The military mind rethinks the mission

October 16th, 2007

We’ve got us a kind of mutiny going on … common sense is making a comeback; but before we get there, here’s a headline you should note:

Randi Rhodes is the Victim of a Violent Attack
Jeff Tiedrich
Tue, 2007/10/16 - 8:07am.

Randi Rhodes was mugged on Sunday night on 39th Street and Park Ave, nearby her Manhattan apartment, while she was walking her dog Simon. According to Air America Radio late night host Jon Elliott, Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, losing several teeth and will probably be off the air for at least the rest of the week.

“Losing several teeth” isn’t a mugging for valuables, that’s an assault with deadly intent. And that is very distressing, especially for the Air America‘ites. You just have to wonder what the actual motivation was — nobody has beaten the crap out of Rush Limbaugh, as far as I can tell … but then he lives in a gated community, far from the dangerous [and diverse.]

Here’s a rather stunning collection — General Sanchez attacking the administration, General Abizaid confirming the war is about oil, the Blackwater scandal that won’t die, the Marines wanting out of Iraq — we got a great big, welcome and better-late-than-never wobble in the ranks.

Jude

Ex-Commander Says Iraq Effort Is ‘a Nightmare’
David S. Cloud, NYT via CommonDreams
Saturday, October 13, 2007

WASHINGTON - In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top commander of American forces there called the Bush administration’s handling of the war “incompetent” and said the result was “a nightmare with no end in sight.”

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who retired in 2006 after being replaced in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, blamed the Bush administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current addition of American forces as a “desperate” move that would not achieve long-term stability.

“After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” General Sanchez said at a gathering of military reporters and editors in Arlington, Va.

He is the most senior war commander of a string of retired officers who have harshly criticized the administration’s conduct of the war. While much of the previous condemnation has been focused on the role of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, General Sanchez’s was an unusually broad attack on the overall course of the war.

But his own role as commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal leaves him vulnerable to criticism that he is shifting the blame from himself to the administration that ultimately replaced him and declined to nominate him for a fourth star, forcing his retirement.

Though he was cleared of wrongdoing in the abuses after an inquiry by the Army’s inspector general, General Sanchez became a symbol - with civilian officials like L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority - of ineffective American leadership early in the occupation.

General Sanchez said he was convinced that the American effort in Iraq was failing the day after he took command, in June 2003. Asked why he waited until nearly a year after his retirement to voice his concerns publicly, he responded that it was not the place of active-duty officers to challenge lawful orders from the civilian authorities.

General Sanchez, who is said to be considering writing a book, promised further public statements criticizing officials by name.

“There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”

White House officials would not comment directly on General Sanchez’s remarks. “We appreciate his service to the country,” said Kate Starr, a White House spokeswoman.

She noted that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the current top commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad, said in their testimony to Congress last month that “there’s more work to be done, but progress is being made in Iraq. And that’s what we’re focused on now.”

General Sanchez has been criticized by some current and retired officers for failing to recognize the growing insurgency in Iraq during his year in command and for failing to put together a plan to unify the disparate military effort, a task that was finally carried out when his successor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., took over in mid-2004.

General Sanchez included the military and himself among those who made mistakes in Iraq, citing a failure by top commanders to insist on a better post-invasion stabilization plan. He offered a tepid compliment to General Petraeus. The general, he said, could use American troops to gain time in Iraq but could not achieve lasting results.

Michael E. O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, criticized General Sanchez for implying in his speech that the current military strategy of relying on additional troops and on protecting the Iraqi people is little different than the strategy employed when he was in command.

Noting that calls by members of Congress for troops were rebuffed by the Bush administration in 2003, Mr. O’Hanlon said, “Sanchez was one of the top military people who condoned that, if not directly, then by his silence.”

General Sanchez’s main criticism was leveled at the Bush administration, which he said failed to mobilize the entire United States government, not just the military, to contribute meaningfully to reconstructing and stabilizing Iraq.

“National leadership continues to believe that victory can be achieved by military power alone,” he said. “Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory. The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat.”

Asked after his remarks what strategy he favored, General Sanchez ticked off a series of steps-from promoting reconciliation among Iraq’s warring sectarian factions to building effective Iraqi army and police units - that closely paralleled the list of tasks frequently cited by the Bush administration as the pillars of the current strategy.

General Sanchez, now a Pentagon consultant who trains active-duty generals, said the administration’s biggest failure had been its lack of a detailed strategy for achieving those steps and “synchronizing” the military and civilian contributions.

“The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the State Department, must shoulder responsibility for the catastrophic failure, and the American people must hold them accountable,” he said.

His talk on Friday at the annual convention of the Military Reporters and Editors Association was not the first time that General Sanchez has been critical of the administration.

He said in an interview in June with Agence France-Presse that the best the United States could achieve in Iraq would be stalemate. And he drew a standing ovation at a gathering of veterans last month when he argued that the country’s problems in Iraq were the result of a “crisis in national political leadership.”

Though General Sanchez remained on active duty after leaving Iraq in 2004, he never received a fourth star, in part because, though he was popular with Mr. Rumsfeld, the Bush administration feared that his nomination hearings in the Senate would turn into a bitter partisan fight and a public replay of the details of the Abu Ghraib scandal. ++

US, Iraq Negotiate Blackwater Explusion
STEVEN R. HURST and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, AP, USA Daily
10/14/2007

U.S. and Iraqi officials are negotiating Baghdad’s demand that security company Blackwater USA be expelled from the country within six months, and American diplomats appear to be working on how to fill the security gap if the company is phased out.

The talks about Blackwater’s future in Iraq flow from recommendations in an Iraqi government report on the incident Sept. 16 when, Iraqi officials determined, Blackwater guards opened fire without provocation in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square and killed 17 Iraqi citizens.

The Iraqi investigators issued five recommendations to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which has since sent them to the U.S. Embassy as demands for action.

Point No. 2 in the report says:

“The Iraqi government should demand that the United States stops using the services of Blackwater in Iraqi within six months and replace it with a new, more disciplined organization that would be answerable to Iraqi laws.”

Sami al-Askari, a top aide to al-Maliki, said that point in the Iraqi list of demands was nonnegotiable.

“I believe the government has been clear. There have been attacks on the lives of Iraqi citizens on the part of that company (Blackwater). It must be expelled. The government has given six months for its expulsion and it’s left to the U.S. Embassy to determine with Blackwater when to terminate the contract. The American administration must find another company,” he told AP.

In talks between American diplomats and the al-Maliki government, al-Askari said, the U.S. side was not “insisting on Blackwater staying.” He was the only Iraqi or American official who would allow use of his name, others said information they gave was too sensitive.

Al-Askari said the Americans have been told that another demand, Blackwater payment of $8 million compensation for each victim, was negotiable.

“With the investigations and reviews ongoing, it would be clearly premature to say that any definitive determinations have been made about the future of the Blackwater contract,” a senior U.S. official in Baghdad said.

Another diplomat, speaking privately, said he did not see how the State Department could insist on keeping Blackwater in place given how “tainted” it had become after the Sept. 16 incident and several others.

In an interview to be broadcast Monday on PBS, Charlie Rose asked Blackwater chief Erik Prince about the issue.

“We’ll do what we’re told and, you know, make the transition as smooth as possible,” Prince said.

A Shiite lawmaker who sits on parliament’s security and defense committee said al-Maliki has complained that the United States embassy had not briefed the Iraqis on what was learned when Blackwater guards were questioned.

He said two Iraqi security officials were briefly allowed to sit in as observers on two questioning sessions of the Blackwater guards.

One American diplomat said he did not see how the State Department could insist on keeping Blackwater in place given how “tainted” it had become after the Sept. 16 incident and several others.

The Iraqi government investigative report said Blackwater guards had killed 21 other Iraqi citizens and wounded 27 in a total of seven previous incidents, including a shooting by a drunk Blackwater employee after a 2006 Christmas party. Congress is investigating where the government is relies too heavily on private contractors who fall outside the military courts martial system.

While the Blackwater name may be removed from security operations surrounding U.S. diplomats in Iraq, American officials and members of the security community in Baghdad said the company’s men and other assets in Iraq would likely be taken over by one of the many security companies currently working in Iraq.

They said DynCorp, which already has security contracts with the State Deparment to guard officials working outside Baghdad, appeared poised to take over the Blackwater role.

Under the terms of the department’s Worldwide Personal Protective Security contract, which covers privately contracted guards for diplomats in Iraq, Blackwater, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy are the only three companies eligible to bid on specific task orders there. Dyncorp and Triple Canopy are both based in Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs. Blackwater works from a huge complex in Moyock, N.C.

While DynCorp and Triple Canopy already work in Iraq, neither company is believed to have the infrastructure in place to take over Blackwater’s responsibilities in the six-month period demanded by the al-Maliki government.

The FBI has taken over an investigation of the Sept. 16 shooting and questioned Iraqi witnesses to the shooting Saturday at the Iraqi National Police headquarters about 500 yards from Nisoor Square.

Prince says reports he has indicated one of the four Blackwater gun trucks involved in the shooting came under fire. He said the company reports say the truck had bullet pockmarks and damaged badly enough that it had to be towed. No other witness, those interviewed by AP or Iraqi government investigators, told of gunfire on the Blackwater vehicles or of one being towed.

Other witnesses said Blackwater helicopters arrived over the square during the shooting and opened fire.

One of them was 20-year-old Ahmed Abdul-Timan, who works as a guard at the tunnel that runs under the square. He told AP that the initial U.S. investigative team tried to intimidate him into changing his story about the helicopters firing. He said the interrogation lasted three hours.

“Four or five days after the incident,” Abdul-Timan said, “there was a second investigation but the questioning was done by a U.S. Army major. It was much easier. They videotaped what I said, took my phone number and address. The major tried to comfort us, saying he and his men love the Iraqi people and want to help them.”

Abdul-Timan’s account squares with others that indicated the first investigation by State Department personnel appeared to be an attempt to vindicate the Blackwater guards. The U.S. military conducted the second investigation and was more sympathetic.

Estimates of the number of private security workers in Iraq have fluctuated greatly. In June 2006 the U.S. Government Accountability Office said there were 181 security companies with 48,000 employees in Iraq. The more recent Congressional Research Service report said there were as many as 30,000 security workers. ++

The Few, The Proud (the Smart): Marines Figure it Out — It’s Time to Quit Iraq
Dave Lindorff, BuzzFlash
Fri, 10/12/2007

Over the past year, Bush has pretty much lost his entire Coalition of the Unwilling, with the British, who have already pulled back from Basra into their fortified base, now intending to quit Iraq altogether early next year.

But before the Brits close the door behind them, someone else wants to leave too: the United States Marines, America’s answer to ancient Greece’s Spartan warriors.

According to a remarkable Wednesday article in The New York Times, the Marines have told the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that they’d much prefer to leave Iraq and go take over the fighting in Afghanistan from the U.S. Army, which has some 26,000 troops over there — just about the same number as the 25,000 Marines currently mired in Iraq.

Very convenient. And very telling.

The Marines have clearly looked at Iraq and have seen it for the horrific, bloody, hopeless mess that it is. And with recruitment a growing challenge, and their reputation in tatters thanks to the baby murders in Haditha, and the massive slaughter of thousands in Fallujah, they want to go somewhere, anywhere else, where they can at least claim they’re acting under UN or NATO authority, where they won’t be seen as occupiers, and where at least some of the people in the host country will like them.

Let the U.S. Army deal with President Bush’s Iraq mess. You can’t really blame the Marines.

I spoke with one Marine, a young man just back from a second tour of Iraq, who had been part of the assault on Fallujah in late 2004. “It was horrible,” he said. “We went in there with no rules of engagement at all. It was just kill anything that moved. We were using hyperbaric explosives that, when you threw them into a house, sucked the life out of every living thing in the building. Then you’d walk in and find old men and little boys.”

He said the assault on the 300,000-population city Fallujah (the largest single battle the Marines fought in the war) was itself a war crime — a collective punishment of a whole city for the butchering by insurgents based here of four American mercenaries earlier that year. Collective punishment — a tactic routinely used by the Nazis in World War II — was banned by the Nuremberg Charter, signed by the U.S., but was a stated reason for the leveling of Fallujah.

The UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and other laws aimed at making war less barbaric, mean nothing to this administration.

Such a war and such battle tactics are not what Marines, or what any decent human being, wants to be a part of. And yet, just looking at the death toll in Iraq — over 1 million by one account, in a country of 24 million — and a study by the Christian Science Monitor that showed the U.S. kill ratio, of enemy fighters to civilians to be 1:30, how can the Marines have avoided it?

Secretary Gates is trying to play down the Marines’ proposal, but the very fact that it has been made should show how desperate the military in Iraq is becoming.

The war has ceased to be about anything now but saving Bush’s and Cheney’s twin asses. They want to engineer things — and appear to be getting away with it thanks to the gutlessness and idiocy of the Democrats in Congress — so they can leave office before they have to admit defeat and error and pull the troops out.

The Marines’ leaders have obviously figured out what they are doing, and want to get out too before losing more men and women, and before they have to be part of the inevitable disgraced exodus that lies ahead.

It’s not likely to happen though. Imagine what it would do to morale in the already crumbling U.S. Army if the soldiers in Iraq saw the Marines getting to leave. That would probably be the last straw for many.

Still, it’s revealing to watch the Marines trying to join other Coalition forces in rushing the exits while they still can, even if it is just a jump out of the fire and into the frying pan of Afghanistan.

‘We’ve Treated The Arab World As A Collection Of Big Gas Stations’
ThinkProgress
10/15/07

During a round table discussion on “the Fight for Oil, Water and a Healthy Planet” at Stanford University on Saturday, Gen. John Abizaid (Ret.), the former CENTCOM Commander, said that “of course” the Iraq war is “about oil”:

“Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,” Abizaid said of the Iraq campaign early on in the talk.

“We’ve treated the Arab world as a collection of big gas stations,” the retired general said. “Our message to them is: Guys, keep your pumps open, prices low, be nice to the Israelis and you can do whatever you want out back. Osama and 9/11 is the distilled essence that represents everything going on out back.”

Abizaid has previously argued that the U.S. would need “to keep a long-term military presence in Iraq” in order to protect “the free flow of goods and resources” such as oil, but his Stanford comments go much further in pinning oil as a prime motivator for the war.

The Bush administration, however, still denies any connection between the war in Iraq and America’s geopolitical interest in Middle East oil. Just last month, after former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote that “the Iraq War is largely about oil,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejected the notion, saying “I just don’t believe it’s true”:

“I wasn’t here for the decision-making process that initiated it, that started the war,” Gates said. But he added, “I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991, and I just don’t believe it’s true.”

“I think that it’s really about stability in the Gulf. It’s about rogue regimes trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. It’s about aggressive dictators,” Gates said.

Though Abizaid says that Bush’s Iraq policy seeks to keep oil “prices low,” the per-barrel cost of oil has risen dramatically since the U.S. first invaded. In March 2003, the price of oil was roughly US$35 a barrel. Today, prices reached “above $85 a barrel for the first time.”

UPDATE: The Stanford Daily, which originally reported on the round table, incorrectly attributed some of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s comments to Gen. Abizaid. Though Abizaid did say “Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,” it was Friedman who said “We’ve treated the Arab world as a collection of big gas stations.” The Daily has posted a correction. ++

The Real Iraq We Knew
By 12 former Army captains, Washington Post
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.
As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we’ve seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it’s like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it’s time to get out.

What does Iraq look like on the ground? It’s certainly far from being a modern, self-sustaining country. Many roads, bridges, schools and hospitals are in deplorable condition. Fewer people have access to drinking water or sewage systems than before the war. And Baghdad is averaging less than eight hours of electricity a day.

Iraq’s institutional infrastructure, too, is sorely wanting. Even if the Iraqis wanted to work together and accept the national identity foisted upon them in 1920s, the ministries do not have enough trained administrators or technicians to coordinate themselves. At the local level, most communities are still controlled by the same autocratic sheiks that ruled under Saddam. There is no reliable postal system. No effective banking system. No registration system to monitor the population and its needs.

The inability to govern is exacerbated at all levels by widespread corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And, indeed, many of us witnessed the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military officers. Sabotage and graft have had a particularly deleterious impact on Iraq’s oil industry, which still fails to produce the revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would pay for Iraq’s reconstruction. Yet holding people accountable has proved difficult. The first commissioner of a panel charged with preventing and investigating corruption resigned last month, citing pressure from the government and threats on his life.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. military has been trying in vain to hold the country together. Even with “the surge,” we simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions. Though temporary reinforcing operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen the insurgents’ cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed allegiances. Millions of Iraqis correctly recognize these actions for what they are and vote with their feet — moving within Iraq or leaving the country entirely. Still, our colonels and generals keep holding on to flawed concepts.

U.S. forces, responsible for too many objectives and too much “battle space,” are vulnerable targets. The sad inevitability of a protracted draw-down is further escalation of attacks — on U.S. troops, civilian leaders and advisory teams. They would also no doubt get caught in the crossfire of the imminent Iraqi civil war.

Iraqi security forces would not be able to salvage the situation. Even if all the Iraqi military and police were properly trained, equipped and truly committed, their 346,000 personnel would be too few. As it is, Iraqi soldiers quit at will. The police are effectively controlled by militias. And, again, corruption is debilitating. U.S. tax dollars enrich self-serving generals and support the very elements that will battle each other after we’re gone.

This is Operation Iraqi Freedom and the reality we experienced. This is what we tried to communicate up the chain of command. This is either what did not get passed on to our civilian leadership or what our civilian leaders chose to ignore. While our generals pursue a strategy dependent on peace breaking out, the Iraqis prepare for their war — and our servicemen and women, and their families, continue to suffer.

There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

America, it has been five years. It’s time to make a choice. ++

This column was written by 12 former Army captains: Jason Blindauer served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Elizabeth Bostwick served in Salah Ad Din and An Najaf in 2004. Jeffrey Bouldin served in Al Anbar, Baghdad and Ninevah in 2006. Jason Bugajski served in Diyala in 2004. Anton Kemps served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Kristy (Luken) McCormick served in Ninevah in 2003. Luis Carlos Montalván served in Anbar, Baghdad and Nineveh in 2003 and 2005. William Murphy served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Josh Rizzo served in Baghdad in 2006. William “Jamie” Ruehl served in Nineveh in 2004. Gregg Tharp served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Gary Williams served in Baghdad in 2003.

‘Many in the US Military Think Bush and Cheney Are Out of Control’
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERVIEW WITH MILITARY HISTORIAN GABRIEL KOLKO
Interview conducted by John Goetz
October 15, 2007

In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, the Amsterdam-based military historian Gabriel Kolko talks about the prospect of war with Iran and argues that many in the US military now view the White House as being ‘out of control.’

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Kolko, editorials in US papers like the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard and the National Review are pushing for military action against Iran. How does the leadership in the US military view such a conflict?

Gabriel Kolko: The American military is stretched to the limit. They are losing both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Everything is being sacrificed for these wars: money, equipment in Asia, American military power globally, etc. Where and how can they fight yet another? The Pentagon is short of money for procurement, and that is what so many people in the military bureaucracy live for. The situation will be far worse in the event of a war with Iran.

Many in the American military have learned the fundamental dilemma of modern warfare: More money and better weapons don’t mean that you win. IEDs, which cost so little to make, are defeating a military which spends billions of dollars per month. IEDS are so adaptable that each new strategy developed by the United States to counter them is answered by the Iraqi insurgents. The Israelis were also never quite able to counter IEDs. One report quotes an Israeli military engineer who said the Israeli answer to IEDs was frequently the use of armored bulldozers to effectively rip away the top 18 inches of pavement and earth where explosive devices might be hidden. This is fantastic, as the cost of winning means destroying roads, which form the basis of a modern economy.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are people in the Pentagon getting nervous about how influential voices in the White House continue to push for conflict with Iran?

Kolko: Many in the US military think Bush and Cheney are out of control. They are rebelling against Bush and Cheney. Washington Post reporter Dana Priest recently said in an interview that she believed the US military would revolt and refuse to fly missions against Iran if the White House issued such orders.

CENTCOM [US Central Command, the military grouping whose responsibilities include the Middle East] commander Admiral William Fallon reportedly thwarted Cheney’s wish to sent a third additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. One paper wrote that he “vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM.”

Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, in charge of US forces in Japan, told the Associated Press last week that the Iraq war had weakened American forces in the face of any potential conflict with China. He was quoted as saying, “Are we in trouble? It depends on the scenario. But you have to be concerned about the small number of our forces and the age of our forces.”

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you think that conflict with Iran is likely?

Kolko: All the significant economic journals (Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.) recognize that the American and European economies are now in a crisis, and it may be protracted. The dollar is falling; Gulf States and others may abandon it (as an investment currency). A war with Iran would produce economic chaos because oil would be scarce. There are states which the United States wishes to isolate, like Russia and Venezuela, who can develop great influence through their ability to sell oil in such a crisis. The balance of world economic power is involved, and that is a great issue.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But aren’t the Gulf States interested in seeing Iran weakened through a conflict with the United States?

Kolko: The Gulf States do not like Shia Iran, but they export oil, which makes them rich. They are dependent on peace, not war.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How would Iran react to a provocation by the United States, say, on the border? Could the Iranian military in any way be a match for the United States?

Kolko: Iran fought Iraq for about a decade and lost hundreds of thousands of men. Perhaps they will roll over, but it is not likely. There are a number of tiny islands in the gulf they have had years to fortify. Can 90 percent of their weapons be knocked out? Even if this United States could achieve this, the remainder would be sufficient to sink many boats and tankers. The amount of oil exported through the gulf would thereby be reduced, perhaps cease altogether. This would only strengthen American rivals like Russia and Venezuela.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But what about the bunker-buster bombs? Wouldn’t that be a technology which Iran could not match?

Kolko: Bunker busters are only able to knock out so many bunkers, but alas, not all. If bunker-buster bombs are nuclear they are very useful, but they are also radioactive. In addition to killing Iranians, they may also kill friends and nearby US soldiers.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What about the so-called ‘Cheney plan’ to let Israel attack Iran? What role would Israel play in a conflict with Iran? Isn’t Israel also interested in seeing that the United States weakens its greatest threat in the region?

Kolko: Israel may be a factor. They must cross Syrian and Jordanian airspace, and the Iranians will be prepared if they are not shot down over Syria. Their countermeasures may be effective, but perhaps not … War with Iran will lead to a rain of rockets and Israel would be left with an inability to deal with local priorities. Iran is likely to get nuclear bombs sooner or later. So will other nations. Israel has hundreds already. Israeli strategists believe deterrence will then exist.

Why risk war?

Israel dislikes Iran and the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons, but they believe they can handle it with a deterrent relationship. Israel needs its army, which is not large enough for potential nearby problems — for Palestinians and its Arab neighbors, who it rightfully fears and hates. That means Israel can be belligerent, but it is not capable of playing the US role, except of course with nuclear weapons.

So I regard the Israelis as opponents of a war with Iran which would involve them. They certainly noticed how during the war with Lebanon the Palestinians in Gaza used the opportunity to increase pressure on Israel from the south. Israelis opposed the Iraq war because it would lead to Iranian domination of the region, which it has.

Hence, the report that Cheney is trying to use Israel, if it is true, shows that he’s confused and quite mad — but also unusually isolated.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But what about the Democratic Party? Isn’t it in the interest of the Democratic Party to do everything they can to end the war?

Kolko: All three leading Democratic Party presidential hopefuls — Clinton, Obama and Edwards — refused at a debate recently in New Hampshire to promise to pull the US military out of Iraq by the beginning of 2013. The American public is a small factor, as elections have repeatedly shown, but may play some role also. As the last election proved, anyone who thinks Democrats will stop wars is fooling him- or herself. But war with Iran would require new authorizations. Then the Congress would, potentially, be very important. ++

On Bonuses and Leaving Iraq
NYT Editorial
October 16, 2007

There are new signs that an American military in distress is reshaping itself to cope with the destructive fallout of Iraq — and to look beyond it, even as President Bush insists on dispatching Americans to go on fighting and dying there. Young officers have been offered big cash bonuses to stay in an Army struggling to retain them. The Marines, meanwhile, are trying to move out of Iraq and into Afghanistan, a more popular mission where they could focus on America’s real enemies — al Qaeda and its allies, the Taliban — instead of trying to police a civil war.

The unprecedented bonuses — up to $35,000 — are a sign of desperation. Lengthy and repeated tours in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan have created critical shortages of younger officers in such important specialties as military intelligence, aviation — and even in the infantry as more and more men and women choose to leave the service rather than re-enlist. The Washington Post reported that when its expansion plans are factored in, the Army is projecting a shortage of 3,000 captains and majors annually through 2013.

What does it tell you when the Marines are considering shifting their mission to Afghanistan? Perhaps it’s too glib to say that they see a failing fight in Iraq and are trying get out while they can, but it’s certainly not good news for Pentagon war planners or the rest of America.

Thom Shanker of The Times reported that Pentagon supporters argue that the proposal, which envisions consolidating Army forces in Afghanistan with those in Iraq, would simplify planning for future troop rotations and make it easier for each branch to sustain troop levels.

Many questions are unanswered, but some experts suspect that the Marines are positioning themselves for a new American president — when troops would be phased out of Iraq and a new struggle for budget resources would be in play. Taking on the Afghanistan mission under overall NATO command would give the Marines a more visible role than in Iraq, where the Army fielded the largest number of troops, and — presumably — more clout to argue for increased defense spending.

The bonuses are another desperate reminder of how little planning was done for the Iraq war, and how much damage it has done to America’s forces. They are also the right thing to do, especially given the prolonged sacrifice demanded of the troops and their families. We are agnostic at this time on the Marine’s proposal for Afghanistan but are relieved that at least somebody is starting to plan for leaving Iraq. ++

At an Army School for Officers, Blunt Talk About Iraq
ELISABETH BUMILLER, NYT
October 14, 2007

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — Here at the intellectual center of the United States Army, two elite officers were deep in debate at lunch on a recent day over who bore more responsibility for mistakes in Iraq — the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, or the generals who acquiesced to him.

“The secretary of defense is an easy target,” argued one of the officers, Maj. Kareem P. Montague, 34, a Harvard graduate and a commander in the Third Infantry Division, which was the first to reach Baghdad in the 2003 invasion. “It’s easy to pick on the political appointee.”

“But he’s the one that’s responsible,” retorted Maj. Michael J. Zinno, 40, a military planner who worked at the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the former American civilian administration in Iraq.

No, Major Montague shot back, it was more complicated: the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the top commanders were part of the decision to send in a small invasion force and not enough troops for the occupation. Only Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff who was sidelined after he told Congress that it would take several hundred thousand troops in Iraq, spoke up in public.

“You didn’t hear any of them at the time, other than General Shinseki, screaming, saying that this was untenable,” Major Montague said.

As the war grinds through its fifth year, Fort Leavenworth has become a front line in the military’s tension and soul-searching over Iraq. Here at the base on the bluffs above the Missouri River, once a frontier outpost that was a starting point for the Oregon Trail, rising young officers are on a different journey — an outspoken re-examination of their role in Iraq.

Discussions between a New York Times reporter and dozens of young majors in five Leavenworth classrooms over two days — all unusual for their frankness in an Army that has traditionally presented a facade of solidarity to the outside world — showed a divide in opinion. Officers were split over whether Mr. Rumsfeld, the military leaders or both deserved blame for what they said were the major errors in the war: sending in a small invasion force and failing to plan properly for the occupation.

But the consensus was that not even after Vietnam was the Army’s internal criticism as harsh or the second-guessing so painful, and that airing the arguments on the record, as sanctioned by Leavenworth’s senior commanders, was part of a concerted effort to force change.

“You spend your whole career worrying about the safety of soldiers — let’s do the training right so no one gets injured, let’s make sure no one gets killed, and then you deploy and you’re attending memorial services for 19-year-olds,” said Maj. Niave Knell, 37, who worked in Baghdad to set up an Iraqi highway patrol. “And you have to think about what you did.”

On one level, second-guessing is institutionalized at Leavenworth, home to the Combined Arms Center, a research center that includes the Command and General Staff College for midcareer officers, the School of Advanced Military Studies for the most elite and the Center for Army Lessons Learned, which collects and disseminates battlefield data.

At Leavenworth, officers study Napoleon’s battle plans and Lt. William Calley’s mistakes in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Last year Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the top American commander in Iraq, wrote the Army and Marine Corps’ new Counterinsurgency Field Manual there. The goal at Leavenworth is to adapt the Army to the changing battlefield without repeating the mistakes of the past.

But senior officers say that much of the professional second-guessing has become an emotional exercise for young officers. “Many of them have been affected by people they know who died over there,” said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the Leavenworth commander and the former top spokesman for the American military in Iraq. Unlike the 1991 Persian Gulf war and the conflicts in the Balkans and even Somalia, General Caldwell said, “we just never experienced the loss of life like we have here. And when that happens, it becomes very personal. You want to believe that there’s no question your cause is just and that it has the potential to succeed.”

[Just on Friday, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, criticized the administration's handling of the war as "incompetent" and "catastrophically flawed."]

Much of the debate at Leavenworth has centered on a scathing article, “A Failure in Generalship,” written last May for Armed Forces Journal by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran and deputy commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment who holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Chicago. “If the general remains silent while the statesman commits a nation to war with insufficient means, he shares culpability for the results,” Colonel Yingling wrote.

The article has been required class reading at Leavenworth, where young officers debate whether Colonel Yingling was right to question senior commanders who sent junior officers into battle with so few troops.

“Where I was standing on the street corner, at the 14th of July Bridge, yeah, another brigade there would have been great,” said Maj. Jeffrey H. Powell, 37, a company commander who was referring to the bridge in Baghdad he helped secure during the early days of the war.

Major Powell, who was speaking in a class at the School of Advanced Military Studies, has read many of the Iraq books describing the private disagreements over troop levels between Mr. Rumsfeld and the top commanders, who worried that the numbers were too low but went along in the end.

“Sure, I’m a human being, I question the decision-making process,” Major Powell said. Nonetheless, he said, “we don’t get to sit on the top of the turrets of our tanks and complain that nobody planned for this. Our job is to fix it.”

Discussions nonetheless focused on where young officers might draw a “red line,” the point at which they would defy a command from the civilians — the president and the defense secretary — who lead the military.

“We have an obligation that if our civilian leaders give us an order, unless it is illegal, immoral or unethical, then we’re supposed to execute it, and to not do so would be considered insubordinate,” said Major Timothy Jacobsen, another student. “How do you define what is truly illegal, immoral or unethical? At what point do you cross that threshold where this is no longer right, I need to raise my hand or resign or go to the media?”

General Caldwell, who was the top military aide from 2002 to 2004 to the deputy defense secretary at the time, Paul D. Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq war, would not talk about the meetings he had with Mr. Wolfowitz about the battle plans at the time. “We did have those discussions, and he would engage me on different things, but I’d feel very uncomfortable talking,” General Caldwell said.

Col. Gregory Fontenot, a Leavenworth instructor, said it was typical of young officers to feel that the senior commanders had not spoken up for their interests, and that he had felt the same way when he was their age. But Colonel Fontenot, who commanded a battalion in the Persian Gulf war and a brigade in Bosnia and has since retired, said he questioned whether Americans really wanted a four-star general to stand up publicly and say no to the president of a nation where civilians control the armed forces.

For the sake of argument, a question was posed: If enough four-star generals had done that, would it have stopped the war?

“Yeah, we’d call it a coup d’etat,” Colonel Fontenot said. “Do you want to have a coup d’etat? You kind of have to decide what you want. Do you like the Constitution, or are you so upset about the Iraq war that you’re willing to dismiss the Constitution in just this one instance and hopefully things will be O.K.? I don’t think so.”

Some of the young officers were unimpressed by retired officers who spoke up against Mr. Rumsfeld in April 2006. The retired generals had little to lose, they argued, and their words would have mattered more had they been on active duty. “Why didn’t you do that while you were still in uniform?” Maj. James Hardaway, 36, asked.

Yet, Major Hardaway said, General Shinseki had shown there was a great cost, at least under Mr. Rumsfeld. “Evidence shows that when you do do that in uniform, bad things can happen,” he said. “So, it’s sort of a dichotomy of, should I do the right thing, even if I get punished?”

Another major said that young officers were engaged in their own revisionist history, and that many had believed the war could be won with Mr. Rumsfeld’s initial invasion force of about 170,000. “Everybody now claims, oh, I knew we were going to be there for five years and it was going to take 400,000 people,” said Maj. Patrick Proctor, 36. “Nobody wants to be the guy who said, ‘Yeah, I thought we could do it.’ But a lot of us did.”

One question that silenced many of the officers was a simple one: Should the war have been fought?

“I honestly don’t know how I feel about that,” Major Powell said in a telephone conversation after the discussions at Leavenworth.

“That’s a big, open question,” General Caldwell said after a long pause. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves