Archive for the 'Obama Administration' Category

The speech was ghastly, dreary, dreadful and morose, full of wishful thinking and blame of others for the situation we now face.  Obama seemed to be unable to stay focused on Afghanistan, appeared bored with the subject, and even seemed a bit peeved that he had to deliver such a speech.

The first part of the speech rehashed information that most people alive today already know, and then proceeded to place the blame on Operation Iraqi Freedom for the low troop levels in Afghanistan.  That Generals McNeill and McKiernan requested more troops for the campaign in Afghanistan is true, but at least McKiernan’s desires were made known during Obama’s tenure.  Even this doesn’t fully explain how the situation in Iraq related to Afghanistan.

During much of the time from 2004 (around the time of Operation al Fajr) to 2007, thousands of religiously motivated foreign fighters (AQ) flowed into Iraq per year to fight the U.S. forces.  These are fighters that didn’t go to Afghanistan because they were headed for Iraq.  Whatever else one thinks of the initial invasion of Iraq, the subsequent counterinsurgency phases (Operation Iraqi Freedom II and III) were the center of gravity of the fight against religious globalists (even though we had to fight our way through an indigenous insurgency in Iraq to get to AQ, this insurgency being somewhat less committed to the religious cause of AQ).  To blame the situation in Afghanistan entirely on Iraq just doesn’t comport with the facts.

Slow to give up the finger-pointing even though he chides us for failing to do the same, Obama eventually transitions to his strategy.  He does mention population centers and securing the population (and Kandahar will be a big focus of the effort).  But he insisted that the cornerstone of the strategy was turnover to Afghan Security Forces, and couples this insistence with the strangest of demands: that U.S. troops begin leaving Afghanistan in 2011.

I have repeatedly claimed that seeing the population as the center of gravity of a counterinsurgency is doctrinal intransigence and stubbornness, and that multiple foci should be pursued in small wars, including an enemy-centric focus if that is deemed wise at some particular point in a campaign (such as early on).  But if Obama has been listening to his generals (and it sounds as if he has, at least to some degree), it would explain the focus on population centers and startup of the Afghan Security Forces.  Obama insists on placing the burden on the ANA and ANP, and sooner rather than later.

So assuming that Obama has selected population-centric counterinsurgency as his strategy, he certainly doesn’t appear to understand exactly what that entails.  We have been training the ANA and ANP for eight years now, and had Provincial Reconstruction Teams deployed throughout Afghanistan for years.  Army human terrain teams have studied the tribes, agricultural experts have advised and counseled Afghan farmers, and U.S. Soldiers and Marines now must be aligned with Afghan Army in order to conduct operations.

Yet in the Afghan Security Forces, drug addiction continues, they sleep on duty, they refuse in cases to go on night patrols, they have proven to be generally inept and unreliable in fire fights, and the Afghan people hate the corruption within their ranks.  Training up an Afghan Army is not about teaching them to fire a weapon or go on patrol.  Instilling esprit de corps, reliability, commitment and faithfulness is not about thirteen weeks or even a year of basic training.  It’s about a culture, country and social and religious milieu that can sustain such an institution.

Pointing to an end date for troop presence is the height of irresponsibility.  It’s either an intentional lie (in which case he is a liar and the troops’ families have false hope for and end date), or it’s the truth, in which case he clearly has confused ideas on just how long counterinsurgency takes to succeed – if it can succeed at all.

Finally, the speech wanders off into foreign territory by discussing the use of soft power to end the threat of nuclear weapons.  The claim is that work to end nuclear proliferation will enhance national security, but thus far the only change to nuclear weapons has been on the American side.  The Russians have now been invited to examine our nuclear weapons installations, and nuclear warhead refurbishment (strongly recommended by the DoD and DOE) has been denied and de-funded.  All the while, Iran insists that its very own nuclear program is non-negotiable.

I was recently at a funeral where I had a chance to speak with four World War II veterans at one ad hoc gathering.  Upon hearing that my son was in the U.S. Marine Corps, they conveyed their heart felt thanks to both him and me.  They had battled the Japanese in the South Pacific and the Germans in Europe.  But they knew what we face.  They used the phrase “long war,” and they didn’t know who John Abizaid was.  They simply knew that we were in a long war – the longest one our republic would ever face, and much longer than the one they faced.

U.S. industry fabricated some 55,000 Sherman tanks to prosecute World War II.  Our industry is being shut down due to all manner of issues, including environmental regulations.  Large scale steel fabrication is now done primarily overseas, and the current administration cannot bear the thought of deploying fewer American warriors to Afghanistan than tanks we deployed during World War II.

Afghanistan matters.  The Durand line means nothing to al Qaeda and their supporters, the Taliban.  Pakistan, whom the U.S. very much wants to focus on its internal threats rather than India, awaits our own intentions.  Pressure must be kept on AQ and the Taliban on both sides of the alleged border, because there is no border.  While Pakistan awaits our direction, so does most of Europe.

With the current leadership unable to make a case for troop presence beyond 2011, we are poorly prepared indeed for the battle ahead.  I missed the initial speech and had to take it in later, but my daughter told me that it was ghastly, dreary and dreadful.  She was right.  It would have been better if it had never been made.

By now it’s old news that Marine Captain Matthew Hoh, veteran of Iraq who later joined the State Department, has resigned over the campaign in Afghanistan.  He sees no reason whatsoever for the U.S. to be engaged there.  Jules Crittenden opines of Hoh’s letter:

It highlights some of the very real problems of the situation in Afghanistan, but concludes that remaining in Afghanistan requires, “if honest,” that we have to invade Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Sudan, etc. Maybe we will before this long war is done. Hard to say. It wouldn’t be the first time, whether in a short four-year war or a 45-year-long one, that we’d had to fight multiple fronts to reomve tyranny and secure freedom in the world. Hoh also includes a Vietnam reference that, tellingly, assumes that failure in Afghanistan is as inevitable as many believe failure in Vietnam was.

The long war.  That phrase that so many people are afraid to use, and which has been used so many times here at The Captain’s Journal.  Jules understands.  And I understand that Captain Hoh is an honorable man for sticking to his principles.  He has a right to decide how he wants, just as I have a right to decide against his views.  What I don’t get is why Captain Hoh is getting so much attention.  So another State employee doesn’t want to see us in Afghanistan.  How many more hundreds are there?

Finally, I find it rather embarrassing and gushy that State worked so hard to retain him.  If he is so decidedly against the campaign in Afghanistan that he feels that he cannot work at State, then he should go rather than be begged to stay.  The fact of the matter is that this thinking is systemic to not only State but the entire administration.

Do you disagree?  Read this depressing comment at Neptunus Lex (from It’s All Verbatim).

My office has been an integral part of these “Af/Pak Principal Strategy Sessions”

Let’s just say most of the proposals of the table (excluding the Joint Staff J7 & J3/5, DIA and the more rational sects of the NSC) are totally divorced from reality.

It’s painful, really. NDA’s prevent me from delving into it fully, but some of the proposals would cause the regulars here to go completely ape-shit. I sit along the wall, and let my boss do the talking. It is absolutely incredible how naive this administration (and yes, senior members of the NSC and State) are.

USD(P) isn’t innocent, either. DoD’s policy shop is cooking up some the craziest policies I’ve seen in a long time. There is a concerted effort to create “Stop Loss 2.0″ – basically you would be re-classed from whatever specialty/MOS/AFSC/rate, regardless of branch/age/rank, and thrust into, say, military police, MI, or EOD. Not offered; you’d be required to jump over. Even the 10% we vets know exist that shouldn’t and couldn’t do MI, EOD et al. If you refused, they would whip out the UCMJ. This is actually being considered as a way to surge without actually surging. Joint Staff J1 and J3/5 were under heavy pressure to report we were under strain, and couldn’t handle a 40K/60K/80K push. J1 came back and told the WH/NSC point blank: we have more than enough. They didn’t like that and are now finding excuses to not surge period, not even the 10K trial balloon they tossed up last week.

They’re stalling. I spend my entire morning, 5 days a week in the EEOB and State with these fuckers. You heard it here first.

Then again, maybe I do understand why Captain Hoh is getting so much attention.  It’s just that the other hundreds who feel just like him at State don’t have the integrity to resign.

Amir Taheri recently had a commentary in the New York Post which shouldn’t be passed over.

The next general election is three months away, but Iraq is already in high gear for what promises to be a hard-fought campaign over the future of the newly liberated nation. The outcome could determine the course of politics in the Middle East and the future US role in that turbulent region.

Three camps are emerging.

The first is a bloc of 40 groups led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Known as The State of the Law, the coalition promises a modern democracy transcending ethnic and sectarian divides.

Maliki quit his Islamist party, Dawa (The Call), precisely because of its Shiite sectarian nature. His new coalition includes both Arab Sunni and ethnic Kurdish groups. Yet he hopes to still attract many Shiites — who, after all, are the majority of the population.

The second camp is known as “the party of Iran.” Its hard core consists of the remnants of the Mahdi Army (Jaish Al-Mahdi) of the maverick mullah Muqtada Sadr and splinter groups from Dawa led by former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. A third Shiite group, the Supreme Islamic Assembly of Iraq — led by Ammar al-Hakim, a junior mullah — provides the remaining leg of the pro-Iranian triangle.

Jaafari is emerging as Iran’s candidate for prime minister — if his bloc, known as the Iraqi National Alliance, wins control of the National Assembly (parliament). Last week, Jaafari visited Iran to be feted by “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“The American era is ending,” Iran’s official news agency quoted Jaafari as saying. “We must prepare for a new era in which Islamic forces set the agenda.”

The third camp is formed by secular Shiite groups, led by ex-Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, plus Arab Sunni parties led by Saleh Mutlak and the remnants of the Ba’ath party.

This camp enjoys support from such Arab states as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Its principal theme: With the US embarked on a strategic retreat under President Obama, Arab states must do all they can to prevent Iran from dominating Iraq and emerging as the regional “superpower.”

Iraq’s Kurdish community, some 20 percent of the population, is also split. Massoud Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party has indicated it might support Maliki’s bloc in a common bid to preserve Iraq’s independence from Iran and Arab states. The new Change (Goran) bloc, which made spectacular gains in the last Kurdish local elections, also opposes Iranian domination.

Yet the other longtime Kurdish party — the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by President Jalal Talabani — argues that, with the US unwilling to provide leadership, Kurds must look to Iran as their protector against Arab nationalism. The Kurdish branch of the Hezbollah also supports the Iranian option.

Behind all this are Obama’s hints that he might speed up the withdrawal of US forces before 2011, short-circuiting the Status of Forces Agreement signed by the Bush administration. The American president’s obvious attitude has hurt Iraqi politicians who advocate strategic alliance with Washington.

“Obama is not interested in Iraq,” says analyst Ma’ad Fayyad. “This is because, if Iraq succeeds as the first Arab democracy, it might look as if Bush was right after all.”

Obama’s tepid, not to say hostile, attitude toward Iraq’s new democracy has some Iraqi politicians recasting themselves as anti-Americans …

“If Obama wants to run away, no Iraqi can afford to appear more pro-American than the US president,” says a political advisor to Maliki.

Meanwhile, Iran is throwing in everything to defeat Maliki and seize control of Iraq’s government …

Commentary & Analysis

Taheri’s analysis is cogent and well formulated until it goes off track into considerations of the Status of Forces Agreement.  Confined to a training role, and with no patrols allowed, much less kinetic operations, and also having to inform the Iraqi Security Forces upon troop movement of any sort for any reason whatsoever, the SOFA has left the U.S. forces powerless and ineffectual in their role.  There is no reason for them to be in Iraq.  This is not Obama’s fault.  The blame lies at the feet of both Bush and the Iraqis.

But if the SOFA is in Bush’s court, the lack of interest in Iraq lies with Obama, and the current regional empowering of Iran has continued from the Bush to the Obama administration.  The Obama administration, however, took a giant leap into morally dubious (and also stupid) territory when they released Iranian Quds members expecting to get anything in return.  They have also shamefully abandoned the MEK.

Given the situation as it exists, the war now is both covert and political.  We are losing on the political front, but it doesn’t have to be this way.  Omar at Iraq the Model has information about a significant escalation in the covert war.

Unknown gunmen assassinated 30 Mahdi Army commanders in the Syrian capital Damascus. The killings, made in the past few weeks, were all made “quietly, inside the victims apartments”, said an unnamed source in the Sadr movement. The source added that among those assassinated was Laith al-Ka’bi, who commanded the Mahdi Army in the Palestine Street neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. The report adds that large numbers of Mahdi Army operatives left to Iran out of fear the assassinations wave could expand to target them.

This is a positive move, but given one view of things (from one Army intelligence officer) in the war on the CIA conducted by the Obama administration, it’s doubtful that the CIA was involved.

I would never compare my few years as an Army Intelligence Special Agent to the careers of committed CIA operatives, but I harbor no doubt that if I were one of them, I would be looking for a way out.  My immediate focus would be on protecting myself, my family and the identities of the foreign nationals with whom I worked.  I would be operating as if secrets no longer exist.  Risk taking would cease.  My reports would be gleaned from newspaper articles.

Indeed.  Much less would targeted killings be conducted by the CIA.  As both an intelligence-gathering and covert warfare organization, the CIA is effectively finished until and unless a framework is put into place that protects their agents and until an administration which is intelligence-friendly is elected.  Whomever is responsible for this (Mossad, Ba’athists in Syria?) did both America and Iraq a favor.  Obama would do well to pay Iraq a visit and express the urgent need for Iraq to abandon hopes of ties with Iran.  The war in Iraq has now taken a different turn, and we will adjust and adapt or lose to the Iranians.

Russia gets to count U.S. missiles and warheads according to a recent agreement sponsored by the Obama administration.

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads.

The plan, which Fox News has learned was agreed to in principle during negotiations, would constitute the most intrusive weapons inspection program the U.S. has ever accepted.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said publicly Tuesday that the two nations have made “considerable” progress toward reaching agreement on a new strategic arms treaty.

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires in December and negotiators have been racing to reach agreement on a successor.

Clinton said the U.S. would be as transparent as possible.

“We want to ensure that every question that the Russian military or Russian government asks is answered,” she said, calling missile defense “another area for deep cooperation between our countries.”

While we’re at it, let’s go ahead and give them our miniaturized nuclear weapons technology from Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories.  Let’s allow them access to Oak Ridge National Laboratory so that they can see how we cascade our enrichment of weapons grade material.  In fact, let’s just give them some of our weapons so that Russian scientists and engineers can study our material purity and weapons designs.

Talk about OPSEC (operational security) violations, this must be the mother of all offenses.  The Marines ban twitter, Facebook and MySpace because of just such issues, but Obama lets the Russians investigate and inspect the most significant deterrence to all out conventional war in the last half century.  Is there a problem with this picture?

By now it’s old news that Obama has hearted the Taliban.

President Obama is prepared to accept some Taleban involvement in Afghanistan’s political future and is unlikely to favour a large influx of new American troops being demanded by his ground commander, a senior official said last night.

Mr Obama appears to have been swayed in recent days by arguments from some advisers, led by Vice-President Joe Biden, that the Taleban do not pose a direct threat to the US and that there should be greater focus on tackling al-Qaeda inside Pakistan.

Mr Obama’s developing strategy on the Taleban will “not tolerate their return to power”, the senior official said. However, the US would only fight to keep the Taleban from retaking control of the central government — something the official said it is now far from capable of — and from giving renewed sanctuary to al-Qaeda.

Bowing to the reality that the fundamentalist movement is too ingrained in national culture, the Administration is prepared, as it has been for some time, to accept some Taleban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said.

That could mean paving the way for insurgents willing to renounce violence to participate in a central government, and even ceding some regions of the country to the Taleban.

Mr Obama, the official said, is now inclined to send only as many more troops to Afghanistan as are needed to keep al-Qaeda at bay. Downing Street said that the US President had discussed Afghanistan with Gordon Brown yesterday during a 40-minute video conference call.

Sending far fewer troops than the 40,000 being demanded by General Stanley McChrystal would mean that Mr Obama is willing to ignore the wishes of his ground commander.

General McChrystal, along with the US military’s other top officials, insist that only a classic, well-resourced counter-insurgency strategy has a chance of staving off defeat in Afghanistan. Losing the war, they further argue, would provide al-Qaeda with new safe havens from which to mount attacks on the US and elsewhere.

After two days of meetings in the White House Situation Room with his war Cabinet, Mr Obama, according to the official, kept returning to one central question: who is our adversary?

The answer was, repeatedly, al-Qaeda, with advisers arguing that the terror network was distinct from the Taleban and that the US military was fighting the Taleban even though it posed no direct threat to America.

Ah.  And there is the crux of the issue, isn’t it?  An unstated assumption, it is.  The Taliban pose no direct threat to America, or in other words, they won’t harbor al Qaeda in the future.  They aren’t globalists, and they won’t befriend those who would be globalists or who would participate in the transnational insurgency they call jihad.

Well, I have argued that the burden of proof is on those who claim that the Taliban are no threat at all since they have proven otherwise in their history.  I have further argued that their claims to being innocuous are dubious given their previous devotion to AQ and their recent statements.

But putting that issue aside for a moment, there is something very troubling that stands out in this report.  The administration has elsewhere argued that AQ is primarily (or completely) in Pakistan and is preparing to focus major assets and attention on the Pakistani effort at routing AQ.  They have now signed on to the notion that the Taliban won’t harbor AQ and are even prepared to offer them a place in the seat of government.

Yet instead of sending McChrystal his requested troops for the campaign, they are preparing to send only those troops needed to “keep AQ at bay.”  Keep them at bay where?  In Afghanistan?  But we’ve signed on to the notion that the Taliban will route them from Afghanistan, not harbor them.  If this is true, then not only will no more troops be needed, the ones currently there can come home.  The Taliban can combine with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to do our work for us.

Alas, it is such simple logic, and it’s sad that the administration couldn’t see through the greatest weakness of its own argument.  They don’t even believe it.

Jules Crittenden notes that General McChrystal’s speech to London’s Institute for Strategic Studies caused a disturbance in the administration, especially because of McChrystal’s categorical rejection of the small footprint counter-terrorism model (advocated by Senator Kerry and VP Joseph Biden), saying that it would lead to Afghanistan becoming Chaos-istan (also see NYT).

Obama is said to be angry with McChrystal, and the never-serious National Security Adviser Jim Jones responded to McChrystal by saying that it’s better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.  Secretary of Defense Gates said he would salute and carry out whatever orders Obama gives.  Of course … he must do so or resign.

But there is something else in the wind concerning McChrystal and Obama having nothing to do with McChrystal.  Spencer Ackerman attempts to align McChrystal with Obama’s strategic vision (h/t Greyhawk), but he’s stretching and embellishing the case.  McChrystal has now gone on record basically saying that the small footprint model is stupid and won’t work, no matter how long Obama’s review takes.

A more emotional reaction comes from the Huffington Post, where they believe that McChrystal’s speech is an assault on the chain of command and the constitution (and the sky is falling and the world is coming to an end tomorrow).  On the other side of the isle, a bellicose reaction comes from Mackubin Thomas Owens at NRO’s Corner.  The reactions range from attempting to align McChrystal’s vision with Obama’s to almost-horror, even among ostensibly conservative commentators, that McChrystal would have “circumvented” the chain of command.

I won’t comment here on the issue of Generals offering counsel in a public manner because there is too much history to rehearse.  But in order to place this in context, remember that Obama campaigned almost constantly on the dearth of focus on Afghanistan and how the campaign in Iraq was usurping much-needed resources.  The campaign hasn’t stopped, and as late of March 2009 Obama was saying the same things from the offices of the White House: “To focus on the greatest threat to our people, America must no longer deny resources to Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq.”

Obama has the authority to lay out whatever communication protocol he wishes, but the American people have a right to know and approve strategy.  Yes – approve strategy.  Americans do that by the vote.  It might be done after the fact, during the next Presidential race or even before that when Senators and Congressmen are elected.  Or it might be done by public opinion swaying the political winds of the day.  Either way, America has a right to know about strategy whether the conversation is initiated by McChrystal or someone else.

When sons of America are sacrificed to a cause, it has always been and still is part of the warp and woof of the national conversation.  It should be so.  Obama can politicize the war in Afghanistan, but what he cannot consistently and legitimately do is complain when the same national conversation he initiated turns the question on him.  The Presidency is not a monarchy.

From Jim Jones (via Jake Tapper):

Responding to criticism from former Vice President Cheney that President Obama is making the nation more vulnerable to terrorism, the president’s National Security Adviser, Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.), told ABC News in an exclusive interview that actually the reverse is true: President Obama’s greater success with international relations has meant more terrorists put out of commission.

“This type of radical fundamentalism or terrorism is a threat not only to the United States but to the global community,” Jones said. “The world is coming together on this matter now that President Obama has taken the leadership on it and is approaching it in a slightly different way – actually a radically different way – to discuss things with other rulers to enhance the working relationships with law enforcement agencies – both national and international.”

Jones said that “we are seeing results that indicate more captures, more deaths of radical leaders and a kind of a global coming-together by the fact that this is a threat to not only the United States but to the world at-large and the world is moving toward doing something about it.”

So the message is that since Obama has taken office more terrorists have been put out of business.  The metrics show success because of the person of Obama.  Continuing:

The former Marine General didn’t provide any specific numbers to back up his claim, but he said “there is an increasing trend and I think we seen that in different parts of the world over the last few months for sure.” He added that he was not “making a tally sheet saying we are killing more people, capturing more people than they did — that is not the issue.”

So it’s not about a tally sheet, and that is clearly not the issue.  Continuing:

But the numbers are going up, he said.  “The numbers of high value targets that we are successfully reaching out to or identifying through good intelligence” from both the CIA and intelligence agencies from US allies has made the difference, he said. “We have better human intelligence; we know where the terrorists are moving. Because of the dialogue and the tone of the dialogue between us and our friends and allies…the trend line against terrorism is positive, and that’s what we want. If we have a positive trend line we have a safer country.”

So the trend line is positive, and the “numbers of HVTs … has made the difference” (whatever that is supposed to mean).

Summarizing, the metrics are showing success and Obama is doing better than the previous administration.  But there is no tally sheet, and the whole issue of killing and capturing more people misses the point.  But more to the point, we are killing and capturing more people.

Got it?  Neither do I.  Your NSA is not a serious man.

Prior: Calling on National Security Advisor James L. Jones to Resign

UPDATE: Welcome to Instapundit readers and thanks to Glenn for the link.

I have been loath to weigh in on the issue of torture, waterboarding, the intelligence gleaned from such methods, and in general the whole issue of detainees in the war on terror.  I feel that there are too many people weighing in who don’t know enough information to be useful, and I don’t need to add to that number.  Regarding waterboarding I must rely on friends of mine who have undergone the procedure in SERE training.  One friend in particular informs me that it is terrifying, but in his opinion, not torture.  As those who go through SERE training know, you spend some time doing not only that, but also spend some time in a 55 gallon barrel.

But as my friend also informs me, “I would tell them anything they wanted to hear in order to stop the process.”  So the question naturally arises as to the usefulness of the procedure and whether actionable intelligence is really gleaned.  But we can add to this knowledge with the experience of Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

After enduring the CIA’s harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency’s secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called “terrorist tutorials.”

In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture.

Speaking in English, Mohammed “seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group’s plans, ideology and operatives,” said one of two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified. “He’d even use a chalkboard at times.”

These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its “preeminent source” on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques.

“KSM, an accomplished resistor, provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the waterboard, and analysis of that information revealed that much of it was outdated, inaccurate or incomplete,” according to newly unclassified portions of a 2004 report by the CIA’s then-inspector general released Monday by the Justice Department.

The debate over the effectiveness of subjecting detainees to psychological and physical pressure is in some ways irresolvable, because it is impossible to know whether less coercive methods would have achieved the same result. But for defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general’s report and other documents released this week indicate.

Over a few weeks, he was subjected to an escalating series of coercive methods, culminating in 7 1/2 days of sleep deprivation, while diapered and shackled, and 183 instances of waterboarding. After the month-long torment, he was never waterboarded again.

“What do you think changed KSM’s mind?” one former senior intelligence official said this week after being asked about the effect of waterboarding. “Of course it began with that.”

Mohammed, in statements to the International Committee of the Red Cross, said some of the information he provided was untrue.

“During the harshest period of my interrogation I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop. I later told interrogators that their methods were stupid and counterproductive. I’m sure that the false information I was forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop wasted a lot of their time,” he said.

So we have learned that on the most significant targets in the history of using this method it caused poor information to be gleaned at first, but much more significant information to be gleaned later due to a change in attitude.  It was the change in attitude that was important.

Whatever an individual decides concerning the issue of specific procedures, I still believe that far too many people now know far too much about U.S. black operations.  Bill Clinton eviscerated the CIA human intelligence capabilities, and Obama is finishing the job.

Obama intended from the beginning to target the CIA with investigations.  Leon Panetta, who is said to be opposed to certain CIA programs in which high value targets are assassinated, is making matters worse.  In fact, the damage may have already been done and the situation made irreversible.

I would never compare my few years as an Army Intelligence Special Agent to the careers of committed CIA operatives, but I harbor no doubt that if I were one of them, I would be looking for a way out.  My immediate focus would be on protecting myself, my family and the identities of the foreign nationals with whom I worked.  I would be operating as if secrets no longer exist.  Risk taking would cease.  My reports would be gleaned from newspaper articles.

Whatever else one might conclude about the state of the CIA and the unecessary public investigations, they are effecting a disembowelment of the very intelligence agency that is supposed to protect American interests.  And it appears to be all by design.

There is now not even a hint of an effort to make the narrative on Afghanistan consistent.  From the AP:

President Barack Obama’s national security adviser did not rule adding more U.S. forces in Afghanistan to help turn around a war that he said on Sunday is not now in crisis.

James Jones, a retired Marine general with experience in Afghanistan, said the United States will know “by the end of next year” whether the revamped war plan Obama announced in March is taking hold.

The administration is redefining how it will measure progress, with new benchmarks that reflect a redrawn strategy. An outline is expected next month.

Making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, Jones did little to dispel the growing expectation that Obama soon will be asked to supplement the 21,000 additional forces he already approved for Afghanistan this year.

“We won’t rule anything out,” but the new strategy is too fresh for a full evaluation, Jones said.

“If things come up where we need to adjust one way or the other, and it involves troops or it involves more incentives … for economic development or better assistance to help the Afghan government function, we’ll do that.”

The Obama plan is supposed to combine a more vigorous military campaign against the Taliban with a commitment to protect Afghan civilians and starve the insurgents of sanctuary and popular support. It envisions a large development effort led by civilians, which has not fully happened, and a rapid expansion of the Afghan armed forces to eventually take over responsibility for security.

“If we can get that done … we will know that fairly quickly,” Jones said.

The system to measure progress is several weeks from completion. It reflects creeping congressional skepticism about the war and its costs. The United States has spent more than $220 billion since the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, plus billions for more toward aid and development projects. By the United States’ own admission, much of the aid money was wasted.

Members of the House Appropriations Committee wrote recently that they are worried about “the prospects for an open-ended U.S. commitment to bring stability to a country that has a decades-long history of successfully rebuffing foreign military intervention and attempts to influence internal politics.”

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday he does not know how Congress would react to a new request for additional troops.

“It depends on what the facts and the arguments are,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. “It depends what our commanders in the field say. It depends also I think in part what our NATO allies are willing to do.”

So to summarize, the strategy involves a few more troops and a lot of civilian NGOs, these civilians not having been deployed yet because it’s too dangerous since there is little to no security, but we will know fairly quickly if this strategy works, er … um, that is, within 18 months.  There may be more troops and if so we’ll provide them, but the White House is going to have a fit if the Generals ask for more troops.

Well, there you have it.  But if Jim Jones is a stooge and a fool, Carl Levin is a liar.  The commanders in the field have already said they are light on troops and need more.  Brigadier General Nicholson has said that he doesn’t have enough forces to go everywhere, counterinsurgency-speak for “the insurgents will be left to run amok in various places.”

If lives and the existence of a transnational religiously-based insurgency weren’t at stake it would make for great theater.

Prior:

Mullen Pops Jones in the Back of the Head

Calling on National Security Advisor James L. Jones to Resign

Report

Raising expectations for scaling back military operations in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he hopes U.S. involvement can “transition to a different phase” after this summer’s Afghan elections.

The president said he is looking for an exit strategy where the Afghan security forces, courts and government take more responsibility for the country’s security. That would enable U.S. and other international military forces to play a smaller role.

Obama made his remarks after an Oval Office meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. Talks between the two leaders included discussion of the Netherlands’ help with the U.S.-led effort to defeat Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dutch combat troops have been a mainstay among the allied forces fighting in the volatile southern reaches of Afghanistan.

After taking office in January, Obama reviewed U.S. progress in Afghanistan and announced in March a new approach that included sending an additional 17,000 combat troops, including Marines who have just kicked off an offensive in Taliban strongholds in the south of the country …

In remarks in Moscow last week, Obama said it was too early to judge the success of his new approach in Afghanistan because “we have just begun” to implement it. Obama also installed a new U.S. ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, in May and a new U.S. military commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in June.

On Tuesday, however, the president emphasized an exit strategy.

“All of us want to see an effective exit strategy where increasingly the Afghan army, Afghan police, Afghan courts, Afghan government are taking more responsibility for their own security,” he said.

If the Afghan presidential election scheduled for Aug. 20 comes off successfully, and if the U.S. and its coalition partners continue training Afghan security forces and take a more effective approach to economic development, “then my hope is that we will be able to begin transitioning into a different phase in Afghanistan,” Obama said.

Analysis & Commentary

This is a remarkable report for one particular point we learn about this administration’s view of Operation Enduring Freedom.  But before we get to that point, let’s pause to reflect on the context.

Operation Iraqi Freedom proved to be much more difficult that we originally thought it would be for a whole host of reasons.  There have been many lessons (re)learned about counterinsurgency and nation-building, including the need for national and institutional patience.  It takes a long time and is costly in both wealth and blood.  There is a never-ending need for highly functional lines of logistics, and the chances of an acceptable outcome is (at least in the early and even middle stages) proportional to the force projection, one factor of which is the troop levels.  We have relearned that it is very difficult to rely on Arabic armies in large part because of corruption, incompetence and the lack of a Non-Commissioned Officer corps that is equivalent to the NCO corps in the U.S. armed forces.  It has been documented that this has directly affected the degree of success of the efforts to build an Iraqi Army.

For reasons of difficulty and cost, many believe that the U.S. should not engage in counterinsurgency and nation-building.  As the argument goes, when an existential threat is judged to exist, forcible entry is conducted, the regime is toppled, and U.S. forces leave to let the population sort out the balance of its history.  If this threat returns or another is perceived, then do it all over again.  While the cost of this approach is likely to be greater in the long run (in our estimation), there are a great many who hold this view, even among field grade and staff level officers (based our own on communications).

But when a counterinsurgency campaign is begun, not only does the doctrine say that it will be protracted, but this doctrine is exemplified by our experience in Iraq.  While continually adjusting strategy and tactics to press forward to a conclusion is appropriate, it doesn’t work to assume that it will be easy or shortlived.

But there are differences in campaigns for which the doctrine must be maleable.  As we have discussed before, General Petraeus has said that of the campaigns in the long war, Afghanistan would be the longest.

I did a week-long assessment in 2005 at (then Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld’s request. Following our return, I told him that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of what we then termed “the long war.” Having just been to Afghanistan a month or so ago, I think that that remains a valid assessment. Moreover, the trends have clearly been in the wrong direction.

This is true for numerous reasons, including the difficulty in logistics, lack of a strong central government, corruption, an increasingly problematic security situation, etc.  If Hamid Karzai wins the election, the very head of the government in which the U.S. administration is placing its hope is the man who recently pardoned five heroin smugglers, at least one of them a relative of a man who heads Karzai’s campaign for re-election.

The administration’s plan falls heavily into the lap of the Afghan National Army.  This is the same Army that is believed to have colluded with Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops at the Battle of Bari Alai, and which, according to U.S. Marine embedded trainers, would lose as much as 85% of its troops if drug testing was implemented.  Fully independent ANA Battalions are targeted, but this is many years down the road, in the year 2014 at the earliest.  Even this may be wishful thinking.

It wouldn’t have been surprising if Obama had advocated complete withdrawal, although we would have disagreed with this decision.  It wouldn’t have been surprising if he had advocated long term commitment, since this is the nature of counterinsurgency.  When we pressed for the resignation of National Security Advisor Jim Jones, we noted that he had stated that the new strategy had the “potential to turn this thing around in reasonably short order.”

Nothing happens in counterinsurgency in short order, we observed, and thus his counsel to the President is poor.  The Generals are indignant, and have retained the right in their mind to request the troops they believe to be necessary for the campaign.  But this view has not been heard in Washington, and not only does Obama’s counselors and advisers believe that the campaign can be turned in short order, but we now learn that Obama believes this – contrary to doctrine, contrary to the views of General Petraeus, contrary to the Generals, and contrary to the lessons of Iraq.  Everyone wants an exit from war.  No one likes to see the human cost of battle.  The question is not one of exit – it is of when and how?

While issues of life and death play themselves out in Afghanistan and sons of America continue to lose limbs and lives, the administration blythely continues to believe in myths and fairly tales concerning war and peace, and fashion plans for Afghanistan that have no chance to succeed.  The plans must change, but until they do, the question is what the cost will be in national treasure and blood?

Prior Featured:

Calling on National Security Advisor James L. Jones to Resign

Marines Take the Fight to the Enemy in Now Zad

Taliban Tactics: Massing of Troops

The Coming War in the Caucasus