E-mail a friendBing West
original airdate September 16, 2008
Bing West has authored several books on the U.S. military, notably No True Glory and The March Up. His articles have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other major publications. West served in the Marines during the Vietnam War and then as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the Reagan administration. He was also an analyst at the RAND Corporation. His latest book, The Strongest Tribe, chronicles the current conflict in Iraq.
Former assistant defense secretary describes what winning in Iraq means. (2:30)
Full interview. (10:18)
Bing West
Tavis: Bing West is a former assistant secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan who now serves on the Council on Foreign Relations and as a correspondent for "The Atlantic." His numerous trips to Iraq since 2003 are the basis for his most recent book, "The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the End Game in Iraq." Mr. West, Mr. Secretary, nice to have you on.
Bing West: Well thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
Tavis: Glad to have you on. Let me start with, at least for me, the obvious question. "The Strongest Tribe," although I can tell by the picture, but that title could suggest that we're talking about us or we could be talking about them. (Laughter) Who's the strongest tribe?
West: I hope they're talking about us. Well, when I with the Marines - I'm a former Marine, that's really much more important than being a former assistant secretary - I was in the battle of Fallujah in November of '04 and the Marines were going house to house looking for the arch-terrorist Zarqawi. And he had promised he was going to fight to the death, and I stopped and I was talking with this Iraqi colonel I knew by the name of Eli (ph) and I said, "Eli, where's Zarqawi?" And he said, "He put on a woman's dress and ran out through the lines last night."
And I said, "But I thought he was going to lead his people?" And he said, "Yeah, right." He said, "That's the strongest tribe," and he pointed at the Marines walking by. And that stuck with me because really, this was a tribal war in Iraq and what really changed the tide of this battle that I tried to go through is that the Sunnis decided to come over to the side of the strongest tribe.
Tavis: Let me ask another question about this title, "The Strongest Tribe." Is the difference in winning or losing - and I want to come back to that - achieving or not achieving one's goals - is the difference in this instance who is the strongest? Because if it really were about - it seems to me that if it were about who the strongest is we should have won this thing four or five years ago.
That's what Bush promised us - we were going to go in there and they were going to be cheering us in the street. So is it really about being the strongest tribe?
West: That's a terrific point, because what this was really all about was that when we went in, for whatever reason - coulda, shoulda, woulda, but there were - we were the infidel invaders as far as the Sunnis were concerned because we put the Shiites in power. And at first we were fighting them head to head.
But then they watched us over the years and they invited in al Qaeda on their side, the Sunnis did. And by about 2006 they had taken one look at the decency of the average American soldier or Marine that they were dealing with.
The average soldier or Marine over there was just like a policeman in L.A. or any other place. He was out on the streets all the time talking with the Sunnis. He talked to them every day. And after a while they said, "We're on the wrong side here. The most decent people and the toughest people are those Americans," and they flipped over.
But they flipped over, basically - and I think you're right - because of the decency of the average American they were dealing with, not just the strength.
Tavis: As one goes through the book, one gets the sense - at least this one person does - gets the sense that the "success" - and I put that in quotes - the "success" - we'll come back to that in a second - the "success" we're having now in Iraq really has much less to do with the politicians in Washington and more to do with the story you're just telling now, about the troops on the ground who, never mind the commander in chief, have nuanced their own way of how to win this thing, if I can use that word, in Iraq. Does that make sense?
West: It makes a lot of sense, Tavis, because if you're fighting an insurgency, it's because people at the bottom are ticked off about something and they're attacking, if you will, against the palaces, or something.
Washington really didn't have a clue about this war. They were really out of this war, and the top generals could do very little about it. General Petraeus is an excellent general, but it wasn't like World War II where Patton had his army that he could switch to the left or to the right.
This was really fought down in the alleys and down in the cities - and I tried to go through it - out in the villages by the average American squad. It was a bottom-up effort, not a top-down effort.
Tavis: So tell me more, then, about - I used the word nuance - the distinction about how they have done it on the ground to the point of having some success now versus what we've been hearing and getting and being told out of Washington.
West: The basic difference was that over time the Americans said, "Look, we have to get involved right with the people. We cannot let somebody else be between us and the people, including the Iraqi government. We have to be out there with them. We have to offer them something.
We have to offer them protection; we have to offer them services. So right now if I go anywhere - I was just over there in August - if I go to any marketplace anywhere in the country, and I went to five or six different cities, the Iraqis will immediately come up to you if you're an American and begin to talk to you about well, I need this micro-finance loan, we need some more electricity, etc., etc.
They've come to recognize that the Americans weren't there to conquer them, they were really there to improve conditions and get the heck out, and that's the dilemma we have today. We Americans have been successful in Iraq. The issue now is is the Iraqi government willing to reach compromises so that we can extract ourselves?
Tavis: Which raises for me an interesting question, at least to my own mind, which is you are not, respectfully, the first person - John McCain, in fact, fits in this category - you're not the first person to have come back from Iraq to say things are getting better, we're winning, the tide is turning.
President Bush himself has said that half a dozen times or more, and it's almost like the minute somebody of authority or in a position of power says that all hell breaks loose in Iraq the next day and then everybody starts asking oh yeah? We're really winning?
So what makes us really be at a point now of having success as you see it as opposed to all hell breaking loose after this interview ends in a few minutes?
West: Well, the basic difference is that the Sunnis have their own police in their own areas. They're called the Sons of Iraq. They're responsible for their own security. Do I believe that there's going to be violence in Iraq for the next 10, 20 or 30 years? Absolutely.
I think the best state we can look for in Iraq is something equivalent to Colombia. We never think of Colombia - Colombia has a war going on, it's had a war going on down in South America for 20 years. It has a government that kind of gets along, but there are always going to be problems. I think the same is true in Iraq, but that doesn't mean we have to be involved in them.
We can get to a degree where they're responsible for their own security, they're going to have to fight their own battles, and we extract ourselves. And one can say, "Wow, if that's all there was, why did we do it?" Well, we did it because there was a mistake at the outset. There weren't weapons of mass destruction, but coulda, shoulda, woulda, here we are now.
So the issue is how do we stabilize things so we can withdraw, and I see the secret to what we've done, more than anything else, the credit goes to the corporals and captains at the bottom, not to the people at the top.
Tavis: You just answered this question in one way; I want to come at it again because I want to get a clear and succinct answer so that I'm clear about what you're saying. Winning in Iraq now means what as you define it?
West: From my definition, winning is a level of stability with violence that the Iraqis can handle without us and without the country falling apart or getting under the control of Iran, and we're just about there. That's quite different than saying you're going to have this wonderful democracy or something.
I don't see that as being our business, to a certain extent, and I think my book I hope will be a warning to anybody. If you read this book and understand how hard we had to work - now we have both presidential candidates saying, "Okay, now we have to do more in Afghanistan," and I'm in the camp of saying, "Whoa, I'm all in favor of that but let's have our eyes wide open about what we're getting into in Afghanistan, because Afghanistan's going to be even harder than Iraq."
Tavis: I started this program, at least at the top of the hour, by suggesting that this could be, at least the McCain camp thinks this is a winning issue for them now. Which is, to put it another way, as you well know, McCain said we've got to do the surge, we can win this thing, we can't pull out, we've got to stay until we are victorious on whatever these goals are, etc., etc. Is this now, can this now become in these last few weeks of this campaign a winning issue for John McCain?
West: Gee, Tavis - I understand military things, I understand what our guys did on the ground. I'm no good for trying to figure out these politicians. I'm not big on politicians; I'm not big on people at the top in a lot of ways, even though I was an assistant secretary, because I think they miss it a lot of times.
I don't know how they spin that one way or the other. I do know things are more stable now in Iraq. I do know that the Sunnis, you can walk up and talk to them anywhere, and I do know that our soldiers feel much better about what they've done now than they did two years ago, and that's about as far as I'd take it.
Tavis: But I guess - and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth - but if that's a result of the surge - that's the argument that McCain was making months ago -
West: Oh, it is the result of the surge. If we, two years ago, had just pulled out, it would have been a disaster. General Petraeus deserves a lot of credit, but even more credit because at the same time the surge was going on, the Sunnis had decided to come over, and they weren't going to fight us anymore. They were going to turn against al Qaeda.
Now, that's a good thing because the Sunnis threw al Qaeda out of Iraq and these are tribes. And within about one or two years from now, all throughout the Middle East, the image of al Qaeda is going to go down as a result. Al Qaeda are real son-of-a-guns when they get on top of somebody, even other Sunnis.
Tavis: Two quick questions: Is it the right decision that President Bush made recently to take some of those troops out of Iraq and ship them over to Afghanistan?
West: Absolutely.
Tavis: Okay, all right. Last question, in 30 seconds: Was it worth all this?
West: I believe one thing about wars, and I've been in several of them: Once it starts, regardless of how it starts, you'd better win and not lose. If I could reverse the entire clock and start over again, would I do it? No. But don't have that choice right now.
And I think that it's our troops that deserve the credit.
Tavis: Fair enough. Honest answers to direct questions, which I always appreciate. The book is called "The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the End Game in Iraq," written by Bing West. Mr. Secretary, nice to - or Marine. (Laughter) You prefer that.
West: Yes, I do.
Tavis: Nice to have you on the program.
West: Thank you very much, Tavis.
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