Marine Intelligence Reports Anbar Province “Politically Lost”

Colonel Pete Devlin is the top intelligence man in the United States Marine Corps in Iraq. He’s been in Anbar Province, the Sunni heartland in the western 30% of the country, as part of his duties and has served in Iraq since February. The Corps holds him in very high regard, according to the Washington Post that wrote yesterday on his classified report to the Pentagon. So his assessment that Anbar Province has been, or is being, lost is making waves in policy circles of the military.

The Post stated for the record that it had not seen the classified Devlin report, but numerous anonymous officials talked to reporter Thomas E. Ricks about it. Mr. Ricks is the author of the new book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, has reported on the military since 2000, and has a pair of Pulitzers on his mantelpiece. He spent 17 years at that bastion of the right, the Wall Street Journal and has been a correspondent in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Those who see him as biased may well discount the report, but if folks in the military are going to talk to the press, he’s the sort of straight-shooter they are going to brief. And if he’s wrong, this will end his relationship with a lot of his contacts. This journal is inclined to believe his report.

Mr. Ricks writes, “Devlin reports that there are no functioning Iraqi government institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has become the province’s most significant political force, said the Army officer, who has read the report. Another person familiar with the report said it describes Anbar as beyond repair; a third said it concludes that the United States has lost in Anbar. Devlin offers a series of reasons for the situation, including a lack of US and Iraqi troops, a problem that has dogged commanders since the fall of Baghdad more than three years ago, said people who have read it. These people said he reported that not only are military operations facing a stalemate, unable to extend and sustain security beyond the perimeters of their bases, but also local governments in the province have collapsed and the weak central government has almost no presence.”

In an attempt to be fair, Mr. Ricks talked to someone who didn’t quite buy the whole analysis. “Not everyone interviewed about the report agrees with its glum findings. The Defense Department official, who worked in Iraq earlier this year, said his sense is that Anbar province is going to be troubled as long as US troops are in Iraq. ‘Lawlessness is a way of life there,’ he said. As for the report, he said, ‘It’s one conclusion about one area. The conclusion on al Anbar doesn’t translate into a perspective on the entire country’.” That’s true, and the fact that New Orleans is underwater doesn’t mean California can’t have a drought, but it’s still bad for New Orleans.

Colonel Devlin is a military intelligence officer, and therefore, his report doesn’t offer any policy prescription. However, in military science there are only three options for such a situation. Throw the resources at it to reverse the situation (and from whence would those resources come?); retreat to more defensible ground (“cut and run,” or “redeploy” depending on one’s politics); or do nothing different. The latter has two points in its favor as far as the Busheviks are concerned: first, one needn’t admit the problem exists, and second, by the time it ceases to be a feasible approach, Mr. Bush will no longer be in office. The downside is that it doesn’t solve the problem, but since the White House is unlikely to admit the problem exists, what need is there of a solution?

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home