Organizing for Failure During the 2003 Iraq War
Abstract
When the Bush administration initiated planning for war with Iraq, they sought to improve on intergovernmental missteps from the US experience in postwar Afghanistan where interagency parochialism stifled mission success. To minimize this problem in Iraq, the Bush administration charted unified all aspects of campaign planning underneath Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defense. Rumsfeld believed this new alignment would bridge the gap between traditional combat operations and the more fluid postwar period sure to follow Saddam's ouster. Rather than utilizing this leadership role to lead the interagency, Rumsfelds Pentagon instead isolated itself from its intergovernmental partners, particularly the State Department, and sought to manage the postwar without outside assistance. To this end, the Department of Defense created a series of ad hoc headquarters to plan and execute the postwar mission. These improvised organizations were neither staffed, nor trained to accomplish the missions they were assigned. Their duties and responsibilities were often unclear, with significant overlap into each other's spheres and uncertain relationships with the rest of the national security enterprise. In the resulting confusion, significant mistakes were made during the US occupation of Iraq following Saddams defeat, namely the de-Ba'athification of the Iraqi government and the disbanding of the Iraqi Army.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 30, 2018
- Accession Number
- AD1177183
Entities
People
- Mastin M. Jr Robeson
Organizations
- Marine Corps University