Colleagues: A Save the Date for what should be an extremely popular program on July 23 (no RSVPs yet!), and an update on our NSF website/newsletter. Ty
SAVE THE DATE
Friday, July 23, the Sienna, 9 am breakfast
STEPHEN FRYE, M.D.
The War on Drugs: A Super-Colossal Failure
How The Legalization of Drugs Will Dramatically Reduce Drug Use, Reduce Crime, Provide an Enormous Economic Boost and Enhance Our National Security Interests
Dr. Frye, author of “We Really Lost This War! Twenty-five Reasons to Legalize Drugs” was a former professor at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. A practicing psychiatrist, he received his MD from George Washington University, did a residency at UCSF, and served two years in the Army with the 10th Special Forces. He is an outspoken advocate of drug legalization, which he believes will reduce our prison population, save us billions of dollars that are now going to Mexican cartels and leading to the possible destabilization of the Mexican government, reduce the number of teen gangs, and provide an economic boost to the treasury.
Controversial to be sure, and I am hoping to have a commentator rebut the professor on the program.
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The National Security Forum website is now operational! Please visit it and get caught up on items I sent out that you may have missed—they are all archived here. The site is “nationalsecurityforum.net”. Yes, please note, that is “.net”
The website was developed by Airman Rex Barton under Tony Lockhard’s guidance, and we also now have two bright, young grad students from the Small Business Center at UNR helping improve the site and get our “mailings” into a newsletter format (Chuck McCumber and Ben Tedore).
I recommend visiting the site every few days–that way something that you did not receive by my clumsy AOL account can be accessed.
In the wake of GEN Stanley McChrystal’s (M4) resignation last week, there has been considerable speculation regarding possible changes in the U.S. strategy for prosecuting the war in Afghanistan. In particular, some have stated that with his assumption of command in Kabul of NATO/ISAF forces, GEN Dave Petraeus (P4) will revise the current stringent Rules of Engagement (ROEs), adopt more aggressive tactics in the field, and even “stand up to the civilians in the White House” who have allegedly “shackled the military”.
They are dead wrong. The “Counterinsurgency” (COIN) strategy being pursued in Afghanistan has been devised by military professionals and is being implemented as the Defense Department has requested. In fact, if there is a civilian-military split over the conduct of the war, it is that some highly-placed civilian officials would favor less of an emphasis on “winning the hearts and minds” of the populace and more reliance on a “counter-terrorism” strategy; i.e., less concern with nation-building but a focus on striking hard and deep against known or suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban targets (VP Biden has been the primary proponent of this approach).
Counter-Insurgency Strategy in Afghanistan
The architects of the COIN strategy for winning the struggle in Afghanistan are Generals Dave Petraeus (US Army) and Jim Mattis (US Marine Corps), as laid out in the combined Field Manual 3-24. The key precepts of this doctrine are that victory will come when the citizens of Afghanistan render allegiance to the government in Kabul, reject the threats or incentives of the Taliban, are able to pursue a livelihood in a secure environment, and refuse sanctuary to terrorist forces. The mission is to deliver security and connect Afghans to their government.
This is to be accomplished not by “body counts” or blowing up villages indiscriminately, but by being embedded with the Afghans themselves and meeting with Afghan elders to learn their concerns and needs. Troops must exercise restraint in the application of force, deploy to small outposts, and focus on economic development. This strategy relies heavily on a cadre of Western reconstruction experts being available, a relatively honest and functional central government in Kabul, the transition of the Afghan Army and national police to an effective fighting and security force, and citizen willingness to inform on Taliban/AQ insurgent locations.
Even the most forceful of the adherents of this doctrine admit that progress in all of these areas has been slow, and that victory—however defined—will not come quickly or cheaply. At best it entails the commitment of American troops, and increasingly civilians, and billions—maybe even a trillion– of dollars for at least a decade.
More Restrictive Rules of Engagement
Generals Petraeus and McChrystal and their superiors are in lock step on the wisdom of this approach. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argues that “Force should, to the maximum extent possible, be applied in a precise and principled way……The battlefield is not necessarily a field anymore. It is in the minds of the people”. He argues that in this war restrictions must be placed on use of indirect fires, drones and long range artillery/naval gunfire, saying that, with respect to the application of force, “less really is more”.
Despite his background as a Special Operations warrior, M4 placed considerable restrictions on indiscrimate “knocking doors” down, especially limiting indirect fires and night raids. The “Tactical Directive on Night Raids”, which I have seen, stresses that night raids are the single biggest factor in lessening support for ISAF, that “all other options must be explored before effecting a night raid”, and, if employed, must be “judiciously used, tactically sound, and as transparent as possible”.
Going beyond these restrictions, the U.S. military has even begun awarding medals for “conspicuous restraint” in the application of force. That is, applauding the courage of the soldiers who, despite the potential of an insurgent ambush, exercise caution in place of the “shooting first, taking names later” philosophy. Obviously this stress on “population-centric” military action rankles some soldiers in the field who feel they are being asked to perform dangerous tasks in a very restrictive combat environment. The proscriptions seem to multiply as each lower level HQ seeks to implement the ROEs, resulting in fewer patrols, less “kinetic” activity, and an avoidance of “incidents”.
M4 and his critics
We now have a professional military greatly influenced by Greg Mortensen (“Three Cups of Tea”), one now focused on nation-building, protecting the population, constructing schools, training Afghan security forces, and exercising “restraint” on the battlefield. So much so that conservative former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy charges that M4, who voted for Obama it appears, is “for his entire undeniable valor, a progressive big-thinker who has been conducting a sociology experiment in Islamic nation-building”. He charges that our troops are under “increasingly straight-jacketed ROEs imposed by GEN McChrystal to avoid offending Afghans”. Too much emphasis on drinking tea with Afghan elders at too many Shuras in order to insure the possibility of the imposition of Islamic Sharia law, he argues!
Other critics, such as George Will, were taken aback by some of the lesser noted revelations in the Rolling Stone piece on the “Runaway General”. Specifically, M4’s predilection for a “Zen” approach to combat—he liked to be called the Zen Master and instructed his staff to provide him a Bruce Lee quote on a daily basis. I guess that what M4 aspired to is to be the synthesis of “warrior” and “reflective philosopher” as embodied in Zen philosophy.
In contrast, the Obama-Panetta-Biden Trio Stresses Aggressive Tactics
It seems that the Obama administration feels less shackled by a “pop-centric” COIN strategy, and is relying increasingly on drone attacks against suspected AQ/Taliban strongholds, not only in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other locales. Critics have charged that the Predator/UAV attacks and secret employment of Special Ops forces under CIA control against suspected targets is, in reality, an illegal scheme of “targeted assassinations”.
That charge is not without grounds. The clearest public description of this doctrine came from White House CT expert, John Brennan, who said that the U.S. “will not merely respond after the fact of a terrorist attack”, but will “take the fight to Al Qaeda and its extremist affiliates whether they plot and train in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond”. Wow, sounds somewhat reminiscent of Bush 43’s “pre-emption doctrine”!
CIA Director Leon Panetta stated forcefully today that while “We don’t have an assassination list…..we do have a terrorist list”, and several suspected AQ/Taliban figures are on it, including some U.S. citizens. The White House and Panetta’s Agency and his forces seem bound by much less restrictive Rules of Engagement! (You might want to Google Panetta’s appearance on “This Week” today—he comes across sounding more like George Patton than George Kennan!)
So is there really a civil-military split and what are the core differences?
Yes, there is, but a much different one than you normally hear. The professional military approach, one supported by Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, stresses that this conflict will be prolonged and difficult, that the military needs to have the resources (manpower, money and many more civilian experts) to conduct the COIN strategy over time, and that the Commander in Chief needs to be more vociferous in enunciating and demanding support for the commitment. While all key players in the chain of command signed on to the July 2011 reduction of troops, the military will be resisting, saying that can happen only if “conditions on the ground warrant”.
In contrast, the civilian leadership is very worried about the human and monetary drain Afghanistan represents, that the effort has lost the support of the voters who see this increasingly as a quagmire, and that it is only one of many crises the administration must address—the Oil Spill, a second recession, accelerating deficits, health care, and, yes, climate change! The White House will be leaning toward troop withdrawals, shifting to a “counter-terrorism” strategy, and looking for an attractive “exit strategy”.
GEN Stanley McChrystal has apparently submitted his resignation to President Obama, following a very damaging series of interviews he and his staff did for a reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine. It’s only the latest in a series of missteps and gaffes committed by a very dedicated and talented field commander, but one who has a knack for demonstrating extraordinarily bad judgment in the public arena.
One has to wonder, first, what the hell McChrystal was thinking in granting so much access to a reporter from Rolling Stone? One has to assume that he would realize that the correspondent, Michael Hastings, had little interest in reporting the nuances of successes the General’s counter-insurgency campaign had racked up. More to the point, his primary purpose would be to elicit juicy comments and critiques of the civilian leadership in order to make the story a sexy sale at the news stands. In that Hastings succeeded and the General and his staff fell feet first into the trap.
In the story, which will be available Friday but is attached here (“The Runaway General”) McChrystal says little, criticizing only Obama in one instance and AMB Holbrooke in another. But his staff went far beyond, calling the National Security Advisor (4-star Marine General) Jim Jones a “clown”, the Vice President as a know-nothing irritant (you mean “Bite Me”, not “Biden”, said one staffer), accused the President of being totally unprepared for a session with McChrystal, hammered AMB Holbrooke, and denigrated the President’s team unmercifully (many of whom are 3-4 star Generals and Admirals).
We should understand that the General’s interviews, and that of his staff, come in the midst of a sense that the mission in Afghanistan is failing. There seems to be no credible central government in Kabul, the Afghan national police and Army have fallen far short of expectations, corruption and mismanagement are rampant, and the Taliban seems to be making significant operational gains. In this general downturn no doubt some will be looking how to shift the blame for ultimate failure.
It might be hard for McChrystal to argue that he did not get the resources he asked for to implement his war strategy. Certainly the President gave him 95% of it. Or that the strategy is directed by Washington—the COIN tactics being pursued in the field are certainly those advocated by the military establishment. The General would have a good case that the commitment to begin withdrawing troops in July of 2011 gave the wrong signal to the enemy as well as to the Kabul government, but everyone in the chain of command is on record saying that they agreed with that commitment.
The quotes illustrate also how dysfunctional the civil-military relationship in Afghanistan has become, with (retired 3-star General) Ambassador Karl Eikenberry at odds with McChrystal and ISAF. Quite a contrast with the excellent working relationship AMB Ryan Crocker and GEN Dave Petraeus had in Iraq!
My colleague, Steve Metcalf, has noted that “The death of a warrior….is always a sad event, particularly when he has served so honorably for so many years”. But, Metcalf argues, the General’s continuing challenge of the political leadership (remember his outspoken comments in London at the IISS last year, or his very public differences with AMB Eikenberry), “has reached a level that can no longer be countenanced”. I agree.
The frustration that the General and, especially his staff, is feeling is mainly an outgrowth of the sense that public opinion in America has given up on the wisdom of the commitment in Afghanistan, and that this weariness is manifesting itself at the highest levels of the White House. Increasingly there is a sense that the war is unwinnable, that we are being “held captive” by a corrupt and intransigent Karzai, and that the military strategy Obama agreed to support is not tenable.
GEN McChrystal (or his staff) complained that he was “betrayed” by AMB Eikenberry, that Obama handed him “an unsellable position”, that the NSC was unsupportive (GEN Jones and LTG Doug Lute ??), mocked VP Biden’s alternative in Afghanistan (“Counter-terrorism”), dissed a meeting with the President as a “10-minue photo-op”, and described AMB Dick Holbrooke as “dangerous—because he is a wounded animal”.
The President faces a difficult decision tomorrow, but despite GEN McChrystal’s extraordinary experience, record and dedication, the President should accept his resignation and move on. That will be painful for all concerned, and both the Commander in Chief and his field commander are badly wounded from this encounter.
But the General wasn’t elected, as was the President. Maybe he will be in the future! Doubt it—the “stab in the back” rhetoric won’t find much ground here and the American public will be hard pressed to believe that if only the nuanced differences in the General’s strategy were adopted, we would have secured a certain victory in Afghanistan.
Stay tuned! Would love to be a fly on the wall in that Oval office session tomorrow.
Rather long submission today, but worth reading. Two views on the immigration/border security issue.
Might want to read the second first, which is a comment by a retired Admiral (“W”) and a piece arguing the traditional case that we haven’t secured the border, but it can be done fairly easy and cheaply, etc. (Reflecting “We the People” stance).
With respect to money, the blog piece does lay out an interesting question: If it is cost we are concerned about, why do we have 37,000 troops along the DMZ in Korea instead of along the Southwest U.S. border? Where is the greater threat to U.S. national security?
The first piece, from the Arizona Republic, is one of the most comprehensive and thorough analyses I have read on the question. It goes into the “secure border” issue in much more detail and is more even-handed. It lays out what has been done to date (extensive) and the obstacles to actually “securing the border”. The piece basically says that while you can’t attain a 100% secure border, you can improve on border security–but the cost accelerates exponentially. Are we prepared to bear the cost?
At any rate, the two pieces–especially the Arizona Republic article–should be read and absorbed by anyone wishing to make commentary on the border security issue.
One major conclusion: Take with a healthy grain of salt anyone who argues that we haven’t tried securing the border or that it is relatively easy to do.
Dennis Wagner – Jun. 20, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Amid a growing national angst about illegal immigration, Americans keep hearing a chorus: Secure the border first. Then talk about immigration reform.
The idea appeals to public sentiment, and it seems like a simple demand
But what do pundits and politicians mean?
Is a border secure only when no one crosses illegally and when no contraband slips through?
If some permeability is acceptable, what is the tolerable amount?
Political leaders mostly dodge those questions, and for good reason: Anyone with a minimal knowledge or understanding about the nearly 2,000-mile swath of land between Mexico and the United States realizes that requiring a secure border establishes an impossible standard.
One reason: There is no way to conclude success because authorities have no idea how many undocumented immigrants are getting through. Authorities can count only the number of unauthorized intruders captured. Such unavoidable uncertainty prevents any absolute assurances that no one is sneaking over, making declarations of victory impossible.
Another reason: The motivation and creativity of those trying to get across.
Impoverished Mexicans, willing to gamble their lives and savings to reach America, subject themselves to desert heat and extortion or torture by coyotes. Drug runners risk being caught and imprisoned or getting killed by competitors.
So the smugglers dig tunnels, create false compartments, bribe border guards, fly ultralight planes and use every means imaginable to get over, under or across the line. The more security there is, the higher the smuggling price and the greater the profit incentive.
Here is another way to consider the problem: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a leader in the anti-immigration movement and acclaimed as America’s toughest sheriff, cannot secure his own jails. Every year, despite armed guards, electronic locks and video monitors, inmates smuggle drugs in from the outside and sometimes even escape.
No one would blame Arpaio. All penal institutions, regardless of security measures, have breaches. Yet imagine if America adopted a position that no new laws could be passed regarding prison reform “until the nation’s jails are secure.”
Tom Barry, director of the Transborder Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., said the demand for a completely secure border is a ploy by those opposed to immigration reform to prevent new policies.
“No matter how much enforcement you have, there will always be people coming through,” he said. “Since that is true, opponents to immigration reform will always be able to say the border is still not secure . . . and therefore we cannot pass immigration reform.”
At some point, the question becomes: How much border enforcement is necessary? Or enough?
David Shirk, director of the Transborder Institute at the University of San Diego, said the United States has more federal agents deployed along the Mexican line than at any time in the past century.
“It seems to me the argument can be made that we’ve gone as far as is reasonable,” he said. “The border will never be secure enough for some people. . . . Politicians are using the idea of the border as a phantom menace and establishing an unreachable goal.”
Border enforcement rises
For the past decade, critics have complained that the U.S. government does little or nothing to stem the flow of undocumented intruders.
“Our nation’s border security efforts are a litany of failure,” Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., wrote in a recent commentary for the congressional newspaper The Hill. “Ultimately, Congress must fix our broken immigration laws. . . . But we cannot address that difficult task until we, as a nation, control our own borders.”
While the success of America’s border enforcement may be questioned, historical data reflect an escalation of effort:
• Today, there are 22,800 U.S. Border Patrol agents, five times the number in 1993. About 17,000 agents work along the Southwest corridor, double the number from seven years ago. They are supported by National Guard troops, local police and thousands of port officers using everything from drug-sniffing dogs to gamma-ray machines.
• In Arizona, the primary smuggling corridor on the U.S.-Mexico line, there are now more than 3,600 Border Patrol agents, about 10 for every mile of boundary with Mexico.
• The budget this fiscal year for Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency charged with guarding U.S. borders, is about $17 billion, double what was spent in 2003.
• The number of illegal immigrants arrested by Border Patrol has plummeted by almost two-thirds in just five years, a combined result, authorities say, of fewer people trying to cross because of the economy and increased security.
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in April, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the Southwest border is “as secure now as it has ever been.” Challenging the sincerity of lawmakers who demand security, she asked, “Will it ever be reached as far as Congress is concerned, or will that goal post continue to be moved?”
Still, amid a decade of record spending on enforcement – increases that began under Republican President George W. Bush, who twice tried and failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform – America’s estimated illegal-immigrant population increased from 8.5 million to 11. 9 million. The vast majority of the immigrants came from Mexico.
‘Operational control’
Apprehensions of illegal crossers in the desert began to decline only in the past few years, as the nation’s economy and job market collapsed. In 2009, Border Patrol agents arrested 550,000 undocumented immigrants on the Southwestern border, though that is considered a fraction of the total slipping through. Drug seizures continue to increase, though it is unclear how much of that reflects increased trafficking and how much is a result of improved enforcement.
Amid the ebb and flow of statistics, the calls for tighter border security continue.
But public understanding is stymied by simplistic notions of border dynamics and geography.
Those unfamiliar with the vast border zone have little sense of its challenges or the creativity of trespassers. Many ignore the value of the millions of legal crossings each year, the vital importance of legitimate trade and the fact that border crime is a two-way street.
According to Alonzo Peña, deputy assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, each year $19 billion to $29 billion from illegal-drug and human trafficking is smuggled from the United States into Mexico, where it is used by drug cartels to finance their violent operations. Only $200 million gets seized. As part of controlling the border, the southward flow of cash and arms also must be stopped.
Gustavo Mohar, Mexico’s intelligence chief, shakes his head at the idea of securing such a huge swath, an area exceeding 100,000 square miles.
“The correct word is ‘managing’ a border,” he said. “You cannot close it.”
Even the U.S. Border Patrol does not set its sights on complete security. Instead, its mission is to establish “operational control,” a term defined by Congress as the prevention of all unlawful U.S. entries.
This year, Border Patrol claimed success along 894 miles of boundary, less than half of the Mexican line, or about one-tenth of the nation’s land and sea perimeter. Even in sectors that are supposedly under control, Border Patrol records show, smugglers and illegal immigrants get through by the thousands.
Some anti-illegal-immigration groups acknowledge that fully securing the border is a pipe dream.
“I couldn’t, if you held a gun to my head, tell you it could ever be done 100 percent,” said Bill Davis, director of Cochise County Militia, a group of armed civilians who patrol Arizona’s southern flank. “If you can cut it down from 100,000 (illegal entries) to two people, great.”
Davis, who advocates a doubling of manpower and technology, said a border is controlled when agents monitoring surveillance cameras and sensors receive no more than one alert per night.
Appealing to fear
No matter how many federal troops and agents are on patrol, no matter how many sensors, cameras and fences are employed, many will try to sneak across the border, and some will succeed.
Each time that happens, opponents of immigration reform will be able to declare that the line is not defended, that America is not safe.
They appeal to patriotism, asking why the world’s most powerful nation cannot protect its sovereign boundaries.
They appeal to fear, suggesting that terrorists potentially could mix in with the daily swarm of Hispanics heading north for opportunity.
Public passion is so high, said the Transborder Project’s Barry, that no one does a cost-benefit analysis of border enforce- ment.
“Everybody is jumping on the border-security bandwagon, including moderate Democrats,” Barry said. “It’s not driven by anything real on the grid, not by violence or invasions of illegal immigrants . . . not based on any real assessment of threats to the nation.”
The rhetoric is magnified by fears that Mexico’s explosive cartel violence may bleed over the international line. In fact, FBI and Arizona records show crime is dramatically down statewide and along the border. Murders in Arizona decreased by one-fifth last year; aggravated assaults dropped nearly 9 percent.
Those numbers provide little consolation to southern Arizona residents weary of undocumented immigrants and armed drug couriers traipsing across their properties. Still, the statistics contradict claims of a crisis.
“I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse,” said Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. “Well, the fact of the matter is, the border has never been more secure.”
Calls for reform
At the Washington, D.C.-based (very anti-immigration) Federation for American Immigration Reform, press secretary Bob Dane described border enforcement without reform as “a fool’s paradise.”
FAIR presses Congress to impose rigid immigration limits, opposing an amnesty program or an increase in the number of work visas.
Dane said most of the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants came to America for work, so there is a simple policy change that would force them out: Require employee verification and crack down on businesses that hire undocumented workers.
“Simply declaring the border is secure without workplace enforcement is like putting locks on the door with a sign that says, ‘The jewels are all yours if you can find a way in,’ ” Dane said. “The jobs magnet is the reason folks come and the reason they stay.”
Susan Ginsburg, senior policy adviser for an international nonprofit known as Borderpol, which works to make international borders safer, said it is a mistake to require border control as a prerequisite for changing U.S. policies because the existing system created a broken border in the first place.
“Comprehensive immigration reform will help because it will make the border more manageable,” she said.
Michele Wucker, executive director of the World Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said border incursions happen wherever two countries have unequal economies or black-market trade.
Wucker, author of “Lockout: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong,” said those who demand a sort of iron curtain prior to policy change are obstructionists: “It means don’t ever come up with a workable system.”
Arizona has the most to gain from a new policy paradigm, Wucker argued, because the status quo made the state a thoroughfare for smuggling. Yet the state’s political leaders, caught up in a wave of public opinion, no longer press for reform.
“When I see John McCain saying, ‘Build the dang fence,’ I’m very sad,” Wucker said. “Arizona would benefit more than any other state from immigration reform at a national level. They’re really cutting off their nose to spite their face.”
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2. Subject: Fwd: Interesting Article
Admiral’s comment: “Meanwhile, Senators Kyl and McCain are calling for more technology (in addition to troops and agents) on the border. Nothing forthcoming there, either, except more legal blatherings from the Administration over who runs immigration policy and enforcement–all headed to the Supreme court, probably by year’s end.
Meanwhile all government is doing is putting up signs. Pathetic! Some technology to wonder about: UAVs (Predators), tethered balloons with remotely aimed cameras/videos, “Dufflebag” (Vietnam era remote sensors), mast-attached sensors, and quick reaction response teams to intercept illegal groups penetrating. We know the routes, the region (where to put up signs!)…and who’s responsible for developing the technology McCain and Kly are calling for? Who funds it, through which government organs: Pentagon DARPA, DHS, Justice, Industry? This probably hasn’t been decided….
America is losing the battle along the border with Mexico — apparently without a fight. As proof, a swatch of Arizona 80 miles wide that runs from the Mexican border about three counties deep into the state (encompassing about 3,500 acres) has been ceded to Mexicans.
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu told Fox News that armed paramilitary elements control a portion of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge and other parts of Arizona. But rather than try and reclaim it, signs have been posted marking the area as off limits to Americans.
It was closed in October 2006, due to human safety concerns, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The signs read: “Danger—Public Warning. Travel Not Recommended.” To see a clip of Babeu’s interview click here.
The squad-sized (in American military parlance a squad refers to two teams of four or five soldiers each) armed paramilitary elements Babeu referred to are drug smugglers and human traffickers out of Mexico. And violence there has increased the last fourth months.
He conceded that neither he nor other local sheriff’s departments and city police forces had the manpower to take the area back. It’s going to take the U.S. military, he said, and that’s why Babeu, his fellow law enforcement heads and Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) recently asked Obama for 3,000 National Guard troops.
Obama responded by promising Arizona Governor Jan Brewer he’d get back to her. He hasn’t.
As I wrote last week in Breaking Their Oath, this is not the only place armed elements have crossed the Mexican border in the U.S. There have been many sightings reported—and several videos made to back them up—of either elements of the Mexican military or police forces crossing the border in force. There have also been shootouts with U.S. Border agents.
Just recently a young smuggler was killed by U.S. Border agents and armed agents from Mexico fired on them as they investigated the scene of the shooting.
Breaking Their Oath demonstrated how Obama and the current Congress, as well as Presidents and Congresses past, have failed to live up to their oath of office and protect America from invasion.
The situation in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge demonstrates that the fascist elected elites are either feckless and weak or they have an agenda that is contrary to the best interests of our nation. It also demonstrates why Arizona’s recently passed immigration law was necessary.
There were a lot of interesting comments to last week’s article. The vast majority agreed with Arizona’s soon-to-be-enacted immigration law which will make it a crime to be an illegal alien in the state.
Al Seiber is very familiar with what’s going on in Arizona. He has friends near the border. He posted,
“My friends live 1200′ from the border, out of Sierra Vista, Ariz. they told me they find more prayer mats then anything. I find lot’s of back packs, with tortillas and water bottles in them.”
Some commenters think the answer is a fence along the border: a fence that Washington obviously has no interest in completing. There are places—like the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding territory—where agents don’t go, but armed insurgents from across the border do. And ask the residents of some of the border towns about the armed Mexican helicopters—sometimes seen hovering over houses and shining spotlights at night as if searching for someone or something—and how they feel about what is being done to protect them.
Certainly more could be done by the Federal government.
“Why do we have 37,000 troops on the border between North and South Korea, but we can’t put enough on our borders to protect us? Or, we could reduce the size of Empire America and just bring those troops home and put them along our border. But visiting Arizona is always a good idea.
“I would like to challenge any person that is against the Arizona immigration bill to call your representatives in congress, also write a letter to Obama and tell them that the federal immigration law needs to be shredded and a new one needs to be written up. Because, in case you are like Obama, Holder and Napolitano who didn’t take time to read the bill but got on tv and condemned it, I have actually read the bill and it is EXACTLY like the federal bill. So if you are accusing Arizonians of being profilers then you are in fact accusing your liberal icons of profiling.”
The grammar’s not great, but you get the drift. Actually, letting your elected representative know how you feel about the illegal immigration situation is not a bad idea. So we’ve come up with a way you can do that. So far 97 percent believe America should follow Arizona’s lead when it comes to immigration reform. And a whopping 92 percent of respondents would like to see their state pass a similar immigration law.
You can also contact your Congressman and let him or her know how you feel. If you don’t know how to contact your Senator or Representative you can find him or her by going here.
“’We the People’ need to start being seen in ‘GREATER’ numbers and heard from in masses. We need to see and hear from candidates where they stand on major issues and hold them accountable. Why is it we are not asking our candidates or elected officials outright on their stance with major issues as immigration. Quit hiding….. NOW is our opportunity to be heard….NOW is our opportunity to be seen…. November is coming soon…. don’t pass it up.”
Why indeed? What better way to know where they stand than by asking them yourself? We’ve done the hard part for you. You no longer have an excuse.
The White House has obviously leaked minutes of highly secret meetings, as well as the photo earlier showing GEN McChrystal on Obama’s plane in an almost supplicant position, to demonstrate the President’s firm control over the military.
While much of the hype over Obama’s supposed dressing down of the Pentagon/military was orchestrated out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., one thing is clear: Obama is committed to the Iraq and Afghanistan withdrawal schedules and he wants the Pentagon/key Generals on record as having supported that decision. That is, no later claims of being “abandoned in the field” just as “victory was around the corner”. May also be a preemptive move against any General who might harbor ambitions to run for President in 2012!
Les Gelb has an interesting take on all this (below). I think much of this is also a prelude to a Plan B–what happens if the Iraqis/Afghani are not ready to assume control of their countries as we withdraw. It appears that VP Biden’s alternative to the Petraeus/McChrystal plan–reduce our troop presence, do little nation-building, and concentrate on a counter-terrorism strategy (bomb known or suspected AQ/Taliban locations) will eventually win out
I suspect that handling the “exit strategy” and managing the region in the wake of a failure to accomplish our objectives will become more important points of debate and discussion. Ty
Time
June 7, 2010 Logic Of The Leak Why would the White House divulge details of a secret war-strategy session? To force the Pentagon’s hand
By Leslie H. Gelb
In matters of war and peace, presidents expect their generals to give their best advice in private, keep it private and then faithfully carry out the Commander in Chief’s decisions. But whenever wars sour and casualties mount, the perspectives of the White House and the Pentagon brass clash, the military lets its real views be known, and the public-policy brawls erupt. A new round of brawls looms over Afghanistan, and this one could be particularly costly.
This time the trigger is a couple of leaks from the most secret and sensitive White House meetings on Afghan policy. The disclosures can be found in Jonathan Alter’s The Promise: President Obama, Year One, which has just been published, and will also appear in Bob Woodward’s book about Obama due out this fall. They show Obama, much like a prosecutor, nailing down his generals’ support for the U.S. troop withdrawals he would soon announce and trying to stanch the expected opposition. That opposition, the White House is well aware, could be a political killer for Obama, given the military’s unmatchable public credibility. The two leaks — in Alter’s case, quotations from an Oval Office discussion, and in Woodward’s, actual notes from National Security Council meetings — almost certainly came from senior White House officials, likely with Obama’s approval. The exchanges make the President look strong and the military defensive.
The battle between the new President and the Pentagon started last year when the generals asked for thousands more troops for Afghanistan than the White House wanted to deploy.
Last fall, Obama thought he had quieted the brass with a trade-off: he’d meet their demand for 30,000-plus more soldiers (bringing the total to about 100,000), and they’d back his call to begin troop reductions in July 2011. He soon sensed, however, that he’d have to do more to ensure the generals kept their end of the deal. The military still cringed at any hint of a deadline, arguing to fight longer with the full complement of troops in place.
The dramatic Oval Office confrontation cited by Alter came just days before Obama was to announce both the 30,000 force add-ons and the July 2011 date to begin reductions. Attendees included Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, Centcom commander General David Petraeus and National Security Adviser James Jones:
“Obama asked Petraeus, ‘David, tell me now. I want you to be honest with me. You can do this in 18 months?’
‘Sir, I’m confident we can train and hand over to the ANA [Afghan National Army] in that time frame,’ the general replied.
‘Good. No problem,’ the President said. ‘If you can’t do the things you say you can in 18 months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right?’
‘Yes, sir, in agreement,’ Petraeus said.
‘Yes, sir,’ Mullen said.
The President was crisp but informal. ‘Bob, you have any problems?’ he asked Gates, who said he was fine with it.
The President then encapsulated the new policy: in quickly, out quickly; focus on al-Qaeda, and build the Afghan army. ‘I’m not asking you to change what you believe, but if you don’t agree with me that we can execute this, say so now,’ he said. No one said anything.
‘Tell me now,’ Obama repeated.
‘Fully support, sir,’ Mullen said.
‘Ditto,’ Petraeus said.”
The White House leaked these conversations in part to show the world that the generals agreed to the July 2011 timetable last fall, whatever doubts they may have about it now. The military will surely be angered by the leaks and may be tempted to retaliate; most officers aren’t crazy about Democrats or about Obama.
This is nasty business by all parties. Yet I have to believe that the leaked accounts are essentially true. They parallel my own conversations with senior officers. Whatever Alter suggests, the military didn’t and doesn’t agree to extracting all the troops in 18 months or any time frame, nor does the White House make that claim.
But whatever the generals really believe now about Afghan policy, they have had their full say, gotten most of the troops they requested and fought the war essentially their way. It’s the President’s responsibility to make the final calls — and to create a force-reduction strategy for Afghanistan that protects what will remain of America’s interests there. The generals can and should help him do that. After 10 years of war in Afghanistan, American arms, men, women and treasure are needed
far more elsewhere.
Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is the author of Power Rules and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
United States, Russia will sign Nuclear Arms Treaty
Marked by Significant Reductions in Strategic Missiles
Colleagues, President Barack Obama will meet with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev in Prague on April 8 to sign a new strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty that will mandate significant reductions in each country’s long range arsenals. The agreement replaces the 1991 START treaty that expired last December.
The new agreement requires each nation to reduce their intercontinental missile forces by about 30%, allowing the two countries to maintain about 1,500 warheads apiece. It limits deployed and non-deployed missile launchers and heavy bombers to 700 deployed–about half of which each nation now possesses.
Concerns about the new treaty are three-fold: (1) Does it restrict the U.S.’s ability to deploy effective missile defense systems; (2) Will we be able to maintain a safe and reliable force; (3) Is the Treaty verifiable.
A first glance at the proposed Treaty would indicate that the areas of concern will not impede the ratification of the agreement. The Joint Chiefs strongly endorsed both the reductions and ascertained the verifiability of the agreement. There does not seem to be any language restricting our missile defense efforts; indeed, that program is constrained more by a demonstrated lack of success to date (despite some impressive tests).
From my perspective, I think the Treaty serves America’s strategic interests quite well. Reducing the arsenal of nuclear weapons to 1,500 still gives us the theoretical possibility of blowing up the world some 100 times. We still maintain the three-legged Triad of delivery systems–ICBMs, bombers and submarine-launched intercontinental missiles. And we should be able to verify Russian reductions.
I am more concerned with the rhetoric accompanying this treaty, as Obama declared that this agreement represents “the start of a new effort’ toward a world without nuclear weapons. I think it would be a mistake for the United States to attempt to move towards zero in a world where our potential adversaries may possess convention force advantages. Further, I think we need to maintain the ability to develop and test existing and new nuclear weapons, something we haven’t done since 1992. The inventory, frankly, may not be as reliable as we might believe.
Finally, while the Treaty language I have seen does not make any side promises to Moscow, I would like assurances that the Administration has not made any pledges or “understandings” to Russia regarding our future intentions with respect to missile defenses, testing, and deployments of tactical nuclear weapons.
For those interested in reading further, I have appended below the official White House statement and backgrounder on the agreement. It reflects a little bit of giddiness over this Treaty, following the signing of the massive health care “reform”. Also, I like Secretary Clinton’s promise–and enthusiasm–about sending White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to Moscow to assist Medvedev in securing passage of the Treaty through the Russian parliament (Duma). Especially if it required a lengthy time away!
Readout of the President’s call with Russian President Medvedev
In a phone call this morning, President Obama and President Medvedev agreed to meet in Prague, the Czech Republic, on Thursday, April 8, to sign the Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures to Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the “New START Treaty”).
This landmark agreement advances the security of both nations, and reaffirms American and Russian leadership on behalf of nuclear security and global non-proliferation. This was the 14th direct meeting or phone call between the Presidents addressing New START, and represents their shared commitment to “reset” U.S.-Russia relations so that we cooperate substantively and effectively on issues of mutual interest along many dimensions.
The new Treaty will contain limits on U.S. and Russian nuclear forces significantly below the levels established by the START treaty signed in 1991, and the Moscow Treaty signed in 2002. The new START Treaty will specify limits of:
· 1,550 deployed warheads, which is about 30% lower than the upper warhead limit of the Moscow Treaty;
· 800 deployed and non-deployed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers, submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear weapons; and
· 700 for deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear weapons.
The New START treaty’s verification regime will provide the ability to monitor all aspects of the Treaty. At the same time, the inspections and other verification procedures in this Treaty will be simpler and less costly to implement than the old START treaty. In part, this is possible due to the experience and knowledge gained from 15 years of START implementation.
The Presidents agreed that the new Treaty demonstrates the continuing commitment of the United States and Russia – the world’s two largest nuclear powers – to reduce their nuclear arsenals consistent with their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Such actions invigorate our mutual efforts to strengthen the international nonproliferation regime and convince other countries to help curb proliferation.
As articulated by President Obama in his Prague speech one year ago, this Treaty is one of a series of concrete steps the United States will take to reduce the number and role of nuclear weapons and to set the stage for further reductions in global nuclear stockpiles and materials.
Treaty Structure: The New START Treaty is organized in three tiers of increasing level of detail. The first tier is the Treaty text itself. The second tier consists of a Protocol to the Treaty, which contains additional rights and obligations associated with Treaty provisions. The basic rights and obligations are contained in these two documents. The third tier consists of Technical Annexes to the Protocol. All three tiers will be legally binding. The Protocol and Annexes will be integral parts of the Treaty and thus submitted to the U.S. Senate for its advice and consent to ratification.
Strategic Offensive Reductions: Under the Treaty, the U.S. and Russia will be limited to significantly fewer strategic arms within seven years from the date the Treaty enters into force. Each Party has the flexibility to determine for itself the structure of its strategic forces within the aggregate limits of the Treaty. These limits are based on a rigorous analysis conducted by Department of Defense planners in support of the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.
Aggregate limits:
· 1,550 warheads. Warheads on deployed ICBMs and deployed SLBMs count toward this limit and each deployed heavy bomber equipped for nuclear armaments counts as one warhead toward this limit.
· This limit is 74% lower than the limit of the 1991 START Treaty and 30% lower than the deployed strategic warhead limit of the 2002 Moscow Treaty.
· A combined limit of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
· A separate limit of 700 deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
· This limit is less than half the corresponding strategic nuclear delivery vehicle limit of the START Treaty.
Verification and Transparency: The Treaty has a verification regime that combines the appropriate elements of the 1991 START Treaty with new elements tailored to the limitations of the Treaty. Measures under the Treaty include on-site inspections and exhibitions, data exchanges and notifications related to strategic offensive arms and facilities covered by the Treaty, and provisions to facilitate the use of national technical means for treaty monitoring. To increase confidence and transparency, the Treaty also provides for the exchange of telemetry.
Treaty Terms: The Treaty’s duration will be ten years, unless superseded by a subsequent agreement. The Parties may agree to extend the Treaty for a period of no more than five years. The Treaty includes a withdrawal clause that is standard in arms control agreements. The 2002 Moscow Treaty terminates upon entry into force of the New START Treaty. The U.S. Senate and the Russian legislature must approve the Treaty before it can enter into force.
No Constraints on Missile Defense and Conventional Strike: The Treaty does not contain any constraints on testing, development or deployment of current or planned U.S. missile defense programs or current or planned United States long-range conventional strike capabilities.
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. I just concluded a productive phone call with President Medvedev. And I’m pleased to announce that after a year of intense negotiations, the United States and Russia have agreed to the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades.
Since taking office, one of my highest priorities has been addressing the threat posed by nuclear weapons to the American people. And that’s why, last April in Prague, I stated America’s intention to pursue the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons, a goal that’s been embraced by Presidents like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
While this aspiration will not be reached in the near future, I put forward a comprehensive agenda to pursue it — to stop the spread of these weapons; to secure vulnerable nuclear materials from terrorists; and to reduce nuclear arsenals. A fundamental part of that effort was the negotiation of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia.
Furthermore, since I took office, I’ve been committed to a “reset” of our relationship with Russia. When the United States and Russia can cooperate effectively, it advances the mutual interests of our two nations, and the security and prosperity of the wider world. We’ve so far already worked together on Afghanistan. We’ve coordinated our economic efforts through the G20. We are working together to pressure Iran to meet its international obligations. And today, we have reached agreement on one of my administration’s top national security priorities — a pivotal new arms control agreement.
In many ways, nuclear weapons represent both the darkest days of the Cold War, and the most troubling threats of our time. Today, we’ve taken another step forward by — in leaving behind the legacy of the 20th century while building a more secure future for our children. We’ve turned words into action. We’ve made progress that is clear and concrete. And we’ve demonstrated the importance of American leadership — and American partnership — on behalf of our own security, and the world’s.
Broadly speaking, the new START treaty makes progress in several areas. It cuts — by about a third — the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia will deploy. It significantly reduces missiles and launchers. It puts in place a strong and effective verification regime. And it maintains the flexibility that we need to protect and advance our national security, and to guarantee our unwavering commitment to the security of our allies.
With this agreement, the United States and Russia — the two largest nuclear powers in the world — also send a clear signal that we intend to lead. By upholding our own commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we strengthen our global efforts to stop the spread of these weapons, and to ensure that other nations meet their own responsibilities.
I’m pleased that almost one year to the day after my last trip to Prague, the Czech Republic — a close friend and ally of the United States — has agreed to host President Medvedev and me on April 8th, as we sign this historic treaty. The following week, I look forward to hosting leaders from over 40 nations here in Washington, as we convene a summit to address how we can secure vulnerable nuclear materials so that they never fall into the hands of terrorists. And later this spring, the world will come together in New York to discuss how we can build on this progress, and continue to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime.
Through all these efforts, cooperation between the United States and Russia will be essential. I want to thank President Medvedev for his personal and sustained leadership as we worked through this agreement. We’ve had the opportunity to meet many times over the last year, and we both agree that we can serve the interests of our people through close cooperation.
I also want to thank my national security team, who did so much work to make this day possible. That includes the leaders with me here today — Secretary Clinton, Secretary Gates, and Admiral Mullen. And it includes a tireless negotiating team. It took patience. It took perseverance. But we never gave up. And as a result, the United States will be more secure, and the American people will be safer.
Finally, I look forward to continuing to work closely with Congress in the months ahead. There is a long tradition of bipartisan leadership on arms control. Presidents of both parties have recognized the necessity of securing and reducing these weapons. Statesmen like George Shultz, Sam Nunn, Henry Kissinger, and Bill Perry have been outspoken in their support of more assertive action. Earlier this week, I met with my friends John Kerry and Dick Lugar to discuss this treaty, and throughout the morning, my administration will be consulting senators — my administration will be consulting senators from both parties as we prepare for what I hope will be a strong, bipartisan support to ratify the new START treaty.
With that, I’m going to leave you in the able hands of my Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, as well as Secretary of Defense Gates and Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen. So I want to thank all of you for your attention.
Our sister organization, the Northern Nevada International Center at UNR will be holding its annual “Global Gala” on Friday, April 2. The speaker for the event will be Diane Crow, who served 20 months in Iraq and is now with the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
I have attached the flyer for this event, which includes the list of this year’s awardees, the silent auction, and ticket information.
Colleagues:The death of Congressman Charlie Wilson this week marks the end of an era, and the passing of a very flamboyant and influential public figure, particularly on the Mujhadein war against the Soviets.Ironically, when I put out a summation of Charlie’s exploits and the interaction with the Reagan administration, little did I know that the missive I sent out would become the seed that led to the formation of our informal National Security Forum.Most of you have already seen this, so hit the delete key. Those new to this Forum may enjoy looking over one of our first communications. Goodbye, Charlie!– Ty
Friends,
Many of you have asked me about my thoughts on the great movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War”. I thought the film was terrific, but probably not as good as the book and certainly not as good as Congressman Charlie himself! When I first read the book, despite having been at the core of the formulation of our policy toward the former Soviet Union, I hadn’t really recalled much about the flamboyant Representative.
I thought the movie was fine, but if you liked the film, read the book. The movie was way too short—only 80 minutes—and could have gone another 30-40 minutes and tapped much of the material found in George Crile’s book.
I called some colleagues who were in the intelligence establishment at the time, and they confirmed that much of what you saw or read was quite accurate. As you know the
Central Intelligence Agency was very leery of doing more than simply tweaking the nose of the Sovs—that was how the game was played—as was the State Department.
The book fails to give President Ronald Reagan sufficient credit—indeed, it appears that much of what happened was done in spite of the President, not at his behest. A couple pieces that follow here will rectify that misunderstanding
I also found it interesting that Crile, a well known liberal, and Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts—with similar credentials—wind up making a movie that is essentially an anthem to the Neocon cause!
A final note—the book and the movie make much of Charlie Wilson’s attempts after the Soviet withdrawal to direct significant aid to rebuilding Afghanistan. This is true—it seemed to drop off the radar screen of the first Bush Administration and Congress.
Similarly, in the last month of the Reagan Administration, there was a party in the White House NSC, celebrating the upcoming final exit of Soviet troops under GEN Gromov. During the partying I happened to ask, “Has anybody thought about ‘what next?” The room went silent, and Walt Raymond, a USIA/CIA type, said, “Ty—what are you talking about? We won!”. Unlike Wilson in the movie, who was concerned about US aid to help rebuild Afghanistan, I think I was musing about what we had created with this energized Muslim force having just defeated an infidel power, and with advanced weapons. Alas, I went back to work….and left that world a few weeks later.
What follows are four interesting takes on Charlie Wilson, the Afghan War, Reagan’s role, and the interagency struggle over Afghan policy. It’s a bit long, but very illuminating and enjoyable!
–Ty
CHARLIE WILSON AND RONALD REAGAN’S WAR
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Thursday, 27 December 2007
This picture was taken during my wedding on May 25, 1986. The ceremony took place at the villa of a friend of mine in St. Tropez, France. My bride was a gorgeous California redhead named Rebel Holiday (yes, her born name). The dapper gentleman you see between us was serving as my best man. The reason he doesn’t look like Tom Hanks is because he’s the real Charlie Wilson.
When Rebel tossed her garter after the ceremony, it was Charlie who caught it.
He promptly and gallantly put it on the shapely leg of his then-fiancée, Annelise Ilschenko – who was more beautiful and classier than Julia Roberts, having been Miss USA (in 1975 at age 17). Besides, Charlie hadn’t seen Joanne Herring (played by Ms. Roberts) in years.
So it was a strange experience for me to see the movie Charley Wilson’s War, a movie portraying events I participated in, to see how it was both true and not true, magnificent and ludicrous at the same time.
First the truth. Tom Hanks has Charlie spot on. His mannerisms, voice, posture, facial expressions: Hanks is Charlie, and he might get his third Oscar for playing him that he was denied in Cast Away and Saving Private Ryan (he along with six others have won Best Actor twice, no one has won it thrice).
Further, Hanks portrays Charlie as the hero he really was. A larger-than-life America-loving Communist-hating true blue patriot who used his power and influence to the max to stick it to the Soviets big time. That Hollywood would make a major motion picture about a genuine Anti-Communist hero, about a noble Anti-Communist triumph over the Evil Communist Empire of the Soviet Union is morally thrilling. The movie is magnificent.
Not taking anything away from the magnificence, it is also ludicrous.
And not just because I’m not in the movie. After all, I’m the one who explained to him how defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan could win the Cold War, not some socialite in Houston. It’s that no one who had a critical role in helping the Afghans or winning the Cold War is in the movie except Charlie, whose sidekicks are a single CIA lone ranger and a blonde chick in Texas – not Bill Casey, not Ronald Reagan, no one.
In fact, at the movie’s end, a character lauds Charlie as a Democrat for what he has accomplished despite “a Republican president.” That’s the movie’s only reference to Reagan and it is negative, as if Reagan were a hindrance in Charlie’s way. That’s an insult to both men, for Charlie had the highest respect for President Reagan.
This is due to the author of the best-selling book upon which Charley Wilson’s War was based. George Crile was a super-liberal who refused to give any conservative, any Republican from Reagan on down, any credit for anything.
There’s a scene in the movie where Charlie is showing a girlfriend the view from the balcony of his condo overlooking the Iwo Jima Memorial, the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge, the Washington Monument, and the US Capitol. Charlie’s condo really did have a balcony with that view.
I explained the concept of the Reagan Doctrine to George Crile on that balcony, recounting my experiences with the Afghan Mujahaddin to him, as well as those with other anti-Soviet freedom fighters like the Contras in Nicaragua, the UNITA guerrillas in Angola, and the RENAMO guerrillas in Mozambique. It was like talking to a wall.
I remember getting really ticked off at Gust Avrakotos on that balcony. He’s the CIA guy played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
The movie is about providing weapons to Afghans fighting the Soviets, yet only one specific Afghan is named in the film, the legendary “Lion of Panjshir,” Ahmad Shah Massoud.,
Yet the CIA in fact provided little or no aid to Massoud for most of the war. The film never mentions who did get most of the CIA aid instead of Massoud: an America-hating Khomeini-loving Islamofascist named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and his “Hezbi” Mujahaddin.
One month after 9/11, in October of 2001, I wrote Gulbuddin and the CIA, stating that:
“The CIA’s obsession to support Gulbuddin in vast preference to all other Mujahaddin leaders bordered on the pathological.”
It was Gust Avrakotos in particular I was referring to in that article when I said:
Every CIA agent I ever talked to — especially the armchair analysts at Langley – - was insufferably condescending whenever I would state that Gulbuddin’s people did no fighting, that the other groups were begging for weapons while the Hezbis had an oversupply of weapons they didn’t use. The agents would patronizingly assure me their “intel” contradicted what I and every other independent observer who actually went into Afghanistan saw with our own eyes – - so we all must be wrong.
I ended up inviting Avrakotos on Charlie’s balcony to engage in self-induced carnal knowledge because, surprise, he had never been inside Afghanistan with the Muj himself. At least the movie was honest in not depicting him doing so.
In his book Holy War, Inc., CNN’s terrorism analyst Peter Bergen states that of the $1 billion in US aid to the Muj, at least “$600 million” went to Hekmatyar, who “had the dubious distinction of never winning a significant battle during the war, training a variety of militant Islamists from around the world, killing significant numbers of Mujahaddin from other parties, and taking a virulently anti-Western line.”
Whenever I came back from Afghanistan throughout the 1980s, along with various people in the Reagan White House, the Pentagon, and Congress, I would always brief Charlie. My years of ranting at him about Gulbuddin finally got through to him in early 1987 – because it wasn’t just me.
“Why do you and everyone else who’s been inside [Afghanistan] tell me one thing, and the same thing, about the Hezbis, while the CIA tells me the opposite?” he mused.
“Because the CIA is lying to you, Charlie,” came my reply.
A number of United States Congressmen also had figured out that the CIA was lying about Gulbuddin’s effectiveness, and were well aware of the great danger he was to the future of Afghanistan. I once delivered a personally written note from one such Congressman to Burhanuddin Rabbani. We had met a number of times before, but on this occasion we had a long discussion. The note was an explicit request for Rabbani to have his people spare no effort to assassinate Gulbuddin.
“If you do not do this,” I explained to Rabbani and his chief aide, Abdul Rahim, “any victory the Afghans achieve over the Shuravi [Soviets] will result in chaos and disaster. Gulbuddin has to be killed, killed dead, if Afghanistan is to have any future and any freedom.”
After our discussion, the Congressman’s letter, of which no copies were made, was burned before my eyes. A few days later, Gulbuddin’s Toyota Land Cruiser blew up in Peshawar, Pakistan. Gulbuddin’s driver was killed, but Gulbuddin, although injured, survived. Subsequent attempts also failed.
If Crile had written more of the truth, it would have made a better book and movie. The same goes for the crux of the plot, providing the Muj with Stinger missiles.
The movie has Charlie demanding the Muj be given anti-aircraft weapons against the Soviet Hind helicopter gunships right from the start. It whiplashes from 1980 to 1987, shows a schematic of the European Milan anti-tank missile, then in the very next scene two Afghans use a US Stinger against a Hind. This is a farce.
How the Afghans got the Stingers that won the war is a fascinating story never fully told and can only be abbreviated here. The very condensed version is this:
All the massive weapons flow organized by Charlie and the CIA had, by mid-1986, done no good as it was mostly going to Gulbuddin. When I was in Afghanistan in August, the war was over. The Soviets had won, most of the Muj had retreated back to the refugee camps in Pakistan. Soviet Spetsnaz teams were hunting down and killing the Muj who were left.
Ronald Reagan had been well aware of the need for shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles, and in April 1985 signed a classified Executive Order giving CIA Director Bill Casey the authority to provide the Muj with Stingers. The EO was blocked by CIA Deputy Director John McMahon.
McMahon was determined that the Afghans not get Stingers, and used every bureaucratic trick in the book in a constant stream of excuses to prevent their delivery, despite the demands of Reagan, Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-NH), Charlie, and many others in Congress such as Don Ritter (R-PA).
By late 1985, the entire conservative movement was demanding military aid to anti-Soviet freedom fighters, so we decided to make an end run around McMahon. A visit by UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was arranged to Washington, where he met President Reagan in the Oval Office on January 30, 1986.
Savimbi told Reagan about the coming Soviet-Cuban offensive scheduled at the end of the rainy season in April, that UNITA would be destroyed without Stingers against the Hinds. Reagan gave Savimbi his word that the Stingers would be provided.
The President then called Bill Casey and said he just didn’t care what the excuses were anymore. Any reason given by McMahon was to be disregarded. He signed an EO to that effect on February 18. Two weeks later, McMahon resigned. I was in Angola at UNITA’s Jamba headquarters in April when the Stingers arrived. The Soviet-Cuban offensive was stopped thanks to them.
Now the way was cleared for Stingers to the Afghans. The Paks (Pakistanis, particularly the ISI Inter-Service Intelligence boys who controlled all Muj arms shipments and led the CIA around with a ring through its nose) got in the way and delayed things – so much so that in August I saw the Muj on the ropes with my own eyes.
Finally, on September 26, 1986, the first Stinger missile was fired by an Afghan freedom fighter – and it shot down a Hind just like in the movie. The launcher of that first Stinger ended up proudly displayed in Charlie Wilson’s office.
The CIA/ISI vainly tried to see that Stingers were only given to Gulbuddin, but now Charlie, Reagan, Humphrey, Casey et al were on to the scam, so the entire weapons flow along with the Stingers was redirected to Jamiat and other groups actually fighting. The Muj erupted out of the refugee camps, poured back into Afghanistan, and the war was back on.
It was the Stingers that won the war, just like the movie shows, just as I told Charlie my conclusion after my first travels with the Muj in 1983, “Take the Soviets out of the air, and the Muj will defeat them on the ground.”
After the loss of hundreds of Soviet warcraft and pilots from late ‘86 through ‘88, the Soviets retreated in defeat. Less than nine months after final retreat from Afghanistan on February 15, 1989, the Berlin Wall was down, Eastern Europe liberated, and the Cold War won.
It was a victory of many people, chief among them of course being Ronald Reagan, for implementing the entire strategy of the Reagan Doctrine targeting Soviet vulnerabilities. Support for anti-Soviet guerrillas in Afghanistan and Nicaragua, for democracy movements in Eastern Europe, was a critical part of that strategy but only a part.
And in that part, Charlie Wilson played a critical role. It is silly for the movie to pretend that Charlie did it by himself without Ronald Reagan, and it is sad for the movie to end on a sour note of blame for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. .
Yet caveats aside, I am so glad this movie was made. It is so much better than the book, which is hopelessly permeated with hyper-liberal prejudice. It is wonderful that the world knows about this extraordinary man, knows what a hero Charlie Wilson is.
The movie overplays his flamboyance as much as the décolletage of his staff. The ladies who worked for him, such as Molly Hamilton, were beautiful but serious and professional. Charlie was a consummate pro who knew just what he was doing, including the “Good Time Charlie” act. I never saw him drink to excess or act inappropriately. He was always the true gentleman, treating Annelise, for example, like the true lady she was.
The moral lesson of the movie should be a very sobering one for the Democrat Party. Charlie Wilson was proudly and unashamedly a Pro-American, Anti-Communist Democrat. His heroism should be a deep embarrassment to the party of Pelosi Galore and Lost Harry Reid, the party who apologizes for America’s existence and has neither the spine nor will to defend her.
The Democrat Party – indeed, America – needs more Charlie Wilsons. I will always have the greatest respect for what he did for our country, and I will always treasure his friendship.
TASTE COMMENTARY
When Principle Trumped Partisanship
Why Charlie Wilson’s war couldn’t happen today.
BY JOHN FUND Wall Street Journal Dec. 29,2007
“Charlie Wilson’s War,” the film treatment of how a party-hearty Texas congressman teamed up with other Cold Warriors to humiliate the Soviet Empire and hasten its end, is a box-office success. After the failure of preachy political films, like “Lions for Lambs” and “Rendition,” Hollywood will credit the movie’s appeal, in part, to its witty dialogue and biting humor. Fair enough. But the film offers another lesson, for both Hollywood and Washington: Good things can happen when principle trumps partisanship.
I met Charlie Wilson in his heyday in the 1980s. He was an operator and a carousing libertine. But he was honest about it, promising constituents that, if he were caught in a scandal, “I won’t blame booze and I won’t suddenly find Jesus.” He called himself a Scoop Jackson Democrat, after the hawkish senator from Washington state. Mr. Wilson was fiercely anticommunist.
In 1981, two years after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Mr. Wilson visited refugee camps in Pakistan at the prodding of Joanne Herring, a conservative Houston socialite he’d been dating. There he saw starving families and Afghan children whose arms had been blown off by explosives disguised as toys. “I decided to grab the commie sons o’bitches by the throat,” he told me in a recent interview.
About the same time, President Ronald Reagan was signing top-secret directives to use covert action and economic warfare to weaken the Soviets. These allowed a maverick CIA agent named Gust Avrakotos to team up with Mr. Wilson. Mr. Avrakotos picked a team of agency outcasts to funnel weapons to the Afghans while Mr. Wilson made sure they had the means to do so.
The film tells this story and offers up a series of foils for Mr. Wilson. The CIA station chief in Pakistan is a bureaucratic weasel who doesn’t want to upset the Soviets. When Ms. Herring asks Mr. Wilson, “Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?” he responds: “Well, tradition, mostly.”
In the end, Mr. Wilson used his perch on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee to expand covert aid to the Afghans to $1 billion a year from $5 million. House Speaker Tip O’Neill gave him a long leash. Other Democrats, intent on blocking White House support for the Nicaraguan Contras, happily let Mr. Wilson have his way to bolster their own anticommunist credentials.
Gradually the operation wore down Soviet morale. On the first day that shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles reached the mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan, in September 1986, three Soviet helicopter gunships were downed. “They flew, they died” is how Mr. Wilson puts it. In early 1989, the last Soviet troops pulled out, and the experience persuaded the Politburo to think twice about putting down rebellions in Eastern Europe. Within months, the Berlin Wall fell.
As the film notes, the U.S. failed to follow up in Afghanistan and allowed chaos to develop. Years later, the Taliban took over, eventually giving safe haven to Osama bin Laden. But the film stops well short of blaming the U.S. for creating conditions that led to 9/11. As Mr. Wilson says, not a single Afghan has participated in any attack against the U.S.
Mr. Wilson, 74, is now mending nicely from a heart transplant. He is generous with praise for his comrades-in-skulduggery. “We won because there was no partisanship or damaging leaks,” he emphasizes. But he believes that nothing like the Afghan operation could survive today’s poisonous Washington atmosphere.
Tom Hanks, who plays Mr. Wilson in the film, has fretted that he, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Mike Nichols will be attacked by the right as “a bunch of Democrats who are taking potshots at the war in Iraq.” He needn’t worry. Mr. Hanks and his fellow filmmakers have produced a rousing paean to America’s can-do spirit. They have resisted the temptation to comment on any current U.S. foreign policy missteps and highlighted how, not so long ago, one ornery congressman and a few friends helped change the world.
Gary Schmitt: My War With Charlie Wilson and Bill Casey’s Victory
My War with Charlie Wilson
And Bill Casey’s victory.
by Gary Schmitt
Daily Standard
12/28/2007 10:43:00 AM
THERE ARE A LOT of words one could use to describe former congressman Charles Wilson–drunkard, sleazy, womanizer, patriot–but the one that most comes to mind in my dealings with him was simply “persistent.”
Wilson, whose role in supporting the Afghan mujahedin in their war against the Soviets in the 1980s has become the stuff of a best selling book (Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile, a long-time CBS news producer) and now a ticket-selling movie success of the same name, was a tall, lanky populist Democrat from East Texas. Wilson had first been elected to Congress in 1973 and, by the time the Afghan war had broken out, by hook and by crook, he had made his way well up the seniority ladder of the all-powerful House appropriations committee. It was there he could protect aid to Israel, keep money flowing to Somoza in Nicaragua, and–eventually–pour money into the “covert war” the CIA was quasi-supporting and quasi-directing in Afghanistan.
I say “quasi” because the Agency, especially in the early 80s, was letting the Pakistanis call many of the shots when it came to running the war and was as often as not applying the brake to folks who wanted to up the ante when it came to fighting the Soviets. CIA’s analysts were insisting that the Soviets could not possibly lose the war, and the folks from the operational side at Langley were saying: “Let’s bleed ‘em, but let’s not start World War III either.”
Before I had ever met Congressman Wilson, I had of course heard of him. I was from Texas, and Wilson was already a legend there for partying and his ability to bring home federal money to his East Texas constituents. He had helped pull Rep. John Murtha’s bacon out of the fire during the ABSCAM investigation while a member of the House ethics committee and had been rewarded by the Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, with even more of a free hand on the defense appropriations subcommittee.
As Crile and others tell the story, Wilson first got involved in the Afghan war through a girlfriend and Houston socialite Joanne Herring, who had been named an honorary consul for Pakistan. After a visit to Pakistan, the Afghan border, and a meeting with Mohammed Zia, Pakistan’s dictator, Wilson returned to Washington and began to turn on the spigots for both Zia and the mujahedin.
Initially, with support from the outside increasing, the Afghan rebels were eating up the Soviet forces: thousands had been killed or wounded, hundreds of aircraft lost, and thousands of tanks and other vehicles destroyed. But, not willing to go down easily, Moscow ratcheted up the fight by deploying elite special forces (Spetsnatz) to Afghanistan and adding the Mi-24D (Hind) attack helicopter to the fight. The Hinds in particular were devastating, and the fight seemed to be turning in the Soviets favor.
Back in Washington, the issue for those of us who wanted to increase support for the rebels was what could be added to their arsenal to help defeat the Hinds. The older, out of storage, surface-to-air missiles that the CIA and others had been providing them were, at best, only marginal effective. Eventually, through the efforts of officials in Weinberger’s Pentagon–especially Fred Ikle, the then undersecretary for policy–modern American surface-to-air missiles (Stingers) were sent, providing a devastating and ultimately critical counter to the Soviet military machine in Afghanistan.
Before that decision was taken, however, Wilson had decided all on his own that the mujahedin needed the portable anti-aircraft weapon made by Oerlikon, the Swiss arms manufacturer.
But, before that money could be turned over, the budget rules required in this case that both the chairmen and ranking members of the two relevant Senate committees (armed services and intelligence) literally sign off on the reprogramming. And it is here that I first ran into Charlie Wilson, the persistent Charlie Wilson, in early spring of 1984.
As the minority staff director of the Senate’s intelligence committee at the time, Wilson needed my boss, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), to ok the deal. He also needed the approval of Sen. Sam Nunn, then the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, whom I also served as an advisor on issues that crossed over our two committees’ jurisdictions. His first step was to call me and ask me to get their signatures for the reprogramming.
Thinking it mattered, and wanting to give my bosses the best advice I could, I then asked both the Pentagon and CIA what they thought about Wilson’s effort to supply the Afghans with 22-mm Oerlikon cannons. Both were adamant that it was one of the dumbest ideas they had ever heard of. The Oerlikon was portable, but definitely not mobile. It would take teams of mules and horses to move the gun, and even larger teams to move the ammo to keep the gun supplied. Once in place, it wasn’t going anywhere, and it would be a target as much as a weapon once actually used. And to top things off, each round for the weapon would cost somewhere on the order of $50, with the Oerlikon eating through each 60-round magazine in just a few seconds.
Virtually everyone agreed that the Oerlikons would be a waste of money and resources. And if there was going to be a solution to the Hinds, this was not it. The Oerlikons were so obviously impractical that it didn’t take long before Wilson’s own sketchy history was combined with his push to buy the weapon into pretty loud whispers that there were kickbacks involved. Or, as the then deputy director of CIA John McMahon later more politely said: “We use to make comments like, it must be Charlie’s uncle who owns Oerlikon.”
I passed this all along to Sen. Moynihan, who instructed me to stall Wilson’s efforts. So, for the next while, I “missed” Wilson’s calls or “returned” them when I knew he had probably left for the day. But Wilson was persistent and, sure enough, he started making his way over to the Senate side to track me down in person. For a few days, I avoided him and even found myself asking my secretary to see whether the hallways were clear before heading out to lunch. When he finally got hold of me–literally–the 6′4″ Wilson was adamant that I get Moynihan’s ok for the reprogramming. Angered by Wilson’s attempt to intimidate me, I told him that, if my boss were to listen to me, he wouldn’t give the ok. After a few rhetorical rounds of “who was I?” and “who was the congressman here?” Wilson then went into his more soothing East Texas routine and said he would take this matter up with the senator directly.
It was then Moynihan’s turn to scan the hallways, which he quite ably did for a few days. But then Wilson struck. He waited until the senator was in an important finance committee hearing, came in through the back door directly behind the senator and the committee members’ dais, and publicly accosted the senator from the back. Sitting in my office, I got a panicked call from one of the senator’s other aides telling me that Moynihan had said for me to do whatever I had to do to get this “mad man” away from him, including having him ok the reprogramming.
I then called Langley asked them to send a team from the Afghan program down to meet with Sen. Nunn to brief him on the Agency’s position. In a day or so, we all met in the senator’s office. And sure enough, the CIA caved. Officers who had been constantly calling me over the past month to tell me what a ludicrous idea the Oerlikons were and that Afghan rebels were going to lose their lives carting and protecting these weapons, were now benignly telling Sen. Nunn that the Agency had “no objections” to the reprogramming. Sen. Nunn turned to me, shrugged his shoulders and gave me the old “welcome to Washington” look.
The assumption was that Wilson had gotten to Bill Casey, Reagan’s director of central intelligence. And, no doubt, from Casey’s point of view, wasting a few tens of millions on the Oerlikons was worth it if it kept this powerful democrat on the side of the angels, especially given all the problems the administration was having getting similar support for its programs in Central America at the time. Plus, in the end, it didn’t matter much once the decision to ship Stingers to the Afghan rebels was made a year or so later. So the mujahedin got the Oerlikons. But, as predicted, once they had moved them to a spot, that is where they stayed; and also as predicted, they were of marginal use in the war against the Hinds, at best. But if buying them kept “Good Time” Charlie Wilson happy, that was good enough for Bill Casey–and Casey was probably right.
Crucial Cold War secret
January 13, 2008
By Paul Kengor – It was 25 years ago, on Jan. 17, 1983, that the blueprint for American victory in the Cold War was quietly formalized by President Ronald Reagan. It came with the roar of winter, by the name of NSDD-75, probably the most important foreign-policy document by the Reagan administration, institutionalizing the president’s intention to undermine the Soviet communist empire.
The production of NSDD-75 was overseen by Reagan’s closest aide, National Security Adviser Bill Clark. Among Mr. Clark’s lieutenants at the National Security Council, staffer Norm Bailey dubbed NSDD-75, “the strategic plan that won the Cold War.”
Another NSC colleague, Tom Reed, called it “the blueprint for the endgame” and “a confidential declaration of economic and political war.” The Soviets, who somehow learned about the highly classified directive, were even more dramatic. An article on NSDD-75 in the Soviet press was titled: “New directive… threatens history.”
One of the longest of the 300-plus Reagan NSDDs, the chief author of NSDD-75 was Richard Pipes, the Harvard professor of Russian history on leave to serve Reagan’s NSC. Mr. Pipes defined NSDD-75 as “a clear break from the past. [NSDD-75] said our goal was no longer to coexist with the Soviet Union but to change the Soviet system. At its root was the belief that we had it in our power to alter the Soviet system through the use of external pressure.”
Secretary of State George Shultz described NSDD-75 as an effort to move beyond containment and detente, which is why it alarmed so many in the State Department. Indeed, it was revolutionary, turning on its head the doctrine of containment that had formed the cornerstone of American foreign policy since George Kennan sent his famous “Long Telegram” from Moscow in February 1946.
The new policy, said Bill Clark, would “turn the Soviet Union inside itself,” encouraging “anti-totalitarian changes within the U.S.S.R.” America, said Mr. Clark, would “seek to weaken Moscow’s hold on its empire.”
Tamely titled, “U.S. Relations with the U.S.S.R.,” the opening to NSDD-75 established two core “U.S. tasks:” First, “To contain and over time reverse Soviet expansionism … . This will remain the primary focus of U.S. policy toward the U.S.S.R.” And, second, “To promote, within the narrow limits available to us, the process of change in the Soviet Union toward a more pluralistic political and economic system in which the power of the privileged ruling elite is gradually reduced.”
Mr. Pipes fought for this language, insisting the document articulate the central aim of reforming the Soviet Union. “The State Department vehemently objected to that,” recalls Mr. Pipes today. “They saw it as meddling in Soviet internal affairs, as dangerous and futile in any event. We persisted and we got that in.”
That bears repeating: those extraordinary lines, at once impossible but prophetic, whose historical significance cannot be overstated, were nearly removed by the State Department. Mr. Pipes points to the backing of Ronald Reagan, who he says “insisted” on the language, as well as the support of Bill Clark.
Here are a few other notables from NSDD-75:
In regard to Eastern Europe, the directive declared: “The primary U.S. objective in Eastern Europe is to loosen Moscow’s hold on the region.” Poland would be central to this strategy.
As for the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, the directive affirmed that, “The U.S. objective is to keep maximum pressure on Moscow for withdrawal and to ensure that the Soviets’ political, military, and other costs remain high while the occupation continues.”
The directive even addressed Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev’s successor. The administration would “try to create incentives (positive and negative) for the new leadership to adopt policies less detrimental to U.S. interests.” NSDD-75 endeavored to “change” the Marxist system within the U.S.S.R. By seeking political pluralism, it hoped to repudiate the Communist Party monopoly. Precisely that would be done by Mikhail Gorbachev.
There was much more to the directive, too much to cover here — especially on the economic-warfare front. In short, NSDD-75 was an extraordinarily ambitious, across-the-board assault on the Soviet Union, a reality that was crystal clear to the Kremlin when it somehow managed to procure a copy of the document.
Obviously alarmed, the Soviets went public with the goals of NSDD-75. The Moscow Domestic Service released two statements on the directive on March 17 and 18, 1983 — not coincidentally, shortly after Reagan declared the U.S.S.R. an “Evil Empire” — dubbing it a “subversive” attempt “to try to influence the internal situation” within the U.S.S.R. “[T]he task,” said Moscow, was “to exhaust the Soviet economy.” The Reagan administration had “drawn up aggressive plans” for “mass political, economic and ideological pressure against the Soviet Union in an attempt to undermine the socioeconomic system.”
The directive resonated through the Soviet media. A piece by Grigori Dadyants in Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya stated, “Directive 75 speaks of changing the Soviet Union’s domestic policy. In other words, the powers that be in Washington are threatening the course of world history, neither more nor less.” Mr. Dadyants confidently assured his comrades that the grandiose “ideas of Reagan and Pipes” were “staggeringly naive.”
Well, it looks like the communists were staggeringly naive. As Reagan might have said, “There you go again … .”
Thanks to Ronald Reagan, Bill Clark, Richard Pipes and a few others, history was threatened 25 years ago this month — so much so that history was changed, and quite dramatically for the better.
Paul Kengor is author of “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” (HarperPerennial, 2007) and professor of political science at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. His latest book is “The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand” (Ignatius Press, 2007).
Friends, the Nevada budget situation is declining precipitously, yet virtually no elected official or the media will even look at the $92 billion Yucca project as not only an interim storage site for nuclear waste, but as a potential significant economic stimulus for the state. Calder Chism’s cartoon for the Northern Nevada Network captures that. Ty
Colleagues: This “point paper” looks at the current politico-military situation in Iraq, assesses where progress has been achieved, and identifies a number of obstacles and challenges facing the Iraqis—and the U.S.—going forward. The paper concludes that the relative calm and stability we have witnessed over the past year is unlikely to continue. As American forces withdraw, simmering tensions in Iraq will likely arise, perhaps leading to a civil war. U.S. forces will be increasingly vulnerable and dependent on Iraqi security as the drawdown proceeds. While the current administration would prefer to wash its hands of Iraq and focus on other domestic and global issues, the war in Iraq will increasingly force the White House to become deeply involved. There is little chance that the future of Iraq will be as positive as the situation is now.
This paper will examine the current politico-military status in Iraq, identify issues going forward, and make predictions regarding the likely development of U.S.-Iraqi relations.
PROGRESS TO DATE:
There has been remarkable progress in Iraq over the past two years. Experts will debate which initiatives or policies led to the decline in violence and relatively harmonious political arrangements, but the undeniable fact is that the strategic and tactical situation in Iraq greatly improved between the summer of 2007 and now.
Consider the following:
Civilian casualties: The high point was reached in May of 2007, when an estimated 3,600 civilian fatalities occurred. By May of this year that number had dropped to less than 275.
Iraqi military and police killed: Reached a high of 300 in April of 2007, and dropped to 32 In June of this year
US casualties: Remarkably there have been NO American combat casualties in Iraq this month; 5 were killed in July.
Enemy-initiated attacks are now down 10-fold, from 1600 at their height to 150 per month this year
The Iraqi police forces and the military (ISF) may have become sufficiently competent to maintain domestic order
The Iraqi government under PM Maliki has made some effort to be a national—vis Shiite—entity. Not perfect, but has the allegiance now of most Arabs. Recent poll showed that 72% of Iraqis had confidence in their government, while only 27% had confidence in American troops.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been severely defeated, although it may raise its ugly head following American troop withdrawals; the Sunni “Sons of Iraq” have been quiescent.
In sum, as Dr. Kori Schake concludes, “the gains achieved by the counterinsurgency strategy, additional forces (Surge), and increasing capacity in Iraq’s own military and police forces are substantial”.
BUT SIGNIFICANT PROBLEMS REMAIN:
Following the signing of agreements reached by President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki, the United States is on a steep glide path withdrawing its combat forces. Between now and August of 2010, the force of 130,000 U.S. troops is expected to shrink to no more than 50,000; the civilian contractor corps will drop from 132,000 to 75,000; of the nearly 200 bases under U.S. control, only six major hubs and a couple dozen smaller bases will remain. All American troops must be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.
It is important to note that the timetable above was concluded by then President Bush and Secretary Gates. President Obama, and ironically PM Maliki, would like to accelerate that timeline, but several groups, including the ISF, the Kurds, and some Sunni groups are resisting. For Obama, this is the “bad war”, and he wants to get rid of this “tar baby” as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately for the President, severe problems remain that could threaten the relative and fragile stability that we have witnessed (at least until the U.S. withdrawal from major cities on July 1). Despite the impressive progress, there are a number of important unresolved political, economic and military issues that must be addressed that, if no compromise is reached, threaten to lead the country back into full scale civil war.
The major issues include:
Religious violence: The government of PM Maliki has made an effort to be a national government, but the integration of the Sunnis has been marginal. To his credit, Maliki has moved away from his Islamist Shiite sectarian political past, but he has not made much progress in integrating Sunnis into the political process. The prospect for a renewal of sectarian violence is significant—witness the deadly attacks launched by (apparently) Sunni elements against Shiite populations in the last month. Shiite restraint has been admirable but won’t continue unless the attacks cease……The Sunnis have a number of legitimate concerns: (1) Many of the 100,000 members of the Sunni Awakening Councils (those who switched from the insurgency to supporting American troops against Al-Qaeda) have not gotten the pay or jobs in the military and civil service they were promised; (2) The law permitting former Baathist party members to regain their jobs and/or pensions (mainly Sunni professional class) has not been carried out; (3) Sunni political leaders in the Parliament are regarded as ineffective or toadies of Maliki…..The resignation of the (Sunni) head of Iraqi intelligence, Mohammed al-Shahwani, a major blow to reconciliation…..The formation of the coalition of (Iranian-backed) Shiite parties in opposition to Maliki not encouraging.
Ethnic conflicts: The Arab-Kurd split is deep and will not be easily resolved. Since the U.S. committed to protect the Kurds following the Gulf War, and now after the invasion, the Kurds of northern Iraq enjoy many of the trappings of sovereignty. Many believe that Maliki, like Saddam before him, is pursuing a strategy of “Arabnization” of the Kurdish area by encouraging emigration there, especially to disputed border cities. Kurds have internal splits but are united in their hard line in disputes with Baghdad. The Kurds have built a relatively prosperous and violence-free region, and want at least fair share of oil revenues and semi-autonomy. The problem is not just Arab-Kurd in Iraq, but involves Turkey, Iran and other countries who vehemently oppose any Kurdish sovereignty. Washington caught in the middle—wants to support Kurds but not antagonize Ankara.
Violence in Iraq is low, but how much of that due to greatly lessened media interest and presence. Also, American casualties are down, but part of that is due to the fact that we are increasingly restricted to our bases. No casualties also reflect the fact that we operate under severe operational outcomes.
Oil Revenues: There is still no agreement or law regarding the fair division of Iraq’s oil revenues among Sunnis (who have the least oil), the Shiites, and the Kurds. Iraq has world’s 3rd largest proven reserves. The future of Iraq lies in settling the economic questions, principally regarding oil revenue sharing.
Iraqi Security Forces, while more professional, remain largely the preserve of Shiites, or to a lesser extent, the Kurds. Many ISF divisions remain more loyal to political parties than the government. Thus the ISF itself is less a professional, independent entity “than a core part of the larger communal struggle” (COL Reese). This politicization of the ISF remains a recipe for sectarian violence.
Protecting American forces/contractors following a significant withdrawl. This responsibility will increasingly fall to the ISF—the question is: are they dependable? Many worry that the agreement that turned so much responsibility over to the Iraqis on July 1 has handcuffed the Americans. U.S. forces note demonstrable coolness from Iraqis now; and a growing unwillingness to accept American advice.
Incidents between U.S. and Iraqi forces growing—Iraqis actually detained an American patrol; is armed conflict far behind? (And we are talking about only U.S. personnel—as of July there are no other nations with troops in Iraq–maybe time to change the name—the Multinational Force may have been appropriate when 40 countries contributed troops, but the U.S. now stands alone).
Iranian presence: Two very different groups here. First, the Iranian opposition groups which have resided in Iraq under U.S. protection, but were attacked recently by government forces. Second, elements of the Tehran-backed Quds/Revolutionary Guards operating in Iraq, likely with the support of Maliki. Major worry—is the Iraqi government a closer ally of Iran than the U.S. as we go forward?
Competence of the GoI. Lack of progress on essential services; the government of Iraq (GoI) is seen by many as incompetent and corrupt. Nepotism and cronyism rampant.
THE WAY FORWARD?
The U.S. faces a very difficult challenge in the coming months. If it delays the withdrawl timetable to address festering problems, it will likely alienate Shiites, and some Sunnis. If it accelerates or stays on the timeline, a weak Iraq state could succumb to religious and ethnic violence, and become the center of intervention by outside powers (Iran, Turkey, Syria—even the Saudis). Under any scenario U.S. forces will be increasingly vulnerable.
On the other hand, the positive trends of the last two years could become permanent and Iraq would solidify against external threats as the American protectorate disappears. No one expects Iraq to become a model democracy, but perhaps it could become Lebanon, some say (Wow, not much to hope for—11 distinct warring factions, and significant Hezbollah influence, but, hey, something!). Iraq will be under the sway of Iran no matter what—can we learn to live with that? A full, independent democracy is a much lower probability, but not entirely out of the question.
In sum, while President Obama would prefer to simply rid himself of the last vestiges of the Iraq war, conditions on the ground will likely not permit that. The administration will have to conduct a withdrawl of increasingly vulnerable U.S. forces amid a firestorm of internal conflict and disarray. Leaving Iraq with our forces intact and safe, and leaving behind a relatively democratic, stable, and prosperous country will be a most difficult challenge.
America is losing the battle along the border with Mexico — apparently without a fight. As proof, a swatch of Arizona 80 miles wide that runs from the Mexican border about three counties deep into the state (encompassing about 3,500 acres) has been ceded to Mexicans.
