Objectives of the war

According to a recent poll, forty percent of the American people don't understand why we started the war in Iraq in the first place. This isn't too surprising, since the Republican administration has consistently tried to confuse us about the rationale for the war, as it desperately groped for some account that made sense.

As a reminder, then, here are the stated military objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as presented by General Tommy R. Franks in his press briefing of March 22, 2003:

First, end the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Second, to identify, isolate and eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Third, to search for, to capture and to drive out terrorists from that country.

Fourth, to collect such intelligence as we can related to terrorist networks.

Fifth, to collect such intelligence as we can related to the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction.

Sixth, to end sanctions and to immediately deliver humanitarian support to the displaced and to many needy Iraqi citizens.

Seventh, to secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, which belong to the Iraqi people.

And last, to help the Iraqi people create conditions for a transition to representative self-government.

In retrospect, it is possible to say that we achieved the first objective, abandoned the second and fifth objectives after we discovered that they were based on false assumptions, partially achieved the sixth (we ended sanctions) and partly failed in it (our efforts to immediately deliver humanitarian support were hopelessly inadequate, provoking the hostility of many Iraqis), and failed in the rest.

This record is about what I would have expected, especially considering the means that we selected to try to achieve these goals. As Franks went on to explain:

Let me begin by saying this will be a campaign unlike any other in history, a campaign characterized by shock, by surprise, by flexibility, by the employment of precise munitions on a scale never before seen, and by the application of overwhelming force.

“The application of overwhelming force” is a plausible way of ending a regime, but it was foolish to expect it to be a useful means of collecting intelligence, securing oil fields and resources, delivering humanitarian assistance, or laying the groundwork for a representative democracy.