American Valor Quarterly Issue 6 - Spring/Summer 2009 | Page 35

burning oil wells in the wake. This did not inhibit celebrations,
however, because the danger to the Kuwait and Saudi oil fields had
passed. We allowed Saddam to keep his job, in effect handing over
to him those Kurds and Shia who voiced support for his overthrow
when Desert Storm began. We had the obligatory victory parade
in Washington, and General Schwarzkopf became the hero of the
day. The Kurds and Shia weren’t so fortunate.
In 2003 we attacked Saddam again, not for oil but for weapons
of mass destruction. We would have been better off playing the
oil card, once it became obvious the WMD claim was counterfeit.
Some countered that we rid Iraq of a brutal dictator—a worthy
goal, surely—while others recalled cynically (but correctly) that
Saddam’s brutality was not an issue when we abandoned the Kurds
and Shia to his executioners in 1991.
If Desert Storm displayed America’s armed forces at the peak
of our nation’s physical and intellectual powers, we never had the
opportunity to experience how Operation Iraqi Freedom might
have turned out, absent political interference.

USMC photo

This forces me to retract earlier assertions that we absorbed the
lessons learned from Vietnam into our national security strategy
and psyche. Desert Storm was not the rule but an aberration. In
fact, we ignored the lessons learned from Vietnam when we kicked
off Operation Iraqi Freedom. Leaders who should have known
better closed their eyes to lessons learned from Vietnam and Desert
Storm, starting again from scratch. They predicted the rapid seizure
of Baghdad would be a sufficient exercise of power to put the
genie back in the bottle again. Wishful thinking along these lines
led to disaster in Vietnam, and they were predictably repeated when
we captured Baghdad with minuscule forces in reserve and no
serious planning for post-conflict operations. Capturing Baghdad

wasn’t as easy as we thought at the time, but so be it. Then we
discovered things could go from bad to worse, leading to calamity
and ridiculous denial. Our most important leaders didn’t claim to
see light at the end of the tunnel: they claimed we were through
the tunnel. Now, some 4,300 lives later, it’s possible we were never
in the tunnel in the first place.
This is not the place to discuss arrogance of the mighty, or as
Shakespeare said, “the insolence of office.” Rather let us salute
the sacrifice of the fallen who did their duty in Iraq as their fathers
did in Vietnam.
I agree there’s limited utility comparing Vietnam to Iraq, a device
war detractors raise to demonstrate the folly of both enterprises.
But they make the wrong arguments. A better case can be made
for challenging the blissful assumption that leaders would arise in
Iraq to make the immediate transition from tyranny to democracy.
We had stronger leaders in Vietnam whom we could work with
toward a mutually agreeable end, especially President Nguyen Van
Thieu. In Iraq we soon destroyed vestiges of leadership when we
disbanded the Iraqi army, with no Thieu look-alike on the horizon.
The manipulative Pentagon favorite, Ahmed Chalabi, had more
supporters in Washington than Baghdad. The police force basically
melted into the surroundings, while looters and gangs filled the
vacuum. This left us holding the bag, its contents broadcast by
the smell. Ambassador Bremer’s tenure resembled The Brothers
Grimm more than Grotius, the legendary European jurist.
There is little hope for an immediate restoration of government
in Iraq, until a central government can establish its authority and
respect. We look for signs of progress, but the evidence so far fails
to persuade me that we are there yet. There is room for hope, but
things are far from cer х