News analysis and commentary from Phillip Carter -- now located at http://www.intel-dump.com

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What happened in Falluja?

The first reports of the incident in Falluja, in which American soldiers appear to have shot and killed 15 Iraqi civilians protesting their presence, are almost certainly wrong. Or, at the very least, they are tainted by the adrenaline which corrupts all first reports in wartime. Yet, even if they are partially true, these first reports are disturbing. The New York Times reports, along with other media, that American soldiers received rifle fire from a crowd of Iraqi civilians protesting their occupation of a school in Falluja which occurred at night. The paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division returned fire, killing 15 and wounding more than 75, according to Iraqi medical officials.

There were few details about the shootings that the Americans and residents could agree on today, apart from the fact that it began with a demonstration of perhaps 200 people, some shouting slogans in support of Mr. Hussein on his 66th birthday. Soldiers said it was a night of far more gunfire and rock-throwing than had been usual in this city of mostly Sunni Muslims, many still loyal to Mr. Hussein.

The demonstrators gathered after evening prayers sometime after 9 p.m., first stopping at the headquarters of one unit of American soldiers in the Nazzal neighborhood. An American officer, Capt. Mike Riedmuller, said some in the crowd fired automatic rifles in the air, but he said the soldiers did not fire at the demonstrators because they did not feel they were being shot at directly.

He said the crowd then moved several blocks away to the yellow, two-story Al Qaed school, where American soldiers had positioned themselves for the previous three nights. The two versions of what happened there diverge sharply.

Lt. Wes Davidson, an officer at the school, said that about 20 to 30 demonstrators were shooting rifles mostly in the air, and that the soldiers responded with smoke grenades.

Then, he said, several more people with rifles appeared from three houses across from the school and began shooting directly at the soldiers, as did others among the demonstrators and from the houses' roofs.

Both Lieutenant Davidson and Captain Riedmuller said the Americans returned fire precisely.

"Our soldiers returned deliberately aimed fire at people with weapons, and only at people with weapons," Captain Riedmuller said.

Analysis: The fog of war is thick in situations like this, more so because all of this happened at night. Sure, the 82nd Airborne had great night-vision optics (e.g. AN/PVS-14 and AN/PAQ-4C) and they trained on how to engage targets at night. But even the best shots would have trouble engaging moving riflemen in a civilian crowd at night from any distance -- particularly when the Iraqi shooters are concealing their weapons or hiding behind civilians. Responding to this kind of rifle fire from a crowd is extremely difficult; it's almost guaranteed to result in civilian casualties. I think it's likely is that such rifle fire was used by an instigator to provoke exactly this kind of incident. Someone wanted to make the American army look bad -- and they succeeded.

Looking forward, I suspect the CENTCOM staff is looking right now at its Rules of Engagement, trying to determine if it needs to restrict the use of force further now that hostilities have calmed down to a lower level of intensity. I also think that someone at CENTCOM HQ is looking at the troop mix, to see if we really want all this infantry doing the job of military police in Iraq right now. American airborne infantry are really good at their mission -- which is closing with the enemy by means of fire and maneuver to kill or capture him. But they're less good at the kind of fuzzy, graduated-levels-of-force nation-building that this mission has become. Units that deployed to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom did not receive the same kind of pre-deployment training that units going to Bosnia would have, and I think we're going to see lots of incidents in the near future where it becomes apparent that the average American combat unit is not prepared for this kind of mission.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:23

 
Judges and lawyers on the way

Jess Bravin reports in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that a team of federal judges and lawyers has been picked to build an Iraqi court system. The team includes 6th Circuit Judge Gilbert S. Merritt Jr., and U.S. District Court Judges Paul Magnuson of Minnesota, Stephen Orlofsky of Camden, N.J., and Donald E. Walter of Shreveport, La. According to the Journal, the team has "signed on for a 90-day project to assess the condition of Iraq's judicial system. It will complement a 13-member police-training team also heading to the region."

posted by Phillip Carter at 11:08

 
Putting it together
America's military plans dramatic changes to globe-straddling posture

A trio of articles from Reuters, USA Today and the Washington Post paint a picture today of an American military about to make major changes in the way it deploys its forces overseas. Reuters reports today that American forces will pull completely out of Saudi Arabia. The news comes as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld travels around the Middle East to visit the troops and assess America's military missions there.

The announcement, made during a tour of Gulf states by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld focused on reducing the U.S. military presence in the region, followed Riyadh's refusal to allow air strikes on Iraq by some 100 Saudi-based U.S. aircraft.

``After the end of Southern Watch ... there is no need for them to remain,'' Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz told a joint news conference with Rumsfeld. ``This does not mean that we requested them to leave.''

Rumsfeld told reporters after talks with the prince that the ``liberation of Iraq'' had changed the situation in the Gulf and allowed Washington to reduce its troops in the region. ``The relationship between our two countries is multi-dimensional -- diplomatic, economic, as well as military-to-military,'' he told a news conference.

The next piece of the puzzle comes from USA Today, which reports that America's commander in Europe is planning to open new bases in Eastern Europe. This move comes in the wake of diplomatic difficulties with France and Germany over the war with Iraq, as well as increasing difficulties with the logistics of keeping troops in Western Europe. With the end of the Cold War, European civilians have become less tolerant of maneuver damage and other problems associated with the U.S. military presence. Eastern European countries, strapped for money and itching to become better members of NATO, may be willing to give the U.S. big concessions in exchange for American troops being garrisoned there.

The Pentagon is considering closing or shrinking bases — now chiefly in Germany — while opening smaller bases in eastern European countries such as Hungary, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria.

Gen. James Jones, who commands American forces in Europe, cautioned that the plan is still a work in progress but said the Pentagon could move away from big bases with large concentrations of troops and focus on Europe as a kind of staging ground for global hotspots. Among the ideas being looked at are "bare bones" bases in Eastern Europe that the Pentagon could use to move troops quickly to the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Although the changes might seem intended to punish Germany — which opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq — while rewarding some who supported it, officials say the moves have more to do with post-Cold War realities and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's efforts to make the military more flexible. "At every turn, we have sought to make sure the work is militarily unconnected to any political discussions," Jones said.

The final piece of the puzzle comes from Washington Post reporter Bradley Graham, who essentially confirms the USA Today report and its analysis.

What could this mean? Secretary Rumsfeld has been working since 2001 on transforming the American military into the lighter, faster 21st Century force he thinks is necessary to win America's wars. If the Pentagon can operate more cheaply in Eastern Europe than Western Europe, that would certainly support his goals. Moreover, there's no love lost between Mr. Rumsfeld and Messrs. Chirac and Schoeder after he called them "Old Europe," and I'm sure that Pentagon planners would rather work with eager Eastern European officials than recalcitrant French and German ones.

However, I think something bigger is at work here. Moving bases from one part of Europe to another is small potatoes. Instead, I think we're going to see a transformation of the nature of these bases -- from permanent garrisons to "lily pads" from which the American military can leapfrog abroad. Instead of maintaining large units in Europe like we do today, I think we're moving towards a model where we keep all these units in the United States, with their equipment pre-positioned in places like Diego Garcia and Eastern Europe, ready to deploy with them as a package to anyplace in the world. This would substantially lower operating costs, and increase the quality of life for soldiers who would choose to live in the United States (there will still be plenty of overseas opportunities for those who want to go). Moving out of Western Europe, with its gargantuan Cold War-era bases, is one step towards this new vision.
posted by Phillip Carter at 10:47

 
"I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy..."

The Associated Press reports that America confirmed the identity of its last missing soldier from the war with Iraq today. Spc. Edward John Anguiano was killed in the same ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company that resulted in the capture of six American POWs, including PFC Jessica Lynch. His body was recovered a day later, but his identity was not confirmed until today by military officials.

Officials used DNA tests to confirm that the remains were Anguiano, according to the soldier's grandfather, and military officials notified the family late Sunday. The grandfather said he believed Anguiano was killed during the initial attack on March 23, when he disappeared.

"What we heard is that he was ambushed," said Vicente Anguiano Sr., 72. "They found his truck, the one he drove, and it had been stripped — tires and everything. They found a body near the truck."

Anguiano's family members gathered in this south Texas town over the Easter weekend and held out hope he would return soon. The soldier's mother, San Juanita Anguiano, "is very sad. She was not expecting him to be found dead," said the soldier's aunt, Maria Anguiano.

Thoughts... There's no such thing as "closure" in a situation like this. However, it should give his family some comfort that America worked as hard as it did to find these missing soldiers, recover their bodies, and confirm their identities. In today's military, every single serviceperson submits a DNA sample (usually in the form of a small blood sample) to a giant repository. It appears that SPC Anguiano was identified with DNA from that database, enabling his family to know his fate for certain. One ramification of this database is that America may never again bury remains in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington. Already, we have exhumed and used DNA to identify the previously unknown soldier from the Vietnam War. Our commitment to bringing every soldier home, together with our ability to positively identify them with DNA, means it's unlikely that we will ever place remains in this sacred crypt again.
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:47

 
Marine investigated for possible misconduct in war

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported on Saturday that Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gus Covarrubias was under investigation by the Navy Criminal Investigative Service for comments he made to an LVRJ reporter in an interview. (Those comments ran in a Friday story.) The statements in question indicated that Gunnery Sgt. Covarrubias "double tapped" an Iraqi soldier after he was captured, a possible violation of the laws of war. Covarrubias, a Marine Corps reservists, was wounded in combat in Iraq, and flown back to his home near Las Vegas to recuperate.

During an interview at his Las Vegas home earlier this week, Covarrubias told a Review-Journal reporter the harrowing tale of an intense April 8 battle in Baghdad that he described as "a firefight from hell."

The resulting story, published Friday, included Covarrubias' account of slipping away from other Marines after the battle in pursuit of the Iraqi Republican Guard member who fired a rocket-propelled grenade at his unit, causing a blast that gave him a concussion and wounded several other troops.

The 20-year veteran of the Marine Corps said he found the soldier after dark inside a nearby home with the grenade launcher next to him. Covarrubias said he ordered the man to stop and turn around.

"I went behind him and shot him in the back of the head," Covarrubias said. "Twice."

Military officials on Friday declined to comment on Covarrubias' story beyond a statement released late in the afternoon by the Marine Forces Reserve headquarters in Quantico, Va.

"A preliminary inquiry has been initiated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to examine the circumstances surrounding the statements made by Gunnery Sgt. Covarrubias in an April 25, 2003 Las Vegas Review-Journal article," the statement reads.

"The preliminary inquiry will determine if the actions described by Gunnery Sgt. Covarrubias during combat operations met the established rules of engagement and complied with the law of war. The inquiry will be thorough and impartial and will determine whether a formal investigation is warranted."

The article correctly points out that Gunnery Sgt. Covarubbias' conduct -- if established to be true -- would be illegal under the laws of war. Put simply, you can't shoot a prisoner who poses you no threat to yourself or your unit. Of course, this incident happened shortly after a firefight, and it's not clear yet that this individual met those criteria. First reports are always wrong in these kinds of situations, and the adrenaline of combat taints every eyewitness account. The investigators will need to stitch each account together to form the best picture of the truth, one that may or may not vindicate Gunnery Sgt. Covarrubias in this instance. If the investigation shows that this killing happened outside the Marines' rules of engagement, and that Covarrubias acted with the requisite level of intent, he could face criminal charges for his action.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:51

 
LT Smash to Jacques Chirac: "You, sir, have no honor"

In a note more thoughtful than anything I've read from the State Department's public affairs office lately, L.T. Smash (a reserve officer deployed to fight in Iraq) has some sharp words on his well-read blog for French President Jacques Chirac and his refusal to support the war.

For well over two centuries, we have been friends and allies.

So how, sir, do you explain your recent behavior?

It is not unprincipled to be opposed to war. War is terrible.

But we have been in agreement, for over twelve years now, that Saddam Hussein must cooperate with the United Nations and abandon his weapons of mass destruction. Together, we passed seventeen resolutions in the Security Council demanding as much.

The last resolution, which was approved unanimously, called for “serious consequences” if Iraq failed to disarm. But the regime of Saddam Hussein continued to play games of obfuscation, denial, and deception.

We all know what “serious consequences” means, sir.
* * *
Your actions have grave consequences, sir. Like so many others, this American had to leave his home and family and go to war – a conflict from which over one hundred Americans will never return.

Today, in a newly liberated Iraq, we are learning the true extent of your betrayal.

Damning documents have been discovered. Reputable media outlets have reported that your government provided intelligence assistance to Saddam Hussein. This assistance allegedly included briefings covering confidential conversations between yourself and President George W. Bush.

These are not the actions of a trusted ally, much less a friend.

You, sir, have no honor.

Legal Brief: Soldiers have First Amendment rights, though they are somewhat curtailed for operational reasons (i.e. "loose lips sink ships") and political reasons (we don't want an American military coup d'etat). (See, e.g., Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, holding in another First Amendment context that the Air Force could burden a serviceman's Constitutional right to free exercise of religion by making regulations which proscribed the wear of his yarmulke.) The Uniform Code of Military Justice criminalizes some forms of vocal dissent in Article 88:

Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

This punitive article has been upheld by the courts on Constitutional grounds. LT Smash's words don't criticize any of the named individuals in Article 88, and as such, he's probably not vulnerable to prosecution under Art. 88. Furthermore, he's an anonymous blogger, and it's not clear that anonymous blogging would count for this statute. And there are probably regulations in place for the use of military computing systems abroad that limit such use to work-related purposes or limited personal e-mail. He's also criticizing the head of a NATO country, and speaking out on an issue of current diplomacy. In this case, discretion may be the better part of valor.
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:30

 
Their final words
Letters home from America's fallen sons and daughters

Sunday's Washington Post ran a moving article quoting letters from fallen soldiers to their loved ones. The Post's website also has PDF versions of these letters available for viewing and download. Collectively, the letters offer a moving tribute to the men and women our nation sacrificed in Iraq. Most write of life in the desert, and mundane details like laundry or mail. Some write more openly about their fears, apprehensions and emotions. In many ways, this collection reminds me of For Cause and Comrades by James McPherson, which collected the letters of Civil War soldiers. In that war, American soldiers wrote with considered prose about their thoughts on military life, their unit and their cause. In this war, the letters from America's fallen heroes tell similar stories, updated for the 21st Century, in voices that are at once thoughtful, compelling, intelligent, and strikingly honest.

One soldier wrote to his mother: Send more M&Ms. Another scribbled hello to his Nanny and Pop-pop. A Marine asked his girlfriend to tie a yellow ribbon in her hair. A reservist told his sister that if he didn't make it back, please read Rudyard Kipling's "If" at the funeral.

The soldiers didn't know that these messages would be among their last. They dealt mostly with the mundane -- the blood blisters, the tent mice, the sand that crunched between their teeth. They congratulated Dad on his new heifer and praised Sister's cheerleading. But they were young men preparing for battle, awkwardly caught between imagined futures and an abrupt end. And so they made sure to say the things that needed to be said, to thank, to explain, to apologize and, most urgently, to love. They came from diverse backgrounds, yet a common theme runs through their writing. They died believing in their families, in the president or in their God. Rarely bitter and with scant bloodlust, they were men of faith.

posted by Phillip Carter at 11:04

 
Post-war force may equal 125,000 troops

USA Today reports today that Pentagon plans call for 125,000 soldiers to stay in Iraq for at least a year of initial nation-building efforts. The issue remains in play, however planners and military analysts say that initial estimates have already been used to mobilize reserve units and initiate deployment orders for units not already in Iraq.

The United States fielded a force of 260,000 for the Iraq war. That included ground, air and sea combat forces and tens of thousands of logistical support personnel.

The Pentagon does not reveal troop locations and numbers, but people with knowledge of current and likely deployments said U.S. troops will be clustered in obvious areas — 17,000 to 20,000 in Baghdad, 10,000 in the north, 17,000 in Basra and the south — and augmented with smaller groups elsewhere in the country.
* * *
If postwar Iraq remains generally peaceful and stable, the force could drop to 60,000 troops in a year, military officials said. The size and duration of the force could increase if there is political or religious unrest or if Iraq's neighbors interfere, experts said.

Analysis: If I'm reading this right, we're looking at three divisions of 10,000-15,000 troops on the ground in Iraq, with at least that number in support troops outside the country on ships, airbases and logistics bases in the region. This is roughly half the soldier footprint we have now in the region, but not that much of a departure from the combat forces we have in theater. Right now, America has the 3rd Infantry Division, 4th Infantry Division, 101st Airborne Division, 1st Marine Division, 173rd Airborne Brigade, and a number of special operations and support units on the ground in Iraq. If this plan is accurate, then I think we'll keep 4ID on the ground (since they just got there), and move 1-2 divisions from either Germany or the United States to Iraq to replace 3ID, 101ID and the Marines. After order is restored and a functioning Iraqi government is in place, the troop commitment should drop even further. But it's not altogether clear when American forces may exit the nation completely. That will depend on a lot of variables, many of which are too complex to even begin modeling today.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:42

 
If it ain't broke, don't fix it

William Arkin wrote a great essay for Sunday's Los Angeles Times in which he argues that America's military needs a lot less new stuff after Gulf War II than its generals and defense contractors are likely to want. Indeed, the lessons of this war indicate that American firepower is overwhelming, and America's technological edge is a generation ahead of our closet ally -- the UK -- let alone our Third World enemies. Instead of focusing resources on newfangled gadgets, America's military should instead focus on polishing the finer aspects of warfighting, such as joint Army/Air Force air operations, Arkin writes.

So if our weapons and equipment are effective, does nothing need improving? When compared to Hussein's military, which was crippled by oppressive centralization and poor training, the U.S. military seems like a big, happy family. But much work still needs to be done before its separate institutions learn to love fighting "jointly" together.

One report circulating about this war is about how Army units went solo in some of their initial forays, not telling air forces what they were up to and thus denying themselves air support. In one of those strikes near Karbala on March 24, 27 of 34 Apache attack helicopters sent out on a single mission against the Republican Guard's Medina Division returned so damaged they could no longer fly. One Apache was shot down, and two Army warrant officers were taken prisoner. It all might have been avoided with better ground/air coordination.

We have the firepower we need, and we have the well-trained forces. In general they work well together. But out of this war we need to gain a better appreciation of the combined effects of all of our firepower. Not only are we in need of accurate information about exactly what was unleashed by U.S. and coalition forces; we also need to press the best military minds to change the standards by which we measure our military capability and the capabilities of our opponents. We need to appreciate what we've got.

Analysis: I think it's too early to tell exactly what worked and what didn't work in Gulf War II. In the aggregate, we know that our weapons worked well, and that our ground forces accomplished their missions. But we also had hiccups in many of our sophisticated C4ISR ("Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance") systems, such as the ability to find Saddam's chemical and biological weapons (something which, in theory, can be done with technical means). The Pentagon ought to conduct a series of in-depth surveys of America's campaign, such as the Gulf War Air Power Survey done after the first one, to ascertain exactly what worked and what didn't.

America can't afford to hand the Pentagon a blank check for the mall of military contractors. However, America also can't afford to starve the military of what it needs. After-action reviews are the key to finding the middle path between those two opposite courses of action.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:31

 
Slate turns a profit

The New York Times reports today that Slate, a publication to which I've contributed a few times, has turned a profit in the first quarter of this year. This is notable because Slate is an entirely online magazine, and one that many critics claimed would go the way of other .com ventures. Instead, Slate has gone the way of E-Bay, showing that the marriage of good content to the Internet can work. I'm an avid Slate reader, and I think the reason for the magazine's success is its content. You won't find names like Thomas Friedman or William Arkin on Slate's pages. But you will find outstanding writers like Dahlia Lithwick, Fred Kaplan, Jack Shafer, and others who constantly push the envelope to offer new and interesting perspectives on current affairs. To borrow the line from Field of Dreams -- if you build a news site with good content, they will come.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:22

 
Secretary of the Army steps down... finally

After months of speculation over when he would leave, embattled Secretary of the Army Thomas White resigned yesterday from the job he's held since 2001. White, a West Point grad and retired 1-star general, came into the office with great expectations. Everyone expected him to excel at leading the institution that many thought he might have led as a 4-star general, had he stayed on active duty. Unfortunately, White met with a firestorm of controversy early in his tenure as Enron crumbled, because White had left the Army to take a lucrative position with Enron energy services. After (barely) surviving that ordeal, White next took fire for guerilla political tactics by his Department of the Army legislative office that attempted to undercut the Secretary of Defense's decision to cut the Crusader artillery system. It's not clear why White stepped down now. My guess is that he was waiting for the end of the war in Iraq to step down, in order to minimize turbulence within the Pentagon.

Secretary White's uniformed chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Eric Shinseki, has also not fared well. He and Secretary Rumsfeld have been at loggerheads for some time. The two senior leaders are rumored to have deep disagreements over the strategic role of the Army, and the proper way to transform America's largest military service. Rumsfeld transformed Shinseki into a lame duck by letting his replacement's name be known -- nearly a year before Shinseki's retirement. (Since then, that officer has declined the job) Some have speculated that Secretary Rumsfeld's trip to Iraq this week is really to interview officers who might replace Shinseki -- Gen. Tommy Franks, LTG John Abizaid, or LTG William Wallace.

Update: Various news media reported the same thought -- that Secretary Rumsfeld's real purpose in visiting the Middle East this week was to make Tommy Franks an offer he couldn't refuse. Today, the Washington Post adds its voice to the fray, confirming that speculation and offering some thoughts on why the SecDef might want Franks for the job.

... Rumsfeld has had particular difficulty with the Army. Some senior officers resent what they see as the secretary's tendency toward micromanaging. He and some of his closest aides also are viewed by the Army as overly fond of air power and other high-tech weaponry, at the expense of ground troops.

Exacerbating tensions in recent months was criticism of the war plan for Iraq by some retired Army generals, who suggested Rumsfeld was taking unnecessary risks -- and who were viewed by some close to Rumsfeld as echoing views held by their active-duty comrades.

"I think he's interested in trying to build a new relationship with the Army," said a senior insider.

There's more to the story, of course. In the last two weeks, the Army's General Officer Mangement Office has put out a bunch of new assignment orders for 1- and 2-star generals in the Army, including change-of-command orders for the 3rd Infantry Division and 4th Infantry Division -- both currently in Iraq. Some of this can be written off to summertime job changes (the military likes to switch out officers in the summer for family reasons). But it could also be true that Secretary Rumsfeld is directing these personnel changes -- and that each new assignment represents his own personal imprimatur and stamp of approval.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:44

 
Fighting SARS with the law

Today's Washington Post has an interesting article on the legal tools available for fighting public-health epidemics, such as the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus that's currently racing around Asia. The general thrust of the article is that the legal tools are insufficient -- and that any attempts to quarantine American citizens or cities would quickly degenerate into Orwellian chaos. I'm not sure this latter part is true, but I certainly think the first is. The President does have broad power in this area under federal law, including the power to use military units to conduct such operations (like in the movie Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman). Similarly, state governors have the power in many states (like California) to do so. What lacks is the ability in many states to pro-actively investigate such activities as crimes in themselves, as opposed to inchoate forms of murder or assault. Bottom Line: America still lacks the kind of preparedness for bioterrorism that we have in other areas, such as our airports. We need to put more resources -- legal, financial, political -- into this area.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:36

 
Gen. Franks: We'll be there "as long as it takes"

In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, Gen. Tommy Franks said that American forces could stay in Iraq for quite some time -- that the focus was on getting the mission done, not leaving by a certain date. He also said there's a great deal of uncertainty about how long this could be, and that it was premature to estimate any sort of exit from Iraq now.

"The fact is we don't know how long it'll take . . . because we do not yet know exactly how devoted the Iraqis themselves will be in getting over their own tribal and ethnic and religious difficulties," Franks said in a wide-ranging telephone interview with the St. Petersburg Times from his office in Qatar.

"What we do know," Franks said, "is that we're going to stay with them while they do it. We're going to stay with the Iraqis as long as it takes them to get a government on its feet."

The Times also provided an excerpt from the interview that quoted Franks repeating this assertion -- that we're in Iraq for the long haul.

Q: What do we have to accomplish in Iraq before we can declare victory and pull out our troops, and how long will it take?

Franks: How long it'll take, I don't know. I believe that we have seen the phases of this operation, the ones that are going to be done very quickly, we have seen them accomplished, the removal of the regime, the decisive defeat of the military forces of Iraq - decisive, and I'll say very rapidly, very quickly. I believe that the work that remains to be done is certainly going to take longer than the work that we have done until this point.

Analysis: Building a nation takes time, as Austin Bay and others have pointed out. Even the basic civil affairs work to get water, power, food and other infrastructural systems on their feet takes weeks, not days. Our experience in Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo showed that it takes a lot longer to win the peace than to win the war. Indeed, the war may be won with a few shots from the air, but the peace will take thousands of men (and women) on the ground to win. Gen. Franks won't estimate America's departure from Iraq. I will. I think we'll be there at least 5 years, possibly as many as 30. Our mission there could last a generation, and we should be prepared for that contingency.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:50

 
Does the Army need more military police?

Greg Jaffe reports in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that the Pentagon has undertaken a major study to see whether it should boost the size of the Army's military police, adjust the mix of active/reserve MPs, or privatize some MP missions like law enforcement to free up more MPs for peacekeeping. The study comes at a time when MPs are stretched across the world, guarding posts in the United States, enforcing peace in Kosovo, and building nations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Military police have grown in importance since Sept. 11, 2001, as American troops have ousted regimes in two countries and faced chaotic aftermaths, while the terror threat at home has put more MPs on guard duty at domestic military bases. Last December, the Army was forced to mobilize about 9,000 National Guard infantry soldiers to replace MPs on that security detail at 163 Air Force bases; most Air Force MPs on the bases were reservists in their second year of active-duty service, and were about to be sent home.

MPs specialize in bringing stability to an area following combat. They are trained in securing critical facilities such as banks and power plants, as well as in crowd control and law enforcement. When military police officers aren't immediately available in such situations, chaos often reigns. In 1989 in Panama and 1993 in Haiti, widespread looting also followed U.S. operations.

Military planners for the Iraq war "didn't mind the lessons from Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. They didn't have enough military police ready," says William Flavin, who teaches at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., and helped review the Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor peacekeeping missions for the Army.
* * *
The problem for MPs is that many of the combat jobs persist once the shooting stops. New jobs or missions are then layered on top of the old ones. "Military police are particularly good at gathering intelligence, because they are dealing with stragglers, refugees and prisoners of war," says Col. Larry Forster, a former military-police officer. In Iraq, MPs are being used to gather information about key regime officials loyal to Mr. Hussein, as well as the potential whereabouts of chemical and biological weapons.

MPs also are trained to deal with civilians using the minimum force necessary to resolve a conflict or problem, making them a good force for dealing with unruly demonstrators or looters in places such as Baghdad or Mosul. "We can perform all our assigned missions well, but we can't perform them all simultaneously. That's where you run into problems," says one military-police officer.

There is little appetite in the Bush administration for increasing the size of the military. Meanwhile, military officials in the Pentagon are hesitant to reduce the size of combat forces so that they can increase the size of the military-police force. "There's not an open bag of resources for us to reach into and add more MPs," Gen. Curry says. Among other ideas, he is exploring whether some missions such as guarding U.S. bases can be handed off to less-specialized infantry soldiers to free up MPs to help restore order in places like Iraq.

Analysis: Full disclosure: I served as an MP lieutenant and captain on active duty, so of course I think the Army needs more MPs. But honestly, I do think it makes sense. So many of the missions the Army has today are to do things that MPs are good at: nation-building, peacekeeping, anti-terrorism/force protection, and other police-style missions. In the Balkans, we've succeeded by hammering square infantry units into round MP holes for a long time, with significant training and institutional costs. I've thought for some time that the right answer would be to create larger, rapidly-deployable MP units that could be used for these kinds of missions. Current practice is to give peacekeeping missions to a large combat unit (e.g. an infantry brigade) with 1-3 MP companies attached in support. The MPs just get used for specialized missions, like riot control, while the infantry do the bulk of the MP-style missions like running checkpoints, patrols, etc. It might make more sense to invert this relationship, and build more MP brigades capable of managing peacekeeping missions with an infantry company as a quick-response force.

Unfortunately, the Pentagon doesn't have unlimited options. It'd be great to build more MPs, but military personnel strength is a zero-sum game. Those units would have to come from somewhere, and they would likely come from combat units. (The military's end strength is capped as a matter of law, and it takes Congressional approval to adjust this number, which has significant budget repercussions.) Moreover, the Army's done all right with combat arms units in these missions, provided they get extensive training prior to deployment. One thing that's different about the units in Iraq now -- as compared with combat divisions who have deployed to Bosnia or Kosovo -- is that the guys in Iraq did not go through an extensive pre-deployment training on peacekeeping and nation-building operations. Before any Balkans rotation, units go through such training, culminating in a "Mission Rehearsal Exercise" that's often held at one of the combat training centers. So while using combat units has worked to date, it may not work as well in Iraq.

Furthermore, moving units from the reserves to the active force isn't that simple either. It costs money to do so, and it would require an adjustment in the military's end strength (or cutting of personnel from other areas). Privatizing law enforcement on military bases sounds good, but it would have a real impact on MP training. The reason MPs are so good is because they practice their peacekeeping skills every day they're doing law enforcement. Granted, there's a big difference between patrolling Fort Hood and patrolling Baghdad. But there's a lot of similarity too, especially in the abilities to work within restrictive rules of engagement and employ forceful interpersonal communication skills. So it's not clear this is the answer either.

Bottom Line: If I were in the Pentagon, I'd recommend that the bill go to Congress to increase the end strength to buy more MPs. They're well worth the cost, along with some of the other specialty branches like Civil Affairs and Special Forces whose work often goes unnoticed after the infantry leave. Doing so would give the military much more of full-spectrum capability than it has today, by enlarging its capacity for dealing with missions and threats in the gray area between peace and war.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:26

 
What about the guys at Gitmo?

Neil Lewis has a long piece in today's New York Times discussing the legal and political implications of our continued detention of Al Qaeda and Taliban members at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The issue has caused some amount of consternation worldwide, particularly with regards to the American decision to label these men as "unlawful enemy combatants". That label means they do not get the legal protections of the Third Geneva Convention, although the U.S. has followed most of the humanitarian provisions of that treaty for these men.

With the United States on the verge of releasing 7,000 prisoners seized during the war in Iraq, lawyers and human rights advocates say they hope the contrast with the long detentions here will put more pressure on the administration to deal with the people captured in Afghanistan and other countries in the campaign against terrorism.

To a small extent, the military has begun to do that. In mid-March, 22 prisoners were released from Guantánamo, sent back to Afghanistan with blue jeans, new copies of the Koran and, on average, an additional 13 pounds from a diet that is similar to that of the soldiers who guard them. At the other end of the spectrum, the Pentagon is preparing soon to bring a handful of inmates before a military tribunal.

But the majority of the detainees still face an uncertain future on an island chosen explicitly for its unusual features. Not only is the base lodged on sovereign territory of Cuba, a nominally hostile country, and ringed by a 17-mile-long fence with armed watchtowers on both sides. Two federal courts have also said that despite the fact that it is totally under United States control, the base is outside the reach of United States law because it is technically part of Cuba.

posted by Phillip Carter at 09:23

 
Why hasn't Al Qaeda struck again?

The Washington Times has an interesting front-page story today that speculates on the reasons why Al Qaeda has failed to strike the U.S. during the war on Iraq. Some experts have gone so far as to question Al Qaeda's viability as an organization, saying its terrorist credibility has been shot by its failure to act.

Despite a few suicide bombings that targeted U.S. forces in Iraq, speculation that Saddam's regime would resort to widespread terrorist attacks to disrupt the coalition campaign also did not pan out.

The link between the war in Iraq and the larger post-September 11 war on terrorism has been one of the most contested battlegrounds in the debate over toppling Saddam.

The administration and its supporters argued that Saddam's regime had operational links and a common purpose with al Qaeda's campaign against the West. More broadly, they said, forceful action against Baghdad and its reported weapons of mass destruction would send a powerful message of American resolve to hostile terrorist groups and the regimes that tolerate them.
* * *
Counterterrorism analysts say the arrest of al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Pakistan just days before the war began is the most damaging blow to al Qaeda since the loss of its Afghanistan training bases when U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban.

No U.S. official is ready to declare the war on terrorism won, and administration spokesmen said both Iraqi intelligence agents and al Qaeda operatives tried and failed to carry out attacks during the war.

So... the question is still open. Has Al Qaeda really been crippled by the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq? Or has Al Qaeda decided to exercise tactical patience? Personally, I think the latter is true, because of some of the reading I've done on terror networks and their ability to absorb repeated assaults. Certainly, now is no time to be complacent.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:18

 
Baghdad wasn't built in a day
Civil affairs work takes time -- nations aren't rebuilt overnight

Austin Bay, who writes frequently for the Washington Times and other publications, has some good thoughts on the unrealistic expectations that beset American nation-building in Iraq. Like all such operations -- Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan -- the work in Iraq will take time. Moving thousands of men, millions of pounds of logistical support, and setting up complex infrastructural operations takes time. Federal Express couldn't establish mail service overnight, nor could WalMart set up distribution channels overnight in Iraq. Similarly, the Pentagon-led reconstruction effort will take weeks and months to build effective institutions in Iraq.

Garner's and the Iraqi people's task is truly a 21st century endeavor. Their sweat, vision and spine must surmount some of the 20th century's worst fascist and socialist depredations, while finessing 12th century religious attitudes. They must accomplish this under the harsh gaze of an insistent, antsy media with biases to feed and ratings to spur.

For the sake of Iraq's people, better put some patient, credible minds behind that media gaze. How many critics got Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom dead wrong? Where are the massive civilian casualties and the quagmire in the sand? Spin it to me again, about Vietnam in Baghdad?

The Iraqi people have been freed from a despicable tyranny. Creating a resilient democracy will take time, with success or failure only following years of sustained effort.

posted by Phillip Carter at 11:52

 
Pentagon plans massive workforce overhaul

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sent over a legislative package earlier this month to Congress which outlined a number of ways he hopes to transform the way military and civilian personnel systems work in the Defense Department. Today, the Washington Post characterizes that package as one of the most ambitious civil-service reforms in American history. Having read the package, I tend to agree. Here's a sample of what it would do:

Defense officials said they hope to start implementing the plan as soon as this fall. They admit that they have not left lawmakers with much time, but said holding off until next year, an election year, would hurt the bill's chances even more.

The plan's most ambitious feature is a proposal to toss out the General Schedule for 470,000 white-collar workers (such as scientists, engineers and administrators) and replace it with pay bands, which would create a salary range for certain positions. Top workers would get substantial annual raises based on job evaluations, while low performers would not get raises.

The pay band proposal represents a sharp departure from the current system, which guarantees a base-level pay increase every year and rewards longevity as well as performance.

This is big stuff -- at least as big as the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act which transformed the command structure of the services and created the Joint Chiefs of Staff and combatant commands (like CENTCOM) that we know today. It's also needed. The Pentagon is an incredibly bloated and top-heavy bureaucracy, and it's next to impossible for the Secretary to trim the fat with the way the civil-service laws exist today. There are bound to be cries from unions and others who claim these reforms go too far. But I think those cries are wrong. Today's world requires management flexibility, especially in the Defense Department. New and emerging threats demand new management approaches, new procurement programs, new command structures, and the Secretary has to have the flexibility to move manpower and resources to meet those threats. The current system doesn't let him do that.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:15

 
Suspected terrorist-affiliated charity goes to court

Today's Washington Post reports on an attempt by the Holy Land Foundation to overturn its designation as a terrorist-affiliated organization, and to cancel out subsequent moves by law enforcement to close the charity and seize its assets.

...lawyers for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that the Texas-based charity had never given money to the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas. That allegation is the foundation of the government's case.

Attorney John D. Cline also told the panel that a federal judge had erred in dismissing Holy Land's claims that the government's December 2001 closure of the organization was a violation of its rights to free speech and freedom from self-incrimination, as outlined in the First and Fifth amendments to the Constitution.
* * *
Justice Department attorney Douglas Letter said there is nearly a decade of evidence that shows that Holy Land supported Hamas. He said that to open cases in which the government designates organizations as sponsors of terrorism to the standards of regular civil litigation -- in which FBI agents and informants could be called into court to testify -- would defeat the purposes of anti-terrorism legislation.

Analysis: Without the court documents, I can't go into detail on the actual facts or legal problem at issue. (I intend to get them, however, for my terrorism seminar because this is one of my case studies on 18 U.S.C. 2339b -- the "material support" statute.) I imagine a lot turns on the particular statutes in play, and the particular legal actions taken by the government (e.g. a seizure of assets).

However, there are larger issues at stake in this legal fight. Taking down terrorist-affiliated charities is a key component of America's war on terrorism. Charitable organizations -- whether they are legitimate or simply fronts -- enable terrorist groups like the IRA, PLO and Al Qaeda to move money, men and materiel around the world. With their legitimate ties to banks and financial institutions, they provide one major link for terrorist organizations to the global financial system. The United States must get this right, because these charities play such a key role in the financing of global, networked terrorism. That said, the potential for "blowback" is huge here. If we take down the wrong charities, and impede the good work that such charities do, we will only add more fuel to the fire of terrorism. Thus, we must take measured but deliberate steps in our financial war on terrorism. Make no mistake about it -- this aspect of the war is as important as the ground war in Afghanistan. Without these global financial networks, organizations like Al Qaeda lose their ability to project power and force around the world. They become, in essence, local organizations with local means. (For more, see my Writ essay "Al Qaeda and the Advent of Multinational Terrorism: Why 'Material Support' Prosecutions Are Key In the War on Terrorism.")
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:16

 
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 g