From The New York Times:

Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq’s security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.

The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.

Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles …

… recent bombings of government buildings here have underscored how precarious Iraq remains, especially with the coming parliamentary elections and the violence expected to accompany them.

The suicide bombers who managed to get two tons of explosives into downtown Baghdad on Oct. 25, killing 155 people and destroying three ministries, had to pass at least one checkpoint where the ADE 651 is typically deployed, judging from surveillance videos released by Baghdad’s provincial governor. The American military does not use the devices. “I don’t believe there’s a magic wand that can detect explosives,” said Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe Jr., who oversees Iraqi police training for the American military. “If there was, we would all be using it. I have no confidence that these work.”

The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives.

Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense, said the center had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.”

The Justice Department has warned against buying a variety of products that claim to detect explosives at a distance with a portable device. Normal remote explosives detection machinery, often employed in airports, weighs tons and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The ADE 651’s clients are mostly in developing countries; no major country’s military or police force is a customer, according to the manufacturer.

“I don’t care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them,” General Jabiri said. “I know more about this issue than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world.”

Aqeel al-Turaihi, the inspector general for the Ministry of the Interior, reported that the ministry bought 800 of the devices from a company called ATSC (UK) Ltd. for $32 million in 2008, and an unspecified larger quantity for $53 million. Mr. Turaihi said Iraqi officials paid up to $60,000 apiece, when the wands could be purchased for as little as $18,500. He said he had begun an investigation into the no-bid contracts with ATSC.

Jim McCormick, the head of ATSC, based in London, did not return calls for comment.

The Baghdad Operations Command announced Tuesday that it had purchased an additional 100 detection devices, but General Rowe said five to eight bomb-sniffing dogs could be purchased for $60,000, with provable results.

Checking cars with dogs, however, is a slow process, whereas the wands take only a few seconds per vehicle. “Can you imagine dogs at all 400 checkpoints in Baghdad?” General Jabiri said. “The city would be a zoo.”

Speed is not the only issue. Colonel Bidlack said, “When they say they are selling you something that will save your son or daughter on a patrol, they’ve crossed an insupportable line into moral depravity.”

Last year, the James Randi Educational Foundation, an organization seeking to debunk claims of the paranormal, publicly offered ATSC $1 million if it could pass a scientific test proving that the device could detect explosives. Mr. Randi said no one from the company had taken up the offer.

ATSC’s promotional material claims that its device can find guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction,” ATSC says.

To detect materials, the operator puts an array of plastic-coated cardboard cards with bar codes into a holder connected to the wand by a cable. “It would be laughable,” Colonel Bidlack said, “except someone down the street from you is counting on this to keep bombs off the streets.”

Proponents of the wand often argue that errors stem from the human operator, who they say must be rested, with a steady pulse and body temperature, before using the device.

Then the operator must walk in place a few moments to “charge” the device, since it has no battery or other power source, and walk with the wand at right angles to the body. If there are explosives or drugs to the operator’s left, the wand is supposed to swivel to the operator’s left and point at them.

If, as often happens, no explosives or weapons are found, the police may blame a false positive on other things found in the car, like perfume, air fresheners or gold fillings in the driver’s teeth.

On Tuesday, a guard and a driver for The New York Times, both licensed to carry firearms, drove through nine police checkpoints that were using the device. None of the checkpoint guards detected the two AK-47 rifles and ammunition inside the vehicle.

During an interview on Tuesday, General Jabiri challenged a Times reporter to test the ADE 651, placing a grenade and a machine pistol in plain view in his office. Despite two attempts, the wand did not detect the weapons when used by the reporter but did so each time it was used by a policeman.

“You need more training,” the general said.

Well, it’s sad, really, but Iraq has something called the University of Baghdad, which has a College of Engineering.  More than likely, no one asked them what they think about this magic IED divining rod, and Iraq has long ago reached the point where the U.S. must let them go their own way.  But the worst part of this is the failure to spend the money on bomb sniffing dogs, some of which have been deployed to Afghanistan with the Marines.  In the not too distant future, nanotechnology might be able to fill the gap.

From AP:

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — Seen from a tiny village on a recent moonless night, the sprawling U.S. base three miles to the north looks more like a medium-size city than a military facility in a war zone.

Bagram Air Field, as the base is formally known, is the largest U.S. military hub of the war in Afghanistan and is home to some 24,000 military personnel and civilian contractors. Yet it is continuing to grow to keep up with the requirements of an escalating war and troop increases.

With tens of millions of dollars pouring into expanding and upgrading facilities, Bagram is turning into something of a military “boom town.” Large swathes of the 2,000-hectare (5,000-acre) base look like a construction site, with the rumble of building machinery and the scream of fighter-jets overhead providing the soundtrack.

The rapid growth here is taking place at a time when the Obama administration is debating the future direction of the increasingly unpopular war, now in its ninth year. Among the options under discussion is a recommendation by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the overall commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, to bring in additional U.S. troops, perhaps as many as 80,000.

But even with current troop levels — 65,000 U.S. troops and about 40,000 from allied countries — Bagram already is bursting at the seams.

Plans are under way to build a new, $22 million passenger terminal and a new cargo yard costing $9 million. To increase cargo capacity, a new parking ramp supporting the world’s largest aircraft is to be completed this spring.

Elsewhere at Bagram, construction has begun on permanent brick-and mortar housing for troops and headquarters for military units, according to Lt. Col. Troy Joslin, chief of Bagram’s operations.

Hundreds of Afghan builders in traditional tunics, loose pants and hard hats arrive by bus every morning. Dozens of trucks laden with dirt and other building materials come into the base daily.

The water and electricity systems and the waste management facility are being upgraded. The Army Corps of Engineers is increasing the capacity of the base’s roads as well as building new ones on the east side of the airfield, said Joslin.

The base command is acquiring more land next year on the east side to expand the base, according to Joslin. No figure was given.

When the U.S. military took over Bagram in December 2001, the base was 1,616 hectares (3,993 acres), according to Capt. Jennifer Bocanegra, a military spokeswoman at Bagram.

It is now 2,104 hectares (5,198 acres), she said.

Bocanegra said the lease of additional land to expand Bagram was needed to protect personnel and accomplish missions. “The acquisitions have been made with the express knowledge and consent of the Afghan Government,” she said.

The base’s main road, a tree-lined thoroughfare called “Disney drive,” is so congested at times it looks like a downtown street at rush hour. Kicking up dust on that road are Humvees, mine-resistant vehicles, SUVs, buses, trucks and sedans.

A pedestrian path running alongside that road is as busy as a shopping street on a Saturday afternoon, with hundreds of soldiers, Marines, airmen, navy officers and civilian contractors almost rubbing shoulders. Similarly, the lines are long at the overcrowded food halls, the American fast food outlets, cafes, PX stores and ATM machines.

Signs on bathroom walls warn of a water shortage.

“If you think you are maybe wasting water, YOU PROBABLY ARE,” warns one sign.

Clients must wait, sometimes for up to an hour, for a haircut. For the luxury of a back massage, an appointment is recommended.

The air field is already handling 400 short tons of cargo and 1,000 passengers daily, according to Air Force spokesman Capt. David Faggard. A new 3.5-kilometer (2.17-mile runway) was completed in 2006, to accommodate large aircraft, he added.

Bagram was a major Soviet base during Moscow’s 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan, providing air support to Soviet and Afghan forces fighting the mujahedeen. It also was fought over by rival factions during the country’s civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal.

The view from the old Soviet-built air traffic tower, replaced last year by a new, $50 million tower, reveals a picture more akin to a busy commercial hub than a military facility in a war zone. So frantic is the pace at the air field that giant C-17 transport aircraft fill up with soldiers almost as soon as their cargo is emptied.

“The current expansion supports thousands of additional Coalition troops, either assigned to or supported from Bagram Air Field,” said Bocanegra.

With Bagram’s rapid growth and increase in importance to the war effort, the need to protect it was never greater. The responsibility for that primarily falls on Air Force personnel and paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division.

Bagram lies in Parwan, a relatively quiet province. The Taliban-led insurgency, while growing in numbers and strength elsewhere, is not known to have a significant presence in the province.

Still, the base is susceptible to rocket and mortar attacks.

This year insurgents have launched more than a dozen attacks on Bagram, killing four and wounding at least 12, according to military spokesman Lt. Col. Mike Brady.

And from The Meridian Star we re-learn what we already knew:

Not so far from the offices of U.S. Navy Commander Christopher Bownds at the Navy Technical Training Center (NTTC) on board Naval Air Station Meridian, Rolls Royce jet engines can be heard roaring as they power up to take yet another student aviator and his instructor into a clear blue morning.

As the jet engine roar is replaced by yet another, and another, Bownds smiles knowing this is what many people in East Mississippi and West Alabama think of whenever NAS Meridian is mentioned. Rightfully so, NAS Meridian graduates hundreds of Navy and Marine aviators each year who go on to defend America and its people. But Bownds was quick to point out on a media tour Tuesday morning that there are a great many more military personnel who graduate from the sprawling complex for other duties.

“There are a lot more men and women in the Navy and Marines who are in support roles than who are on the front lines or flying aircraft,” said Bownds. “Here is the place in which they learn their jobs so they are prepared to be assigned to their duty stations or fleet assignments.”

As we have pointed out before, the ratio of support to infantry is vastly bloated in the U.S. military, and by this I mean both Army and Marines.  Let’s forget about AF and Navy for the moment.  The Army and Marines are supposed to field line companies, and yet there are more support than infantry in both.  It’s disgraceful, and the bloating must stop and be turned on its head in order to support the campaigns in which we find ourselves in the twenty first century.

To be sure as we have discussed here, logistics is critical, even determinative, to any campaign.  Intelligence (or lack thereof) contributed to the failures of VPB Wanat and COP Keating.  Advocacy for trimming is not the same thing as lack of appreciation for the necessary job that support troops must do.  But trimming is imperative, and the ratio of support to infantry must decrease.

The leadership for any campaign that has a bloated system where a base as large and soft as Bagram exists while Marines in Helmand and Soldiers in Wanat, Korengal and Kamdesh are dying must ask themselves why there are safe, protected, comfortable troops worried about amenities while there is no quarter for our fighting men.

Marines sleep in Helmand during the initial phases of Operation Khanhar.

Briefly revisiting Matthew Hoh’s arguments against involvement in Afghanistan, he (perhaps unwittingly) parrots the talking points of the political left.

I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan.  If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy Western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc.  Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear weapons.  However, again, to follow the logic of our stated goals we should garrison Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

There are so many errors in judgment and contradictions in this brief diatribe that it’s difficult to know where to begin.  There is another version in the same family of objections to counterinsurgency in the tribal areas of Afghanistan, this flavor being best described by Tim Lynch when he states of COP Keating at Kamdesh:

This is a perfect example of the attrition warfare mindset which is ingrained in most of our military officers.  Owning the field of battle post fight is a measurement of success in conventional military operations. It is irrelevant in the context of a counterinsurgency.  The only relative measurement of success is how much of the population is on your side.  In the battle for FOB Keating the population was never on our side – they were apparently the ones who attacked us – so why were we even there in the first place? I don’t know the answer but will bet a months pay that we are soon out of Nuristan Province.  As I have said many times before the instability in Nuristan is financed by gem smuggling syndicates which is an Afghan problem.  We have no solutions to offer the Nuristani people except to leave them alone which is all they want anyway.

Well, not exactly.  The COP was there to interdict the flow of fighters from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and Tim should be interested in doing that since he believes that al Qaeda is safely garrisoned in Pakistan and will never be allowed in Afghanistan again (to be fair, Tim is not allied with Hoh in his advocacy of complete disengagement from Afghanistan, but the arguments are similar enough that they must be addressed together).

But do you see the contradictions here?  On the one hand, the real al Qaeda / foreign fighter problem is in Pakistan (or so it is alleged), and our focus should be there rather than Afghanistan.  On the other hand, when it comes to being deployed in Afghanistan (including along the Pakistani border), the question arises “why are we in Afghanistan to begin with?”

The conversation on Pakistan versus Afghanistan presupposes that the Durand Line means anything, and that the Taliban and al Qaeda respect an imaginary boundary cut through the middle of the Hindu Kush.  It doesn’t and they don’t.  If our engagement of Pakistan is to mean anything, we must understand that they are taking their cue from us, and that our campaign is pressing the radicals from the Afghanistan side while their campaign is pressing them from the Pakistani side.

Advocating disengagement from Afghanistan is tantamount to suggesting that one front against the enemy would be better than two, and that one nation involved in the struggle would be better than two (assuming that Pakistan would keep up the fight in our total absence, an assumption for which I see no basis).  It’s tantamount to suggesting that it’s better to give the Taliban and al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan as Pakistan presses them from their side, or that it’s better to give them safe haven in Pakistan while we press them from our side.  Both suggestions are preposterous.

This isn’t about nation-states and imaginary boundaries.  When we think this way we do err in that we superimpose a Western model on a region of the world where it doesn’t apply.  This is about a transnational insurgency, and it’s never better to give the enemy more land, more latitude, more space, more people, more money, and more safety.  Any arguments to this effect are mistaken at a very fundamental level.

The Captain’s Journal prides itself on being both well connected with and an advocate for the enlisted man.  Based on recent communications with enlisted Marines (of various ranks), a perspective is developing around the current rules of engagement for Afghanistan.

There is no such thing as air or artillery support any more.  The ROE General McChrystal has set in place is killing Marines.  Sure, there was the ROE in Iraq, but Marines were genuinely encouraged to think for themselves, assess the situation, and ascertain the best course of action independently.  This is not being done in Afghanistan, where rules are micromanaging the tactical situation.  Many Marines with combat experience in Iraq are leaving the Corps for various reasons, but at least one reason for the exit can be traced to a lack of willingness to deploy to Afghanistan under the current circumstances.  Deploying Marines to Afghanistan are mostly inexperienced.

Now.  To regular readers of The Captain’s Journal who follow our rules of engagement coverage and analysis, this isn’t news.  What is news is that the experiences are gradually being transmitted from front line back to the states, and it is causing a deleterious affect on morale.  In four years I cannot remember a more morbid time, even in the worst days of the campaign for Anbar.

Although hope for military campaigns springs eternal, I must say that for the first time my view of Operation Enduring Freedom is now rather dark.  To be sure, problems are always discussed here in the spirit of finding solutions.  But this depression is different.  Unless something changes, the enlisted U.S. Marines are suspicious of the campaign and its leadership, and are close to checking out – at least, mentally.

Bill Gertz reports on intelligence leading up to the Taliban attack at COP Keating, Kamdesh Afghanistan.

Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr. recently testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that there were three intelligence reports indicating Taliban forces were preparing to attack a remote U.S. combat outpost in eastern Afghanistan, according to defense officials.

Gen. Burgess appeared before a closed-door meeting of the committee on Oct. 22 and was asked by senators about the advance warning of a Taliban attack, first reported in The Washington Times, and whether the intelligence warnings were ignored.

About 100 Taliban fighters carried out the attack on the outpost near the town of Kamdesh on Oct. 3 in what U.S. Army spokesmen said was a surprise strike that left eight U.S. soldiers dead.

Gen. Burgess explained in testimony to the committee that the military had three intelligence reports on the issue, but that the reports were among many human-source reports that had not been verified by other means, such as electronic intelligence. As a result, the reporting was not deemed “actionable” intelligence, said defense officials familiar with the testimony.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Democratic and Republican spokesmen for the Senate Intelligence Committee had no comment, citing rules limiting discussion of closed-door committee meetings.

A DIA spokesman also declined to comment.

One official said the reports indicate that there was an intelligence failure by analysts who he suspects were “waiting for the smoking-gun report from technical systems.”

“The bottom line is that in spite of all our intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan, U.S. forces have been surprised twice by massed Taliban forces in a pre-planned attack against two of our outposts,” the official said. “That begs the question of whether we have a problem of analysis.”

Partially declassified intelligence reports revealed that in the period before the Oct. 3 battle, a new Taliban subcommander in Kamdesh named Ghulan Faroq had been appointed and was in charge of attacking Combat Outpost Keating. The reports also indicated that days before the attack, insurgent fighters in Kamdesh were resupplied with ammunition for large-caliber guns.

Commentary & Analysis

One year and nine months ago we discussed the claim made by General Rodriguez, apparently relying on Army intelligence, that the Taliban were focusing on Pakistan rather than Afghanistan and thus there wouldn’t be a Taliban spring offensive in 2008.  We predicted otherwise, and quite obviously defense intelligence got it wrong while we got it right.  Reinforcing this analysis several months later, Colonel Pete Johnson said that the notion of a Taliban spring offensive was a myth that was going to be debunked.  Yet there has been a spring offensive every year, with the security situation in Afghanistan continuing to degrade and the Taliban controlling more and more of both the terrain and the population.

In our analysis of the Battle of Wanat we pointed out that the AR 15-6 Investigation and Findings of Wanat pointed towards intelligence failures in the time leading up to the battle.

One key breakdown in force protection pertained to intelligence. Multiple villagers, including tribal elders, had told multiple U.S. troops that an attack on VPB Wanat was imminent, but the assumption that such an attack would be probative caused little concern among the leadership. But the enlisted ranks included men who knew what was coming. Cpl. Gunnar Zwilling suspected that his days were numbered, while he and his band of brothers in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team prepared for a mission near Wanat, Afghanistan. “It’s gonna be a bloodbath,” he told his father, Kurt Zwilling, on the phone in what would be their last conversation.  In fact, there had been daily reports of 200-300 fighters massing to attack COP Bella in the first 10 days of July before transfer of operations to VPB Wanat

We have also discussed in detail the Taliban massing of troops, bringing at times near half-Battalion size forces to bear on U.S. troop garrisons as a favorite tactic.

Now regarding the Taliban attack at Combat Outpost Keating at Kamdesh, Afghanistan, we learn that defense intelligence had three reports of imminent danger but failed to act on this intelligence.  What “smoking gun report” would have convinced them to take action we aren’t told in the Gertz investigation, but it’s important not to get buried in the details of the specific intelligence failure.

This failure is part of a larger problem in defense intelligence.  The problem is both significant and consequential.  It is significant in that it points to a systemic problem, and consequential in that the affects range from denying the presence of a Taliban offensive to the deaths of nine Soldiers at Wanat and eight at Kamdesh.

The point is granted that this administration is at war with the CIA.  But issues at the tactical level, e.g., Taliban massing of forces, imminent attacks, etc., must be acted upon without reference to certainty.  Intelligence is meant to be shared, and if further verification and validation is needed, the proper assets must be deployed to address the need.

I have previously weighed in on the cult of special forces advocating a shift away from (the current fad of) replacing kinetic operations by infantry with Special Operations Forces.  But regarding the proper use of special operators (as I see it), this is an instance of ideal application of several Rangers assigned to and embedded with infantry platoons.  Recon missions based out of the smaller COPs might add to the local intelligence rather than having to rely on electronic and technological verification of other intelligence information.

In any case, just as we are attempting to define the boundary conditions for riskless war, our Army intelligence is attempting to craft riskless analysis.  There is no such thing, and in the mean time, we are failing our Soldiers and Marines in the field at the tactical and personal level.

From Google Analytics:

See network domain number 139 that particular day from Washington, D.C.  Analytics shows this to be a previous (repeat) visitor who didn’t come to TCJ via other links.  Here at The Captain’s Journal we’re glad to have each and every one of our readers, from the executive office of the President U.S.A. to DoD, CENTCOM, Dyncorp, Cornell University, FEMA, the U.S. Senate, and John Deere.