General Casey's War Strategy Summary

After years, the US must withdrawal troops from Iraq, but leaving behind is a shattered and exhausted country with no longer a war land but peace has not seen. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein was not only destroyed the regime, but also destroyed the internal security and order. It has been promoted the rise of the forces of al-Qaeda terrorists and the sparking an outbreak of conflict ethnic conflicts, sectarian. The Bush Administration rested its public case for war against Iraq on two putative threats – Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda. In hindsight, the Bush Administration should have planned much better such as strategy of exiting, released convincing evidences about Iraq’s possession of WMDs, whether Iraq was connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks or maybe, ultimately stayed out of the

When the United States seized control over Iraq, many Iraqi citizens were left without a job. As a result of this widespread unemployment, recruitment for Muslim extremist groups thrived. Lt. General Michael Flynn, a key figure of the War, has admitted “As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him.” Flynn went on to say. “The same is true for Moammar Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that

Since the war on Iraq began on March 20, 2003, at least 1,402 coalition troops have died and 9,326 U.S. troops have been wounded in action. This is no small number and the count grows daily. One would hope, then, that these men and women were sent to war with just cause and as a last resort. However, as the cloud of apprehension and rhetoric surrounding the war has begun to settle, it has become clear that the Bush administration relied on deeply flawed analyses to make its case for war to the United Nations and to the American people, rushing this country, and its soldiers, into war. This is not to say that this war was waged against a blameless regime or that our soldiers have died

In 1993, John Keegan, the world’s most prominent military historian, called the war “a triumph of incisive planning and almost faultless execution.” Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the first war, later to become Secretary of State, concluded in his 1995 biography that even though Saddam Hussein remained in power, “the remaining Iraqi army is

While almost the entire Iraq war was mired in controversy, no one moment was more inundated with it than the Second Battle of Fallujah, a two month knock down drag out fight between coalition forces and radical Jihadists, it was the war’s magnum opus with urban combat rivaling what Marines faced in 1968 on the streets of Hue city Vietnam during the Tet offensive (Head, 105). While many debate the war overall the focus of this essay is on the battle itself and how the US government created the circumstances in which the insurgency in Fallujah could flourish as well as the ideology and motives of the Jihadi fighters and US forces and why the battle was necessary for US forces to wage so they could begin the process of bringing western

For example, when David Petraeus took command of the Afghanistan mission in July of 2010, he attempted to impose the same strategy that had worked in Iraq. As Gentile explains, the “American military establishment could only provide one course of action in Afghanistan – COIN.” In The Insurgents Kaplan tells the story of how one of Petraeus’s advisers told him rather directly to not talk about Iraq so much because he was not doing enough to factor in and adapt to the differing conditions in Afghanistan, such as its primitive economy and scattered population. COIN became arborescent in its approach, and was always looking back to the root concepts that had made the Iraqi operation successful. The strategy did not evolve as Kilcullen suggested it would. In many ways it seems that the COIN approach simply became the “New Western Way of War;” just as dogmatic as the ways of conventional warfare had been

Throughout history, the United States Government and Armed Forces have learned from devastating mistakes and decisive victories making the US Armed Forces superior to most, if not all, other militaries; however, the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia throughout Operation Restore Hope, Operation Provide Relief, and the Joint Special Operations Task Force missed the mark on such “lessons learned”. The inadequate intelligence; the ignorance of tactics, techniques, and procedures; and absence of reinforcements cost needless loss of US troops, and crippling a sophisticated, well-equipped military at the hands of an under-equipped militia using irregular warfare tactics. Even 24 years later, the impact resonating still weighs heavily on minds of key leaders in the government along with all echelons of military commanders.

America is under attack, not from an enemy in a faraway land, but here at home, by our own government. In the current year 2010, almost 7 years after "shock and awe" campaign that officially started the war in Iraq, the U.S. government fails to recognize that our efforts in the Middle East have plateaued, and it is time to bring our troops home. The surge campaigns in recent years were felt by many, to be an unofficial recognition that the war is not going well, and several top generals have had high hopes for this military strategy, but compelling evidence concludes this was a short-lived success. No one can deny the financial toll the Iraq war has had on America, for America is in the middle of one of the worst economic crisis in recent

In order to develop effective solutions for complex military problems, the Joint Community within the US Military adopted the methodology of Operational Design in Joint Doctrine. This methodology addresses the concept of complex, ill-structured or “wicked” problems. In fact, Lessons Learned as a result of operations conducted over the last 15 years played an instrumental role in the continued development of this doctrine. Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) illustrates a perfect case study for evaluation utilizing this methodology. Therefore, the intent of this paper is to evaluate US Military campaign planning for OIF by using operational design as the framework for this analysis. First, this paper looks at how planners and commanders interpreted pre-invasion civilian policy guidance, their understanding of the current operational environment, and how these commanders defined the problem. Next, it identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the initial approach. After discussing this initial approach, this paper examines how commanders assessed the campaign and refined the approach – to include how the reframing occurred. Lastly, it provides examples of how these lessons learned shaped current joint planning policy and doctrine.

The first battle in Fallujah during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) is known as Operation Vigilant Resolve. This battle is regarded as one of the biggest single defeats that the United States Military has suffered throughout all its campaigns during OIF. The United States and international media outlets exploited this defeat, which in turn, bolstered Al Qaeda recruiting in Fallujah. This offensive failure and retreat was backed by a huge public outcry for troop withdrawal and successful exploitation of recruiting propaganda by the insurgents.

“There is substantial evidence that the Bush administration – like many of its predecessors – oversold the threat to foster its preferred policy choice.” ” There is a debate in the public on whether the intelligence that led to the Iraqi war was shifted in the direction by the Bush administration, or whether the I.C simply got it wrong. A realization that the I.C got it wrong might be equally damaging, as it would mean that they did not do their jobs properly.

As the end of the first month of the occupation approached with no action taken by the Arab League, nor anyone else, my uncle’s opinion changed along with everyone else’s in our tiny country. When he would visit us he would still appear at least partially optimistic, commenting that “The world does not seem ready to take action yet, but it will. In the meantime, the Iraqis will tire of this game soon enough and leave.” Here, again, the opposite seemed true. As time passed, the Iraqis appeared only to increase the presence of their forces in Kuwait. Whereas Iraqi forces at first had seemed more scattered in numbers throughout the neighborhoods of the capital city, perhaps as only smaller squads of men, by the second month they massed in human blocks that grew in size to companies, or even battalions, of troops.

Soon after the death of Zarqawi, in January 2007 President George Bush announced that the US would be sending “…more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq” (Bush). This announcement was a direct response to the exorbitant number of people who wear being killed every day due to violence in the country. In fact, according to David Petraeus in an interview with frontline, an average of 53 people was killed daily. Interestingly, in the same interview, Petraeus said that it wasn’t the additional 25,000 troops that were sent over that were key to the new American strategy in Iraq, instead it was the change in strategy that was really the crux of the so-called surge. That is that, “instead of consolidating on big bases…and handing

In order to fully interpret the nation of Iraq’s holistic condition during and after the Saddam Era, Social, Political, and Economic factors must be weighed accordingly and in contrast to each other. In order to do this, the span of years leading up to 1989, and

The invasion on Iraq by the United States in 2003 has become the biggest, lengthiest, and most expensive use of armed force since the Vietnam War. It is the first major post-Cold War U.S. military action taken unilaterally, without an international coalition, and the first U.S. experience as an occupying power in a Middle Eastern country. Although the invasion decision was distinctive (U.S. military connection in an Arab or Muslim country), the argument here is that the Iraqi invasion deals with motives related to natural security, power, and resources. Both realism and neo-conservatism claim to capture the motives behind the war, but only through a comprehensive comparison of the two can a synthesis be achieved.