After Action Review (AAR) by General McCaffrey
As promised, here is a document providing by General Barry McCaffrey regarding his findings from his December, 2007 trip to Iraq. Those findings are compelling, intriguing and disturbing.
Readers should take the time to read and absorb those findings, which are a combination of good news and bad news. Readers are also strongly encouraged to read our other recent post regarding the posting of two Air Force Generals. The contrast between the two is remarkable.
Some highlights I gleaned from Gen McCaffrey's report include:
Why the violence is down in Iraq
The internal conditions that hamper our desire to withdraw from Iraq
The goals which must be achieved to enable withdrawal
The inadequacy of our current level of effort to achieve those goals
The international security risks we are exposing ourselves to
Why we find ourselves in these circumstances
His vision for an end game which challenges that of all the Presidential candidates and the next Congress
The report as done as a .pdf. Accordingly, I am providing a link to a web site where you can read it until I can convert it and post it in its entireity here.
Here is the link.
http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/iraqaardec2007.pdf
This is a well-written summary of the current Iraq situation. I imagine this acticle may be interpreted in different ways.
For those who have looked dimly on the administration's execution of the war, this will be viewed in terms of poor planning and execution and the cost, dangers and difficulty of this conflict, an "I told you so". A glass half empty.
For those of us who thought the war was necessary, we may see significant progress, hope, and an administration that has fixed old problems and assumed a new course that may work. A glass half full.
I saw the movie "Charlie Wilson's War" today. This movie is about defeating the Russians in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. The final lament was that the enemy was defeated, but the follow-up action was screwed up. I see a parallel in the same region of the world twenty (or so) years later. I think we have a chance to still fix the follow-up part of the equation. Imagine the benefits if we can persevere long enough in the Middle East to achieve valuable allies to counterbalance the terrorist/Islamic threat.
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