History > 2008 > USA > Wars > Pentagon (II)

General Critical of Iraq War

Is V.A. Chief Pick

December 7, 2008
The New York Times
By JACKIE CALMES

CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, elevating the former Army chief of staff, who was vilified by the Bush administration on the eve of the Iraq war for his warning that far more troops would be needed than the Pentagon had committed.

In his choice of General Shinseki, which Mr. Obama will announce here on Sunday, the president-elect would bring to his cabinet someone who symbolizes the break Mr. Obama seeks with the Bush era on national security. The selection was confirmed by two Democratic officials.

General Shinseki, testifying before Congress in February 2003, a month before the United States invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, said “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be needed to stabilize Iraq after an invasion. In words that came to be vindicated by events, the general anticipated “ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems,” adding, “and so it takes a significant ground force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment.”

The testimony angered Donald H. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary at the time, whose war plans called for far fewer troops. Mr. Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, publicly rebuked General Shinseki’s comments as “wildly off the mark,” in part because Iraqis would welcome the Americans as liberators.

With the subsequent years in which Americans battled ethnic insurgents, and after President Bush agreed in January 2007 to a “surge” strategy of more troops, General Shinseki was effectively vindicated, and military officials, as well as activists and politicians, publicly saluted him. By then, however, General Shinseki had been marginalized on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and quietly retired from the Army.

When asked about General Shinseki’s early troop estimates in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on “Meet the Press” on NBC, Mr. Obama said, “He was right.”

At the same time, General Shinseki drew criticism for not having pressed more aggressively for more troops before the war. In an interview in Newsweek in early 2007, he said of the critiques, with characteristic brevity: “Probably that’s fair. Not my style.” In the past, he would say to his associates, “I do not want to criticize while my soldiers are still bleeding and dying in Iraq.”

When other retired officers publicly called on Mr. Rumsfeld to resign, General Shinseki did not.

The controversy made General Shinseki popular with soldiers in Iraq and veterans of the conflict who resented what they saw as inadequate troop strength. In taking over the Veterans Affairs Department, he would inherit an agency struggling with increasing numbers of veterans with physical and mental wounds from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the many aging veterans of past conflicts.

General Shinseki, 66, who was the highest-ranking Asian-American in the military, also commanded the NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia. Like Mr. Obama, the general is a native of Hawaii. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War, where he suffered serious wounds and lost much of a foot.

    General Critical of Iraq War Is V.A. Chief Pick, NYT, 7.12.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/us/politics/07shinseki.html

Editorial

A Military for a Dangerous New World

November 16, 2008
The New York Times

As president, Barack Obama will face the most daunting and complicated national security challenges in more than a generation — and he will inherit a military that is critically ill-equipped for the task.

Troops and equipment are so overtaxed by President Bush’s disastrous Iraq war that the Pentagon does not have enough of either for the fight in Afghanistan, the war on terror’s front line, let alone to confront the next threats.

This is intolerable, especially when the Pentagon’s budget, including spending on the two wars, reached $685 billion in 2008. That is an increase of 85 percent in real dollars since 2000 and nearly equal to all of the rest of the world’s defense budgets combined. It is also the highest level in real dollars since World War II.

To protect the nation, the Obama administration will have to rebuild and significantly reshape the military. We do not minimize the difficulty of this task. Even if money were limitless, planning is extraordinarily difficult in a world with no single enemy and many dangers.

The United States and its NATO allies must be able to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan — and keep pursuing Al Qaeda forces around the world. Pentagon planners must weigh the potential threats posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, an erratic North Korea, a rising China, an assertive Russia and a raft of unstable countries like Somalia and nuclear-armed Pakistan. And they must have sufficient troops, ships and planes to reassure allies in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

The goal is a military that is large enough and mobile enough to deter enemies. There must be no more ill-founded wars of choice like the one in Iraq. The next president must be far more willing to solve problems with creative and sustained diplomacy.

But this country must also be prepared to fight if needed. To build an effective military the next president must make some fundamental changes.

More ground forces: We believe the military needs the 65,000 additional Army troops and the 27,000 additional marines that Congress finally pushed President Bush into seeking. That buildup is projected to take at least two years; by the end the United States will have 759,000 active-duty ground troops.

That sounds like a lot, especially with the prospect of significant withdrawals from Iraq. But it would still be about 200,000 fewer ground forces than the United States had 20 years ago, during the final stages of the cold war. Less than a third of that expanded ground force would be available for deployment at any given moment.

Military experts agree that for every year active-duty troops spend in the field, they need two years at home recovering, retraining and reconnecting with their families, especially in an all-volunteer force. (The older, part-time soldiers of the National Guard and the Reserves need even more).

The Army has been so badly stretched, mainly by the Iraq war, that it has been unable to honor this one-year-out-of-three rule. Brigades have been rotated back in for second and even third combat tours with barely one year’s rest in between. Even then, the Pentagon has still had to rely far too heavily on National Guard and Reserve units to supplement the force. The long-term cost in morale, recruit quality and readiness will persist for years. Nearly one-fifth of the troops — some 300,000 men and women — have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan reporting post-traumatic stress disorders.

The most responsible prescription for overcoming these problems is a significantly larger ground force. If the country is lucky enough to need fewer troops in the field over the next few years, improving rotation ratios will still help create a higher quality military force.

New skills: America still may have to fight traditional wars against hostile regimes, but future conflicts are at least as likely to involve guerrilla insurgencies wielding terror tactics or possibly weapons of mass destruction. The Pentagon easily defeated Saddam Hussein’s army. It was clearly unprepared to handle the insurgency and then the fierce sectarian civil war that followed.

The Army has made strides in training troops for “irregular warfare.” Gen. David Petraeus has rewritten American counterinsurgency doctrine to make protecting the civilian population and legitimizing the indigenous government central tasks for American soldiers.

The new doctrine gives as much priority to dealing with civilians in conflict zones (shaping attitudes, restoring security, minimizing casualties, restoring basic services and engaging in other “stability operations”) as to combat operations.

Every soldier and marine who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan has had real world experience. But the Army’s structure and institutional bias are still weighted toward conventional war-fighting. Some experts fear that, as happened after Vietnam, the Army will in time reject the recent lessons and innovations.

For the foreseeable future, troops must be schooled in counterinsurgency and stability operations as well as more traditional fighting. And they must be prepared to sustain long-term operations.

The military also must field more specialized units, including more trainers to help friendly countries develop their own armies to supplement or replace American troops in conflict zones. It means hiring more linguists, training more special forces, and building expertise in civil affairs and cultural awareness.

Maintain mobility: In an unpredictable world with no clear battle lines, the country must ensure its ability — so-called lift capacity — to move enormous quantities of men and matériel quickly around the world and to supply them when necessary by sea.

Except in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has reduced its number of permanent overseas bases as a way to lower America’s profile. Between 2004 and 2014, American bases abroad are expected to decline from 850 to 550. The number of troops permanently based overseas will drop to 180,000, down from 450,000 in the 1980s.

Much of the transport equipment is old and wearing out. The Pentagon will need to invest more in unglamorous but essential aircraft like long-haul cargo planes and refueling tankers. The KC-X aerial tanker got caught up in a messy contracting controversy. The new administration must move forward on plans to buy 179 new planes in a fair and open competition.

China is expanding its deep-water navy, much to the anxiety of many of its neighbors. The United States should not try to block China’s re-emergence as a great power. Neither can it cede the seas. Nor can it allow any country to interfere with vital maritime lanes.

America should maintain its investment in sealift, including Maritime Prepositioning Force ships that carry everything marines need for initial military operations (helicopter landing decks, food, water pumping equipment). It must also restock ships’ supplies that have been depleted for use in Iraq. One 2006 study predicted replenishment would cost $12 billion plus $5 billion for every additional year the marines stayed in Iraq.

The Pentagon needs to spend more on capable, smaller coastal warcraft — the littoral combat ship deserves support — and less on blue-water fighting ships.

More rational spending: What we are calling for will be expensive. Adding 92,000 ground troops will cost more than $100 billion over the next six years, and maintaining lift capacity will cost billions more. Much of the savings from withdrawing troops from Iraq will have to be devoted to repairing and rebuilding the force.

Money must be spent more wisely. If the Pentagon continues buying expensive weapons systems more suited for the cold war, it will be impossible to invest in the armaments and talents needed to prevail in the future.

There are savings to be found — by slowing or eliminating production of hugely expensive aerial combat fighters (like the F-22, which has not been used in the two current wars) and mid-ocean fighting ships with no likely near-term use. The Pentagon plans to spend $10 billion next year on an untested missile defense system in Alaska and Europe. Mr. Obama should halt deployment and devote a fraction of that budget to continued research until there is a guarantee that the system will work.

The Pentagon’s procurement system must be fixed. Dozens of the most costly weapons program are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

Killing a weapons program, starting a new one or carrying out new doctrine — all this takes time and political leadership. President Obama will need to quickly lay out his vision of the military this country needs to keep safe and to prevail over 21st-century threats.

    A Military for a Dangerous New World, NYT, 16.11.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16Sun1.html

Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda in Many Countries

November 10, 2008
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

In 2006, for example, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected militants’ compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan, according to a former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. Officials watched the entire mission — captured by the video camera of a remotely piloted Predator aircraft — in real time in the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center at the agency’s headquarters in Virginia 7,000 miles away.

Some of the military missions have been conducted in close coordination with the C.I.A., according to senior American officials, who said that in others, like the Special Operations raid in Syria on Oct. 26 of this year, the military commandos acted in support of C.I.A.-directed operations.

But as many as a dozen additional operations have been canceled in the past four years, often to the dismay of military commanders, senior military officials said. They said senior administration officials had decided in these cases that the missions were too risky, were too diplomatically explosive or relied on insufficient evidence.

More than a half-dozen officials, including current and former military and intelligence officials as well as senior Bush administration policy makers, described details of the 2004 military order on the condition of anonymity because of its politically delicate nature. Spokesmen for the White House, the Defense Department and the military declined to comment.

Apart from the 2006 raid into Pakistan, the American officials refused to describe in detail what they said had been nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks, except to say they had been carried out in Syria, Pakistan and other countries. They made clear that there had been no raids into Iran using that authority, but they suggested that American forces had carried out reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives.

According to a senior administration official, the new authority was spelled out in a classified document called “Al Qaeda Network Exord,” or execute order, that streamlined the approval process for the military to act outside officially declared war zones. Where in the past the Pentagon needed to get approval for missions on a case-by-case basis, which could take days when there were only hours to act, the new order specified a way for Pentagon planners to get the green light for a mission far more quickly, the official said.

It also allowed senior officials to think through how the United States would respond if a mission went badly. “If that helicopter goes down in Syria en route to a target,” a former senior military official said, “the American response would not have to be worked out on the fly.”

The 2004 order was a step in the evolution of how the American government sought to kill or capture Qaeda terrorists around the world. It was issued after the Bush administration had already granted America’s intelligence agencies sweeping power to secretly detain and interrogate terrorism suspects in overseas prisons and to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone and electronic communications.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush issued a classified order authorizing the C.I.A. to kill or capture Qaeda militants around the globe. By 2003, American intelligence agencies and the military had developed a much deeper understanding of Al Qaeda’s extensive global network, and Mr. Rumsfeld pressed hard to unleash the military’s vast firepower against militants outside the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 2004 order identifies 15 to 20 countries, including Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Persian Gulf states, where Qaeda militants were believed to be operating or to have sought sanctuary, a senior administration official said.

Even with the order, each specific mission requires high-level government approval. Targets in Somalia, for instance, need at least the approval of the defense secretary, the administration official said, while targets in a handful of countries, including Pakistan and Syria, require presidential approval.

The Pentagon has exercised its authority frequently, dispatching commandos to countries including Pakistan and Somalia. Details of a few of these strikes have previously been reported.

For example, shortly after Ethiopian troops crossed into Somalia in late 2006 to dislodge an Islamist regime in Mogadishu, the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command quietly sent operatives and AC-130 gunships to an airstrip near the Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa. From there, members of a classified unit called Task Force 88 crossed repeatedly into Somalia to hunt senior members of a Qaeda cell believed to be responsible for the 1998 American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

At the time, American officials said Special Operations troops were operating under a classified directive authorizing the military to kill or capture Qaeda operatives if failure to act quickly would mean the United States had lost a “fleeting opportunity” to neutralize the enemy.

Occasionally, the officials said, Special Operations troops would land in Somalia to assess the strikes’ results. On Jan. 7, 2007, an AC-130 struck an isolated fishing village near the Kenyan border, and within hours, American commandos and Ethiopian troops were examining the rubble to determine whether any Qaeda operatives had been killed.

But even with the new authority, proposed Pentagon missions were sometimes scrubbed because of bad intelligence or bureaucratic entanglements, senior administration officials said.

The details of one of those aborted operations, in early 2005, were reported by The New York Times last June. In that case, an operation to send a team of the Navy Seals and the Army Rangers into Pakistan to capture Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, was aborted at the last minute.

Mr. Zawahri was believed by intelligence officials to be attending a meeting in Bajaur, in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command hastily put together a plan to capture him. There were strong disagreements inside the Pentagon and the C.I.A. about the quality of the intelligence, however, and some in the military expressed concern that the mission was unnecessarily risky.

Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director at the time, urged the military to carry out the mission, and some in the C.I.A. even wanted to execute it without informing Ryan C. Crocker, then the American ambassador to Pakistan. Mr. Rumsfeld ultimately refused to authorize the mission.

Former military and intelligence officials said that Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who recently completed his tour as head of the Joint Special Operations Command, had pressed for years to win approval for commando missions into Pakistan. But the missions were frequently rejected because officials in Washington determined that the risks to American troops and the alliance with Pakistan were too great.

Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for General McChrystal, who is now director of the military’s Joint Staff, declined to comment.

The recent raid into Syria was not the first time that Special Operations forces had operated in that country, according to a senior military official and an outside adviser to the Pentagon.

Since the Iraq war began, the official and the outside adviser said, Special Operations forces have several times made cross-border raids aimed at militants and infrastructure aiding the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq.

The raid in late October, however, was much more noticeable than the previous raids, military officials said, which helps explain why it drew a sharp protest from the Syrian government.

Negotiations to hammer out the 2004 order took place over nearly a year and involved wrangling between the Pentagon and the C.I.A. and the State Department about the military’s proper role around the world, several administration officials said.

American officials said there had been debate over whether to include Iran in the 2004 order, but ultimately Iran was set aside, possibly to be dealt with under a separate authorization.

Senior officials of the State Department and the C.I.A. voiced fears that military commandos would encroach on their turf, conducting operations that historically the C.I.A. had carried out, and running missions without an ambassador’s knowledge or approval.

Mr. Rumsfeld had pushed in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks to expand the mission of Special Operations troops to include intelligence gathering and counterterrorism operations in countries where American commandos had not operated before.

Bush administration officials have shown a determination to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provides a legal rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries’ consent.

Several officials said the negotiations over the 2004 order resulted in closer coordination among the Pentagon, the State Department and the C.I.A., and set a very high standard for the quality of intelligence necessary to gain approval for an attack.

The 2004 order also provided a foundation for the orders that Mr. Bush approved in July allowing the military to conduct raids into the Pakistani tribal areas, including the Sept. 3 operation by Special Operations forces that killed about 20 militants, American officials said.

Administration officials said that Mr. Bush’s approval had paved the way for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to sign an order — separate from the 2004 order — that specifically directed the military to plan a series of operations, in cooperation with the C.I.A., on the Qaeda network and other militant groups linked to it in Pakistan.

Unlike the 2004 order, in which Special Operations commanders nominated targets for approval by senior government officials, the order in July was more of a top-down approach, directing the military to work with the C.I.A. to find targets in the tribal areas, administration officials said. They said each target still needed to be approved by the group of Mr. Bush’s top national security and foreign policy advisers, called the Principals Committee.

    Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda in Many Countries, NYT, 10.11.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/washington/10military.html?hp

Pentagon Expects Cuts in Military Spending

November 3, 2008
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER and CHRISTOPHER DREW

WASHINGTON — After years of unfettered growth in military budgets, Defense Department planners, top commanders and weapons manufacturers now say they are almost certain that the financial meltdown will have a serious impact on future Pentagon spending.

Across the military services, deep apprehension has led to closed-door meetings and detailed calculations in anticipation of potential cuts. Civilian and military budget planners concede that they are already analyzing worst-case contingency spending plans that would freeze or slash their overall budgets.

The obvious targets for savings would be expensive new arms programs, which have racked up cost overruns of at least $300 billion for the top 75 weapons systems, according to the Government Accountability Office. Congressional budget experts say likely targets for reductions are the Army’s plans for fielding advanced combat systems, the Air Force’s Joint Strike Fighter, the Navy’s new destroyer and the ground-based missile defense system.

Even before the crisis on Wall Street, senior Pentagon officials were anticipating little appetite for growth in military spending after seven years of war. But the question of how to pay for national security now looms as a significant challenge for the next president, at a time when the Pentagon’s annual base budget for standard operations has reached more than $500 billion, the highest level since World War II when adjusted for inflation.

On top of that figure, supplemental spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has topped $100 billion each year, frustrating Republicans as well as Democrats in Congress. In all, the Defense Department now accounts for half of the government’s total discretionary spending, and Pentagon and military officials fear it could be the choice for major cuts to pay the rest of the government’s bills.

On the presidential campaign trail, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have pledged to cut fat without carving into the muscle of national security. Both have said they would protect the overall level of military spending; Mr. McCain has further pledged to add more troops to the roster of the armed services beyond the 92,000 now advocated by the Pentagon, a growth endorsed by Mr. Obama.

Some critics, citing the increase in military spending since Sept. 11, 2001, say it would be much easier to cut military spending than programs like Social Security and Medicare at a time when most people’s retirement savings are dwindling because of the financial crisis. Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has raised the idea of reducing military spending by one-quarter.

At the Pentagon, senior officials have taken up the mission of urging sustained military spending. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has asked Congress and the nation to pledge at least 4 percent of the gross domestic product to the military. And Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned against repeating historic trends, in which the nation cut money for the armed services after a period of warfare.

“We basically gutted our military after World War I, after World War II, in certain ways after Korea, certainly after Vietnam and after the end of the cold war,” Mr. Gates said. “Experience is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it again.”

Mr. Gates acknowledges that military spending is almost certain to level off, and he expressed a goal that the Pentagon budget at least keep pace with inflation over coming years.

Apprehension over potential budget cuts has trickled down the Pentagon bureaucracy to those who each year draft the military’s spending proposals.

“If that’s what they want, they have to know that we simply cannot do everything we are doing now, but for less money,” said one Pentagon budget officer who was not authorized to speak for attribution. “So if there’s going to be less, it’s up to the president, Congress and the public to tell us what part of our national security mission we should stop carrying out.”

Much of the Pentagon budget pays for personnel costs, which are difficult to cut at any time, and particularly while troops are risking their lives in combat.

Mr. Obama has said his plan to begin drawing down American forces from Iraq would ease a wartime taxpayer burden that now totals over $10 billion a month. But budget analysts at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill say that even troop reductions in Iraq — whether at the cautious pace laid out by President Bush and endorsed by Mr. McCain or at the more rapid pace prescribed by Mr. Obama — would present little savings in the first years.

Moving tens of thousands of troops and their heavy equipment home from the Persian Gulf region is a costly undertaking. And housing at stateside bases is more expensive than in the war zone, so savings would be seen only in subsequent years.

Calls by both presidential candidates to shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan actually would add costs to the Pentagon budget, according to military planners and Congressional budget experts. It is significantly more expensive to sustain each soldier in Afghanistan than in Iraq because of Afghanistan’s landlocked location and primitive road network.

The federal budget is due to Congress in February, but that document is expected to be little more than an outline, arriving soon after Inauguration Day. Congressional officials predict the new president will require several months to put his imprint on a detailed spending plan that would actually be worth debating on Capitol Hill.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama has said he would initially maintain overall military spending at current levels.

“Obama has made it very clear that he doesn’t see how the defense budget can be cut now given the commitments we have,” said F. Whitten Peters, a former Air Force secretary now advising Mr. Obama on national security policies. “His sense is that there is not money to be cut from the defense budget in the near term.”

But in looking to future Pentagon budgets, he added, it is clear that “all the weapons programs cannot fit.”

“So,” he continued, “you’re going to have to make some hard decisions.”

Mr. McCain, a former Navy combat pilot who was taken prisoner during the war in Vietnam, is known for taking on what he has seen as wasteful Pentagon spending.

According to one of his advisers on military policy, Mr. McCain “feels very strongly that the whole procurement process is totally dysfunctional.”

“He believes that putting order, discipline and accountability back into the process will stop the gold-plating and bring costs down,” said the adviser, who asked not to be named in order to discuss the candidate’s views frankly.

These budget pressures also seem quite likely to add to the tensions between Congress and the Pentagon over the best balance between supporting the troops fighting insurgencies and developing weapons that might be needed in larger wars.

“I think we need a complete review of this whole thing,” said Representative Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat from Hawaii who is chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee. “You cannot make a case for undermining the readiness of the Army and the Marines in the circumstances that we face today with a commitment of so much money to weapons systems that are at best abstract and theoretical.”

Executives at the leading defense contractors say they realize that the Pentagon’s spending is likely to be more restrained. Boeing’s chief executive, W. James McNerney Jr., recently wrote in a note to his employees: “No one really yet knows when or to what extent defense spending could be affected. But it’s unrealistic to think there won’t be some measure of impact.”

Ronald D. Sugar, the chief executive of Northrop Grumman, told stock analysts last month that financing for the company’s projects seemed locked in for the coming year. But, Mr. Sugar added, “Clearly the pressures are going to increase in the out years.”

A number of scholars who have examined the subject, including David C. Hendrickson, a political scientist at Colorado College, predict that “defense will not prove to be ‘recession proof.’ ”

“Serious savings could be had by reducing force structure and limiting modernization,” said Professor Hendrickson, who posted a “blogbook” on the financial crisis at pictorial-guide-to-crisis.blogspot.com. “Though American power has weakened on every count, there is no reconsideration of objectives. Defining a coherent philosophy in foreign affairs and defense strategy that is respectful of limits is vital.”

Other analysts, like Loren B. Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a policy research center, say that weapons spending will be fiercely defended by many in Congress and their allies in the weapons industry as a way to stimulate the economy. Buying new armaments and repairing worn-out weapons, Mr. Thompson said, protects jobs and corporate profits, and therefore benefits the economy over all.

Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and Christopher Drew from New York.

    Pentagon Expects Cuts in Military Spending, NYT, 3.11.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/washington/03military.html?hp

Whistle-Blowers Get Little Help if Punished

October 31, 2008
Filed at 6:14 a.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Military whistle-blowers might want to save their breath. The Pentagon inspector general, the internal watchdog for the Defense Department, hardly ever sides with service members who complain that they were punished for reporting wrongdoing, according to a review of cases by The Associated Press.

The inspector general's office rejected claims of retaliation and stood by the military in more than 90 percent of nearly 3,000 cases during the past six years. More than 73 percent were closed after only a preliminary review that relied on available documents and sources -- often from the military itself -- to determine whether a full inquiry was warranted.

The high rejection rates suggest scores of complaints aren't valid, that many whistle-blowers are whiners who are prone to exaggeration. But critics, including a Republican senator, wonder whether many valid cases are dismissed before being carefully examined because of attitudes in the inspector general's office.

Indeed, a confidential government survey obtained by The Associated Press described a demoralized and ambivalent work force in the inspector general's office ''at a high level of risk.'' Investigators who handle reprisal complaints believe supervisors don't value their work, the survey found. That has a direct bearing on employees' performance and how long they stay with the office. The AP obtained a copy of the survey's results under the Freedom of Information Act.

Whistle-blowing is risky business, particularly for those in uniform. They have fewer rights than their civilian counterparts and work in a culture where questioning leadership is frowned upon. Demotions, poor performance reports and letters of reprimand are commonly used to penalize or silence whistle-blowers. Any one of these can derail even a promising career.

The AP has learned the Justice Department is reviewing a reprisal case involving a Navy officer who challenged a recruiting policy in 2002 that favored white candidates over blacks and Hispanics. Jason Hudson was removed from his job overseeing more than 130 recruiters and received a negative performance evaluation.

The Navy eventually rescinded the disputed recruiting policy. But it said Hudson hadn't been punished for challenging it even though Hudson's attorney collected evidence indicating otherwise. In early 2003, Hudson asked the Pentagon inspector general for help. More than five years later, nothing has been done to challenge or reverse the Navy's decision.

''They are supposed to serve as the conscience of the Department of Defense. And they're not,'' said Hudson, adding that his views were his own and not the Navy's. ''They don't have the ability or will to make things happen. They don't have any leverage.''

Hudson was eventually promoted in November 2007 to lieutenant commander, the equivalent of an Army major. But the negative evaluation is still in his file and makes it unlikely he'll ever be promoted again.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime advocate for whistle-blowers, conducted his own inquiry into Hudson's case over the past year and found serious problems.

''The evidence seems to indicate that your office did not ask the Navy one single substantive question about the way the Hudson investigation was being conducted,'' Grassley wrote in an Oct. 23 letter to Gordon Heddell, who was named acting Pentagon inspector general in July.

A spokesman for the inspector general, Gary Comerford, said Heddell requested the Justice Department's inquiry. He declined to comment further.

Whistle-blower reprisal cases are handled by a small team in the inspector general's office called Military Reprisal Investigations, or MRI. It performs the investigation or makes sure the military department in charge does it properly.

Nine out of 10 cases come from soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines. The rest involve defense contractors and Pentagon workers who aren't considered regular federal employees.

Just over 2,820 cases have been closed since October 2002. Yet in only 187 -- or 6.6 percent -- did the office find retaliation for whistle-blowing.

''Good work from the Defense Department inspector general has been the exception, not the rule,'' said Jesselyn Radack, homeland security director at the Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based public interest group. ''For whistle-blowers in particular, that office has been a black hole.''

The situation is only slightly better for whistle-blowers who don't wear a uniform, according to statistics from the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency that reviews most of the reprisal cases filed by civilian government employees.

Between 2002 and 2007 -- the latest statistics available -- the special counsel received nearly 4,500 reprisal complaints. In 334 of them, or 7.4 percent, the office ruled in favor of the whistle-blower.

Even whistle-blower advocacy groups acknowledge some reprisal cases are bound to be dismissed due to misunderstandings or disagreements. But most whistle-blowers don't take the step lightly.

''They understand the consequences of filing a complaint,'' said Adam Miles, an investigator with the Government Accountability Project.

Military reprisal complaints are supposed to be settled within 180 days. Yet over the past 10 years, the number of employees assigned to investigate such cases has dropped from 22 to 19 people while the workload has increased by 68 percent, according to a report to Congress. Without more employees, the report said, meeting the 180-day requirement will remain an elusive goal.

The government survey obtained by the AP was conducted in June by the Corporate Leadership Council, a business research company in Arlington, Va. More than half of the nearly 1,500 employees in the inspector general's office responded.

Overall, the survey shows about a third of the work force is ''disaffected,'' describing employees who are weak performers and who do as little work as possible. The bulk, nearly 66 percent, are classified as ''agnostics.'' They don't shirk their work, but they don't go to great lengths, either. The rest, less than 5 percent, are ''true believers'' -- the high performers completely dedicated to their jobs, according to the survey.

In August, Heddell formed a senior-level group to provide him with recommendations to improve the work environment. The office refused AP's request for a copy of the working group's report because it is using the document as part of the decision-making process.

Heddell, formerly the inspector general at the Labor Department, declined several interview requests.

''While I believe our organization has many strengths,'' he wrote in an Oct. 14 e-mail to office staff, ''I also have significant concerns about its direction and focus.''

------

On the Net:

Defense Department's Office of Inspector General: sphttp://www.dodig.osd.mil/

    Whistle-Blowers Get Little Help if Punished, NYT, 31.10.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Whistle-Blower-Woes.html

U.S. Drops Charges Against 5 Detainees

October 21, 2008
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The Pentagon announced Tuesday it dropped war-crimes charges against five Guantanamo Bay detainees after the former prosecutor for all cases complained that the military was withholding evidence helpful to the defense.


America's first war-crimes trials since the close of World War II have come under persistent criticism, including from officers appointed to prosecute the alleged terrorists. The military's unprecedented move was directly related to accusations brought by the very man who was to bring all five prisoners to justice.


Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld had been appointed the prosecutor for all five cases, but at a pretrial hearing for a sixth detainee earlier this month, he openly criticized the war-crimes trials as unfair. Vandeveld said the military was withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense, and was doing so in other cases.


The chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay has now appointed new trial teams for the five cases to review all available evidence, coordinate with intelligence agencies and recommend what to do next, a military spokesman, Joseph DellaVedova, said in an e-mail.


DellaVedova said the military might renew the charges against the five later.


Clive Stafford Smith, a civilian attorney representing detainee Binyam Mohamed, said he has already been notified that charges against his client would be reinstated.


"Far from being a victory for Mr. Mohamed in his long-running struggle for justice, this is more of the same farce that is Guantanamo," Stafford Smith said. "The military has informed us that they plan to charge him again within a month, after the election."


Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, who represents one of the prisoners whose charges were dropped, said the military might be preparing the tribunals to face increased scrutiny following next month's presidential election. John McCain and Barack Obama have both said they want to close Guantanamo.


The five detainees are Noor Uthman Muhammed, Binyam Mohamed, Sufyiam Barhoumi, Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi and Jabran Said Bin al Qahtani.

    U.S. Drops Charges Against 5 Detainees, NYT, 21.10.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-CB-Guantanamo-Charge.html?hp

Command for Africa Is Established by Pentagon

October 5, 2008
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER
 

WASHINGTON — For decades, Africa was rarely more than an afterthought for the Pentagon.

Responsibilities for American military affairs across the vast African continent were divided clumsily among three regional combat headquarters, those for Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East. Commanders set priorities against obvious threats, whether the old Soviet Union and then a resurgent Russia, a rising China or a nuclear North Korea, or adversaries along the Persian Gulf.

If deployment of fighting forces is an indicator, that historic focus north of the equator endures. But since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a new view has gained acceptance among senior Pentagon officials and military commanders: that ungoverned spaces and ill-governed states, whose impoverished citizens are vulnerable to the ideology of violent extremism, pose a growing risk to American security.

Last week, in a small Pentagon conference hall, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, inaugurated the newest regional headquarters, Africa Command, which is responsible for coordinating American military affairs on the continent.

There are barely 2,000 American combat troops and combat support personnel based in Africa, and the new top officer, Gen. William E. Ward of the Army, pledges that Africa Command has no designs on creating vast, permanent concentrations of forces on the continent.

“Bases? Garrisons? It’s not about that,” General Ward said in an interview. “We are trying to prevent conflict, as opposed to having to react to a conflict.”

Already, though, analysts at policy advocacy organizations and research institutes are warning of a militarization of American foreign policy across Africa.

Mr. Gates said the new command was an example of the Pentagon’s evolving strategy of forging what he called “civilian-military partnerships,” in which the Defense Department works alongside and supports the State Department and the Agency for International Development, as well as host nations’ security and development agencies.

“In this respect, Africom represents yet another important step in modernizing our defense arrangements in light of 21st-century realities,” Mr. Gates said. “It is, at its heart, a different kind of command with a different orientation, one that we hope and expect will institutionalize a lasting security relationship with Africa, a vast region of growing importance in the globe.”

Mr. Gates and General Ward said that this work to complement and support American security and development policies would include missions like deploying military trainers to improve the abilities of local counterterrorism forces, assigning military engineers to help dig wells and build sewers, and sending in military doctors to inoculate the local population against diseases.

While that thinking has influenced the work of all of the military’s regional war-fighting commands, it is the central focus of Africa Command.

And over the past two years, it has quietly become the central focus of the military’s Southern Command, once better known for the invasions of Grenada and Panama, but now converting itself to a headquarters that supports efforts across the United States government and within host nations to improve security and economic development in Latin America.

A number of specialists in African and Latin American politics at nongovernmental organizations express apprehension, however, that the new emphasis of both these commands represents an undesirable injection of the military into American foreign policy, a change driven by fears of terrorists or desires for natural resources.

Officials at one leading relief organization, Refugees International, warned of the risk that Africom “will take over many humanitarian and development activities that soldiers aren’t trained to perform.”

In a statement, Kenneth H. Bacon, the president of Refugees International, said that the creation of Africa Command was “a sign of increased U.S. attention to Africa.” But he also said that it was “important that Africom focus on training peacekeepers and helping African countries build militaries responsive to civilian control and democratic government.”

Mr. Bacon, a Pentagon spokesman in the Clinton administration, added, “The military should stick to military tasks and let diplomats and development experts direct other aspects of U.S. policy in Africa.”

Refugees International released statistics showing that the percentage of development assistance controlled by the Defense Department had grown to nearly 22 percent from 3.5 percent over the past 10 years, while the percentage controlled by the Agency for International Development dropped to 40 percent from 65 percent.

General Ward rejected criticisms that Africa Command would result in a militarization of foreign policy, and he said it was specifically structured for cooperative efforts across the agencies of the United States government.

For example, a deputy commander at Africom is Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates, a career Foreign Service officer. And General Ward himself previously served in a combined diplomatic and military role, as director of efforts to help reform the Palestinian security services.

But concerns remain that whatever arena the Pentagon enters, it has more money, more personnel and more power than any other government organization, American or foreign.

“If we can bring a capability that can be an assist to one of our interagency partners, then I think we ought to do that,” General Ward said. “But I draw a distinction between leading that effort and supporting that effort. We don’t create policy. This is not the job of a unified command. We implement those aspects of policy that have military implications. And we support others.”

Planners abandoned early intentions to base Africa Command in Africa, perhaps with a major headquarters and regional satellite offices. Owing to local sensitivities, security concerns and simple logistics of moving around the vast continent, which often requires routing through Europe, the command will for now have its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

General Ward said that in creating the Africa Command, he had been in close contact with his counterpart atop the military’s Southern Command, Adm. James G. Stavridis, who has received high marks from Pentagon leaders for converting the military presence in Central and South America. Where previously Southern Command emphasized direct military action, it now focuses on programs to train and support local forces, and assist economic development, health services and counternarcotics efforts.

“The more I look at this region over the two years I have been at Southcom,” Admiral Stavridis said in an interview, “the more convinced I am that the approach we need to take for U.S. national security in the region is really an interagency approach.

“Think of the problems that afflict this region — natural disasters, poverty, the narcotics trade, lack of medical care,” he said. “Our thought at Southcom is, How can we be supportive of an interagency approach? How can we partner with other interagency actors, and then tie that together with our international partners?”

Admiral Stavridis said Southern Command was “very directly and consciously not taking the lead.”

“We are trying to be part of the team, to be a facilitator,” he added.

But George Withers, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit research and human-rights advocacy organization, said in a statement that “while improved delivery of U.S. assistance is certainly an admirable goal,” putting Southern Command into a coordinating role on issues like corruption, crime or poverty “drains authority from the State Department and resources from the Defense Department.”

    Command for Africa Is Established by Pentagon, NYT, 5.10.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/world/africa/05command.html?hp

Commanding a Role for Women in the Military

June 30, 2008
The New York Times
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON — For more than a decade, Lt. Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody has delighted in leaping through the doors of military planes and plunging into the night with a parachute on her back.

A master parachutist and a former battalion commander, General Dunwoody handled logistics for the 82nd Airborne Division in Saudi Arabia during the first gulf war. As a three-star general, she has flown to Afghanistan and Iraq to ensure the steady flow of ammunition, tanks and fuel to the troops.

But one of the biggest joys of her 33-year military career has been jumping out of airplanes and into roles previously unimaginable to generations of women in the Army. Last week, President Bush asked General Dunwoody to take over a new Army command as a four-star general. If confirmed by the Senate, she will become the first woman in the armed services to achieve that rank.

In her new role, General Dunwoody, 55, would lead the Materiel Command of the Army, which supplies soldiers with military hardware, repairs armored vehicles and sustains combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Her quiet, determined climb into the Army’s upper echelon highlights both the widening role that women are playing in the armed forces and the difficulties they encounter in reaching the top.

“I grew up in a family that didn’t know what glass ceilings were,” General Dunwoody said in a statement. She declined to comment for this article, saying through an Army spokeswoman that she preferred to wait until after her Senate confirmation hearing. Senate Democrats said a hearing date had not been scheduled.

General Dunwoody’s brother, father, grandfather and great-grandfather all graduated from West Point. Her father, Harold H. Dunwoody, and great-grandfather, Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody, served as one-star generals, her relatives say. Her older sister, Susan Schoeck, was the third woman in the Army to be a helicopter pilot. And her niece, Jennifer Schoeck, is a fighter pilot who has flown missions in Afghanistan.

Today, women make up about 14 percent of the 1.4 million people on active duty in the military. More than 100 women have died in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the number of women at the very top, while growing, remains small. In the Army, where women make up 14 percent of active duty personnel, they account for about 5 percent of the generals, according to Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman. There are 15 one-star generals, three two-star generals and two three-star generals, including General Dunwoody.

Friends say that General Dunwoody, who specializes in logistics and is married to Craig Brotchie, a retired Air Force colonel, has chafed over the years at those who questioned her abilities or marveled at her accomplishments.

“Her issue is, when are people going to stop being surprised?” said Jeanette Edmunds, 55, a retired major general who has known General Dunwoody since the two attended officer training in the 1970s.

“You’re not out there thinking, ‘Am I good enough?’ ” General Edmunds said. “You don’t think, ‘I’m going to be the first this or that.’ You think, ‘This is cool. People think I’ve done good work.’ ”

Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the former American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan who retired this month, agreed. He described General Dunwoody as “remarkable” and praised her leadership skills and creative thinking, pointing to innovative strategies she developed to support soldiers in the rugged terrain in Afghanistan.

“She has been in and out of both theaters, and she knows what we’re up against,” said General McNeill, describing her work in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It’s really unfortunate that most of the focus will be on her gender.”

But for many military women, General Dunwoody’s nomination is something to be celebrated, precisely because she has pierced what many describe as the “brass ceiling.”

Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, who in 1997 became the first woman in the Army to reach the rank of three-star general and is now retired, said she felt giddy when she heard the news.

“I was twirling and throwing my hat in the air,” she said. “It shows people that the leaders in the Army think it’s important to pick the best qualified, not just the men.”

General Dunwoody, who lived in Germany and Belgium when she was growing up, joined the Army after graduating from the State University of New York at Cortland with a degree in physical education in 1975.

In recent years, she has preferred to speak publicly about the opportunities for women in the Army as opposed to the difficulties they face.

“This nomination,” she said in her statement, “only reaffirms what I have known to be true about the military throughout my career: that the doors continue to open for men and women in uniform.”

But earlier in her career, General Dunwoody talked frankly about her struggles to make her mark in the male-dominated military. “It was like coming into the Dark Ages,” she said in a 1992 interview with The New York Times. She was describing her initial experiences as an officer with the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, N.C., in the late 1980s.

“Some senior officers perceived that their bosses would think less favorably of them if they allowed me to be assigned to the division in a critical position,” she said.

When she was a major at Fort Bragg, her superiors assigned her to account for the division’s equipment, including trucks, weapons and parachutes, a job normally given to low-ranking captains.

She said her assignments improved when her supervisors became familiar with her work. Her colleagues recall that General Dunwoody, who competed in gymnastics and tennis in college, also impressed her peers with her fierce athleticism. (Even today, she runs regularly, sails and plays tennis.)

“She impressed a lot of people in that environment, a high-density male environment, a high-testosterone environment,” said Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, a former military commander in Afghanistan who worked with her at Fort Bragg and is now retired.

Her résumé soon listed a string of notable firsts. In 1992, she became the first woman to be battalion commander for the 82nd Airborne Division. In 2000, she became the first woman to be a general at Fort Bragg.

In 2004, she became the first woman to be commander at the Combined Arms Support Command of the Army at Fort Lee, Va.

Her brother, Harold H. Dunwoody Jr., said she loved handling logistics for soldiers in the field, perhaps because she grew up watching from afar as her father served in Vietnam. “I think supporting the troops is what she really enjoys doing most,” he said.

That job got more difficult after the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Defense logistics officers struggled to overcome shortages of armor, lithium batteries and tires in the early days of those conflicts, the Government Accountability Office reported.

Last year, General Dunwoody, who became the Army’s senior logistician in 2005, acknowledged in an interview with Inside the Army that the service was struggling to maintain and repair blast-proof trucks because they had so many different models. She became the deputy commanding general of the Materiel Command this month.

“Over time they’ve made improvements,” William M. Solis, who analyzes military issues for the Government Accountability Office, said of the Army’s logistics efforts. “But it’s a huge endeavor.”

If she harbors any doubts about assuming her new rank or her new duties, General Dunwoody does not let them show, her friends say. In her new role, they expect that she will do what she has always done — take a deep breath and take the plunge.

“You can live a humdrum, everyday life or live it for all it’s worth,” General Edmunds said. “She lives it to the fullest.”

    Commanding a Role for Women in the Military, NYT, 30.6.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/washington/30general.html

U.S. drops charges against accused "20th hijacker"

Tue May 13, 2008
12:28pm EDT
Reuters
By Kristin Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Tuesday it dropped charges against a Saudi who U.S. officials say intended to be the "20th hijacker" on September 11 but sent five others to trial for allegedly planning the 2001 attacks.

A Pentagon appointee who oversees the U.S. war court at its Guantanamo Bay military prison did not say why she rejected the charges that prosecutors sought earlier this year against Mohammed al-Qahtani.

She dismissed the charges "without prejudice," a distinction that allows the U.S. government to try to bring charges against Qahtani again.

Murder and conspiracy charges against the five other men accused of planning the attacks, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were approved, the Pentagon said. That means the men, all held at Guantanamo, must be arraigned within 30 days.

They will be tried together in proceedings that should start within 120 days. If convicted, they may face the death penalty.

"What we are announcing today is the next step, which is the referral of charges," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

U.S. military prosecutors first recommended charges in February against the detainees -- Mohammed, Qahtani, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash.

The charges include conspiring with al Qaeda to murder civilians and 2,973 counts of murder, among others.

Mohammed, known as KSM, has said he planned every aspect of the September 11 attacks. But his confession could be a problem if used as evidence because the CIA has admitted it subjected him to "waterboarding" -- an interrogation technique that simulates drowning and has been widely criticized as torture.

U.S. officials say Qahtani tried to enter the United States on August 4, 2001, but was stopped by immigration officials at a Florida airport and placed on a flight out of the country. He was later captured in Afghanistan.

(Editing by Bill Trott)

U.S. drops charges against accused "20th hijacker", R, 13.5.2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1347678320080513