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Security Challenges Are Expected to Endure

• Iraq faces enduring challenges that will test its ability to maintain the level of security necessary for sustained political and democratic development.
• The security challenges include internal struggles for power, insufficient institutional capacity, continuing activities of violent extremist groups, and malevolent activities supported by external state and nonstate actors.

Strategic and Policy Uncertainties Hindered Planning and Execution of the Transition

• While it was clear in 2009 that USF-I would not be able to achieve campaign plan goals and objectives by the end of mission in 2011, no national level strategic reassessment was conducted to define success.
• Uncertainties about possible posttransition troop presence negatively affected all aspects of the transition planning and execution.
• The transition plan did not include planning for the political transitions that would occur within Iraq and between the United States and Iraq.

The "Expeditionary Embassy" Concept Proved Unworkable and Unsustainable

• Not since Vietnam has the United States left an embassy in a zone of conflict after a large-scale military operation.
• Efforts to provide paramilitary security capabilities to the "expeditionary embassy" created a footprint that was larger than either the United States or the government of Iraq was willing to sustain and exceeded the authorities Iraq was willing to grant.
• Because an embassy operates under the Vienna Conventions, it is more important to establish new authorities with the host government than it is to create robust paramilitary capabilities that are neither usable nor sustainable.

Over the course of the U.S. engagement in Iraq, the U.S. military managed hundreds of bases and facilities and used millions of pieces of equipment. The military was not only involved with security-related activities but also assisted in political and economic functions the host nation government or other U.S. departments would normally perform. A 2010 assessment identified that responsibility for 431 activities would need to be handed off to the government of Iraq, the U.S. embassy, U.S. Central Command, or other U.S. government departments. Ending the U.S. war in Iraq would also require redeploying over 100,000 military and civilian personnel and moving or transferring ownership of over a million pieces of property, including facilities, in accordance with U.S. and Iraqi laws, national policy, and DoD requirements. This book looks at the planning and execution of this transition, using information gathered from historical documents and interviews with key players. It examines efforts to help Iraq build the capacity necessary to manage its own security absent a U.S. military presence. It also looks at the complications that arose from uncertainty over just how much of a presence the United States would continue to have beyond 2011 and how various posttransition objectives would be advanced. The authors also examine efforts to create an embassy intended to survive in a hostile environment by being entirely self-sufficient, performing missions the military previously performed. The authors draw lessons from these events that can help plan for ending future wars.

• Part I

  Setting the Stage

  • Chapter One

    Introduction: How Wars End

  • Chapter Two

    The First Six Years

  • Chapter Three

    Multi-National Force – Iraq Transition Planning and Execution, 2009–2010

• Part II

  Transition Management and Planning

  • Chapter Four

    Transition Management

  • Chapter Five

    The Influence of Washington and Baghdad on the Transition

• Part III

  Executing the Transition and Retrograde of Forces

  • Chapter Six

    Enduring Security Challenges

  • Chapter Seven

    Enhancing the Security Sector Capacity of the Government of Iraq

  • Chapter Eight

    Enabling an Expeditionary Embassy

  • Chapter Nine

    Reposture the Force

• Part IV

  Executing the Transition and Retrograde of Forces

  • Chapter Ten

    After the Transition

  • Chapter Eleven

    Conclusions and Recommendations

• Appendix A:

  Comments of Ambassador James Jeffrey

• Appendix B:

  Joint Campaign Plan — Base Document

• Appendix C:

  JCP Annex F — Transition

• Appendix D:

  USF-I J4 Joint Plans Integration Center Input

• Appendix E:

  USF-I J4 Department of State Transition Cell RAND History Report

• Appendix F:

  Joint Logistics Operations Center Input