You Can Offer Blockheads Independent Advice

[Gary Sisco]

but you can't make them take it, or even understand it.

'They hate our policies, not our freedom'

Quietly released Pentagon report contains major criticisms of administration.

by Tom Regan | csmonitor.com


Late on the Wednesday afternoon before the Thanksgiving holiday, the US Defense Department released a report by the Defense Science Board that is highly critical of the administration's efforts in the war on terror and in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

'Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies [the report says]. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.'
The Pentagon released the study after The New York Times ran a story about the report in its Wednesday editions.





The Defense Science Board, reports Disinfopedia, is "a Federal advisory committee established to provide independent advice to the Secretary of Defense."

'The current Board is authorized to consist of thirty-two members plus seven ex officio members': the chairmen of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Policy, Ballistic Missile Defense Advisory Committee, and Defense Intelligence Agency Science and Technology Advisory Committee. 'Members, whose appointed terms range from one to four years, are selected on the basis of their preeminence in the fields of science, technology and its application to military operations, research, engineering, manufacturing and acquisition process.'
China's Xinhuanet reported that the board's report criticized the US for failing in its efforts to communicate its military and diplomatic actions to the world, and the Muslim world in particular, "but no public relations campaign can save America from flawed policies." The report also takes the administration to task for talking about Islamic extremism in a way that offends many Muslims.
In stark contrast to the cold war, the United States today is not seeking to contain a threatening state empire, but rather seeking to convert a broad movement within Islamic civilization to accept the value structure of Western Modernity – an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a 'War on Terrorism,' [the report states].
MSNBC notes that the report, in a comment that directly goes against statements made by President Bush and senior cabinet members, says the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have united otherwise-divided Muslim extremists and given terrorists organizations like Al Qaeda a boost by "raising their stature."
In fact, Wired News reported the board as saying, the US has not only failed to separate "the vast majority of nonviolent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists," but American efforts may have "achieved the opposite of what they intended."


Al Jazeera reported Thursday that the board called for the creation of a strategic communication's "apparatus" within the executive branch and "an overhaul of public diplomacy, public affairs and information dissemination efforts by the Pentagon and State Department."

If we really want to see the Muslim world as a whole [the report states], and the Arabic-speaking world in particular, move more toward our understanding of moderation and tolerance, we must reassure Muslims that this does not mean that they must submit to the American way.
As columnist Thomas Freidman of The New York Times wrote Monday in an opinion piece, the lack of planning and a 'clear channel of communication to the Muslim world' means that the US is losing the PR war to people that "saw off the heads of other Muslims."

Wars are fought for political ends. Soldiers can only do so much. And the last mile in every war is about claiming the political fruits. The bad guys in Iraq can lose every mile on every road, but if they beat America on the last mile – because they are able to intimidate better than America is able to coordinate, protect, inform, invest and motivate – they will win and America will lose.
The New York Times reported last Wednesday that although the board's report does not constitute official government policy, it captures "the essential themes of a debate that is now roiling not just the Defense Department but the entire United States government."

[Gary Sisco]

Embassy sounds alarm over growing dangers in Iraq
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
30 November 2004


Disintegrating security in Baghdad was underlined in a sombre warning yesterday from the British embassy against using the airport road or taking a plane out of Iraq.

The embassy says a bomb was discovered on a flight inside Iraq on 22 November. It shows that insurgents have been able to penetrate the stringent security at Baghdad airport. The embassy says its own staff have been advised against taking commercial planes.

The warning is in sharp contrast to more optimistic statements from US military commanders after the capture of Fallujah in which they have spoken of "breaking the back of the insurgency".

The embassy says that the road between Baghdad and the international airport, perhaps the most important highway in the country, is now too dangerous to use. The advice says starkly: "With effect from 28 November, the British embassy ceased all movements on the Baghdad International airport road."

The airport road is littered with evidence of previous attacks: the twisted cars used by suicide bombers and craters from roadside bombs.

There are no safe havens. Since March, 14 British civilians have been killed. Not only have insurgents proved capable of putting a bomb on a plane, but on 14 October two suicide bombers entered the heavily fortified Green Zone and blew themselves up, killing five people and injuring many more.

Danger levels in the capital are also increasing; some of the resistance fighters who were previously in Fallujah have taken refuge in Baghdad. They may wish to launch spectacular attacks to offset the fall of Fallujah, which had been the de facto capital of the insurgents.

The Iraqi government and the US Army suffered losses yesterday from two of the insurgents' favourite weapons: suicide bombs and roadside bombs. No effective defence has been found against either.

A suicide bomb killed seven Iraqi soldiers and police and wounded nine in an attack in the town of Baghdadi, 120 miles north-west of the capital. Two US soldiers were killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb in north-west Baghdad. Hitherto, roadside bombs have consisted of several artillery shells detonated by a command wire or by remote control. But the US military say the insurgents have started using shaped charges which direct the blast towards a target.

The battle for Fallujah was largely successful from the US point of view, because the assault did not provoke the widespread nationalist reaction across Iraq as seen in April, when theAmericans first attacked the city.

Many Shia Iraqis had come to see Fallujah as the headquarters of extreme sectarian Sunnis, whose suicide bombers have slaughtered mostly Shia police and army recruits. Many were pleased to see Fallujah insurgents killed or dispersed.

But the capture of the Fallujah may have less military affect than the US and the Iraqi interim government had hoped, because the Sunni uprising is very fragmented and does not appear to have a central command. Observers in Fallujah during the US attack say the siege was never complete and many fighters slipped out. They add that if the US figure of 1,200 insurgents killed is true, then several thousand others survived to continue the fight.
30 November 2004 10:08

[Slurpy]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

'They hate our policies, not our freedom'

Quietly released Pentagon report contains major criticisms of administration.

(slaps forehead)

D'OH! Haven't many of us been saying this all along?? Given enough time,
no irrefutable fact will escape the watchful eye of the almighty Pentagon.

Al Jazeera reported Thursday that the board called for the creation of a strategic communication's "apparatus" within the executive branch and "an overhaul of public diplomacy, public affairs and information dissemination efforts by the Pentagon and State Department."

God bless Al Jazeera.

[Gary Sisco]

He already has. Haven't you been watching?

[Gary Sisco]

From Andrew Sullivan's site:

THEY KNEW: I'm in the middle of reading all the gruesome documents related to the Abu Ghraib fiasco for a book review. Now we read this:
Until now, U.S. military officials have characterized the problem as one largely confined to the military prison at Abu Ghraib -- a situation they first learned about in January 2004. But Herrington's report shows that U.S. military leaders in Iraq were told of such allegations even before then, and that problems were not restricted to Abu Ghraib. Herrington, a veteran of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam, warned that such harsh tactics could imperil U.S. efforts to quell the Iraqi insurgency -- a prediction echoed months later by a military report and other reviews of the war effort.
Brutality and torture were unofficial policy, as they also have been at Guantanamo. "Everyone knows about it," an intelligence officer told Herrington. And Herrington was no hand-wringer. Herrington also noticed counter-productive sweeps of the general Iraqi population, over-crowding in detainee centers, the "disappearing" of prisoners and taking female relatives hostage to get suspects turned in. Do the Bush people really expect us to believe, after all we now know, that Abu Ghraib was a one-off event caused by a handful of underlings? The terrible truth is that it was anything but. And no one in this administration will ever be called to account for it. Because they never are.

[Gary Sisco]

U.S. Generals in Iraq Were Told of Abuse Early, Inquiry Finds

By Josh White

A confidential report to Army generals in Iraq in December 2003 warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees, a finding delivered more than a month before Army investigators received the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison that touched off investigations into prisoner mistreatment.

The report, which was not released publicly and was recently obtained by The Washington Post, concluded that some U.S. arrest and detention practices at the time could "technically" be illegal. It also said coalition fighters could be feeding the Iraqi insurgency by "making gratuitous enemies" as they conducted sweeps netting hundreds of detainees who probably did not belong in prison and holding them for months at a time.

The investigation, by retired Col. Stuart A. Herrington, also found that members of Task Force 121 -- a joint Special Operations and CIA mission searching for weapons of mass destruction and high-value targets including Saddam Hussein -- had been abusing detainees throughout Iraq and had been using a secret interrogation facility to hide their activities.

Herrington's findings are the latest in a series of confidential reports to come to light about detainee abuse in Iraq. Until now, U.S. military officials have characterized the problem as one largely confined to the military prison at Abu Ghraib -- a situation they first learned about in January 2004. But Herrington's report shows that U.S. military leaders in Iraq were told of such allegations even before then, and that problems were not restricted to Abu Ghraib. Herrington, a veteran of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam, warned that such harsh tactics could imperil U.S. efforts to quell the Iraqi insurgency -- a prediction echoed months later by a military report and other reviews of the war effort.

U.S. treatment of detainees remains under challenge. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross recently told U.S. military officials that the treatment of inmates held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was "cruel, inhumane and degrading" (story, Page A10). Herrington's report, which was commissioned by Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the top intelligence officer in Iraq, said some detainees dropped off at central U.S. detention facilities other than Abu Ghraib had clearly been beaten by their captors.

"Detainees captured by TF 121 have shown injuries that caused examining medical personnel to note that 'detainee shows signs of having been beaten,' " according to the report, which later concluded: "It seems clear that TF 121 needs to be reined in with respect to its treatment of detainees."

A group of Navy SEALs who worked as part of the task force has been charged with abuse in connection with the deaths of two detainees they arrested in the field. One died in a shower room at Abu Ghraib on Nov. 4, 2003, a month before Herrington arrived for his review.

A military source who participated in Task Force 20, the predecessor to TF 121, said the task forces comprised several 12-man units that had targeted missions, such as searching for Hussein loyalists and terrorists. TF 20, which had about 1,000 soldiers, incorporated Army Rangers, members of Delta Force and Special Forces units working with CIA agents. They planned their missions nearly autonomously and answered either directly to the theater commander or to officials in Washington, the source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the missions were classified.

Task Force 121 added Navy SEAL units but was slightly smaller overall. Herrington wrote that an officer in charge of interrogations at a high-value target detention facility in Baghdad told him that prisoners taken by TF 121 showed signs of having been beaten.

Herrington asked the officer whether he had alerted his superiors to the problem, and the officer replied: "Everyone knows about it."

While several investigations have been completed into the Abu Ghraib scandal and U.S. interrogation practices in Iraq, an official military inquiry into the detention activities of Special Operations forces has not been released. That probe, headed by Brig. Gen. Richard P. Formica, was expected to be presented to Congress earlier this year, but a Pentagon spokesman said it is ongoing.

Of the Herrington report, a Pentagon official said top generals in Iraq, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who at the time directed U.S. forces there, reported the alleged abuses to officials at U.S. Central Command, which oversees military activities in the Middle East. The official said TF 121 was investigated, but he could not provide results.

"The Herrington report was taken very seriously," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report has not been released.

The report also provided an early account of the practice of holding some detainees -- sometimes called "ghost detainees" -- in secret and keeping them from international humanitarian organizations. Herrington also wrote that agents from other government agencies, which commonly refers to the CIA, regularly kept ghost detainees by not logging their arrests.

Nearly six months later, Defense Department officials were forced to acknowledge the practice because of the Abu Ghraib scandal. Soldiers who worked at the prison said several detainees were hidden, and a prison logbook showed a consistent stream of them from October 2003 to January 2004.

Herrington, who is considered an expert in human intelligence operations, ran programs during Operation Desert Storm and in Panama and was part of the controversial Phoenix Program, which targeted the roots of the Viet Cong insurgency in Vietnam. He compiled his report after a week-long trip to Iraq beginning Dec. 2, 2003, joined by a military intelligence officer and an Army intelligence official from the Pentagon.

His ultimate conclusion was that much needed to be done to increase intelligence capabilities, which he called below average, though he praised Fast's determination.

"Given the fact that the United States and its coalition partners paid and continue to pay a steep price in losses and national treasure to lay our hands on these detainees, it is disappointing that the opportunity to thoroughly and professionally exploit this source pool has not been maximized, in spite of your best efforts and those of several hundred MI [military intelligence] soldiers," Herrington wrote to Fast in the Dec. 12 report. "Even one year ago, we would have salivated at the prospect of being able to talk to people like the hundreds who are now in our custody. Now that we have them, we have failed to devote the planning and resources to optimize this mission."

Herrington, contacted by telephone, declined to discuss the report. A Pentagon official said Fast personally requested Herrington's visit, and the report indicates Fast was interested in improving U.S. intelligence and detention operations, saying that "in spite of efforts to upgrade this effort, [she] remained concerned about its state of health."

In the 13-page report, Herrington wrote that overcrowding and a lack of resources caused the Army to use "primitive prison accommodations" for even the most important targets. He said that led to the loss of considerable significant intelligence and might have fueled the Iraqi insurgency.

He added that some detainees were arrested because targets were not at home when homes were raided. A family member was instead captured and then released when the target turned himself in -- a practice that, Herrington wrote, "has a 'hostage' feel to it."

A separate report by the Center for Army Lessons Learned, issued this past May and intended for internal use, gave the sense that some Army tactics served to "alienate common Iraqis who initially supported the coalition."

The 134-page CALL report singled out the practice of detaining female family members to force wanted Iraqi males to turn themselves in, similar to Herrington's findings.

"It is a practice in some U.S. units to detain family members of anti-coalition suspects in an effort to induce the suspects to turn themselves in, in exchange for the release of their family members," the report stated. The CALL report also was critical of the delays in notifying family members about the status of detainees held in U.S. custody, reminding family members of Hussein's tactics.

Herrington's report also noted that sweeps pulled in hundreds and even thousands of detainees who had no connection to the war. Abu Ghraib, for example, swelled to several thousand more detainees than it could handle. Herrington wrote that aggressive and indiscriminate tactics by the 4th Infantry Division, rounding up random scores of detainees and "dumping them at the door," was a glaring example.

As the United States recently has picked up its counterinsurgency efforts, the number of new detainees has again surged.

"Between the losers and dead end elements from the former regime and foreign fighters, there are enough people in Iraq who already don't like us," Herrington wrote. "Adding to these numbers by conducting sweep operations . . . is counterproductive to the Coalition's efforts to win the cooperation of the Iraqi citizenry. Similarly, mistreatment of captives as has been reported to me and our team is unacceptable, and bound to be known by the population."

Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.



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[Dr Dave]

And now, for extra chocolatey goodness, we'll get Alberto Gonzales, who wrote the memos justifying U.S. flouting of the Geneva Convention, as Attorney General. Every day, being an American citizen just gets better and better.

[hearsay]

This just sickens me. This war is lost.

[Gary Sisco]

It was lost before it was started.

Doc -- Apparently, our expert on the Geneva Conventions forgot, while twisting them to suit his Boss's own purposes, about the part that says the troops of the agressor nation are not entitled to the protections of the Conventions. Since the US is inarguably the aggressor in Iraq, you'd think they might have looked into that part. Well, someone will remind them after there are some beheaded gringo POWs.

[Gary Sisco]

US death toll in Iraq at record level
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
02 December 2004


A further 135 American soldiers died in Iraq in November, equalling the number killed in April, previously the worst single month for US casualties. Seventy-one died in the assault on Fallujah and 600 were wounded, according to the US military in Baghdad.

The casualty rate is more than 10 per cent of the 5,000 to 6,000-strong US force sent into the city. General John Sattler, the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which is in charge of western Iraq, said yesterday that 62 of those killed in Fallujah were marines.

US soldiers now hold all parts of the city, but house-to-house searches continue. Sometimes houses already searched are reoccupied. Insurgents wait for the soldiers to enter before opening fire at close range. The marines try to avoid ambushes by blasting holes in side walls instead of coming in by the front door. They throw grenades into every room before entering.

Most of the 300,000 people who lived in Fallujah before the battle have fled to Sunni Muslim areas of Baghdad and are staying with relatives and friends. Many of the fighters have also moved into the capital. Much of the city they left is in ruins, and the electricity and water systems have been wrecked. The poorest of the refugees are living in tents.

In the Jadriyah area of Baghdad, more than 100 families have sought shelter around the light blue al-Mustafa mosque on the campus of al-Nahrain University. "Even if I have to rebuild my house brick by brick I will go back," said one man, standing by the gate.

In a nearby building sat Sheikh Hussein, the imam of the mosque, who expresses deep suspicion of all foreigners. He said that giving an interview "was like giving away all your secrets and seeing them in a newspaper." He added that he had read on the internet that Margaret Hassan, the Irish aid worker kidnapped and probably murdered, was "a spy for 30 years."

The battle for Fallujah brings the number of Americans killed in Iraq since the invasion to at least 1,250, with 9,300 wounded. The number of insurgents killed in Fallujah is not known, but was put by the interim Iraqi government at more than 2,000.

The US military commanders had 2,000 Iraqi troops with them. Seven Iraqi soldiers were killed and 43 wounded, according to General Sattler.

The US, and the Iraqi interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, hopethey have eliminated the headquarters of the Sunni Muslim uprising by capturing Fallujah. The discovery of workshops to fill the side panels of vehicles with explosives for suicide bombings, and large amounts of small arms and mortars proves Fallujah was the logistics centre for the rebellion in western Iraq.

But the willingness of so many insurgents to fight and die in the face of overwhelming US superiority shows their level of determination. The visit of Mr Allawi to Jordan today to talk to Sunni tribal, religious and political leaders, mostly from Ramadi near Fallujah, is unlikely to influence fighters.

[Dr Dave]

And the fun continues:

The New York Times
December 2, 2004

U.S. to Increase Its Force in Iraq by Nearly 12,000
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 - The American military presence in Iraq will grow by nearly 12,000 troops by next month, to 150,000, the highest level since the invasion last year, to provide security for the Iraqi elections in January and to quell insurgent attacks around the country, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

The Pentagon is doing this mainly by ordering about 10,400 soldiers and marines in Iraq to extend their tours - in some cases for the second time - for up to two months, even as their replacement units begin to arrive. The Pentagon is also sending 1,500 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division in the next two weeks for a four-month tour.

By extending the tours of some 8,000 soldiers from two brigades, the Army is risking problems with morale and retention by breaking its pledge to keep troops on the ground in Iraq for no more than 12 months, some commanders and military experts said.

Commanders had signaled for weeks that there was a likelihood that additional troops would be needed to provide security for elections scheduled for Jan. 30, and the Pentagon took a first step in October by ordering 6,500 troops to extend their tours. But the force levels announced Wednesday are larger than many officers had expected and reflect the insurgents' deadly resiliency and the poor performance by many newly trained Iraqi security forces in the face of rebel assaults, military officers said. [excerpted--click here for the rest of the story]

-30-

Who is ever going to enlist in the U.S. military after seeing troops being screwed like this?

[Gary Sisco]

The fact that troops are being screwed like that rather answers your question, Doc.

That, and the fact that there's a woos generation of loudmouthed superpatriots out there who talk a good talk but run like a motherfucker whenever they have to put something real behind their talk. A fucking society of pundits that can't even raise an army.

The Band had it all wrong. It's the old men who fight and the young ones who stay at home.

[Gary Sisco]

Their real problem will reveal itself when people stop reenlisting and they have no more experienced noncoms to help the hapless FNGs (Fucking New Guys) learn how to stay live for more than a few seconds once the shooting begins.