Deadly and sinister IED technology perfected by Hezbollah with the help of Iran has made its way into Iraq, with the sole purpose, together with the presence of IRGC forces, of the destabilization of Iraq.  Iran sees itself at the center of a new Middle East Caliphate when U.S. troops depart. 

As I have discussed in previous posts, Iran has IRGC troops in Iraq, and has provided IED technology to Iraqi insurgents.  The most recent development in ordnance type and application in Iraq comes in the form of Hizbollah technology.

A multi-charged roadside bomb, developed by Hizbollah in Lebanon, is being used against British and American soldiers by Iraqi insurgents linked to Iran, according to military intelligence sources.

The device consists of an array of up to five armour-piercing “explosively formed projectiles” or EFPs, also known as shaped charges. They are fired at different angles at coalition vehicles, resulting in almost certain death for at least some of the soldiers inside.

The bombs are easier for insurgents to use because, unlike single EFP devices, they do not need to be carefully aimed and so can be planted beside a road within a few seconds. Their killing potential is also enhanced because more than one EFP is likely to hit a single vehicle.

Some have been painted to look like concrete blocks – a modification of a tactic used by Iranian-backed Hizbollah, which hollowed out imitation rocks, bought in Beirut garden centres, to conceal bombs targeting Israeli vehicles.

A senior defence source said: “There are clear signs of Iran’s sinister hand, and through that, Hizbollah, in this development.”

A Pentagon document obtained by The Sunday Telegraph describes the devices as “well manufactured by experienced bomb makers” and “pioneered by Lebanese Hizbollah”. It adds: “The United Kingdom has accused Iran of providing these devices to insurgents in Iraq.”

Triggered when an infra-red beam is broken, the projectiles are capable of penetrating the armour of 60-ton Abrams tanks. Warrior armoured vehicles and Land Rovers, used by British forces in southern Iraq, offer almost no protection against them.

In February, John Negroponte, America’s director of national intelligence, blamed the Iranian government for the spread of such weapons throughout Iraq.

He told a United States Senate committee: “Teheran is responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks in 2005, by providing Shia militants with the capability to build IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] with explosively formed projectiles, similar to those developed by Iran and Lebanese Hizbollah.”

Coalition forces recently intercepted an infra-red EFP device being transported into Iraq across the Shatt al-Arab waterway from Iran.

Courtesy of the Telegraph, this picture below offers a primer on the devices.

But even as deadly as this technology is to U.S. troops, to see this in the aggregate is to fail to grasp the larger Iran strategy for Iraq.  Iran’s strategy is twofold, and it is dangerous to misunderstand their intentions or underestimate their willingness to go forward with their plans.

The first prong in the Iran strategy involves retaliatory strikes and armed conflict in Iraq proper should the U.S. use military force to secure or destroy nuclear facilities in Iran.  The Washington Post a couple of months ago reported on Iran’s Iraq strategy:

The most likely theater of operations in the initial stages of a U.S.-Iranian conflict, however, would be next door — in Iraq. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iran has methodically built and strengthened its military, political and religious influence in Iraq. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has extensively infiltrated Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior and police force, both mainstays of Shiite power. The hundreds of Iranian mullahs and businessmen who have slipped across the border have a commanding presence in southern Iraq’s commercial and religious sectors.

[ … ]

Iran’s paramilitary and intelligence buildup in Iraq would put some members of the “coalition of the willing” to shame. Over the past three years, Tehran has deployed to Iraq a large number of the Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force — a highly professional force specializing in assassinations and bombings — as well as officers from the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security and representatives of Lebanese Hezbollah.

[ … ]

Iranian personnel have established safe houses throughout southern Iraq. They monitor the movement of coalition forces, tend weapons caches, facilitate cross-border travel of clerics, smuggle munitions into Iraq and recruit individuals as intelligence sources. Presumably, Tehran has recruited networks within U.S. military bases and civilian compounds that could be activated on short notice. Iran is also believed by regional intelligence agencies to have armed and trained as many as 40,000 Iraqis to prevent an unlikely rollback of Shiite control.

In my post Iran Muscles in on Iraq, I said:

With close enough cooperation, enough largesse spread around by Iran, and enough meddling in the affairs of Iraq, the hope apparently is that Iraq would become more like Iran, a place hostile to Western influences and militant against Western values.

Iran is not for a single second interested in stability in Iraq.  Iran is interested in a world Caliphate, and Iraq is less seen as a stumbling block to that end and more and more seen as another pawn to use to that end.

In a remarkably similar assessment, the Strategy Page about the same time reported:

Al Maliki is trying to convince the Iranians to stop supporting (with money, weapons and technical advisors) radical Shia militias in Iraq. The purpose of this support is to prepare these radical Iraqi groups to stage a coup and take over the Iraqi government. Iraq would then be turned into an Islamic republic, like Iran. This kind of takeover worked in Iran because it was done in the middle of a war with Iraq (in the 1980s), a war begun by Saddam Hussein, who thought he could rush in and grab some Iranian oil fields while Iran was distracted by its rebellion against the Iranian monarchy. The Iranian religious radicals have held on to power since, despite only having the support of a minority of the population, by establishing a police state. Most of the cops are Islamic radicals out to impose proper Islamic lifestyles on all Iranians. Democracy is not considered properly Islamic, nor are a lot of things from the West, including movies and accurate news. But the Iraqis, al Maliki is apparently trying to convince the Iranians, are different. While about 30 percent of the Iranian population supports the religious dictatorship, the percentage is lower in Iraq, and the pro-democracy crowd is armed and willing to fight. The Iranians believe that, as soon as the U.S. troops leave, the Iraqi Islamic radical militias can make their move and, in effect, unite Iran and Iraq as a Shia axis for Islamic radicalism that will conquer the world for the Shia brand of Islam.

And this is the second prong of the Iran strategy.  The first prong is proximate and has immediate consequences, i.e., the deaths of U.S. troops and the destabilization of Iraq.  The second prong is more theoretical but just as dangerous.  Iran wants to control the Middle East, and sees itself at the center of a new Caliphate.  Iraq is a pawn in the strategy to begin this process.

The U.S. will not win in Iraq until Iran is driven out entirely.  Furthermore, driving Iran out of Iraq will not address the possibility of a nuclear Iran.

Deadly and sinister IED technology perfected by Hezbollah with the help of Iran has made its way into Iraq, with the sole purpose, together with the presence of IRGC forces, of the destabilization of Iraq.  Iran sees itself at the center of a new Middle East Caliphate when U.S. troops depart. 

As I have discussed in previous posts, Iran has IRGC troops in Iraq, and has provided IED technology to Iraqi insurgents.  The most recent development in ordnance type and application in Iraq comes in the form of Hizbollah technology.

A multi-charged roadside bomb, developed by Hizbollah in Lebanon, is being used against British and American soldiers by Iraqi insurgents linked to Iran, according to military intelligence sources.

The device consists of an array of up to five armour-piercing “explosively formed projectiles” or EFPs, also known as shaped charges. They are fired at different angles at coalition vehicles, resulting in almost certain death for at least some of the soldiers inside.

The bombs are easier for insurgents to use because, unlike single EFP devices, they do not need to be carefully aimed and so can be planted beside a road within a few seconds. Their killing potential is also enhanced because more than one EFP is likely to hit a single vehicle.

Some have been painted to look like concrete blocks – a modification of a tactic used by Iranian-backed Hizbollah, which hollowed out imitation rocks, bought in Beirut garden centres, to conceal bombs targeting Israeli vehicles.

A senior defence source said: “There are clear signs of Iran’s sinister hand, and through that, Hizbollah, in this development.”

A Pentagon document obtained by The Sunday Telegraph describes the devices as “well manufactured by experienced bomb makers” and “pioneered by Lebanese Hizbollah”. It adds: “The United Kingdom has accused Iran of providing these devices to insurgents in Iraq.”

Triggered when an infra-red beam is broken, the projectiles are capable of penetrating the armour of 60-ton Abrams tanks. Warrior armoured vehicles and Land Rovers, used by British forces in southern Iraq, offer almost no protection against them.

In February, John Negroponte, America’s director of national intelligence, blamed the Iranian government for the spread of such weapons throughout Iraq.

He told a United States Senate committee: “Teheran is responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks in 2005, by providing Shia militants with the capability to build IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] with explosively formed projectiles, similar to those developed by Iran and Lebanese Hizbollah.”

Coalition forces recently intercepted an infra-red EFP device being transported into Iraq across the Shatt al-Arab waterway from Iran.

Courtesy of the Telegraph, this picture below offers a primer on the devices.

But even as deadly as this technology is to U.S. troops, to see this in the aggregate is to fail to grasp the larger Iran strategy for Iraq.  Iran’s strategy is twofold, and it is dangerous to misunderstand their intentions or underestimate their willingness to go forward with their plans.

The first prong in the Iran strategy involves retaliatory strikes and armed conflict in Iraq proper should the U.S. use military force to secure or destroy nuclear facilities in Iran.  The Washington Post a couple of months ago reported on Iran’s Iraq strategy:

The most likely theater of operations in the initial stages of a U.S.-Iranian conflict, however, would be next door — in Iraq. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iran has methodically built and strengthened its military, political and religious influence in Iraq. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has extensively infiltrated Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior and police force, both mainstays of Shiite power. The hundreds of Iranian mullahs and businessmen who have slipped across the border have a commanding presence in southern Iraq’s commercial and religious sectors.

[ … ]

Iran’s paramilitary and intelligence buildup in Iraq would put some members of the “coalition of the willing” to shame. Over the past three years, Tehran has deployed to Iraq a large number of the Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force — a highly professional force specializing in assassinations and bombings — as well as officers from the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security and representatives of Lebanese Hezbollah.

[ … ]

Iranian personnel have established safe houses throughout southern Iraq. They monitor the movement of coalition forces, tend weapons caches, facilitate cross-border travel of clerics, smuggle munitions into Iraq and recruit individuals as intelligence sources. Presumably, Tehran has recruited networks within U.S. military bases and civilian compounds that could be activated on short notice. Iran is also believed by regional intelligence agencies to have armed and trained as many as 40,000 Iraqis to prevent an unlikely rollback of Shiite control.

In my post Iran Muscles in on Iraq, I said:

With close enough cooperation, enough largesse spread around by Iran, and enough meddling in the affairs of Iraq, the hope apparently is that Iraq would become more like Iran, a place hostile to Western influences and militant against Western values.

Iran is not for a single second interested in stability in Iraq.  Iran is interested in a world Caliphate, and Iraq is less seen as a stumbling block to that end and more and more seen as another pawn to use to that end.

In a remarkably similar assessment, the Strategy Page about the same time reported:

Al Maliki is trying to convince the Iranians to stop supporting (with money, weapons and technical advisors) radical Shia militias in Iraq. The purpose of this support is to prepare these radical Iraqi groups to stage a coup and take over the Iraqi government. Iraq would then be turned into an Islamic republic, like Iran. This kind of takeover worked in Iran because it was done in the middle of a war with Iraq (in the 1980s), a war begun by Saddam Hussein, who thought he could rush in and grab some Iranian oil fields while Iran was distracted by its rebellion against the Iranian monarchy. The Iranian religious radicals have held on to power since, despite only having the support of a minority of the population, by establishing a police state. Most of the cops are Islamic radicals out to impose proper Islamic lifestyles on all Iranians. Democracy is not considered properly Islamic, nor are a lot of things from the West, including movies and accurate news. But the Iraqis, al Maliki is apparently trying to convince the Iranians, are different. While about 30 percent of the Iranian population supports the religious dictatorship, the percentage is lower in Iraq, and the pro-democracy crowd is armed and willing to fight. The Iranians believe that, as soon as the U.S. troops leave, the Iraqi Islamic radical militias can make their move and, in effect, unite Iran and Iraq as a Shia axis for Islamic radicalism that will conquer the world for the Shia brand of Islam.

And this is the second prong of the Iran strategy.  The first prong is proximate and has immediate consequences, i.e., the deaths of U.S. troops and the destabilization of Iraq.  The second prong is more theoretical but just as dangerous.  Iran wants to control the Middle East, and sees itself at the center of a new Caliphate.  Iraq is a pawn in the strategy to begin this process.

The U.S. will not win in Iraq until Iran is driven out entirely.  Furthermore, driving Iran out of Iraq will not address the possibility of a nuclear Iran.

Either indecision cost the U.S. the opportunity to achieve effective kill, or decision did not consider moral ramifications of leaving the Taliban alive to kill NATO troops. 

In my post Lost Chance to Kill Taliban: Two Mistakes Were Made, we learned only a few facts about the drone that captured the picture of the approximately 190 Taliban who were in formation for a funeral.  The image is below.

We have since learned a little more about this incident.  Regarding chain of command:

Every airstrike, whether from a manned aircraft or a Predator, must be at least approved by commanders at the regional Combined Air Operations Center, or CAOC. If an intended target is particularly sensitive, the decision could go all the way up to a general officer serving as top combat commander.

When an organization gives too much latitude, it suffers from apoplexy.  When it gives too little latitude, it suffers from indecision and ineptitude.  With ROE that require approval of remotely located senior officers, it certainly must be considered indecisive and inept.

Continuing:

The current rules of engagement, likely developed by senior Pentagon officials, do not rule out an attack on religious gathering but do generally prohibit an attack on a religious site such as a cemetery or mosque, military analyst and retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs told MSNBC TV. 

In my post GIs Attack Militants in Ramadi Mosque, I discussed the fact that GIs who were fired upon from insurgents inside a Mosque returned fire and “finally unleashed several rounds from M1 tanks.”

So it apparently is not correct that the troops doing battle cannot fire upon religious structures or gatherings (the report documents the fact that the GIs didn’t know whether prayers had begun when they returned fire).

In a stunning defense of the decision not to fire at the Taliban gathered for the funeral, the military issued this statement:

“During the observation of the group over a significant period of time, it was determined that the group was located on the grounds of a cemetery and were likely conducting a funeral for Taliban insurgents killed in a coalition operation nearby earlier in the day,

The U.S. Military establishment needs to find a compromise position between dollars for new boots-on-the-ground programs, training and equipment, keeping the Battleships operational, and new Destroyers for the Navy.  We should do some of all of it rather than a lot of one of them.

In my post Squad Rushes and War Gaming, I argue that the money spent towards the U.S. Joint Forces Command program “Urban Resolve” is wise money.  I promised in that post to give you an example of unwise money.  But before I get to that, let me give you one more example of smart money.  The quote below is long, but worth the read.  The Stategy Page is reporting:

The U.S. Army currently has a battalion of infantry testing the “Land Warrior” gear. Many of the troops involved are combat veterans, and their opinions will carry a lot of weight. The army wants to get this stuff to Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible, but only if it passes muster with the troops. So far, there have been some communications problems. This is not unusual, but the “Land Warrior” system depends on continuous communications to provide accurate position information for all the wired troops, and their commanders.

What the field tests are trying to prove is whether the usual imperfect communications, which have long been common in combat, before and after radio was introduced, render “Land Warrior” not- worth- the- effort. This is where using combat veterans is so important. Troops who have not been in combat have to guess if certain test conditions would result in a battlefield disaster, or just an annoyance, especially in light of the potential advantages from using “Land Warrior.”

Indications are that the new gear will pass the test. That’s because similar equipment (Blue Force Tracker and the wired Stryker) have already proved worthwhile, despite commo and reliability problems common with this kind of equipment.

It was the use of the new Stryker wheeled armored vehicle in Iraq that accelerated the development of the Land Warrior equipment. The Strykers were using a partial set of the “Mounted Warrior” equipment, a version of Land Warrior for the crews of armored vehicles. The troops liked all their new electronic gadgets a lot, just as commanders took to Blue Force Tracker in 2003.

While the current Land Warrior gear includes a wearable computer/GPS/radio combination, plus improvements in body armor and uniform design, the original, 1990s, Land Warrior concept was a lot more ambitious. But this version had a science fiction air about it, and was not expected to appear for two decades or more. The brass eventually got more realistic, especially since September 11, 2001. That, plus the unexpectedly rapid appearance of new computer and communications technology, caused them to reduce the number of items included in the initial Land Warrior release. At the same time, this all made it possible for the first version of Land Warrior to undergo field testing right now and, if that’s successful, appear next year in combat.

In effect, the first beta of Mounted Warrior was installed in the Stryker vehicles headed for Iraq last year. That gear worked well, and the troops were enthusiastic about using a vehicle that was booted, rather than simply started. The main idea with this new gear was to provide the troops with superior “situational awareness.” That’s a fancy term for having a good sense of where you are. The Stryker troops always knew where they were, by looking at a computer screen. There, a GPS placed the vehicle on a detailed map of the area.

Over half a century of studies have revealed some key information on what an infantryman needs to be more effective. They need to know where they are, quickly. Having a poor idea of where you are proved to be one of the main shortcomings of armored vehicles. The crews are even more easily disoriented, with most of them inside the vehicle. When the shooting starts, even the commander, instead of standing up with his head outside the turret, ducks back inside to stay alive. Infantry aren’t much better off. Although they can see their surroundings, they are often crouching behind something. When getting shot at, standing up to look around is not much of an option.

So Land Warrior gives the infantryman a wearable computer, using an eyepiece as a display (attached to the helmet, and flips down for use), and a small keypad to control the thing. GPS puts the soldiers location on the map shown in the eyepiece. Tests so far have shown that this works. More extensive tests are taking place now.

Even in Iraq, infantry officers and NCOs, equipped with PDAs, have found the map/GPS combo a tremendous aid to getting around, and getting the job done. Land Warrior will also provide a wireless networking capability, so troops not only see where they are in their eyepiece, but can receive new maps and other information. Land Warrior troops can also use a vidcam  to transmit images to headquarters, their immediate commander, or simply to the other guys in their squad. Perhaps most importantly, the Land Warrior gear will provide the same capability as the 2003 “Blue Force Tracker”, and show each grunt, via his eyepiece, where all the other guys in his unit are. When fighting inside a building, this can be a life saver.

There are several other issues that need to be worked out. The battlefield wi-fi system takes about ten seconds to update everyones position. That will eventually get down to a third of that, but real-time updates may be a decade away. The troops can work around that. For the moment, just knowing where everyone is before you move out (or into a building) is useful. The troops are providing lots of feedback, and the changes to the equipment are being made quickly. For example, the troops want a keypad, at least similar to a cell phone, so they can more easily send text messages (like many of them do now with their cell phones.) The small vidcam mounted on the end of everyones rifle will, in a few months, have the ability to send still pictures to anywhere.

If Land Warrior 1.0 proves durable and reliable enough to work in combat, it will change the way troops fight. Everyone will be able to move around more quickly, confidently and effectively. This model has already been demonstrated with the Stryker units. Captured enemy gunmen often complained of how the Strykers came out of nowhere, and skillfully maneuvered to surround and destroy their targets. This was often done at night, with no lights (using night vision gear.) When you have infantry using Land Warrior gear to do the same thing on foot, you demoralize the enemy. Hostile Iraqis already attribute all manner of science fiction type capabilities to American troops. But with Land Warrior, the bar will have to be raised on what’s science fiction, and what is just regular issue gear. This is typical of what happens in wartime, where the demand for better weapons and equipment, and a realistic place to test it, greatly accelerates the development and deployment of the new stuff.

I am the self-appointed protagonist of the grunt.  So in what may be the surprise of the century, I will go on record saying that the program described above is a good idea.  It is well worth the money beng spent on it.  The only problem with this type of program is that it tends to take too long to validate, quality assure, field test and implement in the U.S. forces.  My bet is that it will not be available for years.  Because of the line of work I am in, I am qualified to say that the tendency is to make systems perfectly functional 100% of the time and in all circumstances, to perform failure mode and effects analyses, to quality validate and verify the input data and assumptions forever, and evalute and assess performance test results forever before putting a system into service.  It is how engineers do business.  The military and defense contractors need to put someone other than engineers in charge.  The system needs to be functional sooner rather than later.  And 95% is good enough.

Finally, to the unwise money.  Small Wars Journal has had a discussion thread based on Robert Novak’s column at Townhall, Marines vs. the military-industrial complex.  The Navy wants to retire the USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin in favor of building and commissioning new destroyers.  Novak says:

“The Navy wants shiny new equipment,” Bartlett told me. That desire comports with intimate ties between defense contractors and senior naval officers, who may be looking forward to retirement jobs. The Navy brass’s antipathy toward battleships dates back to destruction of the big ships by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. Over objections by the admirals, battleships have served effectively in the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf wars.

Regardless of the less rational reasons for or against retirement of the battleships, the history of the engineering and construction of these huge ships, and indeed, the very nature of engineering and construction, argues for the continuing viability of these vessels and against wholesale replacement.  This is true regardless of whether destroyers are constructed and commissioned.

Whether it is a bridge, large building, hydroelectric project (such as the Hoover Dam), nuclear power plant, or large sea-going vessel, these things end up being once-in-a-lifetime, unparalleled projects that can never be precisely duplicated.  First of all there is the so-called “tribal knowledge,” or things that are not writtten down, codified, or even necessarily passed on to successors, that contributes to huge projects.  This tribal knowledge has to be re-created and re-learned with each new project, especially with projects that are separated in time 50+ years.

Second, there is the well-known demise of the steel and shipbuilding industry in the U.S.  Many large steel components, including ships, are now constructed in the Rotterdam Shipyard.  Battleships literally could not be constructed in the U.S. today (at least, not without re-training, re-tooling and significant changes and modifications).

Retirement of Battleships is profoundly unwise, but here we need to hedge a bit in how we aim at the future.  The shipbuilding industry in the U.S. is not only in a dire condition, it may not survive without the infusion of defense dollars to — yes, you guessed it — build things like new destroyers.

We are in the unenviable position of saying that we need to find middle ground.  The Battleships should not be mothballed, but defense dollars should be found for newer, well-armed destroyers, even if not in the numbers that the Navy has requested.

Cool Hand Luke: “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

Iran has been involved militarily in the region, and is now turning up the political heat to influence future events.  The U.S. State Department is woefully inept to counter Iranian influence.

I have been watching Iran for some time now.  Even with the most clinical of assessments, one can only conclude that the hard line extremists in Iran are pathological liars.  Iran denied that they had supplied Hezbollah with equipment, while almost simultaneously Iranian-made equipment was captured in Lebanon by the IDF.  While denying that they were in any way assisting Hezbollah, Iranian soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon.  Contrary to repeated denials of Iranian involvement in Iraq, the more complicated IED technology has an unmistakable Iranian signature.  While denying that Iran has meddled in the affairs of Iraq, even prior to the war, huge sums of money and Iranian intelligence assets poured across the border in an attempt to effect a post-war outcome favorable to Iran.  Again while denying that Iranians have done any harm to people or infrastructure in Iraq, Iranians involved in sabotage of oil pipelines have been arrested by Iraqi security forces.  U.S. border forts have not been able to supress the Iranian influence in Iraq or close the porous border.

In stepped up political maneuvering (by Iran), Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki visited Iran yesterday, attempting to tell him that the Iranian meddling must stop.  First, it is troublesome that he would visit Iran, since Iraq should see Iran as its most entrenched enemy — the one who would work towards a one-world Caliphate that would mean the diminution of trivial things like Iraq-Iran borders and state sovereignty.  But it is more troublesome that Iran seems to be playing the political game with Iraq.  The Ayatollah Khamenei weighs in on his position regarding the U.S. presence in Iraq:

Khamenei told al-Maliki that Iran “considers it an obligation to support the Iraqi government in practical ways,

Michelle Malkin informs us of the New York Post story of an opportunity to kill a significant number of Taliban.  Two mistakes were made in this sad episode.  As the Post reported about losing this opportunity:

U.S. intelligence officers in Afghanistan are still fuming about the recent lost opportunity for an easy kill of Taliban honchos packed in tight formation for the burial, NBC News reported.

The unmanned airplane, circling undetected high overhead, fed a continuous satellite feed of the juicy target to officers on the ground.

“We were so excited. I came rushing in with the picture,” one U.S. Army officer told NBC.

But that excitement quickly turned to gut-wrenching frustration because the rules of engagement on the ground in Afghanistan blocked the U.S. from mounting a missile or bomb strike in a cemetery, according to the report. 

The first mistake is that the rules of engagement prohibited killing the enemy.  I don’t care whether it is a Mosque, a cemetary, someone’s house, a school, or someone’s bath tub.  If the enemy is there, he should be killed.  If the officers are afraid to craft such ROE, I will be happy to assist them.  All they have to do it call me.

The second mistake is that the senior officer didn’t override the ridiculous rules of engagement and order the killing of the Taliban.  This is simply unacceptable, and points to officers who will not make hard decisions because of careerism.  I have addressed this careerism before in my post Patriotism, Big Flags and Military Regression:

To be frank, for those who have their career as the premier concern, they should just step aside and save their reports the trouble of cleaning up their mess and suffering the consequences of their careerism.

There is no reason that these Taliban should not be dead; not ROE, and not the officers present and their lack of willingness to make hard decisions.  As it stands, these Taliban are alive to injure or kill NATO troops, and the officers who are responsible still have careers.  They shouldn’t.

Note: Original edited for typographical error.

I hate to complain to my readers, but I have this wrist-hand thing going on.  I get tired from blogging, and it is, in my humble opinion, entirely the government’s fault.  Clearly, if the GWOT was not taking place, I would not have to blog so much.  Now, at Michael Fumento’s blog, we read this concerning the Gulf War Syndrome:

Since 1993 I have been arguing that Gulf War Syndrome, or “Gulf Lore Syndrome” as I titled one of my articles, is a myth. I wrote almost 30 articles on the subject. And I received the sort of invective you’d expect, questioning my patriotism and loyalty to the troops for putting science ahead of hysteria and political considerations. Now the Institute of Medicine has released a report based on a review of 850 studies and found “the results of that research indicate that … there is not a unique symptom complex (or syndrome) in deployed Gulf War veterans.” Of course, out of 700,000 men and women who went over some have fallen ill and some have died. It’s been 15 years, after all. But they don’t have anything non-deployed vets have, or for that matter civilians. Not that this will stop the activists, one of whom, Cpt. Joyce Riley, is being routinely identified in stories about the IOM report as a Gulf vet even though she never got closer to the war than San Diego. Riley, who also claims Henry Kissinger ordered the invention of HIV/AIDS, sees this latest report as nothing more than part of a grand conspiracy. In fact, “GWS” is actually part of a conspiracy of sorts — a conspiracy to continually fabricate one syndrome after another by pretending that normal background rates of illness combined with hysterical reports (such as one vet’s claim to have glowing vomit) indicate mass mystery illnesses. It began with Agent Orange and in its most recent guise is called World Trade Center Illness. But it’s all the same nonsense. And nobody suffers more than the exploited alleged victims whose lives can be ruined by the constant psychological battering of being told they have or may have a disease that doesn’t even exist. 

Sigh.  Well, there goes my lawsuit.  And it was such an open and shut case too!  Hangs head  … shuffles off.

According to the Telegraph:

Britain could face the threat of two million home-grown Islamic terrorists, says a senior Muslim leader.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, fears that continued negative attitudes towards people of his faith could provoke a vast and angry backlash.

“There are a few bad apples in the Muslim community who are doing terrible acts and we want to root them out,” Dr Bari told The Sunday Telegraph.

“But some police officers and sections of the media are demonising Muslims, treating them as if they’re all terrorists — and that encourages other people to do the same.

“If that demonisation continues, then Britain will have to deal with two million Muslim terrorists — 700,000 of them in London,” he said. “If you attack a whole community, it becomes despondent and aggressive.”

So there you have it.  There are only a few bad apples in the Muslim faith.  But if you make them angry, they become two million Muslim terrorists.

Okay.  I think I’ve got it.  I will arm my family accordingly with rifles, shotguns, pistols and lot’s of ammunition.

By now it has become news that the latest military intelligence assessments of the western Iraq province of al Anbar are remarkably negative and even morose.  The various news coverage is cataloged in a discussion thread at Small Wars Journal, called Situation Called Dire in West Iraq.  Since I have my readers for an average of only a couple of minutes per visit, I won’t waste time reiterating the news in this post.  You can go check it out at SWJ.  The pronosis looks grim, even after being “spun” by the military brass to remove some of the sting of the assessments.

There are still dozens of loosely connected smaller insurgent cells in al Anbar, some with only several fighters.  But there are some large groups, including the Islamic Army in Iraq, made up of several thousand fighters, and the Mujihadeen Army.  Together these two groups make up about 50% of the total insurgent force in the al Anbar province.  Finally, there is still a contingency of al Qaeda, but the loose connection between these groups means that there is no one leader to target, no single strategy that is necessarily the best, and no central command and control.  These groups enjoy maximum latitude and command is pushed down through the “organization(s).”  The only thing in common between these groups is that they have no intention of becoming part of the political process, and they intend to fight to the death.

There is a stark difference in the way the U.S. has approached Fallujah and the way we have approached Ramadi.  This difference is due to the influence of several factors.  First, the empty-headed catcalls and questions about when we are going to leave Iraq have been met with equally empty-headed retorts that “we’ll leave when the Iraqis are ready to take over from us.”  Both the question and retort miss the point, and in the superlative degree.  The second reason for the difference is the current influence of military brass that preens and postures and pontificates about the lessons learned from Vietnam.  There is a drive to assume a small footprint and use minimum force projection.  I argue in my post The Debate over Diminished Force Projection that this confuses categories and fails to learn the lessons of Iraq (forget Vietnam for a minute and focus on Iraq).

Regarding the intelligence report, one Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, “We haven’t been defeated militarily but we have been defeated politically — and that’s where wars are won and lost.”  It would appear that even this misses the point.

If the question “when are we leaving” misses the point, the retort “when the Iraqis can take over” misses the point, and wars being “won or lost” in politics misses the point, then what exactly is the point?

Remembering Iraqi politics is necessary to understand why these things have happened, and invoking the lessons of Vietnam is not very helpful.  Politics teaches us that to refer to “Iraqis” is too broad, since there are three very distinct groups: Kurds, Shia and Sunni.  The army is made up largely of Shia Muslims, and after displacement of the Sunni population upon the fall of the regime, the Sunni and Shia have an understandably suspicious view of each other.  For the Iraqi army to wage war on the insurgents in al Anbar is not what it seems.  Rather, in reality, it would approximately be the Shia army waging war on the remaining Fedayeen fighters and regime loyalists, with Sunni citizens caught in the middle who have no love for the Shia and a certain amount of sympathy for the loyalists.  Al Qaeda in Iraq is a nuisance and a violent organization, but to the extent that they serve to repell government forces from al Anbar, they prevent revenge killings of the Sunnis (not so much from the army, but from the certain police presence to follow).

To refer to politics in al Anbar is to refer to something that doesn’t currently exist.  The brass in Iraq, by diminishing force projection in al Anbar in order to let “reconstruction win the hearts and minds of the people,” are deferring to a phantom.  The very people whose hearts and minds we want to win are being protected by the enemy who destroys their political institutions and prevents reconstruction.

The Strategy Page from a few months ago is correct.  There isn’t civil war in Iraq, and there can never be civil war in Iraq.  If the factions war with each other, the Kurds will be left alone (or defended by themselves alongside the Kurds in Turkey), and the Shia majority will utterly destroy the Sunni minority.  Rather than speak of civil war, we should speak of genocide.

The only force in the region who is capable of winning the war on the battlefield is the U.S.  Reliance on the Iraqis to effect the victory is a losing strategy.  Yet, this seems to be exactly what our strategy is, according to Maj. Gen. Zilmer:

A senior American commander in Iraq said Tuesday that U.S.-led military operations are “stifling” the insurgency in western Anbar province but are not strong enough to defeat it.

Marine Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer told reporters in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Fallujah that he has enough U.S. troops _ about 30,000 _ to accomplish what he called his main mission: training Iraqi security forces.

“For what we are trying to achieve out here I think our force levels are about right,” he said. Even so, he said the training of Iraqi soldiers and police had not progressed as quickly as once expected.

“Now, if that mission statement changes _ if there is seen a larger role for coalition forces out here to win that insurgency fight _ then that is going to change the metrics of what we need out here,” he added.

Maintenance of the peace can be accomplished by the Iraqi troops alongside U.S. troops, and the political process can be protected by both the U.S. and Iraqis.  Reconstruction can be assisted by the most versatile force in the world, the U.S. military.  But winning the war on the battlefield is necessary prior to winning it politically.  Unless and until the enemy is killed or captured, politics is irrelevant because it doesn’t exist.

We can still win this war, but we need to dispatch a division of Marines as soon as possible to begin operations in Ramadi, Fallujah (yes, it has regressed), Hamdaniyah, Haditha and al Haqlania.  Generals who learned the wrong lessons from the wrong war and who are applying them in the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons with the wrong understanding are decreasing our chances of success in al Anbar.

We should remember the counsel of General George Patton, who believed that the the U.S. at the Battle of the Bulge could still lose World War II.  This belief caused him to drive his troops 100 miles within 48 hours and engage in combat with no food and no sleep.  This war can be won, but we must move quickly, and we must move with a heavy footstep.

Col. David Hunt, appearing on FNC a couple of months ago, almost blew a gasket when asked what to do about Ramadi: “Send in the Marines and let them clean it out.”

Indeed.  Then … and only then … can politics begin.

Bill Roggio has a good piece entitled “The Great Taliban Turkey Shoot,” in which he outlines for us today the high numbers of Taliban dead that has resulted from recent offensives in Afghanistan by NATO forces (particularly focusing on so-called “black” operations).  I also discussed the state of affairs for the Taliban in my posts “Afghanistan, Talibanistan, Waziristan and Kill Ratios,” and “Taliban win in Pakistan (for now).”  In the last post, I discussed the fact that the Pakistanis were selling out their own tribesmen to be killed in Afghanistan in order to effect a truce with the Pakistani army (i.e., the truces that have been signed have come with a price to both the Pashtun tribes and the Pakistani army).

From The Independent, we learn of Taliban action in Afghanistan, even recently, and what it means for some of the social infrastructure of the country:

Now there is a concerted – armed – campaign to keep such children away from school. Education – particularly that of girls – is associated with the often-hated government and the occupying Western forces. Their opponents – including the Taliban – burn schools and attack teachers. The Ministry of Education said 267 schools had been forced to stop classes – a third of them in the south where five years after 9/11, fighting is intensifying as the Nato-led troops confront a resurgent opposition.

High numbers of Taliban killed — successful black operations by NATO forces netting high value targets — truces in Pakistan and the withdrawal of the Pakistani army — and burned schools.  What are we to make of all of this?

First, it is clear that the Taliban have not stood down.  They want Afghanistan back, and are prepared to continue the murder of the citizens and general application of terror in order to cause the downfall of the current Afghanistan government.  Second, the summer campaigns are over, and the Taliban will more than likely retreat to the relative warmth and safety of villages on the other side of the border.  But without the departure of the Pakistani army, there would be no warmth and safety.  The Pakistani army is weary of killing fellow Muslims, and the Taliban need a respite.  Their numbers have been depleted, and they need some time to lick their wounds.

Third, it appears that alleged “high value targets” may not be so high value after all.  Consider the case of Zarqawi in Iraq, who was replaced almost as soon as he was killed.  Black operations that kill or capture al Qaeda and other foreigners in the area might make it seem that success is just around the corner for NATO (and this may be intentional by the Taliban), but in the total absence of foreigners, the Taliban still have their eye on the ball.  The Taliban were around long before the foreigners came in to spread largesse around.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this deal-making between Pakistan and the Pashtun tribes is actually a good thing for NATO or Afghanistan.  There is trickery all right, and this is a slick deal, but the ones being taken are Pakistan and Afghanistan.  The Taliban gets to regroup, heal, and let winter pass before starting in earnest again in the spring.  They will give up their own kin to accomplish the downfall of the regime and the re-entry of the Taliban.  They will certainly not go away, and the pressure must be relentless in order for NATO to win.

While the cloak and dagger tactics are interesting, black operations will not win the war.  Individual “high value” targets should not be given a pass, but the special operations activities will remain a sideline activity to the heavy lifting of killing the Taliban.  If this can be done utilizing only black operations, then so be it.  But it would seem that this is more than just a special forces struggle.