Archive for the 'Department of Defense' Category

Intelligence bulletin #1 covers the following subjects: [1] Iran’s Quds forces, [2] international war against the CIA, [3] recent combat action in Ramadi, [4] State Department unauthorized absence in the global war on terror, [5] British pullback from Iraq and the Mahdi army, [6] Iranian activities inside Iraq and Israeli concerns, [7] the M-16, [8] speculation on thermobaric weapons inside Iraq, [9] the wounded, and [10] A-10 flyover video.

Iran’s Quds forces

The Quds Force is an arm of the IRGC that carries out operations outside of Iran.  The AP recently reported on Iran’s highly secretive Quds forces being deeply enmeshed within Iraq:

Iran’s secretive Quds Force, accused by the United States of arming Iraqi militants with deadly bomb-making material, has built up an extensive network in the war-torn country, recruiting Iraqis and supporting not only Shiite militias but also Shiites allied with Washington, experts say.

Iran likely does not want a direct confrontation with American troops in Iraq but is backing militiamen to ensure Shiites win any future civil war with Iraqi Sunnis after the Americans leave, several experts said Thursday.

The Quds Force’s role underlines how deeply enmeshed Iran is in its neighbor — and how the U.S. could face resistance even from its allies in Iraq if it tries to uproot Iran’s influence in Iraq.

But as quickly as the connection between the Shi’ite insurgency and Iran is pointed out, the report equivocates, saying “still unclear, however, is how closely Iran’s top leadership is directing the Quds Force’s operations — and whether Iran has intended for its help to Shiite militias to be turned against U.S. forces.”  This line is parroted in a recent Los Angeles Times article on the same subject, as the subtitle reads “Does the government control the Quds Force? Experts aren’t sure.”  Picking up on the same AP report, Newsday says the same thing.

As I discussed in The Covert War with Iran, the deep involvement of the Quds Forces, Badr Brigade and other Iranian personnel assets in Iraq is undeniable.  But it is fashionable to bifurcate the actions of the Quds and Badr Brigade from the “highest levels of government in Iran.”  Even General Peter Pace does this, recently saying after reviewing the intelligence on Iran’s involvement in Iraq, “that does not translate that the Iranian Government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this…What it does say is that things made in Iran are being used in Iraq to kill coalition soldiers.

The Small Wars Journal has a fascinating discussion thread that begins with a Washington Post article by reporter Thomas Ricks, entitled “Officers with PhDs Advising War Effort.”  Says Ricks:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals — including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders — in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.

Army officers tend to refer to the group as “Petraeus guys.” They are smart colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq.

Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and is letting them try to wage the war their way.

“Their role is crucial if we are to reverse the effects of four years of conventional mind-set fighting an unconventional war,” said a Special Forces colonel who knows some of the officers.

But there is widespread skepticism that even this unusual group, with its specialized knowledge of counterinsurgency methods, will be able to win the battle of Baghdad.

“Petraeus’s ‘brain trust’ is an impressive bunch, but I think it’s too late to salvage success in Iraq,” said a professor at a military war college, who said he thinks that the general will still not have sufficient troops to implement a genuine counterinsurgency strategy and that the United States really has no solution for the sectarian violence tearing apart Iraq.

The related conversation in the discussion thread at the Small Wars Journal ranges from doctrinal observations on counterinsurgency strategy to personal reflections on the public’s view of the military concerning whether there is sufficient brain power in the conventional military to develop a strategy to pull off a victory in Iraq.

I do not find it at all odd that ‘warrior-philosophers’ or ‘warrior-scholars’ would be involved in the development of strategy, while at the same time I see no compelling argument to suggest that they are situated any better than their predecessors or the balance of the military to develop the going-forward doctrine for OIF.

While a wildly unpopular view, I have been critical of the recently released counterinsurgency manual on which General Petraeus spent much of the previous couple of years developing.  In War, Counterinsurgency and Prolonged Operations, I contrasted FM 3-24 with both Sun Tzu (The Art of War) and the Small Wars Manual, regarding the understanding of both of the later of the effect of prolonged operations on the morale of the warrior, and the reticence of the former on the same subject.  In Snipers Having Tragic Success Against U.S. Troops (still a well-visited post), I made the observation that while snipers were one of two main prongs of insurgent success in Iraq (IEDs being the other), FM 3-24 did not contain one instance of the use of the word sniper.  The retort is granted that FM 3-24 addresses counterinsurgency on a doctrinal level rather than a tactical level, but the objection loses its punch considering that (a) the Small Wars Manual addresses tactical level concerns, and (b) the fighting men from the ‘strategic corporal‘ to the field grade officer work with tactical level concerns on a daily basis.  If FM 3-24 does not address tactical level issues, one must question its usefulness.

I have also questioned the Petraeus model for Mosul, stating that at all times and in all circumstances, security trumps nonkinetic operations, politics and reconstruction.  The question “what have you done to win Iraqi hearts and minds today,

It is one thing to support a surge of troops, and quite another to have the national discipline to prepare for it ten years ago.

For approximately four years, since the cessation of conventional operations in the Asia / Middle East theatre, U.S. forces have trained and equipped for counterinsurgency operations.  In fact, under the Clinton administration, focus on large forces and heavy armor gave way to less armor, smaller, less armored vehicles, and special forces (along with a reduction in the overall size of the military).  This is why the phrase ‘up-armored’ HMMWV exists.  This has also left the armed forces less prepared for large-scale, conventional operations.

Nearly four years in Iraq have hammered US army and marines into a skilled counter-insurgency force but has left it unready for war against a conventionally armed foe, US generals warn.

Arguing for big budget increases and more troops, leaders of both military services have made the case in recent days that the US military faces greater risk today if it is called to respond to another major conflict.

“What we are developing right now is the best counterinsurgency force in the world, both army and marine,” General James Conway, commandant of the marine corps, told lawmakers Tuesday.

But “that’s essentially what they’re focused on,” Conway added, because troops have little time to train for anything else between tours to Iraq.

“So we need to be able to train toward other major contingency types of operations, and we’re just not doing it right now,” he said.

General Peter Schoomaker, the army chief of staff, echoed Conway’s concerns at hearing before the House Armed Services Committee.

“I have no concerns about how we are equipping, training and manning the forces that are going across the berm into harm’s way. But I do have continued concerns about the strategic depth of our Army and its readiness,” he said.

Lieutenant General Stephen Speakes, an army deputy chief of staff, told defense reporters this week none of the army’s combat brigades are rated as ready for high intensity conflict.

“If you take a look at the forces not deployed to combat, whether they are active guard or reserve, they have substantial equipping shortfalls, and also some issues with training and manning,” he said.

“What that means then is they are not optimized to be ready to fight a high-intensity conflict,” he said.

“We have been very successful focusing both equipping and training and manning on the units that are going to combat, but those units have been focused on low intensity conflict,” he said.

“Their training program has been almost exclusively focused to that end, and even they are not high intensity conflict certified,” he said.

A “surge” of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq ordered by President George W. Bush will add to the squeeze, particularly if the demand for more troops continues to climb to pacify areas beyond Baghdad, they said.

“If it is indeed a plus-up, it is going to make our future more difficult,” said Conway.

The generals were reluctant to spell out the risk posed by another major challenge elsewhere in the world, referring lawmakers to classified assessments submitted by the militaries.

But in general terms officials said the US military response to crisis elsewhere is likely to be slower and incur more US casualties than called for in US war plans.

But the problems with small force projection and a paucity of equipment are more far reaching than a postulated war with another enemy (the dual containment philosophy).  The problems are manifested in the here and now regarding the so-called “surge” of troops to support OIF.

Boosting U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 would create major logistical hurdles for the Army and Marine Corps, which are short thousands of vehicles, armor kits and other equipment needed to supply the extra forces, U.S. officials said.

The increase would also further degrade the readiness of U.S.-based ground forces, hampering their ability to respond quickly, fully trained and well equipped in the case of other military contingencies around the world and increasing the risk of U.S. casualties, according to Army and Marine Corps leaders.

“The response would be slower than we might like, we would not have all of the equipment sets that ordinarily would be the case, and there is certainly risk associated with that,” the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Conway, told the House Armed Services Committee last week.

President Bush’s plan to send five additional U.S. combat brigades into Iraq has left the Army and Marines scrambling to ensure that the troops could be supported with the necessary armored vehicles, jamming devices, radios and other gear, as well as lodging and other logistics.

Trucks are in particularly short supply. For example, the Army would need 1,500 specially outfitted — known as “up-armored” — 2 1/2 -ton and five-ton trucks in Iraq for the incoming units, said Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for force development.

“We don’t have the [armor] kits, and we don’t have the trucks,” Speakes said in an interview. He said it will take the Army months, probably until summer, to supply and outfit the additional trucks. As a result, he said, combat units flowing into Iraq would have to share the trucks assigned to units now there, leading to increased use and maintenance.

Speakes said that although another type of vehicle — the up-armored Humvee — continues to be in short supply Army-wide, there would be “adequate” numbers for incoming forces, and each brigade would receive 400 fully outfitted Humvees. But he said that to meet the need, the Army would have to draw down pre-positioned stocks that would then not be available for other contingencies.

Still, U.S. commanders privately expressed doubts that Iraq-bound units would receive a full complement of Humvees. “It’s inevitable that that has to happen, unless five brigades of up-armored Humvees fall out of the sky,” one senior Army official said of the feared shortfall. He expects that some units would have to rely more heavily on Bradley Fighting Vehicles and tanks that, although highly protective, are intimidating and therefore less effective for many counterinsurgency missions.

Adding to the crunch, the U.S. government has agreed to sell 600 up-armored Humvees to Iraq this year for its security forces. Such sales “better not be at the expense of the American soldier or Marine,” Speakes told defense reporters recently, saying U.S. military needs must take priority.

Living facilities in Iraq are another concern for the additional troops, who would be concentrated in Baghdad, Army officials said. The U.S. military has closed or handed over to Iraqi forces about half of the 110 bases established there after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Decisions are being made on where to base incoming units in Baghdad, but it is likely that, at least in the short term, they would be placed in existing facilities, officials said.

Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new top U.S. commander in Iraq, has requested that additional combat brigades move into Iraq as quickly as possible. But accelerated deployments would mean less time for units to train and fill out their ranks. Brigades are required to have an aggregate number of soldiers before deploying but may still face shortages of specific ranks and job skills.

Meanwhile, the demand for thousands more U.S. forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan is worsening the readiness of units in the United States, depleting their equipment and time to train, Army officials said. “We can fulfill the national strategy, but it will take more time and it will also take us increased casualties to do the job,” Speakes said.

Army Chief of Staff Peter J. Schoomaker testified last week before the House Armed Services Committee that, regarding readiness, “my concerns are increased over what they were in June.”

“To meet combatant commanders’ immediate wartime needs, we pooled equipment from across the force to equip soldiers deploying in harm’s way,” he said. “This practice, which we are continuing today, increases risk for our next-to-deploy units and limits our ability to respond to emerging strategic contingencies.”

Schoomaker called for additional funding to fix “holes in the force” and “break the historical cycle of unpreparedness.”

The equipment shortages are pronounced in Army National Guard units, which have, on average, 40 percent of their required equipment, according to Army data. Senior Pentagon and Army officials say they expect to have to involuntarily mobilize some National Guard combat brigades earlier than planned to relieve active-duty forces. But the Guard as a whole is not expected to return to minimum equipment levels until 2013, Army figures show.

The Army seeks to increase its permanent active-duty ranks by 65,000 soldiers by 2012, creating six new combat brigades at a total estimated cost of $70 billion.

A number of problems have plagued OIF: the naive trust in the healing powers of democracy, the unreadiness of the new Iraqi armed forces to take over security of Iraq without the necessary training and equipment, COIN doctrine that took its cue from forty year old counterinsurgency strategy flowing from Vietnam rather than looking to the holy war that the jihadists are fighting, and other problems too numerous to mention.  This naivety created the milieu for the deployment of a force that was too small to bring security to a country the size of Iraq, and equipped for a conflict that would not last as long as this one has.

The problems run from the preparations for OIF to the present, where senior officers find it implausible that the available equipment will match the needs of U.S. troops in the coming months.  It is one thing to support a surge of troops, and quite another to have the national discipline to prepare for it ten years ago.

Thus does one senior military officer write me to ask, “Does America support the war but not the troops?”

I have covered issues pertaining to rules of engagement in the following articles:

• More Evidence Against the Rules of Engagement
• The NCOs Speak on Rules of Engagement
• Politically Correct Rules of Engagement Endanger Troops

In a Washington Times commentary, retired U.S. Navy Admiral James A. Lyons, Jr., weighs in on the overly restrictive rules of engagement that hamper U.S. military efforts in Iraq.  His sentiments are similar to the other reports on ROE, and work nicely to add to the things I have said in the articles listed above.  He gives steps that must be followed in order to engage the enemy in Baghdad.

In order to ensure that the additional combat troops being deployed to Iraq can achieve their objectives, we must change the current restrictive rules of engagement (ROEs) under which they are forced to operate. The current ROEs for Baghdad — including Sadr City, home of the Mahdi Army — have seven incremental steps that must be satisfied before our troops can take the gloves off and engage the enemy with appropriate violence of action.

1. You must feel a direct threat to you or your team.
2. You must clearly see a threat.
3. That threat must be identified.
4. The team leader must concur that there is an identified threat.
5. The team leader must feel that the situation is one of life or death.
6. There must be minimal or no collateral risk.
7. Only then can the team leader clear the engagement.

These ROEs might sound fine to academics gathering at some esoteric seminar on how to avoid civilian casualties in a war zone. But they do absolutely nothing to protect our combat troops who have to respond in an instant to a life or death situation.

If our soldiers or Marines see someone about to level an AK-47 in their direction or start to are receive hostile fire from a rooftop or mosque, there is no time to go through a seven-point checklist before reacting. Indeed, the very fact that they see a weapon, or begin to receive hostile fire should be sufficient justification to respond with deadly force.

We do not need to identify the threat as Sunni, Shia, al Qaeda or Mahdi Army. The “who” is immaterial. The danger is not. The threat of imminent attack must be immediately suppressed. And while we must always respect the lives of the innocent, the requirement of minimal or no collateral damage cannot preempt an appropriate response.

The insurgents, be they Sunni or Shia, are well aware of our restrictive ROEs and they use them to their advantage. Indeed, as the thousands of insurgent-inflicted Iraqi civilian deaths illustrate, the death squads, assassination teams and al Qaeda killers in Iraq have no regard for human life. Victims are looked upon as expendable: cannon fodder in order to achieve their objectives. As we saw in Lebanon, Hezbollah held women and children hostage in the same buildings they used to conduct offensive operations. They wanted civilian deaths. This same tactic is being used in Iraq today.

We cannot, therefore, afford to keep our combat troops shackled by a naive, legalistic disadvantage that takes no note of the real world, or the real battlefield. Moreover, our combat forces are currently fighting a two-front war: a literal battlefield in Iraq, and a virtual front in Washington, where politicians snipe at our troops with words, threats of budget cuts, and unrealistic strictures on our warriors’ behavior. Both the Iraqi insurgents and the radical Islamist fundamentalists dedicated to the destruction of Western values and democracy understand quite well that today, wars are not only fought on the battlefield but are also won or lost in Washington. They are only too happy to watch as our politicians water down our military goals and objectives in the name of some misbegotten legalistic concept of fair play and gentle warfare.

Our combat forces have never lost an engagement in Iraq. Let’s make sure they don’t lose the war in Washington. Unshackle the military and let our soldiers and Marines do their job. This will quickly silence the critics, as well as the insurgents and radical Islamist fundamentalists.

Assessment and Commentary

Admiral Lyons gives us a remarkable list of steps, each of which is logically and chronologically connected to the preceeding step.  It reads like a written procedure, something that would be used as a list of activities for a worker while performing adjustments to setpoints of an electronic piece of equipment during the course of a work day, rather than doctrine to allow U.S. troops to make split-second decisions of life and death.  There is no discussion of “close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver” in these rules.  It demonstrates just how out-of-touch the lawyers who author the ROE are with the U.S. fighting man, counterinsurgency in particular, and warfare in general.

In requiring that the “situation is one of life and death,” the focus is placed squarely on a defensive posture rather than an offensive one, and in requiring that there be “minimal or no collateral risk,” the ROE have given the insurgent the perfect weapon (women, children, and concealment to prevent the successful quantification of risk by U.S. troops can be used to prevent engagement).

The list of places and activities in which the enemy can engage to avoid U.S. action is extensive.  In prior articles, minarets have been shown to be favorite hideouts for enemy snipers, and yet U.S. forces will not even allow police to be stationed at the entrances to Mosques for fear of being disliked by the population.  The Taliban have shown that they can gather in the hundreds for funerals, and still avoid being targeted by U.S. forces because religious gatherings are off limits.

Just recently press coverage was given to a nonlethal weapon (ray gun that increases the temperature of the skin), and while the technology was interesting to most readers, there is a nugget of gold in the report that is far more important than the ray gun.  It was reported that Airman Blaine Pernell, 22, said he could have used the system during his four tours in Iraq, where he manned watchtowers around a base near Kirkuk. He said Iraqis often pulled up and faked car problems so they could scout U.S. forces.

“All we could do is watch them,” he said. But if they had the ray gun, troops “could have dispersed them.”

Note again, and remember that the enemy is being allowed to gather intelligence that could redound to death and/or injury to U.S. troops: “All we could do is watch them.”

Troop levels can surge, new nonlethal weapons can be brought on line, and better body armor can be deployed in Iraq.  But until the ROE are revised top to bottom, the counterinsurgency in Iraq will fail because the enemy is being given too many weapons to use against the U.S. forces.  We have met the enemy, and it is the ROE.

Introduction 

In Politically Correct Rules of Engagement Endanger Troops, I used main stream media reports of soldiers and marines conveying the problematic nature of the rules of engagement under which they operate.  As a result of this article, two NCOs who were in Iraq (one near Ramadi and the other in Kirkuk) wrote me to express their agreement, sharing even more detailed and remarkable stories of U.S. forces being hamstrung by overly restrictive rules of engagement.  I discussed this in The NCOs Speak on Rules of Engagement.

As a result of both of these articles, my readers have paid close attention to similar stories, and faithful reader David Neumann sent me the link to the Hugh Hewitt Show where rules of engagement were discussed.  After listening, I contacted Milblogger T. F. Boggs, Sergeant in the Army reserves, who recently completed his second deployment in support of OIF.  Sergeant Boggs was happy to converse with me on rules of engagement, and gave me permission to transcribe and publish the portion of the show in which he discussed this topic.  The transcription follows, after which I will offer an assessment and commentary (the content of which is only my responsibility).

T.F. Boggs on Rules of Engagement

Caller:

I wanted to ask, regarding the rules of engagement, it’s frustrating to me and I think a lot of people that our troops have to be held to such a stringent set of rules in a war like this where everything seems blurred.  And I was wondering how the troops feel about it?

Boggs:

Yes, we feel the same way you do, and one story from my experience probably best expresses this … and officers would probably tell me that I should know the rules of engagement … I should act thereupon.  But the point is that the rules of engagement that are there now are hamstringing the soldiers because we think about what we’re doing before we can actually do it.  The second IED we got hit by – I was in the first truck – we saw the guy who blew the IED up on us.  So we were chasing after him, we were on the fly … seems like an eternity but it was like seconds … we were trying to figure out, okay, do we engage this guy, what’s going to happen to us if we engage this guy, are we going to get into trouble, what are we going to say, what are we going to do when this is all over with … so we shoot flares at him, and he doesn’t respond.  So we shoot another, doesn’t respond, so what do we do?  So we shoot warning shots to the side, warning shots to the other side.  Ten seconds of this stuff goes by, and this guy is gaining speed, taking off on us, and I finally tell my gunner, “just go ahead and kill this guy – I’ll take the rap for it.

Apparently, Rumsfeld has begun thinking about how we have failed in Iraq and has recommended a potential remedy to the administration.  We are limited to main stream media reports about the contents of a letter he sent to Bush, reportedly on November 6 (note, prior to the election), but some of the recommendations he allegedly made are:

• Publicly announce a set of benchmarks agreed to by the Iraqi government and the U.S. … to chart a path ahead for the Iraqi government and Iraqi people (to get them moving) and for the U.S. public (to reassure them that progress can and is being made).
• Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds, and transfer more U.S. equipment to Iraqi security forces.
• Initiate a reverse embeds program … by putting one or more Iraqi soldiers with every U.S. and possibly coalition squad.
• Aggressively beef up Iraqi ministries by reaching out to U.S. military retirees and Reserve and National Guard volunteers.
• Conduct an accelerated drawdown of U.S. bases, noting they have already been reduced from 110 to 55. “Plan to get down to 10 to 15 bases by April 2007, and to 5 bases by July 2007.
• Retain high-end … capability … to target al Qaeda, death squads, and Iranians in Iraq, while drawing down all other coalition forces, except those necessary to provide certain key enablers for Iraqi forces.
• Provide U.S. security forces only for those provinces or cities that openly request U.S. help and that actively cooperate.
• Stop rewarding “bad behavior” with reconstruction funds and start rewarding “good behavior.”
• Position substantial U.S. forces near the Iranian and Syrian borders to reduce infiltration and, importantly, reduce Iranian influence on the Iraqi government.
• Withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions and move to a quick reaction force status, operating from within Iraq and Kuwait, to be available when Iraqi security forces need assistance.
• “Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and coalition forces (start `taking our hand off the cycle seat’) so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country.

Rumsfeld further remarks that “In my view it is time for a major adjustment,” Rumsfeld wrote in a November 6 memorandum to the White House. “Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.”  Rumsfeld further noted that the situation in Iraq “has been evolving” and said U.S. forces have adjusted from “major combat operations, to counterterrorism, to counterinsurgency, to dealing with death squads and sectarian violence.”

It is a stunning assertion that the man who superintended three and a half years of an increasing U.S. casualty rate now concludes that it is “time for a change.”  But the ideas Rumsfeld profers are not novel.  In Options for Iraq, I cited a Stratfor assessment which, in part, concluded that

We do believe that the ISG will recommend a fundamental shift in the way U.S. forces are used. The troops currently are absorbing casualties without moving closer to their goal, and it is not clear that they can attain it. If U.S. forces remain in Iraq — which will be recommended — there will be a shift in their primary mission. Rather than trying to create a secure environment for the Iraqi government, their mission will shift to guaranteeing that Iran, and to a lesser extent Syria, do not gain further power and influence in Iraq. Nothing can be done about the influence they wield among Iraqi Shia, but the United States will oppose anything that would allow them to move from a covert to an overt presence in Iraq. U.S. forces will remain in-country but shift their focus to deterring overt foreign intrusion. That means a redeployment and a change in day-to-day responsibility. U.S. forces will be present in Iraq but not conducting continual security operations.

Then, after presenting the least likely option for Iraq (based on lack of political support for appropriate force projection in Iraq), I presented what I saw as the most likely option for U.S. forces, an option that, while similar to the Stratfor position, was somewhat more detailed:

… withdraw forces to the north in Kurdistan, supporting the Iraqi army and police in offensive operations on an as-need basis.  This support would not include regular or routine “security

Apparently, Rumsfeld has begun thinking about how we have failed in Iraq and has recommended a potential remedy to the administration.  We are limited to main stream media reports about the contents of a letter he sent to Bush, reportedly on November 6 (note, prior to the election), but some of the recommendations he allegedly made are:

• Publicly announce a set of benchmarks agreed to by the Iraqi government and the U.S. … to chart a path ahead for the Iraqi government and Iraqi people (to get them moving) and for the U.S. public (to reassure them that progress can and is being made).
• Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds, and transfer more U.S. equipment to Iraqi security forces.
• Initiate a reverse embeds program … by putting one or more Iraqi soldiers with every U.S. and possibly coalition squad.
• Aggressively beef up Iraqi ministries by reaching out to U.S. military retirees and Reserve and National Guard volunteers.
• Conduct an accelerated drawdown of U.S. bases, noting they have already been reduced from 110 to 55. “Plan to get down to 10 to 15 bases by April 2007, and to 5 bases by July 2007.
• Retain high-end … capability … to target al Qaeda, death squads, and Iranians in Iraq, while drawing down all other coalition forces, except those necessary to provide certain key enablers for Iraqi forces.
• Provide U.S. security forces only for those provinces or cities that openly request U.S. help and that actively cooperate.
• Stop rewarding “bad behavior” with reconstruction funds and start rewarding “good behavior.”
• Position substantial U.S. forces near the Iranian and Syrian borders to reduce infiltration and, importantly, reduce Iranian influence on the Iraqi government.
• Withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions and move to a quick reaction force status, operating from within Iraq and Kuwait, to be available when Iraqi security forces need assistance.
• “Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and coalition forces (start `taking our hand off the cycle seat’) so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country.

Rumsfeld further remarks that “In my view it is time for a major adjustment,” Rumsfeld wrote in a November 6 memorandum to the White House. “Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.”  Rumsfeld further noted that the situation in Iraq “has been evolving” and said U.S. forces have adjusted from “major combat operations, to counterterrorism, to counterinsurgency, to dealing with death squads and sectarian violence.”

It is a stunning assertion that the man who superintended three and a half years of an increasing U.S. casualty rate now concludes that it is “time for a change.”  But the ideas Rumsfeld profers are not novel.  In Options for Iraq, I cited a Stratfor assessment which, in part, concluded that

We do believe that the ISG will recommend a fundamental shift in the way U.S. forces are used. The troops currently are absorbing casualties without moving closer to their goal, and it is not clear that they can attain it. If U.S. forces remain in Iraq — which will be recommended — there will be a shift in their primary mission. Rather than trying to create a secure environment for the Iraqi government, their mission will shift to guaranteeing that Iran, and to a lesser extent Syria, do not gain further power and influence in Iraq. Nothing can be done about the influence they wield among Iraqi Shia, but the United States will oppose anything that would allow them to move from a covert to an overt presence in Iraq. U.S. forces will remain in-country but shift their focus to deterring overt foreign intrusion. That means a redeployment and a change in day-to-day responsibility. U.S. forces will be present in Iraq but not conducting continual security operations.

Then, after presenting the least likely option for Iraq (based on lack of political support for appropriate force projection in Iraq), I presented what I saw as the most likely option for U.S. forces, an option that, while similar to the Stratfor position, was somewhat more detailed:

… withdraw forces to the north in Kurdistan, supporting the Iraqi army and police in offensive operations on an as-need basis.  This support would not include regular or routine “security

Over at Blogs of War, John Little has discussed the new Department of Defense blog called “For the Record.”  John cites the assessment of “For the Record” by D-Ring:

For the Record has been criticized as a shoddy attempt to rebut negative conversation about the war in Iraq and the Department of Defense. All this Web site does is link to a given article from the mainstream media and blast it. And it comes across as quite petty.

On top of that, For the Record misses the whole point of a blog — community. There is no blogroll, no ability to comment, no conversation. It follows the traditional DoD model of communication that says “we will send our messages to the people from up on high.

The Greenville News, of South Carolina, recently carried a story entitled “Soldier Seeks Funds to Buy Safety Gear.”

Furman University associate professor Matt Feigenbaum says a former ROTC student of his lost an arm and an eye to a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Afghanistan, so he knows how dangerous a tour of duty can be.

Early next year, it will be Feigenbaum’s turn to ship out — and he’s asking for help to keep him and about 130 other Upstate troops as safe as possible.

A National Guard second lieutenant, Feigenbaum wants to raise $800 per soldier to buy helmet inserts, gloves and other gear.

“The Army does provide basic equipment,” he said. “But if you talk to the guys who are in-theater, there is better quality equipment you can get.”

Feigenbaum is the executive officer of Bravo Company, a part of the 1-118th Infantry Battalion. All of the troops under his command are from the Upstate and include sheriff’s deputies and a Woodmont High School assistant principal, he said.

They’ll be entering a combat zone that has become increasingly hostile, even as it has been overshadowed back home by the war in Iraq. Militants were launching 600 attacks a month as of the end of September, up from 300 a month as of March, according to The Associated Press.

“It certainly raises” the fear level, Feigenbaum said. “It’s a healthy fear. I would hope everybody would expect the danger we are going into.”

The helmet inserts can reduce the risk of serious head injury by 60 percent, he said. Soldiers can use high-quality gloves and socks because they expect to experience temperatures down to minus 30 degrees in the mountains, Feigenbaum said.

“Because the U.S. government often purchases its supplies from the lowest bidder and provides soldiers the basic necessities,” he wrote to potential donors, “Bravo Company’s Family Readiness Group is asking for donations so our soldiers can be equipped with the highest quality protective gear.”

He also wants to buy the troops phone cards and Web cams to make it easier to communicate with family.

The company will be away from the Upstate for more than a year starting in January, Feigenbaum said. Troops will head to Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Miss., for about three months of training and then spend a year overseas training Afghan police and army forces, he said.

The Army National Guard has been stretched increasingly thin since the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Guard has transferred equipment from non-deployed units to deployed units, according to an October 2005 report from the Government Accountability Office.

As a result, non-deployed troops have fallen short of several kinds of equipment, including machine guns, night-vision goggles and Humvees, the GAO reported.

The helmet inserts are presumably the padding suspension system that I covered in “Old and New Body Armor for Marines,” and are intended to reduce the effect of blunt force trauma due to IEDs.  Brain Injury is the signature wound of the Iraq war.  Use of the padding suspension system has been ordered by Marine Administrative Message 480/06.

When my son recently trained at Fort A. P. Hill, the training caused the destruction of several pairs of Cammies, which of course, he had to replace out-of-pocket.  I am cataloguing the equipment we have already purchased at the MCX: more boots, ballistic glasses (because the issued pair are worse than second-rate), Cammies, etc., etc.  Prior to deployment I will publish a list of equipment my son and I have had to purchase out-of-pocket, along with an estimate of the cost.  The innovative Second Lieutenant above had a praiseworthy idea: appeal to the people on whose behalf they fight.

In the mean time, we should collectively query ourselves: Do we really support the troops?

In a stunning word picture of Ramadi today, Martin Fletcher of the Times Online tells us what he saw as he recently entered Ramadi (h/t SWJ).

Ramadi has been laid waste by two years of warfare. Houses stand shattered and abandoned. Shops are shuttered up. The streets are littered with rubble, wrecked cars, fallen trees, broken lampposts and piles of rubbish.

Fetid water stands in craters. The pavements are overgrown. Walls are pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel. Side roads have been shut off with concrete barriers to thwart car bombs. Everything is coated in grey dust even the palm trees. The city has no functioning government, no telephones, and practically no basic services except sporadic electricity and water supplies. It has been reduced to a subsistence economy.

There are stray cats and wild dogs, but few cars or humans. Ramadi’s inhabitants have either fled, or learnt to stay indoors.

The letter from al Qaeda high command to Zarqawi indicates just how little true respect they have for their fellow Sunnis in the Anbar Province and just how far they are willing to go to effect their grand plan for a radical Islamic state.

“… be humble to the believers, and smile in people’s faces, even if you are cursing them in your heart, even if it has been said that they are “a bad tribal brother,