Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow in defense and national security studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was launched on March 20, 2003.
Donnelly believes the latter is simply a euphemism for defeat. Soon after Operation IRAQI FREEDOM OIF began in March 2003, RAND Arroyo Center began compiling an authoritative account of the planning and execution of. The question now is whether America will transform itself for the long, hard fight ahead or pursue a more limited victory. The global war on terror is a marathon, Donnelly argues, but the United States has a military - indeed, an entire national security bureaucracy - built for sprints. Drawing on firsthand research in postwar Iraq, Donnelly argues that military planning did not fully reflect the administration’s policy, with the Pentagon’s desire to fight a quick war ultimately undercutting its ability to fight a decisive war. Looking past the prewar debate in the UN Security Council and postwar recriminations over weapons of mass destruction, Donnelly argues that the Bush administration charted the correct strategy in Iraq but has failed to match its military means to its strategic ends.ĭonnelly traces the origins of the Iraq war over the past quarter century to the collapsing political order in the Middle East and President Bush’s fundamental belief, following the September 11 attacks, that America will not be safe until the Middle East is free. Why did the United States go to war in Iraq - and what does it seek to accomplish there? This is the question that veteran defense analyst and AEI Resident Fellow Thomas Donnelly seeks to answer in his study of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The documents date from the 1980s through the post-Saddam period. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.