Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario

These 84 pages from the Army War College were published in Feb. 2003 and seem to portray the current situation in Iraq quite well. Many of the problems that are identified in the paper have since ocurred, though most of the solutions presented have not.

Some highlights:

"Successfully executing the postwar occupation of Iraq is consequently every bit as important as winning the war. Preparing for the postwar rehabilitation of the Iraqi political system will probably be more difficult and complex than planning for combat. Massive resources need to be focused on this effort well before the first shot is fired. Thinking about the war now and the occupation later is not an acceptable solution. Without an overwhelming effort to prepare for occupation, the United States may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America’s own making."

"While a struggle for power between civilian and military elites would contribute to Iraqi fragmentation, the military can also serve as a unifying force under certain conditions. In a highly diverse and fragmented society like Iraq, the military (primarily the ground forces) is one of the few national institutions that stresses national unity as animportant principle. Conscripts are at least publicly encouraged to rise above parochial loyalties and may be stationed in parts of the country far from their ethnic kinsmen. To tear apart the Army in the war’s aftermath could lead to the destruction of one of the only forces for unity within the society. Breaking up large elements of the army also raises the possibility that demobilized soldiers could affiliate with ethnic or tribal militias."

Complete work may be found here:
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB182.pdf