Doug Feith on Jon Stewart

Doug Feith was on The Daily Show on May 12 talking about his new book War and Decision.

He summed up one of the strongest arguments for the war very succinctly:

There was a sense that Saddam was breaking out of the containment strategy that the U.N. had put in place, and we were going to have a fight with him. We didn’t want it to be at the time and place of his choosing.

Video 2 of the interview is the most substantive:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=168544&title=douglas-feith-uncut-pt.-2

Admiral Mullen Speaks at Heritage

Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, spoke at The Heritage Foundation on April 15 after his testimony before the House Armed Services Committee earlier in the day.

A key point of his talk was his view that the U.S. needs to expand the size and scope of its military in coming years. Citing difficulties in partitioning troop levels between Iraq and Afghanistan, he advised raising defense spending to 4% of GDP. He said this will have a positive impact at some point, but admitted it’s unlikely to have an immediate effect on current deployments.

We are growing the forces about as fast as we can grow them in the Marine Corp and Army. We will not be able to increase the numbers significantly for another few years.

Mullen said increased defense spending and the existence of a mightier military will allow the U.S. to better meet future challenges, while helping prevent aggressive actions against American interests.

We need to have a national debate about how much we want to spend on our security. We need an apparatus that provides for the kind of deterrent capability that allows our country to thrive.

He reiterated his support for General Petraeus’ testimony before Congress last week and gave his own brief assessment of the positive developments he sees in Iraq.

The surge has worked. It is working. Our casualties are down. Our injuries are down. As are casualties among Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces.

He urged continued support for the surge, and said that though troop levels in Iraq are causing difficulties in Afghanistan, the focus needs to stay on Iraq. 

I need the force to handle that now and I need the force to handle it in the future. The priority is Iraq right now–providing the security so that the government can get on its feet.

Once troops are freed up from Iraq, the very first brigade to Afghanistan will go toward training Afghan army and police forces, he said.

With regard to China, Mullen supports fostering friendly relations between the two militaries, and was encouraged by some of the recent efforts he’d been involved with.

I’m a big believer in military to military engagement… A peaceful rise of China could be beneficial to the world.

When asked what he sees as the greatest threat on the horizon, he didn’t hesitate:

Iran. Besides Iraq and Afghanistan I’m principally focused on the Middle East. I worry greatly about Iran.

[Iran's] not just affecting what’s happening in Iraq, it’s now reaching out into Afghanistan.

“Concerned Local Citizens” in Iraq

If you missed last week’s Weekly Standard article about Lt. General Odierno then you missed a concise little explanation of the success and strategy behind the Concerned Local Citizens groups in Iraq. It’s hard to miss some of the breathless accounts in the media about how these former insurgents who are cooperating with the Americans against Al Qaeda are bound to switch sides again. The article by Fred and Kim Kagan, entitled “The Patton of Counterinsurgency,” sheds a little light on the topic.

Here’s an excerpt:

As other groups emerged in and around Baghdad, Odierno and Petraeus seized on opportunities to make friends of former enemies.

This was no easy decision. Americans had been dying at the hands of Sunni Arab resistance groups since 2003. Many of the “concerned local citizens” (CLCs, now called “Sons of Iraq” because “concerned local citizens” translates poorly into Arabic) were themselves former members of the insurgency. There was some grumbling among U.S. troops about cooperating with former enemies and much concern that the “transformation” of these insurgents into partners would only be temporary.

Petraeus and Odierno, however, saw it as an opportunity. Contrary to popular misconception, they refused requests to provide weapons to the CLCs (who almost invariably had their own weapons anyway). They insisted that all CLCs provide detailed biometric data (fingerprints and retinal scans), the serial numbers of their weapons, their home addresses and family relationships. Counter-insurgency experts have often wryly remarked that it would be easy to end an insurgency if the enemy would only wear uniforms. By collecting all of this information about the CLCs, Odierno and Petraeus were in essence putting uniforms on them. Any CLC who turned against the Coalition or Iraqi forces could be readily identified if he, or his weapon, were captured–and Coalition troops would know immediately where he and his family lived. There have been very few reports of any CLC members taking the risk.

Aside from general, sweeping remarks about how our troops are doing a great job, it’s uncommon to hear in depth reports about what’s improving and how it’s being done. And there is even less reporting about small unit experiences and tactics. Good news is no news. Save the anecdotes for casualties.

Anti-Sniper Device

Here is a brilliant little device recently developed by the QinetiQ company based in Reston, VA.

The first time I heard about the concept of such a device was when the Sniper of Baghdad videos were circulating around the internet in 2005 and 2006. Anyone who’s seen that video or spoken to some of the troops in Iraq knows how terrifying and paralyzing a sniper can be to a combat unit. Locating and eliminating an unseen enemy can take a disproportionate amount of time and resources, making the sniper an essential tool in the arsenal of terrorists and insurgents.

QinetiQ’s apparatus can be vehicle, static or personnel mounted. It tracks the acoustic signatures of gunshots and rapidly allows the soldiers to zero in on the sniper’s position. It’s a fantastic device for helping our troops achieve their mission, and, more importantly, it’ll save lives.

French Base in the UAE

Early last week French president Nicolas Sarkozy made a deal with the UAE that would allow France a Mideast military base on Emirati soil. The base would be small, housing a maximum of 500 personnel, but it would mark the first non-American foreign base in the Middle East.

Read the story on Al-Jazeera here.

What does this mean for the U.S.? With Sarkozy in charge and his apparent willingness to work toward rapproachment with the U.S., creating a French base in the UAE hardly seems adversarial. It might even be viewed as tacitly standing behind the U.S. in its Mideast efforts. The long range effects, however, are more questionable. A French military presence may ulitimately be used as a balance to U.S. power in the region, rather than a support.

Saddam’s FBI Interrogator

60 Minutes just aired Scott Pelley’s interview with George Piro, the FBI special agent who spent seven months interrogating Saddam Hussein. View the entire transcript here.

Aside from learning about Saddam’s little idiosyncracies and the personal dynamic that developed between him and Piro, there were three really interesting bits of information in the 60 minutes interview.

First is that, according to Piro, Saddam made his final decision to invade Kuwait in 1990 when Kuwait’s emir insulted the honor of Iraqi women. Saddam wanted to teach him a lesson, so he started a war.

Piro and Pelly also discussed why Saddam had allowed Iraq to be invaded by the U.S. in 2003. Did he think he could win? Was he simply in denial? Piro said Saddam  expected merely the type of limited air assault the world was used to seeing during the Clinton years. By the time he realized George W. Bush was serious, it was too late.

But the most important part of the interview was the discussion about Iraq’s WMD progams. Piro said Saddam told him Iraq’s weapons were all destroyed either by U.N. weapons inspectors or voluntarily. Saddam claimed he did not announce this to the world because he saw the threat of having these weapons as instrumental to keeping himself in power. But, according to Piro’s account, he was ready to reinitiate his weapons programs as soon as the international scrutiny eased up:

In fact, Piro says Saddam intended to produce weapons of mass destruction again, some day. “The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there,” Piro says.“And that was his intention?” Pelley asks.“Yes,” Piro says.“What weapons of mass destruction did he intend to pursue again once he had the opportunity?” Pelley asks.“He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program,” says Piro.

“Chemical, biological, even nuclear,” Pelley asks.

“Yes,” Piro says.

Pelley quickly changed the subject, but Piro had already made a profound statement. Saddam admitted to him he wanted to get on with developing nukes, and biological and chemical weapons. Is this a justification for the Iraq War? It may very well be. Arguments can be made either way but it’s certainly something 60 Minutes should have given more than ten seconds of screen time.

Hopefully some other news outlet will be able to spend more time with Piro and do a more in depth interview about this particulat topic.

Oh, and way to go FBI. Fantastic job.

IED Close Encounter

  An unsuccessful, but still scary IED explosion in Iraq.