Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.7591/cornell/9781501715181.003.0007
This chapter details the review process mentioned in the previous chapter. It highlights a series of high-level interagency meetings as the members of the review group debated the status of US efforts in Iraq and began formally to consider alternatives. By Thanksgiving of 2006, the review group was wrapping up its work, albeit without a clear policy recommendation, and divergent reviews remained among Bush's advisors. In retrospect, some of the president's advisors now believe that Bush himself was already leaning toward increasing US forces in Iraq as part of a new strategy. At the time, however, many thought the president had not made up his mind and that the deliberative process had simply deadlocked.
{"title":"A Sweeping Internal Review","authors":"","doi":"10.7591/cornell/9781501715181.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501715181.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter details the review process mentioned in the previous chapter. It highlights a series of high-level interagency meetings as the members of the review group debated the status of US efforts in Iraq and began formally to consider alternatives. By Thanksgiving of 2006, the review group was wrapping up its work, albeit without a clear policy recommendation, and divergent reviews remained among Bush's advisors. In retrospect, some of the president's advisors now believe that Bush himself was already leaning toward increasing US forces in Iraq as part of a new strategy. At the time, however, many thought the president had not made up his mind and that the deliberative process had simply deadlocked.","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128228504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.7591/cornell/9781501715181.003.0008
This chapter traces a series of climactic meetings of the National Security Council in December of 2006. By December, Vice President Dick Cheney thought it was “pretty clear that we've got to do something different than what we've been doing. December was then devoted to sort of nailing down what that was going to be.” The president and his advisors discussed fundamental issues regarding American goals and responsibilities in Iraq and increasingly concluded that only a surge option, as part of a change in military strategy and an effort at bottom-up political reconciliation in Iraq, could salvage the American mission there. That same month, the president visited the Joint Chiefs of Staff in their meeting room to hear and address their concerns about whether an intensified military effort in Iraq might overtax the US military and even “break the force.” In December, too, public discussion about the American future in Iraq was fueled by reports from the congressionally mandated Iraq Study Group, which advocated for a regional diplomatic strategy to help quell violence in Iraq, as well as from the American Enterprise Institute, which advocated increasing US forces in Iraq and pursuing a proper counterinsurgency strategy. The impact of these external reviews on the eventual surge decision remains hotly debated; the chapter helps place these efforts within the context of the internal administration policy process and Bush's decision making.
{"title":"Choosing to Surge","authors":"","doi":"10.7591/cornell/9781501715181.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501715181.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter traces a series of climactic meetings of the National Security Council in December of 2006. By December, Vice President Dick Cheney thought it was “pretty clear that we've got to do something different than what we've been doing. December was then devoted to sort of nailing down what that was going to be.” The president and his advisors discussed fundamental issues regarding American goals and responsibilities in Iraq and increasingly concluded that only a surge option, as part of a change in military strategy and an effort at bottom-up political reconciliation in Iraq, could salvage the American mission there. That same month, the president visited the Joint Chiefs of Staff in their meeting room to hear and address their concerns about whether an intensified military effort in Iraq might overtax the US military and even “break the force.” In December, too, public discussion about the American future in Iraq was fueled by reports from the congressionally mandated Iraq Study Group, which advocated for a regional diplomatic strategy to help quell violence in Iraq, as well as from the American Enterprise Institute, which advocated increasing US forces in Iraq and pursuing a proper counterinsurgency strategy. The impact of these external reviews on the eventual surge decision remains hotly debated; the chapter helps place these efforts within the context of the internal administration policy process and Bush's decision making.","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128665537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.7591/CORNELL/9781501715181.003.0010
P. Feaver, M. O'sullivan, Stephen J. Hadley
This chapter explores first-hand insights from President Bush's national security advisor, Stephen J. Hadley, and two National Security Council staff members, Meghan O'Sullivan and Peter Feaver, about the logic of the surge strategy and the process by which that strategy emerged. The “surge” is generally understood as the deployment to Iraq of 20,000 to 30,000 US troops in 2007 to supplement the roughly 160,000 already there. More importantly, however, it reflected a change in strategy in how US forces would be used. They would deploy with Iraqi military and police units and live out among the Iraqi people rather than on US military bases. Their priority would be to help Iraqi forces provide security for the Iraqi people. The surge would also create more time and a better environment in which to build Iraqi security forces. The essential feature of the decision-making process that produced the surge was that from the beginning President Bush was at the center of the process. Ultimately, President Bush's decision to launch the surge ended a major strategic debate within his administration.
{"title":"How the “Surge” Came to Be","authors":"P. Feaver, M. O'sullivan, Stephen J. Hadley","doi":"10.7591/CORNELL/9781501715181.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/CORNELL/9781501715181.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explores first-hand insights from President Bush's national security advisor, Stephen J. Hadley, and two National Security Council staff members, Meghan O'Sullivan and Peter Feaver, about the logic of the surge strategy and the process by which that strategy emerged. The “surge” is generally understood as the deployment to Iraq of 20,000 to 30,000 US troops in 2007 to supplement the roughly 160,000 already there. More importantly, however, it reflected a change in strategy in how US forces would be used. They would deploy with Iraqi military and police units and live out among the Iraqi people rather than on US military bases. Their priority would be to help Iraqi forces provide security for the Iraqi people. The surge would also create more time and a better environment in which to build Iraqi security forces. The essential feature of the decision-making process that produced the surge was that from the beginning President Bush was at the center of the process. Ultimately, President Bush's decision to launch the surge ended a major strategic debate within his administration.","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"962 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117318756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.7591/cornell/9781501715181.003.0012
R. Jervis
This chapter illustrates how the perceived lessons of Vietnam were in the back of policy makers' minds as they considered the US predicament in Iraq, and notes that this episode demonstrates the power of bureaucracies in shaping information flows and policy options, as well as—paradoxically—of presidents in using their power and persuasion to bring reluctant bureaucracies along. The participants could not avoid remembering the conventional wisdom that the American defeat in Vietnam emboldened adversaries, sowed disunity at home, and crippled the military for years to come. Whether this is an accurate picture can be debated, but not the pervasiveness and power of this narrative within Bush's policy-making team. While there certainly were grounds for believing that for the US to withdraw without having established at least a modicum of order would have had unfortunate consequences for the region, America's reputation, and its self-image, Vietnam may have made it harder to make an unbiased estimate of the likely magnitude of these effects. Vietnam also influenced the way the military fought: the reaction to the war was that it was the kind of conflict the US should never fight again.
{"title":"Decisions and Politics","authors":"R. Jervis","doi":"10.7591/cornell/9781501715181.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501715181.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter illustrates how the perceived lessons of Vietnam were in the back of policy makers' minds as they considered the US predicament in Iraq, and notes that this episode demonstrates the power of bureaucracies in shaping information flows and policy options, as well as—paradoxically—of presidents in using their power and persuasion to bring reluctant bureaucracies along. The participants could not avoid remembering the conventional wisdom that the American defeat in Vietnam emboldened adversaries, sowed disunity at home, and crippled the military for years to come. Whether this is an accurate picture can be debated, but not the pervasiveness and power of this narrative within Bush's policy-making team. While there certainly were grounds for believing that for the US to withdraw without having established at least a modicum of order would have had unfortunate consequences for the region, America's reputation, and its self-image, Vietnam may have made it harder to make an unbiased estimate of the likely magnitude of these effects. Vietnam also influenced the way the military fought: the reaction to the war was that it was the kind of conflict the US should never fight again.","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121916596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.7591/9781501715204-010
{"title":"8. What Kind Of Surge? Late December 2006–January 2007","authors":"","doi":"10.7591/9781501715204-010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501715204-010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"140 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122058659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.7591/9781501715204-004
{"title":"2. This Strategy Is Not Working: January– June 2006","authors":"","doi":"10.7591/9781501715204-004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501715204-004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"195 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126013003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.1515/9781501715204-022
{"title":"Acknowledgments","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9781501715204-022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501715204-022","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"335 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125102973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.7591/9781501715204-008
{"title":"6. A Sweeping Internal Review: Mid–Late November 2006","authors":"","doi":"10.7591/9781501715204-008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501715204-008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134254500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.7591/9781501715204-015
J. Rovner
{"title":"13. Strategy And The Surge","authors":"J. Rovner","doi":"10.7591/9781501715204-015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501715204-015","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"182 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123132779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-15DOI: 10.7591/9781501715204-012
A. Preston
{"title":"10. Iraq, Vietnam, And The Meaning Of Victory","authors":"A. Preston","doi":"10.7591/9781501715204-012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501715204-012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":106766,"journal":{"name":"The Last Card","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134017376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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