Crazy Neocon Tries to Get in the Awl Bidness

When you're responsible for a debacle, the natural human inclination is to hide your head in shame. Herbert Hoover didn't exactly hide from view, but he sufficiently removed himself from public life in order to spare his fellow Republicans the horror of having to be photographed standing next to him. Richard Perle? Fuck it, he's trying to sneak his way into the oil business in Iraq.

A former Pentagon advisor who was an early advocate of invading Iraq has been looking into entering the potentially lucrative oil business there, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Citing documents outlining a possible deal and people close to the negotiations, the Journal said Richard Perle has been looking into drilling in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, near the city of Erbil.

A consortium led by Turkish AK Group International is working out a deal to drill there and a US representative for the company's chief executive told the paper that Perle is involved.

In an e-mail to the daily, however, Perle said he was "not involved in any consortium" involving the two Kazakh men the paper said he was working with on the deal.

Here's hoping he loses his shirt, has to sell everything he owns, and gets dumped in an alley by his business partners after they pay a hooker to drug him. If Richard Perle thinks he's smart enough to get into business with the Turks and the Kazakhs in the Kurdish region of Iraq, all we can say is, go for it, dude. It's not like you have blood on your hands.

--WS

White House Circulates Unflattering Bio of Berlusconi

When you run a disgraceful operation such as the current White House--one built by ideologues on lies, smearing people, and ruining anyone who is critical of what they do--you'll get things like this.

An embarrassed White House apologized on Tuesday for an "unfortunate mistake" -- the distribution of less-than-flattering biography of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi at the Group of Eight summit. Still, the gaffe led to headlines in Italy.

The summary of Berlusconi was buried in a nearly inch-thick tome of background that the White House distributed at the summit of major economic powers. The press kit was handed out to the White House traveling press corps.

The biography described Berlusconi as one of the "most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice."

It was just last month that Berlusconi welcomed Bush to Rome, calling him "a personal friend of mine and also a great friend of Italy." And Bush responded then: "You're right. We're good friends."

The biography, written by Encyclopedia of World Biography, said Berlusconi burst onto the political scene with no experience and used his "vast network of media holdings" to finance his campaign on a promise to "purge the notoriously lackadaisical Italian government of corruption."

The biography went on to say that Berlusconi was appointed to the prime minister's office in 1994, "however, he and his fellow Forza Italia Party leaders soon found themselves accused of the very corruption he had vowed to eradicate."

How did this happen? Well, if you believe it happened by accident, fine. But if you believe it was done out of malice, or a half-assed form of unintended malice in that someone had the bio and unwittingly tipped their hand by accidentally releasing something they agreed with, you're on solid ground when it comes to this White House.

The adults are not in charge. They run everything based on smearing, slamming or denigrating their opponents. A basic biography of Silvio Berlusconi issued by the White House should be simple enough to produce. If your modus operandi is to keep the nasty, partisan material OUT of your day to day operation, then something like this should have stood out and revealed itself for what it was--something that could embarrass an ally.

But if your modus operandi is to deal in sleaze and bullshit, then what's the difference between slamming Berlusconi--whose country pulled out of Iraq and whose judiciary is pursuing a legal case against some CIA operatives--and smearing him with the material that got swept into a package which should have been thoroughly vetted to avoid insulting a G-8 ally?

After seven and a half years, the White House should be a tight ship when it comes to preparing material for foreign travel. These are the final overseas trips--where is the . These mistakes happen in the fledgling days of an unsteady team. This was not a mistake--this was someone deciding on payback, Fox News style, and they might as well admit it.

It Wasn't The Surge, It Was The Walls

We've talked about this in the past, but, essentially, the "surge" of troops into Iraq didn't bring down the violence--the enforced segregation of the Iraqi people, the acceptance of the Badr Corps into the legitimate Iraqi government as a security force AND the "appeasement" to our enemies did. Appeasement as in, paying the Sunnis with money and guns not to attack us.

How hard is it to figure out that if you put up walls and help the Iraqis ethnically cleanse their own neighborhoods and then pay the people who were attacking our troops to stop attacking our troops, you'll successfully lower violent attacks for a while, but, ultimately, you'll have gained little or nothing substantive?

Baghdad's walls are everywhere, turning a riverside capital of leafy neighborhoods and palm-lined boulevards where Shiites and Sunnis once mingled into a city of shadows separating the two Muslim sects.

The walls block access to schools, mosques, churches, hotels, homes, markets and even entire neighborhoods — almost anything that could be attacked. For many Iraqis, they have become the iconic symbol of the war.

"Maybe one day they will remove it," said Kareem Mustapha, a 26-year-old Sadr City resident who lives a five-minute walk from a wall built this spring in the large Shiite district.

"I don't know when, but it is not soon."

Indeed, new walls are still going up, the latest one around the northwestern Shiite neighborhood of Hurriyah, where thousands of Sunnis were slaughtered or expelled in 2006. They could well be around for years to come, enforcing Iraq's fragile peace and enshrining the capital's sectarian divisions.

It's called kicking the can down the road, and the next President will simply have to deal with the issues that the so-called "surge" didn't address. This has been the passing of the buck, not the ascendancy of a brilliant strategy.

It's a GOOD THING that there are fewer attacks, but the goal should never have been to slow down the attacks--the goal should have been to leave Iraq to the Iraqis and get US combat troops out of Iraq altogether. Their presence will ALWAYS fuel resentment and they will always be targets of opportunity for whatever dynamic is still in play--even if we stay a hundred years.

--WS

Is Blogging a Good Idea for the Military?

Over at Nukes & Spooks, they're talking about a study that argues that the military needs to engage and encourage bloggers so that it is in a better position to "counter" negative stories.

Written by James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning for a U.S. Special Operations Command class, it proposes the military consider “clandestinely” hire bloggers to present the military view on the war on terrorism. It points out the military is in the middle of an information operation, or IO, campaign. And in Iraq, some insurgent groups, Iraqi politicians, academics and everyday citizens have blogs that share observations interspersed with agendas. So far, the military does not have a go-to blog that is both popular and sly enough to get the military message out.

Now, Bill Roggio and Michael Yon and about fifty other warbloggers must be slapping their cheeks in frustration. They don't even get a mention in the report. There are at least four references to "Glenn Reynolds" and his Instapundit blog, and how wonderful and important it is, and how much "credibility" Reynolds has. It's like they wrote him a delightful love letter. Atrios, Daily Kos, Media Matters, TPM Cafe, and Think Progress get exactly no mentions, as a matter of course. In fact--Jeff "Guckert" Gannon gets more mentions than he probably deserves in this study.

Instapundit’s Reynolds is more than just a successful blogger. He is a law professor at the University of Tennessee, and an author of several books and articles on political ethics, environmental law and advanced technology. These credentials no doubt contributed to his success. In general, a blogger’s objectives; qualifications and life experiences; skills at writing, framing arguments and making use of the Web page medium; personal attributes such as integrity; networks of personal contacts; and levels of interaction with the audience all contribute to the audience’s assessment of the merit and credibility of his or her blog. These qualities are communicated to the audience through the blog, establishing the writer’s online persona and reputation. Influence, therefore, starts with the characteristics of the blogger. According to researcher Kathy Gill of the University of Washington, the most influential blogs were generally written by professionals with excellent writing skills.23 Just as during World War II, the military recruited the top Hollywood directors and studios to produce films about the war (in effect conducting domestic influence campaigns in the name of maintaining the national morale and support for the war effort), waging the war against terrorism and its underlying causes, as spelled out in the National Security Strategy, may require recruiting the prominent among the digirati (probably those native to the target region) to help in any Web-based campaign.

Does that even sound like a realistic assessment of the "blogosphere?"

If you went with the "characteristics" of the blogger, you'd look at this blog: two veterans who have held professional positions outside of the military. Between us, probably 12 years of college and beyond-high school education. If you looked at your typical "warblogger" you'd find some legitimate voices, to be certain. Then you'd find a pack of rabid chickenhawks with zero understanding of why we fought a Cold War in the first place. Not many college grads. And damned few actual veterans. I don't lump Roggio and Yon in that group. I will pay them this compliment--neither would allow themseves to be completely co-opted by the Pentagon. Yon, for example, insists on infuriating his own readers by publishing columns by Joe Galloway. Roggio, for example, has his readers pay to support his activities, not the government.

The standard should be--who was right in the first place about the war in Iraq? Not "who can stick it to the moonbats who don't understand that Tal Afar changed everything?"

Apparently, Instaputz is the only one who matters. The rest are just chum in the water. Don't you think an academic study about the blogosphere should have featured more than just one citation of some of the actually successful blogs that have been critical of the war effort?

The solution, according to the study? Make a blogger! That's right, just "make" one. A thousand grubby little hands just shot up.

An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process
of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly. Any blogs and bloggers serving an IO mission must be coordinated and synchronized with the overall influence effort in time and message. However, they must be prepared to argue and debate with their audience successfully and independently on behalf of the U.S. policy stance. In this sense, bloggers must be able to “circumvent the hierarchy” as blogger George Dafermos put it. This means that they must be trusted implicitly to handle the arguments without forcing them to communicate “solely by means of marketing pitches and press releases.”

And, you gotta love this part:

There will also be times when it is thought to be necessary, in the context of an integrated information campaign, to pass false or erroneous information through the media, on all three layers, in support of military deception activities. Given the watchdog functions that many in the blogging community have assumed—not just in the U.S., but also around the world—doing so jeopardizes the entire U.S. information effort. Credibility is the heart and soul of influence operations.

So, in other words--the "ideal" blogger for the military is...

Michelle Malkin?

Essentially, they are saying is: "find a credible liar we can control who has talent." Well, sorry Michelle. You can be controlled and you certainly know how to lie. But I think you're lacking in the talent area. DINFOS doesn't have a classroom ready for you until 2015. Better luck next time.

The study also serves up this gem:

This brings us to an even more fundamental issue. Because the U.S. military is prohibited from conducting information operations against U.S. persons, it is reluctant to engage in Internet IO operations that might be characterized as PSYOP or deception. Once information is on the Internet, it can reach anyone, including those in the U.S. Thus, while the military offers factual news on the Internet through Public Affairs, it generally stays away from commentary and IO. At least initially, this challenge might be addressed by sticking with accurate, factual information of value to readers. Blogging can support PA and focus on improving communications and building trust with local communities and the public. A blog can be used to solicit and respond to questions and concerns from target populations. In addition, military leaders might offer personal commentary on nonmilitary blogs, with the usual disclaimers. To use blogs effectively for an information campaign may require a new intelligence tool, one that can monitor and rapidly assess the informational events occurring in a specific portion of the blogosphere and their effects (if any) on the three layers of the local infosphere.

Hey, we've seen that movie. How are you doing, LTC Boylan? How's the Google working these days? Thanks for stopping by. You don't write as often as you used to.

The last thing the military should do is legitimize the bloggers that currently "back them up" by paying them and supporting them. If you unleash that kind of brain power on the world, you'll end up with everyone in a re-education camp on the edge of town. More misinformation about the war and about Islam and terrorism in general come from rabid, out-of-control hysterics. Little Green Footballs, anyone? No, they didn't get a mention, either.

In the movies where the turncoat sides with the invading aliens and helps them by turning everyone in, they fail to mention that that part could be played by any number of conservative warbloggers who still think we're winning in Iraq.

Michael Gerson's Mancrush on Robert Gates

Some people just can't hide their mancrushes, can they? We've seen the media's mancrush for Senator John McCain, and now we see evidence that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has a huge fan in Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson.

Gerson tries to rewrite the history of the Walter Reed scandal into a mash note to Gates:

When he was told that some in the Army were dismissive of press reports on the mistreatment of patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, according to one witness, grew "very, very quiet." Within two weeks, the Walter Reed commander was out of a job.

This kind of decisive silence has been employed by Gates to good effect in scandals ranging from misdirected nuclear parts to the cremation of fallen American soldiers and pets at the same facility.

To those who know this Eagle Scout with 28 years of experience in government, his subdued efficiency is not surprising. To those of us who haven't had the pleasure, his transformational ambitions and strategic boldness are surprising indeed.

Decisive? It took him almost two weeks to get rid of an incompetent General? In the middle of a war, the Secretary of Defense has to wait that long to make a basic decision on who is in charge of one of the major facilities that treats and cares for wounded soldiers? We're not talking about who's in charge of the motor pool on Fort Sill. We're talking about a facility that is just across town from the Pentagon. And his solution was to simply move that same General to another command?

The commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center was fired yesterday after the Army said it had lost trust and confidence in his leadership in the wake of a scandal over outpatient treatment of wounded troops at the Northwest Washington hospital complex.

Army Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, who assumed command of Walter Reed in August, will be temporarily replaced by Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley. But the appointment of Kiley, who had earlier been the facility's commander, surprised some Defense Department officials because soldiers, their families and veterans' advocates have complained that he had long been aware of problems at Walter Reed and did nothing to improve its outpatient care.

The action came 10 days after a Washington Post series exposed the squalid living conditions for some outpatient soldiers at Walter Reed and bureaucratic problems that prevented many from getting the care they need.

"The care and welfare of our wounded men and women in uniform demand the highest standard of excellence and commitment that we can muster as a government," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a statement. "When this standard is not met, I will insist on swift and direct corrective action and, where appropriate, accountability up the chain of command."

A senior Defense Department official said Gates had demanded quick action to show that the Pentagon was serious about improvements at Walter Reed. But the official said that Gates was not involved in the appointment of Kiley.

That's not decisive. That's incomprehensible. Weightman went from commanding Walter Reed, a small Army post northwest of Washington DC to commanding Fort Detrick, a much larger Army post...northwest of Washington DC. And, when you think about it, how much sense did it make to take Walter Reed away from Weightman and give him command of Fort Detrick?

The mission of the U.S. Army Garrison and Fort Detrick is to Command, operate and administer the use of resources to provide installation support to on-post Department of Defense and non-Department of Defense tenant organizations; and to furnish automated data processing, financial management and logistical support as directed to selected Headquarters, Department of the Army staff and field operating agencies.

Major tenants located on Fort Detrick are the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, 21st Signal Brigade, and the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency.

Fort Detrick serves four Cabinet-Level agencies, which include: The Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of Agriculture and Department of Human Services. Fort Detrick's DoD support also includes elements of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Beyond that, Fort Detrick supports several Unified and Major Army Commands: Unified U.S. Army Forces Command, U.S. Army Space Command, U.S. Army Information Systems Command, and U.S. Army Health Services Command.

Fort Detrick today is a U.S. Army Medical Command installation supporting a multi-agency community. Approximately 5,800 military, federal, and contractor personnel are assigned there. They conduct biomedical research and development, medical materiel management, and defense communications. Each of the military services is represented. The Commanding General, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), is the installation commander.

[SNIP]

As the Department of Defense's lead laboratory for medical biological defense, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases conducts basic research leading to the development of vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, and information to protect U.S. service members from biological warfare threats. The institute is a world-renowned reference laboratory for definitive identification of biological threat agents and diagnosis of the diseases they produce.

And, like any good corporate leader, the guy brought in to clean up the mess created by the demonstrably incompetent guy who was kicked upstairs to run a biological warfare program turns out to have been exactly the wrong guy.

Oh, and one more thing--that "decisive" decision by Gates? How'd that work out?

Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley has lost his job as Army surgeon general, another casualty of the care scandal at Walter Reed Medical Center.

Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren asked for Kiley's resignation, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates approved the action, a senior Pentagon official said.

In its official announcement, the Army said Kiley had requested retirement.

Kiley had been made temporary head of Walter Reed, the Army's top hospital, after Army Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman was ousted in the wake of a series in The Washington Post that found soldiers living in deplorable conditions.

However, he was quickly replaced by Gen. Eric Schoomaker amid criticism that Kiley, who was head of Walter Reed from 2000 to 2004, had been aware of the problems at the facility.

That's decisive leadership? Ten days after the problems were exposed, Gates fired Weightman and either did or didn't have anything to do with the decision that installed Kiley. Ten days after that, Gates fired Kiley. Weightman got a promotion, if you consider being sent from Walter Reed to Fort Detrick a promotion.

Does Michael Gerson have an editor? An editor who actually reads the Washington Post? Did it escape Gerson and his editor's attention that the Washington Post actually won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Walter Reed scandal?

Apparently, it did.

As war rages on, Iraq's psychiatric patients are plunged into an archaic past

The Ibn Rushid psychiatric hospital in central Baghdad was once, in a time before the war, a jewel in the crown of Iraq's healthcare system. Now, after five years of war, the staff struggles to deliver services under horrific conditions where they lack medications and equipment and are forced to compromise and make do, because the alternative to that is doing nothing, and that is anathema to most helping professionals.

They struggle on, doing the best they can, even though they are feeling the strain and exhibiting signs of PTSD themselves.

Nevertheless, he does his best to help his patients. Some he treats with the limited number of psychiatric drugs at his disposal. For others, patients who are suicidal or catatonic or do not respond to drugs, he prescribes electroconvulsive therapy, administered with a 25-year-old machine that, he says, has “technical problems.”

The patients are sometimes given Valium before the treatments. But because there is no anesthesiologist on staff, the shocks are delivered without anesthesia, as they were decades ago in the United States.

Dr. Hussain is acutely aware that what he has to offer is far from ideal — that the way the hospital gives electroshock therapy is “inhuman and dangerous,” that patients do not receive the panoply of special programs and therapies routinely available in other countries.

“I feel frustrated,” Dr. Hussain said. “I feel sad. I see the correct things but I cannot do them because there are barriers and limitations. We do not have the equipment, we do not have the treatable medication.”

Despite that, he says, patients often improve.

Only four psychiatrists, from a pre-war staff of eleven, remain on staff at Ibn Rushid, most have departed for the Kurdish areas in the north where the odds of being kidnapped or murdered is far lower than it is in Baghdad. Others have fled the country and never looked back.

The facility is so understaffed that patients admitted for treatment must be accompanied by a family member who stays with them at all times to help keep them calm.

And still, in spite of seemingly insurmountable odds, patients seem to get better.

Dr. Hussain envisioned things differently when he chose to become a psychiatrist in the 1980s, fascinated by the psychiatric symptoms of soldiers returning from the distant battlefields of the Iraq-Iran war.

But now a different war has settled over his country, and his patients, though not soldiers, are all, in a way, the casualties.

He could leave Iraq, but he has no intention of doing so, he said. He loves his work.

“Nobody forced me to be a psychiatrist,” Dr. Hussain said.

"the severest case of PTSD she'd seen in her life..."

Photo: Travis and Willard Twiggs

Marine with PTSD kills brother, self:

Last month, Marine Staff Sgt. Travis N. "T-Bo" Twiggs went to the White House with a group of Iraq war veterans called the Wounded Warriors Regiment and met President George W. Bush. Twiggs had been through four tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan and months of therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder in which he said he was on up to 12 different medications.

"He said, `Sir, I've served over there many times, and I would serve for you any time,' and he grabbed the president and gave him a big hug," said Kellee Twiggs, his widow. About two weeks later, Travis Twiggs went absent without leave from his job in Quantico, Virginia. He and his brother drove to the Grand Canyon, where their car was found hanging in a tree in what appeared to be a failed attempt to drive into the chasm. The brothers carjacked a vehicle at the park Monday.

Two days later they were at a southwestern Arizona border checkpoint, and took off when they were asked to pull into a secondary inspection area, Border Patrol spokesman Michael Bernacke said. Eighty miles (130 kilometers) later, the car was on the Tohono O'odham reservation, its tires wrecked by spike strips.

As tribal police and Border Patrol agents closed in, Twiggs, 36, apparently fatally shot his 38-year-old brother, Willard J. "Will" Twiggs, then killed himself. Pinal County Sheriff's spokesman Mike Minter said no motive has been established. But Kellee Twiggs said the decorated Marine would still be alive if the military had given him enough help.

[SNIP]

Travis Twiggs, who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1993 and held the combat action ribbon, wrote about his efforts to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder in the January issue of the Marine Corps Gazette.

The symptoms would disappear when he began each tour, he said, but came back stronger than ever when he came home.

He wrote that his life began to "spiral downward" after the tour in which two Marines from his platoon died.

"I cannot describe what a leader feels when he does not bring everyone home," he wrote. "To make matters even worse, I arrived at the welcome home site only to find that those two Marines' families were waiting to greet me as well. I remember thinking, 'Why are they here?"'

Weeks later, Twiggs "saw a physician's assistant who said that was the severest case of PTSD she'd seen in her life," his widow said.

He began receiving treatment, but the Marine wrote that he mixed his medications with alcohol and that his symptoms did not go away until he started his final tour in Iraq.

When he came home, "All of my symptoms were back, and now I was in the process of destroying my family," he wrote. "My only regrets are how I let my command down after they had put so much trust in me and how I let my family down by pushing them away."

Kellee Twiggs said her husband was "very, very different, angry, agitated, isolated and so forth," upon his return. "He was just doing crazy things."

She said her husband was treated in the psychiatric ward of Bethesda Naval Medical Center and then sent to a Veterans Administration facility for four months.

Most recently, Travis Twiggs was assigned to the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory at Quantico, a job he said helped him "get my life back on track."

"Every day is a better day now," he wrote in the Marine Corps Gazette. "... Looking back, I don't believe anyone is to blame for my craziness, but I do think we can do better."

Twiggs urged others suffering from similar problems to seek help. "PTSD is not a weakness. It is a normal reaction to a very violent situation," he wrote.

Kellee Twiggs said she cannot understand why her husband was not sent to a specialized PTSD clinic in New Jersey.

"They let him out. He was OK for a while and then it all started over again," she said.

Gates Speaks About Taking Care of Troops, MRAPs

Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently gave a speech, emphasizing the need to take care of the troops over the need to prepare for future conflicts:

The Defense Department must focus on current war demands, even if it means straining the U.S. armed forces and devoting less time and money to future threats, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

Meeting the war-fighting needs of the troops now and taking care of them properly when they get home must be the priority, Gates said in a speech to journalists at a seminar here sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

"I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called Next-War-itis — the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict," Gates said.

But in a world of limited resources, he said, the Pentagon must concentrate on building a military that can defeat the current enemies: smaller, terrorist groups and militias waging irregular warfare.

If it means putting off more expensive weapons for the future or adding to the stress on the Army — that is a risk worth taking, he said.

Gates has announced his opposition to one reform that would ease the stress on recruiting and retain soldiers who wish to pursue an education:

Gates’ letter [to Congress] complicates Webb’s effort by opposing S 22 while favoring other bills that include a Pentagon and White House initiative allowing service members to transfer GI bill benefits to family members.

“It is essential to permit transferability of unused education benefits from service members to family,” Gates said in the letter to Sen. John McCain, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a co-sponsor of a Republican alternative bill, which was to be formally introduced on Tuesday. Transferability, Gates said, “is the highest priority set by the service chiefs and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reflecting the strong interest from the field and the fleet,” Gates said.

Transferring benefits is good for the family but also good for the services by helping to keep people in the military while family members are using the benefits, Gates said.

Gates also restated long-standing Pentagon opposition to GI Bill educational benefits that are too generous, making it more likely for service members to leave the military to attend college. “Serious” retention issues are expected if benefits exceed the average monthly cost for a four-year public college, including tuition, room, board and fees, Gates said.

Webb’s proposal would pay full tuition and fees for a public college plus provide a monthly living allowance equal to the basic allowance for housing of an E-5, which would exceed the level Gates says is acceptable.

The Enhancement of Recruiting, Retention and Readjustment Through Education Act, cosponsored by McCain and other Republicans, provides $1,500 in basic monthly benefits plus $500 a year for books. It also includes transferability of benefits, with the right to transfer all benefits to family members after completing 12 years of service and to transfer half of earned benefits after six years.

The Republican bill might have attracted support from military and veterans groups if the more generous Webb proposal was not on the front burner. But the promises of full tuition plus stipend benefits, similar to what was provided after World War II, are very attractive to major veterans groups and to new organizations representing Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of not being identified, said the McCain bill, co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Richard Burr of North Carolina, “is retention friendly. It gives education benefits a big boost, but not more than average national costs. We can manage retention at those levels, but S 22 is a retention killer.”

Webb, in an interview, described such arguments as "absurd."

The Department of Defense, he said, "is doing a very good job managing its career force, given the strains that are on it. But it's doing a very poor job of taking care of the people who don't come in for a career."

Raising GI bill benefits nearer to those offered to veterans returning from World War II, Webb said, will give every volunteer, particularly those with no intention of making the military a career, "a proper reward for their service" and a great tool for transitioning to civilian life.

Defense officials have to understand, Webb said, that a volunteer military is "only a career system to a certain point." The current system isn't properly rewarding those who enter "because of love of country, or family tradition, or the fact that they just want to serve for a while," he said.

The services, he said, "have got this one demographic group they keep pounding on and throwing money at. Yet there's a whole different demographic group that would be attracted to coming in and serving a term."

GATES on MRAPs



During the same question and answer period, Gates also spoke about the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle:

Gates pointed to the mine-resistant vehicles as an example of spending money now on critical lifesaving equipment, rather than pouring all resources into war-fighting systems of the future.

Roadside bombs and suicide attacks "have become the weapons of choice for America's most dangerous and likely adversaries — and the need to have a vehicle of this kind won't go away," he said.

Gates also issued a warning to the military services, which have long set their sights on pricey, sophisticated weapons systems that take decades to develop and get onto the battlefield.

The Army has its $200 billion Future Combat System, the Air Force has its F-22 jet fighter. Both programs have been plagued by delays and escalating costs, as well as criticism from Congress.

However, the MRAP vehicle has been cited as having already been compromised by an insurgent-deployed weapon that finds a vulnerability in the design:

The deaths of two U.S. soldiers in western Baghdad last week have sparked concerns that Iraqi insurgents have developed a new weapon capable of striking what the U.S. military considers its most explosive-resistant vehicle.

The soldiers were riding in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protective vehicle, known as an MRAP, when an explosion sent a blast of super-heated metal through the MRAP's armor and into the vehicle, killing them both.

Their deaths brought to eight the number of American troops killed while riding in an MRAP, which was developed and deployed to Iraq last year after years of acrimony over light armor on the Army's workhorse vehicle, the Humvee.

The military has praised the vehicles for saving hundreds of lives, saying they could withstand the IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, which have been the biggest killers of Americans in Iraq. The Pentagon has set aside $5.4 billion to acquire 4,000 MRAPs at more than $1 million each, making the MRAP the Defense Department's third largest acquisition program, behind missile defense and the Joint Strike Fighter.

The military has resisted efforts to find out what might be wrong with the MRAP:

The Marine Corps has ordered a civilian scientist to stop work on a report critical of its efforts to obtain new armored vehicles, saying he exceeded his authority, a Marine official said Tuesday.

Franz Gayl, a retired Marine officer and civilian science adviser, alleged in a Jan. 22 report that "gross mismanagement" of the program to quickly field Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles had resulted in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of Marines in Iraq. Gayl had planned to continue his investigation.

After combat, Officers fight the bureaucracy back home to help their interpreters

American officers are continuing to fight beyond their deployments to Iraq, fighting their own government once back home, trying to help the interpreters they leave behind.

An interpreter signs his or her own death warrant when the agreement to help the Americans is made. Once the insurgency has a name, they do not stop hunting that person until that person is dead.

The risk taken by interpreters in Iraq is considerable and widely documented. Those who work for the Americans are often accused of being apostates and traitors. Their homes are bombed. Death threats are wrapped around blood-soaked bullets and left outside their homes. Their relatives are abducted and killed because of their work. And of the interpreters themselves, hundreds have been killed.

But many work in spite of the repercussions, and that dedication resonates clearly for many American soldiers and marines.

While there is no detailed tracking of the total number of Iraqis who have worked as interpreters, their advocates estimate that more than 20,000 people have filled such roles since 2003. In the last quarter of 2007 alone, 5,490 Iraqis were employed by the multinational force as interpreters, according to the Department of Defense.

Nearly 2,000 interpreters in Iraq and Afghanistan have applied to the State Department for a special immigrant visa, which was begun in 2006 as a last resort for those fearing for their lives. So far 1,735 cases have been approved, though it is unclear how many interpreters have come to the United States.

In its first year the visa program for interpreters was limited to only 50 spots. Since then it has expanded to 500 spots a year.

But the numbers tell only part of the difficulty. The program does little to minimize the visa bureaucracy. The process, complicated for anyone, is especially hard for interpreters.

They are considered refugees, and refugees cannot apply from their native countries, in this case Iraq. But Jordan and Syria have closed their borders to the flood of Iraqi refugees. Passports issued by the government of Saddam Hussein are not valid, often making it impossible to cross borders legally.

Among service members who have served in Iraq, there is no dispute that the number of interpreters in danger is far greater than the number of those who have won visas. Many veterans are angry about the bureaucratic hurdles faced by the Iraqis who often came to work with a price on their heads. Many others have for years expressed frustration with the Bush administration for not doing more to help Iraqis who aid American forces, even as other advocates criticize the overall low numbers of Iraqis generally granted visas to the United States.

White House spokeshole Gordon Johndroe gave the feeble excuse that the government's hands had been tied by a lack of legislation covering interpreters - like we are supposed to believe this administration has any regard for congress! (Ha! Executive order, anyone? He's a unitary executive!)

One infantry officer, Lt. Col. Steve Miska, assessed the situation and did something about it. He set his staff to work on helping the interpreters that help them, and established a network in which every interpreter that works for his unit is paired with veterans who guide them out of Iraq and through Jordan and Syria, eventually to the United States and through the immigration process. “Not only is it the right thing to do from a moral perspective, it’s the way to win,” Colonel Miska said, stressing that the assistance will help reassure Iraqis that they can trust Americans despite the risk in helping them.

It is a national disgrace the way the interpreters who help our military in Iraq are treated. The congress should pass, and the president should immediately sign, legislation that would grant any interpreter safe passage to the United States if the officer they work for swears that the interpreter is in danger as a result of their work with American forces.

It would simply be the right thing to do.

Suppression of Free Speech Continues In Iraq

The government of Iraq is locked in a life or death struggle with forces that oppose it. One of the consequences of that battle is the right of a free press to report what is happening in Iraq. There are numerous examples of how this is happening, but this is one instance where free speech is being censored in Iraq in the name of preserving law and order:

Only 6 days after the occasion of World Press Freedom, Iraqi media witnessed a new violation against freedom of speech.

Yesterday Iraqi forces closed Al Ahad Radio Station an excuse of adopting provocative political speech. I have many friends who listen to this radio as I do; I asked my friends if they notice any instagative tones in the programs or newscast of this radio ….. the answers were negative - always. This radio was broadcasting religious programs and these kinds of programs that depend on the audience's participations in addition to newscasts. Iraqi authorities closed the radio upon orders from Iraqi cabinet office because the current fight with Mahdi army. The order said that this radio provokes sectarianism and violence.

Journalistic freedom observator said it was a violation of freedom of speech because it wasn't implemented according to a court order; neither had the government given any warning. That if we take for granted they were using provoking speech.

Al Ahad Radio belongs to Sadr trend, the trend that is considered now as in opposition of the government. They are oppositions –may be this is the only fault.

Iraqi government headed by Al Maliki use the same policy of extinct regime, the policy of eliminating the oppositions. I hope that our politicians in the current government remember that they were opposition one day and they wanted people to hear their voice.

[Disclaimer-"Inside Iraq" is a blog updated by Iraqi journalists working for McClatchy Newspapers. They are based in Baghdad and outlying provinces. These are firsthand accounts of their experiences. Their complete names are withheld for security purposes.]

During the handover of control of Iraq in 2004, there were numerous stories such as this about "free speech" in Iraq:

There are many things lacking in newly sovereign Iraq, but freedom of expression isn't one of them. Radio Dijla, a private talk-radio station, offers Baghdadis a chance to participate in frank, open discussions on a variety of topics ranging from electricity blackouts to Iraq's political future. The formula works -- after just two months on the air, Radio Dijla is already the most popular station in Baghdad.

The trend of shuttering radio stations has been a consistent policy of the Iraqi government under Prime Minister al-Maliki:

Representatives of the Government of Iraq entered a mosque in Baghdad today [November 14, 2007] to close the offices and shut down the radio station of the Association of Muslim Scholars- a Sunni religious network often seen as supporting or affiliated with some of the more radical elements of the Sunni insurgency, including elements of al-Qaeda.

While it is understandable that the al-Maliki government would work to oppose anti-government forces, the closure of Al-Ahad seems more directed at punishing the supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr:

Al-Ahad radio station, located in al-Baladiyat neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, was established in 2006, and followers of the Sadr movement represent the wide audience of the station's broadcast that covers the Iraqi capital, supported by offices at a number of Iraq's provinces.

He called on media companies and the government to reconsider the station's programming, because "it does not call for violence, but for peace as a replacement education for violence."

"Government's claim that the station's office occupies a state-owned property is incorrect, as we rented this place for 10 years from the Trade Union," he said.
"The station will employ peaceful methods, and will resort to the judiciary and parliament to settle the issue," he noted.

From its side, the Sadrist bloc at the Iraqi parliament had a press conference on Thursday noon, criticizing the U.S. raid operation that targeted al-Ahad radio station's office.

The conference described stopping the station's broadcast as handcuffing the freedom of the press.

The oppression of journalists who work for various media outlets in Iraq has been documented each year of the Iraq War by organizations such as Reporters Without Borders. According to their 2008 report, they state that:

Iraqi journalists rejoiced at their new-found freedom of expression when Saddam Hussein’s regime fell in March 2003, despite the chaotic security situation. Nearly five years later, things are more dangerous than ever. At least 56 media workers were killed in 2007 and journalists faced increasing restrictions imposed by the Iraqi authorities.

Violence has not abated in Iraq and the toll among journalists continues to grow. The UN Security Council resolution (1738) of December 2006 on protection of journalists in war zones did not lead to Iraqi efforts to punish those attacking media workers. At least 47 journalists and nine media assistants were killed during 2007. More than half the recorded physical attacks on the media were in Baghdad despite the huge presence there of Iraqi forces and US troops.

A Reporters Without Borders delegation went to Baghdad in May 2007 bringing money for the families of murdered journalists. The organisation’s secretary-general, Robert Ménard, met President Jalal Talabani and asked his government to ensure that killers of journalists were punished.

Foreign journalists have still not returned to Iraq, mainly for safety reasons but also because insurance coverage can cost thousands of dollars a day.

Handling the Cremation of Fallen Soldiers

A facility in Delaware that cremates both human and animal remains in different incinerators at the same site was cited as a reason for reviewing how the remains of fallen soldiers are handled.

The Pentagon is recommending changes in the handling of troops' remains, after it was revealed that a crematorium contracted by the military handles both human and animal cremations.

A military official said there have been no instances or charges that human and pet remains were mixed. But officials are now recommending that troops' remains be incinerated at a facility that is dedicated entirely to humans, in order to avoid any appearance of a problem. Or, officials said, families can opt to have a relative's remains sent to a local funeral home for cremation, which would be paid for by the military.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates believed the earlier situation was "insensitive and entirely inappropriate for the dignified treatment of our fallen," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.

"Our heroes deserve to be better treated than that," Morrell said, adding that a sign at one of the crematoriums noted that it also does pet cremations. He said Gates offered an apology to military families for the insensitivity.

The Dover Air Force Base Port Mortuary, where all troops' remains arrive from the battlefield, does not have its own crematorium, so it contracts with two funeral homes for the cremations: Torbert Funeral Chapel and Pippens Funeral Home.

The policy of cremation for household pets has grown in popularity in recent years. There are facilities, such as this one, that handle only pet cremation. The notion of processing both human remains and animal remains in different retorts, or incinerators at the same site is not without precedent:

Bayview Crematory, which had been considering acquiring two retorts, or new cremation units—one for human remains and coincidentally, one for animal remains—supported Robinson’s idea, and a new business —A Paw Print In Heaven, LLC—was born. Robinson printed up business cards and started an advertising campaign. And these days, she’s keeping busy.

“When I get a call, I talk to the person and I find out what’s going on—what kind of pet it was, what happened, how they are doing, where they are.” Robinson makes it clear to pet owners that she is sympathetic to their loss because “you have to understand that the pet is a family member. Sometimes what they need is someone to listen to them cry.”

[snip]

The animal is cremated almost immediately upon arrival, and the ashes put into a wooden urn, which is returned to the owner, along with the I.D. tag that matches the one the owner is still holding. The knowledge that the ashes in the urn are indeed those of the deceased pet has become a prime concern to many owners. Many have heard horror stories, such as the 2004 legal case brought by nearly 1,700 families against a Georgia crematory that failed to cremate bodies, and returned cement dust rather than ashes to family members after charging them fees for crematory services.
“That sort of thing is just horrible,” said Robinson, “and I do think people are distrustful. They’ve had reason to be.”

However, the notion of handling the bodies of soldiers killed in the Iraq war or the war in Afghanistan in such a facility has forced the military to look into the manner in which it conducts this type of operation.

Pippens' crematorium is located at the funeral home and is used only for human remains, while Torbert's has incinerators for both human and animal remains.

While most facilities don't advertise the fact that they handle both human and animal remains, there is a sign near the Torbert crematory advertising the "Friends Forever Pet Cremation Service."

Officials said there are three incinerators at the Torbert facility, and two are used for humans, while one is used for pets. The human and pet facilities are separated by about 20 feet.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, Air Force staff director, told Pentagon reporters that it is not uncommon for crematoriums to provide both services.

It is not known whether the military would have conducted a review of the policy if one military officer had not complained to Congress about the facility in Delaware that handles both human and pet cremations:

Klotz said the issue came to light Friday when an officer who works in the Pentagon went to Dover to pay respects to a fallen comrade who was being cremated. The soldier noticed the pet cremations sign, and was concerned about the fact that the facility handled both human and animal remains.

The officer alerted senior officials at the Pentagon, who notified Capitol Hill and quickly pulled together the policy changes.

Bill Torbert, president of Torbert Funeral Chapel, said a representative from Dover Air Force Base visited a crematory run by his company earlier this week, but was satisfied there was nothing amiss.

Torbert said the human and pet crematories are in adjoining buildings on the same property but have separate entrances. A sign advertising pet cremation services is in front of the Friends Forever office, but there are no signs on the building housing the human crematory facilities, which Torbert said are not used for cremation of pets.

“We do a lot of work with the military,” he said. “We service them very well.”

Juan Cole Throws Cold Water on the Wingnuts

I'm just going to take a sizable chunk of what Juan Cole has to say and repost it here--it's a brilliant piece of analysis. It debunks the wingnuts, it throws badly-needed cold water in the face of the neocons, and it encapsulates "why" we will never give up this fight:

...Monday's Pentagon-provoked story saying that Hizbullah of Lebanon is training Shiite radicals at camps in Iran.

I am suspicious of this story not because it is necessarily untrue (how would I know?) but because it shares with typical Bush administration propaganda the 'gotcha' technique in which questions of proportionality, significance and causality do not arise.

Thus, Dick Cheney repeatedly claimed that he had evidence that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who he simplistically linked with al-Qaeda, got hospital treatment in Baghdad. Cheney said that would have been impossible unless Saddam was actively hosting him. And if Saddam was giving hospital treatment to al-Zarqawi, then ipso facto the Baath regime was allied with and supporting al-Qaeda.

But Cheney's entire argument is false from beginning to end. First of all, the Iraqi secret police put out an APB on al-Zarqawi when they thought he had entered their country, and were clearly afraid of him. There is no evidence that the regime afforded al-Zarqawi hospital care. Even if he had gotten treated, it was not proof of Saddam's complicity with him or with al-Qaeda. These little tiny details were built up into a narrative that was intended to carry the audience along without their being able to ask any questions about it. How good was the proof for what Cheney alleged? Was al-Zarqawi really al-Qaeda back then? How important was he? How big an impact did his presence in Iraq have?

There were also repeated allegations from Cheney and others that Saddam was training al-Qaeda operatives at Salman Pak. Wrong.

Under torture, Ibn al-Sheikh Libi told the US that Saddam was training al-Qaeda operatives in the use of poison gas. It was a lie. That is the problem with putting people in so much pain that they will tell you anything. Cheney and Rice parroted this falsehood over and over again.

After the war and occupation began, Pentagon spokesmen actually alleged that 90% of the violence in Iraq was committed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his group. But what, was he an Arab version of the Flash, able to run from Mosul to Baghdad in a few minutes? And when he was killed, nothing changed, so he wasn't all that important.

Since Cheney and Rice wanted to go to war with Iraq so as to open its petroleum resources to exploitation by American firms, it really was immaterial to them if the things they were saying were true or not. They have never evinced any shame or regret. They are happy. They accomplished their goal.

We should not allow this sort of thing to happen again. The Pentagon story about Iran is fishy for these reasons:

The main pro-Iran militia in Iraq is the Badr Corps of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. Iran is happy with Badr's vast influence. Badr has conflicts with the Mahdi Army. Why should Iran undermine its own client by favoring the latter? And note that the US never condemns Badr, which until recently was actually part of the Iranian military until recently.

The information on the supposed Hizbullah training in Iran seems to have come from two or three captured Lebanese Shiites. That is a very small number. The US has 24,000 accused insurgents in captivity. If it only has a handful of Lebanese Shiites, then they just aren't very important. The Principle of Proportionality holds.

Moreover, the allegations may have been produced by US torture of the captives and so may not be reliable.

Then even if it were true, how important is it? The Mahdi Army is tens of thousands of slum kids. Sadrism goes back to the 1990s in Iraq and is a mass movement. Iran had nothing to do with them historically. Moreover, how important is all this? Have, like, 4 Lebanese guys really trained all that many Mahdi Army militiamen? How many exactly? How much more effective would they be as a result? Wouldn't the political support of millions of Iraqi Shiites in the South really be the source of Muqtada al-Sadr's power and authority?

What is being alleged is too small to produce a really big, nation-wide effect in Iraq. The Mahdi Army fought the US military for two long hard months in spring of 2004, and for another month in August. Iran was not around.

This is why I can't help but continue to question what we're being told. I'm so sick of being lied to. I'm so sick of the lies and the manipulation. If we keep repeating these denunciations and keep supporting the people like Juan Cole, who debunk this nonsense, we'll keep spreading the word and we'll get stronger and stronger.

Spencer Ackerman Shows Sadr in a New Light

Rather than dismiss him as a fool and call him "Mookie" like the idiot warbloggers do, Spencer Ackerman comes up with a sobering assessment of Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr.

In Iraq, Moqtada Sadr is perhaps the most powerful single political actor. But in the United States, he is treated with derision and contempt by both officials and commentators. During a visit to Baghdad last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice all but called Sadr a coward, saying he was "sitting in Iran" while promising "all-out war for anybody but him." In the right-wing blogosphere, Sadr is commonly called "Mookie." Yet while the political fortunes of all other Iraqi Arab political figures have waxed and waned, only Sadr has consistently gained strength. That raises the question: Why?

My guess is that he is one of the few young Iraqis to actually have faced both Saddam and the United States. He is NOT a military man. He is NOT a leader in the way that we understand--hence, when it's not easy to pigeonhole him, the lesser minds of the right wing go ballistic because they cannot see past their own ideas of what war, insurgency and leadership are supposed to be.

One common explanation is that Sadr is the heir to a distinguished Shiite clerical line that offered the most potent and authentic resistance to Saddam Hussein. A complementary theory holds that Sadr's anti-occupation demagoguery provides all the adherent force he needs.

But a different interpretation -- not exclusive of the other two -- might hold the key to Sadr's continued success. Sadr is an insurgent figure who adopts key principles of counterinsurgency. His military strategy is complemented by an appealing political and economic strategy for securing the loyalties of the population. That would help explain why the counterinsurgents battling Sadr in Baghdad have consistently lost.

"While other individuals and parties sought U.S. support and bickered over the high-profile government ministries," A.J. Rossmiller, who spent 2005 in Baghdad as an analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, wrote an e-mail, "Sadrists quietly sought the three things most valuable in a political system: popular legitimacy, a patronage network and the ability to provide for the basic needs of citizens."

And that's why they can't understand him--he's not so much a military figure as he is a nationalist. And, at no time in the history of this country, have we ever been able to grasp what it is that motivates a true nationalist, whether we're talking Castro, Ho Chi Minh, or Milosevic. It's also the reason why we cannot understand Hamas or Hezbollah.

Some counterinsurgents believe that Sadr's own dexterity with counterinsurgency principles, combined with his deep political support in Iraq, make accommodation the only sensible strategy. "The best solution now," said longtime counterinsurgency advocate and former Army officer Terrence Daly, "is to try to coopt Sadr's forces." Defeating him, in other words, is beyond the U.S.'s capabilities.

The principles of counterinsurgency are diverse, but they could be summed up as methods of warfare used to draw a civilian population's political and personal allegiance away from a guerrilla force. A counterinsurgent force seeks to coordinate military and civilian methods to offer both material and ideological incentives to a population so it will support a government and reject that government's enemies.

Currently, the U.S. military and its civilian associates have launched a "population protection" strategy to defend Baghdad residents against sectarian and criminal gangs; to promote competent and responsible governance at the provincial as well as national levels; to jump start commerce; and to provide social services like education health care and sanitation.

But in the areas under his control, Sadr provides all these things -- and does so better than the Iraqi government.

No disagreement there--that's the best reading of this that I've seen.

It is true that Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, has been implicated in scores of sectarian murders of Sunni Iraqis, thereby expediting and deepening Iraq's civil war. But the Mahdi Army has also stood as a bulwark for Shiites against Sunni aggression or reprisal, patrolling neighborhoods when no other force was willing or able to protect inhabitants from violence. While Iraq's legal system has remained paralyzed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Sadr established courts within months that -- while dealing out an illiberal brand of Islamic justice that has little respect for women's or minority rights -- adjudicated people's disputes. In 2004, when Sunni Iraqis in Fallujah were locked in a stand-off with U.S. Marines, Sadr organized a blood drive in Baghdad even as his own forces battled U.S. troops.

How many times have you heard it said in the media--In 2004, when Sunni Iraqis in Fallujah were locked in a stand-off with U.S. Marines, Sadr organized a blood drive in Baghdad even as his own forces battled U.S. troops. We're talking four years ago, obviously, but how much goodwill has Sadr been able to reap since then? Well, for starters, he ain't dead.

A new report from Refugees International, released Apr. 15, assessed that Sadr "provides shelter, food and non-food items to hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites in Iraq," making it "the main service provider in the country." Among Sadr's more recent efforts has been the active resettlement some of the two million Iraqis internally displaced by the continuing conflict. Refugees International found that while Maliki's efforts have been lacking, Sadr provides not just cost-free housing but also food and a modest income stipend. In other words, according to the report, Sadr provides better governance than the Iraqi government.

It is as if Sadr has read the Army and Marine Corps' 2006 field manual on counterinsurgency. Spearheaded by such respected counterinsurgents as Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the manual's central insight is that political and economic measures, and not simply military ones, are what defeats insurgencies. "Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate," the manual states. "Long-term success in COIN [counterinsurgency] depends on the people taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to the government’s rule. Achieving this condition requires the government to eliminate as many causes of the insurgency as feasible."

But Sadr's appeal is not strictly material. Even if he did not deliver the services he provides, he would still have two potent assets that no other Iraqi political figure jointly possesses. First is his uncompromising anti-occupation stance. Last year, his deputies in Parliament led an effort to demand a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops that won a parliamentary majority -- only to be ignored by Maliki.

I'd say he practices the manual. The US is pretending to practice it in Iraq. Every time there's a massive airstrike, it's one more nail in the coffin for COIN strategy in Iraq. We've said that here as often as it can be said.

More fundamentally, Sadr's family led the religious resistance to Saddam Hussein, with both his father and his uncle becoming high-profile victims of the regime. The Sadrist Current that he helms is a movement in Iraq with roots far deeper than any other organized political entity.

Sadr has also managed to overcome the few challenges to his religious authority. Iraq's supreme Shiite authority, the Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is the only cleric whose religious-political influence outshines Sadr's. While Sistani has receded from Iraqi politics since 2005, the Shiite parties still look to him to grant his imprimatur on controversial political moves. As a result, Sadr has sought to co-opt Sistani, even as Sistani has sought to co-opt Sadr. "The relationship is mutually opportunistic, but also pragmatic, since the two clerics have not been able to ignore each other," observed Babak Rahimi of the Jamestown Foundation in a widely-read analysis last year. He noted that the alliance of convenience "is bound to reshape Iraqi Shiite politics in the years to come." Additionally, Sadr is getting ecclesiastical training in the Iranian city of Qom, a vital step for bolstering his own religious prestige.

When faced with a powerful enemy who enjoys significant popular support, one approach counterinsurgents sometimes advise is co-optation. In 2007, with Robert Gates at the helm of the Pentagon and Petraeus at the helm of the Iraq war, there was a significant effort to signal that the U.S. had no real problem with Sadr.

In June 2007, Petraeus gave an interview to USA Today that conspicuously praised the cleric. "Actually, first of all I'd like to say that Muqtada al-Sadr issued a very constructive statement today in the wake of the Samarra attack calling for mourning for several days and calling for restraint," Petraeus said. "That continues the line of messages that he has put out since his return from Iran a couple weeks ago, in which he has ordered his followers not to attack Sunnis (or) other Iraqis, not to attack mosques and shrines."

Yeah, you don't hear warbloggers condemning Petraeus for trying to accomodate Sadr.

Who's really practicing COIN in Iraq? Who's the nationalist? And who's survived longer than anyone else? No one has been a player in Iraq longer than Sadr, at least at his level. Sanchez, Casey, Bremer, and all the rest have moved on. al-Maliki came afterwards. And Petraeus got where he is by failing upward.

Excellent article, and proof someone is at least thinking critically these days.

This Hand Doesn't Know What The Other Is Doing

h/t to reader and commenter "vstol" for catching this...

Do any of these people know what the hell they're talking about?

First, we heard this:

A top Iraqi official said Sunday there was no "conclusive" evidence that Shiite extremists have been directly supplied with some Iranian arms as alleged by the United States.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq does not want trouble with any country, "especially Iran."

Al-Dabbagh was commenting on talks this week in Tehran between an Iraqi delegation and Iranian authorities aimed at halting suspected Iranian aid to some Shiite militias.

Then, we heard this:

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh called reporters late Sunday night to clarify remarks he made at a news conference earlier in the day, when he appeared to say that there was no hard evidence that Iran was allowing weapons to come into Iraq. Dabbagh said his comments had been misinterpreted.

"There is an interference and evidence that they have interfered in Iraqi affairs," Dabbagh said in an interview arranged by a U.S. official. When asked how he would characterize the proof that Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq, he said: "It is a concrete evidence."

The U.S. government has long accused Iran of providing the powerful roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators to Shiite militiamen who attack American troops. Iran has denied any such role. [these are the copper bowl-shaped devices, which are crude and can be made literally anywhere and not just in Iran]

Dabbagh said that after Maliki launched an offensive last month in the southern city of Basra, weapons were found that were clearly produced in Iran.

"The truth came out; there is evidence of Iranian weapons in Iraq," he said. "Now we need to document who sent them."

Dabbagh said the high-level committee was formed three days ago and includes officials from the Interior and Defense Ministries.

So which is it then? No concrete proof or so much proof as to provoke all-out war between Iraq and Iran? Why does he use the metaphor of "concrete" when everyone knows that cheap concrete poured in Baghdad is likely to be surrounded by backed up sewage pipes, electric outlets that aren't properly grounded, and shattered windows from the latest car bomb?

A hopeful person might wish that the Iraqis are merely inept and not deliberate when they pull things like this. I'm not hopeful when it comes to the Iraqi government--clearly, there is an iron fist that shakes spokesmen and deputies and ministers until they say what someone wants to hear. You cannot accept what is being said anymore. There are no dissident voices. It's like watching a bad cartoon.

How much of that is being driven by the US is anyone's guess.

Mission Accomplished

It was five years ago today...

May 1 marks the fifth anniversary of President George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech aboard the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

After being landed on the deck of the carrier in an S-3B Viking 30 miles off the coast San Diego (Ari Fleischer said the president "could have helicoptered," but "he wanted to see a landing the way aviators see a landing"), Mr. Bush appeared in a flight suit to the cheers of the ship's personnel and the glare of television lights.

Later, he stood at a podium against a backdrop of an enormous banner reading "Mission Accomplished."

To the assembled audience and the world, Mr. Bush said, "Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.

"In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment - yet it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage - your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other - made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.

"Tonight, I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld, for General Franks, and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done.

Hubris, folly, and plain old idiocy. Incompetence and fecklessness, mendacity and hypocrisy. Those are the words we'll remember him by. Wanna bet these photos don't make the final cut for the Bush Presidential library?


UPDATE I - Blue Girl - 11:15 a.m.

The Hill website reported yesterday evening that a group of pissed off veterans - or as we refer to them, our base - is unfurling a 50' replica of the banner at the White House today.

Will the video make the evening news? Prolly not...

When Petulant Children Try Go to War

...it looks like this:

A second American aircraft carrier steamed into the Persian Gulf on Tuesday as the Pentagon ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the "increasingly hostile role" Iran is playing in Iraq - smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops.

"What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq," said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

These accusations are not new. In fact, our government has been caught overstating them several times. But who exactly is doing the killing? The Badr brigade, trained by Iran, is now integrated into the Iraqi security forces. Does that mean that the government of the country we are trying to prop up is paying Iranian-backed troops to kill us? If so, then the right answer is to stop propping up a government that welcomes Iranian trained militias into their ranks.

U.S. officials are also concerned by Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf as well as Iran's still growing nuclear program. New pictures of Iran's uranium enrichment plant show the country's defense minister in the background, as if deliberately mocking a recent finding by U.S. intelligence that Iran had ceased work on a nuclear weapon.

What basis in reality is that? So what if the Iranian defense minister appears in a picture. Is that proof they have an arms program? Or the capability to see one through to fruition? If that is what constitutes proof, then expect our allies to undercut our efforts and mock us behind our backs.

No attacks are imminent and the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen has warned Iran not to assume the U.S. military can't strike.

"I have reserve capability, in particular our Navy and our Air Force so it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," Mullen said.

Targets would include everything from the plants where weapons are made to the headquarters of the organization known as the Quds Force which directs operations in Iraq. Later this week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to confront the Iranians with evidence of their meddling and demand a halt.

If that doesn't produce results, the State Department has begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell the Iranians to knock it off - or else.

"Reserve capability?" What in God's name does that add up to? Do we have reserve capability in the Army? Of course we don't--and in any significant attack on Iran, it won't be the Navy and the Air Force that sees the battle up close--it'll be the Army that will have to put boots on the ground the ensure those facilities are destroyed and it'll be the Army in Iraq that has to withstand a wave of Shiite attacks by outraged groups.

And the summation of the childishness and the ridiculousness of this country's foreign policy is contained in the phrase "knock it off or else."

Can you believe that? Can you believe that we would tell another country such a thing? That our position would be a schoolyard taunt between bullies with no maturity?

We're updating the old adage--if you're not embarrassed by your government right now, you're definitely not paying attention.

When The Generals Lied - "The Nation" Was On to Them In April, 2003

I don't know how many more of these I will end up doing--maybe a couple more in the next few weeks, as time allows. There really is no end to what you'll find when you go digging in this mess.

The New York Times article by David Barstow has a kindred spirit in this article, from April 2003, that appeared in The Nation:

Perhaps Americans can be excused for imagining that "regime change" in Iraq would be a cakewalk. So did Don Rumsfeld, who lashed back at critics accusing him of approving a too-optimistic war plan. Like Rumsfeld, a veritable army of ex-generals playing military analysts on TV seem to have gotten the story wrong, too, and are only now, very belatedly, changing their tune.

One might have expected a pro-military slant in any former general's initial estimation of the US invasion. But some of these ex-generals also have ideological or financial stakes in the war. Many hold paid advisory board and executive positions at defense companies and serve as advisers for groups that promoted an invasion of Iraq. Their offscreen commitments raise questions about whether they are influenced by more than just "a lifetime of experience and objectivity"--in the words of Lieut. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a military analyst for NBC News--as they explain the risks of this war to the American people.

McCaffrey and his NBC colleague Col. Wayne Downing, who reports nightly from Kuwait, are both on the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a Washington-based lobbying group formed last October to bolster public support for a war. Its stated mission is to "engage in educational advocacy efforts to mobilize US and international support for policies aimed at ending the aggression of Saddam Hussein," and among its targets are the US and European media. The group is chaired by Bruce Jackson, former vice president of defense giant Lockheed Martin (manufacturer of the F-117 Nighthawk, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and other aircraft in use in Iraq), and includes such neocon luminaries as former Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle. Downing has also served as an unpaid lobbyist and adviser to the Iraqi National Congress, an Administration-backed (and bankrolled) opposition group that stands to profit from regime change in Iraq.

NBC News has yet to disclose those or other involvements that give McCaffrey a vested interest in Operation Iraqi Freedom. McCaffrey, who commanded an infantry division in the Gulf War, is now on the board of Mitretek, Veritas Capital and two Veritas companies, Raytheon Aerospace and Integrated Defense Technologies--all of which have multimillion-dollar government defense contracts. Despite that, IDT is floundering--its stock price has fallen by half since March 2002--a situation that one stock analyst says war could remedy. Since IDT is a specialist in tank upgrades, the company stands to benefit significantly from a massive ground war. McCaffrey has recently emerged as the most outspoken military critic of Rumsfeld's approach to the war, but his primary complaint is that "armor and artillery don't count" enough. In McCaffrey's recent MSNBC commentary, he exclaimed enthusiastically, "Thank God for the Abrams tank and... the Bradley fighting vehicle," and added for good measure that the "war isn't over until we've got a tank sitting on top of Saddam's bunker." In March alone, IDT received more than $14 million worth of contracts relating to Abrams and Bradley machinery parts and support hardware.

Downing has his own entanglements. The colonel serves on the board of directors at Metal Storm Ltd., a ballistics-technology company that has contracts with US and Australian defense departments. The company's executive director told the New York Times on March 31 that Metal Storm technologies would "provide some significant advantage" in the type of urban warfare being fought in Iraq.

So much for predictions. Everything in the article from 2003 appears largely confirmed as fact in Barstow's article, and that just shows everyone that not only was The Nation solidly in front of this story but that Barstow was dead-on in his collating of everything that has been going on since April 2003. There's a book here, between these two articles, and someone could probably do it justice. Would it sell? That's the part that breaks your heart. No one gives a shit.

How else can you explain the fact that many of these officers will continue to appear on Television every night, speaking in hushed tones about how wonderful everything is? It's clear that McCaffery's early opposition was tempered by 2006--why the reversal? Could it be all of that procurement money was speaking louder than the truth? At what point did they get to him? Did someone walk into his office and tell him to "knock this shit off" and get behind the war or the gravy train was going to end?

When it comes to procurement, there seems to be a gaggle of former military officers who were willing to say anything publicly in order to ensure that their business interests weren't threatened by a Pentagon that might award a contract to another company. The procurement boondoggle has been around forever. It was there in 1775 when the chaotic and disorganized elements of the Continental Army were trying to find blankets and shoes, and the people in Boston and New York were only too happy to oblige with whatever rotting stock they could sell at a markup to an agent who was supposed to be acting on behalf of the soldiers. By the end of the war, these agents were rich men, at least the ones who weren't caned and beaten for being corrupt.

“We knew we had extraordinary access,” said Timur J. Eads, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Fox analyst who is vice president of government relations for Blackbird Technologies, a fast-growing military contractor.

Like several other analysts, Mr. Eads said he had at times held his tongue on television for fear that “some four-star could call up and say, ‘Kill that contract.’ ” For example, he believed Pentagon officials misled the analysts about the progress of Iraq’s security forces. “I know a snow job when I see one,” he said. He did not share this on TV.

“Human nature,” he explained, though he noted other instances when he was critical.

When I read things like that, my first reaction is to yell "bullshit." I personally don't think Mr. Eads was paying attention. He was probably more interested in lining his own pockets than he was in looking at Iraqi police officers and their gear. Anyone who has seen the dog-and-pony show knows one thing--the participants don't give two shits about anything that doesn't directly affect them. As in, where are the drinks, where's the food, where's the goodie bag, where do I go shopping, when do we get to fly fast in the Blackhawk.

To say, well after the fact, that he thought it was a "snow job" is to expect him to have a level of sophistication that hasn't yet been demonstrated. General Petraeus was writing, in 2004, of how great the Iraqi police were. I'm supposed to assume retired LTC Eads was "smarter" and more "knowledgeable" than the new CENTCOM Commander? Was he just spreading the same lies? Or did he think he had more insight? If so, why didn't he call Petraeus on it publicly in the early years of the war, when Petraeus was busy failing to achieve his mission and train the Iraqi police? Well, the proof of that would be if Eads actually said, at the time, what he thought was the "snow job" part of the whole matter.

Whoops! He didn't tell anyone. We have to take his word for it. Pardon me if I do not.

You see, when these men are caught lying, they have to try to justify and explain themselves. They have been caught lying about something they know nothing about, and that's war. How sad is it that we have a generation of military men that had their careers slotted between Vietnam and the start of the Iraq War in 2003 and, by and large, to a man, they know absolutely nothing about war? A full scale reform of the service academies, the schools and the courses, and the very organization of the military itself should be front and center. Sadly, it's glossed over.

If an analyst who was always wrong about everything gets caught in that lie, the first thing they are going to do is to try to dodge accountability by claiming "private" views that were correct all along, thereby mitigating the fact that their "public" statements were consistently wrong. That's called covering your ass, because who's going to hire someone who's paid to be right but has a track record of being wrong about everything? That wingnut welfare only extends to the civilians, you know. Retired military officers do get that pension, you know. That's more than Bill Kristol and Michael O'Hanlon get.

Procurement seems to be the part that keeps surfacing when I look into the details of this article. Yeah, it's been out for a while, and no, the media isn't running with this ball. They're running AWAY from the story, simply because it makes the corporate ownership uncomfortable.

But if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president’s $87 billion would be spent. It also was a chance to gather inside information about the most pressing needs confronting the American mission: the acute shortages of “up-armored” Humvees; the billions to be spent building military bases; the urgent need for interpreters; and the ambitious plans to train Iraq’s security forces.

Information and access of this nature had undeniable value for trip participants like William V. Cowan and Carlton A. Sherwood.

Mr. Cowan, a Fox analyst and retired Marine colonel, was the chief executive of a new military firm, the wvc3 Group. Mr. Sherwood was its executive vice president. At the time, the company was seeking contracts worth tens of millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq. In addition, wvc3 Group had a written agreement to use its influence and connections to help tribal leaders in Al Anbar Province win reconstruction contracts from the coalition.

In 2003, in the same article above, The Nation wrote:

At Fox News, military analysts Lieut. Col. Bill Cowan and Maj. Robert Bevelacqua are CEO and vice president, respectively, of wvc3 Group, a defense consulting firm that helps arms companies sell their wares to the government. It recently inked an exclusive deal with New Zealand's TGR Helicorp and will help the company hawk its military aviation equipment to the United States. The firm trades on its inside contacts with the US military, and a message on its website reads, "We use our credibility to promote your technology" (accompanied by the sound of loud gunfire).

The networks don't seem too concerned about what the analysts do on their own time. "We are employing them for their military expertise, not their political views," Elena Nachmanoff, vice president of talent development at NBC News, told The Nation. She says that NBC's military experts play an influential role behind the scenes, briefing executive producers and holding seminars for staffers that provide "texture for both on-air pieces and background." Defense contracts, she adds, are "not our interest."

I don't know about you, but that last bit speaks volumes as to why the networks don't care to have this story continue to be talked about. Everyone "seems" to have understood that the war was a boondoggle--if you spoke favorably, you got to ride on the gravy train. If you didn't the train ride was over and you were tossed off the side with nothing.

How did any of that serve the best interests of the American people or the soldiers we sent to fight?

Really, I don't know how much more obvious it has to be. Why can't anyone see that that was what was going on? Doesn't anyone in this country, aside from those of us who hang out here, even care?

More Perspective On Why The Iraqi Army Sucks

One of the things that I have consistently said is that it is unconscionable that 4 million military-age and military-eligible Iraqi males have decided to sit on the fence while 25,000 insurgents run circles around 500,000 Iraqi police and security forces troops despite the best efforts of our 140,000-troop military and our 100,000+ contractors to stem the violence. This is why nation building will ultimately fail in a society like Iraq. They are numb from decades of oppression and dictatorship. They have no social infrastructure to build a "democracy" around--that is, functioning courts, judicial process, somewhat honest police, redress of grievances, and representation of a meaningful kind.

The rot of corruption was always there, but without a dictator, the corruption has ruined Iraqi society in a way that it will take decades of hard work to reverse. Organized crime has taken a firm hold, creating an almost insurmountable problem for a society that doesn't have the means to fight back against it. The Iraqis have been handed a country, but they're playing hot potato--no one wants to hold it. There's too much that's broken, too much that needs to be fixed. And they have to do this hard work--it has to come from people who are inside of that system to do it. US troops who go there for a year and leave cannot do it for them. Here's how bad the corruption really is:

The captain, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said he intended to extend the break to five days, maybe longer. He had not been paid in two months and was overwhelmed by the problems of commanding his company, part of the 1st Brigade, 11th Iraqi Army Division. He was considering not going back to the fight in Sadr City.

Desertion by Iraqi soldiers has been a problem during the recent battles in Basra and Sadr City. The government dismissed 1,300 soldiers and police officers who deserted last month during fighting in Basra. On Tuesday, another company walked away from a crucial part of the front line in Sadr City, contending that they did not have adequate support.

Five years into the American effort to build a self-sustaining Iraqi Army, these failures to stand and fight have proven an embarrassing setback to American and Iraqi officials.

The captain who left his men on Tuesday said that even away from the battle, he was not able to escape his army burdens. He said his phone rang incessantly. His men had called from the front line saying that, once again, they had run out of ammunition and they pleaded for help. He called another unit in Sadr City and arranged for ammunition to be transferred.

Then his phone had rung again, he said. It was the Mahdi Army militia, the group his men were fighting, on the line.

“We know where you live,” they had told him.

“If they come to my house, they can kill my whole family,” he said.

On the phone they had read a roster of names of the men in his battalion. “I don’t even have access to that,” he said. “They could only have gotten it from my senior commanders.

“Our senior officials, they are thieves,” he said.

He was walking around with a bullet in the chamber of his pistol, ready to be attacked at any moment.

Even the world's biggest wingnut, full of delusions and chickenhawk fantasies of military dominance and battle-space oriented tactical innovations, could not come up with a solution for THAT kind of a problem. Killing people won't fix it, nor will continued occupation.

An Iraqi revolution is what comes next, if at all. Will the US accept whatever revolution transforms the broken Iraqi society?

h/t to reader opit for the NYTimes story...