The Iraq War Was the Conflict No One Prepared For
In Iraq, the two most ubiquitous weapons were not the kind that the Americans trained against, or to use.
The U.S. military that invaded Iraq in 2003 was built to fight a Soviet-like, near-peer adversary in the forests and plains of northern and central Europe. Indeed, it was so well-suited to that task that it obliterated Saddam Hussein’s conventional military in about three weeks—giving an air of invincibility to the administration of President George W. Bush. Until then, world leaders and domestic skeptics had repeatedly warned Bush about the dangers and unintended consequences of toppling Saddam Hussein by experts. Bush’s own secretary of state, the beloved former US Army general, Colin Powell, had cautioned Bush, “If he breaks [Iraq], he buys it.”
But the rapid defeat of the Iraqi military and the total collapse of Saddam’s regime made President Bush and his neoconservative advisers appear to be geniuses. It was so successful that there was much loose talk from that crew about toppling multiple other Mideast powers, such as Syria and, eventually, Iran. Interestingly, had not President Bush invaded Iraq when he did, the discussions in the press might have centered on how the Bush administration was losing America’s other major war at the time against al-Qaeda terrorists and their Taliban allies.
Not Prepared
In hindsight, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan should have served as a warning to Bush amid the preparations to invade Iraq. That’s because the U.S. military was not truly prepared to fight the kind of war that it was being required to fight in either country. That conflict was a counterterrorism campaign with elements of counterinsurgency. Neither strategy was well-suited to the conventional U.S. military.
The problem the Bush administration faced in Iraq was that the moment Saddam’s forces in Iraq collapsed, al-Qaeda militants moved in, turning that conflict from an easily-won conventional war into an insurgency of the same kind that Americans were struggling to defeat in Afghanistan.
At that point, things got bad for everyone. How did we get to that point, though, where al-Qaeda miscreants were able to challenge the mightiest conventional military in the world? In Iraq, the two most ubiquitous weapons were not the kind that the Americans trained against, or to use. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI (the precursor to ISIS), notoriously employed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against unsuspecting Coalition forces. Meanwhile, one the most useful weapons for the Americans against AQI was the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Drones were infinitely cheaper than most of the other major weapons systems the U.S. military was trained to rely upon in warfare.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq Loved IEDs
For al-Qaeda in Iraq, IEDs were primarily used as roadside bombs. Insurgents would line roadways with these homemade bombs, waking in the early hours of the morning or going late at night to plant these devices, knowing that U.S. military convoys would likely be passing through the roadway later on. These devices were notoriously difficult to detect, often being buried or concealed within everyday objects. One such case of IED concealment was the device being hidden within a discarded Coca-Cola can that had been placed in the path of incoming American military vehicles—resembling the many hundreds of other pieces of litter that U.S. troops had seen up to that point. So the IED was ignored, until it detonated.
Over time, AQI evolved their tactics and expanded their repertoire to include Vehicle-Borne IEDs (VBIEDs). These were larger than most IEDs and, because they were mobile, caused immense damage—far more than did traditional IEDs. VBIEDs could be loaded into cars and either driven at American forces by a suicide bomber or remotely driven to them. They were used against military checkpoints, Iraqi government buildings, and public gatherings.
Yet another variation of these IEDs were the Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions (IRAMs) which were large rockets loaded with explosives, sometimes described as flying IEDs. In Iraq, terrorists used these weapons against U.S. bases.
On the other side, the most important weapon that was used by the Americans were drones. These systems were used for critical surveillance missions and targeted kill missions. Because they were unmanned, UAVs were much cheaper and easier to operate than manned warplanes. And they could be sent to very dangerous parts of Iraq with little downside risk, as there were no personnel whose lives could be threatened by hostile action.
Droning On
The Americans spend an inordinate amount of money on their defense. But the most important weapon in the arsenal during the Iraq War for the United States was a system that was not costly at all and was entirely expendable. It is not only an indicator of how poorly prepared the U.S. military was for the kind of war it was fighting in Iraq, but it further highlighted how out-of-whack Washington’s spending priorities had become.
And because the U.S. military was unprepared for the kind of fight it found itself in during the Iraq War, the lessons to be learned is that the Americans should not become so rigid on things like doctrine, or too deeply involved in long-range war planning.
Frankly, the United States will never know what kind of wars we would be involved in. America went to war in Iraq expecting a big campaign similar to Desert Storm. Instead, it got a massive counterinsurgency that ended with the ultimate retreat of U.S. forces from the country and the rise of ISIS. Many of its legacy systems were basically useless, and many of its most useful systems were seen as a low priority until the last minute. One hopes that the Pentagon under Donald Trump’s presidency can learn from these mistakes.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
