Years after its completion, the study “The United States Army in the Iraq War,” has been made available on the US Army War College Publications website. Released in two volumes, the study is around 1,300 pages long.
The study was meant to be a critical look at the lessons learned in the
US occupation of Iraq, and the failures of US forces in the country
throughout the conflict. It was the failures part that made the report
highly controversial.
Though many top Army officials praised the study, completed in 2015, it
also declared the war “largely unsuccessful,” and some in senior
leadership have been resisting publication for years over fear it makes some involved in the war look bad.
The release of the study also sees the release of more than 1,000 newly
declassified documents used in the research. In a newly written forward,
Army Chief Gen. Mark Milley is downplaying the study as just an
“interim work,” promising a more definitive version at some point in the
future. This is likely attempt to deflect any focus on the failures,
with the assumption they’ll be covered up in later editions.
Simple. Being in Iraq in the first place was the failure.
A ass covering and expensive 1300 page study not needed.
The Army has an important interest in doing self criticism of its past operations, for the benefit of lessons learned and reforms that can be made. It is an important staff function. It was highlighted by the Army as one of its important values during the rebuilding of the Army after Vietnam.
They used as one example the German WW2 reviews of their own experiences in the Polish and French campaigns, both successful but both the source of valuable lessons leading to structural reforms, especially of the Panzer arm, which had been especially successful but was still new and not perfected.
Such self criticism can’t be secret. It must disseminate the lessons, and inspire innovation to overcome problems.
Of course an organization like the Army also has political needs to cover up and show itself to be wonderful. These two interests conflict. How that conflict is resolved determines if it will be an Army like the German or an Army like the Italians.
Our Army remade itself upward. Now there is risk it will remake itself downward pandering to politics.