Archive for the 'War & Warfare' Category

Courtesy of Global Security:

A senior U.S. military spokesman says Iranian forces have infiltrated Iraq to provide training, money and equipment to Shi’ite extremists and fuel their insurgency. The officer went farther than others have in detailing Iran’s alleged role in Iraq’s violence.

U.S. officials frequently criticize Iran for supporting Iraqi Shi’ite extremists. But in the past they have declined to say whether that support includes infiltration by Iranian forces. At a news conference Wednesday, Brigadier General Michael Barbero made that direct connection.

“I have seen reports of their involvement and presence there as trainers to train these terrorists and extremist groups,” he said.

General Barbero, an operations officer on the staff of the top U.S. generals, also says Iran is providing technology to help Iraqi insurgents build more effective bombs, what the military calls Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs.

“I think it’s irrefutable that Iran is responsible for training, funding and equipping some of the [Shi’ite] extremist groups, and also providing advanced IED technology to them,” he said. “And there’s clear evidence of that.”

The bombs are the insurgents’ most effective weapons, accounting for more than half of the more than 2,500 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, and thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties.

General Barbero says coalition troops have not directly encountered any of the Iranian forces he says have been inside Iraq, and he would not provide any details on the number or specific duties of the Iranians.

Asked what the U.S. military is doing to fight the Iranian influence in Iraq, he said it is mainly a political challenge, but there is at least one thing the military can do.

“Militarily, in the execution of this operation to neutralize the [Shi’ite] extremist groups, we’ll go a long way to removing their direct influence into the affairs of the sovereign country of Iraq,” noted General Barbero. 

This information (General Barbero’s announcement) has been available for several days, but I wanted this to mature and ripen.  I wanted to think about it for a couple of days.

The information about Iran and the support (technological, training and financial) of the IED threat in Iraq has been known for many months.  The link here shows that this information is at least five months old, and this is simply the quickest link I could dig up.  Further, in my post Iran the Terror Master, I cite Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, entitled Bad Neighbor.  It was posted on April 16, 2004, more than two years ago.  The whole piece is so jaw-unhinging that much of it bears repeating here:

By January, the anti-U.S. Badr Corps, trained and financed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, had established a large office on Nasiriya’s riverfront promenade. Below murals of Khomeini and the late Ayatollah Mohammad Bakr Al Hakim hung banners declaring, no to America, no to Israel, no to occupation. Two blocks away in the central market, vendors sold posters not of moderate Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, but of Supreme Leader Khomeini. By January 2004, Zainab Al Suwaij, the granddaughter of Basra’s leading religious figure, was reporting that Hezbollah, which has close ties to the Revolutionary Guards, was operating openly in southern towns like Nasiriya and Basra, helping to stir up violence. The next day, at his daily press briefing, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, “No, I don’t know anything about Hamas and Hezbollah in Iraq. … We’ll stop them if we can get them.” Coincidentally, I visited Basra on January 14 without informing the local CPA coordinator. One block from the main market, Sciri and Hezbollah had established a joint office. A large Lebanese Hezbollah flag fluttered in the wind.

The Iranian government has not limited its support to a single faction or party. Rather, Tehran’s strategy appears to be to support both the radicals seeking immediate confrontation with the U.S. occupation and Islamist political parties like Sciri and Ibrahim Jafari’s Dawah Party, which are willing to sit on the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council and engage with Washington, at least in the short term. The Iranian journalist Nurizadeh wrote in April 2003, “[President Mohammed] Khatami [and other Iranian political leaders] … were surprised by the decision issued above their heads to send into Iraq more than 2,000 fighters, clerics, and students [to] the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and al-Dawah Party.” My own experience backed up his claims. This February, I spoke with a local governor from southern Iraq who wanted to meet me after he learned that I lived and worked outside CPA headquarters. The governor complained that the CPA was doing little to stop the influx of Iranian money to district councilmen and prominent tribal and religious officials. The money, he said, was distributed through Dawah offices established after a meeting between Jafari and Iranian security officials.

Twice in the last twelve years, large-scale Iranian destabilization efforts have confronted U.S. military interventions. In Bosnia, after significant internal debate, George H.W. Bush’s administration chose to block Iranian infiltration, risking revenge attacks against the United States by Iranian-linked terrorists. In September 1992, Tehran attempted to ship 4,000 guns, one million rounds of ammunition, and several dozen fighters to Bosnia. An Iranian Boeing 747 landed in Zagreb, where, in response to U.S. pressure, the Croatian military impounded the weapons and expelled the jihadis. Today, there is little threat of radical anti-U.S. Islamism in Bosnia.
 
Almost a decade later, the current Bush administration identified an Iranian challenge in Afghanistan. Speaking before the American-Iranian Council on March 13, 2002, Zalmay Khalilzad, senior National Security Council adviser for the Middle East and Southwest Asia, declared, “The Iranian regime has sent some Qods forces associated with its Revolutionary Guards to parts of Afghanistan. . . . Iranian officials have provided military and financial support to regional parties without the knowledge and consent of the Afghan Interim Authority.” Rather than combat this Iranian challenge, the Bush administration chose diplomacy. “Notwithstanding our criticism of Iranian policy, the U.S. remains open to dialogue,” Khalilzad continued. Today, visitors to Herat, a main city in western Afghanistan, consider Iranian influence there to be extremely strong.

In the wake of Sadr’s uprising, Washington is faced with the same choice: End Iran’s infiltration through forceful action, or wish it away. How long can we afford to keep choosing the latter?

The Army Corps of Engineers has constructed border forts in order to help secure the border.  Smuggling operations have been ongoing for years, and Iraqi General Nazim stated in June of 2005 that:

“We captured three men and there is proof they blew up oil pipelines near Nuft Khaneh under the orders of Iranian intelligence officers,” he said. “They had people working with them in Baquba too.”

It was known in October of 2004 that the border was porous, and that exchange of vehicular traffic between Iraq and Iran was a routine occurrence with demanding duties of the border guards.

When asked what the U.S. is doing about the Iranian influence, General Barbero stated that this was “mainly a political challenge.”

I hate to be a detractor, but I feel that it is my duty to be one of a red-flag-raisers from time to time, so I continue to run the flag up the pole.  Under what circumstances is the actions of the enemy “mainly a political challenge?”  What would cause such a state of affairs that a General looks to politics to address a country that has produced the IED technology that has caused half of the U.S. troop deaths in Iraq?

What proof is there that this issue could not be addressed militarily?  Is it not possible to stop the flow of personnel, money and equipment across the border?  Why would we not patrol the border with drones and other aircraft, unleashing air-to-ground ordnance upon anyone who crossed the border?  Why is it necessary for anyone to cross the border?

These questions should be addressed.  As it stands at the present, the General looks weak, Iran goes unhindered in their influence in Iraq, the border is porous, and the U.S. looks to politics with the enemy to change conditions in a war on the ground.

It is truly a bizarre set of circumstances.

Global Guerrillas has a very interesting piece up entitled “Playing with War.”  In it John Robb argues that:

The western way of war in the 21st century is a pale shadow of the warfare it waged in the 20th. The reason is simple: for western societies war is no longer existential. Instead, it’s increasingly about smoothing market flows and tertiary moral concerns/threats. As a result of this diminishment of motivation, western warfare is now afflicted with the following: 

John continues with a complete description of what I will include as an outline listing (for editorial and space reasons):

• Operations of low lethality
• Marginal placement within national priorities
• Muddled objectives

The upshot according to John is that wars will become increasingly difficult to win, because:

• Asymmetric motivation (of the enemy)
• New methods of warfare
• Proliferation of opposition

Finally, the following points are outlined as a summary for learning to live within the constraints imposed by this new breed of warfare (I will quote completely).  We should learn to avoid:

• Nation-building as a global social policy. Historically, counter-insurgency against an established enemy has almost never worked (and when it has, it usually involves bloody exterminations). Any attempt to build a nation will likely, particularly in the current environment of globalization, yield an opponent that will be impossible to defeat through limited means. Further, the durations of these conflicts will exceed the capacity of the western states to maintain a cohesive set of objectives — they will shift with opinion polls and political winds.
• Collapsing rogue states. In almost all instances, despite how easy it is to collapse a weak state with modern weapons, those wars launched to collapse rogue states will not yield positive results. The collapse will necessitate calls for revival (see item one). Unless states are willing to live with partial collapse without resolution, they should not undertake the action in the first place.
• Escalation of tension. Given an inability to resolve conflicts through nation-building and state collapse, western states should endeavor to deescalate conflicts rather than ignite them. Escalation is a false God that promises a return of the motivational clarity found in the wars of the 20th Century. It cannot deliver this. The only thing it provides is a widening and deepening of the conflict through the proliferation of opposition. 

Mr. Robb probably knows about one thousand times as much about the current subject as I do.  So it is with all due respect that I say that I think that his characterization of the problem(s) is incomplete.

Having a son in the Marines, I study everything I can get my hands on pertaining to his training, the history of the Marines, the nature of the current conflict, and what he will likely be doing in several months.

One of the more interesting things that I have learned is the concept of “small wars.”  I highly recommend reading the Small Wars Manual, and I especially recommend visiting the Marine Corps Small Wars web site and another site called Small Wars Journal.  I make a daily visit to these sites (and sometimes more).

What Mr. Robb describes has already been described in detail in the Small Wars Manual.  In fact, the Marines have known this not since the publication of the manual in the early ’40s, but essentially since the birthday of the Marines, 10 November 1775.

Since their birthday, the Marines have been engaged in small, low intensity conflicts at the behest of the President, oftentimes without the support of the public, without a declaration of war, and without clear goals or orders, while battling both regular forces and insurgencies and while also having to deal with more pedestrian issues such as electrical power and the restoration of government.  Such engagements have often relied upon rapid, mobile and robust force projection.

The above paragraph is not an advertisement.  The Small Wars Manual is as salient today as it was when it was first published.  It is an admonition for the Army to consider its future.  The Marines have had to adapt, modify, adjust and make-do based on the changing conditions of the over three hundred low intensity engagements in its history.  The Army will do the same, or it will become irrelevant to the twenty first century.

If this type of warfare is not new, then what has changed?  My contention is that politics has changed.

Politics and failure to act decisively allowed Bin Laden and many in Al Qaida leadership to escape Tora Bora.  Politics failed to execute a warrant for al Sadr’s arrest during Paul Bremer’s watch in Iraq (I recently saw an interview with Bremer on FNC in which he attributed this failure to a military decision, saying that he was in favor of al Sad’r arrest.  I know nothing of the decision making or line of authority concerning this matter, but if the military made this decision, then the one who actually approved of letting al Sadr escape arrest should be on the receiving end of a courts martial).  Politics has caused us to cease hostilities on Ramadan.  Politics has caused us to refuse to fire upon Mosques (until very recently).  Politics has caused problems for Gitmo.  Politics has dragged generals in front of congressional inquiries to be battered by those seeking to stake out a position for the upcoming elections in November.

There is a deep division in America, with one side being not just anti-military, but rather, socialistic and anti-American to a large extent, and this is a failure of American society, not American military strategy or might.  Even though the Marines have engaged in conflicts before in which the public was unsupportive (or unaware), the difference now seems to be politics in the highest ranks of the military brass.  The military establishment seems less willing to insulate the decision-makers from politics, and potentially risky decisions are avoided due to their being seen as potentially career-ending decisions.  To summarize, my contention is that the main difference today is the deference being paid to politics by the military brass (and senior leadership, including the Secretary or Defense and even the President).

When properly posed, I believe the question to be “do we have the political will to win?”  The tactics, strategy, manpower, know-how, equipment and patriotism are already in place.

It is not a question of warfare.  It is a question of politics.

Postscript: Even if I am right, this post doesn’t address the other issues raised in the GG post such as nation-building.  I will post on this at a later time.

I have posted several times on the battle for Baghdad, begging for rapid and intense offensive action.  The only boundaries on our offensive action should be the limits of intelligence.  Our intelligence network should be large, deep and well-paid enough by now to be able to decipher where the insurgents are, who the bomb-makers are, and where they are located.  Al-Sadr’s militia, the so-called Mahdi army, continues to be a problem, and Iraqi PM Maliki will not decisively act against him:

Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, is a Shiite-dominated city where the influence of Mahdi Army has been gradually increasing. It already runs a virtual parallel government in Sadr City, a slum in eastern Baghdad.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has found it difficult to rein in al-Sadr, whose movement holds 30 of the 275 seats in parliament and five Cabinet posts.

Al-Sadr’s backing also helped al-Maliki win the top job during painstaking negotiations within the Shiite alliance that led to the ouster of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Al-Sadr mounted two major uprisings against the American-led coalition in 2004 when U.S. authorities closed his newspaper and pushed an Iraqi judge to issue an arrest warrant against him.

But American forces have also been wary of confronting the Mahdi Army because of al-Sadr’s clout over the government and his large following among Shiites, who are in a majority in Iraq.

Nine U.S. troops died over the weekend, eight of which were from roadside bombs (IEDs) in and around Baghdad.

As I have suggested repeatedly, al-Sadr’s influence and power should make him a prime target.  The notion that because he is supported by the Shiite people the U.S. should be reluctant to engage him is, to me, analogous to saying that because Nasrallah is supported by some of the Islamicists in southern Lebanon, Israel should be reluctant to go after him.  This is manifestly absurd.

Finally, Baghdad is a restive city.  It has been said that the battle for Baghdad will be measured in months, not days.  But at the rate of nine U.S. troops per weekend, if this rate continues, we could be sustaining hundreds more U.S. deaths to IEDs before Baghdad is pacified.

This should be intollerable to both the brass and the U.S. public.  Not a single military spokesman has proferred a single reason why a broad, sweeping, aggressive, offensive action to clean out Baghdad, capture or kill al-Sadr, and kill the bomb-makers is not possible and in order.  If it is politics that is holding us back, then let’s bring our boys home now.

Politics loses, not wins, wars.  This is still a war, isn’t it?

Haaretz has this:

A 17-year-old boy who died during tryouts for pilot training was apparently killed by heat stroke rather than dehydration, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The commander of the Israel Air Force, Major General Elyezer Shkedy, has ordered an investigation into the death of Itai Sharon of Zichron Ya’akov, who died on Wednesday.

A debriefing revealed that between 6:30 and 8:00 A.M. Wednesday, the group of teens involved in the tryout went on a six-kilometer march carrying weights. The IDF’s chief medical officer, Brigadier General Hezi Levy, said that the heat stress factor did not rule out such activities under army regulations. At 8:30 A.M., the heat stress factor became borderline in terms of the regulations governing strenuous physical activity, so the group was assigned activities that they could do sitting down.

An hour after the march, Sharon’s friends saw him sitting in the sun. When they summoned him into the shade, they noticed that he was confused and apathetic. After they made the commanders aware of Sharon’s condition, he was sent for medical treatment. He was found to have a high fever, given a transfusion and transferred to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, where he lost consciousness and died.

Heat stroke, in which the body is unable to discharge heat built up during strenuous activity, is a known risk in very hot weather. A number of IDF soldiers have died of heat stroke over the years.

In my post “Israel’s Might Army: Plan and Keep the Balance,” I said:

In my post “Israeli Army in Disarray During War,

Our friend Mike at Cop the Truth sent me an interesting (but not surprising) link from the Herald Sun in Australia.

An Iran-based web site run by Hezbollah has run this picture of Hezbollah rockets allegedly hitting an Israeli ship last month.

Examine the features of the blast.  Now look at this picture below, of the intentional sinking of the Australian destroyer-escort HMAS Torrens in 1998 upon being retired and decommissioned:

Right click on the picture and notice the link URL.  It is from Defense Industry Daily.  Examine the features of the explosion in this frame and compare it with the frame above.

The real question is how anyone who views the Hezbollah web site could be so stupid as to believe that this was a picture of the Israeli ship.

The picture is obviously taken from the air (i.e., a helicopter) based on the oblique angle.  And it cannot have been taken from much more than about 1 km away.  So in order to believe that this was the Israeli ship, someone would have to believe that either:

1. Israel has a helicopter in the air that day taking time lapse photograpy, and then decided to release this picture to the press showing its failure to protect its ship, or
2. Hezbollah now has an air force and it made it to within 1 km of an Israeli war ship without being molested; the occupants of the aircraft knew when the Hezbollah missile was launched, and took time-lapse, fast shutter speed photography at the time of the missile impact.

The Herald Sun reported that since its publication of these pictures, the Hezbollah web site had removed its post.

Not so.  At the time of this post on the Captain’s Journal, the Hezbollah web site still has this post online.

I just can’t figure out who the clowns are: Hezbollah or their followers.