By the summer of 2003, the situation in Iraq had deteriorated from a successful military mission and occupation of the country to a dangerous and bloody battle with an unknown enemy. Attempting to fight an unconventional war under conventional rules, guidelines, and strategies was impossible and the U.S. military was quickly learning this lesson. The Bush administration's stated goal for the Iraqi occupation was to spread democracy and bring about U.S. led stability to the Middle East. This goal was becoming more and more difficult because of the random bombings by unidentifiable insurgents in Iraq. Intelligence was lacking at best and U.S. military leaders were becoming more and more frustrated with the lack of credible intelligence that they were having provided to them. All the while U.S. soldiers were paying the price at the hands of a new kind of weapon in this war, the roadside bomb, also known as the I.E.D. (Improvised Explosive Device). On August 7, 2003 a car bomb was detonated outside the Jordanian embassy which killed eleven and wounded more than fifty others. Then on August 19, another car bomb using a cement truck was crashed into the wall of the United Nations headquarters in Iraq which was in Baghdad. This was a devastating attack which would create deadly consequences for the U.S. military. The insurgency had shifted their strategy and it was a very intelligent move. Instead of attacking the U.S. forces directly, they shifted their focus to destroy those elements from other nations who were apart of the coalition in an attempt to break apart the occupation piece by piece. One of those killed in the August 19 attack was a diplomat from Brazil named Sergio Vieira who was the chief of the UN mission with coalition forces. This precipitated a quick withdrawal of UN presence in the region. The UN staff went from over eight hundred international staffers to fifteen. The withdrawal of UN personnel made the U.S. mission of occupation and rebuilding a democracy that much more difficult because the UN served as the intermediary between the U.S. and the leaders of the Shiite community. Many other international organizations would follow quickly behind the UN withdrawal and leave the region as well. The third major blow came just ten days later when another car bomb was used to kill the Shiite political ruler Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim. This revealed clearly that no figure or group that supported the U.S. occupation was safe. America could not protect its allies! The insurgency's plan was a brilliant strategy and rapidly left the U.S. without the necessary support from the world community. By November this strategy was clear and evident but it was too late. The insurgents had attacked Iraqi security forces, politicians, the UN, and anyone else who was aligned with the U.S. led occupation. Any support that could possibly be stripped away was a target for the Iraqi insurgents.
The only way to be safe and combat the insurgents was going to come from the ability to quickly and accurately gather, collect, organize, and communicate intelligence. Getting inside the inner workings of the insurgency would be the only way to combat the growing difficulty in Iraq. Extracting information from individuals and sometimes innocent Iraqi citizens was viewed as a necessity to protect U.S. soldiers and the American interest in Iraq. Counter insurgency was proving once again to be an impossible task for the intelligence structure that was in place at the time. Through the summer and fall of 2003 the U.S. occupation was failing and further alienating the people who they believed they wanted to help find democracy. Tensions continued to rise as U.S. forces were not viewed favorably by Iraqi citizens and the U.S. military seemed to be unorganized and lacked a clearly defined goal and leadership. No one was putting the pieces of the puzzle together to provide a clear picture of what needed to happen and all the while U.S. soldiers were paying the price as they were left hung out to dry in many situations. Soldiers and U.S. intelligence officials had become desperate to find some kind of solution. The frustration of U.S. soldiers who were witnessing their fellow soldiers dying on a regular basis at the hand of an unknown enemy coupled with the pressure to gain Intel that would help them identify and effectively fight the insurgency would definitely create the situation that would unfold at Abu Ghraib.
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