John Keegan writes about his meeting with Donald Rumsfeld. Aparently, he does not think the situation is that bad:
Mr Rumsfeld read me a series of reports, from the American regional commands, summarising progress achieved: terrorists apprehended, weapons recovered, explosives destroyed. The totals were impressive. Despite daily reports of American casualties, he was dismissive of the danger to coalition forces. Within the context of the total security situation, he sees the level of violence as bearable and believes that the trend of terrorist activity is downward.
Economically, the outlook is strongly positive. Electricity supply actually exceeds pre-war levels, with an output of 4,400 megawatts per day in October, as against 3,300 in January. Oil production is returning to pre-war levels, at nearly 2,200 million barrels per day in October, as against 2,500 million barrels before the war.
Socially, the country has returned to normal. More than 3.6 million children are in primary school and 1.5 million in secondary school. University registrations have increased from 63,000 before the war to 97,000. Healthcare is at pre-war levels and is improving rapidly, because of greatly increased spending, estimated to be at 26 times pre-war levels. Doctors’ salaries are eight times higher and vaccination and drug distribution programmes have also been greatly increased.
Mr Keegan was frequently asked why there is so much less trouble in the British than the American area of occupation. He conceded that America, the Great Satan is target of greater hatred and Britain as the ‘lesser’ Satan does not attract the same degree of hostility. Further he acknowledged that the southern Shia area, where the British are operating, has always been anti-Saddam and therefore their task is easier compared with the American policing of the Sunni area. Also, Basra has a long history of dealing with Britain going back to the days of the East India Company. However, he insisted that there is a fundamental difference between the British and the American approach.
While the Americans, for reasons connected with their own past, seek to solve the Iraqi problem by encouraging the development of democracy, the British, with their long experience of colonial campaigning and their recent exposure to Irish terrorism, take a more pragmatic attitude.
They recognise that Iraq is still a tribal society and that the key to pacification lies in identifying tribal leaders and other big men, in recognising social divisions that can be exploited, and in using a mixture of stick and carrot to restore and maintain order.
The conclusion is unexpected and I expected will be resisted by those who think the United States’ exceptional history and status is as a result of the country’s banishment of European political practices, especially its opposition to imperialism.
Forcibly, America is becoming an imperial if not an imperialist country. The attitude was exemplified by an encounter I had with a tall, lean, crew-cut young man I met in Washington. Our conversation went as follows: “Marine?” I asked. “Yes,” he answered. “Have you been in Iraq?” “Afghanistan. Just got back.” The exchange was straight out of Kipling. There is a lot more of that to come.
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the British Empire by the Americans and by most marxist and statist continentals, namely that it was driven economically, not politically, and maintained defensively for the most part. The British merchants explored the world for new markets and the British state defended territories where trade with Britain took hold. British imperialism was not the sort the Romans would recognise. We do not need to look that far back, comparisons with Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Soviet Empire would highlight the different nature of the beast. So being imperial may not be so bad, provided you stop short of being imperialist.
Sorry to be such a nerd, but ‘4,400 megawatts per day’ is meaningless. It doesn’t convey an impression of critical thinking where he reports ‘facts’ he clearly doesn’t understand.
…’4,400 megawatts per day’ is meaningless.
Not quite.
There could be one 4,400 MW power station running on day one, two running on day two, …
Then power output would be increasing at a rate of 4,400 MW per day.
But I doubt that’s what he meant.
I’m sorry, Earl, but I’m not getting your point. I thought I routinely heard electricity production referred to in terms of megawatts. Is your objection to the use of “per day”? If so, I guess that it is a little obscure, but I would also guess that what was meant was “an average of x megawatts per day”, which strikes me as perfectly valid.
…an average of x megawatts per day”, which strikes me as perfectly valid
No.
If what your referring to is average power output, then “an average of x MW” is valid.
“x MW per day” would refer to a rate of change of power output – 0 MW today, x MW tomorrow, 2 x MW the day after …
I am so delighted we clarified this…
The figures on oil production are preposterous, too. Are we really meant to believe that Iraq is producing the entire world’s oil consumption every 11 and a half days? 2.2 million barrels a day I can believe. Annual world oil production is around 25 billion barrels (Lomborg 2001, The Skeptical Environmentalist, Fig. 65, p123).
Megawats per day has the dimensions of Joules per second squared = kg m^2/s^4. It is indeed, as observed supra, d/dt (Power) and as such unlikely to be encountered outside an electronic engineering degree course.
It’s this sort of innumeracy that often vitiates an otherwise excellent report.
Right, it’s 2.5 million barrels.
I agree that the megawatt stats is meaningless. It doesn’t mean anything to me since I don’t know how much the country needs today or tomorrow. Sure, the aggregate sounds better today than yesterday but so what ? In pre-war Iraq, Baghdad got a huge chunk of power and the periphery a lot less. So you can have 50% more power for the country and still be way short.
Because this production number tells us nothing about consumption. All this reconstruction, all this machinery, all this stuff Iraqi civil servants are now buying with their higher salaries, these new businesses springing up, all this could be consuming a lot more energy than before the war.
Production growth should be compared to consumption growth.
I dunno the obvious conlcusion I reached fromt the story was that the Iraqi power industry now has a about 4.4 GW reliable capacity.
I.e They can produce that much power reliably, presumably at peak generation times.
Since were dealing with a notes on a quote, of a verbally read report , itself probably a summary of detailed reports. I’d cut a little slack here.
I think anyone can easily understand what the whole “megawatt per day” thing is about. It’s simply stating that current power generation is greater than it was pre-war.
Evidently the obvious is simple while the simple is occasionally obvious.
ed
As for the “America is becoming Imperial” nonsense, I’ll tell you what.
If America fights a war of conquest in order to increase the number of opium addicts and therefore maximize profits generated from the wholesale addiction of opium by a native population.
Then I’ll believe it.
Until then we’ll just have to remember Britain’s Opium War with fond memories.
:/
ed
You can see Rumsfeld’s data by going to http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/us_iraq3.htm
The links at bottom go to the Dept of Defense website, charts of material progress made by Coalition forces in Iraq. Power, schools built, oil production, etc.
The Defense and National Interest website has terrific data (& links to hard data) and analysis of Iraq, esp. the “scorecard” articles and the “On War” series by Lind.
Here’s another try at giving the web site:
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/us_iraq3.htm
Sylvain – its all very nice to worry about how much power the Iraqis would like to have, but I think you run the danger of expectation inflation by focussing on that number. For purposes of evaluating the reconstruction, prewar capacity (whether of oil or electricity) strikes me as a perfectly good benchmark. In fact, I can’t think of a better one for that purpose.
Knowing how we are doing relative to that benchmark is a good thing.
I don’t know if the US is becoming imperial or not but I’m sure as hell ready for the American military to leave Europe (including Bosnia and Kosovo but excluding Britain, Italy, and Spain although drastically reducing our presence in those nations also), Japan and Okinawa, South Korea, and anywhere else we have troops stationed outside the continental US that are not of immediate strategic value to the interest of the US. The Cold War is over and Europe, Japan, along with Korea are wealthy enough to take care of themselves. The money we save could be used to rebuild Iraq, even fix medicare, and give every freakin’ American taxpayer a break from paying for the defense of a bunch of ungrateful douchebags. Not to mention a right nice taxcut. I can always do with a taxcut.
Quite frankly I would like to see the US dislodge ourselves from the UN and NATO and negioate separate more equitable defense alliances with the anglosphere, eastern European democracies, and possibly some of the democratic Asian nations. But the UN can just go to hell.
[nerd]I think quantities of electricity are measured in watt-hours by convention, rather than joules. This is often shortened to the technically inaccurate “watts”, as in this article. [/nerd]
Amen Harry!
I find NATO distasteful. While some NATO members have been valuable and staunch allies, the rest have been less than worthless. The list of offenses are far too long to get into, but let’s leave this by saying that, if America delcared NATO dead and that Europe was on it’s own, I wouldn’t shed a single tear.
As for the UN?
Evict them. Tell them to go find another home. Turn the UN building into condos.
Frankly the whole idea behind the UN is grossly stupid. What is the point behind including every petty tyrant and mass murdering gasbag into international debates? Why the heck would anyone bother listening to Lybia? Or Tongo Tongo? So what’s the point of having some island nation of less than a million citizens on the Security Council?
Let’s pull the plug. Remain a member of the UN, mostly to stop it from actually doing anything, and stop ALL funding for the UN and all UN programs.
Then let it die on the vine so to speak.
ed
They recognise that Iraq is still a tribal society and that the key to pacification lies in identifying tribal leaders and other big men, in recognising social divisions that can be exploited, and in using a mixture of stick and carrot to restore and maintain order.
Isn’t this the sort of policy that has made the Middle East the charming place that it is today?
Brian, I agree. The British approach is all about managing, rather than transforming. As such, it tends to reinforce the regrettable status quo. If you don’t believe transformation is possible, or at least likely, you settle for management.
Americans tend to live in a constant flux of transformation, so we don’t think twice about it. Whether the Iraqis are capable of making the necessary transformation, I don’t know. At this point, nobody does.
R.C.Dean:
What is certain is that a majority of Iraqis need to see that there will be a definite benefit to them if they do transform. People being people, they will go for the system that makes their lives better, barring those who are wilfully ignorant or were top dogs during the Baathist regime. I don’t think most Iraqis are wilfully ignorant and I fervently hope we don’t let the thugs get the upper hand once again.
Other than that certainty, my mirror into the future of Iraq is as dark as yours…
Keegan is wrong.
It isn’t a matter of imperium for Americans.
It is a matter America trying everything else before the gloves come all the way off.
See this for context:
http://www.denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/11/TotalWar.shtml
“…Whatever else you might have to say about genocide, the one thing everyone can agree on is that once completed it is conclusive and irrevocable. (But nearly everything else you will probably want to say about genocide is negative.) If you face an implacable foe who refuses to be dissuaded or deterred from trying to kill you, you must kill or die. At the level of nations, you must commit genocide or become a victim of genocide.
If we reach that terrible eventuality, where we must commit genocide or succumb to it, we would not rely on anything as clumsy as fleets of aircraft indiscriminately scattering bombs over enemy cities. For an information age military, it’s still one bomb per target, only the targets would be cities and the bombs would be thermonuclear, and the destruction would be total.
No one wants it to come to that. That’s why we must remain dedicated to fostering reform. It may be risky, and difficult, but it’s still preferable to surrender, or committing genocide, or being the victims of genocide. The reason we’re following the strategy we are is that it’s the only way we can avoid defeat without resorting to total war.”
Of course there were two British empires, the first merchantile and the second Imperial. The merchanitle empire saw the companies, usually well represented by their own directors and large-scale shareholders in Parliament, foisting the burden of police work onto the British government. Trade in tribal places that don’t have Anglosphere values can be risky after all.
But the financial burden of all that protection was too much for the Crown, since it wasn’t seeing any of the profits. Thus came the military Imperium.
I respect Keegan, but I think he’s got this one wrong. I don’t see a lot of support among Americans for the tribal mess politics that, as Brian said, led to the mess in the first place.
Err… I am amazed to find a defense of the British Empire on a libertarian blog. As someone who grew up in India, let me assure you that the legacy of British Imperialism in the sub-continent is a terrible one, starting with the deliberate destruction of Indian industry, confiscation of weapons, denial of franchise, establishment of all-pervasive affirmative action and climaxing with the horrible famines in Bengal and Orrisa in the 1940s.
Note that in all the history of man, every single famine has been man-made, taking place under an authoritarian regime.
To this day, the poverty of different regions in India remains in proportion to how long the British lingered in those particular areas.
The Americans have never overstayed their welcomes, and are not keen to exact tribute from countries they have (very temporarily) occupied. The Americans have never served an anointed royalty for empire, conquest and booty. On the other hand, confiscated Indian diamonds to this day remain the most famous stones in the British Crown Jewels.
You don’t understand America, my friend. And you certainly don’t understand Brittania.
(Disclaimer: I certainly don’t hold Britons of today responsible for their ancestors, but Imperialist apologists are fair game. Painting the British Empire as anything short of authoritarianism is mere folly.)
“There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the British Empire by the Americans and by most marxist and statist continentals, namely that it was driven economically, not politically, and maintained defensively for the most part. The British merchants explored the world for new markets and the British state defended territories where trade with Britain took hold. British imperialism was not the sort the Romans would recognise.”
Other John Hawkins has a clearer view.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding of the British Empires, but a perusal of The Wealth of Nations’ sections on colonies should be enough of a counter argument to the above quotes claim. The First British Empire ended with the American and then French Revolutions, the Second British Empire technically ended with the Commonwealth/UN, depending on the historian. Consider “British” history between 1600-1788 as compared to British history between 1789-1948… the former mirrors the First Empire, the latter mirrors the Second.
The US is certainly still a very serious constitutional Republic, and US Empire talk is premature. I think it’s safe to say that when the US Republic turns into the American Empire it won’t be a quiet or peaceful transition. Only the naive think secret coups work in Countries with 80,000,000 armed citizens, and Americans OBVIOUSLY prefer killing each other over killing mere foreigners. (WAY more Americans have murdered other Americans in the last year than the number of US soldiers killed by the Baathists).
HEY! Maybe THAT’S why running dog Leftist Americans are so awash with melodrama and paranoid hyperventalation!?! Could it be that they’re afraid Joe Six-Pack multiplied by ten or twenty million is going to run amuck? Tsktsktsk. Those poor Faustian fools would be better advised that their Deal was cut with Mephistophales, not mere lemurs.
Is there anyone else who suspect that Keegen type hand wringing over America’s Empire are guilty of projecting? It could be the Libertarian in me talking, but aren’t the Progressives and Statists the ones who secretly lust for power over others?
ed,
Americans are fighting the drug war to increase the profits of the CIA. Read McCoy: “the Politics of Heroin”. It is online. See if you can find the Iran/Contra Congressional transcripts on line. Then look up “Blandon” for his testimony. Then search for the Ollie North diaries.
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Re read Kipling : “the White Man’s Burden”. He gets it right. 100 years ago.
American idiots….can’t see past their own guns.