Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 46

was more successful than the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Although many points of comparison can be made, I
will outline three I regard as key reasons explaining
why that can be reasonably demonstrated by events.
Psychological Acceptance of Defeat. The
Japanese, as a people, recognized they had been defeated long before the fact was acknowledged by their
leaders. Most were starving, and their cities were being incinerated at will by their enemies. Near the end
of the war, they were ready to lay down their arms—
to do anything to end their misery, but continued
nonetheless out of national fealty rooted in reverence
for their emperor.5
In Iraq, the situation was more problematic. The
United States defeated Saddam Hussein’s armed forces,
but many people did not regard those armed forces as
representative of their interests or of national identity.
As a result, many Iraqis were happy enough to find
themselves out of their dictator’s hellish embrace as
enforced by an oppressive military, but had no personal
sense of defeat. However, any initial relief they felt at
the end of Hussein’s rule exercised by the state security
apparatus soon evaporated when it became clear the
occupying forces could not provide security or civil
stability. Consequently, the conflict had not been a war
of the people as Japan’s had been. The Iraqis were ready
to start anew, just as the Japanese had been, but the fear
they had previously had of Hussein and his thugs was
soon replaced by a Hobbesian sense of insecurity due to
lack of security, domestic chaos, and inept civil administration by the occupying force led by the CPA.
While working in the Office of Policy, Planning,
and Analysis (OPPA) of the CPA, I was a member of
a small staff responsible for the CPA’s strategic plan.
During the course of this work, I had the opportunity
to collect insights regarding some Iraqi perspectives
toward our occupation. For example, one Iraqi I spoke
to in the OPPA said—while he did not wish for the
return of Hussein or a brutal and merciless individual
like him—Iraq was nevertheless insecure because it did
not need democracy so much as a strong hand, a strong
leader to hold dissent in check and enforce social order
and stability.6 Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, at that time Iraq was clearly deficient in
leadership, especially leadership recognized, respected,
and feared enough by all Iraqi people to forgo rebellion
against the government.
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Leadership. Moreover, below the highest levels,
the character of leadership differed at every level
when comparing Iraq to postwar Japan. The Japanese
had been indoctrinated to revere their emperor as a
god. Although starving, demoralized, and largely resigned that Japan’s defeat was inevitable, the Japanese
would have continued to fight if the emperor had not
instead asked them to “endure the unendurable” and
accept occupation.
By comparison, there was no leader of similar
stature or influence among the Iraqis. The lack of
such a unifying figure over the state was not Iraq’s
only leadership problem. After World War I, Japan
embraced the idea of total war, requiring the mobilization of everyone in a combatant nation, perhaps
more completely than any other nation.7 The resulting
human machinery of bureaucrat and technocrat able
to efficiently administer the state remained intact after
World War II—with the exceptions of the armed forces
and War and Naval ministries—and was therefore
available to immediately oversee and manage reconstruction during the American occupation if given the
chance. As a result, going into the occupation, the U.S.
government decided to minimize the troops required
by governing through the existing and competent leadership structure already in place with minimal vetting
to remove die hard militarists.
In comparison, the national and local leadership of
Iraq’s managerial class had atrophied during Hussein’s
reign and consequently, unlike what was available
during the occupation of Japan, represented only the
bare bones of an effective managerial class of Iraqi bureaucrats that might otherwise have been able to help
manage the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Iraq
under U.S. occupation. Further, in contrast to policies used in Japan, rather than vetting and preserving
what remained of the former Iraqi bureaucracy under
Hussein, the United States introduced a draconian
program to remove all Ba’athist party members from
government, which in practice meant almost all leaders
in government at all levels. The subsequent de-Ba’athification program thoroughly expunged what remained
of managerial expertise from the former Iraqi government, effective and otherwise, which resulted in removing from positions of authority the only real institutional expertise available on long established modes
of Iraqi governance. This decision resulted in social
May-June 2016  MILITARY REVIEW