Articles by Herschel Smith

So why should you be reading The Captain’s Journal?  Quite simply, because we are finding the obscure information, connecting the dots, and giving you the analysis before it becomes analysis to other analysts.  Let’s go over two cases in point.

USA Today reports on confiscated weapons piling up in Iraq.

Coalition forces have uncovered more insurgent weapons caches in the first six months of this year than the entire previous year, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Monday.
The record number of seizures is due largely to a new U.S. strategy that has moved American forces off bases and into neighborhoods, generating more tips from civilians. Offensives have also disrupted insurgent sanctuaries, Petraeus said.

Uncovering weapons caches are one of several signs of recent military progress, Petraeus said. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will travel to Washington in September to give an assessment of the new strategy in Iraq, which is backed by an additional 30,000 American troops.

“We feel as if we have momentum, tactical momentum,” Petraeus said in a telephone interview from Baghdad.

Petraeus cautioned that challenges remain and insurgent groups maintain the ability to carry out large attacks. “I don’t want to paint a rosy picture,” he said.

Uncovering the caches, which can include everything from rockets and surface-to-air missiles to assault weapons and components for roadside bombs, gets weapons out of the hands of insurgents.

It’s also a sign of how prevalent weapons and ammunition are in Iraq. The numbers of arms caches uncovered so far this year is 3,698, up from 2,726 last year, according to the military command in Iraq. “It’s staggering,” Petraeus said.

General Petraeus, not a man given to superlative or exaggeration, says the numbers are “staggering!”  But we have been reporting on this and analyzing it for some time now.  On April 27, 2007, we reported that the Government Accounting Office  informed us as to just how important pre-war planning and post-invasion manpower was to securing weapons:

Unattended Iraqi ammunition depots provide the majority of explosives used by insurgents to attack U.S. and coalition troops with improvised explosive devices, according to a Government Accountability Office report released April 27.

“There’s an unknown number of sites that remain unsecured today,

So why should you be reading The Captain’s Journal?  Quite simply, because we are finding the obscure information, connecting the dots, and giving you the analysis before it becomes analysis to other analysts.  Let’s go over two cases in point.

USA Today reports on confiscated weapons piling up in Iraq.

Coalition forces have uncovered more insurgent weapons caches in the first six months of this year than the entire previous year, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Monday.
The record number of seizures is due largely to a new U.S. strategy that has moved American forces off bases and into neighborhoods, generating more tips from civilians. Offensives have also disrupted insurgent sanctuaries, Petraeus said.

Uncovering weapons caches are one of several signs of recent military progress, Petraeus said. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will travel to Washington in September to give an assessment of the new strategy in Iraq, which is backed by an additional 30,000 American troops.

“We feel as if we have momentum, tactical momentum,” Petraeus said in a telephone interview from Baghdad.

Petraeus cautioned that challenges remain and insurgent groups maintain the ability to carry out large attacks. “I don’t want to paint a rosy picture,” he said.

Uncovering the caches, which can include everything from rockets and surface-to-air missiles to assault weapons and components for roadside bombs, gets weapons out of the hands of insurgents.

It’s also a sign of how prevalent weapons and ammunition are in Iraq. The numbers of arms caches uncovered so far this year is 3,698, up from 2,726 last year, according to the military command in Iraq. “It’s staggering,” Petraeus said.

General Petraeus, not a man given to superlative or exaggeration, says the numbers are “staggering!”  But we have been reporting on this and analyzing it for some time now.  On April 27, 2007, we reported that the Government Accounting Office  informed us as to just how important pre-war planning and post-invasion manpower was to securing weapons:

Unattended Iraqi ammunition depots provide the majority of explosives used by insurgents to attack U.S. and coalition troops with improvised explosive devices, according to a Government Accountability Office report released April 27.

“There’s an unknown number of sites that remain unsecured today,

A great web site, VAJoe.com, is having a charity vote, and Joe will donate $2000 to the charity with the most votes.  Naturally, we support any charity related to the Marines (such as the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund).  But to be honest, there are many great charities (we would prefer that you stop by and vote for any charity that assists wounded warriors).  God bless our warriors.

Michael Totten is in Baghdad, and while his (most recent) entire report is both interesting and highly worth reading, I want to focus in on the following words:

“They have a little bunker up there,

In a jaw-dropping move, the Marines have cracked down on none other than wearing uniform (from the Strategy Page).

The U.S. Marine Corps has decided that it is not good for the image of the Marine Corps for marines to wear their combat (“utility”) uniform off base. New regulations nullify many exceptions to this rule that had been established by the commanders of many marine bases. The new rule allows marines to wear their cammies (camouflage) uniform while driving form (sic) their off-base home to and from work.

In the next revelation, we sit in wonder at the DoD actually paying people to spend time crafting the caveats, stipulations and qualifications. Hold onto your cover.

But they may not get out of their vehicle while wearing cammies unless it is an emergency (an accident, or some matter of life-and-death importance.) Marines may not get out of their car to gas up their vehicle while wearing cammies. If they run out of gas, they may then exit their car to deal with that. Marines are advised to pay attention to the fuel status of their private vehicles, and to carry a set of civilian clothes, or a marine service uniform, in their vehicle, in case they have to get out. The only exception is for marines driving military vehicles for long distances. Marines may exit their vehicles to use the toilet, but this must be done as quickly as possible.

On the bright side, tax advisors believe this new rule will allow marines to deduct the cost of their work uniforms from their taxes. In the past, the IRS had ruled that the cost of utilities, fatigues and BDUs were not deductible as they could be worn off base. The IRS reasoned that, if you could go into a store or restaurant, your uniform was not limited to the workplace, and was therefore not deductible. The high tech camies worn today are not cheap, and a marine can go through several hundred dollars worth a year.

Again, this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Here we have the Marine Corps weighing in on how quickly a Marine can use the bathroom during travel, and stipulating that if it isn’t fast enough, he will have to strip down inside the automobile to change into his service alphas (but only if he is traveling long distances and assuming he has either placed a pair in his car or has purchased an additional pair for his automobile).

The pittance that is saved on taxes each year will be outweighed by the additional purchase of clothing, placing additional civilian clothing at work, and the aggravation of considering these rules and trying to adhere to them. At a time when the Marine Corps is trying to increase its size and retain experienced personnel, it is things like this that will cause them to bolt for the civilian world.

Finally, the Marine Corps has just handed the Army a recruiting victory on a platter. Now when the little boy in the airport, at the gas station or simply out at the mall or in the city asks mom, “who is that?” she can answer, “Son, that is a brave Soldier.” The U.S. Marine Corps now forces all of its warriors to go through the public square incognito.

Sometimes one can only shake his head and move on to other things. There is no explanation.

The broad outlines of the long range plan being formalized by senior military leadership was divulged several days ago.  The plan includes an extension of force deployment in Iraq to provide security, along with pressure on the government and various political and religious factions to resolve differences.

Fred Kaplan weighed in on the plan at Slate in an article entitled Interesting But Doomed: Why Petraeus’ Ingtriguing New Iraq Strategy Will Probably Fail.  The plan has numerous critics, but Kaplan’s most recent article warrants close study, including (we think) at the same time both misperception and compelling argument.  In order to mine his complex thoughts on the matter, his article will be cited at length, followed up by commentary and analysis.  Kaplan writes:

If the U.S. military had, say, 100,000 more troops to send and another 10 years to keep them there; if the Iraqi security forces (especially the Iraqi police) were as skilled and, more important, as loyal to the Iraqi nation (as opposed to their ethnic sects) as many had hoped they would be by now; if the Iraqi government were a governing entity, as opposed to a ramshackle assemblage that can barely form a quorum—then maybe, maybe, this plan might have a chance.

But under the circumstances, it seems unlikely. One officer who’s familiar with Iraq planning put it this way to me: “No one who understands the situation is optimistic. I think the division among those who have thought deeply about the situation is mainly between those who are still fighting and trying to influence the outcome and those who have concluded that the principal objective must now become disengagement.”

Kaplan outlines in broad form the known problems with the Iraqi government and culture, and then summarizes his opening remarks by citing bleak insider views about the situation.  Then he gets specific.

First, to define “localized security” as including “Baghdad and other areas” is to finesse the major challenge. Securing Baghdad and securing “other areas” have long been considered two separate goals. The former involves pacifying the capital, to give the national politicians enough “breathing room” to make their deals. The latter involves keeping the rest of the country—or at least the major cities—sufficiently secure that democratic politics can function from the ground up as well as from the top down. Ever since late last year, when President Bush ordered the “surge” and hired Gen. Petraeus to create a counterinsurgency strategy, the plan has involved securing the capital and the provinces simultaneously.

The problem—a familiar one—is that we don’t have enough troops to do this all at once. No one who has seriously analyzed the problem ever believed that a “surge” of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. combat troops would be sufficient. It was assumed from the outset that at least two or three times that many would have to come from the Iraqi army (whose soldiers, furthermore, would have to take the lead in many operations) and the Iraqi police (who would need to maintain order once the troops seized new territory).

Yet Iraqi forces have not materialized in anything like the necessary numbers. Many army units are infiltrated with sectarian militiamen. Many, if not most, police units are thoroughly corrupted.

The second, “intermediate” phase of the plan is more intriguing, but ultimately unpersuasive. For a few months now, U.S. field commanders have formed alliances with Sunni tribesmen, especially in Anbar province, for the common goal of crushing jihadists. The new plan, as the Times puts it, is “to stitch together such local arrangements to establish a broader sense of security on a nationwide basis.”

But in these alliances, we’re dealing with tribesmen who are cooperating with us for a common goal. It is not at all clear on what basis these various local Sunni factions can be stitched together into some seamless security quilt—or why, because they’ve agreed to help us kill jihadists, they might suddenly agree to stop killing Shiites, compromise their larger ambitions, redirect their passions into peaceful politics, and settle into a minority party’s status within a unified government.

Kaplan has within a few words hit on three salient themes: (1) force size, (2) ‘whack-a-mole’ counterinsurgency, and (3) the inability to utilize Iraqi security forces and police to assist in the COIN campaign due to corruption and sectarian divisions.  Kaplan then targets the strategy of alliance with the Anbar tribal leaders and explains why he believes that this ultimately will fail (or at least, most probably will fail).

Alliances of convenience rarely outlive their immediate aims. Josef Stalin formed an alliance with the United States and Britain for the purpose of defeating Nazi Germany. But once the war was over, he had no interest in integrating the Soviet Union into the Western economic system.

The idea of extending the alliances may have come, in part, from Stephen Biddle, a military historian and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who, according to the Times, was a member of the “Joint Strategic Assessment Team” that helped conceive the new U.S. strategy.

In a July 12 interview at the Council, conducted by Bernard Gwertzman, Biddle said that the only way to secure all of Iraq is “to negotiate a series of cease-fire deals with Iraq’s current combatants in which, even though they retain the ability to fight, they decide it’s in their own self-interest to … decline to fight.”

He referred to Anbar as “a model” for this concept, and added, “There are now similar negotiations ongoing in a variety of other places around Iraq.” In Anbar, he said, the alliance “dropped into our lap”; the Sunni sheiks came to us and asked for help. “If it’s going to happen elsewhere, we’re going to have to take a more proactive role. … We have to start using the military not as a device to secure everything uniformly but as a device for creating incentives and disincentives—sticks and carrots—to push along the process of local cease-fires with particular factions.” For instance, he said, we would have to tell each faction: “We will defend you if you cooperate; if you don’t cooperate, we will attack you” …

Some set of “sticks and carrots” could conceivably extend the alliances of convenience into a sustained cease-fire of normal democratic politics. But if so, the deal would have to be hammered out by a recognized government in Baghdad. Neither Gen. Petraeus nor Ambassador Crocker (nor, for that matter, President Bush) has the political authority to make such a deal—much less the military firepower to enforce it.

Analysis &  Commentary

Stephen Biddle notwithstanding, reconciliation with the indigenous insurgency in Anbar has been ongoing for quite a while.  It is absurd to claim that the peace between the Anbar tribes and U.S. forces merely “dropped into our lap.”  As we observed in Al Qaeda, Indigenous Sunnis and the Insurgency in Iraq:

… terrorization of the population (and competing groups) managed to achieve its goal of keeping the population in submission, at least until the Marines prevailed over the course of several years at hunting down and killing many of the rogue elements.  It has been observed that  

It seems as if half of the blog-0-sphere has spilled ink on the issue of young Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp and his ugly charges: mass graves in Baghdad (in my city we call these ‘cemeteries’), mental abuse of IED victims, and other such things (see here, here, here, here and here).  I have resisted as long as I can, and feel that I should have shared my thoughts long ago.  So now, TCJ weighs in on the young Private.

I think we should have an investigation.  The PAOs and lawyers could lead it.  Perhaps we should transfer Beauchamp.  Yes I suppose that’s right.  I suppose that’s the thing to do.  Wait.  Wait.  I’ve got a better idea.  Let’s transfer the whole squad off the base.  Let’s — on second thought, the whole division … let’s transfer ’em off the base.  Go on out there and get those boys down off the fence, they’re packing their bags.

Get me the President on the phone; tell him we’re surrendering our position in Baghdad.  Wait a minute.  We won’t call the President just yet.  Perhaps we ought to consider this a second.  Maybe we have a responsibility to this country to see that the men and women charged with its security are trained professionals.  Yes.  I’m certain I once read that somewhere.  And now I’m thinking that our idea of investigations and hand wringing and surrender, while expeditious, and certainly painless, might not be in a manner of speaking, the American way.

Young Private Beauchamp has had a lot of extra time on his hands.  He has had time to send e-mail, make telephone calls, and perhaps even eat ice cream.  After all, they have a dining hall, a place to actually sit and eat chow.  After considering surrender, I have changed my mind and I advocate training young Beauchamp.  Yes, that’s it!  There are Marines in Combat Outposts in Fallujah who have no chance to eat ice cream in dining halls.  They take showers by using baby wipes, and they have to burn their human waste in pits of stinking fire.  They have no electrical power, and no amenities.  They certainly don’t write e-mails home to use as articles for or against anything.  They are busy 20 hours out of the day, and sometimes 24 hours out of the day.

Young Beauchamp needs to be trained.  He badly needs to stay busy.  Young Beauchamp needs to be on patrol, picking up a rifle and standing a post, and contributing to Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Let’s send him out to the Combat Outposts where he will learn to work.  His unit badly needs discipline and motivation.  The United States of America has an obligation to instill these things and train young Private Beauchamp.  I am certain that I read that somewhere.

It seems as if half of the blog-0-sphere has spilled ink on the issue of young Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp and his ugly charges: mass graves in Baghdad (in my city we call these ‘cemeteries’), mental abuse of IED victims, and other such things (see here, here, here, here and here).  I have resisted as long as I can, and feel that I should have shared my thoughts long ago.  So now, TCJ weighs in on the young Private.

I think we should have an investigation.  The PAOs and lawyers could lead it.  Perhaps we should transfer Beauchamp.  Yes I suppose that’s right.  I suppose that’s the thing to do.  Wait.  Wait.  I’ve got a better idea.  Let’s transfer the whole squad off the base.  Let’s — on second thought, the whole division … let’s transfer ’em off the base.  Go on out there and get those boys down off the fence, they’re packing their bags.

Get me the President on the phone; tell him we’re surrendering our position in Baghdad.  Wait a minute.  We won’t call the President just yet.  Perhaps we ought to consider this a second.  Maybe we have a responsibility to this country to see that the men and women charged with its security are trained professionals.  Yes.  I’m certain I once read that somewhere.  And now I’m thinking that our idea of investigations and hand wringing and surrender, while expeditious, and certainly painless, might not be in a manner of speaking, the American way.

Young Private Beauchamp has had a lot of extra time on his hands.  He has had time to send e-mail, make telephone calls, and perhaps even eat ice cream.  After all, they have a dining hall, a place to actually sit and eat chow.  After considering surrender, I have changed my mind and I advocate training young Beauchamp.  Yes, that’s it!  There are Marines in Combat Outposts in Fallujah who have no chance to eat ice cream in dining halls.  They take showers by using baby wipes, and they have to burn their human waste in pits of stinking fire.  They have no electrical power, and no amenities.  They certainly don’t write e-mails home to use as articles for or against anything.  They are busy 20 hours out of the day, and sometimes 24 hours out of the day.

Young Beauchamp needs to be trained.  He badly needs to stay busy.  Young Beauchamp needs to be on patrol, picking up a rifle and standing a post, and contributing to Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Let’s send him out to the Combat Outposts where he will learn to work.  His unit badly needs discipline and motivation.  The United States of America has an obligation to instill these things and train young Private Beauchamp.  I am certain that I read that somewhere.

In Can the Air Force Contribute to Counterinsurgency, I reiterated some of the exchange that Major General Dunlap and I had concerning air power and counterinsurgency over a commentary at the Small Wars Journal Blog.  I concurred with Dunlap’s opinions, and have encouraged the consideration of the increased use of air power in small wars in order to effect the kinetic part of counterinsurgency more rapidly and efficiently.  Of course, on cue, the objection came that the increased involvement of air power would lead to greater collateral damage.

In Air Power in Small Wars, I extended this discussion to include accounts that despite the tardy debates back home in the states, the Air Force was already finding a way to contribute to the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq.  I also linked video showing anecdotal evidence of the hazards associated with the use of stand-off weapons such as artillery, pointing out that the objection to the use of the Air Force was equivalent to an objection to any stand-off weapon, whether Air Force or Marine and Army artillery.

Even this discussion is a bit tardy.  In A-10s Support Marines in Anbar, I discussed the fact that as of January 2007, the A-10 (438th Air Expeditionary Group) was going back into action to provide close air support for Marines in the Anbar Province.  This relationship with the A-10s to assist with counterinsurgency might be about to become more formal (h/t SWJ).  The USAF is considering a new A-10 COIN Squadron.

Chief of Staff General Michael Moseley has told Jane’s he is considering the creation of a new counterinsurgency (COIN) squadron of A-10A Thunderbolt II aircraft for the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC).

Gen Moseley said he is mulling the possibility of putting a squadron of A-10A close-support aircraft inside AFSOC to serve the Special Operations Command, which has the lead engagement role in the US-declared global war on terrorism.

“There’s a variety of … counterinsurgency aircraft and other things out there that we’ve been looking at that would facilitate AFSOC’s partnership with the Special Operations Command,

From Iraq by an AFP stringer:

Another scene from an AFP stringer:

These pictures were taken during combat operations with the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, Golf Company, 3rd Platoon, fighting in Fallujah, and were available in the public domain via Yahoo.  Yet, I have a personal connection to these photographs.