Four Wars in Iraq?

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ALEX CHADWICK, host:

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq says this, quote, "the intelligence community judges that the term civil war does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict. But nonetheless, the term accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict."

Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said we actually are in four wars in Iraq.

Mr. ROBERT GATES (U.S. Secretary of Defense): One is Shia on Shia, principally in the south. The second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad but not solely. Third is the insurgency, and fourth is al-Qaida. And al-Qaida is attacking, at times, all of those targets.

CHADWICK: And now the ground truth. Phil Carter just spent a year in Iraq advising Iraqi police with 101st Airborne Division. He's written about Iraq's four wars for the online magazine Slate.

Phil, how do you view Secretary Gates' comments? Agree?

Mr. PHIL CARTER (Reporter, Slate): I think they're very telling. What's important is to look at these holistically and see how our efforts in one war undermine, or undercut, or frustrate our efforts in the others. For example, if you look at our efforts to crush the insurgency by killing all the insurgents, that has the affect - one of inflaming the Sunni insurgency and making it more broadly supported by the Iraqi people, and two it undermines our goals to sort of create this liberal democracy in Iraq and to create a stable Iraqi government.

CHADWICK: The Shia versus Shia war going on the south over resources; both oil resources and religious cities that Shia factions want to control, that kind of complicates everything for Nouri Al-Maliki's government. He depends upon a Shia coalition. It turns out that coalition is very fractured.

Mr. CARTER: Right. And here again, as the conflict between our methods. If we try to stamp that out, or if we endorse a side or allow one side to win then we fracture the Maliki coalition and we lose the one stable government that Iraq has managed to elect and have over the last four years.

CHADWICK: The parallel war, the sectarian conflict between the Shia and the Sunni - we're trying to both reach out to the Sunni militants and crush the Sunni militants.

Mr. CARTER: That's right. And perhaps more importantly the U.S. strategy for the last two years has endorsed standing up the Iraqi army and police. In Iraqi eyes all we've done is essentially stand up a Shiite Iraqi army and police establishment and on arm the partisans that will fight this sectarian conflict. And so here again we have our efforts in once area frustrating our efforts in the other.

CHADWICK: It's classic counter-insurgency doctrine, you write, to use locals, to train them, to kind of counter the locals and the terrorists because they're the people who speak the language, they know the culture, they can tell who's actually on which side much better than we outsiders can. But, in this case, we're viewed as actually just training people who then go and fight their own local battles that they want to fight.

Mr. CARTER: We have to some extent pinned our hopes on running the counter-insurgency playbook in Iraq. Training the local police and building a viable government, etc. But the counter-insurgency playbook is not enough. We're not just fighting an insurgency anymore. We're fighting, as secretary Gates says, a civil war; an entrenched Shiite war; a larger terrorist war with al-Qaeda; and there may also be two other wars in Iraq right now - a looming fight between the Kurds and just about everyone; and a regional conflict, sort of a cold war with Iran and Syria and others.

CHADWICK: So what do you do now? Because you concluded your piece in "Slate" as saying Secretary Gates has actually done something wise and honest here. He's found the right words to describe this conflict. The right strategy to counter it is going to be more difficult.

Mr. CARTER: I think describing the conflict and seeing the terrain is crucial, but finding the strategy to play what is essentially a four dimensional game of chess is much harder. I don't know that we're going to be able to do it with the amount of resources we've committed to the fight right now and with the regional complexities. The entry with Iran that's going on this week is one example of just how complex this problem is.

CHADWICK: Phil Carter's piece in "Slate" is there are four Iraq wars, he's served for a year with the 101st Airborne, Phil thanks for joining us again on DAY TO DAY.

Mr. CARTER: Thank you Alex.

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