Iraq prompts U.S. Army rethink on nation-building

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stung by failures in Iraq, the U.S. Army says it is getting serious about nation-building, overcoming reluctance in its own ranks and reflecting a big change in Bush administration policy.

Army officers prefer the term stability operations to nation-building, which became politically sensitive, but they mean much the same -- helping provide basic services and build institutions to stabilize a foreign state, often after war.

The Army has traditionally seen major combat as its main mission and was wary of the stability and peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo undertaken on the orders of the Clinton administration in the 1990s.

"The word was 'we don't do nation-building,'" Gen. George Casey, the Army's chief of staff, recalled from his time in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.

"That was so ingrained in the force," Casey said, that the Army would not let a senior U.S. diplomat, the deputy head of international peace efforts, sleep on its compound.

"We've come a long way from there with what we're doing in Baghdad," said Casey, formerly the top commander in Iraq.

U.S. forces are involved in a huge range of nation-building tasks in Iraq -- training the army and police, building roads, schools and clinics and strengthening local governments.

WAR FORCED RETHINK

It is not just the Army that has changed its outlook.

"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building," George W. Bush said in October 2000 as he ran for president. "I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win war."

But when U.S. forces failed to stabilize Iraq after easily toppling Saddam Hussein, Bush's administration decided it had to take stability operations much more seriously.

The Pentagon issued a directive in late 2005 declaring "stability operations are a core U.S. military mission."

Military officers would like more civilians -- from police officers to economists and agricultural experts -- involved in nation-building but many have concluded that will not happen any time soon and they will have to fill the gaps.

"If nobody else is there, at the end of the day, we've got to be prepared to take on some of those roles and responsibilities," said Col. Simon Wolsey, a British officer attached to U.S. Army headquarters.

Wolsey heads a unit trying push stability operations into every corner of the force. He says the Army is embracing "a radical departure from previous doctrine," and a new field manual reinforces the importance of stability operations.

EXPERTS AWAIT EVIDENCE

Outside experts acknowledge a change in rhetoric but say they have yet to see major changes in how the Army operates.

"Simply issuing a new doctrine or adopting a new strategy doesn't change the institution," said James Dobbins, an authority on nation-building at the Rand Corp. research group and a former assistant secretary of state.

The Pentagon could for example use special forces more to train foreign troops, one of their specialist tasks, and less for combat operations, Dobbins said.

Rick Barton, a post-conflict reconstruction expert, said the military should devote the same sort of resources to stability operations as it lavishes on a new aircraft carrier.

"I don't see the more dramatic shifts that need to take place so that careers rise and fall on it," said Barton, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

But the Army says it is wary of changing too much until the U.S. government has worked out how much nation-building it expects other agencies to take on.

The Pentagon had to step in earlier this year to fill reconstruction posts in Iraq for several months after the State Department said it could not quickly recruit the necessary experts or provide them from its own ranks.

"Can we change the culture in the other departments so that their folks can participate in areas like Iraq that are at a relatively high level of violence?" asked Casey. "Or is that too hard and should the military do it itself?"