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Subject: The Australian - Iraq war stupid, Aussie David Kilcullen tells US
Aussiegunneragain    8/2/2008 9:30:46 PM
Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent | August 02, 2008 DAVID Kilcullen, the Australian counter-insurgency expert who advises US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has stepped into a political minefield after being quoted as saying the decision to invade Iraq was "f..king stupid". The comments were seized on by left-leaning blogs as lending weight to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, whose early opposition to the war is one of the central themes of his campaign. Dr Kilcullen told The Weekend Australian yesterday that he had been misquoted, but in a lengthy blog he posted this week on the Small Wars Journal website he did not deny the comment, saying the journalist reporting it "did not clear the quote with me". Dr Kilcullen, 41, has had a rapid rise to the top of the US military and diplomatic establishment, in part because of his straightforward approach. He had said previously the Iraqi invasion would be tougher than the Bush administration had anticipated, but his blunt statement this week shocked Washington insiders. Dr Kilcullen, the chief author of Counterinsurgency: A Guide for Policy-makers, explained to the online newspaper the Washington Independent that the handbook, to be released late this year, tells policy-makers to "think very, very carefully before intervening". Journalist Spencer Ackerman then wrote: "More bluntly, Kilcullen, who helped (General David) Petraeus design his 2007 counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, called the decision to invade Iraq "stupid' - in fact, he said 'f..king stupid' - and suggested that if policy-makers apply the manual's lessons, similar wars can be avoided in the future." Dr Kilcullen said on Small Wars that the journalist "did not seek to clear that quote with me, and I would not have approved it if he had". "If he had sought a formal comment, I would have told him what I have said publicly before: in my view, the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was an extremely serious strategic error. "But the task of the moment is not to cry over spilt milk, rather to help clean it up: a task in which the surge, the comprehensive counterinsurgency approach, and our troops on theground are admirably succeeding," he said. Asked if the comments damaged his position at the State Department, a spokesman told The Weekend Australian: "David never claims to have said what you say he said. I believe this is much ado about nothing. As he says himself, his views in general have been pretty clear." Dr Kilcullen, who has been described as one of the most influential Australian military minds of his generation, grew up on Sydney's north shore. He studied counterinsurgency as a cadet at Duntroon, served for more than 20 years in the Australian army and was awarded a PhD in political science from the University of NSW for a thesis on Indonesian insurgent and terrorist groups and counterinsurgency methods. Senator Obama has consistently stated that he opposed the war and that it would stoke anti-US feelings in the Muslim world. But he opposed the surge in troops, while his Republican opponent John McCain supported the invasion and a surge well before the Bush administration finally decided to send more soldiers in January last year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Interesting website   8/2/2008 9:36:24 PM
Mentioned in the article

smallwarsjournal.com/
 
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Kevin Pork       8/3/2008 2:06:46 AM
The problem with taking his opinion on this matter too seriously is that, whilst an expert in fighting a COIN war, he has no actual strategic expertise that would be applicable to deciding if that war should have been fought in the first place.
 
Fairly classic "appeal to authority" really.
 
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Aussiegunneragain       8/3/2008 11:20:19 AM

The problem with taking his opinion on this matter too seriously is that, whilst an expert in fighting a COIN war, he has no actual strategic expertise that would be applicable to deciding if that war should have been fought in the first place.

 Fairly classic "appeal to authority" really.


The question of how hard a war is to win should be at the top of the list of considerations as to whether or not it should be fought. He is an expert in answering that question so his opinion counts. Colin Powel had similar views and nobody could accuse him of having no strategic experience and from some of the things he said I suspect Peter Cosgrove did as well.
 
In any case Condi Rice who was instrumental in making the decision to invade seems to be impressed enough with his opinions to employ him as an advisor. The fact that she employed somebody who forthrightly holds those views could be a tacit acknoledgment that she now thinks they made a mistake.
 
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Kevin Pork       8/3/2008 6:29:30 PM



The question of how hard a war is to win should be at the top of the list of considerations as to whether or not it should be fought. He is an expert in answering that question so his opinion counts. Colin Powel had similar views and nobody could accuse him of having no strategic experience and from some of the things he said I suspect Peter Cosgrove did as well.

 

In any case Condi Rice who was instrumental in making the decision to invade seems to be impressed enough with his opinions to employ him as an advisor. The fact that she employed somebody who forthrightly holds those views could be a tacit acknoledgment that she now thinks they made a mistake.

No, at the top of the list of considerations as to whether or not it should be fought is "how important to the national interest is it?" - putting a democracy in the Middle East could well be a strategic masterstroke, well worth the risks.
Condi may well be employing him for his Coin expertise, it does in no way imply that she is more interested in his views on if it was wise, than she is on his views on slot car racing.
 
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Volkodav       8/4/2008 3:56:20 AM

Sadam had to go but the US national interest, not to mention the modern worlds interest, would have been better served by containing Iraq until Afghanistan was won. 

Then again look at Libya's transformation and rehabilitation, would it have taken all that much to have brought secular Iraq back into the fold as a buffer against radical Islam, rather than invade?

 
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Aussiegunneragain       8/4/2008 5:04:39 AM


No, at the top of the list of considerations as to whether or not it should be fought is "how important to the national interest is it?" - putting a democracy in the Middle East could well be a strategic masterstroke, well worth the risks.


Condi may well be employing him for his Coin expertise, it does in no way imply that she is more interested in his views on if it was wise, than she is on his views on slot car racing.


I agree that if Iraq becomes a democracy then this will have been worth it and I supported the invasion on that basis. However, that was on the assumption that the US government officials whose job it was to know that they could win had made those calculations. It is abundantly clear now that it had no idea and no plan for winning an extended insurgency and I don't think that they do even now. Your suggestion that the possiblity of a positive outcome makes it "worth the risks" is pretty indicative of the type of decision process that they used, which does not seem to be much better than a toss of the coin at best and no idea about the odds of success at the worst.  
 
It is never in the national interest to fight a war you don't know you can win unless you have no choice in the matter. Sun Tzu  said of that very issue,
 
  • Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
  •  
    In the current situation we have a 50% chance that the US people will register their disapproval of the war at the end of the year by electing Barack Obama who has promised to draw down the troops. If that happens the violence in Iraq is likely to escalate to horrific proportions with the rival ethnic groups starting all out war. The result of that would be that people in countries like Iraq will know that they can't rely on the US to deliver when it say's it will bring them democracy and peace, Iraqi oil production will drop even further below pre-war levels (pushing prices up even further) and Iraq will become a haven for anti-US terrorists. Tell me how that risk is in the US or anybody elses national interest, especially when the ongoing containment option that Volkodav has mentioned was available?
     
    Personally I hope McCain gets in and keeps the troops there for as long as it takes as I believe that now that the mistake has been made the US has to live with it. However I wouldn't blame the US people if they wanted to wash their hands of the whole affair as it is their sons and daughters who are getting killed and a majority of the population didn't support the war in the first place.
     
    As for what Condi thinks of Kilcullen's views I guess I can't say for certain, beyond noting that politicians aren't usually the sort to employ people who openly (even before now) contradict them unless they hold them in very high regard. I will ask you a question about the notion that he doesn't have enough strategic experience to make the call though. Who in the US administration had ANY experience in invading an Arab country and turning it into a functioning democracy in 2003? The answer is nobody whatsoever and in reality it was a completely experiemental task for which they were not prepared, so the notion that Kilcullen's extensive military and academic experience is somehow less relevant than anybody elses is plainly wrong.


     
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    Aussiegunneragain    Volkodav   8/4/2008 5:12:53 AM

    Sadam had to go but the US national interest, not to mention the modern worlds interest, would have been better served by containing Iraq until Afghanistan was won.  Then again look at Libya's transformation and rehabilitation, would it have taken all that much to have brought secular Iraq back into the fold as a buffer against radical Islam, rather than invade?
    Agreed, if they were going to invade Iraq then they should have waited until they knew they had enough troops to do it properly. The demands of the war in Afghanistan on top of Rumsfeld's ideology (against his General's wish's) of a slimline US military that relied on technology to replace boots on the ground were major factors in creating the current situation, as was Wolfowitzs decision to disband the Iraqi Army rather than using it to counter any insurgency.
     
    Anyway, I didn't really post the article with the intention to make an extended critisism with the benefit of hindsight. I just thought it interesting that such a forthright Aussie is now embedded in the US administration and was interested in exploring what that means in terms of changes to the attitude of the US towards the problems they are facing in Iraq.
     
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    Kevin Pork       8/4/2008 7:37:20 AM





    No, at the top of the list of considerations as to whether or not it should be fought is "how important to the national interest is it?" - putting a democracy in the Middle East could well be a strategic masterstroke, well worth the risks.






    Condi may well be employing him for his Coin expertise, it does in no way imply that she is more interested in his views on if it was wise, than she is on his views on slot car racing.







    I agree that if Iraq becomes a democracy then this will have been worth it and I supported the invasion on that basis. However, that was on the assumption that the US government officials whose job it was to know that they could win had made those calculations. It is abundantly clear now that it had no idea and no plan for winning an extended insurgency and I don't think that they do even now. Your suggestion that the possiblity of a positive outcome makes it "worth the risks" is pretty indicative of the type of decision process that they used, which does not seem to be much better than a toss of the coin at best and no idea about the odds of success at the worst.  

     

    It is never in the national interest to fight a war you don't know you can win unless you have no choice in the matter. Sun Tzu  said of that very issue,

     

  • Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
     

    In the current situation we have a 50% chance that the US people will register their disapproval of the war at the end of the year by electing Barack Obama who has promised to draw down the troops. If that happens the violence in Iraq is likely to escalate to horrific proportions with the rival ethnic groups starting all out war. The result of that would be that people in countries like Iraq will know that they can't rely on the US to deliver when it say's it will bring them democracy and peace, Iraqi oil production will drop even further below pre-war levels (pushing prices up even further) and Iraq will become a haven for anti-US terrorists. Tell me how that risk is in the US or anybody elses national interest, especially when the ongoing containment option that Volkodav has mentioned was available?

     

    Personally I hope McCain gets in and keeps the troops there for as long as it takes as I believe that now that the mistake has been made the US has to live with it. However I wouldn't blame the US people if they wanted to wash their hands of the whole affair as it is their sons and daughters who are getting killed and a majority of the population didn't support the war in the first place.

     

    As for what Condi thinks of Kilcullen's views I guess I can't say for certain, beyond noting that politicians aren't usually the sort to employ people who openly (even before now) contradict them unless they hold them in very high regard. I will ask you a question about the notion that he doesn't have enough strategic experience to make the call though. Who in the US administration had ANY experience in invading an Arab country and turning it into a functioning democracy in 2003? The answer is nobody whatsoever and in reality it was a completely experiemental task for which they were not prepared, so the notion that Kilcullen's extensive military and academic experience is somehow less relevant than anybody elses is plainly wrong.


  • The argument that it wasn't worth doing relies on ignoring the cost of doing nothing. its a tactic that allows you to make any action look bad.
     
    Barack Obama is already positioning himself to backflip on troop withdrawals - Senator Obama said he would conduct a ?thorough assessment? of his policies after the trip, his first to Iraq for two years.
     
    For an organisation that has no plan to win an insurgency, the US, having won it, seem pretty well placed. Did they have a plan at the start? I expect
     
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    Aussiegunneragain       8/4/2008 8:47:28 AM
    The argument that it wasn't worth doing relies on ignoring the cost of doing nothing. its a tactic that allows you to make any action look bad.
     
    I'm not ignoring the cost of doing nothing and I'm not trying to make the US look bad. I supported the invasion for the reason that you are arguing now,  because believed that a large democracy in the Middle East would transform the region. I just realise now that the cost of doing "nothing" (and in reality continued containment which worked for 12 years prior to GW2 and is still working with North Korea) is far less than the cost of the mission has been, because running two operations of this nature is too hard and because the US was unprepared in many other ways.
    Barack Obama is already positioning himself to backflip on troop withdrawals - Senator Obama said he would conduct a ?thorough assessment? of his policies after the trip, his first to Iraq for two years.
     
    I hope so because they can't afford to leave now, but we'll have to wait and see.

     For an organisation that has no plan to win an insurgency, the US, having won it, seem pretty well placed. Did they have a plan at the start? I expect so, but it wasn't adequate and they adapted to circumstances.

    Barack Obama isn't thinking about backflipping on his withdrawel commitment and McCain isn't talking about staying in Iraq for 100 years because the US has won the insugency. 37 civilians were killed in Iraq yesterday, Iraqi oil production is still only at 80% of the pre-invasion level and there are still tens of thousands of Iraqi refuges inside and out of Iraq. The surge has reduced violence but unless the US doesn't have any plans for those troops for the foreseeable future they are stuck. As soon as they have to leave during the next big crisis that pops up, the insurgents will be back with new recruits. That isn't what I call having won.
     
    As for a plan to start with, they started withdrawls very soon after "mission accomplished" and were clearly not expecting to deal with an insurgency. When they invaded they still had COIN manuals from 1965!!! It was mainly because of efforts of a few excellent local commanders who worked to develop the clear, hold, build doctrine which came to the attention of Rice in 2005 that they have gotten anywhere.

    The problem with quoting Sun Tzu is that he is demonstrably wrong. See the C'Wealth in WW2 - they went to war without any plan at all, yet they won. so lets skip that particular appeal to authority too.

    You will notice that I said wars where we had a choice. Letting the Germans dominate Europe was never a realistic choice for the British, as Churchhill rightly surmised in the nick of time. The C'Wealth was just lucky that Hitler was a bigger idiot for targeting London instead of the RAF airfields in WW2, than Chamberlain had been for running down the British armed forces prior to the war and appeasing the Germans. We didn't win the war, we just didn't loose it but only be the skins of our teeth. The Russians and Americans were the main contributors in beating the Germans and the American's to beating the Japanese.

    Politicians will regularly use peoples expertise without agreeing with all of their opinions.
     
    Kilcullen's expertise is in fighting a coin war, not in running a democracy. oddly enough the US Govt has a fair bit of expertise in that area, institutionally the US Govt also has quite a bit of experience in building democracies and the current USG has access to all that info.
     
    I'm interested to note that you are denouncing "appeals to authority", whilst simultaneously saying that Kilcullen is an inadequate authority to appeal to and instead appealing to the authority of the US government and appealing to your own authority on the matter. 
     
    Anyway, what democracies had the US built prior Iraq in the Arab world? Let me answer your question, none. Culture matters and in a region where totalatarianism has been so rife, it is always going to be harder than elsewhere. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try, but the knowledge of somebody like Kilcullen about whether it can be done with the resources at hand is invaluable in making the decision.
     
    I'd also note that COIN operations are as much political as military affairs, so trying to suggest that an expert like Kilcullen doesn't understand the politics involved is simply not credible.
     
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    Aussiegunneragain       8/4/2008 9:05:15 AM
    The argument that it wasn't worth doing relies on ignoring the cost of doing nothing. its a tactic that allows you to make any action look bad.
     
    I'm not ignoring the cost of doing nothing and I'm not trying to make the US look bad. I supported the invasion for the reason that you are arguing now,  because believed that a large democracy in the Middle East would transform the region. I just realise now that the cost of doing "nothing" (and in reality continued containment which worked for 12 years prior to GW2 and is still working with North Korea) is far less than the cost of the mission has been, because running two operations of this nature is too hard and because the US was unprepared in many other ways.
    Barack Obama is already positioning himself to backflip on troop withdrawals - Senator Obama said he would conduct a ?thorough assessment? of his policies after the trip, his first to Iraq for two years.
     
    I hope so because they can't afford to leave now, but we'll have to wait and see.

     For an organisation that has no plan to win an insurgency, the US, having won it, seem pretty well placed. Did they have a plan at the start? I expect so, but it wasn't adequate and they adapted to circumstances.

    Barack Obama isn't thinking about backflipping on his withdrawel commitment and McCain isn't talking about staying in Iraq for 100 years because the US has won the insugency. 37 civilians were killed in Iraq yesterday, Iraqi oil production is still only at 80% of the pre-invasion level and there are still tens of thousands of Iraqi refuges inside and out of Iraq. The surge has reduced violence but unless the US doesn't have any plans for those troops for the foreseeable future they are stuck. As soon as they have to leave during the next big crisis that pops up, the insurgents will be back with new recruits. That isn't what I call having won.
     
    As for a plan to start with, they started withdrawls very soon after "mission accomplished" and were clearly not expecting to deal with an insurgency. When they invaded they still had COIN manuals from 1965!!! It was mainly because of efforts of a few excellent local commanders who worked to develop the clear, hold, build doctrine which came to the attention of Rice in 2005 that they have gotten anywhere.

    The problem with quoting Sun Tzu is that he is demonstrably wrong. See the C'Wealth in WW2 - they went to war without any plan at all, yet they won. so lets skip that particular appeal to authority too.

    You will notice that I said wars where we had a choice. Letting the Germans dominate Europe was never a realistic choice for the British, as Churchhill rightly surmised in the nick of time. The C'Wealth was just lucky that Hitler was a bigger idiot for targeting London instead of the RAF airfields in WW2, than Chamberlain had been for running down the British armed forces prior to the war and appeasing the Germans. We didn't win the war, we just didn't loose it but only be the skins of our teeth. The Russians and Americans were the main contributors in beating the Germans and the American's to beating the Japanese.

    Politicians will regularly use peoples expertise without agreeing with all of their opinions.
     
    Kilcullen's expertise is in fighting a coin war, not in running a democracy. oddly enough the US Govt has a fair bit of expertise in that area, institutionally the US Govt also has quite a bit of experience in building democracies and the current USG has access to all that info.
     
    I'm interested to note that you are denouncing "appeals to authority", whilst simultaneously saying that Kilcullen is an inadequate authority to appeal to and instead appealing to the authority of the US government and appealing to your own authority on the matter. 
     
    Anyway, what democracies had the US built prior Iraq in the Arab world? Let me answer your question, none. Culture matters and in a region where totalatarianism has been so rife, it is always going to be harder than elsewhere. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try, but the knowledge of somebody like Kilcullen about whether it can be done with the resources at hand is invaluable in making the decision.
     
    I'd also note that COIN operations are as much political as military affairs, so trying to suggest that an expert like Kilcullen doesn't understand the politics involved is simply not credible.
     
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