Ricks: War's flaws have many roots

Though President Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld '54 have made mistakes in the planning and execution of military operations in Iraq, they are not solely responsible for the war's failure, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post staff writer Thomas Ricks said in a lecture yesterday.

Speaking to an audience of over 100 in Robertson Hall, Ricks argued that the war represents a failure of American institutions on multiple levels — primarily a failure of the United States' Middle East policy. The talk was titled "The Iraq War as a Failure of the American System."

For decades, Ricks said, the U.S. government's policy in the Middle East emphasized maintaining stability in the region, even if that meant supporting dictators. But after Sept. 11, 2001, Ricks said, the United States became more ambitious about furthering democratic ideals in the region. "Stability was no longer our goal in the Middle East — it was our target," he said, explaining that the war's aim was to "undermine stability and make Iraq a beacon of change."

Ricks, who has toured Iraq several times and wrote the book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq," cited the "narrowness of discussion" leading up to the war as a factor contributing to the United States' failure in the region. Politicians and officials who opposed U.S. military presence in Iraq, he said, were either ignored or politically excluded.

Additionally, Ricks said, the Bush administration's approach to the conflict was shortsighted, focusing on getting "the bad guy" — Saddam Hussein — rather than on how to deal with Iraq after the old regime was overthrown.

Meanwhile, Ricks said, errors in U.S. intelligence and an overlooking of facts that would not have supported government policy also led to pitfalls. He argued that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations preceding the war was "almost entirely false on all of the particulars."

Ricks also blamed American journalists, arguing that they failed to generate debate during the lead-up to the war. Bush and other government officials, he said, "successfully created an air of inevitability about the war," which made the media focus on how the war in Iraq was going to happen instead of whether it should actually take place.

Failure also occurred on a military level, Ricks said, arguing that "military commanders have lost accountability for their actions." American troops were sent to Iraq "unprepared for the task at hand" and without a broad understanding of the war's purpose, he said, which resulted in the rounding up of Iraqi citizens in detention centers — everyone from al Qaeda operatives to "the average farmer."

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Resentment of such U.S. actions, Ricks said, ultimately made it easier for al Qaeda to recruit members.

Ricks added that he believes the Iraqi "tragedy" is not nearly over, noting that the U.S. has had to downgrade its goals for Iraq from victory to "sustainable stability." Even so, he said, reaching such an equilibrium will take several years.

Sponsored by the Wilson School, the lecture was part of a series titled "The Privatization of National Security."