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Thread: U.S. Army War College Says 'Iran Was The Only Winner' In Study Of Iraq War

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    Default U.S. Army War College- Iran Was The Only Winner' In Study Of Iraq War

    To lessons now from the Iraq War, according to a long-awaited study of that war from the U.S. Army War College. It was commissioned by then-Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno six years ago back in 2013. And here's how the Army Times summed up the findings in a headline, "Army's Long-Awaited Iraq War Study Finds Iran Was The Only Winner In A Conflict That Holds Many Lessons For Future Wars."

    To talk about some of those lessons, we are joined now by Colonel Frank Sobchak, now retired. He's one of two co-editors of the study, and he joins me now. Colonel, welcome.

    RET COLONEL FRANK SOBCHAK: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you, Mary Louise.

    KELLY: Talk to me about that headline, that Iran was the, quote, "only "winner" in the Iraq War. Do you agree?

    SOBCHAK: Yes, I do. I think that one of the reasons why in Operation Desert Storm the decision was made not to go all the way to Baghdad was just the geopolitical balance of having Iraq as a bulwark or counterweight to Iran.

    Now with Iraq severely weakened and with elements of its political class as supporters of Iran, Iran is clearly in a much stronger situation just strategically. And I think we see that playing out through its expansionism and kind of adventurism occurring in Syria, Yemen and other locations.

    KELLY: Your report also documents a U.S. failure to adequately train Iraqi forces. It documents some of what happened after the U.S. pulled back in 2011. And of course, we then saw sectarian tensions deepen and the rise of ISIS. And it's very critical of some of the Army's most senior officers. What has the reaction been like?

    SOBCHAK: You know, at the tactical level, at our training center - is we do after-action reviews after every single battle. And so, to a degree, this is an academic after-action review. It's - it's a assessment of what went right and what went wrong. And so while in some areas it can be perceived as being overly critical, from another perspective, it's the military reviewing itself to try to make sure that, if this ever happens again, that we are better prepared.

    KELLY: Let me ask about a potentially delicate matter you had to deal with. I mentioned General Odierno commissioned this report. He wrote the foreword for it. Back when he first arrived in Iraq, he was division commander.

    SOBCHAK: Yeah.

    KELLY: He was criticized as someone who maybe didn't get the whole hearts-and-minds things, the importance of winning the population over. Was that a challenge to navigate? The man who commissioned it, the man who wrote the forward to it was also somebody you had to investigate as you pored back over those years.

    SOBCHAK: I don't think it was a large challenge because we were given so much freedom to study kind of what went right and what went wrong. And, I mean, you know, frankly, more went wrong than went right. And we've even given guidance, effectively, that if you have to kill sacred cows, kill some sacred cows because we need to learn from this. This matters.

    KELLY: How directly does your report criticize him and other senior army officers?

    SOBCHAK: I think that we were given a lot of latitude to present mistakes that occurred. And we all - I mean, I served in Iraq, as did every one of the other authors of the study. We all made mistakes, and we all have things that we can learn from.

    KELLY: That's retired Colonel Frank Sobchak. He is one of the editors of an extensive new report from the U.S. Army War College on the war in Iraq.

    Colonel Sobchak, thanks very much.

    SOBCHAK: Thank you.
    Last edited by anatta; 02-21-2019 at 01:33 AM.

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    A two-volume Army study of the Iraq war is a deep examination of the mistakes and success of the war effort that also takes aim at critics who would slough off the conflict as they shift to near-peer threats.

    The study, commissioned by former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno in 2013 and continued under current chief Gen. Mark Milley, was delayed for release since 2016, when it was completed. Some said it was due to concerns over airing “dirty laundry” about decisions made by some leaders during the conflict.

    The 1,300-page, two volume history, complete with more than 1,000 declassified documents, spans the 2003 invasion through the U.S. withdrawal, the rise of ISIS, and the influence of Syria and Iran.

    “At the time of this project’s completion in 2018, an emboldened and expansionist Iran appears to be the only victor,”
    authors wrote in the concluding chapter.

    Col. Joe Rayburn and Col. Frank Sobchak, both retired, authored the study.

    They note the damage to the political-military relationship that the war has caused, even to the American public.

    “The Iraq War has the potential to be one of the most consequential conflicts in American history. It shattered a long-standing political tradition against preemptive wars,” authors wrote. “In the conflict’s immediate aftermath, the pendulum of American politics swung to the opposite pole with deep skepticism about foreign interventions.”
    https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-...r-future-wars/

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    U.S. Army War College- Iran Was The Only Winner' In Study Of Iraq War
    If you go back to 2003, pretty much every conservative posting on this board said that invading Iraq was an awesome idea,
    and virtually every liberal posting on this board said invading Iraq was a dumb ass idea.

    The really weird thing? 16 years later, I can count on one hand the number of conservatives I have spoken to who can openly admit their judgement was catastrophically wrong, nor can they express even the slightest remorse let alone articulate what, if any, lessons they learned from the Iraq War Disaster.

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    nobody factored in Iranian expansionism as a result of the Iraq war. But every action -including stripping out the Iraqi Sunni officer corps led to the rise of ISIS. ( Iraq army fled from ISIS in their first confrontation)

    Iran became the major player going after ISIS ( along with Iraq and Shi'a militias and Syrian groups)
    and working on the ground with Hezbollah left Iran in the cat bird seat in both Iraq and Syria afterwards

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