The British Army Review

The British Army and the Lessons of the Iraq War

Peter R Mansoor
"I am tempted to say that whatever doctrine the armed forces are working on now, they have got it wrong. I am also tempted to declare that is does not matter... What does matter is their ability to get it right quickly, when the moment arrives... When everybody starts wrong, the advantage goes to the side which can most quickly adjust itself to the new and unfamiliar environment and learn from its mistakes."
Sir Michael Howard As U.S. and British forces overran Iraq in the spring of 2003, victory in a quick war seemed assured. Indeed, the unquestionable superiority of western military forces in high tech, conventional operations was manifest by their rapid advance to Basra and Baghdad, the collapse of the Iraqi armed forces, and the destruction of the Ba'athist regime that had ruled Iraq for more than a generation. Beyond these accomplishments, however, U.S. and British armed forces approached the subsequent phase of operations in Iraq influenced by widely different doctrine, organizational culture, and history. The U.S. Army operated under a concept known as "rapid, decisive operations" that posited quick victories using high-tech weaponry and agile maneuver forces. Its existing doctrine was thin gruel to counter the insurgency that would soon erupt. The British Army, on the other hand, was heavily influenced by its three decade-long struggle in

Northern Ireland and peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. As a result of these influences, the subsequent conduct of the coalition partners varied widely. Their operations had one element in common, however - they were both unsuited to the circumstances of the Iraq War after the collapse of the Ba'athist regime, a war that by 2006 the United States and its allies were well on their way to losing.

occupation of Iraq once regime change occurred reflects the a historicism of too much of the American political leadership and officer corps. U.S. mistakes in Iraq were in large measure the result of a pervasive failure to understand the historical framework within which insurgencies take place, to appreciate the cultural and political factors of other nations and people, and to encourage the learning of other languages. In other words, the United States managed to repeat many of the mistakes that it made in Vietnam, because America's political and military leaders managed to forget nearly every lesson of that conflict. For more than three and a half years -longer than American involvement in the war against Germany and Italy during World War II - the U.S. Army and Marine Corps sought victory in Iraq by conducting offensive operations to kill and capture terrorist leaders and insurgent operatives and by creating Iraqi security forces that could assume responsibility for security operations and thereby enable U.S. and other coalition forces to depart the country. Although certain units, such as the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar in 2005 and the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division in Ramadi in 2006, conducted counterinsurgency operations to secure the Iraqi people and thereby insulate them from insurgent and terrorist intimidation and violence, U.S. forces in Iraq on the whole lacked an overarching concept of operations. The publication of an interim counterinsurgency manual in the fall of 2004, heavily focused on codifying tactics, techniques, and procedures in use in the field, was a stopgap measure at best. The inability of U.S. military leaders to adjust their thinking to the situation at hand was a failure of imagination and leadership that nearly led the United States and its allies to defeat in Iraq. This situation changed dramatically at the end of 2006 with the publication of a new counterinsurgency doctrine - Field Manual 324 - and the implementation

Op Telic 2003

Task Force Tarawa's 2nd Force Reconnaissance in central Iraq, April 8, 2003. Locals piled into vehicles to cheer and thank the Marines. U.S. Marine Corps (Cpl. Shawn C. Rhode)

Those leaders who staked the outcome of the Iraq War on rapid, decisive operations failed to understand that advanced sensors and precision guided munitions are tactical and operational capabilities - they are not a strategy. The failure to plan adequately for the

Summer 2009 information campaign; and the splintering of insurgent movements through local ceasefires and the provision of amnesty. Leaders such as General David Petraeus and General James Mattis, along with a small group of innovative colonels and other junior officers, led the way in beginning the transformation of American military forces away from their conventional war mindset and better preparing them for the wars they were waging in Iraq and Afghanistan. These were not the type of wars that U.S. military institutions wanted to fight, but they were the wars that they had to fight if U.S. national security goals were to be achieved early in the 21st century.
FM 3-24

the British forces as a model for other coalition forces. British troops patrolling in berets and without body armor were seen to "get it" - as if the experiences of Britain's imperial past had somehow made them inherently suited to stability operations. This conceit led to a serious misunderstanding of the situation in southern Iraq. In fact, Shi'ite militias such as the Jaish al-Mahdi began to form as soon as the heavy hand of Ba'athist dictatorship was removed and if they failed to contest coalition forces for control of the streets in Basra, this was due to their temporary weakness or because they were able to achieve their objectives without fighting, and not because British forces had won them over with exemplary conduct.

of its concepts during the surge operations in Iraq in 2007-2008. This historically grounded doctrine emphasized the security of the population in order to inhibit the ability of insurgents and terrorists to use the people as a base of support. To accomplish this goal, U.S. forces would conduct decentralized operations while living among the people whom they would secure. The doctrine also emphasized, among other priorities, the provision of advisors to assist in the development of local security forces; the critical importance of governance, economic development, and an

The British Army in Iraq trod a different path. Its relevant experiences leading into the Iraq War were peacekeeping and counterterrorism in Bosnia and Northern Ireland. For the majority of the officer corps, memories centered on the relatively benign later phases of the campaign in Northern Ireland, with little recollection of the more difficult operations much earlier in the conflict. As was the case with the U.S. Army, the lack of formal professional military education in counterinsurgency operations resulted in over-reliance on faulty institutional memory, rather than on a more nuanced understanding of counterinsurgency warfare solidly grounded in historical study. As the eminent military historian Sir Michael Howard has so eloquently noted, the key for any military institution is to be able to adjust its operations once faced with the realities of warfare at odds with prevailing institutional doctrine. Adaptation after initial failure was a hallmark of the British Army's operations in Malaya, often regarded as its most successful counterinsurgency campaign. Regrettably, this same level of situational understanding and adaptation failed to occur in Iraq, with severe consequences. The peacekeeping model used by the British Army in Basra worked - for a while. Early in the war uninformed commentators held up the soft touch of

2nd Lieutenant Robin Martin and Rifleman Andy Walker of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Green Jackets, Belfast, 1969 (IWM)

Gen. David H. Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates listen to a briefing by Iraqi commanders

By 2006, the situation in Basra had deteriorated significantly. British forces attempted to clear militia forces from the city in the "Sinbad" series of operations, but without the ability to hold terrain once cleared, the operations proved futile. By the end of the year the under resourced British forces were besieged in Basra Palace and at the Basra Airport, subject to frequent mortar and rocket fire. The Jaish al-Mahdi and other militias controlled Large parts of Basra and inflicted on .the inhabitants their severe brand of Shari'a law. In 2007 British forces departed Basra Palace,

The British Army Review

Abu at Khasib, Near Basrah, Iraq, May 2003. Gunner Andrew Walsh 3 RHA takes to the streets of on the British Army's first bicycle patrols in Iraq. The Battery has been stationed in the area for several weeks now and in an effort to become more involved with the local people.

thereby ceding the last vestige of coalition control over the city. British commanders argued that they were handing contralto Iraqi security forces, but these forces - just three Iraqi Army battalions - were too weak to contest control of the city. The situation was comparable to the U.S. withdrawal from forward operating bases inside Baghdad in the spring of 2004, which left large swaths of the Iraqi capital in the hands of insurgent and militia groups. In Basra in 2007, security force weakness was compounded by the British refusal to embed advisors in Iraqi units. The Iraqi Army's 14th Division was left on its own in the city, with no ability to access coalition air support or other assets in an emergency. As a consequence, when ultimately stressed in battle in March 2008, at least one brigade of this

division dissolved rather than fight. Iraqis viewed the withdrawal of British troops from Basra as a victory for the Shi'ite militias. These irregular forces had contested control of the city; the British withdrawal left them in possession of the streets. Rather than protecting the Iraqi people in Basra and thereby insulating them from militia violence and intimidation, British political and military leaders had abdicated responsibility for their security the exact opposite of what was happening in Baghdad and elsewhere, as U.S. forces were moving off their large forward operating bases to position themselves among the Iraqi people where they lived. There was at least one person in Iraq who clearly understood the meaning of
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the British withdrawal from Basra. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was determined to extend Iraqi governmental control throughout Iraq, to include militia safehavens such as Basra, Sadr City, and alAmarah. In a surprise move in late March 2008, Maliki ordered several Iraqi Army brigades to move to Basra to regain control of the city. The Prime Minister personally led the operation, a politically risky move that could easily have backfired. Indeed, for a time the poorly planned operation seemed on the verge of failure. The commanding general of Multi-National Force-Iraq, General David Petraeus, was determined not to let this happen. He piled on support to include staff and planning assistance, air support, attack helicopters, intelligence assets, armed reconnaissance, logistical support, advisors, and an airborne

Summer 2009 infantry battalion which was broken down into smaller elements to .thicken Iraqi forces and provide them access to coalition fire support. These reinforcements helped to turn to tide of battle in Basra. In the following weeks the Iraqi Army regained control of Basra's streets and earned for Prime Minister Maliki well-deserved accolades from across the Iraqi political spectrum (with the notable exception of Muqtada al-Sadr's followers). Iraqi Army operations in Basra in the spring of 2008 were a critical turning point in the Iraq War - the point at which the government in Baghdad was willing to confront sectarian militias in the Shi'ite heartland. These events completely changed the political dynamics in Baghdad and coalesced political support around Prime Minster Maliki when he badly needed it. But this was a victory with limited and belated. British participation, and indeed only necessitated by serious British mistakes made in the conduct of operations over the previous five years. The British failure in Basra was not due to the conduct of British troops, which was exemplary. It was, rather, a failure by senior British civilian and military leaders to understand the political dynamics at play in Iraq, compounded by arrogance that led to an unwillingness to learn and adapt, along with increasing reluctance to risk blood and treasure to conduct effective counterinsurgency warfare. As the British people lost the will to fight at home, British forces were hampered by political constraints thrust upon them by an unsympathetic government, which insisted on running operations from Whitehall rather than nesting them into the Multi-National Force-Iraq campaign. Instead, British commanders attempted to cut deals with local Shi'ite leaders to maintain the peace in southern Iraq, an accommodation that was doomed to .failure since the British negotiated from a position of weakness - a fact well known to the Shi'ite leadership. The failure to adopt an alternative approach, one that relied on the conduct of operations based on protecting the Iraqi people, led to a defeat that thankfully was not permanent. British participation in the Iraq War is at an end, but the involvement of the British Army in counterinsurgency warfare is not. Military leaders should conduct a thorough assessment of what went-wrong in Iraq, place the failure there in its historical context, and then make the required institutional, doctrinal, and organizational changes to fix the identified problems. Common wisdom states that military organizations that study the last war are doomed to failure in the next. Nothing could be further from the truth; indeed, perhaps in no field of human endeavor is the study of the past as useful as in warfare. The problem is not that military organizations study the last war and therefore fail to revise their doctrine and equipment sufficiently to fight the next; rather, the problem arises when military organizations ignore the lessons of wars past, or worse yet, use selective evidence to support preconceived notions about future combat. Above all, the British Army today should not yield to the temptation to gloss over its recent experience in Iraq, for armies that ignore the lessons of the past often fare poorly when again tested in the crucible of war. Two examples will suffice. The British army exited World War 1 determined to return to its historical role as imperial police. The Imperial General Staff did not even establish a committee to examine the lessons of the Great War until 1932 (The Kirke Report - republished as a BAR Special in 2001 - Ed.). When the committee finally rendered its findings, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd, suppressed the report because it was too critical of army performance. Likewise, the institutional response of the U.S. Army to the Vietnam War was to wish it away. For three decades after the war ended the American professional military education system all but ignored counterinsurgency operations. Instructors from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College,;tryingc to create-a course on low intensity conflict in the 1980s, looked in vain for help from the U.S. Army Special Operations Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, only to find that Army leaders had ordered the staff there to throw away their counterinsurgency files, since the United States would supposedly never fight that kind of war again. The issue is pressing, for the British Army is already engaged in another counterinsurgency conflict in Afghanistan. Although the conditions there are different, the lessons of Iraq are still relevant. The United States deeply values its special relationship with Great Britain, just as U.S. military leaders hold a genuine and deep respect for their British counterparts. Only by working together can we-succeed in the difficult missions that lie ahead, but a common understanding of counterinsurgency doctrine would make this cooperation much more successful. For far too long in Iraq coalition political and military leaders failed to examine the assumptions on which they based their doctrine and strategy, and then to adapt them to the reality of the war they waged not as they wished it to be, but with a cleareyed view of what was actually occurring on the ground. Only through a thorough appreciation of the mistakes it made in Iraq can the British Army turn defeat into victory as it fights the untidy wars of the early 21st century.

Dr. Peter Mansoor, Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.), is the General Raymond E. Mason, Jr. Chair of Military History at the Ohio State University. His 26 year military career included two tours in Iraq, to include service as executive officer to the commanding general of Multi-National Force-Iraq, General David Petraeus. He is the author of Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq (Yale University Press, 2008) -(reviewed in BAR 146 by Gerry Long -Ed.)D