The Credibility
Gap spreads like the Hong Kong flu from Enron and
Wall Street to the Pentagon to Centcom, and back to the White House, where the
Commander in Chief took personal control, at his own peril, to make sure the
American public hears the message we are supposed to
hear.
Mature Americans are not dismayed at signs
of dissension, and do not insist everyone sing from the same page. It’s no secret that the retired
military are speaking out, often to the consternation of the Pentagon PR
machine, but giving the thoughtful public more to consider on the whole. We arrive at the truth only by knowing
the whole story, not just a portion of it, and God help us if we don’t want to
know the whole truth.
Former Special Ops man Col. W. Patrick
Lang: “Well, you know, you have to begin to ask yourself, what does winning
mean here? If we killed 3,000 Somalis with Task Force Ranger, which is just a
tiny little infantry outfit with a few helicopters and we go into Baghdad,
fight our way into downtown Baghdad to evict the regime, how many Iraqis are
we going kill? What’s that going to do to our position in the future and in
the Arab world, Islamic world especially? You have to ask yourself, what does
winning mean in this case?”
That was a quote taken (out of context)
from the conversation last night on PBS Newshour, which has kept three retired
military men at the table every night since bombing began for analysis you
won’t find on the hyperactive mainstream media (PBS in the US really is the
best news for grownups and they’ve been broadcasting both CBC-Canada and the
BBC, and are using independent reporters consistently. The simple truth is that it helps
conversations remain intact and intelligent when they are not constantly
interrupted by commercials and you give people and topics 15 – 20 minutes
instead of 3). I think it is
worth mentioning to this list that the men at this quiet table are older than
the men who are providing play-by-play commentary on the major networks,
something that surely does not need to be elaborated.
While we wait for the main fighting
division, the 4th Infantry, to arrive, there is more in depth
analysis about false expectations vs flexibility to make adjustments at
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june03/military_03-28.html.
I’m noting this because Who You Can Trust? is becoming an issue
already, not too surprising given the baby boomers among us who came of age
during Vietnam and Watergate.
Need I say more? Don’t
forget that last summer while they were training for this operation in Iraq
with war games in the desert and on the water, the commanding officer who was
designated to play the bad guy went off the script and began to beat the
script-following commanders, using guerrilla tactics and surprise
maneuvers.
(See Attached) The games were suspended and the unrepentant commander
sent home. “No fair, they said. You have to play by the rules.” Today, in Iraq, the enemy isn’t
playing by the rules and some of our leaders may have been overconfident in
their optimistic forecasts. As
word is leaked out (Tommy Franks?) that Washington cut Franks’ original
deployment in half, can you blame the military vets for speaking up?
“Ray Suarez: So repeatedly in the way that
we had imagined fighting this war, irregular troops were not a big part of the
equation, in your experience.
Former Air Force guy Col. Samuel Gardiner:
That's right. I mean we had planned... we envisioned fast-paced offensive
operations. That began to emerge eight or nine years ago. We envisioned a
strong impact by air power. We envisioned a rapid unfolding. We envisioned
fighting in the cities. We envisioned chemical and biological weapons -- but
never heard irregulars.” (See above URL)
Here is something I saved in October that
bears reading again, from one of two military experts that write for the
Washington Post even during peace time, Arkin (dot.mil) whom some of you may
have seen as the only unshaven, somewhat dour man on MSNBC
broadcasts:
The Circle
of American Vulnerability
by William M. Arkin,
Special to washingtonpost.com*, Monday Oct 14, 2002
@ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23453-2002Oct14.html
Excerpt:
“The
truth of the matter is that no one in the U.S. military is seeking urban
warfare in Baghdad. If the
preferred strategy of airpower and special operations doesn't work a la Desert
Storm in 1991; if Saddam himself and his inner circle aren’t killed or so
weakened by air and special operations attacks; if warfare doesn't create the
expected split between regular conscript Army, and Saddam Hussein’s security
apparatus thereby provoking internal unrest; if Iraqi conventional forces
aren't utterly defeated in battle defending their country, then the United
States might have to engage in some form of urban warfare. That's a lot of "ifs." Predicting that urban warfare will be
a disaster for the United States requires assuming Iraqi competence and
cohesion, two elements pretty much absent the last time it faced U.S.
forces.
The
Failaka Island death does speak volumes about the military culture, and the
predisposition of the Bush war party. Post-September 11, the vast American
military force has been spread out across the globe in new locations from the
Philippines to the "stans" of Asia, to the Persian Gulf, to the former Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe.
The
image is
of special forces, intelligence agents, covert operators and gumshoes fighting
the terror war at its source.
Mostly
though, our boys and girls are computer network and communications operators,
base engineers, cooks, drivers, refuelers, storekeepers, clerks, and guards,
lots of guards.
They
are hostages to a 20th century military establishment that pursues only a tiny
sliver of a 21st century war.
In
the war on terrorism, even in war with an organized state like Iraq,
the
enemy is not only a conventional army. As the Failaka Island attack
demonstrates, the enemy is also a random pop-up assassin, a video game style
ninja to be found as each corner is turned, as each dark alley is
entered. There
seems no way for the administration to both fight the known enemy and follow
its preemptive new doctrine without having to fight video game style: shoot
first and ask questions later. We put our troops out there on Failaka
Islands all over the globe and then our intelligence and law enforcement
apparatus fails to detect a threat.
The guards -- as guards are always likely to do -- fail
to detect determined infiltrators.
Our men out there are not sufficiently armored or prepared to foil the
ninjas. So shoot
first.
Most
important, the attack itself confirms to those in the White House and the
Pentagon who are overseeing the war on terror that the threat is exactly what
they thought it was, requiring U.S. forces everywhere. In this way, the logic of the war
against terror has become completely circular.
The
incident of Failaka Island is a snapshot
of
what is going wrong in our terror war.
Basic security procedures break down or are non-existent, a la
September 11. The custodians of
our security once again fail to identify, detect, or thwart a terrorist
attack, even one against armed soldiers in a completely controlled environment
on a remote island in a supposedly friendly country, and the Bush
administration concludes that it must pursue the anti-terrorism war ever more
fiercely. All the while the
pickup snipers join the Lackawanna crew and the "guests" of Guantanamo, the
shoe bomber and the anthrax mailer, in a cast that provides license for
national security policymakers to pursue a questionable strategy overseas
while chipping away at American liberties at home -- all in the name of a war
that will allegedly make Americans safer.”
FINALLY in today’s NYT, this crack in the
armor, signaling that the media’s learning curve accelerated after Desert
Storm 1 and is collectively flashing back to Vietnam:
2 Views of War: On the Ground and at the
Top
By John M. Broder with Eric Schmitt, NYT,
March 29, 2003 @ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/29/international/worldspecial/29CENT.html
CAMP
SAYLIYA, Qatar, March 28 - Top American generals and their field commanders
have begun to give sharply differing accounts of the war in Iraq, sometimes
creating an impression that two different wars are being fought.
Commanders
on the ground report unexpectedly
stiff resistance
from Iraqi troops and Baath Party irregulars and say it will take longer to
remove the Iraqi government than planned. "There is an organized
pattern of resistance,"
Brig. Gen. John F.
Kelly,
assistant commander of the First Marine Division, said today of the attacks by
Iraqi forces. "Their determination is somewhat of a surprise to us all." He
added:
"What we were really hoping was to just go through and everyone would wave
flags and stuff."
Field
commanders
complain of dire shortages of food, fuel and ammunition. They say they have
had to adjust their battlefield tactics to handle rear-guard attacks and are
rethinking the strategy of bypassing cities in southern Iraq in a headlong
race to lay siege to Baghdad. But
the view from the top is very different. Here at Central Command headquarters,
where Gen. Tommy R. Franks is overseeing the conduct of the war,
officials
insist there have been no surprises, no adjustments, no supply problems. The
war is going just as they envisioned.
The
disparity in views was brought into sharp focus today when word reached here
that Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of Army forces in the Persian
Gulf, said that war planners had not anticipated what he called the "bizarre"
behavior of Iraqi forces. General Wallace said on Thursday that weather and
continuing shortages of crucial materiel because of overextended supply lines
would likely lead to a longer war than most strategists had predicted. Asked
to respond to the comments today, a senior Central Command official said only,
"General Franks believes the plan is on track and on the timeline."
In
Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he had not read General
Wallace's remarks. "I saw the headline," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And I've seen a
lot of headlines that don't fit articles." He then added, "I suppose everyone
can have their own view."
General
Franks has not appeared in the high-tech briefing room here since Monday.
Instead, the duty has been assigned to Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, a telegenic
young West Point graduate who was auditioned and rehearsed for the role by
communications aides assigned
to Central Command by the White House. (that
would be Jim Wilkinson’s work, the former GOP campaign guru - KWC).
On
Thursday, General Brooks opened the briefing by saying, "We remain on plan and
we're confident that we will accomplish our objectives." Today he began with,
"The coalition is setting the conditions for future operations and we remain
focused on the key objective of removing the regime and disarming Iraq." He was asked about General Wallace's
widely reported remarks and said, somewhat implausibly, that he had not seen
them. But
he suggested that a field officer - even a three-star corps commander - does
not have enough information to draw large conclusions about the overall shape
of the war.
General
Brooks drew a distinction between the grunt's war - the "tactical level" - and
the generals' war - the "operational level."
He said things might occasionally go awry for the soldiers and force changes
in the war-fighting plan. "But at the operational level," he said, "with what
we seek to achieve, it remains unchanged." He elaborated, "And so that's what
we're talking about at this level, at the Centcom level. There's a different
view down on Planet Earth, if you will, as you described it. The closer you
get to the line, the more precise the realities are."
That
reality was described today by Col. Joe Dunford, commander of the Fifth
Regimental Combat Team, which had led the marines drive northward. "Initially,
in the South Rumaila oil fields, we faced regular army soldiers with low
morale who gave up pretty easily. Since we have been up here, we have seen a
much
more irregular threat. They are much more determined, determined but not very
well trained."
The
descriptions of the war from Centcom are leading to grumbling here and in
Washington about a credibility
gap
between what reporters see and hear on the battlefield and what the top brass
at headquarters are saying, or not saying.
The
Central Command briefing operation here was presented as the place to get the
big picture, the mosaic
constructed from all the little pieces of information from commanders in the
field and reporters assigned to military units. But instead
of an overall strategic view of the war,
the 600 reporters credentialed to the media center here have been given
brief
video snapshots
of the effect of precision weapons and
long discursions on why information is not available here.
For example, no one here has yet offered an explanation for the explosion in a
Baghdad marketplace on Wednesday in an area of the city where American bombs
and missiles were dropped to hit suspected missile emplacements.
Frustration
is building in the media center. Many news organizations have sharply reduced
their presence here after investing huge sums of money to build up bureaus in
the expectation that this would be the journalistic nerve center of the
war. ABC, for example, at one
point had nearly 70 people here, including a "Nightline" crew and George
Stephanopoulos, host of the network's Sunday morning program, "This Week."
Today, ABC has about a dozen people left to provide a feed on the chance news
might be made here, network officials said.
On
Thursday, Michael Wolff, the media critic at New York magazine, noted that the
briefings are now being conducted by mid-level officers and the Pentagon or
commanders in the field have already released most of the information
dispensed here. "So I guess my
question is, why should we stay?" Mr. Wolff asked. "What's the value to us for
what we learn at this million-dollar press center?" The room erupted in
applause.
General
Brooks replied, "First, I would say it's your choice." He said there are a
number of other places where information is available and that he is not in a
position to answer detailed questions about operations, even those that have
been completed. He repeated General Franks' assertion last Saturday that the
more information about the conduct of the war the press gets, the more
information Saddam Hussein gets.
General
Franks’ attitude has suffused the entire press operation here, one senior
military official said. He said
that the general believes the system of assigning reporters to units in the
field is working well, although he occasionally worries that reporters are
giving away too much about current operations. But General Franks sees no need to
provide the Iraqis with any more intelligence about American capabilities or
plans than they already have, and thus the daily briefings have been markedly
short on detail.
Some of us are moaning, It’s Déjà vu all
over again.
Karen Watters
Cole
East of Portland, West of Mt
Hood
Outgoing mail scanned by NAV
2002
