Iraq War

Iraq War Afghanistan After Combat Operations Ceased

In March 2002, not long after combat operations ceased in Afghanistan, as the Bush administration deliberated what to do next against al Qaeda and the Taliban, the deputy CIA director told the senior members of the national security team in the White House Situation Room that the CIA was pulling its resources out of Afghanistan. This was an early indication of the collision between the Iraq War Afghanistan War efforts.

The Iraq War Afghanistan War collided with each other long before the first shots were fired in Iraq. Afghanistan was the geographic center of combat with Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda. After the U.S. forces conquered Afghanistan, the badly shaken Taliban tried to reorganize, slipping back and forth from Pakistan and Iran.

Instead of further prosecuting the alleged war on terrorism and hunting down the declared enemy, Osama bin Laden, the CIA closed its forward bases in Kandahar, Herat and other major cities; the agency canceled its plans to train and equip a friendly intelligence service for the new U.S.-installed Afghan government; and two-thirds of its covert commando team that was tasked to hunt bin Laden and his lieutenants were withdrawn. In drawing down resources in favor of the looming Iraq War Afghanistan programs were significantly curtailed.

The commandos, and all high-tech surveillance equipment and other assets were all transferred to the Iraq effort through 2002 and early 2003, as President Bush prepared for the March invasion and greatly expanded the administration's response to the 9/11 attacks. Soon after, the Iraq War Afghanistan War campaigns would compete for resources, and the Iraq campaign would always get the lion's share.

At crucial points in the fight for Afghanistan, the Bush administration diverted scarce intelligence and reconstruction resources to Iraq, and not only in terms of elite military units and CIA teams but also in terms of equipment. All production of the sophisticated Predator surveillance planes were deployed to Iraq. As a consequence of the Iraq War Afghanistan reconstruction efforts were starved of the important resources needed to rehabilitate the country.

As the administration focused more on Iraq, its avowed terrorist enemy slipped away; Osama bin Laden would live to see many more days. In 2002, Bush promised a Marshall-type plan for Afghanistan but it never came. The Congressional Research Service said that Washington has spent on $3.4 billion yearly to reconstruct Afghanistan, which is less than half of the amounts it has spent in Iraq.

In the first week of August 2007, Afghan president Hamid Karzai said in Washington that there was a marked deterioration of the security situation in Afghanistan. The Afghans felt abandoned by the first President Bush in 1989 when the Soviets pulled out.

In reaction, the son vowed not to repeat the mistake of letting initial success be eroded by "long years of floundering and ultimate failure." This President Bush declared, "We're tough, we're determined, we're relentless." It may be argued that the Iraq War Afghanistan War collision changed all that.