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America's new military plans for the world

Bradley Graham reports in the Washington Post about an extremely important strategic/operational development in the Pentagon: the creation of new operational plans for such major theaters as the Middle East and Korea. Unfortunately, news of the sniper's conviction and Arnold's swearing-in pushed this story from page A1 to A18. But I think this is probably the most important story to come out of the Pentagon in weeks. The most important change is that the new operational plans assume America's ability to "do more with less" -- that is, to fight a military campaign with fewer boots on the ground and more airpower/artillery guided by "C4ISR" (command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance).

U.S. military commanders, working with the Pentagon's Joint Staff, have revised plans for potential wars on the Korean peninsula, in the Middle East and elsewhere based on assumptions that conflicts could be fought more quickly and with fewer American troops than previously thought, senior officers said.

The changes reflect advances in precision munitions, greater use of Special Operations forces, and improved coordination between air, ground and sea forces tested in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. By incorporating these and other new elements in all U.S. war plans, Pentagon authorities hope to make them permanent features and gain greater combat efficiency, the officers said.

Although many specifics remain classified, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has alluded to the revised plans in recent statements, saying they show the Pentagon would be able to deal with other conflicts while U.S. forces stay heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has rejected calls from lawmakers and others to increase the overall size of the armed forces.

In the case of a North Korean attack on South Korea, one senior Joint Staff officer said, the new plans would allow the United States to respond without waiting for as many ground forces to arrive, by substituting air power for artillery and getting such critical equipment as counter-battery radars -- for pinpointing enemy mortar and artillery fire -- on scene ahead of the rest of their divisions. The resulting force might not be as "elegant" as planners would like, but "it will certainly be capable," the officer said.

Still, the new planning does not appear to have addressed issues of postwar stabilization and peacekeeping, which in the case of Iraq have imposed huge burdens on the Pentagon that were not foreseen by Rumsfeld and many of his top aides. Instead, it has focused on how to win wars fast.

Analysis: In essence, these changes take the alleged lessons learned from Iraq and incorporate them into updated and revised operational plans. We all watched the way that American firepower and intelligence capabilities worked together in Iraq to defeat the Iraqi army in three weeks. I haven't seen these new operational plans (obviously, they're classified), but I would guess that these plans assume a lower number of infantry, armor and combat-support troops on the ground as well for the mission, either because those troops may be tied up elsewhere (e.g. Iraq) or because there won't be time in future conflicts to deploy them before the balloon goes up.

What's wrong with this plan? Well, I see two glaring areas where the operational plans assume substantial amounts of risk -- at the strategic, operational and tactical levels.

Risk Area 1: Security. The decision to fight a war with less of a ground footprint leaves you with less manpower to protect those things that you do actually put on the ground. Although the initial stages of a war may be fought entirely by airpower, I think it's still true that you must eventually commit ground troops in order to seize, hold or occupy terrain -- or to truly impose your will on an enemy government. As T.R. Fehrenbach said so brilliantly in This Kind of War:

"You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life," wrote Fehrenbach. "But if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."

This is still true. The problem then becomes one of force protection. Our enemies have learned to hit us asymmetrically because they know that they cannot hope to succeed against the combined-arms effort of American infantry, armor, artillery and air support. Indeed, if Gulf War I and II are any indicator, they will lose thousands of soldiers in any such effort. However, they have also learned from Somalia, Afghanistan and Gulf War II that asymmetric tactics can be highly effective -- particularly against those parts of the American war machine that are less well-protected: supply lines, logistics bases and command posts. Such units are absolutely critical to the American way of war, because our front-line units can't operate without the support of a heavy logistics tail -- and they will be less effective without the assistance of a command post to direct close-air support and artillery, among other force multipliers. Asymmetric attacks on these targets will likely produce American casualties, which in turn will make Americans question the war effort and possibly hasten our withdrawal from any endeavor, according to this theory. They will also reduce our effectiveness and slow our advance.

As we saw recently in Iraq, such attacks will eventually rise to the point where the operational commander must pull front-line troops out of the fight to secure the lines of communication and critical American high-value assets. The asset requirements for force protection will sap combat power from the fight, where it's needed. And if the decision was made before the fight to deploy less troops to the theater, it's often too late during the fight to get them there, since American units typically require weeks to deploy anything heavier than a paratroop battalion to war. If this problem grows bad enough, it will necessitate an operational pause. But at that point, the whole point of moving fast and light is lost, and you should've just deployed enough troops when you had the chance.

Risk Area 2: Troops to Secure the Peace. As this article states, the new operational plans don't fully consider the post-war requirements in each respective theater of operation. In Iraq, those post-war requirements were assumed away too, according to excellent reports in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, among other sources. The result was a hasty effort to secure the peace in the immediate aftermath of the war, compounded by a lack of resources (boots on the ground) to do the job in April and May. The result was chaos. If there is one lesson that operational planners (and I've been one) should take away from Iraq, it is this: don't assume the post-war phase of the operation out of the planning process. You simply can't afford to assume a d*mn thing when it comes to planning, and failing to plan such a major part of the operation is planning for failure. The post-war phase in Iraq is turning out to be far more important, far more costly, and far more lengthy than the war itself.

But that's always been the case. In every war we have fought since WWII, the ends have been messy. After WWII, we had to occupy Germany and Japan for years. We're still in Korea, although the nation-building efforts were largely complete by 1960. Vietnam ended quite messily, though we're now returning there to rebuild the nation's economy with the foot soldiers of capitalism. Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Rwanda, East Timor -- every recent nation-building op has shown that it takes more troops to secure the peace than to win the war (or change the regime, if that's the case). I made this point in May in the Washington Monthly, and Amb. James Dobbins made it more elegantly in the RAND study America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq.

If you commit less troops to the fight, then you will have less troops on the ground at the moment the mission changes from war to post-war stabilization. Moreover, America lacks the strategic-lift (think Air Force cargo plane) capability and rapid-deployment (think 82nd Airborne) capability to rapidly get troops to the battlefield in the time it will take to affect the situation on the ground. In Iraq, the situation deterioriated in a matter of days, and even if we had made the decision on 9 Apr 03 to deploy additional forces, it would've taken weeks to get them there. The pre-war decision to commit less troops to battle has profound post-war implications, and these operational plans appear to miss that point.

I don't think these are necessarily fatal flaws. The combatant commands (e.g. CENTCOM) can scrub these plans, generate their own requirements, and request more resources for operations when the order is given. But they really don't have the resources -- or the asset visibility -- to do so as effectively as the Joint Staff and the service staffs (e.g. Army and Navy). Plus, they will be under significant time pressure to execute the mission, and it will be hard to request more resources if and when the balloon goes up in a place like Korea. The right answer would be to incorporate the real lessons learned from Iraq into these operational plans. History has shown us that winning the peace is often more difficult than winning the war, and we should plan for that. Depending on your perspective, such an event may be a contingency or an eventuality. But a good planner plans for both.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:43

 
Novices at nation building

Stanford Professor Stephen Krasner writes in today's Los Angeles Times that American difficulties in Afghanistan and Iraq should come as no surprise to observers around the world, because frankly, America and the world lacks experience in building democracies.

What we do know — or should know — is that getting from here to there will be hard. The states we're most interested in helping to transform today generally have low per-capita incomes, limited experience with democracy and long histories of autocratic and sometimes brutal rule. These are not conditions that tend to foster democracy.

Among the surprisingly few things we know about creating democracies is this: While it doesn't necessarily take higher per-capita income to establish a democracy, it certainly helps in sustaining it. No democratic country with per-capita income above $6,000 has ever reverted to autocracy.

We also know that democratic transitions are dangerous. Autocratic leaders feeling threatened by democratic reforms can respond by cracking down. A destructive sort of nationalism can surface (think Kaiser Wilhelm II before World War I, Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s or Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe today). And states in transition are more likely than either stable democracies or autocracies to become involved in wars.

Foreign occupation, even when accompanied by large amounts of money, does not guarantee a smooth transition to democracy. Since the Dayton accords of December 1995, Bosnia has effectively been under the control of the international community, led by Europe. Aid has flowed freely: In the late 1990s, foreign assistance amounted to a quarter of the country's gross national income. While this international effort has kept the lid on a volatile situation, it has hardly set Bosnia on a clear path toward democratic autonomy. The situation in Kosovo, which in 1999 became a de facto NATO protectorate, is no better.

The simple fact is that we do not know how to do democracy-building. We do not have clear historical precedents. Germany and Japan after World War II demonstrated that an extensive, sustained American presence can contribute to the establishment of stable democracies. But in 1945, Germany and Japan were countries with more wealth, better-educated populations and more experience with democracy than the countries with which America is now engaged.

In other countries where we have attempted regime change, results have been mixed. Over the last century, the United States has intervened both covertly and overtly in the Caribbean and Central America. But we have not done nearly as well as we would have liked in leaving successful democracies and market economies in our wake.

Analysis: I think this is a powerful argument, and one that's not without a shred of truth. I suppose it's debatable whether democracy should emerge first -- and set the conditions for a liberal society -- or whether the liberal society and market economy must come first. In many ways, it's a classic chicken/egg problem. I happen to think that the market economy, infrastructure, and educational systems must come first in order to set the conditions for the emergence of democracy. You have to build a class of educated persons with a personal economic incentive to become stakeholders in society; to defend what they have acquired by means of civil government. Towards that end, America can create the conditions for the emergence of democracy in Iraq by building roads, schools, markets, hospitals, and other institutions to help Iraqi society reestablish itself. Self-determination will take over at that point, and while we may not get the government we want, I think that the Iraqi people ought to be trusted to decide their own destiny.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:38

 
"A citizen check on war"
Active/reserve mix in American military effectively checks the President's war powers

Former Air Force pilot Janine Davidson has a well written essay in today's Washington Post Outlook section on the "total force" concept, which is the term of art to describe the mix of active and reserve forces in today's American military. Ms. Davidson lays out the history behind this concept, and the way this concept has developed into a check on Presidential warmaking and deployment power.

The current U.S. military structure -- known as the "Total Force" -- was implemented after the Vietnam War. The system was designed to require activation of Guard and reserves personnel in order to wage war. Defense officials ensured that war-fighting capabilities were integrated across the active and reserves components to such a degree that, as an Army chief of staff, Gen. Creighton Abrams, is said to have claimed, "they're not taking us to war again without calling up the reserves."

Abrams and others recognized that when reservists are mobilized, whole communities are affected to a much greater degree than when a draft is conducted of only young eligible men. Their primary concern was that when reservists went to war, troops serving abroad would have more support "back home."

But the Total Force had another goal as well -- to act as a check on indiscriminate or capricious uses of military force. Recent experience in the Balkans and the Middle East demonstrates that it is easier to send troops abroad than it is to bring them home. And history shows that Congress rarely has acted against a president to limit the use of force. Thus, the Total Force was designed to compel Congress to scrutinize military operations. As employers give up workers and as families say goodbye to soldiers augmenting active forces, Congress should be pressured by constituents to act. In sum, the sacrifices of waging war -- or even keeping peace -- are supposed to spread throughout our democratic society to such a degree that our elected officials are forced to debate the wisdom of sending troops abroad.

Analysis: Indeed, Gen. Creighton Abrams' total force concept has become a more effective check on presidential warmaking ability than either the Art. I power of Congress to declare war, or the potentially unconstitutional War Powers Act. This check works because it's closely tied to the Art. I power of Congress to fund the military. Mobilization decisions also require political capital, and even in this gerrymandered age of safe Congressional seats, decisions to send large numbers of Americans into harm's way translates into lots of political pressure on Congress to manage those deployments.

On the other hand, this force balance effectively ties the SecDef's arm behind his back, because it limits his ability to deploy certain critical units such as Civil Affairs, Military Police, Military Intelligence and logistics. And, America's reserve system was designed for a WWIII-style scenario where the entire nation would mobilize to fight the Soviet hordes as they streamed through the Fulda Gap. It does not work well for the constant level of peacekeeping deployments we had in the 1990s, and it is about to break down from the strain of repeated, long-term deployments to support the Global War on Terrorism. There is a good argument for moving some of the most critical units into the active force, such as Civil Affairs, at least in sufficient numbers to give America a 9-1-1 capability in these specialties.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:26

 
The travels of LCPL David C. Botti

Sunday's New York Times carries an exceptional personal essay from David Botti, a Marine reserve infantryman who was mobilized first for post-9/11 security and later for combat duty in Iraq. LCPL Botti answered the call both times, taking himself away from his nascent writing career and dreams of living in New York City. But he took his journal with him to war, and captured a number of the stories of his comrades while deployed. The result, I hope, will eventually be some sort of war memoir (or work of fiction) that accurately characterizes the experiences of Marines in Iraq. His essay today marks his journey from New York to Iraq and back again to the big city.

The August night I returned to the city from Iraq, I found myself drunk in the bathroom of an East Village bar. As I steadied the wall, I wondered how this skin of mine, tanned brown from the Iraqi sun, could now soak up the atmosphere of a good, seedy city bar. Wondered how the people in line behind me could enjoy the night while their peers still slept with rifles, halfway around the world, where I had been just the week before.

I wandered back to my friends, and drifted out of the conversation as soon as I sat down. It was easy to leave the city once more, relive the past four months in the time it took for the next round to arrive. No one spoke to me. Perhaps my silence betrayed my thoughts; I was glad to be left alone. But at that moment I was not having flashbacks, or letting alcohol numb grief and pain. There was no nervous tick or trembling hands. My thoughts, my reverie, lay with the people I had known in Iraq, the soldiers and citizens still dealing with the violent reality.

As the fighting unexpectedly intensifies in Iraq, as the American body count rises, each headline strikes deeper, and I can still see it, still feel it: walking through a foreign city, looking to the rooftops, the windows, in alleys, behind me, in front, to the sides. One person thanks you for freedom, and the next stares through you as if you are already a ghost.

It is a forceful process, ingesting the news and carrying it with me through the day. There are moments when I want the rifle back in my hand, so I can return to Iraq and remain there, until the war ends in a solid conclusion. There is still a reluctance to forget my initial, unwavering idealism that leaving Iraq meant that things were improving, and that others would soon be following me home.

But sometimes, it's New York that feels like a foreign city. One night, in another bar, I read a note posted by the staff above the urinal that ridiculed the city's smoking ban and urged patrons to send Mayor Bloomberg hate mail in an attempt to change the law.

This was the city I had returned to: outspoken and opinionated, the center of freethinking. I want the inspiration and nurturing that New York can give young writers. I am not ashamed of my service, but am conscious that my past might overshadow what I want to accomplish. As my friends and I headed home from that Village bar last August, I allowed myself respite from the guilt of being safe and happy. I watched the blocks pass with the hopeful feeling that soon the city would cease to feel new again.

posted by Phillip Carter at 10:05

 
Is the NYT rewriting Time's copy?
2 stories on combat casualties seem eerily familiar, down to the details

Time had an exceptionally well-done piece in last week's issue (with Russell Crowe on the cover) about America's wounded from Iraq, and the long road they travel from wound to recovery. I was about to comment on it, and some of the advances (like body armor and medical corps doctrine) that have led to this paradigm shift in casualty evacation, treatment and recovery. Then I saw this piece by Neela Banerjee in the New York Times, scratched my head, and said "Gee... these look awfully similar." The stories are so similar, they even talk about the same computerized prosthetic limb that costs $100,000 each. And what's even odder is that the 16 Nov 03 New York Times story bears a 10 Nov 03 dateline, leading me to believe it sat in the editor's hopper for a while.

After the Blair incident, I doubt the NYT is actually lifting Time's copy or story ideas, and Ms. Banerjee is known as a good reporter. But it still struck me as odd that these two flagship publications would run what is basically the exact same story. What do you think?
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:10

 
Jessica Lynch and women in combat
Why Elaine Donnelly gets it wrong in the National Review

A lot has been said so far about Jessica Lynch, from the date of her capture through her rescue, recuperation, return home, discharge, and release of her book. Now, the inevitable charge has come from Elaine Donnelly, chair of the Center for Military Readiness, that Lynch's story exemplifies why women should not be sent into ground combat. Moreover, Donnelly argues in the National Review that Lynch was sent into harm's way because of 1994 reforms by the Clinton Administration that changed the Pentagon's policies for women on the battlefield. Here's an excerpt:

How did Lynch get to the frontlines, many Americans may wonder. Under rules issued by the Clinton administration, female soldiers in support units are now being forced into areas involving a "substantial risk of capture." This policy is inconsistent with privacy rules that deny information about what happens to women who are captured — unless a victim of sexual abuse decides to write a book months later.

During the first Persian Gulf War, then-major Rhonda Cornum, a medical doctor, was subjected to sexual indecencies within hours of her capture in 1991. An ardent advocate of women in combat, Cornum kept silent when Congress debated and repealed one of the laws exempting women from combat. Candor about her experience in captivity, which later appeared in her own 1992 book, could have changed the course of the congressional debate.

Jessica Lynch is not responsible for the media's irresponsible hyping of expedient myths that many people knew to be false. Nevertheless, the fairytale story manipulated public opinion on the issue of women in combat, which ideological feminists keep insisting is "not a big deal."

In 1994, Les Aspin, Bill Clinton's secretary of defense, announced new personnel-assignment regulations that were billed as expanded "career opportunities" for women. Female enlistees, including Lynch and former POW Spec. Shoshana Johnson, clearly were not aware that the rules had changed. No one told them, it seems, that women would be assigned to previously all-male units, even in support missions known to involve a "substantial risk of capture."

These Clinton-era rules remain in effect today. Civilian and uniformed Pentagon officials will not act on their own to initiate change unless the Commander in Chief provides a clear mandate for objective review and constructive change. Without further delay, President Bush should direct Pentagon officials to find a way for female soldiers to serve their country without deliberate exposure to greater, unequal risk, to the greatest degree possible.
* * *
There are restrictions on the discussion of war crimes such as rape, but with so many women being exposed to unprecedented risks of capture and abuse, perhaps those rules are in need of revision as well. If Defense Department officials cannot bring themselves to tell Americans the truth about what happens to women in war, perhaps they should not be sending female soldiers so close combat zones in the first place.

Analysis: This argument is wrong on several levels. As an initial matter, I should say that good things happen to bad units (sometimes it's better to be lucky than good) and bad things happen to good units. I have analyzed the 507th Maintenance Company ambush and I think that this was the predictable result of training, resourcing and leadership decisions made which sent a poorly prepared unit into combat and put them too close to the front lines. At the end of the day, though, the 507th was unlucky, and they paid a heavy price for that misfortune.

1. Jessica Lynch's position in the 507th Maintenance Company was not opened to women as a result of then-SecDef Aspin's rule change in 1994. (See the actual memo here) The 507th Maintenance Company habitually supports a Patriot missile unit. Doctrinally, this unit exists at the echelon above corps level. Doctrinally, they should fight far back on the battlefield, beyond the reach of enemy artillery and well behind the battalions, brigades, and divisions which actually fought the ground war in Iraq. PFC Lynch's supply clerk billet would have been open to women in 1990 for Gulf War I. PFC Lynch was not a front-line position, such as that in the 3rd Military Police Company or 1-227 Aviation (Attack) -- two units where women fought as MP soldiers and Apache helicopter pilots respectively. Instead, she held a supply clerk position in a rear area logistics unit where the risk of combat was thought to be low.

The 1994 rule change opened up a number of jobs for women, as I explain in this December 2002 cover article in the Washington Monthly. This rule changed allowed women to lead the way to Baghdad as MPs, intelligence officers, Apache pilots, front-line surgeons, and many other specialties. But this rule change had nothing to do with the 507th Maintenance Company, which even under the old Reagan-era rules, would have been open to women. Even under the "risk rule" that Ms. Donnelly writes of, the 507th would have been open to women.

2. So what happened? Well, the 507th Maintenance Company stumbled into combat as the result of many factors. Most importantly, CENTCOM planners built a warplan that called for a rapid advance through Iraq to Baghdad -- an advance which stretched American supply lines and left main supply routes unprotected. This allowed Iraqi guerillas to attack American logistics convoys and wreak havoc in our rear area. In addition, the "bypass criteria" was set very high on the advance to Baghdad, meaning that American tanks and infantry would bypass enemy platoons and companies as they fought on. These bypassed units were then faced by lightly-armed MPs and logistics units in the rear area, and also caused problems. At one point, GEN Tommy Franks had to pull entire brigades of infantry out of the fight in order to secure his rear area, because the dual problems of enemy guerillas and bypassed units had become so threatening to logistics and command units. The 507th Maintenance Company convoy was in this rear area, and they suffered as the result of an ambitious operational plan that lacked effective planning for security in the rear area.

On top of this failure, PFC Lynch's unit failed her. CPT Troy King, the company commander for the 507th, failed to effectively lead his company on the day in question. He wrote his route down wrong, got his convoy lost, and then failed to take effective actions on contact when the ambush was initiated -- at least, according to the Army's report on the subject. PFC Lynch paid the price for her company commander's dereliction of duty and poor performance, as have soldiers throughout history for the failures of their commanders. (Note: CPT King has not been officially disciplined by the Army, which appears to have taken the position that his bad luck should not be punished with criminal or administrative action. I beg to differ, and have a hard time reconciling the prosecution of men like LTC Allen West when the Army lets a commander like this escape the blame. Good or bad, company commanders are responsible everything that happens to their unit. The buck stops with the man or woman who wears captain's bars.)

3. Ironically, had PFC Lynch been assigned to a front-line unit like the 3rd MP Company, she probably would have been better prepared for combat. The 1994 reforms did open up a number of opportunities for women, including service in front-line MP units assigned at the division and brigade level. In these MP units, male and female soldiers conduct missions such as route reconnaissance and area security -- missions which often require them to train and fight as infantry or scouts. My last unit, the 4th MP Company, trained hard on these missions, and was well resourced to conduct them. We often trained with the scouts and infantry of our brigade, and even shot gunnery with our brigade's reconnaissance troop. That training has paid off. Despite seeing as much fighting as any unit on the battlefield, MP units have experienced relatively light casualties -- including no fatalities in my old unit. (Thank God) The best way to take care of soldiers and bring them home alive is to train them hard, and front-line units at the brigade level and below train hard with that in mind.

PFC Lynch was not assigned to such a front-line unit. She was assigned to a rear-echelon unit that likely had never done an NTC rotation, had never done a live-fire exercise, and had never done a field exercise longer than 2 weeks. Indeed, I doubt that PFC Lynch had effectively trained for combat since she graduated from basic training. The 507th certainly did not train effectively with the 3rd Infantry Division, under which it fought in Iraq. None of the 507th's officers or sergeants had experience with 3ID orders, maps, or TTPs. This lack of training and readiness was to blame, according to the Army, for the chain of events that led to the 507th being ambushed.

Jessica Lynch herself had this to say in an interview with Time Magazine:

What did they tell you to expect? "What you trained for [maintenance and supply] obviously wasn't what happened. We had to do the whole weapons qualification again to make sure that we knew how to operate a weapon, but also we did a lot of training with gas masks. In a sense we were ready, but we weren't ready for an ambush attack."

Did you feel your commanding officer had the training and equipment he needed to do his job? "Yeah, I think he did. I think it was just all a big mistake that happened. Just fatigue, sleepiness, the whole thing—we were just not prepared."

As I stated earlier, it's impossible to know whether good training and leadership would have made the difference when the 507th was ambushed. But we can certainly point to the absence of such training as a key factor in the 507th's failure to respond to its ambush. As PFC Lynch herself has said -- she didn't even get off a shot. Why? Because her weapon jammed. Why? Because it was poorly maintained and poorly lubricated and poorly cleaned. Why? Because the NCOs and officers in her unit lacked the training, experience and fieldcraft to effectively lead their soldiers in combat. The results were all too clear. If you want to fix these problems, don't take women out of these units. Make every soldier a rifleman instead, led by competent officers and NCOs who have what it takes to accomplish the mission and take care of their soldiers.

Bottom Line: PFC Lynch and her unit were not ready for combat when they went into harm's way. Too many of the soldiers in the 507th paid the price for that readiness. PFC Lynch was no front-line soldier, and she was no Rambo. But PFC Lynch was no further forward on the battlefield than thousands of other women -- women who have served ably and effectively for more than 15 years. Her ambush and capture should not be used to judge the 1994 reforms which opened up more positions to women, because frankly, those reforms had nothing to do with where PFC Lynch was on the battlefield.

If you want to draw lessons from the 507th Maintenance Company incident, you should do so. But draw those lessons from what actually happened, as reported by the Army's after-action review and its forthcoming 15-6 investigation; draw those lessons from the facts about the 1994 policy change, and how it allowed women further forward on the battlefield than ever before. But don't draw conclusions about the 1994 policy changes that let women into front-line units, when those policy changes had nothing to do with the 507th Maintenance Company or PFC Lynch. Doing so is disingenuous, and takes liberties with the facts and the policy of this matter. It also does a disservice to the thousands of women in Iraq today who have ably and effectively served their nation in uniform, and deserve to be recognized for their accomplishments.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:43

 
John Keegan's latest work

Joseph E. Persico reviewed John Keegan's latest book this past weekend in the New York Times, titled Intelligence In War: Knowledge of the Enemy From Napoleon to Al-Qaeda. (The Times also has this excerpt from the first chapter of the book) The book looks like a must-buy for anyone interested in military history, intelligence, or operational art. (In other words, it's on my list to buy/read) Mr. Persico's review makes the book look even more appealing.

Though ''Intelligence in War'' carries the subtitle ''Knowledge of the Enemy From Napoleon to Al-Qaeda,'' Keegan has written not a history, but several case histories, measuring the contribution that intelligence made to victory. He is put off by the romantic notion generated by espionage fact and fiction that spies somehow win battles, even wars, by ruses, pilfered secrets and cracked codes. His own conclusion, hammered home again and again, is that ''decision in war is always the result of a fight, and in combat willpower always counts for more than foreknowledge. Let those who disagree show otherwise.''

While spying is as ancient as the pharaohs, Keegan dates the beginnings of ''real time'' intelligence, that is, information obtained in sufficient time to be used, to the invention of radio. He illustrates the limitations of intelligence before then in the chapter entitled ''Chasing Napoleon,'' his case history of Admiral Nelson's 1798 zigzag hunt across the Mediterranean in search of the French fleet. Surprisingly, even in that era, information could fly -- from the Admiralty in London to the English coast in two minutes, via a chain of semaphore stations. But once the fleet put out to sea, communication vanished over the horizon. Consequently, while the Admiralty had intelligence from several sources that the French fleet was headed for Egypt to obstruct Britain's trade routes to India, no way existed to get this information into Nelson's hands in time for him to act on it. That the French fleet was finally destroyed at Alexandria after a 73-day chase had more to do with Nelson's deductive genius, Keegan says, than with the stale intelligence that was arriving from London. By World War I, however, the development of radio, as Keegan puts it, ''altered for ever the nature of war at sea,'' and on land as well. Which leads to his root question: can intelligence win rather than merely abet victories?

Keegan takes a hard look at the role of intelligence in the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II, beginning with an observation from Prime Minister Winston Churchill that ''the only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.'' Was Churchill's concern justified? In the conventional telling, Allied intelligence, particularly code breakers, located German U-boat wolf packs, which Allied ships and planes then sank. This, it is said, saved Britain from strangulation. But Keegan is quite ready to sacrifice the heroic legend to the duller truth. Yes, the Allies did defeat the German U-boat fleet in the Atlantic. And yes, intelligence did play an instrumental role. But, he points out, even in 1943, the year of the biggest convoy battles, 9,097 Allied ships made it safely across the ocean, while only 139 were lost. He concludes that ''the Battle of the Atlantic could have been won without the assistance of the code breakers.''
* * *
In this latest work, Keegan has not set out to debunk intelligence. Rather he has sought to place the clandestine underbelly of war in perspective, to wrest it from the popular imagination as some sort of entertaining shortcut to victory. In the end, as he puts it, ''It is force, not fraud or forethought, that counts.'' Whatever its truth, the roots of this conviction are not hard to divine. Keegan came to military history well before he came to military intelligence, and he understands all too well the barbarous physical reality of war as contrasted to the largely cerebral battlefields of intelligence warriors. To John Keegan, warfare has always been far more blood and guts than cloak and dagger.

posted by Phillip Carter at 09:15

 
A letter from Kabul

Patrick Belton also has this report at Oxblog from his correspondent in Kabul, Afghanistan, which gives a pretty interesting slice of life from a country that's largely been forgotten by the major newspapers. Interestingly, my military friends send back two kinds of e-mail. Those stuck on the major bases (e.g. Bagram Air Base) for force protection reasons write about a dreary existence, much like the movie Groundhog Day. Those allowed to move around the country, such as civil affairs officers, paint a much more dynamic and interesting picture of the country.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:47

 
Language analysis, gender and blogging

Patrick Belton has an interesting report at Oxblog on the results of a language analysis he did on several blog posts, using the internet Gender Genie. He also plugged in some female authors, including Maureen Dowd and Virginia Postrel. Suffice to say, the results were less than stellar. I imagine that an analysis of Intel Dump would look about the same, although it would certainly reflect the language used by my sources (NYT, WP, WSJ, LAT, etc) as much as my own prose.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:44

 
Mark Kleiman on Clark's ideas to enlist Saudi commandos in search for OBL

My UCLA mentor/colleague Mark Kleiman has some thoughts on the comments by retired-Gen. Wesley Clark that he would like to attach Saudi commandos to U.S. special operations units looking for Osama Bin Laden. Mark things it's a no-lose proposition, insofar as we would gain diplomatically and maybe even catch the guy.

Operationally, I'm not so sure. There is the risk of sharing too much of our special operations capabilities -- things the Saudis, Egyptians, and Pakistanis have no idea about. This is a lot like the reticence showed by spooks about revealing "sources and methods". We don't want to show countries (who aren't our really close allies like Britain or Australia) what we can do with units like the Army's Special Forces or the Navy's SEALs. A lot's been made about the "blowback" from American support for the Afghan rebels during the war with the former Soviet Union. Well, if we taught the Saudis to do special ops and then the Saudis had a regime change of their own (not an improbable thing), we'd see a whole lot of blowback.

Then there's the matter of Saudi special forces themselves. I'm no expert on the subject, but I've never heard of Saudi commandos extolled along with the great commando forces of the world, like the British Special Air Service or the Israeli commandos who took down the airliner at Entebbe. Surely, the Saudi military has some intelligence and language/cultural capabilities that we would love to add to our special operations community. But I'm not sure the Saudis could really add anything in operational terms to our own American special operations forces.

Still, this idea has some appeal. I would bet that Wes Clark got this idea from an old special ops veteran that he knows, and that it's an idea being seriously considered in the military's "black" community right now. Though a 4-star general, Clark has very little special operations experience of his own. "Good ideas" that are ill-considered tend to get people killed in this line of work, and Clark knows at least that much. I think he would have vetted this idea with some of his special ops friends before offering it up for public debate.

Update: Apparently, operational capabilities mean a lot more to the Pentagon than language or cultural abilities. The Korea Times reports that American officials are interested in deploying the South Korean special forces units known as "Sangnoksu'' to Iraq.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, will inspect South Korea's Special Forces Command Tuesday--a symbolic move indicating that the United States is eyeing the crack contingent for dispatch to Iraq.

"Gen. Myers' visit to our Special Forces Command was arranged at the request of the United States delegation to the Military Committee Meeting (MCM), which will be held on Saturday,'' a Defense Ministry official said. "The U.S. side explained it has heard much about the fame of the `Sangnoksu' unit and Gen. Myers wanted to observe it in person.''

The "Sangnoksu'' Unit, part of the Special Forces Command, was sent to newly independent East Timor for peacekeeping operations four years ago.

Experts believe the top U.S. military officer is hinting that his country wants the special forces to be sent to Iraq, since it is rare for a someone of Myers' rank tomake such an inspection.

Interesting... more to follow.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:41

 
Did Iraq plan to fight a guerilla war all along?

Vernon Loeb and Tom Ricks suggest in Thursday's Washington Post that the Iraqi plan all along might have been to fade away in the face of the American-led onslaught, and to launch a 4th generation guerilla offensive with Iraqi troops and weapons not used to fight the Americans on the open field of battle. If true, the Iraqis are running a classic play from the insurgency playbook. As Mao wrote more than 50 years ago, the reed should bend with the wind and then snap back up again. In this case, the Iraqi reeds bent down low while American armored vehicles swept through the country, and have now begun to snap up as guerillas where they can inflict the maximum potential damage on America's efforts to build a new Iraq.

Knowing from the 1991 Persian Gulf War that they could not take on the U.S. military with conventional forces, these officers believe, the Baath Party government cached weapons before the Americans invaded this spring and planned to employ guerrilla tactics.

"I believe Saddam Hussein always intended to fight an insurgency should Iraq fall," said Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division and the man responsible for combat operations in the lower Sunni Triangle, the most unstable part of Iraq. "That's why you see so many of these arms caches out there in significant numbers all over the country. They were planning to go ahead and fight an insurgency, should Iraq fall."

In an interview Wednesday at his headquarters northwest of the capital, Swannack said the speed of the fall of Baghdad in April probably caught Hussein and his followers by surprise and prevented them from launching the insurgence for a few months. That would explain why anti-U.S. violence dropped off noticeably in July and early August but then began to trend upward.

* * *

Lt. Col. Oscar Mirabile, a brigade commander credited with running a sophisticated and largely successful security operation in the Sunni Triangle town of Ramadi, agreed that the Baathist attacks were long planned.

"He released criminals out onto the streets," said Mirabile, a Miami police official and former homicide detective who commands the 1st Brigade, 124th Infantry Regiment of the Florida National Guard, which has been operating in Ramadi since May. "Why would anybody do that? Saddam knew he couldn't win a war head to head against coalition forces. He was setting the stage for what you're looking at right now."

Analysis: I think this article is dead on. The longer the Iraqi insurgency goes on, the more sophistication it demonstrates, and the more and more it looks like a concerted, planned, resourced effort to fight the U.S. with asymmetric means. This is no ad hoc insurgency thrown together by amateurs. Recent operations against the UN compound, the American "green zone", and other locations have shown that we are facing a well-led and well-resourced enemy with substantial intelligence and a relatively coherent operational plan.

However, it does not look like we face a hierarchical, centrally-planned and controlled enemy force. Instead, it looks like the Iraqis issued mission-style guidance to their subordinates sometime back in March or April. At a certain decision point -- the "tipping point" of American success -- the Iraqi command probably decided to activate this branch plan and fade away to fight asymmetrically. The Iraqi army cached war materiel and established a network of insurgent cells around the country -- possibly mirroring the former Iraqi Army command structure. The result is a highly decentralized, cellular, insular network of enemies that cannot be decapitated or stopped by the excision of a single cell. Indeed, this type of enemy presents itself much like the Hydra of mythological lore -- when you cut off one head, another grows in its place.

This type of Iraqi insurgency does not preclude the possibility of foreign terrorists operating inside Iraq. Indeed, this operational construct would embrace such a possibility. In the threat doctrine promulgated by the Army's intelligence community, the enemy almost always embraces some sort of terrorist or paramilitary organization to do its "wet work", and to conduct sensitive or political operations beyond the capability of its conventional forces. In the instant case, it appears that the Iraqi insurgent networks have incorporated at least some aspects of Ansar Al-Islam or Al Qaeda -- if only by embracing those groups operational doctrine and expertise. (See this LAT piece by Esther Schrader on that threat) The recent simultaneous suicide bombings, mortar and RPG attacks illustrate these common tactics, techniques and procedures. But the jury's still out as to whether Al Qaeda or Ansar Al-Islam is actually conducting operations inside Iraq.

Bottom Line: If the intel picture painted by Loeb and Ricks is shared by CFLCC and CENTCOM, it could explain the recent statements by LTG Sanchez and GEN Abizaid that they plan to resume offensive operations in Iraq. Last night, the 1st Armored Division (among other units) launched a new operation in Iraq directed at destroying this nascent insurgency. It could also explain Paul Bremer's visit to the White House this week. Fred Kaplan and Josh Marshall both seem to think that nation-building operations are about to take a back seat to a new phase of combat operations. If it's true that we're facing a planned Iraqi insurgency of this magnitude, that may be the right thing to do.

Update I: The insurgency may be working in at least one sense: it's isolating America from our allies and keeping a number of nations from sending troops to Iraq. Korea has stalled its deployment of a brigade to support the American-led occupation of Iraq, and now Japan has balked too. The deteriorating security situation in Iraq continues to deter nations who are interested in nation building -- but unwilling to incur casualties -- from joining our effort in Iraq. At this rate, the Iraqi insurgency may succeed simply by exhausting the American military's force structure (we can't occupy Iraq indefinitely with our current force structure) and preventing our allies from helping out. Of course, a political change in the U.S. could change this calculus, particularly if a committed multilateralist like Wes Clark were elected. But this appears to be the Iraqi end game: inflict casualties and cause chaos for as long as it takes to exhaust America.

Update II: GEN Abizaid, the CENTCOM commander, estimates that America faces roughly 5,000 insurgents in Iraq, according to the LA Times. The CENTCOM commander also paints this fight in terms very similar to those in the Ricks & Loeb piece quoted above:

"The goal of the enemy is not to defeat us militarily," Gen. John Abizaid said at a news conference in Baghdad today. "The goal of the enemy is to break the will of the United States of America, to make us leave."
. . .

"People will say, 'Well, that's a very small number," Abizaid said. "But when you understand that they're organized in cellular structure, that they have a brutal and determined cadre, that they know how to operate covertly, they have access to a lot of money and a lot of ammunition, you'll understand how dangerous they are."
. . .

In order to defeat the guerrillas, the general said the key is gathering information so U.S. forces can preempt their plans to "split the coalition." But Abizaid said he agrees that U.S. plans in Iraq ultimately will succeed.

"There is no doubt in my mind that with patience, perseverance and courage," he said, "we will see this thing through."

Right. The question presented by this latest escalation in violence is whether tactical actions by the Iraqi insurgents will inflict such losses so as to diminish the American public's "patience, perseverance and courage". This, in turn, will create political pressure to minimize casualties at the cost of mission accomplishment, placing the imperative of force protection over mission accomplishment. Over time, this will translate into political pressure to withdraw from Iraq entirely. The only way to forestall that strategy is for the White House to justify these sacrifices to the American public. In Churchillian fashion, we must let our enemies know that we will pursue victory at any cost. Only then will the Iraqi insurgency's strategy fail.

Update III: Another tea leaf has been uncovered today that points toward the resumption of major combat operations in Iraq. According to ABC News, GEN John Abizaid has directed CENTCOM to deploy a major headquarters element to Doha, Qatar, where GEN Tommy Franks operated during the war earlier this year.

By moving his headquarters back to Doha, Qatar, Abizaid will be able to move in and out of the war zone, making it easier for him to keep track of the situation, the sources said. He will also be in the same time zone, allowing him and his staff to act more quickly on intelligence, the sources added.

Since taking command of U.S. Central Command, which covers the Middle East, in July, Abizaid has run the Iraq war from CENTCOM's permanent base in Tampa, Fla.

Abizaid has made frequent trips to the region — a grueling 7,000-mile commute across the Atlantic Ocean. The arrangement will allow U.S. officials more planning and operation capabilities.

Although Abizaid's predecessor, Gen. Tommy Franks, left Qatar on May 1, the day after Bush declared that major combat in Iraq was over, Doha never officially closed as a headquarters. It is considered a "split headquarters," along with Tampa.

The move to Qatar will involve about 400 people on the CENCTOM staff, and they are expected to be there at least two months.

Update IV: The Washington Post reports that the Army has uncovered a large Iraqi weapons cache in Tikrit and captured or killed a number of Iraqi guerillas in its renewed offensive. This appears to be a tactical success, and will certainly help the coalition reverse the deteriorating security situation.
posted by Phillip Carter at 05:42

 
The changing definition of American heroism in battle

Tuesday's edition of the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) had an excellent article by Jonathan Eig on the daring wartime exploits of Captain Zan Hornbuckle of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division. The article makes the point that while you've heard of PFC Jessica Lynch -- and probably heard many describe her as a hero -- you probably haven't heard about many heroic warriors like CPT Hornbuckle, whose actions were credited with turning the tide at a key point in the battle for Baghdad.

Capt. Hornbuckle's name has never appeared in a newspaper or on television. He has received no book deals, no movie offers, no trips to Disneyland. In September, when he went to see his parents in Tifton, Ga., his mother called the local Holiday Inn and asked the manager to put her son's name -- he goes by Zan -- on the hotel marquee. That has been his most public recognition so far.

He is one of several soldiers who rose to extraordinary heights on the battlefield in Iraq, received honors from the military and returned home to anonymity. Instead, the best-known soldier of the Iraq War is Jessica Lynch, who suffered broken bones and other injuries when her maintenance convoy was attacked. She was rescued from an Iraqi hospital a week later.

The rescue and initial reports -- later discredited -- that the 19-year-old had survived bullet and stab wounds and continued fighting helped make her a celebrity. Stores in her hometown of Palestine, W.Va., sold T-shirts with her name on them. Volunteers planted a new garden in front of her house. Alfred A. Knopf, the publishing house, signed her to a $1 million book deal. "Saving Jessica Lynch," a TV movie about her plight, was broadcast Sunday.

Why did she become the individual celebrated in popular culture and not one of the other men and women who distinguished themselves in combat? The answer lies on the home front as much as on the battlefield.

In World War I, Cpl. Alvin York gained fame for killing 25 Germans and capturing 132. In World War II, Second Lt. Audie Murphy was credited with 240 kills and went on to star in the movie "To Hell and Back," which told the story of his bravery.

Military culture still celebrates the soldier who racks up a high body count. But since the Vietnam War, much of the country has tended to venerate survivors more than aggressors, the injured more than those who inflict injuries.

"People didn't want to view Vietnam vets as heroes," says Army Sgt. Scott Hansen, 56, who served as a helicopter-door gunner in Vietnam and won a Bronze Star with a V for valor for his conduct last year in Afghanistan. "I think people went there to survive -- put in their time and move on."

Many modern war memorials, most notably the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, don't include guns at all. In the 1990s, Hasbro Inc. marketed some of its G.I. Joe action figures as "Eco-Warriors" who fought the destruction of the environment. These days, when Hollywood makes a war movie, it often focuses on saving American lives -- "Saving Private Ryan," "Black Hawk Down," "Behind Enemy Lines" -- not killing others.

* * *

. . . the military today has some discomfort with the stories of individual soldiers. Asked why the Army didn't do more to publicize Capt. Hornbuckle's feats, Richard Olson, a public-affairs officer for Capt. Hornbuckle's battalion, says the thought never occurred to him. "An aspect of a soldier is that he's trained to kill," he says. "And I don't know that the public is comfortable with that."

"There's a funny shift," says John A. Lynn, who teaches military history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "We want to fight wars but we don't want any of our people to die and we don't really want to hurt anybody else. So Pvt. Lynch, who suffers, is a hero even if she doesn't do much. She suffered for us."

Analysis: I think this story nails it on the head. Our society has changed a great deal since WWI (when Alvin York was called a hero), WWII (when Audie Murphy earned the same title), or even Vietnam. We live in an age when merely serving in uniform sets one apart from the crowd. Survivorship is something which is exalted. We call PFC Lynch a hero even though she did not do anything particularly valorous or heroic in the tragic 507th Maintenance Company ambush, which left her grievously wounded. We call her a hero because of what she suffered through while in captivity. While her acts were certainly courageous, they can be distinguished from the type of heroism and valor demonstrated by CPT Hornbuckle, and prized by warriors throughout the ages.

On some level, every man or woman who serves in uniform is a hero, because they have volunteered to serve in a job that could place them in harm's way. On another level, every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine who deploys to war and does his/her job is a hero. And on a final level, we can certainly exalt those who made the ultimate sacrifice as heroes. But all of these definitions depart from that of warriors throughout history, who have defined heroism as something different; something that goes above and beyond the call of duty.

There are those situations, such as the battle for Objectives Larry, Moe and Curly, or other engagements, where every soldier steps up to perform in a heroic manner. Admiral Chester Nimitz said it best when he said that "[a]mong the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue." From what I've read of that terrible island battle, Admiral Nimitz was certainly correct in his assessment. Similar comments can probably be made about other battles, from Little Round Top in 1863 to Shah-i-kot Valley in 2002. But in most situations, I think we lose something when we devalue the word "hero", and use it to describe the masses. Heroes are something special; they provide an inspiration and an example for us. We should keep it that way, and reserve this label for only the most deserving acts.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:14

 
Book recommendation

There aren't many non-fiction books that you can start and finish on a cross-country flight. The War on Our Freedoms: Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism is one of them. Despite the ominous title, this is not a series of tirades against John Ashcroft or the Bush Administration -- it's a series of moderate, well-written, well-researched essays in each aspect of the legal war on terrorism. I liked it so much that I plan to assign it for my class on American Law & Terrorism next quarter. If you're looking for a one-stop-shop book that covers everything from the USA PATRIOT Act to FISA to 18 U.S.C. 2339b, this is it.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:48

 
Air Force sends forward non-capital charges against Gitmo interpreter

Senior Airman Ahmad I. Al Halabi will face non-capital charges before a general court-martial at Travis Air Force Base in California, according to the Air Force. Some of the charges were dismissed against Airman Halabi. The most important part of this news release is that the Air Force will not seek the death penalty for Airman Halabi, as it theoretically could have done under the UCMJ articles for espionage and aiding the enemy.

Charges referred include seven specifications alleging the accused failed to obey a lawful general order or regulation in violation of Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ); one specification alleging the accused aided the enemy in violation of Article 104; four specifications alleging espionage in violation of Article 106a; five specifications alleging the accused made false official statements in violation of Article 107; two specifications charged under Article 134 alleging the accused willfully retained documents without authority in violation of 18 U.S.C. 793; and one specification charged under Article 134 alleging the accused executed a fraudulent credit application scheme in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1344.

Charges against Senior Airman Al Halabi that were dismissed include four specifications alleging the accused failed to obey a lawful general order or regulation in violation of Article 92; one specification alleging the accused aided the enemy in violation of Article 104; four specifications alleging the accused made false official statements in violation of Article 107; and one specification charged under Article 134 alleging a violation of 18 U.S.C. 793.
* * *
Senior Airman Al Halabi was on temporary duty at Guantanamo Bay (GTMO), Cuba, for nine months serving as a translator at the time of the alleged offenses. He was apprehended at Jacksonville Naval Air Station, Fla., July 23, and was transported to his home station, Travis AFB the next day. He is currently being held in pretrial confinement at Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

Analysis: Despite the dismissal of certain charges and command decision to forgo the death penalty, I still think these are serious charges. Airman Halabi may still spend the rest of his life behind bars for the crimes he is alleged to have committed. We have no way of knowing -- based on the information that's been made public -- how much damage he did to America's national security at Guantanamo Bay. Presumably, that kind of evidence will be part of the trial in this case, and the members of Airman Halabi's military jury will have to weigh the facts of those crimes in determining whether he should be found guilty or not. Even then, we (the public) may never learn of these facts, if they are considered too sensitive to release to the public that they remain classified for the duration of the trial. We'll see.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:34

 
1,300 reservists allege job discrimination after demobilization

The Washington Post carries this disturbing report today on complaints filed with the Department of Labor by soldiers who allege discriminatory treatment by employers upon their return from duty. Mobilized reservists enjoy the protection of two major laws -- the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act, and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. More than 1,300 reservists have filed complaints with the Department of Labor saying their employers may have violated those laws, up from 900 in 2001.

Concerned about the rise in complaints, Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao has released a televised public service announcement reminding employers that they must reinstate workers called to military duty. "They did their job -- now let's do ours," Chao says.

Under a 1994 law, it is illegal to discriminate against military personnel mobilized for duty. Returning personnel are supposed to be allowed to return to their same, or a comparable job, complete with any pay raises or promotions they might have otherwise received if they had remained at work.

The United States has become increasingly reliant on National Guard and reserve forces, which now make up about half of the U.S. military personnel in Iraq. Since Sept. 11, 2001, 306,000 Reserve and Guardsmen have been mobilized, including about 163,000 now on active duty.

For the most part, employers across the country have been generous in dealing with their National Guard and reserve employees, officials said. Hundreds of firms have begun making up the pay difference between their military and civilian pay, according to Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, and many offer health benefits as well.

In about one-third of the cases filed in the past year, reserve and guard personnel said they missed out on jobs and promotions as a result of their mobilization, and about 20 percent said they weren't reinstated in their jobs. The rest of the cases involve vacation, seniority and pension issues, Labor Department officials said.

The department referred 79 of the cases to the Department of Justice for possible civil prosecution. A Justice spokesman said the department couldn't determine whether any lawsuits have resulted from the recent complaints. The U.S. attorney in Denver has filed two lawsuits on behalf of National Guard and reserve forces in the past six months.

Analysis: These two laws provide a lot of protections for active-duty and reserve soldiers, including protection from creditors and employers while overseas. But the protection is imperfect, as this story illustrates. The USERRA in particular contains loopholes through which employers can restructure themselves to eliminate jobs, or take other measures which have an adverse impact on the soldier. At the end of the day, our soldiers pay a heavy price for their decisions to serve in the military, especially those with jobs in the private sector. If we want reservists who are able to make a good living as civilians and serve their country as part-time warriors, we need to take a hard look at these legal protections and see if they need adjustment for today's reservists. The laws were written at a time when a major mobilization was only expected in the case of another world war -- that's no longer the case. Today's reservist must live with constant mobilizations, and I think these legal protections are probably insufficient for that situation.
posted by Phillip Carter at 06:50

 
Veterans taking care of veterans

The Washington Post carries a moving report this morning about a group of older veterans of past wars who have taken it upon themselves to greet American soldiers coming home on leave from Iraq through Baltimore-Washington International airport. Many of these men are Vietnam veterans who want to ensure that these men face a better homecoming than they received.

"Welcome back. Good to have you home," said Bill Self, a Vietnam War veteran, extending his hand to each soldier arriving for two weeks of home leave. Beyond him, a second line of veterans was waiting with telephone cards allowing the soldiers to make free calls across the country.

At the end of the gantlet stood Ray Shipley, 75, a Korean War veteran from Bowie who served in both the Army and Air Force. He knew that every second of leave is precious and wanted to make sure the soldiers didn't waste it sitting in an airport. Like the old buck sergeant he is, Shipley hurried them off to the appropriate ticket agent.

"They only have 15 days, and that time starts as soon as they get off the airplane," he said.

He spotted a soldier dragging a green duffle bag. "Hey, sarge, come on over here. Welcome home, buddy. Where you going? . . . Chicago? See the man here. He'll get you there in a couple of hours -- or less."

With polls showing rising doubt at home about the wisdom of the Iraqi war, the veterans who show up every morning to greet the troops at Baltimore-Washington International say their mission is to make sure the returning soldiers know that they still have the support of Americans.

"These guys are fighting over there, and there are all these arguments. Somebody should tell these guys, 'Hey, you're fighting for us, and we appreciate it,' " Shipley said. "It's not their fault that we get in the predicaments that governments put us into."

It is a lesson some of the veterans know well. Self is a former Navy corpsman who served with the 3rd Marine Division in Da Nang in 1965 and 1966.

"I went through the same thing in Vietnam," Self, 74, said. "There wasn't anyone to see me when I got home, so we're here to make sure that doesn't happen again."

posted by Phillip Carter at 06:41

 
Older veterans who hold their own

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting article this morning about a couple of older gentlemen serving in the Florida Army National Guard -- and now fighting in Iraq. Warfare has historically been a young man's endeavor, largely for the physical toll it exacts on the body. But these men are proving that they're tough enough to hang in there.

A few days ago, resting on his cot after a nighttime patrol in the brutal streets of Baghdad, [Sgt. James] Flores, a grandfather, sat bolt upright: "It hit me all of a sudden. I said, 'Oh, Lord, I turn 50 tomorrow.' I never thought in my lifetime that I'd be at war at that age."

With his birthday, which he celebrated on another patrol, Flores dashed the notion that war belongs to only the young and joined a minority of servicemen and women who, at 50 and above, have gone to battle.

Fewer than 1% of U.S. troops are in the 50-to-59-year-old bracket, which makes up 12% of the nation's population.

While it is not unusual for senior officers and noncommissioned officers to achieve "senior citizen" status in the military — Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition troops in Iraq, is 52 — Flores is still one of the foot soldiers, pulling guard duty, eating MREs, staying in shape and, as best he can, thinking young.

"To tell you the truth, I don't see much difference between what I do and what a 19-year-old does," said Flores, who works two jobs as a cook back home in Kissimmee. "I passed the annual PT [physical training] test, and I saw some 22-year-olds who couldn't. That made me feel really proud."
* * *
In Iraq, Staff Sgt. Paul Stevens, 52, thought for a moment about his age, then said, "Well, some people tell me I may be the oldest squad gunner — machine gunner — in the infantry." He quickly added that he relished duty with the Florida National Guard here.

"This is why I stayed in the reserves," said Stevens, who's in Iraq with Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry. "To serve. It's an honor for me to serve at this age."

A two-tour Vietnam veteran who rejoined the military after 13 years as a civilian so he could fight in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Stevens knows Charlie Company's younger soldiers view him with a touch of awe.

"The way this thing is going," said a 19-year-old specialist eyeing Stevens, "I may be as old as he is by the time I get out of Iraq."

"We figured we'd be guarding a Patriot site or something," Stevens said. "But we got lucky and got assigned to the Special Forces, training in Jordan for pilot rescue. It was a lot of night training. The terrain was terrible, like walking on the moon. You'd fall over stones, hit the ground, roll and get up and go on. With my machine gun, 600 rounds of ammunition and body armor, I figure I was carrying 80 or 100 pounds.

"Sometimes I was really hurting. But the younger guys were hurting worse. Some of them broke and had to drop out. I never got to that point. Sure, the younger guys kind of joke about my age. But that doesn't bother me at all. I think it's pretty cool. Just like I think it's pretty cool we crossed the berm into Iraq two days before the war started."

posted by Phillip Carter at 06:36

 
Veterans Day message from Intel Dump

Veterans Day is always a solemn occasion to reflect on and to show our gratitude for those who have fought to preserve the freedoms all Americans enjoy today.

This day was designated as "Armistice Day" after World War I to pay tribute to those who served in that war. This holiday was originally commemorated on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to mark the anniversary of the agreement which ended WWI. In 1954, the day's significance was expanded by Congress to honor all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, coast guardsmen, and merchant marines who have worn our Nation's uniform. By pausing to remember, we recognize the many diverse and difficult circumstances that our Veterans have faced. However, no matter what the time or the uniform, they are united by the same ideals: life and liberty, peace and prosperity, service and sacrifice.

There are currently more than 25 million living American veterans, many of whom put their lives on the line to preserve our freedoms. Through each of these challenges, the members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard have protected our country and liberated millions of people around the world from the threats of tyranny and terror.

On the observance of Veterans Day in 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower called on all citizens to not only remember "the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly..." but also to rededicate themselves "to the task of promoting an enduring peace...." Today, almost 50 years later, we remember the dedication of our veterans, and resolve ourselves to upholding their legacy of justice, liberty, and opportunity for all.

I ask that you set aside a moment this Veterans Day to remember the service and sacrifices of American veterans, past and present.

(I cobbled this message together from past messages sent by the President and JCS Chairman to send to the UCLA law school student body and faculty.)
posted by Phillip Carter at 06:20

 
Supreme Court grants cert to Gitmo cases

The AP reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a pair of cases arising from America's detention of more than 600 men at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They are currently held there as "unlawful enemy combatants", just outside the reach of the 3rd Geneva Convention, but with most of the humanitarian protections found in that document. The narrow question presented by these appeals is whether U.S. courts have jurisdiction to hear the appeals from these men.

The appeals came from British, Australian and Kuwaiti citizens held with more than 600 others suspected of being Taliban or al-Qaida foot soldiers. The court combined the appeals and will hear the consolidated case sometime next year.

Lower courts had found that the American civilian court system did not have authority to hear the men's complaints about their treatment.

"The United States has created a prison on Guantanamo Bay that operates entirely outside the law," lawyers for British and Australian detainees argued in asking the high court to take the case.

"Within the walls of this prison, foreign nationals may be held indefinitely, without charges or evidence of wrongdoing, without access to family, friends or legal counsel, and with no opportunity to establish their innocence," they maintained.

The men whose names are on that case do not even know about the lawsuit, lawyers from the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights told the court. The lawsuit brought on their behalf claims they are not al-Qaida members and and no involvement in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The Bush administration replied that a lower federal appeals court properly looked to a Supreme Court case arising from World War II to determine that foreigners held outside the United States cannot bring the kind of court challenge at issue now. The 1950 case said German prisoners detained by the United States in China had no right to access to federal courts.

The Guantanamo base is a 45-square-mile area on the southeastern tip of Cuba. The land was seized by the United States in the Spanish-American War and has been leased from Cuba for the past century. The lease far predates the communist rule of Fidel Castro.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had rejected the detainees' claim that Guantanamo Bay is under the de facto control of the United States, even though it remains a part of Cuba.

Solicitor General Theodore Olson, whose wife was killed aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, told the court that the prisoners' lawsuit has great "potential for interference with the core war powers of the president."

President Bush (news - web sites) has recommended that six of the Guantanamo detainees, including Australian David Hicks, be the first to face military tribunals established for the global war on terror.

Analysis: As with nearly every Supreme Court case, the real issue is whether the Court will decide this case narrowly or broadly. If the court rules narrowly on the jurisdictional question alone, that may not necessarily derail the Bush Administration's legal strategy for dealing with detainees in the war on terrorism. Moreover, such a narrow legal ruling might not affect the detentions of U.S. citizens at U.S. military prisons, such as Jose Padilla. However, if the Court decides to issue a sweeping decision (a'la Lawrence v. Texas) addressing all aspects of the war on terrorism, then I think this could be significant. In this decision, the Court will have the opportunity to hear and address many aspects of the war on terrorism, and the larger question of balancing liberty with security. If the Court takes the opportunity to address those larger questions, then this could really be a monumental decision.

What are the odds that they'll do that? I don't know. But my hunch is that the Court will seize this opportunity to issue a decision larger than the facts of this case. In a Q&A session I attended last year at the Reagan Library, Justice Anthony Kennedy hinted that he felt such issues would ultimately be decided by his court. Also, there appears to be a circuit split growing between the 2nd Circuit and 4th Circuit on the issues of unlawful combatants and access to counsel, among other issues. The law in this area is somewhat messy and outdated, and the Court may want to clarify its precedent for lower circuits. In the end, I still can only make an educated guess, but I think the court will issue a broad holding in this case when they ultimately decide it.

Will Justice Rehnquist have to recuse himself from this vote? I'm not all that clear about the rules of judicial conduct as they apply to justices of the Supreme Court. But there is an argument to be made that the conservative Chief Justice might have to step down for this case because of his past writings on civil liberties in wartime. Justice Rehquist is the recent author of All the Liberties But One: Civil Liberties in Wartime. To some extent, I think his research and writing in this area reveals some bias on the issue, and his bias appears to be against the petition in this case. If Justice Scalia recused himself for his remarks on religion and the state, then I think there's at least an argument to be made that Justice Rehnquist should recuse himself on this case. We'll see.

Update I: Robert Greenberger and Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) correct one of my statements about the breadth of this decision to grant cert. The Supreme Court will only look at the narrower question of whether the courts have jurisdiction to hear petitions from prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay. The Court's order limits the case to "[w]hether United States courts lack jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba."

In accepting the case, the Supreme Court limited its review to whether federal courts have any jurisdiction over Guantanamo, rather than some of the broader legal issues raised by the detentions. Mr. Ratner said the court may "look at this as a Guantanamo vs. Bagram question," referring to the Afghan military base where the U.S. also detains and interrogates suspected terrorists.

So...we're not likely to get a major decision about the balance between liberty and security, or something which might apply to the Padilla and Hamdi cases. However, this decision will certainly impact the American decision to detain men at Guantanamo Bay. Suffice to say, it would be a major complication for the administration if prisoners there were allowed to bring suit in federal court to challenge their detention. My prediction echoes that made by Eugene Volokh -- the Court will likely follow Johnson v. Eisentrager and hold that enemy combatants outside the United States do not have the right to petition for habeas corpus in U.S. courts. But this case could easily go another way.

Update II: The Washington Post's article on the Supreme Court's decision to hear this case has a couple of interesting links on the right side of the page:

• Defendants' Web Site
• Guantanamo Bay Defendants
• Kuwaiti Detainees

To which I'd like to add the Pentagon's official site for Military Commissions, and the Findlaw.Com repository of documents from the war on terrorism. The latter is probably the best repository for primary legal documents on terrorism.
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:52

 
Admin note: I am in the middle of grading undergraduate exams this week and several other projects, so I'll be away from my news feed for most of the day. Please check back infrequently over the next few days, and come back for regular analysis & commentary on Veterans Day, Nov. 11. Thanks.
posted by Phillip Carter at 13:01

 
Pentagon calls up 43,000 reservists for duty in Iraq
Active-duty, Marine contingents also alerted for deployment

The New York Times reports this morning on an alert order issued by the Pentagon yesterday to reserve and National Guard units around the country, letting them know they will be going to Iraq. 397 units in nearly every state are affected by this order, which includes both combat troops (such as infantry and armor) and support units (such as logistics and communications).

Pentagon planners have sought to limit additional call-ups of National Guard and Reserve forces beyond combat units identified months ago, but ultimately realized that, at the very least, logistics units would be required in the next rotation.

Military planners say the United States could deploy a slightly smaller but still sizable force in Iraq by tailoring the replacement troops to the mission now facing the American-led occupation. For example, they said, the plan calls for swapping tank-heavy armored divisions for units that put more foot soldiers in Iraq. The proposal also takes account of plans to accelerate the training and fielding of Iraq's own security forces to more than 200,000 personnel next year.

The administration has failed to win new commitments of foreign troops for Iraq beyond the two multinational divisions serving there. Mr. Rumsfeld is ordering two brigades, or about 20,000 active-duty marines, from the First Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif., to help fill the gap left by departing Army forces. It will be the first time since the Vietnam War that large numbers of marines, traditionally an expeditionary force, will serve long-term duty for a military operation.

Joining that marine force will be one brigade, or about 7,000 soldiers, from the Army's 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii.
* * *
Of the 43,000 whose units are being alerted, more than 37,000 are Army Reserve and National Guard troops. The remainder are Marine reservists. In addition, the Pentagon is telling about 2,000 Air Force personnel and about 1,000 Navy personnel they could be going to Iraq or Kuwait.

To fulfill the requirement of serving a full year on the ground, those troops actually mobilized may serve up to 18 months, including training and leave.

Analysis: This is a large chunk of the reserve force. Here in California, this deployment is tapping into a unit which has not deployed for combat since the Korean War. When you add up Operation Noble Eagle (homeland security) deployments, Balkans deployments, and other missions, you soon see that we have run through a very significant portion of the reserve force. What's left is basically a hollow shell of a force. Moreover, each deployment since Sept. 11 has tended to decimate the units called up. After being called away from their jobs and families, thousands of reservists have decided not to re-up for more time in the reserves. And the cycle goes on and on.

America's reserve force is a precious resource. It has done yeoman's work since the end of the Cold War in supporting the active force and in deploying itself for missions like Bosnia and Kosovo. But if we continue down this road, we will absolutely destroy the reserve force and render it mission incapable. I'm not sure the mission in Iraq is worth that price. However, I'm not sure what the answer is. We're committed to the Iraq mission now, and short of conscription, there's no other way to make ends meet than with reserve forces. But we should start developing mitigation plans to ensure that in 3-5 years, we'll still have a reserve force capable of doing something. Whether that means additional educational benefits or VA benefits for reservists, or additional reenlistment bonuses, we should probably do it.

Update: Even the Pentagon acknowledges the "challenges" in managing our reserve forces for the Iraq mission. "Challenges" is a great euphemism. It's a way to say something is incredibly difficult while still sounding positive about the endeavor. That's the kind of "can do" attitude I'm used to seeing in the military officer corps, and I'm not surprised to see it in the upper ranks of the Pentagon. However, I would add that some challenges are more challenging than others, and that this issue (management of reserve forces) will be a really tough nut to crack. A positive attitude can help, but it will only do so much.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:30

 
NYT: Iraq tried last-minute diplomatic effort to avoid war
Update: Is this story really what it appears -- or is it more smoke & mirrors?

James Risen has a startling report about Iraqi efforts to engage in back-channel diplomacy via influential DoD adviser Richard Perle to avoid war. The lengthy article describes the networks used to make the contacts, what was said, and how the U.S. responded to the Iraqi requests for more diplomacy.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal.

Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct an independent search. They also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who was being held in Baghdad. At one point, the intermediary said in an interview, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections.

The messages from Baghdad, first relayed by the intermediary in February to an analyst in the office of Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy and planning, were part of an attempt by Iraqi intelligence officers to open last-ditch negotiations with the Bush administration through a clandestine communications channel, according to people involved in the discussion.

The efforts were portrayed by Iraqi officials as having the approval of Saddam Hussein, according to interviews and documents.

The overtures, following a decade of evasions and deceptions and a number of other attempts to broker last-minute meetings with American officials, were ultimately rebuffed. But the messages from Baghdad raised enough interest that in early March, Richard N. Perle, an influential adviser to top Pentagon officials, met in London with the Lebanese-American businessman, Imad Hage. According to both men, Mr. Hage laid out the Iraqis' position to Mr. Perle, and he pressed the Iraqi request for a direct meeting with Mr. Perle or another representative of the United States.

"I was dubious that this would work," Mr. Perle said, "but I agreed to talk to people in Washington."

Mr. Perle said he sought authorization from officials of the Central Intelligence Agency to meet with the Iraqis.

Mr. Perle said the C.I.A. officials said they did not want to pursue this channel and indicated they had already engaged in separate contacts with Baghdad. Mr. Perle said the response was simple: "The message was, `Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad.' "

Analysis: I think there are two basic ways to look at this. Either the Iraqis were trying to delay the conflict via diplomacy, in order to shape the outcome by engaging in more defensive preparation. Or the U.S. was trying to deny the Iraqis that opportunity by spurning diplomacy after it had committed to war. My gut tells me that these are not mutually exclusive, and that both interpretations are probably correct. This may all be a moot point. But my gut also tells me that a little bit more time would have helped us now in Phase IV, by allowing us to put more troops on the ground and lay the groundwork more for the post-war phase of the operation.

Update: Josh Marshall is more skeptical than I am about this story, given a line that's buried far down in the story about the leaker's motivation for speaking with the Times. Here's the all-important paragraph:

Senior Pentagon officials said Mr. Durnan relayed messages he received from Mr. Maloof to the appropriate officials at the Pentagon, but they said that Mr. Durnan never discussed the Hage channel to the Iraqis with Mr. Wolfowitz. (In May, Mr. Maloof, who has lost his security clearances, was placed on paid administrative leave by the Pentagon, for reasons unrelated to the contacts with Mr. Hage.) [emphasis added]

Josh is very savvy about these things. (I consider him to be one of the smarter reporters inside the Beltway.) Here's his analysis of this story and how it "leaked" to the press:

Let's say I'm a career defense bureaucrat struggling to get my security clearances restored because it's very hard for me to be a defense bureaucrat without them. And let's say one of the reasons I can't get them restored is because of some unauthorized contacts I had with a Lebanese-American businessman under investigation for running guns to Liberia. And let's further add to the mix that my whole mess with the security clearances is part of a larger struggle between different factions in the national intelligence bureaucracy. Oh, and one last thing: let's say I'm a protégé of Richard Perle.

Okay.

Now, if I'm on the line for these unauthorized contacts with the gun-running businessman, wouldn't it be a lot harder to punish me for it if it looked like that contact almost allowed me to secure a deal that would have averted the need for war?

And if that's the case, wouldn't it be cool if my buddies and mentors went to the press with the story of how I almost saved the day?

If true, this certainly diminishes both the newsworthiness and veracity of this story. Unfortunately, like the recent Rumsfeld memo that was leaked to the public, it's getting hard to see through all the smoke and mirrors to what the truth actually is. I'd like to take newspapers like the New York Times at something close to face value, because I rely on accurate news from prestigious sources for information that shapes my view of the world. Unfortunately, this incident and others makes it clear that I can't afford to rely on any one source of news -- and indeed, that I do so at my own peril.
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:49

 
1st Armored learns to act like CIA-police hybrid in Iraq
"Everyone is an intelligence officer . . . everyone you come in contact with [has] intelligence value"

Vernon Loeb has an interesting article in today's Washington Post on the exploits of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, and its efforts to develop intelligence sources in the neighborhood of Baghdad. The tactics look less like those of an armored division and more like those of an intelligence agency, or a very street-savvy police department.

When the 4-27 Field Artillery started patrolling parts of north Baghdad in late May and June -- McKiernan did not take command until July -- its 535 soldiers found themselves under almost constant attack.

The violence reached a zenith on July 3, when a patrol was ambushed on Haifa Street, the main thoroughfare in Karkh, by Iraqis who fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a Humvee and then opened fire with automatic weapons. Three U.S. troops were wounded, two Iraqi bystanders were killed in the crossfire, and 14 were injured.

Maj. Michael S. Patton, the unit's operations officer, was trying to secure the area immediately after the shooting when his interpreter told him a man in the crowd had some information for him. Patton sent his interpreter back to tell the man he was going to pretend to arrest him, so that no one would suspect he was passing information.

Back at the base camp, the informant, a cigarette vendor in his mid-forties who has lived in the neighborhood all his life, told Patton who carried out the attack -- and Patton's troops quickly nabbed him.

The episode made Patton understand who held the key to the battle: Iraqis in the neighborhood. It also was the start of a beautiful relationship. To date, the cigarette vendor has delivered 35 Iraqi resistance fighters to the Americans. "The guy," said Patton, 37, a cigar-smoking Oklahoman, "has been a gold mine."

Analysis: The article goes on to say that the 2nd Brigade's commander learned these tactics, in part, from his experience teaching at the British Military Academy at Sandhurst. These methods reflect hard-won British experience in Northern Ireland, which was built on centuries of colonial and constabulary experience. What's interesting is to see how the U.S. melds this experience with the American army's unique technological edge and experience in the Balkans. The result seems to be better operations that are driven by intelligence. If every unit in Iraq does this kind of thing, they should soon be able to penetrate the guerilla cells responsible for recent attacks on American forces. The key to penetrating those cells is developing HUMINT capabilities -- mostly Iraqis -- who are willing to work for us instead of the other side. Doing so will take a lot of work and a long time, and it won't be something the media can cover. But it will be effective in the long run. This kind of intelligence is absolutely critical for fighting a 4th Generation War, and we will lose without it.
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:36

 
Allies' concerns delay military tribunals

After a report last week that military tribunals were "imminent," the New York Daily News reports today that several American allies have expressed political concerns over the process which may affect their citizens.

Britain, Australia, Pakistan, Kuwait, Egypt and Yemen want their people being held in Camp Delta at the U.S. base in Cuba sent home for trial or released.

Many of the 660 detainees were scooped up in Afghanistan during the early months of the war to oust the Taliban and hunt down Osama Bin Laden.

The Pentagon is in negotiations with Britain over two Britons and an Australian at Gitmo.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken more flak at home over the issue than President Bush does from Democrats, complained one foreign official. The U.S. now says the three suspects won't face the death penalty.

"It's obviously not a legal question but more of a strategic political reason for [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz and [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld," said a former administration official familiar with the 2001 order that created the controversial tribunals.

Wolfowitz wants to keep Pakistan happy, according to two former Bush officials. Since breaking with the Taliban, Pakistan has nabbed dozens of Al Qaeda, including 9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Analysis: It's more than keeping Pakistan happy, although that's part of it. Each of these countries has provided some aid in our war on terrorism, whether it's troops for Afghanistan or intelligence information. I imagine that if push comes to shove, and the administration is forced to decide between tribunals and our allies, they'll choose our allies. But we'll see.
posted by Phillip Carter at 07:26

 
A local version of Total Information Awareness?

Noah Shachtman reports this weekend that the ACLU has produced a new report on the "MATRIX" program, a state-run information gathering and analysis system that's eerily similar to the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program that was torpedoed this year over civil liberties concerns. (Long-time Intel Dump readers may remember my earlier report on this program) This program's future is somewhat in doubt, as several state and local governments have pulled out of the MATRIX program because of civil liberties concerns. I'll continue to follow this story to see how it develops.

Update: Some academics up at MIT have come up with a program called "Government Information Awareness", or the "citizen's TIA". One of my readers describes it as "a public, peer to peer information exchange system, which allows anyone to post information on politicians and government officials." Very interesting.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:11

 
Failing to plan = planning to fail

That's the lesson offered by this New York Times Sunday Magazine article, which bears the not-too-subtle title "Blueprint for a Mess". (Note to NYT eds: I'm sure it was tough not to use 'quagmire' or 'slog' in this headline) David Rieff looks at an issue that has been looked at by many authors since the end of Gulf War II -- how planning for Phase IV (the post-war phase of the operation) could have gone so wrong. Even I've taken a whack at this issue in an article for the Washington Monthly. Mr. Rieff's conclusion is that several main factors contributed to the general state of affairs today in Iraq:

1. Getting In Too Deep With Chalabi
* * *
2. Shutting Out State
* * *
3. Too Little Planning, Too Late
The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) was established in the Defense Department, under General Garner's supervision, on Jan. 20, 2003, just eight weeks before the invasion of Iraq. Because the Pentagon had insisted on essentially throwing out the work and the personnel of the Future of Iraq Project, Garner and his planners had to start more or less from scratch. Timothy Carney, who served in ORHA under Garner, explains that ORHA lacked critical personnel once it arrived in Baghdad. ''There were scarcely any Arabists in ORHA in the beginning'' at a senior level, Carney says. ''Some of us had served in the Arab world, but we were not experts, or fluent Arabic speakers.'' According to Carney, Defense officials ''said that Arabists weren't welcome because they didn't think Iraq could be democratic.''

Because of the battle between Defense and State, ORHA, which Douglas Feith called the ''U.S. government nerve center'' for postwar planning, lacked not only information and personnel but also time. ORHA had only two months to figure out what to plan for, plan for it and find the people to implement it. A senior Defense official later admitted that in late January ''we only had three or four people''; in mid-February, the office conducted a two-day ''rehearsal'' of the postwar period at the National Defense University in Washington. Judith Yaphe says that ''even the Messiah couldn't have organized a program in that short a time.''

Although ORHA simply didn't have the time, resources or expertise in early 2003 to formulate a coherent postwar plan, Feith and others in the Defense Department were telling a different story to Congress. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Feb. 11, shortly before the beginning of the war, Feith reassured the assembled senators that ORHA was ''staffed by officials detailed from departments and agencies throughout the government.'' Given the freeze-out of the State Department officials from the Future of Iraq Project, this description hardly encompassed the reality of what was actually taking place bureaucratically.

Much of the postwar planning that did get done before the invasion focused on humanitarian efforts -- Garner's area of expertise. Through the U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington was planning for a possible humanitarian emergency akin to the one that occurred after the first gulf war, when hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled their homes in northern Iraq and needed both emergency relief and protection from Saddam Hussein. This operation, led by Garner, had succeeded brilliantly. American planners in 2003 imagined (and planned for) a similar emergency taking place. There were plans drawn up for housing and feeding Iraqi refugees. But there was little thought given to other contingencies -- like widespread looting.
* * *
4. The Troops: Too Few, Too Constricted
On Feb. 25, the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, warned Congress that postwar Iraq would require a commitment of ''several hundred thousand'' U.S. troops. Shinseki's estimate was dismissed out of hand by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and other civilian officials at the Pentagon, where war plans called for a smaller, more agile force than had been used in the first gulf war. Wolfowitz, for example, told Congress on Feb. 27 that Shinseki's number was ''wildly off the mark,'' adding, ''It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and secure the surrender of Saddam's security force and his army.'' Shinseki retired soon afterward.

But Shinseki wasn't the only official who thought there were going to be insufficient troops on the ground to police Iraq in the aftermath of the war. The lack of adequate personnel in the military's plan, especially the military police needed for postconflict work, was pointed out by both senior members of the uniformed military and by seasoned peacekeeping officials in the United Nations secretariat.

Former Ambassador Carney, recalling his first days in Iraq with ORHA, puts it this way, with surprising bitterness: The U.S. military ''simply did not understand or give enough priority to the transition from their military mission to our political military mission.''

The Department of Defense did not lack for military and civilian officials -- men and women who supported the war -- counseling in private that policing a country militarily would not be easy. As Robert Perito recalls: ''The military was warned there would be looting. There has been major looting in every important postconflict situation of the past decade. The looting in Panama City in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion did more damage to the Panamanian economy than the war itself. And there was vast looting and disorder in Kosovo. We know this.''

Securing Iraq militarily after victory on the battlefield was, in the Pentagon's parlance, Phase IV of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Phases I through III were the various stages of the invasion itself; Phase IV involved so-called stability and support operations -- in other words, the postwar. The military itself, six months into the occupation, is willing to acknowledge -- at least to itself -- that it did not plan sufficiently for Phase IV. In its secret report ''Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategic Lessons Learned,'' a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Times in August, the Department of Defense concedes that ''late formation of Department of Defense [Phase IV] organizations limited time available for the development of detailed plans and pre-deployment coordination.''
* * *
5. Neglecting ORHA
* * *
6. Ignoring the Shiites
* * *
The Next Steps
In Iraq today, there is a steadily increasing disconnect between what the architects of the occupation think they are accomplishing and how Iraqis on the street evaluate postwar progress. And as the security situation fails to improve, these perceptions continue to darken.

The Bush administration fiercely denies that this ''alarmist'' view accurately reflects Iraqi reality. It insists that the positive account it has been putting forward is the real truth and that the largely downbeat account in much of the press is both inaccurate and unduly despairing. The corner has been turned, administration officials repeat.

Whether the United States is eventually successful in Iraq (and saying the mission ''has to succeed,'' as so many people do in Washington, is not a policy but an expression of faith), even supporters of the current approach of the Coalition Provisional Authority concede that the United States is playing catch-up in Iraq. This is largely, though obviously not entirely, because of the lack of postwar planning during the run-up to the war and the mistakes of the first 60 days after the fall of Saddam Hussein. And the more time passes, the clearer it becomes that what happened in the immediate aftermath of what the administration calls Operation Iraqi Freedom was a self-inflicted wound, a morass of our own making.

Analysis: This NYT article does a great job of putting together the pieces which have already been reported by other newspapers, including the New York Times itself and the Los Angeles Times. It's the kind of piece that future generations of students and scholars will use to understand the difficulties America faced in post-war Iraq. Unfortunately, this piece fails to ask and answer the crucial question: WHY was American planning for Phase IV so defective? The question of why is as important as the question of how, which this article answers ably. We know now that our planning for Phase IV was defective, and we can figure out the ways in which that planning effort failed. What we do not know is why senior leaders in the White House and Pentagon failed to heed the advice of their staffs, and why they charged forward with a plan that was seemingly doomed to failure.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:02

 
On campaign contributions and government contracts

Dan Drezner has a good discussion of the recent brouhaha over large political contributions made by the top U.S. firms doing business in Iraq. The story broke after the Center for Public Integrity released a report essentially saying that the U.S. awarded contracts to firms that were -- coincidentally -- top donors to political campaigns. I think Prof. Drezner does a good job of putting the study and its conclusions into proper perspective. Likewise, I don't think this study is the damning indictment of war profiteering that some have made it out to be. Every large firm donates money to campaigns, and it doesn't surprise me that large government contractors are giving money to men and women running for top government positions. Moreover, I'd bet that even the losers in the Iraq contracting process gave money to campaigns. In the absence of any specific evidence of cronyism or corruption, I'm inclined to think this is much ado about nothing.
posted by Phillip Carter at 17:51

 
Wes Clark on America's empire

The November issue of the Washington Monthly features this article from retired-Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who is trying to posture himself as an alternative to the current foreign policy being pursued by the Bush White House. The article is essentially an excerpt from Clark's new book, and it offers some insight into the foreign policy that Clark would adopt if he moved into 1600 Penn. Ave.

We need to see ourselves and the world around us in sharp relief--and use that vision to inform better our policies. Simply put, the United States needs a new strategy for the 21st century--a broader, more comprehensive, and less unilateralist approach abroad, coupled with greater attention to a sound economy at home, and sensible long-range policies. The Bush administration's strategy of preemption, published in the 2002 National Security Strategy, was focused against Iraq. At home, the formula of the supply-siders--tax cuts for the wealthy to feed trickle-down economics--has about run its course. It is time for America to return to the basic concepts that ensured its unprecedented prosperity and security and to adapt from these a new strategy that can better serve our needs today.

The first of these basic principles should be inclusiveness. The United States represents evolutionary values of human dignity and the worth of the individual-ideals that have steadily swept across Europe and into much of the rest of the world. We have been proselytizers, advocating our values, assisting states abroad, encouraging emerging young leaders to study and visit the United States. During the Cold War we were careful to reach across the Iron Curtain. And when the Cold War ended, we worked hard to encourage the enlargement of democracy around the world. We should be seeking allies and friends around the world.

Second, we should be working to strengthen and use international institutions, beginning with the United Nations and NATO. Such institutions can provide vital support to American diplomacy, bringing in others to share the burdens and risks that we would otherwise have to carry alone. The United Nations especially can contribute legitimacy to U.S. purposes and actions. International law is of little significance to most Americans, but it carries heavy weight abroad. Both the United Nations and NATO need refinement, particularly the United Nations--but these refinements can be made only through American constructive leadership, for we are the lone superpower, with the resources and incentives to do so.

And finally, we must place in proper perspective the role of the armed forces in our overall strategy. We should ensure that they retain the edge over any potential adversary and continue to modernize them to deal with foreseeable contingencies, including the possible need to preempt any threat to the United States. We always have the right of self-defense, including inherently the right to strike preemptively. But force must be used only as a last resort--and then multilaterally if possible.

Operating on these three principles, we should repair our trans-Atlantic relationships. When the United States and Europe stand together, they represent roughly half the world's gross domestic product and three of the five permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council. These are the countries that are most politically and culturally aligned with the United States. We are the major investors in each other's economies. We should turn upside down nineteenth-century Britain's view that Britain had no permanent friends, only permanent interests. In the West, we must have permanent friends and allies and then work to ensure that our interests converge.

Using this trans-Atlantic alliance as our base, we should then work to resolve our security challenges--the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, the continuing threat from al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. We should be working with allies to help settle disputes between India and Pakistan and within the Middle East that could explode into deadly conflict. And we should be pressing through the United Nations and offering assistance to ease the ongoing conflicts in Africa.

Good words; hard to implement. I like Wes Clark's view of the world, and his view of where America should fit into the world. I think that we ought to enlist other nations and international organizations in the fight against Al Qaeda and other terror networks, because the only way to defeat a terror network is to build a stronger network of our own. However, I also recognize that saying these things and doing them are two different things. It will be exceedingly hard for President Clark to implement his vision -- harder even that it would be if he were General Clark again. A lot of fence mending must be done before we can start down this multilateralist road. If Wes Clark wants to make this vision seem realistic, I think he has to articulate the "how" instead of just the "what" for his view of the world and America's place in it.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:16

 
Lawmakers push for better body armor -- and the Pentagon responds

Lisa Burgess reports in Stars & Stripes today that 33 members of Congress have sent a letter to the House Appropriations Committee requesting that the Pentagon be directed to buy better body armor and other gear for soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, 33 House members, led by Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., sent House appropriators a letter that emphasized the need to supply all deployed troops with the Defense Department’s new Interceptor flak vests, as well as provide adequate immunizations, drinking water and even sundries such as toothpaste.

“It is an outrage that servicemembers, deployed in the Global War on Terrorism, do not receive adequate personal hygiene products and drinking water,” the letter said. “Servicemembers have told us they lack personal items like razors, shaving cream, toothpaste, etc. Congress needs to provide these items to America’s soldiers and not rely on families to continually send their loved ones these necessities.”
* * *
Many members of Congress have expressed anger over Defense Department estimates that more than 40,000 troops, most notably Reserve and National Guard combat support units, were not outfitted with the new “Interceptor” body armor before deploying to Iraq.

Instead, the troops are wearing Vietnam-era “flak jackets,” designed to stop fragmentation but not larger caliber rifle rounds, or Kevlar vests without the ceramic inserts that prevent high-caliber ammunition from penetrating.

Some soldiers told members of the House Appropriations Committee that they were spending as much as $650 out of pocket to buy their own Interceptor Body Armor vests and protective insert plates.

DOD officials have said that the manufacturer of the new vests is producing the armor as rapidly as possible, and that the new vests are priority shipped to the Middle East.

In response to this story, and to widespread criticism over the Interceptor body vest procurement problem, the Pentagon released a statement today that it was doing all it could to get the body armor to Iraq as quickly as possible.

The Army and Marines are rushing to get enough body armor into Iraq and Afghanistan by December for everyone who needs it, as fast as it comes off the assembly line.

"Body armor is saving lives," Army Brig. Gen. James R. Moran emphasized. "There have been dozens and dozens of instances where body armor has saved lives of individual soldiers. We're producing that as quickly as we possibly can."
* * *
Getting body armor to combat zones by December is part of the Army's "rapid fielding initiative," Moran said. He said the initiative, which treats soldiers as part of the system, is saving soldiers' lives, improving the quality of their lives and improving their combat effectiveness. "And we're doing it immediately," the general noted.

Analysis What we have here is a lot of "too little, too late" on both sides. The push by the 33 Democratic legislators comes as Congress has given its blessing to the President's $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan, and also near the end of the FY2004 defense appropriations process. In other words, the push may be too late. I have learned that at least one member of Congress tried to amend the President's $87 billion request in the House to add funding for body armor, but that rider was rejected on procedural grounds. At this point, I'm not sure what can be done, given the fact that Congress has signed off on this bill and the President seems sure to sign it.

That said, I'm not sure what else can be done. The Pentagon jump-started the procurement of this body armor a few months ago, and there appears to be no feasible way at this point to make the production lines move any faster. At this point, December 2003 may be the best that our military-industrial complex can do in terms of a delivery date for these pieces of equipment, and soldiers couldn't even buy these items faster if they wanted to with a personal credit card.

What's left to be done? I think we're kidding ourselves if we think that Iraq will be the last battle fought by our military for some time, or that we will leave Iraq anytime soon. The Interceptor body armor should be fielded to every American soldier and Marine -- active and reserve -- as soon as possible. We ought to make the fielding of critical soldier equipment a priority. It was tragic to send men and women into combat without this gear this time. We will be derelict if we do it again.

Update: National Journal's Congress AM Daily reports that 103 members of Congress have called on the House Armed Services Commitee chairman to hold hearings on the Pentagon's failure to field Interceptor body armor before the war in Iraq.

In the letter to Hunter, Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) and the others noted service members' complaints that only some soldiers serving in Iraq have been issued the highest quality "Interceptor" body armor -- Kevlar bulletproof vests with removable ceramic inserts. Other soldiers have been killed when Vietnam-era "flak jackets" failed to stop enemy bullets.

The letter also cited reports that parents of soldiers have been purchasing ceramic plates for the Interceptor vests and sending them to their sons and daughters overseas.

posted by Phillip Carter at 16:13

 
Federal judges harder to predict on sentencing than lawmakers say

Jess Bravin and Gary Fields reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) about a really interesting draft study by the General Accounting Office on sentencing decisions by federal judges. The study belies much recent criticism of federal judges -- that they are too lenient across the board; that they always "downwardly depart" from the sentencing guidelines; that they bend the law where they think the facts warrant it. This new GAO study punctures at least one of those critiques, and hints at a much more complex picture of the federal bench.

Government researchers did find wide disparities in sentencing across the country's 12 regional judicial circuits. In drug cases, for example, district judges in San Francisco's Ninth Circuit were 19 times as likely to mete out sentences below the guidelines of the U.S. Sentencing Commission -- to make what are called "downward departures" -- as those in the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., an unpublished draft study by the General Accounting Office shows.

Those figures are adjusted to control for differences among cases and to exclude cases in which the government sought leniency because the defendant pleaded guilty and provided it with "substantial assistance."

But the two reports paint a different picture from the one legislators offered when Congress passed a law in April to restrict judges' latitude. The GAO, Congress's oversight arm, found that of 175,000 federal criminal sentences given nationwide from fiscal 1999 through fiscal 2001, 17% were downward departures. A separate study released this week by the Sentencing Commission itself, looking at fiscal 2001, found that about 11% of criminal sentences given by federal judges fell below the guidelines.

Both reports found rates substantially above the 5.8% reported for 1991 -- but below the 18.1% for 2001 that was cited during the congressional debate over whether lawmakers should tighten the sentencing rules.
* * *
But researchers cautioned that even though the Ninth Circuit is widely considered the country's most liberal, and the Fourth its most conservative, the numbers don't tell the whole story.

Because the Ninth Circuit includes the Mexican border states of Arizona and California, it has a disproportionate number of alien defendants, who often receive lighter sentences so they can be deported more quickly. The highest such departure rates were found in San Diego's Southern District of California, with 70% of 5,300 drug cases. Nationwide, noncitizens were twice as likely as citizens to receive lighter sentences, at 24% of cases.

The GAO also found considerable differences based on the defendant's race and the type of drug offense. Nationwide, 28% of 21,700 marijuana defendants received lighter sentences, while only 8% of 14,600 crack defendants did. Hispanic defendants were most likely to receive leniency -- 23% of 29,800 defendants did -- while blacks were least likely, at 8% of 20,400 defendants. The rate for white and "other" defendants was 13%.

Analysis: It's funny how numbers can go against conventional wisdom sometimes. A few outspoken judges have created the perception that all judges are willing to bend the rules for defendants -- and that appears to not be the case. The response to this perception has been quite Draconian. The Justice Department now wants to track all judges who downwardly depart from the sentencing guidelines. The federal judiciary has had to deal with this issue while trying to get more resources with which to hear cases and clear its backlog. Hopefully this data makes the debate a little bit more intelligent -- and honest.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:33

 
Start of military tribunals said to be 'imminent'

Col. Frederic L. Borch III, the prosecutor appointed by the Pentagon to lead the military tribunal effort, announced today to an American Bar Association meeting that the start of these trials was "imminent, soon". It has been nearly 2 years since President Bush authorized these tribunals in his 13 Nov 01 executive order, and some have predicted that the trials would never actually happen. Today's speech belies that prediction, and indicates that these proceedings may be just around the corner.

"I think it's safe to say that our start is imminent, soon," said Col. Frederic L. Borch III, who oversees nine prosecutors in a Pentagon office set up to handle the upcoming trials. Borch, speaking to an American Bar Association gathering, would not be more specific.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers later said there are numerous steps preceding the start of a trial, and nothing will happen immediately.

"We are weeks if not months away," Shavers said.

Plans have been in the works for such trials for nearly two years, but the White House has given no date for the first tribunal, nor specified who would be tried or where. Lawyers working with the Pentagon predict the first tribunal will take place at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. military is holding several hundred foreign prisoners picked up in the hunt for terrorists after Sept. 11, 2001.

The trial, when it comes, will mark the first time since World War II that the United States has put wartime prisoners on trial in such a proceeding.

Analysis: Why start now? I think the administration wants to fight the perception that the men detained at Guantanamo Bay are languishing there in perpetuity -- with no legal process whatsoever. These military tribunals represent a relatively low risk way to give the detainees some legal process and dispute that perception. Notwithstanding the procedural criticisms of these tribunals, they will represent more legal process than the detainees have gotten so far. The White House may be able to spin this as a magnanimous act -- something that goes above the requirements of the Geneva Convention.

To use a bad legal pun, I think the jury's still out on the tribunals. I've read the procedural rules created by the Pentagon and compared them to both the Manual for Courts Martial and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The differences are major, but the tribunals still have the potential to be fair proceedings for the men detained at Guantanamo. I'm not convinced yet that the tribunals will be the kangaroo courts that some have made them out to be. I guess I have faith in the career military lawyers who will staff the tribunals and sit as members of the jury, and their ability to do the right thing. Maybe that's overly optimistic. But at least we're giving these detainees some legal process. It remains to be seen how just that process will be.
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:00

 
Two U.S. soldiers killed in attack on M1A2 tank
Enemy tactics appear very similar to those in Israeli-Palestine conflict

The AP reports on a roadside bomb that struck and seriously disabled one of the Army's M1A2 tanks from the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 4th Infantry Division -- killing two soldiers. The attack was the first to successfully knock out an M1 since the end of major combat operations on May 1, and only the third destructive hit on an M1 during the war.

The Abrams tank was disabled when it was struck by a land mine or a roadside bomb Tuesday night during a patrol near Balad, 45 miles north of Baghdad, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division. A third crewman was evacuated to a U.S. hospital in Germany, she said.

It was the first M1 Abrams main battle tank destroyed since the end of major combat May 1, military officials said. During the active combat phase, several of the 68-ton vehicles the mainstay of the U.S. Army's armored forces were disabled in combat.

Analysis: The M1A2 weighs more than 70 tons, and is the most advanced and heavily armored combat vehicle in history. They are considered virtually impregnable to attack from anything but another tank or sophisticated anti-tank missile (like the Hellfire). I imagine the Army is extremely concerned right now about this new development, because the majority of its vehicles in Iraq are not as well protected as the M1 tank or M2/M3 Bradley fighting vehicle. Indeed, the Army is currently deploying its new "Stryker" brigade to Iraq, composed of lightly-armored wheeled vehicles which were partially developed with an eye towards peacekeeping operations. If the Iraqi guerillas now have a way to take out the M1 tank, that's a very serious development.

There's another interesting angle here that was noted by an officer who participates in a military list-serv I belong to. That's the similarity between this M1 hit and the 15 Oct 03 attack which killed three Americans in the Gaza Strip. In that attack, a huge bomb exploded in the roadway under a U.S. diplomatic convoy of heavily armed and armored vehicles. Compare the TTPs used in Gaza to those used in Iraq:

The attack occurred at about 10:15 a.m. (4:15 a.m. EDT) Wednesday, five hours after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel for building a controversial fence around the
West Bank, and as Israeli soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip continued a six-day-old operation to destroy cross-border tunnels. Eight Palestinians have been killed and more than 230 homes have been destroyed or severely damaged in that operation.

The bomb detonated as the convoy was about 11/2 miles inside the Gaza Strip from the Erez crossing at the Israeli border. They were driving along the pockmarked, partially blacktopped road that runs the length of the Gaza Strip and is frequently used by foreigners -- diplomats, aid workers, journalists and others -- as well as by local Palestinians.

According to witnesses and U.S. Embassy officials, a Palestinian security team led the convoy in one car, the American security guards occupied the second vehicle, at least two U.S. diplomats were in the third, and another Palestinian police car brought up the rear.
* * *
U.S. officials said the vehicle had armor plating on its roof and sides, but said they did not know whether the vehicle was equipped with armor on its underside to protect against land mines. Israeli officials estimated that
the bomb, which was buried in the hardpan roadbed, might have weighed more than 100 pounds.

A smaller bomb planted on another road in the northern Gaza Strip exploded under an Israeli military all-terrain vehicle Wednesday morning, injuring three soldiers, according to an Israeli military spokesman. The spokesman said the two incidents were not believed to be related.

Homemade bombs concocted from petroleum products, sugar, cosmetics, shampoo and varying amounts of TNT are commonly used by militants in the Gaza Strip. The explosives are frequently planted in potholes or beneath roadbeds on
routes used by Israeli military vehicles and have been used to blow up 50-ton tanks as well as lighter vehicles.

Some of the explosives are detonated on impact when a vehicle rolls over them; others are more sophisticated and are set off by remote control. A gray cable hanging into the crater left by Wednesday's attack on the U.S. vehicle suggested that the bomb might have been ignited by remote control from a nearby concrete hut.

This is pure speculation, but I think these two sets of tactics are pretty similar. The U.S. suspects right now that foreign elements are behind many of the attacks in Iraq, and that they are having a significant influence on domestic Iraqi guerillas. Even if they're not actually conducting the attacks, I think it's very likely these foreigners are providing training and expertise to the Iraqis in the art of urban combat and insurgency. To some extent, these foreign guerillas may also be passing along their doctrine from places like the Gaza Strip and West Bank, where guerillas and terrorists have learned how to defeat sophisticated Israeli security schemes and achieve deadly results. This is a very dangerous development. More to follow.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:18

 
Embedded report from the 3rd ACR

Nir Rosen of the Asia Times is one of the last reporters to remain 'embedded' with a unit in Iraq. Asia Times publishes this series from Rosen which offers some vivid reports from the field with the soldiers of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Overall, I think the series paints a pretty good picture of what's going on over there with this unit. Here's an excerpt from the first article of the series:

AL-QAIM, western Iraq - "This is the wild wild west," says Captain Chris Alfeiri, holding a fly swatter while relaxing in between missions. A 30-year-old native of Boston, Alfeiri is one of about 1,000 soldiers from the 1st Squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR), based in Fort Carson of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and currently stationed in al-Qaim, at the western edge of Anbar province, bordering on Syria.

It is a dusty, arid and lawless region, with large towns by the Euphrates River, which snakes into Iraq from Syria. Americans are attacked on a daily basis by a recalcitrant community that used to shoot at the Iraqi army as well, and every night they can hear mysterious fire fights occurring inside the towns as tribes, gangs and smugglers battle over turf.

The 3rd ACR has converted an abandoned train station into home and called it Tiger Forward Operating Base. There is a cafeteria, or chow hall with a Pueblo motif painted on its walls, serving three different hot meals a day, from bacon and pancakes to pasta and Asian-flavored chicken with vegetables. There are TOCs, or tactical operation centers, pronounced "tok". There are barracks, where soldiers have small gyms, watch satellite TV and compete in board games like Risk, seeking world domination, or football video games on Sony Play Station. There is a detainment center for prisoners, and even a recreation center with wireless Internet and "morale phones" to call home.

Alfeiri's diminutive chin, small eyes, soft cheeks and shaved head give him a friendly baby-faced look incongruous with his role as a combat officer who served in Bosnia for a year, an experience that helped prepare him for dealing with conflict in an alien culture, as does his marriage to a former fellow journalism student from Honduras, whose family he often visits in their country. His men operate every day from the western-most base in Iraq. His 130 soldiers, known as Bandit troop, conduct border surveillance operations, raids, checkpoints and help reconstruct the towns in the region.

Every night his men roll out of Tiger X Ray, the call sign for their base, and a convoy of tanks and Humvees proceeds to the border, driving off the hardball, as they call the road, in order to avoid improvised explosive devices, IEDs. They stop at a test fire range, and make sure their heavy weapons work, the radio announces that their call sign, White 1, is at Red Con One (or Readiness Condition One, meaning everything works) and they head into the black moonscape.

posted by Phillip Carter at 08:55

 
The myth of the Republican military voting bloc

Benjamin Wallace-Wells deconstructs this myth in next month's issue of the Washington Monthly, and argues that the GOP ought not take military votes for granted in 2004. This well-reported and written story chronicles the recent political history of the military, from George C. Marshall to the present day, and paints the picture today of a military that's increasingly disenchanted with the current White House.

The effect of all of this, says Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and professor of political science at Boston University, is that "the soldier vote and the pro-military vote are in play." In 2004, says Feaver, the military sociologist at Duke, "there is the potential for these forces which have always pushed towards the Republicans to be neutralized, or even pushing towards the Democrats."

If these frustrations spill over into politics in the next election, they could profoundly shift the structural underpinnings of the current nearly 50-50 American split. This country has 1.4 million active duty soldiers, and 1.2 million reserves. It also has 26.4 million veterans, nearly 13 percent of the nation's adult population. Politicians and activists involved in veterans affairs take it as a truism that a defining feature of veterans' politics is their perception of how the active military is being treated, and used. Subtle shifts in the way that massive population votes could obviously have far-reaching impacts in national politics.

A reassignment of less than two-hundredths of 1 percent in the military vote to the Democrats from the Republicans in Florida in 2000 would have moved that state to the Democratic column, and a similar shift of less than 5 percent in the veteran vote alone would have given Arkansas, Nevada, and New Hampshire's electoral votes to Gore, not Bush. And Pennsylvania and Ohio, expected to be crucial swing states in the next presidential election, each have more than a million veteran voters.

But the military and veterans' communities don't simply deliver their own votes. All over America, voters look to the military as a sort of weathervane--an institution whose values civilians trust and want politicians to support. This is particularly true of working-class white swing voters, many of whom have a soldier in their family or know someone who does. The attachment to the military is even more potent among certain occupations-police, firefighters, engineers--whose ranks are heavily represented in the reserves. The policemen, firemen, and engineers who stay at home look across the room each day at the empty desks of their colleagues fighting in the Iraqi theater. They check email each day for personal dispatches from the front lines. They drop off food for the left-behind families.

Then there are those who are not personally connected to the military, but for whom honor of the military and the military's opinion acts as a moral barometer, revealing which politicians have the right values and which don't. The military is a deeply trusted and honored institution in American life-far more important than the media, politicians, or teachers. To respect the military doesn't simply require the sort of offhand pieties that liberal politicians frequently toss at it, but a deeply felt sense of belonging, a sense that the military embodies values which most of the country believes in. Treatment of the military consequently acts as an indicator for tens of millions of Americans who aren't enlisted of how seriously a party, administration, or politician takes the nation's security, and how competent he is to defend it. Political scientists call these people national security voters. "[They] are not so minutely interested in issues like health care for the military or how many reserves are in Iraq at one time," said Feaver. "These people rely heavily on general impressions of whether a particular politician or administration is good for the military or bad for the military. What should really worry the Republicans is the potential for all of these problems you hear about to add up to an impression for the national security voter that the Republicans may not be so good for the military."

Analysis: I've never thought the military really lived up to its stereotype when it came to politics. The conventional wisdom is that America's military is one of the last bastions of American conservatism. I do think that America's military officer corps is somewhat more conservative than society at large, but I think that it's largely become a professional class that is too diverse to effectively be pigeonholed that way. Moreover, the enlisted corps of the military is most certainly not conservative -- it's far too diverse in race and socio-economic terms. On balance, I'd say that the military leans slightly to the right of center, but it's no John Birch society. Military voters could vote for John McCain or George Bush -- or they could vote for Wes Clark or Bill Clinton.

(Quick personal vignette: I went into the military as a conservative and came out as a moderate/liberal. I attribute this change to the experience of living and working with such a diverse group of soldiers, especially the ones I was privileged to lead. Most of my enlisted soldiers came from working-class backgrounds, and their perspective was one that I had nto been exposed to while growing up in Southern California. Charlie Moskos and others have written that one of the best things about the draft was their exposure to other American kids, and social interaction and educatin that flowed from that. I think the same dynamic occurs in an all-volunteer force, except that only the volunteers are lucky enough to take advantage of it.)

In 2004, there are lots of issues in play which matter to national security voters. I divide these issues into two main categories:
1. Issues of national security per se, such as how to best fight the war on terrorism.
2. Issues which affect national security voters personally, such as how to equip the military and whether to give them a pay raise or certain benefits.

The Bush White House is vulnerable on both sets of military issues. The criticisms for the first set of issues are widely known. It will not be hard for the eventual Democratic nominee to make an argument against the White House on Iraq, on progress against terrorism, or any other front. The truth is that this is a very difficult war, and that smart people can disagree both over our progress and our direction in this war. That leaves a lot of room for disagreement. My hope is that the Democratic candidate offers a positive vision instead of merely attacking the President on this issue.

The second set of issues -- those which affect military voters personally -- will also be viable issues in the 2004 election. Some of these will flow directly from Iraq, and will include criticism over the administration's decision to put Americans in harm's way there in the first place, as well as criticism over specific problems in Iraq like the failure to equip all soldiers with the latest body armor. So too will the overstretching of America's reserves, which will probably result in a large exodus of reservists as they redeploy in 2004 from a year in Iraq. The Democrats will also hammer the White House over the "concurrent receipt" issue which affects veterans benefits, as well as military pay issues. The recent incident at Fort Stewart may also provide grist for the Democratic machine. All of these issues can (and probably will) be used by the Democrats to pull away military voters to the Democratic party.

Who stands to gain the most here? That should be obvious -- Wesley K. Clark. Of all the Democratic candidates, Wes Clark stands in a league all his own for his ability to exploit these issues. Moreover, I think he even stands above President Bush for his personal credibility on these issues. John Kerry may also be able to run with these issues, but not as well as Mr. Clark. It's still too early to handicap the Democratic race, and I'd be a fool to bet now on Dean or Clark or Kerry. Of course, lots can happen between now and Nov. 2004; these issues may not have the same resonance then as they do now. More to follow...
posted by Phillip Carter at 20:13

 
Army announces plans to retain, expand Peacekeeping Institute

After almost eliminating its Peacekeeping Institute at the Army War College several months ago, the Army announced today that it would retain and expand the center, which has become something of an policy-oriented think tank within the Army on operations other than war. The decision to close came as part of a larger headquarters realignment proposal for the Army, but was quickly criticized as short-sighted by many inside and outside the Army. In hindsight, the move appears particularly daft, given the Army's extensive commitment to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The institute will be renamed the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) to encompass the revised charter.

The original PKI charter and structure are being adjusted to meet the future needs of the U.S. Army and the U.S. military across a broad range of peacekeeping and stability operations. Current planning calls for the new organization to have 13 Army positions and a distinguished visiting professor. The PKSOI will have an operating budget of between $1.3 to 1.5 million.

The PKSOI mission will be to study the strategic implications of stability operations; support senior Army leaders in understanding and dealing with the implications of stability operations; and study the impact of international organizations and nongovernmental organizations on the Army's conduct of peacekeeping and stability operations. PKSOI will also be required to understand current foreign militaries' objectives and doctrine on stability operations; contribute to evolving stability operations doctrine; and to help educate the next generation of Army strategic leaders on stability operations.

Analysis: This is good news for at least two reasons. First, this institute does a great job of collecting knowledge on peacekeeping and educating the military about that knowledge. In a profession where mistakes cost lives, the effort to spread 'lessons learned' from previous missions is incredibly important, and the PKI did a good job of this. Second, this is good news because it shows that the Defense Department is willing to listen to criticism and react to it. I'm sure there were some egos bruised in the process, but at the end of the day, the Pentagon came around and kept the PKI open. It's amazing what can get done when you emphasize solving problems over winning bureaucratic battles.
posted by Phillip Carter at 18:42

 
A bloody view of the war

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a superb article on its front page today by Yaroslav Trofimov on the 21st Combat Support Hospital, and how that organization's personnel see the war. The Army's medical community has historically been less hooah about combat operations. Medical personnel tend to see themselves as healers first and warriors second, and they are the ones who must deal with the human cost of war. This article tells their story, and shares their perspective of the war.

While attention focuses on the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq -- 115 by enemy fire since Mr. Bush announced the end of major combat on May 1 -- the military doesn't generally publicize the more-frequent incidents in which soldiers are wounded. According to a tally kept by the U.S. Central Command, as of 7 p.m. on Oct. 27, the U.S. military had sustained a total of 1,737 nonlethal casualties from hostile action in Iraq, including 1,186 since May 1.

The toll includes American casualties in the rocket attack on Baghdad's Al Rasheed hotel on Sunday, and U.S. military police killed and wounded in suicide bombings that devastated four Iraqi police stations across Baghdad the following day. October has been the bloodiest month for U.S. troops in Iraq since the occupation began.

Advances in medical care and bulletproof vests allow more soldiers to survive the kind of injuries that would have killed them in past conflicts. But the recent switch by Iraqi insurgents to powerful roadside bombs as their main offensive weapon has raised the number and severity of wounds even for those with high-tech protection. These bombs are usually rigged artillery shells that, hidden in vegetable crates, bicycle baskets or simple debris, can be detonated close to their target and shower it with shrapnel.

"Since May, the number and the rate of casualties has increased," says Col. Doug Liening, commander of the 21st Combat Support Hospital, which also operates a facility in the northern city of Mosul. "People in the United States do not appreciate what's going on here." In peacetime, the 21st Combat Support Hospital is based at Fort Hood, Texas, as are many of its personnel currently in Balad.

For many doctors and nurses, the daily gore makes it hard to sleep at night. "It's like a horror movie," says Capt. Nancy Emma, 49, a nurse for 16 years who worked on Sgt. Bartels in the emergency room. "I served in a trauma unit, I saw death in the face -- but nothing like here. And those who live, you've got to wonder how they are going to make it back in the States."

After the emergency room, Sgt. Bartels was wheeled into the operating room. His buddy Sgt. Myers, who received shrapnel wounds in his right arm and face, called his family back in Kansas as he waited to be treated. The two sergeants, reservists attached to the Fourth Infantry Division, were driving from a meeting at the town of Baqouba's agriculture ministry office. They accompanied a civil-affairs officer, Capt. John Teal, who was filling in for their usual captain, on leave in the U.S.

Sgt. Myers asked nurses what happened to Capt. Teal. No one could muster the courage to tell the sergeant the captain was dead, instantly killed by the roadside bomb that went through their unarmored Humvee.

Analysis: I have two reactions to this story, and they're at odds with each other. The first is to wonder whether reporting on casualties is really a good idea. Such reporting tends to demoralize the American public, and to embolden our adversaries as a result. Also, an emphasis on casualty reporting translates through the democratic process into public pressure to reduce casualties, which translates through the chain of command to pressure on commanders to minimize risk in their operations. That pressure reduces operational effectiveness, because commanders alter their plans to maximize force protection instead of mission accomplishment. I think that's a very dangerous thing, and that ultimately, it can lead to mission failure.

On the other hand, I think it's important to recognize the cost of war and to weight that cost against our raison d'etre. This cost has been quite high. As a vignette, a friend of mine told me that she has sent replacement uniforms to her physician friends in the 4th Infantry Division to replace blood-soaked uniforms that they could no longer wear. I can't even imagine such carnage, and I've worked in a Los Angeles-area emergency room before. These medical personnel see the cost every day, and I think they bear a difficult burden in explaning the "why" behind the injuries to soldiers when they come out of anesthesia. I support the mission in Iraq, however, I think I'd be hard-pressed to explain that every day to wounded soldiers the way these doctors have to.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:26

 
Army battalion commander faces assault charges in Iraq

The Washington Times reports this morning on an interesting legal vignette from the 4th Infantry Division, where LTC Allen B. West stands charged of assaulting an Iraqi prisoner in order to gain information in connection with an attack on his unit. These charges are remarkable because LTC West was an artillery battalion commander at the time of the incident. It's rare that a senior officer would take such a direct role in prisoner interrogation, and that the Army would prosecute such a senior officer. But in this case, the 4th Infantry Division's Staff Judge Advocate has recommended that LTC West either be allowed to "RILO" (Resign In Lieu Of court martial) or be court-martialed for his conduct.

An informant reported that there was an assassination plot against Col. West, an artillery officer working with the local governing council in Saba al Boor. On Aug. 16, guerrillas attacked members of the colonel's unit who were on their way to Saba al Boor.

An informant told the soldiers that one person involved in the attack was a town policeman. Col. West sent two sergeants to detain the policeman, who was placed in a detention center near the Taji air base. The interrogators had no luck at first, so Col. West decided to take over the questioning.

"I asked for soldiers to accompany me and told them we had to gather information and that it could get ugly," Col. West said in his e-mail.

He said his soldiers "physically aggress[ed]" the prisoner. A subsequent investigation resulted in nonjudicial punishment for them in the form of fines.

After the physical "aggress" failed, Col. West says he brandished his pistol.

"I did use my 9 mm weapon to threaten him and fired it twice. Once I fired into the weapons clearing barrel outside the facility alone, and the next time I did it while having his head close to the barrel. I fired away from him. I stood in between the firing and his person.

"I admit that what I did was not right but it was done with the concern of the safety of my soldiers and myself."

Col. West said he informed his superior of his actions. The incident lay dormant until the Army conducted an overall command-climate investigation of the brigade. The investigation turned up the interrogation technique, and Col. West was charged with one count of aggravated assault.

Col. West said the gunshots spurred the Iraqi to provide the location of the planned sniper attack and the names of three guerrilla fighters.

Col. West says the 4th Infantry's staff judge advocate, the unit's prosecutor, is offering him two choices: resign short of gaining retirement benefits or face court-martial.

Analysis: This story is interesting on a lot of levels. First, there's the question of effectiveness, and whether LTC West's use of his M9 pistol was effective in interrogating this prisoner. It appers that it was. Second, I think we have to balance that short-term effectiveness against any long-term consequences that flow from these kinds of interrogation tactics. In this case, the firing of two 9mm rounds near the prisoner was clearly coercion in a psychological sense, but I'm not sure whether it really crossed the line into torture. Remember, this is combat, not police work, and the rules are different. I'm not sure whether this incident will really have the kind of long-term consequences the Army is concerned about. Indeed, this kind of interrogation may be necessary to get information that can save American and Iraqi lives.

On another level, this story is interesting because it reveals American attitudes towards misconduct in the ranks. Generally speaking, the Army takes a dim view of this stuff, whether it's done by an Army MP private or an artillery colonel. Indeed, the colonel will usually be treated more harshly, both because of his experience and the command responsibility he bears. Truly, the buck stops in this case with LTC West, and he will be held responsible for anything done in his command. If one of his lieutenants had done this, LTC West probably wouldn't be facing charges now. But he surely would face some administrative action -- possibly the end of his career -- for the incident.

Finally, this story is interesting because it reveals the kind of stress our soldiers and commanders are under in Iraq. I bet that if you asked LTC West last year whether he'd do this, he'd have responded "no". Senior officers in the American Army tend to be very well educated about the laws of war, at least in comparison to our NATO allies and our enemies. If you gave him a hypothetical like this, he probably would have said he'd call in the brigade's counter-intel/HUMINT teams to do the interrogation. But the exigencies of the situation often make people do things they wouldn't ordinarily do. Clearly, LTC West and his unit are under a great deal of stress right now, or else this incident would not have happened.

I'm conflicted about whether these charges are justified or not. LTC West has the ultimate responsibility as commander to protect his unit, and a little bit of "smacky face" (to borrow Jess Bravin's quote from the WSJ) may be justified in this kind of situation. The line between coercion and torture is a very difficult one to draw, and I'm not sure this was the wrong thing to do in this situation. If this case goes to a court martial, LTC West may be able to make that case to a military jury of his peers.

Coda: Want to know how the Washington Times got this story? Easy. Guy Taylor, the writer, was embedded with 4th Infantry Division for some time during their ramp-up at Fort Hood and their subsequent deployment to Iraq. I imagine he made a number of contacts during that time, and built relationships among the officers in the division. I think this will be an unintended payoff of the embedding program for both the media and the public over the next several years. These bonds will probably continue over the years, especially as journalists cultivate relationships with officers on their way up.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:14

 
Army takes intel AAR off the web

Over the weekend, Tom Ricks reported in the Washington Post about an "after action review" conducted by officers from the Army's Joint Readiness Training Center that was critical of American military intel ops in Iraq. Among other things, this report highlighted key areas where American units were not given the intel resources to do their job.

The Army critique of U.S. intelligence efforts in Iraq is especially noteworthy, because the Bush administration and senior military commanders have maintained for months that more U.S. troops are not needed in Iraq, and that what is needed, instead, is better intelligence. The report discloses, for example, that the intelligence teams already operating in Iraq have been far less productive than the Army expected them to be. The 69 "tactical human intelligence teams" operating in the country at the time of the study, at the beginning of the summer, should have been producing "at least" 120 reports a day, but instead were delivering an average total of 30, it states. It attributes that apparent underperformance to "the lack of guidance and focus" from the intelligence office overseeing the teams' work.

The report also says that some key intelligence machinery has been misused in Iraq, which raises questions about the high-tech solutions that some at the Pentagon are advocating to improve the U.S. military's performance in Iraq.

Most notably, it is critical of how unmanned aircraft have been used in recent months. At one point, it notes that one such "unmanned aerial vehicle," or UAV, was assigned to find buried aircraft. Also, a major UAV system, the Hunter, was kept idle for 30 days because it had not been assigned an operational frequency on which to operate.

Managers of UAV operations were "overwhelmed" with tasks and were "lucky" to have their aircraft in the right place at the right time, the report says. UAVs fly so slowly, it adds, that they could not get to where they were needed. So, while the planes were employed to try to locate Iraqi fighters attacking U.S. military convoys, "the daily mortar and rocket attacks on bases and convoys became virtually undetectable to the UAVs," the report says.

In another technological issue, the report says that a network that was supposed to link intelligence teams and convey time-sensitive information among them -- as well as permit them to tap into an evolving database -- worked so poorly that it was "nonexistent." The report recommended that, among other things, the teams be provided with satellite telephones -- gear that most news reporters working in Iraq and Afghanistan possess as a matter of course.

Today, the Federation of American Scientists reports that the Army has taken the unclassified report down off the web, though a copy of the report still remains available on the Post's website.

The Army has taken one of its popular web sites offline after the Washington Post reported on a critical account of U.S. intelligence posted on the site.

The web site of the Center for Army Lessons Learned (call.army.mil) was promptly disabled following a Post story about an "unusually blunt" report on the inadequacies of U.S. military intelligence in Iraq.

"We're doing some maintenance" on the site, an Army spokeswoman at Fort Leavenworth told Secrecy News initially. She then acknowledged that the move was prompted by the Post story on October 25.

The web site should be back up by the end of the week, she said, but the report cited in the Post story "will not be available."

Very interesting. For starters, this is not a classified report, so it's odd that they would have this reaction to it. It's possible that it should have been classified, in which case the smart thing would have been to figure that out before it ran on the front page of the Washington Post. At this point, I think the Army is trying to stuff a cat back in the bag that's already taken off down the street.

This secrecy penchant with respect to AARs is also a departure for the Army, which has learned to embrace brutal, candid criticism as a way of increasing learning and spreading knowledge. These assessments are usually quite candid -- and quite bruising. "No thin skins" is a rule of AARs. Typically, these AARs are printed and circulated widely. Naturally, other Army officers want to learn from some other guy's mistakes instead of making his own. My hope is that this report has simply been removed to the "For Official Use Only" part of the CALL website, accessible by any .mil computer or with an AKO password.

However, there were some great kernels of wisdom in this report with implications for the policy process. There are legitimate concerns about whether our commanders have the MI resources they need to get the job done. Indeed, 4ID commander MG Ray Odierno stated in a press conference yesterday that these were legitimate issues:

Q. Dave Fulghum, Aviation Week. Do you give any validity to this October "lessons learned" study out of Fort Leavenworth that says Army intelligence analysts were too few in number and under trained?

GEN. ODIERNO: First, I have not seen the report, so I can't comment.

I know that I have complete confidence in all my intelligence analysts in the division, and I think they've done a very good job of what we've asked them to do.

I can't really comment on the report, because I haven't read it.

My overall assessment is, what the Army needs to do for the future is we need to focus a little bit more on human intelligence and our ability to conduct human intelligence in a quick manner, just because the nature of the battlefield has changed, and I think we've recognized that, really, for the last couple years. We still need to act on that in the Army. And so we need to work towards developing a better HUMINT structure than are already embedded into our units, because we believe that is what will work best against the threat that's out there, and then combining that with the national intelligence that's available and also the other -- SIGINT and other intelligence assets that we have available to us.

So I'm not quite as hard on them as you suggest that the article might have said. Now I'm not going to talk about national-level intelligence, because what I'm talking to you about is division level and below, which is what I've been involved with.

So even if this report should have been kept in military channels, I think that a sanitized version should be released to the public so that we can discuss issues like appropriate resource levels for military intelligence units. These are contentious issues that come up every year in the DoD budget process -- a process through which we spend $400 billion in taxpayer money. We can't allow the Army to develop a monopoly on information that will cripple the debate on the subject. If we're having problems in this critical area, we (the public) need to know about it.

Update: Noah Shachtman at DefenseTech connects this intel AAR's removal to a larger pattern of such acts in the federal government.

Update II: Fred Kaplan takes this issue on in Slate, and criticizes the Army for taking its information down from the public section of the Internet.
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:23

 
Skill & technology laid the foundation for victory in Iraq
Army study discounts the effects of technology alone, as well as jointness, in victory over the Iraqi forces -- luck played a role too

Prof. Stephen Biddle of the Army War College recently presented a study to the House Armed Services Committee on lessons learned from Iraq that concluded that Iraqi ineptitude was key factor in America's victory. Speed, technology and "jointness" could not explain, by themselves, the rapid American victory over Iraqi forces. As Prof. Biddle found in his 1996 study of Gulf War I, the key determinant of victory was the synergistic interaction of American skill with the lack of skill on the Iraqis' part -- magnified by the presence of a severe technology differential.

So both advanced technology and a major skill differential are necessary to explain OIF’s low casualties; to explain the failure of scorched earth requires Iraqi cooperation, whether deliberate (in the form of disobedience or lack of intent) or inadvertent (via organizational incapacity). Given Iraqi idiosyncrasies, a major skill differential, and modern technology, the OIF outcome would probably have obtained even without the speed of the Coalition advance or our precision or situation awareness per se; our technology was advanced enough and diverse enough that any of a wide variety of capabilities could have sufficed to punish Iraqi error very harshly. Inter alia, precision and situation awareness might have been sufficient, but neither were necessary as such; speed was probably neither necessary nor sufficient. A major skill differential, by contrast was necessary – as was some source of the modern lethality and protection needed to exploit Iraq’s mistakes. Given this, the causal importance of speed, precision and situation awareness has often been overestimated in the public debate on the war; the causal role of the skill differential between ourselves and our enemies has probably been underestimated. And the variety of ways in which technology can exploit that differential has been underestimated in the postwar focus on precision and situation awareness per se.

This is not to say that speed was a bad idea, or that either precision or situation awareness were unhelpful. Hindsight suggests that the Iraqis would not have torched their oil fields or used WMD with more time, but this was less clear beforehand. A rapid advance made sense given the credible possibility that Saddam might carry out such threats. And both precision and situation awareness were important contributors to the aggregate technological sophistication we needed to exploit the Iraqis’ mistakes.

But to say that speed was a sensible choice, or that precision and situation awareness were valuable, is not to find that their role was as important as often claimed. And the difference matters. Views of past wars shape future policies, and views on the relative importance of contributing causes can have serious postwar policy implications.

In particular, underestimating the skill differential’s importance could have a variety of dangerous consequences. First, it could lead to an assumption that precision and situation awareness can produce OIF-like results against other opponents with better skills than the Iraqis’. Even with skilled forces of our own, this is a dangerous assumption. In 2003, our technology could operate at near-proving-ground effectiveness against exposed, ill-prepared opponents. Enemies who do a better job of exploiting the natural complexity of the earth’s surface for cover and concealment could pose much tougher targets – as we have already seen in the performance of al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. Our technology’s performance is strongly affected by the nature of its targets, and our targets were extremely permissive in OIF. If we overlook this, we could thus exaggerate our technology’s potential against better skilled enemies elsewhere.

Analysis: Prof. Biddle's PowerPoint slides do a better job of breaking this down into bite-sized pieces. Basically, he doesn't think that we could have won in Iraq with such a small force if the Iraqis had fought better. Had we fought an enemy as well trained as the "Afghan Arabs" in Al Qaeda, we might have encountered much more difficulty -- particularly in any urban combat operations. (See this study by Prof. Biddle on the war in Afghanistan)

The implications of this study are quite large, as Prof. Biddle points out. On the strategic level, we need to consider how such factors like skill and technology affect the probabilities of success and casualties. At the operational level, we must plan operations that do not hinge so much on our enemy's inability to fight back effectively. And at the tactical level, we must train to fight an enemy better than ourselves -- like the OPFOR at the National Training Center -- to prepare for the day that we face an adversary more capable of opposing us.

Historically, militaries have learned more from their defeats than their victories. Military organizations that win wars historically tend to become complacent, and to adopt false lessons from victorious wars. The danger now is that America's military will think it can easily replicate its success in Iraq, and graft those methods onto future conflicts. We would be wise to not make that mistake.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:59

 
White House text file disables Internet search engines

Now this is odd... EnBanc reports (by way of the DNC blog) that the White House has put a text file on its home page to preempt external search engines (like Google) from looking inside the White House page for pages in certain folders -- everything from "Disallow: /911/iraq" to "Disallow: /kids/teeball2003/text".

Presumably, this anti-robot device is meant to force people to use the White House's search engine and page links. But in practice, this anti-robot page will act as a smokescreen, because there are lots of people like me who simply Google things like "President Nov. 13 tribunal order" to find the President's 13 Nov 01 military tribunal order (interestingly, it doesn't look like news releases have been delimited in this anti-robot device). I'd like to think that this is just administrative page management by a savvy webmaster in the White House. But I'm not smart enough about HTML to know.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:25

 
FBI jousts with librarians over Patriot Act

The front page of today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has an interesting article on Sec. 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, and the visceral reaction it has provoked from America's librarians. The section allows the FBI to subpoena library records, among other things, and mandates that librarians do not disclose such subpoenas to their patrons. Though never used, the provision has provoked librarians to adopt policies whereby they regularly purge their records in order to safeguard their patrons' privacy. Now, the Journal reports that the FBI has gone on the offensive to try win over librarians' hearts and minds.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Gamely, FBI Special Agent David J. Beyer tried to convince three dozen Kentucky librarians that it is unlikely his agency will ever use the USA Patriot Act to search their stacks and records.

The new antiterrorism law gives the Federal Bureau of Investigation the power to rummage through their computers and patron files, yet "never once in my career" had an investigation led him into a library, Mr. Beyer said. Still, he warned that another terrorist attack is "probable," flashed a slide show of the crumbling World Trade Center to drive home his point and begged the librarians not to destroy any records that might help investigators some day. After all, he asked, "How much protection do you want to give to your patrons, and how much protection do you want to give to your country?"

Martha Jane Proctor, her silver hair combed into stiff spikes, was having none of it. An adviser to the libraries in eight counties in eastern Kentucky's coal-field region, Ms. Proctor pronounced the very notion of a library search "an abomination." And destroy records? "Of course. I tell the [library] directors to do it. That's pretty much my opinion," she declared.

"The only vocal concerns I've ever heard" about the Patriot Act "are from the librarians," Mr. Beyer sighed as he left the Kentucky Library Association's annual convention.

The Patriot Act has generated protests from the left and the right since it passed, almost unanimously, six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But few critics are more stubborn than the librarians, who see it as an assault on such basic civil liberties as reading privacy and intellectual freedom.

Analysis: The record is pretty clear -- the FBI has not used its Sec. 215 authority even once. The reason is that it's far more efficient to use the administrative subpoena powers of the Justice Department to gather information. It's unknown how often the FBI has used these powers to gather information. Presumably, such subpoenas have been used in the DC and New York anthrax cases to find people who have recently studied anthrax and bioterrorism. But that's speculation on my part.

What's the real issue here? It's not Sec. 215 -- that provision hasn't been used at all. The real issue here is trust. Simply put, large blocks of American society (I have no idea whether it's a minority or majority) do not trust the federal government with their civil liberties. This lack of trust enables them to believe the worst about their Justice Department. I happen to think that the Justice Department does mostly good things, and that its career attorneys and agents are some of America's finest public servants. But I often find myself in the minority when I discuss this issue with friends and students. The reality is that many of my colleagues do not trust the Justice Department, or the Bush Administration. And without such trust, these Americans are willing to see nearly anything as an assault on their civil liberties -- almost regardless of factual basis.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:21

 
Baghdad attacks portend a new Iraqi guerilla campaign
Recent strikes indicate an evolution in terrorist tactics, techniques and procedures

Guerillas launched a coordinated series of attacks around Baghdad today, killing at least 34 and wounding hundreds, using suicide bombings as their modus opperandi. (See also this WP article on the attacks) The attacks targeted the International Committee of the Red Cross and 4 Baghdad police stations -- symbols of international intervention and the U.S.-sponsored regime respectively. The effect on the capital, according to the New York Times, was to plunge the city into chaos. Officials think that a "new element" might be to blame for today's series of attacks.

The attacks took place between 8:30 and 10:15 a.m. local time, leading American and Iraqi officials to believe that they were part of a highly coordinated operation. There was a strong suspicion that foreigners were involved, and American and Iraqi officials referred to a "new element" being responsible for the bombings.

The officials differentiated between today's attacks and one on Sunday against a highly guarded hotel where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz was staying. The Sunday attack was attributed to loyalists to the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein.

Today's attacks come on the heels of a coordinated rocket attack on the Al Rasheed hotel where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying. An American Army colonel was killed in that attack, though Mr. Wolfowitz escaped unscathed. As the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports, this attack represents an evolution from the previous six months of guerilla attacks, both in terms of its sophistication and the level of the risk the attackers took to get so close to a high-value target.

The attack on the U.S.-run Al Rasheed hotel, which sits in a vast "green zone" of Baghdad that is off-limits to ordinary Iraqis, marks a shift in the guerrillas' tactics. Rather than just hit-and-run ambushes, they are using more standoff weapons such as mortars, rockets and remote-controlled explosive devices that allow resistance fighters to strike without being hit in return.

Until recently, these rocket and mortar attacks -- including one on Al Rasheed in September -- usually failed to hit their targets. But, in the past few days, the guerrillas managed to inflict dozens of casualties, several of them fatal, by shelling U.S. bases in the cities of Samarra, Baquba and Balad, and by hitting a power station in Baghdad.

This ability to hit even the most protected U.S. targets raises new questions about how the American-led coalition can pacify Iraq. There are now as many as 35 anticoalition attacks a day, most in Baghdad and Sunni areas to its west and the north. In addition, guerrillas regularly kill Iraqis who help the coalition -- including the chief of police in the southern Amarah province, who was gunned down this past weekend.
* * *
Al Rasheed was hit on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, which is usually a period of increased religious feelings in the Muslim world. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top military commander for Iraq, said last week he expected an increase in violence during this period. He said the guerrilla attacks appeared to be growing more technically sophisticated and more centrally directed.

In the first months after the war, Iraqi militants would try to ambush U.S. convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire -- a tactic that usually led to immediate U.S. response and ended in the capture or killing of the attackers. Recently, the guerrillas switched to placing remote-detonated roadside bombs, usually made of rigged artillery shells -- a tactic successfully used against Israeli troops by Lebanon's Hezbollah militia in the 1990s. These bombs, disguised in crates of vegetables, bicycle baskets or buried in potholes, are hard to spot -- and often pierce through the soldiers' Humvees.

"The systems that they are putting together now are much more sophisticated -- the supposition is that they are bringing in trainers from abroad," says Maj. George Rosser, operations officer for a Florida National Guard battalion that has to deal with roadside bombs almost every night in the western city of Ramadi. "They've backed off from ambushes, from direct confrontation, because they can't stand up against our troops."

Analysis: It's far too early to know -- in the absence of a communique' from these groups -- who is responsible for both attacks. However, I think that both attacks represent a paradigm shift in the nature of the guerilla war we face in Iraq, as the Wall Street Journal alludes to in its report. These two attacks are markedly more sophisticated than the hit-and-run guerilla tactics used thus far. Here's how:

- The attacks today were time-coordinated so that they would happen with near simultaneity. That's a significant tactical evolution because a) it's tough to do, and b) it means they're sophisticated enough to know that simultaneous attacks work because your enemy doesn't have time to raise his guard after the first attack. (Attacks in series rarely work because the first one always raises everyone's guard)

- The attacks today employed suicide bombers, something not frequently seen in Iraq. Part of this owes to the lack of religious fervor on the part of the Iraqi insurgents -- they simply don't believe in their cause the way that Palestinian insurgents do. But with the exception of some Fedayeen attacks during the war, we have not seen suicide bombings en masse in Iraq. That trend may be changing.

- Today's attacks also were precisely targeted at "soft" symbolic targets of the continuing U.S. occupation. Rather than attack the CPA headquarters itself or other hard targets, they chose to attack the softer Red Cross and Iraqi police stations. These sites have a lot of symbolic value, because of the role that each organization plays in post-war Iraq. I think this is a pretty sophisticated targeting decision.

The trend is clear: We are seeing the outbreak of a truly 4th Generation War in Iraq, which pits American-led forces against a loose-knit network of guerillas with increasingly sophisticated tactics, techniques and procedures. If I had to guess, these tactics are being heavily influenced by both Al Qaeda and Ansar Al-Islam (see this LA Times article on Ansar Al-Islam by Esther Schrader), as well as other international terror groups, and there are probably a number of veteran terrorists directing the action from behind the scenes now. The only viable course of action at this point is to seize the offensive -- to gather intelligence, launch raids, and disrupt the terrorist cells before they can strike again. Undoubtedly, our enemies are planning to strike again.
posted by Phillip Carter at 09:15

 
Study reports success in treating Gulf War II casualties

Dave Moniz reports today in USA Today on a military analysis of casualties in Iraq that shows that wounded soldiers are twice as likely to survive their wounds than in previous conflicts. The military physicians conducting the study cite a number of factors, including:

* Wounded troops see surgeons and trauma specialists much more quickly. In Iraq, mobile surgical teams travel with combat units and can begin operating on severely wounded troops in minutes.

* Most troops in Iraq have protective Kevlar body armor that covers vital organs and can repel shrapnel and small-caliber bullets.

* Medics and other first-aid specialists carry blood supplies with them into battle so they can immediately stabilize patients who in previous wars might have bled to death before reaching a field hospital.

* The war in Iraq has been characterized by guerrilla attacks and not by traditional battles involving tanks, aerial bombs and casualty-producing heavy artillery fire.

Analysis: This is probably one of the biggest military success stories of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The decision to push forward surgical teams up to the front line was a calculated risk on the part of military medical planners, but it appears to have paid off. These teams did not become casualties themselves, and they were at the right time and place to provide critical trauma care to soldiers. Similarly, most of the soldiers and Marines who fought their way into Iraq had new Kevlar body armor, which made a tremendous difference in preventing fatal thoracic wounds. What will be interesting now is to see how these 'lessons learned' filter back via reverse osmosis to the civilian medical community. A recent study showed that the medical knowledge gained during the Vietnam War by military physicians found its way back into civilian trauma centers during the 1970s and 1980s, and actually had a statistically significant impact on the number of murders in America because it lowered the fatality rate for violent wounds that otherwise would have resulted in death.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:51

 
Twice the citizen or second-class soldiers? Or both?

An op-ed of mine ran today in the Sunday @Issues section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I comment on the situation at Fort Stewart, GA, where hundreds of reservists now wait for medical care and administrative processing before they can be released from active duty. But instead of purely siding with the reservists or criticizing their complaints, I try to generalize from this incident to make a larger argument about the role of today's reservist -- and the lack of resources he/she has to fulfill that role.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, America mobilized its reserves in a way that hadn't been seen since Korea. At home and abroad, reservists performed missions that active soldiers couldn't (such as guarding airports) and supported the active force in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Since Sept. 11, no fewer than 40,000 reservists have been on active duty at any given time, both for homeland security missions and combat operations overseas. Today, the Defense Department has 168,915 reservists on active duty in support of the war on terrorism. Senior officials have made it clear that the military could not function without the support of the reserves.

Yet, America's reserves have never achieved full equality with their active-duty counterparts. The reservists marooned at Fort Stewart -- as well as their reserve brethren around the world -- have long suffered from a lack of resources. America gives less to its reserve forces at every step -- recruiting, training, deployment, equipment, manning, medical care, even veterans' benefits. In the Army Reserve and National Guard, the nation gets a bargain -- trained soldiers with civilian experience who can be called at a moment's notice, but paid for only one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer.

Even in Iraq, reservists had to make do with less than their active-duty counterparts. Reserve units typically stand last in line for new equipment, behind active-duty Army units and the Marines. National Guard and Army Reserve units deployed to Iraq with radios older than many of their soldiers -- radios that could not talk securely with the active-duty units they worked with.

Many reserve units drove into Iraq with cargo trucks that were more than 30 years old. Reservists were also last in line to receive the military's new "Interceptor" body armor, specially designed to stop bullets from an AK-47.

Some units, such as Florida's 53rd Infantry Brigade, were designated as enhanced readiness units and given better training, equipment and resources. But they were the exception.

posted by Phillip Carter at 22:20

 
INTEL DUMP on weekend break. I will be disconnecting this weekend from both my news feed and my laptop. Please come back on Monday for new analysis and commentary.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:48

 
Bankrupting terrorism
Federal prosecutors charge key figures in anti-terrorism case

Glenn Simpson reports today in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) about the case of Abdur Rahman Alamoudi, who federal officials believe is at the center of a global financial web stretching from the U.S. to the Middle East, and which has put millions of dollars in terrorist coffers over the last several years. Alamoudi is currently charged with 18 counts of money laundering and tax, immigration and customs-fraud crimes, related mostly to illegal dealings with Libya. But federal officials believe, according to Mr. Simpson, that he is responsible for much more than these crimes. Alamoudi's lawyers deny the allegations.

Investigators have laid out the network's intricacy and geographic breadth in recent court filings related to a terror-finance investigation of a Virginia-based group of charities and businesses. Thursday, they indicted a key figure they say is linked to Hamas and al Qaeda.

The funds flowed from Saudi Arabia and Europe to the U.S. -- possibly to help make the money look legitimate -- and then through a maze of Virginia entities and back to Europe and the Middle East, authorities say. The money went through secretive Swiss banks and Isle of Man trusts and ended up in suspect hands, including a charity founded by an alleged Tunisian terrorist and a group implicated in the plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport, court documents say.

At the network's center is Abdur Rahman Alamoudi, a Muslim-American activist who was indicted Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. on money laundering and tax, immigration and customs-fraud charges. The 18-count indictment isn't directly related to the Virginia probe, focusing mostly on alleged illegal dealings with Libya.
* * *
The authorities have been investigating Mr. Alamoudi and his associates since late 2001. The probe seemed to make little headway until June, when Mr. Alamoudi was detained at London's Heathrow Airport for carrying $340,000 provided by Libyan agents. He was arrested when he returned to Virginia and indicted Thursday on charges of violating U.S. sanctions on Libya.

Prosecutors say the Virginia network's money trail, involving millions of dollars, begins in Saudi Arabia. Over $550,000 came from Mr. Alamoudi's five brothers in Saudi Arabia. The funds originated in accounts at al Rajhi Banking & Investment Corp. of Riyadh, which is controlled by the al-Rajhi family, and the National Commercial Bank of Jeddah, which the bin Mahfouz family controlled for a time. Both families and banks are defendants in the Sept. 11 suit and are under scrutiny by U.S. investigators.

Notes: This is the latest in a long series of excellent articles from Mr. Simpson in the Wall Street Journal on the subject of terrorist financing (see here, here, here, here and here). The articles have unveiled an incredibly sophisticated web of financiers, banks, commercial businesses, and individuals who have come together around the world to contribute to the international Islamic jihad by giving it the means to move money around the world. Arguably, these men have done as much to promote terrorism as those who ran the training camps in Afghanistan, or procured the explosives for bombs in Africa. Without these financial networks, Al Qaeda could not operate its global terror network; it could not project its power beyond the sands of Afghanistan and the Arabian peninsula. These financiers give Al Qaeda its global reach, and have supported its operations from Chechnya to Sudan to America.

It has taken U.S. prosecutors some time to unravel this network, but they appear to be doing so -- one terror cell at a time. This is painstaking, tedious work, and it may be years before we see a major reduction in Al Qaeda's operational capabilities as a result of these efforts. But these efforts' importance cannot be understated. Starving Al Qaeda of cash is one of the most important tasks in America's war on terrorism.

It's also a task that's very hard to measure. In his now-infamous memo, SecDef Rumsfeld wrote that "we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror." The financial war on terror is one area where lack such metrics to measure progress. Sure, we can easily measure our progress in terms of assets frozen or successful prosecutions. But those metrics don't necessarily tell us how much operational capability we've stripped from Al Qaeda, at least not without knowing the total assets that Al Qaeda has on hand. Moreover, it's very difficult to count our successes in this way because Al Qaeda's resources are not exactly finite. As long as they are able to raise money (or make it as profit on legitimate business ventures), we will have to continue this aspect of the fight.
posted by Phillip Carter at 14:42

 
Reversal of Boykin
NRO pulls editorial calling for general's resignation or termination

In a strange turnaround, the editors of the National Review have withdrawn their editorial calling for LTG William "Jerry" Boykin's resignation. The editors say this editorial was never meant to run, and that a production error allowed the paragraph to appear on their website.

A draft editorial paragraph was prepared, stating the position that Boykin should be fired; at just about the last minute, we decided to withhold judgment--to see how the investigation into the general’s behavior proceeded, and to reach a conclusion then.

Because of a production error, that paragraph--the one calling for Boykin’s head--went to the printer. And thus appears in the magazine. We removed it from our html edition, but about the “hard copy edition,” we could do nothing.

This explanation seems odd to me, given the time lapse between this editorial's appearance yesterday morning and today's retraction at 2:24 p.m. East Coast time. To me, the more likely explanation is that the NR editors felt out-of-step with the White House, and decided to correct the initial thoughts much like a weblog author would upon further introspection. But I'll let you be the judge.
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:32

 
Total Information Awareness lives on

Noah Shachtman reports today in Wired that members of Congress continue to debate ways to conduct "data mining" and "non-obvious relationship analysis" ("NORA") in ways that won't compromise Americans' civil liberities. Earlier this year, civil liberty concerns helped torpedo the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program, which was envisioned as a massive data collection and analysis project that could fuse data from private and public sources. Despite the end of that project, the debate continues over the use of these systems, largely because their potential -- for use and abuse -- is so great.

"When somebody buys a ticket on Delta Airlines in Munich, Germany, if there's any potential for (that person to have) a suspicious background, I want bells and whistles to go off on that computer," Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) told the group of 25 or so policy makers assembled in the Russell Senate Office Building's third floor by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank. But Congress "won't allow (intelligence) agencies" to "truly gather information on people's personal lives."

Nice words. But as Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, notes, "none of us really have the answer" for how to put them into action.
* * *
For example, the panel's moderator, Daniel Gallington, a longtime Justice and Defense Department official turned Potomac research fellow, floated a seemingly innocuous idea: that information legally collected by the FBI, CIA and local law enforcers should be combined and made searchable. Since 9/11, information sharing has become a mantra among these groups, after all.

But even this close-to-clichéd notion was met with resistance. A "global database" could be much harder to correct than a mosaic of distributed information centers, noted Peter Raven-Hansen, a professor of national security law at George Washington University. A single misspelling could associate an innocent person with suspicious activities, marking that person as a potential enemy of the state for a lifetime.

Our basic challenge is this: how can we fight terrorism within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution? Every aspect of the war on terrorism raises difficult Constitutional questions which reveal a basic tension between the means we might like to adopt (such as universal surveillance) and the principles we've sworn ourselves to (like the 4th Amendment proscription on unreasonable searches and seizures). These tensions cannot easily be resolved.

I happen to think we're at a good balancing point now, and that most (though not all) of our means have been carefully thought out to preserve Americans' constitutional rights. Material support prosecutions have not chilled speech the way some thought. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has not been abused since the USA PATRIOT Act's passage to snoop on average Americans who have no connection to terrorism or foreign intelligence. Sec. 215 of the PATRIOT Act has not been used to gather library records or other information, largely because it's not as effective as other means at the Justice Department's disposal. At the end of the day, our nation's government has somehow managed to balance liberty with security. Vigorous advocacy by civil rights groups and cool heads at senior levels have made this happen.

Total Information Awareness -- and projects like it -- raise difficult questions because they are such a radical departure from the types of things that lawyers and scholars have looked at over the years. Surveillance tactics today represent more of an incremental change than a revolutionary one, and it's not that hard to apply legal precedent (such as Kyllo v. United States) to determine how these technologies should be dealt with under the Constitution. Similarly, material support prosecutions aren't that much of a departure from historic prosecutions of organized crime. They're an evolution of the concept that you go after the little fish first in order to get the big fish.

But TIA and its progeny are different, because they represent such a total departure from the means of criminal enforcement. These new technologies don't easily fit the rules on the books, and indeed, we don't even understand these technologies' implications enough to write new rules yet. Maybe the best thing would be to have a few lawyers in DARPA who can say "Hey, wait a minute" every time a scientist has a good idea like TIA. The scientists probably wouldn't like that very much. But a few good lawyers might help DARPA think through the legal and policy implications of its futuristic programs before they're torpedoed by people who are frightened by those implications.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:04

 
Thoughts on the Rumsfeld memo and metrics of success

I've had a little more time to digest the "Rumsfeld memo" which was first made public by a USA Today story on Wednesday. (See also this LA Times story from today on the matter) As I said earlier, I think this memo represents a healthy dose of skepticism, optimism, and realism about America's war on terrorism. But one paragraph in particular struck me as quite insightful:

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

What are metrics? I'm no engineer, but I learned last year in a business-school seminar that "metrics" is a fancy word for "measurements" that matter to management. A metric can be something like number of customers who enter a retail store on a given day. Or in the terrorism context, it can be some other indicator, such as number of Al Qaeda members in custody.

As Sec. Rumsfeld points out, the problem is this: If you choose the wrong metrics, your execution will invariably orient on those metrics and produce unintended results.

A great case-in-point is the Army Physical Fitness Test. It's the Army's chosen metric of fitness. It has become the end-all/be-all of fitness for most of the Army. Does it measure true fitness? Not really. Does it measure combat readiness? Not really. Does it measure job performance? Not really. But it's the metric, nonetheless. (The Army chose this PT test of pushups, situps and a 2-mile run largely because of standardization, ease of administration, and the fact that it's a pretty good -- albeit not perfect -- indicator of basic physical fitness.) Army platoons and companies have oriented on this test as their basic metric of success in the area of physical fitness, creating PT programs and remedial PT programs and incentive programs focused on improving performance under this metric. They have done so to the exclusion of other kinds of fitness which are arguably more related to combat, such as the ability to road march long distances or carry a wounded buddy. Indeed, I've seen units cut things like road marches out of their PT program in order to focus on pushups, situps and the 2-mile run. I think this is a case where the metric of success (the APFT) has become more important than the mission (improving fitness and combat readiness), and that the tail is now wagging the dog.

I took a strategic planning class at UCLA's business school last year, and our group project was to pick a company doing poorly and turn it around with a strategy built on metrics. My small group (1 Disney exec, a consultant, and me) picked AOL, and we built a strategy focused on leveraging AOL-Time Warner's tremendous content and the "pipes" of AOL to deliver that content to the customer. We chose a set of objectives in each operational area of the firm -- Innovation, Customer Targeting, Operational Effectiveness -- and aggregate performance metrics to measure our success for each objective. Each of these was fed, in turn, by granular metrics from AOL's subordinates. Ultimately, they fed up to the 5-10 key metrics that we recommended the AOL CEO watch on a daily basis. (Who knows if the strategy would have worked or not?) But the point of the class was that you can't emphasize these metrics enough, and that your strategy would become a function of your metrics if you didn't think them through well enough. When you tell your subordinates that their performance will be measured by certain indicators, it's only natural for them to focus on these indicators and work to do well by those -- even if there is dissonance between those indicators and your stated mission. (See also Bureacracy by James Q. Wilson for a great explanation of how incentives and organizations work in public agencies)

In Iraq and Afghanistan, we have allowed certain metrics to become accepted measures of our success or failure by default, including:

- Capture or death of Osama and Saddam
- Number of U.S. KIA + U.S. non-battle casualties
- Number of enemy high-value KIA/captured (the Iraqi deck of cards)
- Number of IED events/week in Iraq
- Total amount spent on Iraq and Afghanistan

I would submit to you that these are the wrong metrics, and that we have let them become the default metrics in the absence of a clear strategy from the White House and Pentagon. These metrics don't measure our success so much as our commitment in terms of spirit, blood and treasure. (Isn't that a book title?) Over time, our strategy will reorient towards these metrics. Our commanders will reduce their operational risk in order to minimize the risk of casualties. Our commanders may not spend money on certain things because they don't think it's worth the political fight with their higher HQ. And so it
goes. At the end of the day, our official metrics of success read more like a Harper's Index column than a serious set of policy metrics. They measure the wrong things, and they drive commanders to do things at the strategic, operational and tactical levels that don't necessarily mesh with our national strategy.

In my book, the only metric that matters in America's war on terror is this one:

- # of terrorist attacks on U.S. persons or interests at home and abroad.

The closer we get that measurement to zero, the closer we get to victory. Every other measurement of success and every other strategy ought to feed up to this aggregate metric. I think the metrics put forward recently by the White House and Pentagon (e.g. # of schools built in Iraq) are irrelevant to this all-important metric of success. At best, you can make an attenuated argument that winning hearts and minds of Iraqis with schools will help to reduce the recruitment pool for international jihad, but that's a really big stretch. There are other aggregate and granular metrics which do matter, such as # of terrorists in U.S. custody, money frozen through anti-terrorism financial investigations, number of suspected terrorists denied entry visas, etc.

But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that we never see another attack on America again. That's how we ought to measure success. Deep down, I think Don Rumsfeld knows this, and he's puzzled about how to construct aggregate and granular metrics that measure progress towards this ultimate goal. Thankfully, he's supported by some incredibly smart people in the Pentagon, and he can call in support from other agencies such as State, Treasury, Justice, DHS and the CIA to help unpack this problem. Defining success in this war won't be easy. But it's still important that we try.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:57

 
Liberals and conservatives agree: Boykin should go

I could probably count the number of times The American Prospect and The National Review have agreed on one hand if I actually took the time to research that statistic. Yet, both the left and right appear to agree on one thing: LTG William "Jerry" Boykin's conduct was wrong, and he ought to be removed from his position as Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. Ironically, the National Review goes even further than TAPPED, the American Prospect's weblog, in comparing Boykin to MacArthur as "manifestly insubordinate". Here's what the NR editors have to say in their Nov. 10 editorial:

During the Korean War, Douglas MacArthur wanted to attack Manchuria, and he let that be known to everyone who would listen. That was not U.S. policy, however, and President Truman promptly sacked the great man. During the Cold War — in fact often pretty hot — NATO general Edwin Walker was instructing his troops in the theorems of the John Birch Society. That the U.S. government was 60 percent under Communist control was not the view of the Kennedy administration, and Walker was gone. Flash forward to today. A three-star general, William "Jerry" Boykin, has been lecturing, in public and in uniform, to the effect that we are in a war with Islam, than whose god his God is bigger, that this is a war against Satan, of whom he has a photograph in the sky above Mogadishu. President Bush has made it national policy that we are not in a war with global Islam. Furthermore, it is hardly good for the morale of troops to understand that their commander is a wacko who goes around photographing Satan zooming overhead. General Boykin is manifestly insubordinate, and should be sacked. Yesterday.

What's going on here? I can only guess. I think the left sees Boykin's conduct as problematic for a multitude of reasons -- legal, moral, political, intellectual. The right sees Boykin as a problem child for much more pragmatic reasons. The suggestion that America's fight against terrorism is a religious crusade could do serious damage to America's war on terrorism, both at home and abroad. Always quick to recognize a political liability, I think the right is now trying to do damage control here. I stand by original prediction though. LTG Boykin will not be sacked. This old warrior will resign before he lets his actions affect the mission or his nation.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:55

 
The 'ground truth' on morale in Iraq

Stars & Stripes has an outstanding series of articles available on its website that ran over the last seven days detailing its survey of morale among soldiers in Iraq. The survey earned a great deal of criticism and praise when it appeared last week. Critics seized on its superficiality and lack of scientific methodology; supporters argued that it did a better job than anything thus far at gauging morale in Iraq. (I fell in the latter camp) Now, Stars & Stripes gives us a series of stories aimed at explaning the survey in more depth. Here's a sample of the stories available:

Day 1: The troops speak
Voices on the ground: Stars and Stripes surveys troops on morale in Iraq

Stripes reporters visited nearly 50 camps in Iraq to gauge sentiment

Day 2: What defines morale

Many servicemembers filling out questionnaire call morale low, but leaders say the job is getting done

The many definitions of troop morale

Day 5: The evolving mission

Is the mission clear: Evolving goals mean unusual roles for servicemembers in Iraq

Day 7: A better outlook

What will spell success? Leadership, rotations seen as ultimately more important than comforts.

Troops' wish list: Straight talk from commanders, better phone and e-mail access.

Troops in Iraq find comfort in keeping mind occupied, body strong.

This is must-read reporting. The Stars & Stripes reporting team does a remarkable job in these stories of remaining relatively objective, and balancing soldier comments with objective analysis from seasoned veterans. They also appear to report the survey results without an evident bias for or against the policy of the mission. This may not be pure sociology; it may not be publishable in a peer-reviewed journal. But I think it's darn good reporting, and I recommend every article in this series.
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:50

 
USA Today publishes leaked Rumsfeld memo
Text shows critical thinking and self-examination within the Pentagon

The story du jour comes from USA Today, which reports today on a leaked memo from SecDef Don Rumsfeld to his top staff. This memo appears more self-critical and introspective than anything I've yet seen from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The memo questions America's progress in the war on terrorism, its focus, its metrics of success, among other things. Here's an excerpt from the text of the memo:

October 16, 2003

TO: Gen. Dick Myers
Paul Wolfowitz
Gen. Pete Pace
Doug Feith

FROM: Donald Rumsfeld

SUBJECT: Global War on Terrorism

The questions I posed to combatant commanders this week were: Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror? Is DoD changing fast enough to deal with the new 21st century security environment? Can a big institution change fast enough? Is the USG changing fast enough?

DoD has been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies and air forces. It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution, either within DoD or elsewhere — one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem.

With respect to global terrorism, the record since Septermber 11th seems to be:

- We are having mixed results with Al Qaida, although we have put considerable pressure on them — nonetheless, a great many remain at large.

- USG has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis.

- USG has made somewhat slower progress tracking down the Taliban — Omar, Hekmatyar, etc.

- With respect to the Ansar Al-Islam, we are just getting started.

Have we fashioned the right mix of rewards, amnesty, protection and confidence in the US?

Does DoD need to think through new ways to organize, train, equip and focus to deal with the global war on terror?

Are the changes we have and are making too modest and incremental? My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.

Do we need a new organization?

Analysis: I tend to agree with what Glenn Reynolds and Virginia Postrel have said on this subject. (The downside of living on the West Coast is that I read the news when everyone else is hitting their mid-morning stride) Sure, this leak is bad for operational security reasons -- it offers our enemies a glimpse into the upper echelons of Pentagon decisionmaking. But the truly insidious effect of this leak is to chill future introspection and self-examination.

At the lowest levels of the Defense Department, platoons and companies conduct "after action reviews" afte training exercises to determine how to do each mission better the next time. These AARs have ground rules -- no thin skins, no grudges, etc. What happens in the AAR stays in the AAR, just like the Las Vegas saying. This is done to promote honesty, candor, and self-examination, because it's been proven that tough, candid AARs can identify lessons in training that will save lives in combat. The same is true on a strategic level within the Pentagon. If our top Pentagon decisionmakers can't engage in this kind of introspection without leaks, then they may not have as good of a decisionmaking process. We all suffer as a result.

I have been one of the Secretary's most strident critics on occasion, critiquing the Phase IV (post-war occupation) planning and a variety of other policies from the E-Ring. In this case, I think some praise is in order. This is precisely the kind of thinking I want from a chief executive in the Pentagon -- unconventional, questioning, thoughtful, and precise. This kind of thinking, if followed up by good planning, resources and command emphasis, can lead to real change. As the SecDef points out, we currently face an incredibly agile, innovative and dynamic adversary in Al Qaeda. We can't win if we fight him in the same old way that defeated Germany in WWII -- we must ourselves become agile, innovative and adaptive. The SecDef's memo shows us that we're moving in the right direction, or at least that we're thinking of moving in the right direction.

Coda: I wouldn't be surprised to see Eliot Cohen's hand behind this memo. His book Supreme Command lays out four historic cases of civilian leadership over the military. Cohen concludes his book with an argument for an aggressive, managerial, questioning style of civilian leadership of the military. The SecDef appears to have adopted Mr. Cohen's prescriptions, with some minor stylistic changes. Not that this is a bad thing... The Pentagon is the largest bureaucracy in the world, and it takes a firm hand to manage it effectively. I'd rather have Don Rumsfeld's strong hand on the rudder than that of a Ken Lay-style CEO who focuses on external relations while letting Skilling & Fastow run the ship aground. (See Jeffrey Toobin's excellent story in the New Yorker for the details of this analogy)
posted by Phillip Carter at 11:02

 
Do wounded soldiers really have to pay for their own food?

Stop the Bleating takes on this urban legend and debunks it quite effectively. A news story has been making the rounds that soldiers wounded in Iraq have had to pay for their own meals at the hospital -- and that they've been upset when the hospital took away their Basic Allowance for Subsistence in return for covering their meals.

"WASHINGTON — Sgt. Brandon Erickson, 22, had just finished the third of five surgeries on his amputated right arm when he awoke at 6 a.m. to find a private in his room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (search) with paperwork ready for him to sign.

'She said, "This is a paper that says you have to pay $8.10 a day for your food." I went off the deep end,' said Erickson, a North Dakota National Guardsman who was injured in Iraq in July when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the cargo truck he was riding in.

Erickson, still groggy from surgery, refused to sign anything. The sergeant from the 957th Multi-Role Engineer Company (search) had just arrived back in the United States the night before, six days after the attack occurred.

'It didn't seem right that he would be fighting for our country and lose a limb for our country, and have to pay for his meals,' said his mom, Ruth Vogel, a Maryland resident."

Matt at Stop the Bleating explains why this is bunk:

Servicemembers receive a "subsistence allowance" with their paychecks. This money is not part of their base pay--it is an allowance for a specific purpose. That specific purpose is the purchase of meals. (Thus, "subsistence.") Now, under peacetime conditions many servicemembers will eat many of their meals on the local economy. By living frugally, they can often eat for less than their subsistence allowance, which can mean a little extra money in the bank at the end of the pay period. To those who manage to pull this off, I offer kudos. Good for them! But it doesn't change the fact that this money has one purpose and one purpose only: buying food for the servicemember. It's not there for car payments, rent, CDs, new games for the PS2, or "bling bling." Many servicemembers forget this simple fact, and come to consider their subsistence allowance as part of their pay--and a part to which they're entitled, no matter what!

Now, when servicemembers go to the field for training (and, I must presume, when they go into places like Afghanistan and Iraq, to put their training to use), they no longer have the option of subsisting on the local economy; they eat what the government provides. But since the government is providing them with meals--meals that is has already paid the servicemembers to purchase--it rightly expects them to pay for those meals. Why should they get both money for meals, and free meals?! They shouldn't, of course--but I've seen Marines become extremely indignant at having to fork over some of their subsistence allowance for MREs after field ops.

That, I am quite sure, is what has been happening with the wounded. They've been asked to fork over some of their subsistence allowance to pay for the meals they're eating.

Bravo Zulu to Matt to pointing this out. Just another example of how soldier gripes can spin the media because the media doesn't know enough about the military to understand what's really going on. (See, e.g., Paul Krugman's column several weeks ago about soldiers getting only 3 liters of water/day in Iraq). As I said then, "quotation does not necessarily equal fact-checking." You've got to ask the hard questions when you get a gripe like this to make sure the soldier isn't mistaken about what the system is actually doing -- something that's more common than you'd think. This phenomenon is not limited to news outlets on the left or the right -- this story has gotten the most airplay from Fox News. C'mon guys... take the time to interview some grizzled old soldier on stories like this so you can get the story right. Don't just air the gripe without taking the time to check it out.
posted by Phillip Carter at 05:42

 
A game of chess on the DMZ

Chris Cooper had an extremely good article in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that laid out some of the strategic and operational considerations behind America's plan to realign its military presence in Korea. The Pentagon has plans underway to move the 2nd Infantry Division south from its current "tripwire" posture near the DMZ, to consolidated bases south of Seoul. At the same time, the U.S. plans to move its headquarters out of downtown Seoul to a more rural and secure location in the central part of the country.

In one sense, the move represents a de-escalation from the situation today where U.S. and North Korean units sit on a hair trigger across the DMZ from one another. But as Chris Cooper explains, the move can also be seen as an escalation of tensions, and the precursor to a pre-emptive strike by the U.S. on North Korea.

In the first major redeployment of American troops in South Korea since the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War, the U.S. plans to roll up 19 camps scattered in and along the Korean demilitarized zone and relocate them to a pair of large bases south of Seoul. The Pentagon says the restructuring will allow it to reduce its 37,000-strong force; a State Department official who has seen the plan says the force reduction could total more than 10,000.

Anywhere else, such a move would appear likely to lessen tensions. Instead, North Korea brands the plan an "arms buildup" and a prelude to an invasion. Already courting a crisis by threatening to detonate a nuclear bomb, North Korea promises to protect itself.

President Bush, attending a regional economic summit in Bangkok, Thailand, said Sunday that the U.S. is prepared to offer North Korea specific security assurances if it will dismantle its nuclear program. But rather than respond to the overture, Pyongyang Monday test-fired a surface-to-ship missile into the waters separating the peninsula from Japan. (See related article.)

South Korean officials oppose the pullback plan as well, U.S. officials say. The South Koreans fear a force reduction would roil their financial markets, disrupt the country's fragile economy and require an increase in Seoul's defense budget. They also are increasingly unwilling to antagonize North Korea, and don't want to do anything seen as emboldening the Bush administration's hawkish tendencies.

The confusion over U.S. intentions lies in the nature of the troops it plans to pull back. Since the Korean War ended, American and South Korean troops have arrayed themselves along the border region between the North and South to serve as a "tripwire" -- an early warning of a North Korean invasion. The 19 camps between Seoul and the border house about 15,000 U.S. tripwire troops.

Because many of these troops likely would die in a surprise attack by North Korea, their presence serves to assure both sides that the U.S. would be fully committed if war broke out.
* * *
Pyongyang sees the plan as a strategic move to get American troops out of the North's artillery range, making it easier for the U.S. to launch a pre-emptive attack and disrupting the current military balance.

"They think we're clearing the decks so we can roll to Pyongyang with impunity," says Jack Pritchard, until recently the State Department's envoy to the region. Mr. Pritchard says the Pentagon understands the threat implicit in its plan, and while he doesn't believe it is a prelude to war, "I don't think they care what North Korea believes."

Indeed, some hawks in the Bush administration privately see the move as expanding its military options by separating the U.S. and South Korean forces and unwinding the joint structure of the current configuration. "If we were to discuss the need to perform pre-emptive strikes on North Korea, under the current configuration, we'd need South Korean approval," said one such administration hawk. "Under the new configuration, we wouldn't need that approval so much."

Analysis: A lot has been made of the President's statement that the U.S. has "no intention of invading North Korea". (Query: was the word 'invading' chosen over 'attacking' to preserve the option of a pre-emptive airstrike?) Presumably, this statement was offered as a carrot to induce North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons program. I think this pledge moves the ball forward in negotiations with North Korea, and hopefully, that it will de-escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula. The sooner we can re-engage the North Koreans with diplomacy, economic contacts, and trade, the better.

I agree with the Pentagon plan. I think we need to move our soldiers off the DMZ both to make them more efficient and to make them more survivable in the event of a North Korean attack. But also think this is an extraordinarily complex situation. Our moves in Korea will have repercussions for the South Korean political and economic situation that need to be mitigated. The secondary and tertiary consequences of our moves in Korea could affect the rest of East Asia -- China, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, and others. Our forward-deployed 2nd Infantry Division is not just a "tripwire" to give early warning; it's what has maintained an uneasy peace for more than 50 years. We should be very careful about giving up this posture.
posted by Phillip Carter at 12:56

 
Were LTG Boykin's comments on Islam unlawful?

Much has been made thus far of LTG William Boykin's comments on Islam, and his fitness for service as the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. Eugene Volokh provides a great analysis of this issue from his perspective as a Constitutional Law scholar. The question presented is whether the government can punish such speech -- which is arguably both political and religious expression -- within the bounds of the First Amendment. Eugene thinks the government can.

Between these three doctrines, I'm pretty sure the President could dismiss Gen. Boykin on the spot with no constitutional problems: His speech may well have substantially interfered with the government's mission -- and courts tend to defer considerably to the government's judgment about such interference -- but more importantly, he's a very high level official, and a member of the military. (Even if you think that Gen. Boykin's speech did not substantially interfere with the government's mission, the high-level official point and the military point, especially put together, should be conclusive.) And the President, or other government higher-ups, can impose discipline or restrictions short of dismissal as well.

What about the fact that the speech is religious? That shouldn't generally change the analysis, I think. As a general matter (subject to complications that I set aside here), the Free Exercise Clause comes into play only when the government punishes people precisely because their conduct was religious. Presumably any government punishment (if there will be such punishment here) would have equally applied if the general's statements were political rather than religious, or delivered in a nonreligious place rather than in a church. The Free Exercise Clause thus wouldn't be in play.

What if the government does punish the general more precisely because his speech was religious? Or what about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a statute that does require the government to give special exemptions to religious believers even from generally applicable rules that don't single out religion? It's a long story, but I think that even these theories would fail because of the government's conclusion (if the government so concludes) that the speech seriously harmed the government's mission, and even more so because he's a high-ranking official and a member of the military.

Two last items. First, it's possible that courts would simply refuse to intrude into decisions about the President firing a general; but my analysis relates to whether the President's actions are constitutional under existing law, not the sometimes different question of whether courts would step in to decide the question. Second, I strongly suspect that Gen. Boykin would in any event not sue over any dismissal or other discipline.

Analysis: As my transcripts readily show, I'm no First Amendment scholar. However, I am familiar with several federal and military regulations that would seem to proscribe the conduct by LTG Boykin in this case. I will reserve my analysis at this point, because I'm still developing some of my arguments. But if you're interested, I recommend comparing LTG Boykin's conduct to the rules found in the following places (also see the DoD Standards of Conduct Office for more information on DoD ethics rules):

Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations
PART 2635--STANDARDS OF ETHICAL CONDUCT FOR EMPLOYEES OF THE EXECUTIVE
BRANCH
Sec. 2635.702. Endorsements.
Sec. 2635.803. Prior approval for outside employment and activities.
Sec. 2635.807 Teaching, speaking and writing.

Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations
PART 3601--DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.
Sec. 3601.108 Disclaimer for speeches and writings devoted to agency
matters.

Department of Defense, Joint Ethics Regulation 5500-7R, Sec. 3-307. Policy & Security Reviews.

Army Regulation 600-20 (Army Command Policy)
4-12. Extremist organizations and activities.
4-17. Standards of conduct.
5-3. Political activities.
5-6. Accommodating religious practices.

Army Regulation 670-1. (Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia)
1-10. When the wear of the Army uniform is required or prohibited

I would argue that LTG Boykin's comments violate at least some -- if not all -- of these regulatory authorities. As an active-duty officer, LTG Boykin is bound to follow federal and military regulations. If he violates these regulations, he can be prosecuted under Art. 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for failing to follow a lawful order.

I support the principle of free speech and I support the Constitutional rights of our servicemembers. However, there are other principles in the Constitution as well, including that of civilian control of the military. We don't let our generals speak openly on political, social, religious and other hot-button issues for good reason. (Note to Gen. Clark: beware the implications of this issue for your campaign) We also don't condone outside speaking by military officers in uniform, also for good reason. Setting aside the morality or correctness of LTG Boykin's comments, the legality of his conduct seems to be fairly cut and dry to me. LTG Boykin should not be allowed to break the rules.

Update: The AP reports that LTG Boykin has requested an investigation by the Army or DoD inspector general of his remarks. Such an investigation will likely look into the regulatory issues discussed above, and issue a report as to whether any further action needs to be taken.

Update II: Sen. John Warner and Sen. Carl Levin, respectively the chairman and ranking Democrat of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have also requested an investigation into LTG Boykin's comments. More importantly, they have called for the temporary reassignment of LTG Boykin from his position as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Intelligence). (The LA Times confirms this report, and adds that the SASC investigation request was sent on Friday)

Prediction: LTG Boykin will step aside voluntarily, and offer to resign before any major investigation gets going. He's an old soldier who would rather be remembered for his exemplary career than this last gaffe. And most of all, he won't want his p.r. blunder to affect the Pentagon or its ability to fight the war on terror.
posted by Phillip Carter at 10:36

 
30+ soldiers miss flights from R&R back to Iraq

The Washington Post reports today that more than 30 soldiers have missed their flights back to Iraq after being granted two weeks of leave. Some have requested extensions for extenuating circumstances, but at least two have expressed a desire to avoid returning to the combat zone. The Pentagon has not labeled any of them AWOL yet, but it has said it will investigate each case.

A week after return flights began, 28 soldiers had not made it to Baltimore-Washington International Airport for the journey back to Iraq, said Air Force Maj. Mike Escudie, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa. Six others did not make yesterday evening's flight out of BWI for unknown reasons, said Lt. Col. Robert Hagen, an Army spokesman.

Escudie said "a small number" have been granted emergency extensions by military commanders because of extenuating circumstances, including deaths in the family. Military officials could not say how many presented valid reasons or how many had failed to contact authorities.
* * *
Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center in Silver Spring, said the absences "demonstrates there is a morale problem." Robinson said he had been contacted by two soldiers home on leave who do not want to return to their units

One of the soldiers, a National Guardsman from Florida, missed his scheduled flight back to Iraq three days ago, Robinson said. "I told him he needs to get his [rear end] back to Iraq," Robinson said.
* * *
"We had the same problem in Vietnam," said retired Marine officer Gary Solis, who commanded a company in Vietnam and later wrote a history on military law during that war.

Solis, of Alexandria, said the combination of "Australian women and Australian beer" kept several of his Marines from returning from leave on time.

The leave program from Iraq, which unlike in Vietnam is bringing soldiers home to the continental United States to reunite with their families, may make it even more difficult for soldiers to return, Solis said.

"It's a lonely thing to do, but then that's the soldier's duty," he said.

Analysis: Everyone knew this would happen. It was an explicit risk of this R&R program, and I'm sure the commanders on the ground in Iraq accepted this risk as an acceptable tradeoff for the boost in morale that R&R would bring. Indeed, I'm sure that the JAG officers in CENTCOM and CFLCC developed contingency plans for how they would enforce Art. 86 (Absent Without Leave) in the event these soldiers did not come home.

That said, these soldiers must be dealt with strictly. Each may have some compelling personal reason to avoid the return flight to Iraq. But their buddies do not have the luxury of such excuses; they must soldier on without their absent comrade, shouldering more of the burden with each day he or she is missing. That's wrong, and these soldiers cannot be allowed to hurt their buddies that way. The Ranger Creed, which I consider to be one of the best expressions of the warrior ethos, says it like this:

Never shall I fail my comrades. I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong and morally straight and I will shoulder more than my share of the task whatever it may be. One-hundred-percent and then some.

Energetically will I meet the enemies of my country. I shall defeat them on the field of battle for I am better trained and will fight with all my might. Surrender is not a Ranger word. I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy and under no circumstances will I ever embarrass my country.

The cornerstone of military justice is that it punishes acts which are prejudicial to good order and discipline -- those acts which undermine unit cohesion. I can think of few acts which undermine unit cohesion more than shirking your duty to return to your buddies in combat. Every AWOL soldier will have his or her own special story, and I trust their commanders will take that into account. But the bigger picture is the effect of these selfish acts on the unit they left behind.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:32

 
Army to investigate reservist treatment at Fort Stewart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that an Army investigation has been launched into allegations of poor treatment by reservists back from Iraq -- but now waiting for medical treatment at Fort Stewart, Georgia. These reservists appear to have complained quite loudly about poor medical care, substandard living conditions, and other problems with their extended stay on active duty. Pentagon officials and members of Congress appear to have answered the call.

An advance investigative team from the Pentagon arrived Monday to begin interviewing officials and reservists with complaints about their treatment, an Army spokesman said.

Some of about 600 reservists currently on "medical hold" at Fort Stewart complain that they are being housed in barracks without window screens or air conditioning and have to walk, sometimes on crutches, to outdoor latrines. Some say they have waited weeks or months for appointments with Army doctors.

The reservists claim that regular Army troops with medical problems are being given priority attention at Fort Stewart. The complaints were initially reported by United Press International on Friday.

"Medical hold" is a term the Army uses to describe soldiers with medical problems that need to be evaluated for treatment and possible benefit claims, a complicated process akin to the evaluation procedures for civilian workers' compensation claims, said a Fort Stewart doctor involved in the process.

"A lot of [military] doctors don't want to do this," said Col. John Brooks, a physician and Army reservist at Fort Stewart who serves on the medical boards evaluating the soldiers' conditions. "It's not a popular job. Some soldiers hide injuries because they want to stay soldiers; some overemphasize their problems because they want money; some just aren't clear about what's wrong with them."

Brooks said his office is doing its best to process claims quickly.

But veterans' advocate Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center in Silver Spring, Md., said the treatment of reservists on medical hold at Fort Stewart is unacceptable.

"In essence this is about their benefits in the service of their country," Robinson said. "The government has a duty to restore them to their pre-service condition or to compensate them if that isn't possible and to do it quickly."

Analysis: This is actually something I've seen happen with the redeployment of California Army National Guard soldiers from Operation Noble Eagle (the homeland security mission). Some soldiers wanted to get home right away, so they concealed injuries that might have kept them on medical hold at Fort Carson, CO. When these soldiers sought military medical care back in California, they had to deal with layer upon layer of bureaucracy stacked against them. Ultimately, it took several generals' involvement to get them medical care. A second group of soldiers would inflate minor medical problems into big ones to remain on active duty, either for financial security or in the hopes of receiving a VA disability rating. These soldiers tended to gum up the works, and deprive needy soldiers of scarce medical resources. Suffice to say, my experience showed me that this is a very difficult area to manage, and it takes a lot of commander involvement to get it right.

The case at Fort Stewart is similar, but different in some important ways. As an initial matter, these reservists should not have to live in antiquated WWII barracks while they wait for medical care, nor should they have to wait an inordinate amount of time. If the Army can't accomodate these reservists in a reasonable amount of time, they should be released from active duty and referred to a civilian provider at government expense. Or they can be seen near their home on an outpatient basis. Or they could be maintained on active duty, but seen by a civilian provider on an expedited basis. In any event, there's no reason to keep these guys around for so long.

The Army is right to say here that the needs of those deployed to Iraq right now trump the needs of those already redeployed. Our Army has sent a great deal of its net medical capacity to Iraq, and that leaves a delta between what it can do and what it needs to do here at home. These reservists may have to suck it up a little as a result. But I think the answer is somewhere in the middle, and hopefully this investigation will help both sides come to a reasonable solution.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:19

 
WSJ: U.S. sails alone to stop weapons proliferation

Carla Robbins has an interesting article on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) about U.S. efforts to fight WMD proliferation. Ms. Robbins starts with an anecdote from Dec. 2002, when Spanish soldiers boarded a cargo ship in the Indian Ocean after U.S. intelligence said it had missiles from North Korea bound for Yemen. The Bush Administration eventually ate crow over the affair, once it was determined that the missiles were being shipped lawfully.

MADRID -- By the time the Spanish frigate spotted the unflagged cargo ship in the Indian Ocean last December, the Americans had been tracking it for a month and the Spanish had been racing toward it for four days. But when Spanish Rear Admiral Juan Moreno Susanna ordered the freighter to slow for boarding, it ignored his demand, as well as two salvos of warning shots and a third salvo into its bow.

After a six-hour standoff, Spanish special forces rappelled from a helicopter onto the moving deck while snipers stood by. "The effort was worth it," Adm. Moreno says. Hidden in the ship's hold were 15 North Korean Scud missiles.

Two days later, the U.S. let the freighter sail on. There was no clear legal basis for holding the missiles and their purchaser was Yemen, an ally in the war on terrorism. Frustrated by the outcome, the Bush administration decided to launch a broader initiative to fight weapons proliferation.

But in a hallmark of the way President Bush conducts foreign affairs, it chose not to seek a new United Nations Security Council resolution banning the transport of dangerous weapons. Instead, the U.N.'s host and largest financial contributor created its own coalition of the willing, outside U.N. auspices. The 11 members have agreed to block arms shipments from countries or groups "of proliferation concern" in their territory, waters or air space, or aboard ships flying the members' flags on the high seas.

As the U.N. struggles to redefine its place in global politics, the American initiative underscores a giant hurdle: a profound skepticism by the sole superpower. The U.S. under President Bush has often bypassed the world body, as it did in its decision to invade Iraq. With the occupation there proving far harder than expected, the U.S. did seek -- and win -- U.N. backing for its rebuilding efforts, in hopes of persuading more nations to contribute money or troops. But Washington's antiproliferation move is an end run around the U.N. on just the kind of mission the U.N.'s leaders think it is ideally suited to tackle.

Analysis: The global arms trade is extremely difficult to regulate. It's also an area that lends itself to international cooperation, regulatory regimes, and enforcement. The global arms trade has two Achilles heels -- the need to move large sums of money around the world, and the need to move stuff around the world. International cooperation can go a long way towards attacking each of these weak points.

posted by Phillip Carter at 08:10

 
Oxblog reports from Kabul

A friend of the Oxbloggers has an interesting letter from Kabul, Afghanistan. I hope this becomes a regular feature on Oxblog, because I'm always interested in lucid first-person accounts from places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Here's a sample:

Kabul has sort of an old west feel to it -- a boomtown, and a city of dust. Every surface is covered in the stuff. Dusty wooden scaffolding is hung with dusty posters of the Tajik-Afghan hero and martyr Ahmed Shah Massoud. The trees are all muted shades of green, and in the mornings, the whole sky is a grey-brown haze. Dust-colored mountains shoot up on every side -- some barren, others with an astonishing clutter of mud-brick houses clinging to their steep, craggy slopes. The roads are clogged with yellow taxis and dirty buses, and trucks painted so gaudily that even the dust can't mute them. Some of the trucks were loaded so high with bundles and boxes I can't believe they stayed upright. One pick-up had a camel hog-tied and tossed in the back, its head and neck lolling ridiculously over the side.

posted by Phillip Carter at 06:42

 
WP: Pentagon plans to reduce troop levels in near future

Tom Ricks reported in this Sunday's Washington Post that a new plan has been adopted inside the Pentagon to reduce American troop levels in Iraq. The plan is an optimistic one, aiming to cut the current number of 130,000 troops to less than 100,000 within a year and 50,000 by mid-2005. This plan appears driven both by political calculations in the Bush Administration, and the hard reality that America does not have the military force structure to manage a long-term occupation of Iraq. (The Pentagon's official plan does not disclose the details that Mr. Ricks reports on, presumably because this reduction plan is still in the deliberative process.)

The plan, which amounts to being the first formal military exit strategy for Iraq, is designed to show how the U.S. presence might be reduced without undercutting the stability of the country. Military officials worry that if they do not begin cutting the size of the U.S. force, they could damage troop morale, leave the armed forces shorthanded if crises emerge in North Korea and elsewhere, and help create a long-term personnel shortage in the service.

At the same time, some of the people involved in the discussions said they consider the force reduction plan optimistic, as much a goal as a guaranteed outcome.

If it is implemented successfully, the troop reductions could reduce political pressure on the Bush administration as the presidential campaign gets fully underway.
* * *
Officials involved in the discussions about troop reductions insist that implementation will be dictated not by a set timetable, but by security conditions in Iraq. Nonetheless, the drawdown is tied to events that are scheduled to begin in January, when a major round of U.S. troop rotations that will last several months is to get underway.

During that period, the U.S. military hopes to turn over as many basic security functions as possible to the Iraqi security forces now being created and to any additional foreign peacekeepers that U.S. diplomacy secures. If the Iraqi security forces can shoulder more of the security burden, it might be possible to replace the departing divisions of about 16,000 troops each with brigades of about 5,000 each.

Over the spring, that changeover would represent a cumulative reduction of more than 30,000 soldiers; along with other cuts, it could lower the U.S. troop level to fewer than 100,000 by mid-2004.

As more units of Iraqi soldiers and civil defense troops are created, and as some additional foreign peacekeepers begin to arrive, cuts in U.S. troop levels would continue next year. Ideally, said one official involved in the planning, by mid-2005 the number of U.S. troops would be as low as 40,000. Army planners consider a presence of that size to be sustainable for years without placing undue stress on the overall force.

Analysis: As Mr. Ricks reports, this is an incredibly optimistic plan. It hinges on the amount of international support (in terms of troop commitments) we're able to get, as well as on the number and caliber of Iraqis we can train to take over security functions. This plan also hinges on our abilities to rebuidl the Iraqi infrastructure, jumpstart democracy, and a bunch of other things. It's great to have such an optimistic plan, and I hope we can achieve it. But "hope is not a method." We've got to have contingency plans, branch plans, sequel plans, and other options for when one of these key tasks fails to happen.

One other important thing emerges from Mr. Ricks' report that should not be glossed over. He refers to an "exit strategy" for Iraq that's dependent on the fulfillment of certain conditions. Although the logic is backward, it's possible to extrapolate our actual objectives in Iraq from these tactical, operational and strategic conditions of success. The basic argument goes like this: if we fulfill these conditions, then we will have accomplished our mission. Therefore, our mission in Iraq is to set these conditions of success which will enable us to leave. Therefore, we are in Iraq because of these conditions. I know it's backwards, but it's possible to pull our raison d'etre from this exit strategy.

Granted, it would have been nice to have these conditions spelled out up front. But sometimes, you have to hide the ball for reasons of operational security. If you spell out your success criteria too explicitly, you tell your enemies how to defeat you. At this point, we have to define success for political reasons, mostly to get the international community to help us. In any event, this is a good development, and I think it reflects some good work within the Pentagon to boil this mission down to practical, executable, logical elements that can be put into action on the ground.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:18

 
Recall fever moves from California to Iraq

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) leads one of its front-page articles this morning with a tongue-in-cheek question from an Iraqi lawyer in Baghdad: if California can recall its recalcitrant governor, why can't Iraqis recall the Americans now occupying their country?

"When the people of California were unhappy with their authorities, they threw them out and elected Schwarzenegger," said Salah Erebat, a bearded lawyer who supports the insurgents. "So why is it that Americans can do it and we in Sadr City cannot?"

Last Thursday, Iraqi police backed by American tanks showed them why not, chasing the renegade officials out of the Sadr City council headquarters and tossing a dozen of their supporters in jail.

Now, members of the official assembly are afraid to return to work. The standoff has left the contested building sitting empty, ringed by tanks and covered with anti-American graffiti -- testimony to the challenges the U.S. military occupation faces in trying to create a new democratic government in Iraq after decades of totalitarian rule.

U.S. Army Col. P.J. Dermer, who helped establish the district council and has been trying to referee the current showdown, calls it an important litmus test for Iraq. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime shot, and we can't fail it," he says.

Everyone involved in Iraq -- the U.S., the United Nations and the Iraqis themselves -- want the American-run Coalition Provisional Authority to hand over power to an elected Iraqi government as quickly as possible. But six months after the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime, no Iraqi official can claim to be truly elected. The 24-member Governing Council at the top of the national government structure was handpicked and installed by the CPA in July.

As early as May, the U.S. military tried to involve local citizens in the selection of Baghdad's 88 neighborhood councils. Those councils, in turn, elected district assemblies -- including the one for Sadr City -- and a citywide council. For weeks after Baghdad fell under U.S. control, soldiers toured the city blaring messages through loudspeakers mounted on Humvees, urging residents to attend the selection meetings held in their neighborhoods. In some areas, thousands showed up, packing an entire sports field in one. In others, only a handful of Iraqis who were already cooperating with U.S. forces attended.

"These were their first experiences in actually practicing democracy," says U.S. Army Lt. Col. Joe Rice, the project's coordinator who served until the war as mayor of Glendale, Colo., population 5,000. "In some places it was easy to do right off. In others, we're still not there."

Analysis: Humor aside, the Iraqis have a point. They have a legitimate right to national self-determination, a principle long enshrined in political philosophy and international law. Now freed from the yoke of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqis want to be able to choose their own government. For the most part, I think we're facilitating that choice by building the institutions of democracy and liberal society. But after suffering Saddam for 30 years, I can understand how the Iraqis might be a little anxious.
posted by Phillip Carter at 08:03

 
More rural Americans died in Iraq than urban Americans

An analysis of American casualties in Iraq by the Austin American-Statesman has found something very interesting -- that rural Americans account for a greater proportion of killed-in-action than urban Americans. Also, among those urban Americans killed in Iraq, the numbers reflect a disproportionately high number of African-American and Latino soldiers. (Thanks to Donald Sensing for the tip to this story)

Howard County is poorer than most. Its young people are leaving, although Hispanic immigrants are replacing them. It is small. Its people have low incomes. It has relatively few people with college degrees. It is economically depressed.

Disproportionately, the young men dying in Iraq come from places just like this. Compared to the nation's population, those who have died are disproportionately from smaller counties. They are disproportionately from counties with lower per capita income. They are disproportionately from places with low levels of college education.

A statistical analysis of the more than 300 U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq by Austin American-Statesman consultant Robert Cushing shows that this may be America's war, but it is being fought by only a part of America.

The soldiers who died aren't numbers, but numbers tell some of their story. Those who died in Iraq were 39 percent more likely than the nation as a whole to live in counties with fewer than 100,000 people. They were 16 percent more likely than the nation as a whole to live in a county with lower than average levels of college education and 16 percent more likely to live in counties with below average incomes.

Those soldiers who came from the nation's large cities were disproportionately black or Hispanic. And a small proportion of those who died come from the nation's technology hubs, the score of urban areas that are creating the world's newest inventions and companies _ cities like San Jose, Seattle, Austin and Dallas. Those who have died largely grew up in old economy towns or rural regions, places with low levels of technology and little innovation.

Was this same divide evident in the Vietnam War? "I don't think so," said Steve Maxner, associate director of the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University. "During the war in Southeast Asia, you had the draft."

More than anything, however, those who died in today's all-volunteer military came from small-town America. Their names, lives and hometowns roll through the news, and places long forgotten are known again, if only for a day.

Analysis: I missed this story when it ran on the wire last week, but I think it's very significant. It's important to know which part of America has borne the human cost of this war, and in more general terms, which part of America actually serves in uniform. A number of people argued before the war that we needed to reinstate the draft to more evenly spread the burden of military service across society -- horizontally and vertically. The military establishment counter-argued that a draft would be counter-productive, and that the burden is relatively equal now because of the self-selection dynamic of today's force. I think this story undercuts the military position that the burden is shared equally. It does not necessarily support the argument of Rep. Charlie Rangel and others who say the military burden cuts on the basis of race, but it does support the argument (in my opinion) that America's working and middle classes do more than their share.

But honestly, this study raises more questions than it answers, and I'm hesitant to go much further than this. Here are some of my questions after reading this story:
- Why do rural Americans seem more likely to die than urban Americans?
- Are rural Americans volunteering in disproportionate numbers for the combat arms? Is there some correlation between rural/urban and occupational specialty in the military? (Conventional wisdom holds that the 'country boys' will join the infantry to go hunting in the woods, while the urban kids will go to work as mechanics and technicians. Like most CW, it's just hyperbole)
- Is there a way to parse the data for the most dangerous occupational specialties? This war has included a lot of unconventional war, exposing logisticians and others in the rear area to battle. But I still think that combat troops faced the brunt of the danger, particularly during the combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
- What about the active vs. reserve mix of casualties? Were there any statistically significant differences between urban and rural reserve units in terms of their casualties?
- Is there any way to get the Wounded In Action data, as well as other non-battle casualty data? I'd like to see these numbers because KIA often reflects the enemy's marksmanship and our MEDEVAC capabilities more than anything else. Total casualty data -- KIA plus WIA plus non-battle casualties -- would paint a more complete picture of the relative dangers faced by our soldiers in Iraq.
posted by Phillip Carter at 05:41