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WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (AFP) - The Pentagon has formally elevated "stability
operations" to a core mission of the US military almost three years into a
bloody insurgency in Iraq, US defense officials said Tuesday.
It took the step with a November 28 directive that puts military planning
for post-combat peacekeeping and reconstruction on a par with major combat
operations.
"Stability operations are a core US military mission that the Department of
Defense (DoD) shall be prepared to conduct and support," said the directive,
which was signed by acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.
"They shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be
explicitly addressed and integrated across all DoD activitities," it said.
The lack of post-combat planning is widely regarded as a key failing of the
March 2003 invasion of Iraq, where unchecked looting and violence created
conditions for a fierce insurgency that today shows no sign of abating.
Senior defense officials said the military has been ordered to work up plans
for stability operations for all its war plans, and to report to the defense
secretary on progress.
The planning will be updated through regular exercises and lessons learned,
said Jeffrey Nadaner, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for
stability operations.
"We want to see the same discipline applied systematically to stability
operations," he said. "The next thing is we want to see stability operations
fully incorporated in DoD doctrine, education and training."
In the view of many critics, US preparedness in Iraq also was crippled by
feuding between the State Department and the Defense Department, which
ignored detailed planning done before the war by the State Department.
Nadaner, who was at the State Department at the time, disputed that, telling
reporters that the State Department's "Future of Iraq Study" was not a plan.
But the directive lays a heavy emphasis on close cooperation between
government departments and agencies as well as with other governments and
international and non-governmental organizations.
"Integrated civilian and military efforts are key to successful stability
operations," the directive acknowledges.
Nadaner said one idea is to develop civil-military teams similar to those
used for provincial reconstruction in Afghanistan.
A push also will be made to secure funding to help other countries train and
equip an extra 75,000 troops for peacekeeping missions.
The directive says many stability operations are best performed by
indigenous, foreign or US civilians.
"Nonetheless, US military forces shall be prepared to perform all tasks
necessary to establish or maintain order when civilians cannot do so," it
said.
The new policy marks a sea change for an administration whose senior
national security advisers scorned "nation-building" when they came into
office in 2001.
"The common assumption was that these missions were in a sense optional,"
said Nadaner.
The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States suddenly made them no
longer optional.
"If the threat between 1914 and 1989 ... was conquering states, now a key
problem was failed and failing states," he said.
The Pentagon officials denied that the lessons of Iraq were driving the
changes.
"I think you can say Iraq has certainly helped inform the development of
objective capabilities," said Colonel J. Scott Norwood, an officer on the
Joint Staff involved in implementing the directive.
"What's driving the priority that this kind of mission has received is the
possibility of a terrorist sanctuary," he said.
Even so, it wasn't until after a 2004 study by the Defense Science Board, a
Pentagon advisory panel, that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered
an overhaul of the Pentagon's approach to stability operations.
By then, the US military was facing an entrenched insurgency in Iraq's Sunni
heartland.
operations" to a core mission of the US military almost three years into a
bloody insurgency in Iraq, US defense officials said Tuesday.
It took the step with a November 28 directive that puts military planning
for post-combat peacekeeping and reconstruction on a par with major combat
operations.
"Stability operations are a core US military mission that the Department of
Defense (DoD) shall be prepared to conduct and support," said the directive,
which was signed by acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.
"They shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be
explicitly addressed and integrated across all DoD activitities," it said.
The lack of post-combat planning is widely regarded as a key failing of the
March 2003 invasion of Iraq, where unchecked looting and violence created
conditions for a fierce insurgency that today shows no sign of abating.
Senior defense officials said the military has been ordered to work up plans
for stability operations for all its war plans, and to report to the defense
secretary on progress.
The planning will be updated through regular exercises and lessons learned,
said Jeffrey Nadaner, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for
stability operations.
"We want to see the same discipline applied systematically to stability
operations," he said. "The next thing is we want to see stability operations
fully incorporated in DoD doctrine, education and training."
In the view of many critics, US preparedness in Iraq also was crippled by
feuding between the State Department and the Defense Department, which
ignored detailed planning done before the war by the State Department.
Nadaner, who was at the State Department at the time, disputed that, telling
reporters that the State Department's "Future of Iraq Study" was not a plan.
But the directive lays a heavy emphasis on close cooperation between
government departments and agencies as well as with other governments and
international and non-governmental organizations.
"Integrated civilian and military efforts are key to successful stability
operations," the directive acknowledges.
Nadaner said one idea is to develop civil-military teams similar to those
used for provincial reconstruction in Afghanistan.
A push also will be made to secure funding to help other countries train and
equip an extra 75,000 troops for peacekeeping missions.
The directive says many stability operations are best performed by
indigenous, foreign or US civilians.
"Nonetheless, US military forces shall be prepared to perform all tasks
necessary to establish or maintain order when civilians cannot do so," it
said.
The new policy marks a sea change for an administration whose senior
national security advisers scorned "nation-building" when they came into
office in 2001.
"The common assumption was that these missions were in a sense optional,"
said Nadaner.
The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States suddenly made them no
longer optional.
"If the threat between 1914 and 1989 ... was conquering states, now a key
problem was failed and failing states," he said.
The Pentagon officials denied that the lessons of Iraq were driving the
changes.
"I think you can say Iraq has certainly helped inform the development of
objective capabilities," said Colonel J. Scott Norwood, an officer on the
Joint Staff involved in implementing the directive.
"What's driving the priority that this kind of mission has received is the
possibility of a terrorist sanctuary," he said.
Even so, it wasn't until after a 2004 study by the Defense Science Board, a
Pentagon advisory panel, that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered
an overhaul of the Pentagon's approach to stability operations.
By then, the US military was facing an entrenched insurgency in Iraq's Sunni
heartland.
