Amateur Hour in Iraq: A Worm’s-Eye View on the Failure of Nation Building

Abstract

The problems of the U.S. occupation in Iraq have been documented and debated extensively, but primarily at a strategic level—a bird’s-eye view. Analysts focus on failures in planning, and on the higher order decisions that had the most impact, such as troop levels, de-Ba’thification, the disbanding of the army, and even whether a nation-building or democratization effort in Iraq was possible in the first place. While these strategic considerations indeed shaped—and perhaps doomed—the course of rebuilding postwar Iraq, analysis often neglects the crippling lack of capability on the ground at the tactical and operational levels. This failure may be seen through a “worm’s-eye view.” Coalition military forces and civilian agencies worked at cross-purposes, in most cases without even basic conceptual and organizational frameworks for their well-intentioned initiatives. With all its experience in postconflict areas, the UN, too, demonstrated a surprising level of inadequacy. As a result, even with a “perfect plan” on the high strategic level, the operation still likely would have failed because of the fundamental lack of capability to implement it.