LEAVING IRAQ…NO CAUSE FOR CELEBRATIONS…A U.S. ARMY COL. LOOKS BACK
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An Architect of U.S. Strategy Waits to Pop Cork
By CHARLES LEVINSON
Retired U.S. Army Col. Pete Mansoor invested nearly three years of his life deployed in Iraq, a period he calls the defining experience of a 26-year military career. But as the combat mission there officially ends, he says he doesn’t feel like celebrating.
With Iraq’s politicians still deadlocked over the formulation of a new government months after March elections, Col. Mansoor says he feels the mission he invested so much of himself in—including the loss of two dozen soldiers under his direct command—remains unaccomplished.
“People are making more of this as a milestone than it really is,” says Col. Mansoor, who now chairs the military-history program at Ohio State University. “A more significant milestone to me would be the formation of a national-unity government and movement forward in the political process … That’s when I would really think about taking out a bottle of champagne and popping a cork.”
Col. Mansoor’s trajectory of service in Iraq in many way mirrors the broader course of the war. He served as a brigade commander in the war’s first year, from 2003 to 2004. Responsible for a swath of territory stretching from Sunni neighborhoods of West Baghdad south into the Shiite heartland, he saw optimism that followed the successful invasion give way to a virulent insurgency and spiraling violence.
He recalls the despondency he and some like-minded officers felt in March 2004 over what they believed was a big U.S. policy mistake— ignoring a chance to strike a deal with Iraq’s disenfranchised Sunni elite. Weeks later, as Col. Mansoor was nearing the end of his 14-month first tour, twin uprisings—by Sunni insurgents in Fallujah and Shiite militants south of Baghdad—exploded. It would be four years before violence levels dropped to 2004 levels.
Back home, Col. Mansoor was a key player in the effort to overhaul U.S. strategy in Iraq. Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of the U.S. Army’s command and general staff college, tapped Col. Mansoor to be the founding director of the Army and Marine Corps’ counterinsurgency center, where he helped formulate a new doctrine manual that would later become the military’s playbook in Iraq. The strategy emphasized protecting Iraqi civilians instead of simply killing bad guys.
Col. Mansoor also served on a Pentagon advisory board known as the “Council of Colonels,” responsible for figuring out what had gone wrong in Iraq and how to fix it.
When Gen. Petraeus was appointed commander of U.S. forces in Iraq in January 2007, he tapped Col. Mansoor to be his executive officer. Over the course of the next 15 months in Iraq, Col. Mansoor helped orchestrate the surge of 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Baghdad and the implementation of a new U.S. counterinsurgency strategy that was controversial because it called for an increase in troop numbers, saw the U.S. military cut deals with one-time insurgents and prioritized protecting the local population even though it meant a short-term increase in U.S. casualty numbers. The moves are credited in many circles with reining in the violence.
In late 2008, Washington and Baghdad inked a deal to withdraw U.S. troops by the end of 2011. U.S. President Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to end the war, and shortly after coming into office, he set the Aug. 31, 2010, deadline to bring home all combat troops, leaving 50,000 trainers and support staff in their wake.
The speed of the recent combat wind-down didn’t sit well with many who invested years in Iraq, including Col. Mansoor.
“I’m not enamored with President Obama’s decision to pull our combat forces out before they had to go, which isn’t until the end of next year,” he says. “But I don’t feel bad about the way things are there now. I think that Iraqi politicians will find a way to move the ball down the field. But in their usual Iraqi method, they will do so at the 11th hour and beyond, and probably at the moment when everyone thinks all is lost.”
Write to Charles Levinson at charles.levinson@wsj.com
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