In Iraq, an offensive to secure the border...two years after the war ended and the insurgency began.

Overview

Yesterday the U.S. military launched an offensive near the Iraq-Syria border against insurgents loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. As reported by NBC,

Hundreds of American troops backed by helicopter gunships and warplanes swept into remote desert villages near the Syrian border Monday, hunting for followers of Iraq’s most wanted terrorist and reportedly killing as many as 100 militants since the weekend operation began.

The U.S. military said some foreign fighters were believed among the insurgents killed in the first 48 hours of the assault, which began late Saturday in the border town of Qaim, about 200 miles west of Baghdad. At least three Marines were killed in the region, it said.

U.S. officials described the area as a known smuggling route and a haven for foreign fighters involved in Iraq’s insurgency. The assault was the biggest U.S. offensives since the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah fell last fall.

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“This is an area which we believe has been pretty heavy with foreign insurgents from many different areas — Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine,” said Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq. “That’s a fairly porous area of the border because of the terrain. It is very difficult.”

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“Our analysis is that there’s a foreign fighter flow from Syria,” Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Regimental Combat Team 2, told the Tribune. “The trademark of these folks is to be where we’re not. We haven’t got north of the river for a while.”

(emphasis added). The end of major combat operations occurred on May 1, 2003. Two years later--two years after the insurgency started--we undertake an offensive to try to secure the border near Syria. Why did it take this long?

Iraq is not small, and there is a large total border.

Iraq is approximately the size of California. Even Texans have to admit that is a large area. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems to me that if you invade a country with that much area, in order to secure the country--which is to say, prevent or minimize things like insurgencies--you need to control more than just a few cities. In particular, securing the borders would seem to be rather important in order to, oh I don't know, keep out people and supplies that would aid the insurgents.

Iraq's total border is approximately 2251 miles long (3631 km x .62). That's a lot of border. Perhaps there was no great need to secure all of that border. Two of Iraq's neighbors are Jordan and Kuwait, solid U.S. allies. Assuming no need to control those borders, the total is reduced by approximately 262 miles (150 for Kuwait and 112 for Jordan). Iraq is bordered on the north by Turkey, another U.S. ally. One might assume that the total could be reduced by another 205 miles, but perhaps not due to the hostility between the Turks and the Kurds (see Wolfowitz's Reason 2 why Shinseki was wrong and Wolfowitz's Reason 3 why Shinseki was wrong). Still, just to give the wingers the benefit of the doubt, I will reduce the total by 205 miles. That leaves 1784 miles of border to secure. Iraq's largest neighbor to the west is Saudi Arabia, another U.S. ally, with a border of 505 miles. In spite of the facts that 1) bin Laden is Saudi, 2) most Saudis were against the war, 3) Saudi Arabia is the home of Wahabbism, a radical form of Islam that is strongly anti-U.S., and many other factors, I will once again appease the wingers and subtract Saudi Arabia's border, which leaves 1279 miles of border. And there will be no further subtractions, for the remaining neighbors are Iran and Syria. 1279 miles is still a significant distance, particulary considering that 904 of those miles belong to a definite non-friendly (Iran) and the remaining 375 miles (605 km x .62) belong to the country from which we say there is a flow of foreign fighters (Syria).

So once again I ask why it took two years to launch an offensive to take control of the border.

Maybe we were not aware of a flow of foreign fighters from Syria until now.

Survey says...

The official position has long been that the Syrian border was a problem.

On April 13, 2003, the BBC quoted then Secretary of State Colin Powell as saying the following:

Syria has been a concern for a long period of time. We have designated Syria for years as a state that sponsors terrorism, and we have discussed this with the Syrians on many occasions. We are concerned that materials have flowed through Syria to the Iraqi regime over the years.

Around the same time, Secretary of Defense Don Rumskull had much more to say. This exchange took place at a press briefing on April 11, 2003:

Q: If I could follow up, Mr. Secretary. You've said numerous times from this podium that Syria's actions have been notably unhelpful. Can you definitively say what Syria is doing or not doing today as far as this conflict goes? What are your comments on Syria's role today?

Rumsfeld: Well, I observed and Secretary Powell observed that that country has been unhelpful. They've been unhelpful in several respects. They have been unhelpful in the sense that they were allowing military equipment to go into Iraq at a time when we were engaged in a conflict there. And that's something for which we have a minimum of high regard. The second thing I would say is they have been allowing people to go into that country, and people who were intending to oppose coalition forces. We don't like that, either. Third, they have allowed people to come out of that country into their country and either stay or transit. None of these things are helpful.

On April 13, 2003, Rumskull appeared on "Meet the Press," where he discussed Syria.

Rumsfeld: And then there's some foreign fighters. We have been finding people from other countries engaged in battles, most recently in Baghdad over the last 24 hours.

Q: From where?

Rumsfeld: Some are from Syria -- the largest number I think from Syria. We've seen them coming in. They were bringing busloads in for a while. We turned busloads back.

Q: Now, you have warned the Syrians several times -- one, about shipping night goggles to the Iraqi forces. Did we find any night goggles in Iraq?

Rumsfeld: Oh, yes, we found night goggles in Iraq.

Q: And you warned the Syrians about harboring members of Saddam's regime. Can you confirm that members of Saddam's regime fled to Syria?

Rumsfeld: Oh, there's no question but that they did -- absolutely.

Q: Including --

Rumsfeld: Some left and went to Syria and stayed, and some have left Iraq, gone to Syria and transitted to other countries.

From there, Rumskull went to "Face the Nation," where he, Tom Friedman, and Bob Schieffer had the following discussion:

Friedman: Mr. Secretary, how do you see the political structure now evolving in Iraq. The war is over, what happens next? Will it be--

Rumsfeld: The war isn't over Tom. There are still people being killed. We lost some people last night. There are pockets of resistance. There are Fedayeen Saddam people--the death squad people who are going out trying to kill people. We just found, I don't know, I think it was 80 vests filled with explosives and ball bearings. And the inventory list suggested there were another 30 that are not there. So there are people - suicide types who are out. There are a number of non-Iraqis who are in the country, particularly in Baghdad we find.

Friedman: Are these from Syria?

Rumsfeld: A lot from Syria, most from Syria it appears.

Friedman: There were actually Syrian soldiers, or nationals, how would you describe them?

Rumsfeld: Nationals.

Friedman: Syrian nationals.

Rumsfeld: That's what we're told.

Friedman: Involved in operations against American forces?

Rumsfeld: Absolutely. In a firefight, a lot of them got killed last night.

Schieffer: What would they be? Intelligence agents or are they people there with some official tie to the government, or just people who just wandered in there?

Rumsfeld: I have no idea. People were busy fighting them. They weren't asking their biographies.

Schieffer: I understand.

Rumsfeld: We did see busloads of people coming out of Syria into the country. Some were stopped. The ones we could find, turned them around and sent them back. And some we impounded and put in enemy prisoner of war camps. And others are getting killed.

Friedman: Are the Syrians going to pay a price for this?

Schieffer: The reason I ask that - I mean it seems to me that people wouldn't just be sitting around in Syria and saying, "Gosh let's go over to Iraq." These people must've been sent there with a mission and they must've had some connection would you assume, to the Syrian government?

Rumsfeld: On one of the buses, they found something like several hundred thousand dollars and a number of leaflets that suggested that people would be rewarded if they killed Americans, which is not surprising. Saddam Hussein's regime was paying 25 thousand dollars to people who blew up shopping malls in Israel - suicide bombers.

So, according to some of the head honchos, we knew over two years ago that military equipment and foreign fighters for the insurgency were flowing into Iraq from Syria. So why did we wait for two years to do something about it?

A possible answer

Could it be that we did not take similar action before now because we did not have enough troops in Iraq in the first place? That seems to be a logical possibility to me. I have always maintained that winning the war was a foregone conclusion. The war probably could have been won with even fewer troops than were actually deployed. I have also always maintained that the hard part would be the post-war operation, and that that task would take a great number of troops, and there is plenty of evidence to support my claims (see More on Wolfowitz and the blunders of the Bush administration, Wolfowitz's Reason 2 why Shinseki was wrong, and Wolfowitz's Reason 3 why Shinseki was wrong). And who is to blame for the insufficient number of troops? Well, as explained in Franks on planning for the post-war period and Official campaign planning doctrine and the post-war period, the blame rests with two people: Donald Rumskull and George W. Bush.