NetWars

Iran in Iraq

Over at Abu Maq's best COIN related blog ever, Dr. iRack looks at recent reporting on stepped up Iranian support to Shiite militias, particularly those involved in the current battles in Sadr city:

[E]mphasizing Iranian involvement provides a useful public "explanation" for the difficulty U.S. and Iraqi forces have had, thus far, in quelling violence in Sadr City. Blame it on Iran, not Sadr/JAM. Why go this route? Because it allows the United States to maintain the fiction that it is only the "special groups" that are fighting the coalition instead of rank-and-file JAM, thus preserving the illusion that the Sadr "freeze" declared last August--a major (perhaps the major) reason for declining violence during the later part of the "surge" period in 2007--has not collapsed. Maintiaining this public--but almost certainly factually incorrect--stance is important to give Sadr a way to save face and back down. 

Writer envy

Okay, Spencer Ackerman can sometimes be really funny. Actually, pretty much all the time, but this post is exceptionally funny, in a "General 'Buck' Turgidson" sort of way.

Neo-cons reminiscing

Via Spencer A., a post from CATO blogger Justin Logan on the neo-con all star team reunion, you know, Wolfowitz, Feith, Senor, those guys. They were discussing what went wrong in Iraq. Well, at least they're admitting that it went wrong, I guess that's progress. Bunch of geniuses that group.

I sat through a panel the other night where Feith discussed his new book. It was astounding to hear that they really did believe Iraq would be a repeat of Afghanistan, right down to a Karzai like government just waiting to come in and take the reins of power in Baghdad. That really was the plan: drop some bombs, send a small ground force contingent in, remove Hussein and the Baathists, put in place Chalabi and crew, leave. That was it. Larry da Rita said at the panel that they all thought everything would just fall into place, like it had in Afghanistan.

When I was embedded with the invasion force in spring 2003, everybody was absolutely convinced that the Iraqi Army would flip, except for a few Republic Guard hold outs. I was amazed at the time at the sense of optimism that permeated the whole operation and how quickly it shattered when some Iraqi troops and the fedyaeen actually fought back. I heard the CIA reports coming into the brigade command post before the invasion began, about Iraqi soldiers waiting to surrender and welcome the American troops. Everybody really did believe it would be a repeat of Paris 1944.

Anthropologists in the combat zone

Small teams of social scientists and anthropologists working with American units to map the "human terrain" in Iraq and Afghanistan and use "soft power" to engage local populations have saved lives and are an important tool in nation building, according to military officials.

In today's irregular wars, "battlefields are often civilian neighborhoods" where American troops face an "indistinguishable mix" of enemy fighters and innocent civilians, said Andre van Tilborg, deputy undersecretary of Defense for science and technology, at a hearing on Thursday before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities. Social scientists can help provide the cultural knowledge that could mean the difference between gun battles and peaceful outcomes in troops' daily interaction with foreign cultures, van Tilborg said.

He said the Pentagon intends to spend roughly $150 million this year on social science research to better understand tribal cultures and social networks. The military wants to use part of that money to increase dramatically the number of Human Terrain Teams operating with military units. The proposal is highly controversial in the academic community, which believes it's an ethical violation for social scientists to work hand-in-hand with troops in war zones.

PRTs still struggling

Teams dedicated to the job of rebuilding critical infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as rebuilding schools and restoring electrical power, are plagued by low funding, not enough staff and poor leadership, according to a report released by the House Armed Services Committee.

So-called provincial reconstruction teams, which also provide security in local areas, try their best to make do with what resources are available, but the government "has not gone far enough or fast enough," to support them, according to a six-month investigation into the PRT program. "[P]rocesses and structures in Washington still resemble what was used in the Cold War," rather than what is needed in today's conflicts, the report said.

About that Syrian reactor

So some "senior intelligence officials" provided a background briefing yesterday on the Syrian reactor and the Israeli air strike that destroyed it. Some findings from the intel briefing which can be found in its entirety here (pdf), which can be summarized thusly:

[O]ur information shows that Syria was building a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor that was nearing operational capability in August 2007.  The reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.  It was not configured to produce electricity and was ill-suited for research.  The reactor was destroyed in early September 2007 before it was loaded with nuclear fuel or operated.  We are convinced based on a variety of information that North Korea assisted Syria’s covert nuclear activities both before and after the reactor was destroyed.  Only North Korea has built this type of reactor in the past 35 years.

As far as the level of certainty as to whether the reactor was part of a nuclear weapons program, well the intelligence on that matter was a little light. Here is how one of the senior intel officials put it:

Again, this is a bit arcane, and I’m trying to be very precise with our language here, okay.  We were certain, okay, this was a reactor and that it was going to produce plutonium.  We saw no other logical use for that plutonium based upon – no other use for the reactor other than creating plutonium.  And then our judgment was that the Syrians would only have done this – with the great expense and perhaps political risk involved – for a weapons program, although we had not yet detected the detailed and constituent elements of such a weapons program.  That is – and therefore, we said, we believe, Mr. President, that is what this is for. But the body of evidence on which we’re basing that is more limited than some of the other things we’re telling you.

Video clip of the day: World Airways - Last Flight from Da Nang

Incredible footage from the fall of Da Nang, a CBS camera crew was on a World Airways flight that went in to try and evacuate refugees, only to be swarmed on the tarmac by hundreds of terrified South Vietnamese soldiers. The plane tries to lift off with people literally hanging off the ladder, the landing gear and in the luggage hold.

Gates tells military to quit preparing for a repeat of World War II

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday urged the military services to stop spending money on costly weapons systems designed to fight big, conventional wars and focus instead on training and preparing to better fight irregular wars and battle terrorist networks.

In a speech to cadets at West Point, N.Y., Gates said the military must better prepare to fight "brutal and adaptive insurgencies and terrorists." In "long, messy unconventional conflicts" against such enemies, he said, traditional measures of military might, such as the amount of firepower that can be directed at a target, will be less important than other elements of national power, such as economic and diplomatic might.

Gates said officers must provide civilian leaders with candid advice and "tell blunt truths." He urged the next generation of Army officers to "take on the mantle of fearless, thoughtful, but loyal dissent," and to protect junior officers who critique the military services. But he also warned officers to stop the practice of using their ties to defense contractors and Congress to do "end runs" around civilian leaders who try to cancel costly weapons programs.

Gates speaks

Today's must read: a speech defense secretary Robert Gate's gave last night to cadets at West Point. Go read it now. I'll post something on it later.

The old boys network gets busted

Today's must read comes from the NYT on the crop of retired generals and lesser officers who have become "military analysts" for the various network and cable news shows. Not that any of this is a real surprise, few retired Army generals are going to speak out against their service, or its leaders, ties are too strong and the price of ostracism too great. But there is some fantastic reporting there by David Barstow on the financial incentives spurring some of these crooked bastards to spout how great the war has been going over the past five years, in order to maintain the inside connections so they could land lucrative Pentagon contracts.

I do find it a amazing/appalling that these clowns were so willing to say everything was going great in Iraq, when that country was slipping into an abyss between 2004 and say May 2007. I just listened to my old boss at CSIS, retired Army colonel Bill Taylor, speak on leadership the other day. He's a great man, taught at West Point for years, taught Dave Petraeus as a matter of fact. He said the most important lesson he learned in life was the importance of a person's honor, because in the end, that is all you have. He said an honorable person can go far in life, but once you've lost your honor, you can spend a lifetime trying and never get it back. The former military officers named in Barstow's piece have no honor. I hope they all live long lives with that cloud of shame and dishonor always hanging over their heads.