CENTCOM and Joint Staff planners had developed several options to destroy the camp. One set of plans, which did not include a ground force, involved sending a volley of missiles or dispatching American bombers. Another option—which the Joint Chiefs advocated to the White House—involved inserting a ground force after degrading the camp with air strikes. Putting “boots on the ground,” as it was called, would allow us to confirm that we had destroyed the target and follow up on the intelligence reports on the chemical and biological weaponry.
A concept was developed, but ultimately, as the march to war accelerated, President Bush and his National Security Council waved off the raid. Some have surmised they did so because eliminating the camp and Al Qaeda–linked terrorists—whom some in the administration believed were aided by Saddam Hussein—would have removed a pillar of their rationale for attacking the Hussein regime.
I drew a separate lesson from the experience. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) had been tasked to develop a plan for the ground option and had passed the mission to a subordinate task force. The concept that came back to the Pentagon received little enthusiasm and drew informal criticism. It called for weeks of planning and a considerably larger force package than envisioned.
“Stan, this isn’t a special operations mission,” one senior officer complained to me. “It’s big enough to be an invasion. You were in special operations—can’t they do anything small anymore?”
Despite being relatively popular within the Pentagon and in D.C. overall, special operations forces (SOF) had generated a growing frustration among officials. People who viewed SOF as a low-cost, simple solution to all problems were inevitably disappointed. I recognized it was critical for SOF to engage, educate, and communicate effectively with the people—including, at times, the president—who would ultimately make decisions on the most sensitive missions.
It wasn’t until after the full American invasion in March 2003 that U.S. Special Forces attacked the Khurmal camp. After a significant firefight, they found traces of ricin and cyanide and the hazard suits, manuals, and equipment Ansar al-Islam had used. Unfortunately, one of the top Al Qaeda operatives who would have been a target of a preinvasion attack had long since fled. It would be some months before the man, an itinerant terrorist named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, would reappear.
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In the months following the invasion of Iraq, I watched as initial satisfaction at the success of operations gave way to concerns over looting, as well as frustration over our inability to capture Saddam or to locate his suspected weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, we were challenged to repair infrastructure and suppress a growing, ill-defined resistance. We worked to establish metrics that would clearly reflect conditions and, we hoped, progress. But in the relatively chaotic conditions of Iraq, it was hard to collect accurate data that could effectively communicate the situation or drive necessary actions.
Additionally, we found it difficult to field the necessary forces to stabilize the country. We’d tried but failed to secure at least three divisions from other nations to help with the occupation. So the U.S. burden would remain high. I worked with action officers on countless iterations of force rotation plans to determine how best to distribute the requirement between the Army and Marines. But even in the summer of 2003, we could see that the endeavor was clearly going to stretch the force.
I was particularly concerned about our ability to fill positions on the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) staff and similar political and reconstruction positions on the ground. These roles were being filled slowly and often by inexperienced people. Rotations were too short to allow even good professionals to be effective. I’d see the damaging effect of this later when I was in Iraq.
During the summer of 2003, I could sense growing disquiet in D.C. over the situation. In mid-July, the 3rd Infantry Division, which had participated in the initial invasion, was extended, to the deep dissatisfaction of the Fort Stewart soldiers and their families. A large parade to celebrate their return, planned for New York City’s Canyon of Heroes, was quietly canceled. Meanwhile, Saddam’s two sons had been killed by U.S. forces, but terrorist attacks in Baghdad and Saddam’s continued freedom made policy makers palpably uneasy. By late August, more Americans had died in the postinvasion occupation than in the initial combat operations to unseat Saddam’s regime. No one was panicking yet, but the way ahead was unclear to me.