the US government and businesses in Iraq—providing everything from laundry, food preparation, transportation, and logistics (support services) to training Iraqi police and soldiers and even some combat operations. Some examples of companies and the services that they have been performing in Iraq:

Blackwater USA: Protection of personnel.

Aegis Defense Systems Ltd.: Security for the Coalition Provisional Authority (precursor to the present government in Iraq).

Custer Battles: Guard infrastructure and currency transfers.

Triple Canopy: Protect Iraqi government offices and the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Erinys International: Guard oil pipelines.

DynCorp: Train Iraqi police.

Vinnell: Train Iraqi army.

Estimates of the numbers of military contractors in Iraq vary—not much data is gathered on this nebulous industry—but even these figures are revealing. In 2004, the number circulating was about 30,000, of which 20,000 were engaged in use of force operations (“trigger pullers”). If we use this number and consider them as one contingent, this would have meant that the second largest group of foreign military forces fighting in Iraq, after the US, was not Britain, but PMCs. But this was just the beginning, and the presence of private contractors grew. By July 2005, the number was 50,000 to 70,000 unarmed contractors plus 25,000 armed ones. Near the end of 2006, the overall number reported surpassed 100,000.

The surge debate has focused on US troop levels, but the role of PMCs must also be factored into our recognition of force levels and how force is deployed. While officially they may not be US soldiers - that is, uniformed and protected under international humanitarian law - these other armed actors often serve US interests, and are viewed by Iraqi nationals as part of the occupation. Among the benefits of the use of military contractors is that there is essentially no media coverage of their deaths as compared to when US soldiers are killed, and thus the surge of military contractors into Iraq in the past few years is also means for pushing more force without the political fallout of bodybags. Consequently, our sense of how many US forces are deployed and how many have been killed is opaque. The debate on the surge would be very different were military contractors not there already insulating us from casualty counts.

Surging Towards Failure: Iraqi Politics and US Military Realities

First, the Iraqis don’t want us there. Initially, its important to note that what input on a surge was sought, did not include the preferences of Iraqis. Most Iraqis were pleased to be rid of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, but they have remained distrustful of the US. In Gulf War I, President Bush encouraged Shiites to rise up against Saddam, but did not come to their aid when they did. Furthermore, another antagonistic chapter in the history of US-Iraqi relations was written throughout the 1990s with threats and sponsorship of sanctions. The lack of public order and services following the invasion scarred the relationship further. In Winning the Un-War: A Strategy for the War on Terrorism, Charles Pena states that those Iraqis who say that attacks on foreign troops are justified increased from 8% to 61% from September 2003 to April 2004. In the last two years, the descent into civil war has propelled a skyrocketing of Iraqi civilian casualties and has crippled US credibility in Iraq. For the US, the key to military security and political stability in the country has been (and remains) winning over the Iraqi population—as it is in any attempt to successfully end an internal conflict. But the response of Iraqis to US policy thus far demonstrates the disaster at hand. As Louise Richardson explains in What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat, “They find the claims that the US is occupying Iraq to defend New York and deploying an army to import democracy to be so implausible that they do not believe them. Instead, they believe the claims of those who say the US Army is a self-interested army of occupation interested only in dominating the region and exploiting its oil wealth…. In effect, they find al-Qaeda’s propaganda more credible than ours.” Indeed, polls of Iraqi citizens taken in November state 61% still approve of attacks on US soldiers, and 78% believe that the US is “provoking more conflict than it is preventing.” The current Shiite-led government of Iraq under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki response to Bush’s surge proposals has been lukewarm at best. After decades of Sunni oppression against Shiites in Iraq, much of the newly empowered Shiite majority seeks revenge and many are complicit in death squad activity. They do not want the US to rein in the militias. It doesn’t matter how many US troops are on the ground if the Iraqi government’s involvement in assassinations is not tackled. The upshot is that our ostensibly closest allies in the government of Iraq are starting to balk at the presence of US forces that they recognize as obstacles to building political support for their rule.  In short, the US has poisoned the politics of Iraq—at this point, more US troops will only incur greater resentments and yield greater casualties.

The second reason the surge is sure to fail is that the only way to overcome the first problem (lack of Iraqi support for US troops) is through an imperial strategy that Americans refuse to pay in blood and treasure—there is not enough political support to operationalize an effective military strategy. The current size of the US military simply does not allow for the US to meaningfully occupy and administer Iraq and the surge will not cover this shortfall. If the US has 150,000 troops in Iraq and it is supplemented with the surge, then that is a total of about 170,000. From the perspective of classic counterinsurgency strategy, these numbers are insufficient for successful post-war reconstruction. Let’s compare the current attempt in Iraq with other US experiences. Following World War II, in Germany, which still had pockets of motivated Nazi militants, the Allies deployed 100 soldiers per 1,000 Germans. In post-war Japan, however, the defeated citizens were more amenable to a new government and the Allies scheme for rebuilding the country, and only 5 soldiers per 1,000 Japanese were necessary. In the 1990s, where peacekeeping was successful the ratio of soldiers to population was 20 to 1,000. If we extrapolate to Iraq, a country of about 26 million, we get the following approximate force requirements:

Japanese model (5 to 1,000): 130,000. Basically this is the troop level that the US maintained in Iraq for most of 2006. 

Balkans model (20 to 1,000): 520,000. Baghdad alone has a population of 6 million people, and in this formula that would require 120,000 combat troops to secure—as of early January 2007 there are about 70,000 combat troops in Baghdad with about 60,000 in supporting roles.

German model (100 to 1,000): around 2.6 million. US military forces around the world total just over 2.6 million, but only 1.4 million are on active duty.

So, as purely military strategy, the surge is but a drop in the bucket if security and order were truly the baseline for determining force deployments. To field a military that is up to the imperial tasks that Bush are setting, there will need to be a military draft and a huge increase in taxes. But military imperatives are not the decisive factor in Bush’s policy-making; they place a distant second to his political ambition.

The surge is pure politics. It permits Bush to delay the day of political reckoning; for Bush, this means hopefully until 2009 when another president will be saddled with oblivion and Republicans can fault successors for a lack of follow through. But at the same time, it ensures that there is no option for the US but failure in Iraq. Moreover, the surge allows Bush to paint detractors as defeatists willing to surrender to terrorists.

A Surge By Any Other Name Fails Just As Miserably

As parallels with Vietnam are popular as well as prescient in this context, the current debate on the surge offers yet another. In the mid-1960s when US President Lyndon B. Johnson sought to expand the US role in an unwinnable war in Southeast Asia, “escalation” was the simplistic framing of his day. In March 1967, LBJ said, “As our commitment in Vietnam required more men and more equipment, some voices were raised in opposition. The administration was urged to disengage, to find an excuse to abandon the effort. But if we faltered, the forces of chaos would scent victory and decades of strife and aggression would stretch endlessly before us. The choice was clear. We would stay the course. And we shall stay the course." However, this was more about a political strategy to retain the White House than a military strategy for victory in Vietnam. This is reflected in a February 7, 1965 memo to Johnson written by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, where he points nakedly to the political value of projecting force despite it making no sense militarily: “Even if it fails, the policy will be worth it. At minimum it will damp down the charge that we did not do all that we could have done, and this charge will be important in many countries, including our own.” It appears the only lesson Bush has learned from Vietnam is that military facts should be no impediment to political dreams. 

Today as more US troops move into Iraq, the disconnect between what US military power can achieve and what can only come to fruition through multilateral diplomacy and other political means is glaring. While it is universally recognized that the US possesses the most powerful of hammers, not every problem is a nail. That said, the surge is here to stay. There is only one question that remains: what will Bush call the next troop increase?

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