CNAS Senior fellow Tom Ricks on Meet the Press Sunday, February 8
CNAS Author: Thomas E. Ricks
Original Post: CNAS Senior fellow Tom Ricks on Meet the Press This Sunday, February 8
Type: Interview
February 5, 2009 — Watch the full interview here.
MR. GREGORY: And we're back and joined by Tom Ricks for his first interview on his new book, "The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq 2006-2008." Welcome back to "Meet the Press."
MR. RICKS: Thank you.
MR. GREGORY: This was the first book, "Fiasco," about Iraq, it speaks for itself, and just to hold it up, this is the new book, it is "The Gamble." And here was something striking that you wrote in this book. Looking forward, now, to President Obama and his leadership test: "'2009 could prove to be a particularly difficult year in the war. In many ways, the entire war was a huge gamble, risking America's future power and prestige on a war that, at best, is likely to be inconclusive,' commented Shawn Brimley, a former Canadian infantry officer who became a defense analyst at the Center for a New American Security. He predicted that Bush's gamble will force Obama into a series of his own gambles and tradeoffs between the war and domestic needs, b Iraq and Afghanistan, between his political base and his military. In sum, the first year of Obama's war promises to be tougher for America's leaders and military than was the last year of Bush's war." How so?
MR. RICKS: I think a lot of people back here incorrectly think the war is over. What I say in this book is that we may be only halfway through this thing. In fact, my favorite line in the book is the last line, Ambassador Crocker, a very thoughtful diplomat, says that "The events for which the Iraq War will be remembered have not yet happened."
MR. GREGORY: That is an amazing statement, and a lot of people have to be listening to that thinking, "Well, what's the other shoe to drop then?"
MR. RICKS: There are a whole lot of shoes out there, a whole lot of shoes to be thrown, actually. This year we're in now, '09, is going to be, I think, a surprisingly tough year. You've got a series of elections in Iraq. Meanwhile, you've got American troops declining. General Odierno says in the book that the really dangerous withdrawals come at the end of this year. We are doing easy troop withdrawals now, but down the road, you start taking them out of areas that aren't so secure, that aren't so safe that you're worried about. So they're going to be holding national elections in Iraq just when we have fewer troops there.
And, finally, none of the basic problems that the surge was meant to solve have been solved. All of the basic issues facing Iraq are still there.
MR. GREGORY: You suggest that while the administration has said the surge was successful. Undeniably, violence has gone down. You suggested kick the can down the road. What do you mean?
MR. RICKS: Well, basically, the surge succeeded militarily, failed politically. And that was its purpose -- not just to improve security but to create a political breathing space in which national reconciliation and which major change could occur Iraq that hasn't changed. What General Odierno says in the book, he's the U.S. commander there now -- what Odierno says is that Iraqis, many of them, used the breathing space we created to step backwards, to become more sectarian, they've become more divided.
MR. GREGORY: The issue of troops is what everybody is focused on, certainly, politically when troops come home. This is what President Obama said before he was president on the campaign trail. This is October 2007:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From videotape.) I will promise you this -- that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home, we will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.
MR. GREGORY: And yet by July of 2008 on the campaign trail, he spoke about it somewhat differently:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From videotape.) My 16-month timeline, if you examine everything that I've said, was always premised on making sure that our troops were safe, and my guiding approach continues to be that we've got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable.
MR. GREGORY: You write in the book that Obama will be torn between what his supporters expect and what his generals advise.
MR. RICKS: I think that's right, and I think we may see a confrontation between Obama and the generals by the end of this year. American voters, many of them think we're going to be out of Iraq in 16 months. When he talks about having combat troops out of Iraq that somehow no more American troops will die.
Well, the news flash for Obama here is there are no such thing as non-combat troops. We don't have a pacifist wing of the U.S. military. All our troops are ready for combat. We're going to have American troops fighting and dying there for many years to come. What General Odierno says in the book is he would like to see 35,000 American troops there in 2015.
MR. GREGORY: In 2015?
MR. RICKS: Yeah. So, which means that Obama's war in Iraq may be longer than Bush's war in Iraq. So the bottom line here -- I think Iraq is going to change Obama more than Obama changes Iraq.
MR. GREGORY: Where are troop levels now?
MR. RICKS: We're about 155,000.
MR. GREGORY: And when do we get to that bottom-out level of 30,000, 35,000 that Odierno is talking about?
MR. RICKS: Well, that's going to be fight all year long. When do you come down, how fast do you come down, do you come down a brigade a month, as Obama indicated on the campaign trail, or do you plateau it out this year and then bring it down early 2010? No matter when you do it, though, you're going to come to a point when the generals are going to say, you know, "This is not something I really want to do here. This is dangerous. We're taking troops out of a place where things are going to start breaking loose."
MR. GREGORY: But that's the question, which is how much danger do Americans face? Because what you write in the book about the surge is that it was the first time that Iraqis took the lead in this war effort. If U.S. troops are there, but they are not in harm's way in the same manner that they have been before, perhaps Americans can live with that long-term commitment. Do you expect that will be the case?
MR. RICKS: If you are in Iraq, you're in harm's way, first of all. The second thing is, I think people here -- and this is a major theme of the book -- people here don't understand quite how tough the surge was. Those first six months of 2007 were the hardest six months of the war, and it was a near-wrong thing. The general who were there were not confident it was going to succeed. There were several months there -- April, May, June 2007 where U.S. casualties are increasing, no signs of success.
So one of the last things they want to do is roll the dice again and say, "Sure, you know, it might blow up in our faces, but let's try it." Now, they feel they have made huge sacrifices; that they have had friends die and sons bleed and that they don't want to throw that all away on the, you know, because some guy sat on the campaign trail, "We're going to get all these guys out."
MR. GREGORY: Let's talk about the legacy of this war as best we can determine it now. This is what you write about the outcome: "Nor at the end of many more years of struggle is the outcome likely to be something Americans recognize as victory. Instead, these additional years of sacrifice promise to be made from markedly limited objectives. A senior intelligence officer in Iraq describes the long- term American goal as 'A stable Iraq that is unified, at peace with its neighbors, and is able to policy its internal affairs so it isn't a sanctuary for al Qaeda. Preferably, a friend to us, but it doesn't have to be.' He paused, then pointedly noted that his list doesn't include democracy or the observation of human rights."
MR. RICKS: This is an opinion you'll find the closer you get to Baghdad. Nobody there really -- nobody -- Americans that I see really expect this place to be a stable democracy any time soon.
MR. GREGORY: And yet this was the major rationale for this war. After weapons of mass destruction, which were not found.
MR. RICKS: But don't forget that what happened when Petraeus and the people around him were put in, essentially, the dissidents were put in charge of the war. Ambassador Crocker reveals in this book that he was essentially opposed to the American invasion of Iraq. A lot of the people who have been running the war for the last two years really thought this was a bad idea or have been badly executed.
MR. GREGORY: And yet President Bush, during exit interviews, stood by the war, stood by the surge, but he also said this about the rationale for removing Saddam Hussein: "You put in the middle of the Middle East demand rich with oil who sponsored terror, who had the capacity to make a nuclear weapon combined with Iran, it's conceivable you would have a nuclear arms race in the Middle East now. I argue vociferously that the Middle East is better off without Saddam Hussein."
MR. RICKS: Let me tell you my worry about that. We have a bunch of Iraqi generals out there who are not, in any way, people who subscribe to our values. The fewer American troops we have there, the more they can behave the way they want to, and what you're going to see is a lot of new little Saddams. The difference is there are Saddams.
You are going to see situations probably where Iraqi forces don't like a village, and so they just shoot artillery into it. These are not things the American military does, but if you don't have American military around to stop it, that's going to happen. You're going to have Iraqi generals try to use American air power, calling air strikes on people they don't like. You're going to see politics wage violently, but we're going to have less control of the situation.
So my worries at the end of all this -- you have a bunch of new little strongmen. The difference is we trained and armed them.
MR. GREGORY: You talk about that relationship with the military, and this is going to be important -- when it was back in July of '08 when Senator Obama went with a couple of other senators for his first meeting with General Petraeus in Iraq, and here he is, he's getting off the helicopter, and we're seeing him. This was a rather contentious exchange, wasn't it?
MR. RICKS: It is, and this is one of my favorite moments in the book. Here you have Petraeus and Obama who are, in many ways, very similar guys -- lean, smart, tough, ambitious, more reserved than a lot of their peers, and they actually agree on a lot of -- where Iraq should be, lowering our sights there and our goals. But the meeting in Baghdad was surprisingly contentious. It goes on for about 90 minutes and essentially the general lectures Obama. And his feeling was, "I've been to your hearings, you guys have beat up on me. You kept on asking me questions and didn't give me time to answer. Now you're on my turf," and what should have been, really, a general with a candidate conversation, became a 90-minute lecture by Petraeus, "Let me tell you about Iraq, fella."
MR. GREGORY: Interesting. Who, in the region, won the war in Iraq, do you think?
MR. RICKS: If you had to call the ball right now, Iran, I think is probably the biggest winner. You're seeing an extension of Iranian influence into Iraq that you haven't had in the past. Iran has become a much greater power since the American invasion of Iraq. Iran has its fingers throughout the Iraqi government. This is something General Odierno mentioned several months ago and got in some trouble for, for talking about so publicy. Iran really does worry me in this situation.
MR. GREGORY: Let me talk about Afghanistan. This is the other big leadership test for this new president and his national security team. He's talked about a surge in Afghanistan going from 30,000 to 60,000 troops. Vice President Biden was at a security conference in Munich over the weekend, talked about a new plan for Afghanistan. Here is portion of what he said:
VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN (D-RI): (From videotape.) The result must be a comprehensive strategy for which we all take responsibility; that brings together our civilian and military resources; that prevents terrorists a safe haven; that helps the Afghan people develop the capacity to secure their own future.
MR. GREGORY: So what are the biggest challenges he faces now in Afghanistan?
MR. RICKS: Well, I think the first thing is to recognize that it's not really a war in Afghanistan. It's a war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a friend of mine said, "It's hard to win a war in Afghanistan when the enemy wants to fight it in the next country over, Pakistan."
MR. GREGORY: Right, and that's the Taliban fighting and winning battles in Pakistan. This is where we went to war to take them out of power.
MR. RICKS: And that's very scary, and our supply lines through Pakistan are being challenged. Bridges are being blown up, American convoys are being attacked. So I think the first thing that Obama will do is begin to look at it as an Afghan-Pakistan war, in which Pakistan is really the more important factor.
We could lose in Afghanistan. It would be unhappy but not, you know, terrible for us. If you lose Pakistan, you end up having the mujahideen, Islamic extremists, with nuclear weapons, and that was a major al Qaeda goal that we really do not want to see happen.
I don't think that Newsweek got it quite right the other day when they referred to Afghanistan as potentially Obama's Vietnam. I think potentially Obama's Vietnam is Pakistan.
MR. GREGORY: And what should he consider doing about that?
MR. RICKS: I think it's the problem from hell. It's a nightmare, and I have no idea how you actually solve it. I think what you might try to do for several years is contain it, manage it.
MR. GREGORY: With U.S. troops in the border areas going into Pakistan at times, if necessary?
MR. RICKS: U.S. troops on Pakistan ground is a really difficult problem. We've had some people go in and out quietly but, large, no, you don't want to do that. You've got to wind up using the Pakistani military in some way to solve this problem, but the Pakistani military, in many cases, is the problem. You have a lot of al Qaeda and Taliban sympathizers wearing Pakistani military uniforms.
MR. GREGORY: One of the things that was done reasonably successfully in Iraq under General Petraeus was actually negotiating with some insurgents in Western Iraq. Should the U.S. consider talking, having some contact with the Taliban?
MR. RICKS: It's funny you should mention that, because I think what people in this country don't recognize is Petraeus basically put the Sunni insurgency on the American payroll. And I think it's a great idea. If you can pay somebody not to kill you -- fine. Baghdad government didn't much like it because they felt we were basically arriving at a separate peace with their enemies.
So, yeah, I think you'll see Petraeus trying to talk to the Taliban to find more reconcilable, more moderate elements, and also to empower tribes against the extremists -- to go to sheikhs and say, "Look, these extremists are going after you, too. Isn't there some way we could find of living together?"
The other thing I think you'll see is less emphasis on Karzai and the Kabul government and more emphasis on the promises on the tribes, and so on.
MR. GREGORY: All right. Tom Ricks -- the book is "The Gamble." Good luck with it. Thank you for being here and sharing your views.
MR. RICKS: You're welcome.
MR. GREGORY: We will leave it there, but we'll continue our discussion and ask some of your questions that you submitted online in our "Meet the Press Take Two" Web extra. It's going to be posted on our website this afternoon. You can also read excerpts of "The Gamble" -- all online at mtp.msnbc.com. We'll be right back.
Topic(s): Iraq, National Security Leaders Forum, Regional Security Challenges, Terrorism, Irregular Warfare and Crime, Development and Diplomacy, U.S. Military Forces & Operations
Project(s): Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Military Forces and Operations, National Security Leaders Forum Event Series, Iraq, Voices from the Field Event Series
People: Shannon O'Reilly, Thomas E. Ricks
