Sending A Message

Several American and Iraqi officials now regard Bremer’s move to close the newspaper as a profound miscalculation based on poor intelligence and inaccurate assumptions. Foremost among the errors, the officials said, was the lack of a military strategy to deal with Sadr if he chose to fight back, as he did.

[…]

as with the campaign against Sadr, the military plan to quell Fallujah appears to have been based on faulty assumptions. Instead of disgorging the insurgents, many residents rallied to support them by joining the fight against the Marines. People in other cities, including Shiites who used to regard Fallujah’s residents as the hillbillies of Iraq, rushed to donate blood and money. Sunnis in Fallujah and elsewhere in central Iraq who had deemed Sadr a troublemaker began to laud him as a hero.

All of a sudden, Bremer had not just a two-front war on his hands, but one in which each side was drawing strength from the other.

Does anyone in this administration ever make a decision based upon sound intelligence and accurate assumptions? Do they even try to obtain them? And, they have never planned anything beyond the next morning or developed a fall back strategy in case something goes wrong.

The military began to assemble plans to go after Sadr, an initiative that was blessed by Bremer and the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz also favored taking action against Sadr, a senior military officer at the Pentagon said.

But the overall commander for the Middle East at the U.S. Central Command, Gen. John P. Abizaid, was hesitant to move on Sadr out of concern that arresting or killing him would simply elevate his stature, the officer said. Moderate Shiite clerics also advised the occupation authority against an arrest.

Well, Abazaid is the grandson of Lebanese immigrants, speaks fluent Arabic and has an understanding of the people and the region. Thank goodness nobody listens to him. Wolfowitz is the guy with the great track record, after all:

When Bremer ordered the shutdown of al-Hawza, there was no intention to use force to apprehend Sadr or leaders of his militia, according to occupation authority officials familiar with the decision.

One U.S. official said there was not even a fully developed backup plan for military action in case Sadr opted to react violently. The official noted that when the decision was made, there were very few U.S. troops in Sadr’s strongholds south of Baghdad. That area has been under the jurisdiction of multinational military divisions that had failed to move aggressively against the cleric’s militia.

The newspaper closure was intended “to send another signal to Sadr, just like telling him about the arrest warrant,” the official said. “In hindsight, it was a huge mistake. The best-case scenario was that he would ignore it, like the earlier threat, or that he would capitulate. The worst case was that he would lash back. But we weren’t ready for that.

[…]

At the time, occupation authority officials figured that Sadr had between 3,000 and 6,000 militiamen, only 2,000 of whom were armed fighters — a figure that turned out to be a vast underestimate. “We were relying on the most optimistic predictions possible,” the official said.

Officials in Washington familiar with the deliberations of both the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff said they knew of no high-level meetings before the closure of Sadr’s paper in which either group reviewed military plans girding for a possible violent backlash.

But the officials said that the decision to move against Sadr was fully supported by senior Bush administration officials. And while top officials may not have been familiar with military details, one senior administration official said that Washington had repeatedly advised Bremer and U.S. commanders in Iraq to ensure they were prepared for trouble if they went after Sadr.

“Every time we talked with Baghdad about taking any action against Sadr, we always talked about the need to have proper preparations in place to deal with a violent reaction,” the official said.

Looks like Bremer’s being cut loose. No wonder he looked like he’d ben hit between the eyes with a 2×4 this morning on Press the Meat.

Senor said the decision to move against Sadr in late March was prompted by “a real trend in the ramping-up of very inciteful, highly provocative rhetoric” from Sadr “that was directed at promoting violence against Americans during a very emotional time.”

“We believe we had a responsibility to address it head-on,” he said. “We had a concern that if he was left unchecked, Americans could wind up getting killed.”

That certainly worked out well.

I think Americans have to give some serious thought to this entire concept of “sending a message.” From abstinence education to “shock and awe” this method of governance almost seems designed to invoke the law of unintended consequences. Perhaps it’s time to think about real policies based upon sound information and contingency plans.

The messages we are sending — hubris, incompetence and ignorance — are toxic. And it’s going to get increasingly dangerous to you and me personally. Anti-Americanism isn’t necessarily directed at “the American people” at this point. However, if we give this administration another term that is going to change. Right now, most people understand that the majority of Americans did not vote for this man. But, the rest of the world will hold us responsible if we elect him legitimately in spite of what we now know about him. That, after all, is the message that Democracy sends.