Gates criticizes early Iraq war conduct

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing before an audience of military officers in Washington, criticized the early U.S. conduct of the Iraq war.

Gates told the audience at the National Defense University that the shock-and-awe strategy of the 2003 invasion was flawed, and criticized the Pentagon's slow reaction to the need for innovative counterinsurgency operations, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The defense secretary called for reforms to the Pentagon bureaucracy to give greater flexibility to counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"For every heroic and resourceful innovation by troops and commanders on the battlefield, there was some institutional shortcoming at the Pentagon that they had to overcome," he said.

Gates said that although it is essential to have a military skilled in fighting major conventional ground wars, such wars are unlikely in the near future, the newspaper said. However, he warned that high-tech weapons systems emphasize an idealized version of war that is not realistic.

"Be skeptical of systems analysis, computer models, game theories," he said.

Gates warned officers to "look askance" at the idea that conflicts in the future would mean "adversaries can be cowed, shocked or awed into submission, instead of being tracked down, hilltop by hilltop, house by house."