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RAND monographs present major research findings that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND monographs undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.ARROYO CENTERAfter SaddamPrewar Planning and the Occupation of IraqNora Bensahel, Olga Oliker, Keith Crane, Richard R. Brennan, Jr., Heather S. Gregg, Thomas Sullivan, Andrew RathmellPrepared for the United States ArmyApproved for public release; distribution unlimitedThe RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.R® is a registered trademark.© Copyright 2008 RAND CorporationAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from RAND.Published 2008 by the RAND Corporation1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-21381200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-50504570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2665RAND URL: http://www.rand.orgTo order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contactDistribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002;Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: order@rand.orgThe research described in this report was sponsored by the United States Army under Contract No. DASW01-01-C-0003.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataAfter Saddam : prewar planning and the occupation of Iraq / Nora Bensahel ... [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8330-4458-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Iraq War, 2003– 2. Military planning—United States. 3. Postwar reconstruction—Iraq. 4. Coalition Provisional Authority. 5. Insurgency—Iraq. 6. National security—Iraq. I. Bensahel, Nora, 1971– DS79.76A345 2008 956.7044'3—dc222008025846iii Preface Soon after Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) began in March 2003, RAND Ar-royo Center began a research project at the request of the U.S. Army. This project set out to prepare an authoritative account of the planning and execution of combat and stability operations in Iraq and to identify key issues that could affect Army plans and goals, operational concepts, doctrine, and other Title 10 responsibilities. The resulting body of work will interest those involved in organizing, training, and equipping military forces to plan for, deploy to, participate in, and support joint and coalition operations. Although focused primarily on Army forces and activities, the analysis also describes other aspects of joint and combined operations. RAND analysts collected the information in these volumes from many sources, including unit after-action reports, compilations of lessons learned, official databases, media reports, other contemporary records, and interviews with key participants in OIF. The results of this project are documented in multiple volumes, some not avail-able to the general public, as described below: • Decisive War, Elusive Peace: Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, MG-641-A, Richard E. Darilek, Walter L. Perry, Laurinda L. Rohn, and Jerry M. Sollinger, editors. This volume is an overview of the research findings. • After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq, MG-642-A, Nora Bensahel, Olga Oliker, Keith Crane, Richard R. Brennan, Jr., Heather S. Gregg, Thomas Sullivan, and Andrew Rathmell. This volume is a treatment of the prewar planning for the postwar situation and of postwar military and re-construction activities. • Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: Executive Summary, MG-643-A, Walter L. Perry, Laurinda L. Rohn, and Jerry M. Sollinger. This volume, not available to the general public, presents an executive summary of the research findings. • Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: Volume I, The Genesis, MG-643/1-A, Jefferson P. Marquis, Walter L. Perry, David E. Mosher, Stephen T. Hosmer, Andrea Mejia, Richard E. Darilek, Jerry M. Sollinger, Vipin Narang, Charles W. Yost, John Halliday, and John R. Bondanella. This volume, not available to the gen-iv After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq eral public, describes the political and military activities leading up to the opera-tion. • Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: Volume II, Defeating Saddam, MG-643/2-A, Bruce R. Pirnie, John Gordon IV, Richard R. Brennan, Jr., Forrest E. Morgan, Alexander C. Hou, and Charles W. Yost. This volume, not available to the gen-eral public, covers major combat operations in Iraq. • Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: Volume III, Managing the War, MG-643/3-A, Walter L. Perry, Edward O’Connell, Miranda Priebe, Forrest E. Morgan, Lowell H. Schwartz, and Alexander C. Hou. This volume, not available to the general public, describes the command and control (C2) of the forces and sup-porting operations. • Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: Volume IV, Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq, MG-643/4-A, Nora Bensahel, Olga Oliker, Keith Crane, Richard R. Brennan, Jr., Heather S. Gregg, Thomas Sullivan, and Andrew Rathmell. This volume, not available to the general public, describes the prewar planning for the postwar situation and postwar military and reconstruction activities. • Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: Volume V, Sustaining the Force, MG-643/5-A, Eric Peltz, David Kassing, Jerry M. Sollinger, Marc Robbins, Kenneth J. Girar-dini, Peter Schirmer, Robert Howe, and Brian Nichiporuk. This volume, not available to the general public, covers the mobilization and sustainment of the forces. This report provides an unclassified treatment of the post–major combat mili-tary and stabilization activities. It begins by examining prewar planning for postwar Iraq, in order to establish what U.S. policymakers expected the postwar situation to look like and what their plans were for stabilization. The report then examines the role of U.S. military forces after major combat officially ended on May 1, 2003. Fi-nally, the report examines civilian efforts at reconstruction, focusing on the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and its efforts to rebuild structures of governance, security forces, economic policy, and essential services prior to June 28, 2004, the day that CPA dissolved and transferred authority to the Iraqi Interim Gov-ernment. The research for this volume was completed in September 2004 and the final draft was submitted in October 2004. The purpose of this analysis is to find out where problems occurred and to sug-gest possibilities to improve planning and operations in the future. The results of such analysis can seem therefore to be overly focused on the negative. This should not be taken to mean that no good was done. In fact, dedicated U.S. and coalition personnel, both military and civilian, engaged in many positive and constructive ac-tivities, individually and collectively. That this analysis does not highlight all those activities should not in any way detract from their value. Our focus, however, re-mains on finding ways to improve. Preface v This research was co-sponsored by the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3, U.S. Army, and the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8, U.S. Army. It was conducted in RAND Arroyo Center’s Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program. RAND Arroyo Center, part of the RAND Corporation, is a federally funded research and development center spon-sored by the United States Army. The Project Unique Identification Code (PUIC) for the project that produced this document is DAMOAX003. For more information on RAND Arroyo Center, contact the Director of Op-erations (telephone 310-393-0411, extension 6419; FAX 310-451-6952; email Marcy_Agmon@rand.org), or visit Arroyo’s web site at http://www.rand.org/ard/. vii Contents Preface......................................................................................iii Figures.....................................................................................xiii Tables.......................................................................................xv Summary..................................................................................xvii Acknowledgments........................................................................xxxi List of Acronyms and Abbreviations.....................................................xxxiii CHAPTER ONE Introduction.................................................................................1 CHAPTER TWO Military Planning Efforts....................................................................5 CENTCOM Operational Planning..........................................................6 Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) Phase IV Planning............10 Planning at V Corps and Subordinate Commands.........................................14 Observations...............................................................................14 CHAPTER THREE Civilian Planning Efforts..................................................................21 Interagency Planning: The ESG and the IPMC............................................21 The Office of the Secretary of Defense.....................................................24 The Office of Special Plans..............................................................24 Policy Guidance..........................................................................26 OSD’s Role in Policymaking.............................................................28 State Department Planning................................................................29 The State Department and Interagency Planning........................................30 The Future of Iraq Project...............................................................31 USAID Planning...........................................................................33 Reconstruction Planning and Contracting...............................................33 Coordination with Other Agencies.......................................................34 viii After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq The National Security Council.............................................................35 De-Ba’athification........................................................................36 Restructuring Iraqi Military and Security Institutions...................................36 Other Analyses of Postwar Requirements..................................................37 CHAPTER FOUR Task Force IV..............................................................................41 Establishing Task Force IV.................................................................41 Task Force IV Planning....................................................................42 Operational Challenges.....................................................................46 Staffing Issues............................................................................46 Relations with CENTCOM and CFLCC...............................................47 Relations with ORHA...................................................................50 The Dissolution of Task Force IV..........................................................51 CHAPTER FIVE The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance..............................53 Organization and Staffing..................................................................53 ORHA Planning...........................................................................58 The February Rock Drill.................................................................59 ORHA’s Role in Reconstruction.........................................................64 Deploying to Kuwait.......................................................................65 Arriving in Baghdad........................................................................68 The Transition to CPA.....................................................................70 CHAPTER SIX Humanitarian Planning...................................................................73 Interagency Humanitarian Planning.......................................................73 IO and NGO Frustrations.................................................................77 Actual Humanitarian Requirements........................................................78 Assessing Humanitarian Planning..........................................................79 CHAPTER SEVEN Combat Operations During Phase IV.....................................................81 Phase IVa: Stability Operations............................................................81 Anticipated Security Challenges..........................................................81 Security Challenges During the Transition to Phase IVa.................................82 Initial Response to Civil Unrest..........................................................84 Stabilization Efforts, March to June 2003................................................86 Phase IVb: Recovery Operations...........................................................93 Organization for Phase IVb..............................................................93 The Growing Insurgency.................................................................94 Contents ix CHAPTER EIGHT The Coalition Provisional Authority.....................................................101 The Origins and Authorities of CPA......................................................101 Goals .....................................................................................104 Other Governing Institutions.............................................................106 Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).........................................................106 Ministries...............................................................................107 Organization of CPA......................................................................109 Location and Staffing......................................................................115 Relations with CJTF-7....................................................................118 Concluding Observations.................................................................120 CHAPTER NINE Building New Iraqi Security Forces......................................................121 Defining and Building Iraqi Security Forces..............................................121 Building the MoI..........................................................................123 Creating the Iraqi Police Service (IPS)....................................................124 The Facilities Protection Services..........................................................132 The Border Police.........................................................................135 High-End MoI Forces.....................................................................137 Ministry of Defense.......................................................................138 The Iraqi Armed Forces...................................................................139 Dissolution of the Iraqi Armed Forces: Aftermath......................................139 Designing a New Force.................................................................141 Building the New Force.................................................................143 Changing Goals and Parameters........................................................145 Success or Failure?.......................................................................146 Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC)........................................................147 Intelligence................................................................................150 National Security Decisionmaking Structures.............................................151 Iraqi Armed Forces and the Handover of Power..........................................153 Integrating the Armed Forces and Militias Not Under Government Control.............154 Concluding Observations.................................................................156 CHAPTER TEN Governance and Political Reconstruction................................................159 Prewar Planning for Postwar Governance.................................................159 Postwar Governance: The Iraqi Governing Council......................................160 The November 15 Agreement and the Transfer of Authority.............................171 The Transitional Administrative Law.....................................................179 Provincial and City Governance...........................................................182 x After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq Lessons Learned...........................................................................187 Security and Political Development.....................................................187 The Role of Exiles in the New Government............................................188 Bringing All Groups into the Political Process..........................................189 Flexibility in Creating a New Government and Establishing Reasonable Timelines....190 Publicizing Political Developments and Informing the Population.....................191 The Importance of Civil Society and Political Culture..................................192 CHAPTER ELEVEN Economic Policy..........................................................................195 Economic Conditions in Iraq at the End of Major Combat...............................195 Economic Policies Pursued by CPA.......................................................197 Restarting the Economy.................................................................197 Resuming the Provision of Government Services.......................................198 Controlling Inflation....................................................................199 Tariffs and Taxes........................................................................201 The Budget.............................................................................202 Law on Foreign Direct Investment......................................................202 Economic Policy Changes That Were Not Fully Implemented...........................203 Price Liberalization......................................................................203 Reforming the Food Rationing System.................................................204 Rationalizing State-Owned Enterprises.................................................206 Lessons Learned...........................................................................208 CHAPTER TWELVE Essential Services and Infrastructure......................................................211 Status at the End of Major Combat.......................................................211 Prewar Assumptions.......................................................................212 Contracting for the Resumption of Essential Services.....................................215 Initial Contracts.........................................................................216 Post-Conflict Contracts in FY2003.....................................................217 The Project Management Office........................................................218 The Players: Who Was Involved in Reconstruction.......................................219 Iraqi Ministries and State-Owned Enterprises...........................................219 CPA.....................................................................................219 Regional Military Commanders.........................................................220 U.S. Government Contracting Institutions.............................................220 International Institutions...............................................................220 Contractors.............................................................................220 Financing..................................................................................221 Coordinating and Implementing Reconstruction Projects................................224 Contents xi Project Selection........................................................................224 Reconstruction and Project Management...............................................225 Allocation of Funds.....................................................................228 Results as of June 28, 2004................................................................229 Resuming the Provision of Essential Services............................................229 Expenditures............................................................................230 Costs....................................................................................230 Quality Control.........................................................................231 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Assessing Postwar Efforts.................................................................233 Shaping the Plan..........................................................................233 Unchallenged Assumptions and Expectations...........................................234 Ineffective Interagency Coordination...................................................237 Security as the Key Postwar Task.......................................................239 Lessons for the Army......................................................................241 APPENDIX Strategic Studies Institute’s Mission Matrix for Iraq.....................................245 Bibliography..............................................................................255 xiii Figures 2.1. Military Presence at Outset of Post-Conflict Operations..........................17 3.1. OUSD(P) and NESA Organization Chart........................................25 4.1. Planned Sectors for CJTF-Iraq....................................................44 4.2. Proposed Force Structure for CJTF-Iraq..........................................45 5.1. Initial ORHA Organization Chart................................................55 5.2. Revised ORHA Organization Chart...............................................57 7.1. Phase IVa Occupation of Iraq.....................................................87 7.2. CJTF-7 Task Organization, June 2003............................................94 7.3. CJTF-7 Areas of Operations, June 2003..........................................95 8.1. Original Organization of CPA, July 2003........................................110 8.2. Revised Organization as of November 2003......................................114 8.3. Location of the Palace in Baghdad................................................115 xv Tables 5.1. Planned Ministerial Advisory Teams, February 2003..............................60 9.1. Iraqi Police Service Training......................................................128 9.2. Facilities Protection Services......................................................134 9.3. Department of Border Enforcement..............................................136 9.4. New Iraqi Security Forces........................................................158 10.1. The Iraqi Governing Council, July 2003.........................................167 10.2. Cabinet Appointments, September 2003.........................................170 10.3. Iraqi Interim Government, June 2004............................................177 12.1. Major Reconstruction Contracts for Iraq as of September 30, 2003..............221 12.2. Total Funds Available, Obligated, and Disbursed for Iraq by Source as of April 2004 (in billions of U.S. dollars)......................................222 A.1. Mission Matrix for Iraq...........................................................246 xvii Summary Major combat operations in Iraq lasted approximately three weeks, but stabilization efforts in that country are, as of this writing, ongoing. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps are increasingly taxed by the demands of the continuing insurgency, with more than 100,000 troops expected to remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future. The evidence suggests that the United States had neither the people nor the plans in place to handle the situation that arose after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Looters took to the streets, damaging much of Iraq’s infrastructure that had remained intact throughout major combat. Iraqi police and military units were nowhere to be found, having largely dispersed during combat. U.S. military forces in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country were not prepared to respond rapidly to the initial looting and subsequent large-scale public unrest. These conditions enabled the insurgency to take root, and the Army and Marine Corps have been battling the insurgents ever since. Why was the United States so unprepared for the challenges of postwar Iraq? As part of a larger study of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF), RAND Arroyo Cen-ter examined prewar planning for postwar Iraq and the subsequent occupation to seek an answer to this question and to draw lessons and recommendations from the Iraq experience. It is not the case that no one planned for post-Saddam Iraq. On the contrary, many agencies and organizations within the U.S. government identified a range of possible postwar challenges in 2002 and early 2003, before major combat com-menced, and suggested strategies for addressing them. Some of these ideas seem quite prescient in retrospect. Yet few if any made it into the serious planning process for OIF. They were held at bay, in the most general sense, by two mutually reinforcing sets of assumptions that dominated planning for OIF at the highest levels. Although many agencies and individuals sought to plan for post-Saddam Iraq, senior policy-makers throughout the government held to a set of fairly optimistic assumptions about the conditions that would emerge after major combat and what would be re-quired thereafter. These assumptions tended to override counterarguments elsewhere xviii After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq in the government. Meanwhile, senior military commanders assumed that civilian authorities would be responsible for the postwar period. Hence they focused the vast majority of their attention on preparations for and the execution of major combat operations. That both sets of assumptions proved to be invalid argues for the devel-opment of a new and broader approach to planning military operations, and perhaps a louder military voice in shaping postwar operations. Military Planning for Phase IV The notion of a “Phase IV” in OIF came out of the war planning process that com-menced in the fall of 2001, shortly before the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. On November 27, 2001, the Secretary of Defense directed U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to develop a plan to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The plan that emerged for OIF, later called OPLAN 1003V, outlined four phases: establishing international support and preparing for deployment; shaping the battlespace; major combat operations; and post-combat operations. The final version of OPLAN 1003V provided guidance and responsibilities for Phase IV operations, giving CENTCOM’s land component, the Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC), primary responsibility for post-combat operations. Both CENTCOM and CFLCC developed supporting OPLANs in early 2003 that focused on Phase IV operations. Elements of each of these plans appear fairly prescient in retrospect. Yet they were always a low priority at CENTCOM, which focused the vast bulk of its time, attention, and resources on major combat opera-tions. Although CENTCOM’s commander, General Tommy Franks, refers to Phase IV frequently in his memoirs, for example, he never identifies the specific mission that U.S. forces should have had during that time. To the contrary: He expresses the strong sentiment that his civilian superiors should focus on postwar operations while he focused on the war itself.1 He goes on to argue that civic action sets the precondi-tions for security rather than the other way around.2 And he justifies his decision to retire right after combat ended because the mission was changing and a new com-mander should be there throughout Phase IV.3 ____________ 1 Franks states, “While we at CENTCOM were executing the war plan, Washington should focus on policy-level issues . . . I knew the President and Don Rumsfeld would back me up, so I felt free to pass the message along to the bureaucracy beneath them: You pay attention to the day after and I’ll pay attention to the day of.” Tommy Franks, American Solider, New York: Regan Books, 2004, p. 441. Emphasis in the original. 2 Franks writes, “As I had said throughout our planning sessions, civic action and security were linked— inextricably linked. There was a commonly held belief that civil action would not be possible in Iraq without security. I would continue to argue that there could be no security without civic action.” Franks, p. 526. Empha-sis in the original. 3 Franks, p. 530. Summary xix In short, General Franks saw major combat operations during Phase III as fun-damentally distinct from Phase IV stability and reconstruction requirements, and as the military’s primary task. That mindset reinforced an understandable tendency at CENTCOM to focus planning on major combat as an end in itself rather than as a component part of a broader effort to create a stable, reasonably democratic Iraq. The result, arguably, was a military operation that made the latter, larger goal more difficult to achieve. Civilian Planning for Phase IV General Franks was correct in seeing the need for greater civilian involvement in the stabilization of Iraq, since civilian agencies possess many of the capabilities needed for post-conflict operations. In fact, several U.S. government organizations, particu-larly the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Security Council (NSC) conducted separate studies of postwar possibilities. The problem, therefore, was not that no one in the U.S. government thought about the challenges of post-Saddam Iraq. Rather, it was the failure to coordinate and integrate these various thoughts into a coherent, actionable plan. At the center of the interagency planning process lay the NSC, which, starting in the summer of 2002, oversaw several interagency working groups that brought together representatives from the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other organizations. Most of these working groups focused on the conduct of the war, but the working group on Iraq Relief and Reconstruction (IR+R) focused on postwar plans. This group produced fairly detailed humanitarian relief plans, but its reconstruction plans remained vague, reflecting a sense that reconstruction would not be necessary and stabilization would be handled by the Iraqis themselves. If the NSC staff failed to consider alternative scenarios that might pose differing requirements, neither did it provide strategic guidance on various aspects of U.S. pol-icy during the postwar period. Repeated requests for policy guidance from CENTCOM, Task Force IV, the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assis-tance (ORHA), and others went unanswered, leaving each agency to make its own assumptions about key aspects of the postwar period. Key questions, such as whether the U.S. postwar authority would be military or civilian in nature, went unanswered throughout the planning process. When the NSC issued strategic guidance in late March 2003 (as will be discussed in Chapter Three), the war was already under way. As a result, the various planning processes that occurred across the U.S. government were neither coordinated nor guided by a set of consistent goals and objectives. xx After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq Above all, the NSC seems not to have mediated persistent disagreement be-tween the Defense Department and the State Department that existed throughout the planning process. Secretary of State Colin Powell influenced a few key diplomatic decisions—notably the decision to take the case for war with Iraq to the United Na-tions in September 2002—but the Defense Department controlled most planning decisions. State’s main postwar planning effort, the Future of Iraq project, may not have been a workable plan for post-Saddam Iraq, but it raised many of the right questions about that phase of OIF. Yet the Defense Department largely ignored this project, to the point of preventing Tom Warrick, the study’s leader, from working for ORHA in the weeks just before the war began. The Defense Department created a new office to handle the increased workload associated with potential military operations in Iraq. It was called the Office of Spe-cial Plans (OSP), so as not to draw attention to the preparations for a possible war while President Bush simultaneously sought international support at the United Na-tions. OSP developed policy guidance on a wide range of issues, including the ques-tion of postwar governance, the future of the Iraqi army, and the de-Ba’athification process. Because the DoD exercised a great deal of control over planning for OIF, and ultimately took full control of the operation in January 2003, OSP exerted sub-stantial influence over U.S. planning for Iraq. Two particular sets of assumptions guided U.S. prewar planning for the postwar period. First, administration officials assumed that the military campaign would have a decisive end, and would produce a stable security situation. They intended to shrink the U.S. military presence down to two divisions—between 30,000 and 40,000 troops—by the fall of 2003. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz succinctly expressed this assumption during congressional testimony on February 27, 2003, when he stated, “It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to se-cure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army.”4 Second, they assumed that the Iraqi population would welcome U.S. forces. Three days before the war, Vice President Richard Cheney clearly articulated this view by stating, “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”5 Iraqi exiles supported this belief by empha-sizing that the Iraqis would greet U.S. forces with “sweets and flowers.”6 The one post-Saddam challenge for which the U.S. government actually planned was that of a possible humanitarian emergency brought on by the possibly massive flow of refugees, combined with shortages of food, water, and medicine. An interagency planning team started meeting in the fall of 2002 and worked with in-____________ 4 Paul Wolfowitz, testimony to the House Budget Committee, February 27, 2003. 5 Vice President Richard Cheney, remarks to Meet the Press, March 16, 2003. 6 Kanan Makiya, as quoted in Joel Brinkley and Eric Schmitt, “Iraqi Leaders Say U.S. Was Warned of Disorder After Hussein, but Little Was Done,” New York Times, November 30, 2003. Summary xxi ternational organizations (IOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to gen-erate detailed humanitarian relief plans across a range of possible scenarios. As it turned out, because of the speed of military operations, which left supply networks largely intact, the war in Iraq did not generate significant humanitarian require-ments. Task Force IV Significantly, observers at CENTCOM’s Internal Look exercise, held in December 2002, noted that the warplans for Iraq did not include detailed planning for the postwar period. Later that month, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered Joint Forces Command to create a new organization, based on the Standing Joint Force Headquarters (SJFHQ) concept, that would plan for Phase IV and form the nucleus of a postwar military headquarters in Iraq. This new organization, called Task Force IV (TFIV), was placed under CENTCOM’s operational control and started assembling in Tampa in January 2003. Although the Joint Staff had identified an extremely important problem with the existing warplans, Task Force IV proved to be an unworkable solution to it. Hav-ing been created very late in the planning process, and coming from outside CENTCOM, it had little influence. The fact that the task force’s director was a one-star general, outranked by key players in CENTCOM’s planning process, only com-pounded the problem. By March 2003, it was clear that Task Force IV would not become the nucleus of a postwar military headquarters, and it was officially dis-banded by the end of the month. The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) On January 20, 2003, the National Security Council issued NSPD-24, which gave the Department of Defense primary responsibility for postwar Iraq and tasked DoD to form a new office to take charge of planning. Retired Army Lieutenant General Jay Garner was named to lead this new office, which became known as ORHA. Many of ORHA’s early staff members were military personnel because U.S. agencies proved reluctant to provide staff for ORHA, though its composition grew more bal-anced over time. ORHA personnel soon discovered that the many administrative issues involved in setting up their organization left little time to deal with substantive issues and long-term planning. ORHA did plan for possible humanitarian relief operations, drawing on interagency relief plans prepared elsewhere. It also developed the concept of Ministerial Advisory Teams to ensure that Iraqi ministries continued to function xxii After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq between the fall of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a new permanent gov-ernment. These concepts were discussed at a meeting held at the National Defense University on February 21 and 22, 2003, which included representatives from every U.S. government agency that would have a role in reconstruction. The meeting re-vealed several serious shortcomings in preparations for dealing with postwar Iraq: U.S. agencies were reluctant to provide personnel for the ministerial teams, and the question of who would provide postwar security in Iraq remained unaddressed. Both of these issues would later pose significant problems for both ORHA and its succes-sor, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). ORHA deployed to Kuwait in mid-March 2003, although many staff members would have preferred to remain in Washington longer to continue developing work-ing relationships with their counterparts throughout the U.S. government. Once in Kuwait, ORHA learned that, for security reasons, the CFLCC commander did not want ORHA collocated with his forces at Camp Doha. ORHA thus set up its head-quarters at the Kuwait Hilton, approximately 45 minutes away from Camp Doha and lacking rudimentary communications and infrastructure. Significantly, ORHA’s personnel were not privy to the warplans until shortly before the war started. ORHA had planned to enter Basra and start reconstruction efforts as soon as coalition military forces secured that city, but during the second week of March, Garner learned that the warplans called for most military forces to go straight to Baghdad instead of remaining in rear areas to provide security, thus ren-dering many of ORHA’s plans obsolete. CFLCC directed ORHA to remain in Ku-wait while major combat operations were conducted throughout Iraq. Not only did this render its plans ineffective, but once Baghdad fell and the looting started, it ex-posed ORHA to charges that it was doing nothing to stop destruction around the country. ORHA began entering Baghdad on April 21, after Garner personally asked for and received permission to do so from General Franks. ORHA quickly discovered that conditions in Iraq were markedly different from those originally anticipated. The expected humanitarian crisis never materialized, while extensive looting dam-aged much of the infrastructure that the military campaign had deliberately left in-tact. Furthermore, the unsettled security situation significantly hindered ORHA’s reconstruction efforts. ORHA’s planning problems quickly became irrelevant, however, as on April 24, three days after Garner arrived in Baghdad, the Secretary of Defense informed him that President Bush intended to appoint L. Paul Bremer as his permanent envoy to Iraq. U.S. officials announced Bremer’s appointment on May 6, and he arrived in Baghdad on May 12 with a mandate to create a new Coalition Provisional Authority. Unlike ORHA, CPA would possess all the powers of an occupation authority. ORHA’s staff shrank as CPA’s grew, with few ORHA personnel choosing to stay on Summary xxiii and work for CPA. Garner left Iraq on June 1, almost two weeks after ORHA had been superseded by CPA. The Coalition Provisional Authority In May 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority took over from ORHA, and L. Paul Bremer became the administrator of Iraq. From then until Bremer handed power over to the Iraqis on June 28, 2004, the United States and the United King-dom were the legal occupiers of Iraq. They had two simultaneous and sometimes competing missions: to run the country and to build up Iraqi institutions that would enable self-rule. The November 2003 decision to accelerate the handover of power by July 1, 2004, exacerbated the tension between the two missions. Although CPA was the governing body of occupied Iraq, it was not the only coalition structure in country, and it did not have authority over all other structures. Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7), the military command, which reported to CENTCOM, functioned separately, as did various intelligence agencies (including the CIA), and the Iraq Survey Group, which continued its hunt for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In the absence of a detailed plan, these groups had to work out relations on the spot. While personal relations were often good, failures of coordina-tion and information sharing sometimes created significant tensions, most commonly between the civilian and the military arms of the occupation. This problem was further exacerbated by the structural weaknesses of the CPA. It remained limited throughout its existence by the fact that the United States had never planned to be an occupying authority, and that it was quickly assembled on an ad hoc basis. It was staffed at half its authorized level, and many on its staff lacked government experience and only served short rotations. The lack of personnel, com-bined with the deteriorating security situation, also meant that CPA had a negligible presence outside Baghdad, leaving military forces throughout the rest of the country to fill the gap left by the lack of civilian authority and reconstruction capacity. The Army and Marine Corps thus carried the major share of the stability and reconstruc-tion missions outside Baghdad. Building governance structures. CPA worked hard to build governance struc-tures under the tremendous strain of a deteriorating security situation that did not welcome exiles. At the same time, the CPA staff’s lack of access to other Iraqis re-sulted in continued reliance on exiles in the building of a new Iraq. The CPA ap-pointed the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC)—a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian, and exile/Kurdish-dominated body—on July 13, 2003, after considerable debate and dis-cussion about what form the new Iraqi government should take. While it was never popular with Iraqis, this 25-person body became over time an increasingly independ-ent actor and CPA’s primary Iraqi interlocutor. xxiv After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq The IGC and CPA jointly issued the November 15 agreement, promising that the CPA would transfer authority to an interim Iraqi government by July 1, 2004, and requiring that a “basic law” or interim constitution be drafted by February 28, 2004. The process of drafting the basic law, or Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), as it came to be called, took place largely in the first two months of 2004. A variety of issues surfaced during the TAL discussions, which kept the IGC from reaching full agreement on the TAL by the deadline. Ambassador Bremer and his staff pushed the drafters to continue work on the document into the early hours of March 1, 2004, when agreement was finally reached. On June 1, 2004, the Iraqi Interim Government (IIG) was formed, with Iyad Allawi, formerly chair of the IGC security committee, as prime minister and Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawer as president. Two deputy presidents, as prescribed in the TAL, and a new cabinet were also selected. This new government then worked with CPA, the United Nations, and coalition capitals to facilitate the transfer of authority, which took place on June 28. Creating security forces and institutions. One of the greatest challenges faced by CPA and CJTF-7 was the creation of new Iraqi security forces. Prewar planning assumptions—that the old Iraqi military could undergo a process of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) while helping ensure security during the interim period, and that police forces would remain largely intact and ensure law and order—proved deeply flawed. CPA was soon rebuilding both a military and a police force. CPA Order Number 2, issued on May 23, 2003, formally dissolved Iraq’s armed forces and its defense ministry, along with a number of other Saddam-era security-related structures. The Iraqi police service, historically a powerless and cor-rupt structure, was suddenly expected to be the front line for internal security—in a deteriorating security situation. CPA’s advisors to the interior ministry, which had responsibility for police, were short-staffed and constantly torn between the effort to build effective structures and the need to get police on the streets and patrolling. This tension was exacerbated by a failure on the part of coalition capitals to recognize the crucial nature of the police mission and allocate sufficient resources to it. Military training was better structured, since there was less immediate need for Iraqi military forces and more prewar planning existed (CENTCOM had always planned on a new military for Iraq, but had expected to be able to rely more on the structures of the old one). Military personnel could readily be hired, trained, and then deployed. In addition to the Iraqi armed forces, coalition troops also developed the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC), which served as an Iraqi auxiliary of various sorts to coalition troops. Several problems plagued the building of Iraqi defense ministry forces. Crucial was the question of mission—whether such forces should be built for defense against external threats, or to help in the current conflict. Early efforts to use units domesti-Summary xxv cally led to refusals to fight and desertions. Militias also posed ongoing challenges for the CPA, since they had to be either disbanded or somehow brought under the con-trol of the new Iraqi government. Although discussed for many months, efforts in this area did not begin in earnest until February 2004. Critical to these efforts was the adoption of the TAL, which would make all armed forces and militias not under federal control illegal in the new Iraq, except as provided by law. However, the im-plementation of this process had barely begun at the time the IIG took power, and its future remained in doubt. Economic policy and reconstruction. Economic policy was another area for which there was little planning prior to the war. Under the CPA, coalition advisors sought to create an economic structure that would foster entrepreneurship and for-eign investment. They faced opposition in some of these efforts from the IGC, which tended to prefer the status quo. The CPA was successful in reviving the Central Bank of Iraq, implementing a new currency and exchanging it for the old. It declared a tax holiday and lifted tariffs and import restrictions for 2003, and it issued a law on foreign direct investment. CPA also defined a budget for the second half of 2003 and for 2004: the first in dol-lars, the second in dinars. More problematic were efforts to liberalize prices, particu-larly for gasoline and fuel, to reform the food rationing system fully, and to restruc-ture state-owned companies so that they could function in a modern economy. Plans to downsize and close such structures encountered stiff opposition from the Iraqi Governing Council. CPA’s failures to reform Iraq in these areas led to both contin-ued economic waste and potentially slowed reconstruction. CPA also had the task of restoring essential services. It hoped to improve provi-sion of services to about what it had been under Saddam Hussein, but soon found that the best it could do was to focus on the basic provision of water, oil, and elec-tricity. Iraqi infrastructure was damaged both by the 1991 Persian Gulf War and by years of sanctions and neglect afterward. OIF and particularly the looting that ensued did additional damage to the capacity to produce electricity, oil, and water. This was a surprise to coalition forces, who expected to provide food and water to refugees and to protect the oil sector. They did not, however, expect to carry out large-scale recon-struction. Reconstruction was mostly pursued through contracting mechanisms. Because there was some expectation of work in this area, USAID awarded a number of con-tracts early on. Kellogg, Brown and Root (a Halliburton subsidiary), Bechtel, and other contractors were awarded large contracts to work on the oil fields, electricity, government buildings, ports, airports, and so forth. Other contracts were let throughout 2003. These were funded through a variety of mechanisms, including U.S. appropriations; Iraqi oil export earnings, deposited in the Development Fund for Iraq; accrued assets, including seized assets of Saddam or the Ba’ath party; funds from the UN Oil for Food account; and promises of assistance from other donors. xxvi After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq The success of reconstruction during the occupation period was mixed. At the time CPA handed over power to the IIG, electric power generation was near prewar levels, while oil production was below its preconflict peak and hampered by sabotage. Water provision, however, had improved, and mobile telephone service helped com-pensate for lagging fixed-line provision. The Army and Postwar Planning Looking back, we can see that the failure to plan for and adequately resource stability operations had serious repercussions that affected the United States throughout the occupation period and continue to affect U.S. military forces in Iraq. Because U.S. forces were not directed to establish law and order—and may not have had enough forces for this mission anyway—they stood aside while looters ravaged Iraq’s infra-structure and destroyed the facilities that the military campaign had taken great pains to ensure remained intact. Because Iraq’s own police and military evaporated shortly after Saddam fell, ordinary Iraqis lived in a basically lawless society for months, dur-ing which, among other things, insurgents, terrorists, and criminal gangs assembled with impunity. And because U.S. forces have had to focus on providing security for their own personnel (both military and civilian) as much as for Iraqis, the buildup of coalition forces did not bring the degree of safety and security it might have brought had order been imposed from the start. The situation has only gotten worse since the insurgency began. U.S. forces have had to assume that ordinary citizens may be potential belligerents, often leaving Iraqi civilians in the crossfire. A consistent majority of the Iraqi population identified security and safety as the most urgent issue facing Iraq throughout the occupation period.7 The failure to stabilize and secure Iraq has therefore had the inadvertent ef-fect of strengthening the insurgency, as Iraqis witness many of the negative effects of the U.S. military presence without seeing positive progress on the issues that matter to them most. The insurgency has also been aided by the failure of U.S. military forces to emphasize the mission of sealing the country’s borders—a mission that still ranks relatively low on the list of important coalition missions—enabling critical for-eign support to flow into Iraq. ____________ 7 This trend continued after the June 28, 2004 transfer of authority. Results do vary somewhat by city. Between January and August 2004, the percentage of the population identifying safety and security as the most urgent issue averaged 63 percent in Baquba; 60 percent in Mosul; 53 percent in Baghdad; 47 percent in Najaf; and 30 percent in Basra. When asked “How safe do you feel in your neighborhood?” the number of respondents who answered “not very safe” or “not safe at all” averaged 63 percent in Basra; 58 percent in Baquba; 57 percent in Baghdad and Najaf; 46 percent in Mosul; and 33 percent in Karbala. See “Opinion Analysis,” U.S. Department of State Office of Research, M-106-04, September 16, 2004, Appendix 6A. Summary xxvii This is not to say that stability and order would rule in Iraq today had U.S. planners only spent more time planning for post-Saddam operations. Counterfactu-als like this lie beyond proof. Still, a strong inference can be drawn that, had security been imposed across Iraq from the moment Saddam fell, the insurgency that so af-flicts Iraq today would not have had the political “space” in which to take root. And the Iraqi people themselves, however resentful they might have been of occupation forces, could have at least thanked those forces for enforcing law and order and thus a degree of public safety. In terms of its status with ordinary Iraqis, after all, U.S. forces were in the worst possible situation: there in numbers sufficient to be resented as oc-cupiers but insufficient to impose order. It seems highly likely that the situation in Iraq today would be more manageable had U.S. planners spent more time thinking through post-Saddam scenarios and planning for both combat and post-combat with the worst of those scenarios in mind. Instead, U.S. government planning was based on a set of optimistic assumptions that was never seriously challenged: that the military campaign would have a decisive end and would produce a stable security environment; that U.S. forces would be greeted as liberators; that Iraq’s government ministries would remain intact and con-tinue to administer the country; and that local forces, particularly the police and the regular army, would be capable of providing law and order. Those assumptions channeled the interagency planning process, such as it was, into a focus on humani-tarian relief, on the assumption that reconstruction and stabilization would not be required. And they made it very difficult—because they made it seem unnecessary—to assign responsibility and resources for providing security in the immediate after-math of major combat operations, perhaps the single most important failure of the prewar planning process. In a very real sense, key officials predicted the future with sufficient confidence to rule out alternative plans. In fact, of course, the future is always unpredictable, which is why planners routinely explore alternative scenarios in search of the “worst cases” that can pose the greatest challenges to their plans. Their plans then reflect ac-tions that either cover or hedge against those possibilities. This is in some sense the basis for the standard military planning and decision process. Yet in this case, few military voices besides that of Army Chief of Staff General Eric K. Shinseki called attention to the possibility of a major, long-term security challenge in post-Saddam Iraq. One reason other military voices remained muted was that the military operated within the prevailing assumptions set by senior civilian officials, which did not identify security as a problem. Also, as General Franks makes clear in his memoirs, the senior Army planner for OIF was reluctant to take respon-sibility for security and stabilization missions in the aftermath of major combat. This was not seen as the military’s role or mission. Yet it is precisely through General Franks that the military could have voiced its concerns, since it is the combatant commander, far more than the “institutional” xxviii After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq services, who plays a strong role in the interagency planning process. Yet the institu-tional services are not irrelevant, since it is from them that the combatant command-ers are drawn. And those commanders reflect a view of war and stabilization that can only be taught in service schools and other institutions. What Franks lacked was a complete view of what his forces were about to undertake. A more holistic view would be informed by three key assumptions: • First, it should be clear from U.S. interventions not just in Iraq, but in Afghani-stan, Kosovo, and Bosnia, that wars do not end when major conflict ends. Wars emerge from an unsatisfactory set of political circumstances, and they end with the successful creation of new and more favorable political circumstances—in this case, circumstances more favorable to U.S. interests. Creating those new circumstances may not involve continuing conflict, and even if conflict is pre-sent, it may not be as intense as the counterinsurgency operations confronting U.S. forces in Iraq today. But given the likely security vacuum following major conflict, planners cannot avoid considering a variety of forms of conflict. • Second, these post-conflict missions will almost unavoidably fall to forces pre-sent on the ground at the time. To some extent the security missions that follow major conflict are legitimate tasks for ground forces that, by virtue of their pos-session of the instruments of violence, can impose security in such situations. But the absence of security makes it unlikely that the civilian organizations that would normally handle reconstruction tasks will be available quickly to take on those roles. In the immediate aftermath of major conflict, and perhaps for a good deal longer, “civilian” as well as “military” missions will fall to forces on the ground. • Finally, it should be clear that the way the actual conflict unfolds exerts enor-mous influence over the situation that emerges and evolves after the major con-flict ends. To provide security in the aftermath of Saddam’s fall, the invading force needed more troops. A larger force might also have been able to force Saddam’s military to surrender rather than simply melt away, weapons in hand. These observations testify to the dangerous artificiality of the distinction be-tween Phase IV, on the one hand, and the phases that preceded it. They are not distinct phases; planning for each in sequence can produce unhappy outcomes. These lessons have significance for the U.S. Army’s Title 10 role of organizing, training, and equipping forces for use by combatant commanders in major conflicts. The Army must put real meaning into the phrase “full spectrum force.” It must be able to fight and dominate an adversary in major conflict. But as we can see in Iraq, Army forces must also be prepared to provide security to a civilian populace, recon-struct infrastructure as necessary, escort children safely to school, perhaps even help clear raw sewage from the streets. They will usually do so in a cultural environment Summary xxix foreign to them, yet those missions will require them to have at least enough cultural awareness to avoid undermining the mission. But the more crucial significance of these basic lessons comes at the level of military and strategic planning. Clearly these lessons produce a very different view of the military planning process than the one for OIF. Military planners must start with a view of the desired outcome of the war—not the outcome of major conflict, but the creation of the desired political circumstances that signal the real end of the war. They must do so both because their forces, and especially forces on the ground, will be intimately involved in creating those circumstances, and because the way in which military action unfolds will heavily shape the way the rest of the war unfolds. One way to capture this lesson is to say that military planners must “start with Phase IV.” But a more accurate solution is to dispense with phases, which inevitably produce sequenced plans that risk missing crucial connections from phase to phase. Planners must start with strategic guidance from the civilian leadership on where they want to be, strategically, when the war ends. They can then work backward to points of major conflict, shaping plans for those in ways that contribute to the larger and longer-term strategic goal. Starting planning this way will ensure that “Phase IV” will not be ignored or underplayed in the planning process. But as planning for OIF makes clear, it is essen-tial that planners entertain a full array of possible scenarios for getting to that strate-gic end point. Even the most reasonable assumptions must be challenged, and hedg-ing actions must be an integral part of the plan. Recognizing that military forces— largely U.S. Army forces—will play a role in these activities should give the combat-ant commander good reason to force this conversation into the planning process. xxxi Acknowledgments This report could not have been written without the extensive cooperation of many individuals who were involved in the planning and execution of postwar reconstruc-tion activities in Iraq.1 In particular, we wish to thank Lieutenant General (ret.) Ron Adams; Colonel John Agoglia, USA; Jon Alterman; Colonel Thomas Baltazar, USA; Colonel Kevin Benson, USA; Brigadier General David Blackledge, USA; Scott Cas-tle; Julie Chappell; James Clad; Joseph Collins; A. Heather Coyne; Roger Corner-etto; Major Ray Eiriz, USA; Mike Eisenstadt; Greg Gardner; Lieutenant General (ret.) Jay Garner, USA; Brigadier General (P) Steven Hawkins, USA; Colonel Tom Hayden, USA; Major Chris Herndon, USA; Lieutenant Colonel Chris Holshek, USA; Colonel Paul Hughes, USA; Bernard Kerik; Lieutenant Colonel Chris Kinnan, USAF; Lewis Lucke; William Luti; Roman Martinez; Dayton Maxwell; Michael McNerney; Frank Miller; Meghan O’Sullivan; Lieutenant General David Petraeus, USA; Lieutenant Colonel Bob Polk, USA; Colonel Tony Puckett, USA; Ambassador Robin Raphel; Gordon Rudd; Lieutenant Colonel Steve Seroka, USAF; Abe Shulsky; Walt Slocombe; Commander David Tarantino, USN; Bob Teasdale; Gerry Thomp-son; George Ward; Tom Warrick; Tom Wheelock; Ross Wherry; and others who chose to remain nameless. Any errors remain the authors’ own. Joseph Collins, James Dobbins, Jim Dewar, and Tom McNaugher provided thorough reviews of earlier drafts, which greatly improved the quality of the final re-port. We also thank several RAND colleagues who provided comments and insights throughout the research and writing of this report, including Richard Darilek, Lynn Davis, Audra Grant, Andy Hoehn, Terry Kelly, Karl Mueller, Walt Perry, Lauri Rohn, David Shlapak, Jerry Sollinger, and Peter Wilson. Sarah Harting provided ex-cellent administrative assistance. ____________ 1 Please note that all military ranks here reflect what they were at the time of the original research. xxxiii List of Acronyms and Abbreviations AOUSC Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts APA Arab Police Academy BBG Broadcasting Board of Governors C5 Director of Policy, Plans, and Strategy (Combined Forces Land Component Command) CBI Central Bank of Iraq CENTCOM U.S. Central Command CERF Commander’s Emergency Response Funds CERP Commander’s Emergency Response Program CFLCC Combined Forces Land Component Command CG Commander’s Guidance CIA Central Intelligence Agency CJCS Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff CJTF-7 Combined Joint Task Force 7 CJTF-Iraq Combined Joint Task Force—Iraq CMAD Collection, Management, and Analysis Directorate CMATT Coalition Military Assistance Training Team CPA Coalition Provisional Authority CPC Constitution Preparation Committee CRS Congressional Research Service CTEG Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group DART Disaster Assistance Response Team DDR Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration DFI Development Fund for Iraq DFID Department for International Development (UK) xxxiv After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq DLA Defense Logistics Agency DoD U.S. Department of Defense DOE U.S. Department of Energy DOJ U.S. Department of Justice DOT U.S. Department of Transportation DPS Diplomatic Protection Services EB Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs (U.S. State Department) ESG Executive Steering Group FAA Federal Aviation Administration (U.S.) FCC Federal Communications Commission (U.S.) FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office (UK) FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency (U.S.) FEST Forward Engineering Support Teams FIF Free Iraqi Forces FMIS Financial Management Information System FORSCOM Forces Command (U.S. Army) FPS Facilities Protection Services FY Fiscal Year GAO General Accounting Office (renamed the Government Accountability Office in July 2004) GDP Gross Domestic Product HDRs Humanitarian Daily Rations HHS U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HOC Humanitarian Operations Center HPT Humanitarian Planning Team IATA International Air Transport Association ICDC Iraqi Civil Defense Corps ICG International Crisis Group ICP Iraqi Communist Party ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross ID Infantry Division IDPs Internally Displaced Persons IEDs Improvised Explosive Devices List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xxxv IGC Iraqi Governing Council IIG Iraqi Interim Government ILO International Labor Organization IMF International Monetary Fund INA Iraqi National Accord INC Iraqi National Congress INIS Iraqi National Intelligence Service INL Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (U.S. State Department) INR Bureau of Intelligence and Research (U.S. State Department) IOs International Organizations IPMC Iraq Political-Military Cell IPS Iraqi Police Service IPU International Postal Union IR+R Iraq Relief and Reconstruction IRDC Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council ISA International Security Affairs IST Iraqi Special Tribunal IT Iraqi Technocrat J5 Director for Strategic Plans and Policy (Joint Staff) JFCOM U.S. Joint Forces Command JNEPI Joint NGO Emergency Preparedness Initiative KBR Kellogg, Brown and Root KDP Kurdistan Democratic Party LOGCAP Logistics Civil Augmentation Program MCNS Ministerial Committee for National Security MEF Marine Expeditionary Force MEI Middle East Institute MNF-I Multinational Force-Iraq MoD Ministry of Defense (Iraq) MoI Ministry of the Interior (Iraq) MP Military Police MW Megawatts NCO Noncommissioned Officer xxxvi After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq NED National Endowment for Democracy NESA Near East and South Asia NGO Nongovernmental Organization NSC National Security Council OCHA Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN) OFF Oil for Food Program OIC Organization of Islamic Conference OIF Operation IRAQI FREEDOM OPCON Operational Control OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries OPLAN Operations Plan ORHA Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense OSHA Occupational Health and Safety Administration (U.S. Labor Department) OSP Office of Special Plans OUSD(P) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy OVP Office of the Vice President PDS Public Distribution System PMO Project Management Office POLAD Political Advisor POWs Prisoners of War PRB Program Review Board PRM Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (U.S. State Department) PSYOP Psychological Operations PUK Patriotic Union of Kurdistan RIE Restore Iraqi Electricity RIO Restore Iraqi Oil RRRP Rapid Regional Response Program RTI Research Triangle Institute SAMS School of Advanced Military Studies (U.S. Army) SCIRI Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq SJFHQ Standing Joint Force Headquarters List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xxxvii SOEs State Owned Enterprises SOF Special Operations Forces TAL Transitional Administrative Law TBD To Be Determined TFIV Task Force IV TIP Transitional Integration Program UK United Kingdom UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Program UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization UNFAO United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund UNMOVIC United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Comission UNSCR United Nations Security Council Resolution USA U.S. Army USACE U.S. Army Corps of Engineers USAF U.S. Air Force USAID U.S. Agency for International Development USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture USPS U.S. Postal Service WFP World Food Program WHO World Health Organization WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction 1 CHAPTER ONE Introduction After more than 15 months of planning, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) com-menced in March 2003. Major combat operations in Iraq lasted approximately three weeks, but stabilization efforts in that country are, as of this writing, ongoing. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps are increasingly taxed by the demands of the continuing insurgency, with more than 100,000 troops expected to remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future. How did Iraq get to this point? Why was the United States so unprepared for the challenges of postwar Iraq? The evidence suggests that the United States had neither the people nor the plans in place to handle the situation that arose after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Looters took to the streets, damaging much of Iraq’s infrastructure that had remained intact throughout major combat. Iraqi police and military units were nowhere to be found, having largely dispersed during combat. U.S. military forces in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country were not prepared to respond rapidly to the initial looting and subsequent large-scale public unrest. These conditions enabled the insurgency to take root, and the Army and Marine Corps have been battling the insurgents ever since. It is not the case that no one planned for postwar Iraq. On the contrary, many agencies and organizations within the U.S. government did identify a range of possi-ble postwar challenges in 2002 and early 2003, before major combat commenced, and suggested strategies for addressing them. Some of these ideas seem quite pre-scient in retrospect. Why, then, were they not incorporated into the planning proc-ess? As part of a larger study of OIF, RAND Arroyo Center examined prewar plan-ning for postwar Iraq and the subsequent occupation, and drew lessons and recommendations from the Iraq experience. U.S. civilian planning was driven by a particular set of assumptions, held by senior policymakers throughout the government, about the conditions that would emerge after major combat and what would be required thereafter. These assump-tions—which included U.S. forces being greeted as liberators, the emergence of a stable security situation, and the continued functioning of the Iraqi government min-2 After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq istries—remained largely unchallenged. No contingency plans were developed in case these assumptions proved to be incorrect. Furthermore, senior military commanders assumed that civilian authorities would be responsible for the postwar period. They focused the vast majority of their attention on preparations for and the execution of major combat operations, and as-sumed that their responsibilities largely ended there. They assumed, incorrectly as it turned out, that the war would have a clearly defined end and they would quickly transfer responsibility for Iraq to civilians. This overlooked the lack of a standing ci-vilian organization capable of taking such responsibility, and the possible require-ment that military forces provide basic law and order during any transition period. Furthermore, civilians did not participate in the highly classified war planning proc-ess, which would have made coordinated planning for the transition period extremely challenging even if such a standing authority had existed. This report examines the range of U.S. government planning efforts for postwar Iraq, as well as the challenges that emerged for both military and civilian authorities during the occupation period. Chapters Two through Six examine prewar planning efforts for postwar Iraq. Chapter Two examines military planning, including the plans developed by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC). Chapter Three examines civilian planning, starting with an overview of the interagency process and examining the specific roles of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Security Council (NSC) staff. It also summarizes some of the reports and recommendations issued by think tanks and academic institutions that were published before the war. Chapter Four describes Task Force IV (TFIV), an organization created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to fill some of the gaps in CENTCOM’s postwar planning efforts. Chapter Five tells the story of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assis-tance (ORHA), the organization created within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) after it had been designated the official lead agency for postwar Iraq. Chapter Six focuses specifically on planning for humanitarian assistance. Such assistance is often considered to be part of reconstruction, but it warrants a separate discussion because humanitarian assistance planning proved to be far more coordinated and ef-fective in this case than reconstruction planning. Chapter Seven provides an overview of combat operations between the middle of April 2003 and August 2004. It examines the security situation in Iraq in the im-mediate aftermath of major combat operations, looks at the military organization in theater for Phase IV stability and support operations, describes the major types of attacks conducted by and against coalition forces, and analyzes events reported as significant. This analysis provides a snapshot of continuing combat operations in Iraq through the occupation period. Introduction 3 Chapters Eight through Twelve examine the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the organization established in May 2003 to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq. CPA possessed a much more robust mandate than ORHA, one that confirmed its role as an occupying authority. CPA’s orders had the force of law throughout Iraq during its 14-month existence. Its goal was to create a democratic and free Iraq by the end of the occupation period. Chapter Eight starts by discussing the origins, goals, structure, and functions of CPA. The next four chapters examine each of CPA’s four core “foundations”: Chapter Nine focuses on building Iraq’s new security forces; Chapter Ten addresses governance and political reconstruction; Chapter Eleven assesses economic policy; and Chapter Twelve examines the restoration of essential services in Iraq. Chapter Thirteen concludes the report by analyzing why the United States failed to prepare adequately for the challenges and remained unprepared for the con-ditions that emerged in postwar Iraq. The chapter identifies some of the unchal-lenged assumptions and political constraints that limited the planning process, indi-cates some of their consequences, and concludes with recommendations for U.S. policy and for the U.S. Army. The purpose of this analysis is to find out where problems occurred and to sug-gest possibilities to improve planning and operations in the future. The results of such analysis can seem therefore to be overly focused on the negative. This should not be taken to mean that no good was done. In fact, dedicated U.S. and coalition personnel, both military and civilian, engaged in many positive and constructive ac-tivities, individually and collectively. That this analysis does not highlight all those activities should not in any way detract from their value. Our focus, however, re-mains on finding ways to improve. This volume draws on a wide range of sources, including government docu-ments, press reports, numerous interviews with U.S. civilian and military officials, and, for Chapters Eight through Twelve, the personal experiences of several authors who worked for CPA. Most of those interviewed chose to remain anonymous, but their affiliations are noted so that their statements can be put into context. We have tried to corroborate their statements wherever possible, and we have noted when in-formation was supported by multiple interviews or through published accounts. 5 CHAPTER TWO Military Planning Efforts The rapid and decisive defeat of Iraq’s military forces, and the subsequent advance to Baghdad, Tikrit, Kirkuk, and Mosul, clearly demonstrated the dominance of the U.S. military on the battlefield. The success of its campaign plan during major com-bat operations ensured that coalition forces simultaneously attacked Iraqi forces throughout the depth and breadth of Iraq, including major operations in the north with the Kurds, in the western desert, along the eastern border with Iran, and throughout the central Tigris/Euphrates river valley from Umm Qasr to parts of the Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad. Initially, most Iraqis viewed coalition forces as lib-erators. Before long, however, an organized resistance began to undermine the early military success and erode Iraqi public support. From May 2003 and continuing beyond June 2004, an insurgency mounted within Iraq. This new enemy, consisting of loose coalitions of former Ba’athists, Iraqi Islamists, and foreign fighters, has waged a relentless war against coalition operations and the new Iraqi government by attacking infrastructure, government officials, civil-ian targets, and coalition military. Moreover, by June 2004 an overwhelming major-ity of the Iraqi public had come to view U.S. military forces as foreign occupiers rather than liberators.1 The question becomes, then, to what extent did planning shortfalls contribute to this situation? In retrospect, what could have been done to prevent or mitigate the difficulties the United States and its coalition partners began experiencing in Iraq? What does this mean for Army forces, and for Army planning? This chapter examines the military planning for postwar operations—often re-ferred to as Phase IV—that took place at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and at Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC). The chapter concludes with conclusions and recommendations concerning the planning process in general and the specifics of Phase IV planning for OIF in particular. ____________ 1 Interview with NSC official, July 2004. 6 After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq CENTCOM Operational Planning On November 27, 2001, shortly before the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Secretary of Defense directed CENTCOM to develop a plan that would forcibly re-move Saddam Hussein from power.2 As part of its deliberate planning process, CENTCOM had developed Operations Plan (OPLAN) 1003 in 1998 in the event that the United States found itself in another war with Iraq. On December 7, 2001, the CENTCOM Commander, General Tommy Franks, presented Secretary of De-fense Donald Rumsfeld with the first iteration of his Commander’s Concept of Op-erations.3 According to Franks, although the existing plan provided an operational construct for removing Saddam Hussein and eliminating the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) use by Iraq, it did not address the current disposition of U.S. forces, advances in precision-guided munitions made since the end of the Per-sian Gulf War, or the lessons being learned from U.S. operations in Afghanistan. By the time Franks’s new OPLAN was finished it grew to 89 pages, with thousands of pages of specialized appendices. Early in the iterative process of developing his Commander’s Concept, General Franks limited participation to a small number of senior officers. By December 8, 2001, he had developed a working matrix that highlighted what he called “Lines and Slices.” The slices can best be understood as target sets he wanted to affect, while the lines were the means he would use against particular targets. Together they represent what General Franks considered to be the primary focus areas of the operation. This matrix demonstrates that even at this early stage, Franks was envisioning a plan that focused not only on defeating the Iraqi military and removing Saddam Hussein from power, but also on doing it in a way that achieved his overall strategic goals, particu-larly as they related to the Iraqi population. According to Franks, the challenges asso-ciated with the “day after the war” were being considered early in the planning proc-ess.4 On December 28, 2001, General Franks briefed his Commander’s Concept to President George W. Bush and identified four major phases of operations. Each phase had specific end-state objectives that had to be achieved before moving to the next phase. Phase I included establishing international support and creating an “air bridge” that would be used to transport forces and capabilities into the theater. Phase ____________ 2 Tommy Franks, American Solider, New York: Regan Books, 2004, p. 315. 3 The Commander’s Concept of Operations communicates the basic principles that should guide detailed plan-ning efforts. As Franks describes, it contains “the philosophical underpinnings of what might eventually become a plan.” See Franks, p. 329. 4 Franks, pp. 340–341. The “Lines and Slices” matrix developed by General Franks in December 2001—which is reproduced in his book on p. 340—remained the foundation for campaign planning for OIF. As late as April 2003, CFLCC referenced a more refined variant of this template when it published a draft of OPLAN ECLIPSE II. Military Planning Efforts 7 II was designed to “shape the battlespace” before ground operations were initiated. Phase III identified two primary goals: “regime forces defeated or capitulated” and “regime leaders dead, apprehended, or marginalized.” Finally, Franks briefed his overarching concept for Phase IV, “post hostility operations,” arguing that this phase would be the longest—“years, not months” in duration. In fact, the briefing chart used to discuss Phase IV split the arrow representing a timeline into segments and identified its duration as “unknown.” The end-state objectives for Phase IV were identified as “the establishment of a representative form of government, a country capable of defending its territorial borders and maintaining its internal security, without any weapons of mass destruction.”5 While many details had yet to be re-solved, the President approved the overarching concept of a four-phased campaign.6 On January 7, 2002, General Franks assembled his small group of planners en-gaged in compartmentalized planning for OPLAN 1003V and charged them with developing options in the event that President Bush decided to initiate an attack in response to action taken by Iraq. For the next three months, a handful of officers on the CENTCOM staff continued to plan for all four phases of OPLAN 1003V. As the Commander’s Concept matured, it eventually involved a five-pronged attack with ground forces simultaneously advancing into Iraq from Kuwait and Turkey, special operations forces (SOF) moving into the western desert areas to prevent SCUD missiles from being employed, a comprehensive information and psychologi-cal operations (PSYOP) “front” being launched to erode the resolve of the Iraqi mili-tary, and an operational fires attack targeting Baghdad and the Republican Guard forces defending the city. At this point in the planning process, Phases I through III were expected to take up to 135 days.7 A central part of the Phase IV plan was the continued deployment of additional forces until a sufficient number of forces were in theater to accomplish the mission. As General Franks stated to President Bush in February 2002, “[a]s stability operations proceed, force levels would continue to grow—perhaps to as many as two hundred and fifty thousand troops, or until we are sure we’ve met our end-state objectives.”8 This aspect of the plan is critically impor-tant to highlight, because military leaders in the operational headquarters and on the Army staff assumed that forces would continue to flow into theater even after the end of Phase III. ____________ 5 Franks, p. 351. 6 The briefing prepared for the President did not include a discussion of phasing. However, after General Franks concluded his briefing, Secretary of State Colin Powell asked a question that resulted in the need to refer to back-up slides detailing CENTCOM’s phasing concept. It was not until Franks’s February 3, 2002, briefing to the President that these slides on phasing made their way into the formal briefing. 7 Franks, p. 366. 8 Franks, pp. 361–363, 366, and 376–377. 8 After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq It was not until March 21, 2002, that General Franks met with his component commanders for the first time to discuss the “shape and scope” of a potential military operation against Iraq. While the compartmentalized nature of the planning process continued, small planning staffs for each of the components were established to begin working in parallel on their supporting OPLANs. On August 5, 2002, Franks again briefed President Bush and the National Se-curity Council (NSC) on OPLAN 1003V. What had begun as a concept nine months earlier had now become a full campaign plan. The expected length of Phase III had been shortened to 90 days, but the time required to meet Phase IV objectives remained indeterminate. Franks raised what he called the potential for “catastrophic success,” which would occur if the Iraqi military resistance fractured early in the campaign, if a military coup toppled Saddam Hussein, or if Shi’ite and Kurdish re-bellions occurred in Iraq.9 He expressed particular concern about the potential for lawlessness and violence in the immediate aftermath of military operations. There was wide agreement within the NSC that, if this occurred, coalition forces would continue with the campaign plan until order was restored and the Iraqis were able to govern themselves. At the conclusion of the briefing, Franks stated that he envisioned having a maximum of 250,000 troops in Iraq at the end of Phase III.10 These forces would be necessary to help create a new Iraqi military and establish a constabulary force.11 Franks further stated that “well-designed and well-funded reconstruction pro-jects that put large numbers of Iraqis to work and quickly meet community needs—and expectations—will be the keys to our success in Phase IV.” He made it clear that it was important to enable Iraqis to gain control of their own governance as soon as possible. Significantly, Franks told President Bush that the U.S. exit strategy had to be linked to effective Iraqi governance rather than to any artificial timeline, a conclu-sion not challenged by any member of the NSC.12 ____________ 9 Franks, pp. 380–393. 10 Franks first mentioned that Phase IV might require as many as 250,000 troops in a February 2002 briefing to Secretary Rumsfeld. Franks, p. 366. 11 It is important to note that the total number of troops in Iraq never reached 250,000. Moreover, as soon as U.S. forces marched into Baghdad, General Franks made the decision to stop the deployment of the 1st Cavalry Division, even though the end-state objectives of his plan had not yet been met. It is also unclear how it was de-termined that 250,000 troops would be sufficient for the tasks likely to be required in a postwar Iraq. As will be discussed later, U.S. military experience in postwar situations in Bosnia and Kosovo suggest that postwar opera-tions require a ratio of 20 soldiers for every 1,000 inhabitants. With an Iraqi population of 25 million, historical experience suggests that a minimum of 500,000 soldiers would be required. That number is in addition to the numbers of police, gendarmerie, and carabinieri units that would be of vital assistance in maintaining public or-der. Obviously, the number of troops and police required for any post-conflict operation will be affected by a number of different factors, including population, terrain, assigned missions, level of violence and organized resis-tance, and the degree to which neighboring countries and the local populace are supporting the resistance. For a more detailed analysis of this subject, see James Dobbins et al., America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, MR-1753-RC, 2003, pp. 149–153. 12 Franks, pp. 392–393. Military Planning Efforts 9 Franks and his planning staff had numerous discussions about what a postwar Iraq might look like and what type of interim political government might best be established. While members of his staff argued that rebuilding the infrastructure could not take place without security, Franks believed that security would not be achieved without reconstruction and civic action. There was, however, wide agree-ment that the two issues were inextricably linked.13 CENTCOM assumed it would help the interim government establish a para-military security force that would be drawn from some of the better units of the de-feated Iraqi army. It was envisioned that these units would work in conjunction with coalition military forces to help restore order and prevent armed conflicts among ethnic, religious, or tribal factions. Franks concluded that “this model had been used effectively in Afghanistan,” and CENTCOM planners believed it was the best solu-tion they had to the challenge of providing security in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations.14 Questions remained, however, about the effectiveness of the Afghanistan model, especially outside Kabul, and whether that model would work in a country that is largely urbanized, has clear fault lines among three major ethnic and religious groups, and had no clear successor government. CENTCOM planners believed that additional forces would be required for Phase IV operations. However, there was substantial agreement among the planning staffs in theater that surrendering Iraq divisions and corps could be quickly employed to help maintain security, and that they would facilitate a rapid transition back to Iraqi control. The final version of OPLAN 1003V assumed that these surrendering Iraqi forces would be available to the coalition, and that additional U.S. forces would continue arriving in theater as stability operations commenced after Phase III, or, as the OPLAN stated, “until we are sure we’ve met our end-state objectives.”15 After OPLAN 1003V was published in February 2003, the CENTCOM future planning staff began developing a detailed plan for Phase IV operations called OPLAN IRAQI RECONSTRUCTION. It was developed in collaboration with the planning staffs of the main ground force units in Iraq, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) and the U.S. Army’s V Corps. This plan identified seven focus areas for the postwar period: maintain the rule of law, provide security, support civil ad-ministration, provide necessary assistance to civilian governance, maintain and en-large the coalition, provide emergency humanitarian assistance as required, and assist in the assessment, restoration, and repair of critical life support infrastructure.16 ____________ 13 Franks, pp. 422 and 424. 14 Franks, p. 419. 15 Franks, p. 366. 16 Interview with CENTCOM official, May 2005. See also Kenneth R. Timmerman, “Details of the Postwar Master Plan,” Insight on the News, November 24, 2003. 10 After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq OPLAN IRAQI RECONSTRUCTION suffered from three significant limita-tions. First, it was completed at the end of April 2003, after the fall of Baghdad and after subsequent looting destroyed much of the infrastructure left intact by the mili-tary campaign and expanded the range of reconstruction requirements. Second, it lacked any additional resources; the forces and capabilities that had conducted major combat operations were the ones that would be available for postwar stability and reconstruction operations. Finally, the plan envisaged military forces supporting civil-ian reconstruction efforts, not playing the lead role. Yet, as will be discussed in Chap-ter Five, civilian reconstruction efforts suffered from unchallenged assumptions, a very short planning time, and a lack of coordination with the military. Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) Phase IV Planning As specified in OPLAN 1003V, the Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) was given primary responsibility for Phase IVa—stability operations. Lieu-tenant General Paul Mikolashek, then the commander of the U.S. Third Army, which had been designated the CFLCC, was informed of his responsibilities for Phase IV when the Third Army was directed to begin planning in January 2002, just days after General Franks met with President Bush at Crawford, Texas. Colonel Kevin Benson, who had been selected to be the Director of Policy, Plans and Strategy (C5), was given access to the developing warplans.17 He immediately concluded that the CFLCC needed to put more emphasis on Phase IV planning and, consequently, spent the next two months making contact with people—inside both government and academia—who were involved in projects that examined issues associated with postwar Iraq.18 The C5 also led a group of strategic planners who developed CFLCC’s support-ing plan for OPLAN 1003V—called OPLAN COBRA II. From the very beginning, COBRA II was an all-inclusive OPLAN that addressed all aspects of the ground campaign, beginning in Phase I and continuing through Phase IV redeployment. During the first few months, however, access to OPLAN 1003V was limited to a handful of senior officers at CFLCC. Colonel Benson was the only officer below the rank of brigadier general who was “read-on” to OPLAN 1003V. Consequently, the CFLCC C5 planning team was constrained in its efforts to build a comprehensive ____________ 17 Within Joint and Combined Headquarters, the J5 and C5 respectively provide political-military oversight for all aspects of the operation, including interacting with the host nation, nongovernmental organizations, civil af-fairs, and other U.S. government and coalition civilian organizations. For a more detailed description of the du-ties and responsibilities of the J5 and C5, see Joint Publication 5-00.2, Joint Task Force Planning Guidance and Procedures, January 13, 1999. 18 Interview with CFLCC official, August 2004. Military Planning Efforts 11 supporting plan.19 In October 2002, the classification of OPLAN 1003V was down-graded to Secret and a larger number of the CFLCC planning staff gained access to it. As CFLCC started to ramp up for the possibility of war, the size and composi-tion of its staff, including the planning staff, grew. By January 2003, nine graduates from the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) had been assigned to CFLCC because of their unique skills.20 In fact, the Army transferred many of these officers from other duty assignments well in advance of their normal rotation dates specifically because of their schooling.21 As we shall discuss in Chapter Four, a newly created Task Force IV (TFIV) headquarters, commanded by Brigadier General Steven Hawkins, forward deployed in late January 2003 from Tampa to Kuwait and was placed under the operational control of the CFLCC. TFIV had been established by order of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), who intended it to be the nucleus around which Phase IV operations would be planned and conducted. However, by the time TFIV arrived in theater, CFLCC had already done considerable planning for post-conflict opera-tions, and there was considerable confusion over exactly what this new headquarters would do.22 CFLCC’s planning staff envisioned that TFIV would only assume responsibili-ties for Phase IV operations after the CFLCC redeployed to the United States. How-ever, the commander of TFIV believed he was given full responsibility for Phase IV planning. As a result, the CFLCC C5 and TFIV conducted parallel planning for the same mission. Little direct coordination occurred between the two planning staffs, though the TFIV commander met regularly with the C5 and the deputy commander of CFLCC to share information. It is important to note that as late as mid-February 2003, the exact role of TFIV was undefined. On February 15, 2003, Lieutenant General David McKiernan (who had taken command of U.S. Third Army in Sep-tember 2002) was presented with two options for employing TFIV: embedding the task force within a three-star headquarters or building a three-star headquarters around TFIV. The ultimate decision was to do neither: TFIV was disbanded and the Phase IVb mission was assigned to V Corps.23 Once COBRA II was completed, the C5 began a series of wargaming efforts to test the plan’s assumptions and to identify any potential shortcomings that could be ____________ 19 This is a common occurrence in the development of OPLANs. 20 Interview with CFLCC official, August 2004. 21 Lieutenant Colonel Steven W. Peterson, “Central but Inadequate: The Application of Theory in Operation Iraqi Freedom,” a paper presented in partial completion of the course of study at the National Defense Univer-sity, undated, p. 3. 22 Interview with CFLCC official, August 2004. 23 At mission assumption, this military headquarters became known as Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7). 12 After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq rectified before the initiation of hostilities. To facilitate this wargaming effort, Lieu-tenant Colonel Steven Peterson, the chief of intelligence planning within C5, di-rected an aggressive “Red Team” effort.24 By the middle of February 2003, thanks in part to this effort, some in the C5 staff concluded that, as planned, “the campaign would produce conditions at odds with meeting the strategic objectives” established by CENTCOM.25 Members of the C5 staff further concluded that the “joint cam-paign was specifically designed to break all control mechanisms of the regime and that there would be a period following regime collapse in which [CFLCC forces] would face the greatest danger to [U.S.] strategic objectives.” The assessment went on to describe the “risk of an influx of terrorists to Iraq, the rise of criminal activity, probable actions of former regime members, and the loss of [any weapons of mass destruction] that was believed to exist.”26 This assessment did not foresee all chal-lenges that would confront CFLCC during the transition from Phase III to Phase IV, but it did identify a number of actions that needed to be addressed in the OPLAN, including “planning to control the borders, analyzing what key areas and infrastruc-ture should be immediately protected, and allocating adequate resources to quickly re-establish postwar control throughout Iraq.”27 Although a complete consensus within the C5 staff concerning the magnitude of the problem could not be reached, it was clear that if the ground war went as fast as some expected, and if the regime collapsed suddenly, then coalition forces most likely would not be in place where needed for Phase IV stability operations.28 When this assessment was communicated to the commander of CFLCC, C5 staff members reported that Lieutenant General McKiernan chose not to change the ground com-bat plan that had been developed with CENTCOM and subordinate commands be-cause the Iraqi military remained the greatest immediate threat to coalition forces. After they briefed CFLCC commander Lieutenant General McKiernan in February, no one on the staff was willing to bring the issue back to the surface later and make the argument that combat forces needed for the warfighting effort should be reposi-tioned in order to better prepare the forces to respond to situations that might occur after the battle had been won.29 Although members of the planning staff recognized that forces would have to conduct major repositioning at the end of major combat to be in place for their assigned Phase IV missions, their first priority remained the de-struction of Iraqi forces, and they believed that the existing plan offered the best way ____________ 24 Interview with CFLCC official, August 2004. 25 Peterson, p. 11. 26 Peterson, p. 10. 27 Peterson, p. 10. 28 Interview with CFLCC official, January 2005. 29 Peterson, pp. 10–11. Military Planning Efforts 13 to accomplish this objective. In essence, sufficient forces were not available to con-duct both missions simultaneously. In the end, Lieutenant General McKiernan and his staff decided to accept risk during the early stages of Phase IV rather than during major combat operations.30 In fact, the CFLCC planners had correctly anticipated that coalition forces would not be in position to address the immediate security challenges brought about by the collapse of the Iraqi government. As anticipated and planned for in ECLIPSE II, a major repositioning of forces was required during the latter part of April and early May to ensure even a minimum level of security throughout the country.31 Even though the C5 staff was unwilling to press CFLCC’s commander to fun-damentally reshape the conduct of Phase III operations, their analysis of Phase IV did convince Lieutenant General McKiernan to create a sequel OPLAN in the event that the end-state conditions envisioned for Phase III did not materialize. With CFLCC’s approval, the C5 began writing OPLAN ECLIPSE II as a sequel to the existing OPLAN. The plan had been through 15 revisions by the middle of March 2003, and the final coordinating draft was released on April 12.32 As with all other OPLANs, the subordinate and supporting commands all produced their own annexes to this sequel. Each draft plan was shared with V Corps as it was being written, in order to inform the corps’ planning efforts for Phase IV. This type of distributed and parallel planning for Phase IV ensured that V Corps and I MEF—along with their subordi-nate divisions and brigades—were near-equal partners in the planning process.33 While it is clear that CFLCC was gaining a realistic appraisal of the potential security challenges that would confront coalition forces in the postwar period, the planning staff never formally challenged some of the basic assumptions outlined in COBRA II. For example, ECLIPSE II assumed that Iraqi civil authorities would “continue to run local and regional essential services.” Moreover, although this was not listed as a planning assumption, CFLCC envisioned that civil order would be controlled “through published proclamations and the existing legal system where possible.” ECLIPSE II also overestimated the degree to which the remnants of the Iraqi government would provide essential services and security in the immediate af-termath of major combat operations. Consequently, military resources were allocated based upon a fundamentally flawed view of both the friendly and enemy situations that would exist during the transition from Phase III to Phase IV. It would, however, be inaccurate to conclude that military planners accepted the rhetoric coming out of ____________ 30 Interview with CFLCC official, January 2005. 31 See Chapter Seven for more on the repositioning of these forces. 32 Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) OPLAN ECLIPSE II BASE PLAN, Coordinating Draft, April 12, 2003. 33 Interview with V Corps and CJTF-7 official, January 2005. 14 After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq certain portions of the policy community in Washington that military forces would be welcomed with open arms. Indeed, they had numerous discussions about the pos-sibility of an insurgency. However, they did not believe that the potential insurgency against U.S. forces and the future Iraqi government would affect any of the courses of action being developed.34 Planning at V Corps and Subordinate Commands It is important to note that planning for Phase IV operations occurred at all levels of military command down to division and sometimes brigade level. Modern military planning occurs simultaneously at various levels of command through a distributed and collaborative planning process. This type of distributed planning is more diffi-cult once units have forward deployed into a theater of operations. For OIF, how-ever, division battle staffs were brought into the planning process during the summer of 2002. As noted earlier, these plans were developed without any clear strategic guidance for integrating political, economic, and military efforts for stabilization and reconstruction. Military commanders at all levels were unprepared for the magnitude of the policy and legal issues that they confronted during the initial stages of Phase IV operations. V Corps also faced a unique challenge associated with transforming itself into a combined joint task force for Phase IVb. Until the beginning of combat operations in March, no decision had been made about which headquarters would assume re-sponsibility for Phase IV operations once CFLCC redeployed at the conclusion of Phase IVa. Thus, while V Corps was fighting the war during Phase III and conduct-ing stability operations during Phase IVa, it also had to reorganize its staff to become a CJTF headquarters. The lateness of this decision suggests the degree to which sen-ior civilian and military leaders within DoD underestimated the challenges that would confront coalition military forces after the defeat of Iraqi forces. Observations The coalition achieved a quick and decisive military victory that resulted not only in the destruction or collapse of the Iraqi military, but also in the disintegration of the command and control capacity of the Iraqi government. Despite the success it pro-duced on the battlefield, the planning process failed to include sufficient flexibility to enable the CFLCC to respond rapidly to Phase IV security requirements. ____________ 34 Interview with CFLCC official, February 2005. Military Planning Efforts 15 Although collaborative, iterative, and continuous planning took place at all lev-els of command, no record exists showing that CENTCOM or CFLCC participated in a similar process with civilian governmental agencies, international organizations, or nongovernmental organizations; military planners believed such collaboration would not be necessary for stability, reconstruction, and transition activities to suc-ceed. Additionally, and not inconsequentially, CENTCOM and OSD did not sys-tematically assess the forces and capabilities that would be required for Phase IV op-erations.35 Finally, the decision by General Franks and Secretary Rumsfeld to stop the deployment of the 1st Cavalry Division and other reinforcing forces when coali-tion forces entered Baghdad further exacerbated a shortfall in the number of troops required to simultaneously complete Phase III and begin Phase IV. As noted earlier, the CENTCOM plan specified that the force level would con-tinue to grow until end-state objectives had been met. The decision to stop the flow of forces into theater prior to that point was, in effect, a change to the plan that had been agreed to by subordinate commanders. The planning staffs within CENTCOM, CLFCC, and V Corps were never asked to provide input for this change. According to one officer, the V Corps staff would have preferred for the force flow to continue as originally envisaged.36 The potential for unforeseen challenges during Phase IV was anticipated prior to the initiation of hostilities. General Franks first expressed his concern about the possibility for “catastrophic success” in a meeting with President Bush and the NSC on August 5, 2002. According to Franks, he and Secretary Rumsfeld used this phrase to refer to the possibility that large-scale combat operations could be over much sooner than anyone imagined and, consequently, that functional plans and policies needed to be created in Washington to be prepared for the “occupation and recon-struction.”37 In essence, with the exception of immediate security concerns and ac-tions necessary for emergency restoration of critical infrastructure, the majority of activities required for Phase IV were perceived by the Department of Defense to be the responsibility of civilian agencies and departments. The Department of Defense, of course, was responsible for providing resources to support these efforts—to the extent they were available and did not conflict with ongoing military operations. ____________ 35 According to one official, OSD did not conduct an estimate of the number of troops required for Phase IV operations because that was the responsibility of CENTCOM planners and the Joint Staff. However, senior offi-cials within OSD questioned why more troops might be required for Phase IV operations than were needed for major combat operations. For example, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz testified to Congress that General Eric Shinseki’s estimate of “several hundred thousand soldiers” to conduct post-conflict operations was “wildly off the mark.” Wolfowitz went on to state that he found it “hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in a post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army—hard to imagine.” See testimony of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz to the House Budget Committee, February 27, 2003. 36 Interview with V Corps and CJTF-7 official, January 2005. 37 Franks, pp. 392 and 442. 16 After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq The CFLCC planning staff had come to similar but more ominous conclusions. From their wargaming efforts in January and February 2003, members of the C5 planning staff had come to believe that not only was there a possibility that warfight-ing would be over much faster than anyone had anticipated, but a possibility also existed that the operation would cause disintegration of the entire Iraqi regime. They further concluded that this governmental collapse could result in some form of civil unrest, lawlessness, or a rise in acts of terrorism. Finally, the C5 planning staff con-cluded that the rapid advance of maneuvering units would place ground forces in positions that might not enable them to adjust rapidly to the immediate postwar situation. A troop-to-task analysis was conducted to determine how many brigade equivalents would be necessary to maintain security, but the analysis was predicated on the existence of an effective local police force. No one anticipated, and therefore no one planned for, the requirements for maintaining security in the absence of local police. Most importantly, the troop-to-task analysis was constrained by the number of battalion- and brigade-sized units available in theater to conduct Phase IV opera-tions. According to one official, an unconstrained analysis to determine requirements was not undertaken.38 In effect, planners took the forces that they had available and spread them throughout Iraq, even though the number of forces were insufficient for simultaneous combat and stabilization operations during the transition from Phase III to Phase IV. If the possibility of “catastrophic success” was shared by both CENTOM and CFLCC, why were they not prepared for the postwar looting and violence that took place in Baghdad and other urban areas in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations? While critics have argued that this was the result of a lack of planning, it is clear that detailed Phase IV planning was conducted at CENTCOM, CFLCC, V Corps, and subordinate commands. Both OPLAN 1003V and ECLIPSE II established end-state conditions and directed specific actions to ensure a successful transition to post-combat operations. In fact, having been designated the supported command within CENTCOM for Phase IV operations, CFLCC developed OPLAN ECLIPSE II specifically to address Phase IV operations as a sequel to major combat operations. Thus, it was not a lack of planning for Phase IV that led to the coalition’s military forces being unprepared for the immediate postwar challenges. Instead, problems arose from the ineffectiveness of the planning process in identifying the likely requirements for the transition from Phase III to Phase IV, and the failure to challenge set assumptions about what postwar Iraq would look like. Thus, the real question becomes: Why was the planning process that resulted in the quick and deci-sive defeat of the Iraqi military so ineffective in preparing for postwar operations? ____________ 38 Interview with CFLCC official, January 2005. Military Planning Efforts 17 The full answer to this question requires an analysis of civilian policy and plan-ning within and among the numerous U.S. governmental agencies and departments with responsibilities relating to reconstruction. As General Franks pointed out, deci-sions and plans had to be made within the NSC in advance of the war to enable the full weight of U.S. government capabilities to be brought to bear quickly on stability and reconstruction tasks in Iraq. As will be discussed in Chapters Three through Six, prewar interagency planning and collaboration fell far short of what was necessary. As depicted in Figure 2.1, the number of troops on the ground in Iraq, and in Baghdad, at the beginning of Phase IV was far less than those deployed in either Bosnia or Kosovo.39 According to a RAND report published in 2003, if the levels of troops committed in Kosovo are used as a guide, 526,000 troops would have been needed to address immediate postwar security concerns in Iraq.40 Drawing from his Figure 2.1 Military Presence at Outset of Post-Conflict Operations SOURCE: James Dobbins et al., America’s Role in Nation-Building, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,MR-1753-RC, 2003.RAND MG642-2.120156.65.00.4620.018.63.55.02.4IraqKabulAfghanistanKosovoBosniaHaitiSomaliaBaghdad105250Military personnel per 1,000 inhabitants ____________ 39 The numbers used for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo are taken from another RAND study. Deviating from that study here, we have combined the total number of peacekeepers in Kabul with the 8,000 members of the U.S. military operating elsewhere in Afghanistan where they are conducting combat operations to arrive at the ratio of 0.46 (rather than the 0.18 one derives if one only counts the international peacekeeping forces). The ratio for Kabul is computed using the 5,000-man international peacekeeping force compared with an estimated popu-lation of 1 million. The ratio for Baghdad is based on a population figure of 6.2 million, and it assumes that six brigade equivalents could muster no more than 15,000 soldiers for active security responses. 40 Dobbins et al., p. 197. For a broader discussion about required force sizes, see James T. Quinlivan, “Force Requirements in Stability Operations,” Parameters, Winter 1995–96, pp. 59–69. 18 After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq personal experience in the Balkans and a number of studies produced by and for the Army prior to the initiation of war with Iraq, then-Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki concluded that it would require approximately 400,000 soldiers to maintain security in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations.41 Anecdotal evidence suggests that other Army general officers shared General Shinseki’s main concern, namely, that more troops would be needed immediately following combat with Iraqi forces than would be required to defeat those same forces; however, none spoke up publicly before the war.42 What has become clear is that the military was unprepared for the immediate aftermath of the war. Perhaps the commander of V Corps, Lieutenant General William Wallace, summed it up best when he stated: The military