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UCLA law faculty file dissenting opinion on the war

Three professors at my law school have written a dissenting opinion of sorts to last week's vote by the UCLA Academic Senate condemning the war against Iraq. The essay ran in today's Los Angeles Times on the op-ed page. I admire these men for the stand they made at the faculty's meeting, and for their decision to air their views today.

Why did we do it?

We were mugged.

We were mugged by about 200 of our faculty colleagues at UCLA. These colleagues condemn the liberation of Iraq and wanted to say so publicly. But they were not content to speak out in their own names, as they had every right to do. Instead, they insisted on speaking in our names — and in the names of the more than 3,000 people on the UCLA faculty.

How did they do it? First, they circulated a petition to call a special meeting of the academic senate. Every UCLA faculty member with tenure or with prospects for tenure is a member of the senate, which represents the faculty in its dealing with the university administration. Because the academic senate does and should include people with widely divergent opinions on most public issues, it is of crucial importance that it confine itself to curriculum, academic standards, admissions and other matters within the mission of the university.

But apparently not everyone on the faculty sees it that way. According to the rules of the academic senate, 200 members can convene a special meeting by signing petitions. Two hundred members did so, and the meeting was held last week, at a time when many on the faculty were busy teaching or preparing for class.

My thoughts... I agree with this dissent. The UCLA vote took place at a contentious meeting of just 200 faculty members -- out of 3,300 UCLA faculty. The Academic Senate's procedural rules allow such a small number to suffice as a quorum, and this vote appears to be an abuse of that rule. A small vocal minority of the faculty instigated this emergency meeting and vote. They did not seek broad faculty input; indeed, they sought to vote as quickly as possible with their engineered quorum and mini-majority. Setting the actual resolution aside for a moment, the means employed by the UCLA faculty cabal make America's UN diplomacy look chivalrous by comparison.

However, you can't set aside the resolution's text. It goes too far, even for a liberal faculty that wanted to make a statement of conscience against the war. Unlike other resolutions, like the L.A. City Council resolution, this one makes no statement of support for our soldiers. It sharply criticizes the Administration, its war, and the means for carrying it out.

We, the faculty members of the University of California Los Angeles, say to the President of the United States, that we:

1. condemn the United States invasion of Iraq;
2. deplore the doctrine of preventive war the President has used to justify it the invasion;
3. reaffirm our commitment to addressing international conflicts through the rule of law and the United Nations;
4. oppose the establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq; and
5. call for the establishment of a post-war representative government in Iraq, answerable to the United Nations, which guarantees to Iraqis inalienable personal, political and civil rights.

I also did my undergraduate work at UCLA, graduating in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in political science. While an undergraduate, I joined Army ROTC and took classes in the Military Science department. I always felt then that I had the support of my faculty, and even their admiration, for my pursuit of an Army officer's commission after graduation. Today, I do not think I would feel the same way. If I were an undergraduate today in ROTC, with my nation at war, I would see this resolution as open hostility. Knowing my faculty openly opposed the military institution and my future career choices would have a substantial impact on me. Indeed, I would certainly feel chilled in any classes taught by the minority faculty members who voted in this resolution. A "support the troops" clause can be dismissed as empty rhetoric. But such a clause would also soften the blow for the hundreds of UCLA students, faculty and staff who have ties to the military.

Ultimately, the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education gives the University of California three missions: research, teaching and public service. I'm not sure this resolution serves any of those missions, and I think it may frustrate at least two of them. Such resolutions interfere with faculty teaching insofar as they chill debate on issues that ought to be discussed in a university. When the faculty -- who have tremendous power over junior faculty, grad students and undergraduates -- go on the record like this, it affects the speech of those they supervise or teach. I'm sure that some brave (or ignorant) students and junior faculty will speak their mind without reference to the consequences. But many will curb their speech, lest they clash too violently with these anti-war faculty.

To the extent that such resolutions add a polemical and uninformed voice to the public debate, I'm not sure they provide a public service either. Certainly some UCLA faculty know a lot about war, strategy, international affairs and other related issues. But this resolution didn't come from those faculty -- it came from the most radical members instead, who sought to stamp their views with the imprimatur of the UCLA Academic Senate. It didn't contribute anything meaningful to the debate, besides the additional voices of those who could have easily spoken as individuals instead of hijacking their faculty organization. Everyone ought to have the right to speak their mind. But I believe the UCLA faculty should use its voice with more measured judgment in the future, lest it squander the value of its collective voice on issues like this.
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:31

 
More security problems at Los Alamos

Normally, security problems at one of America's three major nuclear research labs would be a matter of concern. In the age of multinational, well-financed, apocalyptic terrorism, it's substantially more of one. Noah Shachtman has been reporting on this story for some time, and he has another update on the security problems at America's Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico. (Thanks to Instapundit for the tip)
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:37

 
A new look at Posse Comitatus?

David Morris reports in National Journal's CongressDaily that Sen. John Warner (R-Va) has indicated he may hold hearings on whether to revise the Posse Comitatus Act, a Civil War-era law which bans federal troops from civilian law enforcement. Sen. Warner, who chairs the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, "remains concerned about making sure Posse Comitatus is not limiting legislation," a spokesman said, adding that " "He remains open to re-examining and reviewing it."

Warner raised the idea of hearings in 2001 and repeated it late last year, when election results gave Republicans control of the Senate and put him in line to chair the Armed Services panel. He revisited the issue while questioning Paul McHale, assistant Defense secretary for homeland defense, during an April 8 committee hearing. While McHale said protecting the country "requires an unprecedented level of cooperation throughout all levels of government," he said Rumsfeld has decided the law should not be changed. Gen. Ralph Eberhart, commander of the military's Northern Command, took a similar position at a House Armed Services hearing in March. "We believe the act, as amended, provides the authority we need to do our job, and no modification is needed at this time," he said.

Analysis: This issue got a lot of attention in July 2002 when the New York Times spun a quote from Gen. Eberhart suggesting that this law needed revision to support some of the military's roles in anti-terrorism law. After a great deal of debate, Congress eventually added a provision to the Homeland Security Act (creating the new Department of Homeland Security) which affirmed its belief in the Posse Comitatus Act and the exceptions already in existence. That provision read:

(1) Section 1385 of title 18, United States Code (commonly known as the `Posse Comitatus Act'), prohibits the use of the Armed Forces as a posse comitatus to execute the laws except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.
* * *
(3) The Posse Comitatus Act has served the Nation well in limiting the use of the Armed Forces to enforce the law.

(4) Nevertheless, by its express terms, the Posse Comitatus Act is not a complete barrier to the use of the Armed Forces for a range of domestic purposes, including law enforcement functions, when the use of the Armed Forces is authorized by Act of Congress or the President determines that the use of the Armed Forces is required to fulfill the President's obligations under the Constitution to respond promptly in time of war, insurrection, or other serious emergency.

(5) Existing laws, including chapter 15 of title 10, United States Code (commonly known as the `Insurrection Act'), and the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.), grant the President broad powers that may be invoked in the event of domestic emergencies, including an attack against the Nation using weapons of mass destruction, and these laws specifically authorize the President to use the Armed Forces to help restore public order.

Moreover, a substantial number of exceptions already exist in Title 10 that enable the Defense Department to get around the Posse Comitatus ban if it wants to aid law enforcement in certain circumstances. Most of these exceptions were carved out during the "War on Drugs" during the 1980s, but they remain in force today. Indeed, such exceptions were used to justify the recent use of an Army surveillance plane by Washington-era police in their hunt for the DC sniper. I wrote a piece in July 2002 which laid some of these exceptions out.

Title 10 is the part of the United States Code that covers the federal military. It authorizes the domestic use of military assets to support law enforcement in numerous areas. Most of the Title 10 exceptions allowing military involvement in domestic policing were carved out during the Reagan Presidency for the so-called "War on Drugs."

These exceptions allow the military to provide specialized support to domestic law enforcement agencies - particularly in areas where domestic law enforcement agencies don't have any capability. Those areas include long-range surveillance and intelligence capabilities. Vague phrases in the statute such as "training and advising civilian law enforcement officials" or "maintenance and operation of equipment" hint at other such areas.

Indeed, the only limit which remains on military personnel is a "restriction on direct participation by military personnel" in specific police actions - defined to include only "search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity." (And even these activities can be performed if another law authorizes it.)

This leaves the field wide open for military support in other areas, such as the provision of information, use of military helicopters, surveillance capabilities, just to name a few.

Ending thoughts: I still think this is the right balance. We don't want our military (even our military police) to get into the actual law enforcement business. The line that exists today is not an especially clear one, but it does effectively prevent the military from getting into the most invasive parts of law enforcement that implicate 4th Amendment rights. Sen. Warner can hold all the hearings he wants on this bill, but I think both the Pentagon and ACLU would agree that this is one path they don't want to walk down. Enough exceptions already exist in Title 10, enabling the military to provide intelligence support, training, WMD support, and equipment when necessary to aid law enforcement. Any more exceptions would certainly swallow the rule, and would certainly destroy the American tradition of separating military and civilian law enforcement.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:39

 
After-action review on the 24 Mar 03 Apache attack

Today's Washington Times has a great report analyzing the "deep attack" on Republican Guard positions that was carried out by Apache AH-64D helicopters on the night of 24 March. Heavy ground fire turned back that attack, damaging dozens of helicopters and and causing one to crash land in a farmer's field leaving the two pilots to be captured as POWs.

The attack was designed to penetrate Iraqi-held territory, find and kill key elements of the Republican Guard divisions then facing the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and 101st Airborne Division. In theory, such attacks (combined with artillery and high-altitude bombing) decimate the enemy to the point where they can't offer any resistance once ground forces actually make contact. The practice is pejoratively known as "setting the conditions" for a ground assault. Artillery and airpower pound the enemy until the odds are so in favor of American ground forces that we can afford to launch the ground assault with low to moderate risk.

Pentagon Reporter Rowan Scarborough reports in today's Washington Times that the military has begun to pick apart this attack for the critical issues that led to its failure. This is common practice in the military -- every training exercise, operational mission and deployment gets picked apart afterwards in what's called an "after action review". Units that didn't fight this time scrutinize those "lessons learned" so they can benefit from the mistakes made, and avoid them during their first taste of combat. Scarborough focuses on one crucial mistake -- the failure to integrate the Apache attack with other services and units to suppress enemy air defense that would fire back at the Apaches.

Military officials say Pentagon testers are examining the Apache damage to check for any design flaws or potential enhancements. The Army is looking at its deep-penetration tactics.

But some military officials are pointing to the crucial mistake: The Army did not include the Air Force in the plan to provide air cover and take out antiaircraft fire.
* * *
The Longbow comes with advanced radars and targeting that allow it to hover at a safe distance from its targets. But, like any helicopter, the Apache, no matter how advanced, is susceptible to small-arms fire beneath it. That was what happened on March 24.

The real problem, military sources said, was that in a war where "jointness" permeated nearly every strategic and tactical decision, on that one particular night the Army went in alone — without Air Force or Navy air cover and no bombing prestrikes.

"I think it was a miscalculation of the effect of their capability to deal with antiaircraft and small-arms fire," said retired Air Force Gen. Thomas McInerney, a prominent advocate of air power.

The Army learned a cruel lesson. Even with its mighty arsenal and night-attack sensors, the Apache's desert-skimming tactics are vulnerable to men on the ground with guns.

Analysis: Scarborough points out that LTG Wallace and V Corps learned from this mistake and changed their tactics for future deep attacks. It's also useful to point out that the 11th Aviation Regiment got lucky -- it lost just one helicopter, and no pilots were killed in the attack. Nonetheless, one officer points out that this Apache unit was "decimated at a critical time of war." The fight against the Republican Guard might have been easier if all of the Apaches had been able to fly missions continuously during the war, having not been shot up on this mission. I'm sure that an incredible logistical effort went into getting them back in the air as soon as possible. Judging by the war's outcome, it's not clear that this would have made a difference. But it might have. And these are all issues that the Army must address in its after-action reviews of the 24 March attack.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:22

 
Will we or won't we seek bases in Iraq?
Rumsfeld squares off against the New York Times

On Sunday, the New York Times front page scooped the competition by reporting that America planned to establish a long-term military presence -- consisting of four bases -- in Iraq. The article, by Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, reported that America would retain bases it had already seized in the war -- such as the H-1 airfield in Western Iraq -- and use them both for nation-building operations and future operations in the region. Most of the article appeared to come from unnamed sources within the Bush Administration.

American military officials, in interviews this week, spoke of maintaining perhaps four bases in Iraq that could be used in the future: one at the international airport just outside Baghdad; another at Tallil, near Nasiriya in the south; the third at an isolated airstrip called H-1 in the western desert, along the old oil pipeline that runs to Jordan; and the last at the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north.

The military is already using these bases to support operations against the remnants of the old government, to deliver supplies and relief aid and for reconnaissance patrols. But as the invasion force withdraws in the months ahead and turns over control to a new Iraqi government, Pentagon officials expect to gain access to the bases in the event of some future crisis.
* * *
"There will be some kind of a long-term defense relationship with a new Iraq, similar to Afghanistan," said one senior administration official. "The scope of that has yet to be defined — whether it will be full-up operational bases, smaller forward operating bases or just plain access."

These goals do not contradict the administration's official policy of rapid withdrawal from Iraq, officials say. The United States is acutely aware that the growing American presence in the Middle East and Southwest Asia invites charges of empire-building and may create new targets for terrorists.

Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld vehemently denied this report at a Pentagon press conference, specifically calling out the New York Times report as an inaccurate story based on irresponsible leaks within the Administration.

Rumsfeld called a New York Times story that suggested such a thing "unhelpful." He said such articles left people in the Middle East with the impression that the United States is planning to occupy the country. "Not so," he said as he thumped the lectern at the Pentagon briefing studio. "It's flat false."

Rumsfeld said the United States went in to Iraq to change the regime, find and dispose of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and stop the country from threatening its neighbors. He said the subject of long-term use of the air bases has not come up during Pentagon discussions.

The dissonance between Rumsfeld's comments and the New York Times report is immediately apparent. The Washington Post reported on the reversal, but did not offer any analysis of who's truth was correct. Honestly, it's very hard to tell. Leaking "trial balloons" in Washington is somewhat like an official sport, although less so in this administration than the last. Moreover, both stories seem plausible -- the U.S. is trying to reduce its military footprint in the Middle East, and it does want to leave Saudi Arabia if possible, so it makes sense that we would seek these bases in Iraq. On the other hand, we already have a substantial presence (with few problems) in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. I think the likely outcome here is that we retain bases in Iraq for as long as the nation-building mission lasts. Of course, that could be a generation (30 years). At that point, there may be just a semantic difference between calling these permanent bases and bases dedicated to rebuilding Iraq.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:00

 
Restoring the rule of law to Iraq

UCLA professor and Islamic law expert Khaled Abou El Fadl has a great essay in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) on something I've written about before: the rule of law in Iraq. Prof. El Fadl brings a wealth of knowledge on Islamic law to the subject, as the preeminent American scholar on this subject, and he has some great descriptions of the problem and prescriptions for its remedy.

Iraq has had a long and rich jurisprudential experience. Before Saddam came to power, the country, along with Egypt, was one of the most influential in the development of the legal institutions and substantive laws of the Arabic speaking world. A high level of education was enjoyed by the Iraqi elite, and Iraqi legal thought was characterized by a lack of xenophobic nativism. Being geographically at the intersection of Arab, Persian, Kurdish, and Turkish cultures, the country has been home to both Shiite and Sunni centers of religious study.

After gaining independence from Britain in 1930, Iraq, like most Arab countries, adopted Civil Law and Criminal Law Codes, which were adapted from the French and Germanic legal systems. Iraq's personal law, however, continued to be based primarily on Islamic law, feeding a thorny relationship between Iraq's Islamic legal heritage, and the legal system borrowed from Europe. Making the situation more difficult, in Iraq, as in many other Muslim countries, there were socio-political pressures to simultaneously Islamize and modernize.

Keeping all this in mind, the evolution of Iraq's new legal system will have repercussions for the entire region. The urban centers of Iraq, Baghdad, Basra, and Kufa played central roles in the birth of Islamic jurisprudence, and they continued to play a leading role in the development of the institutions and doctrines of Islamic law. Iraq's intellectual heritage, especially as it relates to Islam's divine law, continues to carry considerable moral weight within the Muslim world.
* * *
Today, there is little doubt that many Iraqis aspire to a democratic order that would guard against the kind of abuses that they have had to endure. They must overcome the absolute jurisprudential impoverishment that they suffered under the Baath, while reclaiming their creative legacy. They must find justice while avoiding vengeance. And they must relearn how the law can be used as a shield and tool in the hands of the people rather than a sword of the state.

Analysis: I had no idea that Iraq had such a rich legal tradition. But it makes sense. Iraq, after all, can trace its legal lineage all the way back to Hammurabi's Code. Tradition matters a great deal in the law, and having such legal myths to ground Iraq's future laws in will make a big difference. It may be easier to build a new legal tradition grounded in the old; such a system will inherit the legitimacy of this old system if done correctly. Rather than simply graft an American Constitution onto the Iraqi people, we should take care to heed Prof. El Fadl's advice.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:00

 
Why casualties were so low in Iraq

USA Today provides a good analysis today of the reasons why American casualties were relatively low in Iraq. Among other things, the American strategy of sending firepower instead of manpower combined with the skill of American soldiers on the ground to produce such a lopsided victory -- with very low casualties. As I've written before, American officers have learned for two generations since Vietnam that it's better to send a bullet than a man. Rather than fight toe-to-toe slugfests, American military officers prefer to back off, pound the enemy with precision airpower and artillery, and "set the conditions" for a ground assault. This is basically what we did with respect to the Republican Guard, and it worked.

The reason for the decline in casualties: A soldier-saving approach permeates the post-Vietnam War military. The philosophy starts at the top with strategy, tactics and expensive weaponry. It extends to the battlefield with better communication, improved equipment and state-of-the-art medical care.

The result is not just military superiority but an overwhelming dominance that results in what military experts call a low loss ratio. That ratio is the number of U.S. troops lost compared with the number they kill.

This war's lopsided loss ratio has precedents, but they are rare and often long ago, German military scholar Ralph Rotte says. He cites the Battle of Omdurman in 1898 in the Sudan: The British, armed with rifles and machine guns, routed Sudanese tribesman armed mostly with swords and lances.

"The American way of war substitutes firepower for manpower," says retired Army general Bob Scales, former commandant of the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa."We expose as few troops as possible to close contact with the enemy. We do that by killing as many enemy as we can with precision weapons."

The strategy of long distance lethality saved many allied soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

posted by Phillip Carter at 08:34

 
Soldiers "do lunch" with Iraqi leaders

Guy Taylor, who's embedded in the Army's 4th Infantry Division, reports from Iraq that American officers have taken the initiative to set up lunch meetings with local leaders in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein. The meetings are designed to built rapport between the American and Iraqi leadership, and to forge cooperative agreements for future governance and security.

Similar to the daily whirl of conferences under way in Baghdad between military officials and community leaders, the meeting in Tikrit was the first of many in a town where garnering support for Operation Iraqi Freedom may prove difficult.
* * *
Soldiers (also) met yesterday with Baghdad community leaders to discuss security concerns, while the U.S.-run Information Radio station read a statement announcing an 11 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew.

Analysis: To the casual observer, these meetings may seem like innovations on the ground by the 4ID leadership. Without taking anyway from my former comrades, I think these guys are acting from the Army's playbook. At the National Training Center, Army brigade combat teams train on exactly this kind of thing during the 5 days before they head into the maneuver box. There, Army officers learn to meet with local leaders, establish rapport, trade favors, and build the kind of civil-military relationship necessary to bridge the gap between two cultures. Specifically, when I went through this training experience I learned how to build liaison with local police to ferret out terrorists and supporters in the host-nation population. I imagine that's exactly what's going on now, in Tikrit and Baghdad. Even if Washington and Baghdad don't see eye-to-eye, junior officers can still make this happen at their level, where American lieutenants and captains talk to Iraqi lieutenants and captains.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:28

 
Reducing the size of America's footprint in the Middle East

Esther Schrader reported in Sunday's Los Angeles Times about some interesting plans within the Bush Administration to reduce the American presence in the Middle East. The plans follow in the wake of America's victory over Iraq, which until now, has provided the reason for a constant U.S. presence in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey.

Last week's quiet removal of 30 of the 80 fighter jets and almost half the 4,500 personnel from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, where the U.S. has maintained thousands of troops since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, is just the beginning, officials said.

Within months, the Pentagon plans to close down most of its operations at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, leaving only a skeleton crew, and to move most of its aircraft and troops out of Qatar and Oman.

The plans, which are preliminary and subject to review, are a response to pressure from Arab governments incensed by the U.S. military buildup in the region over the last 12 years, the financial burden of maintaining vast numbers of troops overseas and the strain it has caused for families and military readiness.

Analysis: This is an extremely important development on so many levels. In one sense, it may seem like a capitulation to Arab anti-American sentiment, particularly the calls by Osama Bin Laden for America's expulsion from Saudi Arabia. On another level, this could be a calculated move by the United States to reduce its connections to the Middle East in order to fence American interests from that turbulent region. If followed by moves to reduce American reliance on fossil fuels (especially those from the Middle East), this could be a very positive long-term development. The wild card in the deck is the Israel/Palestine issue. America has to seize this opportunity now to push a peace process forward, or else that region will form the next flashpoint for conflict in the region. Until now, American troops in the region have had a stabilizing effect on that conflict, especially on the Israelis. Pulling American soldiers out of these countries may destabilize the region, and we must counteract that trend with diplomacy and force as necessary.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:20

 
Good after action review

William Branigan of the Washington Post traveled with the 3rd Infantry Division during their advance to Baghdad. Looking back on that campaign, he writes about three pivotal engagements that sealed the U.S. victory over Iraq.

Looking back on the battles, commanders said they realized that in the irregular Iraqi forces, they faced a more committed enemy than they had seen before, more persistent than the Republican Guard divisions that were supposed to be the most potent in the Iraqi defenses. They also saw signs of a strategy based on the success of Somali militiamen against Army Rangers a decade earlier: cut off the attacking U.S. troops from behind, isolate them on city streets and pour in reinforcements to inflict maximum casualties.

But this time the U.S. troops had armor, and it proved more than a match for the ubiquitous rocket-propelled grenade, the Hussein loyalists' weapon of choice. The supply line held, and the swarming irregulars were beaten back by superior firepower. Months of training for urban combat paid off.

"That was the whole turning point of the war right there," said Maj. Roger Shuck, operations chief of the 3rd Battalion, 15th Regiment, of the division's 2nd Brigade. "This mission is the one that cut the snake in half. Once this happened, everything just started crumbling and falling."

This is the story of the battles of Objectives Moe, Larry and Curly, the highway junctions that U.S. planners, in a lighter moment, named for the Three Stooges.

Looks like good book material to me... I think we're going to see a lot of Black Hawk Down-style books that come out of this war, especially from the reporters who were embedded with the infantry who fought their way into Baghdad.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:12

 
Rumsfeld after the war

The New York Times and the Washington Post each feature a post-war look at Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in their Sunday editions. Each article says a lot of the same things -- that Rumsfeld was on his way out before Sept. 11, that he's been a great wartime "SecDef" (kind of like a wartime "consigliere" in Puzo's Godfather novel), that he's fought the media as well as the enemy, and that he's become the face of American foreign policy. Each article draws different conclusions, however, about Rumsfeld's ability to politically capitalize on his victories abroad. Definitely worth a read.

After two years in office, he has his own people in top slots across most of the military establishment. He has triumphed in a military success in Iraq that featured an audacious war plan he helped to shape. He also looms large outside the Pentagon, injecting himself far more into intelligence matters than his predecessors and playing an unusually large role in shaping Bush administration foreign policy. He even has turned around a sour relationship with Congress.

He now is in position as never before to reshape the U.S. military along the lines he has talked about since taking office, "transforming" it into a more agile and precise force built not around firepower but around information, and willing to take risks to succeed...

posted by Phillip Carter at 23:36

 
A welcome the size of Texas

America welcomed seven men and women home today from the war who, until recently, were prisoners of the Hussein regime. The first reports indicate all seven fought -- and served in captivity -- with distinction. A friend of mine serves in 1-227 Aviation with the two captured pilots, and I'm sure his wife (also a friend) was there at the Hood Army Airfield in Killeen to welcome them home. I wish I could've been there too. Massive crowds also met the soldiers from Fort Bliss who returned home, as the AP reports:

Thousands of well-wishers hoisted American flags and burst into cheers as the C-17 plane landed on a wind-swept runway. Two servicemen poked their heads through a hatch on top of the plane, holding an American flag and waving to the crowd as the plane taxied along the tarmac.

Update: Fort Hood is just a stone's throw away from Crawford, Texas, where President Bush has his Texas ranch. The AP also reports that President Bush has plans to spend Easter Sunday on Fort Hood, the largest military installation in the United States, and to meet with the two pilots just returned from Iraq. I think that's a fitting tribute by this commander-in-chief to the men he's sent into harm's way.
posted by Phillip Carter at 23:33

 
First seeds of democracy: a protest in Baghdad

The Washington Post and others report today on a large protest in the streets of Baghdad against the United States presence. Specifically, the protesters want a Muslim government to take the reins of Iraq as quickly as possible.

The protesters, who were led by a well-known Sunni scholar, began their march at one of Baghdad's largest Sunni mosques after Friday prayers. They called on U.S. troops to leave quickly and for a new government to be based on Islamic laws. Although those demands appeared to reflect growing frustration with the pace of U.S. aid and reconstruction programs in Iraq, they also were overtures to Shiite leaders, who have made similar requests, and an indication of how Islamic politics is starting to fill the political vacuum left by Hussein's downfall.

Among the placards carried by some of the approximately 10,000 marchers were two claiming to represent the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Islamic activist movement in the Arab world. It was the first time the Brotherhood, a Muslim revivalist group that is banned in Egypt and Syria, has appeared on the public stage in Iraq.

Analysis: Some have already seized on this as more evidence of American imperialism. They would be wrong. A classmate of mine with extensive State Department experience thinks, as do I, that this is the best sign yet of a new day in Iraq. Just days after the demise of Hussein's regime, we're seeing protests in Baghdad that seem more like Berkeley or Santa Monica. (Next thing you know, Sean Penn will fly back to Baghdad to join the protests) Who knew the Iraqis had such a democratic spirit? Who knew these people would resort so quickly to the sort of free speech we cherish in America? I think we ought to heed the popular sentiment in Iraq and let this nation create its own institutions of governance in the very-near future. Notwithstanding that, I think this is an incredibly positive development. It's quite stunning that the Iraqi people would embrace freedom this quickly. Once they've had the first taste of such freedom, I think they will never embrace (or accept) tyranny again.

Update: Mark Kleiman points out some reasons why I might be naively rushing to judgment on the progress of Iraqi democracy. Of course, it's too early to tell whether either one of us is right. He's got a point though -- national self-determination is not necessarily a good thing, particularly in this part of the world.

Well, the Iranians had a taste of freedom in overthrowing the Shah, but it turned out that the mullahs were able to impose another, and far nastier, tyranny instead. There's every reason to think that Iraq is less ready for democracy than Iran was, and yet if Iran manages to throw off its theocracy in the next couple of years, that will mean a quarter-century between the first taste of freedom and a full meal.

At least I'm not alone in my optimism... President Bush attended Easter services this morning at the 4th Infantry Division Memorial Chapel on Fort Hood in Texas. While there, he met the two helicopter pilots recently recently held as POWs by Iraq, and scores of military families with loved ones currently in Iraq. After the services, President Bush spoke to the assembled press, where he had this to say:

Q Mr. President, there have been some anti-U.S. demonstrations stirred up by religious leaders in Iraq. Are you worried that's going to hurt the rebuilding effort?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm not worried. Freedom is beautiful, and when people are free, they express their opinions. You know, they couldn't express their opinions before we came, now they can. I've always said democracy is going to be hard. It's not easy to go from being enslaved to being free. But it's going to happen, because the basic instincts of mankind is to be free. They want to be free. And so, sure, there's going to be people expressing their opinions, and we welcome that, just like here in America people can express their opinion.

posted by Phillip Carter at 10:06

 
CSC DynCorp wins law & order contract for Iraq

USAID awarded a major contract on Friday to DynCorp, a subsidary of Computer Sciences Corp., for the creation of law enforcement and judicial agencies in Iraq. DynCorp has a long history of contracting with the Pentagon, including some very interesting (and secretive) contracts for security missions in Colombia and elsewhere.

Under the contract, DynCorp will provide technical advisers with 10 years of law enforcement, corrections and judicial experience, including two years in specialized areas such as police training, crime scene investigation, border security, traffic accident investigation, corrections and customs.

Advisers will work with Iraqi criminal justice organizations at the national, provincial and municipal levels to assess threats to public order and mentor personnel at all levels of the Iraqi legal system.

Analysis: When I saw the first leak of this story by Mark Fineman in Thursday's Los Angeles Times, I was only surprised that it took so long to award this contract. Recent experience has shown that law & order is absolutely critical to the building of all other institutions -- economic, infrastructural, political, and social. Until people feel safe to walk their streets, they will not feel safe to do business or interact with one another, particularly in the wake of a repressive dictatorship. DynCorp has experience in this area. But what will make the difference is who they actually hire to do the job. A company spokesman said they have already received a flood of applications from police officers around the country to do this mission. It's critical that DynCorp select the best of those officers, especially the ones with some higher education, to rebuild the law enforcement apparatus in Iraq. Similarly, DynCorp must take care to select the best attorneys -- liberal and conservative -- to build lasting institutions of law in Iraq. This will have implications for every other area of reconstruction we undertake in this war-torn nation.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:58

 
The human side of war

Los Angeles Times reporter Geoffrey Mohan has an eloquent "Column One" piece on today's front page that recounts the passage of Cyclone Company, 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment through combat. Mohan pulls no punches as he tells these men's (there are no women in a tank company) stories, from the company commander down to his junior soldiers. Like war, Mohan's story has no happy ending -- except that these young American men accomplished their mission and lived to tell their stories.

For some of the younger men of Cyclone Company, it is hard to piece together war memories into a coherent story. "Did this look like a war to you?" asked Spc. Royce Arcay, 26. "I've never been to a war, but it sure didn't seem like what they put on TV.... It's just kind of weird looking at dead bodies. They don't look real. I never thought I'd see dead bodies like that, or body parts."

Bodies killed by the powerful 120-millimeter main guns of an Abrams M-1A1 tank, or its mounted machine guns, don't lie in quiet repose with neat red circles for wounds. They are mangled, blown apart and burned beyond recognition.

Tank crews often could not escape their handiwork. Some of the Iraqis they killed lay pinned in blasted vehicles that the Americans used as roadblocks. Day and night, tank crews stood guard just yards away. On one bridge in Baghdad, a dead Iraqi soldier pinned in a jeep became known as "Mr. Bubble-Guts," a macabre nickname that seemed to help some get by the horror of his daily decay.

It didn't work for Lott. "I'm going to have nightmares," he said. "Last night I kept dreaming that I wanted to wake up, but I went from dream to dream to dream. When we're getting on that plane, do you know how that's going to feel? Just getting on the plane, going home?"

posted by Phillip Carter at 10:13

 
Pentagon picks lead attorneys for Al Qaeda tribunals

The Washington Times reports today that the Pentagon is one major step closer to starting the military tribunals authorized by President Bush in his infamous 13 Nov 01 Executive Order.

Army Col. Frederick L. Borch III is the top contender to lead the prosecution staff, and Air Force Col. Willie A. Gunn is in line to be chief defense counsel, Legal Times reported this week. Line prosecutors, defense lawyers and trial judges will be drawn from all uniformed services, although defendants may have private attorneys.
* * *
Both Col. Borch and Col. Gunn have long held leadership roles in the military justice system, and neither spoke to reporters.

Col. Borch is deputy chairman of international law at the Naval War College and taught at the Army Judge Advocate General's School in Charlottesville. He graduated from University of North Carolina law school and has a master's degree in law from the University of Brussels.

Col. Gunn, who holds law degrees from Harvard and George Washington universities, supervised all Air Force defense counsels for the central United States for two years before his latest assignment at the Pentagon as executive assistant to the Air Force judge advocate general.

Analysis: The personnel piece is one of the major ones which has been missing from the puzzle until now. The Pentagon has its procedural rules in place; it also has specific "crimes and elements" in place according to the Wall Street Journal. Presumably, it has a location set up in Guantanamo near where these prisoners are being held. And it has the people in the respective military services who can fall in on this operation as attorneys, support staff, public-affairs staff, and security. I think we'll see these tribunals in the next 6 months, because all the major pieces are pretty much in place. All that remains is the decision to actually start the tribunals, a decision which must come from the White House.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:52

 
America's quiet professionals rebuild Iraq one town at a time

James Dao has a great piece in the New York Times today on an Army Special Forces "A Team" that's working to rebuild the small town of Diwaniya, Iraq. Since the end of the Cold War, the "Green Berets" have conducted hundreds of such missions around the world, acting as the muscular arms of American foreign policy. Whether they are building armies for other nations (called "foreign internal defense") or conducting raids behind enemy lines (called "direct action"), these teams almost always work in secrecy, garnering no headlines. However, they do important work, as reported in The Mission by Dana Priest and now by James Dao in The Times.

It is a battle against chaos instead of bullets. The Green Berets have had to wade into angry crowds. They have mediated between rival tribes locked in blood feuds. They have tried to hold together the city's thin threads of social order, not always with success.

Today, a man was killed when the bodyguards of a sheik from another city fired into a crowd of 200 men who were protesting the sheik's presence at a community meeting. Soldiers arrested 16 of the bodyguards and detained the sheik, drawing loud applause from the crowd. But it was a setback for the team, which had worked closely with the sheik, a leader of the Jabour tribe.

"Just when things looked like they were going good, we have a power struggle in town," said the Special Forces team leader, a 32-year-old captain. Rules imposed by the military bar identification of the leader, or any members of his team.

There is a crisis like this almost every day. The team has become the de facto center of Diwaniya's government, which has all but ceased to function. It is a role the Green Berets have played before, in villages and towns in Vietnam and elsewhere.

posted by Phillip Carter at 08:34

 
Civil-military relations in the age of the armchair general

Retired Colonel and West Point Professor Don Snider has a great column in today's Chicago Tribune on the state of civil-military relations after the war on Iraq. There has been much debate on this subject since President Clinton took office in 1993. His administration was sharply criticized by many (in and out of uniform) for its handling of the gays in the military issue and Somalia. After those episodes, the Clinton Administration took a "hands off" approach to running the Pentagon. President Bush's administration has swung the other way, leading the military with a much firmer hand that has caused friction at many points since January 2001. Snider's column leaps into the fray and discusses the role played by retired officers -- like retired-Gen. Barry McCaffrey -- in the civil-military relations during Gulf War II.

So, does this group of retirees speak for the military? Should the public accept the retired officers as authoritative? Is it retired McCaffrey, et. al. or active-duty Myers and current military leaders? Given the degree to which they disagree, it obviously can't be both. We should be deadly serious about the answer to this question, because it touches on one of the greatest treasures of the Republic.

The American civil-military relationship, based on the Constitution and legislation over the two succeeding centuries, has established a clear set of principles to guide policymaking for national security, and thus roles and responsibilities for military and civilian leaders. The principles are easy: The values and preferences of the American people are supreme to those of the military who protect them; and, final decisions in all cases are to be made by duly constituted civilian authority--civilian "control" of the military is the norm.

Implementing these principles has proven much more difficult...

Definitely worth a read...
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:22

 
Lingering questions at the end of the war

Slate’s Fred Kaplan has some provocative questions for the Pentagon and CENTCOM in the wake of our successful campaign in Iraq. I think these questions are important for two main reasons. First, we owe some transparency to the world so that they can see our motives were pure, and that American foreign policy is not imperialistic. Second, our military (and its civilian leadership) must answer “after action review” questions like these in order to learn from this war – and get better for the next one.

I'm not sure if or when the Pentagon will answer these questions. I have some insight into a few of them though, and would like to offer what I think are the likely answers to these questions.

1. "What did happen between the first and second week of the war?" Clearly, the U.S. adjusted its plan in response to the tactics employed by Iraqi soldiers as they faced American ground forces. We took a more deliberate approach in response to their guerilla tactics, taking to care to clear areas instead of simply securing them. We also took the time to pound the Republican Guard divisions and "set the conditions" for our assault before engaging in a toe-to-toe slugfest. LTG William Wallace's infamous quote that "The enemy we're fighting is a bit different from the one we war-gamed against..." will go down in history, not so much because it was said, but because the U.S. noticed this fact and reacted to it faster than the Iraqis could react themselves.

2. "...the Karbala Gap turned out to be the proverbial cakewalk. Or at least there were no reports of fighting. What happened? Did the U.S. troops feign an advance to draw out the Iraqis, then blast them with artillery and airstrikes?" Probably. Again, why fight the Iraqi's "vaunted" Republican Guard in a head-to-head tank fight if you have aircraft and artillery that can do the job instead? In economic terms, American military strategy always seeks to substitute capital for manpower when possible -- send a bullet, not a man. (See discussion of "shaping operations" in Army doctrine) Or in some cases, send a precision-guided munition, not a tank round. More details will emerge when our soldiers come home and go through extensive debriefing by the Center for Army Lessons Learned. I anxiously await those reports.

3. "Given how relatively easily the 3rd Infantry and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force barreled into Baghdad, just what was the Army's 4th Infantry Division slated to do in this war?" I'm not sure I agree with the "relatively easy" part; there wasn't much that was easy about it. That said, I think the 4th Infantry Division would have made the assault easier. If they were applying pressure from the north, we might not have dropped the 173rd Airborne Brigade into Northern Iraq. In doing so, we took a huge operational risk by putting those light infantry on the ground without a substantial armored or mechanized force. 4ID probably would have moved in from the north, taken Mosul and Tikrit, and applied pressure on Baghdad from the north. 4ID might have also forced a redeployment of Republican Guard from the south of the city, taking forces away from the mix that fought 3ID and the Marines as they advanced to the city.

4. "Why weren't U.S. troops ordered to stop looters or guard more ministries, hospitals, and museums?" Mr. Kaplan thinks we could have airlifted hundreds or thousands of MPs to Baghdad after taking the city. Maybe... but not likely. The U.S. military is fairly stretched right now, and we didn't have large numbers of soldiers ready for this kind of mission. (Maybe we should have) As far as MPs go, they're in short supply, and maybe that's something to look at too as we adjust the Army's force structure for the nation-building mission it's now going to be shouldered with for the forseeable future. The answer here boils down to priorities. We had a finite number of boots on the ground. Security and force protection were the top priorities; security of critical infrastructure and other key buildings came before the hospitals, ministries and museums. Maybe this formula should be adjusted, but I think the military's calculus was more right than Mr. Kaplan gives them credit for. In choosing between critical infrastructure (like a water storage site) and a museum, I think you have to secure the infrastructure first.

5. "The Pentagon never likes to discuss my fifth question, but at some point, somebody is going to have to assess civilian casualties." Yes. This is going to be a really hard question for a lot of reasons. But we must answer it, if for no reason than this will have significant ramifications for post-war reconstruction. Our air strategy deliberatively avoided critical civilian infrastructure and our bombing did not hit major residential areas, but there were doubtless many civilian casualties as we fought up from Kuwait. Some accounting is necessary.

6. "Question 6 is a geeky military one. How big a role did the high-tech drones play in this war? ... to what degree were the targets spotted from the air—and to what degree by soldiers or special-operations forces, old-fashioned boots-on-the-ground human beings? I have no idea what the answer is here, but it's more than an academic question. The drones in question were acquired for billions of dollars, and the entire future of military transformation hinges on how well this strategy worked in Iraq. Defense contractors stand to win or lose billions of dollars from the way we draw lessons from this war. For more on this answer, see this piece by Eric Schmitt in the April 18 New York Times. (Thanks to DefenseTech for the tip)

7. "Saddam never did fire Scuds, at Israel or anyplace else. Was this because special ops found missiles and took them out? Or was it because Saddam never had any Scuds to begin with?" As Mr. Kaplan writes, this is a very secretive area. Until this mission is complete, I don't think we'll see much coming out of the Pentagon because it might compromise the units still conducting such missions in Iraq. We know that Army Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Air Force combat controllers and PJs, and Marine reconnaissance units all worked inside Iraq before and during the war. The Pentagon said that this effort was the largest use of special operations forces in history. I look forward to reading the accounts of their exploits.

8. "Did Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction?" Your guess is as good as mine. I think he had them, because of Secretary Powell's infamous briefing to the UN before the war and because I don't think we would have launched this war without some pretty good proof. Phil's opinion is that we ought to invite UNSCOM back into Iraq to resume its inspections ASAP. Without the Iraqi government playing shell game, they ought to be able to find them. Then again, maybe we should use American soldiers for the inspection mission. That way, we would control the inspection process, but we would also be accountable for its results.
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:59

 
USAID awards major contract to Bechtel

The Bush Administration awarded Bechtel Corporation a major contract today for the reconstruction of Iraq. Initially, the contract is worth just $34.6 million for initial planning and surveys of the situation, but it could bloom to as much as $680 million over the next 18 months. As the prime contractor, Bechtel is expected to make heavy use of subcontractors for specialized needs it identifies in its initial survey. Bechtel has a history of working with the government on major projects, including the Hoover Dam and Channel Tunnel between Britain and France. According to USAID:

The contract calls for the repair, rehabilitation or reconstruction of vital elements of Iraq's infrastructure. This includes assessment and repair of power generation facilities, electrical grids, municipal water systems and sewage systems. There is also a provision in the contract for the rehabilitation or repair of airport facilities, and the dredging, repair and upgrading of the Umm Qasr seaport, in close cooperation with other USAID contractors working in those sectors. The contract may also involve responsibility for the repair and reconstruction of hospitals, schools, selected ministry buildings and major irrigation structures, as well as restoration of essential transport links. It is anticipated that Bechtel will work through subcontractors on a number of these tasks after identifying specific needs. Through all of its activities, it will also engage the Iraqi population and work to build local capacity.

The capital construction contract is part of USAID's planned reconstruction assistance to the Iraqi people, aimed at helping maintain stability, ensure the delivery of essential services, and facilitate economic recovery. This is one of eight initial requests for proposals (RFPs) issued by USAID as part of its overall relief and reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

Don't get sticker shock yet... $680 million is just the start. This reconstruction effort is going to cost a lot more than that. I can't begin to list all the essential pieces of infrastructure that must be rebuilt in Iraq for that nation to join the world economy. Suffice to say, it's not as easy as flipping a switch and flooding that country with dollars. The costs of policing and rebuilding Iraq will rise into the tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 years -- and we will be in Iraq for at least that long. I think there's a cogent argument to be made that such money would be better spent on domestic projects inside the U.S., such as our own schools. But we have made the national decision to bear this burden, and we must now follow through on that decision.

PS: This is a big contract. But think of all the things that aren't included in the Bechtel contract. Where, for example, is the money for a new legal system? Okay, maybe I'm a self-interested law student looking for my profession. But seriously... Iraq will need a new legal system constructed from the ground up, starting with its Constitution. (See this interesting essay by Michael Dorf on that subject) And as we know, legal systems aren't cheap. Constructing courts, training attorneys, judges, administrators, police, etc, will cost a lot of money. (It's a fair bet that Iraq has plenty of police stations and prisons already.) Sending a delegation from the Justice Department and/or Art. III courts to supervise that mission will also cost money. This is just one example -- I think we're going to see an awful lot being spent on this mission in the future.
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:19

 
More on Abu Abbas

A diligent reader (and smart attorney) wrote to remind me that the ICC would in fact be a poorer choice than I opined yesterday for Abu Abbas, the Achille Lauro hijacker we captured in Baghdad. He writes:

"The ICC isn't an option, for several reasons. 1) its jurisdiction began July 1, 2002, so a 1985 crime isn't covered. 2) it is a court of last resort and can only initiate an action if a national court can't or won't act. Since Italy has acted against Abbas, and the US probably will as well, there's really no basis for ICC to do anything. 3) it's unclear whether the hijacking and murder would fall under ICC jurisdiction, which is limited to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide."

My reader's first two points are certainly accurate as a matter of law. The third is open to interpretation. Terrorism may be a war crime, depending on one's reading of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions and other international covenants on the laws of war. Specifically, the hijacking of a civilian ship may be a war crime under various piracy treaties and laws of the sea (I'm no expert on admiralty law though). Thus, if this crime were committed today, and no state asserted jurisdiction, the terrorists could be tried by the ICC under the Rome Treaty.

For some really good analysis of this issue, see today's piece in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) by Gary Fields. This piece breaks down some of the legal issues, in sequence, and clarifies some of the jurisdictional mud on the subject.

Mr. Abbas's detention is raising questions about U.S. jurisdiction, however, and already pressure is mounting for his release. Italy says it will seek his extradition on the hijacking charges, for which he was convicted in that country in absentia. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority demanded his release, saying his detention violates the 1995 Oslo Middle East peace agreement that gives Palestinian activists and leaders immunity for acts that occurred before the agreement was negotiated in 1993.

Legal experts suggest that Italy, which supported the U.S. campaign in Iraq but didn't take part, would appear to have the strongest claim to him, and State Department spokesman Philip Reeker says Washington and Rome are in talks on how to resolve the matter. The Italian justice minister said his government has been pursuing Mr. Abbas actively, and asked Egypt and Jordan in recent months for his extradition when Rome believed he may have been in those countries.

Mr. Reeker and other officials contend that the U.S., isn't bound by the Oslo accords' immunity grant. But with a revival of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the works, the U.S. cannot afford to totally dismiss the PLO's claims.
* * *
A Justice Department official said lawyers there are trying to determine a course of action. Several people were also detained with him in the raid, in which authorities found forged passports and other documents, and weapons, which could provide the basis for some U.S. legal action.

Currently, though, there aren't any outstanding U.S. indictments against Mr. Abbas, although he was involved in the killing of a U.S. citizen, Leon Klinghoffer, in the Achille Lauro attack. While an arrest warrant was issued for him after the murder, the U.S. didn't indict Mr. Abbas because no federal statutes involving U.S. citizens murdered abroad applied at the time. Congress passed such a law in 1986, inspired by the killing of Mr. Klinghoffer.

Some thoughts... I think the best venue to try Mr. Abbas would be a federal district court in the United States, for a number of reasons. First, no court in the world offers the procedural protections of a U.S. criminal court, and it will be objectively fair. Second, this man killed a U.S. citizen, and it's a fairly settled principle of international law that a nation has the right to protect its citizens abroad with its laws. Third, as a conceptual matter, terrorism exists on the seam of law and war. Some acts look more like crime (e.g. the raising of terrorist funds in the United States), while some acts look more like war (e.g. the World Trade Center attack). We ought to treat this hijacking as a matter of law -- not war -- and try this man as a criminal. The end result may be the same -- I think he can still be given the death penalty under the federal murder statute. However, there is are procedural and political benefits to using a system that's tried and true, with recent precedent for the fair trial and execution of terrorists (e.g. Tim McVeigh).
posted by Phillip Carter at 10:11

 
Admin notes...
1. Intel Dump will resume its regular coverage now as the war shifts into its next phase. Instead of exclusively focusing on the war, as I largely did for the past 4 weeks, I will now return to issues of both law and war. Over the next few months, I will probably focus back on issues of law and terrorism. I have been selected to teach a seminar for UCLA undergraduates next year on American Law & Terrorism; I plan to focus the majority of my academic attention on that subject during the next several months.
2. Final exams are approaching for me at the law school, so Intel Dump will draw down to less frequent posts over the next three weeks until May 7. Please continue to tune in regularly, but I can't promise the same tempo of 5-10 posts/day that I've been averaging until now.
3. Please check out the blogs I've listed on my blogroll for more good analysis and commentary on current events. For war coverage in particular, I recommend Command Post, Winds of Change, DefenseTech, SGT Stryker and LT Smash.
posted by Phillip Carter at 16:57

 
Homeland security department fills key civil liberties post

The Washington Post reports that the Bush Administration has appointed Nuala O'Connor Kelly, a 34-year-old attorney formerly of ad giant DoubleClick, to be the "privacy czar" in the new Department of Homeland Security. The article was vague on details, but I think this is the position created in the new department under Secretary Tom Ridge to oversee protection of civil rights and civil liberties. In November 2002, I guessed that an attorney would be appointed to this position, though that certainly wasn't a prerequisite in the Homeland Security Act. Kelly currently works for the Department of Commerce as an attorney, but before that, she helped DoubleClick navigate some troubled waters on issues of user data storage.
posted by Phillip Carter at 16:53

 
1st Cav cut from deployment orders?

While reading the transcript of yesterday's Pentagon press conference, I noticed that the Secretary inadvertently mentioned a cut in the troop deployment list to Iraq.

Q: Mr. Secretary, you said that you had taken one element, one unit out of the queue to replace or reinforce the troops you now have. Can you describe your evolving philosophy of the kind of forces you now want in? It would seem that heavy armor is less and less necessary. So why are -- what have you taken out of the queue, and sort of what is your thinking at this moment as you begin to reassess what is in that queue and what you may need in terms of the type of things?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, this is a process that involves the Central Command, and they make an assessment of what they see on the ground and what they think they need, and then they discuss it with General Myers and with me. And over a period of days, we discuss the various elements of it. One element is how many foreign forces do we think we're going to be able to attract to come in and give us some assistance, because that affects the number of U.S. forces that we need. What's the mix of forces you need -- land, sea, air? What are the kinds of capabilities? Do you need heavy tanks or do you need people more engaged in peacekeeping-type activities?

And as the nature of the conflict winds down, which it most assuredly is, the need for certain types of things declines and the need for other types of things increases. And it is something that we talk about each day. We've been doing it almost continuously for some months now, first as to what ought to go in, and then what ought to come out. And it's not easy. There is no formula for it, and it depends on changing circumstances almost from day to day.

Q: What have you removed from the queue?

SEC. RUMSFELD: (Aside) Do we -- do we -- announced anything?

Q: First Cavalry?

GEN. MYERS: I don't know, have we announced --

STAFF: First Cav acknowledged they had a deployment order, sir, from previously.

SEC. RUMSFELD: They had an earlier deployment order and that they no longer do.

STAFF: That hasn't been --

SEC. RUMSFELD: That hasn't been announced? Then we'll not announce that. (Laughter.)

Yes? (Laughs.)

Analysis: Wow. This is big. 1st Cav is a really heavy division that could be really useful in the Gulf if we need more boots on the ground to do peacekeeping. Granted, it's stuck in Texas and it's also stuck in the same Force XXI digitization process that the 4th Infantry Division just completed. But it still has enormous mission capability. If this inadvertent statement is true, then we're holding an awfully big force in reserve, possibly for use in other parts of the world. Or maybe we're moving forward with a lighter plan for the post-war occupation, or one that incorporates more allied support. More to follow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:37

 
Civilian casualties and the Pentagon

Oxblog has a provocative note on civilian casualties and the Pentagon, as well as an article by Oxblog proprietor Josh Chafetz that ran today on the Weekly Standard's website. This issue is going to become big in the next several weeks and months, especially in the international communities that didn't support the war to begin with (e.g. the international human-rights community). NGOs are almost assuredly on the ground right now, trying to assess damage and estimate casualties. It's in their interest to inflate the numbers because it will help generate sympathy and donations, as well as general ill will towards the United States. It's in our interest to count the casualties right because that has all sorts of practical implications for nation building down the road.

Moreover, future U.S. use of military force will be hamstrung by the precedent of killing it has set in Gulf War II. If the U.S. can positively establish that it did, in fact, discriminate between civilians and combatants, its future use of force will be more acceptable. Second, if the U.S. can positively demonstrate that it complied with the principle of "proportionality" and only bombed as much as necessary to accomplish specific effects, its future use of force will be more acceptable. These studies have major future implications, and the Pentagon ought to look at its long-term self interest as well as its short-term self interest in spinning the issue.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:49

 
Winds of Change on Passover: Joe Katzman has some interesting thoughts on the Jewish Passover tradition today on his weblog, and its applicability to the current situation in Iraq. The analogy has merit -- the ancient story of Jewish exodus from Egypt carries lessons for all modern day instances of oppression and liberation. Thanks Joe for giving me something to talk about with my family this Friday at our seder.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:36

 
Body armor keeps casualties low

Noah Shachtman links to an interesting AP story on the role of body armor in keeping American casualties low in the war on Iraq. Nearly all American soldiers and Marines went into combat with newer, lightweight armor that had been developed, tested and fielded since the military's experience in Gulf War I and Somalia.

"Hands down, body armor is much more effective at saving lives than any medicine we've brought to the battlefield," said Col. Clifford Cloonan, a doctor at Walter Reed Army Medical Center near Washington.

Battelle worked with military scientists to lighten the body armor after soldiers who removed 8- to 12-pound protective chest plates were wounded or killed in the 1990s. The new plates, inserted in armor worn like a vest, weigh about 4 pounds each.

"We're getting a lot of information on `saves,' people being shot," said Jim Mackiewicz, a Marine Corps leader at the Army's Natick Laboratory in Massachusetts, where the new armor was developed in 1999. "A lot of guys are getting hit and don't even know it. Once they stop, they see they take a hit," Mackiewicz added.

As of Saturday, the Pentagon said, 115 U.S. troops and 31 British troops had died in combat, in contrast with thousands of military and civilian Iraqi casualties.

"Most of those troops who die in combat die of hemorrhage caused by the large blood vessels in the chest," said Army surgeon Col. David Burris at Walter Reed. "If you can protect the head and chest, it really helps."

Exploding land mines, artillery shells and hand grenades are likely to cause most U.S. combat deaths, Cloonan said. There are few torso wounds among military members being treated at Walter Reed, Burris said. Arm or leg wounds are more common.

The improved armor first saw extensive use in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The vests provide basic protection with up to 30 layers of Kevlar webbing and a related material designed to stop 9mm rounds. Battelle researchers at Natick developed the ceramic material for the plates that slip into pouches in front and back of the vest, adding protection against assault-rifle rounds. Weight is crucial to getting troops to wear the protection. Older models weighed 25 pounds.

One more thing... There something else that the article hints at but leaves out: the discipline of American soldiers and Marines in combat to wear this stuff. That's the mark of a true professional soldier, and something I'm not sure you'd see in a less well-trained or well-led force. American soldiers train hard, do lots of PT, and condition themselves to wear this stuff in peacetime training. In war, soldiers wear the gear because sergeants and officers tell them to, and because they know it's in their self-interest. The same logic applies to chemical-protective gear and other stuff -- the weight adds up. In a lesser force, such as a conscription-based force without a professional corps of sergeants, this discipline tends to break down. The human of dimension of war is something we should never forget. Giving the soldiers the gear is one thing; training soldiers to use it is another; leading them to wear it in combat is another.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:32

 
4ID joins the fight... finally

After waiting for months in the states and watching their equipment float off the coast of Turkey for weeks, soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division today made contact with the enemy somewhere north of Baghdad. According to an embedded reporter from the Associated Press, elements of the 1st "Raider" Brigade (my old unit) encountered paramilitaries while securing an airfield. The enemy force was tiny in comparison to the armored fist of the Raider Brigade -- 2 armored battalions of 44 tanks each and 1 mechanized infantry battalion of 44 Bradleys. Nonetheless, Col. Don Campbell wasn't taking any chances in first combat mission.

''Mostly we're just destroying their equipment as we secure the airfield,'' said Col. Don Campbell, commander of the 4th Infantry's 1st Brigade. As of midday, he said, U.S. forces had destroyed a truck, three anti-aircraft guns and two surface-to-air missile systems near the airfield. ''We've encountered six to eight paramilitaries, but we think there will be more when we get to the airfield,'' Campbell added.

The fighting came after elements of the 4th pushed through Baghdad overnight and set up near the airfield after 40 straight hours on the road from southern Iraq. Additional support about 20 tanks and 35 Bradley fighting vehicles was en route to the airstrip after the Iraqis began shooting at Americans clearing the field.

No American casualties were reported in the skirmishes.

Analysis: It's very eerie to see my former unit go into combat without me. I know a lot of the captains and sergeants in the Raider Brigade, as well as the division headquarters and MP company. They are unbelievably professional and good at what they do. I sure wouldn't want to be an Iraqi waiting in his hole for 4ID to come knocking.

If I were calling the shots... I'd use the fresh troops from 4ID to police the streets of Baghdad. Despite their long wait in Texas, these units just arrived in Kuwait and didn't sit through 8 months in the desert before fighting for 3+ weeks. As such, they're going to be a lot safer, a lot more deliberative, and a lot more intelligent about basic decisions. Safety incidents have already claimed several soldiers' lives this week, and 4ID's soldiers are likely to be a lot more alert to those hazards having just got off the plane. Moreover, 4ID's troops have not seen the same intense combat as the Marines, 101st and 3rd Infantry soldiers. That makes a big difference for civil-military operations, because they can approach the policing mission without the hostility of combat. I can't know this for certain, but there's bound to be some pent-up hostility in the units that saw action still -- especially in squads and platoons that took heavy casualties. Those are not the soldiers you want policing the streets if possible. Maybe small towns and villages where the threat of major insurrection is more slight, but definitely not Baghdad. For a major mission like Baghdad, you need fresh soldiers and units. 4ID is already in theater, and it looks like the deployment order has gone out to the 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division in Europe (among others). Those units are exactly the right ones to tap for this mission.
posted by Phillip Carter at 10:38

 
Terror alert drops from orange to yellow

The White House today announced a drop in the nationwide threat condition from orange to yellow, apparently in response to a successful campaign in Iraq. Presumably, we have intelligence reports telling us that the threat is lower now than it was last month. I opined a few months ago that an attack on Baghdad may increase the chances of an attack on U.S. citizens at home or abroad. Thankfully, that prediction did not come true. However, I think today's decision represents something else that's not being widely reported: a resource conservation decision. I don't think we would have made this change without intelligence telling us it was okay to do so. But I think we're making this change now, so quickly after the success in Iraq, because maintaining a high state of alert for extended periods of town is really expensive -- in terms of men, materiel and money. America's security infrastructure -- including police, fire, medical, and other agencies -- has been stretched to the limit by staying at orange for so long. Today's decision is as much about them as it is about intelligence.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:42

 
American forces establish zones of responsibility for Iraq

On Monday, I wrote that "I also expect that we'll start to see an operational blueprint for Iraq emerge in the next two weeks, where the country is divided into some type of sector system with responsibility divided between American and British forces for their respective sectors." Today, the Washington Post reports that "U.S. forces in Iraq will begin redeploying Thursday to set up occupation zones as they enter into a postwar phase of enforcing security and restoring services around the country." The article goes on to say that Marines (together with British troops) will occupy Southern Iraq as units from the Army will occupy Baghdad and the North.

The division into three zones will roughly correspond to the tripartite geographic organization set up by retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, who will oversee reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in Iraq. Garner will report to McKiernan, military officials said. While the military will focus on building stability, Garner's fledgling organization, the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, will take the lead on infrastructure, governance and basic services.

"It's a tremendous responsibility and it's very complex," said Lt. Col. George Smith, a planner for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "We focus the majority of our efforts on war-fighting. That's what we do. And so post-hostilities introduces a whole new spectrum of challenges."

With the last of Hussein's regular army and Republican Guard divisions dismantled, military planners expect to spend much of their time in this next phase countering attacks by remnants of paramilitary groups like Saddam's Fedayeen.

Analysis: This segmentation of Iraq is enormously important. First, it has big security implications. Segmenting the country into smaller and smaller zones of responsibility is a way of focusing resources on the places where Saddam's last fighters remain. Each zone will have its threat level assessed, and forces will be allocated to reconnaissance and security missions within that zone accordingly. Second, it's enormously important because this segmentation could eventually form the blueprint for an Iraqi federal system. Gen. Garner's comments that this division mirrors his own segmentation hints that aid, reconstruction support and other resources will be targeted using a similar scheme. The more lines we draw in the sand, and the more we reinforce those lines with resources, the more these lines start to matter.

Update: Esther Schrader reports in the LA Times that the American force in Iraq is also transitioning from a war posture to a police posture, and that specialized units are being rushed to Iraq to help with this mission.

"You can control a city of 5 million people, but you can't police it," said a senior defense official of the challenges facing U.S. troops in Baghdad. "We gave a lot of medals in the last three weeks to guys who know how to pull a trigger and hit something. It's hard to turn around and tell those same guys not to pull the trigger but read them their rights instead."

But with the U.S. unwilling to cede power quickly in Iraq to regional authorities, as it did in Afghanistan, it appears for the time being that the military has no other choice.

Already, Marines in Baghdad are operating joint police patrols with Iraqi civil authorities, and the widespread looting and mayhem appears to be subsiding. The Pentagon, which has more than 2,000 civil affairs and military police specialists attached to forces in Iraq or standing by in Kuwait, is planning to deploy more.

The civil affairs units, made up almost entirely of reservists, are charged primarily with helping rebuilding efforts. The units include doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers and health-care workers.

More civil affairs teams, already stretched thin from a series of deployments to Afghanistan, are on standby to deploy to Iraq, military officials say. Hundreds of soldiers trained as military police accompanying the 4th Infantry Division have crossed into Iraq from Kuwait since Monday. Other active duty and reserve units are awaiting deployment orders.

As the article says, two kinds of units really matter here: Military Police units and Civil Affairs units. MPs know how to deal with law and order issues, how to deal with civilians, and how to use graduated levels of force better than any combat unit. They can also work in small teams, or train U.S. units how to do these missions, thus becoming a force multiplier. (One MP battalion can train/assist a whole division to do these missions) Civil Affairs units are almost entirely made up of reservists, and they are the Army's nation-building specialists. In any situation like Iraq, they're trained to assess the situation, make recommendations, and supervise the implementation of those reconstruction plans. The problem is that the Army has finite numbers of these units -- and they've been stretched very thin by ongoing deployments to Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and now Iraq.
posted by Phillip Carter at 06:36

 
America captures Achille Lauro hijacker in Iraq

Yesterday provided compelling evidence that Iraq provides safe haven for terrorists of all stripes, besides Al Qaeda. The Washington Post (and others) report that American special operations troops captured Abu Abbas, the man responsible for the 1986 Achille Lauro hijacking. American tourist Leon Klinghoffer was shot and pushed overboard in his wheelchair after it was discovered he was Jewish during that incident. This incident came at a time when America was starting to face international terrorism for the first time, with this hijacking and that of TWA Flight 847. Reports indicate that Abbas was captured with intelligence from Syria, and possibly from captured Iraqi intelligence officials.

After a search by troops of several locations in the Iraqi capital, Mohammed Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front, was taken into custody along with a small group of other people in a house in the city. The former Palestinian leader, who is also known as Abu Abbas, had tried to flee to Syria, but was turned back, a senior Bush administration official said.

Syria's refusal to allow Abbas entry is in keeping with Syria's cooperation with the United States on tracking down terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Because of what they see as that quiet aid, some U.S. intelligence officials have been critical of the recent warnings to Syria by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Rumsfeld has accused Syria of allowing leaders of Iraq's ousted government to flee across its border.

The apprehension of Abbas was greeted with satisfaction by U.S. officials. "It proves we will track people down 18 years after murdering an American," the senior administration official said.

But it also raises questions about what to do with him. The Justice Department does not have a pending indictment for Abbas, and officials said yesterday it was too early to say whether a U.S. murder charge might be sought in the Achille Lauro case. One law enforcement official said that an indictment was issued for Abbas under seal, but was later withdrawn. In 1986, Abbas was convicted in absentia by an Italian court for masterminding the hijacking and sentenced to life in prison.

Analysis: It shouldn't be that hard to obtain an indictment in this case, however. The facts are fairly well established, after the debriefings of witnesses on the Achille Lauro. Even federal criminal law allows American authorities to detain this man for a period of hours/days until an indictment is secured. European officials and members of the international human rights community may suggest that Mr. Abbas be tried by the International Criminal Court. I think that would be a mistake. First, the ICC is in its infancy and not equipped yet with the prosecutors, defense attorneys or staffs to manage a terrorism trial. Better to cut their teeth on something else first. Second, this man allegedly killed an American citizen in cold blood. He has earned the right to be tried in an American court, and if convicted and so sentenced, to be executed by an American warden.

Update: According to Mr. Klinghoffer's daughters, this is exactly what they want. "Bringing Abbas to justice will send a strong signal to terrorists anywhere in the world that there is no place to run, no place to hide," they said in a statement, adding "We hope the U.S. prosecutors will be able to revive a federal indictment against Abbas for piracy, hostage-taking and conspiracy, and we urge them to do so."
posted by Phillip Carter at 06:27

 
U.S. Army tackles safety problems in the wake of several deaths

USA Today reports today that LTG William Wallace has had sharp words for his commanders after six soldiers died in V Corps during the last 72 hours -- but not due to combat. The accidents are somewhat characteristic of combat -- half involved live ammunition which would not be so available in peacetime, and the others involved equipment that's been pushed to the limit during the last month. Nonetheless, I think LTG Wallace is right to do this. This is an aberrational number of deaths in such a short period, and it may represent an adrenaline letdown after combat that has led to complacency in the ranks. There still are enemy soldiers out there, as well as safety issues, that threaten these young soldiers' lives. (Historical note: traffic accidents killed more soldiers in Gulf War I than hostile fire.)

The Army is dealing with a rash of accidents. On Monday, six soldiers died, not at the hands of the enemy, but apparently because of safety problems. There was a truck crash, an accidental firing of the weapon on a Bradley armored vehicle, a grenade explosion inside a Humvee truck and the collapse of a refueler.

"We cannot, we cannot, we cannot allow our soldiers to relax their guard," Wallace said. "I am less concerned about the Fedayeen than I am about safety," he added. "Don't let your guard down until you have the opportunity to go back home and hug your family."

Among the 123 U.S. military deaths from March 21 through Tuesday, 36 have been officially classified as accidents. Among the 31 British deaths, 16 have been classified as accidents.

posted by Phillip Carter at 06:19

 
News media rankings -- post-war thoughts

On March 10, I offered my rankings of major newspaper coverage of the events leading up to the war. That date seems like a long time ago, given all that's happened in the last 5 weeks. I decided to revisit my rankings today to offer my thoughts on how these papers did with their war coverage.

My original rankings listed the papers as:
1. The Washington Post
2. The Wall Street Journal
3. The Los Angeles Times
4. The Washington Times
5. The New York Times
with honorable mentions going to: Army Times, Slate, the Associated Press, Stars & Stripes, and CNN.Com

Here are my updated rankings:

1. The Washington Post. (The winner and still champion)
What I said then: "Simply put, the paper has the best team in the best places...The Post deployed some of its best reporters -- including famous author Rick Atkinson -- to the Gulf. In Washington, they have an all-star team of anchors including Tom Ricks, Vernon Loeb, and Dana Priest."
My thoughts now: The Post had great coverage because it had great reporters covering every aspect of the story -- from the Pentagon to the Persian Gulf. It didn't send its green reporters to war, nor did it leave its stale reporters at home. Rick Atkinson consistently produced great work in the desert, as did William Branigan with the 3rd Infantry Division. But no one could compare to the news analyses produced by Tom Ricks and Vernon Loeb (among others) in Washington. These men clearly had their fingers on the pulse of the war, and their analyses were where I turned first for strategic and operational predictions about the war.

2. The Wall Street Journal. (Holding steady at #2)
What I said then: "The Journal, like The Post, has deployed some of its all stars to the Gulf to be embedded with troop units. And like The Post, the WSJ has an outstanding anchor in Greg Jaffe, who reports from the Pentagon."
My thoughts now: The WSJ produced some of the best embedded reports of the war, especially from Helene Cooper with the 3rd Infantry Division. The Journal also did some of the best work to look beyond the war towards reconstruction. Neil King (and others) tenaciously followed the reconstruction contracts story, and broke it before anyone else with more depth than anyone else.

3. The Los Angeles Times. (Steady in third place)
What I said then: "My hometown paper has some outstanding talent on the story too... They have produced some of the best articles to date on the Washington politics behind the war."
My thoughts now: The Times reporters in the field really excelled, as did the Times staff in Washington and L.A. Tony Perry has been covering the Marines for some time as part of his San Diego beat, and he deployed with Camp Pendleton's Marines to the desert. He delivered outstanding reporting from there. The Times also delivered a lot of great reporting on the internal machinations within the Pentagon on the war.

4. The New York Times. (Up one place to #4)
What I said then: "The Times' best reporting comes from its veterans like John Burns and C.J. Chivers, but they're not the ones covering the war directly. Instead, the Times has put these people behind enemy lines to tell stories of the Kurds and other groups. Their Washington coverage is less than you'd expect from the New York Times."
My thoughts now: I think this prediction really bore itself out. However, the NY Times' editorial judgment to put its best people behind enemy lines led to some of the best reporting of the war from those locations. John Burns did a great job in Baghdad, and C.J. Chivers provided insights that no one else had from his vantage point in Northern Iraq. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by the military analyses from chief military correspondent Michael Gordon in Kuwait. His insights did not offer anything that I couldn't get elsewhere -- or think of myself -- and I think he would've been better deployed in Washington to smoke out stories in the Pentagon.

5. Slate. (On the list from the honorable mention category)
What I said then: Just an honorable mention.
My thoughts now: Slate hired some outstanding reporters to do continuing analysis on its site of the war, and it really paid off. Fred Kaplan's War Stories column provided some of the best insight out there into "Shock and Awe" and other subjects. William Saletan's "Bloghdad" offered good running commentary as well, with a healthy dose of political insight. I think Slate deserves to knock the Washington Times off the list.

Honorable Mentions:
- Army Times: Look for some of the best post-war analyses to come from Army Times. After other media leave the story, the Army Times will be in the trenches interviewing redeploying soldiers. The Army Times will also have most of the good "action action review" stories leaked from inside the Pentagon or the Army's schoolhouses.
- The Washington Times: Anyone frustrated with the Bush Administration who's a conservative is going to leak their stories to the Washington Times. Some critics of women in combat have already promised to fight the Pentagon after the war on that issue, and they will probably start their effort on the editorial pages of the Washington Times and National Review.
- The Associated Press: The AP has to make the list simply because of their breadth -- if not their depth. Robert Burns, the AP military correspondent in the Pentagon, deserves notice too. Lots of other writers (including me) rely on his first reports to start their deeper coverage.
- CNN.Com: The CNN website provided a great wire service for those who wanted a second opinion after seeing the AP's first report. Their website also had great video/audio footage from embedded correspondents, such as Martin Savidge.

Okay, that's it -- Phil Carter's updated, unofficial top 5 list for the best war coverage. I'll relook the subject again in a few weeks, as the reconstruction effort kicks into high gear.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:43

 
Beating .coms into swords, and other economic benefits of war

I've come to expect good economic analysis and insight from the Wall Street Journal, and today was no disappointment. Since the FY2004 National Defense Authorization Act was proposed with $380 billion in defense spending, I've wondered just how much of a benefit our economy might see from the global war on terrorism. According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required), not much.

In a strong economy, the additional billions almost certainly would have led to the expansion of facilities and to increased hiring. That isn't happening much this time. The reason? Companies have excess capacity. So, while defense spending is staving off layoffs and keeping firms profitable, some industries are still facing a paucity of private-sector orders and don't need to add workers or open new factories to accommodate the increased business.

That has kept the benefit of war spending to only a few areas -- metropolitan Washington, Mississippi's Gulf Coast and Southern California -- and a few industries -- aerospace and high-technology companies, most notably. Still, the government spending will account for almost a quarter of anticipated GDP growth of 2.4% this year, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of consulting firm Economy.com. With the exception of housing, spending on defense and homeland security "has been the most important source of growth in the economy over the past year," he said.

Indeed, the current war on terrorism does not match the levels of spending for past American wars, according to some experts. This may be because the U.S. has maintained such a large standing force during the Cold War and afterwards, in contrast to the demobilized force that had to be rebuilt for the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Today, defense spending is a constant presence in the economy, whereas back then it represented much more of a shot in the arm.

During earlier conflicts, the economy benefited more from security outlays: The spending was larger than what is anticipated now and the U.S. economy was less diverse. During the Korean War, for instance, increased defense spending between late 1950 and the end of 1951 equaled 8% of the economy, according to Yale University economist William Nordhaus. That is about $800 billion in today's dollars.

Finally, the article points out that the war may even hurt some parts of the economy, such as base towns that depend on the presence of soldiers and families to sustain local businesses.

While war usually is seen as good for military areas, the opposite can be true. With a population of about 30,000, Hinesville, Ga., has been hit by mobilization of nearly all of the 16,000 soldiers at nearby Fort Stewart. Many spouses decided to wait out the war elsewhere, too, though officials are urging families to stay put.

True enough... but I suspect that after the 3rd Infantry Division comes home, Hinesville will see a boom like never before. Many 3ID soldiers have been gone for nearly a year, and those without families have saved thousands of dollars during their deployment. I'd love to be a new car dealer in Hinesville when these men and women come home from their deployment.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:19

 
Goals shift in new phase of the war

The Washington Post has an interesting article today on the new goals of American forces in Iraq. With the Pentagon saying that major combat operations are over, the new focus is on enforcing law & order and finding Saddam's nuclear/chemical/biological stockpiles. Secondarily, it also appears the U.S. wants to lay the groundwork for post-war reconstruction and nation-building efforts, insofar as it's beginning to award contracts for those areas.

As one reader reminds me, this "shift" to "new goals" is really more of a reprioritization than anything. In March, Secretary Rumsfeld outlined the goals for this campaign, which included things like searching for chemical weapons and rebuilding Iraq. While fighting through the Republican Guard, those tasks fell in priority when compared to tasks like defeating the Iraqi army. With that task near completion, the priorities have changed. In war, commanders express their intent in terms of purpose, key tasks (or method), and end state. Secretary Rumsfeld outlined a number of key tasks in March, and what we're seeing now is not the articulation of "new" ones, so much as the shifting of emphasis towards the ones that were already there but not at the top of the list.
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:35

 
D.C. area firm wins contract to build school system in Iraq

The New York Times and others report that Creative Associates International has received a $62 million contract from USAID to improve primary and secondary education for Iraqi children. Creative Associates already does work in this area for USAID in Morocco and Afghanistan, and will presumably build on those templates in Iraq. When the situation calms down some more, the firm will start by sending advance teams to assess the situation in the country. I'm going to guess this contract is the tip of the iceberg too, since you can't do a lot for $62 million besides make an assessment and an initial foray. If we're serious about rebuilding Iraq's schools (and we ought to be), this is going to cost more money.
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:33

 
Pacific Northwest man pleads guilty to providing material support for terrorism

Earnest James Ujaama, accused under 18 U.S.C. 2339b for providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations, has decided to plead guilty to the charges arrayed against him. Ujaama, a Muslim convert, was accused of trying to raise money for Al Qaeda and other organizations inside the United States, as well as trying to build a terrorist training camp in Oregon. His prosecution came at the same time as several others for this crime, including the "Lackawanna Six" in upstate New York and former-Prof. Sami Al-Arian in Florida. All were accused of providing various forms of logistical and financial support to foreign terrorist organizations. Critics said these prosecutions went after "small fish" in the terrorist world, and that they prosecuted people for otherwise innocent financial transactions. However, I have argued (along with others) that such prosecutions are key to dismantling global terror networks like Al Qaeda, which depends on its ability to move men, materiel and money around the world through men like Mr. Ujaama.

Correction: A diligent reader wrote me to say that Mr. Ujaama hailed from Seattle, not Oregon, and that I should correct my reference to him. After reading the indictment, I agree with my reader and disagree with CNN.Com's story. Thus, I've changed my headline. The same reader also said that Mr. Ujaama's sentence may wind up being less than one year in prison, with credit for time served. I'm going to dig into this issue, and the exact charges that he pled guilty to, both because I'm curious and because I'm teaching a class at UCLA next year on law and terrorism and this is one of my case studies. More to follow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:40

 
More forces on the way to Iraq

The Associated Press reports that America's 4th Infantry Division has entered Iraq, and that the 1st Armored Division has begun to move its equpiment from Germany to sea ports in preparation for deployment there.

The Army's 1st Armored Division is moving its equipment to ports for shipment to the Gulf region, and its troops will follow by air in a couple of weeks, a division spokesman, Maj. Scott Slaten, said Monday. The division is sending two armored brigades and one aviation brigade from bases in Germany, and one brigade is going from its base at Fort Riley, Kan., Slaten said.

It is not clear whether one of the Army divisions already in Iraq will leave once the 1st Armored gets there.

Also, soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division, recently arrived in Kuwait from Fort Hood, Texas, crossed the border into Iraq on Monday. First to go were two convoys of about 500 tanks and other vehicles. It was not clear whether their destination was Baghdad or northern Iraq.

Analysis: Details are intentionally being left out right now by the Pentagon because the operational timelines for these deployments are somewhat sensitive. However, my best guess is that 4ID will fully enter Iraq within one week, and 1AD will be fully in Iraq within 4 weeks. The bulk of 4ID's equipment appears to have reached Kuwait after sitting off the coast of Turkey. 1AD's soldiers will deploy as their equipment floats down from Germany (with one brigade floating over from the United States). The AP article hints that one division may be rotated out of theater. That would probably be the 3rd Infantry Division, which deployed first to the region and has had some elements there for almost a year.

My next guess is that these forces are coming in with a heavy security focus. That is, their first mission will be to secure key cities and areas in Iraq and establish order where now there is chaos. Each division has also been plussed up with a great deal of combat support and logistical assets, including extra military police and engineer units that are essential for nation-building work. I also expect that we'll start to see an operational blueprint for Iraq emerge in the next two weeks, where the country is divided into some type of sector system with responsibility divided between American and British forces for their respective sectors.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:32

 
American Marines build a government in Iraq

Victor Hanson wrote a great military history book in which he argued that democracies produce better armies because their soldiers believe in their cause, have a voice in selecting their leadership, and develop a sense of personal independence that enables them to adapt, innovate and prevail on the battlefield. According to this article from The Washington Post's Jonathan Finer, American liberal (small L) society may have another benefit for our soldiers in the field: it teaches them how to create democracy.

BAGHDAD, April 13 -- The new "mayor" of Katarrah, a bustling commercial and residential neighborhood in central Baghdad, is a 29-year-old Marine lieutenant from Totowa, N.J., named Adam Macaluso.

Five days ago he led his platoon into the city to fight the Iraqi army. Last night, he walked the streets to explain to edgy residents that his Marines were here to help guard against looting. He asked a group standing under a lamppost if they had any questions.

"What is going to happen to the Iraqi dinar?" one man asked about the national currency, stumping the young officer. "I'm not a banker," he explained later that night to the commanding officer of Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. "What am I supposed to tell them?"

To fill the vacuum left by the fall of Saddam Hussein's government, the Marines have divided the city among young officers such as Macaluso, directing them to try to quell lawlessness and gather up weapons stashed throughout the city. They call themselves mayors, but the Marines put in charge say they expect their term of office to be brief, and that their goal is to help prepare the Iraqi people to lead themselves.

"It's one of the hardest things I've ever been asked to do, because I have almost no training to fall back on," said Lt. Michael Cerroni of Charlie Company, the newly minted mayor of an affluent Sunni neighborhood in the Muthanna section of the city, east of the Tigris River.

Almost no training... except for being born and raised in a democratic society where the values of freedom, liberty, and equality were taught and followed every day. Our young men and women in Iraq have learned democracy by living it, and they are now well suited to impart those lessons to the Iraqi people. If I had to choose between crusty diplomats from the State Department (or worse the United Nations) to teach this stuff, and young soldiers like Lt. Cerroni, I'd choose the latter every time.
posted by Phillip Carter at 10:07

 
First steps from chaos to order

Today's Washington Post carries an interesting article on the practical problems American soldiers and Marines are facing in Iraq as they begin to enforce law and order. In many cases, infantry units are being tasked with police missions because there are so few Military Police to go around. After watching looting for a few days, composite units of infantry, MPs and Civil Affairs specialists are taking their first furtive steps towards establishing a civil police force in Iraq.

Although U.S. military officers here say they want to have Iraqi policemen patrolling the streets, Iraqi electricians fixing the power grid and Iraqi engineers working on the water supply, making that happen has turned out to be far more complicated than saying: "Back to work."

The U.S. troops want an initial force of a few hundred Iraqi police officers to accompany them on anti-looting patrols. But they face a challenge separating the honest from the venal, the law enforcing from the law breaking. During former president Saddam Hussein's three-decade rule, the police were part of a vast internal security apparatus that was accused of bribe-taking, torture, illegal detentions and summary executions.

Although participants at today's meeting insisted they were clean and their corrupt colleagues were on the run, there was no way to tell if that was true. At least a few men insisted that some of the rotten ones were trying to pass themselves off as reformers.

"We have to approach this in a step-by-step way," said Maj. Mark Stainbrook, a Los Angeles police officer and Marine reservist who is part of a civil affairs team trying to screen potential Iraqi policemen. "We're going to make an honest attempt to interview each person."

U.S. military officials said most rank-and-file officers probably would be accepted. Serious corruption, they said, existed primarily with the leadership.

This is hard stuff. Baghdad's a big city, and it's a city with an awful history of repression. It also just suffered a cataclysmic change in government. Imagine that the Los Angeles Police Department was summarily fired on one day, and you had to build a police department from scratch the next. Sure, you could hire some of the senior officers back, and many of the lower ranking police officers. But there's an awful lot of bad applies in the LAPD, as there probably were in the Iraqi police agencies, and you have to screen them out. This is going to take time; it's not going to happen in time for May sweeps month to boost TV ratings. Building law and order is a manpower, capital and time-intensive endeavor. And we've just started.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:58

 
Pentagon: Toppling of Saddam statue recalls the fall of the Berlin Wall

The Pentagon's official website has a veritable cornucopia of news items on it, from press releases announcing reserve mobilizations to "news articles" on top Pentagon officials. (It also has more spin than a laundromat) One of those articles quotes Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as saying to foreign media that the toppling of Saddam's statue last week in Baghdad by U.S. Marines was like "seeing the Berlin Wall come down all over again." Mr. Wolfowitz, who's an avowed hawk on Iraq-related issues and widely regarded as the intellectual architect of Gulf War II, added that the Iraqi people had a great opportunity today in the wake of Hussein's removal.

"The people of Iraq now have it within their power to establish a constitution and a political system that will reflect their real wishes and interests," Wolfowitz said. He added that the task is the Iraqis'; the United States is just there to support their efforts.

Analysis: This is a very interesting choice of metaphor by Mr. Wolfowitz. First, it should be said that the imagery itself does not quite support such an analogy. For one, the crowds near Brandenburg Gate in 1989 were far larger than in Baghdad's square last week. Also, there was no attendant looting or breakdown in law & order after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Second, the teardown of the Berlin Wall came as a relatively peaceful event -- not after any great war on Berlin. Granted, the event marked the end of the Cold War, but there's quite a big difference between a cold war and a hot one.

That said, the comparison may have much larger implications. The reunification of Germany was a massive undertaking in every sense -- politically, economically, socially, legally, and otherwise. It dragged down the former West German economy for a number of years, and required extensive foreign direct investment in the former East Germany. Despite being the crown jewel of the Warsaw Pact, East Germany's social and economic infrastructure lagged far behind that of West Germany. Though the wall's collapse was a major step forward, it heralded a great deal of work that had to be done during the 1990s to make this more than a symbolic event. Similarly, the toppling of Saddam's statues in Baghdad heralds much more than a regime change. Every aspect of Iraqi society must be rebuilt from the ground up -- for the current systems are built on the foundation of a repressive regime. Iraq has no legal system, no property system, no civil police, no public school system, and no government separate from that of Saddam Hussein. The Ba'ath Party infected every one of these institutions before the war, and they must either be cleansed or rebuilt. This promises to be a massive undertaking -- perhaps so large that even America alone cannot manage it. If the fall of the Berlin Wall is to be our historical reference, then we know we have at least 10 years of hard work ahead of us in Iraq.

Post script: German leaders are less than pleased by the comparison of Baghdad to Berlin, according to Reuters. Wolfgang Thierse, president of Germany's Parliament, thought such comparisons were historically inaccurate, and inappropriate given German opposition to this war.

"When East Germans and other Eastern Europeans knocked down the statues, the people did it by themselves and not with the troops of a victorious war participant," added Thierse, who as president of the parliament is second only to President Johannes Rau as the leading representative of Germany.

posted by Phillip Carter at 17:47

 
If you only read one article on the war, this should be it

Rick Atkinson, Peter Baker and Tom Ricks have an outstanding analysis of the high-intensity phase of the war in today's Washington Post. Just to reiterate, both Atkinson and Ricks have won the Pulitzer Prize for their writing on the military (two times in Atkinson's case), Peter Baker is one of The Post's all-stars as well. Their analysis has consistently been better than any other newspaper, largely I believe because of their intimate knowledge of the military institution and its inner workings. Today, they describe a war plan that started out as confused, misdirected and troubled -- but eventually led to the end of Saddam's regime.

On March 27, outside the city of Najaf, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of the U.S. Army's V Corps, met with Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division. As they sat on gray folding chairs in the desert wasteland, the war seemed to be in dismal shape.

The critical crossroads city of Nasiriyah had degenerated into a shooting gallery for U.S. convoys. An Army maintenance unit was ambushed on an overextended supply line. In just one day, 36 U.S. soldiers and Marines were killed, taken prisoner, or missing. Before dawn the next day, the first deep strike by AH-64D Apache attack helicopters was beaten back by small-arms fire that downed one chopper and riddled 33 others with bullets. Then a harsh sandstorm swept in, grounding U.S. helicopters, jamming some weapons, bringing most operations to a halt and demoralizing the troops. And they had not yet engaged the Iraqi Republican Guard, which they expected would greet them with chemical weapons.

Wallace, wearing cotton cavalry gloves and Wiley-X sunglasses, intimated in an interview after the meeting with Petraeus that, in light of the damage sustained by the Apaches earlier in the week, U.S. commanders were reconsidering their tactics. He added, "We're dealing with a country in which everybody has a weapon, and when they fire them all into the air at the same time, it's tough."

Just 13 days later, Baghdad fell.

What ended as a military victory that toppled the Iraqi government in 21 days was filled with moments of uncertainty, miscues and unexpected successes for U.S. forces. This article is an anatomy of the war as described by dozens of military officials and commanders, including key participants in the decision-making on the battlefield and in Washington. They provided an inside look at a conflict that upended a host of specific assumptions about how the war would unfold even as it delivered the final collapse of Iraqi resistance that commanders had forecast.

posted by Phillip Carter at 11:31

 
America rescues seven of its own

I woke up this morning to the outstanding news that we had rescued seven American prisoners of war -- five from the 507th Maintenance Company and two from the 1-227 Aviation Regiment (Attack). Once again, our military has upheld the creed that "I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy..." The details of their rescue are still somewhat hazy, and may not fully be known for several days. Nonetheless, I think this probably gave a tremendous shot in the arm to every man and women serving in the Gulf right now. Knowing that your buddies will come for you -- no matter what -- means a lot to the American soldier.

The rescued prisoners were reported in good condition, although two had suffered gunshot wounds, the officers said. The soldiers were flown to a military medical facility near Baghdad.

The Marines discovered the prisoners near the town of Samarrah, about 70 miles north of Baghdad, while moving toward Tikrit. As the Marines' Task Force Tripoli approached Samarrah, forces still loyal to Hussein fled the building where the Americans were being held.

"The guards evidently were deserted by their officers, and the guards themselves brought the prisoners of war to the Marines," said Lt. Col. Nick Morano, senior watch commander at Marine headquarters southeast of Baghdad. "All the soldiers are in good condition. A couple of them have wounds, but they're okay."

Analysis: There's a better piece of news in this rescue that a lot of pundits have not jumped on yet. It appears that Iraq has decided to follow the laws of war, at least insofar as treating prisoners of war goes. American soldiers found PFC Jessica Lynch being tended to in a crude hospital, and found these soldiers in relatively good condition. It appears that some of the 507th's soldiers were shot and killed in the ambush, or immediately afterwards, probably by the front-line soldiers who conducted the ambush. Their bodies were recovered with PFC Lynch. However, these 7 POWs were recovered in relatively "good shape", according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. That's significant. Despite all of the this Iraq has allegedly done in violation of the laws of war, such as hiding its soldiers in civilian areas and civilian clothes, it has at least respected the Third Geneva Convention with respect to American POWs. My best guess is that our psychological operations campaign worked -- that Iraqi military commanders at the senior levels became genuinely concerned with war crimes prosecutions after the war. Thus, when these POWs were transferred to higher headquarters, their treatment improved. We may learn in subsequent debriefings that they were mistreated. But the first reports of their condition seem to indicate some measure of decent treatment.

Sidebar: The Pentagon has an interesting briefing here on the medical care we've giving to Iraqi POWs in American military facilities. Of course, we are prioritizing our own casualties before these enemy soldiers. But according to this brief, we are also giving them some state-of-the-art medical care that these men would otherwise not see in their lifetimes.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:23

 
First tests for Total Information Awareness

Noah Shachtman reports at DefenseTech that the Pentagon has performed its first tests on Total Information Awareness, the program that critics called Orwellian and proponents called the answer to information-fusion problems in America's security community. (Original story from AP)

Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), told a privacy conference that the recent test examined records of over-the-counter drug purchases, "which could indicate planning of a bioterrorist attack."

According to the magazine, the initial experiment also considered "relationships between purchases of certain chemicals, whether the buyer or a family member was involved in an activity such as farming that could explain a benign reason for the purchase, and where the purchase was made."

Analysis: Last we heard, TIA was blocked by a Congressional "reporting requirement" that forbade the Pentagon from moving forward until it found ways to mitigate civil-liberties concerns and reported to Congress on those measures. However, it appears from this report that parts of TIA are moving forward. I've gone on record several times as a TIA supporter, mostly because I'm familiar with the need to gather/integrate/analyze information from so many different sources in the homeland security area -- and the tremendous difficulty we face today in doing so. However, I also support the idea of placing controls on the program to mitigate any Constitutional risk that exists. More to follow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:13

 
Admin note: A diligent reader just reminded me to republish my archives in order to make my permanent links work. Thanks for the reminder. I just republished all of Intel Dump's pages, so all my permalinks should work now.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:49

 
At some point, the chaos and looting must end

The New York Times and others report today that Mosul has fallen to allied forces. Mosul fell without a fight as Iraqi defenders either fled the city or deserted to join the civilian population. Allied forces entered the city to find massive displays of looting and disorder, largely directed at the former bastions of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Residents said that it appeared that most of the Iraqi fighters had fled by 7 p.m. Thursday. With their departure, the city fell into a frenzy of looting and lawlessness.

With the breakdown in authority, the American forces and their Kurdish allies at first hesitated outside the town - for about eight hours - but by midafternoon, they and the Kurd fighters came in to claim control of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city.

Although some residents flashed thumbs up signs to the small convoy of Americans, most of the residents stood with their arms crossed and stared blankly. Angry residents blamed the Americans for the anarchy in the city, saying that they had needlessly delayed their arrival for hours after the Iraqi army fled and allowed order in the city to crumble.

Adding to the disorder was the rising tension between Arab and Kurdish communities in the city. Arabs make up 65 percent of the city's population and minority Kurds have accused them of benefiting under Mr. Hussein's rule or standing by as Kurds were persecuted.

The rampant theft in the city appeared to be carried out mostly by young men from all ethic groups, but many Arab residents blamed Kurds for the looting. At the central bank, fights broke out among looters trying to snatch stolen money from each other. The main vaults were smashed open, and bank notes poured out.

The Associated Press reported that at Saddam General Hospital, three of the five ambulances were stolen, and armed men, described as Kurds, tried to enter the hospital, but the staff managed to hold them off. Some doctors said that their cars were stolen at gunpoint. Officials at Jumhuriya Hospital said all eight of its ambulances were stolen at gunpoint.

"The doctors ran away because they even looted their offices,'' Haleema Hanzad Abbas, a worker at Saddam General, told a New York Times reporter that accompanied American troops into the city. "We see injured people and we cannot do anything.''

As the American convoy pulled into the center of the city, they passed a burning military hospital and the central bank building was also aflame. Across the city, at least six other large fires could be seen.

Analysis: I wrote earlier that this looting may be working to our advantage in Iraq. That is, that American-led forces may encourage civilian looting (particularly of government buildings) as a way of empowering Iraqi citizens and demonstrating the end of the Hussein regime. However, at some point, the looting must end. American and British commanders must select a point at which the looting goes too far -- a point when order must be restored. From that point forward, U.S.-led forces must do everything in their power to stop this kind of behavior. Clearly, no major reconstruction or humanitarian efforts can proceed while looting and chaos reign in Iraq. It goes without saying that Iraq's economy cannot begin to function again while such chaos exists. America's ultimate goal is to build a peaceful and stabile Iraq. Iraqi society will not function so long as this behavior continues. This disorder may serve American purposes today, but that expediency will not last for long.

Analysis II: In a few days, I should have a longer analysis on the subject of law and order in Iraq. But here's a quick summary. In short, Iraq has not known true civil order without repression for at least a generation. Saddam's regime maintained order with the tactics of a police state, and as such, the looting we see today is only natural because the yoke of that police state has been thrown off. In the coming weeks and months, America must carefully build the artifice of civil society from the ground up. Presumably, this means Iraq needs a Constitution, a judiciary, a civil police force, and so on. Imagine all the institutions we take for granted in Western society that promote law and order -- none of those exist in analogous form within Iraq. This will be a critical task for the American reconstruction effort, and I hope we have some of our best military, legal and law-enforcement minds at work on the solution.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:04

 
Embedded reporters hop out of bed with units

Bill Carter (no relation) reports in today's New York Times that several news organizations have pulled their reporters from the units they were traveling with to cover other stories in Iraq -- or to leave the country altogether.

At least 20 of the more than 500 so-called embedded reporters have left their current postings in recent days, many of them reassigned to begin reporting independent of military oversight.

The moves by the news organizations, including CNN, ABC, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, are being officially opposed by the Pentagon division responsible for the program that placed reporters with military units.

"We would really rather they not do this," said Maj. Tim Blair, the Army officer in charge of the program, citing safety considerations. But executives at news organizations said that they needed to be able to report more freely from Baghdad.

"We have to be able to go here and there, and that has to be based on our decision-making rather than military decision-making," said Phil Bennett, the assistant managing editor for foreign news for The Post.

Analysis: Clearly, there is a conflict between what the media wants and what the Pentagon wants. (What else is new?) Embedding was a great way for these reporters to get the close-up stories they couldn't get during Gulf War I, and to see the action first-hand with some protection from U.S. forces. Now that the high-intensity phase has died down, I can see the logic in the media's position. They want to cover the new stories, and they want to do it from a more objective vantage-point than with U.S. forces. Some reporters will undoubtedly stay with the troops, because there are still good stories to be gained that way. All in all, I don't see much of a problem with this shifting around of news resources.

Coda: Moreover, the embedded media have already paid off for the Pentagon -- bigtime. First, the number of Ernie Pyle-esque stories from these embedded reporters has been staggering. As a veteran, I've really enjoyed this kind of coverage, because it's put a human face on the war for me (and because lots of my friends have made the news this way.) Second, the embedded media were there to capture the big events in Baghdad as they happened. America still has no official surrender from Iraq. But we do have the vivid footage of Saddam's statute being torn down by an M-88 armored vehicle. That footage alone is priceless -- and something that may not have happened if not for embedded media.

Post Script: Several readers have written me to remind me of an important geographic point: the Saddam statue toppled by our M88 on live television was right across the street from the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad where scores of journalists spent the war. Thus, even without embedding, "neutral" media crews would have captured this footage for the world to see. This much is certainly true. Except that they would not have been privy to the American plan, or had easy access to the American Marines who carried out the mission, to get the full story. Perhaps the best example of embedded coverage working was William Branigan's reporting for The Washington Post on the shooting of several Iraqi civilians at a checkpoint. By virtue of his proximity to the incident and the trust he had built with the 3rd Infantry Division's soldiers, Mr. Branigin was able to gather the facts on that incident and provide an accurate account of what happened. He was also able to contextualize that incident in terms of what the soldiers were thinking and what they were briefed on, since he was privy to those insider details. This -- and many other vignettes -- make the point that embedding has been a resounding success for the Pentagon.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:04

 
U.S. disseminates list of "Iraq's Most Wanted"

The Associated Press reports that CENTCOM is distributing decks of cards to soldiers with names, pictures and descriptions of some of the worst of the worst within Saddam's toppled regime. The idea is to put this information out at the lowest level so that soldiers have the information they need to capture these men. Ironically, the deck of cards really is a playing deck of cards -- complete with Saddam Hussein as the ace of spades. (Who's the joker?)

The cards, with pictures of the most-wanted figures, were distributed to thousands of U.S. troops in the field to help them find the senior members of the government. The names also were being put on posters and handbills for the Iraqi public, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said.

Brooks did not identify those in the deck, except to suggest they included Saddam and his minister of information, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, who boasted of battlefield successes right up to the time he disappeared Tuesday.

"There are jokers in this deck, there is no doubt about that,'' Brooks said. He said the whereabouts of some of the most-wanted figures were unknown, while others might well be dead. "The population will probably confirm that for us,'' he said.

"The key list has 55 individuals who may be pursued, killed or captured, and the list does not exclude leaders who may have already been killed or captured,'' Brooks said. "The intent here is to help the coalition gain information from the Iraqi people so that they also know exactly who it is we seek,'' he added.

Analysis: This is a great idea, and the officer who thought of this probably deserves a commendation for creativity. The "black/gray/white" list of "good/okay/bad" people I got as an MP platoon leader were usually pretty hard to read black/white photocopies with awful pictures and bad descriptions. Playing cards are pocket-sized, easy to use, and it looks like the photos have pretty good fidelity. Moreover, soldiers are likely to hold onto these decks, both because they want to play cards and because they want to do their mission. (Also, such decks will fetch a hefty price on E-Bay after the war) But the real important thing is this: we're making a commitment to finding and capturing these men (and possibly women). In the Balkans, American commanders (and political leaders) refused to take on such a mission. In Iraq, we realize that bringing these men to justice is important for the post-war stability we hope to build. Presumably, such men will be tried by the local tribunals set up by the United States -- but run by Iraqi civilians. This will empower the new Iraqi judicial system and invest the Iraqi people in the justice meted out to these men.
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:38

 
Firms rush to market "shock and awe"

Noah Shachtman at DefenseTech passes along an interesting story about the number of businesses -- from Sony to pesticide makers -- trying to trademark the phrase "shock and awe" for their respective marketing campaigns. "Shock and Awe" originally came from a 1996 book by Harlan K. Ullman, so presumably he owns some stake in this phrase. However, it's been used so pervasively by public figures and media pundits that I'm not sure anyone has a clear claim to this anymore. Of course, I'm no intellectual-property expert. I'm sure media-law blogger John Maltbie will have some interesting thoughts on this -- and other battles over intellectual property -- that occur as a result of the second Gulf War. Hasbro (the maker of GI Joe), Nintendo, and the rest of the toy/gaming market are likely to engage in some pretty fierce fights over this stuff. I'll skip the larger social commentary about the way that war toys affect children. Suffice to say, war toys and war games are big business. The stakes in this kind of IP litigation are huge -- we're talking billions of dollars.
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:21

 
Support for military families

A mentor of mine at UCLA Law School sent this note to me today. Please join me in donating to these worthy organizations. In my experience leading soldiers, AER did a lot to help young soldiers in need. At this moment, I imagine they're quite busy, and in need of our support.

Dear Colleagues: As you know, dozens of America's young people serving in the military in Iraq have been killed in the past three weeks. This is a special problem for Southern California, because a large number of the fatalities come from Camp Pendleton. Many of them leave little in the way of resources. This is especially the case for young enlisted personnel. For those of you who feel inclined to support the families they leave behind, let me suggest two websites where a credit card donation may be made: www.nmcrs.org; www.aerhq.org. These organizations are the Navy-Marine Corp Relief Society and the Army Relief Society, respectively. Thanks.

Update: Friday's Washington Post has a story on the various aid organizations that support men and women in the Army, Navy, Air Forces, Marines and Coast Guard.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:25

 
Is it over?

While it looks like the high-intensity phase of the war has ended, the fighting still looks far from over. Baghdad erupted in fits of violence today, as a suicide bomber injured four Marines and one other Marine was killed when his unit tried to seize a mosque in the city. The official word is that formal resistance has "crumbled" -- that Saddam Hussein's regime is no more. That may be true. But it's equally clear that unorganized resistance -- and chaos -- both continue to threaten the American mission to build a lasting peace in Iraq.

So... the answer is that it's not over -- whatever it is. The demise of law and order poses a major threat, as soldiers can find themselves the victims of looters and violent mobs. The war to liberate Iraq has now entered the next phase; a more difficult and protracted phase of peacemaking and nation-building. The threat remains, particularly from those elements of Saddam's regime that now feel they have nothing left to lose. Before his regime fell, these elements fought for a piece of the nation they felt they still had. Now that America has triumphed, they may fight with renewed vigor -- flinging themselves at American and British troops to achieve martyrdom in the twilight of their failure to defend Iraq. To date, we have only seen a few suicide attacks on U.S.-led forces -- many fewer than experts predicted in an attack on a Muslim nation. Those attacks may increase, both in frequency and intensity. Then open war of tanks and artillery may be over. But in many ways, the messy war of infantry, military police and intelligence has just begun.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:00

 
"Speed and violence of action" -- What won the war II

In training for urban combat, one of my NCOs used to preach the value of "speed and violence of action." Move to a building. Throw a grenade through the entry window. Throw soldiers in. Clear the first room; move to the next. Keep moving. Hit 'em as hard and fast as possible, so the enemy can't react. The key to success was moving fast with the right amount of force. Anything less would get you bogged down in the enemy's defense.

The same theory appears to have been applied to American and British strategy in the war on Iraq. A pair of articles in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times essentially summarize the U.S. plan as "speed and violence of action." The ultimate idea, according to Michael Gordon in the New York Times, was to hit the Iraqi defenses so fast that they couldn't react.

American forces began the campaign without the northern front called for in the strategy and with fewer troops than had been planned. They were forced to advance the date of the land attack, and they fought battles in the southern cities of Iraq that had never been anticipated.

In the final analysis, the speed of the allied land assault, coupled with American airpower, enabled the military to arrive at the outskirts of Baghdad before the Iraqis could set up an adequate defense.

"We executed faster than they could react," a senior American military official said today.

Similarly, Greg Jaffe reports in the Wall Street Journal the war illustrated the Rumsfeld Doctrine in action -- a strategy where lighter, more agile, rapidly-deployable units with superior information technology are employed against older, heavier, more lethargic enemies. The triumph of this strategy, Mr. Jaffe adds, will add fuel to the debate over how to best transform America's military to be lighter, more agile, and more digitized.

The success of the U.S. strategy in Iraq, with its emphasis on speed, is likely to have immediate consequences. Instead of concentrating ground forces in Germany and Korea, Pentagon planners are likely to spread them around so they can be deployed quickly to hotspots. Mr. Rumsfeld has noted that Austria's refusal to allow Germany based U.S. forces to pass through that country hindered the Pentagon's ability to get a force to the Persian Gulf quickly. If the U.S. had had a larger presence in Eastern Europe or Central Asia, Austria's refusal would have had far less impact.

Mr. Rumsfeld also is likely to push the Army and Marine Corps to invest more in lighter, more lethal ground forces that can be airlifted to combat zones. When Turkey refused to allow passage to U.S. troops, the best the U.S. could do to open a northern front in Iraq was to airlift in soldiers from the 173rd Airborne. These air assault troops didn't pack enough combat punch to take on Iraqi Republican Guard forces in the north or to capture oil fields around Kirkuk.

"What you see in Iraq in its embryonic form is the kind of warfare that is animating our desire to transform the force," says Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and a close adviser to Mr. Rumsfeld.

The core of the Rumsfeld Doctrine is that the speed of the invading U.S. force is more important than its size. "Speed matters. Speed kills. It leads to less collateral damage and fewer U.S. casualties," says retired Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, head of Mr. Rumsfeld's Office of Force Transformation. The goal is to move more quickly than the enemy can react, cutting off his options.
* * *
To achieve greater speed in this conflict, Mr. Rumsfeld took risks that made many Army officers uncomfortable. He pushed military planners to reduce the number of heavy tanks they were bringing to the battlefield and to employ the forces they did bring in new ways.

Analysis: This last point is extremely important. We took on a substantial amount of operational risk in the Gulf. If Saddam's defenses had been more flexible, or if the fedayeen had fought with any coordination, or if we had encountered chemical weapons en route, the whole plan might have come unhinged. Speed and violence of action have the potential to shatter an enemy defense. But speed also has the potential to cut the other way -- to leave too many enemy units behind in your rear area. CENTCOM had to adjust its plan for this contingency, devoting combat power from the 101st and 82nd divisions to securing American and British lines of communication en route to Baghdad.

Military officers often speak of the "art" and "science" of wartime leadership separately, because each requires a different kind of judgment. The "science" of war involves calculations about force ratios, bomb-damage predictions, etc. The "art" of war refers to the subjective, qualitative leadership decisions made by a commander and staff based on their experience, and intuitive feel for warfare. Decisions on operational risk definitely fall more into the "art" category; they require a feel for the pulse of the war. It turns out that Gen. Franks made the right decisions about where and when to accept risk, and his plan worked. By striking at the heart of the regime (Baghdad) instead of conquering the entire country, we were able to topple the regime. However, speed may not be the answer now, as we begin the intensive nation-building operations necessary to build a new Iraq. Instead of speed and violence of action, we may now want to move deliberately, with measured force.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:58

 
What won the war?

With bullets still flying in Baghdad, pundits are speculating about the key things in America's military that caused such a resounding victory over the Iraqi military. Tom Ricks has a good summary of these factors in his Thursday news analysis on the war: "People, plan, inept enemy." More than technology, more than precision bombs, it was the relative strengths of the American fighting man and woman -- in stark contrast to the ineptitude of Iraqi leaders and soldiers -- that won the war.

Retired military officers and defense experts have discerned two aspects to the U.S. military's role in the war. One was the people and equipment, and the other was the plan they carried out.

"We won so handily because we had a highly professional military -- well-trained, well-outfitted, well-led, with the right doctrine, solid organization, and, most important, excellent people," said retired Army Col. James McDonough.

With some reinforcements arriving in recent days, the U.S. invasion force in Iraq still totals only 125,000 service personnel, a fraction of the half-million troops assembled for the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

In particular, in this war, more than in any previous one, air and ground operations seemed thoroughly meshed, with targeting information between U.S. Special Forces and pilots flowing back and forth as it never has before.
* * *
It also was a demanding plan, one that couldn't be executed by slow-moving commanders or poorly trained troops. Pentagon officials cited the plan's "flexibility" so incessantly that it threatened to become a cliché, but the word actually is meaningful in a military sense. Only well-trained forces can quickly change plans, accelerating their movements to take advantage of newly discovered opportunities.

Analysis: Five years after the Gulf War, Stephen Biddle wrote a piece in International Security called "Victory Misunderstood, in which he dissected the lessons most had learned from Gulf War I. Specifically, he broke apart the assumptions about the role that technology played in the coalition's victory, using complex models of ground battles built at the Institute for Defense Analyses. Dr. Biddle's research found, among other things, that technology alone did not explain the overwhelming victory in 1991 over the Iraqis. Instead, it was the synergistic combination of skill and technology that won the war. Here is a brief excerpt from Dr. Biddle's brilliant paper:

The standard explanations of the Gulf War's outcome are wrong. The orthodox view explains the war's one-sidedness in terms of the Coalition's strengths, especially its advanced technology, which is often held to have destroyed the Iraqis' equipment or broken their will without exposing Coalition forces to extensive close combat on the ground. The main rival explanation emphasizes Iraqi shortcomings, such as their weak morale, poor training and leadership, or numerical inferiority in the theater of war. Both schools appeared within a few months of the cease-fire, and have changed surprisingly little since then. The information base on the war's conduct, however, has changed substantially with the recent appearance of the first detailed official and semi-official independent histories of the war. This new information, combined with the results of counterfactual analysis using new computer simulation techniques, undermines both schools' conclusions.

To account for what is now known, and in particular, for new details on the conduct of the ground campaign, I propose a new explanation based partly on a combination of pieces taken from both camps' arguments - but mostly on a different conception of how technology and skill affected the outcome. That is, I argue that a synergistic interaction between a major skill imbalance and new technology caused the radical outcome of 1991. In the Gulf War, Iraqi errors created opportunities for new Coalition technology to perform at proving-ground effectiveness levels and sweep actively resisting Iraqi Republican Guard units from the battlefield. Without the Iraqis' mistakes to provide openings, however, the outcome would have been far different in spite of the Coalition's technology, and Coalition casualties would likely have reached or exceeded prewar expectations. But without the new weapons, mistakes like the Iraqis' would not have enabled the Coalition to prevail with the historically low losses of the Gulf War. Many previous armies have displayed combat skills no better than Iraq's, but without producing results anything like those of 1991; only a powerful interaction between skill imbalance and new technology can explain the difference.

Since "Victory Misunderstood", Dr. Biddle's views have influenced a new generation of military reformers. This reform movement, led by men like Chuck Spinney and Don Vandergriff, argues that the key to transformation lies with people and ideas -- not hardware. Dr. Biddle's study of Afghanistan confirms once again that leadership and soldiering -- people -- make the difference even when overwhelming technological difference exist. I suspect the same thesis will be borne out by subsequent studies of Gulf War II. Even in those cases where American infantry ostensibly went head-to-head with equivalent Iraqi infantry, the Americans came out on top. Why? It's not because of any inherently superior infantry technology -- boots, rucksacks and rifles haven't changed much over the years. (Though American and British forces could "reach back" to call for aircraft and artillery if needed.) The real reason why American and British infantry prevailed was their training, doctrine and leadership. Iraqi soldiers made dumb mistakes, like building fighting positions on the surface instead of digging them into the ground. Allied forces didn't make those mistakes -- and had the leadership and training to exploit them when made by their enemy. At the end of the day, I think that was enough to win.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:23

 
A long way to go...

Despite vivid footage of Americans tearing down statutes of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld proclaimed that American-led forces still had a number of key missions ahead of them before victory could be declared. In a press conference today, the secretary and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs clearly appeared happy that the war plan had gone so well, and that Baghdad had not become another Mogadishu or Beirut. However, both remained cautiously optimistic about the future.

The secretary pointed out that there are many missions that coalition forces still need to finish. "We still must capture, account for or otherwise deal with Saddam Hussein and his sons and the senior leadership," he said.

Coalition forces must find and ensure the safe return of prisoners of war – "those captured in this war or those still held from the last Gulf War."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Richard Myers also addressed the POW issue. "To those who may be holding any coalition prisoners of war, permit the International Red Cross to visit them," the general said. "The Geneva Convention requires you to ensure their health and well-being. When the hostilities end, we fully expect to find these young men and women in good health and well cared for."

Coalition forces must secure the northern oil fields, which have some 40 percent of Iraq's oil wealth and are probably wired for destruction by the doomed regime, he said.

Coalition forces must find and secure Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities and secure Iraq's borders to prevent the flow of WMD materials and senior regime officials out of the country. The secretary said the United States is concerned that regime members may try to export either these weapons or the expertise to make them to terrorist groups.

"And the thought that as part of this process, … those materials could leave the country and in the hands of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect," he said. "So it is important to us to see that that doesn't happen."

Coalition forces must still capture or kill the terrorists still operating in Iraq and prevent them from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction, Myers said.

The coalition also must begin the process of working with Iraqis to establish an interim authority and pave the way for a new Iraqi government.

Analysis: Ultimately, I think this last task is the most important -- perhaps even more so than getting Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Our mission will be judged in the court of world opinion by the way we govern Iraq in the early days of our occupation, and by the government we leave behind. If Iraq rises from the ashes to become a functioning, modernized, liberalized nation, then we may well call this mission a success. Ensuring such a future for Iraq will provide the best answer of all to those naysayers -- particularly the French, Germans, Russians and others -- who felt that war was not the answer and that diplomacy should have been given more chances.

The days and weeks ahead... America's military will have a lot to do as it consolidates its successes in Iraq and mops up the remnants of Saddam's regime. Isolated pockets of resistance continue to exist. We have not killed every last fighting soldier, nor have we disarmed them all. American forces must remain alert, and they must continue to hunt down those parts of Saddam's regime that might threaten our post-war nation-building. As relief supplies and aid organizations flow into Iraq, we must secure them too, to ensure the aid gets to the people who need it -- not the people with the most guns.

Coda: Paul McDonald, a doctoral student at Columbia University in international relations, has some good advice for the Bush Administration for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.

(1) Do Not Withdraw. Given the relative ease by which the coalition achieved victory, there may be a temptation on the part of the Administration or the American public to withdraw early from the Iraqi situation...
* * *
(3) Do Not Appear to Profit from Victory. Finally, if one wants to avoid criticism from home and abroad, the last thing the Administration wants to do is to appear biased during the reconstruction effort.

By avoiding the appearance of plundering Iraq for America's sole benefit, the Administration can reinforce its case that Iraq was liberated in the interests of human freedom and not national gain.

posted by Phillip Carter at 19:34

 
"Machines don't fight wars. People do, and they use their minds."
--Col. John R. Boyd

Noah Shachtman reports in Wired (and his blog DefenseTech) that high technology was less of a panacea for American soldiers in Iraq than widely believed -- especially in large cities like Baghdad and Basra. Specifically, Noah writes about the communications gear used by American forces, and the problems it experienced in urban combat.

Most of the radios used by American ground forces are FM, like a car stereo. And that means they're subject to the same static that someone gets when they drive between big buildings or through a tunnel.

Take, for example, the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System. SINCGARS is the main line of communication between platoons of 20 to 40 people and their higher-ups, serving more than 200,000 American soldiers.

But SINCGARS' signals "don't penetrate well in an urban environment," said Capt. Carlton Adams of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. You can boost these signals, in the VHF range (30 MHz to 88 MHz), with more power. But that makes the system so big you need a Humvee to carry it, he said.

Besides, SINCGARS isn't supposed to be for individual grunts to talk to one another. For that, members of the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq are using the Personal Role Radios, or PRRs, the communicators used by the British Army and Royal Marines. Operating in the 2.4 GHz slice of the spectrum -- the same one used for Wi-Fi Internet connections -- the PRRs have a theoretical range of 500 meters. In a building, however, they really can't reach more than a few floors away.

The radios work better, of course, if soldiers step out into an open avenue. But with snipers potentially lurking around every corner and on every rooftop, it's not wise for soliders to expose themselves.

Analysis: Battlefield communications is hard stuff -- it's something that very good units spend a lot of time working on in order to master. I used various versions of the SINCGARS radio system on active duty in Korea, Texas and the Mojave Desert; I also tested some of the Army's Force XXI communications systems as part of the 4th Infantry Division. Its performance varied widely based on terrain, atmospheric conditions, and surrounding buildings. At the muddy boots level, this can create real problems. Hollywood movies depict "calling for artillery" as a pretty easy thing to do. Just pick up your radio handmike, dial up the artillery battalion, and call for fire support. If only it were that easy... The military communications system is really complex, and just getting on the right frequency with the right COMSEC is hard enough. Add in the complexities of terrain, buildings, etc, and you start to have real problems. Suffice to say, commo with a supporting artillery unit is something no infantryman can take for granted.

One other reason why it's extremely important to have communication in urban combat: fratricide. Battles happen at closer range in cities than in the desert. Battle lines also shift faster. It's very important to maintain constant communication with friendly units to know where they're at all the time, in order to avoid accidentally targeting a building where friendly forces have advanced.

Many have predicted that America's future enemies will turn increasingly to urban combat as a way of offsetting American technological advantages. These problems with FM-based radios show one way that urban combat does that. Another way is by hampering American surveillance and target acquisition systems. Most of those systems, e.g. Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or scouts equippped with LRAS3, use their eyes (or cameras) to detect the enemy. If an Iraqi guerilla squad hides in a building, they become effectively invisible to these tools of surveillance. Even if we use sophisticated detection systems like thermal imaging, the guerillas can move down to the basement where they will evade even those means of detection. Other systems, like JSTARS, use radar to detect enemy ground forces. But the "clutter" of urban areas frustrates those systems as well.

Bottom Line: urban areas frustrate most of America's high-speed technological advantages. At the end of the day, urban combat requires tough, well-trained, well-equipped infantry who have the ability to close with and destroy the enemy by means of fire and maneuver.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:41

 
The human mind at war

Today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a great piece on the psychological impact of war. Among other things, it predicts a rise in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnoses in veterans after this war concludes, due to the violence and intensity of the war on Iraq.

PTSD, the most prevalent psychiatric condition resulting from the traumas of war, often doesn't manifest itself until long after veterans return home. According to studies, the rate of PTSD among combat vets averages about 15%, more than double that in the general population.

Feeling fear is common on the battlefield, where soldiers can be exposed to terrifying circumstances, dead bodies and episodes of graphic violence. But when fear responses persist long after the danger is gone -- including years later -- it's a sign of PTSD. The disorder "is the shutting down of all emotions except those that promote survival in mortal danger," says Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist who is a leading expert on veteran's mental health.

In the case of Iraq, psychologists worry that the future mental toll on troops will increase substantially now that the battle is moving from the desert, where high-tech weapons can defeat enemies at a distance, to the savagery of street-to-street fighting in Baghdad.

Lt. Col. Dave West, the Army's deputy command chaplain for the U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, says soldiers in support functions already have begun seeking counseling to deal with depression and physical symptoms caused by images of civilian casualties and fears about the safety of friends and family members on the front lines.

"Some of it is emotional issues, just being able to deal with the realities of war," says Col. West, a Southern Baptist. "Some is dealing with the realities of the civilian casualties being shown" on non-Western TV newscasts.

Psychologists say aggressive intervention by the U.S. military may help head off future psychological damage. In Iraq, the U.S. has deployed specialized anxiety-management squads like the 85th Combat Stress Control Detachment of Fort Hood, Texas, which includes psychiatrists and enlisted soldiers trained in counseling. "They attack mental health from a maintenance perspective," says Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a Fort Hood spokesman. The 40 or so members of the 85th shipped out last month. Military divisions also have psychiatrists of their own.

The best way to fight stress is with strong unit cohesion, high morale and good training, the military believes. After that, rest and a hot meal can calm most cases of nerves. Military psychologists view hospitalizing stress cases as a last resort.

Analysis: Today's Army has obviously learned a lot since World War II, where combat stress casualties were treated with a mix of ignorance and disdain. Today's military attaches mental-health officers to every brigade-sized unit in combat, with larger numbers of psychological personnel further back in the medical system. Stress casualties are taken seriously, because of the contagious effect that one stress casualty can have on an entire unit. Today's military also understands the strong relationship between unit cohesion, leadership and combat stress. Good units and leaders take care of their soldiers' minds as well as their bodies.

I'm no expert on this subject, having only read a couple of books in this area (On Killing by David Grossman and Acts of War by Richard Holmes). However, my reading and my military experience make me think that American veterans from this war will have it both better and worse than their predescessors. They will have it better because today's deployed units have paid a lot of attention to unit cohesion and combat stress. But they will have it worse because this war has been extremely violent and intense. Soldiers driving through Iraqi cities have seen gruesome sights of Iraqi men and women pulverized by allied weaponry. Many have fought in cities, or against guerilla forces, which has a qualitatively different effect on the mind than desert warfare where units fight each other from a distance. They have also been fighting for a sustained amount of time with no rest. Holmes' book analyzed battle records and found that soldiers' minds start to break down after prolonged exposure to combat. We're now 21 days into the war, and most of this has been continuous combat with the enemy. Holmes opined that units started to break down between 30-40 days of continuous battle, and that most were combat ineffective by the 60th day. It does not appear that this war will last that long. But if it does, we may see psychological fissures emerge in some of our most hardened soldiers and units.
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:45

 
Law and order in Iraq

The New York Times reports on debates raging within the Pentagon over how best to police Iraq after the war's conclusion. Most of the discussion right now focuses on the command structure for this mission, and which specific general will actually run the policing operation. However, the debate also rages over exactly how Iraq is to be policed after the war -- with an iron fist, a heavy hand, or a gentle push.

The size and scope of any postwar security force has already stirred debate on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon. There are more than 125,000 allied troops in Iraq now, with more than 100,000 Army troops — including the Fourth Infantry Division, First Armored Division and First Cavalry Division — moving into the region or on the way from the United States and Europe.

But Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, has said several hundred thousand troops will be needed to keep the peace in postwar Iraq. Mr. Wolfowitz dismissed General Shinseki's assessment as "wildly off the mark." Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops.

General Shinseki, who is retiring in June, has repeatedly clashed with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, but the general's supporters cite his experience as a former commander of American peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, and warn that Pentagon officials have underestimated the job ahead of them.

"I don't think they understand the scope of the problem, but I think they're starting to see it right now with the chaos, looting, revenge killing and political intrigue," said William L. Nash, a retired Army major general whose brigade stayed in southern Iraq more than two months after the gulf war in 1991.

"We are extraordinarily vulnerable from a force-protection standpoint as the cop on the beat," said one senior retired general, who voiced specific concern about the Iraqi capital. "There must be urgent consideration to have the Baghdad police do that job."

Pentagon officials say they have learned lessons from peacekeeping or security missions in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and, most recently, Afghanistan. But the operation in Iraq will be dominated by the United States and its allies in the war, not the United Nations, senior Pentagon officials said.

Analysis: This last point really can't be minimized. In 1991, the American military had very little experience in its ranks with "peace enforcement" and "nation building". 12 years later, America's military has a wealth of experience and valuable "lessons learned" from places like Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and other countries where the deployments are not so well known. Put simply, America's military has learned how to conduct operations across the military spectrum, from low-intensity peacekeeping operations to high-intensity combat operations. The fact that this discussion is happening at all -- and that America conceives of multiple ways to accomplish its post-war mission -- is itself significant. This discussion signifies an awareness of the complicated issues surrounding this kind of mission.

Ultimately, I think the debate will focus on how to best adapt a previously used model for use in Iraq. Haiti seems to stand out as the best example, where we displaced Gen. Raoul Cedras in favor of an elected President Aristide. However, we have no government-in-exile here to install in Iraq, and we must build a lot of political support from the ground up. In that sense, maybe this mission is more like Afghanistan, where we displaced the only legitimate government with one that was cobbled together from existing factions in and outside the country. Building a lasting peace will be difficult, but thankfully, it's something the U.S. has extensive recent experience with. Eight years ago, no one could have predicted the success of our mission in Bosnia. Eight years from now, I think we'll feel the same way about Iraq.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:40

 
The spoils of war

Today's Los Angeles Times carries an interesting piece on the looting which has taken place in various Iraqi cities since their capture by allied forces. Specifically, such looting appears to be rampant in Basra, where British officials seem to be encouraging certain kinds of looting -- especially of former-Baath Party buildings and other centers of power. In Baghdad, American soldiers are also seeing extensive looting, especially of buidings that used to belong to Saddam's regime like the Justice Ministry.

Down the wide boulevards of the city center, beneath murals and statues of Saddam Hussein, American tanks moved at will, almost parading as they rolled across the city, treads grinding, the crews relaxed and smiling. Looters waved casually as they toted their booty home.

They were in a festive mood, gaily hauling big-screen TVs and new office chairs past American tanks and Bradleys controlling the complex and a Tigris bridge approach. The thieves marched almost in step, pleased with their plunder, unhurried, as if in a pageant.

Blount wandered over and spoke to a few men who, unknown to the general, had just looted the Justice Ministry. They greeted him with chants, in English, of "Welcome America!"

Soldiers strung concertina wire to keep civilians away from combat positions, but they did not intercede to stop the looting though many of them assumed that some of today's looters were yesterday's soldiers, now in civilian clothes.

"I don't even feel like stopping them now that I see how they live," Marine Corps Maj. Mark Jewell said of the neighborhood's bereft civilians. He got his first look at the slums when he spent Tuesday night here in his Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

Analysis: Why would the U.S. encourage looting? I think a few things are at work here. First, we have a strong desire to paint the Hussein regime as kaput. Allowing civilians to loot the remnants of his regime, such as the Justice Ministry, empowers these Iraqis and makes them feel they have some personal autonomy and power over that regime. It also boosts these civilians' support for the Americans, particularly if we're letting these people loot things for their own personal gain (either personal use or sale). We'd look bad in the Iraqis' eyes if we preserved this stuff for the Ba'ath Party itself, or for some government-in-exile that these Iraqis have no tangible connection to. This all goes to the moral dimension of war. America needs to be win the hearts and minds of Iraq, and it needs to turn those hearts and minds against the Hussein regime. One way to do that is to co-opt the Iraqi population into helping to destroy his regime. Letting them loot Hussein's political apparatus is one way to accomplish that.

Coda: It's more than that. Right now, the U.S. has neither the combat power nor the time to police this kind of behavior. Doing so would require an inordinately large constabulary effort -- thousands of soldiers would have to give up fighting for policework. We may choose to do that in a few weeks or months when the combat dies down. But for now, we need our soldiers in the fight. I think Major Jewell's comments reflect this impetus. He wants to focus on combat operations right now. Security is the first thing on his mind, as it should be, for there can be no lasting peace and order without security. Only after America wipes out Hussein's remaining combat forces can any semblance of society take hold.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:30

 
Women in combat -- an online dialogue

Slate started an interesting online discussion today between two noted authors on the subject of women in the military. Debra J. Dickerson is the author of An American Story, and presumably want to see more women serving in combat positions. Stephanie Gutmann is a writer living in New York and the author of The Kinder, Gentler Military. From the stuff I've read, Ms. Gutmann opposes the broadening of women's roles in today's military. Here's a short excerpt from Ms. Gutmann's first note:

So, our question is, Should the Army and Marines be forced to change policies that prohibit women from taking combat jobs in their infantry and artillery units? The question was brought up ad nauseam after Gulf War I (since we'd entered a period of peace and prosperity and had time to address nonessential concerns), and if we're lucky enough to have bought ourselves more peace and prosperity I think we're gonna hear it again.

But I sure hope not. The only people who truly want to see women in combat are some TV producers who think it's a "sexy" issue and approximately 500 cranks assembled on college campuses and in NGOs around the Beltway.
* * *
The national argument might be worth having if there was some vast, seething body of women longing to personally stick it to the enemy, but Debra, we both know there is not. I have friends and acquaintances up and down the rank structure and from every service—tough, bright, feisty gals all—and I have never met, and they have never met, a woman who burns to join the ground-pounders. (Several large-scale surveys back me up on this.)

The truth is, there are only about 200 women a year who could meet the physical standards required, and even fewer who would select this MOS (military job). So, we'd have a lot of tsores over a few people. And if we launch a legal battle on the subject, we'll open ourselves up to a Supreme Court ruling that might require a female draft for combat positions—and that would be a real debacle.

My thoughts... This is something I've researched and written about, including this cover piece for the December 2002 Washington Monthly. It's also something I dealt with first-hand as a Military Police platoon leader in the Army. I led MP platoons in the 2nd Infantry Division (in Korea) and the 4th Infantry Division (in Texas) -- both times attached to a mechanized infantry brigade. Our missions as MPs included a lot of things that scouts and infantry do, including "hasty attack" and "area reconnaissance". With good training and good leadership, my female soldiers did just fine. I'll be interested to see whether this dialogue tackles the tough issues in this debate, because it's a really hard nut to crack. Some of those tough issues include:

- Standards. If the military maintains its current standards of performance, say for Ranger School, a certain amount of women will graduate. (There are undoubtedly some women who can meet the most demanding of standards) However, if that happens, the number is likely to be quite small. That will create strange group dynamics on the back end, where too few women will have graduated to form peer networks, support networks, mentoring arrangements, etc. Sociologists and others call this a "critical mass" problem. To ensure success on the back-end, the military will have to reverse-engineer standards for schools like Ranger School to ensure that a "critical mass" of women graduate. However, that creates real problems. Certain standards in the infantry community are immutable -- such as the ability to carry a pack for long distances, or carry a wounded buddy to medical aid. At a certain point, the standards cannot change, or else we will suffer diminished performance in combat.

- Sex. At some point, the discussion about women in the military must always return to sex. Soldiers are young, hormonally-imbalanced, physically-active people who engage in copious amounts of sexual activity. Any serious consideration of gender integration must include a serious discussion of the risks and control measures for sexual activity in the ranks. If the infantry, armor, and artillery branches are to be opened up, more thought also needs to be given to fraternization rules -- particularly within units at the same rank. Current rules proscribe relationships between soldiers of different rank, or soldiers and officers. But this may be a real issue if we let women into infantry squads and Bradley crews.

- Female POWs. This is a non-issue, as far as I'm concerned, despite the attempts by some in the media to make it one. It may be distasteful to say this, but men can be raped just as well as women once captured by the enemy. There are countless was to defile a male body, and countless ways to defile a female body. Differentiating men from women on account of their treatment as POWs is a false dichotomy. It reflects a normative judgment that we don't to think of our daughters in this way; that we don't want to expose them to the horrors of captivity. Ironically, various studies on female performance in captivity and survival situations (e.g. the Donner Pass journey to California in the 19th Century) have shown that women have a greater tolerance for these situations than men.

Bottom Line: This is a hard issue that deserves serious debate. Slate has chosen two good authors to discuss this issue, and I hope they will do it justice.
posted by Phillip Carter at 16:20

 
More on future war crimes trials in Iraq

Jess Bravin has a piece in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) dissecting this issue further, in light of the press conference yesterday where State Department and Pentagon officials discussed the prospect of war crimes trials in Iraq. I said yesterday I was waiting to see what some other reporters wrote on this subject, and now I have it. Jess has covered this story for a while, and has broken some of the key aspects of the story such as the publishing of the crimes for the military tribunals. His article today clarifies the path the Administration plans to take with regards to Iraqi war crimes trials after the war ends.

U.S. officials want Iraqi exiles, aided by American experts, to lead an effort to punish Saddam Hussein's regime for alleged crimes against humanity during the past two decades, with little involvement from the United Nations or other countries.

Washington itself plans to prosecute Iraqis for war crimes committed against U.S. forces during the current conflict and the 1991 Persian Gulf War, under provisions of the Geneva Conventions, officials said.
* * *
The U.S. plans to offer "technical, logistical, human and financial assistance" to create an Iraqi justice system, Mr. Prosper said. While other countries and organizations would be invited to contribute, the plan appeared to exclude the U.N. from a major role it recently has played in other nations that suffered gross human-rights violations.

U.S. officials have criticized the decade-old U.N. war-crimes tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia as too expensive, inefficient and far removed from the lands where the abuses took place. More recently, the U.N. has sponsored "hybrid" war-crimes courts in East Timor and Sierra Leone, where international jurists serve together with local lawyers to try accused war criminals.

Unlike U.N.-affiliated tribunals, Mr. Prosper said, the proposed Iraq court will be able to impose the death penalty.

Analysis: This may sound flippant, but I don't think the U.S. cares that much about "victor's justice" -- I think it cares about victory and justice separately. We obviously want to win this war, and I think we're on our way to doing so. And we care about justice in the abstract, because enforcement of UN resolutions and removal of an unjust regime together form our raison d'etre for this war. Frankly speaking, the U.S. does not enjoy a lot of support right now from the international human rights community, especially the part of that community in Europe. With our rejection of the International Criminal Court, treatment of the Gitmo prisoners, and other issues, we have already offended them. I think this legal strategy is being crafted with an eye towards Iraq -- and not towards Europe. The ICTY trial of Milosevic has not gone well, and we do not want to repeat that performance in Iraq. Our end goal now is a stabile Iraq with a functioning public/private infrastructure. Anything that detracts from that -- including showpiece trials in Europe of Iraqi officials -- runs contrary to American grand strategy.
posted by Phillip Carter at 10:09

 
Taking the fight to the Fedayeen

CNN reports that infantry from the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division have engaged elements of the Fedayeen in a fierce firefight near Hillah, south of Baghdad. The soldiers from the 101st appear to have made contact during a patrol of the city, in which they were actively looking for the Fedayeen.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, 3rd Brigade engaged in an hour-long firefight with Iraqi soldiers believed to be members of Saddam Fedayeen 50 miles south of Baghdad, said CNN's Ryan Chilcote, who is travelling with the unit.

Kiowa helicopters fired several rockets into a building, while U.S. soldiers fired grenade launchers to quell the resistance before they were able to enter, Chilcote said. Parts of the main building of the complex, which contains several warehouses and silos, were on fire and U.S. infantry soldiers went through it room by room to see if there were any survivors, he said.

A soldier in a Humvee vehicle with a large speaker mounted on top was asking the soldiers to stop fighting, Chilcote said.

U.S. soldiers hit the largest silo with anti-tank artillery, engulfing the building in flames, he said, while soldiers used tanks, armored personnel carriers, attack and scout helicopters.

Three U.S. soldiers were wounded, none seriously, Chilcote said. Two Kiowa helicopters were damaged, but the pilots were not injured.

Analysis: This is the kind of infantry fighting that America has hesitated to engage in since Vietnam, because it's incredibly costly in time and blood. American military commanders always prefer to send a machine or bullet instead of a man -- hence the use of artillery, aircraft and other means before the use of infantry. Nonetheless, it sometimes remains necessary to use brave young men as infantry to clear restricted terrain like urban areas. America has learned this lesson before, when fighting over the ragged mountains of Korea. Following World War II, America's military shrank to nearly nothing, and acquired a sense of lethargy in the wake of the nuclear-powered victory over Japan. Colonel T.R. Fehrenbach, a combat veteran of the Korean War, wrote a gripping history of the conflict called This Kind of War, in which he describes the tension between American techno-military strategy and the essential nature of infantry warfare:

"Americans in 1950 rediscovered something that since Hiroshima they had forgotten: you may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it, and wipe it clean of life--but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."

No one has said it better since Col. Fehrenbach, and the statement rings true today. We may bomb Iraq, fly planes over it, pulverize its palaces, and destroy its infrastructure. But to truly control it -- and effect the kind of change we want -- we must send our brave young men and women into the mud.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:29

 
One more sign that Baghdad is in American hands

Despite the firefight described below by the Washington Post, organized resistance appears to be crumbling in Baghdad. CNN.Com has a picture on its front page of two AH-1 Cobras (presumably from the Marine Corps) flying over the heart of Baghdad. Another officer I know pointed out that low-flying, slow helicopters like the Cobra don't fly over areas when there's a lot of anti-aircraft fire. In both Gulf War I and II, Baghdad has been heavily defended by anti-aircraft fire -- both surface-to-air missiles and guns. These Cobras' flight seems to indicate that a great deal of that has been silenced, or at least, that it does not pose a significant threat. Similarly, the use of Baghdad International Airport seems to indicate the same thing. It's still too early to declare victory... but this is one more indicator that we're heading in that direction.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:20

 
Almost another Mogadishu in Baghdad

There was no mission to abduct an enemy commander; no Blackhawk shot down by enemy guerillas. But this riveting story in tomorrow's Washington Post paints a vivid picture of an intense battle at a key intersection in Baghdad. Here's a brief excerpt:

An Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade slammed into a U.S. ammunition truck at the intersection. As mortars aboard the ammunition truck exploded, they set a nearby fuel tanker truck ablaze, sending clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky. With the cloverleaf now an inferno, soldiers dove for cover or ran for their vehicles. Two Special Forces vehicles -- Toyota pickup trucks -- went up in flames.

"RPG on the roof! RPG on the roof!" yelled one soldier from beneath an overpass as he peered through binoculars at a building up ahead. M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and other armored vehicles poured 25mm cannon and machine-gun fire at the target, but the incoming rounds continued.

"Get out of here now!" a sergeant bellowed.

posted by Phillip Carter at 21:12

 
Observe, Orient, Decide Act
U.S. gets "actionable" intelligence and launches B-1 strike on possible Hussein location

Various news sources including the New York Times and CNN are reporting that the U.S. dropped four large bombs on a Baghdad residence late today in an attempt to kill Saddam Hussein.

Military and national security officials said that the four two-thousand pound, satellite guided bombs had left what one official called "a huge smoking hole," but it was still unclear who was inside at the time or whether anyone was injured or killed.

The strike was made based on an intelligence report that one official said indicated that both Mr. Hussein and his two sons would be at the meeting. But other officials said they were cautious, wondering whether Mr. Hussein would allow the family to gather in one place.

The strike took place in Mansour district, a fashionable surburban area of the city, a military official said tonight in Washington. The intelligence information was passed to Central Command in Qatar, which authorized the strike.

This is a perfect vignette of John Boyd's OODA loop in action. Except that instead of happening at the tactical level, where it's grunt-on-grunt or fighter pilot-on-pilot, this is happening on the national level. American C4ISR (Command, Control, Communication and Computing = C4; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance = ISR) systems are so advanced that they can:

1) Observe. Detect indicators of Hussein meeting at a specific time and place.
2) Orient. Focus intelligence collection assets on that time/place in order to confirm the meeting.
3) Decide. Rapidly pass this information to the appropriate decisionmaker, in this case Gen. Tommy Franks at CENTCOM headquarters.
4) Act. Launch a strike with B-1 bombers and precision-guided munitions to eliminate the target.

This isn't a linear process -- it's an OODA loop. It's critical that we now gather information to feed back into the OODA loop in order to make subsequent decisions. Initially, this means doing "bomb damage assessment", called "BDA" by military pundits. If the report is right and there's just a smoking hole in the ground, that's going to be kind of tough. We may only be able to confirm Hussein's death in this attack by his absence, and future statements by Iraqis that he is, in fact, dead. Even with American special forces on the ground, it's going to be really hard to do BDA on this strike and take the next step to eliminate Mr. Hussein.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:54

 
Winds of Change has a great photo on their site of American soldiers taking a break from the war in one of Saddam's palaces. Judging by the shoulder patches, these are soldiers from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division. They've certainly earned the quick break, and I hope the entire division is able to make use of Saddam's palaces. If I'd just fought up from Kuwait through sandstorms, I'd want a crack at one of his gold-plated showers. Now that's what I call a Ba'ath party!

Update: It's been suggested that the use of Saddam's palaces by American soldiers amount to criminal trespassing -- that it may be an unlawful form of wartime looting. That might be true if soldiers start taking Saddam's stuff and auctioning it on E-Bay, but it's not true today. The laws of war allow belligerents to make use of civilian buildings when necessary and/or expedient. (Of course, we couldn't take a hospital and convert it to a military command post, nor could we hurt civilians by choosing to occupy a food store for this purpose.) Given the state of the Iraqi civilian economy, I'm going to guess that few structures come close to Saddam's place when it comes to construction quality, durability, space, survivability, etc. It makes sense that 3ID would choose to encamp there. At some point, the U.S. will have to start putting Iraqi assets into some sort of general fund for the subsequent Iraqi government. But during the conduct of war, our soldiers and commanders are allowed to make use of these palaces for legitimate purposes, so long as no outright theft or profiteering takes place.

With that said, let the showers commence! Hopefully, Saddam's kitchens are in working order still. Maybe 3ID's cooks can get in there to fire up something decent for the soldiers after two weeks of non-stop Meals, Ready to Eat.
posted by Phillip Carter at 16:41

 
America plans to try Iraqis for war crimes

In a briefing today, Pentagon and State Department officials said they have decided to try Iraqi officials whom they believe to be guilty of various war crimes, once the war is complete. Significantly, the officials said they would not turn to an international body, such as the International Criminal Court, to adjudicate these cases. Also, the U.S. said it would not pursue an ad hoc tribunal, like the International Criminal Tribunal-Yugoslavia, that's currently trying Slobodan Milosevic, for use in this situation.

W. Hays Parks, special assistant to the Army Judge Advocate General, said trials could be handled by U.S. military commissions, military courts martial, or in civilian federal courts. Parks accused Iraq's government of three specific violations of the Geneva Conventions and related laws of war, and said others were being investigated.

Pierre-Richard Prosper, U.S. ambassador for war crime issues, said possible punishments for those convicted range from incarceration to the death penalty.

``The current abuses, the crimes particularly against U.S. personnel, we believe that we have the sovereign ability and right to prosecute these cases,'' Prosper said. ``We are of the view that an international tribunal for the current abuses is not necessary.'' U.S. allies in the war, including Britain, have the same right to prosecute suspected war criminals, he said.

The only international tribunal in existence, Prosper said, is the permanent International Criminal Court. But that court lacks jurisdiction over this war because neither America nor Iraq are parties to the treaty creating the court, he said.

Prosper said an Iraqi judiciary process slated to be established following the war could handle trials relating to ``past abuses'' by members of Saddam's government. Officials said Iraqi exiles are being consulted about the matter.

``We have begun to catalog the numerous abuses, both past and present, that have been committed by the Iraqi regime. Our troops have been given the additional mission of securing and preserving evidence of war crimes and atrocities that they uncover,'' Prosper said.

Prosper said U.S. officials have been investigating the actions of the Iraqi leadership, including Saddam, his sons Qusay and Uday, and military leaders like Ali Hassan al-Majid, nicknamed ``Chemical Ali.'' He added that ``by the nature of the regime, we do understand that a lot of the orders for the atrocities came from the top.''

Analysis: This is something I've been following for a while, since it dovetails with some of my research and writing here at UCLA. At a symposium last month, I asked Mr. Prosper what he thought about this issue, and he debate that answer with David Scheffer, who was President Clinton's ambassador for war crimes and Mr. Prosper's predescessor. This is a tough issue to decide, since it really does cut both ways. On the one hand, international tribunals lend a sense of legitimacy in some situations, particularly when crimes against humanity and other similar offenses are charged. Similarly, local tribunals can give the Iraqi people a real stake in the procedure and the outcome of these trials. On the other hand, the desire to use U.S. courts (of some type) also makes sense, since our legal system has a great deal of protection for defendants and because it will allow us to control the classified information we use in the trials. (See the Classified Information Procedures Act) Personally, I think this issue is still very much in play. Until we see an actual defendant in court, I don't think the Administration has really decided on a course of action.

Update: Tomorrow's Washington Post story clarifies this issue a little bit, drawing a line between those crimes committed by Iraqis during the war with America and those crimes committed before the war (such as the use of chemical weapons on the Kurds). The former is to be tried by U.S. military or civilian proceedings; the latter is to be tried by a local ad hoc tribunal, similar to the one being used in Sierra Leone. Wall Street Journal reporter Jess Bravin reported on this some time ago, hinting that this would be the model for the Bush Administration if any Iraqis were tried down the road for war crimes. Now, the Post reports this is exactly what may happen.

In an announcement that drew warnings about the danger of "victor's justice" from human rights organizations, officials said the United States would contribute backing and would encourage other countries to help, but would not seek to establish an international tribunal.

The decision does not apply to any crimes committed during the current war. Attorneys from the Pentagon and State Department said Iraqis who violate international conventions or U.S. law during the conflict could face military tribunals or trial in U.S. District Court.

U.S. war crimes ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper said Iraqi courts are favored by the Bush administration for prosecuting past abuses, from the gassing of Kurds in northern Iraq to systematic repression. He said the development of Iraq's legal system requires the process to have "indigenous roots."

"For the past crimes, it's an Iraqi-led process. They're going to be out front. It's a matter of us offering assistance so that this will be fair," Prosper said. He held out the possibility that Iraqis could seek an international tribunal and said Iraqis inside Iraq would have a voice. But the administration has concluded, he said, that Iraqi expatriates favor trials by Iraqi jurists.

Acknowledging that Iraq's legal system needs an overhaul, Prosper said U.S. participation could be "substantial, depending what the needs are." The administration is prepared to provide money, logistical support and staff, he said.

Update II: The Pentagon has posted the full transcript of the press conference on this issue. I always find these transcripts to be useful, because you get to read the actual remarks by the men and women who work these issues -- instead of the filtered words of news reporters. They're also useful for context; sometimes it's useful to hear the reporter's question in addition to the answer.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:55

 
Oakland police use force to quell protest

Various news sources report that police officers used a significant amount of force in Oakland today to respond to anti-war protesters who were demonstrating near the Port of Oakland. Among other things, police opened fire with various non-lethal projectiles such as "rubber bullets", bean bags, and wooden dowels. Police also used tear gas and officers in riot gear to disperse the protesters and arrest those who would not move. "Some people were blocking port property and the port authorities asked us to move them off," said Deputy Police Chief Patrick Haw, justifying the police intervention. "Police moved aggressively against crowds because some people threw rocks and big iron bolts at officers."

Most of the 500 demonstrators were dispersed peacefully, but police shot the projectiles at two gates when protesters refused to move and some of them allegedly threw rocks and bolts. The longshoremen, pinned against a fence, were caught in the line of fire.

Police spokeswoman Danielle Ashford said officers fired bean-bag rounds and wooden dowels. They also used ``sting balls,'' which send out a spray of BB-sized rubber pellets and a cloud of tear gas and feel like a bee sting when they hit someone.

Demonstrators said they targeted the port because at least one company there is handling war supplies. They said it was the first time they had been fired upon in Bay area protests since the Iraq war began last month.
* * *
About 200 of the port demonstrators later marched to the federal building in Oakland, blocking a street and chanting: ``Out of the office and into the streets! U.S. out of the Middle East!'' They were joined by Oakland City Council members Jane Bruner and Jean Quan.

``They should not have been using the wooden bullets,'' Bruner said. ``Given what's happening in the world today, we're going to be seeing more of this. And we should be prepared to handle it.''

Oakland Police said at least 24 people were arrested.
* * *
Protests also took place Monday at the federal building in San Francisco and at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. And seven people were arrested when they temporarily blocked an exit ramp off Interstate 280 in San Francisco.

Analysis: I've done some riot control work as a military police lieutenant, and it's not easy. It's not easy to tell from this story whether the police were justified in using such force against the protesters or not. If they're blocking the port entrance, I'd say that doesn't qualify. If they did throw rocks and heavy objects at police officers, then that probably may be enough justification. The thing about non-lethal projectiles is that they cause a lot of unintended consequences. Against a healthy young protester, they'll cause a welt and some pain. But if you hit the wrong person (such as one with a heart condition) or hit someone in the wrong place, you can do a lot of damage. This use of police force has to be carefully measured. I might've used something less than this, such as tear gas, if I were in this situation.

Ironically, this has happened as the protests have started to die down. Here in Los Angeles, we have not had any major protests like the ones before the war and during the first few days. In San Francisco, they have not had any more breaches of the peace like the non-violent intrusion on the Pacific Stock Exchange, or coordinated "die-in" which shut down that city's traffic. I'm not sure why the protests have abated so much around the country. I suspect it has something to do with not wanting to protest so vehemently as young American men and women put their lives on the line in combat.

Update: In case you're trying to plan around the upcoming protests, I recommend surfing the International ANSWER website to find out when the big ones are coming to your hometown. These protests disrupt traffic a great deal, so I recommend doing some intelligence gathering of your own to minimize the impact of these events on your life. The group has big protests scheduled for this weekend in DC, San Francisco and L.A.

Update II: I was going write something about the protester's targeting decision -- why did these choose to picket this corporate site? It would have made much more sense to picket someone like Boeing or Northrop-Grumman, if your goal is to disrupt the American military-industrial complex. However, Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy beat me to the punch. Here's what he had to say:

If this protest was an effort to persuade Americans to be sympathetic to the antiwar cause, I think it failed, to put it mildly-- even putting aside the stuff about throwing metal bolts and blocks of wood at police officers. Just focus on what the protesters were targeting. Unless I'm missing something, the protesters in Oakland were trying to interfere with a company that is going to help rebuild Iraq, and even to bring in humanitarian aid. [See the update below for a different view, however.] Apparently the protesters targeted the company because they see it as part of a broad corporate effort to profit from the war. As one of the protesters put it, "This is the march I've been most excited about . . . . It actually got some outcomes. It's direct. Here, we're actually trying to shut the place down for a day, to take a strike straight at the actual machine of the war.'' But how is the company part of the 'actual machine of the war'? True, the company here is part of a corporate effort to profit from a U.S. government plan. The only trouble is, that plan is not a plan to wage war, but rather a postwar plan to bring peace, democracy, and prosperity to a nation that has suffered under a brutal dictator. If the protesters are against that, I don't think they'll find much company.

posted by Phillip Carter at 15:38

 
U.S. finds alleged chemical weapons site

American soldiers near Karbala found barrels that may contain chemical agents, according to reports from the New York Times and other sources. The soldiers' mission was to raid an abandoned training camp and search for weapons. Sure enough, they found them -- but much more than expected.

"We're treating it as real, we're reporting it as real" said Col. Tim Madere, the top chemical officer in V Corps, referring to the containers, which he said may hold the chemical/biological weapons.

Initial tests, Colonel Madere said, indicated the presence of nerve gas and mustard gas. But Colonel Madere said conclusive results probably won't be available until Tuesday or Wednesday.

If the discovery turns out to be chemical weapons, it would confirm one of the Bush administration's most powerful arguments in starting the war against Iraq. Not only was Saddam Hussein's regime brutal and threatening, the administration said, but its cache of chemical and biological weapons were a danger to the Middle East and to the United States. It would also prove a significant triumph for the United States to display, on the world stage, the presence of chemical weapons.

Saddam Hussein's regime has scoffed at the accusation that Iraq has such weapons.

Officials here promptly notified the Defense Department about the discovery.

Colonel Madere said that a preliminary test by a military chemical unit at the scene, indicated the presence of nerve gas, which is potentially lethal, as well as mustard gas.

But he withheld final judgment until a squad of the 51st Chemical Company, which was rushed to the scene, took samples and returned them to an American base in Iraq where more conclusive tests can be made.

Analysis: If I'm reading this story right, Colonel Madere is the V Corps chemical officer and he's exactly the right guy to be commenting here. Without knowing his specific bio, I can say that officers assigned to be the Corps Chemical Officer are either full colonels or senior lieutenant colonels with about 20-25 years of experience. I trust his statements more than I trust the initial reports from the field, because such reports will have been filtered and clarified by the time they got to V Corps headquarters -- and because he has the knowledge to sort reality from puffery.

So here's how such a scenario might have unfolded. Infantrymen on the ground found something and got suspicious -- maybe the barrels, maybe some noxious smell. They probably backed off and used the chemical-detection equipment at their disposal to figure out what was around. At the same time, these soldiers probably donned their complete chemical suit -- mask, suit, gloves, boots. The initial field-level detectors appear to have registered "positive" for GB, a non-persistent nerve agent, and mustard gas. (GB is roughly synonymous with sarin) These detection systems aren't designed to be very detailed -- they're designed to tell soldiers when to suit up, and when it's clear. Once the soldiers sent this report up the chain of command, the division headquarters launched a specialized team from the 51st Chemical Company to do more samples and analysis. They probably drove up in a Fox vehicle, with some pretty sophisticated gear capable of making these findings.

So does this prove the U.S. case? Technically, yes. These are prohibited materials under various UN Security Council resolutions. However, I don't think these quantities are sufficient to make the U.S. case in the court of world opinion. We still need to find more. I suspect that thousands of American and British soldiers are working towards that end right now.

First reports are always wrong? ABC News and other sources are reporting that tests on these chemicals indicate the U.S. has found barrels full of pesticide.

A military intelligence officer for the US 101st Airborne Division's aviation brigade, Captain Adam Mastrianni, told AFP news agency that comprehensive tests determined the presence of the pesticide compounds.

Initial tests had reportedly detected traces of sarin - a powerful toxin that quickly affects the nervous system - after US soldiers guarding the facility near Hindiyah, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, fell ill.

Captain Mastrianni said a "theatre-level chemical testing team" made up of biologists and chemists had finally disproved the preliminary field tests results and established that pesticide was the substance involved.

How could this happen? Well, a few ways. First, as stated above, these field chemical-detection devices are not the most exact things in the world. They tend to err on the false positive side, because soldiers lives are at stake and you'd rather put on your chemical suit and sweat than not put it on and die. Second, I think there are some chemicals in pesticides that are closely related to nerve agent. I'm not a chemical weapons specialist, but it's an old joke in the Army that using RAID in your house violates the chemical weapons treaties because it contains some nerve gas. If this is true, it certainly explains the mixup in the desert.

For more details... Read this Washington Post account of the incident, and the way the military is responding by Rick Atkinson and Barton Gellman from Iraq. They have some good follow up.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:21

 
Another great intel dump on the war

Winds of Change has a daily report for 7 April that provides a great roundup of news/blog coverage on the war. It's so good that I'm using it to catch up on the weekend's events I missed while down at Camp Pendleton. Check it out.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:32

 
Iraqi missile hits U.S. tactical operations center

CNN and others report that an Iraqi missile has struck the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. Early reports list two soldiers and two reporters as dead, and more than a dozen injured. The 2nd Brigade TOC was located south of Baghdad as the brigade conducted combat operations in and around the city. I'd like to use this incident to explain a couple of things about Army command systems.

1. What is a TOC? Brigades usually have three command posts -- the TOC, the "TAC", and the ALOC. The TAC is the "tactical" TOC, called a TAC because TTOC would be stupid. It's essentially a mini-CP that operates closer to the front lines than the TOC, and commands operations that are happening now. It may include 2-4 armored vehicles and some security, and doesn't have great capacity to plan operations. In my brigades, the commander and operations officer fought from the TAC. The ALOC is the "Administrative and Logistics Operations Center", and it usually operates far back in the Brigade Support Area where the maintenance, medical, supply and other support missions get done. The TOC is the main command center for the brigade. It tracks the current fight, plans the next fight, synchronizes brigade resources, coordinates with higher headquarters, and a lot more. The brigade TOC usually includes "plug-ins" from every unit in the brigade, such as engineers, artillery, air-defense, signal, and intelligence.

2. Can this brigade fight with the TAC and ALOC? Yes, but not as well. The TAC can track/manage the current fight and the ALOC can handle some of the functions of the TOC. But neither has the communications capabilities, size, planning staff, or equipment of the brigade TOC. They can certainly manage the fight for the next 24-48 hours, but at some point the TOC must the reconstituted to assume these functions. Also, the TAC and ALOC have their own functions, which will be somewhat neglected if they have to devote too much time to the TOC's missions.

3. How could such an attack happen? It's not clear from initial reports whether this was a lucky hit, or a targeted strike. If it's a lucky hit, then there's not a lot the U.S. can do. Whether this unit was moving or stopped, a moving missile can always find it by luck. Generally, such units move their command posts regularly for security purposes. It's also possible that this TOC was targeted by the Iraqis. American units look for enemy command posts with sensitive systems that can detect radio transmissions and other signatures that TOCs give off. It's possible -- but not likely -- the Iraqis used those technologies to find 2nd Brigade's TOC. We may never know the answer to this question. However, it's a fair bet that U.S. command posts are redoubling their efforts to hide from such detection. Some counter-measures include setting up below the crest of a hill to mask radio transmissions, and using one-direction antennae.

4. Why were reporters in the TOC? One of the things in every TOC is a giant map of the battlefield, updated with friendly and enemy-unit information in real-time. Some units have a digital map system for this; others use a paper map with plastic overlays depicting various pieces of information. The TOC is one of the few places where a reporter (or commander) can get an accurate, somewhat complete picture of the battlefield. Even in the heavily digitized 4th Infantry Division, I still had to go to my brigade TOC when I wanted a complete intel dump or picture of the battlefield. There's a lot of information out there, and it's hard to bring it all together. The TOC has a staff of dozens that spend their days doing just that, and it makes sense that reporters would hang out there to see the forest and not just the trees.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:21

 
Admin note: I just got back from a great weekend of reserve training last night, so my blogging may take a few hours to catch up today. Intel Dump will have a decent set of analyses up by this evening. Thanks for your patience, and your readership.
posted by Phillip Carter at 10:57

 
Are American (and allied) commando tactics legal?

That's the question that Kevin Drum poses in a disturbing post; Mark Kleiman has one set of answers here. I've written a fair amount on this, and will probably have some thoughts tomorrow after I get settled from my weekend of reserve duty. Mark's analysis looks pretty much right on. There are some legal details on the margins, such as the problems with choosing how to define lawful combatants (form or function?). I think the U.S. needs to be careful about this issue, among others. We need to scrupulously observe the laws of war in order to own the moral high ground during this conflict, and during our post-war governance of Iraq. As good as America's shadow warriors are, we can't afford to be seen as using these soldiers in any sort of illegal way.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:36

 
Why the Recent Civilian Shootings Near Karbala, While Tragic, Were Probably Lawful

Writ published an essay of mine over the weekend on the incident where American soldiers shot and killed 10 Iraqi civilians as they approached their checkpoint near Karbala, Iraq. The general thrust of my essay is that such an incident -- while tragic -- will likely be ruled "legal" by the Army's lawyers because the soldiers were probably acting in self-defense. Here's a short excerpt from the piece:

Several determinative facts which have appeared in multiple news reports on this incident suggest that the soldiers did, indeed, act in self-defense. Accordingly, that is the conclusion the investigators are likely to reach.

First, it appears that the Iraqi civilian driver ignored a sign in Arabic instructing him to slow for the checkpoint.

Second, the American soldiers responded with something called "graduated" force: Captain Johnson did not command his soldiers to immediately destroy the car as it approached. Instead, he proceeded from warning shot, to non-lethal shot, to lethal force.

Granted, if Captain Johnson's exclamation was reportedly correct, he did seem to believe that his soldiers "didn't fire a warning shot soon enough." But there is no indication that their failure to do so came from anything other than an honest - if tragic - misjudgment as to when was the right time to shoot. In combat, soldiers may only have seconds to make such a judgment call, and any investigation will also take that into account.

Third, and finally, the investigation will focus on the intelligence briefings on possible suicide bombings and the way this car must've appeared to the soldiers as it approached at high speed. Bravo Company's soldiers were fighting on the front lines, where there was a substantial likelihood of guerilla attacks on American forces.

In light of all these facts, a reasonable soldier, given the same intelligence and put in the same situation, would probably have reacted as these soldiers did.

I don't claim to have a monopoly on the facts. Indeed, I think there are several different truths about this incident that will come to light during the investigation. In writing this, I relied on the Washington Post accounts of William Branigan, because he was actually there to see the carnage. Whatever those investigations ultimately find, this vignette promises to reveal a great deal about the ways the U.S. fights under the laws of war.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:32

 
More fun than blogging
I'll be away from my newspapers, laptop and Internet connection this weekend to train with my reserve unit in Southern California. We're going to the field to train basic soldiering skills -- dismounted land navigation, basic rifle marksmanship, patrolling, and tactical mission planning. I can't wait to ruck up and go out to the field again; it's been a while since I got mud on my boots. Please come back on Sunday for more analysis and commentary on the issues of the day.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:40

 
Friendly fire isn't

The Associated Press reports on a series of fatal fratricide incidents during the U.S.-led assault on Iraq, which apparently have killed more than 10 soldiers. Details remain hazy, however the Pentagon is looking into reports that a Patriot missile battery shot down an American fighter jet; reports that another jet fired on American ground fires; reports that American forces killed an American infantryman near a destroyed Iraqi tank; and reports that a Blackhawk helicopter might have been downed by friendly fire while hovering over a battle between U.S. and Iraqi forces. These incidents are certainly tragic, however I think the Pentagon's leadership got it right when they said:

"There are portions of this battle that are enormously complex, and human beings are human beings," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said. "And things are going to happen, and it's always been so and it will be so this time — it's always sad and tragic and your heart breaks when people are killed or wounded by (it)."
* * *
"We'll have to investigate each one of them, see if it was a breakdown in our techniques or our procedures or if there was a technical breakdown that we have to shore up," Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a Pentagon news conference with Rumsfeld. "We'll just keep working at it."

That's about right. These incidents are tragic, but they're almost inevitable when you have thousands of soldiers and machines interacting in a combat environment. In peacetime, without bullets flying, the Army loses soldiers to fatal incidents caused by maintenance problems, equipment malfunctions, fatigue, poor planning, terrain, and a host of other causes. (It should be noted that military personnel have a lower fatality rate overall than the rest of the population, even from causes like driving, because of the intensive safety programs in all troop units) Those incidents in peacetime are tragic, but an intense effort is made after each one to learn the lessons from the event so that the death or injury is not in vain.

As a platoon leader, I did a "risk assessment matrix" before every mission that identified the risks, assessed them, and developed control measures to keep my soldiers safe. This is Army doctrine, and every platoon leader and company commander in the Army probably does some variant of this. My company commander always told me that "Nothing we do in peacetime is worth the life or limb of one of our soldiers." He was right -- these great young Americans are our most treasured resources. I'm confident that our junior leaders are doing everything they can to bring everyone home alive, and that these incidents are not the result of any deliberate indifference or negligence.

Another part of the story: Samizdata has some interesting insights into this issue, and disproportionately high numbers of fratricide incidents occurring between U.S. and British forces. (Thanks to Instapundit for the tip.)

Coda: The Army deployed for Gulf War II with an assortment of battlefield digitization equipment, including FBCB2 and other systems. In basic terms, these systems enable front-line commanders to see themselves, see the enemy, and see the terrain in real time with near-perfect fidelity (when they work). One major reason for pouring billions of dollars into these systems was to reduce the amount of fratricide from the levels in Gulf War II. When this war ends, I will definitely look for reports analyzing the effectiveness of these systems. I want to know whether they lived up to their promise, and actually reduced the amount of fratricide. More to follow.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:21

 
Corrections & Amplications

1. This morning's New York Times carried a startling correction for a quote that both the New York Times and Washington Post made the centerpiece of a big story this past weekend. LTG William Wallace, commander of the Army's V Corps, told reporters that the war plan was being adjusted to fit new realities on the battlefield. Jim Dwyer and Rick Atkinson (The New York Times' and Washington Post reporters embedded in the 101st Airborne Division) ran with the story, using it to draw the larger conclusion that America's war plan was slightly off course. The Washington Post reported his quote like this:

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHELL, Iraq, March 27 -- The Army's senior ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, said today that overextended supply lines and a combative adversary using unconventional tactics have stalled the U.S. drive toward Baghdad and increased the likelihood of a longer war than many strategists had anticipated.

"The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against," Wallace, commander of V Corps, said during a visit to the 101st Airborne Division headquarters here in central Iraq.

The New York Times today printed a correction for what was presumably the same quote, and they have updated Jim Dwyer's story on the same press conference with LTG Wallace.

A front-page article on Tuesday about criticism voiced by American military officers in Iraq over war plans omitted two words from an earlier comment by Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of V Corps. General Wallace had said (with the omission indicated by uppercasing), "The enemy we're fighting is A BIT different from the one we war-gamed against."

The Washington Post has not yet printed a correction for this story, and it's unclear whether they will.

Analysis: First off, accuracy is important. I reported this quote on Intel Dump because it ran in a prominent (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) reporter's story in a very respectable newspaper (The Washington Post). I regret having to post this correction. Second, I can't tell what exactly happened in the desert during this press conference. It's possible that both reporters heard the quote differently; it's possible that one was writing without a tape recorder; it's possible that LTG Wallace gave similar quotes at two different press conferences. I'm sure this incident will provide grist for journalism scholars after the war.

However, what is clear is that this minor correction -- just two words -- does affect the substance of the quote in some measure. Whether "a bit" means "a little" or whether it's pejorative for "a lot" is unclear. LTG Wallace is a pretty laconic guy, and I can imagine him leaning back in his chair and using "a bit" to underscore something that's big -- or the exact opposite. The Pentagon has vigorously backpedaled from LTG Wallace's comment, but I'm not sure what to make of that either. At the end of the day, we only know that the enemy is somewhat different than what we wargamed. Not to be flippant... but is there ever an enemy who fights exactly as we've wargamed? (Thanks to Eugene Volokh, citing Instapundit and PowerLine, for calling my attention to this.)

2. A reader wrote me to say that my riot-control agent note linked to an article in the New York Times that did not exist on the New York Times website. Instead, it's being run by "Common Dreams", which advertises itself as "Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community." My diligent reader thought I might be the victim of psychological operations, or a hoax. I checked the article out on Lexis, and it appears that this piece ran as an International Herald-Tribune article in the New York Times. (NYT now owns 100% of the IHT after buying out the Washington Post's stake in the joint international newspaper venture.) I'm not sure why the NYT website omitted this article, but it did. But at least I know for certain that this article actually ran, and you can rest assured that it is, in fact, a New York Times article by two of their better reporters (Nicholas Wade and Eric Schmitt).
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:04

 
Citizenship and service

Today's Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services has awarded posthumous citizenship to two Marines killed in action before their citizenship paperwork could be completed. This administrative decision follows a July 2002 Executive Order from President Bush granting expedited citizenship to those serving in uniform. The two U.S. Marines -- Lance Cpl. Jose A. Gutierrez and Cpl. Jose A. Garibay of Costa Mesa -- died in action during the first 3 days of the conflict. Both of these young Americans have compelling stories, which I'd like to share:

Gutierrez was orphaned as a boy in Guatemala. He hopped railcars across Mexico and entered the United States illegally in early 1997. He told authorities he was 16, ensuring him special consideration as a minor with no parents. That cleared the way for him to become a dependent of Los Angeles County and receive permanent residency, according to Juvenile Court records unsealed after a request by The Times.

In fact, Gutierrez was 22, according to a certified copy of his birth certificate obtained from the municipal registrar in his home town of Escuintla. Records from an orphanage in Guatemala City where Gutierrez lived for about 10 years also show that he was 22 when arrived in the United States.

Immigration officials said Wednesday that they relied on information provided by Gutierrez, who declared on a federal form in late 1997 that he was an undocumented foster child. He was granted legal residency in February 1998.

"Given the heroic circumstances of the Marine lance corporal's death, we doubt any new information would negatively affect the request for citizenship," said Francisco Arcaute, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly the INS.

Gutierrez's citizenship was requested by his sister Engracia Cirin, his only family member, who filled out the forms with the help of Marines at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City, officials said. She will receive no benefits from her brother's citizenship, which is an honorary status commemorating his heroism.
* * *
The other Marine granted citizenship, Garibay, was 21. He came to the United States from a small town in Jalisco, Mexico, when he was 2 months old. The former Newport Harbor High football player died with six other Marines on March 23 during heavy fighting near the city of Nasiriyah.

Immigration officials said Garibay's mother had requested his citizenship. "I'm happy because he deserves being a citizen," said his sister Cristal Garibay, speaking on behalf of the family from their Costa Mesa home. An altar of flowers and photos of Garibay in his uniform stood on the porch.

"He was probably more American than Mexican," his sister said.

My thoughts: I remember reading about President Bush's order in July 2002 while working in the Pentagon last summer, and thinking to myself that it was about time we did this for our so-called "green card soldiers." These men and women volunteer to serve their nation in a way that many native citizens take for granted. The executive order also reminded me a great deal of my family's history. My grandparents fled Nazi Germany in 1942, but waited in the Dutch West Indies for 10 years while U.S. immigration officials processed their application for entry. (America was less than kind to Jewish immigrants during and after World War II.) My father was 10 when he finally came to America. After he turned 18, he chose to enlist in the Army, partly to earn college money but also to pay back our family's debt to America. A generation later, I joined the Army for these reasons as well. I imagine that many of these immigrants joined for the same reasons -- educational opportunity, economic opportunity, and a chance to repay this nation for allowing them to pursue the American Dream. We owe these men an enormous debt -- the award of citizenship is a fitting tribute to these great Americans who died in action.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:36

 
President approves use of riot-control agents in Iraq

The New York Times and other media report that President Bush has authorized American forces to use chemical riot-control agents, commonly known as "tear gas". (The Pentagon does not appear to have authorized the use of "pepper spray".) Presumably, such agents will be used to defend U.S. units in urban areas from large crowds of civilians without resorting to lethal or physical force.

The U.S. Defense Department said that tear gas, which has been issued to American troops but not used by them, would be used only to save civilian lives and in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, ratified by the United States in 1997. Critics say any battlefield use of tear gas would violate the convention, offend crucial allies including Britain, and hand Saddam Hussein a legal basis for using chemical weapons against the United States.

"Riot-control agents, such as C.S., better known as tear gas, are non-lethal and may be used by U.S. forces only when authorized by the president and only under specific, well-defined circumstances, to protect non-combatants," a Pentagon spokesperson, Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, said in response to questions Friday. Use of the agents for defensive purposes to save lives "would be consistent with the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits the use of riot control agents as a method of warfare," he said.

Some experts disagreed. Elisa Harris, of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, said a violation could arise if riot control agents were used against Iraqi soldiers using civilians as a screen. This battlefield use would contravene the Chemical Weapons Convention, she said, but is explicitly permitted by an Executive Order of 1975.

The Pentagon was citing the language of this Executive Order in saying Bush had authorized use of riot control agents in Iraq, she said. Harris worked on chemical weapons policy for the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.

Riot-control agents may be used behind battlefield lines, to quell riots or control prisoners being transported, but the chemical weapons convention says riot-control agents may not be used as a "method of warfare." Signatories feared their deployment might escalate to the use of lethal chemicals and had done so in the past.

In four major uses of chemical weapons in the past — by combatants in World War I; by the Italians in Ethiopia; by the Egyptians in Yemen; and in the Iran-Iraq war — deployment was preceded by use of non-lethal agents, Harris said. The framers of the convention therefore sought to draw a clear line against use of all chemical agents on the battlefield. This is the position of signatories including Britain. The British Defense minister, Geoff Hoon, said last week that non-lethal chemical agents "would not be used by the United Kingdom in any military operation or on any battlefield."

Analysis: This is significant, because the U.S. doesn't authorize the use of these agents lightly. As the article points out, many legal scholars think such usage violates international law since it's hard to distinguish riot-control chemical agents from other chemical agents -- lethal or incapacitating. Moreover, tear gas can have a lethal effect on some people, particularly the very young and very old. Still, I think this is the right decision, because we want to use as much restraint as possible in Baghdad. When conducting this kind of peacemaking and nation-building operations, you need as many levels of force as possible, instead of the simple binary choice between shoot or no-shoot. If a soldier has several levels of force available, he/she can use the appropriate level when necessary to respond to the threat -- hopefully solving the problem without resorting to physical or lethal force. Non-lethal force major cornerstone of contemporary Army doctrine. I think the President is making the right decision to authorize this extra tool for our soldier's arsenal.

Update: I'm going to be interviewed on this subject by CJAD radio (Montreal, Canada) for the Ric Peterson show in about 15 minutes. The show is supposed to run from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:53

 
Leading U.S. units don chemical gear for final attack on Baghdad

The Associated Press reports that lead units of the 3rd Infantry Division (and presumably other ground units as well) have gone to "MOPP Level 1" after crossing into the "red zone" around Baghdad. CENTCOM officials stress this is a precautionary measure, and not tied to any specific indicator that Saddam's about to launch a chemical or biological weapon at U.S. troops.

The units were both well within the 50-mile "red zone" defensive cordon around the ancient city, heightening concerns of a possible chemical attack by the Saddam Hussein regime. Marine helicopter pilots were advised to be ready to don chemical suits at a moment's notice after they moved into the range of the guns and missiles defending Baghdad.

"There may be a trigger line where the regime deems (a) sufficient threat to use weapons of mass destruction," warned U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks as the ground troops moved toward Baghdad from the southeast and southwest.

Explanation: Some background is in order here. First, what is MOPP? The term stands for "Mission Oriented Protective Posture," and MOPP levels 0 - 4 represent gradual increases in the amount of MOPP equipment you wear.

- MOPP 0 is the lowest -- it means carrying your MOPP gear, or sometimes having it readily available. This is what I lived under for most of my year in Korea.

- MOPP 1 is what these soldiers are in now; it's where you wear your chemical protective suit but carry your mask, gloves and boots. Soldiers go to MOPP 1 before battle often, because it's hard to get the suit on in the heat of combat. Soldiers are trained to don gas masks in less than 9 seconds, but putting on the suit can be quite an ordeal -- especially if you're wearing a load-bearing vest, body armor, helmet, rucksack, kneepads, and carrying a rifle.

- MOPP 2 is an incremental increase from MOPP 1; it involves putting on your rubber overboots. Again, this is often done before combat because putting these boots on can be a hassle.

- MOPP 3 is where soldiers wear their chemical gloves, but not their mask. At this point, they are just one step away from full protection.

- MOPP 4 is the level where soldiers wear their entire chemical protective ensemble -- mask, suit, boots and gloves. Suffice to say, this is not a comfortable way to fight. I usually sweated profusely in my suit, whether in the Mojave Desert or Korean mountains. Soldiers can drink through a special tube in the mask, and relieve themselves in the suit if need be, but MOPP 4 is not recommended for extended periods of time because of dehydration and fatigue risk. Also, the mask cuts down the oxygen content of inhaled air, making it harder to breathe in MOPP 4, and contributing to fatigue.

Okay... so what's a "red zone"? The first time I heard the term was in a class given by then-Brigadier General James Grazioplene in Korea to the officers of the 2nd Infantry Division. It refers to a highly contested area that the enemy wants to hold onto -- and that he has focused his defensive preparation and effort on. In the red zone, combat units can expect to encounter enemy artillery, mines, anti-tank fire, obstacles, and other problems as they attack towards the objective. One Army "lessons learned" paper defines it this way:

RED ZONE: the enemy's direct fire battle space. A dynamic, physical area that expands or contracts in relation to the ability of the enemy to acquire and engage with direct weapons fire. It is graphically characterized, in an (American) deliberate attack, as the area between the probable line of contact and the limit of advance, within enemy direct fire range. In other words, it's a bad place to be.

What makes the chemical threat more likely in the red zone? There are a couple of reasons, actually. The first is the effect that chemical weapons have on American maneuver. As stated above, it's tough to get into MOPP gear. Once its on, soldiers become less nimble and more fatigued; movement becomes more difficult. Firing a chemical weapon at U.S. forces as they attack through the red zone reinforces the effect of all the obstacles like mines and concertina wire -- it slows the U.S. assault down. It also disrupts the U.S. assault, because it's harder to see things out of a gas mask, harder to drive, harder to talk on the radio -- this causes some disruption. (Note: some combat vehicles today like the M1A1 tank have an "overpressure" system that seals the tank and allows the crew to fight without MOPP 4) The second reason is more strategic in nature. If the U.S. is charging through the red zone, and clearly heading for victory, the Iraqis don't have a lot of options. If they want to survive to fight another day, they have to slow the U.S. down and delay the U.S. advance. Chemical weapons, in many ways, are regarded as a last-ditch weapon to seal escape routes and slow the attacker while the defender retreats. In many ways, chemical-weapon use is almost an indicator of U.S. success.

Bottom Line: If Iraq launches chemical weapons at U.S. forces, it will probably not kill many soldiers. (It may, however, cause a number of psychological casualties based on history and U.S. Army predictions) U.S. soldiers are trained to fight in MOPP gear and they will mostly survive such an attack. However, it will slow us down a great deal. Ultimately, however, such a move would certainly backfire for Saddam Hussein, for it would prove the American raison d'etre for entering this conflict in the first place.

Coda: Today's analysis by Tom Ricks and Jonathan Weisman in the Washington Post is worth reading for a lot of reasons, but one is that it contains some insight on this issue:

In a war whose rhythms have been erratic, the unpredictability of the situation seemed to be peaking yesterday. "We're approaching the time of desperate measures, of the maximum risk of chemical weapons, or of a political coup," said Jeffrey White, another former DIA expert on the Iraqi military.

He doesn't expect chemicals to be used by Iraqi defenders because, he said, the tactical advantages on the battlefield wouldn't be great but the strategic costs to Hussein's image would be. U.S. commanders have worried that the most likely time that chemicals would be used was as U.S. forces crossed the "red line" demarcating the defensive perimeter of the capital, a boundary they crossed yesterday.

posted by Phillip Carter at 09:09

 
Satellite imagery of Baghdad

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has some great satellite photography shots of Baghdad after the bombing campaign. I'm no satellite photo analyst, but I know how to read overhead imagery of terrain. I think Glenn is right to say that "This is a useful antidote to Iraqi propaganda and to "peace" activists' hopeful fantasies of mass destruction due to U.S. bombing."
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:29

 
Interesting note about embedded reporters

First Amendment attorney John Maltbie has some background on the policies the Pentagon has promulgated for the reporters who have been "embedded" in American combat units fighting their way into Iraq. These policies have been questioned a lot lately after the quasi-expulsion of Geraldo Rivera from the region by the Pentagon for reporting on operational details of the 101st Airborne Division. John has the actual policy from the DoD on media embedding. He also has the "Release, Indemnification, and Hold Harmless Agreement and Agreement Not to Sue" signed by reporters and their media outlets before their entry into the combat zone. Both documents I(which come from official DoD sites) illuminate some of the trends we've seen in embedded coverage thus far.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:17

 
An "Ivy League Soldier"

Today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a well-written essay by the mother of a young infantry lieutenant in the Army's 10th Mountain Division who just received his orders to deploy overseas. She writes of a "typical Cambridge, Mass., dinner party" where the guests were discussing the war and their general opposition to this war and most things connected to the Bush Administration. The chef began a particularly virulent attack on President Bush and the war, saying ""The war won't accomplish anything. It is all about money. The Bushes are in bed with the oil industry. We are fighting to protect their interests."

My husband broke into the conversation. "This is not an academic discussion for us," he noted. "Unlike most of his Harvard College 2000 classmates, our son Alex chose to serve his country as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Infantry. Stationed at Fort Drum, New York, he has just received deployment orders."

It was as if he had switched on a flow of electricity. The tenor of the conversation changed entirely.

"I don't know anyone with a child in the military," said the hippie. The other guests nodded in agreement.

"How do you feel about it?" he asked me.

"I was shocked when Alex told me of his decision to enroll in ROTC," I said.

"Why don't you enlist when a noble war, like World War II, comes along?" I asked Alex. "The ROTC way you will serve at the whim of the president, no matter how distasteful you find the war."

My then-18-year-old son calmly disagreed with me. "We need a standing military to preserve democracy," he noted. "The military must serve the will of the country, not its own." With this human face put on the war, the hippie's attitude changed. "Ask Alex if he wants me to cook him a meal when he comes home," he said.

Indeed... Soldiers don't choose the wars they fight; they do their duty and fight until their missions is accomplished. An infantry lieutenant -- no matter what his political connections or pedigree -- has no say in the ultimate justice or wisdom of the wars he fights. His mission is to win, and to bring his soldiers home alive. Our democracy has depended for more than two centuries on young men (and increasingly women) who were willing to step into the breach -- whether on the battlefields of Europe or frozen mountains of Korea. In peace and war, these soldiers voluntarily choose a life of hardship and sacrifice knowing they will have little control over their deployment. One friend of mine who's still serving as an Army captain wrote me today with this eloquent thought:

"The choice to serve at all is the only choice a soldier truly makes in his/her Army career; the rest are choices made FOR him by the politicians of the day. Therefore, assuming that most of the soldiers in the Gulf truly believe in the higher political purpose may be incorrect. Many, I believe, have reconciled it just like the American people have: I did not believe in this purpose (to fight in Iraq), but the choice was not mine to make. Therefore, I will now focus on what I DO believe in (whether it's anger at Sept 11, saving your buddy, supporting your son, makes no matter)."

My friend also made the point in her e-mail that many Americans have intellectually separated their support for the troops from their opposition to the war. Much of this traces to post-Vietnam guilt about the horrible way that young Americans were treated as they came home from that unpopular conflict. I'm still not sure I can reconcile the two positions. I think that criticizing a soldier's purpose ultimately hurts that soldier's morale. However, I recognize that many people have to draw this line in order to reconcile their political views with their support for our soldiers. My parting thought is that I wish more Americans would serve in uniform, especially in the elite parts of American society. That way, more Americans would appreciate the way this Ivy League mother feels about her son, the infantry lieutenant, and the sacrifices they make on our behalf.

Update: The Wall Street Journal has posted a free copy of Regina E. Herzlinger's piece on Ivy League soldiers at its OpinionJournal.Com website.

Update II: It's a small blogosphere! The host of Unlearned Hand apparently knows 1LT Alex Herzlinger well, having gone to Harvard with him and graduated from the same crosstown Army ROTC program at MIT that hosts Harvard cadets. Mr. Hand, who's a 1L at the University of Virginia's law school and a future Army JAG officer, has some personal thoughts on the WSJ piece and the larger issue of military service:

What is particularly paradoxical to me is that I see positions on both the left and right which suffer from the same disconnect with soldiers and the realities of military operations. As I've noted before, the leaders of both the current and prior administration have a notable lack of military experience, and I think we've seen as a result a notable lack of restraint in using the military to solve global issues. The same goes for most of the speakers at the various sit-ins and protests, who are unable to recognize the humanity of the American soldier and his desire to serve his country proudly and justly. Why this disconnect? Because both groups are drawn from the elite part of society, which as Phil notes, no longer contribute significant numbers to our military ranks. They don't serve in the military, and they don't have friends or family who do. I've long thought of taking a more academic look at this phenomenon, and may still do so. It is a topic that needs addressing, for the good of our military and thus our country.

posted by Phillip Carter at 13:18

 
Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan

Mark Kleiman has a provocative pair of posts (here and here) on the war plan and those who are criticizing it, taking credit for it, and analyzing it. In the latter one, Mark also offers his own thoughtful commentary on the war's progress to date.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:17

 
Luck and unit cohesion at the 'tip of the spear'

Today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a great piece on the 2nd Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment, that's been leading the 3rd Infantry Division's charge into Iraq. Helene Cooper describes the legendary status this battalion has earned thus far in the war, and I think she paints a great picture with words.

Most American troops in Iraq have seen only snippets of action. But the 2-69 -- the Second Battalion of the 69th Armor Regiment of the Third Infantry Division's Third Brigade -- led the invasion across the Kuwait border, and it has been the tip of the spear ever since. It has undergone a steady barrage of artillery and mortar attacks and close fighting as it moved north. As of Tuesday night, it had suffered no fatalities and just a handful of injuries, one of which required a soldier's evacuation from Iraq.

At 9 p.m. Tuesday night, Task Force 2-69 began what was shaping up as the biggest battle of the war so far. Under the black night of a new moon, the Karbala skyline lit up as Army multiple launch rocket systems lobbed as many as 70 artillery shells at a time at the local Baath Party headquarters and Republican Guard units protecting the city. Shortly afterward, M1 tanks from the 2-69 -- they have 44 of the four-man, 70-ton machines -- left this town just to the southeast and began racing north at up to 35 miles an hour.

Karbala is the last major city between the Third Infantry and Baghdad, and the fight to get past it is expected to take several days. Task Force 2-69 was aiming for the Karbala Gap, a 12-mile barren stretch between the city and a big lake to the west. Once the troops have broken through what Army commanders believe is an arc of Republican Guard troops arrayed across the gap, the path to Iraqi troops on the outskirts of Baghdad will be clear.

About 800 strong, with no women, the men of 2-69 come off as a cross between "The Dirty Dozen" and "Cool Hand Luke" on steroids. While other army units sleep on cots, out of artillery range of Iraqi soldiers, the 2-69 guys dig foxholes for their tanks and themselves. Other soldiers make sure their M-16s are within reach when driving through the desert. The 2-69 guys drive with M-16s in their laps, the nozzles poking out the windows. Troops further down the spear have been complaining incessantly about the war's lack of northward progress, but 2-69 soldiers said they have seen too much action to worry about such things.

The battalion was deployed to the Kuwait desert for eight months last year, giving it intensive on-the-ground training in terrain identical to Iraq's. The 2-69 has a reputation for drilling more intensely than others. It also has a relatively stable structure. Most top officers have been in their current positions for a year or more, and the 2-69 has been attached to the same Third Infantry unit since 2001.

Analysis: Two notes on this battalion. First, luck matters in combat. The fact that 2-69 has suffered no fatalities owes a lot to great training, leadership and equipment -- but it also flows from good luck. Second, good units aren't born, and they're not made overnight. Good units are built by solid officers, sergeants and soldiers over a period of months and years. The fact that 2-69's officers have been "stabilized" for so long is very important -- these soldiers have trained under the same leadership for a long time, and trained together for a long time. That time forms the foundation of this unit's cohesion -- which ultimately matters a great deal for its effectiveness in combat.

Today's Army does not emphasize unit cohesion with its personnel policies. Officers and soldiers are transferred around the world as individuals, and Army policies have only recently started to focus on building competent, stable teams in units. Leaders at the platoon, company and battalion level fight a constant battle against personnel turnover. Maintaining this kind of unit cohesion is very tough in the peacetime Army. (See Path to Victory by Don Vandergriff for more on this problem and some solutions for the Army) If the leaders of 2-69 did one thing right before deploying, it was to build a good team for the fight ahead. This battalion has also benefitted from being deployed in Kuwait so long. Over there, they were able to practice the art of warfare without the distractions of home, and build the kind of skill and unit cohesion normally only seen in elite units. 2-69 Armor has been successful for many reasons -- great equipment, great support, great tactics, etc. But in the end, I think its leaders and soldiers are what make the difference at the tip of the spear.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:32

 
U.S. "destroys" Republican Guard division

The Associated Press reports that CENTCOM is claiming victory over a Republican Guard division that American forces pummeled throughout the night and day. In their drive to Baghdad, parts of the 3rd Infantry Division appear to have made contact with the Baghdad Division -- and they appear to have "destroyed" it by direct fire (tank guns, missiles, etc) and indirect fire (artillery, aircraft).

U.S. forces had entered what U.S. commanders call a "red zone" near Baghdad, and Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks warned that it might be an area where the Iraqis would consider using chemical or other weapons of mass destruction.

"There may be a trigger line where the regime deems (there is a) sufficient threat to use weapons of mass destruction," he said. "It's a conceptual line across which there may be a decision made by regime leaders."

He said U.S. forces seized the strategic town of Kut and routed the Republican Guard division force that had been guarding the highway leading to Baghdad.

"The Baghdad Division has been destroyed," Brooks said.

Primer: What exactly does "destroyed" mean in Army-speak? Believe it or not, it's a difficult question that military commanders haggle over all the time. It has a specific meaning according to military doctrine; destroy is not the same as "defeat" or "neutralize." According to FM 101-5, the military defines destroy as:

destroy - 1. A tactical task to physically render an enemy force combat-ineffective unless it is reconstituted. 2. To render a target so damaged that it cannot function as intended nor be restored to a usable condition without being entirely rebuilt. Artillery requires 30 percent incapacitation or destruction of enemy force. (See also defeat.)
* * *
defeat(Army) - A tactical task to either disrupt or nullify the enemy force commander's plan and subdue his will to fight so that he is unwilling or unable to further pursue his adopted course of action and yields to the will of his opponent.

What do these definitions mean so far as the Baghdad Division goes? First, it means that the U.S. has not completely wiped out the Baghdad Division; it's only attrited it down to 70% or less. That figure rests on an assumption about what casualty percentage is necessary to make a unit fold and stop fighting. As we've seen thus far, such assumptions may be flawed if this enemy fights more tenaciously than we expect. Second, CENTCOM's use of the term "destroy" mean mean that we've met their trigger criteria for the final assault on Baghdad. Remember when I talked about setting the conditions? It's a safe bet that one of the conditions was "The Baghdad Division is destroyed." American forces have now met that condition, and I think we will see a series of operations launched as a result.

Update: The New York Times reports that American forces have given the famed Medina Division of the Republican Guard "a severe mauling." I'm not quite sure what this term means in doctrinal terms -- it's hard to quantify exactly what a "severe mauling" means. (If I lost a hand, I'd consider it a severe mauling, despite the fact that I've lost less than 10% of my body weight.) Later in the story, a Pentagon spokesman says "the Medina and Baghdad divisions of the Republican Guard are being pounded so badly that they are 'no longer credible forces.'" Again, I'm not sure what this means. I hate to sound like an Army schoolhouse instructor, but the military has jargon for a reason -- each word (like "destroy") carries a specific and established meaning. Sometimes, it'd be nice if the Pentagon used a little more jargon so we knew exactly what they were saying.
posted by Phillip Carter at 06:02

 
Two excellent pieces in Writ on war coverage and decisionmaking

Writ is an online journal of legal analysis and commentary run by the staff at Findlaw.Com. I've written a couple of pieces for the journal. I think it provides a great deal of cutting-edge legal analysis that's too current to make it into law journals, yet too legalistic for most mainstream media. The two pieces represent some of the better work I've seen thus far on this site, and I think both are worth reading.

1. Supreme Command: Who Should Be In Charge Of Operation Iraqi Freedom?
This piece comes from John Dean, who served as White House Counsel in the Nixon Administration, and has written extensively on legal and political affairs since that job. Dean writes mostly about the book Supreme Command, written last year by Eliot Cohen and allegedly read by President Bush last summer.

To make the case that the politicians who head democracies should make the decisions in times of war, Supreme Command examines the wartime leadership of four eminently successful war leaders: Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben Gurion.

With these examples, Cohen makes a powerful case that the politicians had a much better feel for the larger picture than their generals - and, indeed, that they were the ones who had ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of their wars.
* * *
I asked Cohen an unfair question about his book, and the fact it had been read by the president. I wanted to know what single paragraph he hoped the president had read, understood, and remembered in Supreme Command. No one can be unhappy with his selection.

Cohen selected a paragraph near the end of his narrative, where he explains that all four protagonists of his study exhibited one quality "without which they could not have succeeded: moderation." Of all these wartime leaders, Cohen says that Churchill has most vividly captured the essence of the necessary political moderation with his words: "A statesman in contact with the moving events and anxious to keep the ship on an even keel and steer a steady course may lean all his weight now on one side and now on the other."

This is especially appropriate advice for a president who has been steadily leaning starboard since he arrived in the Oval Office.

2. Can the Means by Which War Is Covered Be Changed to Be Less Biased?
Julie Hilden, a First Amendment attorney and author, has a provocative essay about the pitfalls of press reporting from Gulf War II. (Full disclosure: Julie is also my editor at Writ) She writes that embedded reporters have come to dominate press coverage of the war, and that this coverage has been almost entirely pro-war and pro-Coalition.

The embedded reporter program lets journalists travel with troops to report what they are seeing, while simultaneously restricting what they can report (to prevent classified information from leaking). As a result, reporters who are "embeds" inevitably tell primarily the story that the U.S. military wants viewers to see.

Footage and information on the war is shot and filtered through the perspective and experiences of their military hosts: the obstacles, victories, and defeats their units encounter, become the stories seen and told by the reporters. By marrying what seems like independent reportage with a reality that is highly dependent upon the experiences of Coalition forces, embedded reporting inevitably ends up blurring the boundaries between reporting and our military's point of view.

Unsurprisingly, then, as (Jack Shafer notes in Slate), the embedded journalist program has produced a great deal of pro-war coverage. Mostly, the pro-war bent of the coverage has come from what it leaves out: The events as seen from any other point of view than that of the Coalition forces.

For instance, when Apache helicopters were sent out for a mission in which they took heavy fire, and one did not return, the embeds could not report on the POWs' experience or show the battering the helicopters took. Instead, we only saw footage of the helicopters leaving, and soldiers from the POWs' unit saying their prayers were with their missing comrades, while assuring viewers that everything was otherwise fine.
* * *
Granted, embedded reporting from the front certainly is better than reports gleaned from piecing together information released through Pentagon briefings and newswires. It's also an improvement over the limited coverage journalists and viewers were afforded during the Gulf War.

Yet given the unavoidable pro-war bias created with embedded reporting, are there alternatives that would allow reporters the same access to the war front, while at the same time allowing for reporting that depicts a more balanced view of both sides in the war?

Read the rest of Julie's essay for the answer, and some more interesting analysis of how blogging has become an inherently anti-war medium of communication in this war (notwithstanding Intel Dump).
posted by Phillip Carter at 05:50

 
With friends like these...

Matt at Stop the Bleating thinks I may be suffering from a blogger's affliction known as "hit addiction". He may be right. After writing that I would be slowing down to focus on my law school coursework, I've managed to pen more posts than I should have. So once again, I renew my pledge to slow down the blogging... I'll probably go to once/twice-a-day commentaries as final exams consume my time.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:59

 
Winds of Change summary

If you only check one 'blog a day... it probably should be one like Winds of Change. Their daily "On the Battlefield" summary does a great of bringing together news reports, weblog postings, commentaries, and other pieces of information that you'd have to surf a long time to find.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:52

 
Pentagon and McCaffrey exchange broadsides

Earlier in the day, I recommended a Wall Street Journal essay by retired-General Barry McCaffrey, in which he criticized the Bush Administration and Rumsfeld Pentagon for trying to fight this war on the cheap. I read excerpts from a Pentagon press conference today indicating that the Pentagon was quite unhappy with these comments, and that current-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard Myers in particular had something to say to Mr. McCaffrey and others who have criticized the American war plan lately.

"I don't know how (the reports) get started, and I don't know how they've been perpetuated, but it's not been by responsible members of the team that put this all together," Myers said.

"It is not helpful to have those kind of comments come out when we've got troops in combat, because first of all, they're false, they're absolutely wrong, they bear no resemblance to the truth, and it's just … harmful to our troops that are out there fighting very bravely, very courageously," he added.

Tonight, the New York Times reports that retired-Gen. McCaffrey has fired back, speaking from his office as a professor at West Point.

"I'm a professor of national security studies, and I know a lot more about fighting than he does," General McCaffrey, who led a mechanized infantry division during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, said of Mr. Rumsfeld. "The problem isn't that the V Corps serving officers are commenting or that retired senior officers are commenting on television. The problem is that they chose to attack 250 miles into Iraq with one armored division and no rear-area security and no second front."

General McCaffrey said he resented "the implication that my voice not have a place at the table and that it shouldn't be listened to with some deference based on my experience."

Analysis: Wow. That's quite an explosion between some of America's senior statesmen. I'm not sure what to make of these fireworks between America's current military leadership and one of its most respected old soldiers. I think these exchanges can be healthy if they ultimately produce a better plan and a better picture of the enemy. If the Pentagon has fallen victim to "group think", McCaffrey's perspective may be just the thing to break the malaise among the current leadership. However, dissent may also make the decision-making process less efficient. It may also detract from the political support the President needs to continue leading and funding this war. It's too early to tell how this dispute will turn out. I think we will see more fireworks tomorrow.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:33

 
U.S. forces engage Republican Guard in "knock-down, drag-out" fight

Wednesday's Washington Post reports that a major ground assault has begun on the Iraqi Republican Guard divisions which ring Baghdad, and that Marine and Army units have initiated substantial direct-fire engagements with Iraqi forces. That last part is significant -- it means that we're shooting them with tanks and infantry at very close range, and that we're not just probing their positions anymore.

Columns of M1 Abrams tanks and armored vehicles from 1st Marine Division moved out of staging areas, where the Marines had rested and resupplied, and headed into the outer defenses of the Republican Guard's Baghdad Division around the city of Kut, about 100 miles southeast of the capital. "We're tightening the noose around Baghdad," Lt. Col. George Smith, a top war planner for the Marines, said as the troops began moving out.

To the west, north of Karbala and about 50 miles south of Baghdad, units from 7th Cavalry Regiment of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division were engaged in a "knock-down, drag-out" battle with elements of the Republican Guard's Medina Division, a Pentagon official said. The clash began as a "probing action" of Iraqi defenses, the official said, but grew into "an all-out battle."

Taken together, the Marine and 3rd Infantry Division movements appeared to represent a beginning of the battle with the main defensive deployments around the capital that U.S. officers have depicted as a decisive chapter of the war to dismantle Hussein's three-decade-old Baath Party government.

The troop movements were preceded by a day of relentless air attacks and artillery and rocket barrages against Iraqi troops arrayed in defense of Baghdad. All afternoon, the contrails of U.S. warplanes were seen hanging over the area around Karbala, white streaks across the clear sky over central Iraq.
* * *
The renewed U.S. troop movements were depicted by U.S. military officials as the first stage of an assault on the well-entrenched defenses ringing Baghdad and the largest ground offensive since the invasion began 13 days ago. U.S. military officials emphasized that the attack was made possible by the massive aerial bombardment of Republican Guard artillery, tanks and barracks over the past few days. Although Iraqi commanders have shifted in reinforcements from the north, they said, the pounding from the air has left two of the divisions guarding Baghdad at below 50 percent of their normal ability to fight.

They "have been taking a pounding" for several days, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon, adding: "They're being attacked from the air, they're pressured from the ground, and in good time they won't be there."

Analysis: My axiom that "first reports are always wrong" remains in effect. That said, it appears that we have begun the next phase of our assault on Iraq. I predicted last week that we would see a massive air campaign to "set the conditions" for a ground assault. That is, we would kill as many Iraqis as possible from the air to make as unfair of a ground fight as possible. Only our intel folks know whether that bombing campaign was successful, but presumably, we would not have launched this ground assault if it were not. It's possible that Iraqi ground forces lured us into a battle, but I doubt it. That would not have triggered such a coordinated response as this simultaneous U.S. attack, and it would not have resulted in a running firefight between U.S. and Iraqi forces. My read is that this story is significant, and that we've opened the next phase of the operation. More to follow.

Update: I just checked the U.S. Naval Observatory's website for lunar illumination, and sure enough, there's a new moon tonight. What does that mean? It's about as pitch black as you can imagine in the Iraqi desert. Dark enough for American scouts and infantry to infiltrate Iraqi lines using sophisticated night-vision gear; dark enough for American helicopters to fly with less risk of ground fire; dark enough for America to catch Iraq by surprise. The lunar illumination tonight may have something to do with the timing of our assault... or maybe it's just coincidence. In war, sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:14

 
4th Infantry Division begins to arrive in Kuwait

Various news outlets are reporting that lead elements of the 4th Infantry Division have hit the ground in Kuwait after months of diplomatic wrangling with Turkey failed to secure an avenue of approach through that country into Iraq. 4ID's equipment continues to sail around the Saudi peninsula, having sat off the coast of Turkey during the diplomatic imbroglio. The first ships appear to have reached Kuwait, amounting to roughtly 1/8th the division's combat power. And thousands of soldiers have begun to fly from Fort Hood, Texas, to Kuwait, where they will meet the equipment and presumably head north towards Iraq.

Sounds great, so far. But why is 4ID taking so long to get to the fight when it appears they're needed now? The answer is deceptively simple -- 4ID has a lot of stuff, and it takes an enormous logistical effort to move that much stuff and that many people around the world to a place with sub-optimal logistical infrastructure. Here are a few reasons why this is such a massive undertaking:

1. The organic division. By itself, the 4th Infantry Division has roughly 15,000 soldiers and thousands of vehicles. This includes 5 tank battalions of 44 M1 Abrams tanks apiece (with other assorted armored vehicles), 4 mechanized infantry battalions of 44 M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 3 combat engineer battalions, 4 artillery battalions, and one battalion apiece of Apache and Blackhawk helicopters. All of this is supported by a massive support infrastructure of logistics, communications, medical, maintenance, military police, intelligence, and headquarters units. It's a massive organization sitting at Fort Hood. Now imagine trying to move this massive organization 10,000 miles, plus an allotment of fuel, ammunition, water, food, and supplies for at least 3 days until the supply lines open.

2. Attachments and Supporters. Of course, the 4th Infantry Division does not fight by itself. It brings a lot of other units along, including logistics units from the 13th Corps Support Command, chemical warfare units from the 2nd Chemical Battalion, river-crossing and construction engineers, and a lot of extra firepower. During an unclassified wargame at Fort Hood, 4ID received an additional 7 battalions of artillery from the III Corps Commander to fight with. News reports have estimated that these extra add-ons combine to make "Task Force Ironhorse" more than twice as big as its organic size -- weighing in at 30,000+ soldiers. The exact details of this force package are most likely classified, so I won't go any further except to say this is a massive force.

3. Finite Resources. The U.S. military has a finite number of ships and planes with which it can move men and materiel around the world. For aircraft, you need to subtract those aircraft currently supporting operations in Afghanistan -- a landlocked country. Next, subtract the aircraft being used to support actual combat operations in Iraq, including those being used to support the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Northern Iraq and ferry in the 1-63 Armor battalion to support that deployment. That leaves the aircraft available for deployment by the U.S. military worldwide. Remember -- the U.S. military still has active missions in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, Korea, and elsewhere. Bottom line: there aren't a lot of heavy-lift aircraft available to move a force the size of 4ID.

4. Floating Equipment Of course, that simplifies the problem too. Once the division's equipment was loaded onto ships and sent to Turkey, there was no easy way to yank it off the ships and fly it to Kuwait. In theory, the U.S. could have ordered another division into the breach, possibly the 1st Armored Division or 1st Infantry Division in Germany. Or it could have rushed the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood using what airlift it had left. But it didn't. I can only guess why the Pentagon failed to deploy more combat power to the Gulf before the conflict; it probably has a lot to do with political calculus that's beyond what I feel comfortable talking about. In any case, there was no easy way to redeploy 4ID's equipment to the Gulf once the decision was made to commit its equipment to floating off Turkey.

Bottom Line: 4ID is an amazing unit with a number of technological enablers that make it unlike any force ever fielded. I used to describe FBCB2 and other systems as the greatest leap forward in military technology since the radio. Yet, technology isn't everything. However, as the late Col. John Boyd used to say, "Machines don't fight wars. People do, and they use their minds." Our soldiers at the tip of the spear must still fight the enemy, despite all the great equipment in the world. I hope the Army gets them there in time to do that.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:04

 
Raid rescues American soldier held by Iraqis

A lightning raid by American special operations forces has rescued U.S. Army PFC Jessica Lynch from her Iraqi captors. PFC Lynch was among the soldiers in a 507th Maintenance Company convoy that was ambushed last week by Iraqi soldiers, claiming several dead and at least 5 other American prisoners of war. The Pentagon has not released any details about her rescue yet, and I suspect they will not release much because doing so would compromise the sources and methods used to gather intelligence about PFC Lynch's location for this raid. (It's highly possible we want to use those tactics, techniques and procedures in the future.) I'm going to follow that logic and refrain from speculation on the way this rescue operation went down.

However, I will speak to an issue which has percolated up during the last several days because of the capture of SPC Shoshana Johnson and other American women in harm's way. Some have questioned the role of women in today's military. Make no mistake about it -- America's military sends its women into harm's way. Current DoD policy keeps women out of only the most direct of combat roles, such as the infantry. But in today's style of warfare, those distinctions are basically meaningless. Army Lieutenant Carrie Bruhl flies Apache helicopters deep into enemy territory, further than any American infantryman save the Special Forces. Other women fly deep combat missions in the Navy and Air Force. Female MPs fight as infantry just behind the front lines, hunting down and killing Iraqi guerilla units. America's daughters fight hard and they fight well. It's disingenuous and wrong to say that women like SPC Johnson and PFC Lynch don't belong at the front lines. They've earned the right to be there, and so far in our war, they've proven their ability to stay there.

Post-Script: Virginia Postrel correctly points out that the media have been referring to PFC Lynch as "Jessica" instead of "Private Lynch", as it has for the American soldiers and Marines held by the Iraqis. Simply put, this is sex discrimination, and it's unfair to PFC Lynch and the other women who serve. (Thanks to Eugene Volokh, citing Glenn Reynolds, for the pointer)

Reporters on Fox News Channel and MSNBC are displaying an exceedingly annoying habit of referring to Pfc. Jessica Lynch as just "Jessica" in news stories, the better to tug the viewers' paternal/maternal heartstrings. But Jessica Lynch is not the little girl who fell down the well. She is a U.S. soldier serving in harm's way. If you're old enough to be a POW, you're old enough to be referred to as "Private Lynch." Even if you're female.

Update: The Washington Post and other media report that PFC Lynch demonstrated some impressive soldiering as her convoy was ambushed by Iraqi forces. I've never been clear on what constitutes sufficient bravery for the purposes of earning a military medal (e.g. the Bronze Star and Silver Star). But PFC Lynch's conduct certainly impresses me. If I were here platoon leader, I'd recommend her for recognition, probably a BSV.

Pfc. Jessica Lynch, rescued Tuesday from an Iraqi hospital, fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed the Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition, U.S. officials said yesterday.

Lynch, a 19-year-old supply clerk, continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting March 23, one official said. The ambush took place after a 507th convoy, supporting the advancing 3rd Infantry Division, took a wrong turn near the southern city of Nasiriyah.

"She was fighting to the death," the official said. "She did not want to be taken alive."

Lynch was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position, the official said, noting that initial intelligence reports indicated that she had been stabbed to death. No official gave any indication yesterday, however, that Lynch's wounds had been life-threatening.

Several officials cautioned that the precise sequence of events is still being determined, and that further information will emerge as Lynch is debriefed. Reports thus far are based on battlefield intelligence, they said, which comes from monitored communications and from Iraqi sources in Nasiriyah whose reliability has yet to be assessed. Pentagon officials said they had heard "rumors" of Lynch's heroics but had no confirmation.

posted by Phillip Carter at 17:55

 
Saddam Hussein, avowed secularist, calls for "holy war" against Americans

It was so obvious that I didn't catch the disconnect on my first read. But of course, the problem is that Saddam Hussein has no religious or moral authority to exhort his people to a jihad against the United States. As reported by the New York Times and others, Hussein called for such a holy war today through an official statement (the Administration still maintains that he may be dead.) While not rising to the level of a religious fatwa, the statement clearly invoked religion as a way to promote fighting against the Americans.

"Fight them everywhere, as you fight them today," the statement said. "Don't give them a chance to take a breath until they withdraw and retreat from Islamic land. And they will be cursed today and forever."
* * *
"Therefore jihad is a duty and whoever dies will be rewarded by heaven," he went on. "And God will be satisfied with their sacrifice. Take your chance. This is what God requested from you."

"Long live our nation! Long live Palestine! Long live Iraq!" the statement continued. "Let's go and do jihad."

Analysis: First off, I'm no expert on Islam, jihad doctrine, Islamic history, Iraqi politics, or the Middle East generally. But in order to understand the threat of terrorism, I've done some reading on the Muslim world and Islamic terrorism in particular. Several books I've read, including Holy War, Inc. by Peter Bergen, make the point that religious scholars and authorities are the only ones empowered by Islam to call for a jihad. In many ways, Islam is a theocracy where those closest to Allah make the rules. Secular political leaders like Saddam Hussein may have a lot of real-world power, but he lacks the religious authority to issue such a decree. There is some irony here as well. Saddam has launched attacks against other Islamic nations, most notably Iran. And he's launched missile attacks against the holiest land in the Islamic world -- Saudi Arabia. Despite his contemporary claims to Islamic zeal, it's clear that Saddam can make no legitimate claim to any religious authority.
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:38

 
Are suicide bombers the same as terrorists?

Not really, according to a well-done piece in Slate by Fred Kaplan. I was going to write on this during the week, but Mr. Kaplan's piece basically pre-empted what I was going to write. According to Mr. Kaplan, suicide bombers (like the one who killed four soldiers this weekend at an Army checkpoint) are unconventional warriors and guerillas -- but they are not terrorists. The crucial distinction is that terrorists deliberately target non-combatants, where unconventional warriors simply use unconventional means to attack lawful, military targets. However, such attacks do violate international law if the Iraqis use deception (such as dressing up as civilians) as part of their tactical plan:

Specifically, Article 37 of Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions, signed in 1977, prohibits "perfidy"—defined as "acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law." Specific examples of perfidy include "the feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender" and "the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status."

The Iraqi acts of perfidy are particularly nefarious because they endanger all Iraqi civilians who happen to be near a battlefield. As a result of these deceptions, U.S. and British troops are now forced to view all civilians as possible combatants; blurring the distinction between civilians and combatants tends to nullify the basic point of the protocol. This was no doubt Saddam's intent—to keep U.S. and British troops from getting too friendly with the Iraqi people and therefore to keep the Iraqi people from getting too friendly with those troops.

In summary, the Iraqi suicide bomber did commit a war crime by disguising himself in a civilian vehicle, blurring the lines between combatants and non-combatants. This, in turn, makes it harder for the U.S. to observe the laws of war in its targeting of Iraqi combatants. However, this Iraqi army officer was not necessarily a terrorist, because he hit a U.S. military checkpoint that ordinarily would be a lawful target.

Update: One of my favorite resources for terrorism-related questions is Terrorism: Questions and Answers, which is run as a joint venture by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Markle Foundation. It's got a wealth of good information, as well as uselink links to the terrorism-related sections of many governmental sites.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:54

 
U.S. forces secure town and reinforce supply-line security

Rick Atkinson, who is traveling with the 101st Airborne Division, reports in the Washington Post that this unit has secured the Iraqi city of Najaf. Iraqi fighters -- both conventional and unconventional -- had fought hard to retain this redoubt which threatened American routes of logistical resupply. However, the potent combination of American infantry, firepower and tactics won out.

Najaf is considered militarily important because it virtually straddles the Army's supply line stretching from Kuwait to Baghdad's southern approaches. Military planners have been baffled by the indifferent reception given the American invasion by Iraq's often-oppressed Shiite majority, and today's welcome, if hardly tumultuous, was considered heartening.

After intense artillery, tank and air bombardment of suspected Fedayeen strongholds Sunday, the attack reached a climax early this morning when Air Force planes dropped three 2,000-pound bombs on three buildings-two just north of Ali's tomb and the other just south-believed to be resistance strongholds. "It looked like sunrise coming up," an Air Force liaison officer said.

As the smoke cleared, hundreds of Iraqi civilians emerged from homes in the old city, waving white cloths and gesturing toward American troops below the escarpment, according to a Special Forces officer. At dawn, seven M1 Abrams tanks, accompanied by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, drove two kilometers into the city from Checkpoint Charlie, a road crossing on the southern perimeter. Intended as a demonstration of power, the so-called "thunder run" also was intended to topple or crush a statue of Hussein believed to be at a center city intersection. But last minute intelligence indicated that the statue is at a different intersection, and the tanks pulled back without making contact.

Infantry battalions from the division's 1st Brigade then pressed into Najaf, first from the southwest, then from the southeast. Several thousand troops from 2nd Brigade also pressed toward the city from the north. Army officers said they believe the cordon is tight enough to prevent fighters from entering the city, but probably not tight enough to keep some from slipping away.

Analysis: Two things emerge from this report. First, the American-led campaign appears to be adapting to the new realities of the Iraqi theater very well. Iraqi fighters (such as the fedayeen guerillas) had threatened American supply lines, attacked command posts, ambushed convoys, and generally wreaked havoc in the American rear area. In response, the U.S. reallocated combat power to the mission of securing its rear area, focusing on those places where it believed the Iraqis were launching attacks from. It may still be too early to say this, but I think this riposte will be successful in parrying Saddam's guerilla thrusts in our rear areas.

The second thing that leaps out from this story is how potent the American military can be when it sets its mind to accomplishing something. I have no doubt that the Iraqi fighters fought well. They probably found good defensive positions, and if given a fair fight, would have inflicted a terrible toll on the infantry of the 101st Airborne. However, no American commander worth his/her rank will let the enemy set the terms of a fight. COL Ben Hodges and others in the 101st clearly used reconnaissance to find the enemy and a combination of airpower and artillery to kill him -- even before getting into a close infantry fight. That's the right way to fight -- the way that gives the enemy no chance of success.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:43

 
New guidelines for detention of Iraqi "civilians"

In a further effort to protect the force and sort Iraqi civilians from Iraqi guerillas, the U.S. Central Command has issued formal guidelines today for the detention and screening of Iraqis who "interfere with mission accomplishment." The guidelines authorize field commanders to hold Iraqis for up to 30 days in an effort to combat paramilitary fighters who are disguising themselves as civilians. Ostensibly, such a time period is designed to give American intelligence officers time to screen these individuals for ties to the Iraqi regime.

While not initially designated as prisoners of war under international law, the detainees will be treated the same way, according to the new rules of engagement, drafted in recent days. A copy of the rules was made available today.

Military commanders have said those who are found to have used civilians as human shields or otherwise violated the laws of war could be deemed "illegal combatants" and shipped to detection centers such as the one at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Civilian noncombatants are protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions of 1949 that govern conduct during wartime, the new guidelines say. "However, when necessary for imperative reasons of security, such civilians may be temporarily detained." They can also be held if they "possess information important to mission accomplishment."

The guidelines say that "temporary detention should be understood in terms of mere days" and that anyone likely to be held for more than 30 days would have to be processed and transferred to the rear, where higher military authorities would take over the case.

The guidelines instructed soldiers and Marines to handle such detainees humanely. "The detainee must be disarmed, secured, and watched, but he must also be treated at all times like a human being," the guidelines said. "He must not be tortured, killed, or degraded. Likewise, do not engage in conversation with detainees, or offer them any information or comfort items (i.e. cigarettes, candy, etc.)."

The military has been rounding up civilians in an attempt to counter an enemy that U.S. troops sayis exploiting innocents in attacks on Americans in southern Iraq. Fighters have been disguising themselves as civilians, faking surrenders, pushing women and children into the line of fire and sniping at U.S. troops from within crowds of civilians, troops say.

As an example of such illegal tactics, U.S. officers site a suicide bombing that killed four Americans on Saturday. A man dressed in civilian clothes drove a car up to a U.S. Army checkpoint near the city of Najaf, waved to soldiers as if seeking help and when they drew near blew up his vehicle.
* * *
The guidelines also provide tips for recognizing possible paramilitary fighters. They are described as men aged 18 to 35, better fed or more physically fit than average and unable to explain their presence in a combat zone. One member of a group might act scared or nervous, because he has been forced to fight. "Marines should be able to sense something is 'off,' " the guidelines advise.

Under the guidelines, suspects can be searched, gagged when necessary and interrogated in the field. They should be segregated by rank, sex, military status, religion, level of cooperation and other criteria, the guidelines said, and generally kept silent so that they "cannot plot to resist or escape." Those who need medical treatment should get it and detainees should be allowed to practice their religion.

Analysis: These guidelines are a way for the U.S. to standardize the way it treats Iraqi civilians, and this document is probably a good idea. The risk is not that field commanders would be too harsh; most would rather not be responsible for detainees longer than they have to. The risk is that American field commanders will not detain Iraqis long enough to sort friendly from foe. I think this policy empowers field commanders to take the time they need to screen captured Iraqis -- a process which can take some time. If we're serious about our post-war plans, we need to give a lot of attention during the war to selecting out the most dangerous members of Saddam's regime. Without measures like this, I fear that many of his most loyal subordinates might slip through our fingers.

Some might criticize these guidelines as unlawful, or try to draw connections between this document and the U.S. decision to detain prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. That would be a false comparison. This is a policy designed to sort non-combatants from combatants on a battlefield where those distinctions are being deliberately blurred by the Iraqis. This is not a means to give plenary judge/jury/executioner power to U.S. commanders. Rather, it's a measure which will help these commanders protect their units and do the right thing with Iraqi prisoners.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:33

 
A soldier's final letter

The Associated Press reproduced the text of a letter sent by Army Pfc. Diego Fernando Rincon to his mother on Feb. 22. PFC Rincon was killed on Saturday in Iraq by the suicide bombing on an Army checkpoint which killed four other soldiers. I often use the phrase "America's finest sons and daughters" to refer to the men and women who serve our nation in uniform. After you read this letter, I think you'll see why.

Hola Mother,

How are you doing? Good I hope. I'm doing OK I guess. I won't be able to write anymore starting the 28th of this month. We are moving out. We are already packed and ready to move to a tactical Alpha-Alpha (in Iraq). Once that happens, there will not be any mail sent out. We will only receive mail that is less than 12 ounces. At least that's what they said. I'm not sure where exactly we're going be at yet, but it is said to be a 20-hour drive in the Bradleys.

So I guess the time has finally come for us to see what we are made of, who will crack when the stress level rises and who will be calm all the way through it. Only time will tell. We are at the peak of our training and it's time to put it to the test.

I just want to tell everybody how much you all mean to me and how much I love you all. Mother, I love you so much! I'm not going to give up! I'm living my life one day at a time, sitting here picturing home with a small tear in my eyes, spending time with my brothers who will hold my life in their hands.

I try not to think of what may happen in the future, but I can't stand seeing it in my eyes. There's going to be murders, funerals and tears rolling down everybody's eyes. But the only thing I can say is, keep my head up and try to keep the faith and pray for better days. All this will pass. I believe God has a path for me. Whether I make it or not, it's all part of the plan. It can't be changed, only completed.

Mother will be the last word I'll say. Your face will be the last picture that goes through my eyes. I'm not trying to scare you, but it's reality. The time is here to see the plan laid out. And hopefully, I'll be at home in it. I don't know what I'm talking about or why I'm writing it down. Maybe I just want someone to know what goes through my head. It's probably good not keeping it all inside.

I just hope that you're proud of what I'm doing and have faith in my decisions. I will try hard and not give up. I just want to say sorry for anything I have ever done wrong. And I'm doing it all for you mom. I love you.

P.S. Very Important Document.

Your son,
Diego Rincon

posted by Phillip Carter at 14:28

 
California reservist refuses to serve

News reports hit the wire yesterday about a 20-year-old Californian who has refused to serve as a Marine Corps reservist in the current war on Iraq. Lance Cpl. Stephen Funk was a member of the 1st Beach & Terminal Operations Company, which was ordered to active duty last month. The unit deployed to San Diego, and is expected to leave there for future operations overseas. Funk refused to report, and was listed as "Absent Without Official Leave" or "AWOL."

``The military coerces people into killing,'' Lance Cpl. Stephen Funk told a small crowd of reporters and well-wishers who gathered outside the Marine Corps reserve center on Mission Street in San Jose. ``I may not be a hero but I know it takes courage to disobey.''

Funk, who changed into Marine Corps fatigues before walking through the reserve center gate, was accompanied by his mother and a younger sister. Among the supporters outside the gate were his attorney and a priest.

Marine Corps Capt. Patrick O'Rourke told reporters that Funk would be required to serve a form of restricted duty at the center, but he will be allowed to go home at the end of each day, while officials determined how Funk should be punished for failing to report for duty when his reserve company was given activation orders last month. O'Rourke also said military authorities will follow established procedures for considering Funk's application for a conscientious objector discharge.

While desertion is considered a serious military offense, punishable by up to two years in prison, O'Rourke said the fact that Funk had contacted military officials and arranged to turn himself in was a ``positive factor'' in the young man's favor.

The procedures in filing as a conscientious objector are rigorous: An applicant must submit a detailed letter explaining how his or her feelings have changed since joining the armed forces. Then there are interviews with a military chaplain, a psychiatrist and an investigating officer, with a final decision made by top military commanders.

Analysis: I obviously can't condone this action by Mr. Funk. His nation called him and he refused to go. He deserves the punishment that he gets from the Marine Corps. However, I respect his views and am grateful that he did this in California, instead of screwing something up in combat to get his fellow Marines killed. Moreover, I respect his decision to come forward and accept the consequences of his actions. Despite that, I still disapprove of his behavior. The time to object came when he raised his right hand to enlist in the Marines; not after the fact.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:15

 
Words from an old soldier

Retired General Barry McCaffrey has a provocative piece on the op-ed page of today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that should be required reading for most of the pundits out there. Few American military officers have as much experience with war as McCaffrey -- or as much experience at the top levels of command. He fought in Vietnam with great distinction, and subsequently rose to command the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) in Gulf War I. Following that, he was promoted to 4-star rank, and after retirement, he served as President Clinton's chief of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. When McCaffrey speaks, I listen.

There have been setbacks. No plan survives contact with the enemy without significant disruptions caused by enemy action, weather, terrain or miscalculation. But while early criticisms of the Pentagon have been overheated, the American public needs to start looking at Iraq as a war -- like all wars -- that we must fight hard to win.
* * *
The "rolling start" concept of the attack dictated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has put us in a temporarily risky position. We face a war of maneuver in the coming days to destroy five Iraqi armor divisions with only one U.S. armored unit (the Third Mechanized Infantry) supported by the modest armor forces of the First Marine Division and the Apache attack helicopters of the 101st Airborne. We will succeed in this battle because of the bravery and skill of our soldiers and Marines combined with the ferocious lethality of the air power we will bring to bear on the enemy force.

This will be risky business. We should be fighting this battle with three U.S. armored divisions and an armored cavalry regiment to provide rear area security. We also have inadequate tube and rocket artillery to provide needed suppressive fires for the joint team. However, the 100,000 troops en route to the battle will give the operational commanders the ability to control the pace and tempo of the fight if we sense trouble.
* * *
We are overextended and at risk. It is time to call up at least three U.S. Army National Guard Divisions for 36 months service along with significant Marine, Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force reserve elements. Getting these reserve elements truly ready to fight is a six-month training challenge. We are inviting pre-emptive trouble on our strategic flanks if international mischief-makers believe we lack the military power or the political will to respond to new international provocations. Calling up these reserve forces will be political and economic recognition of the gravity of the situation we face. We must win this second crucial battle of the war on terrorism that was forced on us by the tragedy of Sept. 11.

Now is a time of self-measurement for America. In the coming weeks we will achieve our short-term military objectives in Iraq because of the valor and dedication of the coalition forces. The construction of an Iraqi civil state at the end of active fighting and the rebuilding of damaged international alliances must consume much of our political energy and resources in the coming several years if we expect to preserve our freedom and our economic position in the world.

The Bush administration and Congress must work as partners to put together the moral arguments as well as the economic aid, diplomatic leverage, covert action, and military might to attain our goals. We will be in great peril if we do not support the president in this time of national crisis.

Analysis: McCaffrey's right in a lot of ways. First, getting these reserve units into the fight will be a major challenge. The combat readiness of America's National Guard divisions does not come close to the readiness of America's active divisions. They don't have the resources, personnel, or training time of the active force. It will take at least 6 months to get a National Guard division (such as California's 40th Infantry Division) into the fight. This fact is compounded by the multiple homeland security deployments which have been given to many of these Guard units, along with responsibility for Bosnia, Kosovo and other "contingencies."

Second, it will be a major challenge to deploy more active forces to the fight. I'll be blogging more on this during the week. Basically, we have a finite amount of resources (think ships and planes) to move stuff around the world. A lot of that stuff is being used now to support operations in Afghanistan; a lot more is being used to support the Iraq operation. There's not a lot left to move stuff from America (or Germany) to the Middle East. More to follow...

Again, I return to my original point. Barry McCaffrey's an old soldier. He's seen war from the two levels that count most -- the muddy-boots level where lieutenants and sergeants fight for inches of ground, and the general-officer level where units fight for parts of a map. Like LTG William Wallace, I take his views very seriously.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:25

 
Admin Note: Spring break's over for me and I'm now back to being a full-time UCLA law student. That means that I'll be updating Intel Dump less frequently, though hopefully with as much content as before. I hope you'll continue to stop by for a once-a-day Intel Dump. Thanks again.
posted by Phillip Carter at 10:43

 
Is Gitmo hurting American interests in Iraq?

Today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports on a subject that I've been following for some time: our treatment of Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Jess Bravin and Bernard Wysocki write that human rights groups abroad have derided American criticisms of Iraq as hypocritical, given President Bush's decision in February 2002 that the men at Gitmo were not to be given official POW status.

Human-rights groups charge the U.S. with hypocrisy. The Bush administration has put itself in "a weak position to insist on compliance from others," says Human Rights Watch's Kenneth Roth. Some foreign pundits are more shrill: The Guantanamos prisoners "have been blindfolded, shackled, chained and held in what can only be described as cages. No Geneva Convention for them," wrote Rahul Singh, editor of the Khaleej Times in Dubai.

Even some who have served in the U.S. military-justice system warn the U.S. has undercut itself in the court of world opinion. "The U.S. would be in a better position today if it had been more scrupulous in following the norms of international law [at Guantanamo]," says Edward Sherman, a Tulane University law professor and a veteran of the Army's Judge Advocate General Corps. "Filming some of the captured with hoods over their heads, and with shackling, probably that would fall into the category of improper."
* * *
...at a time when the U.S. is trying to sway world opinion against Saddam Hussein, whose past violations of the Geneva Conventions are well documented, U.S. conduct at Guantanamo and elsewhere is blunting some of its traditional advantage as a champion of human rights and the rule of law.

On legal grounds, the U.S. had a strong case for denying POW status to al Qaeda fighters. The Geneva Conventions grant such standing to soldiers of a national army or irregulars who fight under a commander, wear insignia, carry arms openly and obey the "laws and customs of war," which bar such practices as taking hostages or using a flag of truce to conceal an ambush. Members of the terrorist network ignore such rules.

More controversial was denying POW status to members of the Taliban, the Afghan regime ousted by the U.S., without individual hearings. Federal courts have backed the administration in lawsuits brought by relatives of some prisoners.

At a briefing in Qatar Monday, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said all captives taken in Iraq will be treated initially as POWs. "Any additional decisions made with regard to ultimate status decisions will be a policy decision," he said. Other officials say the U.S. will hold hearings, as the Geneva Conventions provide, before stripping prisoners of POW status. A Pentagon spokesman, Army Maj. Ted Wadsworth, said, "It is much too early to say what the long-term disposition ... will be."

Analysis: I wrote a piece for the Washington Times in February 2002 titled "Extend Geneva to Gitmo," in which I argued that it was in our best interest to give Geneva Convention POW status to the men interned at Guantanamo Bay. Most of my argument then focused on the ways the Geneva Convention's technicalities could be used against us if American special forces were captured. I also noted the importance of securing international cooperation for the war on terrorism, something which would not be helped by the mistreatment of prisoners. Here's a short excerpt from my essay:

The second reason for treating the men at Guantanamo as prisoners of war is that America also fights with unconventional warriors. Indeed, our special operations forces were the most active participants in the recent war on Afghanistan. It would be supremely ironic for us to deny protection to men we have captured as unconventional warriors, when our success in this war was largely due to the exploits and heroism of American unconventional warriors.

Our Special Forces detachments operate in small units across dispersed geographical areas, loosely linked by satellite communication and mission plans. As a matter of law, they clearly meet the first and fourth requirement for the Geneva Convention label of "combatant." Our men have a clear chain of command and they obey the laws of war. But in many situations, our own Special Forces do not meet the second or third criteria. They often disguise their affiliation by wearing civilian clothes, and they often carry arms covertly to infiltrate various places.

If we treat the men at Guantanamo as anything but prisoners of war, we will set a dangerous precedent. Our own Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs, and other special operatives do not meet the rigid four-point criteria of the Geneva Convention. If we hold too closely to the definition of the Geneva Convention in defining combatants, we will set the precedent that our own unconventional forces do not deserve the protection of this document either. That precedent will be both dangerous and counterproductive in the long run.

I still feel this way. The United States must maintain the moral high ground in the war on Iraq if it hopes to build lasting peace and stability in the Persian Gulf after the war. The justice of this war's ends and means is very important. We may consider reevaluating our position at Gitmo, particularly with regards to Art. IV tribunals for the detainees, in order to shore up our legal and moral position in Iraq.
posted by Phillip Carter at 10:07

 
Rumsfeld criticized by battlefield commanders

Today's New York Times reports on a number of mid-level and senior officers in Iraq who have taken to criticizing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. One colonel's words were representative: "He wanted to fight this war on the cheap," the colonel said. "He got what he wanted." The article went on to recount LTG William Wallace's remark from a few days ago that this enemy was not fighting as wargamed, and that many officers questioned their ability to fight this war without the resources they requested from the Pentagon.

One Army officer said General Wallace's comments — particularly that "the enemy we're fighting is different from the one we war-gamed against" — were not meant to show defiance but merely express a view widely shared among American officers in Iraq, at headquarters units in neighboring Kuwait and back at the Pentagon. Some members of General Wallace's staff have expressed concerns for the professional future of their boss.

Mr. Rumsfeld arrived at the Pentagon vowing to transform the military, and senior aides promised to push aside what they described as hidebound volumes of doctrine in order to create an armed force emphasizing combat by long-range, precision strikes and expanding the most maneuverable military assets, mostly ships, jets, drones, satellites and Special Operations troops.
* * *
Today, the war plan for Iraq was viewed by many in the service as diminishing the Army role, because it placed a premium on speed and shock and called for fewer ground forces to be in place when the war began, planning to call in more only in case of battlefield surprises and setbacks. But that takes time.

The Pentagon spokeswoman, Victoria Clarke, said today that Mr. Rumsfeld did not craft the war plan for Iraq with any intent to reward or punish an individual armed service, and instead sees "a mix of services and capabilities they offer." The war plan, she said, received "a careful review and approval by all the chiefs."

"As we have made very clear, the secretary does share the vision of a 21st-century Army that faces the unconventional threats of today with new and transforming capabilities," Ms. Clarke said. "The secretary has worked hard with the Army to make those sorts of critical changes as quickly as possible."

Analysis: Clearly, America's military commanders are chafing at the leash of civilian leadership. These commanders are unhappy with many of the decisions being made in the Pentagon, and they may have good intel from the ground that leads them to those feelings. Sitting back here, I'm not sure. However, I do think it's important that so many of our field commanders have said these things. Dissent in the ranks is normal -- soldiers are always griping about the guys up at squad/platoon/company/battalion/brigade/division/corps who make bad decisions. But there may be a few grains of truth in these comments, and our political leaders need to heed what their commanders are saying.

That said, our nation's civilian leaders are the ultimate commanders of the military. The Constitution says so explicitly, giving Congress the powers (in Art. I) to raise, maintain, regulate and pay for the military, and the President the power (in Art. II) to command the military. Federal law delegates much of the day-to-day command responsibility to the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs, and the warfighting combatant commanders. Even if true, our field commanders should be making these comments vehemently through command channels -- not the New York Times. Candor and honesty is important in war, but so is loyalty to the chain of command.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:52

 
Slate: How are Army units numbered?

I wrote a piece for Slate on Friday explaining how the Army's units were numbered, such as the 101st Airborne Division. The piece has generated quite a bit of e-mail to my inbox, especially because of the way I used brigades and regiments interchangeably for the sake of brevity and simplicity. I posted an addendum to the Slate "Fray" with some more details on these subjects, since it seemed there was some demand. Here's what I wrote:

Thanks for the all the feedback (and criticism) of my Slate explainer piece. Here are some additional explanations for all of you who want more information on the subject:

1. Today's Army divisions are composed of brigades, not regiments. The two are roughly equivalent in size and location the command structure. Today, the only real regiments are separate cavalry units like the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Polk, La. This is true even in the 101st Airborne Division, where the 1st Brigade is made up of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 327th Infantry Regiment. (See http://www.campbell.army.mil/1bde/1st_brigade_bastogne.htm) To make this even more complicated, most brigades and regiments fight today as composite "combat teams" which include artillery, engineer, support, chemical, air defense, and intelligence units, among others. The answer as to why the system is so complicated remains the same: history. Every numbered division, regiment, and battalion has a unique lineage that the Army has chosen to continue.

2. Division deactivations. I noted in my piece that the Army has chosen to maintain 10 active-duty divisions for reasons of history. That much is true. But the Army has also maintained a few division headquarters on active duty to supervise reserve units, like the 24th Infantry Division headquarters in Kansas which supervises reserve units from other parts of the country. In addition, the Army keeps many of its divisional histories alive in the reserves. The Army National Guard has several divisions, each with a long and proud history. So too does the US Army Reserve, which includes the 100th Infantry Division mentioned in my article. The National Guard divisions have deployed a large number of troops for peacekeeping missions, homeland security, and even combat. The Army Reserve divisions largely serve a training purpose today, and do not have a direct warfighting mission.

3. Companies, troops, batteries, etc. As I noted in the brigade/regiment note above, each unit name has a specific connotation. At the company level, these become more pronounced:
- Company: This is the standard appellation for a unit of roughly 100 soldiers commanded by a captain.
- Troop: Cavalry companies are called 'Troops', which relates to the "troopers" used in lieu of "soldiers" to refer to members of the old horse cavalry. Today, the tradition lives on in many of the Army's reconnaissance units, which are known as cavalry units.
- Battery: This is the company-size element in the artillery community, including the air-defense artillery branch. It commonly includes 6-8 cannons and is commanded by a captain.

4. Division Labels. Why is the 1st Cavalry Division the 1st Cavalry Division? Do they have any horses? Why is the 101st Airborne called that when it doesn't jump out of airplanes (anymore)? In large part, the answer is history. But these labels also refer to certain features of the division known as the "Modified Table of Organization & Equipment" or "MTOE". That document lays out the equipment that each division has. The Army has airborne, air assault, light infantry, mechanized infantry, and armored divisions. The 1st Cavalry is really an armored division, but it retains the Cavalry title and Cavalry traditions (including Stetson hats and spurs) as a matter of history. The 101st Airborne could be more properly called the 101st Infantry Division (Air Assault), but it retains the name "101st Airborne" and the airborne tab on its uniforms as a matter of history.

Bottom Line: This is a really detailed subject. The Army has an entire agency devoted to the maintenance of its history and lineage, and that institute produces many books on the subject. I think you'll find the answers to a lot of questions at their site, especially the kind of historical details that I can't answer in a 500-word essay or on Intel Dump.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:34

 
Book Recommendation: The New Face of War by Bruce Berkowitz

I had the good fortune to read and review this book for The Washington Monthly's April 2003 issue -- I highly recommend it to all of Intel Dump's readers. Bruce Berkowitz is a former intelligence analyst with experience in the halls of Congress, the CIA and the Pentagon. That experience makes him uniquely qualified to comment on the role of information in warfare. The New Face of War does just trumpet the coming of a "Revolution in Military Affairs," nor does it preach the value of one particular weapons system like GPS or cruise missiles. Instead, Berkowitz steps back and offers a holistic look at warfare, offering one picture of how war might look in the 21st Century. Here are two excerpts:

“Today the ability to collect, communicate, process, and protect information is the most important factor defining military power,” Berkowitz writes in his new book, The New Face of War. “As the theories and technology of information-driven warfare have developed since Desert Storm, warfare has changed. The ability to maneuver quickly and concentrate firepower have become less crucial. The new capabilities that decide who wins [include]: the ability to pick off your adversary from a distance with a single shot, the ability to maintain a stealthy network of forces… [and] the ability to control information so that you can complete your decision cycle before the enemy completes his.”
* * *
“There is no single approach that is always best, but the ultimate objective is always the same: collect, process, and apply information faster and better than your opponent,” writes Berkowitz, building on Boyd’s work. “Whoever gets to the end of his OODA loop first gets to take the first shot. In modern warfare, that’s often the only shot.” This statement rings especially true in the context of terrorism, where the first shot can kill thousands of unarmed civilians.

Update: The Washington Monthly's site has the full review posted here, along with their April 2003 table of contents. If you're looking for independent, informed, provocative analysis, I think this magazine is a great place to start. Their articles usually "scoop" the major news magazines by weeks or months, and the writing is generally quite outstanding. Many of America's best reporters, such as James Fallows and Gregg Easterbrook, cut their teeth writing for the Washington Monthly.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:59

 
Whatever happened to homeland security?

President Bush took a short break today from the war room to visit a U.S. Coast Guard facility in Philadelphia and praise the USCG members and families there for their hard work in the war on terrorism. I suppose whether you see this as a "break" in the war effort depends on whether you see our war in Iraq as part of the global war on terrorism -- separate. Or, whether you think that our war on Iraq makes an act of terrorism more likely, less likely, or as likely than before. I tend to fall into both camps. I think that our war on Iraq is part of the global war on terrorism -- we cannot let rogue states (particularly those with ties to terrorist groups) control weapons of mass destruction. However, I also think our prosecution of this war abroad makes us vulnerable at home to Islamic terrorism. Thus, the visit to the Coast Guard is much like visiting the troops at Fort Hood, except that he's praising the guys on defense instead of those on offense.
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:31

 
Gunboats on the Euphrates?

A couple of readers have written me to ask why the U.S. military hasn't deployed its riverboat fleet to Iraq to secure the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, as the Navy did with its "brown water" fleet during the Vietnam War. Not being a Navy guy, I scratched my head and said "That's a good question." George Rosensteel at Tulane University was thoughtful enough to write with the ansewr, which with his permission, I've reproduced for you.

In 1835 Francis Rawdon Chesney of the British army hauled two paddle steamships, the Tigris and the Euphrates, overland from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and the following year he successfully navigated the river to the Persian Gulf. This attempt to find a shorter route to India did not result in steam service on the Euphrates but did lead to regular steamship traffic between Basrah and Baghdad on the Tigris. Waterborne traffic above Basrah has been replaced, largely, by train and road transport, but shallow-draft motorized vessels, small sailing ships, and pleasure boats still use the river. The marsh dwellers of southern Iraq use a variety of motorized boats up to 50 feet (15 metres) in length, along with balams and other traditional craft.

Looks like the US Navy would need Mark Twain to navigate the shallow Euphrates above Basrah.

Addendum: I'd only add two things to this great analysis. First, the U.S. Marines have a robust amphibious capability that they take with them into combat, and the U.S. Army has a fairly robust river-bridging capability that includes a number of boats. We are bringing some boats into the fight; just not many. Second, the major difference between Vietnam's terrain and Iraq is that the rivers in Vietnam were the equivalent of roads in the lower part of that country known as the Mekong Delta. With thick jungle on either side of the river, it made sense to use the rivers for patrolling and force projection. Although some marshy and complex areas do exist near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq, I suspect we can project combat power on either side of those rivers with helicopters and aircraft. Thanks again George for your note.

Post-Script: As stated earlier, I'm not a Navy guy. But Matt at Stop the Bleating is -- in fact, he's a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who spent several years as a Marine Corps officer. Matt has some important clarifications & amplifications on this issue, such as this:

It's not clear to me just how much of a "Brown Water" Navy we have these days. The SEALS have some high-speed (in both the literal and jargon senses of the word) small craft, but SEALs don't really do the sea control--or, in this case, river control--mission. And beyond them, I'm not sure there's much else. The modern equivalent of a PT boat was the Pegasus class PHM--Patrol Hydrofoil, Missile--which was a really cool, extremely fast little platform that packed a lot of punch for its size. (Its on-foil powerplant was an LM2500 gas turbine engine, which was a very close relative of the engine used to power DC-10 airliners. Imagine a smallish hydrofoil with 21,000+ horsepower, eight Harpoon missiles and a 76mm rapid-fire gun: that was the PHM.) But the PHMs were all decommissioned in 1993. Downsizing and all that, I suppose. I've seen one Navy riverine-type craft, on a trailer parked at Kings Bay when I was stationed there. I inquired about it once, and learned that it was part of a Navy Reserve unit that sounded as if it might have been the modern equivalent of the old Brown Water Navy. But if that force exists at all anymore, I gather it's fairly small and mostly or entirely a reserve force.

posted by Phillip Carter at 17:21

 
Cause and effect
Suicide bombing at checkpoint causes U.S. to respond with more forceful behavior

I speculated yesterday that American units would bolster their force-protection posture in response to the suicide bombing by an Iraqi army officer which claimed 4 American lives. According to an article on the Washington Post website, that response was both immediate and forceful. A mechanized infantry platoon opened fire today in Iraq on a truck full of Iraqi civilians, killing at least 10 Iraqis. Again, my dictum that "first reports are always wrong" applies here -- we can't know what actually happened on the ground. And we should also remember that American "rules of engagement" always state up front that self-defense is the right of every soldier and unit. If I were in these infantrymen's position, I probably would've done the same thing. That said, I'm not about to engage in any Monday-morning quarterbacking from my comfortable seat in Los Angeles while these brave infantrymen fight in the Iraqi desert.

NEAR KARBALA, March 31-As an unidentified four-wheel drive vehicle came barreling toward an intersection held by troops of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, Capt. Ronny Johnson grew increasingly alarmed. From his position at the intersection, he was heard radioing to one of his forward platoons of M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles to alert it to what he described as a potential threat.

"Fire a warning shot," he ordered as the vehicle kept coming. Then, with increasing urgency, he told the platoon to shoot a 7.62mm machine-gun round into its radiator. "Stop [messing] around!" Johnson yelled into the company radio network when he still saw no action being taken. Finally, he shouted at the top of his voice, "Stop him, Red 1, stop him!"

That order was immediately followed by the loud reports of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of the platoon's Bradleys. About half a dozen shots were heard in all.

"Cease fire!" Johnson yelled over the radio. Then, as he peered into his binoculars from the intersection on Highway 9, he roared at the platoon leader, "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!"

So it was that on a warm, hazy day in central Iraq, the fog of war descended on Bravo Company.

Fifteen Iraqi civilians were packed inside the Toyota, it turned out, along with as many of their possessions as the jammed vehicle could hold. Ten of them, including five children who appeared to be under 5 years old, were killed on the spot when the high-explosive rounds slammed into their target, Johnson's company reported. Of the five others, one man was so severely injured that medics said he was not expected to live.
* * *
The Pentagon issued a statement in Washington saying the vehicle was fired on after the driver ignored shouted orders and warning shots. The shooting, it said, is under investigation. According to the Pentagon account, the vehicle was a van carrying "13 women and children." Seven were killed, two were injured and four were unharmed, it said, without mentioning any men.

To try to prevent a recurrence, Johnson ordered that signs be posted in Arabic to warn people to stop well short of the Bradleys guarding the eastern approach to the intersection. Before they could be erected, 10 people carrying white flags walked down the same road. They included seven children, an old man, a woman and a boy in his teens.

Update: I blogged earlier about this without much analysis. Now I'm going to add some. First, I think these soldiers did the right thing. They saw a potentially hostile vehicle approaching at high speed in a theater where suicide bombings were an imminent and likely threat. They responded with graduated means, first by warnings shots and then lethal fire. Ultimately, they killed the target. I think they acted in self-defense, but that's something that only an investigation can bring out. That brings home my second point. Do you think any other Army in the world would undertake an investigation in an analogous situation? The answer is no. The American military is unique in this regard. No other military in history has devoted as much effort to scrupulously following the law of war when it comes to distinguishing between combatants and non-combatants, or minimizing collateral damage. Our military assigns lawyers all the way down to brigade level (sometimes lower) to ensure compliance, and we vigorously investigate every incident where a civilian dies as a direct result of U.S. action. In war, such incidents happen. But we make every effort to make sure they don't happen often or systematically, and my personal experience has been that we do a good job.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:57

 
Setting the conditions for an American-led assault on Baghdad

Popular misconceptions about France aside, their nation has actually contributed some very important things to military history and military doctrine. The most significant of these has to be mass, universal conscription, which was how Napoleon raised his massive armies to wage war on Europe. It's been a while since I read on this subject, but the "levee en masse" was a strategic and political development par excellence. It enabled France to wage campaigns of conquest against other powerful nation states, and for a while, for France to win under Napoleon's leadership. The darkside of this development was that it transformed the nature of battle into a campaign of sheer numbers -- one where success was a matter of grinding your opponent down by inflicting more casualties on him than he inflicted on you. (Or, possibly, more on your enemy than he could politically stand) Through the 18th and early 19th Century, war remained a battle of attrition between large armies. Armored vehicles and maneuver warfare changed this, especially in World War II, when flying columns of armor on both sides fought moving battles over terrain and objectives only loosely correlated with attrition.

Nonetheless, America fought such attrition-based battles in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, and they have been memorialized in films such as "Hamburger Hill," and "Platoon". In attrition warfare, manpower is devalued and soldiers become expendable. Commanders fling soldiers at objectives because manpower is all they have. Today's American military substitutes capital for labor wherever it can, and we now prefer to send a bullet (or cruise missile) instead of a man. Today, the American military has almost fully embraced maneuver warfare. Our four services practice variations of it, and our doctrine emphasizes the need to strike the enemy where he is weak instead of fighting toe-to-toe slugfests.

Consequently, our strategy aims to "set the conditions" before any major ground assault. This means attriting the enemy's forces, disrupting his command and communications structure, disabling various defensive measures like land mines, and generally messing up his plan. Ultimately, we aim to make the odds as unfair as possible -- in our favor. Our Army and Marine commanders never want to fling their volunteer soldiers and Marines into a toe-to-toe slugfest, where the side that wins is the side willing to ante up the highest bet in blood.

Today's Washington Post has a great piece on this by Karen DeYoung. In the article, Ms. DeYoung reports that American commanders have decided to pause south of Baghdad until they can "set the conditions" for an American assault.

The Pentagon's top military and civilian officials indicated yesterday that an all-out ground offensive against the Iraqi capital will not take place until conditions are more favorable to U.S. forces.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that a major attack on Baghdad remained part of the U.S. war plan. They denied reports that a pause in the rush toward the city had been ordered while southern Iraq is pacified, lengthy U.S. supply lines are secured and reinforcements arrive to bolster troops now halted about 50 miles outside the capital.

But in appearances on television talk shows, both emphasized that the battle for Baghdad would be far tougher than any military engagement yet, and would only come when U.S. forces were ready. "There are difficult days ahead," Rumsfeld said. "Baghdad is not going to be easy."

Myers acknowledged that U.S. positions outside Baghdad are now stationary, saying that "it may be an operational pause in a macro sense." But he said U.S. forces would continue to pressure members of the Iraqi Republican Guard deployed between them and the city, with "armed reconnaissance" and an air war that Rumsfeld said would go on for weeks.

The strategy could not properly be called a "siege," Myers said, noting that the term "conjures up sometimes some really bad images. It will not be a sort of siege that . . . I think people have thought about before. And we'll just have to see. We don't know that is going to be the case."

In terms of timing, Gen. Myers said, "We can afford to be patient. We're not going to commit our sons and daughters to battle until the odds are distinctly in our favor and at a time and place of our choosing. Then we'll take the fight to the enemy."

Analysis: At the Army's National Training Center in August 2000, I learned several hard lessons about "tactical patience" when I charged ahead with a little too much initiative. Tactical patience means waiting to strike until the enemy's unprepared, asleep, outnumbered, or demoralized. Our commanders have learned these lessons too. Sometimes, it's best to wait until the conditions are right to fight the enemy -- no one's in any hurry to die or be shot in the desert. American commanders have the initiative in this campaign, and they can afford to "shape the battlefield" until the conditions are right for an American assault. Frankly speaking, we want to make this an unfair fight. There are no rewards for sportsmanlike conduct in war when such conduct means losing more of America's finest sons and daughters in combat. Or, to use Gen. George Patton's oft-quoted line: The goal in war is to make the other [guy] die for his country, not to die for yours.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:17

 
More thanks
Intel Dump's readership is benefitting from two new referrals. Time magazine included an article in this week's issue about weblogs and war, listing my website as one of the places to turn for military analysis. USA Today also sent some readers my way today, with an online weblog of its own about the war. Thanks for the publicity, and I welcome any readers referred from these sites.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:52

 
Kellogg Brown & Root fails to nab Iraq reconstruction contract

Contrary to popular belief, competitive bidding for government contracts sometimes works. Insiders don't always win, and the lowest bidder sometimes does. Despite the high-level connections of its former CEO, Halliburton's subsdiary Kellogg Brown & Root did not make the final round of competition for the lucrative ($900 million+) contract to rebuild Iraq. USAID would not comment on who the two finalists were, but they did indicate that Brown & Root would not get the contract. I wrote before that KB&R might be the best bidder for the contract, given its experience with the military overseas in Bosnia and Kosovo. But there are other great companies out there, such as CSC DynCorp, who are capable of the same thing. Moreover, KB&R has one of the contracts right now to help with extinguishing and restarting Iraqi oil wells, so it's not completely out of the picture.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, which is responsible for handing out the main postwar reconstruction contracts, confirmed that KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton Co., was not among two finalists for the contract.

USAID spokeswoman Ellen M. Yount said the agency has not made a final decision on who will get the contract, one of eight it is in the process of awarding.

It is unclear whether KBR removed itself from the bidding or whether the development agency eliminated the company. KBR's status was first reported by Newsweek's online edition.

KBR was on the short list of companies the development agency selected in mid-February to compete for the 21-month contract to rebuild highways, bridges, airports and government buildings in postwar Iraq. The other bidders were Fluor Corp., Washington Group International Inc., Louis Berger Group Inc., Parsons Corp. and Bechtel Group Inc. The New York Times reported Saturday that Bechtel, once headed by former secretary of state George P. Schulz, was one of the two finalists. A Bechtel spokesman said he had no new information.

posted by Phillip Carter at 13:48

 
Did "shock and awe" work?

All the major newspapers have produced articles over the last week questioning the Pentagon's "shock and awe" strategy in the Gulf. Most have looked superficially at the strategy itself, focusing instead on the media strategy used to market the plan to the American public. Sometimes, it becomes confusing who's actually supposed to be shocked and awed -- the Iraqis or the American TV-watching audience. Nonetheless, I'd like to clarify some of my thoughts on "shock and awe" generally, and "effects-based operations" specifically.

"Shock and Awe" is the title of a book written in 1996 by Harlan K. Ullman, an influential defense-policy thinker and author whose ideas found a receptive audience inside the Pentagon's E-Ring where the Secretary's office is. The term itself is not quite accurate; the better term is "effects based operations," an idea championed by Major General Dave Deptula (US Air Force) and others. I'm not an expert on this theory by any measure. But from what I've read, the premise of EBO is quite simple. You model the way that your enemy, e.g. Iraq, works. Planners look for key vulnerabilities. The strategic plan, including both the land and air component, is designed to affect the enemy in a certain way, e.g. to shut down his Command/Control system or critical infrastructure. These effects are what drives the strategic, and they form the metrics of success. Body counts, terrain, and other traditional measures do not drive the strategy, unless they relate directly to the "effects" being sought.

Okay, sounds great. Why isn't it working? First, it's not clear that EBO is not working. It's only clear that Iraq has not capitulated yet. Of course, no nation (not even France) has surrendered in less than a week, so maybe we need to have more patience with this strategy to see if it's working. Second, EBO is still in its infancy. Fred Kaplan wrote a great piece in Slate titled "The Flaw in Shock in Awe," where he laid out some of the premises for this strategy:

Ever since Desert Storm, a small but increasingly influential group of Air Force officers has been refining the concept. In the past few years, smart bombs and cruise missiles have become vastly more accurate, due to the use of Global Positioning Satellites to guide the weapons to their targets. Due to satellites, advanced drones, and fast computers, commanders can pick out targets and order weapons to hit those targets—including mobile ones—far more swiftly than before.

Again, sounds great. But do all those technological enablers exist yet in the force? No, they don't. The military has only recently begun to digitize and go through its revolution in military affairs. Most of the technologies assumed by EBO exist in small quantities throughout the force, such as in the Special Forces and Air Force combat air controller communities. We're not at the point yet where the average infantryman in the 3-7 Marines can open his wrist-mounted laptop, pen a spot-report, and have it instantly relayed up the chain of command to launch an A-10 airstrike. EBO assumes that such technology, and such "sensor-to-shooter" links, exist. It doesn't yet, at least not across the spectrum of military units. I tested some of these technologies for the Army in the 4th Infantry Division, and in theory, they will work as advertised in concert with an EBO warplan. But not yet; not until the entire force has them.

There's a second problem, and Kaplan hit this on the head too. Col. John Boyd's OODA theory is clearly in play with Effects Based Operations. But a lot of people don't give enough import to the nuances of Boyd's OODA loop. The key to its success is its circularity -- the loop requires the constant addition of feedback in order to re-observe, re-orient, re-decide, and re-act. It's not enough to get inside the enemy's decision cycle, and to act faster than the enemy. EBO and military operations generally must react to a dynamic situation. EBO strategies assume a model for the enemy at the start of a war. Certain vulnerabilities and centers of gravity are assumed. When we strike those targets and they do not cause the effects we want, we need to adjust our plan. That's the bottom line. EBO can work -- but as always, it must be flexible and adaptive to the situation.

Update: For more on "Effects Based Operations" generally and military technology specifically, see Noah Shachtman's site DefenseTech. He's got a bunch of great articles on there (like this one), including several that have been published in Wired and other journals.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:26

 
A note about military families

Several articles have run on local television news in Los Angeles about Marines from Camp Pendleton who had young children and either a dual military family (both parents are military) or single-parent family where they had problems arranging for child care. I don't have a lot of experience with the Marines' program, but we had these kinds of issues come up in the Army all the time. Today's military is more married, more gender-diversified, and more child-bearing than the conscription-based military of 30 years ago. Consequently, lots of kids get caught in the middle when units deploy. The military's answer has been to require every soldier to have a "family care plan" for their children in the case of deployment. This is no problem for married families where only one parent is military. But in divorced families, single-parent families, and dual-military families, it can pose a challenge. Many of my soldiers relied on their grandparents, parents, and friends to fill in the gaps.

A retired Army officer with extensive combat experience e-mailed me a note that indicates these are starting to cause major problems in a number of units. One problem is when soldiers make "paper" family care plans that don't stand the test of reality. Another related problem is where soldiers make FCPs, but they're not strong enough to last for the entire length of a combat deployment (some units have already been deployed more than 9 months). And a final problem is that some soldiers simply don't want to write an FCP for their kids. This last category is the easiest -- soldiers can be discharged ("chaptered") and often are for failing to create an FCP. The first two cause inordinate headaches for those "rear detachment" officers who are left behind to take care of family issues. "This whole system is totally broken, and creates a
nightmare for Commanders," writes one officer on such duty.

Bottom Line: The U.S. military is getting a lot better at dealing with these issues, but it's still having growing pains. As the war moves on, we will see more stories along these lines; some may fail to convey all the nuances involved. Understand that military families have a very tough life, and there are hardships for the soldiers and family members. But the military does not look at families the same way that they did 30 years ago, where sergeants often told their privates that "If the Army wanted you to have a family, son, they would've issued you one."
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:56

 
Sunday's New York Times Week in Review section had a pair of great articles by James Webb and Max Boot respectively. Webb served as a rifle platoon leader and company commander in the Marines during the Vietnam War, seeing more than his fair share of combat. Boot recently left the Wall Street Journal's editorial page for a position with the Council on Foreign Relations; he just published the book "Savage Wars of Peace" about the last 150 years of American military expeditions abroad. I respect both men a great deal.

Webb's article is appropriately titled "The War in Iraq Turns Ugly. That's What Wars Do." Writing from Arlington, Webb gives us a healthy dose of realism -- the kind of realism that comes from someone who's seen close combat and served at the highest levels of the Pentagon.

They will most likely try to draw American units into closer quarters, forcing them to fight even armored battles in heavily populated areas nearer to Baghdad. This kind of fighting would be designed to drive up American casualties beyond the point of acceptability at home, and also to harden Iraqi resolve against the invaders.

If American forces are successful in these engagements, the war may be over sooner rather than later. But if these battles stagnate, guerrilla warfare could well become pandemic, not only in Baghdad but also across Iraq. And even considering the strong likelihood of an allied victory, it is hard to imagine an end point without an extremely difficult period of occupation.

In fact, what will be called an occupation may well end up looking like the images we have seen in places like Nasiriya. Do Iraqis hate Saddam Hussein's regime more deeply than they dislike the Americans who are invading their country? That question will still be with this administration, and the military forces inside Iraq, when the occupation begins, whether the war lasts a few more days or several more months.

Or worse, the early stages of an occupation could see acts of retribution against members of Saddam Hussein's regime, then quickly turn into yet another round of guerrilla warfare against American forces. This point was made chillingly clear a few days ago by the leader of Iraq's major Shiite opposition group, who, according to Reuters, promised armed resistance if the United States remains in Iraq after Saddam Hussein is overthrown.

Welcome to hell. Many of us lived it in another era. And don't expect it to get any better for a while.

The other great piece comes from Max Boot, whose book "Savage Wars of Peace" sheds light on the history of American military work abroad to make war, peace and build nations. Suffice to say, it started a long time before Bosnia, and it involved a lot of Realpolitik. Boot writes in "Sparing Civilians, Buildings and Even the Enemy" that America's military may be fighting with one hand tied behind its back, and that our humanism may not nest well with our need to win this war rapidly.

The enormity of the destruction is almost impossible to comprehend today, because the American armed forces fight so differently now. The new way of war emphasizes precision and aims for minimal casualties on both sides. This approach represents a considerable advance, but it also brings its own set of problems.

Although air strikes on Baghdad have intensified, leading to what Iraqi officials claim are more than 70 civilian casualties, the city is hardly being pounded into rubble. Electricity and other services remain. In the war's early days, Baghdad residents even stood on their balconies to watch bombs and missiles pummel their city — secure in the knowledge that only a handful of government buildings would be hit.
* * *
Actually, in some ways the United States has gone beyond the chivalrous warfare of the 18th and 19th centuries. Nowadays the military tries to spare not only civilians, but enemy combatants as well. During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, images of the devastation along the road leading from Kuwait to Basra — the so-called Highway of Death — helped persuade the first Bush administration to stop the ground war after just 100 hours, even though it later turned out that few Iraqi soldiers had been killed.

Today, American forces are still not bombing some Iraqi regular army formations in the hope that they will defect en masse and spare themselves a beating, which the administration fears would make America unpopular.
* * *
Iraq is well aware of the United States' sensitivity to civilian casualties and tries to exploit it. When not showing pictures of dead American soldiers, Iraqi television broadcasts images of wounded or dead civilians. Saddam Hussein has tried to increase the chances of civilian casualties by placing military installations near hospitals, mosques and schools. In addition, the Saddam Fedayeen, a militia commanded by Saddam's son Uday, have attacked coalition soldiers while hiding behind "human shields." In all these cases, an inhumane regime is using our humanity against us.

This problem could become more severe when allied troops enter Baghdad. Because commanders will probably not be willing to flatten whole blocks, they may expose their soldiers to the extreme perils of close-quarters combat.

The military must struggle with the deadly calculus of how many casualties it is willing to incur among its own forces to save civilian lives. In this regard, the words of Gen. Curtis LeMay, who led the American bombing campaign against Japan in 1945, are worth remembering: "Actually I think it's more immoral to use less force than necessary, than it is to use more. If you use less force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run because you are merely protracting the struggle."

posted by Phillip Carter at 09:03

 
More weblogs to check out

Several sites have been generous with their links to Intel Dump, and I would like to return the favor. I will be adding these sites to my "Noteworthy Blogs" list on the left in the near future. In the meantime, please check them out.

- Command Post. This blog does a great job of reporting news coverage, and it has some great links to other sites as well.

- Agonist. Another blog that stays ahead of the news cycle. Its tagline is "Thoughtful, global, timely," and I think that sums it up well.

- SGT Stryker. A great blog from what appears to be a military family with several members deployed to Southwest Asia.

- Winds of Change. This blog has generated a fair amount of traffic for me, and it has some really engaging thoughts about liberty, humanity, and other topics.

Of course, I have to thank the bigtime players like Slate, Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus, Eugene Volokh, The American Prospect, Mark Kleiman, and others for sending me so much traffic. This war is proving the capability of the "blogosphere" to respond to breaking news and provide quality content above and beyond what the mainstream media offers. Thanks again.

Update: I also just learned of another article on war and weblogs, this time in the Washington Post. Cindy Webb writes in "Blogging the War" that "The public's hunger for information and opinion about the Iraq war has fueled an explosion of "war blogs" on the Internet." Her article has a very comprehensive list of the better blogs out there, and I was flattered to see Intel Dump listed. Definitely worth reading if you're looking for more great content on the Internet about our war in Iraq.

Update II: The law school at Lewis & Clark College has a good links page for Internet sites related to the war on Iraq.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:52

 
Military and political goals of the war begin to diverge

Sunday's Washington Post has a great article by Tom Ricks and Rick Atkinson on the progress of the war. These are perhaps the two finest military reporters in the profession; each has won the Pulitzer and written several books on the military and its institutions. Ricks and Atkinson astutely note that many of the tactical goals -- like securing lines of supply and clearing cities -- are in tension with the political goals of pacifying the Iraqi people. Ultimately, the challenge for the Bush Administration is to craft a strategy which can achieve both of these goals. Also, the military strategy of fighting when the conditions are set, along with minimizing friendly casualties, is in tension with the political impetus to win this war fast.

Carrying out the original aim of a quick war with minimal civilian casualties would require taking chances that officers here now deem imprudent. In the past week, they found the Iraqi resistance tougher and more widespread than expected, and the planned charge to Baghdad stopped short of the city, with Hussein still in place.

The Army, which has little more than two divisions here, soon will have three brigades -- the rough equivalent of one division -- devoted just to the protection of the vulnerable supply lines from Kuwait to Najaf.

And Iraq's best troops -- the Republican Guard and the elite Special Republican Guard -- haven't yet been engaged in large numbers on the ground.

To some commanders in the field, that adds up to a need for longer timelines for the war. They are discussing a more conventional approach that would resemble the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It would mean several weeks of airstrikes aimed at Republican Guard units ringing Baghdad, and resuming major ground attacks after that.

Analysis: I'm not a strategic expert; my expertise is all at the tactical (muddy boots) and operational (division staff) level of warfare. But I think there's a real issue here that's beginning to emerge as our generals and colonels pursue one strategy that is not necessarily in perfect harmony with our national grand strategy. What is our end state in Iraq? What are the things we need to do to meet that end state? Are we doing all of the little things (like feeding Iraqi refugees and de-Baathifying Iraqi prisoners of war) that will support our grand strategy? More will emerge in the near future on this, and I think we will see some high-level consultation in the near future between President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Franks on this issue. Ultimately, the civilians are the ones in charge -- not the generals. But the military must pay the cost in blood for the political leaders' blunders. These competing interests are very though to harmonize, and even the best wartime leaders (e.g. Churchill) get it wrong on occasion.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:20

 
Suicide bombing -- an individual act of jihad?
How can American and British units prevent such acts in the future?

The front pages of every Sunday newspaper I read carried the story of an Iraqi army officer who blew himself up at a U.S. checkpoint, killing 4 Americans. Saddam Hussein's regime immediately claimed credit for this act, saying it would be followed by many more over the coming weeks and months as Iraq wages an unconventional war of survival.

Saturday's suicide attack on a road near Najaf was the first of its kind against U.S. forces since the invasion began. It represents a further escalation in a deadly Iraqi guerrilla campaign organized mainly by members of Hussein's paramilitary groups to slow the allied advance on Baghdad and sap morale.

An officer with the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade told reporters traveling with the unit that the bomber was the driver of a taxi who appeared to motion to soldiers for help as his car approached their checkpoint.

As the Americans neared the vehicle, it exploded, killing all four soldiers as well as the car's occupant. The attack came after several prominent Muslim clerics in the region urged Iraqis to resist the invaders.

Iraq has long recognized the value of suicide attacks. For the last three years, Hussein has been encouraging their spread by paying $10,000 rewards to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who have carried out attacks on Israelis, in addition to the families of other Palestinians killed in the intifada.

In early February, a tape recording apparently made by Osama bin Laden gave Iraqis advice on how to resist allied forces, suggesting, among other tactics, "the importance of martyrdom attacks against the enemy."

In Baghdad, the suicide bomber was identified as an Iraqi army noncommissioned officer who was immediately hailed as a national hero. Hussein reportedly awarded him two posthumous medals.

Although Saturday's suicide bombing was the first carried out in this war against U.S. forces, it was apparently not the first car bomb targeted at Americans. Two days earlier, troops of the 1st Marine Division came across a suspicious car parked along a convoy route and, when they destroyed it, found it had been loaded with explosives.

Analysis: Several things came to mind as I read this story. First, the fatwas issued by many Islamic fundamentalists over the last two decades call for individual acts of jihad against Western imperialism, Israel, the U.S., and so on. This act might have been inspired by that doctrine. However, Saddam Hussein's Baath Party regime is not a religious state -- indeed, it's about as secular as any regime in the Gulf region. It's not necessarily true that this was inspired by the same religious fervor and exhortation that makes young men into suicide bombers against Israel. We haven't seen a lot of these acts yet, despite our military success. If such fervor ran as deep as we feared in the Iraqi army, we'd see an awful lot of these types of events. Historically, this might look a lot like the fighting against the Japanese during World War II, where individual holdouts would often fight U.S. Marines and soldiers to the death.

Ultimately, preventing future incidents like this one will require a renewed emphasis on security. Every soldier and Marine -- whether he's an tanker, pilot, fueler, medic or chaplain -- must think of himself or herself as an infantryman first and everything else second. People in the desert must be secured, identified and searched, and we must be willing to shoot first and ask questions later. The first line of every American Rules of Engagement document states explicitly that "You have the inherent right to self-defense of yourself and your unit. Nothing in this ROE shall limit that right in anyway." In our haste to make friends with the Iraqi people, we might have let our guard down. This simply cannot happen again.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:11

 
Tactical pause: Intel Dump will be back on Sunday evening with more analysis and commentary on the weekend's events. I am taking a condensed spring break from law school this weekend after working all week on grading undergraduate exams. Please come back then.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:33

 
Support the troops, not me

I've received several e-mails asking whether I intend to accept PayPal donations or other financial contributions to this site. I've decided to decline those gracious offers, though I definitely appreciate the sentiment. Instead, I would prefer that you direct your good will and financial contributions to my former unit, the 4th Infantry Division, who started deploying today. In lieu of any donations to me, please order a small care package (coffee, camping food and candy are good to send) from Starbucks, Peet's, or REI. Send it to:

Chaplain (MAJ) Jim Caraway
HHC 4ID - Attn: Division Chaplain
Unit # 92628
APO, AE 09323-2628

Although I have not made contact with the chaplain (he's a little busy now), I think he's the best person to send things to and distribute them within the division to the soldiers/units who need it. Thanks for your support.

Update: I've received several e-mails asking whether this was an authorized, official program. No -- this is my unofficial, unauthorized program to support my former unit. I don't think it will result in a groundswell that breaks the military postal system. But one reader pointed out that the United Service Organization (USO) also has a care package program. That's a great option too.

Update II: Another reader e-mailed me with another "official" way to support the troops. The Army Emergency Relief (AER) fund has been around for a long time, providing loans and financial assistance to soldiers with bona fide, documented emergencies. Each service has a similar program, though as an Army veteran, I'm going to recommend this one.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:02

 
Why is urban combat so bloody?

A number of readers have written in with questions about urban combat and the various forms it may take for the U.S.-led force in Iraq. I should state up front that I have no crystal ball; it's not clear how warfare will unfold in Iraq's major cities. However, there are some basic truths about urban combat which we've learned in places like Hue, Saigon, Mogadishu, and from other nations exploits in places like Chechnya. This is an illustrative list of some of the issues we may see if we take the fight into Iraq's cities.

1. Three-dimensional combat. It's commonly said that urban warfare takes place in three dimensions -- whereas surface warfare or desert warfare takes place in just two. That's because of the vertical dimension to streetfighting, where threats may come from above, below or to either side of you. This adds a great deal of complexity to the fight. This complexity generally aids the defender, since he's fighting on his home turf and has the ability to ensconce himself in buildings, sewers, and other places where he can fight from.

2. Cover and concealment. The U.S. has a major technological advantage on the open battlefield because it can see the enemy from a long distance away and shoot to kill that enemy -- either with artillery, tank fire, or even rifle fire. In urban combat, this advantage basically disappears. Enemy soldiers can hide in buildings with relative ease, and there still aren't a lot of technical means to find them. (Hard to see through buildings) One sniper can hole up in a large building and wreak havoc by shooting through windows, holes in the wall, and ventiliation shafts. In urban combat, the enemy has a million places to hide -- and it takes tedious, detailed work by infantry to root them out.

3. Civilians and paramilitaries. Distinguishing between civilians and soldiers in urban areas becomes a lot more complicated, because there are a lot more civilians and a great incentive for soldiers to blend into that population to avoid deliberate U.S. targeting. We've already seen a lot of unconventional warfare by the Iraqis, and it stands to reason that they would use it even more in an urban setting. American forces also found in Mogadishu that civilians often take up arms and fight as paramilitaries when fighting against an aggressor. If we don't do the Civil Affairs and humanitarian missions right, we may face intense resistance from Iraqi civilians with AK-47s fighting as paramilitaries and guerillas. That's pretty much our nightmare scenario. (See Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down for more on how this issue played out during the Battle of Bakara Market in October 1993)

4. Communications. America's military works on mostly FM-based communications systems which generally require line-of-sight transmission paths. The concrete, steel and glass in urban areas interferes with these commo systems and makes it hard for units to talk with one another beyond a few blocks. This is an acute problem at the lowest level -- the infantry squad -- where soldiers fight with battery-powered radios that may or may not be able to punch out of a concrete building.

5. Force structure. Since Vietnam, America's military has substituted capital more and more for manpower (in macroeconomics terms). The basic idea was to send a bullet (or bomb), not a man, whenever possible. We have poured money into cruise missiles, tanks, helicopters, ships, and aircraft that can hit a target from miles away without involving the muddy-boots work of the infantry. Unfortunately, urban combat requires a wholly different sort of force. As T. R. Fehrenbach wrote about the Korean War, this kind of war can only be won by nations that are willing to put their young men in the mud. Our military -- even with the reserves -- does not have a substantial amount of infantry. It has a high tail-to-tooth ratio, meaning that there are a lot more support troops than combat troops in the military. And of course, most are not infantrymen -- they include tankers, combat engineers, artillerymen, etc. One immutable truth of urban warfare is that it requires a lot of infantry.

Bottom Line: I can't predict what will happen in Baghdad or Basra. Our military has done a lot of homework in recent years to get better at urban combat, especially the U.S. Marine Corps and the Army's light infantry community. My hope is that we wait on the outskirts of the city and use unconventional means to draw out civilians and take down Saddam's regime. But as one famous general quipped, "Hope is not a method."

Update: Sunday's Los Angeles Times carries an engaging piece on the front page about urban combat and some of the problems I talk about. It takes a more historical perspective, drawing analogies between our current campaign and those fought by the Germans in Stalingrad and the Russians in Grozny. Definitely worth a look.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:01

 
Admin note: At the suggestion of some IT professionals, I altered the e-mail addresses in the Intel Dump links to fool "spambots" which crawl the web and look for e-mail addresses in webpages. If you decide to e-mail me, you'll need to correct the "_at_" to "@" in the e-mail address. Thanks!
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:21

 
Truth and War

When it comes to wartime leadership, few leaders compare to Winston Churchill. Despite daily bombing by German aircraft, a bleak situation on the European continent, and American reluctance to enter the war, Churchill rallied the British people with stirring speeches about sacrifice, perseverance, and character. I've heard echoes of Churchill in many of Tony Blair's speeches as well. Both leaders have an uncanny ability to frame the hardships of war in such a way as to make the sacrifice seem worthwhile.

On this side of the Atlantic, we've seen less of that sort of leadership. President Bush has delivered stirring speeches before Congress, the UN, and various gatherings across America. Secretary of State Colin Powell has done yeoman's work around the world, preaching the reasons behind our cause to the world. However, the spin in recent days from the White House has not lived up to this standard of rhetoric. Indeed, I question the factual veracity of some of these comments, as reported by the Los Angeles Times:

Today's press briefing at the White House was one of the more contentious in recent memory, as reporters hammered away at Fleischer about war planning.

"I don't know anybody who would support that notion from a military point of view, that our troops are bogged down," Fleischer said testily. "There is always complications. There's weather. There are other factors that take place. But that doesn't change the fact that the plan anticipates flexibility and is built for flexibility."

And White House communications director Dan Bartlett insisted that the long-range battle plan "has not and should not change."
* * *
During his briefing, Fleischer also rejected suggestions that Bush has not adequately prepared the public for a long and possibly difficult conflict.

The spokesman recited a half-dozen passages from the president's speeches over the last six months in which Bush had said that a military campaign against Iraq might be lengthy and costly.

"We've repeatedly said we hope it will be short, but we are prepared to fight for whatever period is necessary, whatever period of time is right," Fleischer said.

Analysis: I'm not sure if the White House is on solid ground here, factually or rhetorically. First, it's clear from field reports that things have not gone exactly as planned. In war, nothing ever goes exactly as planned. Even Gen. Franks has admitted as much, along with his top commanders. Factually speaking, the Administration would be on firmer ground if it admitted some minor tactical setbacks, but spoke of how the grand strategy was moving forward. Or, perhaps, that America's plan was adapting and responding to a dynamic situation. But not that the plan "has not and should not change."

Rhetorically speaking, there's a larger issue here. What made Churchill and Roosevelt such great wartime leaders was their ability to communicate with the British and American people that their sacrifices were worthwhile. (See Supreme Command by Eliot Cohen for more on wartime leadership by Churchill, Linconln, Ben Gurion and Clemenceau) We can't imagine today the depth of sacrifices made then -- mass conscription, rationing of basic goods like food and gasoline, etc. Real leadership meant justifying the cause on a daily basis to the people, so that the people would embrace the cost of war as necessary. Our current war with Iraq may well become costly -- in terms of blood and treasure -- in the next several weeks and months. America requires more than hedging from the White House press secretary; America needs leadership.

Here's a taste of what I'd like to see, from the famous speech that Winston Churchill gave on 4 June 1940:
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States
have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo
and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule,
we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be,
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets,
We shall fight in the hills;
We shall never surrender.

Update: Matt has some interesting thoughts on wartime leadership and rhetoric at Stop the Bleating. Definitely worth a look. Matt's a former U.S. Marine Corps officer who's in law school on the East Coast, and I think he's one of the more articulate guys out there on this stuff because he knows the issues from a muddy-boots level and a policy level.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:09

 
Allies see full spectrum of combat operations in Iraq

The Washington Post has a great article that steps back from the fray to observe that "Virtually every form of combat except aerial dogfights was reported across the length and breadth of Iraq Friday." The Post is right. To date, American-led forces have seen high-intensity combat on open terrain, urban combat, guerilla warfare, unconventional warfare, terrorism in their own ranks, and massive humanitarian disasters. Gulf War II is rapidly becoming a full-spectrum conflict, where our troops are facing situations on every point of the continuum from peace to war.

Analysis: The U.S. military of the Cold War might not have had the skills to deal with this kind of warfare. Our Army trained then for one threat -- the Soviets -- and did not possess the full-spectrum capability it does today. After Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, our Army (and other services) have adapted to the new reality of full-spectrum warfare. Our forces have the training and capabilities to deal with situations that may look like peace or war -- or something in the middle that can't be defined. I think we'll see an increasingly complex situation develop in Iraq over the next several weeks that will test American capabilities greatly. But ultimately, our military will show that it has the ability to respond to anything on this spectrum. More to follow.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:33

 
"Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics."

I first heard that axiom as an Army ROTC cadet when one of my peers asked why were reading about the "Red Ball Express" instead of Patton's Third Army. My instructor told the student would have been no dash across Europe by the Third Army if not for the tremendous logistical effort made on their behalf. That statement was true then, and has become more true with every U.S. war since. Put simply, America's way of war guzzles supplies at an alarming rate. Our M1A1 tanks require 5-8 gallons per mile of travel*. If you multiply hundreds of tanks by hundreds of miles by that mileage figure, you can imagine just how much fuel needs to be transported forward to support our attack. Now add ammunition, supplies, food, water, oil, medical equipment, etc., and you begin to grap the massive logistical undertaking involved with an armored assault like the one we're seeing now.

Today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) considers this issue in a historical sense, comparing the logistical issues in the current U.S. campaign to past offensives. Setting aside any moral or political comparisons, the most obvious parallel is between our campaign and the German offensive against Russia in 1941. That offensive, like ours, involved stretched supply lines, innovative maneuver-warfare tactics, and an enemy fighting a war of national survival. Here's an excerpt from the Journal piece:

The U.S. Army's current sprint across miles of open terrain, bypassing population centers, has several successful antecedents in American military history, from Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson's campaign through the Shenandoah Valley in the Civil War to Gen. George Patton's dash across France and Belgium in World War II. But another characteristic of the current campaign -- moving out so quickly that resupply lines are stretched tight -- has brought trouble, and occasionally disaster, in other campaigns. In World War II, Adolf Hitler sent three million soldiers -- roughly 70% of his forces -- into Russia in a "lightning war" that was shattered by crumbling logistics and harassment of supply lines by small Russian units.
* * *
Long supply lines have often been a problem, even for powerful armies. History's main cautionary tale may be Hitler's drive into Russia. At the end of a severely protracted supply line, German troops ran into trouble. They battled their way into Stalingrad and then got pinned down in a vicious, house-to-house battle lasting 66 days. In the end, Hitler's forces found themselves surrounded and starving in the dead of winter. In February 1943, an entire German army group surrendered: 23 generals, 2,000 officers and at least 130,000 troops. Historians consider the Battle of Stalingrad the turning point of World War II.

The vulnerability of supply lines, and the strategy of attacking them instead of an army's main force, have been facets of warfare since at least the days of the Roman Empire. Both Hannibal of Carthage and Julius Caesar of Rome grappled with huge supply-line problems, and sought to disrupt the lines of their opponents.

Some American generals have proved themselves more adept at handling ambitious assaults with long and sometimes even nonexistent supply lines. After occupying Atlanta in September 1864, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman marched some 62,000 men to the seaport of Savannah, Ga. Enroute, Gen. Sherman's troops were cut off from other Union forces and lived off the land. Meanwhile, they burned crops, destroyed railroads and factories and reached Savannah with 25,000 bales of captured cotton.

Now, as U.S. forces move toward Baghdad, which will be the tip of perhaps a 250-mile-long supply line from the base of operations in Kuwait, there are new fears that commanders may have a hard time keeping the troops supplied with ammunition, food and water. Yet some planners argue that, in today's circumstances, the danger is minimal. "We have air superiority; our aircraft are going to be able to fly over supply lines," says retired Lt. Gen. William "Gus" Pagonis, the chief of U.S. Army logistics during the 1991 Gulf War.

Although Iraqi irregular forces are able to harass the supply lines, he argues, the main forces beginning to encircle the Iraqi capital aren't at risk of running out of gas, food or ammunition. That's because U.S. forces now control at least three major airfields inside Iraq and can airlift supplies to the outskirts of Baghdad on an urgent basis, if necessary. Indeed, reports from Baghdad Thursday indicated that the first resupply plane from Kuwait landed at the Tallil airbase in southern Iraq, which was captured by allied forces moving north and now can be used as a logistical base.

The modern U.S. military resembles a modern corporation, with extensive ability to perform just-in-time inventory delivery. At the end of the first Gulf War, Gen. Pagonis began using global-position-system technology to keep track of the flow of goods to forces in the field. GPS, combined with laptops and other new technology, has now made relatively smooth a famously difficult process.

Analysis: Logistics is playing a huge role in this conflict already. I suspect that a big reason why 3ID paused was to regenerate combat power before any attack on the Republican Guard. When our combat forces go into a fight, they want every combat vehicle up and running, with a full tank of gas and full ammo compartment. Getting back to 90% combat power or higher means doing maintenance, fixing broken tanks, and surging fuel/ammo forward. It's not easy, but it's absolutely critical to make sure we mass combat power at the right time and place on the battlefield.

Security and Logistics Moving logistics is hard enough; major corporations (e.g. Federal Express, Chevron, etc) expend lot of brainpower on solving this problem and no one's shooting at them. The logistics fight becomes infinitely more complex in combat when Iraqis are actively trying to interdict American supply lines -- and the desert is wreaking its own havoc with indeterminate terrain and sandstorms. News reports indicate that Gen. Franks has pulled a fair amount of combat power off the line to secure logistical assets as they move forward. That is absolutely critical. We cannot afford another mistake like that made by the 507th Maintenance Company convoy, especially if it's a mistake made by a convoy of 300+ vehicles.

*Correction: Apparently, I'm the amateur. I cited the figure "5 miles to the gallon" for an M1A1 tank from memory, but according to three people who've e-mailed me, it's closer to "5 gallons to the mile." According to this site, the M1 gets 0.6 miles per gallon, but you also have to factor in start-up (it takes a lot of gas to start the engine) and the rapid acceleration/deceleratoin of combat. Just as my truck burns more gas in traffic, tanks burn more gas in combat. I stand corrected, however, these numbers make the importance of logistics even more paramount.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:19

 
Iraq fires mortars and artillery against Iraqi civilians fleeing Basra

The Associated Press reports that Iraqi paramilitary forces in Basra fired mortars and machine guns today on about 1,000 Iraqi civilians trying to leave the besieged city, according to British military officials and eyewitnesses. Britain's 7th Armored Brigade attempted to fire back, but stopped out of fear that civilians would be wounded; British forces currently ring the city of Basra, which is populated by 1.3 million people.

Analysis: First, it's important to understand that this is a first report from a war zone, as seen through the fog of war by military officers and reporters. Incoming artillery is often hard to distinguish from one side or another. This first report may be wrong. But if it's accurate, it portends an extremely disturbing action by Iraqi forces. Why would they shell their own people? Perhaps because they think that the presence of civilians in the city works to their advantage. If they let Iraqi civilians leave Basra, we'd have more of a free hand in targeting the city without regard to collateral damage. Every civilian in the city represents a human shield for the fedayeen and regular Iraqi forces. If they let these 1,000 civilians leave, that might open up the floodgates -- which is exactly what the U.S. wants. I'm sure the U.S. is doing all it can to entice these civilians out of the city with humanitarian aid for exactly this reason. Fighting in a heavily populated city is like fighting with both hands tied behind your back; we'd much prefer to clean out Saddam's forces with civilians safely out of the city and in our protective custody.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:08

 
Special Forces - America's quiet professionals

Unlike Afghanistan, where Special Forces units stole the spotlight, America's elite warriors are playing a much quieter, more clandestine role this time around. We haven't seen any footage of Army Rangers jumping in to secure airfields, as we did in Afghanistan, nor have we gotten any dramatic coverage of Special Forces A-teams operating behind Iraqi lines (though they're reportedly there). I've maintained radio silence on this issue too, because I thought the operational-security risk was too high. But now, enough articles have run in the open-source community to make me feel comfortable putting the pieces together.

- Today's New York Times reports that Navy SEALs are playing an active role in securing and clearing the port of Umm Qasr. This port was secured early in the conflict by US and British forces, and its use is critical for allied resupply and humanitarian efforts. "Securing the waters near Umm Qasr has emerged as a central mission for Navy Seals and Special Boat crews, who have battled harsh weather and exhaustion to search more than 70 abandoned ships over the past week," writes James Dao.

- Monday's San Francisco Chronicle (and others) reported that a number of Special Forces teams had deployed in Kurdish-held portions of Northern Iraq, ostensibly to conduct missions from there or to assist the Kurds in their own defensive/offensive preparations. "Kurdish officials said that the four cargo planes that landed at the Bakra Jo airstrip near the northeastern city of Suleimaniya were the first of many planes that will deliver up to 1,000 U.S. Special Forces troops in northern Iraq." It's not at all clear what the SF mission is. They could be using Kurdish-held territory as a base for long-range reconnaissance, they could be there to make liaison with the Kurds, or they could be there to pave the way for a U.S. ground force.

- Friday's Washington Post reports that various special forces units have made significant progress in securing Western Iraq, and specifically, in preventing Iraq from launching SCUDs out of that region towards U.S. troops or Israel. In Gulf War I, the SCUD hunt became a major mission for special operations forces when airpower alone proved unable to stop the missiles from being launched. This time around, it appears that America has learned its lessons and pro-actively deployed special forces for that mission. The details are very sketchy, but it appears that we have secured several airfields in Western Iraq as forward operating bases, and that we are conducting sustained operations from those locations against targets in Western Iraq. Given the low numbers of TBM (no SCUDs have been launched at all) launches, I'd say we've been successful.

U.S. Special Operations forces operating in secret have broken the Iraqi government's control over a broad swath of territory in western Iraq that extends about 200 miles into the country from the border with Jordan, U.S. military officials said yesterday.

Much of the area is lightly populated desert, but it includes several airfields and countless hiding places that U.S. military officials have worried Iraq might use to launch drone aircraft or Scud missiles against Israel, Jordan or Saudi Arabia. Its control by U.S. forces would provide not only a buffer against potential Iraqi attack but also another avenue of approach to Baghdad.
* * *
Initial missions included targeting Iraqi military facilities -- border observation towers, communication nodes and command posts. The U.S. troops also struck early at the two largest airfields in the west, known as H-2 and H-3, where some Iraqi helicopter units were based.

But much of the focus of the Special Operations troops, officials said, has been on hunting for Scud missiles and launch vehicles and storage sites for chemical or biological weapons. To this end, U.S. commanders have kept an array of surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft scanning the region, and strike aircraft have remained on alert to respond quickly to any targets.

- Thursday's Boston Globe writes essentially the same story as the Post, but adds that ''This is the largest deployment of [special operations forces] in history" according to a senior Pentagon official. That's significant, because in Gulf War I, Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf was hesitant to use special forces at all. (Stormin' Norman was a highly conventional warrior who, according to reports I've read, thought special forces were more trouble than they were worth, especially if a team got captured before the war started.) In Gulf War II, special forces are playing a critical role in hunting for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and preventing him from using his SCUDs.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:59

 
Was the American war plan written over a few beers?

Noah Shachtman relays an article at DefenseTech that makes just such a claim. The article is written by James Kitfield and ran originally in the National Journal. Kitfield is an experienced journalist who has covered the military for a very long time. He wrote a book called "Prodigal Soldiers" detailing the resurrection of the American military after Vietnam, and he knows the institution very well.

The genesis of the battle plan was a what-if session over beers among a handful of Army majors nearly 17 months ago. They were all students at the Army's School for Advanced Military Studies, known colloquially as SAMS, at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where the Army's most promising planners take a graduate course in strategic campaigns. The young majors brainstormed about a march on Baghdad to dispose of Saddam Hussein. In its earliest versions, the plan envisioned a 125-day campaign by a U.S. force nearly twice the size of that now in Iraq.
* * *
Maj. Kevin Marcus, a SAMS graduate now attached to V Corps headquarters, helped develop the plan from a back-of-an-envelope exercise into a PowerPoint presentation that within days of being finished ended up on the desk of the president of the United States. Though any military campaign plan of the size of Iraqi Freedom has many midwives—and for this one, they include Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld himself, who prodded planners to think outside the box—Marcus saw it develop from infancy to fruition.

From the very beginning, he says, the need to synchronize a rapid, combined-arms campaign to seize the initiative with "shock and awe"—roughly the modern-day equivalent of armored blitzkrieg warfare—leapt out at planners determined to limit the opportunity for Iraqi forces to employ chemical weapons, wreak environmental havoc, or organize a coordinated defense. In bullfighter parlance, they wanted to go for a quick kill before the bull learned the trick of the cape.

"The essence of this challenge was always our advantage in technology and mobility against the Iraqi forces' advantage in terrain, because they are occupying defensible terrain," said Marcus, who along with Lt. Col. E.J. Degen is responsible for constantly updating the battle plan at the mobile V Corps headquarters. "That means synchronization and operations tempo are critical to this battle plan. We need to do this fast, so that Iraqi forces can't tell from where they are being hit or how we are hitting them. That way, they can't effectively counter our attack."

So far, nothing's surprising. SAMS is the Army's premier training program for operational planners. The three officers who led my division plans team at Fort Hood were SAMS graduates, and they're affectionately called "Jedi Knights" among military officers. It does not surprise me that SAMS officers would talk about war plans over a few beers. After all, they're living/eating/breathing/working war plans. This is just shop talk for them. However, Kitfield reports that some other talk has been moving around the SAMS community -- talk of how the SecDef and others screwed up their plan:

By far the most dramatic and disruptive change to the battle plan, however, was Rumsfeld's decision last November to slash Central Command's request for forces. This single decision essentially cut the size of the anticipated assault force in half in the final stages of planning, and it had a ripple effect on Central Command and Army planning that continues to color operations to this day.

Notably, the Pentagon scrapped the Time Phased Force Deployment Data, or "TipFid," by which regional commanders would identify forces needed for a specific campaign, and the individual armed services would manage their deployments by order of priority. The result has meant that even as Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks was launching the war, forces identified for the fight continued to pour off ships in the Kuwaiti port of Doha, and not necessarily in the order of first priority.

"A lot of people around here can get very emotional talking about the lack of a TipFid for this operation," said a knowledgeable source at V Corps headquarters. "It would also be awfully nice to have another division to secure the supply routes and cities between An Nasiriya in the south and Baghdad, because we assume a lot of risk [by] leaving that much territory largely unguarded."

The lack of a TipFid and the piecemeal nature of the deployment also necessitated this "rolling start" to the war. In essence, Central Command and V Corps commanders are focusing on fighting the forward battle while trying to manage the unloading and flow of additional forces into the rear. The extra strain this has placed on an already-stressed supply chain has been exacerbated by the fact that critical additional support forces were eliminated when the decision was made to cut the forces in half.

"We basically spent a year building a force package that included very robust command-and-control for our support elements," said Brig. Gen. Charles Fletcher, who heads the 3rd Corps Support Command, called COSCOM, which is responsible for supplying Army forces in the Iraq theater. "When the decision was made to only go with half our force, we only had a very short time to adjust" the shipping orders that would enable us to get the right forces to Kuwait. He continued: "So while that decision may have been smart from a strategic viewpoint, it has had a trickle-down impact on all our operations. I have never received my entire communications package, for instance, complicating secure communications over a supply chain stretching hundreds of kilometers."

The Pentagon's decision not to activate many transportation Reserve units before last Christmas also created personnel shortages. Meanwhile, COSCOM itself has only 150 heavy transport trucks for an operation that Army planners estimate requires 700.

"We're going to war not with what we need, but with what we have on the ground, so we threw away the doctrinal books on this operation a long time ago," said Fletcher, noting that his transport units also have far less maintenance support than normal.

posted by Phillip Carter at 08:34

 
A veteran's thoughts

My friends and former comrades are leaving Fort Hood today for Iraq. The order came down for the 4th Infantry Division to deploy, after weeks of waiting for diplomacy to open up a land route through Turkey. I got an e-mail late last night from a friend with the news.

It goes without saying that I wish I was there. I trained very hard with the 4th Infantry Division as an MP lieutenant and captain. I served in the division when it was the Army's test bed for new technology, leading the first digitized MP platoon in the Army. We poured our blood, sweat and tears into developing new tactics, techniques and procedures for using this revolutionary equipment -- so that future generations of soldiers could use it to better survive and win on the battlefield. I had no idea that day would come so soon.

I've contemplated whether to leave law school and reenter the active Army; I've also thought about flying to Iraq on my own dime as a freelance journalist. Ultimately, I've decided against those two courses of action. Two things shaped my decisions. First, I take solace in the fact that I did train my soldiers well as a platoon leader and operational planner. My MPs thought of themselves as infantrymen first; military police second. They could react to contact, conduct a hasty attack, defend a convoy, and even fight from helicopters like a rifle platoon. Many of my soldiers are still in the unit, and I take comfort in the fact that I trained them as hard as I could when I had the chance.

Second, I believe we must all find our own path to service. Not everyone is cut out for military service, nor should everyone try. Yet, across America, there remain a number of other opportunities to serve. Public schools need teachers and school boards need members; police departments need reservists; churches and temples need leaders; the list goes on. I have chosen a new path of service as a civilian so that I may continue to contribute to society. I gave a lot as a soldier, and I think I could give even more. And even though my heart calls me back to active duty as my unit goes to war, I have decided to follow another path.

One comes to mind for this moment from the Ranger Creed, which states: "Never shall I fail my comrades. I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong and morally straight and I will shoulder more than my share of the task whatever it may be. One-hundred-percent and then some." I think that we must all remember our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, friends and fellow Americans who now serve on active duty. We can never fail them as citizens; we must always support them.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:27

 
War Dames redux XVIII

The lead article in the NY Times' "A Nation at War" section today reads "A New War Brings New Role for Women." The article runs with four pictures of women in various military poses, including SGT Vail of the 4th Infantry Division chewing her nails as she prepares to leave for Iraq. This is the latest article to state the point that I made four months ago in my piece "War Dames" for the Washington Monthly:

Over the last decade, the Army has digitized its equipment, upgraded its tanks, and added capabilities like peacekeeping to its mission, all part of a sustained, high-profile effort to adapt to war in the 21st century.

But one quieter transformation was also on display in the desert: Capt. Streigel--first name: Jennifer --is a woman. Ten years ago, Streigel could never have commanded a front-line chemical company in the U.S. Army. But the next time the United States goes into battle, women will be as close to the front lines as any infantryman. During its minefield operation, Streigel's company fought shoulder to shoulder with the combat engineers and deployed more armored vehicles than a tank company--and four of its five officers were women. In fact, Streigel is just one of thousands of women who, since the Gulf War, have been steadily migrating to assignments that place them at or near the line of battle.

Since the Gulf victory in 1991, a series of largely unnoticed policy changes have opened new opportunities for women to fight alongside, and even to lead, front-line troops. The Navy and Air Force, with some fanfare, allowed women into the cockpits of fighters and bombers. But less well known is how vastly the Army has expanded the role of women in ground-combat operations. Today, women command combat military police companies, fly Apache helicopters, work as tactical intelligence analysts, and even serve in certain artillery units--jobs that would have been unthinkable for them a decade ago. In any war in Iraq, these changes could put thousands of women in the midst of battle, far more than at any time in American history.

This new role for female U.S. troops is the product of three different forces. One is congressional pressure to integrate the military by gender as it previously had been integrated by race. Another is the ongoing enlistment shortage; the military remains reluctant to admit women yet is unable to recruit enough competent men to staff an all-volunteer Army. But the most important reason has been pressure from women within the Army who need combat experience to advance their careers, nearly all of them in the officer corps. And yet this experiment has been conducted largely below the threshold of public awareness.

The wisdom of this integration is sure to be tested in any sizable ground war with Iraq. If female soldiers perform poorly, they could put their comrades' lives at risk, strengthen the hand of conservatives who oppose women serving as soldiers, and provoke a backlash from the American public. But if, in the heat of battle, women fight bravely and effectively, it could spark a different sort of debate among the military and the public at large over why regulations and military culture still conspire to keep women from many prime assignments in the nation's service.

posted by Phillip Carter at 08:16

 
A record-setting day for Intel Dump. Thanks to everyone who stopped by for my analysis and thoughts on the war in Iraq, and to Slate and others who have publicized this site. It's hard to believe that 6,764 visitors stopped by today (Thursday) and that 23,970 folks have stopped by in the past week. As a writer, it's really humbling and encouraging to see numbers like that. Thanks again.
posted by Phillip Carter at 22:23

 
Casualties and public opinion

Tomorrow's Washington Post has an interesting article on military casualty predictions for this war. It appears that our military has already suffered more casualties than we predicted, largely because of flawed assumptions in our original war planning where we predicted scant Iraqi resistance. Iraqi unconventional tactics have taken a dreadful toll on American and British forces, along with some bad luck such as the 507th convoy mishap and the lucky Iraqi RPG shot that killed 10 Marines in one armored vehicle.

The numbers of U.S. servicemen killed, wounded or missing on the Iraqi battlefield are mounting steadily, and military experts warn that Americans might soon be confronting military carnage they have not seen since the Vietnam War.

About 30 U.S. servicemen have been publicly reported killed in a week of combat, along with 20 British soldiers and marines. But that total could be considerably higher, because news from the battlefront has been slow to be tallied. The number of wounded appears to be soaring.

Officials at Camp Lejeune, N.C., released a curt tally yesterday morning, listing 11 Marines from the 2nd Expeditionary Force as missing within the past 24 hours and 14 as wounded in action in fighting near Nasiriyah. Defense Department officials quickly informed the public affairs office at Camp Lejeune that the release was a violation of Pentagon policy, said Marine Maj. Michele Flynn, a base spokeswoman. Casualty totals are supposed to come from Washington, and the Pentagon has released those numbers reluctantly.

Reports from the battlefield tell of violence that is not reflected in the upbeat assessments issued at press briefings at the Pentagon and Central Command in Doha, Qatar. More than half of a contingent of 120 Marines were wounded Wednesday when they were hit with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades on the approach to a bridge at Nasiriyah. Fifteen of their Humvees and seven-ton trucks were destroyed.

"Nasiriyah was supposed to be a six-hour fight," a wounded gunnery sergeant said at a field hospital yesterday. "It's already been five days. Five days of nonstop, 24-hour fighting."

Analysis: The $64,000 question here is how America will respond to increasing casualty tolls in the coming days, weeks and months. Northwestern University sociologist Charlie Moskos has studied the military and society for 30 years, and he thinks it might have a significant detrimental impact on public support for this war. "We don't really know if the country will accept casualties like this because it hasn't been tested in 30 years." I really can't put my finger on the pulse of this issue either. My friends and family react viscerally to casualties because we know so many people in the military -- it really hits home. But on the aggregate level of American public opinion, I'm not sure what the effect will be over time. If President Bush makes a strong case for the righteousness of this cause to the American people, they may accept the cost. If Iraq employs chemical/biological weapons, or a terrorist attacks the U.S. during this fight, America may develop a stiffer resolve for casualties. (The Post makes these points later in its story as well)

Coda: One interesting note about casualties is buried about halfway down in the story:

Body armor that protects the head and torso has done wonders to keep troops alive, but officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District have been told to prepare for an influx of wounded soon.

It's not just the body armor -- it's also the amazing military medical system that's currently supporting our men and women in harm's way. I was lucky to know some medical officers at Fort Hood and they taught me a lot about this system. Suffice to say, I'd rather be shot in combat than on the streets of Los Angeles. You can't imagine the number of highly-trained medical professionals working at every echelon from company on back to save these brave soldiers' lives. The body armor makes a big difference too. During the brutal battle of Shah-i-Kot Valley in Afghanistan last March, many soldiers were hit by mortar and small-arms fire -- but almost all emerged with superficial wounds due to the body armor they were wearing. In summary, U.S. soldiers may survive wounds today that might have killed them in Vietnam, or even Gulf War I.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:03

 
WP: Generals candidly speak about the war and expectations

Rick Atkinson is probably the most overqualified journalist in Iraq right now. He won a Pultizer reporting on the military in the early 1980s, reported on Gulf War I, and wrote one of the best histories of that conflict called Crusade. Now, Rick is back in Iraq (bad alliteration) covering the 101st Airborne Division for the Washington Post. It appears from his Friday dispatch that he's taken a step back from the tactical situation to interview several colonels and generals in that unit and V Corps to get an overall feel for the battlefield. Among other things, Rick senses that the plan is not going well. But surprisingly, the officers he's talking to admit that -- and that itself reveals a great deal about their character.

"The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against," LTG William Wallace Wallace, commander of V Corps, said during a visit to the 101st Airborne Division headquarters here in central Iraq. Wallace, a plain-spoken cavalryman whose command is based in Germany and is operating a few miles north of here, gave public voice to what senior officers in Iraq have been saying privately for several days. Asked whether combat developments in the past week increased the likelihood of a much longer war than some planners had forecast, Wallace said, "It's beginning to look that way."

Speaking about the need to pause, resupply, and secure supply lines, Wallace adds: "We knew we'd have to pause at some point to build our logistics power," Wallace said. "This is about where we'd expected."

"Everybody's frame of reference is changing," Col. Ben Hodges, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 101st, said shortly after arriving here Wednesday night. "The enemy always gets a vote. You fight the enemy and not the plan. I personally underestimated the willingness of the Fedayeen to fight, or maybe overestimated the willingness of the Shiites to rise up."

Analysis: I think we're seeing something important here. First, we have intelligent officers leading our units in Iraq that understand the complexities of military operations. They're not dumb; they know they have to be flexible in the face of enemy contact. For what it's worth, LTG Wallace is a Vietnam veteran who's been around the Army for a long time. Second, these remarks reveal some "big picture" knowledge of the battlefield, even at the lowest levels. Col. Hodges is not a senior commander; he only commands a brigade. Yet, he has a fairly accurate picture of the entire battlefield -- he's able to see himself, see the enemy, and see the terrain. That situational awareness enables him to make informed judgments about how/where/when to employ his forces.

I think we'll start to see some really innovative things from V Corps in the coming days and weeks. These commanders are not going to let the Iraqis seize the initiative. They're going to gather intelligence, develop a plan, and take the fight to the enemy. More to follow.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:50

 
American soldiers who hate America

Slate has a brilliant piece today inspired by SGT Hasan Akbar, the soldier who allegedly murdered two officers in the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, earlier this week. Articles like this one, not to mention Akbar's actions, should give lie to the perception that the American military is some monolithic, stereotypical, mercenary organization that votes for Republicans and has no dissent in the ranks. Far from it. In fact, I saw more political, racial, ethnic, religious, and intellectual diversity on active duty than I see now at UCLA law school. Unfortunately, some of this diversity is not good for the Army or the nation, as the Akbar case makes abundantly clear.

The episode is unsettling for a number of reasons, most of all because it exposes a fact about our military that commanders have tried their best to ignore: the presence of radical, anti-American Muslims in the ranks. Akbar, a convert to Islam, reportedly said when he was captured: "You guys are coming into our countries and you're going to rape our women and kill our children." It's increasingly clear that there is a small group of soldiers for whom anti-American fatwas issued in mosques around the world supercede the oath of loyalty they took to their nation.

Almost nothing is known about radical Islam in the ranks. Very little is known about Islam in the ranks, period. Today, there are somewhere between 4,000 and 15,000 Muslims in the U.S. military. The estimates are so vague because Muslims, like Jews, often prefer not to declare their religion, and the armed services don't require that declaration. Some American servicemen and women are Muslim by birth. Many are converts, and most of the converts are black Americans. It was during the first Gulf War that the U.S. military first grappled with the issues raised by Muslim conversion in the ranks: As many as 3,000 U.S. soldiers may have embraced Islam since then. [Click here for more about the Islamicization of the military in Gulf War I.]

posted by Phillip Carter at 17:38

 
"Improve, adapt, overcome" -- Iraqis implement lessons learned from previous conflicts

Clint Eastwood used those three words to describe the way that U.S. Marines respond to difficult situations. It could be applied to Iraqi combat forces today as well. Today's New York Times reports on a number of areas where Iraqi forces have changed the way they fight in accordance with lessons learned from Iraqi wars against Iran, Kuwait and the United States. Iraq fought Iran to a standstill and lost decisively to the U.S.-led coalition in Gulf War I. This time around, he's trying to win.

A Pentagon official conceded: "It's clear that Saddam went to school on Desert Storm. It is clear Saddam went to school on Kosovo. He has learned how America attacks."

The North Vietnamese, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland and the Serbs in Kosovo have all shown how an outmanned, outgunned force can fight back.

Mr. Hussein has obviously concluded that he cannot win a Soviet-style land battle against an adversary that controls the air, so this time his tanks are not arrayed on the desert, waiting to be plastered by allied missiles, although he appears to be willing to use armored divisions south of Baghdad. Nor can he be confident that a centralized command will work. It, too, would be vulnerable to allied air attack.

So the Iraqi leader is leading a kind of guerrilla defense, conducted by the fedayeen irregulars, who number perhaps 60,000, plus hard-core members of Mr. Hussein's Baath Party and other paramilitary forces. American intelligence officials say command has been devolved to provincial level.

Analysis: I've written on Iraq's asymmetric response already, and the ways that Iraqi infantry have taken to disguising themselves as civilians and fighting as unconventional forces. That's something we predicted would happen, and I'm not surprised to see it playing out in the form of the "fedayeen."

However, what's more significant is the adaptive capability the Iraqi army is displaying on a grand scale. The U.S. military establishment exhaustively researched Gulf War I for "lessons learned", which have since been captured in a number of open-source documents like the Gulf War Air Power Survey. We have since gathered lessons learned from Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. If Saddam is reading those reports and using them as a template, we have a real problem. Our after-action reviews tend to be brutally honest, both about our successes and failures. One of the best ones I've read is Victory Misunderstood by Stephen Biddle, in which the author accurately dissects a major land battle to tease out the critical variables that influenced success or failure on the battlefield. Some of those variables include things like digging fighting positions into the ground, as opposed to piling dirt on the surface around the armored vehicle. Until now, we have not seen Iraq as the kind of adaptive adversary that would learn from its past mistakes. However, we may now be seeing indicators that Iraq is doing exactly that.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:06

 
Pentagon orders 120,000 more soldiers into the fight

CNN reports that "120,000 additional troops were being deployed to the region" to join offensive operations as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. "Twenty thousand troops from the U.S. 4th Infantry Division will leave Fort Hood, Texas, for Iraq in the next few days, and another 100,000 ground troops have received deployment orders and will head to the Persian Gulf region next month."

CNN rushed to get this story on the wire, so it's short on details. The only unit listed is the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood, which has already been ordered to the gulf but not sent. (4ID's personnel have sat at Fort Hood for two months while its equipment sailed to Turkey and sat there.) Presumably, this deployment order will send the 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division from Germany down to Southwest Asia, as well as more light infantry from the United States who are not already fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq. More to follow as this story develops...
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:41

 
Welcome! If you're joining me because of Slate's recommendation, I'm glad to have you as a reader. If you have questions you'd like to see answered, or thoughts about what I've written so far, please e-mail me. Thanks again for stopping by Intel Dump.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:31

 
War Heroes

Enough strategy for a minute... we can never forget the human dimension of war. Friday's Washington Post will include a great story reported from a military hospital in Germany about Staff Sgt. Jamie Villafane and his heroic capture of several Iraqi prisoners on the battlefield. His story is worth reading. Thousands more men and women like SSG Villafane serve in our military, mostly going unnoticed. Their heroic actions -- in peace and war -- never stop amazing and inspiring me.

LANDSTUHL, Germany, March 27 -- A U.S. Army sergeant today described how he captured four Iraqi soldiers by himself near Nasiriyah Saturday after a rocket-propelled grenade blew him out of his Humvee and left him with a serious shrapnel wound in his left arm.

The prisoners were concealing Iraqi military uniforms under civilian robes, he said.

Staff Sgt. Jamie Villafane and two other injured servicemen spoke to a news conference at a U.S. Army hospital here, where they are being treated before returning to the United States. He said his training had prepared him well to be in combat, but he had no desire to return to battle after being wounded.

"Getting shot at wasn't really that bad. It was the getting shot part that sucked," he said.

posted by Phillip Carter at 12:25

 
War games and predictions II

Walter Pincus and Dana Priest report in the Washington Post today on some pre-war estimates and assumptions that were ignored by the White House, the Pentagon, CENTCOM, and operational planners as they built the plan for assaulting Iraq. Specifically, the article mentions a number of Intelligence Community estimates that predicted a high level of resistance from the Iraqis, as well as the Iraqi resort to unconventional means of warfare.

Intelligence analysts at the CIA and Pentagon warned the Bush administration that U.S. troops would face significant resistance from Iraqi irregular forces employing guerrilla tactics, but those views have not been adequately reflected in the administration's public predictions about how difficult a war might go, according to current and former intelligence officials.

CIA analysts "thought there was a good chance we would be forced to fight our way through everything," said one intelligence official who sat in on many briefings. "They were much more cautious about it being an easy situation."

With U.S. and British troops being forced to defend a more than 200-mile supply line from the Kuwaiti border to U.S. troops 50 miles from Baghdad and to fend off small-scale attacks by the Iraqi irregular forces, analysts at the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency are complaining that their reports would be softened as they moved to the White House. "The caveats would be dropped and the edges filed off," the intelligence official said.

"The intelligence we gathered before the war accurately reflected what the troops are seeing out there now," one military intelligence official said. "The question is whether the war planners and policymakers took adequate notice of it in preparing the plan." At least one pre-war intelligence analysis described potential threats of Iraqi irregular forces mining harbors, planting bombs and firing at troops while disguised in civilian clothes, according to one senior intelligence official.

Analysis: I can guess what happened here. A bunch of intelligence analysts are really upset that their estimates weren't picked up by their bosses, and they're even more upset now that those estimates have come true. In Washington, there are few ways to even the score better than leaking your opinions to the Washington Post. It embarasses your bosses and scores points in the court of public opinion.

In addition, it's not clear that these were the most persuasive -- or even the most accurate -- predictions we had in front of us before the war started. Hindsight is always 20/20 and it's easy to say in retrospect that these analysts predicted how Iraq would fight. But in the intelligence-prediction business, nothing is ever that simple. Intelligence preparation of the battlefield involves the preparation of lots of estimates -- worst case, best case, and everything in between. Though I think it's significant that we had intelligence estimates like this, I don't think this adds up to negligence on the part of military planners. The Administration and CENTCOM may have started with an optimistic plan. Right now, I'm sure they've got several pessimistic operational planners (like me) in their basement busy working on a new and improved plan.
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:18

 
War games
Why were the Pentagon's pre-war estimates so far off the mark?

Today's Washington Post has a great analytic piece on the gap between our commanders' expectations of the war and the reality they're now facing. Early setbacks, as well as the stiff resistance from Iraqi soldiers fighting on their home turf, has led many military officers to adjust pre-war predictions of how the campaign would play out. Specifically, Pentagon officials are revising their estimates of how many troops it will take to get the job done.

While some top planners favor continuing to press north, many Army commanders believe that the pause in Army ground operations that began yesterday is critical. A relatively small force is stretched thin over 300 miles, and much of the Army's killing power, in more than 100 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, has been grounded by persistently foul weather or by battle damage from an unsuccessful pre-dawn raid on Monday. To the east, the Marine Corps advance on the city of Kut was also hampered by skirmishing along its supply line and fuel shortages at the front.
* * *
More forces are coming, including the Army's 4th Infantry Division, which has begun pushing equipment from 35 ships into Kuwait after Turkey refused to allow U.S. forces to use its bases for a second front, into northern Iraq. But it will probably take the better part of a month for that tank-heavy division to get into position and provide combat power. Other forces heading to this region, including the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Carson, Colo., and the 1st Cavalry Division, from Fort Hood, Tex., will require months to move their tanks and other armor from their bases into combat, the defense officials said.

All of this begs the question: how did the Pentagon develop these pre-war estimates in the first place? The answer is that the American military uses number of "war games" to analyze and predict how thousands of variables will interact in the event of war. (Examples include the BCTP Warfighter exercise, Victory Scrimmage exercise, Foal Eagle exercise, and others.) The military uses these wargames in peacetime to train staffs and commanders for war, as well as to predict the amount of resources it needs for the American military. Current troop strengths are based, in large part, on the predictions of these war games for what it would take to fight two wars in Korea and Iraq at the same time. In wartime, or the weeks leading up to war, these simulations are used to test operational plans and tease out the most important variables and problems with the plan.

Ultimately, these plans are based on assumptions. Some of those assumptions are fairly simplistic and static, like "U.S. units will start the fight with at least 95% of their personnel." Other assumptions are quite complex and dynamic. At some point, a level of Iraqi resistance and resolve has to be built into the plan. This variable then appears in the simulation as "The number of dead an Iraqi unit has to take before it crumbles," or something along those lines. Enemy skill is also a huge factor in these simulations, expressed as "probability of kill," or how many rounds an Iraqi has to shoot in order to inflict one U.S. casualty. According to at least one high-ranking U.S. general, some of these assumptions may have been wildly inaccurate:

"The enemy that we're fighting is different from the one we'd war gamed," U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace told Washington Post correspondent Rick Atkinson. Wallace is commander of the V Corps, which was tested by an Iraqi ground probe overnight. "We knew they were there -- the paramilitaries -- but we didn't know they'd fight like this," he said. Asked if this signaled a longer war than projected, he replied, "It's beginning to look that way."

Analysis:I served under LTG Wallace when he commanded the 4th Infantry Division, and he's a man of unimpeachable integrity. He's also got a very accurate picture of the battlefield right now, from his vantage point of V Corps Commander. No one is better situated to comment on the assumptions in our pre-war simulations -- not even Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. I take his judgment at face value that these assumptions were wrong. The task now falls to the Pentagon and the four services to rapidly deploy combat power to the Persian Gulf. Our plan was based on a number of core assumptions about the Iraqis that are now proving to be wrong. We cannot afford to fight that plan any longer -- we must fight the enemy in front of us.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:56

 
Weather clears; bombing of Iraqi units resumes

The Associated Press and others report that sandstorms and rainstorms have cleared up over Iraq, opening the skies for U.S. and allied aircraft to bomb Iraqi troop formations from both high and low altitude. Reports continue to indicate that that the weather is outside the envelope for Apache helicopters, but I'm not sure if this is true. (Ground winds in excess of 45mph can ground helicopters, even in combat) Nonetheless, this is encouraging news for the attack on Iraq. Just as it mattered to Allied troops in the Battle of the Bulge, the mix of good weather and airpower can make all the difference for our fortunes in Iraq.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:13

 
Internet recommendation: Crimes of War

Legal issues seem to be percolating in the desert like coffee at a Starbucks. Treatment of POWs, targeting of Iraqi facilities, rules for surrender, rules for humanitarian relief -- they're all tough issues with a long legal history. International law is one of the most amorphous bodies of law out there. It includes "customary" law, which is essentially those customs and norms which have become generally accepted throughout history (vague, huh?). It also includes "positive" law -- those treaties, laws and other documents which bind states, NGOs, and other formal bodies. Overlapping this in many respects is the law of war, which includes domestic, international, military, ecclesiastical, and other sources. To cut through the mess, I've found one site to be pretty useful: Crimes of War. It has detailed interviews with noted scholars in this field, a great "definitions" section that reads like an encyclopedia, and other features. The site is part of the international human-rights community, and thus is more left-leaning in its interpretations and opinions. Despite that, I recommend it as a great resource.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:14

 
Pentagon announces formal status of 507th personnel

In an extremely sterile press release, the Pentagon formally announced the status of all the soldiers killed, missing and taken prisoner during the ill-fated 507th Maintenance Company mission earlier this week. Briefly, here is the listing:

Dead are:
Spc. Jamaal R. Addison, 22, of Roswell, Ga.
Pfc. Howard Johnson II, 21, of Mobile, Ala.
Listed as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown are:
Master Sgt. Robert J. Dowdy, 38, of Cleveland, Ohio
Pvt. Ruben Estrella-Soto, 18, of El Paso, Texas
Spc. James M. Kiehl, 22, of Des Moines, Iowa
Pfc. Jessica D. Lynch, 19, of Palestine, W.Va.
Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata, 35, of El Paso, Texas
Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, 23, of Tuba City, Ariz.
Pvt. Brandon Ulysses Sloan, 19, of Bedford, Ohio
Sgt. Donald Ralph Walters, 33, of Salem, Ore.
Listed as Prisoner of War are:
Spc. Edgar Adan Hernandez, 21, of Mission, Texas
Spc. Joseph Neal Hudson, 23, of Alamogordo, N.M.
Spc. Shoshana Nyree Johnson, 30, of El Paso, Texas
Pfc. Patrick Wayne Miller, 23, of Walter, Kan.
Sgt. James Joseph Riley, 31, of Pennsauken, N.J.

Phil's Thoughts: What disturbs me isn't the dead (2 is light for this type of ambush) or the POWs (that happens when a unit gets overrun in this way) -- it's the large number whose status is "unknown." We have a norm in the military that you don't leave a buddy behind -- ever. The Ranger Creed says it this way: "Surrender is not a Ranger word. I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy and under no circumstances will I ever embarrass my country." As soldiers, it's extremely important to know that your buddies will come for you after you've fallen -- whether you're wounded, dead, captured or unknown. We owe it to these soldiers and their families to confirm their status, and if possible, to recover them for their families. I realize this may sound sentimental, but we can never forget the human dimension of war.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:05

 
Remember that massive Iraqi force counterattacking south?

CNN reports (along with other sources) that U.S. heavy bombers (such as B-52s) have found, bombed, and destroyed the column headed south towards the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division and various Marine units. Many thought this Iraqi column represented a counterattack; an attempt to exploit the effects of a sandstorm on American close air support. Unfortunately, the Iraqis learned the hard way that such weather degrades them more than us, and that we have a robust all-weather capability to destroy things from the air.

Waves of B-52 bombers pounded a convoy of Iraqi military vehicles overnight before they could reach the lead elements of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Najaf, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, CNN's Walter Rodgers reported Thursday.

Air traffic controllers with the U.S. Air Force told Rodgers, embedded with the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry of the 3rd Infantry, that the bombers pounded the convoy "almost into oblivion."

Brooks at Central Command said that the Iraqi force was smaller than initial intelligence reports suggested and that most of the force was destroyed.

Analysis: This vignette is great for illustrating how "sensor-to-shooter" links work in a digitized, networked military. Despite what the Air Force personnel with 3-7 Cav are saying about this mission, it's doubtful they actually had eyes on these guys when the Air Force bombed them. The sandstorm would have obscured visual observation too much for that; the controllers would have had to get inside the safety distance of the B-52 to see these guys. What's more likely is that we acquired these vehicles as "moving target indicators" using the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) and other "technical" means like satellites. That precise information was then probably confirmed with UAV or satellite reconnaissance and relayed directly to the Air Force -- the "shooters" in this case. If everything worked, the JSTARS picture was being fed in real time to the Air Force to enable them to hit Iraqi vehicles on the move. This is roughly how a good sensor-to-shooter loop works -- the sensors see the target, relay the information, and the shooter hits the target.

Coda: What if these Iraqis were moving south to surrender? I raise this as a possibility, though I don't think it's probable. They weren't actually in contact with us on the ground, so there's no way to accurately discern their intentions besides the fact they were moving south towards us. International law certainly doesn't require us to discern intent before bombing someone in this situation. If we take prisoners from this column's remnants, I'm sure we'll interrogate them as to this question in order to get an idea about how the Iraqis see the battlefield right now. We need to do all we can to get inside the head of our enemy.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:57

 
Book Recommendation: Holy War, Inc. by Peter Bergen

Holy War, Inc. should be the starting point for anyone seeking to learn about global terror networks generally, or Al Qaeda more specifically. Peter Bergen is an outstanding writer, and he really brings the leadership of Al Qaeda to life on the pages of his book. In Holy War, Inc., Bergen tells the story of Osama Bin Laden (who he personally interviewed) and how a ragtag band of "Afghan Arabs" became one of the most adaptive, innovative, and deadly terror organizations in history. The book is exhaustively researched -- and extremely well footnoted. It enables scholars like me to find the original sources behind Bergen's work and draw our own conclusions. I can't believe I took so long to purchase and read it, but am glad I finally did. This book gets my enthusiastic recommendation. (PS - Buy the paperback version because Mr. Bergen has updated it since Sept. 2001 with a wealth of new information on what he calls "Al Qaeda 2.0.")

Other recent book recommendations:
- Jarhead by Anthony Swofford
- American Empire by Andrew Bacevich
- The New Face of War by Bruce Berkowitz

Sitting on my bookshelf and waiting to be read next:
- Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (and its companion The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt)
- A War of Nerves by Ben Shephard
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:56

 
Armored task force to join paratroopers in Northern Iraq

CNN reports that a heavily armored force is being airlifted in to join the 173rd Infantry Brigade (Airborne) in Northern Iraq.

The 1st Battalion, 63rd Armor, part of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, equipped with Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, was expected to be airlifted into northern Iraq as soon as the airfield was secure.

The U.S. military had hoped to transport vehicles and troops over land, but failed to reach an agreement with Turkey about using its bases and airspace.

Analysis: The 1st Battalion, 63rd Armor will add a significant armored punch to the light fighters of the 173rd Infantry Bde, especially if it brings along the enablers normally carried by an armored task force -- combat engineers, air defense, artillery, logistics, and more. Moreover, the light/heavy combination that this infantry brigade now has is a potent combined-arms mix. Light infantry are good at fighting in complex terrain (e.g. mountains and cities); mechanized forces are good for open terrain -- now the 173rd BCT has both. The question now is whether we will continue to fly heavy forces into theater to join them. In theory, we can put a heavy battalion on the ground every 2 days if we're ferrying them from Europe.
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:40

 
Airborne! U.S. paratroopers enter Northern Iraq

The Associated Press reports that roughly 1,000 American paratroopers from the Italy-based 173rd Infantry Brigade (Airborne) have hit the ground in Iraq. It's unclear from the story whether these soldiers parachuted into Iraq, landed by helicopter, or entered by fixed-wing aircraft. However, this represents a significant development in the war with Iraq.

The soldiers from the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade landed at about 4 p.m. EST, a senior Pentagon official said. He said the troops did not encounter any hostile fire.

Pentagon officials have said for weeks they would have U.S. forces in northern Iraq to open another front against Saddam Hussein's forces. The vast majority of the coalition ground troops in Iraq are moving toward Baghdad from the south after entering from Kuwait.

"I can only tell you yes, they've gone in. They're on the ground," said Lt. Col. Thomas Collins, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's Southern European Task Force. The 173rd, based in Vicenza, Italy, is part of the task force.

Future airlifts into the area will include tanks and other vehicles, supplies and support personnel for the 173rd's fighters, defense officials said. Several hundred U.S. special forces already were in northern Iraq, one official said, declining to elaborate on the mission. Coalition airstrikes in portions of northern Iraq controlled by Saddam's regime have hit Iraqi military forces in the field and other strategic targets, the official said.
* * *
Besides the strategic cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, another key target in northern Iraq is Tikrit, Saddam's hometown and the tribal center for most of his inner circle. Most of the Adnan Division of Iraq's Republican Guard relocated from the Mosul area to the Tikrit area shortly before the war began.

Analysis: It's critical that the U.S. deliver additional combat power to support these paratroopers in the next 6-12 hours. Though trained as some of the world's best light infantry, they remain just that: light. Without heavy weapons systems (e.g. tanks), they cannot hold off a determined counterattack for long. Moreover, without mobility assets (e.g. trucks), they have only their boots to carry them. I can't tell from the news reports what this force is being used for -- whether it's to open a second front, secure WMD sites, or conduct other missions. More to follow...

Update: The Washington Post confirms that these paratroopers did, in fact, jump into Iraq from C-17 Globemaster aircraft. That makes this one of the largest airborne operations since World War II. The option of air-landing the force was raised, but the Post reports that "Commanders also favored the psychological impact they expect the airborne assault will have on all parties in the region -- Iraqi, Kurdish and Turkish."

A thousand paratroopers from the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade jumped into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq today at a strategic airfield to open a northern front for U.S. forces. The operation is also aimed at discouraging Turkish troops on the border from crossing into Iraq in large numbers, a move that could precipitate fighting with Kurdish forces.

"Americans are asking you to make the world a better place by jumping into the unknown for the benefit of others," Col. William Mayville, the brigade commander, told the paratroops before they boarded Air Force C-17 jets. "Paratroopers, our cause is just and victory is certain," Mayville added. "I want you to join me tonight on an airborne assault."

The force dropped into northern Iraq includes rifle companies, platoons armed with mortars and antitank missiles, engineers for clearing mines, sniper teams, long-range surveillance teams, Air Force ground teams and Humvees equipped with missiles and .50-caliber machine guns. Heavy weaponry, equipment and more troops to support and expand the brigade's position will arrive in coming days, officers said.

posted by Phillip Carter at 15:50

 
If you're just tuning in to Intel Dump, thanks! In the last week, I've seen my site traffic increase exponentially. Most of this owes to generous links from Mickey Kaus at Slate, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, Mark Kleiman, and The American Prospect. I really appreciate your readership and hope you'll continue to read Intel Dump for analysis and commentary on the war in Iraq.
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:48

 
Army headquarters bingo -- can you match the division to the corps HQ?

While reading news coverage of the war over the past week (and before), I was puzzled by the fact that that V Corps is in charge of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and 101st Infantry Division (Air Assault). Why is this odd? LTG William Wallace's V Corps is based in Germany, and in peacetime, it commands the 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division in Germany. 3ID and 101ID are based in Georgia and Kentucky respectively, and they normally fall under the Army's XVIII Airborne Corps. So where are they? The XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters is in Afghanistan, commanding other units from the Army's 82nd Infantry Division (Airborne) as they continue operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Confused yet? Why does any of this matter? In an ideal world, you'd fight with the command team you trained under for years. Corps and division-level headquarters have a certain way of doing things. The Army shares a common doctrine, but each unit has its own "Tactics, Techniques and Procedures" called "TTPs", as well as a "Tactical Standing Operating Procedure" or "TACSOP." Learning those things on the fly can be tough, and it adds to the friction of war. I think V Corps is doing a fine job in the desert of minimizing this friction. But I also think there are a number of areas where this friction is causing problems -- missed reports, garbled communications, crossed wires, etc.
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:37

 
NYT: Urban combat is the first choice of the underdog

Today's New York Times has a good piece on why underdogs choose urban combat as their preferred form of asymmetric response to America's overwhelming conventional responsibilities. This is something I've wrote about before, largely by referencing the body of work on "4th Generation Warfare." Urban combat undermines American superiority in almost every way -- it's manpower-intensive, full of civilians, slow, and casualty-intensive.

Since Stalingrad and Berlin in the Second World War, to the American assault on Hue, Vietnam, in 1968 and on to the war zones of Beirut or Nablus, Belfast or Mogadishu, urban warfare has become a central part of the underdog's arsenal — a fight without scruples for the high ground of propaganda that exploits civilian losses and denies the intruder's superior might.

And it is precisely that messy, manipulative and murderous kind of fighting between conventional forces and elusive defenders that could beckon Americans as they approach Baghdad.

"The Iraqis will want to fight close and dirty, with Iraqi tanks darting in an out of garages and buildings; they will conduct small-scale offensive actions with dismounted soldiers supported by mortars," wrote Gen. Wesley Clark, the American former commander who led NATO forces during the Kosovo campaign.
* * *
"Urban warfare usually benefits the defender," said Clifford Beal, the editor of Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading publication on military matters. Not only that, urban warfare "will negate the technological advantage of the coalition."

He added: "The Iraqis will be jumping in and out of alleyways. It tends to become a low-tech, house-to-house situation and that kind of combat can become very costly for combatants and others."

A war depending on low technology and high numbers of combatants and casualties is precisely the opposite of what the modern American Army is trained to do. And even the British Army, with three decades of experience fighting the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, would not be familiar either with the Iraqi terrain in cities such as Basra or Baghdad or with the much greater firepower that Iraqi troops could use in urban areas.

posted by Phillip Carter at 11:39

 
WSJ: Military branches compete for news coverage with budget fights in mind

Today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a provocative (though cynical) piece about the internecine fighting going on right now between the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines for news coverage. Ultimately, the motivation for such infighting boils down to one thing: money. The service that gets the most publicity out of Gulf War I will gain political capital for budget fights in years to come.

The friendly and not so friendly rivalries among various U.S. military branches have long been documen