NEWSWEEK: So I see from your book that your Army superiors spotted very early on your “tendency to ebullience and flamboyant behavior.” Sir Mike Jackson: [Laughs.] I think I got ticked off for it.
Let’s go straight to the Iraq War planning, which you had some issues with. The plan originally was for the British troops to come from the north, from Turkey. That was the original plan. But all the signs coming out of Turkey, if it went to a formal decision, were that it would be “no.” So I think it was late January, if my memory serves me right, when the British government said, OK, we’re going to have to rejig and come in from the south. Quite a complicated thing, because American plans were also based on us coming from the north, so the Coalition as a whole had to rejig.
This is not like changing family vacation plans. Under two months. But it was done, and we know what the results were—a stunning operation. I would like you to include this: my criticism is not one of the United States or its Army; it was of a particular view that was held. I’m one of the greatest admirers of the American Army, and what was done in just under three weeks was stunning. Absolutely brilliant.
What about the “particular view” that you speak of? What was thought would happen after Saddam Hussein was deposed seemed to me to stem from that very tight group of so-called neocons. Take the head off the regime, put in a temporary government, composed mainly of these basically Iraqi expats, if we can put it like that. And somehow everything would be fine. Well, we know, it was going to be much more difficult than that.
So postwar planning was the problem. We’d had experience with Kosovo, we’d had experience with Bosnia. Where the [American] thinking just didn’t get it was regime change. The deposing of Saddam Hussein was not the end state. Defeating the Iraqi armed forces was not the end state. The end state is an Iraq which—it’s very easy to say this now, I know—is at peace with itself, at peace with its neighbors, with representative government, an economy which is starting to get momentum. Easy to say, very complicated and difficult to do.
Now, you made the point in the book that the British were the junior partners in this war and therefore their influence, by definition, was somewhat limited. Were you dismayed that your government didn’t make more of an effort with the Americans on planning, for example? I don’t know. I really don’t know.
There was postwar planning but— In the [U.S.] State Department! Then we had this decision to shift it from State to the Pentagon. I think in late January, early February. Quite late in the day. And to the best of my knowledge, the Pentagon had—well, I think we know what happened—is that Donald Rumsfeld just didn’t see it that way. And there’s a lot of frustration amongst the American senior military leadership at this time … We’ll never know, but my judgment is that things may well have gone better had that State Department planning been allowed to go forward.
You had a lot of experience in Northern Ireland. What did you learn about insurgency that tells us something about Iraq? Even with a comparatively large number of [Coalition and Iraqi] security forces, insurgents using, let’s say, guerilla-style tactics, they’re going to hurt, but they’re not going to win. Equally, it would be remarkable in my view if such a terrorist organization at some stage says, “We surrender.” The security forces’ role is to hold the ring, as we say, until a political settlement emerges. A political problem [like the one in Iraq] can only have a political solution in the end.
But a military process can aid a political solution— Of course. But when you look at it over time, as I say, it has to be a political outcome.
What’s your sense of what has happened in Basra [in southern Iraq] since 2003? Your forces got there and it was relatively peaceful. Not any more. On my first visit after the [invasion], two or three weeks afterwards, walking through Basra, walking through the souk, everybody smiling, saying shukran—thank you. So that’s where we began. And perhaps not entirely foreseen, or given as much weight, was the [internal] power struggle that was going to ensue. How much Iranian influence, I don’t know, I just know there is something there. Everybody jockeying for position for the future. But increasingly using violence to do that, sadly, rather than the ballot box. But we stuck to our guns—of building up Iraqi security in numbers and training and capability. And then on a case-by-case basis, a formal handover of primary security responsibilities to the Iraqis. The handover of Basra City [from British to Iraqi forces on Sept. 3] was part of this strategy. There was an appalling headline the other day: FIRST DEFEAT OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN TWO GENERATIONS. Well, it’s nonsensical. Absolutely nonsensical. But it’s a political comment, that [headline].
But that’s the thing. Can you argue that the failure of Iraq is a political failure? That it’s not a military failure? Is that fair? It’s a very good question. I don’t believe it’s a military failure, no.
You’ve expressed admiration for U.S. Gen. David Petraeus [who has studied and written about counterinsurgency, has been executing President George W. Bush’s “surge” strategy and is due to report soon on Coalition military progress—or the lack of it—in Iraq]. This to me is showing how the U.S. Army adapts itself. It was at one point “overwhelming force wins out”—I paraphrase—but events have shown it’s more complicated [than that], and you’ve seen the U.S. Army adapting.
And armed forces can only adapt within the parameters set for them by the politicians? In a democracy, that’s how it has to be. Rightly. [In Iraq] much, therefore, is on the shoulders of the politicians who set defense policy.
