“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

Post-Saddam Iraq:
The War Game

"Desert Crossing" 1999 Assumed
400,000 Troops and Still a Mess

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 207

The results of Desert Crossing, however, drew pessimistic conclusions regarding the immediate possible outcomes of such action. Some of these conclusions are interestingly similar to the events which actually occurred after Saddam was overthrown. (Note 1) The report forewarned that regime change may cause regional instability by opening the doors to "rival forces bidding for power" which, in turn, could cause societal "fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines" and antagonize "aggressive neighbors." Further, the report illuminated worries that secure borders and a restoration of civil order may not be enough to stabilize Iraq if the replacement government were perceived as weak, subservient to outside powers, or out of touch with other regional governments. An exit strategy, the report said, would also be complicated by differing visions for a post-Saddam Iraq among those involved in the conflict.

The Desert Crossing report was similarly pessimistic when discussing the nature of a new Iraqi government. If the U.S. were to establish a transitional government, it would likely encounter difficulty, some groups discussed, from a "period of widespread bloodshed in which various factions seek to eliminate their enemies." The report stressed that the creation of a democratic government in Iraq was not feasible, but a new pluralistic Iraqi government which included nationalist leaders might be possible, suggesting that nationalist leaders were a stabilizing force. Moreover, the report suggested that the U.S. role be one in which it would assist Middle Eastern governments in creating the transitional government for Iraq.

General Zinni, who retired in 2000 shortly after the completion of Desert Crossing, brought the report to the attention of the public after the war. Even before the invasion, he had made his opposition to an imminent war widely known. In a major address at the Middle East Institute in October 2002, he disputed the view that war was either inevitable or desirable. On the question of establishing a new government to replace Saddam Hussein, he said, "God help us if we think this transition will occur easily."

Zinni noted the parallels to what eventually happened after the invasion as well as to the lack of interest elsewhere in the U.S. government for tackling the problems of reconstruction:

The first meeting surfaced all the problems that have exactly happened now. This was 1999. And when I took it back and looked at it, I said, we need a plan. Not all of this is a military responsibility. I went back to State Department, to the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, Department of Commerce and others and said, all right, how about you guys taking part of the plan. We need a plan in addition to the war plan for the reconstruction. Not interested. Would not look at it.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB207/index.htm

Garner and his top aides, including retired Gens. Jared Bates and Ron Adams, proposed paying 300,000 to 400,000 members of the Iraqi regular army at war's end. Also, Iraqi soldiers who surrendered to advancing U.S. forces would be formed into work units. Private contractors were recruited to help make that happen.

Military planners inside the government assumed, based on prewar intelligence, that some Iraqi units would switch sides during the war, while others would remain in their garrisons awaiting instructions from the U.S. postwar leadership. U.S. aircraft had been dropping leaflets for weeks calling on Iraqi forces to prepare for a brighter future by laying down their arms.

Looking ahead, members of the State Department's Future of Iraq working group on defense had developed a similar plan, concluding that former soldiers could provide valuable intelligence while performing reconnaissance and security missions.

On March 11, the Pentagon announced its intention to pay several hundred thousand members of the regular Iraqi army. The elite and politicized Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard, loyal to Hussein, would not be included.

Bremer soon declared in internal meetings that no Iraqi units would be reconstituted and that soldiers would not be paid. On May 23, he issued a formal order that dismissed the army and canceled pensions. The order covered many categories of Iraqis, among them war widows and disabled veterans who were senior party members, defined as any officers at the rank of colonel or above.

U.S. officials in Baghdad, including Garner and Bates, were startled.

"It came with formidable force and decisiveness, as the president's policy. Nobody was supposed to challenge it and that was that," said one U.S. official in Baghdad at the time. Another said: "There was never a discussion that I was involved in where we would disband the military. It caught me completely by surprise."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63423-2003Nov19?language=printer