DesMoinesRegister.com: "On my trip to the Des Moines airport Thursday morning, a woman on the radio was giving her version of how war is hell.
She was about to board a flight to wherever. She'd just bought a bottle of vodka when somebody told her she'd have to remove it from her carry-on bag and put it in her check-in luggage.
The woman was put out. She sounded as if somebody had asked her to leave the Green Zone without body armor and a Humvee."
She did it, though, because she's a patriot, and sacrifice is what makes this country great. That and she'd be stuck in Newark if she didn't.
The unhappy radio woman, I'm happy to report, was the exception. Most of the air travelers were good sports about the inconvenience.
On the day the London police thwarted a scary new terrorist plot, peace and tranquility reigned at the Des Moines airport. Lines were short, delays few and the mood positive.
The sign at the top of the escalator said, "Security Alert!! No liquids, gels, toothpaste, creams, shampoo permitted through the security checkout."Security alert - no toothpaste?
As sacrifice goes, it isn't exactly World War II, with citizens organizing scrap drives and rationing food, clothing and gas. It isn't Rosie the Riveter heading off to the munitions plant every morning while her man fights Hitler overseas.
But if giving up personal hygiene products is what it takes to keep us safe in 2006 - we'll do what we can.
There was still some uncertainty Thursday, even in insulated Des Moines. Did over-the-counter eye-drops count as one of the forbidden items? Or does Visine qualify as medicine? And what about breast milk?
I don't mean to make light of a potential catastrophe. A terrorist plot is no situation comedy.
But five years after Sept. 11, when everything supposedly changed forever, it's looking more and more like hardly anything changed at all.
Some of us worried we'd be like Israel, under constant attack. Every few days there goes another bus, train, cafe or nightclub.
Five years ago, everyone knew it was a matter of time before they hit us again. And the next time would be far worse.
Instead of 3,500 dead, there might be 35,000. Or more.
But here we are, still untouched on the home front.Are we safer than five years ago? The president says yes. His detractors say no.
Who knows for sure? How do you measure such a thing?
This much is certain: We've been really lucky.
Not all of us. Three thousand of our young men and women have died on the other side of the world. Tens of thousands of Iraqis are gone.
We rely on a volunteer military to do the dirty work. We aren't sure why anyone would sign up for the job, but thank God they do.
They're so close to the blood. We're so far removed. They deal with life and death. We fight the carry-on luggage war.
Five years ago, when you approached the parking garage at the Des Moines airport, you stopped at the gate while somebody checked your trunk for weapons and explosives.
When did they stop doing that? I can't remember.
Five years ago, nobody knew a Sunni from a Shiite. About all we know now is they don't play nice and probably never will.Half of us still think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was responsible for 9/11.
Most of us, including the president, still think the bad guys hate us for our freedom, our values and our way of life. Academics and think-tankers keep saying the real goal is "liberating" every inch of land that ever belonged to Islam.Still others say we would have been better off saving our bullets and bombs for Iran. Iran, Iraq ... the important thing is taking the fight there so the terrorists won't bring it here.
It sounds good, but was that really the objective in the old "mission accomplished" days? It happened so long ago, I don't recall. The fog of war takes many forms.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
U.S. Ambassador Says Iran Is Inciting Attacks
U.S. Ambassador Says Iran Is Inciting Attacks - New York Times: "BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 11 - Iran is pressing Shiite militias here to step up attacks against the American-led forces in retaliation for the Israeli assault on Lebanon, the American ambassador to Iraq said Friday. Iran may foment even more violence as it faces off with the United States and United Nations over its nuclear program in the coming weeks, he added.
The Iranian incitement has led to a surge in mortar and rocket attacks on the fortified Green Zone, said the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad.
The four-square-mile Green Zone, protected by layers of concrete blast walls and concertina wire on the west bank of the Tigris River here, encloses baroque palaces built by Saddam Hussein that now house the seat of the Iraqi government and the American Embassy.
The Shiite guerrillas behind the recent attacks are members of splinter groups of the Mahdi Army, the powerful militia created by the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, Mr. Khalilzad said.
The splinter groups have ties to Iran, which is governed by Shiite Persians, and to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite Arab militia in Lebanon that has been battling Israel for a month, the ambassador added."
There is evidence that Iran is pushing for more attacks, he said, without offering any specifics. But he acknowledged that there was no proof that Iran was directing any particular operations by militias here.
“Iran is seeking to put more pressure, encourage more pressure on the coalition from the forces that they are allied with here, and the same is maybe true of Hezbollah,” Mr. Khalilzad said in an interview Friday in his home inside the Green Zone.
His remarks are the first public statements by a senior Bush administration official directly linking violence in Iraq to American support of Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon, and to growing pressure by the United States over Iran’s nuclear program. Until now, American officials have not publicly drawn a direct connection between Shiite militant groups here and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Mr. Khalilzad’s comments also reinforce the observations of some analysts that the rise of the majority Shiites in Iraq, long oppressed by Sunni Arab rulers, is fueling the creation of a “Shiite crescent” across the Middle East, with groups in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon working together against common enemies, whether they be the United States, Israel or Sunni Arab nations.
Despite the recent attacks by the splinter groups, Mr. Khalilzad insisted that the most powerful Shiite leaders in Iraq had not yet pushed for more violence against the Americans, even though Iran would like them to. That includes Mr. Sadr, he said.
“Generally the Shia leadership here have behaved more as Iraqi patriots and have not reacted in the way that perhaps the Iranians and Hezbollah might want them to,” Mr. Khalilzad said.
Iran and Hezbollah want the Iraqi Shiite leaders “to behave by mobilizing against the coalition or taking actions against the coalition,” he added.
In their public addresses, the top Shiite leaders in Iraq have forcefully condemned the Israeli assault on Lebanon, much more so than senior officials in Sunni Arab countries.
Denunciations have come from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric here, from Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and from Parliament, which called the Israeli airstrikes “criminal aggression.”
When Mr. Maliki visited Washington last month, Congressional leaders pressed him to denounce Hezbollah as a terrorist group, but he dodged the request.
The mercurial Mr. Sadr has come closest of the Shiite leaders in hinting that Iraqis might take up arms in support of Hezbollah. He said in late July that Iraqis would not “sit by with folded hands” while Lebanon burned, and on Aug. 4 he summoned up to 100,000 followers to an anti-Israeli and anti-American rally in Baghdad.
Most of those who showed up were angry young men, many swathed in white cloths symbolizing funeral shrouds and some toting Kalashnikov rifles.
On Friday a senior cleric in Mr. Sadr’s movement, Sheik Asad al-Nasiri, told worshipers at Mr. Sadr’s main mosque in Kufa that “the Zionist entity’s power has been broken and has been weakened in the battle.” He asserted that “the resistance has given the best examples of bravery and sacrifice.”
Sympathy with Hezbollah is not limited to the radical fringe. As images of the destruction in Lebanon continue flickering across the Arab television networks, many ordinary Iraqis say they would join what they call a holy war against American-backed Israel.
Mr. Khalilzad said Iran could stoke more violence among the Shiite militias as the end of the month draws nearer. That is expected to be a time of high tension between Iran and the United States, because a United Nations Security Council resolution gives Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend its uranium enrichment activities or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has insisted that Iran will pursue its nuclear program.
Mr. Khalilzad said, “The concern that we have is that Iran and Hezbollah would use those contacts that they have with groups and the situation here, use those to cause more difficulties or cause difficulties for the coalition.”
If the United Nations adopts another resolution against Iran after the Aug. 31 deadline, he said, that “could increase the pressure on Iran,” and “Iran could respond to it by further pressing its supporters or people that it has ties with, or people that it controls, to increase the pressure on the coalition, not only in Iraq but elsewhere as well.”
Some military analysts cast the Israel-Hezbollah war as a proxy struggle between the United States and Iran, and prominent conservatives in Washington have called for American military action against Iran.
William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, said on Fox News last month that the Bush administration had been “coddling” Iran and that the war in Lebanon and Israel represented “a great opportunity to begin resuming the offensive against” militant Islamists.
Here in Iraq, the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army rose up twice against the Americans in 2004, and American and British forces have stepped up operations recently against elements of it, raiding hideouts and engaging in pitched battles in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad and in the area around Basra, the southern port city.
On Monday, American forces called in an air attack during a raid in Sadr City. Prime Minister Maliki, who depends on Mr. Sadr for political support against rival Shiites, denounced the raid, saying he had never approved it and that the Americans had used “excessive force.”
American military officials have given few details about ties between Shiite militias here and Iran or Hezbollah, except to say they believe that Iran has given technology for lethal shaped-charge explosives to Iraqi militias. Iran may have passed on the technology via Hezbollah, some officials have said.
Western security advisers confirmed Friday that there had been a recent spate of mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone, known to some as the International Zone. It is unclear whether anyone was wounded or killed by the strikes.
A spokesman for the American military, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, declined to give details.
“We aren’t interested in discussing attacks on the International Zone, their effectiveness or who may be responsible,” he said in an e-mail message.
Leaders in the Sadr Organization say parts of the Mahdi Army are not under their control. Those rogue elements, they say, carry out attacks without guidance from Mr. Sadr or his top commanders.
Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reportingfor this article.
[bth: virtually all news coming out of Iraq from embedded reporters is now highly censored. Not even photos of combat damaged vehicles are allowed. ....
Think about the implications of this - the American public is completely in the dark now and they haven't even caught on. Amazing. ....
The neocons still want the US to go to war with Iran. Iran clearly wants to stir up the Shia in Iraq and Lebanon to draw off pressure of US attacks against them especially next month when the UN puts the hammer down on Iran. ...
There is a great deal of misinformation about these shaped charges and Irans involvement largely perpetuated by folks over at the American Enterprise Institute, AIPAC and selective unattributed commentary occassionally coming out of the Pentagon and paid talking heads. The best I can tell is that the improvised shaped charges became effectively used in South Africa in the 1980s and that technology was written into manuals and further refined with improved detonators by Hezbollah against Israeli armor in southern Lebanon in the 80s and 90s.
This technology is not very difficult to make - virtually any equipped machine shop could do it. Hezbollah used its connections with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to produce and sell shaped charges in limited quantity -probably from one machine shop according to forensic evidence on the charges (machine grooves) - which were made from a machine shop in Iran and sold to friendly Shia that wanted to attack British forces near Basra. Gradually the knowledge of contruction of shaped charges and the refinement of them into cleverly disguised IEDs (buried in fake styrofoam curbs) spread in Iraq (Shia and Sunni neither of which are dumb). ... This is Radio Shack and machine shop level technology, just focused on our armor. ...
So to address the problem, the Sec. of the Navy simply classified all information on this topic including photos of damaged vehicles in June of this year. That took the issue out of the press and off the political radar of Americans. Unfortunately it didn't solve the problem.
In fact IED attacks are up markedly now and their effectiveness has increased. But the American public doesn't know and so far as I can tell, they don't care to know either.
This is how we will lose this war - with a yawn.]
The Iranian incitement has led to a surge in mortar and rocket attacks on the fortified Green Zone, said the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad.
The four-square-mile Green Zone, protected by layers of concrete blast walls and concertina wire on the west bank of the Tigris River here, encloses baroque palaces built by Saddam Hussein that now house the seat of the Iraqi government and the American Embassy.
The Shiite guerrillas behind the recent attacks are members of splinter groups of the Mahdi Army, the powerful militia created by the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, Mr. Khalilzad said.
The splinter groups have ties to Iran, which is governed by Shiite Persians, and to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite Arab militia in Lebanon that has been battling Israel for a month, the ambassador added."
There is evidence that Iran is pushing for more attacks, he said, without offering any specifics. But he acknowledged that there was no proof that Iran was directing any particular operations by militias here.
“Iran is seeking to put more pressure, encourage more pressure on the coalition from the forces that they are allied with here, and the same is maybe true of Hezbollah,” Mr. Khalilzad said in an interview Friday in his home inside the Green Zone.
His remarks are the first public statements by a senior Bush administration official directly linking violence in Iraq to American support of Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon, and to growing pressure by the United States over Iran’s nuclear program. Until now, American officials have not publicly drawn a direct connection between Shiite militant groups here and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Mr. Khalilzad’s comments also reinforce the observations of some analysts that the rise of the majority Shiites in Iraq, long oppressed by Sunni Arab rulers, is fueling the creation of a “Shiite crescent” across the Middle East, with groups in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon working together against common enemies, whether they be the United States, Israel or Sunni Arab nations.
Despite the recent attacks by the splinter groups, Mr. Khalilzad insisted that the most powerful Shiite leaders in Iraq had not yet pushed for more violence against the Americans, even though Iran would like them to. That includes Mr. Sadr, he said.
“Generally the Shia leadership here have behaved more as Iraqi patriots and have not reacted in the way that perhaps the Iranians and Hezbollah might want them to,” Mr. Khalilzad said.
Iran and Hezbollah want the Iraqi Shiite leaders “to behave by mobilizing against the coalition or taking actions against the coalition,” he added.
In their public addresses, the top Shiite leaders in Iraq have forcefully condemned the Israeli assault on Lebanon, much more so than senior officials in Sunni Arab countries.
Denunciations have come from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric here, from Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and from Parliament, which called the Israeli airstrikes “criminal aggression.”
When Mr. Maliki visited Washington last month, Congressional leaders pressed him to denounce Hezbollah as a terrorist group, but he dodged the request.
The mercurial Mr. Sadr has come closest of the Shiite leaders in hinting that Iraqis might take up arms in support of Hezbollah. He said in late July that Iraqis would not “sit by with folded hands” while Lebanon burned, and on Aug. 4 he summoned up to 100,000 followers to an anti-Israeli and anti-American rally in Baghdad.
Most of those who showed up were angry young men, many swathed in white cloths symbolizing funeral shrouds and some toting Kalashnikov rifles.
On Friday a senior cleric in Mr. Sadr’s movement, Sheik Asad al-Nasiri, told worshipers at Mr. Sadr’s main mosque in Kufa that “the Zionist entity’s power has been broken and has been weakened in the battle.” He asserted that “the resistance has given the best examples of bravery and sacrifice.”
Sympathy with Hezbollah is not limited to the radical fringe. As images of the destruction in Lebanon continue flickering across the Arab television networks, many ordinary Iraqis say they would join what they call a holy war against American-backed Israel.
Mr. Khalilzad said Iran could stoke more violence among the Shiite militias as the end of the month draws nearer. That is expected to be a time of high tension between Iran and the United States, because a United Nations Security Council resolution gives Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend its uranium enrichment activities or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has insisted that Iran will pursue its nuclear program.
Mr. Khalilzad said, “The concern that we have is that Iran and Hezbollah would use those contacts that they have with groups and the situation here, use those to cause more difficulties or cause difficulties for the coalition.”
If the United Nations adopts another resolution against Iran after the Aug. 31 deadline, he said, that “could increase the pressure on Iran,” and “Iran could respond to it by further pressing its supporters or people that it has ties with, or people that it controls, to increase the pressure on the coalition, not only in Iraq but elsewhere as well.”
Some military analysts cast the Israel-Hezbollah war as a proxy struggle between the United States and Iran, and prominent conservatives in Washington have called for American military action against Iran.
William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, said on Fox News last month that the Bush administration had been “coddling” Iran and that the war in Lebanon and Israel represented “a great opportunity to begin resuming the offensive against” militant Islamists.
Here in Iraq, the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army rose up twice against the Americans in 2004, and American and British forces have stepped up operations recently against elements of it, raiding hideouts and engaging in pitched battles in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad and in the area around Basra, the southern port city.
On Monday, American forces called in an air attack during a raid in Sadr City. Prime Minister Maliki, who depends on Mr. Sadr for political support against rival Shiites, denounced the raid, saying he had never approved it and that the Americans had used “excessive force.”
American military officials have given few details about ties between Shiite militias here and Iran or Hezbollah, except to say they believe that Iran has given technology for lethal shaped-charge explosives to Iraqi militias. Iran may have passed on the technology via Hezbollah, some officials have said.
Western security advisers confirmed Friday that there had been a recent spate of mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone, known to some as the International Zone. It is unclear whether anyone was wounded or killed by the strikes.
A spokesman for the American military, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, declined to give details.
“We aren’t interested in discussing attacks on the International Zone, their effectiveness or who may be responsible,” he said in an e-mail message.
Leaders in the Sadr Organization say parts of the Mahdi Army are not under their control. Those rogue elements, they say, carry out attacks without guidance from Mr. Sadr or his top commanders.
Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reportingfor this article.
[bth: virtually all news coming out of Iraq from embedded reporters is now highly censored. Not even photos of combat damaged vehicles are allowed. ....
Think about the implications of this - the American public is completely in the dark now and they haven't even caught on. Amazing. ....
The neocons still want the US to go to war with Iran. Iran clearly wants to stir up the Shia in Iraq and Lebanon to draw off pressure of US attacks against them especially next month when the UN puts the hammer down on Iran. ...
There is a great deal of misinformation about these shaped charges and Irans involvement largely perpetuated by folks over at the American Enterprise Institute, AIPAC and selective unattributed commentary occassionally coming out of the Pentagon and paid talking heads. The best I can tell is that the improvised shaped charges became effectively used in South Africa in the 1980s and that technology was written into manuals and further refined with improved detonators by Hezbollah against Israeli armor in southern Lebanon in the 80s and 90s.
This technology is not very difficult to make - virtually any equipped machine shop could do it. Hezbollah used its connections with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to produce and sell shaped charges in limited quantity -probably from one machine shop according to forensic evidence on the charges (machine grooves) - which were made from a machine shop in Iran and sold to friendly Shia that wanted to attack British forces near Basra. Gradually the knowledge of contruction of shaped charges and the refinement of them into cleverly disguised IEDs (buried in fake styrofoam curbs) spread in Iraq (Shia and Sunni neither of which are dumb). ... This is Radio Shack and machine shop level technology, just focused on our armor. ...
So to address the problem, the Sec. of the Navy simply classified all information on this topic including photos of damaged vehicles in June of this year. That took the issue out of the press and off the political radar of Americans. Unfortunately it didn't solve the problem.
In fact IED attacks are up markedly now and their effectiveness has increased. But the American public doesn't know and so far as I can tell, they don't care to know either.
This is how we will lose this war - with a yawn.]
Israel's Wounded Describe Surprisingly Fierce, Well-Organized and Elusive Enemy - New York Times
Israel�s Wounded Describe Surprisingly Fierce, Well-Organized and Elusive Enemy - New York Times: "...There are dozens of wounded soldiers here in northern Israel's main hospital, and all seem to have stories of unexpectedly fierce ground battles with Hezbollah. They describe Hezbollah as heavily armed, well organized and maddeningly elusive. The fighters, well concealed in bunkers and tunnels, emerge to fire automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and antitank rockets, they say, and then quickly disappear again.
In Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon -which led to the birth of Hezbollah -Israeli troops stormed north and reached the outskirts of the capital, Beirut, within two weeks. The goal this time is limited to driving Hezbollah out of rocket range, yet it has proved far more difficult.
After a month of fighting, some 10,000 Israeli soldiers are still waging daily firefights in towns and villages that are five miles or less from the border. In fact, the fighting has sometimes been visible from the Israeli side of the frontier.
Of the more than 80 Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting, 45 have died in the past week as the ground campaign has intensified.
Now that the Israeli government has approved an expanded offensive, the recovering soldiers say they remain confident Israel can drive Hezbollah back from the border, but acknowledge it will involve tough fighting that could last weeks, in contrast to the swift and decisive victory many of them expected when the fighting began."...
In Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon -which led to the birth of Hezbollah -Israeli troops stormed north and reached the outskirts of the capital, Beirut, within two weeks. The goal this time is limited to driving Hezbollah out of rocket range, yet it has proved far more difficult.
After a month of fighting, some 10,000 Israeli soldiers are still waging daily firefights in towns and villages that are five miles or less from the border. In fact, the fighting has sometimes been visible from the Israeli side of the frontier.
Of the more than 80 Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting, 45 have died in the past week as the ground campaign has intensified.
Now that the Israeli government has approved an expanded offensive, the recovering soldiers say they remain confident Israel can drive Hezbollah back from the border, but acknowledge it will involve tough fighting that could last weeks, in contrast to the swift and decisive victory many of them expected when the fighting began."...
Why al-Qaeda's real power may be all in the mind
Why al-Qaeda's real power may be all in the mind - Britain - Times Online: "THE more detail we discover about the carnage that was planned to be unleashed, the more it echoes the attacks of September 11, five years ago, in scale and grotesque showmanship.
Never mind that the London Tube bombings and the Madrid attacks exposed the vulnerability of any rail network, which no security measures can overcome. These terrorists had returned to the prototype: the near-simultaneous destruction, in mid-air, of fully loaded jumbo jets belonging to US airlines by a large team of knowing, well-rehearsed suicide bombers."
The immediate question is whether these would-be bombers, like those on September 11, 2001, were part of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. But that is almost irrelevant. The better question is whether al-Qaeda is now more of an inspiration than an organisation, more powerful in its ability to recruit sympathisers and prompt them to devise their own assaults, than in its ability to plan every detail of the operation and pull the trigger.
There is an air of overreaching competition about the planning of this latest stunt. To blow up a US embassy in Africa is no longer enough. As the terrorists craft their plots, they are aiming for a stunned gasp around the world, for images so horrific that they lock their hold on the world’s television screens for days. And, of course, they are aiming for terror: for the abrupt termination of ordinary life and for the pervasive fear that it may never return.
Even though their plot failed, they achieved that most banal result. The overhead shots of Heathrow, paralysed, echoed the days after September 11, when the world’s most powerful country was entirely cut off.
If they had been content to aim just for a car bomb here and there, as the IRA did, not even requiring the bombers to sacrifice their own lives, they would have achieved this disruption and perpetuated this fear with far less chance of being caught. But to them, it seems, that would not be spectacular enough. They had to aim, in the words of John Reid, the Home Secretary, for the loss of civilian life on an unprecedented scale.
So we had a planned macabre dress-rehearsal, choreographed with the meticulousness of the assassin in The Day of the Jackal, except that it was on a far larger scale.
There lay its weakness. The more complex the plan, the more delayed its operation, the more people who are involved, then the more likely that there will be a leak. That seems to have happened, and the leak may have lain in the links in Pakistan.
Because this group was large and organised, with ties to Pakistan, does that mean that it was formally part of al-Qaeda? Not at all. True, alQaeda has worked hard to claim credit for operations since September 11, notably Madrid. It claimed that it alone had blasted Spain away from President Bush’s side and out of the Iraq war when those bombings brought a change of government and policy.
Yet what is al-Qaeda these days? The taped messages smuggled out from Osama bin Laden and his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri are carefully scripted to spit defiance at the West and to encourage their followers. But they suggest impotence more strongly.
True, neither man has been caught, to make the point thrown at Bush and Tony Blair at the start of every press conference, but there is every sign that their network, such as it was, has been badly damaged.Their own ability to move around is limited to the craggy valleys of the Pakistan-Afghan border.
Their communications are reduced to runners and written (or taped) messages, Western intelligence officials believe. The steady capture of senior al-Qaeda members, many in Pakistan, has removed their ability to move money around, although that is the hardest facility to curb.
Those al-Qaeda captives, who have disappeared off into the dark neverland where the CIA keeps its “high-value” prisoners, have not yielded great stores of information about al-Qaeda, US military officers say. But their removal still appears to have had a real impact.
It was clear in Iraq that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the so-called head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was well beyond the control of bin Laden or Zawahiri. Intercepted messages to him, which US officials consider authentic, had a distinctly respectful tone, appreciative of his project of igniting civil war in Iraq, but not giving orders (beyond the tentative suggestion that cutting off hostages’ heads on camera was bad for public support).
Iraq has clearly acted as a magnet and an inspiration for “foreign fighters”, many of whom appear to be young Arab men from neighbouring countries, easily rallied to the call of jihad. But there is no sign that for the past couple of years they were under bin Laden’s control, simply his inspiration.
The same goes for the latest alleged terrorists. Their links with Pakistan suggest possible contact with al-Qaeda militants who have woven themselves through that country. But, even more likely, they were inspired by the great, sloshing pool of disaffected young men and teenagers, Pakistani by nationality, often Pashtun by ethnicity, who swill around the Pakistan’s western cities, and for whom 9/11 was the defining inspiration of their adolescence.
For decades such young men, Arab or Pakistani, have found justification for anger, if they sought it, in the Israeli- Palestinian struggle. But their countries’ population booms, combined with the sudden spread of television, has made that anger more combustible by the spark of a shocking image on the overhead television of a street café.
Now al-Qaeda has a rival in Hezbollah, taking on Israel in Lebanon, and through it the US, and remaining undefeated. For al-Qaeda, preaching an austere form of Sunni Islam, this challenge by the upstart Shia rival threatens to throw it off the television screens. For several days the British plot has succeeded, but in this global competition to inspire the next band of willing terrorists, al-Qaeda could still lose out to Lebanon.
[bth: does this say that in the battle of hearts and minds, it is a battle between Sunni extremists and Shia rivals to show the world who hates the west more and who can get headlines for hurting it more? Maybe the Isrealis have it right - there is no peace with those who think like this. Still one wonders if there is a better way - an eye for an eye has produced a world of blind men.]
Never mind that the London Tube bombings and the Madrid attacks exposed the vulnerability of any rail network, which no security measures can overcome. These terrorists had returned to the prototype: the near-simultaneous destruction, in mid-air, of fully loaded jumbo jets belonging to US airlines by a large team of knowing, well-rehearsed suicide bombers."
The immediate question is whether these would-be bombers, like those on September 11, 2001, were part of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. But that is almost irrelevant. The better question is whether al-Qaeda is now more of an inspiration than an organisation, more powerful in its ability to recruit sympathisers and prompt them to devise their own assaults, than in its ability to plan every detail of the operation and pull the trigger.
There is an air of overreaching competition about the planning of this latest stunt. To blow up a US embassy in Africa is no longer enough. As the terrorists craft their plots, they are aiming for a stunned gasp around the world, for images so horrific that they lock their hold on the world’s television screens for days. And, of course, they are aiming for terror: for the abrupt termination of ordinary life and for the pervasive fear that it may never return.
Even though their plot failed, they achieved that most banal result. The overhead shots of Heathrow, paralysed, echoed the days after September 11, when the world’s most powerful country was entirely cut off.
If they had been content to aim just for a car bomb here and there, as the IRA did, not even requiring the bombers to sacrifice their own lives, they would have achieved this disruption and perpetuated this fear with far less chance of being caught. But to them, it seems, that would not be spectacular enough. They had to aim, in the words of John Reid, the Home Secretary, for the loss of civilian life on an unprecedented scale.
So we had a planned macabre dress-rehearsal, choreographed with the meticulousness of the assassin in The Day of the Jackal, except that it was on a far larger scale.
There lay its weakness. The more complex the plan, the more delayed its operation, the more people who are involved, then the more likely that there will be a leak. That seems to have happened, and the leak may have lain in the links in Pakistan.
Because this group was large and organised, with ties to Pakistan, does that mean that it was formally part of al-Qaeda? Not at all. True, alQaeda has worked hard to claim credit for operations since September 11, notably Madrid. It claimed that it alone had blasted Spain away from President Bush’s side and out of the Iraq war when those bombings brought a change of government and policy.
Yet what is al-Qaeda these days? The taped messages smuggled out from Osama bin Laden and his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri are carefully scripted to spit defiance at the West and to encourage their followers. But they suggest impotence more strongly.
True, neither man has been caught, to make the point thrown at Bush and Tony Blair at the start of every press conference, but there is every sign that their network, such as it was, has been badly damaged.Their own ability to move around is limited to the craggy valleys of the Pakistan-Afghan border.
Their communications are reduced to runners and written (or taped) messages, Western intelligence officials believe. The steady capture of senior al-Qaeda members, many in Pakistan, has removed their ability to move money around, although that is the hardest facility to curb.
Those al-Qaeda captives, who have disappeared off into the dark neverland where the CIA keeps its “high-value” prisoners, have not yielded great stores of information about al-Qaeda, US military officers say. But their removal still appears to have had a real impact.
It was clear in Iraq that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the so-called head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was well beyond the control of bin Laden or Zawahiri. Intercepted messages to him, which US officials consider authentic, had a distinctly respectful tone, appreciative of his project of igniting civil war in Iraq, but not giving orders (beyond the tentative suggestion that cutting off hostages’ heads on camera was bad for public support).
Iraq has clearly acted as a magnet and an inspiration for “foreign fighters”, many of whom appear to be young Arab men from neighbouring countries, easily rallied to the call of jihad. But there is no sign that for the past couple of years they were under bin Laden’s control, simply his inspiration.
The same goes for the latest alleged terrorists. Their links with Pakistan suggest possible contact with al-Qaeda militants who have woven themselves through that country. But, even more likely, they were inspired by the great, sloshing pool of disaffected young men and teenagers, Pakistani by nationality, often Pashtun by ethnicity, who swill around the Pakistan’s western cities, and for whom 9/11 was the defining inspiration of their adolescence.
For decades such young men, Arab or Pakistani, have found justification for anger, if they sought it, in the Israeli- Palestinian struggle. But their countries’ population booms, combined with the sudden spread of television, has made that anger more combustible by the spark of a shocking image on the overhead television of a street café.
Now al-Qaeda has a rival in Hezbollah, taking on Israel in Lebanon, and through it the US, and remaining undefeated. For al-Qaeda, preaching an austere form of Sunni Islam, this challenge by the upstart Shia rival threatens to throw it off the television screens. For several days the British plot has succeeded, but in this global competition to inspire the next band of willing terrorists, al-Qaeda could still lose out to Lebanon.
[bth: does this say that in the battle of hearts and minds, it is a battle between Sunni extremists and Shia rivals to show the world who hates the west more and who can get headlines for hurting it more? Maybe the Isrealis have it right - there is no peace with those who think like this. Still one wonders if there is a better way - an eye for an eye has produced a world of blind men.]
Bush Aides Foresee Gains on Eavesdropping and Guant�namo - New York Times
Bush Aides Foresee Gains on Eavesdropping and Guant�namo - New York Times: "CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 11 � White House officials said Friday that the fallout from the discovery of the British bombing plot could help the administration advance its agenda in Congress. The officials cited in particular battles over supervising the program of eavesdropping without warrants and how to try detainees held at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba"
Taking the White House’s lead, Republicans throughout the country used the arrests of terror suspects in Britain to go on the offensive against Democrats for the second day in a row.
They accused Democrats of failing to understand the nature of the terrorist threat facing the nation.
Aides to House Republican leaders said they believed that the arrests would help them make their case on other issues that will allow them to keep the focus on national security, including the call for tighter control of the border with Mexico.
Democrats promised to engage strongly in the newly energized debate on national security, saying they would not cede that ground.
They said they would argue that the White House and the Republican-led Congress had failed to provide the money necessary to protect Americans fully from the threat of terrorism and that President Bush had pursued a foreign policy, especially through the war in Iraq, that has fueled Islamic radicals and created more potential terrorists....
[bth: if torturing prisoners was productive, after five years, don't you think we'd have Osama Bin Laden's head on a pike? This agenda on wiretapping and prisoner torture is about presidential power and erosion of civil liberties by our own government - terrorism is the excuse. Torture and violation of the 4th amendment hasn't produced crap against real terrorists. Straight forward police work in Britain and Pakistan and old fashioned human intelligence produced the results. ...
we are on the verge of losing this war for the world's hearts and minds and we don't even realize it.]
Taking the White House’s lead, Republicans throughout the country used the arrests of terror suspects in Britain to go on the offensive against Democrats for the second day in a row.
They accused Democrats of failing to understand the nature of the terrorist threat facing the nation.
Aides to House Republican leaders said they believed that the arrests would help them make their case on other issues that will allow them to keep the focus on national security, including the call for tighter control of the border with Mexico.
Democrats promised to engage strongly in the newly energized debate on national security, saying they would not cede that ground.
They said they would argue that the White House and the Republican-led Congress had failed to provide the money necessary to protect Americans fully from the threat of terrorism and that President Bush had pursued a foreign policy, especially through the war in Iraq, that has fueled Islamic radicals and created more potential terrorists....
[bth: if torturing prisoners was productive, after five years, don't you think we'd have Osama Bin Laden's head on a pike? This agenda on wiretapping and prisoner torture is about presidential power and erosion of civil liberties by our own government - terrorism is the excuse. Torture and violation of the 4th amendment hasn't produced crap against real terrorists. Straight forward police work in Britain and Pakistan and old fashioned human intelligence produced the results. ...
we are on the verge of losing this war for the world's hearts and minds and we don't even realize it.]
Longtime Hezbollah member provides glimpse into group
McClatchy Washington Bureau 08/11/2006 Longtime Hezbollah member provides glimpse into group: "SIDON, Lebanon - Abu Ali sold food and dairy products wholesale in southern Lebanon a little over a month ago. Now he only works for what he calls the resistance, heading Hezbollah on the outskirts of the southern port city of Sidon.
A tall man with a rugged tanned face, Abu Ali sleeps every night in a different place and never uses a cell phone to contact his men. Instead, he carries a two-way radio and whispers in code. At night, his men, about 25 of them, patrol the streets searching for spies. When things turn suspicious, they pull out their weapons and call Abu Ali to investigate the suspects.
As long as Israel is in Lebanon and continues to attack Lebanese land, Hezbollah will fight, Abu Ali said in an interview on a balcony in Sidon. He spoke at a time when diplomats at the United Nations were scrambling to negotiate a cease-fire resolution that might stop the war. "
Abu Ali said he was confident that Hezbollah, which provoked the latest conflict by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and firing rockets into Israel, could fight for a long time. The militia has been preparing for battle for six years, since Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000. Rocket launchers were put in place. Supplies were stored.
Israel's bombing of Lebanon's bridges, roads and apartment buildings in the past month hasn't destroyed Hezbollah's arsenal, he said.
Although Hezbollah is a militant Shiite Muslim group, its fighters come from across Lebanon, and some are of different creeds, including Christian. But most are Shiites and southerners who know the ins and outs of the land.
"From the moment I was born, I was Shiite and I was raised Shiite," Abu Ali said. "The Shiites in Lebanon are in danger. ... We have no problem with the Americans except through the Israelis."
Many people are ready to fight, he added. Guerrilla fighters in the south number in the thousands, he claimed, and those ready to help them are in the tens of thousands.
As for the Israel Defense Forces: "How long can they last here?" Abu Ali asked.
Abu Ali is his nickname, meaning the father of Ali, the name of his oldest son. Some nights he returns home to his four children and wife, prays at about 4:30 a.m. and then sleeps for two or three hours before his day begins. Other nights he can't be with them for his safety and theirs.
"I'm not throwing myself to death," Abu Ali said. "But there is no fear when you die for the right cause."
He was a Hezbollah guerrilla fighter in the south for 17 years until Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon. He's among the men who were celebrated in what was seen as a national victory in 2000. Now, at 42, he's taken on new responsibilities. Most of Hezbollah's guerrilla fighters are between 18 and 35 years old, he said.
"The politics hasn't done anything," Abu Ali said, sipping a small cup of strong Arabic coffee and dragging on a cigarette.
"They (Israelis) are here. ... I'm upset for the people. The Israelis can't leave the people to live in peace."
He said he became a guerrilla fighter after watching Israel invade, take land and bomb villages. He dropped out of college and asked to fight. This is not terrorism, he said. This is resistance.
"I saw this life we lived in the south," he said. "This is our land. They (the Israelis) came to it. We did not come to them."
He went through rigorous training both inside and outside Lebanon.
During the conversation he was interrupted by his English-speaking wife, who offered soda and coffee. His daughter, in a green sleeveless top and pants, wandered in to say hello to his guests.
During the day, he helps the displaced get food, supplies and a place to stay. At night, he keeps the neighborhoods here on the outskirts of Sidon safe, he said.
Sidon is a mostly Sunni city. It's the hometown of a well-known Sunni, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated last year. Even so, Shiite Hezbollah is also here.
Abu Ali's men move stealthily through the city, masking themselves in the dark of night, ready to surprise suspected Israeli spies who may be sending signals to Israeli aircraft.
With four children under the age of 14, Abu Ali worries about their safety in this time of death and destruction. He has in mind a secret place for them to go. But Sidon will always have Abu Ali protecting it, he said.
"I'm a soldier," he said. "Across the entire world what Israel is doing is forbidden."
[bth: take a look at Lind's article posted below regarding the ratio of targets, civilians and military casualties. Also compare the ratio of military casualties between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah is not defeated, not by a long shot. What can Israel target for air attack in this situation?]
A tall man with a rugged tanned face, Abu Ali sleeps every night in a different place and never uses a cell phone to contact his men. Instead, he carries a two-way radio and whispers in code. At night, his men, about 25 of them, patrol the streets searching for spies. When things turn suspicious, they pull out their weapons and call Abu Ali to investigate the suspects.
As long as Israel is in Lebanon and continues to attack Lebanese land, Hezbollah will fight, Abu Ali said in an interview on a balcony in Sidon. He spoke at a time when diplomats at the United Nations were scrambling to negotiate a cease-fire resolution that might stop the war. "
Abu Ali said he was confident that Hezbollah, which provoked the latest conflict by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and firing rockets into Israel, could fight for a long time. The militia has been preparing for battle for six years, since Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000. Rocket launchers were put in place. Supplies were stored.
Israel's bombing of Lebanon's bridges, roads and apartment buildings in the past month hasn't destroyed Hezbollah's arsenal, he said.
Although Hezbollah is a militant Shiite Muslim group, its fighters come from across Lebanon, and some are of different creeds, including Christian. But most are Shiites and southerners who know the ins and outs of the land.
"From the moment I was born, I was Shiite and I was raised Shiite," Abu Ali said. "The Shiites in Lebanon are in danger. ... We have no problem with the Americans except through the Israelis."
Many people are ready to fight, he added. Guerrilla fighters in the south number in the thousands, he claimed, and those ready to help them are in the tens of thousands.
As for the Israel Defense Forces: "How long can they last here?" Abu Ali asked.
Abu Ali is his nickname, meaning the father of Ali, the name of his oldest son. Some nights he returns home to his four children and wife, prays at about 4:30 a.m. and then sleeps for two or three hours before his day begins. Other nights he can't be with them for his safety and theirs.
"I'm not throwing myself to death," Abu Ali said. "But there is no fear when you die for the right cause."
He was a Hezbollah guerrilla fighter in the south for 17 years until Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon. He's among the men who were celebrated in what was seen as a national victory in 2000. Now, at 42, he's taken on new responsibilities. Most of Hezbollah's guerrilla fighters are between 18 and 35 years old, he said.
"The politics hasn't done anything," Abu Ali said, sipping a small cup of strong Arabic coffee and dragging on a cigarette.
"They (Israelis) are here. ... I'm upset for the people. The Israelis can't leave the people to live in peace."
He said he became a guerrilla fighter after watching Israel invade, take land and bomb villages. He dropped out of college and asked to fight. This is not terrorism, he said. This is resistance.
"I saw this life we lived in the south," he said. "This is our land. They (the Israelis) came to it. We did not come to them."
He went through rigorous training both inside and outside Lebanon.
During the conversation he was interrupted by his English-speaking wife, who offered soda and coffee. His daughter, in a green sleeveless top and pants, wandered in to say hello to his guests.
During the day, he helps the displaced get food, supplies and a place to stay. At night, he keeps the neighborhoods here on the outskirts of Sidon safe, he said.
Sidon is a mostly Sunni city. It's the hometown of a well-known Sunni, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated last year. Even so, Shiite Hezbollah is also here.
Abu Ali's men move stealthily through the city, masking themselves in the dark of night, ready to surprise suspected Israeli spies who may be sending signals to Israeli aircraft.
With four children under the age of 14, Abu Ali worries about their safety in this time of death and destruction. He has in mind a secret place for them to go. But Sidon will always have Abu Ali protecting it, he said.
"I'm a soldier," he said. "Across the entire world what Israel is doing is forbidden."
[bth: take a look at Lind's article posted below regarding the ratio of targets, civilians and military casualties. Also compare the ratio of military casualties between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah is not defeated, not by a long shot. What can Israel target for air attack in this situation?]
On War #178: Collapse of the Flanks
: "In Iraq and Afghanistan, the "coalitions" defeats continue slowly to unroll. In Lebanon, it appears Hezbollah may win not only at the moral and mental, strategic and operational levels, but, astonishingly, at the physical and tactical levels as well. That outcome remains uncertain, but the fact that it is possible portends a revolutionary reassessment of what Fourth Generation forces can accomplish. If it actually happens, the walls of the temple that is the state system will be shaken world-wide."
One pointer to a shift in the tactical balance is the comparative casualty counts. According to the Associated Press, as of this writing Lebanese dead total at least 642, of whom 558 are civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers (who, at least officially, are not in the fight) and only 55 Hezbollah fighters.
So Israel, with its American-style hi-tech “precision weaponry,” has killed ten times as many innocents as enemies. In contrast, of 97 Israeli dead, 61 are soldiers and only 36 civilians, despite the fact that Hezbollah’s rockets are anything but precise (think Congreves). Israel can hit anything it can target, but against a Fourth Generation enemy, it can target very little. The result not only points to a battlefield change of some significance, it also raises the question of who is the real “terrorist.” Terror bombing by aircraft is still terror.
Understandably, these events keep Americans focused on the places where the fighting is taking place. But more important developments may be occurring on the flanks, largely unnoticed. An analysis piece in the Sunday Cleveland Plain Dealer by Sally Buzbee of AP notes:
Anger toward America is high, extremists are on the upswing, and hopes for democracy in the Middle East lie dashed...
“America, we hate you more than ever,” Ammar Ali Hassan wrote in the independent Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, in the kind of visceral, slap-in-the-face rhetoric boiling across the region...”
Even many Arab reformers now believe the United States cares more about supporting Israel than anything else, including democracy.
Egypt is one of the three centers of gravity of America’s position in the Middle East, the others being Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. An article by Michael Slackman in the Sunday New York Times suggests that Egyptians’ anger is turning on their own government:
For decades, the Arab-Israeli conflict provided presidents, kings, emirs and dictators of the region with a safety valve for public frustration...
That valve no longer appears to be working in Egypt...
“The regular man on the street is beginning to connect everything together, said Mr. (Kamal) Khalil, the director of the Center for Socialist Studies in Cairo. “The regime impairing his livelihood is the same regime that is oppressing his freedom and the same regime that is colluding with Zionism and American hegemony.”
Today, in an interview with the BBC, Jordan’s King Abdullah warned that the map of the Middle East is becoming unrecognizable and its future appears “dim.”
Washington, which in its hubris ignores both its friends and its enemies, refusing to talk to the latter or listen to the former, does not grasp that if the flanks collapse, it is the end of our adventures in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also, in a slightly longer time frame, the end of Israel. No Crusader state survives forever, and in the long term Israel’s existence depends on arriving at some sort of modus vivendi with the region. The replacement of Mubarak, King Abdullah and the House of Saud with the Moslem Brotherhood would make that possibility fade.
To the region, America’s apparently unconditional and unbounded support for Israel and its occupation of Iraq are part of the same picture. For a military historian, the question arises: will history see Iraq as America’s Stalingrad? If we kick the analogy up a couple of levels, to the strategic and grand strategic, there are parallels. Both the German and the American armies were able largely to take, but not hold, the objective. Both had too few troops. Both Berlin and Washington underestimated their enemy’s ability to counter-attack. Both committed resources they needed elsewhere and could not replace to a strategically unimportant objective.
Finally, both entrusted their flanks to weak allies—and to luck.
Let us hope that, unlike von Paulus, our commanders know when to get out, regardless of orders from a leader who will not recognize reality.
One pointer to a shift in the tactical balance is the comparative casualty counts. According to the Associated Press, as of this writing Lebanese dead total at least 642, of whom 558 are civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers (who, at least officially, are not in the fight) and only 55 Hezbollah fighters.
So Israel, with its American-style hi-tech “precision weaponry,” has killed ten times as many innocents as enemies. In contrast, of 97 Israeli dead, 61 are soldiers and only 36 civilians, despite the fact that Hezbollah’s rockets are anything but precise (think Congreves). Israel can hit anything it can target, but against a Fourth Generation enemy, it can target very little. The result not only points to a battlefield change of some significance, it also raises the question of who is the real “terrorist.” Terror bombing by aircraft is still terror.
Understandably, these events keep Americans focused on the places where the fighting is taking place. But more important developments may be occurring on the flanks, largely unnoticed. An analysis piece in the Sunday Cleveland Plain Dealer by Sally Buzbee of AP notes:
Anger toward America is high, extremists are on the upswing, and hopes for democracy in the Middle East lie dashed...
“America, we hate you more than ever,” Ammar Ali Hassan wrote in the independent Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, in the kind of visceral, slap-in-the-face rhetoric boiling across the region...”
Even many Arab reformers now believe the United States cares more about supporting Israel than anything else, including democracy.
Egypt is one of the three centers of gravity of America’s position in the Middle East, the others being Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. An article by Michael Slackman in the Sunday New York Times suggests that Egyptians’ anger is turning on their own government:
For decades, the Arab-Israeli conflict provided presidents, kings, emirs and dictators of the region with a safety valve for public frustration...
That valve no longer appears to be working in Egypt...
“The regular man on the street is beginning to connect everything together, said Mr. (Kamal) Khalil, the director of the Center for Socialist Studies in Cairo. “The regime impairing his livelihood is the same regime that is oppressing his freedom and the same regime that is colluding with Zionism and American hegemony.”
Today, in an interview with the BBC, Jordan’s King Abdullah warned that the map of the Middle East is becoming unrecognizable and its future appears “dim.”
Washington, which in its hubris ignores both its friends and its enemies, refusing to talk to the latter or listen to the former, does not grasp that if the flanks collapse, it is the end of our adventures in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also, in a slightly longer time frame, the end of Israel. No Crusader state survives forever, and in the long term Israel’s existence depends on arriving at some sort of modus vivendi with the region. The replacement of Mubarak, King Abdullah and the House of Saud with the Moslem Brotherhood would make that possibility fade.
To the region, America’s apparently unconditional and unbounded support for Israel and its occupation of Iraq are part of the same picture. For a military historian, the question arises: will history see Iraq as America’s Stalingrad? If we kick the analogy up a couple of levels, to the strategic and grand strategic, there are parallels. Both the German and the American armies were able largely to take, but not hold, the objective. Both had too few troops. Both Berlin and Washington underestimated their enemy’s ability to counter-attack. Both committed resources they needed elsewhere and could not replace to a strategically unimportant objective.
Finally, both entrusted their flanks to weak allies—and to luck.
Let us hope that, unlike von Paulus, our commanders know when to get out, regardless of orders from a leader who will not recognize reality.
Douglas Farah: It is Not Social Isolation that Drives Radicalization, But the Mosques
Douglas Farah: It is Not Social Isolation that Drives Radicalization, But the Mosques: "As the Western world again debates the roots of Islamist attacks on Britain and the United States, the question often posed is "Why do they hate us?" The conventional wisdom is that alienated youth, suffering prejudice and unemployment, migrate to suicide bombings to help redress the grievious injuries suffered by uncaring European societies that offer them no way out. Also mentioned are the broader political issues of Palestine, Iraq and recently, Hezbollah.
But the real answer is not so simple or so trite. There are certainly push factors: undoubtedly Northern Africans, Pakistanis and others suffer prejudice and social isolation. Many are angry at geopolitical issues. "
The quetions is why the isolation, and that leads to the pull factors, which are just as strong and perhaps more important.
The primary pull factor resides in a small number of easily identifiable and identified mosques. Most of the religious institutions are part of the Muslim Brotherhood network. For a more formal look at this, see my paper for the International Strategy and Assessment Center.
What is taught in these mosques, to young people already feeling aggrieved, is not new. They are told that assimilation is wrong and that the more alienated one feels, the closer one is to Allah. Western civilization is degenerate, filthy and full of sin. Rejection of the non-Muslim society in which one lives is a duty, and alienation and hatred a sign of favor from Allah.
Those who are open to this teaching are often then offered special classes and other teaching and opportunities to expand on this concept.
Much of the social isolation surrounding those in these mosques, particularly the UK and the Netherlands, is self imposed. Why integrate or seek to accomodate yourself to the world you live in when alienation is a mark of piety and devotion? How far of a step is it from that to the next logical conclusion? True piety is demonstrated by attacking the oppressive infidel who persecutes Muslims worldwide.
It is time to stop seeing suicide bombers as somehow innocent victims driven by acts of injustice to seek retribution in societies where they are abused. Every society has the stain of prejudice, and it is never right or pretty. But few who feel that way are told that their alienation is Allah’s will and that destroying the societies that may have wronged them is the divinely-approved solution.
This teaching is part of a strategy, outlined by the Brotherhood in its own writings, with the aim of establishing the Muslim caliphate across Europe and the rest of the world.
This ideology and theology of hatred and alienation is not taught by a few isolated and repudiated imams. It is the core teaching of a major component of political Islam, and shared by wahhabi Islamists and Salafists.
Listening to commentators on cable television since the UK plot was uncovered, it is striking how little the pull factors are discussed, rather than solely the easy to identify push factors that make the killers appear to be victims. The enemy has a pretty clear plan and a solid message. We cannot even define who the enemy is.
But the real answer is not so simple or so trite. There are certainly push factors: undoubtedly Northern Africans, Pakistanis and others suffer prejudice and social isolation. Many are angry at geopolitical issues. "
The quetions is why the isolation, and that leads to the pull factors, which are just as strong and perhaps more important.
The primary pull factor resides in a small number of easily identifiable and identified mosques. Most of the religious institutions are part of the Muslim Brotherhood network. For a more formal look at this, see my paper for the International Strategy and Assessment Center.
What is taught in these mosques, to young people already feeling aggrieved, is not new. They are told that assimilation is wrong and that the more alienated one feels, the closer one is to Allah. Western civilization is degenerate, filthy and full of sin. Rejection of the non-Muslim society in which one lives is a duty, and alienation and hatred a sign of favor from Allah.
Those who are open to this teaching are often then offered special classes and other teaching and opportunities to expand on this concept.
Much of the social isolation surrounding those in these mosques, particularly the UK and the Netherlands, is self imposed. Why integrate or seek to accomodate yourself to the world you live in when alienation is a mark of piety and devotion? How far of a step is it from that to the next logical conclusion? True piety is demonstrated by attacking the oppressive infidel who persecutes Muslims worldwide.
It is time to stop seeing suicide bombers as somehow innocent victims driven by acts of injustice to seek retribution in societies where they are abused. Every society has the stain of prejudice, and it is never right or pretty. But few who feel that way are told that their alienation is Allah’s will and that destroying the societies that may have wronged them is the divinely-approved solution.
This teaching is part of a strategy, outlined by the Brotherhood in its own writings, with the aim of establishing the Muslim caliphate across Europe and the rest of the world.
This ideology and theology of hatred and alienation is not taught by a few isolated and repudiated imams. It is the core teaching of a major component of political Islam, and shared by wahhabi Islamists and Salafists.
Listening to commentators on cable television since the UK plot was uncovered, it is striking how little the pull factors are discussed, rather than solely the easy to identify push factors that make the killers appear to be victims. The enemy has a pretty clear plan and a solid message. We cannot even define who the enemy is.
Pakistan nabs 17 in airplane terror plot - Yahoo! News
Pakistan nabs 17 in airplane terror plot - Yahoo! News: "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani intelligence agents have arrested as many as 17 people, some of them British nationals and at least one with alleged ties to al-Qaida, in the plot to blow up jetliners flying from Britain to the United States. "...
[bth: this is in addition to the 24 announced earlier in Britain.]
[bth: this is in addition to the 24 announced earlier in Britain.]
Friday, August 11, 2006
Bush staff wanted bomb-detect cash moved
Bush staff wanted bomb-detect cash moved - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON - While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology. "
Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of steps by the Homeland Security Department that has left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.
Homeland Security's research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a "rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course," Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.
"The committee is extremely disappointed with the manner in which S&T is being managed within the Department of Homeland Security," the panel wrote June 29 in a bipartisan report accompanying the agency's 2007 budget.
Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short.
"They clearly have been given lots of resources that they haven't been using," Sabo said.
Homeland Security said Friday its research arm has just gotten a new leader, former Navy research chief Rear Adm. Jay Cohen, and there is strong optimism for developing new detection technologies in the future.
"I don't have any criticisms of anyone," said Kip Hawley, the assistant secretary for transportation security. "I have great hope for the future. There is tremendous intensity on this issue among the senior management of this department to make this area a strength."
Lawmakers and recently retired Homeland Security officials say they are concerned the department's research and development effort is bogged down by bureaucracy, lack of strategic planning and failure to use money wisely.
The department failed to spend $200 million in research and development money from past years, forcing lawmakers to rescind the money this summer.
The administration also was slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year.
The British plot to blow up as many as 10 American airlines on trans-Atlantic flights was to involve liquid explosives.
Hawley said Homeland Security now is going to test the detector in six American airports. "It is very promising technology and we are extremely interested in it to help us operationally in the next several years," he said.
Japan has been using the liquid explosive detectors in its Narita International Airport in Tokyo and demonstrated the technology to U.S. officials at a conference in January, the Japanese Embassy in Washington said.
Homeland Security is spending a total of $732 million this year on various explosives deterrents and has tested several commercial liquid explosive detectors over the past few years but hasn't been satisfied enough with the results to deploy them.
Hawley said current liquid detectors that can scan only individual containers aren't suitable for wide deployment because they would bring security check lines to a crawl.
For more than four years, officials inside Homeland Security also have debated whether to deploy smaller trace explosive detectors — already in most American airports — to foreign airports to help stop any bomb chemicals or devices from making it onto U.S.-destined flights.
A 2002 Homeland report recommended "immediate deployment" of the trace units to key European airports, highlighting their low cost, $40,000 per unit, and their detection capabilities. The report said one such unit was able, 25 days later, to detect explosives residue inside the airplane where convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid was foiled in his attack in December 2001.
A 2005 report to Congress similarly urged that the trace detectors be used more aggressively, and strongly warned the continuing failure to distribute such detectors to foreign airports "may be an invitation to terrorist to ply their trade, using techniques that they have already used on a number of occasions."
Tony Fainberg, who formerly oversaw Homeland Security's explosive and radiation detection research with the national labs, said he strongly urged deployment of the detectors overseas but was rebuffed.
"It is not that expensive," said Fainberg, who retired recently.
"There was no resistance from any country that I was aware of, and yet we didn't deploy it."
Fainberg said research efforts were often frustrated inside Homeland Security by "bureaucratic games," a lack of strategic goals and months-long delays in distributing money Congress had already approved.
"There has not been a focused and coherent strategic plan for defining what we need ... and then matching the research and development plans to that overall strategy," he said.
Rep. Peter DeFazio (news, bio, voting record) of Oregon, a senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said he urged the administration three years ago to buy electron scanners, like the ones used at London's airport to detect plastics that might be hidden beneath passenger clothes.
"It's been an ongoing frustration about their resistance to purchase off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art equipment that can meet these threats," he said.
The administration's most recent budget request also mystified lawmakers. It asked to take $6 million from Homeland S&T's 2006 budget that was supposed to be used to develop explosives detection technology and instead divert it to cover a budget shortfall in the Federal Protective Service, which provides security around government buildings.
Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the top two lawmakers for Senate homeland appropriations, rejected the idea shortly after it arrived late last month, Senate leadership officials said.
Their House counterparts, Reps. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., and Sabo, likewise rejected the request in recent days, Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Brost said. Homeland said Friday it won't divert the money.
Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of steps by the Homeland Security Department that has left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.
Homeland Security's research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a "rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course," Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.
"The committee is extremely disappointed with the manner in which S&T is being managed within the Department of Homeland Security," the panel wrote June 29 in a bipartisan report accompanying the agency's 2007 budget.
Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short.
"They clearly have been given lots of resources that they haven't been using," Sabo said.
Homeland Security said Friday its research arm has just gotten a new leader, former Navy research chief Rear Adm. Jay Cohen, and there is strong optimism for developing new detection technologies in the future.
"I don't have any criticisms of anyone," said Kip Hawley, the assistant secretary for transportation security. "I have great hope for the future. There is tremendous intensity on this issue among the senior management of this department to make this area a strength."
Lawmakers and recently retired Homeland Security officials say they are concerned the department's research and development effort is bogged down by bureaucracy, lack of strategic planning and failure to use money wisely.
The department failed to spend $200 million in research and development money from past years, forcing lawmakers to rescind the money this summer.
The administration also was slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year.
The British plot to blow up as many as 10 American airlines on trans-Atlantic flights was to involve liquid explosives.
Hawley said Homeland Security now is going to test the detector in six American airports. "It is very promising technology and we are extremely interested in it to help us operationally in the next several years," he said.
Japan has been using the liquid explosive detectors in its Narita International Airport in Tokyo and demonstrated the technology to U.S. officials at a conference in January, the Japanese Embassy in Washington said.
Homeland Security is spending a total of $732 million this year on various explosives deterrents and has tested several commercial liquid explosive detectors over the past few years but hasn't been satisfied enough with the results to deploy them.
Hawley said current liquid detectors that can scan only individual containers aren't suitable for wide deployment because they would bring security check lines to a crawl.
For more than four years, officials inside Homeland Security also have debated whether to deploy smaller trace explosive detectors — already in most American airports — to foreign airports to help stop any bomb chemicals or devices from making it onto U.S.-destined flights.
A 2002 Homeland report recommended "immediate deployment" of the trace units to key European airports, highlighting their low cost, $40,000 per unit, and their detection capabilities. The report said one such unit was able, 25 days later, to detect explosives residue inside the airplane where convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid was foiled in his attack in December 2001.
A 2005 report to Congress similarly urged that the trace detectors be used more aggressively, and strongly warned the continuing failure to distribute such detectors to foreign airports "may be an invitation to terrorist to ply their trade, using techniques that they have already used on a number of occasions."
Tony Fainberg, who formerly oversaw Homeland Security's explosive and radiation detection research with the national labs, said he strongly urged deployment of the detectors overseas but was rebuffed.
"It is not that expensive," said Fainberg, who retired recently.
"There was no resistance from any country that I was aware of, and yet we didn't deploy it."
Fainberg said research efforts were often frustrated inside Homeland Security by "bureaucratic games," a lack of strategic goals and months-long delays in distributing money Congress had already approved.
"There has not been a focused and coherent strategic plan for defining what we need ... and then matching the research and development plans to that overall strategy," he said.
Rep. Peter DeFazio (news, bio, voting record) of Oregon, a senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said he urged the administration three years ago to buy electron scanners, like the ones used at London's airport to detect plastics that might be hidden beneath passenger clothes.
"It's been an ongoing frustration about their resistance to purchase off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art equipment that can meet these threats," he said.
The administration's most recent budget request also mystified lawmakers. It asked to take $6 million from Homeland S&T's 2006 budget that was supposed to be used to develop explosives detection technology and instead divert it to cover a budget shortfall in the Federal Protective Service, which provides security around government buildings.
Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the top two lawmakers for Senate homeland appropriations, rejected the idea shortly after it arrived late last month, Senate leadership officials said.
Their House counterparts, Reps. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., and Sabo, likewise rejected the request in recent days, Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Brost said. Homeland said Friday it won't divert the money.
Reutersgate strikes other news outlets | Jerusalem Post
Reutersgate strikes other news outlets Jerusalem Post: "At first everyone thought they were just blowing smoke, but the debunking of a Reuters photograph by a group of Web sites has launched a fiery online war in which bloggers have taken on the mainstream media.
Bloggers, or writers on web logs, were the first to reveal that a Reuters photograph depicting plumes of black smoke rising over Beirut was doctored to enhance smoke above the city. The Web site www.LittleGreenFootballs.com is credited with first revealing the scandal, which has been dubbed Reutersgate, but the affair has spread far wider than the Reuters News Agency and into several of the most esteemed media outlets. "
More than a dozen accusations of staged or doctored photographs have made their way through various Web sites in the past several weeks. None has been treated by the news outlets as seriously as the original Reuters incident, which saw the photographer Adnin Hajj fired and over 900 of his photos removed from the Reuters wire list. But numerous other outlets - including the BBC, The New York Times and AP - have been forced to recall photos or change captions following inaccuracies pointed out in online forums.
The fact that the online community rather than fellow mainstream media has become a watchdog of accuracy has surprised many who originally derided blogs as being "devoid of accuracy."
"In a blog you don't have to be accurate to anyone but yourself and your readers," said Laya Millman from the Jewlicious.com blog. "There is a great deal of accountability because, if you get anything wrong, the readers will quickly, very quickly, point it out."
As was demonstrated in the case with the Reuters photograph, blogs come with their own teams of investigators: the thousands of readers who stream through the site. Within hours of Charles Johnson's posting on Little Green Footballs, readers of the Web site had gone to work uncovering an array of damning evidence against Hajj, the most serious of which - a second doctored photograph, an Israeli plane altered to make it look as though it was dropping a series of bombs - may have pushed Reuters to fire Hajj after initially announcing that the freelance photographer would be suspended. That photograph, which was discovered by blogger Rusty Shackleford of The Jawa Report, included an illustrated account of how the photos had been doctored.
Photographs whose veracity has been questioned by blogs in the past few weeks since Reutersgate began include:
Two pictures used by The Associated Press and Reuters, in which the same woman appeared to be crying over the destruction of her Beirut home. Distinguished by a red-checkered scarf and scar on her right cheek, the woman was pictured crying in front of two different locations two weeks apart.
Several photographs of a bombed bridge in Beirut which appear on Reuters and AFP with the different captions stating that the bridge had been bombed on July 18, July 24 and August 5. Bloggers claim that the striking image was photographed to look like several different bombings in order to make destruction in Beirut appear more severe.
In The New York Times photo essay "Attack on Tyre," a photograph of a man who appears dead is accompanied with the caption reading "bodies were still buried under the rubble." However, in a later photograph in the same series, the same man appears to be walking in the foreground of a photo. The Times issued a correction for the first photograph, stating that the man was injured.
Some claim that the online controversy over the photos has gotten out of hand, with many blogs now launching investigations and hurling accusations at a variety of news sources.
"These accusations can be very damning, and need to be handled with care and not thrown out by any angry blogger," said one anonymous poster on Little Green Footballs.
In the meantime, however, Little Green Footballs - along with many other online forums - has been flooded with investigations into mainstream media, with the entire army of its hundreds of thousands of readers eagerly at hand.
[bth: propaganda wars are going full blast. This Jerusalem Post article fails to mention that Little Green Footballs and webservices like Debka and World Net Daily seem to be able and willing to plant Likud endorsed stories from time to time. Debka is trash but LGF is actually a good site if you are guarded about what you read. As a example, an interesting and probably planted story was the anonymous source yesterday saying Iranian Republican Guards were found among the dead. True? Not true? In any regard, its good that someone points out frauds when they turn up. These Reuters photos are classics.]
Bloggers, or writers on web logs, were the first to reveal that a Reuters photograph depicting plumes of black smoke rising over Beirut was doctored to enhance smoke above the city. The Web site www.LittleGreenFootballs.com is credited with first revealing the scandal, which has been dubbed Reutersgate, but the affair has spread far wider than the Reuters News Agency and into several of the most esteemed media outlets. "
More than a dozen accusations of staged or doctored photographs have made their way through various Web sites in the past several weeks. None has been treated by the news outlets as seriously as the original Reuters incident, which saw the photographer Adnin Hajj fired and over 900 of his photos removed from the Reuters wire list. But numerous other outlets - including the BBC, The New York Times and AP - have been forced to recall photos or change captions following inaccuracies pointed out in online forums.
The fact that the online community rather than fellow mainstream media has become a watchdog of accuracy has surprised many who originally derided blogs as being "devoid of accuracy."
"In a blog you don't have to be accurate to anyone but yourself and your readers," said Laya Millman from the Jewlicious.com blog. "There is a great deal of accountability because, if you get anything wrong, the readers will quickly, very quickly, point it out."
As was demonstrated in the case with the Reuters photograph, blogs come with their own teams of investigators: the thousands of readers who stream through the site. Within hours of Charles Johnson's posting on Little Green Footballs, readers of the Web site had gone to work uncovering an array of damning evidence against Hajj, the most serious of which - a second doctored photograph, an Israeli plane altered to make it look as though it was dropping a series of bombs - may have pushed Reuters to fire Hajj after initially announcing that the freelance photographer would be suspended. That photograph, which was discovered by blogger Rusty Shackleford of The Jawa Report, included an illustrated account of how the photos had been doctored.
Photographs whose veracity has been questioned by blogs in the past few weeks since Reutersgate began include:
Two pictures used by The Associated Press and Reuters, in which the same woman appeared to be crying over the destruction of her Beirut home. Distinguished by a red-checkered scarf and scar on her right cheek, the woman was pictured crying in front of two different locations two weeks apart.
Several photographs of a bombed bridge in Beirut which appear on Reuters and AFP with the different captions stating that the bridge had been bombed on July 18, July 24 and August 5. Bloggers claim that the striking image was photographed to look like several different bombings in order to make destruction in Beirut appear more severe.
In The New York Times photo essay "Attack on Tyre," a photograph of a man who appears dead is accompanied with the caption reading "bodies were still buried under the rubble." However, in a later photograph in the same series, the same man appears to be walking in the foreground of a photo. The Times issued a correction for the first photograph, stating that the man was injured.
Some claim that the online controversy over the photos has gotten out of hand, with many blogs now launching investigations and hurling accusations at a variety of news sources.
"These accusations can be very damning, and need to be handled with care and not thrown out by any angry blogger," said one anonymous poster on Little Green Footballs.
In the meantime, however, Little Green Footballs - along with many other online forums - has been flooded with investigations into mainstream media, with the entire army of its hundreds of thousands of readers eagerly at hand.
[bth: propaganda wars are going full blast. This Jerusalem Post article fails to mention that Little Green Footballs and webservices like Debka and World Net Daily seem to be able and willing to plant Likud endorsed stories from time to time. Debka is trash but LGF is actually a good site if you are guarded about what you read. As a example, an interesting and probably planted story was the anonymous source yesterday saying Iranian Republican Guards were found among the dead. True? Not true? In any regard, its good that someone points out frauds when they turn up. These Reuters photos are classics.]
13 tanks blasted in a day
The Sun Online - News: 13 tanks blasted in a day: "THIRTEEN Israeli tanks were yesterday destroyed during a daring new ground offensive, Hezbollah claimed.
Its TV station said guerillas attacked advancing Israeli troops in Lebanon's Khiam plain, about five miles across the border.
At least seven tanks were said to have been destroyed there.
The other six tanks were reported to have been hit in the villages of Marjayoun and Ainata, both close to the border.
Hezbollah has been supplied by Iran with hi-tech anti-tank missiles.
Israeli officials confirmed that on Wednesday it suffered its worst one-day loss when 15 soldiers died."...
Its TV station said guerillas attacked advancing Israeli troops in Lebanon's Khiam plain, about five miles across the border.
At least seven tanks were said to have been destroyed there.
The other six tanks were reported to have been hit in the villages of Marjayoun and Ainata, both close to the border.
Hezbollah has been supplied by Iran with hi-tech anti-tank missiles.
Israeli officials confirmed that on Wednesday it suffered its worst one-day loss when 15 soldiers died."...
Paying the price
Paying the price Jerusalem Post: "Wednesday is day 29 of the second Lebanon war. In the first phase of the war, our military and civilian leadership seemed to believe that Hizbullah could quickly be defeated almost completely by air power. In the second phase, ground operations were extended first to a narrow strip along the border, and then to the roughly 10-km.-wide security zone Israel had left in 2000. "
By six days ago, it was evidently clear to Defense Minister Amir Peretz that these first two phases were not degrading Hizbullah sufficiently, and he ordered plans for a third phase: pushing north on the ground to a line roughly defined by the Litani River.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the reason this operation had not previously been approved was that the IDF had not presented it to him. It may be the case that the IDF in recent days both sensed that Peretz and Olmert were waiting to see if the UN Security Council acted and also was not interested in taking control of more territory.
On Monday, a high-ranking Military Intelligence officer told The Jerusalem Post's Yaakov Katz that Hizbullah still retained the "diplomatic power" to thwart the deployment of Lebanese or foreign forces in southern Lebanon. Hizbullah, he noted, still maintained command and control capabilities, and its logistical centers have managed to continue to smuggle weaponry in from Syria. "Hizbullah has not been sufficiently weakened... there may be no choice but to expand the ground operation to the Litani River to achieve that goal," he said.
All this raises the urgent question, what has Israel been waiting for?
If the Lebanese had not been so foolhardy as to reject the proposed Security Council resolution, the option of a wider land offensive would have been closed. But they did, and so Israel has been given a second chance to avoid defeat.
None of this is to say that the decision to send in many more thousands of ground troops and move deeper into a land we desperately want nothing to do with is an easy one. No one, except perhaps Hizbullah, wants Israel to be stuck in Lebanon again. We can expect that more ground forces will probably mean more casualties among our soldiers, even if such an operation succeeds in significantly reducing the barrages of short-range missiles that are terrorizing the north.
On balance, however, the price Israel will have to pay to degrade Hizbullah further will be considerably lower than the one it will pay in the future if it ends this war now. As things stand at present, Hizbullah is politically triumphant and militarily capable of living to fight another day, with its strategy of indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel, from behind the human shield of Lebanon's citizenry, largely unanswered.
The prospect that in the end Israel will be handing over this territory to an ineffective international force may heighten fears of the IDF's getting stuck in Lebanon, but it even more strengthens the case that Israel dare not rely on anyone but itself to defeat Hizbullah.
It is in the supreme interest of the free nations of the world to ensure that Hizbullah is completely disarmed and never allowed to be rebuilt again. That said, it is a fantasy to believe that any international force that ultimately deploys will, regardless of its mandate, go house to house and root out whatever remains of a force that Israel does not succeed in eliminating. The most that can be expected of such a force is that it, together with the Lebanese army, will make it more difficult for Hizbullah to rebuild and, by reporting such efforts, keep the pressure on Lebanon to complete Hizbullah's disarmament, as required by UN Resolution 1559.
Now Lebanon has promised to send its forces south to the border, as Israel and the international community have long demanded. Olmert yesterday called this proposal "interesting." What seems most interesting about it, however, is that Hizbullah is supporting it.
Hizbullah knows that what matters is not promises made now about the south, but whether it is will be a heavyweight political player and a military force in Lebanon after the war.
This is the real measure of victory or defeat. Israel must do what it takes to win, and Israel is not there yet.
[bth: amazing how inexpensive it has been for Hezbullah to instigate the war - it costs $20 per warhead pound to lob rockets into Israel - and it will cost Israel much much more to fight then occupy southern Lebanon once again. The economics of modern warfare have shifted toward the insurgencies.]
By six days ago, it was evidently clear to Defense Minister Amir Peretz that these first two phases were not degrading Hizbullah sufficiently, and he ordered plans for a third phase: pushing north on the ground to a line roughly defined by the Litani River.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the reason this operation had not previously been approved was that the IDF had not presented it to him. It may be the case that the IDF in recent days both sensed that Peretz and Olmert were waiting to see if the UN Security Council acted and also was not interested in taking control of more territory.
On Monday, a high-ranking Military Intelligence officer told The Jerusalem Post's Yaakov Katz that Hizbullah still retained the "diplomatic power" to thwart the deployment of Lebanese or foreign forces in southern Lebanon. Hizbullah, he noted, still maintained command and control capabilities, and its logistical centers have managed to continue to smuggle weaponry in from Syria. "Hizbullah has not been sufficiently weakened... there may be no choice but to expand the ground operation to the Litani River to achieve that goal," he said.
All this raises the urgent question, what has Israel been waiting for?
If the Lebanese had not been so foolhardy as to reject the proposed Security Council resolution, the option of a wider land offensive would have been closed. But they did, and so Israel has been given a second chance to avoid defeat.
None of this is to say that the decision to send in many more thousands of ground troops and move deeper into a land we desperately want nothing to do with is an easy one. No one, except perhaps Hizbullah, wants Israel to be stuck in Lebanon again. We can expect that more ground forces will probably mean more casualties among our soldiers, even if such an operation succeeds in significantly reducing the barrages of short-range missiles that are terrorizing the north.
On balance, however, the price Israel will have to pay to degrade Hizbullah further will be considerably lower than the one it will pay in the future if it ends this war now. As things stand at present, Hizbullah is politically triumphant and militarily capable of living to fight another day, with its strategy of indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel, from behind the human shield of Lebanon's citizenry, largely unanswered.
The prospect that in the end Israel will be handing over this territory to an ineffective international force may heighten fears of the IDF's getting stuck in Lebanon, but it even more strengthens the case that Israel dare not rely on anyone but itself to defeat Hizbullah.
It is in the supreme interest of the free nations of the world to ensure that Hizbullah is completely disarmed and never allowed to be rebuilt again. That said, it is a fantasy to believe that any international force that ultimately deploys will, regardless of its mandate, go house to house and root out whatever remains of a force that Israel does not succeed in eliminating. The most that can be expected of such a force is that it, together with the Lebanese army, will make it more difficult for Hizbullah to rebuild and, by reporting such efforts, keep the pressure on Lebanon to complete Hizbullah's disarmament, as required by UN Resolution 1559.
Now Lebanon has promised to send its forces south to the border, as Israel and the international community have long demanded. Olmert yesterday called this proposal "interesting." What seems most interesting about it, however, is that Hizbullah is supporting it.
Hizbullah knows that what matters is not promises made now about the south, but whether it is will be a heavyweight political player and a military force in Lebanon after the war.
This is the real measure of victory or defeat. Israel must do what it takes to win, and Israel is not there yet.
[bth: amazing how inexpensive it has been for Hezbullah to instigate the war - it costs $20 per warhead pound to lob rockets into Israel - and it will cost Israel much much more to fight then occupy southern Lebanon once again. The economics of modern warfare have shifted toward the insurgencies.]
Computerised weaponry and high morale
Guardian Unlimited Special reports Computerised weaponry and high morale: "Israeli forces have been astonished at the discovery of networks of bunkers and computerised weapons in Hizbullah positions, according to officials.
Troops have found air-conditioned bunkers 40 metres (125ft) below the ground and anti-tank weapons that originate in France, the US and Russia in southern Lebanon.
Many of the tactics and weapons employed by Hizbullah have neutralised Israel's military superiority and made a complete victory difficult to achieve."
Hizbullah's use of rockets to attack Israel was not unexpected but the Israeli armed forces have been repeatedly surprised since they went on the offensive a month ago.
The first major shock was when Hizbullah narrowly missed sinking an Israeli destroyer with a Chinese shore-to-sea missile. Four were killed in the attack.
"There were some weapons we did not know about," said General Ido Nehushtan. "There were others such as the unmanned aerial vehicles which we had detected before."
The revelations have increased since Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon. "The main threat is the use of sophisticated anti-tank weapons against our armoured vehicles. One of the most effective is the Kornet which was supplied by Russia to Iran and then to Hizbullah," said Lieutenant Colonel Olivier Rafowicz.
"We have been very surprised by the quantity of weapons and the building that has been carried out in the last six years. We knew they were preparing for war but we did not realise to what extent."
Soldiers have discovered bunkers with listening and observation devices working in tandem with computers.
The bunkers meant that Hizbullah fighters could shelter from Israeli air and artillery bombardment and then surprise advancing Israeli forces. Often the bunkers were so well hidden that fighters could wait until the soldiers had passed and then attack them from behind.
Israel has so far lost more than 80 soldiers in combat. Its highly mobile armour and air support is less effective against guerilla fighters, and its armour has been neutralised by Hizbullah's acquisition of state of the art weapons.
Hizbullah's older anti-tank weapons have been effective against armoured personnel carriers and buildings used by soldiers for shelters. Its newer weapons such as the Russian Kornet and US TOW missiles have been highly effective succeeded in piercing the armour of Israel's main battle tank,
the Merkava, reputedly one of the best-defended tanks in the world.
One member of an Israeli tank crew who had just left Lebanon told the Guardian: "It's terrible. You do not fight anti-tank teams with tanks. You use infantry supported by artillery and helicopters. Wide valleys without shelter are the wrong place to use tanks."
Although he said Hizbullah's weapons had been supplied by Iran, Lt Col Rafowicz admitted the militants' prowess also stemmed from its morale and organisation. They are very keen to engage our forces. They are not wearing suicide bomb belts but they are not afraid to die, which makes deterrence very difficult."
Gen Nehushtan said: "We have to recognise that we will be dealing with new definitions of victory. There will be no white flags being raised on this battlefield," he said.
[bth: the face of modern warfare is changing before our eyes. Classifying the problem as the Americans have done with IEDs since June will not solve the problem or bring victory - just hide it from the public for a few more months until after the election.]
Troops have found air-conditioned bunkers 40 metres (125ft) below the ground and anti-tank weapons that originate in France, the US and Russia in southern Lebanon.
Many of the tactics and weapons employed by Hizbullah have neutralised Israel's military superiority and made a complete victory difficult to achieve."
Hizbullah's use of rockets to attack Israel was not unexpected but the Israeli armed forces have been repeatedly surprised since they went on the offensive a month ago.
The first major shock was when Hizbullah narrowly missed sinking an Israeli destroyer with a Chinese shore-to-sea missile. Four were killed in the attack.
"There were some weapons we did not know about," said General Ido Nehushtan. "There were others such as the unmanned aerial vehicles which we had detected before."
The revelations have increased since Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon. "The main threat is the use of sophisticated anti-tank weapons against our armoured vehicles. One of the most effective is the Kornet which was supplied by Russia to Iran and then to Hizbullah," said Lieutenant Colonel Olivier Rafowicz.
"We have been very surprised by the quantity of weapons and the building that has been carried out in the last six years. We knew they were preparing for war but we did not realise to what extent."
Soldiers have discovered bunkers with listening and observation devices working in tandem with computers.
The bunkers meant that Hizbullah fighters could shelter from Israeli air and artillery bombardment and then surprise advancing Israeli forces. Often the bunkers were so well hidden that fighters could wait until the soldiers had passed and then attack them from behind.
Israel has so far lost more than 80 soldiers in combat. Its highly mobile armour and air support is less effective against guerilla fighters, and its armour has been neutralised by Hizbullah's acquisition of state of the art weapons.
Hizbullah's older anti-tank weapons have been effective against armoured personnel carriers and buildings used by soldiers for shelters. Its newer weapons such as the Russian Kornet and US TOW missiles have been highly effective succeeded in piercing the armour of Israel's main battle tank,
the Merkava, reputedly one of the best-defended tanks in the world.
One member of an Israeli tank crew who had just left Lebanon told the Guardian: "It's terrible. You do not fight anti-tank teams with tanks. You use infantry supported by artillery and helicopters. Wide valleys without shelter are the wrong place to use tanks."
Although he said Hizbullah's weapons had been supplied by Iran, Lt Col Rafowicz admitted the militants' prowess also stemmed from its morale and organisation. They are very keen to engage our forces. They are not wearing suicide bomb belts but they are not afraid to die, which makes deterrence very difficult."
Gen Nehushtan said: "We have to recognise that we will be dealing with new definitions of victory. There will be no white flags being raised on this battlefield," he said.
[bth: the face of modern warfare is changing before our eyes. Classifying the problem as the Americans have done with IEDs since June will not solve the problem or bring victory - just hide it from the public for a few more months until after the election.]
Foiled Plot Swings Voter Attention to Terror War
WSJ.com - Foiled Plot Swings Voter Attention to Terror War: "WASHINGTON -- The foiled British bombing plot is likely to benefit President Bush and the Republican Party, at least in the short term, by reminding voters of national-security concerns and the war on terror -- two areas where the president and his party have earned high marks from U.S. citizens.
News of the plot also may help moderate, more-hawkish Democrats, who have been losing ground to their party's liberal wing. However, the re-emergence of threats to U.S. air travel hinders the Democratic Party's broad efforts to score points off Republicans by spotlighting the U.S.'s struggles in Iraq."
Two days after Connecticut Democrats dealt a stinging rebuke to Sen. Joseph Lieberman over his support for the Iraq war, the plot served as a reminder of how quickly political fortunes can shift when tied to fast-moving events around the world. Yesterday, hawks were seizing the moment.
President Bush, in a televised statement from Green Bay, Wis., where he traveled to speak about the economy and attend a congressional fund-raiser, said the arrests "are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists....It is a mistake to believe that there is no threat to the United States of America." In a line likely to be repeated often before Election Day, the president also said that America is safer than before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
For his part, Sen. Lieberman, back on the campaign trail as an independent candidate, compared the plotters to Nazis and made a pitch for bipartisan unity in the war on terrorism. "How the heck can we be in a battle in which we are fighting as Democrats and Republicans against each other, when these terrorists certainly don't distinguish based on party affiliation?" he said. "They want to kill any and all of us."
The foiled plot takes some of the wind out of the sails of the Democratic Party's resurgent liberal wing, said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. Moderate Democrats who oppose a quick pullout from Iraq "probably feel a little more like the news is back on our side of the argument," he said.
Businessman Ned Lamont, who defeated Sen. Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary, wasn't giving any ground. "We are not stronger and safer because of Iraq; just the opposite is unfortunately true," he said in a statement yesterday about the lack of progress in Iraq. "We need to change course, and that means standing up to this administration and fighting for our security in a rational, serious way rather than being bogged down in a war [that] is harmful to our security."
Yesterday, a senior White House official took the unusual step of speaking on background to reporters aboard Air Force One about the politics of the war on terror. The official said that the results in Connecticut showed that voters were coming around to the administration's view that the global war on terror must be won despite the high costs.
Mr. Lamont's margin "went from 13 to six to four in the last 10 days of the campaign," the official said. "And I think that's in part because at the end of the day, people look at the consequences of failure and the consequences of victory....So, if you have Lamont Democrats who say, 'Bring 'em home, turn away, and it will all be over,' the American people say, 'You're kidding yourself. We're in a war, and the only way you walk away from a war is as a victor, defeating the enemy.' "
Political observers cautioned that the benefit for Mr. Bush and his allies could prove short-lived, noting that last year's London subway bombing provided little noticeable long-term benefit to the president.
Yesterday, many other Democrats kept the focus squarely on Iraq, hopeful that, over time, the problems there will outweigh any short-term benefit to Republicans from the foiled terror attack.
This latest plot demonstrates the need for the Bush administration and the Congress to change course in Iraq and ensure that we are taking all the steps necessary to protect Americans at home and across the world," said Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.), the party's leader in the Senate.
As they have in recent weeks, many Democrats urged moving U.S. troops out of Iraq to beef up overall global security. The Democrats' Senate campaign committee released a fact sheet, titled "The Bush Record of Homeland and Global Insecurity," that focused on the stress Iraq has placed on the U.S. military.
The contrasting reactions to the United Kingdom plot reflected the different ways the two parties are trying to frame the security issue heading into the fall campaign.
Democrats believe that the more they can keep the spotlight on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the better they fare.
Republicans think they have the advantage if they can keep the focus on the war on terror -- and link Iraq as much as possible with that broader cause.
In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll6 in July, respondents ranked the Iraq war as the government's top priority, with 29% choosing it first, compared with 22% a month earlier. Terrorism came in a distant second in July, at 14%. The foiled U.K. bombing plot is likely to move terrorism higher up the list, at least for a time.
A spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, Karen Finney, noted that several recent polls have showed voters favoring Democrats on the war on terror, as well as the war in Iraq. DNC Chairman Howard Dean called in a statement for a "new direction in our national-defense policies that's tough and smart."
Democrats face a risk that Republicans will be able to use the U.K. plot to recapture the advantage among voters on national security that they once enjoyed. U.S. voters' conflicted attitudes about the war in Iraq were reflected in the Journal poll when 55% said the Bush administration has taken the right course of action in its treatment of suspected terrorists.
Some Republican leaders have appeared to focus more on the broader war against terrorism than on Iraq.
Republicans have been intensifying their attacks on Democrats over national security -- by releasing a Web video Wednesday titled "Weak and Wrong: Meet the Defeat-o-crats." Yesterday, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman cranked up more attacks on Democratic senators for their efforts to block the Patriot Act renewal and end terrorist-surveillance programs, as well as their calls for an Iraq pullout.
A spokesman for one of the senators, John Kerry, responded in kind. "Americans are sick and tired of Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove, and the masters of misdirection who got us bogged down in Iraq with no end in sight, and who have failed to kill Osama bin Laden," spokesman David Wade said. "If these Republicans were half as good at fighting the war on terror as they are at misleading the American public, we'd be a lot safer than we are today."
Democrats chided Republicans for an RNC fund-raising letter sent out yesterday over former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's name that invoked the war on terror. Republicans said the letter had been drafted several days ago and was in the pipeline before the arrests were announced. They acknowledged it was a mistake to send it yesterday, and said they stopped sending it around noon.
The terror arrests promise to heighten the debate between the parties over the significance of two coming anniversaries.
On Aug. 29, the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Democrats are sure to hit the Bush administration's competency in handling crises. And on Sept. 11, the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Republicans are likely to highlight the failure of terrorists to hit the U.S. again -- and remind voters of the continuing risks of attack, such as the foiled U.K. bomb plot.
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com7
[bth: the real losers in all this have been the American people. Its a failure of leadership. Putting the partys' interests over the people's]
News of the plot also may help moderate, more-hawkish Democrats, who have been losing ground to their party's liberal wing. However, the re-emergence of threats to U.S. air travel hinders the Democratic Party's broad efforts to score points off Republicans by spotlighting the U.S.'s struggles in Iraq."
Two days after Connecticut Democrats dealt a stinging rebuke to Sen. Joseph Lieberman over his support for the Iraq war, the plot served as a reminder of how quickly political fortunes can shift when tied to fast-moving events around the world. Yesterday, hawks were seizing the moment.
President Bush, in a televised statement from Green Bay, Wis., where he traveled to speak about the economy and attend a congressional fund-raiser, said the arrests "are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists....It is a mistake to believe that there is no threat to the United States of America." In a line likely to be repeated often before Election Day, the president also said that America is safer than before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
For his part, Sen. Lieberman, back on the campaign trail as an independent candidate, compared the plotters to Nazis and made a pitch for bipartisan unity in the war on terrorism. "How the heck can we be in a battle in which we are fighting as Democrats and Republicans against each other, when these terrorists certainly don't distinguish based on party affiliation?" he said. "They want to kill any and all of us."
The foiled plot takes some of the wind out of the sails of the Democratic Party's resurgent liberal wing, said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. Moderate Democrats who oppose a quick pullout from Iraq "probably feel a little more like the news is back on our side of the argument," he said.
Businessman Ned Lamont, who defeated Sen. Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary, wasn't giving any ground. "We are not stronger and safer because of Iraq; just the opposite is unfortunately true," he said in a statement yesterday about the lack of progress in Iraq. "We need to change course, and that means standing up to this administration and fighting for our security in a rational, serious way rather than being bogged down in a war [that] is harmful to our security."
Yesterday, a senior White House official took the unusual step of speaking on background to reporters aboard Air Force One about the politics of the war on terror. The official said that the results in Connecticut showed that voters were coming around to the administration's view that the global war on terror must be won despite the high costs.
Mr. Lamont's margin "went from 13 to six to four in the last 10 days of the campaign," the official said. "And I think that's in part because at the end of the day, people look at the consequences of failure and the consequences of victory....So, if you have Lamont Democrats who say, 'Bring 'em home, turn away, and it will all be over,' the American people say, 'You're kidding yourself. We're in a war, and the only way you walk away from a war is as a victor, defeating the enemy.' "
Political observers cautioned that the benefit for Mr. Bush and his allies could prove short-lived, noting that last year's London subway bombing provided little noticeable long-term benefit to the president.
Yesterday, many other Democrats kept the focus squarely on Iraq, hopeful that, over time, the problems there will outweigh any short-term benefit to Republicans from the foiled terror attack.
This latest plot demonstrates the need for the Bush administration and the Congress to change course in Iraq and ensure that we are taking all the steps necessary to protect Americans at home and across the world," said Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.), the party's leader in the Senate.
As they have in recent weeks, many Democrats urged moving U.S. troops out of Iraq to beef up overall global security. The Democrats' Senate campaign committee released a fact sheet, titled "The Bush Record of Homeland and Global Insecurity," that focused on the stress Iraq has placed on the U.S. military.
The contrasting reactions to the United Kingdom plot reflected the different ways the two parties are trying to frame the security issue heading into the fall campaign.
Democrats believe that the more they can keep the spotlight on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the better they fare.
Republicans think they have the advantage if they can keep the focus on the war on terror -- and link Iraq as much as possible with that broader cause.
In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll6 in July, respondents ranked the Iraq war as the government's top priority, with 29% choosing it first, compared with 22% a month earlier. Terrorism came in a distant second in July, at 14%. The foiled U.K. bombing plot is likely to move terrorism higher up the list, at least for a time.
A spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, Karen Finney, noted that several recent polls have showed voters favoring Democrats on the war on terror, as well as the war in Iraq. DNC Chairman Howard Dean called in a statement for a "new direction in our national-defense policies that's tough and smart."
Democrats face a risk that Republicans will be able to use the U.K. plot to recapture the advantage among voters on national security that they once enjoyed. U.S. voters' conflicted attitudes about the war in Iraq were reflected in the Journal poll when 55% said the Bush administration has taken the right course of action in its treatment of suspected terrorists.
Some Republican leaders have appeared to focus more on the broader war against terrorism than on Iraq.
Republicans have been intensifying their attacks on Democrats over national security -- by releasing a Web video Wednesday titled "Weak and Wrong: Meet the Defeat-o-crats." Yesterday, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman cranked up more attacks on Democratic senators for their efforts to block the Patriot Act renewal and end terrorist-surveillance programs, as well as their calls for an Iraq pullout.
A spokesman for one of the senators, John Kerry, responded in kind. "Americans are sick and tired of Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove, and the masters of misdirection who got us bogged down in Iraq with no end in sight, and who have failed to kill Osama bin Laden," spokesman David Wade said. "If these Republicans were half as good at fighting the war on terror as they are at misleading the American public, we'd be a lot safer than we are today."
Democrats chided Republicans for an RNC fund-raising letter sent out yesterday over former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's name that invoked the war on terror. Republicans said the letter had been drafted several days ago and was in the pipeline before the arrests were announced. They acknowledged it was a mistake to send it yesterday, and said they stopped sending it around noon.
The terror arrests promise to heighten the debate between the parties over the significance of two coming anniversaries.
On Aug. 29, the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Democrats are sure to hit the Bush administration's competency in handling crises. And on Sept. 11, the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Republicans are likely to highlight the failure of terrorists to hit the U.S. again -- and remind voters of the continuing risks of attack, such as the foiled U.K. bomb plot.
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com7
[bth: the real losers in all this have been the American people. Its a failure of leadership. Putting the partys' interests over the people's]
An End To Militias
Sic Semper Tyrannis 2006: An End To Militias: "We have tended to think of Hizbullah in terms of mobs of men marching around Beirut in odd looking uniforms carrying yellow flags. We are now learning that reality is more like this fellow on the left. The big war in the south of Lebanon is not over yet. We have yet to see a really serious Israeli ground effort there, but based on what has happened so far, I think we have to rate the Hizbullah army as a serious ground force. It is said that the Hizbullah army was trained by the Iranians but, I think that in a more profound sense they were trained by the Israel Defense Force. Clausewitz maintained that the best school of war is war itself. This is a variant of the old saw that claims that 'whatever does not kill you makes you stronger.' The Hizbullah army fought the IDF for many years. Throughout that time the Hizbullahis (or Hizbalians according to POTUS) observed the methods and 'style' of the IDF. Israeli soldiers returned from Lebanon express surprise that the guerrillas look and dress like them. They should not be surprised. It is a kind of compliment."
On the other hand you have these guys, seen here observing a demonstration. The Lebanese Army is a force of "asphalt soldiers." They have never really fought anyone and their governments have carefully avoided putting them to that test. They are a mixed group in confessional terms, although the command of the force has always been entrusted to a Maronite Christian under the terms of the National Accord.
Israel has said that it is one of its war aims to have this force move to the south where it would occupy the border country and "control" the Hizbullah army after disarming it with the "assistance" of an international or possibly interplanetary force from outside Lebanon.
The Lebanese government has now offered to send 15,000 of these perhaps fierce, but certainly untested, tigers to accomplish this stated Israeli desideratum in return for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. The Israelis no longer seem as charmed by the prospect.
Why?
1- The Hizbullah army command does not seem concerned at the prospect of 15,000 Lebanese Army troops in their area.
2- What will be the re-action of these 15,000 soldiers when confronted with the idea of actually fighting their own countrymen who are in arms against a common foe?
3- The most frequently heard suggestion for consolidating armed force under the Lebanese government has been the incorporation of the militias (read Hizbullah) into the Lebanese Army. The Lebanese Army has nicer uniforms, and the survivors of the fights in Bint J'bail and Aita al-Sha''b will look good in them.
That will take care of the Israelis' problems?
Pat Lang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Lebanon
On the other hand you have these guys, seen here observing a demonstration. The Lebanese Army is a force of "asphalt soldiers." They have never really fought anyone and their governments have carefully avoided putting them to that test. They are a mixed group in confessional terms, although the command of the force has always been entrusted to a Maronite Christian under the terms of the National Accord.
Israel has said that it is one of its war aims to have this force move to the south where it would occupy the border country and "control" the Hizbullah army after disarming it with the "assistance" of an international or possibly interplanetary force from outside Lebanon.
The Lebanese government has now offered to send 15,000 of these perhaps fierce, but certainly untested, tigers to accomplish this stated Israeli desideratum in return for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. The Israelis no longer seem as charmed by the prospect.
Why?
1- The Hizbullah army command does not seem concerned at the prospect of 15,000 Lebanese Army troops in their area.
2- What will be the re-action of these 15,000 soldiers when confronted with the idea of actually fighting their own countrymen who are in arms against a common foe?
3- The most frequently heard suggestion for consolidating armed force under the Lebanese government has been the incorporation of the militias (read Hizbullah) into the Lebanese Army. The Lebanese Army has nicer uniforms, and the survivors of the fights in Bint J'bail and Aita al-Sha''b will look good in them.
That will take care of the Israelis' problems?
Pat Lang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Lebanon
Note this marine retrofit kit failed entirely for those in the forward compartment. Its criminal that this vehicle was let out of the gate
Polling Data from Lebanon
Sic Semper Tyrannis 2006: Polling Data from Lebanon: "A new poll from Lebanon. I have just received from Abdu Sa`d, director of the Beirut Center for Research and Data, the results of a new public opinion poll that was conducted between 6th and 7th of August in Lebanon (and it included refugees from South Lebanon). The survey had one question: 'Should Lebanon consent to international resolutions that are in conflict with the seven points that were adopted by the Lebanese government'? 88% of the Lebanese people said no. Shi`ites had the largest percentage of rejection (96.6%); followed by Sunnis (91.4%); followed by Christians (80.4%), and then Druzes (79.4%)."
Think Progress - Mehlman Attacks Murtha With Report Retracted Six Weeks Ago
Think Progress � Mehlman Attacks Murtha With Report Retracted Six Weeks Ago: "White House officials and surrogates have fanned out in a coordinated Rovian campaign to smear their opponents as "defeatists" and "cut-and-runners" In a mass email yesterday, former Rove deputy Ken Mehlman turned his guns on Rep. John Murtha:
The message from Connecticut is clear, and Ned Lamont isn't alone. He is joined by Rep. John Murtha...who claims America is more dangerous than Iran and North Korea.
Mehlman is referencing a 6/25/06 story in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which reported that Murtha said he believed the "American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran"
Three days later, the paper retracted the report. Murtha was actually citing an international public opinion poll, not expressing his own views. But why let facts get in the way of a perfectly good smear?"
[bth: This is part of a protracted and extensive smear campaign. Swiftboater wantabees are up in Johnstown. This type of propaganda push has Rove fingerprints all over it - use of surrogate smearing without evident sources of funding yet seems to have media access and capital from unknown sources. See it for what it is. Listen to what Murtha says, not what people say about him. If possible get the full transcript, not the soundbyte from the news.]
The message from Connecticut is clear, and Ned Lamont isn't alone. He is joined by Rep. John Murtha...who claims America is more dangerous than Iran and North Korea.
Mehlman is referencing a 6/25/06 story in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which reported that Murtha said he believed the "American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran"
Three days later, the paper retracted the report. Murtha was actually citing an international public opinion poll, not expressing his own views. But why let facts get in the way of a perfectly good smear?"
[bth: This is part of a protracted and extensive smear campaign. Swiftboater wantabees are up in Johnstown. This type of propaganda push has Rove fingerprints all over it - use of surrogate smearing without evident sources of funding yet seems to have media access and capital from unknown sources. See it for what it is. Listen to what Murtha says, not what people say about him. If possible get the full transcript, not the soundbyte from the news.]
ANALYSIS: IDF still not in control of strip along Lebanon's border - Haaretz - Israel News
ANALYSIS: IDF still not in control of strip along Lebanon's border - Haaretz - Israel News: "The large number and the location of the casualties that the Israel Defense Forces sustained Wednesday indicate that the army does not yet control the narrow strip along the border, although this stage of the ground operation was supposed to have been completed already.
The two battles also reveal a great deal about Hezbollah's method of fighting. They took place in two relatively small communities, Ayta al-Shab and Debel, close to the international border, on territory that until May 2000 was in Israel's Security Zone.
The ground operation, dubbed 'Change of Direction 8,' was intended to conquer this border strip. First it was to be a two- to three-kilometer strip. Then it was expanded to five to six kilometers, including numerous Lebanese villages and towns. The mission was to blow up all Hezbollah's outposts in this strip and drive its forces out."
What happened in Bint Jbail recurred in Ayta al-Shab. Although it seemed that the town had been conquered, it transpired again and again that there were still Hezbollah men in it. Once again, clashes and battles took place, and again, the IDF suffered dead and wounded.Although the army had conquered the town, Hezbollah men were hiding in underground bunkers well camouflaged from the outside.
The bunkers had been stocked with large quantities of food, enough to last for weeks, and ammunition, including antitank missiles and, in several cases, short-range rockets.
The bunkers are connected to electricity and, according to one report, are air conditioned. When the fighting dies down, Hezbollah fighters emerge from the bunkers and set up ambushes for IDF soldiers and armored vehicles.
That is why soldiers are hit repeatedly in the same places.On several occasions, there have been difficulties evacuating wounded soldiers under fire.
At times, Hezbollah fighters have fired rockets at Israel from areas close to the border that the IDF had supposedly conquered already. The means available to flush the guerrillas out of their underground shelters are not always employed.Senior officers have suggested, inter alia, that the army bombard these towns heavily and even destroy them.
But in any case, a decision has been made not to reenter them at this stage. The IDF could forge ahead, as it has done in the last two days in the Marjayoun area. But even after such an incursion, Hezbollah fighters who remain in the bunkers could continue launching rockets. In other words, they could fire toward Israel from behind the lines of IDF forces that have progressed deep into Lebanon.
It is clear that the Hezbollah men who stayed behind are equipped with two-way radios and receive information from scouts hiding near the border. This explains the difficulties in managing the fighting in south Lebanon, which the IDF has not encountered before.
The two battles also reveal a great deal about Hezbollah's method of fighting. They took place in two relatively small communities, Ayta al-Shab and Debel, close to the international border, on territory that until May 2000 was in Israel's Security Zone.
The ground operation, dubbed 'Change of Direction 8,' was intended to conquer this border strip. First it was to be a two- to three-kilometer strip. Then it was expanded to five to six kilometers, including numerous Lebanese villages and towns. The mission was to blow up all Hezbollah's outposts in this strip and drive its forces out."
What happened in Bint Jbail recurred in Ayta al-Shab. Although it seemed that the town had been conquered, it transpired again and again that there were still Hezbollah men in it. Once again, clashes and battles took place, and again, the IDF suffered dead and wounded.Although the army had conquered the town, Hezbollah men were hiding in underground bunkers well camouflaged from the outside.
The bunkers had been stocked with large quantities of food, enough to last for weeks, and ammunition, including antitank missiles and, in several cases, short-range rockets.
The bunkers are connected to electricity and, according to one report, are air conditioned. When the fighting dies down, Hezbollah fighters emerge from the bunkers and set up ambushes for IDF soldiers and armored vehicles.
That is why soldiers are hit repeatedly in the same places.On several occasions, there have been difficulties evacuating wounded soldiers under fire.
At times, Hezbollah fighters have fired rockets at Israel from areas close to the border that the IDF had supposedly conquered already. The means available to flush the guerrillas out of their underground shelters are not always employed.Senior officers have suggested, inter alia, that the army bombard these towns heavily and even destroy them.
But in any case, a decision has been made not to reenter them at this stage. The IDF could forge ahead, as it has done in the last two days in the Marjayoun area. But even after such an incursion, Hezbollah fighters who remain in the bunkers could continue launching rockets. In other words, they could fire toward Israel from behind the lines of IDF forces that have progressed deep into Lebanon.
It is clear that the Hezbollah men who stayed behind are equipped with two-way radios and receive information from scouts hiding near the border. This explains the difficulties in managing the fighting in south Lebanon, which the IDF has not encountered before.
On the spot: battle rages at Metulla
On the spot: battle rages at Metulla - World - Times Online: "Stephen Farrell, The Times Middle East correspondent, today witnessed fierce fighting on a battlefront only yards from the Israeli border town of Metulla. View pictures of the firefight:
THE Hezbollah anti-tank missiles screamed in from above the low haze-covered hills surrounding southern Lebanon's El Marj valley, crippling the Israeli battle tank only a few hundred metres from the border.
From a hilltop in the Israeli town of Metulla the Merkava tank's crew could be seen sprinting for safety to another tank nearby, as one vehicle laid down clouds of smoke to cover their movements."
Another Hezbollah anti-tank missile, and sparks flew up feet from another Israeli tank as a fierce battle raged less than a mile into Lebanon even as the Israeli government prepared to push tens of thousands more troops 20 miles into the country.
The renewed attacks came after 15 Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday —mostly by anti-tank missiles — amid the first sign of serious doubts in the Israeli media about whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government can accomplish its objectives, or if Israel will get sucked back into the mire of Lebanon from which it withdrew with ignominy in May 2000.
One newspaper front page called for the "Long and Hard Final Movement" envisaged by the security Cabinet which backed plans for a forthcoming major push to the Litani River. But elsewhere, another leading analyst cautioned that "we are getting lost in pursuit of a victory that is not there," under the headline "Olmert, Cut and Run".
Certainly this morning it was clear that, even within sight of Israel's red-roofed kibbutzes small numbers of Hezbollah fighters were able to tie down columns of Israeli armour and support infantry in the shallow plain of the El Marj, which forms a natural amphitheatre encircled by low hills topped by the Lebanese villages of Khiam, Marjaoun, Taibeh and Kafr Kila.
Overnight the battle had been clearly audible inside Israel, from where the red streaks of nightime surface-to-surface missiles screamed across the invisible border line towards Hezbollah's hilltop positions.
When day broke the Shia group's fighters continued their bombardment of Israeli armour with sophisticated shoulder-launched missiles.
One tank was crippled, and we later saw it being towed across the plain by a sister tank, while others pumped out smoke to cover their movements.
At times half a dozen Israeli tanks were moving slowly across the exposed frontier, either to evacuate back into Israel or, perhaps to draw Hezbollah fire for forward artillery spotters to identify the guerrillas' shooting positions.
As the tanks pulled out of the valley all went quiet. Then shortly afterwards Israel's Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) batteries opened up from just behind the border, lacerating the sky with smoke trails as the blazing rockets arced towards Lebanese villages, sending up clouds of debris.
THE Hezbollah anti-tank missiles screamed in from above the low haze-covered hills surrounding southern Lebanon's El Marj valley, crippling the Israeli battle tank only a few hundred metres from the border.
From a hilltop in the Israeli town of Metulla the Merkava tank's crew could be seen sprinting for safety to another tank nearby, as one vehicle laid down clouds of smoke to cover their movements."
Another Hezbollah anti-tank missile, and sparks flew up feet from another Israeli tank as a fierce battle raged less than a mile into Lebanon even as the Israeli government prepared to push tens of thousands more troops 20 miles into the country.
The renewed attacks came after 15 Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday —mostly by anti-tank missiles — amid the first sign of serious doubts in the Israeli media about whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government can accomplish its objectives, or if Israel will get sucked back into the mire of Lebanon from which it withdrew with ignominy in May 2000.
One newspaper front page called for the "Long and Hard Final Movement" envisaged by the security Cabinet which backed plans for a forthcoming major push to the Litani River. But elsewhere, another leading analyst cautioned that "we are getting lost in pursuit of a victory that is not there," under the headline "Olmert, Cut and Run".
Certainly this morning it was clear that, even within sight of Israel's red-roofed kibbutzes small numbers of Hezbollah fighters were able to tie down columns of Israeli armour and support infantry in the shallow plain of the El Marj, which forms a natural amphitheatre encircled by low hills topped by the Lebanese villages of Khiam, Marjaoun, Taibeh and Kafr Kila.
Overnight the battle had been clearly audible inside Israel, from where the red streaks of nightime surface-to-surface missiles screamed across the invisible border line towards Hezbollah's hilltop positions.
When day broke the Shia group's fighters continued their bombardment of Israeli armour with sophisticated shoulder-launched missiles.
One tank was crippled, and we later saw it being towed across the plain by a sister tank, while others pumped out smoke to cover their movements.
At times half a dozen Israeli tanks were moving slowly across the exposed frontier, either to evacuate back into Israel or, perhaps to draw Hezbollah fire for forward artillery spotters to identify the guerrillas' shooting positions.
As the tanks pulled out of the valley all went quiet. Then shortly afterwards Israel's Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) batteries opened up from just behind the border, lacerating the sky with smoke trails as the blazing rockets arced towards Lebanese villages, sending up clouds of debris.
Tactics that have kept the Middle East's most powerful army at bay
Tactics that have kept the Middle East's most powerful army at bay - World - Times Online: "FOR four weeks Hezbollah's fighters have defied the might of the Israeli military.
A guerrilla force that was supposed to be crushed in days has prevented Israeli troops capturing more than a handful of villages in southern Lebanon, killed more than 100 Israeli soldiers and civilians and is still raining missiles on northern Israel. In the eyes of Arabs and Muslims Hezbollah has already "won"the month-long war simply because it has not been defeated by the Middle East's most powerful army.
Hezbollah has made good use of the six years since Israel withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon. With help from Syria and Iran it has amassed large arsenals, laid traps, built an intricate system of bunkers and tunnels, studied Israeli military tactics and developed a well-trained force of highly motivated fighters. "
Israeli soldiers have been shaken by the fighters’ skill and commitment, describing them as an army, not a rabble. “Even I have been surprised at the tenacity of these groups fighting in the villages,” Timur Goksel, who served with UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon from 1979 to 2003, said.
“They have fought far beyond my expectations and they haven’t even committed all their fully experienced troops yet.”
Here are the keys to Hezbollah’s success:
ANTI-TANK MISSILES
Small teams of trained fighters have used advanced missiles to knock out the formidable Merkava tank, and older versions to punch through the walls of houses sheltering Israeli soldiers.
Most are Saggers, an outdated Soviet wire-guided missile first used in the 1960s. In the late 1990s Hezbollah began firing more accurate wire-guided TOW anti-tank missiles. In this war, Hezbollah has for the first time used the Russian Metis-M, which has a range of a mile and can be fitted with an anti-armour warhead or a fuel-air explosive warhead to use against troops or bunkers. Hezbollah may also be using the laser-guided Kornet-E anti-tank missile, which has a range of about 3½ miles.
Individual Hezbollah fighters carry the shoulder-fired RPG29, a more advanced version of the RPG7 beloved of guerrilla groups since the 1960s. It has a dual-purpose warhead. “The first punches through the armour and the second is aimed at the personnel,” Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese general, said.
Hezbollah’s ability to knock out Merkava tanks has frustrated the traditional Israeli military doctrine of rapid armoured thrusts deep into enemy territory.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
Hezbollah is thought to have no more than 1,000 elite frontline fighters, with perhaps 3,000 in reserve. They will be drawn from the villages where they are fighting, using their intimate knowledge of the local terrain. They communicate by walkie-talkie, constantly changing the frequency and using a code that draws on their personal knowledge of each other and the surrounding area. Some reportedly used souped-up off-road motorbikes to launch hit-and-run attacks then escape along obscure tracks. Hezbollah also has drones to spy on Israeli movements.
BUNKERS
From 2000, Hezbollah developed a secret military infrastructure in southern Lebanon, consisting of tunnels, expanded natural caves and underground bunkers where weapons were stored and fighters could live. Much of this construction work was carried out at night in remote stretches of the border.
Israeli troops have talked of finding bunkers housing command-and-control centres and advanced eavesdropping and surveillance equipment and monitoring cameras. The Israelis speak of battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters constantly popping up from unknown hiding places, firing, and then vanishing again.
MOTIVATION
Israeli officers regard Hezbollah fighters, many trained in Iran, as highly motivated but not careless of their lives in the manner of Palestinian militants often intent on glory through death. Mr Goksel said: “Hezbollah is not afraid of the Israelis. After 18 years fighting Israeli troops, they see them as vulnerable human beings who make mistakes and are afraid like anyone else.”
SNIPERS
Hezbollah marksmen equipped with high-powered rifles lie undercover for days at a time, picking off Israeli soldiers when the opportunity arises. Their marksmanship is impressive. In July 2004 a Hezbollah sniper shot dead two Israeli soldiers from a range of 500 yards.
ROCKETS
Israeli commanders claim to have destroyed many of Hezbollah’s long-range rocket launchers, including the 600mm Zelzal that can reach Tel Aviv. But the standard 122mm Katyushas can be fired more easily by mobile teams without the need for launchers visible to spotter drones or surveillance planes. These rockets are generally fired from multibarrelled launchers on the back of flat-bed trucks, but they can also be fired singly, even from a simple mounting of crossed sticks that is all but invisible to Israeli drones when hidden inside an olive grove. Last week Israeli commandos staged a pre-dawn raid on an apartment block in Tyre housing Hezbollah militants who had been firing long-range rockets into Israel. Two Hezbollah militants were killed, but rockets were being fired from the same location hours later.
ROADSIDE BOMBS
These killed more Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon in the 1990s than any other weapon, and the technology is now much more sophisticated. Early versions consisted of home-made claymore-style explosive charges that spray hundreds of ball bearings, and were detonated by a command wire or remote radio control.
Hezbollah bombs today include shaped-charge warheads that concentrate the blast in a single direction to punch through the walls of armoured vehicles. They are detonated by infra-red beam.
Military observers believe that Hezbollah long ago planted huge mines under all the roads crossing the border. Israeli tanks have therefore avoided the border roads.
WEAPONS DISPERSAL
Instead of stockpiling its munitions in a handful of arsenals, Hezbollah dispersed them in private homes, garages, basements, bunkers and caves, giving ready access to small Hezbollah units. The group is also thought to have night-vision goggles and a stash of Israeli military fatigues for ambushes.
A guerrilla force that was supposed to be crushed in days has prevented Israeli troops capturing more than a handful of villages in southern Lebanon, killed more than 100 Israeli soldiers and civilians and is still raining missiles on northern Israel. In the eyes of Arabs and Muslims Hezbollah has already "won"the month-long war simply because it has not been defeated by the Middle East's most powerful army.
Hezbollah has made good use of the six years since Israel withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon. With help from Syria and Iran it has amassed large arsenals, laid traps, built an intricate system of bunkers and tunnels, studied Israeli military tactics and developed a well-trained force of highly motivated fighters. "
Israeli soldiers have been shaken by the fighters’ skill and commitment, describing them as an army, not a rabble. “Even I have been surprised at the tenacity of these groups fighting in the villages,” Timur Goksel, who served with UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon from 1979 to 2003, said.
“They have fought far beyond my expectations and they haven’t even committed all their fully experienced troops yet.”
Here are the keys to Hezbollah’s success:
ANTI-TANK MISSILES
Small teams of trained fighters have used advanced missiles to knock out the formidable Merkava tank, and older versions to punch through the walls of houses sheltering Israeli soldiers.
Most are Saggers, an outdated Soviet wire-guided missile first used in the 1960s. In the late 1990s Hezbollah began firing more accurate wire-guided TOW anti-tank missiles. In this war, Hezbollah has for the first time used the Russian Metis-M, which has a range of a mile and can be fitted with an anti-armour warhead or a fuel-air explosive warhead to use against troops or bunkers. Hezbollah may also be using the laser-guided Kornet-E anti-tank missile, which has a range of about 3½ miles.
Individual Hezbollah fighters carry the shoulder-fired RPG29, a more advanced version of the RPG7 beloved of guerrilla groups since the 1960s. It has a dual-purpose warhead. “The first punches through the armour and the second is aimed at the personnel,” Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese general, said.
Hezbollah’s ability to knock out Merkava tanks has frustrated the traditional Israeli military doctrine of rapid armoured thrusts deep into enemy territory.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
Hezbollah is thought to have no more than 1,000 elite frontline fighters, with perhaps 3,000 in reserve. They will be drawn from the villages where they are fighting, using their intimate knowledge of the local terrain. They communicate by walkie-talkie, constantly changing the frequency and using a code that draws on their personal knowledge of each other and the surrounding area. Some reportedly used souped-up off-road motorbikes to launch hit-and-run attacks then escape along obscure tracks. Hezbollah also has drones to spy on Israeli movements.
BUNKERS
From 2000, Hezbollah developed a secret military infrastructure in southern Lebanon, consisting of tunnels, expanded natural caves and underground bunkers where weapons were stored and fighters could live. Much of this construction work was carried out at night in remote stretches of the border.
Israeli troops have talked of finding bunkers housing command-and-control centres and advanced eavesdropping and surveillance equipment and monitoring cameras. The Israelis speak of battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters constantly popping up from unknown hiding places, firing, and then vanishing again.
MOTIVATION
Israeli officers regard Hezbollah fighters, many trained in Iran, as highly motivated but not careless of their lives in the manner of Palestinian militants often intent on glory through death. Mr Goksel said: “Hezbollah is not afraid of the Israelis. After 18 years fighting Israeli troops, they see them as vulnerable human beings who make mistakes and are afraid like anyone else.”
SNIPERS
Hezbollah marksmen equipped with high-powered rifles lie undercover for days at a time, picking off Israeli soldiers when the opportunity arises. Their marksmanship is impressive. In July 2004 a Hezbollah sniper shot dead two Israeli soldiers from a range of 500 yards.
ROCKETS
Israeli commanders claim to have destroyed many of Hezbollah’s long-range rocket launchers, including the 600mm Zelzal that can reach Tel Aviv. But the standard 122mm Katyushas can be fired more easily by mobile teams without the need for launchers visible to spotter drones or surveillance planes. These rockets are generally fired from multibarrelled launchers on the back of flat-bed trucks, but they can also be fired singly, even from a simple mounting of crossed sticks that is all but invisible to Israeli drones when hidden inside an olive grove. Last week Israeli commandos staged a pre-dawn raid on an apartment block in Tyre housing Hezbollah militants who had been firing long-range rockets into Israel. Two Hezbollah militants were killed, but rockets were being fired from the same location hours later.
ROADSIDE BOMBS
These killed more Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon in the 1990s than any other weapon, and the technology is now much more sophisticated. Early versions consisted of home-made claymore-style explosive charges that spray hundreds of ball bearings, and were detonated by a command wire or remote radio control.
Hezbollah bombs today include shaped-charge warheads that concentrate the blast in a single direction to punch through the walls of armoured vehicles. They are detonated by infra-red beam.
Military observers believe that Hezbollah long ago planted huge mines under all the roads crossing the border. Israeli tanks have therefore avoided the border roads.
WEAPONS DISPERSAL
Instead of stockpiling its munitions in a handful of arsenals, Hezbollah dispersed them in private homes, garages, basements, bunkers and caves, giving ready access to small Hezbollah units. The group is also thought to have night-vision goggles and a stash of Israeli military fatigues for ambushes.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
The Blotter- The Anatomy of the Foiled Plot in London
The Blotter: "The world learned of a terrorist plot Thursday that would have caused mass death and destruction aboard a number of passenger jets had British authorities not aggressively investigated and arrested many of the plotters.
More than 20 suspected terrorists were arrested in England by early Thursday morning, in an operation that involved British intelligence, Scotland Yard and assistance by a number of other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, including those in Pakistan. "
ABC News has learned that two "significant arrests" in Pakistan in recent days may have significantly accelerated the pace of the investigation.
Many of the alleged terror plotters appeared to be of Pakistani descent. It appears that they were probably "homegrown" terrorists with strong links to al Qaeda and Pakistani operatives. This new generation of terrorists have figured significantly in plots in the U.S., London and Canada in recent months.
In this case, the plotters apparently intended to assemble small but powerful bombs in flight and use them to take down flights from England to the United States.
Airport security was tight in both nations. A "red alert" -- the highest alert level -- was issued in the U.S., and a "critical" state was issued in England. Passengers are undergoing intense scrutiny -- carry-on baggage of almost all kinds has been eliminated in Britain and delays abound at London's Heathrow, the world's busiest airport.
According to a Department of Homeland Security briefing to the aviation sector, the terrorists appear to have planned to use multiple persons aboard each flight to assemble peroxide-based liquid or gel high explosives. The bomb-making materials could easily be concealed in small containers -- water bottles, tooth paste tubes, juice boxes and any of the other numerous person items passengers traditionally take into the passenger compartment of commercial flights.
At least nine transcontinental flights from American, United and Continental airlines were targeted in the plot. ABC News has learned that terrorists planned to attack the planes three at a time, waiting an hour between each attack.
According to federal authorities, two or three bombers would each carry a separate portion of the bomb onto the plane to avoid detection. Once onboard the bomb would be assembled and then detonated by using heat or friction.
British authorities had been tracking some of the suspects for several weeks but stepped in to round up the plotters when they began to book flight reservations.
British authorities have shared parts of the investigation with the FBI, and out of concern for leaks, only the barest details were shared with regional authorities as late as last night.
Now there is a continued concern that other members of the cell remain on the loose and may remain a present danger to intercontinental air traffic as well as air traffic in Europe.
Raids were expected to continue in England throughout the day, and authorities were said to be seeking the "factories" where the bomb parts were prepared.
U.S. authorities, meanwhile, were running down leads to ensure no plotters or associates were within U.S. borders and intent on causing harm.
[bth: note that this plot has been developing for several months. Its not clear why the trap was sprung today. One has to be wary of timed government announcements.]
More than 20 suspected terrorists were arrested in England by early Thursday morning, in an operation that involved British intelligence, Scotland Yard and assistance by a number of other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, including those in Pakistan. "
ABC News has learned that two "significant arrests" in Pakistan in recent days may have significantly accelerated the pace of the investigation.
Many of the alleged terror plotters appeared to be of Pakistani descent. It appears that they were probably "homegrown" terrorists with strong links to al Qaeda and Pakistani operatives. This new generation of terrorists have figured significantly in plots in the U.S., London and Canada in recent months.
In this case, the plotters apparently intended to assemble small but powerful bombs in flight and use them to take down flights from England to the United States.
Airport security was tight in both nations. A "red alert" -- the highest alert level -- was issued in the U.S., and a "critical" state was issued in England. Passengers are undergoing intense scrutiny -- carry-on baggage of almost all kinds has been eliminated in Britain and delays abound at London's Heathrow, the world's busiest airport.
According to a Department of Homeland Security briefing to the aviation sector, the terrorists appear to have planned to use multiple persons aboard each flight to assemble peroxide-based liquid or gel high explosives. The bomb-making materials could easily be concealed in small containers -- water bottles, tooth paste tubes, juice boxes and any of the other numerous person items passengers traditionally take into the passenger compartment of commercial flights.
At least nine transcontinental flights from American, United and Continental airlines were targeted in the plot. ABC News has learned that terrorists planned to attack the planes three at a time, waiting an hour between each attack.
According to federal authorities, two or three bombers would each carry a separate portion of the bomb onto the plane to avoid detection. Once onboard the bomb would be assembled and then detonated by using heat or friction.
British authorities had been tracking some of the suspects for several weeks but stepped in to round up the plotters when they began to book flight reservations.
British authorities have shared parts of the investigation with the FBI, and out of concern for leaks, only the barest details were shared with regional authorities as late as last night.
Now there is a continued concern that other members of the cell remain on the loose and may remain a present danger to intercontinental air traffic as well as air traffic in Europe.
Raids were expected to continue in England throughout the day, and authorities were said to be seeking the "factories" where the bomb parts were prepared.
U.S. authorities, meanwhile, were running down leads to ensure no plotters or associates were within U.S. borders and intent on causing harm.
[bth: note that this plot has been developing for several months. Its not clear why the trap was sprung today. One has to be wary of timed government announcements.]
Facing Aiding Terrorism Charges - Ohio
WTAP Facing Aiding Terrorism Charges: "Twenty-year old's Ali Howssaiky and Osama Abulhassan are facing charges of money laundering to aid terrorism. This comes after a traffic stop Tuesday led police to thousands of dollars in cash, several disposable cell phones and instructions of how to obtain private flight information. Police also found a list of flight passengers in the car.
'It also had information about airport checkpoints, and what would be accomplished there, so this is a little bit unusual,' Washington County Sheriff Larry Mincks says.
Sheriff Mincks also says the disposable cell phones are especially important, because it appears their final destination was supposed to be overseas.
'They are digital and can be used to detonate car bombs,' he says."
Residents say it is scary to think of terrorism in the Mid-Ohio Valley.
"Being in our area, it makes me uncomfortable, but surprised is something no one should be," Marietta resident Rose Criss says.
Sheriff Mincks says they might have picked Marietta because of the small town atmosphere, but that probably worked to their disadvantage when it came to getting caught. He also says this is precisely the reason he doesn't think Marietta is a target for a terrorism attack.
"I guess I can't give you an absolute guarantee, I feel we are as safe here as anybody in the United States. We are a small community and i think that is a benefit because people look out for each other," he says.
Both cases were continued until Wednesday afternoon, and their bonds are set at 200 thousand dollars.
Sheriff Mincks also says it's important to watch for suspicious behavior because these a not the only men who have been in the area buying large quantities of the phones.
'It also had information about airport checkpoints, and what would be accomplished there, so this is a little bit unusual,' Washington County Sheriff Larry Mincks says.
Sheriff Mincks also says the disposable cell phones are especially important, because it appears their final destination was supposed to be overseas.
'They are digital and can be used to detonate car bombs,' he says."
Residents say it is scary to think of terrorism in the Mid-Ohio Valley.
"Being in our area, it makes me uncomfortable, but surprised is something no one should be," Marietta resident Rose Criss says.
Sheriff Mincks says they might have picked Marietta because of the small town atmosphere, but that probably worked to their disadvantage when it came to getting caught. He also says this is precisely the reason he doesn't think Marietta is a target for a terrorism attack.
"I guess I can't give you an absolute guarantee, I feel we are as safe here as anybody in the United States. We are a small community and i think that is a benefit because people look out for each other," he says.
Both cases were continued until Wednesday afternoon, and their bonds are set at 200 thousand dollars.
Sheriff Mincks also says it's important to watch for suspicious behavior because these a not the only men who have been in the area buying large quantities of the phones.
Bush is Trying to Scrap the War Crimes Act So He Can Violate the Geneva Conventions Legally from Now On | BuzzFlash
Bush is Trying to Scrap the War Crimes Act So He Can Violate the Geneva Conventions Legally from Now On BuzzFlash: "George Bush's stubborn lawyer cronies are at it again, according to a story today in the Washington Post. Instead of complying with the Supreme Court's simple insistence that Bush exercise even a basic degree of human decency and follow the laws he swore to uphold, the Bush Administration has a different solution: just change the law.
The controversy is over the War Crimes Act of 1996, which made illegal any 'grave' breach of the Geneva Conventions. Bush's proposed changes limit the scope of punishable crimes to torture, murder, and rape, but declares open season on 'humiliating' and 'degrading' treatment of prisoners, including 'outrages upon personal dignity'."
Keep in mind that all of this has been going on for years despite the Act, which has never led to a single prosecution. If the changes go through, one can only imagine how much worse things will inevitably get. According to one legal expert, the "entire family of techniques" used in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib would still be perfectly legal under the proposed changes. Most disturbingly, the exemptions would apply directly (but not exclusively) to politicians, which gives top officials even broader discretion over what to allow interrogators to get away with.
Since the Justice Department has never invoked the law anyway, all this will really accomplish is further infuriation of not only Arabs but also alienation from most of our allies, who tend to be far more progressive on such things. More significantly, it could well drive our opponents on the battlefield to fight to the death rather than surrender to a potential lifetime of inhumane punishment. Remember that the Nazis were all too glad to surrender to Americans rather than face Soviet prisons, and many Iraqis even surrendered to news crews in the 1991 Gulf War. Why? Because they knew they would be treated reasonably as POWs. More widespread prisoner abuse will very directly put our troops in more danger and cost more lives as insurgents get more desperate to avoid capture. They might also be more be more ruthless if they should happen to capture one of us.
Part of the debate stems from the Geneva Conventions' broad and ambiguous provisions, such as what exactly is considered impermissibly "humiliating." There is certainly plenty of overlap with what could reasonably be called "torture." But that's where a moral compass comes in handy, which is a device sorely lacking in Bush's arsenal. The proposed amendments ultimately seek to decrease - not expand or even clarify - the War Crime Act's scope.
Last week at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said, "I mean, what is degrading in one society may not be degrading in another, or may be degrading in one religion, not in another religion." Part of what we consider decency is respect for the views of others. We can tolerate Hindus not eating beef or Orthodox Jews not working during the Sabbath without doing it ourselves. We know full well what deeply offends Muslims, and it's exactly what Bush is trying to allow more of. Besides, much of the most egregious abuses we have seen would be humiliating to anyone.
The Geneva Conventions were implemented for good reason, and as long as we are signatories we should follow them.
The controversy is over the War Crimes Act of 1996, which made illegal any 'grave' breach of the Geneva Conventions. Bush's proposed changes limit the scope of punishable crimes to torture, murder, and rape, but declares open season on 'humiliating' and 'degrading' treatment of prisoners, including 'outrages upon personal dignity'."
Keep in mind that all of this has been going on for years despite the Act, which has never led to a single prosecution. If the changes go through, one can only imagine how much worse things will inevitably get. According to one legal expert, the "entire family of techniques" used in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib would still be perfectly legal under the proposed changes. Most disturbingly, the exemptions would apply directly (but not exclusively) to politicians, which gives top officials even broader discretion over what to allow interrogators to get away with.
Since the Justice Department has never invoked the law anyway, all this will really accomplish is further infuriation of not only Arabs but also alienation from most of our allies, who tend to be far more progressive on such things. More significantly, it could well drive our opponents on the battlefield to fight to the death rather than surrender to a potential lifetime of inhumane punishment. Remember that the Nazis were all too glad to surrender to Americans rather than face Soviet prisons, and many Iraqis even surrendered to news crews in the 1991 Gulf War. Why? Because they knew they would be treated reasonably as POWs. More widespread prisoner abuse will very directly put our troops in more danger and cost more lives as insurgents get more desperate to avoid capture. They might also be more be more ruthless if they should happen to capture one of us.
Part of the debate stems from the Geneva Conventions' broad and ambiguous provisions, such as what exactly is considered impermissibly "humiliating." There is certainly plenty of overlap with what could reasonably be called "torture." But that's where a moral compass comes in handy, which is a device sorely lacking in Bush's arsenal. The proposed amendments ultimately seek to decrease - not expand or even clarify - the War Crime Act's scope.
Last week at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said, "I mean, what is degrading in one society may not be degrading in another, or may be degrading in one religion, not in another religion." Part of what we consider decency is respect for the views of others. We can tolerate Hindus not eating beef or Orthodox Jews not working during the Sabbath without doing it ourselves. We know full well what deeply offends Muslims, and it's exactly what Bush is trying to allow more of. Besides, much of the most egregious abuses we have seen would be humiliating to anyone.
The Geneva Conventions were implemented for good reason, and as long as we are signatories we should follow them.
The Blotter - The Man Who Is Planning the Next Attack on America
The Blotter: "Pakistani officials tell ABC News a new terrorist plan to attack the United States and Europe is being organized by a shadowy Pakistani, who is the keeper of the log of recruits who attended al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Pakistani police and military officials identify the man as Matiur Rehman, whose role as al Qaeda's planning director was first revealed by ABCNews.com earlier this year."
U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News Rehman is now the "leading suspect" in the attack earlier this year on the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed a State Department Foreign Service officer, David Foy. Officials say the car bomb attack was planned by Rehman.
The officials say Rehman was spotted within the last month in the slums of North Karachi but escaped capture. The Pakistani government has posted a reward of 10 million rupees for the capture of Rehman, who also uses the aliases "Akeel Khan" and "Sadamd Sial."
U.S. law enforcement officials tell ABC News there has been great concern since last March about a "Pakistani" network that could attempt multiple international attacks.
Rehman, along with his deputy, another Pakistani named Qari Hassan, are believed to be keepers of the "Directory of Jihad," which officials say contains "thousands of names" of young militants who trained at al Qaeda camps and have since dispersed around the world.
U.S. law enforcement officials confirm al Qaeda kept extensive recruitment records, many of which were recovered after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Rehman, now in his mid-30s, worked as an explosives instructor in the al Qaeda camps, according to Pakistani officials, who say he has been deeply involved in most of the major terror attacks in Pakistan in the last few years.
Officials say they disrupted yet another Rehman plot last month to assassinate Pakistani President Musharaff at a summer festival.
Pakistan intelligence officials tell ABC News that Rehman moves between between Karachi, Waziristan and South Punjab, where he was born. He is in "constant communication" with al Qaeda's top leaders, according to the officials.
A former militant of the Pakistani terrorist groups Harakat ul Jihad ul Islami and Lashkar e Jhangvi, Rehman rose to prominence in the late 1990s by setting up elaborate networks in Pakistan through which he recruited young men to be trained in al Qaeda's camps.
Pakistani intelligence officials tell ABC News that between 10,000 and 50,000 militants received basic training in these camps, where the best recruits were directly "hired" by al Qaeda. The rest was used by Pakistan's most violent terrorist groups such as Lashkar e Jhangvi, Harakat ul Mujahideen and Jaish e Muhammad, either to fight in Kashmir or India, or conduct sectarian attacks within Pakistan.
U.S. officials say there is no information that any attack on the United States is imminent.
Alexis Debat is an ABC News' consultant.
Pakistani police and military officials identify the man as Matiur Rehman, whose role as al Qaeda's planning director was first revealed by ABCNews.com earlier this year."
U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News Rehman is now the "leading suspect" in the attack earlier this year on the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed a State Department Foreign Service officer, David Foy. Officials say the car bomb attack was planned by Rehman.
The officials say Rehman was spotted within the last month in the slums of North Karachi but escaped capture. The Pakistani government has posted a reward of 10 million rupees for the capture of Rehman, who also uses the aliases "Akeel Khan" and "Sadamd Sial."
U.S. law enforcement officials tell ABC News there has been great concern since last March about a "Pakistani" network that could attempt multiple international attacks.
Rehman, along with his deputy, another Pakistani named Qari Hassan, are believed to be keepers of the "Directory of Jihad," which officials say contains "thousands of names" of young militants who trained at al Qaeda camps and have since dispersed around the world.
U.S. law enforcement officials confirm al Qaeda kept extensive recruitment records, many of which were recovered after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Rehman, now in his mid-30s, worked as an explosives instructor in the al Qaeda camps, according to Pakistani officials, who say he has been deeply involved in most of the major terror attacks in Pakistan in the last few years.
Officials say they disrupted yet another Rehman plot last month to assassinate Pakistani President Musharaff at a summer festival.
Pakistan intelligence officials tell ABC News that Rehman moves between between Karachi, Waziristan and South Punjab, where he was born. He is in "constant communication" with al Qaeda's top leaders, according to the officials.
A former militant of the Pakistani terrorist groups Harakat ul Jihad ul Islami and Lashkar e Jhangvi, Rehman rose to prominence in the late 1990s by setting up elaborate networks in Pakistan through which he recruited young men to be trained in al Qaeda's camps.
Pakistani intelligence officials tell ABC News that between 10,000 and 50,000 militants received basic training in these camps, where the best recruits were directly "hired" by al Qaeda. The rest was used by Pakistan's most violent terrorist groups such as Lashkar e Jhangvi, Harakat ul Mujahideen and Jaish e Muhammad, either to fight in Kashmir or India, or conduct sectarian attacks within Pakistan.
U.S. officials say there is no information that any attack on the United States is imminent.
Alexis Debat is an ABC News' consultant.
Navy charges sailor with spying
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A 21-year-old sailor has been charged with espionage for allegedly trying to pass classified information to foreign agents, the U.S. Navy said on Wednesday.
According to defense officials, Petty Officer Ariel Weinmann was working on behalf of Russia.
The Navy sent preliminary charges of espionage and desertion to the commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
The commander now must make a decision on what official charges Weinmann will face in a court martial proceeding.
The Navy said Weinmann, a fire control technician third class, tried to pass information to foreign agents in Manama, Bahrain, in March 2005, in Vienna, Austria, on October 19, 2005, and in Mexico City on March 19, 2006.
He deserted the Navy in July 2005 and was picked up by immigration agents when he tried to return to the United States in March 2006 through Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Weinmann had access to limited information aboard the submarine, according to defense officials. People familiar with the case said the Navy was still trying to determine what information Weinmann may have tried to pass, and whether he was successful.
Charges of espionage and desertion can carry the punishment of death.
According to defense officials, Petty Officer Ariel Weinmann was working on behalf of Russia.
The Navy sent preliminary charges of espionage and desertion to the commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
The commander now must make a decision on what official charges Weinmann will face in a court martial proceeding.
The Navy said Weinmann, a fire control technician third class, tried to pass information to foreign agents in Manama, Bahrain, in March 2005, in Vienna, Austria, on October 19, 2005, and in Mexico City on March 19, 2006.
He deserted the Navy in July 2005 and was picked up by immigration agents when he tried to return to the United States in March 2006 through Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Weinmann had access to limited information aboard the submarine, according to defense officials. People familiar with the case said the Navy was still trying to determine what information Weinmann may have tried to pass, and whether he was successful.
Charges of espionage and desertion can carry the punishment of death.
British Police Thwart Major Terror Plot
British Police Thwart Major Terror Plot: "British authorities said today they had disrupted a 'major terrorist plot' to blow up passenger flights between the United Kingdom and the United States, prompting a security clampdown at British and U.S. international airports and a cascade of delays in trans-Atlantic flights generally.
London's Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said 21 people had been arrested in London and in Birmingham England after a months-long investigation into what he said was a plan for 'mass murder on an unimaginable scale.' He did not say why the announcement was made today"...
London's Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said 21 people had been arrested in London and in Birmingham England after a months-long investigation into what he said was a plan for 'mass murder on an unimaginable scale.' He did not say why the announcement was made today"...
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Rep. John Murtha: Iraq is the No. 1 Issue | The Huffington Post
The Blog Rep. John Murtha: Iraq is the No. 1 Issue The Huffington Post: "The war in Iraq is the No. 1 issue in the country today. Americans are no longer willing to accept the human suffering or the financial toll of a war that has lasted for 3 - years with no end in sight.
The numbers speak for themselves. We've lost almost 2,600 Americans"
More than 19,000 have been wounded, 46 percent of them so badly they couldn't return to their units. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence. The U.S. is spending $11 million every hour - $8 billion every month. Yet the administration refuses to budge from its open-ended, stay-the-course policy. I know it and the American people know it: We need to redeploy our troops to the periphery and refocus on the real war against terrorism. It's long past the time for us to change direction.
The numbers speak for themselves. We've lost almost 2,600 Americans"
More than 19,000 have been wounded, 46 percent of them so badly they couldn't return to their units. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence. The U.S. is spending $11 million every hour - $8 billion every month. Yet the administration refuses to budge from its open-ended, stay-the-course policy. I know it and the American people know it: We need to redeploy our troops to the periphery and refocus on the real war against terrorism. It's long past the time for us to change direction.
Poll: 60 percent of Americans oppose Iraq war - Aug 9, 2006
CNN.com - Poll: 60 percent of Americans oppose Iraq war - Aug 9, 2006: "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sixty percent of Americans oppose the U.S. war in Iraq, the highest number since polling on the subject began with the commencement of the war in March 2003, according to poll results and trends released Wednesday.
And a majority of poll respondents said they would support the withdrawal of at least some U.S. troops by the end of the year, according to results from the Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last week on behalf of CNN. The corporation polled 1,047 adult Americans by telephone.
According to trends, the number of poll respondents who said they did not support the Iraq war has steadily risen as the war stretched into a second and then a third year. In the most recent poll, 36 percent said they were in favor of the war -- half of the peak of 72 percent who said they were in favor of the war as it began"...
And a majority of poll respondents said they would support the withdrawal of at least some U.S. troops by the end of the year, according to results from the Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last week on behalf of CNN. The corporation polled 1,047 adult Americans by telephone.
According to trends, the number of poll respondents who said they did not support the Iraq war has steadily risen as the war stretched into a second and then a third year. In the most recent poll, 36 percent said they were in favor of the war -- half of the peak of 72 percent who said they were in favor of the war as it began"...
Counterterrorism Blog - Recovered From "Lebanon Trauma," Israel Decides to Cleanse Lebanon
Counterterrorism Blog: "Israel's Security Cabinet voted today to send 30,000 ground troops deeper into Lebanon, up to the Litani River, which is about 18 miles from the border. This is a clear indication that Israel has finally gotten over its 'Lebanon trauma�, their psychological reaction to their 18-year long occupation of southern Lebanon following their invasion of this country in 1982. Today's decision was reached after many hours of discussions, but with a clear resolution that the area has to be cleansed from Hizbollah. There will be many lives lost on both sides, but this is, as I have been told over and over again this week in Israel, an existential battle for Israel--one it cannot afford to lose.
Israeli analysts and military leaders believe that Hizbollah's leader Nasrallah has made a severe strategic mistake by kidnapping the Israelis soldiers in July (in fact, he said so himself). Nasrallah seems to have calculated that the Israeli response would be limited, partly because of its new and inexperienced government. Instead, Israel destroyed most of Hizbollah's weaponry through its superior air force, and despite initial hesitation, they have finally come around to responding with their ground troops. While Israel has so far been losing the informational war, it has finally begun to tell its side of the story; if it manages to widely circulate the footage of Hizbollah members shooting rockets from their living rooms and demonstrate how houses have been widely used as safehouses, it will be in a much better place to explain why so many civilians have been killed in Lebanon.
Read More �
It is without doubt that Syria and Iran have been backing Hizbollah militarily and financially��billions of dollars of investment� as one source estimated�and if Hizbollah wins this war, or is perceived to have destroyed Israel's deterrence capability"
Israeli analysts and military leaders believe that Hizbollah's leader Nasrallah has made a severe strategic mistake by kidnapping the Israelis soldiers in July (in fact, he said so himself). Nasrallah seems to have calculated that the Israeli response would be limited, partly because of its new and inexperienced government. Instead, Israel destroyed most of Hizbollah's weaponry through its superior air force, and despite initial hesitation, they have finally come around to responding with their ground troops. While Israel has so far been losing the informational war, it has finally begun to tell its side of the story; if it manages to widely circulate the footage of Hizbollah members shooting rockets from their living rooms and demonstrate how houses have been widely used as safehouses, it will be in a much better place to explain why so many civilians have been killed in Lebanon.
Read More �
It is without doubt that Syria and Iran have been backing Hizbollah militarily and financially��billions of dollars of investment� as one source estimated�and if Hizbollah wins this war, or is perceived to have destroyed Israel's deterrence capability"
Cuba on guard against U.S.
swissinfo - Cuba on guard against U.S.: "HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's government signalled a crackdown on Wednesday on black-market satellite dishes on which its citizens get news from the United States, nine days after ailing President Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power to his brother.
The Communist Party newspaper Granma warned that the dishes, on which many Cubans receive Spanish-language TV programs from the exile bastion of Miami, could be used by the U.S. government to broadcast subversive information.
'They are fertile ground for those who want to carry out the Bush administration's plan to destroy the Cuban revolution,' said the newspaper, the official voice of the government. Such articles in Granma usually signal that action can be expected.
Since Castro provisionally relinquished power to his brother Raul Castro on July 31 after undergoing stomach surgery, Cubans have been anxious for information."...
The Communist Party newspaper Granma warned that the dishes, on which many Cubans receive Spanish-language TV programs from the exile bastion of Miami, could be used by the U.S. government to broadcast subversive information.
'They are fertile ground for those who want to carry out the Bush administration's plan to destroy the Cuban revolution,' said the newspaper, the official voice of the government. Such articles in Granma usually signal that action can be expected.
Since Castro provisionally relinquished power to his brother Raul Castro on July 31 after undergoing stomach surgery, Cubans have been anxious for information."...
My Way News: "JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard have been found among Hizbollah guerrillas slain by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, Israel's Channel 10 television reported on Wednesday citing diplomatic sources.
It said the Iranians were identified by documents found on their bodies, but gave no further details on how many were discovered or when. Neither the Israeli military nor Hizbollah representatives in Beirut had immediate comment on the report.
Iran, like fellow Hizbollah patron Syria, insists its support for the Shi'ite guerrilla group is purely moral.
Israel says many of the rockets being fired against its civilian and military targets are Iranian made, and that Hizbollah fighters taking on its forces trained in Iran. Washington also accuses Tehran of actively funding Hizbollah.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards are traditionally very close to fellow Shi'ite Muslims in Hizbollah and were deployed in south Lebanon in the 1980s. "
It said the Iranians were identified by documents found on their bodies, but gave no further details on how many were discovered or when. Neither the Israeli military nor Hizbollah representatives in Beirut had immediate comment on the report.
Iran, like fellow Hizbollah patron Syria, insists its support for the Shi'ite guerrilla group is purely moral.
Israel says many of the rockets being fired against its civilian and military targets are Iranian made, and that Hizbollah fighters taking on its forces trained in Iran. Washington also accuses Tehran of actively funding Hizbollah.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards are traditionally very close to fellow Shi'ite Muslims in Hizbollah and were deployed in south Lebanon in the 1980s. "
Shiites Press for a Partition of Iraq
Shiites Press for a Partition of Iraq - Los Angeles Times: "BAGHDAD � They have a new constitution, a new government and a new military. But faced with incessant sectarian bloodshed, Iraqis for the first time have begun openly discussing whether the only way to stop the violence is to remake the country they have just built.
Leaders of Iraq's powerful Shiite Muslim political bloc have begun aggressively promoting a radical plan to partition the country as a way of separating the warring sects. Some Iraqis are even talking about dividing the capital, with the Tigris River as a kind of Berlin Wall."
Shiites have long advocated some sort of autonomy in the south, similar to the Kurds' 15-year-old enclave in the north, with its own defense forces and control over oil exploration. And the new constitution does allow provinces to team up into federal regions.
But the latest effort, promulgated by Cabinet ministers, clerics and columnists, marks the first time they have advocated regional partition as a way of stemming violence. "Federalism will cut off all parts of the country that are incubating terrorism from those that are upgrading and improving," said Khudair Khuzai, the Shiite education minister. "We will do it just like Kurdistan. We will put soldiers along the frontiers.
"The growing clamor for partition illustrates how dire the country's security, economic and political problems have come to seem to many Iraqis: Until recently, the idea of redrawing the 8 1/2 -decade-old map of Iraq was considered seditious.
Some of the advocates of partitioning the country are circumspect, arguing that federalism is only one of the tools under consideration for reducing violence.But others push a plan by Abdelaziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a political party. Hakim advocates the creation of a nine-province district in the largely peaceful south, home to 60% of the country's proven oil reserves.
Sunni leaders see nothing but greed in the new push — the Shiites, they say, are taking advantage of the escalating violence to make an oil grab.Iraq's oil is concentrated in the north and south; much of the Sunni-dominated west and northwest is desolate desert, devoid of oil and gas."
Controlling these areas will create a grand fortune that they can exploit," said Adnan Dulaimi, a leading Sunni Arab politician. "Their motive is that they are thirsty for control and power."Still, even nationalists who favor a united Iraq acknowledge that sectarian warfare has gotten so out of hand that even the possibility of splitting the capital along the Tigris, which roughly divides the city between a mostly Shiite east and a mostly Sunni west, is being openly discussed.
"Sunnis and Shiites are both starting to feel that dividing Baghdad will be the solution," said Ammar Wajuih, a Sunni politician.Critics scoff at the idea that any geographical partitioning of Sunnis and Shiites will make the country safer.
Some observers warn that cutting up the country's Arab provinces into separate religious cantons would be as cataclysmic as the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947.
Although growing numbers of Iraqis acknowledge that their country is in an undeclared civil war, a partition would "actually lead to increasing violence and sectarian displacement," said Hussein Athab, a political scientist and former lawmaker in Basra.
Critics of partitioning note that rival Shiite militias with ties to political parties in government appear to be responsible for as much of Iraq's violence as Sunni insurgents are, and have been known to turn their guns on one another.
"They're always talking about reconciliation and rejecting violence, but in truth they're not serious," Wajuih said.
"Whenever there is a security escalation or violence, they bring the issue of federalism up again."One Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested that the Shiites were using the prospect of a southern ministate to gain political concessions from Sunnis — "a threat that they wouldn't want to have to exercise" because tearing the country asunder would be so traumatic.
A U.S. Embassy spokesperson declined to comment publicly on such a volatile issue. But U.S. policymakers also have begun to warm to the idea. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, one of the Democratic Party's leading voices on foreign policy, began openly advocating such a move this year.
"I think it's the only way out," says Ivan Eland, a former House Foreign Affairs Committee staffer who is now an analyst at the Independent Institute, an Oakland think tank. "Iraq is already partitioned. Kurds don't want to be part of it. And any central government controlled by one group, the other groups are going to be afraid of being oppressed by it.
"The prospect of a decentralized Iraq drove opposition groups for decades; Shiites and Kurds were brutally suppressed under Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, and once they came to power they wanted to weaken the central government. In a referendum last year, a constitution including the option of devolution was approved despite nearly uniform Sunni opposition.
nder the constitution, any of Iraq's 18 provinces, or a group of provinces, may hold a referendum to form a federal region. But the charter was vague on the definition of "federal." In Kurdistan it in effect has meant grouping three provinces into an autonomous enclave that has its own military, intelligence apparatus, prime minister and oil ministry.
The Kurdish experiment has inspired many Shiite leaders, especially Hakim. Clerics loyal to him already have begun using street demonstrations as well as Friday sermons to advance to desperate and war-weary Shiite masses the idea that an autonomous southern region will stem the bloodshed and bring prosperity.
"Those afraid of federalism in the south and middle are afraid that we will get our rights back," Shiite cleric Sadruddin Qubanchi told the faithful gathered for Friday prayers in Najaf last month."Why not now?" said a July 30 column in Al Adala, a Shiite daily newspaper. "We are in a race against time to establish federalism in Iraq.
"Hakim's advisors have already begun drawing up proposals for the rights and territorial boundaries of such a region, said Haithem Hussein, one of his deputies. In one plan, the Shiite militias now considered part of Iraq's cycle of violence could serve as a regional security force, just as the Kurdish peshmerga militias form the core of Kurdistan's regional security forces.
"We don't want to establish a Shiite state or a state within a state," said Mukhlis Zamel, a Shiite lawmaker from the southern city of Nasiriya. "But we want to manage ourselves by ourselves."In the halls of parliament, Sunni politicians say their Shiite colleagues try to strong-arm them to go along with their plan."
They try to convince you that federalism is the only solution, whether you like it or not," said Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a former law professor now serving in parliament as a member of the main Sunni coalition.Most agree that a partitioning of Iraq along the geographical lines advocated by Shiites would be an agonizing and traumatic process.
Almost all of Iraq's major tribes include both Shiite and Sunni branches, and cross-sectarian marriages abound.Baghdad, Diyala, northern Babil and southern Salahuddin provinces are thoroughly mixed, often patchworks of Shiite and Sunni villages. Basra in the south includes a significant Sunni minority, while Mosul in the north includes significant numbers of Shiite Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens.But all of these complications can be worked out, said analyst Eland.
"They could work out an oil-sharing agreement," he said. "It's a fallacy that you have to have contiguous borders. You could have deterrence: We won't hurt your minority if you don't hurt ours."Sheik Diyadhin Fayadh, a Shiite politician, offered another solution to the sectarian patchwork stemming from a partition: "If people don't like the system in one region," he said, "they can go to another region."
Times staff writer Saif Rasheed in Baghdad and special correspondent Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf contributed to this report.
[bth: the war might not have been about oil but the peace certainly will be.]
Leaders of Iraq's powerful Shiite Muslim political bloc have begun aggressively promoting a radical plan to partition the country as a way of separating the warring sects. Some Iraqis are even talking about dividing the capital, with the Tigris River as a kind of Berlin Wall."
Shiites have long advocated some sort of autonomy in the south, similar to the Kurds' 15-year-old enclave in the north, with its own defense forces and control over oil exploration. And the new constitution does allow provinces to team up into federal regions.
But the latest effort, promulgated by Cabinet ministers, clerics and columnists, marks the first time they have advocated regional partition as a way of stemming violence. "Federalism will cut off all parts of the country that are incubating terrorism from those that are upgrading and improving," said Khudair Khuzai, the Shiite education minister. "We will do it just like Kurdistan. We will put soldiers along the frontiers.
"The growing clamor for partition illustrates how dire the country's security, economic and political problems have come to seem to many Iraqis: Until recently, the idea of redrawing the 8 1/2 -decade-old map of Iraq was considered seditious.
Some of the advocates of partitioning the country are circumspect, arguing that federalism is only one of the tools under consideration for reducing violence.But others push a plan by Abdelaziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a political party. Hakim advocates the creation of a nine-province district in the largely peaceful south, home to 60% of the country's proven oil reserves.
Sunni leaders see nothing but greed in the new push — the Shiites, they say, are taking advantage of the escalating violence to make an oil grab.Iraq's oil is concentrated in the north and south; much of the Sunni-dominated west and northwest is desolate desert, devoid of oil and gas."
Controlling these areas will create a grand fortune that they can exploit," said Adnan Dulaimi, a leading Sunni Arab politician. "Their motive is that they are thirsty for control and power."Still, even nationalists who favor a united Iraq acknowledge that sectarian warfare has gotten so out of hand that even the possibility of splitting the capital along the Tigris, which roughly divides the city between a mostly Shiite east and a mostly Sunni west, is being openly discussed.
"Sunnis and Shiites are both starting to feel that dividing Baghdad will be the solution," said Ammar Wajuih, a Sunni politician.Critics scoff at the idea that any geographical partitioning of Sunnis and Shiites will make the country safer.
Some observers warn that cutting up the country's Arab provinces into separate religious cantons would be as cataclysmic as the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947.
Although growing numbers of Iraqis acknowledge that their country is in an undeclared civil war, a partition would "actually lead to increasing violence and sectarian displacement," said Hussein Athab, a political scientist and former lawmaker in Basra.
Critics of partitioning note that rival Shiite militias with ties to political parties in government appear to be responsible for as much of Iraq's violence as Sunni insurgents are, and have been known to turn their guns on one another.
"They're always talking about reconciliation and rejecting violence, but in truth they're not serious," Wajuih said.
"Whenever there is a security escalation or violence, they bring the issue of federalism up again."One Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested that the Shiites were using the prospect of a southern ministate to gain political concessions from Sunnis — "a threat that they wouldn't want to have to exercise" because tearing the country asunder would be so traumatic.
A U.S. Embassy spokesperson declined to comment publicly on such a volatile issue. But U.S. policymakers also have begun to warm to the idea. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, one of the Democratic Party's leading voices on foreign policy, began openly advocating such a move this year.
"I think it's the only way out," says Ivan Eland, a former House Foreign Affairs Committee staffer who is now an analyst at the Independent Institute, an Oakland think tank. "Iraq is already partitioned. Kurds don't want to be part of it. And any central government controlled by one group, the other groups are going to be afraid of being oppressed by it.
"The prospect of a decentralized Iraq drove opposition groups for decades; Shiites and Kurds were brutally suppressed under Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, and once they came to power they wanted to weaken the central government. In a referendum last year, a constitution including the option of devolution was approved despite nearly uniform Sunni opposition.
nder the constitution, any of Iraq's 18 provinces, or a group of provinces, may hold a referendum to form a federal region. But the charter was vague on the definition of "federal." In Kurdistan it in effect has meant grouping three provinces into an autonomous enclave that has its own military, intelligence apparatus, prime minister and oil ministry.
The Kurdish experiment has inspired many Shiite leaders, especially Hakim. Clerics loyal to him already have begun using street demonstrations as well as Friday sermons to advance to desperate and war-weary Shiite masses the idea that an autonomous southern region will stem the bloodshed and bring prosperity.
"Those afraid of federalism in the south and middle are afraid that we will get our rights back," Shiite cleric Sadruddin Qubanchi told the faithful gathered for Friday prayers in Najaf last month."Why not now?" said a July 30 column in Al Adala, a Shiite daily newspaper. "We are in a race against time to establish federalism in Iraq.
"Hakim's advisors have already begun drawing up proposals for the rights and territorial boundaries of such a region, said Haithem Hussein, one of his deputies. In one plan, the Shiite militias now considered part of Iraq's cycle of violence could serve as a regional security force, just as the Kurdish peshmerga militias form the core of Kurdistan's regional security forces.
"We don't want to establish a Shiite state or a state within a state," said Mukhlis Zamel, a Shiite lawmaker from the southern city of Nasiriya. "But we want to manage ourselves by ourselves."In the halls of parliament, Sunni politicians say their Shiite colleagues try to strong-arm them to go along with their plan."
They try to convince you that federalism is the only solution, whether you like it or not," said Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a former law professor now serving in parliament as a member of the main Sunni coalition.Most agree that a partitioning of Iraq along the geographical lines advocated by Shiites would be an agonizing and traumatic process.
Almost all of Iraq's major tribes include both Shiite and Sunni branches, and cross-sectarian marriages abound.Baghdad, Diyala, northern Babil and southern Salahuddin provinces are thoroughly mixed, often patchworks of Shiite and Sunni villages. Basra in the south includes a significant Sunni minority, while Mosul in the north includes significant numbers of Shiite Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens.But all of these complications can be worked out, said analyst Eland.
"They could work out an oil-sharing agreement," he said. "It's a fallacy that you have to have contiguous borders. You could have deterrence: We won't hurt your minority if you don't hurt ours."Sheik Diyadhin Fayadh, a Shiite politician, offered another solution to the sectarian patchwork stemming from a partition: "If people don't like the system in one region," he said, "they can go to another region."
Times staff writer Saif Rasheed in Baghdad and special correspondent Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf contributed to this report.
[bth: the war might not have been about oil but the peace certainly will be.]
Informed Comment - Two companies of guerrillas attempted to cut off Baghdad from its southern Shia Hinterland
Informed Comment: "Shiite hinterland by cutting the road between the southern Shiite city of Kut and Baghdad. The guerrillas were tracked down and 45 of them killed by Iraqi police. Two survived to be captured. "
Four arrested in Jill Carroll kidnapping case - Aug 9, 2006
CNN.com - Four arrested in Jill Carroll kidnapping case - Aug 9, 2006: "BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Four Iraqi men have been detained in the kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll as a result of a dogged hunt by U.S. troops in Anbar province, the U.S. military said Wednesday. "...
Report: US sailor spied for Israel
Report: US sailor spied for Israel Jerusalem Post: "A US Navy sailor, Ariel J. Weinmann, is suspected of spying for Israel and has been held in prison for four months, according to an article published Monday in the Saudi daily Al-Watan. It reported that Weinmann is being held at a military base in Virginia on suspicion of espionage and desertion. "
According to the navy, Weinmann was apprehended on March 26 "after it was learned that he had been listed as a deserter by his command." Though initial information released by the navy makes no mention of it, Al-Watan reported that he was returning from an undisclosed "foreign country." American sources close to the Defense Department told Al-Watan that Israel was the country in question.
The US Navy concluded Article 32 proceedings [a pretrial investigation] in the case of Fire Control Technician Third Class Ariel J. Weinmann on July 26, 2006," Ted Brown, a media relations officer at the US Fleet Forces Command, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. The US Fleet Forces Command is the "convening authority of the case... and will make the decision with respect to what charges, if any, will be referred to a general court-martial."
The veracity of Al-Watan's claim that Weinmann is suspected of spying for Israel remains in question, and military and Pentagon spokesmen are remaining tightlipped. A public affairs officer at the Office of Naval Intelligence told the Post that he was unaware of the allegations against Weinmann.
Al-Watan speculated that if Weinmann spied on behalf of the Mossad, it would be the biggest espionage case since Jonathan Pollard's arrest. Pollard, who worked as a civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy, was caught in 1985 and convicted of spying for Israel. He is currently serving a life sentence in the US.
According to the navy, "Weinmann was assigned to the USS Albuquerque (SSN 706) and had deserted on or about July 3, 2005." The Albuquerque is a Los Angeles-class attack submarine.
Though the navy's initial press release contained no reference to Israel, Brown stated that more detailed information about the case would be released shortly.
According to the navy, Weinmann was apprehended on March 26 "after it was learned that he had been listed as a deserter by his command." Though initial information released by the navy makes no mention of it, Al-Watan reported that he was returning from an undisclosed "foreign country." American sources close to the Defense Department told Al-Watan that Israel was the country in question.
The US Navy concluded Article 32 proceedings [a pretrial investigation] in the case of Fire Control Technician Third Class Ariel J. Weinmann on July 26, 2006," Ted Brown, a media relations officer at the US Fleet Forces Command, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. The US Fleet Forces Command is the "convening authority of the case... and will make the decision with respect to what charges, if any, will be referred to a general court-martial."
The veracity of Al-Watan's claim that Weinmann is suspected of spying for Israel remains in question, and military and Pentagon spokesmen are remaining tightlipped. A public affairs officer at the Office of Naval Intelligence told the Post that he was unaware of the allegations against Weinmann.
Al-Watan speculated that if Weinmann spied on behalf of the Mossad, it would be the biggest espionage case since Jonathan Pollard's arrest. Pollard, who worked as a civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy, was caught in 1985 and convicted of spying for Israel. He is currently serving a life sentence in the US.
According to the navy, "Weinmann was assigned to the USS Albuquerque (SSN 706) and had deserted on or about July 3, 2005." The Albuquerque is a Los Angeles-class attack submarine.
Though the navy's initial press release contained no reference to Israel, Brown stated that more detailed information about the case would be released shortly.
Revenge of the Irate Moderates - New York Times
Revenge of the Irate Moderates - New York Times: "The defeat of Senator Joseph Lieberman at the hands of a little-known Connecticut businessman is bound to send a message to politicians of both parties that voters are angry and frustrated over the war in Iraq. The primary upset was not, however, a rebellion against the bipartisanship and centrism that Mr. Lieberman said he represented in the Senate. Instead, Connecticut Democrats were reacting to the way those concepts have been perverted by the Bush White House.
Ned Lamont, a relative political novice, said he ran against Mr. Lieberman because he was offended by the senator's sunny descriptions of what was happening in Iraq and his denunciation of Democrats who criticized the administration's handling of the war. Many other people in Connecticut may have felt that sense of frustration, but no one else had the money and moxie to do what Mr. Lamont did. Mr. Lieberman was stunned to find himself on the defensive, and it was only in the last few weeks that the 18-year veteran mounted a desperate campaign to reclaim his party's support."
Senator Lieberman says he will run as an independent in November, taking on Mr. Lamont and the Republican, Alan Schlesinger. Mr. Schlesinger is a very weak candidate, but Mr. Lieberman should consider the risk of splitting his party if the Republicans are able to convince Mr. Schlesinger to drop out of the race in favor of a stronger nominee.
Mr. Lieberman’s supporters have tried to depict Mr. Lamont and his backers as wild-eyed radicals who want to punish the senator for working with Republicans and to force the Democratic Party into a disastrous turn toward extremism.
It’s hard to imagine Connecticut, which likes to be called the Land of Steady Habits, as an encampment of left-wing isolationists, and it’s hard to imagine Mr. Lamont, who worked happily with the Republicans in Greenwich politics, leading that kind of revolution.
The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been unnerved over the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction. A war that began at the president’s choosing has degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of the world against the United States. The administration’s contempt for international agreements, Congressional prerogatives and the authority of the courts has undermined the rule of law abroad and at home.
Yet while all this has been happening, the political discussion in Washington has become a captive of the Bush agenda. Traditional beliefs like every person’s right to a day in court, or the conviction that America should not start wars it does not know how to win, wind up being portrayed as extreme. The middle becomes a place where senators struggle to get the president to volunteer to obey the law when the mood strikes him. Attempting to regain the real center becomes a radical alternative.
When Mr. Lieberman told The Washington Post, “I haven’t changed. Events around me have changed,” he actually put his finger on his political problem. His constituents felt that when the White House led the country into a disastrous international crisis and started subverting the nation’s basic traditions, Joe Lieberman should have changed enough to take a lead in fighting back.
Ned Lamont, a relative political novice, said he ran against Mr. Lieberman because he was offended by the senator's sunny descriptions of what was happening in Iraq and his denunciation of Democrats who criticized the administration's handling of the war. Many other people in Connecticut may have felt that sense of frustration, but no one else had the money and moxie to do what Mr. Lamont did. Mr. Lieberman was stunned to find himself on the defensive, and it was only in the last few weeks that the 18-year veteran mounted a desperate campaign to reclaim his party's support."
Senator Lieberman says he will run as an independent in November, taking on Mr. Lamont and the Republican, Alan Schlesinger. Mr. Schlesinger is a very weak candidate, but Mr. Lieberman should consider the risk of splitting his party if the Republicans are able to convince Mr. Schlesinger to drop out of the race in favor of a stronger nominee.
Mr. Lieberman’s supporters have tried to depict Mr. Lamont and his backers as wild-eyed radicals who want to punish the senator for working with Republicans and to force the Democratic Party into a disastrous turn toward extremism.
It’s hard to imagine Connecticut, which likes to be called the Land of Steady Habits, as an encampment of left-wing isolationists, and it’s hard to imagine Mr. Lamont, who worked happily with the Republicans in Greenwich politics, leading that kind of revolution.
The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been unnerved over the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction. A war that began at the president’s choosing has degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of the world against the United States. The administration’s contempt for international agreements, Congressional prerogatives and the authority of the courts has undermined the rule of law abroad and at home.
Yet while all this has been happening, the political discussion in Washington has become a captive of the Bush agenda. Traditional beliefs like every person’s right to a day in court, or the conviction that America should not start wars it does not know how to win, wind up being portrayed as extreme. The middle becomes a place where senators struggle to get the president to volunteer to obey the law when the mood strikes him. Attempting to regain the real center becomes a radical alternative.
When Mr. Lieberman told The Washington Post, “I haven’t changed. Events around me have changed,” he actually put his finger on his political problem. His constituents felt that when the White House led the country into a disastrous international crisis and started subverting the nation’s basic traditions, Joe Lieberman should have changed enough to take a lead in fighting back.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
The Arab "Military Culture" - Straight Scoop About Iraqi Military From Onsite Marine.
: "Straight Scoop About Iraqi Military From Onsite Marine.
Hello everyone,
Tomorrow will be our 6 month mark, and then only 6 more months to go! Everything is fine and works in cycles. Some weeks see more activity than others based on the insurgents cycles of regrouping and refitting.
The first province was turned over to Iraqi security forces and the goal is for all the provinces to be turned over to the ISF by the end of 07 with the exception of Anbar and Baghdad. Baghdad is the heart of the Sunni Triangle and Anbar is the primary route of the 'rat lines', Iraq's Ho Chi Min Trail where the foreign fighters, weapons, and supplies are making their way into the country. "
Our new Iraqi battalion commander is turning out to be alright. He punched one of his warrant officers because he was allowing his men to live like pigs (in the Iraqi military it is OK for officers to strike their men, there is no official military justice system in the Iraqi army). He has denied some of his officers leave to make them do their jobs and is docking pay from soldiers who violate rules.
Our old battalion commander is trying to evade his investigation about his skimming money from Iraqi army food contracts and the soldiers themselves.
The brigade general is also involved in the corruption...which is why nothing is happening. Our executive officer returned after 6 months of paid sick leave only to find is dealings in the scam are under investigation, so yesterday he went back on sick leave, all approved by the general
The biggest lesson I have learned over 6 months here is that the Iraqi culture is incapable of sustaining a western style military. The Arabic style military it can function with is distasteful to western soldiers: officers who hit their men, officer and senior enlisted men who regularly steal from their men, using leadership to openly grant yourself more food and standard of living items while your men go without, taking food from civilians while searching their houses, taking food from crops while searching for weapons caches, and all the while professing to be men of God.
Not to mention the Iraqi culture is so absolutely LAZY that nothing gets done unless we force them to do it.
More of our soldiers went AWOL, new food supplies came in yesterday from Ramadi but were grossly insufficient, new soldiers arrived but their initial military training is substandard and you can tell they are really just here for a paycheck. Iraqi army communications gear is insufficient and not encrypted (we actually have had unidentified people calling on the Iraqi frequencies requesting tactical information...and the Iraqis actually give it to them without knowing who it is).
So after 6 months we've:
- taught them techniques for planning operations...they won't do it.
- shown them how to conduct weapons sustainment ranges...they won't do it.
- we've shown them how to conduct convoys...they won't do it. - we've taught them moral and ethical behavior required of soldiers...they won't do it.
- we've taught them how to manage logistics...they won't do it. - we've taught them personnel and administrative management...they won't do it.
- we've taught them how to operate tactically...they won't do it. -
we've taught them how to sustain the life support systems on the camp...they won't do it.
Basically we have taught them how to be a self sufficient battalion, but unless the Marines do it for them, they won't do anything. They ALWAYS revert back to the "Iraqi way" when we are not around and that involves DESTROYING and WASTING everything they get their hands on.
But other than all that they say they are "dedicated" to the future of Iraq...should be a bright and wonderful future.
So that's about it. Hope all is well, the weather here has cooled down, it's only 110 this morning. Take care and talk to you all later.
A Marine in Iraq
Editor's Note: The following was added by a retired Marine who had received the email quoted above. "It is not surprising to me, as that seems to be the norm in that and many other regions of the world. We tried to form a Saudi Marine Corps along Western lines and that too was a disaster, with officers having their Paki batmen carry their packs for them!"
Hello everyone,
Tomorrow will be our 6 month mark, and then only 6 more months to go! Everything is fine and works in cycles. Some weeks see more activity than others based on the insurgents cycles of regrouping and refitting.
The first province was turned over to Iraqi security forces and the goal is for all the provinces to be turned over to the ISF by the end of 07 with the exception of Anbar and Baghdad. Baghdad is the heart of the Sunni Triangle and Anbar is the primary route of the 'rat lines', Iraq's Ho Chi Min Trail where the foreign fighters, weapons, and supplies are making their way into the country. "
Our new Iraqi battalion commander is turning out to be alright. He punched one of his warrant officers because he was allowing his men to live like pigs (in the Iraqi military it is OK for officers to strike their men, there is no official military justice system in the Iraqi army). He has denied some of his officers leave to make them do their jobs and is docking pay from soldiers who violate rules.
Our old battalion commander is trying to evade his investigation about his skimming money from Iraqi army food contracts and the soldiers themselves.
The brigade general is also involved in the corruption...which is why nothing is happening. Our executive officer returned after 6 months of paid sick leave only to find is dealings in the scam are under investigation, so yesterday he went back on sick leave, all approved by the general
The biggest lesson I have learned over 6 months here is that the Iraqi culture is incapable of sustaining a western style military. The Arabic style military it can function with is distasteful to western soldiers: officers who hit their men, officer and senior enlisted men who regularly steal from their men, using leadership to openly grant yourself more food and standard of living items while your men go without, taking food from civilians while searching their houses, taking food from crops while searching for weapons caches, and all the while professing to be men of God.
Not to mention the Iraqi culture is so absolutely LAZY that nothing gets done unless we force them to do it.
More of our soldiers went AWOL, new food supplies came in yesterday from Ramadi but were grossly insufficient, new soldiers arrived but their initial military training is substandard and you can tell they are really just here for a paycheck. Iraqi army communications gear is insufficient and not encrypted (we actually have had unidentified people calling on the Iraqi frequencies requesting tactical information...and the Iraqis actually give it to them without knowing who it is).
So after 6 months we've:
- taught them techniques for planning operations...they won't do it.
- shown them how to conduct weapons sustainment ranges...they won't do it.
- we've shown them how to conduct convoys...they won't do it. - we've taught them moral and ethical behavior required of soldiers...they won't do it.
- we've taught them how to manage logistics...they won't do it. - we've taught them personnel and administrative management...they won't do it.
- we've taught them how to operate tactically...they won't do it. -
we've taught them how to sustain the life support systems on the camp...they won't do it.
Basically we have taught them how to be a self sufficient battalion, but unless the Marines do it for them, they won't do anything. They ALWAYS revert back to the "Iraqi way" when we are not around and that involves DESTROYING and WASTING everything they get their hands on.
But other than all that they say they are "dedicated" to the future of Iraq...should be a bright and wonderful future.
So that's about it. Hope all is well, the weather here has cooled down, it's only 110 this morning. Take care and talk to you all later.
A Marine in Iraq
Editor's Note: The following was added by a retired Marine who had received the email quoted above. "It is not surprising to me, as that seems to be the norm in that and many other regions of the world. We tried to form a Saudi Marine Corps along Western lines and that too was a disaster, with officers having their Paki batmen carry their packs for them!"
Note this sad excuse for vehicular armor. Its a retrofit armor plate used by the marines to protect the rear compartment without reinforcing the front drivers cabine. The impact is obvious to the casual observer. The Level II armor simply isn't enough for the current conflict. This means that roughly 25,000 Level II armored vehicles simply have to be removed or replaced from the field.
RIGZONE - Saudi, OPEC Willing to Supply Oil Market Shortfall - Delegate
RIGZONE - Saudi, OPEC Willing to Supply Oil Market Shortfall - Delegate: "Top oil producer Saudi Arabia and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is 'willing and able' to meet any shortfall in the global oil market from BP PLC's (BP) Alaskan oil field closure, a senior OPEC delegate told Dow Jones Newswires Monday.
'Saudi Arabia and OPEC is able and willing to supply what the oil market needs if there's a shortage,' the delegate said.
U.S. oil prices jumped over $1 a barrel to over $76/bbl Monday after BP said it was indefinitely shutting in 400,000 barrels a day of its north slope output in Alaska.
This equates to around 8% of U.S. domestic crude production and comes at a time when global oil supplies are already tight.
The U.S. Department of Energy said it would consider loaning oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to address supply concerns in Alaska from BP's shutdown.
Earlier Monday, the deputy executive director of the International Energy Agency Bill Ramsay said high oil prices could prompt producers with spare capacity such as Saudi Arabia to release more oil onto the market.
In April, Saudi Arabia reduced its oil output around 400,000 b/d to 9.1 million b/d citing a drop in demand and is producing around the same amount now. It wouldn't take much time for the Kingdom to ramp up supplies if demand rose, Ramsay added. "
'Saudi Arabia and OPEC is able and willing to supply what the oil market needs if there's a shortage,' the delegate said.
U.S. oil prices jumped over $1 a barrel to over $76/bbl Monday after BP said it was indefinitely shutting in 400,000 barrels a day of its north slope output in Alaska.
This equates to around 8% of U.S. domestic crude production and comes at a time when global oil supplies are already tight.
The U.S. Department of Energy said it would consider loaning oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to address supply concerns in Alaska from BP's shutdown.
Earlier Monday, the deputy executive director of the International Energy Agency Bill Ramsay said high oil prices could prompt producers with spare capacity such as Saudi Arabia to release more oil onto the market.
In April, Saudi Arabia reduced its oil output around 400,000 b/d to 9.1 million b/d citing a drop in demand and is producing around the same amount now. It wouldn't take much time for the Kingdom to ramp up supplies if demand rose, Ramsay added. "
FBI Searching For 11 Egyptian Students, 'No Threat' Associated With Men Who Disappeared After Arriving In U.S. - CBS News
FBI Searching For 11 Egyptian Students, 'No Threat' Associated With Men Who Disappeared After Arriving In U.S. - CBS News: "(AP) Eleven Egyptian students who arrived in the United States last month are being sought by authorities after failing to turn up for an exchange program at Montana State University.
The Egyptian men were among a group of 17 students who arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York from Cairo on July 29 with valid visas, according to U.S. authorities and university officials.
The other six have arrived at the Bozeman, Mont., campus for a monthlong program on English language instruction and U.S. history and culture, university spokeswoman Cathy Conover said.
When the 11 didn't turn up by the end of the last week, the FBI issued a lookout to state and local law enforcement, said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko. "...
The Egyptian men were among a group of 17 students who arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York from Cairo on July 29 with valid visas, according to U.S. authorities and university officials.
The other six have arrived at the Bozeman, Mont., campus for a monthlong program on English language instruction and U.S. history and culture, university spokeswoman Cathy Conover said.
When the 11 didn't turn up by the end of the last week, the FBI issued a lookout to state and local law enforcement, said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko. "...
Daily Kos: The bankruptcy of high-cost weapons strategy
Daily Kos: The bankruptcy of high-cost weapons strategy: "After some initial confusion, the world press now seems to grasp that the current war in Lebanon is not your grandmother's insurgency, in which the guerrillas use crude weapons against the much more sophisticated weapons of the occupiers.
What we are seeing unfold is the advantageous use of cheap high-tech weapons against expensive high-tech weapons. If America and Israel are to retain their military advantages over potential adversaries, they need to pay close attention to these developments. Let's take a closer look at why dependency on expensive weapons is becoming a losing game.
ANKOSS's diary :: ::
1. Effective high-tech weaponry does not have to be high-cost. The rocket launchers Hezbollah is using to destroy Israeli armor, with a 20% success rate, cost about $500. A Merkava main battle tank costs about $2,000,000. If it takes ten RPG-29 rockets to destroy a Merkava, you are $2,995,000 ahead.
2. High-cost weapons tend to perform poorly, because they are usually the products of large and badly managed projects subject to many forms of political and managerial mischief. Smaller weapons projects are easier to cancel if they don't succeed, and successful small projects are easier to copy.
3. High-cost weapons seem to distort the behaviors of their owners. The vast budgets expended on selling these weapons often give their buyers a mistaken sense of invincibility.
4. High-cost weapons cannot be produced in large numbers, and thus they often cannot counter large quantities of cheaper high-tech weapons. (A prototype ground-based laser system has demonstrated the ability to shoot down Katyusha rockets, but it is too expensive to deploy everywhere there is a Katyusha threat).
In summary, Hezbollah is showing the world that many vaunted high-cost weapons can be defeated by much cheaper high-tech arms. Unfortunately, both the US and Israel are saddled with commitments to many costly weapons system that may deliver only bankruptcy and embarrassment on the battlefield.
What we are seeing unfold is the advantageous use of cheap high-tech weapons against expensive high-tech weapons. If America and Israel are to retain their military advantages over potential adversaries, they need to pay close attention to these developments. Let's take a closer look at why dependency on expensive weapons is becoming a losing game.
ANKOSS's diary :: ::
1. Effective high-tech weaponry does not have to be high-cost. The rocket launchers Hezbollah is using to destroy Israeli armor, with a 20% success rate, cost about $500. A Merkava main battle tank costs about $2,000,000. If it takes ten RPG-29 rockets to destroy a Merkava, you are $2,995,000 ahead.
2. High-cost weapons tend to perform poorly, because they are usually the products of large and badly managed projects subject to many forms of political and managerial mischief. Smaller weapons projects are easier to cancel if they don't succeed, and successful small projects are easier to copy.
3. High-cost weapons seem to distort the behaviors of their owners. The vast budgets expended on selling these weapons often give their buyers a mistaken sense of invincibility.
4. High-cost weapons cannot be produced in large numbers, and thus they often cannot counter large quantities of cheaper high-tech weapons. (A prototype ground-based laser system has demonstrated the ability to shoot down Katyusha rockets, but it is too expensive to deploy everywhere there is a Katyusha threat).
In summary, Hezbollah is showing the world that many vaunted high-cost weapons can be defeated by much cheaper high-tech arms. Unfortunately, both the US and Israel are saddled with commitments to many costly weapons system that may deliver only bankruptcy and embarrassment on the battlefield.
US spy planes help locate Abu Sayyaf militants
Gulfnews: US spy planes help locate Abu Sayyaf militants: "Manila: Drones, or unmanned spy planes operated by US personnel, are helping Filipino soldiers find the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu, local officials in the island said.
Local officials and residents claim seeing US spy planes flying off from their bases in the island, apparently to aid government forces in their search for a militant group which had been blamed for a string of kidnappings and bomb attacks in Sulu, Basilan and the Zamboanga peninsula.
A local official said a handful of US troops, who had been in Sulu since early this year on a 'humanitarian' mission, were not directly involved in the ongoing fighting in the island. 'The US government is just providing the hardware and capability to help Philippine troops neutralise the Abu Sayyaf,' the official said.
The US government had earlier been reported to have used Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs last year in Maguindanao. Government forces had been engaged in combat with the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu since early last week.
Meanwhile, President Gloria Arroyo yesterday commended the armed forces for 'gaining ground and pushing ahead in its offensive' against terrorists in southern Philippines. "...
Local officials and residents claim seeing US spy planes flying off from their bases in the island, apparently to aid government forces in their search for a militant group which had been blamed for a string of kidnappings and bomb attacks in Sulu, Basilan and the Zamboanga peninsula.
A local official said a handful of US troops, who had been in Sulu since early this year on a 'humanitarian' mission, were not directly involved in the ongoing fighting in the island. 'The US government is just providing the hardware and capability to help Philippine troops neutralise the Abu Sayyaf,' the official said.
The US government had earlier been reported to have used Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs last year in Maguindanao. Government forces had been engaged in combat with the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu since early last week.
Meanwhile, President Gloria Arroyo yesterday commended the armed forces for 'gaining ground and pushing ahead in its offensive' against terrorists in southern Philippines. "...
How Syria, Iran armed Hezbollah
TheStar.com - How Syria, Iran armed Hezbollah: "JERUSALEM�On Dec. 26, 2003, a massive earthquake levelled most of Bam, in southeastern Iran, killing 35,000 people. Transport planes carrying aid poured in from everywhere, including Syria.
According to Israeli military intelligence, the planes returned to Syria carrying sophisticated weapons, including long-range Zelzal missiles, which the Syrians passed on to Hezbollah, the Shiite militia group in southern Lebanon."
As the Israeli army struggles for a fourth week to defeat Hezbollah before a ceasefire, the shipments are just one indication of how the militia has improved its arsenal and strategies in the six years since Israel abruptly ended its occupation of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah is a militia trained like an army and equipped like a state, and its fighters "are nothing like Hamas or the Palestinians," said an Israeli soldier who just returned from Lebanon.
"They are trained and highly qualified," he said, equipped with flak jackets, night-vision goggles, good communications and sometimes Israeli uniforms and ammunition. "All of us were kind of surprised."
Much attention has been focused on Hezbollah's stockpile of Syrian- and Iranian-made missiles, some 3,000 of which have already fallen on Israel. More than 58 Israelis have died from them — including 12 reservist soldiers, who were gathered at a kibbutz at Kfar Giladi in northern Israel yesterday when rockets packed with anti-personnel ball bearings exploded among them, and three killed last night in another rocket barrage on Haifa.
But Israel says Iran and Syria also used those six years to provide satellite communications and some of the world's best infantry weapons, including modern, Russian-made anti-tank weapons and Semtex plastic explosives, as well as the training required to use them effectively against Israeli armour.
It is Hezbollah's skilful use of these weapons — in particular, wire-guided and laser-guided anti-tank missiles, with double, phased explosive warheads and a range of about three kilometres — that has caused most of the casualties to Israeli forces.
Hezbollah's Russian-made anti-tank missiles, designed to penetrate armour, have damaged or destroyed Israeli vehicles, including its most modern, the Merkava, on about 20 per cent of their hits, Israeli commanders at the front said.
Hezbollah has also used anti-tank missiles, including the less modern Sagger, to fire from a distance into houses in which Israeli troops are sheltered, with a first explosion cracking the typical cement block wall and the second going off inside.
"They use them like artillery to hit houses," said Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, until recently the Israeli army's director of intelligence analysis. "They can use them accurately up to even three kilometres, and they go through a wall like through the armour of a tank."
Hezbollah fighters use tunnels to quickly emerge out of the ground, fire a shoulder-held anti-tank missile, and then disappear again, much the way Chechen rebels used the sewer system of Grozny to attack Russian armoured columns.
"We know what they have and how they work," Kuperwasser said. "But we don't know where all the tunnels are. So they can achieve tactical surprise."
The anti-tank missiles are the "main fear" for Israeli troops, said David Ben-Nun, 24, an enlisted man who just returned from a week in Lebanon. The troops do not linger long in any house because of hidden missile crews. "You can't even see them," he said.
The Israelis say that with modern communications and a network of tunnels, storage rooms, barracks and booby traps laid under the hilly landscape, Hezbollah's training, tactics and modern weaponry explain why they are moving with caution.
Hezbollah's fighters number between 2,000 and 4,000, a small army that is aided by a larger circle of part-timers who provide logistics and storage of weapons in houses and civilian buildings.
The Israelis say the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has helped teach Hezbollah how to organize itself like an army, with special units for intelligence, anti-tank warfare, explosives, engineering, communications and rocket launching. They have also taught Hezbollah how to aim rockets, make "improvised explosive devices" and, the Israelis say, even how to fire the C-802, a ground-to-ship missile that Israel never knew Hezbollah possessed.
According to intelligence officials in Washington, Iranian air force officers have made repeated trips to Lebanon to train Hezbollah to aim and fire Iranian missiles. The Americans say there is no evidence they are directing Hezbollah's attacks.
According to Israeli military intelligence, the planes returned to Syria carrying sophisticated weapons, including long-range Zelzal missiles, which the Syrians passed on to Hezbollah, the Shiite militia group in southern Lebanon."
As the Israeli army struggles for a fourth week to defeat Hezbollah before a ceasefire, the shipments are just one indication of how the militia has improved its arsenal and strategies in the six years since Israel abruptly ended its occupation of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah is a militia trained like an army and equipped like a state, and its fighters "are nothing like Hamas or the Palestinians," said an Israeli soldier who just returned from Lebanon.
"They are trained and highly qualified," he said, equipped with flak jackets, night-vision goggles, good communications and sometimes Israeli uniforms and ammunition. "All of us were kind of surprised."
Much attention has been focused on Hezbollah's stockpile of Syrian- and Iranian-made missiles, some 3,000 of which have already fallen on Israel. More than 58 Israelis have died from them — including 12 reservist soldiers, who were gathered at a kibbutz at Kfar Giladi in northern Israel yesterday when rockets packed with anti-personnel ball bearings exploded among them, and three killed last night in another rocket barrage on Haifa.
But Israel says Iran and Syria also used those six years to provide satellite communications and some of the world's best infantry weapons, including modern, Russian-made anti-tank weapons and Semtex plastic explosives, as well as the training required to use them effectively against Israeli armour.
It is Hezbollah's skilful use of these weapons — in particular, wire-guided and laser-guided anti-tank missiles, with double, phased explosive warheads and a range of about three kilometres — that has caused most of the casualties to Israeli forces.
Hezbollah's Russian-made anti-tank missiles, designed to penetrate armour, have damaged or destroyed Israeli vehicles, including its most modern, the Merkava, on about 20 per cent of their hits, Israeli commanders at the front said.
Hezbollah has also used anti-tank missiles, including the less modern Sagger, to fire from a distance into houses in which Israeli troops are sheltered, with a first explosion cracking the typical cement block wall and the second going off inside.
"They use them like artillery to hit houses," said Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, until recently the Israeli army's director of intelligence analysis. "They can use them accurately up to even three kilometres, and they go through a wall like through the armour of a tank."
Hezbollah fighters use tunnels to quickly emerge out of the ground, fire a shoulder-held anti-tank missile, and then disappear again, much the way Chechen rebels used the sewer system of Grozny to attack Russian armoured columns.
"We know what they have and how they work," Kuperwasser said. "But we don't know where all the tunnels are. So they can achieve tactical surprise."
The anti-tank missiles are the "main fear" for Israeli troops, said David Ben-Nun, 24, an enlisted man who just returned from a week in Lebanon. The troops do not linger long in any house because of hidden missile crews. "You can't even see them," he said.
The Israelis say that with modern communications and a network of tunnels, storage rooms, barracks and booby traps laid under the hilly landscape, Hezbollah's training, tactics and modern weaponry explain why they are moving with caution.
Hezbollah's fighters number between 2,000 and 4,000, a small army that is aided by a larger circle of part-timers who provide logistics and storage of weapons in houses and civilian buildings.
The Israelis say the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has helped teach Hezbollah how to organize itself like an army, with special units for intelligence, anti-tank warfare, explosives, engineering, communications and rocket launching. They have also taught Hezbollah how to aim rockets, make "improvised explosive devices" and, the Israelis say, even how to fire the C-802, a ground-to-ship missile that Israel never knew Hezbollah possessed.
According to intelligence officials in Washington, Iranian air force officers have made repeated trips to Lebanon to train Hezbollah to aim and fire Iranian missiles. The Americans say there is no evidence they are directing Hezbollah's attacks.
Soldiers 'hit golf balls before going out to kill family'
Guardian Unlimited Special reports Soldiers 'hit golf balls before going out to kill family': "US soldiers, accused of raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, drank alcohol and hit golf balls before the attack. One of them grilled chicken wings afterwards, a criminal investigator told a US military hearing yesterday.
Benjamin Bierce interviewed one of the accused, Specialist James Barker who made a written statement in which he recorded graphic and brutal sexual details of the alleged assault on March 12.
Mr Bierce was testifying on the second day of the hearing to determine whether five soldiers must stand trial for the rape and killing of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, her parents and five-year-old sister in the town of Mahmudiya."
It is among the worst in a series of cases of alleged misconduct. Specialist Barker's signed statement was submitted in evidence. He is accused, along with Sergeant Paul Cortez, Private Jesse Spielman and Private Bryan Howard of rape and murder. Another soldier, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is accused of failing to report the attack but is not alleged to have participated.
Former private, Steven Green, was discharged from the army for a "personality disorder" after the incident and was arrested in North Carolina in June on rape and murder charges. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
Yesterday, Private Justin Watt testified that Private Howard told him, before the incident, that Private Green, Sergeant Cortez and Specialist Barker had planned to rape a girl, and Private Howard was to be the lookout. Another investigator, Michael Hood, told the hearing that he interviewed Private Spielman, who denied shooting or having sex with anyone. He was given a lie-detector test and passed.
According to Specialist Barker's statement, Private Green not only raped the girl but also shot her and her family after telling his comrades repeatedly he wanted to kill some Iraqis.
Mr Bierce said that on the day of the attack, Specialist Barker, Sergeant Cortez, Private Spielman and Private Green had been playing cards and drinking Iraqi whisky mixed with an energy drink. They practised hitting golf balls, Specialist Barker's statement said.
Specialist Barker made it clear Private Green was very persistent about killing some Iraqis. At some point they decided to go to the house of the girl they had seen passing by their checkpoint. Specialist Barker also said that when they arrived at the house, the father and the girl were outside. Private Spielman grabbed the girl while Private Green seized her father and took them into the house.
Private Green took the father, mother and the younger sister into the bedroom, while the girl remained in the living room. Specialist Barker wrote that Sergeant Cortez pushed the girl to the floor, and tore off her underwear. Sergeant Cortez appeared to rape her, according to the statement. Specialist Barker then tried to rape the girl, Mr Bierce said. Suddenly, the group heard gunshots. Private Green came out of the bedroom holding an AK-47 rifle and declared: "They're all dead. I just killed them," the statement said.
Private Green put the gun down, then raped the girl while Sergeant Cortez held her down. Specialist Barker claims Private Green picked up the AK-47 and shot the girl once, paused, then shot her several more times. Specialist Barker said he got a lamp and poured kerosene on the girl. She was set on fire, but he does not say who did it. He does not say if Private Howard or Private Spielman took part in the rape. The statement says he grilled chicken wings back at their checkpoint.
The case has increased demands for changes to an agreement that exempts US soldiers from prosecution in Iraqi courts. Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has demanded an independent investigation.
[bth: revolting. where were the officers??]
Benjamin Bierce interviewed one of the accused, Specialist James Barker who made a written statement in which he recorded graphic and brutal sexual details of the alleged assault on March 12.
Mr Bierce was testifying on the second day of the hearing to determine whether five soldiers must stand trial for the rape and killing of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, her parents and five-year-old sister in the town of Mahmudiya."
It is among the worst in a series of cases of alleged misconduct. Specialist Barker's signed statement was submitted in evidence. He is accused, along with Sergeant Paul Cortez, Private Jesse Spielman and Private Bryan Howard of rape and murder. Another soldier, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is accused of failing to report the attack but is not alleged to have participated.
Former private, Steven Green, was discharged from the army for a "personality disorder" after the incident and was arrested in North Carolina in June on rape and murder charges. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
Yesterday, Private Justin Watt testified that Private Howard told him, before the incident, that Private Green, Sergeant Cortez and Specialist Barker had planned to rape a girl, and Private Howard was to be the lookout. Another investigator, Michael Hood, told the hearing that he interviewed Private Spielman, who denied shooting or having sex with anyone. He was given a lie-detector test and passed.
According to Specialist Barker's statement, Private Green not only raped the girl but also shot her and her family after telling his comrades repeatedly he wanted to kill some Iraqis.
Mr Bierce said that on the day of the attack, Specialist Barker, Sergeant Cortez, Private Spielman and Private Green had been playing cards and drinking Iraqi whisky mixed with an energy drink. They practised hitting golf balls, Specialist Barker's statement said.
Specialist Barker made it clear Private Green was very persistent about killing some Iraqis. At some point they decided to go to the house of the girl they had seen passing by their checkpoint. Specialist Barker also said that when they arrived at the house, the father and the girl were outside. Private Spielman grabbed the girl while Private Green seized her father and took them into the house.
Private Green took the father, mother and the younger sister into the bedroom, while the girl remained in the living room. Specialist Barker wrote that Sergeant Cortez pushed the girl to the floor, and tore off her underwear. Sergeant Cortez appeared to rape her, according to the statement. Specialist Barker then tried to rape the girl, Mr Bierce said. Suddenly, the group heard gunshots. Private Green came out of the bedroom holding an AK-47 rifle and declared: "They're all dead. I just killed them," the statement said.
Private Green put the gun down, then raped the girl while Sergeant Cortez held her down. Specialist Barker claims Private Green picked up the AK-47 and shot the girl once, paused, then shot her several more times. Specialist Barker said he got a lamp and poured kerosene on the girl. She was set on fire, but he does not say who did it. He does not say if Private Howard or Private Spielman took part in the rape. The statement says he grilled chicken wings back at their checkpoint.
The case has increased demands for changes to an agreement that exempts US soldiers from prosecution in Iraqi courts. Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has demanded an independent investigation.
[bth: revolting. where were the officers??]
Iraq PM Criticizes U.S.-Led Attack
World- iraq-pm-criticizes-us-led-attack - AOL News: "BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq 's prime minister sharply criticized a U.S.-Iraqi attack Monday on a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad, breaking with his American partners on security tactics as the United States launches a major operation to secure the capital.
More than 30 people were killed or found dead Monday, including 10 paramilitary commandos slain when a suicide driver detonated a truck at the regional headquarters of the Shiite-led Interior Ministry police in a mostly Sunni city north of Baghdad.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's criticism followed a pre-dawn air and ground attack on an area of Sadr City, stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.
Police said three people, including a woman and a child, were killed in the raid, which the U.S. command said was aimed at 'individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities.'
One U.S. soldier was wounded, the U.S. said.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, said he was 'very angered and pained' by the operation, warning that it could undermine his efforts toward national reconciliation.
'Reconciliation cannot go hand in hand with operations that violate the rights of citizens this way,' al-Maliki said in a statement on government television. 'This operation used weapons that are unreasonable to detain someone - like using planes.'
He apologized to the Iraqi people for the operation and said 'this won't happen again.'
Friction between the U.S. military and the Iraqi government emerged as the U.S. military kicks off a military operation to secure Baghdad streets after a surge in Sunni-Shiite violence - much of it blamed on al-Sadr's militia.
Al-Sadr has emerged as a major figure in the majority Shiite community and a pillar of support for al-Maliki. The prime minister's remarks underscore the difficulties facing the Americans in bringing order to Baghdad at a time when Iraqis are increasingly resentful of the presence of foreign troops.
U.S. officials are equally frustrated by the slow pace of reconciliation and what they feel is the reluctance of politicians to reach consensus among Iraq 's religious and ethnic groups on the future of the nation.
After the Sadr City attack, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, met with the top U.S. commander in Iraq , Gen. George W. Casey Jr., to discuss security operations in Baghdad. Talabani said he told Casey "it is in no one's interest to have a confrontation" with al-Sadr's movement.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Casey made no mention of al-Sadr but said he had discussed plans with Talabani to bring "fundamental change to the security situation in Baghdad."
Casey said he hoped the new operation would "change the situation significantly prior to Ramadan," which begins in late September.
"To do that, it will take the cooperation not only between the Iraqi security forces and the coalition but with all of the people in Baghdad working together to combat terrorism," Casey said. "All the security operations are designed to protect the population. And if the people of Baghdad can cooperate with the security forces, that can happen very quickly."
But the public position taken by al-Maliki and Talabani signaled serious differences between Iraqi politicians and both U.S. and Iraqi military officials on how to restore order and deal with armed groups, many of which have links to political parties.
U.S. officials have spoken of morale problems in senior ranks of the Iraqi security services because of what they believe is insufficient political support by the country's divided civilian leadership....
More than 30 people were killed or found dead Monday, including 10 paramilitary commandos slain when a suicide driver detonated a truck at the regional headquarters of the Shiite-led Interior Ministry police in a mostly Sunni city north of Baghdad.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's criticism followed a pre-dawn air and ground attack on an area of Sadr City, stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.
Police said three people, including a woman and a child, were killed in the raid, which the U.S. command said was aimed at 'individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities.'
One U.S. soldier was wounded, the U.S. said.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, said he was 'very angered and pained' by the operation, warning that it could undermine his efforts toward national reconciliation.
'Reconciliation cannot go hand in hand with operations that violate the rights of citizens this way,' al-Maliki said in a statement on government television. 'This operation used weapons that are unreasonable to detain someone - like using planes.'
He apologized to the Iraqi people for the operation and said 'this won't happen again.'
Friction between the U.S. military and the Iraqi government emerged as the U.S. military kicks off a military operation to secure Baghdad streets after a surge in Sunni-Shiite violence - much of it blamed on al-Sadr's militia.
Al-Sadr has emerged as a major figure in the majority Shiite community and a pillar of support for al-Maliki. The prime minister's remarks underscore the difficulties facing the Americans in bringing order to Baghdad at a time when Iraqis are increasingly resentful of the presence of foreign troops.
U.S. officials are equally frustrated by the slow pace of reconciliation and what they feel is the reluctance of politicians to reach consensus among Iraq 's religious and ethnic groups on the future of the nation.
After the Sadr City attack, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, met with the top U.S. commander in Iraq , Gen. George W. Casey Jr., to discuss security operations in Baghdad. Talabani said he told Casey "it is in no one's interest to have a confrontation" with al-Sadr's movement.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Casey made no mention of al-Sadr but said he had discussed plans with Talabani to bring "fundamental change to the security situation in Baghdad."
Casey said he hoped the new operation would "change the situation significantly prior to Ramadan," which begins in late September.
"To do that, it will take the cooperation not only between the Iraqi security forces and the coalition but with all of the people in Baghdad working together to combat terrorism," Casey said. "All the security operations are designed to protect the population. And if the people of Baghdad can cooperate with the security forces, that can happen very quickly."
But the public position taken by al-Maliki and Talabani signaled serious differences between Iraqi politicians and both U.S. and Iraqi military officials on how to restore order and deal with armed groups, many of which have links to political parties.
U.S. officials have spoken of morale problems in senior ranks of the Iraqi security services because of what they believe is insufficient political support by the country's divided civilian leadership....
Our Veterans' Missing Medals - New York Times
Our Veterans� Missing Medals - New York Times: "Captain Brian Chontosh is the kind of soldier who, in years past, would have received a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue.
As a young lieutenant in 2003, he and his platoon were ambushed near Baghdad. Machine gun fire, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades spewed from every direction.
Lieutenant Chontosh ordered his Humvee directly into an enemy machine-gun position, where his gunner destroyed the nest. He then advanced on a trench, where he exited his vehicle and scattered enemy fighters. After his ammunition was depleted, he twice picked up an enemy's rifle and continued."
By the time the smoke cleared, Lieutenant Chontosh had killed more than 20 insurgents and saved the lives of dozens in his platoon. For his incredible courage, he was awarded the Navy Cross, the second-highest award given to Marines.
Second highest?
For reasons I can’t fathom, the Pentagon top brass don’t feel that our heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan are especially meritorious. President Bush has yet to award a single Medal of Honor to a living veteran of combat in either place. (Only one has been given posthumously.)
During the Vietnam War, 245 Medals of Honor were awarded. If President Bush awarded the medals at roughly the same rate for service in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than two dozen would have been bestowed by now.
When I called the Department of Defense to inquire, a public affairs officer said he wondered whether our fighting style might be less risky today than it was in Vietnam. How lame. Fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has been brutal, and many of our troops have performed with incredible valor. Anyone remember Falluja?
This is more than an issue of justice denied. Tales of courage inspire present and future warriors. They certainly motivated my service in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. Today, two of my four sons are good bets to join the Marines or Special Forces. I don’t want them to look to my generation for heroes, but to their contemporaries.
I hope President Bush will order a review of heroic acts performed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of our freedom. Not another minute should be lost in bestowing honors that are overdue.
Joseph A. Kinney is writing a book on the making of America’s soldiers.
As a young lieutenant in 2003, he and his platoon were ambushed near Baghdad. Machine gun fire, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades spewed from every direction.
Lieutenant Chontosh ordered his Humvee directly into an enemy machine-gun position, where his gunner destroyed the nest. He then advanced on a trench, where he exited his vehicle and scattered enemy fighters. After his ammunition was depleted, he twice picked up an enemy's rifle and continued."
By the time the smoke cleared, Lieutenant Chontosh had killed more than 20 insurgents and saved the lives of dozens in his platoon. For his incredible courage, he was awarded the Navy Cross, the second-highest award given to Marines.
Second highest?
For reasons I can’t fathom, the Pentagon top brass don’t feel that our heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan are especially meritorious. President Bush has yet to award a single Medal of Honor to a living veteran of combat in either place. (Only one has been given posthumously.)
During the Vietnam War, 245 Medals of Honor were awarded. If President Bush awarded the medals at roughly the same rate for service in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than two dozen would have been bestowed by now.
When I called the Department of Defense to inquire, a public affairs officer said he wondered whether our fighting style might be less risky today than it was in Vietnam. How lame. Fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has been brutal, and many of our troops have performed with incredible valor. Anyone remember Falluja?
This is more than an issue of justice denied. Tales of courage inspire present and future warriors. They certainly motivated my service in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. Today, two of my four sons are good bets to join the Marines or Special Forces. I don’t want them to look to my generation for heroes, but to their contemporaries.
I hope President Bush will order a review of heroic acts performed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of our freedom. Not another minute should be lost in bestowing honors that are overdue.
Joseph A. Kinney is writing a book on the making of America’s soldiers.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Crushing the Freedom of Information
Wayne Madsen Report - Home: "Aug. 7, 2006 -- On July 17, WMR reported that the Pentagon is paying Dr. Jeffrey Addicott's St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas, the million dollars to find out new ways for the federal government to classify previously open government information in the name of protecting it from access by 'terrorists.'' Under a contract that is yet to be signed, Addicott, a former Pentagon counsel to the US Special Forces, will research ways to curtail the federal and individual state freedom of information and open government laws. WMR has learned that the money for Addicott was earmarked in the defense appropriations bill by Texas Senator John Cornyn, a graduate of the St. Mary's law school."
Cornyn, a strong Bush loyalist, has flipped 180 degrees from past support for increasing the strength of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In March 2005, Cornyn and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the "Faster FOIA Act," a bill that would have created a sixteen-member advisory commission tasked with suggesting ways to decrease delays in the processing of FOIA requests.
Cornyn, a strong Bush loyalist, has flipped 180 degrees from past support for increasing the strength of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In March 2005, Cornyn and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the "Faster FOIA Act," a bill that would have created a sixteen-member advisory commission tasked with suggesting ways to decrease delays in the processing of FOIA requests.
Abandoned On The Battlefield - An Earlier Episode
: "By Mike Gifford
When I read Roger Charles' "Abandoned in the Killing Fields"(6/23/2006) a few weeks back, I felt compelled to respond.
First of all, is there some imaginary place in Iraq that's completely free of danger? Are you kidding me? Newsflash-Iraq is a hot LZ. With that reasoning, I guess we should send all of our MEDEVAC chopper pilots home."
And second, we’re in serious trouble if we think we can fight this war with decisions made by leaders who’ve perfected the art of keeping a low profile, and who seek protection from these arbitrary, inflexible “universal military policies” that can be robotically applied in any given tactical situation—they’ll just let those who were stupid enough to join the military in some kind of combat capacity take the risks, but they’ll be the ones calling the shots when it comes to their lives and wellbeing.
And it’s at the intersection of the two on the battlefield—between those who actually fight and those who “go through the motions”—where the difference between life and death is found.
In my mind, there is no more critical mission in war—outside of the destruction of our enemy—than assisting a wounded comrade. To think that someone—anyone—would hold up a mission to rescue one of their own because of the potential for enemy action is beyond me.
And it’s not because I’m some naïve Hollywood-type that believes that the good guys should always charge in against all odds, shoot their way out and hope for the best. As a military police soldier in Iraq—one who’s responded to several incidents involving enemy fire—I was witness to very successful attempts to retrieve our injured brothers and sisters from certain death, those where we carefully weighed the risks and dangers, just as I was to those that were a complete and utter procedural failure. In all cases, those giving the orders to stay or go—and their perception of their role in this war—were the deciding factor.
First and foremost, I have a tremendous amount of respect for our helicopter pilots. One of our best friends in Iraq were the good men of Pegasus Troop, the Third Armored Cavalry’s (3rd ACR) aviation assets. They were the petrol-fueled angels on our shoulders who often came to our rescue when we found ourselves in tactically challenging situations—I’ll never forget them racing over our heads, their Kiowa’s only about 50 meters off the ground, M4’s at the ready (this was mostly during the first few months of post-war Iraq, before they were equipped with Hellfires and .50 calibers). During our downtime, we became very close with their pilots, and learned a valuable lesson during our time there—if we needed something, don’t go through “the switchboard;” the unofficial name for the tactical operations center (TOC) that was usually manned by a staff officer with no real experience. If we really needed help, we’d call Pegasus directly on their internal channel.
I credit Pegasus’ bravery—and their insistence that we do business the old fashioned way—in helping us get through our extended tour in one piece (note that Kiowa’s aren’t dispatched for MEDEVAC flights, but I wanted to stress the bravery of these men and women who came to our aid at great personal risk).
With that said, we’ll now put the focus on those who make the decision whether or not to fly, because, simply, that’s where the problems are. As I’m reading through the responses to “Abandoned,” looking at the procedures for a MEDEVAC flight request, I’m wondering how anyone who’s wounded in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan has a chance of survival. With line units—those who work in the field and have developed quicker ways to communicate with each other—the chances are much better. But I’d like to say a prayer right now for those whose lives depend on the speed and accuracy of those who’ve never been in a combat situation in their lives, and worse yet, insist on their involvement in every tactical decision that’s made.
My unit was lucky. When the shit hit the fan, we usually could count on the guys from the ACR back at the TOC, as well as the pilots that flew the birds, to weed through the procedural nonsense and get us some help. We’d worked with them so often that “by the book” became “by the soldier” in the way we handled our business. However, one incident in the September of 2003 really made my stomach turn, and completely destroyed my faith in our staff-level leadership.
When it came down to the wire, it was up to us to help ourselves, because no one was coming. MEDEVAC choppers couldn’t be dispatched, because a couple of guys with AKs were too much of a threat.
It would’ve been nice to know that prior to the mission.
I’ll set the stage. My unit, the 94th Military Police Company (USARNH) had a platoon (second) working the highways around Ramadi in the fall of 2003. Second platoon’s exhaustive 24-7 schedule kept the main supply routes (MSRs) around Ramadi clear of IEDs and ambushes (other than those perpetrated against them) for almost 6 straight months. They’d seen plenty of action, and anyone looking to make trouble on that road was in for a deadly surprise. At the time, my platoon (first) was working the area between Ramadi and Al Asad Airbase, with a focus on the town of Hit, with another two squads working the Ar Rutbah region out west. For some unknown reason, the staff at the 3/3 ACR decided it would be best, after 5 months of working our own areas, if we were to swap positions, “for better leadership opportunities within the MP corps.”
My response to that ludicrous REMF rationale is another story all together. However, after an extensive argument involving the danger of swapping two MP units that knew their areas cold—literally down to the last pothole—and had proven their effectiveness, first platoon would take the 30-mile stretch of road around Ramadi. Second platoon, led by 1LT Chris Lee, would take our route.
Within a few days, an IED exploded during a night patrol on the main highway that cut through Ramadi, critically injuring two of our soldiers. Sergeant Curtis Mills had shrapnel tear into his leg and shoulder as the device violently detonated less than three yards from his humvee, crippling him for life.
Specialist Chris Kotch, Mills’ gunner, had metal from the exploding 155mm artillery round rip into his neck, severing his carotid artery. He’d man his gun until he passed out a few moments later. Sergeant Mills, despite a compound fracture to his shoulder and substantial injuries to his leg, kept his composure long enough to radio the front humvee with the situation.
Thanks to the competence and quick thinking of his squad—most notably Staff Sergeant Jason Dudley, Sergeants Chris Hamilton, Rick DiTrapano and Bryan Chabot, as well as Specialist Steve Thibeault—first aid was immediately given as they sped out of the kill zone. The squad pulled up the road a few hundred yards, within small arms range, and continued with their life-saving efforts. Mills was banged up badly, and Kotch was quickly losing consciousness.
As soon as a basic perimeter was established, Rick called in the MEDEVAC request. Within seconds, it was denied. The area was still considered “too dangerous” to bring the Black Hawk helicopter—one of the most technologically advanced, state-of-the-art killing machines ever designed—into. In a moment of both sheer bravery and common sense, our guys prepared the badly wounded men for movement and radioed back to the TOC that they were inbound with two injured soldiers—get the helicopters ready for an evacuation. If the Black Hawks couldn’t get to them, they’d get to the choppers. But in order to get back, they’d have to turn around and drive straight through the kill zone. Again.
In a barrage of gunfire, first squad of the 1/94th MPs rocketed down the dark stretch of highway, spraying the area around the ambush site with SAW and MK19 fire. Another IED would explode just as they passed, narrowly missing the last vehicle.
Both men made their flights and would eventually recover, although Kotch actually died twice from blood loss on his chopper ride to the combat support hospital. Today, Mills often needs a cane to get around, but after seeing how a piece of shrapnel had put a golf ball-sized dent in his Kevlar helmet, he’s thanking his lucky stars. All of the men involved did tremendous work, and would receive awards for their actions.
Although Hamilton, DiTrapano and Thibeault didn’t receive the level of the award recommended, the real reward was in knowing that both of their friends would live to see their families again.
In the end, the bravery and common sense of a few Reservists, patrolling in three, 16 year-old unarmored humvees, saved the lives of two men who would’ve otherwise died from a close-range IED explosion. If it weren’t for the quick thinking and courage of five men—the two most important factors in winning a war, by far—the 94th would’ve lost two of its own that September night.
Honestly, I never found out who denied the MEDEVAC request, but almost 3 years later, I still wish I’d looked into it further. At the time, there were plenty of REMFs with the 3/3 ACR whose only real combat time had come from avoiding the occasional mortar on their way to the chow hall for breakfast. But for some reason, it was perfectly acceptable to send unarmored humvees to patrol an area tactically out of control, known for its frequent ambushes, with little air or armor support, only to be set up for failure in the worst possible way, denied MEDEVAC assistance, only to be lead by an armchair warrior with a radio. I knew and had worked with most of the 3/3 staff at that point, and gotten to know them quite well—well enough to second-guess their decision not to send a MEDEVAC chopper to help us. After a brief investigation, I came to the conclusion that the decision had to have been made by someone who had no idea what was going down on the roads around Ramadi. Worse yet, it was made by someone who had never voluntarily gone on a mission outside of the wire, either for the good of—or physically with—the very troops they were charged with protecting.
This wasn’t downtown Mogadishu—it was a small village on the outskirts of Ramadi with plenty of defendable space to land a helicopter. But thanks to some REMF who didn’t want to risk his or her career with a decision much too complex for them to deal with, our guys would have to make due with what they had.
And how they did. Their exceptional tactical abilities, proven in battle, were far more refined than those of some jerk who never bothered to qualify himself as a leader, but was now calling the shots in a life or death situation. My God, it’s the most uncomfortable feeling in the world, entrusting your life with a person who’s never taken a real risk in their lives out of fear or just plain apathy. During our time in Ramadi, we’d go on to receive literally hundreds of orders from staffers concerning the best ways to complete our missions—soldiers who never bothered to join us in a patrol or IED sweep, but who were convinced they were the tactical subject matter experts.
It wasn’t the only incident that we would face. In one of the first major engagements in Al Anbar Province following the war’s official end, an ambush just north of Al Asad airbase would take the life of a major with the SPT/3 (the 3rd ACR’s support squadron, responsible for the movement of supplies from Al Asad Airbase to Haditha, Ramadi and Fallujah). The commander of SPT/3, a female lieutenant colonel, decided it wasn’t necessary to dispatch a QRF to aid in the ambushed convoy. One of our platoons was ready, waiting, and chomping at the bit to give them a hand. But a lieutenant colonel who had the nerve to sew a combat patch onto her right shoulder, who’d never been on a convoy during her tour (to my knowledge), “in command” of arguably one of the safest posts in Iraq (at that time), wouldn’t allow our MPs to respond.
Again, for some unknown reason, it was “too dangerous” for a heavily armed, tactically sound unit to aid some transportation soldiers who’d been attacked and were taking casualties. An understandably upset survivor from the convoy, a specialist who’d organized a counterattack that repelled the enemy (I never got his name), tore into the commander and her ill-fated decision upon his return to Al Asad.
And why didn’t she let them go? Better let a few soldiers die in an ambush than risk the lives of a few more, I guess. After all, this was war, right? Clearly, this woman hadn’t yet had the pleasure of seeing the pink glow of AK47 tracer rounds scream past her face, the working end of a 155mm artillery shell buried on the side of the road, or one of her own injured and in dire need of help.
My dad always said, “When the chips are down, you know who your friends are.” Nowhere is this truer than in combat. I have no doubts that most, if not all, combat soldiers would risk life and limb to rescue a fallen comrade.
But there’s another saying, one more fitting for the US military; “The chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Let the REMFs debate the best ways to cook their lobster tails, how to draft a policy memo on how loud music should be in the chow halls, or deal with the critical issue of where someone should smoke their cigarettes. And that’s fine with me. Everyone has a niche in war, and it doesn’t always involve working on the front lines.
But if you’re a leader who’s raised your right hand, taken the oath, and can’t make a combat decision if it isn’t spelled out for you in some worthless 20-year old manual, just stay out of the way of the men and women who do the real fighting. Go play soldier somewhere else.
Mike Gifford is Director of On Behalf of a Grateful Nation, Inc. a non-profit organization that provides relief for injured military service members, and to the families of those killed in the global war on terror.
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When I read Roger Charles' "Abandoned in the Killing Fields"(6/23/2006) a few weeks back, I felt compelled to respond.
First of all, is there some imaginary place in Iraq that's completely free of danger? Are you kidding me? Newsflash-Iraq is a hot LZ. With that reasoning, I guess we should send all of our MEDEVAC chopper pilots home."
And second, we’re in serious trouble if we think we can fight this war with decisions made by leaders who’ve perfected the art of keeping a low profile, and who seek protection from these arbitrary, inflexible “universal military policies” that can be robotically applied in any given tactical situation—they’ll just let those who were stupid enough to join the military in some kind of combat capacity take the risks, but they’ll be the ones calling the shots when it comes to their lives and wellbeing.
And it’s at the intersection of the two on the battlefield—between those who actually fight and those who “go through the motions”—where the difference between life and death is found.
In my mind, there is no more critical mission in war—outside of the destruction of our enemy—than assisting a wounded comrade. To think that someone—anyone—would hold up a mission to rescue one of their own because of the potential for enemy action is beyond me.
And it’s not because I’m some naïve Hollywood-type that believes that the good guys should always charge in against all odds, shoot their way out and hope for the best. As a military police soldier in Iraq—one who’s responded to several incidents involving enemy fire—I was witness to very successful attempts to retrieve our injured brothers and sisters from certain death, those where we carefully weighed the risks and dangers, just as I was to those that were a complete and utter procedural failure. In all cases, those giving the orders to stay or go—and their perception of their role in this war—were the deciding factor.
First and foremost, I have a tremendous amount of respect for our helicopter pilots. One of our best friends in Iraq were the good men of Pegasus Troop, the Third Armored Cavalry’s (3rd ACR) aviation assets. They were the petrol-fueled angels on our shoulders who often came to our rescue when we found ourselves in tactically challenging situations—I’ll never forget them racing over our heads, their Kiowa’s only about 50 meters off the ground, M4’s at the ready (this was mostly during the first few months of post-war Iraq, before they were equipped with Hellfires and .50 calibers). During our downtime, we became very close with their pilots, and learned a valuable lesson during our time there—if we needed something, don’t go through “the switchboard;” the unofficial name for the tactical operations center (TOC) that was usually manned by a staff officer with no real experience. If we really needed help, we’d call Pegasus directly on their internal channel.
I credit Pegasus’ bravery—and their insistence that we do business the old fashioned way—in helping us get through our extended tour in one piece (note that Kiowa’s aren’t dispatched for MEDEVAC flights, but I wanted to stress the bravery of these men and women who came to our aid at great personal risk).
With that said, we’ll now put the focus on those who make the decision whether or not to fly, because, simply, that’s where the problems are. As I’m reading through the responses to “Abandoned,” looking at the procedures for a MEDEVAC flight request, I’m wondering how anyone who’s wounded in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan has a chance of survival. With line units—those who work in the field and have developed quicker ways to communicate with each other—the chances are much better. But I’d like to say a prayer right now for those whose lives depend on the speed and accuracy of those who’ve never been in a combat situation in their lives, and worse yet, insist on their involvement in every tactical decision that’s made.
My unit was lucky. When the shit hit the fan, we usually could count on the guys from the ACR back at the TOC, as well as the pilots that flew the birds, to weed through the procedural nonsense and get us some help. We’d worked with them so often that “by the book” became “by the soldier” in the way we handled our business. However, one incident in the September of 2003 really made my stomach turn, and completely destroyed my faith in our staff-level leadership.
When it came down to the wire, it was up to us to help ourselves, because no one was coming. MEDEVAC choppers couldn’t be dispatched, because a couple of guys with AKs were too much of a threat.
It would’ve been nice to know that prior to the mission.
I’ll set the stage. My unit, the 94th Military Police Company (USARNH) had a platoon (second) working the highways around Ramadi in the fall of 2003. Second platoon’s exhaustive 24-7 schedule kept the main supply routes (MSRs) around Ramadi clear of IEDs and ambushes (other than those perpetrated against them) for almost 6 straight months. They’d seen plenty of action, and anyone looking to make trouble on that road was in for a deadly surprise. At the time, my platoon (first) was working the area between Ramadi and Al Asad Airbase, with a focus on the town of Hit, with another two squads working the Ar Rutbah region out west. For some unknown reason, the staff at the 3/3 ACR decided it would be best, after 5 months of working our own areas, if we were to swap positions, “for better leadership opportunities within the MP corps.”
My response to that ludicrous REMF rationale is another story all together. However, after an extensive argument involving the danger of swapping two MP units that knew their areas cold—literally down to the last pothole—and had proven their effectiveness, first platoon would take the 30-mile stretch of road around Ramadi. Second platoon, led by 1LT Chris Lee, would take our route.
Within a few days, an IED exploded during a night patrol on the main highway that cut through Ramadi, critically injuring two of our soldiers. Sergeant Curtis Mills had shrapnel tear into his leg and shoulder as the device violently detonated less than three yards from his humvee, crippling him for life.
Specialist Chris Kotch, Mills’ gunner, had metal from the exploding 155mm artillery round rip into his neck, severing his carotid artery. He’d man his gun until he passed out a few moments later. Sergeant Mills, despite a compound fracture to his shoulder and substantial injuries to his leg, kept his composure long enough to radio the front humvee with the situation.
Thanks to the competence and quick thinking of his squad—most notably Staff Sergeant Jason Dudley, Sergeants Chris Hamilton, Rick DiTrapano and Bryan Chabot, as well as Specialist Steve Thibeault—first aid was immediately given as they sped out of the kill zone. The squad pulled up the road a few hundred yards, within small arms range, and continued with their life-saving efforts. Mills was banged up badly, and Kotch was quickly losing consciousness.
As soon as a basic perimeter was established, Rick called in the MEDEVAC request. Within seconds, it was denied. The area was still considered “too dangerous” to bring the Black Hawk helicopter—one of the most technologically advanced, state-of-the-art killing machines ever designed—into. In a moment of both sheer bravery and common sense, our guys prepared the badly wounded men for movement and radioed back to the TOC that they were inbound with two injured soldiers—get the helicopters ready for an evacuation. If the Black Hawks couldn’t get to them, they’d get to the choppers. But in order to get back, they’d have to turn around and drive straight through the kill zone. Again.
In a barrage of gunfire, first squad of the 1/94th MPs rocketed down the dark stretch of highway, spraying the area around the ambush site with SAW and MK19 fire. Another IED would explode just as they passed, narrowly missing the last vehicle.
Both men made their flights and would eventually recover, although Kotch actually died twice from blood loss on his chopper ride to the combat support hospital. Today, Mills often needs a cane to get around, but after seeing how a piece of shrapnel had put a golf ball-sized dent in his Kevlar helmet, he’s thanking his lucky stars. All of the men involved did tremendous work, and would receive awards for their actions.
Although Hamilton, DiTrapano and Thibeault didn’t receive the level of the award recommended, the real reward was in knowing that both of their friends would live to see their families again.
In the end, the bravery and common sense of a few Reservists, patrolling in three, 16 year-old unarmored humvees, saved the lives of two men who would’ve otherwise died from a close-range IED explosion. If it weren’t for the quick thinking and courage of five men—the two most important factors in winning a war, by far—the 94th would’ve lost two of its own that September night.
Honestly, I never found out who denied the MEDEVAC request, but almost 3 years later, I still wish I’d looked into it further. At the time, there were plenty of REMFs with the 3/3 ACR whose only real combat time had come from avoiding the occasional mortar on their way to the chow hall for breakfast. But for some reason, it was perfectly acceptable to send unarmored humvees to patrol an area tactically out of control, known for its frequent ambushes, with little air or armor support, only to be set up for failure in the worst possible way, denied MEDEVAC assistance, only to be lead by an armchair warrior with a radio. I knew and had worked with most of the 3/3 staff at that point, and gotten to know them quite well—well enough to second-guess their decision not to send a MEDEVAC chopper to help us. After a brief investigation, I came to the conclusion that the decision had to have been made by someone who had no idea what was going down on the roads around Ramadi. Worse yet, it was made by someone who had never voluntarily gone on a mission outside of the wire, either for the good of—or physically with—the very troops they were charged with protecting.
This wasn’t downtown Mogadishu—it was a small village on the outskirts of Ramadi with plenty of defendable space to land a helicopter. But thanks to some REMF who didn’t want to risk his or her career with a decision much too complex for them to deal with, our guys would have to make due with what they had.
And how they did. Their exceptional tactical abilities, proven in battle, were far more refined than those of some jerk who never bothered to qualify himself as a leader, but was now calling the shots in a life or death situation. My God, it’s the most uncomfortable feeling in the world, entrusting your life with a person who’s never taken a real risk in their lives out of fear or just plain apathy. During our time in Ramadi, we’d go on to receive literally hundreds of orders from staffers concerning the best ways to complete our missions—soldiers who never bothered to join us in a patrol or IED sweep, but who were convinced they were the tactical subject matter experts.
It wasn’t the only incident that we would face. In one of the first major engagements in Al Anbar Province following the war’s official end, an ambush just north of Al Asad airbase would take the life of a major with the SPT/3 (the 3rd ACR’s support squadron, responsible for the movement of supplies from Al Asad Airbase to Haditha, Ramadi and Fallujah). The commander of SPT/3, a female lieutenant colonel, decided it wasn’t necessary to dispatch a QRF to aid in the ambushed convoy. One of our platoons was ready, waiting, and chomping at the bit to give them a hand. But a lieutenant colonel who had the nerve to sew a combat patch onto her right shoulder, who’d never been on a convoy during her tour (to my knowledge), “in command” of arguably one of the safest posts in Iraq (at that time), wouldn’t allow our MPs to respond.
Again, for some unknown reason, it was “too dangerous” for a heavily armed, tactically sound unit to aid some transportation soldiers who’d been attacked and were taking casualties. An understandably upset survivor from the convoy, a specialist who’d organized a counterattack that repelled the enemy (I never got his name), tore into the commander and her ill-fated decision upon his return to Al Asad.
And why didn’t she let them go? Better let a few soldiers die in an ambush than risk the lives of a few more, I guess. After all, this was war, right? Clearly, this woman hadn’t yet had the pleasure of seeing the pink glow of AK47 tracer rounds scream past her face, the working end of a 155mm artillery shell buried on the side of the road, or one of her own injured and in dire need of help.
My dad always said, “When the chips are down, you know who your friends are.” Nowhere is this truer than in combat. I have no doubts that most, if not all, combat soldiers would risk life and limb to rescue a fallen comrade.
But there’s another saying, one more fitting for the US military; “The chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Let the REMFs debate the best ways to cook their lobster tails, how to draft a policy memo on how loud music should be in the chow halls, or deal with the critical issue of where someone should smoke their cigarettes. And that’s fine with me. Everyone has a niche in war, and it doesn’t always involve working on the front lines.
But if you’re a leader who’s raised your right hand, taken the oath, and can’t make a combat decision if it isn’t spelled out for you in some worthless 20-year old manual, just stay out of the way of the men and women who do the real fighting. Go play soldier somewhere else.
Mike Gifford is Director of On Behalf of a Grateful Nation, Inc. a non-profit organization that provides relief for injured military service members, and to the families of those killed in the global war on terror.
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Lack of planning, not criticism of lack of planning, hurting war effort
delawareonline � The News Journal � Our Readers' Views: "Recently a reader wrote that liberals will cause us to lose the war on terror and in Iraq. I disagree with this statement and believe that the deteriorating situation in Iraq should be blamed on Bush, Cheney, Bremer, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, our civilian military leaders, and their colossal blunders in their execution of this war. Failure to listen to Gen. Shinseki's recommendation for troop numbers led to the ransacking of the Iraqi art museum, the failure to adequately guard ammunition depots and other problems. Promising the Sunni military that they would be taken care of and then disbanding the army helped create the Sunni insurgency. The Axis of Evil remark terrified the Syrian and Iranian populations and infuriated their leaders. Support of Ahmed Chalabi and other exiles instead of Iraqis in the country provided highly unpopular. Failure to enforce the Geneva Conventions lead to the prison scandal, a free advertisement for al-Qaida. The previous Gulf War showed the divisions in the country but there was no anticipation of a Shiite-Sunni war. Lack of post-war planning and body armor for the troops was inexcusable."
Eugenia Nichols, Newark
Eugenia Nichols, Newark
The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town
The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town: "A couple of weeks ago, the Senate Appropriations Committee did something unusual: it actually said no to the Defense Department, trimming next year's requested defense budget by a small amount. In practice, the cuts will likely be quashed by Congress; as Representative Christopher Shays said, nearly a year into the war on terror, "We're at war, and I'm saying I'm not going to look military personnel in the eye and say I voted against their budget" That's understandable, but it helps explain why we have a defense budget that is over half a trillion dollars, forty per cent higher than it was in 2001. More than half the federal government's discretionary spending goes to the military, and, while a sizable chunk goes toward the fight against terrorism and the Iraq war, too much has nothing to do with the demands of a post-9/11 world."
Over the past five years, we’ve heard a lot about the rise of what Donald Rumsfeld likes to call “asymmetric warfare,” and about the need to equip our military to fight “nontraditional” enemies. But a look at the defense budget shows that we’re building a new military while still paying for the old one.
Money is going into Special Operations and intelligence, but far more is being spent on high-tech weapons systems designed to fight enemies (like the Soviet Union) that no longer exist—eighty billion dollars on attack submarines, three billion apiece on new destroyers, and hundreds of billions on two different new models of jet fighter. Advocates insist that we need to be able to contest any “near peer” rival. But the U.S. has no near-peers—or, indeed, any distant peers, as we now spend more on defense than the rest of the world put together.
Not only are we buying stuff we don’t need; we’re buying it badly. Astonishing budget overruns are routine. The Future Combat System, for instance—designed to remake the battlefield with robot vehicles and networked communications systems—began as a ninety-billion-dollar project, then became a hundred-and-sixty-billion-dollar project, and, a recent Pentagon estimate suggests, will eventually cost three hundred billion dollars. Such inefficiency is seldom punished—the Pentagon often hands out bonuses even when companies fail to meet their targets—and is tolerated by regulators.
Although government agencies have been required to produce an annual audit of their operations since the late nineties, the Defense Department’s operations are so confused that it has never been able to produce a successful audit. A few years ago, the Pentagon’s own Inspector General found that more than a trillion dollars in spending simply couldn’t be explained.
Of course, people have been decrying Pentagon waste and inefficiency for decades. But things have got significantly worse over the past five years, because Congress and the Bush Administration have thrown so much money at the Defense Department so fast. Studies of corporate behavior show that when companies are flush with cash they are more likely to make acquisitions that reduce their over-all value. The defense industry today, in fact, is much like Silicon Valley in the late nineties—when you give lots of money to an industry with no audits and no supervision, people lose discipline. They spend on bad ideas, gild every surface, and cheat. Is it really a surprise that billions of dollars meant for private contractors in Iraq seems to have been stolen?
The Defense Department is only asking for what it thinks it needs. But what it thinks it needs is determined in part by what it thinks it can get. A useful, if homely, analogy might be found in an experiment a group of social scientists did in an apartment building. One day, they left out a bowl of M&M’s for people to take, with a small scoop beside it. When, the next day, they left a much larger scoop, people took two-thirds more M&M’s. People could have taken just as many M&M’s on the first day; they just would have had to take more scoops. They took more the second day because the larger scoop sent a message that that was what they were supposed to do. Congress and the President have, in effect, handed the Pentagon the mother of all scoops.
The fiscal consequences of this are obviously dismal, but, even worse, there’s a strong possibility that giving the military a blank check is actually making us less safe. To begin with, although the defense budget is immense, it’s not infinite. And often in recent times expensive weapons projects have been given priority over mundane improvements that would help the military here and now. Earlier this year, for instance, the Senate cut funding for night-vision goggles for soldiers, while adding money to buy three new V-22 Ospreys, a plane that Dick Cheney himself tried to get rid of when he was Secretary of Defense. Similarly, we might have been able to afford appropriate body armor for the troops, and plates for the Hummers in Baghdad, if we were building only one new model of multi-billion-dollar jet fighter, instead of two.
Even more strikingly, while we pour money into all these new projects we’re underfunding crucial homeland-security programs. In the past few months, Congress has eliminated six hundred and fifty million dollars for port security. Funding for New York City’s security projects was cut forty per cent.
And we cut nearly a hundred million from the requested budget for preventing the use of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Those cuts were considered necessary for budgetary reasons, yet the price of all of them together was less than a third of what it will cost to build a single destroyer. That ship will offer us not a whit of protection in the war on terror. But we can be sure it will keep the seas safe from the Soviet Navy.
Over the past five years, we’ve heard a lot about the rise of what Donald Rumsfeld likes to call “asymmetric warfare,” and about the need to equip our military to fight “nontraditional” enemies. But a look at the defense budget shows that we’re building a new military while still paying for the old one.
Money is going into Special Operations and intelligence, but far more is being spent on high-tech weapons systems designed to fight enemies (like the Soviet Union) that no longer exist—eighty billion dollars on attack submarines, three billion apiece on new destroyers, and hundreds of billions on two different new models of jet fighter. Advocates insist that we need to be able to contest any “near peer” rival. But the U.S. has no near-peers—or, indeed, any distant peers, as we now spend more on defense than the rest of the world put together.
Not only are we buying stuff we don’t need; we’re buying it badly. Astonishing budget overruns are routine. The Future Combat System, for instance—designed to remake the battlefield with robot vehicles and networked communications systems—began as a ninety-billion-dollar project, then became a hundred-and-sixty-billion-dollar project, and, a recent Pentagon estimate suggests, will eventually cost three hundred billion dollars. Such inefficiency is seldom punished—the Pentagon often hands out bonuses even when companies fail to meet their targets—and is tolerated by regulators.
Although government agencies have been required to produce an annual audit of their operations since the late nineties, the Defense Department’s operations are so confused that it has never been able to produce a successful audit. A few years ago, the Pentagon’s own Inspector General found that more than a trillion dollars in spending simply couldn’t be explained.
Of course, people have been decrying Pentagon waste and inefficiency for decades. But things have got significantly worse over the past five years, because Congress and the Bush Administration have thrown so much money at the Defense Department so fast. Studies of corporate behavior show that when companies are flush with cash they are more likely to make acquisitions that reduce their over-all value. The defense industry today, in fact, is much like Silicon Valley in the late nineties—when you give lots of money to an industry with no audits and no supervision, people lose discipline. They spend on bad ideas, gild every surface, and cheat. Is it really a surprise that billions of dollars meant for private contractors in Iraq seems to have been stolen?
The Defense Department is only asking for what it thinks it needs. But what it thinks it needs is determined in part by what it thinks it can get. A useful, if homely, analogy might be found in an experiment a group of social scientists did in an apartment building. One day, they left out a bowl of M&M’s for people to take, with a small scoop beside it. When, the next day, they left a much larger scoop, people took two-thirds more M&M’s. People could have taken just as many M&M’s on the first day; they just would have had to take more scoops. They took more the second day because the larger scoop sent a message that that was what they were supposed to do. Congress and the President have, in effect, handed the Pentagon the mother of all scoops.
The fiscal consequences of this are obviously dismal, but, even worse, there’s a strong possibility that giving the military a blank check is actually making us less safe. To begin with, although the defense budget is immense, it’s not infinite. And often in recent times expensive weapons projects have been given priority over mundane improvements that would help the military here and now. Earlier this year, for instance, the Senate cut funding for night-vision goggles for soldiers, while adding money to buy three new V-22 Ospreys, a plane that Dick Cheney himself tried to get rid of when he was Secretary of Defense. Similarly, we might have been able to afford appropriate body armor for the troops, and plates for the Hummers in Baghdad, if we were building only one new model of multi-billion-dollar jet fighter, instead of two.
Even more strikingly, while we pour money into all these new projects we’re underfunding crucial homeland-security programs. In the past few months, Congress has eliminated six hundred and fifty million dollars for port security. Funding for New York City’s security projects was cut forty per cent.
And we cut nearly a hundred million from the requested budget for preventing the use of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Those cuts were considered necessary for budgetary reasons, yet the price of all of them together was less than a third of what it will cost to build a single destroyer. That ship will offer us not a whit of protection in the war on terror. But we can be sure it will keep the seas safe from the Soviet Navy.
Body Armor Fit For A Superhero
Body Armor Fit For A Superhero: "
AUGUST 7, 2006
Body Armor Fit For A Superhero
New, high-tech 'liquid' gear could keep troops, police, and prison guards safer
It seems crazy, Robert R. Schiller admits: the notion that you could shield yourself from bullets, shrapnel, and knives by donning the equivalent of a wet suit. But by early next year the president and chief operating officer of Armor Holdings Inc. (AH ) aims to be selling what he describes as 'liquid armor' -- garments constructed from layers of tough fibers and fluid polymers -- to prison guards. By the end of 2007, he hopes, police and maybe soldiers will begin wearing the company's new protective gear as well. For the corrections market in particular, Schiller says, 'it has the potential to be a breakthrough product.' "
Today's versions of body armor are composed mostly of 20 to 30 layers of synthetic fibers. And while there is no question the death toll for American troops in Iraq would be far higher without it, the gear is bulky and can't stop high-velocity bullets, for example, or all bomb fragments. Even as DuPont (DD ) was field-testing the original Kevlar jackets in the early 1970s, researchers were hunting for lighter, tougher ballistic fabrics. Since then, companies have investigated a chemist's kit of exotic materials, from cloned spider silk -- a wonder of lightness and strength -- to newfangled sheets of carbon nanotubes that are among the toughest structures in nature. Israeli researchers at one company, ApNano Materials Inc. in New York, have shown off a breastplate of nanometals said to be five times as strong as steel.
Armor Holdings' product is different from all of the above. Developed by Norman Wagner, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Dela-ware's Center for Composite Materials, it's a mix of polyethylene glycol, a polymer found in laxatives and other consumer products, and nanobits of silica, or purified sand. Together they produce a "sheer-thickening liquid" that stiffens instantly into a shield when hit hard by an object. It reverts to its liquid state just as fast when the energy from the projectile dissipates.
LIKE PEANUT BUTTER
Initially, Wagner and his collaborators envisioned armor that could be spread on a person, almost like peanut butter on bread, says Eric Wetzel, a researcher at the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Md. But in tests co-sponsored by the Army Lab, they found that the materials worked best when painted on Kevlar in ultrathin coats. By holding the fibers tight like a flexible glue, the compound spreads out the impact of a blow better than fibers alone. "The search in the past has been for stronger and stronger filaments," says Wetzel. "We've tried to change how the fabric interacts with the projectile."The liquid has other pluses. It's lighter than Kevlar and other widely used fabrics. That means Armor Holdings' new vests, in which the substance would be sandwiched between layers of ballistic fibers, might be lighter than current versions, which weigh four pounds or more. It also should be cheaper to manufacture, says Schiller. The Jacksonville (Fla.) company wants to continue to sell entry-level garments for $500 to $600.Any minuses? No one knows yet how well the material will hold up after years of wear and tear.
Armor Holdings, which bought the rights to Wagner's discovery last February, pulls in the bulk of its $1.64 billion in annual sales from selling vehicle armor to the U.S. Army. While liquid armor seems tailor-made for combat personnel or police, the company is initially targeting prisons because the fabric resists punctures. That means it can protect guards from stabbings, something even a top-of-the-line bulletproof vest can't do.
AUGUST 7, 2006
Body Armor Fit For A Superhero
New, high-tech 'liquid' gear could keep troops, police, and prison guards safer
It seems crazy, Robert R. Schiller admits: the notion that you could shield yourself from bullets, shrapnel, and knives by donning the equivalent of a wet suit. But by early next year the president and chief operating officer of Armor Holdings Inc. (AH ) aims to be selling what he describes as 'liquid armor' -- garments constructed from layers of tough fibers and fluid polymers -- to prison guards. By the end of 2007, he hopes, police and maybe soldiers will begin wearing the company's new protective gear as well. For the corrections market in particular, Schiller says, 'it has the potential to be a breakthrough product.' "
Today's versions of body armor are composed mostly of 20 to 30 layers of synthetic fibers. And while there is no question the death toll for American troops in Iraq would be far higher without it, the gear is bulky and can't stop high-velocity bullets, for example, or all bomb fragments. Even as DuPont (DD ) was field-testing the original Kevlar jackets in the early 1970s, researchers were hunting for lighter, tougher ballistic fabrics. Since then, companies have investigated a chemist's kit of exotic materials, from cloned spider silk -- a wonder of lightness and strength -- to newfangled sheets of carbon nanotubes that are among the toughest structures in nature. Israeli researchers at one company, ApNano Materials Inc. in New York, have shown off a breastplate of nanometals said to be five times as strong as steel.
Armor Holdings' product is different from all of the above. Developed by Norman Wagner, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Dela-ware's Center for Composite Materials, it's a mix of polyethylene glycol, a polymer found in laxatives and other consumer products, and nanobits of silica, or purified sand. Together they produce a "sheer-thickening liquid" that stiffens instantly into a shield when hit hard by an object. It reverts to its liquid state just as fast when the energy from the projectile dissipates.
LIKE PEANUT BUTTER
Initially, Wagner and his collaborators envisioned armor that could be spread on a person, almost like peanut butter on bread, says Eric Wetzel, a researcher at the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Md. But in tests co-sponsored by the Army Lab, they found that the materials worked best when painted on Kevlar in ultrathin coats. By holding the fibers tight like a flexible glue, the compound spreads out the impact of a blow better than fibers alone. "The search in the past has been for stronger and stronger filaments," says Wetzel. "We've tried to change how the fabric interacts with the projectile."The liquid has other pluses. It's lighter than Kevlar and other widely used fabrics. That means Armor Holdings' new vests, in which the substance would be sandwiched between layers of ballistic fibers, might be lighter than current versions, which weigh four pounds or more. It also should be cheaper to manufacture, says Schiller. The Jacksonville (Fla.) company wants to continue to sell entry-level garments for $500 to $600.Any minuses? No one knows yet how well the material will hold up after years of wear and tear.
Armor Holdings, which bought the rights to Wagner's discovery last February, pulls in the bulk of its $1.64 billion in annual sales from selling vehicle armor to the U.S. Army. While liquid armor seems tailor-made for combat personnel or police, the company is initially targeting prisons because the fabric resists punctures. That means it can protect guards from stabbings, something even a top-of-the-line bulletproof vest can't do.
Reuters admits to more image manipulation - News from Israel, Ynetnews
Reuters admits to more image manipulation - News from Israel, Ynetnews: "Reuters has withdrawn a second photograph and admitted that the image was doctored, following the emergence of new suspicions against images provided by the news organization. On Sunday, Reuters admitted that one of its photographers, Adnan Hajj, used software to distort an image of smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut in order to create the effect of more smoke and damage.
The latest image to face doubts is a photograph of an Israeli F-16 fighter jet over the skies of Lebanon, seen in the image firing off 'missiles during an air strike on Nabatiyeh,' according to the image's accompanying text provided by Reuters. "
Rusty Shackleford, owner of the My Pet Jawa web log , noted that the warplane in the picture is actually firing defensive flares aimed at dealing with anti-aircraft missiles.
In addition, Shackelford says the flares have been replicated by Reuters, giving the impression that the jet was firing many "missiles," thereby distortion the image.
"The F-16 in the photo is not firing missiles, but is rather dropping chaffe or flares designed to be a decoy for surface to air missiles. However, a close up (of) what Hajj calls "missiles" reveals that only one flare has been dropped. The other two "flares" are simply copies of the original," Shackleford wrote.
"But what about the 'bombs' in the photo? Here is a close up of them. Notice anything? That's right. The top and bottom "bomb" are the same." ...
[bth: more fake news. just what this world needs.]
The latest image to face doubts is a photograph of an Israeli F-16 fighter jet over the skies of Lebanon, seen in the image firing off 'missiles during an air strike on Nabatiyeh,' according to the image's accompanying text provided by Reuters. "
Rusty Shackleford, owner of the My Pet Jawa web log , noted that the warplane in the picture is actually firing defensive flares aimed at dealing with anti-aircraft missiles.
In addition, Shackelford says the flares have been replicated by Reuters, giving the impression that the jet was firing many "missiles," thereby distortion the image.
"The F-16 in the photo is not firing missiles, but is rather dropping chaffe or flares designed to be a decoy for surface to air missiles. However, a close up (of) what Hajj calls "missiles" reveals that only one flare has been dropped. The other two "flares" are simply copies of the original," Shackleford wrote.
"But what about the 'bombs' in the photo? Here is a close up of them. Notice anything? That's right. The top and bottom "bomb" are the same." ...
[bth: more fake news. just what this world needs.]
Note the ballistic glass seems to have held even though the nose was sheared off. Gun shield was actually bent.
U.S. Battalion's Mission in Iraq Shifts to Preventing Civil War
U.S. Battalion's Mission in Iraq Shifts to Preventing Civil War: "ABU SAYDAH AL-SAGHIR, Iraq -- One look at the charred and desolate street, empty but for armed men, told Capt. Chris Turner that what he feared was true: A recent spate of deadly sectarian warfare had driven almost all the families from a mud-brick village where for months he'd worked to broker peace between wary Sunni and Shiite tribes.
'What's going on? Where's everybody at?' Turner asked a small group of Iraqi soldiers and policemen sitting around a makeshift roadblock last Tuesday."
"They left," said one of the soldiers, who wore a head wrap, an AK-47 assault rifle slung over his back. "They were scared."
Three days earlier, rising friction between Sunni and Shiite tribes had spiraled out of control in this corner of Iraq's eastern Diyala province. At least five civilians died in the village, including three women, after fighting broke out between groups armed with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and explosives, according to witnesses and U.S. and Iraqi officials. A village mosque was bombed and homes and workplaces burned, leading to an exodus along religious lines, they said.
The fighting here follows a string of tit-for-tat sectarian killings that began in mid-July, unraveling a fragile calm that U.S. troops had helped enforce among a group of villages tucked among palm groves and canals in this mixed Sunni and Shiite region north of Baqubah.
"There's a lot of frontier justice now," said Turner, 32, an armor officer from Colorado Springs. "Instead of resolving things through a council of sheiks, they're using violence," he said after watching a man drive a horse cart piled with furniture and rugs out of town. A boy on a little white donkey rode beside him.
Days patrolling rival villages with Turner and his soldiers revealed the grass-roots schisms emerging six months after the February bombing of Samarra's gold-domed mosque inflamed religious tensions in Iraq. In mixed areas like Diyala, the primary job for U.S. troops is no longer to battle insurgents, but to try to stave off civil war.
"When we got here, our chief focus was Sunni insurgent groups," said Turner, who arrived in Diyala in December as part of the 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. But today, he said, "there's a definite trend toward sectarian violence. That's our big focus now, trying to stem it."
The number of attacks in Diyala each month has more than doubled, from about 200 before the Samarra mosque bombing to an average of just under 500 this summer, according to U.S. military figures. The province, which stretches from Baghdad to the Iranian border, is considered vulnerable to sectarian strife: 50 percent of its 1.5 million inhabitants are Sunni, 35 percent are Shiite, and the rest are Kurds and other groups.
Mosque bombings, assassinations of leaders and sectarian kidnappings and attacks on civilians have increased, as have reports that Iraqi police and army units are agents of the violence, according to the U.S. military. An index of civil unrest compiled by U.S. military intelligence shows it escalating rapidly in the swath of western Diyala patrolled by Turner's battalion, recently reaching 75 on the scale. A rating of 100 would indicate full-fledged civil war. Military officials estimate thousands of Shiite and Sunni residents have fled their homes in mixed neighborhoods to escape violence or threats, fueling a growing trend of religious segregation.
For Turner and his soldiers, figuring out which Iraqis are fighting one another and why -- let alone stopping the attacks -- is far more complex than combating an anti-American insurgency. And compared with a year ago, far fewer U.S. troops are in Diyala to keep a lid on the violence. Last summer, three times as many U.S. soldiers patrolled the region now covered by Turner's battalion.
"We expected to be fighting more, but it's all engagement with leaders and the population," Turner said after a day of listening to Sunni and Shiite recriminations in one village following another in 120-degree heat. "It's hard to make heads or tails of their stories," said the soft-spoken company commander, who grew up in Augusta, Kan., and joined the Army at 17.
What is clear is that starting two weeks ago, a round of bloody attacks reignited feuding between the Sunni villages of Mukhisa and Abu Kharma and the larger Shiite town of Abu Saydah -- despite months of American efforts to quell the unrest. In April, scores of U.S. soldiers from Turner's unit moved in to occupy the volatile area, while Lt. Col. Thomas Fisher, the battalion commander, brought local leaders together for talks. Before each session, Fisher would discreetly move the tables closer together. The meetings generated "goodwill but no firm agreement," said Maj. John Digiambattista, the battalion operations officer. Still, under constant American patrol, the area remained relatively calm. U.S. troops left in June.
But on July 12, the situation began to unravel. The brother of a prominent Sunni from the area, provincial official Thassin Tawfeq Jassim, was assassinated near his home. Two days later, a bicycle bomb outside the Abu Saydah city council fatally wounded the town's leading Shiite leader, Raad Majid, and killed four of his bodyguards. Majid died last week of complications.
Then a week ago, on Saturday night, heavy fighting erupted in Abu Saydah al-Saghir, a smaller mixed village nestled in palm groves between Mukhisa and Abu Saydah, according to residents, Iraqi police and U.S. officers. Fighters were armed with Russian-made machine guns, grenades, mortars and bombs. During the unrest, Jassim's house was burned down.
"It was 5 in the afternoon and the Sunnis started the fight," said Yasim Muhammed Hussein, 35, a Shiite resident. "While we were praying at the mosque they shouted 'God is great' and starting firing on the mosque," he said. "They burned my home and killed my relative." In all, Hussein said, 10 people were killed "from the two sides" -- meaning Sunni and Shiite. He said three-quarters of the 200 families in the village had abandoned their homes.
"They came with hoods. They were al-Qaeda," said 1st Lt. Khalan Adnan Rahim, who led an emergency police response force from Baqubah. Three women were killed by an improvised bomb placed at a mosque, and several houses were burned down, he said. "A mortar hit here," he said, pointing to a charred wood lot.
Police and residents said gunfighting continued at night, as the remaining residents stood watch to defend their homes. "It's not safe for us to go to the orchards. They're in the palm groves," Rahim said, motioning to the trees on the village edge. The following day, when resident Salman Ahmed Hamza told Turner's soldiers about a possible bomb down the street, Iraqi police refused to venture beyond their checkpoint to investigate.
"It's dangerous there," said police Lt. Hasam Khalilf. "We can't go there."
But while Shiites blamed a Sunni tribe and the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq for the violence, Sunni refugees in the nearby village of Mukhisa pointed to Shiite tribesmen, militiamen and police.
"Every day they kill Sunni people, two or three a day, and the Iraqi police help the militia," said Hamdia Karim, 28, who was crowded with 23 others into a home in Mukhisa. "We're scared to go back."
Fear is intense on both sides. On Mukhisa's dusty main street, Sunni residents gathered to tell Turner they'd be killed if they set foot in the Shiite market town of Abu Saydah. Policemen, some with militia ties, are known to threaten and harass Sunnis trying to enter the district capital , which controls their ID cards and -- crucially -- their water supply, U.S. officers said.
U.S. commanders are weighing what to do to restore calm to embattled Abu Saydah al-Saghir. "A tool on the table is to occupy the place, but the challenge is how much combat power I have," said Digiambattista, whose forces are stretched south to Baghdad.
"We can't just wash our hands of it, but ultimately the Iraqis will have to handle it," Turner said. "We won't be in Iraq forever."
'What's going on? Where's everybody at?' Turner asked a small group of Iraqi soldiers and policemen sitting around a makeshift roadblock last Tuesday."
"They left," said one of the soldiers, who wore a head wrap, an AK-47 assault rifle slung over his back. "They were scared."
Three days earlier, rising friction between Sunni and Shiite tribes had spiraled out of control in this corner of Iraq's eastern Diyala province. At least five civilians died in the village, including three women, after fighting broke out between groups armed with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and explosives, according to witnesses and U.S. and Iraqi officials. A village mosque was bombed and homes and workplaces burned, leading to an exodus along religious lines, they said.
The fighting here follows a string of tit-for-tat sectarian killings that began in mid-July, unraveling a fragile calm that U.S. troops had helped enforce among a group of villages tucked among palm groves and canals in this mixed Sunni and Shiite region north of Baqubah.
"There's a lot of frontier justice now," said Turner, 32, an armor officer from Colorado Springs. "Instead of resolving things through a council of sheiks, they're using violence," he said after watching a man drive a horse cart piled with furniture and rugs out of town. A boy on a little white donkey rode beside him.
Days patrolling rival villages with Turner and his soldiers revealed the grass-roots schisms emerging six months after the February bombing of Samarra's gold-domed mosque inflamed religious tensions in Iraq. In mixed areas like Diyala, the primary job for U.S. troops is no longer to battle insurgents, but to try to stave off civil war.
"When we got here, our chief focus was Sunni insurgent groups," said Turner, who arrived in Diyala in December as part of the 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. But today, he said, "there's a definite trend toward sectarian violence. That's our big focus now, trying to stem it."
The number of attacks in Diyala each month has more than doubled, from about 200 before the Samarra mosque bombing to an average of just under 500 this summer, according to U.S. military figures. The province, which stretches from Baghdad to the Iranian border, is considered vulnerable to sectarian strife: 50 percent of its 1.5 million inhabitants are Sunni, 35 percent are Shiite, and the rest are Kurds and other groups.
Mosque bombings, assassinations of leaders and sectarian kidnappings and attacks on civilians have increased, as have reports that Iraqi police and army units are agents of the violence, according to the U.S. military. An index of civil unrest compiled by U.S. military intelligence shows it escalating rapidly in the swath of western Diyala patrolled by Turner's battalion, recently reaching 75 on the scale. A rating of 100 would indicate full-fledged civil war. Military officials estimate thousands of Shiite and Sunni residents have fled their homes in mixed neighborhoods to escape violence or threats, fueling a growing trend of religious segregation.
For Turner and his soldiers, figuring out which Iraqis are fighting one another and why -- let alone stopping the attacks -- is far more complex than combating an anti-American insurgency. And compared with a year ago, far fewer U.S. troops are in Diyala to keep a lid on the violence. Last summer, three times as many U.S. soldiers patrolled the region now covered by Turner's battalion.
"We expected to be fighting more, but it's all engagement with leaders and the population," Turner said after a day of listening to Sunni and Shiite recriminations in one village following another in 120-degree heat. "It's hard to make heads or tails of their stories," said the soft-spoken company commander, who grew up in Augusta, Kan., and joined the Army at 17.
What is clear is that starting two weeks ago, a round of bloody attacks reignited feuding between the Sunni villages of Mukhisa and Abu Kharma and the larger Shiite town of Abu Saydah -- despite months of American efforts to quell the unrest. In April, scores of U.S. soldiers from Turner's unit moved in to occupy the volatile area, while Lt. Col. Thomas Fisher, the battalion commander, brought local leaders together for talks. Before each session, Fisher would discreetly move the tables closer together. The meetings generated "goodwill but no firm agreement," said Maj. John Digiambattista, the battalion operations officer. Still, under constant American patrol, the area remained relatively calm. U.S. troops left in June.
But on July 12, the situation began to unravel. The brother of a prominent Sunni from the area, provincial official Thassin Tawfeq Jassim, was assassinated near his home. Two days later, a bicycle bomb outside the Abu Saydah city council fatally wounded the town's leading Shiite leader, Raad Majid, and killed four of his bodyguards. Majid died last week of complications.
Then a week ago, on Saturday night, heavy fighting erupted in Abu Saydah al-Saghir, a smaller mixed village nestled in palm groves between Mukhisa and Abu Saydah, according to residents, Iraqi police and U.S. officers. Fighters were armed with Russian-made machine guns, grenades, mortars and bombs. During the unrest, Jassim's house was burned down.
"It was 5 in the afternoon and the Sunnis started the fight," said Yasim Muhammed Hussein, 35, a Shiite resident. "While we were praying at the mosque they shouted 'God is great' and starting firing on the mosque," he said. "They burned my home and killed my relative." In all, Hussein said, 10 people were killed "from the two sides" -- meaning Sunni and Shiite. He said three-quarters of the 200 families in the village had abandoned their homes.
"They came with hoods. They were al-Qaeda," said 1st Lt. Khalan Adnan Rahim, who led an emergency police response force from Baqubah. Three women were killed by an improvised bomb placed at a mosque, and several houses were burned down, he said. "A mortar hit here," he said, pointing to a charred wood lot.
Police and residents said gunfighting continued at night, as the remaining residents stood watch to defend their homes. "It's not safe for us to go to the orchards. They're in the palm groves," Rahim said, motioning to the trees on the village edge. The following day, when resident Salman Ahmed Hamza told Turner's soldiers about a possible bomb down the street, Iraqi police refused to venture beyond their checkpoint to investigate.
"It's dangerous there," said police Lt. Hasam Khalilf. "We can't go there."
But while Shiites blamed a Sunni tribe and the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq for the violence, Sunni refugees in the nearby village of Mukhisa pointed to Shiite tribesmen, militiamen and police.
"Every day they kill Sunni people, two or three a day, and the Iraqi police help the militia," said Hamdia Karim, 28, who was crowded with 23 others into a home in Mukhisa. "We're scared to go back."
Fear is intense on both sides. On Mukhisa's dusty main street, Sunni residents gathered to tell Turner they'd be killed if they set foot in the Shiite market town of Abu Saydah. Policemen, some with militia ties, are known to threaten and harass Sunnis trying to enter the district capital , which controls their ID cards and -- crucially -- their water supply, U.S. officers said.
U.S. commanders are weighing what to do to restore calm to embattled Abu Saydah al-Saghir. "A tool on the table is to occupy the place, but the challenge is how much combat power I have," said Digiambattista, whose forces are stretched south to Baghdad.
"We can't just wash our hands of it, but ultimately the Iraqis will have to handle it," Turner said. "We won't be in Iraq forever."
DHB Industries Announces Contract Award for Outer Tactical Vest (OTV) Conversion Kits Up to $169 Million
DHB Industries Announces Contract Award for Outer Tactical Vest (OTV) Conversion Kits Up to $169 Million: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance: "POMPANO BEACH, Fla., Aug. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- DHB Industries, Inc. (OTC: DHBT - News), a leader in the field of protective body armor, announced today that Point Blank Body Armor, one of the Company's wholly-owned subsidiaries, received an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract to supply the United States Army with OTV Conversion Kits with a maximum value of $169 million over three-years."
The initial delivery order as part of this award is for $37 million and the Company disclosed that production and delivery is expected to begin this quarter. The OTV Conversion Kits, in the new Universal Camouflage Pattern, consist of a base outer shell carrier, ballistic yoke and collar, ballistic groin protector, and ballistic throat protector. They will be used in the Company's Interceptor Body Armor ensemble, which Point Blank Body Armor has previously and continues to supply to the U.S. Army and other branches of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Larry Ellis, President and Acting CEO of DHB Industries commented, "We are pleased to announce this latest contract with the U.S. Army as it represents another significant milestone for our Company. We continue to develop leading, protective body armor products for the U.S. Armed Forces, in addition to Federal Agencies and law enforcement personnel."
Ellis continued, "Year to date, DHB has announced contracts with potential awards in excess of $290 million for its various product lines, which is a testament to the quality of our products and continued demand from our customers. We look forward to building upon this momentum in the second half of the year and in the years to come."...
[bth: in another stunning coincidence of timing, Brooks purchased his shares as part of his settlement with the company and his class action activities just before news of this large order hit the press. God bless this land of opportunity.]
The initial delivery order as part of this award is for $37 million and the Company disclosed that production and delivery is expected to begin this quarter. The OTV Conversion Kits, in the new Universal Camouflage Pattern, consist of a base outer shell carrier, ballistic yoke and collar, ballistic groin protector, and ballistic throat protector. They will be used in the Company's Interceptor Body Armor ensemble, which Point Blank Body Armor has previously and continues to supply to the U.S. Army and other branches of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Larry Ellis, President and Acting CEO of DHB Industries commented, "We are pleased to announce this latest contract with the U.S. Army as it represents another significant milestone for our Company. We continue to develop leading, protective body armor products for the U.S. Armed Forces, in addition to Federal Agencies and law enforcement personnel."
Ellis continued, "Year to date, DHB has announced contracts with potential awards in excess of $290 million for its various product lines, which is a testament to the quality of our products and continued demand from our customers. We look forward to building upon this momentum in the second half of the year and in the years to come."...
[bth: in another stunning coincidence of timing, Brooks purchased his shares as part of his settlement with the company and his class action activities just before news of this large order hit the press. God bless this land of opportunity.]
DHB Industries Inc. Provides Updates on Class Action and Derivative Lawsuits: Financial News
DHB Industries Inc. Provides Updates on Class Action and Derivative Lawsuits: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance: "
-David Brooks Resigns as Board Member and Employee -
- Agreed Upon Settlement Funds Paid and Held in Escrow -
- Company to Consider Strategic Financing Alternatives -
POMPANO BEACH, Fla., Aug. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- DHB Industries Inc. (OTC Pink Sheets: DHBT.PK - News), a leader in the field of protective body armor, announced today updates regarding its previously reported agreement in principle to settle the class action and derivative lawsuits involving the Company pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York."
The Company announced that it has funded its portion, approximately $22.3 million, of the previously reported $34.9 million cash settlement to resolve the class and derivative actions, under a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") entered into in July. The Company made its payments using funds generated by a series of transactions with David H. Brooks, the Company's former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. The remaining portion of the $34.9 million settlement is to be paid for by the Company's directors' and officers' liability insurers through a buyout of the policies. The Company paid the funds into an escrow account, pending Court approval of the settlement, pursuant to the MOU.
Of the $22.3 million paid by the Company, $7.5 million came from the accelerated exercise by Mr. Brooks of a warrant to acquire 3 million shares of the Company's common stock. The warrant's original exercise price was $1.00 per share; Mr. Brooks paid an elevated exercise price of $2.50 per share to generate funds for the settlement. The Company sold an additional 3,007,099 shares of its common stock at a price of $4.93 per share in a private placement transaction to Mr. Brooks. It used the proceeds from this transaction to fund the remaining $14.8 million.
The Company also announced today that pursuant to a release agreement, Mr. Brooks resigned on July 31, 2006 from his position as a member of the Board of Directors and from all positions held by him in the Company or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The employment agreement between the Company and Mr. Brooks was accordingly terminated. The Company agreed to pay Mr. Brooks any unpaid salary through July 31, 2006, but Mr. Brooks is not entitled to any additional compensation, accrued or unused vacation, or unpaid expenses. This agreement also contains general releases from the Company to Mr. Brooks and from Mr. Brooks to the Company, which will become invalid if the settlement of the litigation is not approved by the court. Mr. Brooks's resignation and the termination of his employment agreement, however, will stand, regardless of the court's decision.
The proposed settlement of the class action and derivative lawsuits remains subject to, among other things, review and approval of the court. There can be no assurance that the court will approve the proposed settlement. If the settlement is not finally approved, the Company is required to return $4.5 million of the $7.5 million in proceeds from Mr. Brooks's warrant exercise (representing the difference between the original exercise price of the warrants and the elevated exercise price pursuant to the MOU), and Mr. Brooks will have the right to sell back to the Company some or all of the Company's common stock he acquired in the private placement at $4.93 per share.
Additionally, the Company announced today that it is exploring various strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value. There can be no assurance that this process will result in any specific transaction, nor does the Company expect to disclose developments with respect to the exploration of strategic alternatives unless and until its Board of Directors has approved a definitive transaction. At present time, there is nothing material to report.
ABOUT DHB INDUSTRIES
DHB Industries, Inc.'s Armor Group is in the protective body armor industry. The Company's highly recognized subsidiaries, Point Blank Body Armor, Inc.
(www.pointblankarmor.com) and Protective Apparel Corporation of America (PACA) (www.pacabodyarmor.com), are focused on the design, manufacture, and distribution of bullet resistant and protective body armor for military, law enforcement, and corrections in the U.S. and worldwide. DHB Sports Group, consisting of Company subsidiary NDL Products, Inc. (www.ndlproducts.com), produces and markets a comprehensive line of athletic supports and braces which are merchandised through national superstore chains as well as through private label distributors.
The Company maintains facilities in Deerfield Beach, FL, Oakland Park, FL, Pompano Beach, FL, Jacksboro, TN and Washington, DC. To learn more about DHB Industries, Inc., visit the website at (www.dhbindustries.com).
[bth: what's all this mean in plain english? It means that DHB is being gussied up for sale - probably to Armor Holdings if I had to guess. Looks like someone said they wouldn't touch the company with a ten foot pole unless Brooks the crook was out of the company, but he wouldn't leave, so the board cut this deal with him where he pays for part of the class action suit resulting from his own actions from profits of the stock sales from those elicit activities. Then he has a right evidently according to this release to sell those shares he was required to purchase out of the money back to the company. So if an acquirer showed up - aka "strategic alternative" - then he'd make a profit again! Got to love this guy.... God bless America - a land where a guy can make defective body armor, sell his stock before words gets out, screw his stockholders and profit the entire way.]
-David Brooks Resigns as Board Member and Employee -
- Agreed Upon Settlement Funds Paid and Held in Escrow -
- Company to Consider Strategic Financing Alternatives -
POMPANO BEACH, Fla., Aug. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- DHB Industries Inc. (OTC Pink Sheets: DHBT.PK - News), a leader in the field of protective body armor, announced today updates regarding its previously reported agreement in principle to settle the class action and derivative lawsuits involving the Company pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York."
The Company announced that it has funded its portion, approximately $22.3 million, of the previously reported $34.9 million cash settlement to resolve the class and derivative actions, under a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") entered into in July. The Company made its payments using funds generated by a series of transactions with David H. Brooks, the Company's former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. The remaining portion of the $34.9 million settlement is to be paid for by the Company's directors' and officers' liability insurers through a buyout of the policies. The Company paid the funds into an escrow account, pending Court approval of the settlement, pursuant to the MOU.
Of the $22.3 million paid by the Company, $7.5 million came from the accelerated exercise by Mr. Brooks of a warrant to acquire 3 million shares of the Company's common stock. The warrant's original exercise price was $1.00 per share; Mr. Brooks paid an elevated exercise price of $2.50 per share to generate funds for the settlement. The Company sold an additional 3,007,099 shares of its common stock at a price of $4.93 per share in a private placement transaction to Mr. Brooks. It used the proceeds from this transaction to fund the remaining $14.8 million.
The Company also announced today that pursuant to a release agreement, Mr. Brooks resigned on July 31, 2006 from his position as a member of the Board of Directors and from all positions held by him in the Company or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The employment agreement between the Company and Mr. Brooks was accordingly terminated. The Company agreed to pay Mr. Brooks any unpaid salary through July 31, 2006, but Mr. Brooks is not entitled to any additional compensation, accrued or unused vacation, or unpaid expenses. This agreement also contains general releases from the Company to Mr. Brooks and from Mr. Brooks to the Company, which will become invalid if the settlement of the litigation is not approved by the court. Mr. Brooks's resignation and the termination of his employment agreement, however, will stand, regardless of the court's decision.
The proposed settlement of the class action and derivative lawsuits remains subject to, among other things, review and approval of the court. There can be no assurance that the court will approve the proposed settlement. If the settlement is not finally approved, the Company is required to return $4.5 million of the $7.5 million in proceeds from Mr. Brooks's warrant exercise (representing the difference between the original exercise price of the warrants and the elevated exercise price pursuant to the MOU), and Mr. Brooks will have the right to sell back to the Company some or all of the Company's common stock he acquired in the private placement at $4.93 per share.
Additionally, the Company announced today that it is exploring various strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value. There can be no assurance that this process will result in any specific transaction, nor does the Company expect to disclose developments with respect to the exploration of strategic alternatives unless and until its Board of Directors has approved a definitive transaction. At present time, there is nothing material to report.
ABOUT DHB INDUSTRIES
DHB Industries, Inc.'s Armor Group is in the protective body armor industry. The Company's highly recognized subsidiaries, Point Blank Body Armor, Inc.
(www.pointblankarmor.com) and Protective Apparel Corporation of America (PACA) (www.pacabodyarmor.com), are focused on the design, manufacture, and distribution of bullet resistant and protective body armor for military, law enforcement, and corrections in the U.S. and worldwide. DHB Sports Group, consisting of Company subsidiary NDL Products, Inc. (www.ndlproducts.com), produces and markets a comprehensive line of athletic supports and braces which are merchandised through national superstore chains as well as through private label distributors.
The Company maintains facilities in Deerfield Beach, FL, Oakland Park, FL, Pompano Beach, FL, Jacksboro, TN and Washington, DC. To learn more about DHB Industries, Inc., visit the website at (www.dhbindustries.com).
[bth: what's all this mean in plain english? It means that DHB is being gussied up for sale - probably to Armor Holdings if I had to guess. Looks like someone said they wouldn't touch the company with a ten foot pole unless Brooks the crook was out of the company, but he wouldn't leave, so the board cut this deal with him where he pays for part of the class action suit resulting from his own actions from profits of the stock sales from those elicit activities. Then he has a right evidently according to this release to sell those shares he was required to purchase out of the money back to the company. So if an acquirer showed up - aka "strategic alternative" - then he'd make a profit again! Got to love this guy.... God bless America - a land where a guy can make defective body armor, sell his stock before words gets out, screw his stockholders and profit the entire way.]
Shi'ites going their own way
Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - Iraq's Shi'ites going their own way: "ARBIL, Iraq - Amid failed moves for a peace deal between the Iraqi government and insurgents through a national-reconciliation plan, the Shi'ite majority is pushing ahead to create a federal region for themselves in the country's south.
The move is hugely sensitive in light of the increasingly hard political positions taken by Shi'ite Iran and the conflict in Lebanon involving Hezbollah, the militant Shi'ite group.
'The prime minister's reconciliation project has failed, and so far no major insurgency group has endorsed it,' Kurdish member of parliament Abdullah Aliawayi said.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had implicitly acknowledged the failure of his plan at a meeting with representatives of the major "political parties, he said. The 24-point plan announced by Maliki in June offered amnesty to insurgents other than those who had targeted civilians.
It also included a plan to disarm militias. None of these things has happened, and insurgents still call the shots in Baghdad and other cities. According to some official sources, more than 14,000 Iraqis were killed in just the first half of the year. Outgoing British Ambassador to Iraq William Patey has warned of civil war in Iraq and a breakup of the country along sectarian lines.
General John Abizaid, top US commander in the Middle East, has also warned of civil war if sectarian violence is not halted. Many Iraqi politicians go further to say that the country is in civil war already.
"Iraq is now in a state of undeclared civil war," said Aliawayi, who attended a failed meeting of Iraqi factions in Cairo. "The visions of Sunnis and Shi'ites for the future of Iraq are too far from each other to be easily brought together in a joint program." As more and more signs of the failure of the reconciliation plan surface, Shi'ite groups are speeding up efforts to carve a federal region for themselves.
Speaking at a ceremony at the holy city of Najaf last week, Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a Shi'ite, said Shi'ite politicians will raise the issue of federalism in parliament. "We suggest continuing the establishment of regions," he said. "We are going to submit the project to the parliament in the coming two months."
The government has failed to provide basic services, he said. Shi'ite politicians claim that the constitution, which the Sunnis reject, allows them to create federal regions. Sunnis see the creation of federal structures as a prelude to partitioning of the country.
Many see a link between the deteriorating security situation in Iraq and the Shi'ite push for autonomy in the south.
"Certainly the current complicated political and security situation, in addition to economic factors, has been a key reason in driving Shi'ites towards demanding the establishment of their federal regions in the south," said Najdat Akreyi, national-security expert at Arbil's college of political science.
If Iraq is to avoid the looming civil war, it "cannot continue the way it does now", Akreyi said. A federal structure cannot spare the country from violence, and Iraq needs a system that provides for larger self-rule for the main ethnic and sectarian groups, he said. This move would be a step short of federalism.
"Iraq's political map has to be reviewed and redrawn by creating a system of confederations, which devolves huge powers to separate Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish entities to govern themselves," he said. Since Sunnis control the source of the rivers in southern Shi'ite Iraq, Shi'ites and Sunnis can exchange water and oil, he said.
"To prevent further bloodshed we must not be afraid to admit that Iraq is not a holy entity and can be subject to revisions that can bring stability to the region," he said. "That is what necessitates confederation." The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union are good models for Iraq to follow, Akreyi said.
(Inter Press Service)
The move is hugely sensitive in light of the increasingly hard political positions taken by Shi'ite Iran and the conflict in Lebanon involving Hezbollah, the militant Shi'ite group.
'The prime minister's reconciliation project has failed, and so far no major insurgency group has endorsed it,' Kurdish member of parliament Abdullah Aliawayi said.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had implicitly acknowledged the failure of his plan at a meeting with representatives of the major "political parties, he said. The 24-point plan announced by Maliki in June offered amnesty to insurgents other than those who had targeted civilians.
It also included a plan to disarm militias. None of these things has happened, and insurgents still call the shots in Baghdad and other cities. According to some official sources, more than 14,000 Iraqis were killed in just the first half of the year. Outgoing British Ambassador to Iraq William Patey has warned of civil war in Iraq and a breakup of the country along sectarian lines.
General John Abizaid, top US commander in the Middle East, has also warned of civil war if sectarian violence is not halted. Many Iraqi politicians go further to say that the country is in civil war already.
"Iraq is now in a state of undeclared civil war," said Aliawayi, who attended a failed meeting of Iraqi factions in Cairo. "The visions of Sunnis and Shi'ites for the future of Iraq are too far from each other to be easily brought together in a joint program." As more and more signs of the failure of the reconciliation plan surface, Shi'ite groups are speeding up efforts to carve a federal region for themselves.
Speaking at a ceremony at the holy city of Najaf last week, Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a Shi'ite, said Shi'ite politicians will raise the issue of federalism in parliament. "We suggest continuing the establishment of regions," he said. "We are going to submit the project to the parliament in the coming two months."
The government has failed to provide basic services, he said. Shi'ite politicians claim that the constitution, which the Sunnis reject, allows them to create federal regions. Sunnis see the creation of federal structures as a prelude to partitioning of the country.
Many see a link between the deteriorating security situation in Iraq and the Shi'ite push for autonomy in the south.
"Certainly the current complicated political and security situation, in addition to economic factors, has been a key reason in driving Shi'ites towards demanding the establishment of their federal regions in the south," said Najdat Akreyi, national-security expert at Arbil's college of political science.
If Iraq is to avoid the looming civil war, it "cannot continue the way it does now", Akreyi said. A federal structure cannot spare the country from violence, and Iraq needs a system that provides for larger self-rule for the main ethnic and sectarian groups, he said. This move would be a step short of federalism.
"Iraq's political map has to be reviewed and redrawn by creating a system of confederations, which devolves huge powers to separate Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish entities to govern themselves," he said. Since Sunnis control the source of the rivers in southern Shi'ite Iraq, Shi'ites and Sunnis can exchange water and oil, he said.
"To prevent further bloodshed we must not be afraid to admit that Iraq is not a holy entity and can be subject to revisions that can bring stability to the region," he said. "That is what necessitates confederation." The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union are good models for Iraq to follow, Akreyi said.
(Inter Press Service)
Rice: Iraq Isn't Sliding Into Civil War
Democrat & Chronicle: World and National: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration continues to insist Iraq is not heading toward a civil war, even as some senators and military leaders have expressed concerns that such a conflict may be inevitable.
'It would be, really, erroneous to say that the Iraqis are somehow making a choice for civil war, or, I think, even sliding into civil war,' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on ABC's 'This Week"
But Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., an influential member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sounded more pessimistic and questioned whether the U.S. should keep sending more troops to Iraq.
Hagel said this country cannot "ask them to do the things that we're asking them to do in the middle of a civil war, and that's where it's headed."
"We're ruining our United States Army. We are decimating our army. We can't continue with the tempo and the commitment that we are on right now," Hagel said on CBS "Face the Nation."
Early Monday, fighting erupted in a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad, and a suicide bomber blew himself up among mourners at a funeral in Saddam Hussein's hometown, killing 10 people and injuring 22.
Three U.S. soldiers were killed late Sunday in a roadside bombing southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. No further details were released.
Also Sunday, scattered clashes broke out between Shiite militiamen and Iraqi soldiers near Hamza Square on the edge of Sadr City, police said.
The Bush administration has been reluctant to characterize the sectarian violence in Iraq as a civil war. But on Thursday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told a Senate committee that it could lead to that.
Another senator was even more pessimistic Sunday.
"This is a civil war. I think the generals, the other day, were cautious in their language. But I think they were telling us something loud and clear to anyone who wanted to listen," Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said on "Face the Nation." "I frankly don't believe that U.S. military people can necessarily play referee in that kind of a situation."
Both Dodd and Hagel encouraged more involvement and discussions with other countries in the Middle East. Hagel said President Bush should get his father and former President Clinton involved in a regional summit. But he also acknowledged that the prospects for success would be unlikely.
"There are no good options here, no good options," said Hagel.
© 2006 The Associated Press.
'It would be, really, erroneous to say that the Iraqis are somehow making a choice for civil war, or, I think, even sliding into civil war,' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on ABC's 'This Week"
But Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., an influential member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sounded more pessimistic and questioned whether the U.S. should keep sending more troops to Iraq.
Hagel said this country cannot "ask them to do the things that we're asking them to do in the middle of a civil war, and that's where it's headed."
"We're ruining our United States Army. We are decimating our army. We can't continue with the tempo and the commitment that we are on right now," Hagel said on CBS "Face the Nation."
Early Monday, fighting erupted in a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad, and a suicide bomber blew himself up among mourners at a funeral in Saddam Hussein's hometown, killing 10 people and injuring 22.
Three U.S. soldiers were killed late Sunday in a roadside bombing southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. No further details were released.
Also Sunday, scattered clashes broke out between Shiite militiamen and Iraqi soldiers near Hamza Square on the edge of Sadr City, police said.
The Bush administration has been reluctant to characterize the sectarian violence in Iraq as a civil war. But on Thursday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told a Senate committee that it could lead to that.
Another senator was even more pessimistic Sunday.
"This is a civil war. I think the generals, the other day, were cautious in their language. But I think they were telling us something loud and clear to anyone who wanted to listen," Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said on "Face the Nation." "I frankly don't believe that U.S. military people can necessarily play referee in that kind of a situation."
Both Dodd and Hagel encouraged more involvement and discussions with other countries in the Middle East. Hagel said President Bush should get his father and former President Clinton involved in a regional summit. But he also acknowledged that the prospects for success would be unlikely.
"There are no good options here, no good options," said Hagel.
© 2006 The Associated Press.
Gays flee Iraq as Shia death squads find a new target
Hardline Islamic insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal. The country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are being called the 'immorals' - homosexual men and children as young as 11 who have been forced into same-sex prostitution.
There is growing evidence that Shia militias have been killing men suspected of being gay and children who have been sold to criminal gangs to be sexually abused. The threat has led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Iraqi homosexuals now seeking asylum in the UK because it has become impossible for them to live safely in their own country.
Ali Hili runs the Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) group out of London. He used to have 40 volunteers in Iraq but says after recent raids by militia in Najaf, Karbala and Basra he has lost contact with half of them. They move to different safe houses to protect their identities, but their work is incredibly dangerous.
Eleven-year-old Ameer Hasoon al-Hasani was kidnapped by policemen from the front of his house last month. He was known in his district to have been forced into prostitution. His father Hassan told me he searched for his son for three days after his abduction, then found him, shot in the head. A copy of the death certificate confirms the cause of death.
Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an 'honour killing' to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq's penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.
'The government will do nothing to tackle this issue. It's really desperate when people get to the stage they're trading their children for money. They have no alternatives because there are no jobs,' Hili says.
Graphic photos obtained from Baghdad sources too frightened to identify themselves as having known a gay man, and seen by the Observer, show other gay Iraqis who have been executed. One shows two men, suspected of having a relationship, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs - guns at the ready behind their heads - awaiting execution. Another picture captured on a mobile phone shows a gay man being beaten to death. Yet another shows a corpse being dragged through the streets after his execution.
One photograph is of the mutilated, burnt body of 38-year-old Karar Oda from Sadr City. He was kidnapped by the Badr Brigade in mid-June. They work with the Ministry of Interior and are the informal armed wing of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who make up the largest Shia bloc in the Iraq parliament. Oda's family were given an arrest warrant signed by the Ministry of Interior which said their son deserved to be arrested and killed for immorality as a homosexual. His body was found ten days later.
Dr Haider Jaber is currently seeking asylum in the UK after fleeing Iraq in 2004. He says the abuse started to escalate in his neighbourhood after the invasion. One night, walking home from work, he was surrounded by five men, who told him he had to become a heterosexual Muslim. He says they abused him for wearing jeans and a T-shirt with English writing, and told him he should adopt traditional robes. As a crowd gathered to watch, he was then beaten and kicked to the ground.
The threats continued. Armed militiamen broke into his family home and then his workplace looking for him. Jaber finally left the country in April. His partner, Ali. was not so lucky. Jaber learned of his Ali's murder a few days after leaving Iraq. 'They didn't send the body to the family to have a grave or a flower garden. They said he didn't deserve it because he was an animal,' he said.
Ibaa Alawi has also fled Iraq. A former employee at the British embassy in Baghdad, Alawi met Tony Blair on one of his surprise visits to Iraq. He said Blair was concerned about the safety of the Iraqis working there and praised their bravery. 'Tony Blair said the British government was thankful for our efforts and knew we were putting our lives at risk working for the British embassy in Baghdad.'
Alawi is upset the same government is not willing to help him out. He believes the Home Office will refuse him asylum because it would have to face up to the level of chaos in Iraq, and how much influence is being waged by radical Islamists - and face the fact that, for some, there is still no freedom in Iraq.
· Jennifer Copestake's film on homosexual executions in Iraq will be shown on More4 News on August 7 at 8pm
There is growing evidence that Shia militias have been killing men suspected of being gay and children who have been sold to criminal gangs to be sexually abused. The threat has led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Iraqi homosexuals now seeking asylum in the UK because it has become impossible for them to live safely in their own country.
Ali Hili runs the Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) group out of London. He used to have 40 volunteers in Iraq but says after recent raids by militia in Najaf, Karbala and Basra he has lost contact with half of them. They move to different safe houses to protect their identities, but their work is incredibly dangerous.
Eleven-year-old Ameer Hasoon al-Hasani was kidnapped by policemen from the front of his house last month. He was known in his district to have been forced into prostitution. His father Hassan told me he searched for his son for three days after his abduction, then found him, shot in the head. A copy of the death certificate confirms the cause of death.
Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an 'honour killing' to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq's penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.
'The government will do nothing to tackle this issue. It's really desperate when people get to the stage they're trading their children for money. They have no alternatives because there are no jobs,' Hili says.
Graphic photos obtained from Baghdad sources too frightened to identify themselves as having known a gay man, and seen by the Observer, show other gay Iraqis who have been executed. One shows two men, suspected of having a relationship, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs - guns at the ready behind their heads - awaiting execution. Another picture captured on a mobile phone shows a gay man being beaten to death. Yet another shows a corpse being dragged through the streets after his execution.
One photograph is of the mutilated, burnt body of 38-year-old Karar Oda from Sadr City. He was kidnapped by the Badr Brigade in mid-June. They work with the Ministry of Interior and are the informal armed wing of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who make up the largest Shia bloc in the Iraq parliament. Oda's family were given an arrest warrant signed by the Ministry of Interior which said their son deserved to be arrested and killed for immorality as a homosexual. His body was found ten days later.
Dr Haider Jaber is currently seeking asylum in the UK after fleeing Iraq in 2004. He says the abuse started to escalate in his neighbourhood after the invasion. One night, walking home from work, he was surrounded by five men, who told him he had to become a heterosexual Muslim. He says they abused him for wearing jeans and a T-shirt with English writing, and told him he should adopt traditional robes. As a crowd gathered to watch, he was then beaten and kicked to the ground.
The threats continued. Armed militiamen broke into his family home and then his workplace looking for him. Jaber finally left the country in April. His partner, Ali. was not so lucky. Jaber learned of his Ali's murder a few days after leaving Iraq. 'They didn't send the body to the family to have a grave or a flower garden. They said he didn't deserve it because he was an animal,' he said.
Ibaa Alawi has also fled Iraq. A former employee at the British embassy in Baghdad, Alawi met Tony Blair on one of his surprise visits to Iraq. He said Blair was concerned about the safety of the Iraqis working there and praised their bravery. 'Tony Blair said the British government was thankful for our efforts and knew we were putting our lives at risk working for the British embassy in Baghdad.'
Alawi is upset the same government is not willing to help him out. He believes the Home Office will refuse him asylum because it would have to face up to the level of chaos in Iraq, and how much influence is being waged by radical Islamists - and face the fact that, for some, there is still no freedom in Iraq.
· Jennifer Copestake's film on homosexual executions in Iraq will be shown on More4 News on August 7 at 8pm
Iraq: Would U.S. Pull Out in Full Civil War?
Iraq: Would U.S. Pull Out in Full Civil War? - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com: "Aug. 14, 2006 issue - The Bush administration insists Iraq is a long way from civil war, but the contingency planning has already begun inside the White House and the Pentagon. President Bush will move U.S. troops out of Iraq if the country descends into civil war, according to one senior Bush aide who declined to be named while talking about internal strategy. 'If there's a full-blown civil war, the president isn't going to allow our forces to be caught in the crossfire,' the aide said. 'But institutionally, the government of Iraq isn't breaking down. It's still a unity government.' Bush's position on a pullout of U.S. troops emerged in response to news-week's questions about Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Warner warned last week that the president might require a new vote from Congress to allow troops to stay in Iraq in what he called 'all-out civil war.' But the senior Bush aide said the White House would need no prompting from Congress to get troops out 'if the Iraqi government broke down completely along sectarian lines.'"
The White House prefers to focus on the more positive aspects of last week's testimony from Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The generals gave a bleak assessment of the sectarian violence, but added that civil war was only a possibility, not a probability. In fact, the U.S. military in Iraq has completed several elements of contingency planning in case of civil war, based on lessons learned from Bosnia and Kosovo. The military's approach revolves around three principles. The first is to stop massacres by physically separating communities, moving minorities out of harm's way if necessary. The second is to stop the flow of paramilitary gangs across the country. And the third is to halt any incitement to violence on Iraqi TV and radio. Baghdad would pose the biggest problem, requiring a strict curfew and a ban on road traffic. The security measures would include widespread checkpoints and a ban on carrying firearms or explosives.
The administration hasn't made its definition of full-blown civil war explicit. But in March, when Iraq's former prime minister Ayad Allawi said the country was already fighting a civil war, Bush disagreed, noting the existence of Iraq's nonsectarian Army and government. If the country did someday meet the definition of civil war and the U.S. pulled out, military officials warn, the consequences would be disastrous. "All the neighboring powers would be drawn in," said one senior military official who has examined the scenarios and is not authorized to speak on the record. "It would become a regional war."
—Richard Wolffe and John Barry
The White House prefers to focus on the more positive aspects of last week's testimony from Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The generals gave a bleak assessment of the sectarian violence, but added that civil war was only a possibility, not a probability. In fact, the U.S. military in Iraq has completed several elements of contingency planning in case of civil war, based on lessons learned from Bosnia and Kosovo. The military's approach revolves around three principles. The first is to stop massacres by physically separating communities, moving minorities out of harm's way if necessary. The second is to stop the flow of paramilitary gangs across the country. And the third is to halt any incitement to violence on Iraqi TV and radio. Baghdad would pose the biggest problem, requiring a strict curfew and a ban on road traffic. The security measures would include widespread checkpoints and a ban on carrying firearms or explosives.
The administration hasn't made its definition of full-blown civil war explicit. But in March, when Iraq's former prime minister Ayad Allawi said the country was already fighting a civil war, Bush disagreed, noting the existence of Iraq's nonsectarian Army and government. If the country did someday meet the definition of civil war and the U.S. pulled out, military officials warn, the consequences would be disastrous. "All the neighboring powers would be drawn in," said one senior military official who has examined the scenarios and is not authorized to speak on the record. "It would become a regional war."
—Richard Wolffe and John Barry
War and Piece: IDF must avoid protracted occupation
War and Piece:: "The IDF must therefore do everything possible to avoid the modus operandi it used during its protracted stay in Lebanon after the 1982 Lebanon War. Israel must not remain in southern Lebanon. It must not base its operations and deployment there on supply convoys, or on transporting soldiers for furloughs in Israel and then back to their bases in Lebanon, or even on permanent military bases in Lebanon, even if they are fortified. These are convenient targets for guerrilla fighters, and this is the kind of situation that Hezbollah anticipates.
A problem will arise if no international peacekeeping force can be found to which the IDF can hand over the territory that it now occupies in southern Lebanon. In such a scenario, Israel will be faced with a dilemma: Stay in southern Lebanon, or withdraw, even if Hezbollah returns to set up bases there? If confronted with this question, Israel must choose withdrawal - in order to avoid again finding itself waist-deep in the Lebanese quagmire."
A problem will arise if no international peacekeeping force can be found to which the IDF can hand over the territory that it now occupies in southern Lebanon. In such a scenario, Israel will be faced with a dilemma: Stay in southern Lebanon, or withdraw, even if Hezbollah returns to set up bases there? If confronted with this question, Israel must choose withdrawal - in order to avoid again finding itself waist-deep in the Lebanese quagmire."
The Oil Drum | Discussions about Energy and Our Future
The Oil Drum Discussions about Energy and Our Future: "...Because of severe corrosion in one of the pipelines, BP is temporarily closing the production from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield, and, in the process, cutting off some 400,000 barrels of oil a day, some 8% of US production. The NYT story suggests that this might raise prices by as much as $10 a barrel."...
North Korea Claims Capture of U.S. Submersible - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News
FOXNews.com - North Korea Claims Capture of U.S. Submersible - International News News of the World Middle East News Europe News: "The ultra-small unmanned submersible vessel was captured during a reconnaissance mission in waters off North Korea's eastern city of Hamhung, said the Choson Sinbo newspaper, which is published by a pro-North Korean association linked to the Pyongyang government.
The newspaper report on its Web site, monitored in Seoul, was accompanied by a picture purported to be of the black torpedo-shaped U.S. vessel. There were no further details as to when or how North Korea obtained it.
Last September, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il instructed officials to put the new spy vessel on public display along with the ship Pueblo that the communist regime captured in 1968, the newspaper said.
A spokesman for the U.S. military in South Korea, David Oten, dismissed the report.
'We have nothing unaccounted for and there is no way for us to verify that this is a U.S. vessel,' Oten said."...
The newspaper report on its Web site, monitored in Seoul, was accompanied by a picture purported to be of the black torpedo-shaped U.S. vessel. There were no further details as to when or how North Korea obtained it.
Last September, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il instructed officials to put the new spy vessel on public display along with the ship Pueblo that the communist regime captured in 1968, the newspaper said.
A spokesman for the U.S. military in South Korea, David Oten, dismissed the report.
'We have nothing unaccounted for and there is no way for us to verify that this is a U.S. vessel,' Oten said."...
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Limitations on Public Release and Disclosures About Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Defeat/Efforts
Military Professional Development Center: "RTTUZYUW RUEWMCS0000 1781820-UUUU--RUCRNAV.
ZNR UUUUU
R 271820Z JUN 06
FM SECNAV WASHINGTON DC
TO ALNAV
BT
UNCLAS
ALNAV 056/06"
MSGID/GENADMIN/SECNAV WASHINGTON DC//SUBJ/LIMITATIONS ON PUBLIC RELEASE AND DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION AND/TECHNICAL DATA ABOUT IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE (IED) DEFEAT/EFFORTS//GENTEXT/REMARKS/1. THIS MESSAGE EMPHASIZES COMPLIANCE WITH POLICIESGOVERNING THE PUBLIC RELEASE AND DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION ANDTECHNICAL DATA ABOUT IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES (IED) DEFEATEFFORTS, PARTICULARLY INFORMATION BRIEFINGS FOR DEPLOYED COALITIONFORCES. DEPARTMENT OF NAVY (DON) PERSONNEL SHALL ONLY RELEASE ORDISCLOSE IED-DEFEAT INFORMATION THAT IS IN ACCORDANCE WITHINFORMATION SECURITY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS/DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATIONREGULATIONS AND POLICIES (SECNAV INSTRUCTION 5510.36 AND 5720.44B).ACCORDINGLY, DON PERSONNEL SHALL BE PARTICULARLY VIGILANT TO ENSURETHAT INFORMATION AND TECHNICAL DATA RELATED TO IED-DEFEAT EFFORTS,AS OUTLINED IN THE NEW DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD) POLICY ON"DISCUSSION OF IEDS AND IED-DEFEAT EFFORTS IN OPEN SOURCES," DATED24 APRIL 2006 ... BE HANDLED AS FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYAT A MINIMUM, OR AS CLASSIFIED IF DEEMED SO BY AN APPROVED SECURITYCLASSIFICATION GUIDE OR AUTHORITY.2. IEDS ARE A SIGNIFICANT TACTICAL THREAT TO COALITIONFORCES DEPLOYED IN THE U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND (USCENTCOM) AREA OFOPERATIONS (AO). THE JOINT IED-DEFEAT ORGANIZATION (JIEDDO) IS AJOINT COMBINED INTERAGENCY PROGRAM TASKED TO LEVERAGE ALL AVAILABLERESOURCES AND TECHNOLOGIES IN A COORDINATED CAMPAIGN TO DEFEAT THEIED THREAT. DON HAS BEEN THE DOD EXECUTIVE AGENT FOR JOINTEXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE DISPOSAL COUNTERMEASURES TECHNOLOGY AND TRAININGREQUIREMENTS SINCE 1971, AND WAS RECENTLY ASSIGNED AS THE LEADSERVICE FOR COUNTER RADIO-CONTROLLED IED ELECTRONIC COUNTERMEASURESTECHNOLOGY. IN VIEW OF THE CRITICAL PART THAT IED INFORMATION ANDTECHNICAL DATA PLAY IN IED-DEFEAT EFFORTS, DON PERSONNEL MUSTUNDERSTAND THAT FOLLOWING APPLICABLE INFORMATION SECURITY,DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION, AND OPERATIONS SECURITY POLICIES PLAY ANIMPORTANT ROLE IN SUPPORTING COALITION IED-DEFEAT EFFORTS.3. INSURGENT FORCES IN THE USCENTCOM AO CAN USE PUBLIC MEDIA, THEINTERNET, AND INFORMATION GLEANED FROM PRIVATE, PROFESSIONAL ANDTECHNOLOGY FORUMS TO GAIN INSIGHTS INTO COALITION IED-DEFEATEFFORTS. THEREFORE, INFORMATION AND TECHNICAL DATA ABOUT IED-DEFEATEFFORTS, PARTICULARLY COUNTERMEASURE TECHNOLOGIES, DEFEAT TACTICS,TACTICS, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCEDURES (TTP), AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANDDOCTRINAL INITIATIVES, MUST BE PROTECTED FROM UNAUTHORIZED PUBLICRELEASE OR DISCLOSURE.4. ATTENTION TO DOD PUBLIC DISCLOSURE AND INFORMATION SECURITYPOLICIES PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN PROTECTING AGAINST UNAUTHORIZEDPUBLIC RELEASE OR DISCLOSURE OF IED-DEFEAT EFFORT INFORMATION ANDTECHNICAL DATA, AND WILL REDUCE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF IEDS AGAINSTCOALITION FORCES. THE FOLLOWING TYPES OF INFORMATION MUST BEGUARDED AND CLASSIFIED APPROPRIATELY:(a) OUR SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE OF ENEMY IED TTP, AND OUR ANALYSIS OFENEMY CAPABILITIES OR VULNERABILITIES;(b) FRIENDLY FORCE EQUIPMENT, TECHNOLOGICAL, ORGANIZATIONAL, OROPERATIONAL VULNERABILITIES;(c) SPECIFIC FRIENDLY FORCE TECHNOLOGY AREAS OR DETAILS,ORGANIZATIONAL INITIATIVES, AND OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES DESIGNED TOCOUNTER IEDS;(d) SPECIFIC EXPLOITATION TTP;(e) PHOTOS OF OR INFORMATION ABOUT VEHICLES OR EQUIPMENT THAT HAVEBEEN DAMAGED BY AN IED;(f) PHOTOS OF OR INFORMATION ABOUT RECOVERED COMPONENTS OF AN IED;(g) LOCALLY PRODUCED BRIEFINGS; NOTE - THE MINIMUM LEVELOF CLASSIFICATION FOR ANY BRIEFING OR DOCUMENT RELATED TO IED-DEFEATEFFORTS IS FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY. THE ASSOCIATION OF ANY OF THISINFORMATION WITH DEPLOYED TROOPS OR SPECIFIC LOCATIONS WILL NORMALLYMEAN IT SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AND AFFORDED AN APPROPRIATELY GREATERLEVEL OF PROTECTION. SPECIFIC CLASSIFICATION GUIDANCE CAN BEOBTAINED FROM THE JOINT IED-DEFEAT ORGANIZATION. BRIEFINGS THAT AREDESIGNED TO IMPART INFORMATION TO SERVICE MEMBERS WHO ARE PREPARINGFOR DEPLOYMENT GENERALLY ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR PRESENTATION ORRELEASE TO THE PUBLIC (WHICH INCLUDES THE MEDIA); AND(h) IED COUNTERMEASURES CONSIST OF TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AS WELL ASOPERATIONAL PROCEDURES, ALONG WITH ORGANIZATIONAL, AND DOCTRINALINITIATIVES. ALL MUST BE PROTECTED.5. THE FOLLOWING ARE APPROVED TALKING POINTS FOR ALL PERSONNEL:(a) THE IED THREAT AND ITS DEFEAT IS A TOP PRIORITY FOR DOD;(b) DOD IS DEVOTING SIGNIFICANT RESOURCES (EQUIPMENT, PERSONNEL,AND TTP) TO DEFEATING IEDS;(c) THE JIEDDO WORKS WITH THE SERVICES AND ALL OF DOD TO DEVELOPINTEGRATED SOLUTIONS THAT BALANCE INTELLIGENCE, TRAINING ANDTECHNOLOGY;(d) THE IED ISSUE IS A COMPLICATED ONE, AND NO SINGLESOLUTION EXISTS TO DEFEAT IEDS. OUR STRATEGY INCLUDES THREECOMPONENTS:(1) TRAINING IS PARAMOUNT. THE BEST SENSOR AND WEAPON ONTHE BATTLEFIELD IS A WELL-TRAINED, SITUATIONALLY AWARE SOLDIER,SAILOR, AIRMAN OR MARINE.(2) KILLING OR CAPTURING BOMB MAKERS AND DISRUPTING OR ELIMINATINGTHEIR NETWORKS IS VITAL.(3) PROVIDING TROOPS ON THE BATTLEFIELD WITH EFFECTIVE,INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY ENABLES THE FIGHT.6. POC: CHINFO PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICER AT (703) 697-7391; MARINECORPS PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICER AT (703) 614-4309; JIEDDO PUBLICAFFAIRS OFFICER AT (703) 601-3784.7. RELEASE AUTHORIZED BY THE HONORABLE DONALD C. WINTER, SECRETARYOF THE NAVY.//BT#0000NNNN
[bth: this action has effectively removed all objective journalism from embedded reporters. It has resulted in a total loss of American public awareness of the IED threat except in the most abstract of forms. It has hidden the military deficiencies in IED jamming and countermeasure efforts from public scrutiny or criticism. It has resulted in a total deletion of photographs of destroyed or damaged vehicles. Rather than fix the vehicles, Rumsfeld has seen fit to fix the media by classifying their deficiencies. .... Do insurgents know the vulnerabilities? Evidently so. Do they know our countermeasures? Evidently they know a great many of them as they video tape our convoys and no doubt measure electronic emissions from those vehicles. Determining if a frequency is being jammed for say a certain radio or tv remote would be as easy for an insurgent as trying to open their garage door with their remote when a convoy goes by or simply trying to place a cell phone or radio call when the convoy is in the area. The net result of this sweeping proclaimation is that the American public is blinded to the threat its troops face. A stunning solution I must say to a politically sensitive issue - force protection measures - vehicle armor, body armor, IED jammers (or lack there of) - simply classify everything up to and including photographs. ... when troops wonder if the public cares, they should now ask themselves if the public knows!]
ZNR UUUUU
R 271820Z JUN 06
FM SECNAV WASHINGTON DC
TO ALNAV
BT
UNCLAS
ALNAV 056/06"
MSGID/GENADMIN/SECNAV WASHINGTON DC//SUBJ/LIMITATIONS ON PUBLIC RELEASE AND DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION AND/TECHNICAL DATA ABOUT IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE (IED) DEFEAT/EFFORTS//GENTEXT/REMARKS/1. THIS MESSAGE EMPHASIZES COMPLIANCE WITH POLICIESGOVERNING THE PUBLIC RELEASE AND DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION ANDTECHNICAL DATA ABOUT IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES (IED) DEFEATEFFORTS, PARTICULARLY INFORMATION BRIEFINGS FOR DEPLOYED COALITIONFORCES. DEPARTMENT OF NAVY (DON) PERSONNEL SHALL ONLY RELEASE ORDISCLOSE IED-DEFEAT INFORMATION THAT IS IN ACCORDANCE WITHINFORMATION SECURITY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS/DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATIONREGULATIONS AND POLICIES (SECNAV INSTRUCTION 5510.36 AND 5720.44B).ACCORDINGLY, DON PERSONNEL SHALL BE PARTICULARLY VIGILANT TO ENSURETHAT INFORMATION AND TECHNICAL DATA RELATED TO IED-DEFEAT EFFORTS,AS OUTLINED IN THE NEW DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD) POLICY ON"DISCUSSION OF IEDS AND IED-DEFEAT EFFORTS IN OPEN SOURCES," DATED24 APRIL 2006 ... BE HANDLED AS FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYAT A MINIMUM, OR AS CLASSIFIED IF DEEMED SO BY AN APPROVED SECURITYCLASSIFICATION GUIDE OR AUTHORITY.2. IEDS ARE A SIGNIFICANT TACTICAL THREAT TO COALITIONFORCES DEPLOYED IN THE U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND (USCENTCOM) AREA OFOPERATIONS (AO). THE JOINT IED-DEFEAT ORGANIZATION (JIEDDO) IS AJOINT COMBINED INTERAGENCY PROGRAM TASKED TO LEVERAGE ALL AVAILABLERESOURCES AND TECHNOLOGIES IN A COORDINATED CAMPAIGN TO DEFEAT THEIED THREAT. DON HAS BEEN THE DOD EXECUTIVE AGENT FOR JOINTEXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE DISPOSAL COUNTERMEASURES TECHNOLOGY AND TRAININGREQUIREMENTS SINCE 1971, AND WAS RECENTLY ASSIGNED AS THE LEADSERVICE FOR COUNTER RADIO-CONTROLLED IED ELECTRONIC COUNTERMEASURESTECHNOLOGY. IN VIEW OF THE CRITICAL PART THAT IED INFORMATION ANDTECHNICAL DATA PLAY IN IED-DEFEAT EFFORTS, DON PERSONNEL MUSTUNDERSTAND THAT FOLLOWING APPLICABLE INFORMATION SECURITY,DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION, AND OPERATIONS SECURITY POLICIES PLAY ANIMPORTANT ROLE IN SUPPORTING COALITION IED-DEFEAT EFFORTS.3. INSURGENT FORCES IN THE USCENTCOM AO CAN USE PUBLIC MEDIA, THEINTERNET, AND INFORMATION GLEANED FROM PRIVATE, PROFESSIONAL ANDTECHNOLOGY FORUMS TO GAIN INSIGHTS INTO COALITION IED-DEFEATEFFORTS. THEREFORE, INFORMATION AND TECHNICAL DATA ABOUT IED-DEFEATEFFORTS, PARTICULARLY COUNTERMEASURE TECHNOLOGIES, DEFEAT TACTICS,TACTICS, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCEDURES (TTP), AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANDDOCTRINAL INITIATIVES, MUST BE PROTECTED FROM UNAUTHORIZED PUBLICRELEASE OR DISCLOSURE.4. ATTENTION TO DOD PUBLIC DISCLOSURE AND INFORMATION SECURITYPOLICIES PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN PROTECTING AGAINST UNAUTHORIZEDPUBLIC RELEASE OR DISCLOSURE OF IED-DEFEAT EFFORT INFORMATION ANDTECHNICAL DATA, AND WILL REDUCE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF IEDS AGAINSTCOALITION FORCES. THE FOLLOWING TYPES OF INFORMATION MUST BEGUARDED AND CLASSIFIED APPROPRIATELY:(a) OUR SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE OF ENEMY IED TTP, AND OUR ANALYSIS OFENEMY CAPABILITIES OR VULNERABILITIES;(b) FRIENDLY FORCE EQUIPMENT, TECHNOLOGICAL, ORGANIZATIONAL, OROPERATIONAL VULNERABILITIES;(c) SPECIFIC FRIENDLY FORCE TECHNOLOGY AREAS OR DETAILS,ORGANIZATIONAL INITIATIVES, AND OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES DESIGNED TOCOUNTER IEDS;(d) SPECIFIC EXPLOITATION TTP;(e) PHOTOS OF OR INFORMATION ABOUT VEHICLES OR EQUIPMENT THAT HAVEBEEN DAMAGED BY AN IED;(f) PHOTOS OF OR INFORMATION ABOUT RECOVERED COMPONENTS OF AN IED;(g) LOCALLY PRODUCED BRIEFINGS; NOTE - THE MINIMUM LEVELOF CLASSIFICATION FOR ANY BRIEFING OR DOCUMENT RELATED TO IED-DEFEATEFFORTS IS FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY. THE ASSOCIATION OF ANY OF THISINFORMATION WITH DEPLOYED TROOPS OR SPECIFIC LOCATIONS WILL NORMALLYMEAN IT SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AND AFFORDED AN APPROPRIATELY GREATERLEVEL OF PROTECTION. SPECIFIC CLASSIFICATION GUIDANCE CAN BEOBTAINED FROM THE JOINT IED-DEFEAT ORGANIZATION. BRIEFINGS THAT AREDESIGNED TO IMPART INFORMATION TO SERVICE MEMBERS WHO ARE PREPARINGFOR DEPLOYMENT GENERALLY ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR PRESENTATION ORRELEASE TO THE PUBLIC (WHICH INCLUDES THE MEDIA); AND(h) IED COUNTERMEASURES CONSIST OF TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AS WELL ASOPERATIONAL PROCEDURES, ALONG WITH ORGANIZATIONAL, AND DOCTRINALINITIATIVES. ALL MUST BE PROTECTED.5. THE FOLLOWING ARE APPROVED TALKING POINTS FOR ALL PERSONNEL:(a) THE IED THREAT AND ITS DEFEAT IS A TOP PRIORITY FOR DOD;(b) DOD IS DEVOTING SIGNIFICANT RESOURCES (EQUIPMENT, PERSONNEL,AND TTP) TO DEFEATING IEDS;(c) THE JIEDDO WORKS WITH THE SERVICES AND ALL OF DOD TO DEVELOPINTEGRATED SOLUTIONS THAT BALANCE INTELLIGENCE, TRAINING ANDTECHNOLOGY;(d) THE IED ISSUE IS A COMPLICATED ONE, AND NO SINGLESOLUTION EXISTS TO DEFEAT IEDS. OUR STRATEGY INCLUDES THREECOMPONENTS:(1) TRAINING IS PARAMOUNT. THE BEST SENSOR AND WEAPON ONTHE BATTLEFIELD IS A WELL-TRAINED, SITUATIONALLY AWARE SOLDIER,SAILOR, AIRMAN OR MARINE.(2) KILLING OR CAPTURING BOMB MAKERS AND DISRUPTING OR ELIMINATINGTHEIR NETWORKS IS VITAL.(3) PROVIDING TROOPS ON THE BATTLEFIELD WITH EFFECTIVE,INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY ENABLES THE FIGHT.6. POC: CHINFO PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICER AT (703) 697-7391; MARINECORPS PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICER AT (703) 614-4309; JIEDDO PUBLICAFFAIRS OFFICER AT (703) 601-3784.7. RELEASE AUTHORIZED BY THE HONORABLE DONALD C. WINTER, SECRETARYOF THE NAVY.//BT#0000NNNN
[bth: this action has effectively removed all objective journalism from embedded reporters. It has resulted in a total loss of American public awareness of the IED threat except in the most abstract of forms. It has hidden the military deficiencies in IED jamming and countermeasure efforts from public scrutiny or criticism. It has resulted in a total deletion of photographs of destroyed or damaged vehicles. Rather than fix the vehicles, Rumsfeld has seen fit to fix the media by classifying their deficiencies. .... Do insurgents know the vulnerabilities? Evidently so. Do they know our countermeasures? Evidently they know a great many of them as they video tape our convoys and no doubt measure electronic emissions from those vehicles. Determining if a frequency is being jammed for say a certain radio or tv remote would be as easy for an insurgent as trying to open their garage door with their remote when a convoy goes by or simply trying to place a cell phone or radio call when the convoy is in the area. The net result of this sweeping proclaimation is that the American public is blinded to the threat its troops face. A stunning solution I must say to a politically sensitive issue - force protection measures - vehicle armor, body armor, IED jammers (or lack there of) - simply classify everything up to and including photographs. ... when troops wonder if the public cares, they should now ask themselves if the public knows!]
My opinion Joseph L. Galloway : What if our supply lines are cut?
My opinion Joseph L. Galloway : What if our supply lines are cut? www.azstarnet.com �: "As Israel attacks deeper into Lebanon and the civil war in Iraq grows ever more dangerous and unpredictable, a former Defense Intelligence Agency specialist on the Middle East this week raised a new, interesting and chilling point to consider.
Retired Army Col. Patrick Lang asked who's at greatest risk if either Lebanon or Iraq spirals out of control and the Shiite militias in Iraq, who up to this point have been told to leave American forces alone, decide to act against the 130,000 U.S. troops occupying Iraq. "
However invincible the military of the world's only superpower might seem, every army has its weak spot. Historically, it centers on logistics, the supply line tail that wags the dog.
The lifeline for American forces in Iraq is a 400-plus-mile main supply route that runs from Kuwait through Shia-dominated and Iranian-infiltrated southern Iraq to Baghdad and points north and west.
Along that route, trucks and tankers driven by third-country nationals — Turks and Pakistanis and others — haul 95 percent of the beans and bullets for our troops and 100 percent of the fuel that our tanks and Bradleys and Humvees gulp at staggering rates.
That route runs through the heart of Iraq's Shiite Muslim south, an area now thoroughly infiltrated by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and under the sway of well-armed Shiite militiamen and Iraqi police who are often indistinguishable from the militiamen and sometimes the same people.
The lightly protected American convoys are vulnerable to ambushes, improvised explosive devices and even an occasional rocket-propelled grenade slamming into a fuel tanker.
In an article for The Christian Science Monitor, Lang asked what we could do if that supply route were cut. Only about 5 percent of the supplies for our troops in Iraq come in by air.
With a huge effort, that could be doubled or perhaps even tripled, but an airlift couldn't provide nearly enough food, ammunition and fuel to keep our troops on the job, even if the Sunni insurgents around Baghdad and Balad didn't start trying to shoot down the supply flights or drop mortar rounds on the runways.
Would our military have to stop trying to end the sectarian violence in Iraq in order to keep its own supply lines open?
There's another strategic vulnerability farther up the chain:
Supplies for our forces must first reach the main port in Kuwait by ships — ships that must transit the Strait of Hormuz past a gantlet of Iranian Silkworm anti-ship missiles and suicide torpedo boats.
Little wonder, then, that Iran and its ayatollahs have the nerve to thumb their noses at efforts to curtail their nuclear ambitions and to supply thousands of short- and medium-range missiles to their Hezbollah proteges in Lebanon.
The Bush administration marched us into Iraq in the belief that it could install a democracy in the heart of a volatile region and, in the end, make the world and the United States safer.
The armed force the president dispatched to do the job was too small, it left its supply lines unguarded and now it's bogged down.
The crackdown we imposed on Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs and the democracy we established in Iraq have unleashed the majority Shia to take revenge against the Sunnis who prospered and governed under Saddam Hussein's bloody rule.
The Sunnis are responding in kind, and the capital city of Baghdad has become a killing field where few are immune to the sectarian violence.
We Americans have always believed that democracy is the answer, but we're discovering that there are places and people that are so scarred by their pasts that democracy and free elections can make things worse.
The Bush people hope against hope that somehow it will all turn out right. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, touring the tinderbox, said that she saw in the smoking ruins of Lebanon the birth pangs of a new Middle East.
That reminds me of a sign that used to decorate the Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Ga.:
"Hope is NOT a method unless you are the chaplain!"
E-mail Joseph L. Galloway at jlgalloway2@cs.com.
[bth: it isn't commonly known but the first Fallujah offensive was thrwarted by a lack of supplies as convoys were ambushed in volume for the first time in the Spring of 2004. The marines didn't have enough fuel and bullets to sustain an attack even though they wanted to, so the entire affair was delayed until November 2004.]
Retired Army Col. Patrick Lang asked who's at greatest risk if either Lebanon or Iraq spirals out of control and the Shiite militias in Iraq, who up to this point have been told to leave American forces alone, decide to act against the 130,000 U.S. troops occupying Iraq. "
However invincible the military of the world's only superpower might seem, every army has its weak spot. Historically, it centers on logistics, the supply line tail that wags the dog.
The lifeline for American forces in Iraq is a 400-plus-mile main supply route that runs from Kuwait through Shia-dominated and Iranian-infiltrated southern Iraq to Baghdad and points north and west.
Along that route, trucks and tankers driven by third-country nationals — Turks and Pakistanis and others — haul 95 percent of the beans and bullets for our troops and 100 percent of the fuel that our tanks and Bradleys and Humvees gulp at staggering rates.
That route runs through the heart of Iraq's Shiite Muslim south, an area now thoroughly infiltrated by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and under the sway of well-armed Shiite militiamen and Iraqi police who are often indistinguishable from the militiamen and sometimes the same people.
The lightly protected American convoys are vulnerable to ambushes, improvised explosive devices and even an occasional rocket-propelled grenade slamming into a fuel tanker.
In an article for The Christian Science Monitor, Lang asked what we could do if that supply route were cut. Only about 5 percent of the supplies for our troops in Iraq come in by air.
With a huge effort, that could be doubled or perhaps even tripled, but an airlift couldn't provide nearly enough food, ammunition and fuel to keep our troops on the job, even if the Sunni insurgents around Baghdad and Balad didn't start trying to shoot down the supply flights or drop mortar rounds on the runways.
Would our military have to stop trying to end the sectarian violence in Iraq in order to keep its own supply lines open?
There's another strategic vulnerability farther up the chain:
Supplies for our forces must first reach the main port in Kuwait by ships — ships that must transit the Strait of Hormuz past a gantlet of Iranian Silkworm anti-ship missiles and suicide torpedo boats.
Little wonder, then, that Iran and its ayatollahs have the nerve to thumb their noses at efforts to curtail their nuclear ambitions and to supply thousands of short- and medium-range missiles to their Hezbollah proteges in Lebanon.
The Bush administration marched us into Iraq in the belief that it could install a democracy in the heart of a volatile region and, in the end, make the world and the United States safer.
The armed force the president dispatched to do the job was too small, it left its supply lines unguarded and now it's bogged down.
The crackdown we imposed on Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs and the democracy we established in Iraq have unleashed the majority Shia to take revenge against the Sunnis who prospered and governed under Saddam Hussein's bloody rule.
The Sunnis are responding in kind, and the capital city of Baghdad has become a killing field where few are immune to the sectarian violence.
We Americans have always believed that democracy is the answer, but we're discovering that there are places and people that are so scarred by their pasts that democracy and free elections can make things worse.
The Bush people hope against hope that somehow it will all turn out right. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, touring the tinderbox, said that she saw in the smoking ruins of Lebanon the birth pangs of a new Middle East.
That reminds me of a sign that used to decorate the Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Ga.:
"Hope is NOT a method unless you are the chaplain!"
E-mail Joseph L. Galloway at jlgalloway2@cs.com.
[bth: it isn't commonly known but the first Fallujah offensive was thrwarted by a lack of supplies as convoys were ambushed in volume for the first time in the Spring of 2004. The marines didn't have enough fuel and bullets to sustain an attack even though they wanted to, so the entire affair was delayed until November 2004.]
Reuters admits altering Beirut photo
Reuters admits altering Beirut photo - News from Israel, Ynetnews: "A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.
The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors."
The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors."
"Civil War" Is Uttered, and White House�s Iraq Strategy Is Dealt a Blow - New York Times
�Civil War� Is Uttered, and White House�s Iraq Strategy Is Dealt a Blow - New York Times: "� ..."Civil war"is sort of a proxy term for wars we cannot win"said Christopher F. Gelpi, a professor of political science at Duke University who has worked on gauging opinions on Iraq with Peter D. Feaver, a fellow Duke professor who took leave to become a special adviser to the White House, helping to hone the "Plan for Victory"
"The problem they're facing is there's only so much their rhetorical strategy can do to reshape public perceptions of the very real events that are out there, and right now those events are very bad when thousands of Iraqis are being killed every month"Mr. Gelpi said.
Underscoring just how hard the job of putting an optimistic face on the war is proving to be, the staunchest remaining supporters are voicing pessimism about the prospects under the administration's current approach, increasingly calling for Mr. Bush to engage in a new and more aggressive strategy.
"Those of us who still back the war are worried and alarmed"said William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, an early proponent of the invasion. "We need to win the war and if it's not going well we need to change strategy"
On The National Review Online Web site last week, a former speechwriter for President Bush, David Frum, another longtime supporter of the war, said that if the United States did not change its policy by significantly increasing troop levels, “Baghdad — and therefore central Iraq — will in such a case slide after Basra and the south into the unofficial new Iranian empire.” Then, he predicted, “American troops will be free to stay or go, depending on whether we wish to deny or acknowledge defeat.”
Mr. Frum criticized as insufficient a plan Mr. Bush announced last week for an increase of troops in Baghdad — brought from other parts of Iraq — to help quell the violence in the capital.
In the current political climate, there is little appetite among voters for an increased troop presence. In the latest New York Times poll, 56 percent said the United States should set a timetable for withdrawal; 33 percent said it should do so even if it means handing Iraq over to insurgents.
Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said Mr. Bush’s hands would not be tied in Iraq by domestic politics. “You want to have as many people as supportive of this effort as possible,” he said in an interview.
“But at the end of the day the commander in chief is going to make the decisions, and at the end of the day he’s going to defer to commanders on the ground — not the swings of public opinion.”
Mr. Bartlett said the administration would spend the fall explaining the strategy in Iraq, describing success as certain and providing “the necessary context and consequences and stakes in the fight,” which the administration has defined as creating the democratic conditions needed to defeat terrorism.
He acknowledged, “The images coming out of the Middle East are unsettling and obviously contribute to the anxiety.”
The theory when President Bush unveiled the “Plan for Victory” was that Americans would accept casualties if they could see a path to victory. For now, roadside bombs and suicide attackers are certainly clouding that vision.
[bth: so what's being said here is that the neo-cons want us to become MORE aggressive and expand the war - probably meaning attack Iran, otherwise, they smell defeat via civil war and a substantial Shiite state in sourthern Iraq and Baghdad that includes 85% of Iraqs oil reserves. So think about it. There is going to be continued quibbling about the definition of "civil war' until after the US November elections. Then the discussion will shift back toward a reality based foreign policy. What a travesty for the Iraqi and American people. In the end, Iran is the big winner. ]
"The problem they're facing is there's only so much their rhetorical strategy can do to reshape public perceptions of the very real events that are out there, and right now those events are very bad when thousands of Iraqis are being killed every month"Mr. Gelpi said.
Underscoring just how hard the job of putting an optimistic face on the war is proving to be, the staunchest remaining supporters are voicing pessimism about the prospects under the administration's current approach, increasingly calling for Mr. Bush to engage in a new and more aggressive strategy.
"Those of us who still back the war are worried and alarmed"said William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, an early proponent of the invasion. "We need to win the war and if it's not going well we need to change strategy"
On The National Review Online Web site last week, a former speechwriter for President Bush, David Frum, another longtime supporter of the war, said that if the United States did not change its policy by significantly increasing troop levels, “Baghdad — and therefore central Iraq — will in such a case slide after Basra and the south into the unofficial new Iranian empire.” Then, he predicted, “American troops will be free to stay or go, depending on whether we wish to deny or acknowledge defeat.”
Mr. Frum criticized as insufficient a plan Mr. Bush announced last week for an increase of troops in Baghdad — brought from other parts of Iraq — to help quell the violence in the capital.
In the current political climate, there is little appetite among voters for an increased troop presence. In the latest New York Times poll, 56 percent said the United States should set a timetable for withdrawal; 33 percent said it should do so even if it means handing Iraq over to insurgents.
Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said Mr. Bush’s hands would not be tied in Iraq by domestic politics. “You want to have as many people as supportive of this effort as possible,” he said in an interview.
“But at the end of the day the commander in chief is going to make the decisions, and at the end of the day he’s going to defer to commanders on the ground — not the swings of public opinion.”
Mr. Bartlett said the administration would spend the fall explaining the strategy in Iraq, describing success as certain and providing “the necessary context and consequences and stakes in the fight,” which the administration has defined as creating the democratic conditions needed to defeat terrorism.
He acknowledged, “The images coming out of the Middle East are unsettling and obviously contribute to the anxiety.”
The theory when President Bush unveiled the “Plan for Victory” was that Americans would accept casualties if they could see a path to victory. For now, roadside bombs and suicide attackers are certainly clouding that vision.
[bth: so what's being said here is that the neo-cons want us to become MORE aggressive and expand the war - probably meaning attack Iran, otherwise, they smell defeat via civil war and a substantial Shiite state in sourthern Iraq and Baghdad that includes 85% of Iraqs oil reserves. So think about it. There is going to be continued quibbling about the definition of "civil war' until after the US November elections. Then the discussion will shift back toward a reality based foreign policy. What a travesty for the Iraqi and American people. In the end, Iran is the big winner. ]
Deal Maker Details the Art of Greasing the Palm
Deal Maker Details the Art of Greasing the Palm - New York Times: "WASHINGTON - In 1992, Brent R. Wilkes rented a suite at the Hyatt Hotel a few blocks from the Capitol. In his briefcase was a stack of envelopes for a half-dozen congressmen, each packet containing up to $10,000 in checks. "
Mr. Wilkes had set up separate meetings with the lawmakers hoping to win a government contract, and he planned to punctuate each pitch with a campaign donation. But his hometown congressman, Representative Bill Lowery of San Diego, a Republican, told him that presenting the checks during the sessions was not how things were done, Mr. Wilkes recalled.
Instead, Mr. Wilkes said, Mr. Lowery taught him the right way to do it: hand over the envelope in the hallway outside the suite, at least a few feet away.
That was the beginning of a career built on what Mr. Wilkes calls “transactional lobbying,” which made him a rich man but also landed him in the middle of a criminal investigation.
Last November, Mr. Wilkes was described as “co-conspirator No. 1” in a plea agreement signed by Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. In the plea deal, Mr. Cunningham admitted accepting more than $2.4 million in cash and gifts from Mr. Wilkes and other contractors. Another defense contractor, Mitchell J. Wade, pleaded guilty to paying some of the bribes.
Mr. Wilkes could also figure in a related federal investigation into the House Appropriations Committee. The inquiry has focused on ties between Mr. Lowery, who left Congress and became a lobbyist, and Representative Jerry Lewis, a California Republican who is the chairman of the committee and the former chairman of its Defense Subcommittee.
Speaking publicly for the first time since Mr. Cunningham’s plea agreement, Mr. Wilkes said in recent interviews that he had done nothing wrong and did not believe that Mr. Lewis and Mr. Lowery had broken the law. Mr. Wilkes, who has not been charged in the Cunningham case, has refused prosecutors’ appeals to plead guilty.
But Mr. Wilkes acknowledged that he was a willing participant in what he characterized as a “cutthroat” system in which campaign contributions were a prerequisite for federal contracts. “I attempted to get help and advice from people who could show me the way to do it right,” Mr. Wilkes said. “I played by their rules, and I played to win.”...
The Cunningham scandal set off alarms about the proliferation of Congressional earmarks — money for pet projects inserted anonymously in spending bills — which critics say pervert public policy, encourage cronyism and waste federal money. The 12,000 earmarks in this year’s spending bills amount to $64 billion.
Offering a rare insider’s view, Mr. Wilkes described the appropriations process as little more than a shakedown. He said that lobbyists close to the committee members unceasingly demanded campaign contributions from entrepreneurs like him....
Mr. Wilkes described the system bluntly: “Lowery would always say, ‘It is a two-part deal,’ ” he recalled. “ ‘Jerry will make the request. Jerry will carry the vote. Jerry will have plenty of time for this. If you don’t want to make the contributions, chair the fund-raising event, you will get left behind.’ ” ...
Contractors who do business with the federal government routinely contribute to the campaigns of Congressional appropriators, and politicians frequently assist constituents in their efforts to win government contracts. But legal experts say that explicitly linking official acts to campaign contributions could constitute a criminal offense, including bribery or extortion. They caution that proving criminal intent is difficult.
The culture of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee is one of great power and little scrutiny. Mr. Wilkes said every member appeared to have a personal allowance of millions of dollars to disburse without public disclosure. Lawmakers, though, sometimes boast about money being spent in their districts.
In the spending bill for this fiscal year, each member took credit for an average $27 million in earmarks, with the chairman, Representative C. W. Bill Young, Republican of Florida, claiming about $125 million, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group that tracks earmarks. ...
His success, though, depended on government contracts. “It’s a feast or famine deal,” Mr. Wilkes said. “If we didn’t get our earmark, we were finished.”...
“Lowery says, ‘We should raise money; you get the checks,’ ” Mr. Wilkes recalled, describing the meetings at the Hyatt. “I was a rookie. I didn’t want to separate the checks from the briefing,” he said, explaining that he did not understand the need to avoid appearing to link the money to his pitch.
Although they welcomed the checks, Mr. Wilkes said, the lawmakers seemed bored by a lengthy presentation. “I became the king of the 10-minute meeting,” he said...
In the end, it was the Cunningham investigation that jeopardized Mr. Wilkes’s business with the government. In August 2005, a team of F.B.I. agents swept through Mr. Wilkes’s headquarters. The flow of earmarks, his companies’ lifeblood, dried up. He laid off 200 employees.
Ms. Luque said her client’s legal problems were a battle that he “will fight and win.”
She said federal prosecutors told her in January that they were not interested in Mr. Wilkes’s dealings with Mr. Lowery and Mr. Lewis. “Cunningham couldn’t have followed through on what he did without the cooperation of other people on the committee,” Ms. Luque said. Prosecutors should be looking at the entire committee, she said.
Sitting in his office recently, the shelves lined with photographs of himself with President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the presidential adviser Karl Rove, Mr. Wilkes reflected on his plight.
“I’m a dead man. I wouldn’t be able to get a meeting. I wouldn’t be able to get a phone call returned,” he said. “There’s no way I could get a deal.”
Mr. Wilkes had set up separate meetings with the lawmakers hoping to win a government contract, and he planned to punctuate each pitch with a campaign donation. But his hometown congressman, Representative Bill Lowery of San Diego, a Republican, told him that presenting the checks during the sessions was not how things were done, Mr. Wilkes recalled.
Instead, Mr. Wilkes said, Mr. Lowery taught him the right way to do it: hand over the envelope in the hallway outside the suite, at least a few feet away.
That was the beginning of a career built on what Mr. Wilkes calls “transactional lobbying,” which made him a rich man but also landed him in the middle of a criminal investigation.
Last November, Mr. Wilkes was described as “co-conspirator No. 1” in a plea agreement signed by Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. In the plea deal, Mr. Cunningham admitted accepting more than $2.4 million in cash and gifts from Mr. Wilkes and other contractors. Another defense contractor, Mitchell J. Wade, pleaded guilty to paying some of the bribes.
Mr. Wilkes could also figure in a related federal investigation into the House Appropriations Committee. The inquiry has focused on ties between Mr. Lowery, who left Congress and became a lobbyist, and Representative Jerry Lewis, a California Republican who is the chairman of the committee and the former chairman of its Defense Subcommittee.
Speaking publicly for the first time since Mr. Cunningham’s plea agreement, Mr. Wilkes said in recent interviews that he had done nothing wrong and did not believe that Mr. Lewis and Mr. Lowery had broken the law. Mr. Wilkes, who has not been charged in the Cunningham case, has refused prosecutors’ appeals to plead guilty.
But Mr. Wilkes acknowledged that he was a willing participant in what he characterized as a “cutthroat” system in which campaign contributions were a prerequisite for federal contracts. “I attempted to get help and advice from people who could show me the way to do it right,” Mr. Wilkes said. “I played by their rules, and I played to win.”...
The Cunningham scandal set off alarms about the proliferation of Congressional earmarks — money for pet projects inserted anonymously in spending bills — which critics say pervert public policy, encourage cronyism and waste federal money. The 12,000 earmarks in this year’s spending bills amount to $64 billion.
Offering a rare insider’s view, Mr. Wilkes described the appropriations process as little more than a shakedown. He said that lobbyists close to the committee members unceasingly demanded campaign contributions from entrepreneurs like him....
Mr. Wilkes described the system bluntly: “Lowery would always say, ‘It is a two-part deal,’ ” he recalled. “ ‘Jerry will make the request. Jerry will carry the vote. Jerry will have plenty of time for this. If you don’t want to make the contributions, chair the fund-raising event, you will get left behind.’ ” ...
Contractors who do business with the federal government routinely contribute to the campaigns of Congressional appropriators, and politicians frequently assist constituents in their efforts to win government contracts. But legal experts say that explicitly linking official acts to campaign contributions could constitute a criminal offense, including bribery or extortion. They caution that proving criminal intent is difficult.
The culture of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee is one of great power and little scrutiny. Mr. Wilkes said every member appeared to have a personal allowance of millions of dollars to disburse without public disclosure. Lawmakers, though, sometimes boast about money being spent in their districts.
In the spending bill for this fiscal year, each member took credit for an average $27 million in earmarks, with the chairman, Representative C. W. Bill Young, Republican of Florida, claiming about $125 million, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group that tracks earmarks. ...
His success, though, depended on government contracts. “It’s a feast or famine deal,” Mr. Wilkes said. “If we didn’t get our earmark, we were finished.”...
“Lowery says, ‘We should raise money; you get the checks,’ ” Mr. Wilkes recalled, describing the meetings at the Hyatt. “I was a rookie. I didn’t want to separate the checks from the briefing,” he said, explaining that he did not understand the need to avoid appearing to link the money to his pitch.
Although they welcomed the checks, Mr. Wilkes said, the lawmakers seemed bored by a lengthy presentation. “I became the king of the 10-minute meeting,” he said...
In the end, it was the Cunningham investigation that jeopardized Mr. Wilkes’s business with the government. In August 2005, a team of F.B.I. agents swept through Mr. Wilkes’s headquarters. The flow of earmarks, his companies’ lifeblood, dried up. He laid off 200 employees.
Ms. Luque said her client’s legal problems were a battle that he “will fight and win.”
She said federal prosecutors told her in January that they were not interested in Mr. Wilkes’s dealings with Mr. Lowery and Mr. Lewis. “Cunningham couldn’t have followed through on what he did without the cooperation of other people on the committee,” Ms. Luque said. Prosecutors should be looking at the entire committee, she said.
Sitting in his office recently, the shelves lined with photographs of himself with President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the presidential adviser Karl Rove, Mr. Wilkes reflected on his plight.
“I’m a dead man. I wouldn’t be able to get a meeting. I wouldn’t be able to get a phone call returned,” he said. “There’s no way I could get a deal.”
Baghdad's Chaos Undercuts Tack Pursued by U.S. - New York Times
Baghdad�s Chaos Undercuts Tack Pursued by U.S. - New York Times: "BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 � Over the past year, as American commanders pushed Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for this violent capital, Baghdad became a markedly more dangerous place. "
Now the Americans are being forced to call in more of their own troops to bring the city under control.
The failure of the Iraqis to halt the slide into chaos in Baghdad undercuts the central premise of the American project here: that Iraqi forces can be trained and equipped to secure their own country, allowing the Americans to go home.
A review of previously unreleased statistics on American and Iraqi patrols suggests that as Americans handed over responsibilities to the Iraqis, violence in Baghdad increased.
In mid-June 2005, Americans conducted an average of 360 patrols a day, according to statistics released by the military.
By the middle of February this year, the patrols ran about 92 a day — a drop of more than 70 percent. The first Iraqi brigade took over a small piece of Baghdad early last year.
Now, Iraqi soldiers or police officers take the leading role in securing more than 70 percent of the city, including its most violent neighborhoods. They control all of Baghdad’s 6,000 checkpoints.
Even after the attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22 unleashed a wave of sectarian violence, the American patrols remained at a level lower than in the past. At the end of July, Americans were patrolling Baghdad 89 times a day — a quarter of their patrols in mid-June last year.
Thirteen months ago, Baghdad had about 19 daily violent events, like killings. Today, the daily average is 25 — an increase of more than 30 percent. Many of these attacks cause more than one death; some cause many more, like the rampage by Shiite gunmen in western Baghdad last month that left as many as 40 people dead.
On Thursday in Washington, senior American military commanders pointedly warned that Iraq was heading toward civil war.
To stop the slide, the United States has decided to double the number of American troops in the city, to about 14,200 from about 7,200.
American officials have declared Baghdad the country’s “center of gravity,” an arena that must be won if they are to succeed. The Americans and Iraqis say they are also preparing to bring in more Iraqi troops and spend at least $50 million for jobs and public services like electricity.
The decision to increase the number of American forces in the city appears to reflect a conviction that only American troops can bring the city under control.
“If we were willing to accept the high levels of casualties that occur in the city each month, then the Iraqi security forces could have continued handling the situation,” said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the spokesman for the American military in Iraq. “We can handle it at the levels we have. But if we want to reduce the violence, then we bring more forces into the city.”
American commanders say the greater violence in Baghdad does not necessarily suggest that the Iraqi forces are failing.
Iraqi police officers and army soldiers are competent, the Americans say, but the explosion of sectarian violence has been of a scope and virulence that could overwhelm any army.
“I don’t think we moved too quickly,” General Caldwell said of putting the Iraqis in charge of Baghdad. “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the sectarian violence.”
Some independent observers say the Americans have a point — that the job of trying to secure a city of seven million people plagued by terrorism, sectarian violence and crime is a task of a magnitude that has never been attempted by a modern army. Some wonder whether the additional 7,000 American troops bound for the city will be enough.
“I don’t believe this operation was designed to turn a corner,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I believe it was designed to stop a civil war.”
Putting Iraqi forces in the lead in various parts of the city, American commanders say, frees American troops to support the Iraqis in the most violent neighborhoods.
The number of Iraqi troops and police officers has steadily grown since the beginning of 2005. About 42,000 Iraqi police, army and paramilitary forces now patrol the capital.
In addition to 7,200 American forces, more than 1,000 American advisers are spread throughout the Iraqi police and army.
Still, since March, when the Americans and Iraqis began the first of two major operations to bring Baghdad under control, violence there has increased.
The United Nations said an average of 100 Iraqi civilians were being killed each day in Iraq, “the overwhelming majority” of them in Baghdad.
On the streets, the tallies are borne out in flesh and blood.
Each day, the bodies pile up at Baghdad’s main morgue: burned with acid, riddled with bullets, blindfolded, handcuffed, drilled with holes.
For much of the city, the Tigris River forms the sectarian boundary, the Sunnis on the west and the Shiites in the east.
Many Baghdad residents will no longer stray from their own neighborhoods. Shops in most neighborhoods close by 2 p.m., if they open at all. Gun-toting militiamen from the Mahdi Army roam the streets unmolested.
Gauging the performance of the Iraqi security forces is difficult. Every night, the American military sends e-mail messages announcing that Iraqis have raided insurgent hide-outs, detained suspects or thwarted suicide bombers.
“I tell you this personally,” said Brig. Gen. David D. Halverson, the deputy commander of the American division that oversees the capital, “the Iraqi forces have stood up and fought very well.”
Indeed, in some places, Iraqi troops have shown promise. On Haifa Street, where the first Iraqi brigade took over last year, the troops brought stability to the neighborhood in a way that American soldiers had failed to do by themselves.
Over all, though, their performance seems spotty. The Iraqi Army seems more disciplined and professional than the police, and seems to receive more respect from the Iraqi people.
The Iraqi police officers, who far outnumber Iraqi soldiers, seem mostly hapless, often standing by as mayhem swirls around them.
One day late last month, for instance, a group of 10 armed men stopped traffic in the Tarbiya neighborhood of Sadr City and stormed a streetside shop.
As the scene unfolded, two police vehicles drove by, with a clear view of the kidnapping under way. They did nothing.
Minutes later, the armed men led an Iraqi shopkeeper to one of their cars and took him away.
Neither the Sunni insurgents nor the Iranian-backed Shiite militias seem to fear Iraqi police officers or soldiers.
In the Baghdad neighborhoods of Dawra and Amariya, for instance, Iraqi soldiers and policemen are often unable to retrieve the bodies of civilians or their own men killed in gun battles because they fear they will be attacked. The Americans often have to retrieve the bodies; the insurgents leave them alone.
The mixed quality of the Iraqi security forces lies at the heart of the capital’s chaos, some Iraqi leaders say.
“We have to have the courage to admit that there are structural problems in the way the security forces were recruited,” said Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister.
“There has not been enough attention paid to quality, nor to leadership. Command and control remains a problem.”
Many of the militiamen now terrorizing the capital are directed by the very political parties that control the Iraqi government, he said.
“It’s an open secret that needs to be confronted head-on,” Mr. Salih said. “The status quo is profitable to too many in the political elite of this country.”
American commanders say they are planning to embark on a plan to secure one neighborhood at a time. They say they are optimistic about it, in part, because it does not rely exclusively on military force. Iraqi and American leaders are preparing to spend $50 million to put Iraqis to work and restore basic services like electricity and water that are absent from much of Baghdad.
The new plan is the brainchild of Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the deputy commander of American forces in Iraq, who has long argued that the political and economic components of defeating an insurgency are as important as lethal force.
“We are pulling out Coach Chiarelli’s playbook, and we are finally going to implement it,” General Caldwell said.
The Americans and the Iraqis say they hope to see results within 90 days.
Qais Mizher contributed reporting for this article.
[bth: I had heard rumors for six months that the US had stopped patroling especially at night. The stats indicate this has been happening gradually for about a year. ... The Iraqi government stopped accepting US trained police in January and padded the paid positions with militiamen from the Badr and Sadr groups. US trained police graduated and had no jobs. The police are essentially militiamen paid by the government - paid to ignore kidnappings and murders that are politically sanctioned. ... That after 3 years the Army would realize that people need jobs and we only fund $50 million? What bullshit. What a crime in leadership.... We let Halliburton rape the American taxpayer on no-bid cost plus contracts for three years and we can't even realize that normal Iraqis need jobs! That if they work at jobs they are less likely to work at building IEDs is pretty damned important. .... To reach 2.5 per 1000 (occupying soldier to civilians in a city of 7 million) would mean we'd need 150,000 troops in Baghdad, not 7 thousand or 14,000. Think about that for a minute. We only have 135,000 or so in Iraq now.... We haven't committed enough troops to succeed.]
Now the Americans are being forced to call in more of their own troops to bring the city under control.
The failure of the Iraqis to halt the slide into chaos in Baghdad undercuts the central premise of the American project here: that Iraqi forces can be trained and equipped to secure their own country, allowing the Americans to go home.
A review of previously unreleased statistics on American and Iraqi patrols suggests that as Americans handed over responsibilities to the Iraqis, violence in Baghdad increased.
In mid-June 2005, Americans conducted an average of 360 patrols a day, according to statistics released by the military.
By the middle of February this year, the patrols ran about 92 a day — a drop of more than 70 percent. The first Iraqi brigade took over a small piece of Baghdad early last year.
Now, Iraqi soldiers or police officers take the leading role in securing more than 70 percent of the city, including its most violent neighborhoods. They control all of Baghdad’s 6,000 checkpoints.
Even after the attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22 unleashed a wave of sectarian violence, the American patrols remained at a level lower than in the past. At the end of July, Americans were patrolling Baghdad 89 times a day — a quarter of their patrols in mid-June last year.
Thirteen months ago, Baghdad had about 19 daily violent events, like killings. Today, the daily average is 25 — an increase of more than 30 percent. Many of these attacks cause more than one death; some cause many more, like the rampage by Shiite gunmen in western Baghdad last month that left as many as 40 people dead.
On Thursday in Washington, senior American military commanders pointedly warned that Iraq was heading toward civil war.
To stop the slide, the United States has decided to double the number of American troops in the city, to about 14,200 from about 7,200.
American officials have declared Baghdad the country’s “center of gravity,” an arena that must be won if they are to succeed. The Americans and Iraqis say they are also preparing to bring in more Iraqi troops and spend at least $50 million for jobs and public services like electricity.
The decision to increase the number of American forces in the city appears to reflect a conviction that only American troops can bring the city under control.
“If we were willing to accept the high levels of casualties that occur in the city each month, then the Iraqi security forces could have continued handling the situation,” said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the spokesman for the American military in Iraq. “We can handle it at the levels we have. But if we want to reduce the violence, then we bring more forces into the city.”
American commanders say the greater violence in Baghdad does not necessarily suggest that the Iraqi forces are failing.
Iraqi police officers and army soldiers are competent, the Americans say, but the explosion of sectarian violence has been of a scope and virulence that could overwhelm any army.
“I don’t think we moved too quickly,” General Caldwell said of putting the Iraqis in charge of Baghdad. “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the sectarian violence.”
Some independent observers say the Americans have a point — that the job of trying to secure a city of seven million people plagued by terrorism, sectarian violence and crime is a task of a magnitude that has never been attempted by a modern army. Some wonder whether the additional 7,000 American troops bound for the city will be enough.
“I don’t believe this operation was designed to turn a corner,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I believe it was designed to stop a civil war.”
Putting Iraqi forces in the lead in various parts of the city, American commanders say, frees American troops to support the Iraqis in the most violent neighborhoods.
The number of Iraqi troops and police officers has steadily grown since the beginning of 2005. About 42,000 Iraqi police, army and paramilitary forces now patrol the capital.
In addition to 7,200 American forces, more than 1,000 American advisers are spread throughout the Iraqi police and army.
Still, since March, when the Americans and Iraqis began the first of two major operations to bring Baghdad under control, violence there has increased.
The United Nations said an average of 100 Iraqi civilians were being killed each day in Iraq, “the overwhelming majority” of them in Baghdad.
On the streets, the tallies are borne out in flesh and blood.
Each day, the bodies pile up at Baghdad’s main morgue: burned with acid, riddled with bullets, blindfolded, handcuffed, drilled with holes.
For much of the city, the Tigris River forms the sectarian boundary, the Sunnis on the west and the Shiites in the east.
Many Baghdad residents will no longer stray from their own neighborhoods. Shops in most neighborhoods close by 2 p.m., if they open at all. Gun-toting militiamen from the Mahdi Army roam the streets unmolested.
Gauging the performance of the Iraqi security forces is difficult. Every night, the American military sends e-mail messages announcing that Iraqis have raided insurgent hide-outs, detained suspects or thwarted suicide bombers.
“I tell you this personally,” said Brig. Gen. David D. Halverson, the deputy commander of the American division that oversees the capital, “the Iraqi forces have stood up and fought very well.”
Indeed, in some places, Iraqi troops have shown promise. On Haifa Street, where the first Iraqi brigade took over last year, the troops brought stability to the neighborhood in a way that American soldiers had failed to do by themselves.
Over all, though, their performance seems spotty. The Iraqi Army seems more disciplined and professional than the police, and seems to receive more respect from the Iraqi people.
The Iraqi police officers, who far outnumber Iraqi soldiers, seem mostly hapless, often standing by as mayhem swirls around them.
One day late last month, for instance, a group of 10 armed men stopped traffic in the Tarbiya neighborhood of Sadr City and stormed a streetside shop.
As the scene unfolded, two police vehicles drove by, with a clear view of the kidnapping under way. They did nothing.
Minutes later, the armed men led an Iraqi shopkeeper to one of their cars and took him away.
Neither the Sunni insurgents nor the Iranian-backed Shiite militias seem to fear Iraqi police officers or soldiers.
In the Baghdad neighborhoods of Dawra and Amariya, for instance, Iraqi soldiers and policemen are often unable to retrieve the bodies of civilians or their own men killed in gun battles because they fear they will be attacked. The Americans often have to retrieve the bodies; the insurgents leave them alone.
The mixed quality of the Iraqi security forces lies at the heart of the capital’s chaos, some Iraqi leaders say.
“We have to have the courage to admit that there are structural problems in the way the security forces were recruited,” said Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister.
“There has not been enough attention paid to quality, nor to leadership. Command and control remains a problem.”
Many of the militiamen now terrorizing the capital are directed by the very political parties that control the Iraqi government, he said.
“It’s an open secret that needs to be confronted head-on,” Mr. Salih said. “The status quo is profitable to too many in the political elite of this country.”
American commanders say they are planning to embark on a plan to secure one neighborhood at a time. They say they are optimistic about it, in part, because it does not rely exclusively on military force. Iraqi and American leaders are preparing to spend $50 million to put Iraqis to work and restore basic services like electricity and water that are absent from much of Baghdad.
The new plan is the brainchild of Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the deputy commander of American forces in Iraq, who has long argued that the political and economic components of defeating an insurgency are as important as lethal force.
“We are pulling out Coach Chiarelli’s playbook, and we are finally going to implement it,” General Caldwell said.
The Americans and the Iraqis say they hope to see results within 90 days.
Qais Mizher contributed reporting for this article.
[bth: I had heard rumors for six months that the US had stopped patroling especially at night. The stats indicate this has been happening gradually for about a year. ... The Iraqi government stopped accepting US trained police in January and padded the paid positions with militiamen from the Badr and Sadr groups. US trained police graduated and had no jobs. The police are essentially militiamen paid by the government - paid to ignore kidnappings and murders that are politically sanctioned. ... That after 3 years the Army would realize that people need jobs and we only fund $50 million? What bullshit. What a crime in leadership.... We let Halliburton rape the American taxpayer on no-bid cost plus contracts for three years and we can't even realize that normal Iraqis need jobs! That if they work at jobs they are less likely to work at building IEDs is pretty damned important. .... To reach 2.5 per 1000 (occupying soldier to civilians in a city of 7 million) would mean we'd need 150,000 troops in Baghdad, not 7 thousand or 14,000. Think about that for a minute. We only have 135,000 or so in Iraq now.... We haven't committed enough troops to succeed.]
G.I. crime photos may be evidenceTribune
G.I. crime photos may be evidence - Africa & Middle East - International Herald Tribune: "On March 13, a group of American soldiers sitting at a checkpoint south of Baghdad were asked to look into a horrible crime: a 14-year-old Iraqi girl had been raped, then killed along with her family in their house nearby in Mahmudiya."
The soldiers knew the house. They had been there only the day before, military prosecutors now say, committing the crime.
Those soldiers, along with others from their checkpoint, walked over and took detailed forensic photographs of the charred and bullet-riddled bodies, as if it were a routine investigation of an insurgent attack, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Now, those photographs are likely to serve as evidence in the military's prosecution of the case, which opens a new chapter tomorrow when an Article 32 hearing, the rough equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, begins in Baghdad for five soldiers accused in the crime.
The case, which was first widely reported in June, raised alarm about the military's conduct, infuriating Iraqis and setting off a public bout of shame and soul-searching for the American command. And as details trickle out, a troubling picture is emerging of an Army unit numbed by months of extreme combat stress and left at one of the deadliest security checkpoints in Iraq without experienced leaders - a point that will be central in building a legal defense, lawyers in the case say.
Many questions persist about the crime in Mahmudiya.
Prosecutors initially said that only two of the accused soldiers had raped the girl, and that Steven D. Green, a private who was discharged in May after a psychiatric evaluation, was the ringleader. It now appears that at least three soldiers, including Mr. Green, raped her, according to a legal memo filed by a military magistrate. Prosecutors now believe the other two soldiers raped her first and later set fire to her dead body, two lawyers involved in the case said.
At the time, the men's squad leader and the overseeing platoon commander - both highly respected leaders - were on leave, said a sergeant in the same company as the men. He provided some details through e-mail on condition of anonymity.
"I know none of that would have happened if he was around," the sergeant said of the squad leader.
At least one staff sergeant in the unit repeatedly complained that checkpoints were under-manned, said Davi
The soldiers knew the house. They had been there only the day before, military prosecutors now say, committing the crime.
Those soldiers, along with others from their checkpoint, walked over and took detailed forensic photographs of the charred and bullet-riddled bodies, as if it were a routine investigation of an insurgent attack, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Now, those photographs are likely to serve as evidence in the military's prosecution of the case, which opens a new chapter tomorrow when an Article 32 hearing, the rough equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, begins in Baghdad for five soldiers accused in the crime.
The case, which was first widely reported in June, raised alarm about the military's conduct, infuriating Iraqis and setting off a public bout of shame and soul-searching for the American command. And as details trickle out, a troubling picture is emerging of an Army unit numbed by months of extreme combat stress and left at one of the deadliest security checkpoints in Iraq without experienced leaders - a point that will be central in building a legal defense, lawyers in the case say.
Many questions persist about the crime in Mahmudiya.
Prosecutors initially said that only two of the accused soldiers had raped the girl, and that Steven D. Green, a private who was discharged in May after a psychiatric evaluation, was the ringleader. It now appears that at least three soldiers, including Mr. Green, raped her, according to a legal memo filed by a military magistrate. Prosecutors now believe the other two soldiers raped her first and later set fire to her dead body, two lawyers involved in the case said.
At the time, the men's squad leader and the overseeing platoon commander - both highly respected leaders - were on leave, said a sergeant in the same company as the men. He provided some details through e-mail on condition of anonymity.
"I know none of that would have happened if he was around," the sergeant said of the squad leader.
At least one staff sergeant in the unit repeatedly complained that checkpoints were under-manned, said Davi