War College Report Rips U.S. Priorities


The Washington Post

January 12, 2004, 7:45 PM EST


A scathing new report published by the U.S. Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an "unnecessary" war in Iraq and pursuing an "unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat.

The report by Jeffrey Record, visiting professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is "near the breaking point." It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the "global war on terrorism" and focusing on the narrower threat posed by the al-Qaida terrorist network.

The "global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious, and accordingly ... its parameters should be readjusted," Record writes. Currently, he adds, the anti-terrorism campaign "is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security."

Record, author of six books on military strategy and related issues, was an aide to former senator Sam Nunn when the Georgia Democrat was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Record noted that in 1999, when he was on the staff of the Air War College, he published work critical of the Clinton administration.

His new essay, published by the college's Strategic Studies Institute, carries the standard disclaimer that its views are those of the author and don't necessarily represent those of the Army, the Pentagon, or the U.S. government. But retired Army Col. Douglas C. Lovelace Jr., the college's Strategic Studies Institute, whose Web site carries Record's 56-page monograph, hardly distanced himself from it. "I think that the substance that Jeff brings out in the article really, really needs to be considered," he said.

Publication was approved by the commandant, Maj. Gen. David H. Huntoon Jr., Lovelace said, noting that Huntoon "considers it to be under the umbrella of academic freedom."

Larry DiRita, the top Pentagon spokesman, said he had not read the Record study. He added: "If the conclusion is that we need to be scaling back in the global war on terrorism, it's not likely to be on my reading list anytime soon."

Many of Record's arguments, such as the contention that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was deterred from making war and did not present a threat, have been made before by critics of the administration. Iraq, he concludes, "was a war-of-choice distraction from the war of necessity against" al-Qaida. It is unusual to have such views published by the War College, the Army's premier academic institution.

Record likens the scale of U.S. ambitions in the war on terrorism to Hitler's overreach in World War II. "A cardinal rule of strategy is to keep your enemies to a manageable number," he writes. "The Germans were defeated in two world wars ... because their strategic ends outran their available means."

He recommends, among other things, that the United States should be prepared to settle for a "friendly autocracy" in Iraq rather than a genuine democracy.

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quote:

"Learn, child, to catch a hint through whatever agency it may be given. 'Sermons may be preached through stones." - Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Letters from the Masters of Wisdom, first series, p. 74, letter 31