Book Review - Losing Iraq
Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco
Written by: David L. Phillips,
Basic Books, New York, 2005,
ISBN: 9780813343044, ix + 292pp.
Reviewed by: Major Lynda Liddy, Research Fellow, Land Warfare Studies Centre.
In the aftermath of civil wars, international actors often worry about sectarianism, tribalism and ethnic division in war torn states. In Iraq, however, it is evident that forced regime change is also fraught with similar challenges. Religious and ethnic divisions, political rivalries, and the fragmentation of authority have constituted enormous obstacles to post-war recovery. In the face of these obstacles, Iraq’s political transition has been marred by confusion and repeated course correction. This has created the impression that the Bush Administration did not have a definite plan for restoring sovereignty in Iraq.
In this book, David Phillips argues that the problem was not the absence of a plan, but rather that Iraq was thrown into crisis when Bush Administration officials, and, especially Pentagon political appointees, decided to ignore the planning that was already underway. The book not only outlines the context in which the United States decided upon military action in Iraq but also analyses the extent of planning to facilitate the reconstruction of Iraq—what went wrong and why.
The author is well qualified to present what, by his own admission, is a selective work based on ‘insider information’ and ‘knowledgeable observation’. Not only was he the head of the United States Congressional Human Rights Foundation from 1988–95, he was also a former senior policy adviser to the State Department. As Head of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation, the author had frequent contact with Iraqi Kurds, making numerous visits to Iraqi Kurdistan during his tenure.
Due of this hands-on experience, the author was invited by the State Department to facilitate the Democratic Principles Working Group as part of the Future of Iraq Project, developing recommendations for Iraqi reconstruction.
The Future of Iraq Project, sponsored by the State Department, was launched in 2002 to begin practical planning for the immediate aftermath of a transition when the Iraqis would face the huge task of reconstruction. The project developed recommendations on a range of issues ranging from education, health, sanitation, agriculture, security, governance, the rule of law, and traditional justice.
Phillips resigned as senior adviser from the State Department in September 2003 due to his perception that the work and recommendations of the Future of Iraq Project were being ‘ignored’ by the Bush Administration. The book addresses many themes; however, the most important is that of nation-building. The work includes a thirteen-page addendum on ‘Lessons in Nation Building’ in which the author outlines what should be included in an effective nationbuilding and reconstruction plan.
Building a nation-state requires creating a sovereign centre of political accountability. A newly formed national government also requires legitimacy, especially if it has emerged as the result of an externally imposed political transition. In the past, political legitimacy has usually derived from a combination of international legislation and United Nations’ Resolutions, sponsorship or direction. The intervention in Afghanistan enjoyed such international legitimacy; the intervention in Iraq did not. Afghans saw international intervention not so much as destroying sovereignty as restoring it after years of turmoil. In Iraq, however, successive delays in handing over sovereignty fuelled the insurgency and embittered Iraqis.
The author is highly critical of President Bush’s ‘antipathy towards internationalism’ and ‘his willingness to go it alone’. This resulted in his Administration limiting the UN’s post-war role in the reconstruction of Iraq. This was a mistake because ‘burden-sharing and unity of command are the twin pillars of successful nation-building’ and the UN is ‘typically the vehicle through which the international community organises collective action’.
There were in fact four ‘political’ conflicts evident in post-war reconstruction efforts: the politics of Iraqi factionalism, the politics of US interagency friction, the politics of ideological divisions within the Bush administration, and the politics of establishing a legitimate central government with sufficient authority to ensure security and prosperity for all Iraqis. In the book, the author navigates these political conflicts in detail, outlining where the Bush Administration failed to win and why, and is critical of the fact that the Bush Administration has clung to an illusion of Iraqi unity, ignoring the factionalism evident not only in government and the civil administration but also the security forces and the police.
Furthermore, Phillips is also critical of the poor government interagency relations within the US Administration. There developed acrimonious relations between the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the State Department as US officials vied for control over the Iraq policy; the author provides examples where ‘Pentagon political appointees ran roughshod’ over the State Department’.
Indeed, he provides detailed analysis of the ideological conflict within the Bush Administration which, in his opinion, hampered reconstruction efforts. He identified three ideological ‘camps’: the hegemonists’, led by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who believed in aggressive unilateral action to protect US interests; the neo-conservatives, who wanted to ‘reshape’ the world in America’s image and, in the process, ensure future access to Middle Eastern oil; and the pragmatic internationalists, led by Colin Powell, who believed that global threats could best be met through international cooperation.
As to the war being based on questionable intelligence, the author contends that, again and again, the Bush Administration either ignored the advice of Iraqis or only listened to Iraqis who told them what they wanted to hear. The White House and Pentagon political appointees thought they could ‘liberate a country without talking to those they were liberating’.
Finally, without a credible, speedy political process to restore self rule, many Iraqis became embittered. The failure to implement rapidly an effective post-war plan brought unnecessary hardship to the Iraqi people, and delays in handing over sovereignty impaired both the legitimacy of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the subsequent Interim Government and, finally, the political process leading up to the Iraqi elections in 2005. Furthermore, when an Iraqi government was finally elected on 30 January 2005, the worsening security situation further undermined the legitimacy of this new administration
The author contends that these problems could have been averted, or at least minimised if the recommendations of ‘The Future of Iraq Project’ were adopted at the outset and quickly implemented. He concludes that, whilst the Bush Administration had tangible goals for Iraq, there was no coherent strategy for accomplishing them. Policy was based on a combination of naiveté, misjudgement and wishful thinking.
Some suggest the solution to end the violence is the partition of Iraq. The author argues that Federalism, by preserving a meaningful role for the central authority in Baghdad, has the potential to fulfil the various democratic aspirations of rival factions as well as strengthening territorial integrity.
David Phillips is exhaustive in his analysis in ‘what went wrong in Iraq’. He gives an extremely detailed account of State Department planning for post-war reconstruction, the politics of the Iraqi opposition factions who participated in much of this early planning, as well as the Bush Administration’s difficulties in developing its own strategy for reconstruction. In so doing, he cites both formal and informal discussions, office memoranda, letters and interviews. His main conclusions are that future military action must be conducted in concert with allies, in accordance with international law and accompanied by a detailed plan to win the peace.
