The American intelligence breakdown in Iraq and the failure of the strategies of conflict ‘transformation’

Abstract

This paper shows how the American planning for the war in Iraq of 2003 lacked the use of major academic and scientific disciplines. Some basic theories and principles in the field of nationalism and ethnicity studies as well as the field of Middle Eastern studies were supposed to guide the planning for the post‐war era in a better way. The goals of the war were originally very ambitious and included ‘conflict transformation’ which implies facilitating changes in the social and political structure of Iraq and the Middle East, but it has now changed to the more modest goal of ‘conflict management’ which focuses on containing violence.

Keywords:

• Iraq
• conflict transformations
• conflict management
• politics of notables

Notes

1. The author has published a critique about the development of the notion of ‘conflict management’ in the Western context (Hamad 2005).

2. There are many sources and researches that discuss and refute the justifications of senior American officials of the War in Iraq. These reveal their haste in waging war for what seems, according to many, unjustifiable reasons, or at least in the light of announced aims concealing others. One of the most famous sources is Against All Enemies (2004), a book by Richard Clarke. He was Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter‐terrorism in the United States between 1998 and 2003 during the mandate of the two former American Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush. Clarke reveals the degree of adherence of Bush’s government to attack Iraq and its employment of the events of 11 September 2001 and, more generally, of ‘al‐Qaeda’ operations, particularly Dick Cheney, Vice President, and Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, in order to justify the war (Clarke 2004, pp. 227–287).

3. Also, Bernard is considered to be a prominent researcher close to the Republican Party, and the RAND Corporation, in which she works, is working closely with American Military Forces, and other American public sectors. Moreover, Bernard is wife of Zalmay Khalilzad, Ambassador of the Bush government to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations.

4. In fact, I see that the conversation between my British friend, who used to work in one of the famous European centres in London, and myself is relevant in this respect; where he told me in 2002 about his frustration towards the way in which the United States was preparing for the War in Iraq. For in spite of appointing him and other British and American researchers a task of assessing the demands of the war, White House officials and the US Department of Defense ignored and set aside the submitted evaluations and recommendations without being checked. This occurred especially when scientists used to convey the high political and cultural risks that could result by waging a war, especially on the ‘relations between the West and the East’ – as he puts it – and when they highlighted that the American soldier was not yet ready for this, and due to all of this my friend ended up by submitting his resignation instead.

5. The initial source starts with the following: ‘RESPECT [Ihtiram in Arabic] is the key.’