What went wrong with Iraqi reconstruction? What lessons do the problems in planning for and occupying post-war Iraq provide for future operations? This article from the Journal of Strategic Studies examines the pre-war planning process and reconstruction of Iraq during the occupation period. It argues that the pre-war planning process was plagued by problems, including a dysfunctional inter-agency process, overly optimistic assumptions and a lack of contingency planning. Lack of civilian capacity during the occupation period led to a complicated civilian-military relationship, with military authorities taking the lead in some reconstruction activities.
In pre-war planning, US officials gave less priority to the post-war reconstruction of Iraq, based on two assumptions which suggested that reconstruction would be straightforward. Firstly, US officials assumed that US forces would be greeted as liberators and would not, therefore, face any major security problems. Secondly, they assumed that Iraqi government ministries were effective institutions that would continue to function after the ministers were removed from power. No contingency plans were developed in case these scenarios did not occur.
In the occupation period, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) faced a number of problems in its efforts to rebuild the core functions of a state:
- The CPA was chronically understaffed. Too few civilians volunteered to go to Iraq. The Department of Defense lacked the ability to identify suitable personnel for the CPA and the authority to require other departments to provide personnel.
- CPA staff often stayed in Iraq for very short periods and ceased working on Iraqi issues after returning to the US. Experience was therefore lost and the CPA lacked institutional memory. Many CPA staffers lacked relevant experience.
- The CPA remained largely confined to its headquarters in the Green Zone in Baghdad. CPA staff needed military convoys to travel outside of the Green Zone. A lack of military convoys restricted the CPA’s ability to do its work.
- The CPA had only a minimal presence outside of Baghdad for several months. When it arrived in other areas it improved civilian-military coordination, but had fewer resources and personnel and less local experience than the military forces.
- Military efforts to fill the gaps left by the absence of the CPA meant that different policies were established in different parts of the country. CPA efforts to establish coherent national policies had to reconcile these policy differences.
- There were few organisational linkages between civilian and military authorities in Iraq. Civilian and military authorities had different chains of command, preventing either from pursuing an integrated political-military strategy.
The complicated and sometimes uncoordinated relationship between military and civilian authorities in planning for and occupying post-war Iraq provides three main lessons for the future:
- Military force exists to serve political ends. Operational planners must start with the strategic end state and work backwards to determine the best ways to achieve that end state.
- Military forces must be prepared to carry out stabilisation and reconstruction tasks in the immediate aftermath of war. While these are civilian tasks, civilian organisations cannot enter post-war situations until a basic level of security is established.
- The US government lacks an effective mechanism for aggregating expertise on reconstruction into a coherent approach. Effective interagency structures and sustained presidential leadership are needed to encourage interagency coordination.
