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Dick Gephardt and Harry Truman -- at odds with the Supreme Court?

Eugene Volokh and Glenn Reynolds (among others) have rightfully questioned an assertion by Democratic presidential contender Richard Gephardt that he would "do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does." The statement was made, presumably, to persuade Democratic audiences that Gephardt would fight for their interests despite the conservatives appointed to the Supreme Court and lower courts over the last few decades. Eugene and Glenn were right to point out that "you can't overturn a Constitutional decision by the Supreme Court with an executive order."

Today, Gephardt's campaign responded to The Note, an ABC News weblog.

"The fact that this question comes from libertarian law professors should speak for itself," spokesman Erik Smith wrote in an e-mail. "Dick Gephardt knows the law. The president can not overturn a Supreme Court decision. That's not what he said. He was simply expressing his commitment to diversity and his willingness to use the tools of his office to promote affirmative action programs to the fullest extent possible. It's important to remember that Harry Truman used an executive order to integrate the military."

Eugene responds, correctly I think, that Truman's executive order to desegrate the military came at a time when the Supreme Court was already moving in that direction. As a legal matter, the order also did not contravene any decisions of the Court, nor did it directly contradict anything passed by Congress. [Arguably, Congress did endorse a segregated military through its appropriations and oversight legislation, but it did not directly contradict President Truman's order once issued.]

My two cents... Harry Truman makes for an interesting choice of precedent for the Gephardt campaign. It is true that he issued Executive Order 9981, effectively ending segregation in the military, when Congress and the Supreme Court did not do so. This was an act of courage and principle for a President who had lots of both.

Harry Truman is also famous for another Executive Order -- one held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Executive Order No. 10340 (16 Fed. Reg. 3503) directed Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer to seize the Youngstown Co. steel mill after its labor force threatened a strike during the height of the Korean War. The mill owners and labor unions sued President Truman, claiming this order was an unconstitutional extension of the President's power to make laws, execute laws, and act as Commander-in-Chief under Art. II. The Supreme Court agreed, holding that President Truman did not have the power to act as he did. To this day, the "Steel Seizure Case" (especially Justice Jackson's concurrence) remains the Court's primary guidance to the Executive and Legislative branches on the boundaries of their power.

The order cannot properly be sustained as an exercise of the President's military power as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The Government attempts to do so by citing a number of cases upholding broad powers in military commanders engaged in day-to-day fighting in a theater of war. Such cases need not concern us here. Even though "theater of war" be an expanding concept, we cannot with faithfulness to our constitutional system hold that the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces has the ultimate power as such to take possession of private property in order to keep labor disputes from stopping production. This is a job for the Nation's lawmakers, not for its military authorities.

Nor can the seizure order be sustained because of the several constitutional provisions that grant executive power to the President. In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute. 343 U.S. at 588
* * *
The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times. It would do no good to recall the historical events, the fears of power and the hopes for freedom that lay behind their choice. Such a review would but confirm our holding that this seizure order cannot stand. 343 U.S. at 589

There is great irony in the assertion by Dick Gephardt's campaign that he would follow the example of Harry Truman with respect to Executive Orders. Harry Truman did some great things unilaterally, such as his desegregation of the military and recognition of Israel, among others. But we can also learn what presidents cannot do from Truman's experience in the White House. I hope that Mr. Gephardt learns those lessons as well.
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:44

 
How much did the "green brief" help the Court decide Grutter?
And what lessons can we learn from the military on issues of race?

Yesterday's decision by the Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger simultaneously clarified and muddied the waters for affirmative action in the United States. The Court issued two doctrinal issues, which may be very helpful for lawyers and educators in the future:

1) The Court will look at affirmative action programs with "strict scrutiny", and that such scrutiny is not always "strict in theory, fatal in fact." This issue was somewhat clear after the Court's decision in Adarand v. Pena, but not entirely so because of the muddy way the Bakke case (the last case on affirmative action in education) applied its legal test.

2) Diversity can be a compelling interest for institutions of higher education to pursue with their admissions policies. This is very important, because it blesses one of the two main goals of affirmative action. (The other one being to remedy past disadvantage) However, the decision did not say whether colleges can use diversity as a compelling interest for the hiring of professors or other staff. That may become a battleground in lower courts on this issue.

However, to pass strict scrutiny, a program must be "narrowly tailored" to a "compelling government interest." On this second prong, the Court found the U.Michigan undergraduate program unconstitutional (see Gratz v. Bollinger), and the law school's program constitutional. In her majority opinion in the law school case, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor appears to have relied heavily on claims by business and military leaders that affirmative action in colleges helps them recruit a diverse work force.

The Law School’s claim of a compelling interest is further bolstered by its amici, who point to the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity. In addition to the expert studies and reports entered into evidence at trial, numerous studies show that student body diversity promotes learning outcomes, and “better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society, and better prepares them as professionals.” Brief for American Educational Research Association et al. as Amici Curiae 3; see, e.g., W. Bowen & D. Bok, The Shape of the River (1998); Diversity Challenged: Evidence on the Impact of Affirmative Action (G. Orfield & M. Kurlaender eds. 2001); Compelling Interest: Examining the Evidence on Racial Dynamics in Colleges and Universities (M. Chang, D. Witt, J. Jones, & K. Hakuta eds. 2003).

These benefits are not theoretical but real, as major American businesses have made clear that the skills needed in today’s increasingly global marketplace can only be developed through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints. Brief for 3M et al. as Amici Curiae 5; Brief for General Motors Corp. as Amicus Curiae 3—4. What is more, high-ranking retired officers and civilian leaders of the United States military assert that, “[b]ased on [their] decades of experience,” a “highly qualified, racially diverse officer corps … is essential to the military’s ability to fulfill its principle mission to provide national security.” Brief for Julius W. Becton, Jr. et al. as Amici Curiae 27. The primary sources for the Nation’s officer corps are the service academies and the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), the latter comprising students already admitted to participating colleges and universities. Id., at 5. At present, “the military cannot achieve an officer corps that is both highly qualified and racially diverse unless the service academies and the ROTC used limited race-conscious recruiting and admissions policies.” Ibid. (emphasis in original). To fulfill its mission, the military “must be selective in admissions for training and education for the officer corps, and it must train and educate a highly qualified, racially diverse officer corps in a racially diverse setting.” Id., at 29 (emphasis in original). We agree that “[i]t requires only a small step from this analysis to conclude that our country’s other most selective institutions must remain both diverse and selective.” Ibid.

Analysis: The amicus brief cited by the Court was called the "green brief" by many because it was submitted by a number of retired military officers, including Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and others. (military = green) The brief was written by veteran Supreme Court litigator Carter G. Phillips. I found the brief to be exceptionally well written, and quite well grounded in facts. America's military is incredibly diverse, although a schism exists between the enlisted ranks and officers when it comes to racial and ethnic diversity. This has the potential to create social problems within the ranks. Recognizing this, America's military has conscientously recruited minorities for its leadership ranks (enlisted and officer), and developed programs to retain the best minority NCOs and officers as they rise through the ranks. Those programs implicitly depend on the presence of minority college graduates who can be recruited as officers.

However, I don't think Justice O'Connor's citation to the green brief in Grutter was necessarily right, for the following reasons:

1) It was odd to cite the green brief in the law school decision when the brief was clearly aimed at the undergraduate case. America's military takes some lawyers and professionals from graduate school, but not many. It recruits the vast majority of its officers from ROTC programs at public and private universities across the country. The next sizable chunk comes from the military academies. These schools, by virtue of their size, tend to rely on the sort of mechanical affirmative action programs the Court held unconstitutional in Gratz (the undergrad case). I understand that Justice O'Connor wanted to cite the most persuasive authority possible in her opinion upholding the law school's program, but the citation to the green brief seems misplaced to me.

2) The demise of U.Michigan's undergraduate program -- and all mechanical affirmative action programs like it -- will certainly create problems for the military and its recruitment of minority officers. As Eugene Volokh points out, large schools universally use such programs to sort through the thousands of applications they get each year. (I found this to be true when I wrote my thesis on affirmative action in the UC system in 1996) In the short term, colleges will have to figure out some other way to do affirmative action that looks more like the U.Michigan law school than the U.Michigan undergrad system. In the short term, that may result in less minority students being admitted to these universities, as we saw in California after the regents banned affirmative action in 1995 (and Prop. 209 passed in 1996). That, in turn, may result in less minority students for ROTC programs to recruit in colleges, particularly the top colleges like Berkeley, UCLA and Michigan. Ultimately, that's bad for the military, because such officers tend to bring a very important, liberalizing, intellectual component to the service.

3. Interestingly, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held some of these programs to be unconstitutional in Saunders v. White last year because the Army had gotten so good at diversity that it no longer needed some affirmative action programs. Sociologists Charlie Moskos and John Butler wrote a great book on the military's successes in this area called All We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way. The military has come a long way since the days when then-LT Colin Powell faced discrimination while stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the early 1960s. Today's force has roughly reached parity, where the percentages of minority officers equals the proportion of available in the college graduate pool (with some variations by ethnic group). The senior NCO corps is an even greater success story, where minorities are significantly overrepresented in relation to their percentage of American society.

In many ways, I think the Army provides a good road map for the rest of society on matters of racial and ethnic diversity. Our military has taken race into account over the last 30 years to correct imbalances at all levels, and it has worked. It may now be time to remove some of those programs, or target them more effectively at groups that remain disenfranchised from the Army leadership (Latinos and Asians, for example). The ultimate irony of the military's success is that it has done well by providing economic and educational opportunities to young Americans who would not otherwise have such opportunity in our colleges and businesses. The military has even taken fire critics who say that such opportunities disproportionately draw too many minorities into the line of fire. This was what fueled Rep. Charlie Rangel's call for a national draft earlier in the year.

Maybe this decision will open more doors to minorities in education and other areas, so that they don't have to choose between a life of economic hardship and a life of soldiering -- but I doubt it. America's military still offers opportunities for adventure, training and service that our colleges do not. For the foreseeable future, I think that young men and women will join the military for things they can't get in college, and they will leave the service enriched by their experience.

More to follow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:24

 
U.S. government detains a third "enemy combatant"

The Washington Post reports tonight (and on tomorrow's front page) that the Bush Administration has transferred another man from Justice Department custody to that of the Defense Department -- labeling him an "enemy combatant." Ali S. Marri was originally arrested in Dec. 2001 and charged with lying to the FBI about contact with known terrorists. He was transferred yesterday from a federal jail in Illinois to a military brig at an undisclosed location. Marri has been deemed an "enemy combatant" by the President, joining Yasser Hamdi and Jose Padilla as alleged terrorists who have been so labeled by the Bush Administration.

Bush designated Marri an enemy combatant yesterday morning after federal prosecutors in Illinois dropped charges of false statements to the FBI and credit card fraud. Alice Fisher, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's criminal division, said prosecutors were confident they could have prevailed in court. She said they decided to forgo the charges in an effort to deter terrorist attacks.

She declined to elaborate. "We make these decisions on an individual case-by-case basis, taking national security into account," Fisher said.

Marri's lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, said in an interview he plans to challenge the enemy combatant designation. He said the designation unfairly deprives Marri of legal rights, including access to counsel, and amounts to "end-running the legal system." Lustberg said he believes the administration acted because "we were raising powerful legal challenges" to the government's allegations of false statements.

"If the government had proof he was involved in terrorism, they would have charged him with that, but they didn't," Lustberg said. He said he had heard nothing from the government or his client to indicate that Marri acted as a U.S. facilitator for al Qaeda operatives or was a "sleeper" operative.

Law enforcement officials disclosed new details about Marri's alleged activities yesterday. They said al Qaeda assigned Marri, a graduate student in computer science at Bradley University, to explore ways to hack into the computer systems of U.S. banks. They also said his computer showed he had frequently visited Web sites dealing with the production of hydrogen cyanide, an extremely lethal gas that al Qaeda allegedly had plotted to use. Fisher said prosecutors do not believe Marri had been "specifically tasked" to plot a chemical or biological attack in the United States.

More to follow tomorrow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:14

 
Time to bring home the 3rd Infantry Division

The Evening Standard, a British newspaper, has a disturbing piece on the soldiers of B Company, 3-15 Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division, from the sands of Iraq. This piece does not mince words about what's going on with these men in the desert. Instead, it lays out their thoughts and feelings on war and peace in the language of a soldier -- raw, coarse and honest.

What they told me, in a series of extraordinary interviews, will make uncomfortable reading for US and British politicians and senior military staff desperate to prevent the liberation of Iraq turning into a quagmire of Vietnam proportions, where the behaviour of troops feeds the hatred of an occupied people.

Sergeant First Class John Meadows revealed the mindset that has led to hundreds of innocent Iraqi civilians being killed alongside fighters deliberately dressed in civilian clothes. "You can't distinguish between who's trying to kill you and who's not," he said. "Like, the only way to get through s*** like that was to concentrate on getting through it by killing as many people as you can, people you know are trying to kill you. Killing them first and getting home."

These GIs, from Bravo Company of the 3/15th US Infantry Division, are caught in an impossible situation. More than 40 of their number have been killed by hostile forces since 1 May - when President Bush declared major military operations were over - and the number of hit-and-run attacks is on the increase. They face a resentful civilian population and, hiding among it, a number of guerrilla fighters still loyal to the old regime. A lone Iraqi sniper nicknamed The Hunter is believed to have claimed his sixth American victim this week in a suburb of Baghdad.

The man, said to be a former member of the Republican Guard Special Forces, has developed a cult status among some Iraqis. One Baghdad resident, Assad al Amari, said: "He is fighting for Iraq on his own. There will be many more Americans killed because they cannot stop The Hunter. He will be given the protection of people who will let him use their homes for his shooting."

In this hostile atmosphere the men of Bravo Company are asked to maintain order, yet at the same time win hearts and minds. It is not a dilemma they feel able to resolve. They spoke to me - dressed in uniforms they have worn for the past six weeks - at their base in Fallujah. Here US troops killed 18 demonstrators at a pro-Saddam rally soon after the war and now face local fighters bent on revenge.

Their attitude to these dangers is summed up by Specialist (Corporal) Michael Richardson, 22. "There was no dilemma when it came to shooting people who were not in uniform, I just pulled the trigger. It was up close and personal the whole time, there wasn't a big distance. If they were there, they were enemy, whether in uniform or not. Some were, some weren't."
* * *
Cpl Richardson added: "That day nothing went with the training. There were females fighting; there were some that, when they saw you f****** coming, they'd just drop their s*** and try to give up; and some guys were shot and they'd play dead, and when you'd go by they'd reach for their weapons. That day it was just f****** everything. When we face women or injured that try to grab their weapons, we just finish them off. You've gotta, no choice."

Such is their level of hatred they preferred to kill rather than merely injure. Sgt Meadows, 34, said: "The worst thing is to shoot one of them, then go help him." Sergeant Adrian Pedro Quinones, 26, chipped in: "In that situation you're angry, you're raging. They'd just been shooting at my men - they were putting my guys in a casket and eight feet under, that's what they were trying to do.

"And now, they're laying there and I have to help them, I have a responsibility to ensure my men help them." Cpl Richardson said: "S***, I didn't help any of them. I wouldn't help the f******. There were some you let die. And there were some you double-tapped."

He held out his hand as if firing a gun and clucked his tongue twice. He said: "Once you'd reached the objective, and once you'd shot them and you're moving through, anything there, you shoot again. You didn't want any prisoners of war. You hate them so bad while you're fighting, and you're so terrified, you can't really convey the feeling, but you don't want them to live."

Analysis: I can't condemn these men for saying what they feel, or feeling what any honest infantryman would feel after fighting his way into a nation like Iraq. They have seen carnage I can't imagine, both in the Iraqis they killed and the Americans they watched die. After training in the desert for 9 months and fighting their way to Baghdad, it's natural that these men would feel the way they do.

Those feelings can only be exacerbated by the weeks of "peace" keeping since President Bush declared an "end" to combat on 1 May. American soldiers have continued to fight a shadowy war since 1 May, chasing ghosts of Saddam and taking fire from the shadows. The armored dash across the desert may be over, but the fighting is certainly not. Arguably, the current military situation does more psychological damage to soldiers than open combat, where lines are more clearly drawn and safety can be calculated as a function of distance from the enemy. On the streets of Baghdad, there is no safe place -- no refuge for the mind or body.

In time, these men's minds and bodies will probably heal, although they will never again be whole. Unfortunately, American policymakers do not have the luxury of time. Every day we let these men patrol Baghdad represents a significant operational and strategic risk for our occupation of Iraq. B/3-15 Infantry is ready to come home. Their soldiers and leaders are fatigued, and stretched to the breaking point. It's a testament to American society and our Army's training that these men have not broken yet; that they have not committed some unspeakable act against the Iraqis for the world to watch on CNN.

Bottom Line: It's time to bring these men home. They've accomplished their mission, fighting what Max Boot called in the latest Foreign Affairs issue "one of the signal achievements in military history." But now they need to be relieved in place -- either by active forces, reservists, or our NATO allies. Studies of war have shown that fighting units need to be replaced after a period of days in contact -- no matter how elite, how well-trained, or how well-disciplined. (See, e.g., Acts of War by Richard Holmes and On Killing by David Grossman.) Morale, cohesion, and effectiveness simply break down after prolonged exposure to combat. This is true of low-intensity and high-intensity combat.

At some point, the 3rd Infantry Division will become combat ineffective as a result of stress and prolonged exposure to war. This is the human dimension of war, and it's often neglected by policymakers who would like for war to be something sterile fought by machines. We must recognize the human reality of war and bring these men home.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:49

 
An American warrior

Americans are not warlike by nature, but our generals have always captivated us. From Washington to Jackson to Pershing to Patton to Schwartzkopf, our military has been led by colorful characters who, in turn, have inspired public pride in the military. (Others, such as McClellan and Westmoreland, have inspired contempt, showing that Americans can also show disdain for their generals when they want to.) Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of Central Command, fits squarely in this former category. Today, the Washington Post profiles the man who has led American forces to military victory in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The arc of his four-star career -- after the Army sent him back for his college degree -- took Franks to commands around the world. Those who know him have enjoyed the warm friendship of a guy who likes to give bear hugs, can shed tears over wounded soldiers, break into a country tune over a margarita, puff a cigar while strolling through one of Saddam's palaces with a pistol stuck in his belt, or pose for a snapshot after a swim in a Texas lake with fellow officers -- on horseback, and stark naked except for a Stetson.

They also glimpsed other traits that helped take him to the top -- personal courage, aggressiveness, determination to do the right thing, serious smarts.

Retired Gen. George Crocker recalls Franks as a captain in Germany in the 1970s when the Army was "rife with drugs. There were major race riots, a battalion commander was shot on the parade field by his own men."

Franks had taken command of an artillery battery and was chatting with the first sergeant when they heard a fight break out upstairs, Crocker recounts. The sergeant advised letting it go because it was "just the alkies and the druggies fighting."

"Not in my battery," Franks proclaimed, grabbing a length of steel pipe and charging upstairs to break up the fight and restore order.

"He was never afraid to take risks," Haynes, the former personal aide, recalls. "When we went to Afghanistan a few times early on, it was risky, [but] he'd visit the troops just to say, 'Thanks, be proud of who you are. . . . I'm going to come around and hug every one of you.' There'd be 1,000 people there, it would be 112 degrees in some airplane hangar and I could see he was just beat, but he really enjoyed doing that."

Retired Gen. Crosbie Saint recalls how Franks figured ways to keep artillery near enough to rapidly moving battle lines to always provide fire support "in 15 or 20 seconds." Franks also found a way to hit moving targets such as enemy tanks with artillery fired from far away.

"He's the kind of guy," Saint says, "if you say you want to move a mountain, he'll say, 'How far do you want to move it?' "

"He leads from up front," says retired Gen. John H. Tilelli Jr., commander of the 1st Cavalry Division during the 1991 Gulf War when Franks was his key assistant division commander. "He's not afraid . . . . When you think of senior people, they don't have to put themselves in harm's way -- but he goes where the action is."

Thoughts... The American military has radically changed itself over the last 30 years since Vietnam. (See Prodigal Soldiers by James Kitfield for a great history of these changes.) It has become a more educated, professional, intellectual, and well-managed force. Its volunteer officers and senior enlisted soldiers are extremely good at what they do, and the military devotes an enormous about of resources to training/educating them to become even better. Tommy Franks had the raw material as a young lieutenant and captain to become a great leader. But he would not have become one if not for the mentoring, training and education he got along the way. When I read his profile, I was impressed by the way the Army plucked him like a diamond in the rough -- schooled and polished him -- and eventually produced a warfighter who could lead hundreds of thousands.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:58

 
Looking for legal commentary?

The decisions handed down today by the Supreme Court are obviously what most newspapers will lead with tomorrow. I have some thoughts on the Michigan case, but I'll reserve them for later. Instead, I recommend turning to the following pages for intelligent commentary on these cases:

- The Volokh Conspiracy: run by Eugene Volokh, a constitutional law expert at UCLA Law School, with guest commentary from several other law professors

- Balkinization: run by Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin, who usually has a perspective no one else has thought of on legal subjects.

- Instapundit: In addition to being the capo di tutti capo of bloggers, Glenn Reynolds is a law professor.

- SCOTUS Blog: Run by a boutique appellate practice in DC that makes its living following the Supreme Court and arguing cases there.

- Actual Malice: written by a New York City media attorney, this blog will probably have great commentary on the Court's library/porn decision today.

As always, copies of the decisions are available on the Supreme Court's site and the Findlaw site, in PDF form. I will read the decisions later today and offer my thoughts afterwards. More to follow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:44

 
Foreign fighters complicate the mix in Iraq

The New York Times reported on Sunday about a very ominous development in Iraq -- the presence of foreign guerillas in the midst of American forces. This is an extremely significant development, because the presence of foreigners tends to signify two possibilities. First, it signals that a transnational movement of young armed men is taking place -- and that they're migrating towards Iraq. Second, it may indicate a resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq. After all, Al Qaeda began as a transnational guerilla force of "Afghan Arabs" who successfully fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. The influx of foreign Arab guerillas to Iraq seems eerily familiar, given the institutional history of Al Qaeda.

Military officials say that American troops in Iraq have had to contend with Syrians, Saudis, Yemenis, Algerians, Lebanese and even Chechens.

Many of these fighters took up arms against the United States during the American thrust to Baghdad. A significant number remain, and a new effort is under way to lure more to Iraq to join the fight against the Americans, officials say.

"You have got Baath Party and regime loyalists west and northeast of the city who are calling buddies in foreign countries and getting fighters to come across the border," Maj. Gen. William Webster, deputy commander of the allied land command, said in an interview. "They are also rounding up those who are already here and issuing them weapons."

New evidence about the role of foreign fighters, including passports and other documents, was gathered after the American air and ground attack last week on a militant camp at Rawa, about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad. According to American military commanders, two wounded foreigners were also captured — a Saudi and a Syrian.

American officials said the two captives had told them that they were offered money to come to Iraq and kill American soldiers.

Foreign fighters played an important role during the war. Busloads of fighters drove in from Syria and fought soldiers from the Army's Third Infantry Division who pushed into the center of Baghdad. American soldiers confirmed their nationality by retrieving passports from bodies of dead fighters.

Analysis: This is going to become a major issue for America in the coming weeks and months. We must quarantine Iraq from the outside influences that may seek to push it down a particular path -- whether it's Shiite or Sunni fundamentalism, or some other plan. If nothing else, we must do so because these foreigners bring with them weapons and training that subsequently get used against our own soldiers. Given a finite amount of men and materiel inside Iraq, we will eventually root out the guerillas now harassing our forces. But as we saw in Vietnam, it's impossible to conduct a counter-insurgency campaign when the insurgents continue to multiply and resupply. These outsiders appear to be fulfilling that function inside Iraq, and it must be stopped.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:51

 
Al Qaeda operative pleads guilty to charges
But what did the U.S. use as leverage to get the guilty plea?

By now, most have heard about the plea bargain by Al Qaeda operative Iyman Faris, a 34-year-old naturalized citizen from Ohio who was planning to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge. Apparently, detained-Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed fingered Mr. Faris for his inchoate plan to destroy the landmark bridge. (Mohammed is being held at an undisclosed location by American intelligence officers who, presumably, are interrogating him for every detail he knows about Al Qaeda.)

Prosecutors said Mr. Faris traveled in Afghanistan and Pakistan beginning in 2000, meeting with Osama bin Laden and working with one of his top lieutenants, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, to help organize and finance jihad causes. After returning to the United States in late 2002, officials said, he began casing the Brooklyn Bridge and discussing via coded messages with Qaeda leaders ways of using blowtorches to sever the suspension cables.

The plotting continued through March, as Mr. Faris sent coded messages to Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. One such message said that "the weather is too hot." Officials said that meant that Mr. Faris feared that the plot was unlikely to succeed — apparently because of security and the bridge's structure — and should be postponed. He was arrested soon after, although officials would not discuss the circumstances of his capture.

Analysis: I was not surprised to see this news story hit the press. Our security agencies (CIA, FBI, DoD, et al) have done a lot to take down Al Qaeda and its ability to operate as a global terror network. However, I was surprised to see the method used by federal prosecutors to obtain this plea bargain:

The allegations against Mr. Faris bear similarities to the case against José Padilla, a Chicago man who last year was accused of plotting with Al Qaeda to plant a "dirty bomb" and who has been imprisoned in a military brig as an enemy combatant.

Prosecutors discussed the idea of declaring Mr. Faris an enemy combatant as well, and that may have influenced his decision to admit guilt to avoid the prospect of indefinite detention, according to a lawyer who demanded anonymity.

Mr. Faris has indicated that he might be willing to cooperate with authorities, a law enforcement official said.

Now, I'm no softie when it comes to dealing with terrorists, criminals, or enemy combatants -- however you may categorize these men. But this looks to me like an abuse of the government's power to designate someone as an "enemy combatant." Presumably, such a label should only apply in the obvious cases. An enemy combatant should be like obscenity as defined by the Supreme Court -- I'll know it when I see it. There shouldn't be a case where someone can be both a criminal and a combatant. If that's the case, then we ought to apply the presumptions in favor of the defendant and give them the constitutional process they're due. In this case, we appear to have held this label out there as a very big stick -- in order to induce Mr. Faris to take the measly carrot of criminal justice instead of the justice that Mr. Padilla now faces.

On the whole, I think this move delegitimizes most of the arguments made by the government to keep men like Yasser Hamdi and Jose Padilla in government custody as enemy combatants -- without communication to counsel or the outside world. These men are probably dangerous; I think they probably did what the government thinks they did. The government argues that enemy combatants like Hamdi and Padilla are unequivocal enemies of the United States. Their conduct has made them so, and we should give them no quarter (legally speaking). Most importantly, the government argues that it cannot get intelligence out of people that are given constitutional rights, because there are practical difficulties associated with interrogating someone who has assistance of counsel. (I can certainly see this point)

Yet, if that's true, why would we have accepted the plea bargains from Mr. Faris and from the "Lackawanna Six"? As Al Qaeda operatives inside the United States, these men may have some of the most actionable, critical intelligence available to our security community. Yet, we have accepted their plea bargains, given them counsel, and sent them to federal prison -- quite unlike Mr. Hamdi and Mr. Padilla.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:46

 
Light blogging... I'm working on several large projects now, so blogging has been light this week. Intel Dump will have a digest on Sunday of several of this week's stories, including the Al Qaeda member's plea bargain in New York City and continuing stories in Iraq.
posted by Phillip Carter at 16:00

 
How best to end a war?

Slate's Fred Kaplan has a thought provoking piece on how the Army has struggled over the last several weeks to define "victory" in Iraq. The "end" of the war now looks increasingly uncertain, as guerilla forces clash with American units on a daily basis and American units mount massive operations such as Operation Peninsula Strike.

Huba Wass de Czege (pronounced HOO-ba VOSS de-say-ga) is a retired U.S. Army brigadier general who has given some thought to these matters lately. To the extent the Army has evolved into a more agile fighting force, Wass de Czege has been a major influence: In the early 1980s, he rewrote the Army's official field manual on operations, replacing the old book's doctrine of attrition and firepower with the ancient but forgotten concepts of maneuver warfare, deep-strike offensives, and combined air-land battle. He then founded the Army's School for Advanced Military Studies, an elite, yearlong postgrad program, to inculcate the new concepts in the next generation's officer corps.

Last year, Wass de Czege observed two big official war games, the Army's "Vigilant Warrior" and the Air Force's "Global Engagement." Shortly afterward, he wrote and privately circulated a memo, called "02 Wargaming Insights," that Donald Rumsfeld would have done well to read. (The general recently sent me a copy.)

These sorts of war games "tend to devote more attention to successful campaign-beginnings than to successful conclusions," he wrote. "War games usually conclude when victory seems inevitable to us (not necessarily to the enemy), at about the point operational superiority has been achieved and tactical control of strategically significant forces and places appears to be a matter of time."

Winning a war, he noted, doesn't mean simply defeating the enemy on the battlefield. It means achieving the strategic goals for which we've gone to war in the first place. In both war games, he wrote, the question of how to achieve those strategic goals couldn't be answered because the war game ended too soon.

This is unfortunate, he went on, because, important though it is to understand the early stages of a military campaign, "it is just as important to know how to follow through to the resolution of such conflicts." He added that, if the game managers did follow through the next time they play, they would learn that they—and, by extension, U.S. military commanders generally—have underestimated "the difficulties of 'regime change' and the magnitude of the effort required to achieve strategic objectives."

I'll have some more on this later in the week. I think there are important analytic points to be made about what "victory" means, how we quantify such a thing, and whether we can achieve such a thing when our strategic goals are so amorphous and ill-defined. Until then, ask yourself this question: What are we really trying to do in Iraq? If you can't answer that question, how can you possibly define when you've achieved the goal?
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:44

 
The crucible of PFC Lynch

Tuesday's Washington Post has a dramatic account of PFC Jessica Lynch's convoy mission, ambush, capture and subsequent rescue. The Post pieced the account together from interviews with Lynch's comrades in the 507th Maintenance Company, Iraqis in Nasiryah, and others. All the big papers and networks are in the hunt for this story, and I imagine that more details will leak out over the coming days and weeks. Eventually, I hope that PFC Lynch will tell her own story. But more importantly, I hope she recovers physically and mentally so that she may continue to serve and live her life as an American soldier.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:58

 
U.S. stands shoulder-to-shoulder with 'Old Europe' in Afghanistan

This morning's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) also has a great piece on the work being done by American, French and German forces in Afghanistan. Despite the acrimony between Washington, Paris and Berlin, commanders on the ground have made peace between themselves -- and worked together over the last 2 years to get the job done. Indeed, according to one American commander, the mission simply could not get done without French and German support.

The U.S., despite peerless military might, can't tame an unruly world without its less-muscular and, in recent months, contrarian allies. From the Balkans to Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, the U.S. military maintains formidable garrisons but neither wants nor is able to tackle the laborious tasks of nation-building alone.

"We still have French fries here," not freedom fries, says Lt. Col. Kevin McDonnell, an American Special Forces officer who heads the Kabul Military Training Center, set up last year to train a new Afghan army.
* * *
The limits of America's freedom to reorder alliances and of its military muscle are starkly evident in Afghanistan. America's most important partners in the international effort to restore some order and prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a haven for terrorists are Germany and France, two vociferous opponents of the Iraq war.

Col. McDonnell says that when he first arrived from Fort Bragg, N.C., he had no money to pay the salaries of Afghan recruits. France, responsible for officer training at the center, stepped in to cover a monthly payroll of around $22,000.

The swift victory against the Taliban 18 months ago has been followed by a painfully slow process of piecing together the fractured country. In a brutal reminder of the perils of postwar rebuilding, a suicide car bomb in Kabul on June 7 killed four German soldiers and seriously wounded seven others.
* * *
The ISAF includes personnel from 29 nations, but the vast bulk of the manpower comes from European countries at odds with the U.S. over Iraq. Germany has the biggest contingent, with around 2,300 soldiers. France has 500 troops in the ISAF as well as 50 soldiers helping Col. McDonnell at the Kabul Military Training Center. In a speech last week on security cooperation, Mr. Rumsfeld made no mention of the German or French roles, hailing instead a modest Afghanistan deployment by Romania. Former communist states of "new Europe" make only a token contribution to Kabul peacekeeping: Ten countries from Albania to Estonia have rustled up a total of around 170 men.

The U.S. has about 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan but eschews street patrols and other peacekeeping tasks -- duties Washington regards as vital for Afghanistan but burdensome, low-tech distractions for U.S. combat forces. American troops hunt, sporadically, for Osama bin Laden, and stage quick raids into remote areas infested with militants.

Analysis: Hmmm... maybe this is the blueprint we should use for Iraq? Our allies are really good at this low-tech, soft, humanistic nation-building stuff. That could owe to their colonial past, or progressive governments, or welfare-state experience, or some other factors. I also think it's because these countries are willing to assume operational risk in peacekeeping, by putting soldiers in harm's way to do critical foot patrols and person-to-person interaction. Whatever the reason, these guys are good. And we should take advantage of their skill when/where we can to achieve American strategic objectives, regardless of bad blood between America and 'old Europe.'
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:48

 
McCain queries Boeing regarding USAF tanker lease

Sen. John McCain tried hard over the last 2 years to block a lucrative $15 billion deal between Boeing and the U.S. Air Force for the lease of 100 aircraft to be used as in-flight refuelers. The Pentagon overruled Sen. McCain's objections, but it appears from this morning's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that the fight is not over.

On Friday, Sen. McCain, an Arizona Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, sent a two-page letter to Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Philip Condit asking for related documents. The request for information included all communications between Boeing executives and government officials at the Pentagon, White House and the Office of Management and Budget related to the lease. Also being sought are all records of sales or leases between Boeing and commercial customers, specifically Continental Airlines and FedEx Corp., as well as foreign governments, specifically Uzbekistan.

Boeing spokesman Walt Rice confirmed the company received the letter and will respond accordingly.

Last month, the Pentagon said it had reached a $16 billion arrangement with Chicago-based Boeing to lease 100 specially modified 767 jetliners to use as airborne refueling tankers. The Air Force had negotiated the first-of-its-kind lease for nearly two years, contending it would allow the service to get the aircraft sooner than if they were purchased outright. Air Force officials have said the military's existing tanker fleet is decades old and have taken on more work in recent years with military operations overseas.

Analysis: There are good arguments on both sides here. Boeing wants to sell its planes and make a reasonable profit; there's nothing wrong with that. The Air Force wants a lease deal because it avoids some up-front capital costs and enables them to more easily replace these planes at the end of their service life. On the other hand, it looks like war profiteering, and that's what Sen. McCain is steamed about. We should be wary of the Bush Administration using its current political capital to ram things through Congress, especially in the area of defense procurement. Our sons and daughters in the field deserve the best gear money can buy. But we must make sure we're spending our money wisely, so that we don't throw money away that could have gone to buy our troops the things they really need.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:43

 
Key military reformer set to retire

Franklin "Chuck" Spinney, a legend in the Pentagon who worked closely with the late-Col. John Boyd to reform the Pentagon in the 1970s and 1980s, has decided to retire. Spinney started as an Air Force officer whose maverick style and brilliance caught the eye of Boyd. He eventually provided a great deal of the intellectual support for Boyd's ideas, and fought as one of his most loyal foot soldiers ("Acolytes", to use Robert Coram's word) in the movement to reform the way America's military worked after Vietnam. (Among other things, Spinney has been instrumental in pushing the ideas of 4th Generation Warfare which have revolutionized thinking about post-state/non-state/trans-state threats.)

Since leaving the Air Force, Mr. Spinney has worked in the Pentagon for one of the top Air Force offices for testing and procurement. I don't know Mr. Spinney, except through his writing, so I can't speculate intelligently as to why he decided now was the time to retire. Certainly, age had something to do with it. This is a man who's ably served his country for three decades. Whatever the case, America should thank him for his service. I hope Mr. Spinney continues his regular "Blaster" updates, and that he plays an active role in mentoring young military officers and thinkers who might assume his role in the next generation.
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:11

 
Soldiers face their new mission in Iraq

Sunday's New York Times has a well written front-page story on the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, whose soldiers have served in Kuwait and Iraq for nearly a year. As you might expect, these soldiers and their leaders are tired -- exhausted after training in the desert, fighting their way to Baghdad, and being yanked off the planes at the last minute to stay a little longer. Yet, for the most part, they now seem to accept their mission. The road home will be a little longer, but these men and women feel they have to stay in order to get the job done right.

The First Brigade received orders in May to prepare to go home via Kuwait. Late last month, Maj. Mark B. Nordstrom, the brigade chaplain, and Capt. Kevin A. Bayles, the brigade doctor, gave their briefings to soldiers about the emotional and physical adjustments they were likely to experience.

Their replacements, the First Armored Division, had arrived and had begun to take over their patrols.

Then a new order came. The First Brigade would stay to act as a reserve in case Baghdad tumbled back into anarchy; its sister brigade, the Second, went to quell pockets of fighters in Falluja, to the west. Only the Third Brigade was going home, along with unneeded units, like the artillery battalions and the division's band.

Back in Georgia, where the Third Infantry Division is based at Fort Stewart and Fort Benning, families had already made "Welcome Home" banners. They were told to stop sending mail on May 21, so most soldiers are not receiving letters or packages anymore.

Major Nordstrom described the last two weeks as "the hardest weeks of my career as a chaplain." He drew a distinction between morale and "fighting morale." He said he meant that the soldiers would still do their jobs, but that they were not happy about it.

Several soldiers have received psychological counseling after showing signs of combat stress: nightmares, sleeplessness, edginess, outbursts of anger and what the chaplain called "intrusive thoughts."

"We have guys whose wives are sick, but not sick enough for them to get emergency leave; guys whose wives are cheating on them — they've heard through the grapevine," Major Nordstrom said. "And you know, the hardest thing is we don't have anything to offer them."

The mission remains as important as the battles that preceded it, for if some order is not brought to Iraq and the economy restored to a functioning state, the war these men fought so hard to win may seem to have been in vain.

One infantryman was particularly honest about his situation, and his desire to go home.

"You call Donald Rumsfeld and tell him our sorry asses are ready to go home," Pfc. Matthew C. O'Dell, an infantryman in Sergeant Betancourt's platoon, said as he stood guard on Tuesday. "Tell him to come spend a night in our building."

After what he's been through, I can hardly blame him. It's time to rotate these soldiers home; to replace them with fresh troops from the National Guard or NATO who can pick up where 3ID left off.
posted by Phillip Carter at 16:55

 
A fallen American hero

Earlier this week, an officer I served with e-mailed me from Iraq to tell me about a memorial service he attended for Pvt. Jesse Halling of the 401st Military Police Company from Fort Hood. My old unit, the 4th MP Company, sits next to the 401st MP Company on Fort Hood. We used to do PT with the MPs from that unit, or challenge them to contests in sports or marksmanship. My friend's words from the desert really struck me; much more so than accounts of other deaths from the war:

". . . 720th MP BN had an MP killed at a local police station in an RPG & small arms attack. Memorial service was last night. Well done but do not want to do that again. Never seen so many officers, NCOs, & soldiers crying and hugging in my life. The kid was only 19. Way too young. Truly died a hero as he was trying to repel an attack and was in front of others who came out of the MP station to return fire."

Today, the Washington Post reports on the gallant actions of Pvt. Jesse Halling, who died while protecting his buddies. What strikes me is that Pvt. Halling acted reflexively to an enormously dangerous situation, despite his youth and inexperience. He was just 19 -- little more than a year out of high school, with only basic training under his belt -- not some crusty old infantry sergeant. Yet he knew instinctively what had to be done, and he did it in the face of enemy fire to save his buddies. Pvt. Halling was truly one of America's finest sons, and I mourn his loss.

Around 2 a.m., the attack started with sporadic but accurate small-arms fire. Pop. Then silence. Then another crack of rifle. Then nothing but dogs howling.
* * *
"We were at the police station and there was a call to respond and Halling's team went out from the station and immediately started taking small-arms fire," said Staff Sgt. James Ferguson, the leader of Halling's squad.

At first, rifle shots from the Iraqis were focused on the operations center, which was protected by a wall of sand barricades and concertina wire, as well as an M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Then the CMOC was targeted. The Iraqi attackers seemed to be drawing the soldiers onto the street. "And it wasn't sporadic anymore," Ferguson said.

Suddenly, the Iraqis fired rocket-propelled grenades, lethal missiles designed to splinter into shrapnel fragments after detonation. Their aim was true, the soldiers said; the assailants knew what they were doing.

As Halling swung out onto the street, "it was a full-out firefight from both sides," Ferguson said. Tracer fire, sound of big guns emptying, lights and screaming.

Halling was the gunner in a three-man team of MPs, meaning he sat up in the turret of the Humvee, while the driver, Pfc. Ronald Glass, and the team leader, Sgt. Angel Cedeño, sat below. Glass said that Halling was hammering away with his .50-caliber machine gun. Big gouges remain along the rooftops hit by Halling's fire.

Just north of the CMOC, Halling was reloading his machine gun and squeezing off rounds from his M-16 rifle. All the while, he was telling Cedeño and Glass where targets were, and also telling them to watch out, to get down, Glass recalled.

Cedeño told the other soldiers later that Halling, by remaining at his post, had saved his life. He never came down from the turret, seeking shelter in the relative protection of the Humvee, as many soldiers might have done.

From one of the roofs, a rocket-propelled grenade struck Halling's Humvee. The round detonated, and a hot chunk of shrapnel tore through Halling's jaw.

Someone was shouting: "He's hit! He's hit!"

It was an ugly, mortal wound. Halling was treated in the field. A soldier from the CMOC said he thought Halling was choking on his own blood from the face wound. He was helicoptered to a hospital but did not make it.

"He never gave up; that's what you should put in the paper," Ferguson said.

The paper reported that Pvt. Halling was posthumously promoted to Private First Class and awarded the Purple Heart. He has also been recommended by his commander for the Silver Star, America's third-highest award for valor under fire. The men in Pvt. Halling's unit have returned to their mission, although they remain shaken by the loss of their comrade.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:58

 
What is 'Operation Peninsula Strike'?

American commanders launched the largest operation in Iraq since the fall of Hussein's regime this week, according to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. The operation focused on Thuluya, a town thought to provide sanctuary for former-Iraqi soldiers still loyal to the regime. It appears that between 5,000 and 10,000 soldiers have been committed to the operation -- or two brigades plus supporting aircraft and artillery. According to the Los Angeles Times, the mission resembled a massive "cordon and search" operation, wherein American soldiers secured a large area and methodically searched every inch of it for paramilitaries and terrorists who might attack them in the future.

Dubbed "Peninsula Strike," it was the largest operation by U.S. occupation troops since the end of major combat activities in Iraq in late April. Air, ground and riverboat patrols isolated a mainly Sunni Muslim triangle northwest of Baghdad in the wake of what the military is calling "organized" attacks on U.S. soldiers in the past two weeks.

U.S. officials say the country is under control but that pockets of resistance remain. One U.S. spokesman, Army Col. Rick Thomas, characterized the pro-Hussein elements as increasingly desperate because they "have no future anywhere I promise you they have no future inside Iraq."

American officials did not say which senior Baath Party officials might be hiding in the search area, centered on the Tigris River town of Thuluya, but indicated that they would be sifting through the 397 suspects to see if any are wanted by the U.S. occupation administration.

At least one group of Iraqis engaged U.S. forces at Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, and then tried to escape on a Tigris River boat, Thomas said, but they were tracked down from the air and captured.

Officials described two major phases of the operation that began Tuesday. The first involved moving soldiers and equipment into position to cut off a triangle along the Tigris. In the second, they launched raids using assault teams, ground attack squads, river patrol boats and Iraqi police against specific targets inside the area. Checkpoints and patrols were maintained over the past two days to capture anyone trying to flee.

Analysis: It appears from here that this operation was done in the classic way. Artillery and airpower destroyed key enemy locations and suppressed others while heavily armed infantry and armor formations secured the area. With the area secure, specialty teams of infantry and military police then move in to search every dwelling, shop, and crevice they can find -- and then some. The process is slow and methodical; these teams are extremely vulnerable while conducting their sweep. The goal is to find any enemy troops or munitions, and there are a myriad of places those things can be hidden.

Why now? This appears to be a response to increasingly violent attacks on American soldiers which have claimed a steady trickle of lives since the war's end. But it's more than that. American commanders now appear to have enough troops in place where they can simultaneously control Iraq and execute missions like this. When America just had enough to patrol the streets, we were on defense. But now that we have enough boots on the ground in Iraq, it appears that we're going on offense to find and kill the last remnants of Hussein's army. This is an extremely important phase of the war, and its import should not be minimized. It's also very dangerous. I think it's safe to bet that we will conduct missions like this in most major population centers of Iraq, because we need to ferret out resistance around the country -- not just in places like Tikrit. More to follow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 22:48

 
Can the Democrats do defense in '04?

Noah Shachtman thinks they can, and he has some ideas for how the Democratic Party can seize the offensive on national security issues for the next presidential election. The Washington Monthly and American Prospect have made this their issue as well, running sizable pieces in several of their recent issues on the subject. The problems are there; these pieces suggest some plausible solutions. It's now up to the Democrats to nominate the right person to carry their mantle of leadership -- and raise these issues in the national debate. [For the record: I'm not affiliated with either political party; I'd like to see these issues hashed out because I think the best solutions will emerge from a good fight.]
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:32

 
Hawks run amok?

Dan Drezner rightly points out that the Bush Administration -- and Pentagon in particular -- has a tremendous about of discipline when it comes to managing media leaks and staying "on message." Yet, in the last few weeks, there have been some serious breaches of that discipline. First has been Paul Wolfowitz' tussles with the media over WMD in Iraq and the ties between Al Qaeda, Iraq, and terrorism over the last decade. (The first has been somewhat discredited; the latter tussle remains an issue) Next, Dan points us to a press conference where Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith tried to re-spin the WMD story, with dubious success.

Today's breach: USA Today reports that a senior Pentagon official admits to poor predictive analysis before the war on Iraq for the post-war reconstruction/nation-building/humanitarian mission that everyone knew would follow. This isn't quite the same as saying "we botched it;" it's more akin to LTG William Wallace saying during the war that the enemy they were fighting was "a bit" different than the one they wargamed. Nonetheless, it's a major reversal for the Pentagon, which has maintained its "can do" attitude to this point about Iraq and refused to admit that it could've done things any differently.

A Pentagon official conceded Tuesday that planners failed to foresee the chaos in postwar Iraq, as another U.S. soldier was killed and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signaled that guerrilla-type attacks could continue there for months.

Joseph Collins, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for stability operations, said that despite careful planning, the Pentagon was surprised by the extent of looting and lawlessness. Postwar conditions have ''been tougher and more complex'' than planners predicted, he said.

So what's going on? It's hard to tell. I didn't spend much time at the Pentagon at all; all my active duty time was much, much lower in the military. But I have followed these guys for a while in the media so I have some guesses. The first is that this is a hard issue, and there is legitimate room for disagreement. If retired-Gen. Eric Shinseki and Paul Wolfowitz could disagree so publicly over the size of the Iraqi deployment, then I think there's probably room for reasonable minds to disagree on a lot of these issues. To the extent that these people are giving candid interviews to the press, they will occassionally reveal their true feelings, or at least their initial reactions before they've had time to vet their true feelings with the SecDef's office. Suffice to say, I think there are deep divisions within the Pentagon over how to unscrew the Iraqi situation.

The second thing I think we're seeing is a gradual easing on the reins by Secretary Rumsfeld and his personal staff. After being in office for a while, they've started to develop a comfort zone with senior officials. Senior officials, in turn, have carved out their own turf and developed their own portfolios. They may even be starting to freelance a little bit; working towards the post they hope to have in the next administration.

Finally, I think we're seeing the fruit of hard work by the reporters who cover the Pentagon (and many who don't). These reporters were there before Rumsfeld, and they will likely be there afterwards. But until recently, they have hit a brick wall when they tried to get past the Pentagon's spin. I think the reporters have changed tactics in two significant ways. The first is to develop personal sources that can be trusted and used anonymously to report on significant developments -- like Esther Schrader's scoop that America was about to radically alter its footprint in Asia.

The second is to develop independent sources in the field who could corroborate or dispute reports from the Pentagon. Even if the SecDef can manage the message inside the Pentagon, he can't possibly do so around the world. Moreover, the guys in the field usually tell the truth, if only to tell the story accurately to their loved ones back home. Embedding reporters in combat units helped media organization develop these sources. A certain bonding happens when you get shot at together. In 10-20 years, when the officers in Iraq roam the Pentagon as generals, I imagine they'll have a completely different view of the media than today's generals -- and probably the name of the guy who drove with them to Baghdad in case they want to tell a story.

I guess this is not entirely responsive to Dan's query... but it's my best guess as to why the Pentagon appears to have lost its touch for managing the press. Of course, I think this is a great thing. We've sacrificed an awful lot of spirit, blood and treasure to fight Iraq and build a new nation. It's about time the Pentagon started to speak in the press about the reasons for that sacrifice.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:21

 
Another academy sexual assault hits the news

The U.S. Naval Academy joined the U.S. Air Force Academy today as the target of an investigation into sexual assault in its student body. (Thanks to Stop the Bleating for the tip) The Baltimore Sun reports that a Naval Academy senior is under investigation for allegedly raping a female Naval Academy plebe (freshman). The victim has since left the academy, while the senior has been retained at the school to take additional classes to graduate. (That itself is unusual)

The matter is currently in what's called the "Article 32" phase, where a senior officer conducts a hearing similar to an arraignment to determine whether enough evidence exists to charge the senior.

Because the alleged offenses took place on academy grounds, they are being handled through the military justice system.

In addition to the rape and attempted rape counts, Curcio is charged, among other things, with sexual harassment, violating a protective order, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman and having consensual oral sex with the woman in his dorm room in October, a violation of a rule barring sex in the dorm.
* * *
Last week, the woman, who is from Virginia, testified for more than six hours during a preliminary proceeding known as an Article 32 hearing.

During such a hearing, an investigating officer listens to the evidence and decides whether a defendant should face a court martial or internal discipline. The officer, who is likely to issue a finding within a week or two, can alternately decide to dismiss the charges.

The plebe testified last week that she and Curcio, members of the same company in the brigade, met early in her plebe year, according to the Navy Times, which first reported the story.

Quick thoughts... I'm not an academy graduate so I can't speak to the unique dynamic which exists at West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs. But I have served with academy graduates and two of my close friends are Annapolis grads. At first glance, this guy looks like a bad apple in an otherwise healthy bunch. It looks right to me that the Naval Academy is proscuting this guy in the military justice system -- that's the right thing to do, and it sends the right message of deterrence to the rest of the midshipmen. Navy has certainly done its share of soul-searching on the issue of gender integration, and I'm not sure that it needs another round of campus-wide investigation. On the other hand, if this incident is just one of many... then maybe that kind of look is appropriate.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:53

 
Farewell to an old soldier

Today, Gen. Eric Shinseki retired from the Army and his position as the uniformed chief of America's oldest military service. Few officers have taken as many shots from politicians and other officers while serving in this job as Shinseki. His push to transform the Army into a lighter, faster, more deployable force met with considerable opposition from entrenched generals, defense contractors and military theorists. He presided over the Army's new "Army of One" recruiting campaign (aimed at Gen-X) that made a lot of old soldiers cringe. He also fought fierce battles with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, over procurement issues like the Crusader artillery system and operational issues like the size of the Iraq deployment. On this last point, it appears that Shinseki was more right than Rumsfeld was. America had enough troops to win the war in Iraq, but should have listened to this old soldier's guidance on what it would take to win the peace.

Today, Gen. Shinseki had some final words on the subject of civilian control -- and civilian abuse -- of the Army. Always the consummate diplomat, he does not explicitly blame Rumsfeld for the problems in Iraq, or castigate him for plans to cut the Army's size. But just as Ike warned against the rise of the military-industrial complex in his final address 42 years ago, Shinseki sounds a cautious note about the months and years to come.

LEADERSHIP IS ESSENTIAL IN ANY PROFESSION, BUT EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP IS PARAMOUNT IN THE PROFESSION OF ARMS - - FOR THOSE WHO WEAR THE UNIFORM AND THOSE WHO DO NOT. WE, IN THE ARMY, HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TREMENDOUS CIVILIAN LEADERSHIP - - MOST NOTABLY IN THE SERVICE OF SECRETARY TOM WHITE, WHO WE FAREWELLED LAST MONTH. WE UNDERSTAND THAT LEADERSHIP IS NOT AN EXCLUSIVE FUNCTION OF UNIFORMED SERVICE. SO WHEN SOME SUGGEST THAT WE, IN THE ARMY, DON’T UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF CIVILIAN CONTROL OF THE MILITARY - - WELL, THAT’S JUST NOT HELPFUL - - AND IT ISN’T TRUE. THE ARMY HAS ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD THE PRIMACY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL - - WE REINFORCE THAT PRINCIPLE TO THOSE WITH WHOM WE TRAIN ALL AROUND THE WORLD. SO TO MUDDY THE WATERS WHEN IMPORTANT ISSUES ARE AT STAKE, ISSUES OF LIFE AND DEATH, IS A DISSERVICE TO ALL OF THOSE IN AND OUT OF UNIFORM WHO SERVE AND LEAD SO WELL.

OUR ARMY’S SOLDIERS AND LEADERS HAVE EARNED OUR COUNTRY’S HIGHEST ADMIRATION AND OUR CITIZENS’ BROAD SUPPORT. BUT EVEN AS WE CONGRATULATE OUR SOLDIERS WHEN WE WELCOME THEM HOME FROM BATTLE, WE MUST BEWARE THE TENDENCY SOME MAY HAVE TO DRAW THE WRONG CONCLUSIONS, THE WRONG LESSONS FROM RECENT OPERATIONS - - REMEMBERING ALL THE WHILE THAT NO LESSON IS LEARNED UNTIL IT CHANGES BEHAVIOR. WE MUST ALWAYS MAINTAIN OUR FOCUS ON READINESS. WE MUST ENSURE THE ARMY HAS THE CAPABILITIES TO MATCH THE STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH WE OPERATE, A FORCE SIZED CORRECTLY TO MEET THE STRATEGY SET FORTH IN THE DOCUMENTS THAT GUIDE US - - OUR NATIONAL SECURITY AND NATIONAL MILITARY STRATEGIES. BEWARE THE 12 DIVISION STRATEGY FOR A 10 DIVISION ARMY. OUR SOLDIERS AND FAMILIES BEAR THE RISK AND THE HARDSHIP OF CARRYING A MISSION LOAD THAT EXCEEDS WHAT FORCE CAPABILITIES WE CAN SUSTAIN, SO WE MUST ALLEVIATE RISK AND HARDSHIP BY OUR WILLINGNESS TO RESOURCE THE MISSION REQUIREMENT. AND WE MUST REMEMBER THAT DECISIVE VICTORY OFTEN HAS LESS TO DO WITH THE PLAN THAN IT DOES WITH YEARS INVESTED IN THE TRAINING OF SOLDIERS AND THE GROWING OF LEADERS. OUR NATION HAS SEEN WAR TOO MANY TIMES TO BELIEVE THAT VICTORY ON THE BATTLEFIELD IS DUE PRIMARILY TO THE BRILLIANCE OF A PLAN - - AS OPPOSED TO LEADERSHIP, TACTICAL AND TECHNICAL PROFICIENCY, SHEER GRIT AND DETERMINATION OF THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO DO THE FIGHTING AND THE BLEEDING.

Sounds like good wisdom to me.

Two notes: (1) It appears that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was conspicuously absent from today's ceremony, while traveling in Europe. His deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, was in Washington but appears to have been absent as well. None of Rumsfeld's undersecretaries appear to have attended. (This AP report confirms this) Both Rumsfeld and his deputy are absent from the lengthy "thank you's" at the front of Shinseki's speech. I'm not sure whose breach of protocol and courtesy is greater -- Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz for missing the ceremony, or Shinseki for failing to thank them. In any case, there's no love lost between them, as evidenced by Shinseki's remarks on civilian leadership. I can hardly blame Gen. Shinseki though, after watching Secretary Rumsfeld undercut him for so long -- going so far as to leak the name of Shinseki's replacement a year before his retirement.

(2) "Beware the 12 division strategy for a 10 division Army." This note of caution should resonate around the Pentagon, because this is a real problem. America's military is stretched very thin right now, and Secretary Rumsfeld has proposed troop cuts and realignments which would cut it even further. I'm a huge fan of transformation and efficiency, wherever it can be done. But many missions require manpower -- boots on the ground -- to be accomplished. They can't be done with money or machines. Nation-building is one example. America needs to conduct another review, like the one Colin Powell did in 1993 for then-President Clinton, of America's global strategy and the resources necessary to meet it. I realize the Pentagon does these about every 2 months, but the system has broken down in the face of increasing commitments abroad. It's time for a new, broad assessment of our strategic and political goals. That assessment, in turn, should drive resoucing decisions for the military so that we do not have to cope with the problem that Gen. Shinseki wisely warns us against.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:14

 
Rumsfeld selects retired general to lead the Army

Fox News reports that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has tapped retired-Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker to be the next Chief of Staff of the Army. The appointment is suprising for a few reasons. First, Schoomaker is retired, which is an altogether unusual thing for someone who's about to lead the largest military service. Second, he's a "snake eater". Schoomaker is a long-time member of the military's secretive special operations community. (Rumsfeld's a big fan of special ops) Presumably, the President has already blessed this appointment; now it heads to the Senate for an advice & consent vote.

The AP confirms the story, and adds some more background & detail about Gen. Schoomaker:

The Army has suffered an unusual amount of turbulence in leadership positions this year.

In April, Rumsfeld fired Army Secretary Thomas White and picked John Roche, currently the Air Force secretary, to replace him as the top Army civilian official. Roche has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, so the undersecretary of the Army, Les Brownlee, is the acting Army secretary.

Schoomaker, 57, began his Army career in 1969 as a second lieutenant. His first field assignment was in 1970 as a reconnaissance platoon leader at Fort Campbell, Ky. He was trained as an armor officer but switched to the secretive world of special operations in the late 1970s.

Born in Michigan, he graduated from the University of Wyoming, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in education administration and was a star football player.

From 1975-76, he attended the Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School at Quantico, Va., and in February 1978 he became commander of the Army's 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, the highly secretive Delta Force that specializes in counterterrorism missions. He held that command until 1981.

While with Delta Force, he participated in the failed attempt in April 1980 to rescue the American hostages in Tehran. He later was commander of the Army Special Operations Command and the Joint Special Operations Command, both at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Analysis: I think this sends a very loud message from the Eisenhower Corridor (where Rumsfeld's office sits in the Pentagon) to the Army's leadership. The SecDef couldn't find his man in the Army, so he had to reach into the pool of retired officers for his man. Not only that, he didn't like any of the "establishment" Army generals from the infantry or armor branches, so he chose one from the special operations community -- the antithesis of an "establishment" general. It'll be interesting to see how this works out. More to follow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:40

 
Pentagon moves forward with major troop redeployments

Greg Jaffe reports in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that the Defense Department has started to execute plans which would move most of American forces out of Western Europe and into "hub" and "lilypad" bases elsewhere. Specifically, the new bases would be located in Eastern Europe, Africa and Central Asia, preferably near key strategic locations (like the Red Sea) or near major port facilities. These plans fit into Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's larger plan to transform the American military for the 21st century, making it lighter, faster, more mobile, and more lethal.

The moves come in the wake of Germany's opposition to the war in Iraq and are likely to be interpreted as a rebuke of Berlin. Pentagon officials, however, said the moves aren't related to Germany's antiwar stance and noted that the Germans didn't place any major restrictions on the U.S. troops operating from that country during the war to topple Saddam Hussein.

Indeed the Pentagon is reluctant to cut the size of its force in Europe too much out of concern that it might lose its leading status within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. "Retaining our leadership of NATO is very important. We need to have a number [of troops] in Europe that gives us that status," Gen. Charles Wald, deputy commander of U.S. European Command, said.
* * *
One big strike against the German bases is that they are landlocked. The Pentagon is especially keen on shifting U.S. ground forces toward ports, where they can quickly be loaded onto fast-moving ships. U.S. officials also complain that environmental regulations at large German training ranges have made it difficult for forces to conduct realistic exercises. One of those ranges, for instance, has been reclassified as a European Union environmental-protection zone to protect rare plants and animals.

Despite the restrictions, some German facilities have proved so useful that they will be retained. In particular, military officials say that Ramstein Air Base, in southern Germany, will remain a critical air hub. The U.S. European Command, based in Stuttgart, also isn't likely to move. Key air hubs in Italy and Spain are also unlikely to be downsized.

In Africa, virtually all of the facilities where the U.S. is looking at establishing a presence will require infrastructure improvements. In North Africa, Pentagon officials are looking at establishing semipermanent bases in Algeria, Morocco and possibly Tunisia. The U.S. expects to keep a small number of troops at these facilities and then rotate through a larger force.

It is considering smaller, more-austere bases in Senegal, Ghana, Mali and Kenya. U.S. officials said that a key mission for U.S. forces would be to ensure that Nigeria's oil fields, which in the future could account for as much as 25% of all U.S. oil imports, are secure.

Analysis: In theory, this may be a good idea. Deploying forces overseas from the United States is very costly and very time-consuming. Getting an invasion force to Iraq took months, and cost billions of dollars. A lot of that flows from the inefficiencies of having troops in landlocked locations (like Fort Hood, Texas) or from not having enough pre-positioned equipment. From a pure systems-analysis perspective, reducing cost and time expenditures and smoothing bottlenecks in the deployment system is a good idea. Having a number of "lilypad" bases to deploy from around the world, along with lots more pre-positioned equipment, might make this work a lot better.

That said, this move entails significant risk at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.
- Tactically, it's very difficult to secure bases overseas, and especially when they're in less-than-friendly places like Africa. Our terrorist enemies have sworn to hit American targets wherever possible, and they have shown a predilection to hitting us in "their world" rather than in Germany or the United States.
- Operationally, it's not entirely clear that we can predict how we will fight the next war, much less where or when. As we saw with Turkey's refusal to let 4ID attack through their country into Iraq, the decisions about where you put your forces often shape the battle plan you can execute on the ground. If we commit forces to a "hub" and "lilypad" system, we may constrain our future warfighting options.
- Strategically, the risk is quite large. Establishing a base network in the Third World will be seen as tantamount to an establishment of a new American empire abroad. The deployment of U.S. forces to fixed places like Korea and Europe represented a fixed commitment to the security and stability of certain places. In geopolitical terms, I think it was easier to sell that to the world. These deployments, particularly to places that cannot equitably bargain with the United States, will be seen in a completely different light.

Bottom Line: The U.S. military needs to shed some weight; to become more flexible and rapidly deployable. But there are lots of ways to unscrew that coconut. For one, the U.S. may consider investing in more strategic lift assets, like cargo ships and airplanes. These are the bread and butter of rapid deployment, yet they're not bought in high numbers because they're not sexy and they don't kill things. Notwithstanding those facts, they are the simplest and most cost-effective answer to making our military ready for the next war.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:26

 
More on the redeployment in Korea

Fred Kaplan has this good piece in Slate regarding the redeployment of American forces in Korea. He opines, as I did a few days ago, that it's not entirely clear what signal this move will send to the North Koreans -- except that U.S. soldiers don't intend to be a speedbump en route to Seoul anymore. Kaplan also explores the possibility -- remote though it may be -- that this move foreshadows a more aggressive, pre-emptive stance against North Korea from the Bush Administration.

If Bush is contemplating a pre-emptive airstrike—on North Korea's nuclear facilities or a wider strike against a range of military targets—he would have to worry about the possibility of retaliation from thousands of North Korean artillery tubes, including 500 long-range tubes within range of Seoul. Therefore, he might want to get U.S. troops outside of that range.

The official U.S. war plan for Korea—called OPLAN 5027—envisions this possibility and explicitly discusses pre-emptive options. Earlier incarnations of this plan called for holding a defensive line as close to the DMZ as possible and, once U.S. reinforcements arrived, pushing the invaders back across the border. However, in 1998, with a revision called OPLAN 5027-98, the plan started to emphasize offensive operations into North Korean territory. It explicitly notes that if intelligence detected any signs of war preparations by Pyongyang, the United States would launch pre-emptive airstrikes against North Korean military bases and long-range artillery. U.S. commanders were directed to identify relevant targets and to assign weapons for destroying them.

This revision was prompted by the 1994 crisis (quite similar to the crisis brewing now), in which North Korea threatened to reprocess its nuclear fuel rods and build nuclear weapons. (The crisis was resolved diplomatically, but tensions were far from alleviated.) Another motivator was intelligence data that Pyongyang was fitting some of its long-range artillery with chemical weapons and nerve agents. The notion that a pre-emptive strike, in some cases, might be necessary to avoid catastrophe—in this case, the killing of hundreds of thousands of South Koreans—did not originate with the Bush administration.

A revision last year, OPLAN 5027-02, contained plans for striking North Korea's weapons of mass destruction. The latest version, OPLAN 5027-04, which was discussed at a conference just last month, adopts lessons from Gulf War II, especially the use of unmanned drones to find and attack key targets.

None of this indicates that Bush is actively planning such a strike, even if Kim might believe otherwise. The troop redeployment will not go into full effect for at least a couple of years. As far as immediate plans go, the fleet of additional combat planes that Bush sent to Guam and South Korea as a warning gesture last March—12 B-52s, 12 B-1s, 20 F-15s, and six F-117s—had all flown back to the United States by the end of May.

Still, two main points emerge from this review. First, the United States no longer needs to keep tens of thousands of troops poised on the DMZ, either to deter a North Korean invasion or to beat one back in its unlikely event. Second, a more likely cause of war, in the next few years, is the crumbling of Pyongyang's increasingly impoverished and isolated regime, which could intensify Kim's long-standing paranoia, to the point where he unleashes a tear-it-all-down spasm of destructiveness.

Some thoughts... I agree with Mr. Kaplan that this is a wise move, and one that should've taken place a while back. It will give us more flexibility in Korea, and make our forces there more survivable and effective no matter what may happen (war, North Korean implosion, etc). However, we should ensure our moves are taken the right way in Pyongyang -- not just the right way in Washington and Seoul. The North Korean government tends to look at some things in a way that defy logic. Worse yet, there are few diplomatic channels open to tell them our side of the story. We must work through all of those channels, particularly China, to make sure we send the right message to the heavily armed and dangerously fanatical Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:11

 
Infantry combat changes little in Gulf War II

Donald Sensing has some really good analysis of the trends in infantry combat over the last several decades, and how the recent war with Iraq was fought by the grunts on the ground. Contrary to popular wisdom, American infantry have not seen a fundamental shift in the application of their art, except for the ways they're able to rely on technologically advanced airpower and artillery. At the tip of the spear, where the rubber sole meets the sand, little has changed since WWI:

During the recent Iraq campaign, US Marine riflemen were interviewed about their experiences by after-action interviewers.

Almost all interviewed stated all firefight engagements conducted with small arms (5.56mm guns) occurred in the twenty to thirty (20-30) meter range. Shots over 100m were rare. The maximum range was less than 300m. Of those interviewed, most sniper shots were taken at distances well under 300m, only one greater than 300m (608m during the day). After talking to the leadership from various sniper platoons and individuals, there was not enough confidence in the optical gear (Simrad or AN/PVS-10) to take a night shot under the given conditions at ranges over 300m. Most Marines agreed they would “push” a max range of 200m only.

Believe it or not, those ranges were almost exactly the same as in World War I, according to General of the Army Omar Bradley, reported in his autobiography, A General's Life. As commanding general of the 82d Infantry Division early in World War II, Bradley invited Medal of Honor recipient Alvin York to visit his troops. (The 82d was not yet an airborne division at that point.) York was a legendary Tennessee marksman who had earned the only Medal of Honor awarded to an 82d Division soldier in the Great War. Bradley hosted York in his own quarters.

I queried him closely on his experiences in France. One important fact emerged from these talks: most of his effective shooting had been done at a very short range - twenty-five to fifty yards.

More... Mr. Sensing also refines his thoughts, after some e-mails that he had ignored the influence of "rules of engagement" on American infantry in Iraq. I've written on ROE in the past, and I agree with his analysis here. The fact that our troops had restrictive ROE reinforced the fact that they fought at close range, since they were forced to positively identify targets before engaging them.

...infantry couldn't do recon by fire in Iraq, at least very much, because the potential for civilian deaths was too great. So Iraqi defenders retained the initiative of when to begin the firefight. As far as I can tell from my readings, firefights began at close range. That meant that half the advantage of machine guns, their longer accurate range, was usually obviated.

Still, though, I find it pretty interesting that whether the rules of engagement were restrictive or permissive, the typical engagement ranges for rifle fire in combat have remained virtually unchanged since World War I.

posted by Phillip Carter at 17:30

 
U.S. officially announces troop realignment in Korea

The Washington Post and others report tonight that American officials have officially announced their decision to radically alter the United States military footprint in South Korea. Currently, the American 2nd Infantry Division sits astride and below the border with North Korea, in a position that's quite vulnerable to a North Korean first strike. American forces are also dispersed among several small camps, in an extremely inefficient arrangement. This redeployment would move America's main combat force in Korea to two, consolidated "hub bases" south of Seoul from where they could mount a response to any North Korean aggression.

A joint statement by U.S. and South Korean officials said American troops will be pulled back to positions at least 75 miles from the DMZ, and will abandon a large base they occupy in downtown Seoul. The move from the DMZ will free about 18,000 U.S. troops to be more mobile, and they will be replaced by soldiers in a modernized South Korean army, officials said.

No precise schedule has been announced for the change, although U.S. officials have said the new deployment may begin this year. The South Korean government is seeking a delay until current tensions over North Korea's nuclear program are eased.

Officials said the move would not immediately reduce the 37,000 U.S. troops posted in South Korea.

The statement said the redeployment would "enhance security" and would be done "taking careful account of the political, economic and security situation on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia."
* * *
The two-mile wide, 155-mile-long DMZ has become a de facto border between North Korea and South Korea, which never signed a peace treaty and still are technically at war. The DMZ often is called the most heavily guarded border in the world. During a 1993 visit, then-President Bill Clinton referred to it as "a stark line between safety and danger."

U.S. and South Korean troops face North Koreans just feet from each other at the Joint Security Area on the DMZ, where periodic negotiations are held. The hostility there is palpable. Two U.S. soldiers were killed there in a fight with North Koreans in 1976.

But the bulk of patrols along the DMZ already are conducted by South Korean troops, part of a well-equipped, well-regarded 650,000-member military force. U.S. troops will continue to train with them at positions near the border, today's statement said.

In fact, deterrence along the border long has relied on the U.S. ability to call in overwhelming air attacks and firepower -- and ultimately on a nuclear threat. U.S. troops have been called a "tripwire" -- a force whose sacrifice in case of an invasion by the million-man North Korean army would guarantee U.S. retaliation.

Analysis: As The Post says, this was not a surprise. Leaks made their way into the Los Angeles Times earlier this week about this move, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz presumably made his trip to Korea this week to confirm the details of the new arrangement. Also, the Bush Administration appears to be pursuing a policy of coercive engagement with Korea, and this move signals a de-escalation of military tensions on the peninsula which have persisted since the North Korean announcement that they had nuclear materials (and possibly nuclear weapons).

This move has larger implications for the rest of America's forces in the Pacific, and the world. First, it seems likely that we will pull other forces in Korea back from the war footing they sit on today. This makes sense tactically, because we're hopelessly exposed to North Korean attacks in these positions. It also makes sense strategically. In theory, a redeployed and consolidated 2nd Infantry Division could deploy its forces elsewhere in the Pacific theater when necessary, without remaining tied down in Korea. If unrest broke out in Indonesia, or we needed more combat troops in the Philippines, the 2ID soldiers could deploy from Korea to those locations.

Today's news may also represent a paradigm shift in the way the Army mans its Korea garrison. Currently, the Army uses an "individual replacement system" to send soldiers to and from Korea for 1-year unaccompanied "hardship" tours. This is a horrendously inefficient system that creates real problems for unit discipline, morale and cohesion -- to say nothing about soldiers' domestic relations. A number of forward-thinking officers have proposed adopting a unit-based manning model for the Army, and possibly a unit-rotation model for Korea like that used today for Bosnia and Kosovo. Moving America's forces to these new bases might support that plan if the new bases are designed as temporary way stations, rather than permanent garrisons like Camp Casey north of Seoul. More to follow...

More on Korea... At least one reader disagrees with my assessment that this move represents a signal of de-escalation to North Korea. Instead, this represents a consolidation and reorganization of American forces in preparation for imminent hostilities with the north. That's certainly one way to look at it, and a plausible one as well. American forces will certainly be made more efficient by this move. If greater efficiency frees up more resources (time, money, maintenance dollars, etc) for combat training, then American forces will also become more lethal and combat-ready. (This assumes that the Pentagon does not rob Korea to pay for Iraq.) In theory, American forces could also coil south of Seoul for an attack on the north, with the ability to assemble into combat formations outside the range of North Korean artillery.

However, I disagree with this net assessment. American and South Korean forces live on a hair trigger right now. One incident could escalate rapidly because of these forces' proximity to each other. I think that proximity has a deterrent effect, since U.S. casualties would probably have the effect of bringing us into a massive war that the North has already lost once. But the proximity is also dangerous. Having that many young soldiers, weapons and ammunition in such close proximity is a dangerous way to keep the peace. Pulling our soldiers back to a position south of Seoul may be a way to reduce the chances of something occurring there. At least, that's my gut feeling from my time there in the 2nd Infantry Division.

More on Korea II... What's the most likely scenario though for North Korea? I don't think it's for a North Korean invasion of South Korea, circa 1950. I think the most likely scenario is that North Korea collapses, sparking one of the largest humanitarian crises in history. If you think Iraq and Afghanistan were hard to rebuild, wait until you see North Korea. This is a country that, when night comes and satellites fly over the region, appears almost entirely dark from a lack of electricity. South Korea has even started to build hospitals and infrastructure near the DMZ in order to bear the brunt of the rebuilding effort, although I don't think it's enough. Given the problems we're having in Iraq right now with nation-building, I hope someone's thought long & hard in the Pentagon about how we'd do it in Korea -- especially if we had to do the two missions at the same time.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:43

 
Pentagon briefing on al-Tuwaitha nuclear facility

Say what you will about the Pentagon's press office, they're pretty good about posting full transcripts of major briefings given to press inside the building. Today's briefing concerned the IAEA visit to the al-Tuwaitha nuclear facility, which was famously ransacked in the days following America's victory in Iraq. Speaking on background, three senior defense officials had a few interesting things to say. Here's a sampling:

Q: One of the concerns that has been expressed here is that radiological material may have been stolen from the site, dispersed in a way that could wind up in the hands of terrorists or other people. Is there any evidence that you have that that may have happened? Is that a possibility?

Senior Defense Official: General, on the factual question, are you able to answer the question whether we can at this point tell if any material has, in fact, been removed from the site?

Senior Military Official: We have no evidence here that any of the material has been moved from the site. We saw -- we found a small quantity of yellow cake outside the building, on the ground, but we recovered that and put it back under safe conditions. And so we have no evidence that anything has been stolen at this point.

Senior Defense Official: So in answer to the questioning, part of the reason for wanting to get through the survey and go through the inventories and so forth is to find out what we may have started with and where we are now. I am fearful, however -- if you recall, the general said that there's more stuff inside the place than they expected to find. An interesting question will be, is there more stuff there than the IAEA would have expected to find; and if there is, what does it mean? And that's all part of what we're going to have to go through here over the next period of time. Pam?
* * *
Q: Richard Sisk, New York Daily News. The yellow cake -- what is it? Why is it a matter of concern? And what do you now do with it?

Senior Military Official: Well, I'm not a scientist, but I'll tell you my definition of it. "Yellow cake" is a common term that's used in the industry for one of the refined products of uranium ore, as it goes through the refining process. And this is what's left at one of the lower levels of refinement. It's about the consistency of yellow cornmeal, more or less. It is a heavy metal, but it looks like -- something like -- yellow cornmeal. And a 55-gallon drum of it would weigh about 500 pounds, is what I'm told.
* * *
Q: This is Will Dunham with Reuters. You can't rule out the possibility that radiological material, and potentially in large amounts, has been stolen from the site, can you?

And also, what is the concern about the IAEA having a robust role inside Iraq to help the search and to lend expertise? I mean, they are experts in this area.

Senior Defense Official: I can't, I think, at this moment say anything more than I have already said to you, which is we came on the site on the 7th, found it in the condition that it's in and have taken the measures that we've taken to secure it as we found it. Part of what's going to take place here is the IAEA will do its survey, they will match it over against their 2002 review results, and we'll get an answer to your question at that point. I can't rule in -- out. I can only tell you what I told you: We found it in the condition on the 7th, we've secured it, they'll come in and they'll do the inventory and we'll get an answer to your question. I think that's the way -- the thing to wait for. It would be a mistake, in my opinion, to speculate on this subject until we get more facts. And that's where we're headed.

Analysis: Some of this seems to contradict the MSNBC reports from a few weeks ago, which indicated that American forces had arrived at al-Tuwaitha and abandoned it soon thereafter. Those reports also indicated that the facility looked as if it had been looted when American forces returned. Of course, the worst possible scenario is that terrorists or Saddam loyalists absconded with nuclear materials after the regime fell, and that they used the ensuing chaos to mask their heist. I think the IAEA visit will help assess whether that happened or not, but it's still too early to tell.
posted by Phillip Carter at 16:02

 
Rumsfeld runs into Congressional opposition

Esther Schrader reports in today's Los Angeles Times that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plan to transform Pentagon personnel systems has run into staunch opposition on both sides of the aisle in Congress. In a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee meeting yesterday, senators such as Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Carl Levin (D-Mich) grilled the SecDef on the issue, asking him why he should be granted such sweeping powers over hiring, firing and other employment decisions for the largest employer in America.

Lawmakers said Rumsfeld's plan, which would affect more than a quarter of the entire federal civilian workforce, would amount to a damaging shift of power to the executive branch. Senators said they are crafting an alternative aimed at preserving worker rights.

"I've got to ask you, what's the rush?" Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, asked Rumsfeld at the hearing. "These are sweeping changes."

Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich said bluntly: "Some of the provisions in the current proposal go too far."

Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, joined with Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) in introducing an alternative proposal this week that Collins said attempts "to strike the right balance between promoting a flexible system and protecting employee rights." For example, it would offer stronger provisions for collective bargaining and appealing disciplinary actions.

"The Defense Department proposal would give the secretary of Defense extraordinarily broad license to hire and fire employees and to set employee compensation virtually without legislated restrictions or constraints," Levin said. "This would not only be the greatest shift of power to the executive branch in memory, it would also put us at risk of a return to some of the abuses of the past."

Rumsfeld said, as he has repeatedly in the past, that the plan would help him move civilians into thousands of desk jobs now handled by uniformed military personnel, freeing resources for the armed services to respond more quickly to threats around the world, and lessening the growing burden on National Guard and Reserve units to handle support jobs.

Analysis: The Pentagon's personnel systems for military and civilian employees are indeed quite Byzantine. I remember trying to chapter soldiers out of my unit at Fort Hood; doing so seemed to take an act of God. (I have heard that discharging a civilian employee is even harder.) Some change is needed, both to streamline the system and make it more responsive to the needs of America.

However, I'm not sure that Rumsfeld's proposal is the right prescription for the patient. First, it's far too broad. Though he likens this proposal to the powers vested in the new Homeland Security Department, I disagree. I reviewed that bill for my class on Law & Terrorism, and I think the proposed DoD powers are substantially more broad. The final version of the Homeland Security Act did not contain the broad sweeping powers sought by the SecDef. Indeed, Sen. Lieberman and others stalled the bill during the Summer of 2002 on precisely this issue, holding up the bill until Nov. 2002 when a compromise could be worked out.

Second, I don't think these are the most essential reforms. America's military is trying to transform, but it's focusing right now on the hardware -- not the people. Transforming the Pentagon's personnel system is not the most important thing we have to do. We must first focus on the people on the front-lines -- those junior officers, sergeants and soldiers -- who actually look the enemy in the eye. The Army is starting to move towards this goal by adopting a unit-based system of manning, instead of its current individual-replacement system. Don Vandergriff and others (like former-SecArmy Tom White and retiring Gen. Eric Shinseki) are pushing this hard, but it's taking a long time to make this happen.

Bottom Line: Secretary Rumseld has a finite amount of political capital to spend right now, in the wake of our success in Iraq. That capital ought to be invested in the causes most worthy. In my opinion, transforming the personnel system at the top is less important than building personnel systems that set our platoons, companies and battalions up for success.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:49

 
One of the toughest jobs in the world

Today's Wall Street Journal has an interesting front-page story (subscription required) on the challenges facing ORHA, the American agency led by L. Paul Bremer III which has the mission of rebuilding Iraq. The article paints a picture of an understaffed, underequipped, and undercapitalized agency trying desperately to impose order on a nation the size of California.

Few government agencies have ever tackled a task so daunting: rebuilding a foreign country ravaged by a brutal dictator and a war. Now, after some poor prewar planning and early stumbles, ORHA (pronounced ore-hah) is beginning to grapple with everything from security to traffic jams in Baghdad.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, formerly the top American civil administrator in Iraq and head of ORHA, says his first surprise came when the agency found that the humanitarian needs it had focused on in planning before the war were quickly superseded by other demands.

"I thought the first 30 days were going to be all food, water and medicines. But the war went so fast, we started with reconstruction, and reconstruction is not an instant thing," says the 65-year-old Gen. Garner, who was replaced in early May when L. Paul Bremer was named administrator of the Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which sits organizationally above ORHA.

Much of Baghdad doesn't have normal electricity levels, enough clean drinking water or regular garbage collection. Thugs roam the streets at night, while dozens of police stations and courts remain shuttered. A more-dangerous security situation than expected has forced ORHA staffers to limit their movements around the city and has kept them largely removed from the capital's day-to-day problems.
* * *
There are signs that ORHA is making progress. U.S. officials expect Baghdad's electricity to be back to prewar levels and the worst of a crippling gasoline shortage to be over by mid-June. Baghdad now has 1,300 megawatts of electricity, compared with just 800 two weeks ago. Prewar levels in Baghdad ranged from about 1,600 to 2,000. Gasoline prices have already dropped sharply, indicating that the fuel crunch is easing. Army trucks haul off 20 loads a day of weapons ranging from mortars to missiles that still litter the capital's streets from the war.

ORHA had only two months to prepare for the aftermath of the war. Referring to the European Recovery Program after World War II named for then-Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Gen. Garner said, "You know, Marshall had two years to plan for Germany. ... I got two months."

The challenges for ORHA were all the greater because the U.S. military did an effective job of wiping out essential facilities, including telephone and media facilities as well as key government ministries and parts of the power grid. On the other hand, a shortage of military police, who are charged with maintaining order, meant that U.S. forces did a poor job of controlling postwar looting, which is largely responsible for the fact that only seven of the government's 23 ministerial buildings in Baghdad are usable. The first prison that recently reopened since the war had no desk for the warden.

Some thoughts... It appears from all accounts that ORHA is putting 110% of its effort into the job. I have no doubt that Bremer's staff is putting in 18-20 hour days and working as hard as humanly possible. However, the problems may be such that even such heroic efforts can't get the job done. If it's true that ORHA is underresourced, no amount of staff or command work can make up that shortfall. Without sufficient troops for security, money for contracts, contractors for projects, or other key resources, ORHA cannot meet the mission's requirements.

Going it alone is not the answer. America has no monopoly on nation-building or reconstruction experience. Our NATO allies, the United Nations, and various NGOs are extremely good at this too. One reason that the UN, civilian contractors, and NGOs have been reticent to deploy to Iraq thus far is the security situation there. It may pay dividends for the U.S. to focus singularly on securing the nation of Iraq, so that others may come in to do the soft work of nation-building. This would play to our military strength, and it would also set the conditions for the influx of 3rd party nations. We need to get these neutral parties into Iraq as fast as possible, largely for political reasons. The Iraqis need to see that we're a benevolent occupier, and that we have the support of the world. Sure, Halliburton and Bechtel can deliver medical services. But it would probably make the Iraqis feel less threatened if they got medical care from Medicins San Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:34

 
Weblogs worth your time

I've been derelict in adding new blogs to my link list on the left, and also in plugging other blogs. I'd like to remedy that now by sending my readers to some excellent weblogs I've discovered over the last couple of months, either by chance or e-mail.

- ChicagoBoyz. The pictures of famous U.Chicago professors on the top of the page gives away the ideological and intellectual character of this page immediately. I've found the page to have lots of great ideas on topics ranging from foreign policy to economics. Not surprisingly, those are some of the things U.Chicago minds are known for.

- Brad DeLong. He's an economics professor at UC Berkeley. As you'd expect from an economist, he's got one of the more rational minds out there on a lot of issues. More importantly, though, for an academic economist he writes with great clarity on a wide range of issues.

- Samizdata. An interesting weblog on "globalization and economics." The posts offer more than that though; worth a look.

- Archidamus. Run by a graduate student in history at U.Va., this blog focuses on military history and the Los Angeles Dodgers, among other things. I've been startled by the depth and thought in some of Wayne's posts -- he provides a perspective that you won't find elsewhere on a lot of stuff.
posted by Phillip Carter at 22:12

 
Wolfowitz tries to reassure South Korean on U.S. redeployments

Today's Los Angeles Times reports that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is trying his best to reassure the South Koreans that America will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them in defense of their nation from the North Korean hordes. His efforts come in response to reports in the Los Angeles Times and other papers that America was considering a major redeployment of forces in the Pacific theater -- possibly involving the movement of ground troops out of Korea, or at least down from the DMZ. American soldiers have remained in Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953, and their presence has often been likened to a "tripwire" that would bring the U.S. into any second Korean conflict.

President Bush dispatched Wolfowitz on a five-day tour of Asia in part to keep a promise to President Roh Moo Hyun to explain to skeptical South Koreans the U.S. military's plans for a global realignment of forces.

In South Korea, U.S. forces are frozen in Cold War-era positions that the Pentagon says don't take advantage of the American technological revolution in warfare and make it harder to address new security threats.

But some South Koreans fear the proposed changes on the peninsula would leave them more vulnerable to North Korean attack. Others think the changes would make it easier for U.S. forces to launch a direct preemptive attack on Pyongyang, the North's capital — perhaps without consulting Seoul.

The Pentagon says it wants to pull its troops out of the Yongsan base in central Seoul, a move that had been agreed to 12 years ago but was never implemented. It would also like to move the 14,000 troops of the 2nd Infantry Division, now scattered in heavily populated areas between the South Korean capital and the Demilitarized Zone, to two new hubs south of the Han River, which runs through Seoul.

The idea is to consolidate air power in a hub of bases in the Osan-Pyongtaek area to the west, and create a sea hub in the east coast area of Chinhae-Taegu, a defense official said Monday.

Paradoxically, U.S. officials say, pulling U.S. forces away from the front lines would make them a more effective deterrent to North Korea. In their current bases along the DMZ, 2nd Infantry troops are in easy range of North Korean artillery. To fight an invasion from the Communist North, they would have to retreat under fire south to Seoul and regroup before moving north.

"Our present posture sacrifices a good deal of military capability for the symbolism of having some American soldiers up on the DMZ," a defense official said Monday. "That means that if North Korea were to attack, we would spend a lot of the first period of time reorganizing and regrouping in order to start hitting back."

If redeployed around the two southern hubs, U.S. forces could still be hit by North Korean missiles, but not by its artillery, another defense official said. The 2nd Infantry could bypass a bloody confrontation in the DMZ and strike inside North Korea with the kind of high-tech, fast-moving force the U.S. used so effectively in Afghanistan and Iraq, the official said.

Analysis: The unnamed official is right on the money. I've served in the 2nd Infantry Division ; I'm roughly familiar with the tactical and operational scenario along the border with North Korea. It remains the most dangerous place on Earth. The situation is not necessarily improved by Americans' proximity to the DMZ. Way back when, American soldiers actually shared in the border security, conducting patrols in and around the DMZ. Today, only a tiny fraction of the U.S. Army actually patrols the DMZ. The vast majority today are garrisoned roughly 5-35 km from the border, training for the war they hope never comes.

My fellow lieutenants and I all thought our initial chances of survival were pretty low. This fatalism owed to our proximity to the thousands of artillery pieces in the North and the thousands of North Korean special forces already thought to be in the south. Working together, they could fire enough artillery in the first few minutes so as to massacre the American soldiers stationed north of Seoul -- and lay Seoul itself to ruins. Moving American forces south of Seoul would make a tremendous difference, because it would put them out of the range of North Korea's deadly blanket of artillery. That would give American units the critical hours they need to alert, assemble, upload and deploy to battle positions -- and survive to fight as something else than a speed bump.

The problem is that America's deployment north of Seoul is highly symbolic. Strategically, these garrisons represent a blood wager in the high-stakes game of poker with North Korea. If the North comes across, they will necessarily kill enough Americans to bring us into the war. That fact has tremendous deterrent effect, and is often credited with stopping a second Korean War over the last 50 years. South Koreans know this fact too, and they are especially reticent to allow any redeployment of American troops which may reduce the blood wager. Ultimately, redeploying American forces is right for us and it's right for Korea. But I'm not sure the South Koreans can be so easily persuaded. They may protest our presence in the streets, but when the chips are down, they still want us there.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:16

 
Tension continues between Army and SecDef

Dave Moniz of USA Today reported today that former-Secretary of the Army Tom White has spoken out against his former bosses -- in a big way. Speaking from his position as a former 1-star general and former-boss of the Army, White predicted that American soldiers would have to occupy Iraq for some time to come, and that Secretary Rumsfeld (and his staff) failed to say so in public before the war.

Former Army secretary Thomas White said in an interview that senior Defense officials "are unwilling to come to grips" with the scale of the postwar U.S. obligation in Iraq. The Pentagon has about 150,000 troops in Iraq and recently announced that the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's stay there has been extended indefinitely.

"This is not what they were selling (before the war)," White said, describing how senior Defense officials downplayed the need for a large occupation force. "It's almost a question of people not wanting to 'fess up to the notion that we will be there a long time and they might have to set up a rotation and sustain it for the long term."
* * *
Last month, Rumsfeld said the United States would remain in Iraq as "long as it takes." But the Defense chief was not specific about the size of the force.

The Pentagon declined to respond to White's comments, but a senior official said it was too early to draw conclusions about the size or length of the U.S. troops' commitment in Iraq.

White said it is reasonable to assume the Pentagon will need more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq to provide stability for at least the next year. Pentagon officials envisioned having about 100,000 troops there immediately after the war, but they hoped that number would be quickly drawn down.

Analysis: There are a lot of pieces at work here. First, there is a dismal relationship between the Department of the Army and the Office of the Secretary of Defense -- two organizations which are supposed to work together in a parent-subsidiary relationship. The ouster of Secretary White, problems replacing outgoing-Chief of Staff of the Army Eric Shinseki (who retires on 11 June), and difficulty managing Army transformation efforts are all signs of dischord between the two shops. Suffice to say, this animosity is not good for America or its common defense.

Second, there are some real policy disagreements at work between the OSD and Army staffs. I wrote about some of this in the Washington Monthly, but I think the disagreements run even deeper than I believed. This morning, I talked with a senior Army official who shed some light on the high-level discussions in the Pentagon. It appears that the Rumsfeld camp and White/Shinseki camp were operating on completely separate assumptions about the nature of warfare and nation-building. Fortunately, Rumsfeld's predictions came true with respect to the war -- less troops could win. Unfortunately, White and Shinseki's analyses were far more accurate about the peace.

The problem today is that we built a nation-building plan with insufficient flexibility to react to a changing situation on the ground. America has no more "9-1-1" force it can rush to Iraq to add combat power on the ground. Fully 50 percent of the Army's combat power is already devoted to Iraq. Add in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Korea, and other missions, and you soon have an Army stretched to the limit. We do have reserve formations capable of nation-building. However, those troops require extensive time to mobilize and deploy -- on the order of 3-6 months. We needed to call these troops up months ago to make a difference today. The right plan would have called these soldiers up as a contingency force, just in case. I realize that would have meant hardship for thousands of reservists like me. But it would've been the prudent strategy for America to pursue.

Enough diagnosis... what's the prescription? (1) Mobilize National Guard divisions immediately for the job. We're going to be in Iraq for the foreseeable future, and we can't stay in denial any longer about what this mission will take. If we call these citizen-soldiers up today, they may be ready by Christmas to deploy. By then, the 4th Infantry Division and others will be ready to rotate out anyway. (2) Invite NATO to help with the mission, either with their rapid-reaction force or other assets. They may come with political headaches -- and maybe even an agenda. But they also bring a wealth of experience for this mission, and they bring boots that we don't have the capacity to put on the ground right now. (3) Tell the truth to the American people -- we're going to be in Iraq for a while. The President must make the case that this mission is worth it. He must make the case that we have a direct interest in creating a stabile and prosperous Iraq; that a well-governed Iraq will not provide a haven to terrorists; that a friendly Iraq is worth the cost we have already paid. Calling up National Guard soldiers requires tremendous political capital, since it means taking men and women from every part of America. To accept this challenge, the American people must know their cause and believe in it.
posted by Phillip Carter at 19:57

 
Global war on terror continues -- in the Philippines

Today's New York Times passes on this report that Al Qaeda operatives have began to train in the Philippines with their affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah. In the past, these two groups were loosely affiliated -- more like two baseball teams in the same league than two subsidiaries of the same corporation.

For the last six to nine months, recruits mostly from Indonesia and Malaysia, but also a few from as far off as Pakistan and the Middle East, have received training at inaccessible, rough-hewn sites — basically a few huts and some tents — in a marshy region on the island of Mindanao, officials said.

The training is similar to what their older colleagues in terrorism got in Afghanistan when that served as Al Qaeda's base, they added.

In Mindanao, though, the training appears to include more of a special emphasis on the use of sophisticated explosives, the officials said.

"We've closed the camps in Afghanistan, but they're still operating in the southern Philippines," said an Australian official in Canberra. More broadly, intelligence officials say there is a constant movement of international terrorists across an area that includes Mindanao, islands in the Sulu Sea, the Malaysian state of Sabah and northern Indonesia.

Analysis: Al Qaeda has purposefully built an organizational structure that is loose, networked, and able to respond to direct attacks on its leadership and infrastructure. The move to conduct operational training in the Pacific is significant, because it represents a major increase in the scope and importance of this relationship for Al Qaeda. Furthermore, it may represent the opening of a "second front" in the Pacific -- or at least a greater one than we've seen to date. Terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda were responsible for the bombing in Bali last year which was purportedly targeted American interests through our proxies, the Australians. There has also been a significant, but low, level of terrorism in the PI, conducted by the Islamic terrorist groups MILF and Abu Sayyaf. We currently have American military and humanitarian aid to assist the Philippine government in fighting this war, but that may not be sufficient. If the Al Qaeda presence in the Pacific expands, and begins to threaten American interests, we may need to fight a campaign there similar to the one in Afghanistan.

Bottom Line: The war on terrorism is not over, and may only be marginally influenced by our success in Iraq. The real war on terrorism is still being fought by intelligence analysts, financial analysts, law enforcement officials, and soldiers, and it will continue in places like Sudan, the Philippines, Algeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, and everywhere else that Al Qaeda has spread.
posted by Phillip Carter at 06:23

 
U.S. to realign military footprint in Asia

Esther Schrader has this interesting report about the Pentagon's plans to alter its deployments in Asia. I'll write more on this later, but I think that Ms. Schrader has a real big scoop here. Asia has most of the emerging threats we will deal with in the next decade, and it is very significant that we are altering our footprint there. I think we will see a number of changes in the near future to respond to new and emerging threats, both of the conventional variety (e.g. China) and the unconventional variety (Indonesia and the Phillipines). More to follow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 15:06

 
American soldiers face increasing hostility in Iraq

I was not surprised to read this report in today's New York Times about increasing hostility towards American troops in Iraq. We have, in short, become an occupying army and one that appears to be there for the long haul. That's probably the right thing to do, given our imperatives to build lasting institutions in Iraq. But we must recognize this effect, and the increased risk it poses to our soldiers. It may necessitate the deployment of additional forces to manage the short-term security risk, either from the U.S. military or from our allies.

The complexity of postwar Iraq has led American forces into law enforcement tasks for which they are not well prepared. They are still searching for Mr. Hussein and his key officials. They are fighting hardened criminals freed from prison by an amnesty granted by Mr. Hussein late last year.

For many Iraqis, the shifting role of American troops has been a shock. Just eight weeks ago, they were rolling across the country passing out candy to children. Now they are kicking in doors and blocking traffic to seize the weapons that most Iraqis have for home defense.

In Hit, the change of perception about the American presence is palpable. "Having the Americans standing in the streets really provokes the people," said Qusay Yusef, a carpenter with four children.

For now, the Americans have withdrawn. Captain Watson said that the patrols and roadblocks would continue, but that his troops would still be "at pains" not to appear as "ugly Americans."

Coda: I first heard that phrase "ugly American" in Korea, when my colonel exhorted us to not act that way as MPs on patrol in Tongduchon. Like a lot of things in the military, though, it's easier said than done. I'm not sure how you can maintain law & order, maintain security, and also be the nice guy (or respected guy) on the block.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:58

 
Light Blogging: I'm away from Los Angeles for work so I won't have much to say until Sunday when I get back. I hope to have a good dump on the weekend's news then for everyone.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:53

 
How effective was "shock and awe"?

Slate's Fred Kaplan asks some pretty tough questions in his War Stories column today about the conduct of America's second war on Iraq. Specifically, he focuses on the recently released statistics by the Air Force on sorties flown, bombs dropped, targets hit, etc. The numbers will make even a seasoned analyst's head spin. But Kaplan does a good job of putting them together in a larger picture of what really happened. Here's a sampling:

How smart were the smart bombs? During the war, most analysts assumed the majority of bombs were smart bombs and the majority of smart bombs were the new, cheap Joint Defense Attack Munitions or JDAMs. The old smart bombs, the ones used in Desert Storm, were laser-guided. In other words, a crew member would shine a laser on the target; the bomb would follow the beam. However, the beam could be deflected by dust, smoke, rain, even humidity. And the laser-guided bombs were expensive—around $100,000 apiece. JDAMs are guided by Global Positioning Satellites. The pilot punches the target's coordinates into the bomb's GPS receiver andthe bomb homes in on the spot; environmental conditions aren't a factor. And they're cheap—a JDAM kit can be strapped onto an old-fashioned "dumb bomb" for $18,000.

However, it turns out that of the 19,948 smart munitions fired during Gulf War II, 8,716—two-fifths—were the '90s-era laser-guided bombs. Substantially fewer, 6,642, were JDAMs. The other 4,590 smart weapons were GPS-guided but much more expensive models than the JDAM.

More surprising, another 9,251 bombs—or one-third of all the bombs dropped during this war—were unguided, unmodified dumb bombs. It would be good to know where these dumb bombs—and the less-reliable laser-guided bombs—were dropped: on the battlefield, in cities? In other words, was "collateral damage" a greater problem than our vision of a JDAM-dominating war suggested?

In this regard, Operation Iraqi Freedom was still far different from Operation Desert Storm, when just 9 percent of the bombs were smart and none of those were guided by GPS. Still, the picture has not advanced quite as far as we had been led to assume.

posted by Phillip Carter at 20:07

 
Iraq -- the most likely place for Al Qaeda's next attack

The Associated Press and others report that two American soldiers died today in an attack on a U.S. Army checkpoint in Fallouja. Two Iraqis reportedly emerged from their cars, automatic weapons drawn, and started firing on American soldiers manning a checkpoint. They killed two and wounded nine. Also today, in Baghdad, a rocket-propelled grenade wounded two Army MP officers working out of a Baghdad police station. In describing the attacks, 3rd Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. Buford Blount III said they were seeing "very small groups — one or two people — in isolated attacks against our soldiers." Yesterday, an American soldier died in a convoy ambush in Northern Iraq. On Sunday, Iraqi guerillas ambushed an American HMMWV driving in Baghdad, detonating it as the vehicle drove past. Two other incidents targeted American soldiers on Sunday, but inflicted no casualties. The New York Times reports that anti-American attitudes and violent tendencies have become commonplace among Iraq's young male population:

As American troops keep flowing into Iraq to provide greater security and departures of other troops are delayed to strengthen police functions, military commanders continue to express private concerns about whether they have sufficient forces to re-establish a stable postwar environment.

L. Paul Bremer III, the top civilian administrator of the occupation authority, said Monday that the allies would issue food ration cards on June 1 and restart the food distribution channels used by the Hussein government.

"In the long run, we would like to get out of the situation where 60 percent of the people are dependent on the government for their food," he said.

Tonight, Falluja remained tense as American troops stood guard in static positions in command posts protected by razor wire and Bradley fighting vehicles. Other troops positioned themselves at roadblocks.

"All the people are very happy with this operation," said one resident of the town, referring to the attack on the American soldiers. He identified himself as Barakal Jassim al-Zobai, a brigadier in the disbanded Iraqi Republican Guard.

"We want to revenge all of the martyrs that Falluja gave and we will not allow American forces to occupy Iraq," he said. Mr. Zobai said guerrilla teams had been formed to exact revenge on American forces.

The episodes of violence here have radicalized some residents who have vowed revenge, residents said.

"We are tribal people and we won't allow anyone to intrude in our lives," said a 27-year-old farmer who witnessed the attack early this morning. He refused to give his full name and called himself Abu Muhammad. "The Americans have really hurt us," he said. "They didn't come here to give us liberty, or free us. They came here to invade us."

Analysis: Clearly, we are seeing an upswing in the level of insurgent activity in Iraq. Without access to the raw intelligence I might have in the field, I can't do any kind of reasonable trend analysis or predictive analysis. However, I can read the tea leaves from here somewhat. American units are seeing what appear to be frequent, widespread, pre-planned, deadly acts of violence. It's more likely than not that these are coordinated attacks -- possibly part of a larger anti-American strategy. It's impossible to tell (without better intel) who might be behind these attacks, or why they might be happening. I can speculate that Shiite factions are instigating the attacks as a way of destabilizing the American presence and hastening our departure. I could also speculate that the attacks come from Saddam Hussein's loyalists who retained their weapons from their military service.

But I'd like to suggest a more sinister possibility that must at least be considered by America's security and intelligence communities: Al Qaeda action in Iraq. It appears from a number of reports that Al Qaeda has been hobbled to some degree. The global terror network retains the ability to operate, but it has been constrained by America's war in Afghanistan and efforts elsewhere. Our military, financial, law enforcement, and prosecutorial efforts may have crippled the network's ability to act inside the United States -- it's hard to tell (see this Newsweek report). But one place where we have barely made a dent is in Al Qaeda's ability to operate in the Arab world. This month's attack on the American housing complex in Saudi Arabia are the best evidence of this, along with recent reports indicating the presence of an Al Qaeda cell in Iran. This is an organization that retains the ability to move men, materiel and money around the Arab world, at least, and retains the ability to plan and execute terrorist operations. In short, Al Qaeda remains a potent threat.

Why do I think they'll hit us in Iraq? First, Al Qaeda's stated goal is to remove American soldiers from the Saudi peninsula, and by extension, the Arab world. Osama Bin Laden deeply resents America's influence on Islam, and especially our efforts to build rapport with secular, moderate and fundamentalist governments in the region. Their doctrine cannot allow us to maintain a presence in Iraq, and it cannot allow us to successfully install a Western-oriented government in Iraq that disdains Islamic law in favor of democracy, capitalism, and individual liberty. (It may be possible for these things to live together, but at least for now, no one has figured out how to do that.)

Second, Bin Laden deeply hates American military imperialism, which is almost certainly how he sees our attack on Iraq in this second Gulf War. He has deliberately targeted our military deployments before (e.g. Somalia and the USS Cole), and it makes sense that he will do it again. Al Qaeda stands against a lot of things, but few institutions have inflicted as much pain on Al Qaeda as the American military. I think that Bin Laden has a blood debt to settle with the American military after Afghanistan, and he will attack American soldiers wherever he can (Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan) to settle the score.

Third, the opportunities abound in Iraq for a terrorist -- particularly a terrorist who seeks to wage war through proxies. Large numbers of Iraqi soldiers melted away in the face of American firepower, and they took a lot of their weaponry with them. Those men would make great recruits for a terrorist sponsor. There's a lot of ordnance, weaponry, and stuff on the street in Iraq for a terrorist to buy. He wouldn't have to smuggle stuff in; he could probably buy it on the black market. On top of that, there's an abundance of American targets -- from well-protected American military bases to less-well protected contractors and relief organizations. Hitting Bechtel or Halliburton may not seem as sporting as hitting the 4th Infantry Division, but this enemy has never been one for chivalry.

The biggest reasons, however, are the large numbers of reporters inside Iraq and the amount of coverage that any such attack would receive. Nearly 30 years ago, terrorism expert Brian Jenkins wrote that "terrorism is theater." Without an audience, terrorism is mere violence perpetrated in the name of a cause -- but without an effect to justify the effort. The violent act is a mere precursor to the act's effect on society at large. Media coverage gives terrorism its audience, and most contemporary terrorism is scripted with the media in mind. It's possible that Al Qaeda might hit American soldiers in another part of the world -- the motive, means and opportunity certainly exist. But the presence of the media in Iraq all but guarantees that such an attack will happen there.
posted by Phillip Carter at 19:50

 
Gobble gobble

That's not the sound of a turkey -- it's the sound of large defense contractors gobbling up smaller tech firms and defense-related start-ups, according to this report in Monday's Washington Post. After a wave of consolidation during the 1990s in the defense industry, large conglomerate firms like Northrop-Grumman and General Dynamics have been semi-covertly buying up small firms that provide critical pieces of hardware and software for the large ships, tanks and planes they already build. The result is that the industry has become more consolidated than ever, with just a few large contractors (GD, Northrop-Grumman, Boeing) owning most of the business.

The buying spree is contributing to a fundamental change in the structure of the defense industry as the top players move away from their roles as mere weapons makers and increasingly cast themselves as "systems integrators" that produce high-tech networks for the battlefield. In the past three years, contractors have swept up about 180 small tech firms, mostly in Northern Virginia, a 25 percent increase from the previous three-year span.

In one recent high-profile case, General Dynamics Corp., which makes M1 tanks, bought Herndon-based Creative Technology Inc., which designs computer networks that transmit classified information.

The Pentagon has pushed in recent years for a more intensive role for war technology, but the pace has accelerated with the proven high-tech successes in Afghanistan and Iraq and the demands of fighting terrorism. The rush to grab the premier small companies is sparking bidding wars and redesigning the landscape of the local tech industry -- a cornerstone of the region's business community that blossomed in the shadow of the dot-com revolution.

Underlying the consolidation is the sharp competition among the big defense companies to secure a lucrative role in the transformation of the military envisioned by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and backed by a growing Pentagon budget. Some industry observers worry, however, that the absorption of the small tech firms into the giant contractors could crimp innovation in a field that thrives on swift advances.

The companies attracting attention often work quietly behind the scenes, producing the technology essential to the new ways of war. Among the firms recently acquired are Alexandria-based Adroit Systems Inc., which writes software that instructs hovering drones to transmit surveillance photos to fighter jets, ships and ground stations; Chantilly-based Integrated Data Systems Corp., which develops software that allows the Pentagon to share classified information with other agencies on a secure network; Premier Technology Group Inc., a Fairfax firm that analyzes and disseminates intelligence for the Army; and Conquest Inc. of Annapolis Junction, Md., which specializes in managing information networks for the intelligence community.

"Just 20 or 30 years ago, the airplane was the thing or the ship was the thing," said Stuart McCutchan, publisher of Defense Mergers & Acquisitions, an industry newsletter. "Now those things are just nodes in the network, and the network is the thing."

Analysis: I think the jury's still out as to whether this is a good or bad thing for America and its military. In theory, larger contractors can achieve economies of scale across the vertical and horizontal dimension. However, they can also act like a monopolist. Ultimately, I think what matters is getting the best rifle, ship, plane or tank into the hands of the warfighter. So far, they appear to be doing well, but it's hard to know whether a less consolidated industry might do better.
posted by Phillip Carter at 22:05

 
A chaplain's story of war

Chaplains play an important and unique role in the American military. Constrained by our First Amendment and tradition of separating church and state, they serve as part-adviser, part-chaplain, part-sage for battalions of soldiers in war and peace. John W. Brinsfield, who retired as a colonel in the Army's chaplain corps, has a thoughtful essay in Monday's New York Times on the meaning of war and remembrance -- from his perspective as a military chaplain.

In the 1991 Persian Gulf war, I was a senior chaplain assigned to the headquarters of Army Central Command in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. My mission was to help place 568 Army chaplains of all denominations throughout the combat zone so that our troops would always have one nearby. My ministry involved visiting hospitals, counseling the lonely and the fatigued, dodging Scud missiles, conducting worship services under the sky, and later, holding memorial services for the dead.
* * *
After months of waiting, combat came quickly in this war. At first, the operation seemed familiar — business as usual. But then came the dreaded urban warfare. No matter how much you've trained, you are never prepared for the sight of homes turned to rubble or the smell of burned flesh or the sound of a mother wailing among the debris, searching for her missing child. And of course, there's no military manual to prepare you for the pain of seeing your buddy die because you couldn't seal off his sucking chest wound, or the shock associated with having to fire on a civilian vehicle that would not stop for a checkpoint, or seeing two women, an old man and a child lying dead along the road.

And then there's the morning after a particularly fierce battle when the captain, just a few years out of West Point, told his troops to look for drums, containers, anything that looked like a weapon of mass destruction. You searched all day, but nothing turned up.

And now some of the troops are starting to come home, looking forward to much-needed sleep and dreaming of Big Macs and Taco Bell menus. They remember the guy who bled to death and wish like hell they had been able to stop the bleeding. They almost cry, but stop just in time. They think of the children with stumps for arms, or those lying face down in the dust in some village with no name. Was it an air strike that took them out, or was it me? Not knowing is the only salvation.

They'll talk of this only to other soldiers. Years later, at barbecue reunions with medals and overseas caps they'll hear of someone who was in the gulf, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. "Where were you?" is the first question. That means, if you were with me, in my unit, in the same fight, maybe, after a few beers, we'll talk.

Definitely worth a read... Ironically, the piece is juxtaposed in the same day's paper as this report from San Luis Obispo. There, it appears that fire department chaplains are making a bad name for themselves and their department, according to allegations of six firefighters who are suing over their quasi-official use of religion.

The middle-level officers brought the lawsuit earlier this year, saying that the chaplain's corps, run by an evangelical minister who is also a senior official of the department, was almost exclusively Christian and had improperly injected religious faith into a government organization.

The department created the corps two years ago, replacing a peer-counseling program that had existed for years. Of the first 52 people to join the chaplain's corps, all but two are Christians and wear crosses on their firefighting uniforms, according to the lawsuit. The program has since added a Buddhist and a Jew.

The complaining officers, who sardonically call themselves the Satanic Six, object to the chaplains' wearing religious insignia while on duty and say it is only a short step from counseling fellow firefighters to proselytizing them.

The plaintiffs include a Baptist, an Episcopalian, a Christian Scientist, a Jew and a self-described "rationalist agnostic."

Their suit asks that the official chaplain's corps be disbanded and replaced with a nonuniformed, volunteer group of religious counselors. It also asks that no state money be spent for the training or services of chaplains, and that no explicitly religious language be used at public ceremonies, like fire academy graduations.

I can't speak for how the chaplains behave in the San Luis Obispo fire department, nor can I really speak with any authority about this case since I'm just an acolyte to First Amendment law. This case in SLO is not unique. In recent months, lawsuits have challenged their ability to function, and the military's ability to include prayer and religion in certain aspects of life like the meals at the Naval Academy.

While I support the Constitution and its intent to separate church and state, I do think these movements can go too far. There are times in the military when a little religion can be helpful -- regardless of which faith it comes from. America's military certainly embraces Christianity more than Judaism, Islam, or any other religion, somewhat to the detriment to whose who serve (like me) from those other faiths. However, the military chaplains I knew were especially aware of this fact, and they did everything they could to take care of my needs too. Whether they're checking on soldier morale, helping to run the casualty collection point, or providing religious support, chaplains play a key role in our fighting units. Ultimately, I hope that judges balance the interests on both sides to find a Solomon-like answer to the problem of religion in the ranks.
posted by Phillip Carter at 21:59

 
A short note on the meaning of Memorial Day

Veterans Day was established after World War I on the day of the Treaty of Versailles. After World War II, Congress passed a resolution extending the holiday's meaning to honor the veterans of that war. After Korea, Congress passed a third resolution, this time extending the holiday to "honor American veterans of all wars." Over the years since, Congress has updated its resolutions on Veterans Day, made it a federal holiday, and pushed the states to accept it as a holiday too. Veterans Day is properly celebrated on Nov. 11, to mark the day the treaty ending WWI was signed, but is usually observed on the first or second Monday in November.

Memorial Day has an older lineage, which traces back to the Civil War. Unlike Veterans Day, which commemorates living veterans, Memorial Day is expressly intended as a day to memorialize the sacrifice of men and women who have given their lives in uniform. General John Logan, national commander of the Union Army, published an order in 1868 which established Memorial Day. His soldiers placed flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers buried at Arlington National Cemetery. New York recognized the holiday in 1873, and most northern states followed by 1890. Southern states were somewhat recalcitrant, and some even maintained a separate holiday to honor Confederate war dead. After WWI, Congress extended the holiday to honor American soldiers who died in all wars, not just the Civil War, and this tradition has endured until today. On Memorial Day, soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Regiment continue to place flowers on every grave in Arlington, honoring those who rest there.

It's not my goal to take anything away from the millions of Americans who celebrate this holiday more as a 3-day weekend and the start of summer. Our soldiers gave their lives in part for the American way of life, so such a tribute is fitting. However, we should all enjoy this holiday with the knowledge of what it's about, and at least take some time to think about those who have given their lives in our name.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:45