A series of secret U.S. war games in 1999 showed that an invasion and post-war administration of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, nearly three times the number there now.
And even then, the games showed, the country still had a chance of dissolving into chaos.In the simulation, called Desert Crossing, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence participants concluded the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.
The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by George Washington University's National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.
"The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," said Thomas Blanton, the archive's director. "But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground."
There are about 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from a peak in January of about 160,000.A week after the invasion, in March 2003, the Pentagon said there were 250,000 U.S. ground force troops inside Iraq, along with 40,000 coalition force troops.
Considering that we had 425,000 US troops for Desert Storm in about nine division equivalents, it seems odd to assume we'd need 400,000 to defeat Iraqi forces depleted from 1991's defeat.
In 1999, we would have assumed a standard force set at four or five Army divisions and one or two Marine Expeditionary Forces--call it six divisions of ground forces with about 300,000 troops.
In 2003, by substituting air power for artillery and choosing a leaner logistics effort (with precision airpower needing far fewer bomb tonnage), we had the front line equivalent of six US divisions (about 60 battalions of line troops) with 250,000 troops. Add 40,000 mostly British coalition troops and another division.
So I find it hard to believe we thought we'd need 400,000 troops to defeat the Iraqi military.
But what about the occupation? Doesn't this show we had too few troops?
A quick Google search shows Iraq had a 1999 population estimated at 22.5 million. If we assume the Kurdish regions had 2.5 million then, we can call it 20 million Iraqis to occupy. It looks like the study simply assumed that the 2% rule held so we'd need 2% of the population to be occupied in troop strength. So 400,000 occupation troops sounds like boiler plate to me and not rigorous analysis.
I repeat my by-now boring back-of-the-envelope calculations that the southern Shias hardly needed 2% to pacify a friendly population. Assuming that the Shia south's 8 million people needed 0.5% to 1% (normal Western police presence is 0.2% by comparision), we're talking 40,000 to 80,000 security forces. Assuming the mixed center of 14 million (including 5 million Sunnis who were the real target of pacification) needed at least 2%, we're talking at least 280,000. The Kurds could police their own with their local militias. This is 320,000 to 360,000 troops and security people. If the Shias could go with less, we can reduce this total. If the mixed area where the Sunnis are needed more, we'd have to increase the total.
With 290,000 US and Coalition troops in the actual 2003 invasion, it is not unreasonable to assume we'd be able to scrounge up 30,000 to 70,000 Iraqis or allies in short order to make up the difference. I don't see that we had an obviously too small invasion force.
As for today, why just discuss 140,000 US troops as if we have only a third of what is needed? Why not also count 300,000 (and growing) Iraqi security forces (police and army), 20,000 Coalition, 10,000 contract security personnel, and 145,000 Iraqi Facility Protection Service forces? And even count 30,000 Sunni tribal militia in Anbar recently pledged by tribal chiefs?
So bottom line, we had enough to invade and defeat Saddam's military.
We had in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, nearly enough without any Iraqi allies at all to meet the 1999 arbitrary number for pacification. And today we have far in excess of the numbers needed to pacify a country of 25 million.
So nice try on yet another attempt to prove we had or have too few troops to win. Once we win, these will all seem to be rather silly exercises.
