March 6,
2002
Soldiers For The Truth
(SFTT) Weekly Newsletter
When we assumed the Soldier, We did not lay aside the Citizen.
General George Washington, to the New York Legislature, 1775
In this week’s Issue of DefenseWatch:
Dragonfire and Anaconda
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| FROM THE EDITOR: Anaconda and Dragonfire: This War Is Far From Over |
By Ed Offley
It almost seemed that the war against terrorism had reached a plateau, or a prolonged lull: Afghanistan was in the hands of an interim government after the flight of the Taliban and their al Qaeda gunmen; U.S. Army Special Forces were in the Philippines training their counterparts in preparation for a counter-offensive against radical Islamic guerrillas and other plans were slowly proceeding to help other countries; in the United States the word was that nearly six months after the devastating terrorist attacks, the evidence trail was thinning out and only a handful of suspects in custody could be linked in any concrete form to the band of 19 murderers who had hijacked the airliners.
We should have known better and many of us - but not all of us - did know. The lull was an illusion, the war is far from over.
Up in the Afghan mountains near Shah-e-Kit, hundreds of brave and dedicated American soldiers and their allies are doing what must be done. For five days, they have been taking the war against al Qaeda into the bloody and intimate space of a close-quarter firefight. A war that began at knifepoint inside American airliners is being returned to the caves above Gardez. In five days of furious combat, the al Qaeda gunmen have demonstrated their resolve to fight to the death, and our soldiers are carrying out the mandate of the civilized world to exterminate them where they hide.
Only those few warriors who have experienced and survived the full fury of battle, from the Ia Drang valley to the slums of Mogadishu, can fully appreciate what is happening in "Operation Anaconda" in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Only the widows and parents and children of soldiers who fell in those earlier battles can fully understand the grief and sorrow that has befallen the families of the nine Americans who have already been killed there, or the fear of dozens of other families whose loved ones have been wounded in battle.
Here at home, the parallel illusions of a returning normalcy have likewise been shattered.
We now know why Vice President Cheney and a cadre of Executive Branch officials have been rotating into secret underground facilities since last fall. The Bush administration - which must put the preservation of the continuity of government at the top of its priority list - has feared since last October that al Qaeda may have obtained a stolen (or illegally purchased) nuclear weapon from the former Soviet Union. While experts, including Contributing Editor Robert G. Williscroft in this edition of DefenseWatch, offer informed reassurances that the nuclear threat may ultimately prove to be less dangerous than feared, our national leaders have been forced to act on the side of prudence, however diminished or even impeached the intelligence of the source called "Dragonfire" may have been.
Other experts this week - from Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak - explicitly warned that it is likely additional al Qaeda terrorist cells continue to hide inside the United States, biding their time before striking again. Again, we cannot afford to assume that this may not be the case.
It has been said many times by Third World dictators and terrorists alike that Americans have no stamina for a long-term struggle. Assad of Syria once said, "Americans can't hold their breath," and our precipitous withdrawal from a failed peacekeeping mission in Beirut 19 years ago seemed to prove him right. Osama bin Laden, having trained Somali fighters to attack U.S. forces in Mogadishu in 1993, would later brag that President Clinton ordered our force to withdraw, "dragging its tails in failure, defeat and ruin."
All Americans - soldiers, civilians, Republicans and Democrats alike - have a three-part mission that is as vital today as that of the 101st Air Assault Division, Special Operations Forces and allied units fighting in Afghanistan: First, we must stay alert at home for precursor signs of terrorist attack; second, we must embrace our fighting men and their families with love and support, and third, we must not allow the doubters, naysayers and demagogues among us to deter us from staying the course.
Our soldiers and their fanatical enemies know this well, and so should we: This is a fight to the death.
Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at defensewatch@aol.com.
| Hack's Target For The Week: Ban On Beer An Insult to Our Soldiers in Germany |
By David H. Hackworth
No beer for our soldiers in Deutschland, a land long famous for its brew?
That's the skinny from the guys sharpening their bayonets and zeroing their main tank main guns as they prepare for a little trip to Iraq.
Next week, the beer ration will be completely cut off by the commander of the storied V Corps - a multi-division unit that did in the Nazis, stopped the Soviets and has been keeping the peace in the Balkans, all missions executed superbly with a six-pack in the ready rack.
Here's Lt. General William S. Wallace's justification for this astounding order: "To maintain the security, health, and welfare of the U.S. Forces … and respect the local laws and customs of the sovereign state of the Federal Republic of Germany."
When I first got word I rang the Pentagon: "Is it true?" I asked. "News to me. I'll check and get back to you." A few hours later, I was informed that V Corps PR folks knew nothing, but they'd check and get back in touch. Now, at deadline, still nothing. A sergeant there says, "They're hiding. Hoping you'll go away."
Meanwhile, I got a barrage of commo from outraged soldiers who say its happening along with multiple copies of the now infamous order that the general's publicity guys can't find.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm a party animal into pushing alcohol. I quit drinking years ago. But what kind of leader cuts off his troops as they're test-firing their weapons to face the widow maker? Can you imagine George Patton cutting off the grog just before D-Day? If this is the quality of Wallace's decision-making, I sure don't want him commanding our kids in combat.
I keep flashing on Christmas 1950. Korea. Our Army had suffered one of its most stinging defeats and morale was in the toilet. Everyone from grunt to general was singing "The Bug Out Blues," until we got a new skipper, Matthew Ridgway, a magnificent paratroop general.
One of his first orders after tearing up the withdrawal plans and replacing them with attack ops was to bring back the beer and whiskey ration. Officers got a few bottles of hooch a month and we grunts got a can of beer a day. Overnight we all went from feeling sorry for ourselves to kicking butt. It wasn't just the beer, it was Ridgway's leadership. Unlike Wallace, he trusted his soldiers and treated us as adults who could handle a cold one when the bullets sang.
A tough old sergeant with an MBA tells me, "You can't even have a beer at home. They treat a soldier who may have had a glass of beer as though he'd just been caught smoking crack. They take blood, put it in a pouch and fly it to Walter Reed. We're talking big time Pilgrim lunacy."
"I've never seen alcohol ever interfere with training or combat, even well before this insulting order was hatched," says a Germany-based multi-war combat vet colonel.
A 22-year old PFC writes, " I don't need to be told when I can drink. My parents accomplished that years ago. I was able to find the recruiting office, join on my own and get to this point without a violation. I can do a lot more on my own as well as making simple right and wrong decisions."
Withholding beer by fiat is micromanaging at its worst. It cuts the feet out from under the squad leader on up to the division commander and makes our soldiers look like kindergarteners. The German people and our Brit and French military counterparts must think this 7/24 "restraining" order is taking political correctness to a new high.
"I see this order as the general's lack of confidence in we junior leaders," a captain says. "I can lead my men in battle, but not supervise them in the barracks?"
A sergeant major says, "It undermines attitudes. I trust my soldiers. The general doesn't. Here's the hooker: I know them. He doesn't. I expect his next order to stop sex."
Let's hope the German beer lobby is able to turn Wallace on to local lager customs or that a psychic channels Matt Ridgway. Our dry and angry Green Machine in Germany could use a real two-fisted commander right about now.
http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831.
© 2002 David H. Hackworth
| ARTICLE 01 - Vietnam's Lesson From Lowered Army Standards |
By J. David Galland
His company commander called him "Lieutenant Shithead" in front of his own men. The troops of his platoon described him as gung-ho but having no common sense. Others wondered how he ever made it through Officer Candidate School because he could not even read a map or a compass. At one point, there was even a reward offered on his head to whatever platoon member would shoot him first.
Yet, this young exuberant Army officer would make his mark in history.
In so doing he would expose, and come to symbolize, the classic result of failed Army policies, dishonesty and the gross, "ticket-punching" incompetence of his higher command.
He was, of course, Lt. William Calley, the eager and disastrously unprepared platoon leader whose men murdered 109 civilians at the village of My Lai 4 in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968.
What have we learned over the years? Not much, it seems. Today, we see the Army lowering the bar of standards. This premier fighting force apparently realizes that there is not an endless line of volunteers laying siege to recruitment centers across our great land. Just how far will the Army go to ensure the stability of its desired soldier level of 480,000 uniformed warriors? What depths will it sink to, in its embrace of soldiers and candidates who are less qualified than those accepted into its ranks only months ago?
The Army beats its own chest in announcing the achievement of recruiting goals. However, down at troop level and from my corner of the foxhole, all indicators paint a picture of both dismal numbers and dubious soldier quality.
We have already learned of the Army's new policy on deserters. This muddled scheme hatched by Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White dictates that deserters must be returned the unit from which they ran. After being returned they will be re-evaluated, debriefed on why they deserted, offered available therapy, rehabilitated and retrained in the belief that they can be "born again" as effective soldiers. Over time, this new policy - one that tasks individual commanders to set aside scarce unit time, manpower and resources to fix the Sad Sacks - will prove to be a major detriment to unit morale, cohesiveness and readiness, according to the vast majority of officers and senior NCOs with whom I have talked.
But to assess the threat of declining soldier standards today, let's revisit the latter part of the 1960s, when the Army was having endemic problems with recruitment and retention.
Above and beyond the negative impression of military service that flourished as a result of the war in Vietnam and the massive anti-war movement at home, Army officials found they could not hold on to the cadre of experienced officers and senior NCOs that they had recruited in the 1960s. One of the main causes of this attrition that gutted the professional NCO corps was the repeated and subsequent deployments and tours to Vietnam. When not fighting in Vietnam, many NCOs were then transferred to training positions were their morale slipped further as a result of having to train unwilling recruits. The result was a tremendous hemorrhage of veteran NCOs from the Army.
The Army's enlightened response to that particular retention problem was to create what became known as "shake-and-bake" non-commissioned officers hastily cranked out of the service's NCO academies. From my personal observation, the end state was usually a loud-mouthed teenager who was prolific at shining a helmet liner and a pair of jump-boots, and not much else. This filled the NCO corps with inexperienced young men who largely believed that the quality of an NCO could be measured by the decibel level of his voice.
Today, the Army has imposed a different strategy to ensure the integrity - that is, the raw numbers - of its force structure. Since the terrorist attacks last Sept. 11, the Army has issued its third "stop-loss" announcement prohibiting soldiers with critical MOS specialties from retiring or leaving active duty when their enlistment terms end. In my specialty area of military intelligence (MI), virtually every commissioned officer, warrant officer and enlisted military intelligence specialist has been affected by stop-loss. You can bet that you have not seen the end to a broadening stop-loss policy in other MOS areas as well.
Similarly, the Army recently announced that it will begin enlisting first-term soldiers "off the block" for Special Forces training and assignment. Maturity, regimentation, aggressiveness and innate personal discipline - critical absolutes in order to succeed in the Special Forces assessment and qualification course - have been abandoned. It is extremely rare to find these qualities in a first-term soldier.
Nor is that all: In the past month, the Army relaxed its Officer Candidate School entry standards in an effort to fill up the classrooms and the officer corps with warm bodies. By lowering standards, the Army is tacitly confirming that there are not enough enlisted soldiers or civilian volunteers who possess the educational background or even the personal dedication and interest in going through the rigorous selection process to become Army commissioned officers.
Where and when will this stop?
William Calley's story should serve as a warning
Prior to his enlistment, he was a junior college dropout and was just cruising from one day to the next without direction or any set goals. He worked washing cars in a car wash, as a train conductor and as an insurance company investigator. In 1966, while hanging around in San Francisco, Calley received his draft notice ordering him to report for the required physical examination and induction. He enlisted in the Army and after basic training reported to Fort Lewis, Wash., assigned as an administrative clerk with the rank of Private E-2.
But Calley learned that his brief junior college background - however lackluster and short on achievement - qualified him to apply for Army Officer Candidate School under the service's Vietnam-era standards. He did, and the following year received his commission as a 2nd lieutenant in the infantry. Ordered to Vietnam in December 1967, Calley was assigned as a platoon leader in the 23rd Infantry ("Americal") Division at Chu Lai in Quang Nai Province. His moment in U.S. military history was only three months away.
At 0745 hours on the morning of March 16, 1968, Calley and his platoon approached their landing zone in the air following a brief artillery preparation. In the next few hours the junior Army lieutenant led his soldiers in the brutalizing, rape and murder of 109 South Vietnamese civilians of all ages.
The war crime, and resulting cover-up, did more damage to the U.S. Army than any enemy attack ever could have achieved.
Vietnam may be a tragic and controversial war fought a long time ago, but the lesson of Lt. William Calley should resonate strongly today from the polished hallways of the U.S. Army's Pentagon headquarters to every field unit in the service.
Calley was not merely a failure as an Army officer. He was something more sinister: the product of a decline in leadership standards that the Army allowed to take place. The war crimes he committed were the direct consequence of that failed policy, and U.S. Army leaders today ignore that lesson at their peril.
J. David Galland, Deputy Editor of DefenseWatch, is a retired veteran of over thirty years of service in military intelligence who resides in Germany. He can be reached at defensewatch02@yahoo.com.
| ARTICLE 02 - New Nuclear Threat Is Based On Junk Science |
By Robert G. Williscroft
The following news release appeared a few days ago:
"Chicago, February 27, 2002: Today, the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the minute hand of the 'Doomsday Clock,' the symbol of nuclear danger, from nine to seven minutes to midnight, the same setting at which the clock debuted 55 years ago. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, this is the third time the hand has moved forward."
Since 1949, the hands on this clock have moved 18 times. In 1953 the Bulletin set the clock at 2 minutes to midnight, and in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, they backed the clock to 17 minutes before midnight. Since then it has moved closer 3 times to its present position of 7 minutes before midnight.
The position of the "Doomsday Clock" has always been big news. A movement never fails to capture the public's imagination, especially when the movement is towards rather than away from midnight. After all, newsmakers and reporters and public leaders reason, "Atomic Scientists surely know whereof they speak."
Right?
Well, probably - if it were actually atomic scientists doing the speaking, and if they were speaking about atomic weapons, about which they probably know a great deal.
So who are these folks alarming the world while posing as "Atomic Scientists"?
For starters, their real name is the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science (EFNS), formed in Chicago in 1949 as a non-profit organization. They are currently sponsored by - read, "These are people who allow their names to appear on their letterhead" - a group of 39 eminent men of science and letters, including 12 Nobel Laureates. They also list 26 deceased scientists and academics, including another 14 Nobel Laureates.
This is pretty impressive, so long as you don't probe beneath the surface to discover who actually decides Bulletin editorial policy, EFNS organizational point of view, and the all-important Doomsday Clock position. The governing board consists of 15 people, nearly all from well-known intellectual groups holding political points of view ranging from the left to the far left. A partial listing includes the Union of Concerned Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Program on Global Security and Disarmament, Institute for International Peace Studies, and Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. A complete listing can be found at their website. http://www.thebulletin.org/nuclear/board.html
These folks have a clear, well-defined agenda, one that - more often than not - is opposed to the official position of the U.S. government, and - more importantly - represents an outlook inherently bad for us, the citizens of the United States.
Hiding behind the guise of "Atomic Scientists," these hard-core members of the intellectual left inject fear and panic into the social context every time they move their ominous clock nearer midnight. The most recent example of such paranoia is the media panic and government "back-and-fill" we have witnessed since Time magazine this week revealed the informant Dragonfly's report that terrorists might have taken possession of a 10-kiloton Soviet nuclear warhead.
Media reports carried the Time assertions that such a weapon would flatten everything inside a radius of half a mile, kill 100,000 people outright, and irradiate another 700,000. A Fox News reporter breathlessly explained that this bomb would leave a mile-wide hole in the ground.
Come on, guys: Let's get real!
Assuming that the weapon is real (and begging the question of whether or not al Qaeda terrorists actually got one), and that it really has an explosive yield of about 10 kilotons, then it probably came from one of the old Soviet MIRV (Multiple Independently-targeted Reentry Vehicle) missiles. The Hiroshima bomb was about 13 kilotons, but it was a very large, clumsy fission device. In order to make a 10- kiloton bomb sufficiently small to fit into a missile payload bay along with another 9 or 10 bombs, they all must be tritium-boosted thermonuclear devices - little hydrogen bombs.
Tritium-boosted devices work like this: You first construct a sphere about the size of and sectioned like a soccer ball, with the individual sections consisting of weapon's grade plutonium. Next, you attach an explosive charge to each of the sections, fill the sphere with tritium (a radioactive form of hydrogen), and seal it so that nothing escapes.
To detonate the device, you set off the explosive charges simultaneously, so that all the plutonium meets forcefully at the center of the sphere where it commences a fission (atomic bomb) explosion, which in turn causes the tritium to undergo a fusion reaction, and presto-you have a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb explosion. By modifying the firing sequence of the explosive charges, you can vary where inside the sphere the fission explosion happens, resulting in a specific shape to the explosion, so that it delivers more of its energy at the target, and less to the surrounding environment.
This process is very precise and requires a degree of extraordinary accuracy in the detonation process. Any failure to meet the weapon's precise design parameters will leave you with - literally - a pop and a fizzle. Furthermore, tritium is a very sneaky gas. It can slip through solid steel; it can escape like Houdini from any confinement. Nothing, absolutely nothing can retain tritium over the long haul. The U.S. weapons program continuously recharges the tritium in its boosted weapons, because the darn stuff simply leaks out, goes away, vanishes.
The Soviet Union collapsed over 10 years ago. Any weapon held by terrorists would be at least 10 years old. By now, any remaining tritium inside the sphere has certainly vanished like the value of Enron stock. Based on my analysis of current terrorism and nuclear weapons technology, I can say that no terrorist organization in the world has the ability to generate sufficient tritium to recharge one of these devices.
Even if they could recharge the device with tritium, they still are more likely to get a poof than a bang. It is highly unlikely that such a weapon could have been transported around for 10 years without suffering sufficient jarring and incidental damage to make the firing sequence totally unreliable.
What if they actually could make the weapon work?
In the first place, such a weapon is designed to explode high above the target in what weapon designers call an air-burst detonation, so that the force of the explosion is directed downward like a giant fist, crushing everything beneath it, and irradiating everything inside a broad cone. Al Qaeda terrorists simply lack the means to make it happen this way.
At best, they could transport the device to the top of a skyscraper for detonation. More realistically, they would have to explode it at some intermediate level. There is no way these guys can get the device to any level higher than 15 or 20 floors, but even this is unlikely. The only genuinely realistic scenario is a near ground burst from inside a residential building.
If they succeeded in setting off the device, the buildings immediately nearby would be history - not vaporized or melted, but merely knocked down and outward by the explosion. Remember, however, that these structures are built of concrete, steel, brick, and other dense, hard stuff. All this absorbs a great deal of energy. Nobody can say exactly what would happen but a half-mile radius of total destruction? No way! There's simply too much material in the way that would absorb the energy of the blast.
Ditto for radiation. The high-energy neutrons generated by a nuclear detonation would penetrate two or three buildings, depending on how solidly they've been built, but that's it. By the fourth building, all the HE neutrons would be gone. Gamma rays won't get that far, and beta won't get past the first building. Relatively innocuous alpha radiation is what would remain behind. If the HE neutrons have a clear path down a street or avenue, they would be deadly for quite a distance - at least a couple of miles, maybe more; but that's it.
In the real world we live in, it is all but impossible for terrorists to successfully detonate a stolen Soviet nuclear weapon. Even if they succeeded, such a device exploded on or near the ground would be totally devastating at ground zero and would destroy most of the buildings within a couple of blocks, depending on what those buildings are made of.
The reckless and inaccurate prediction in Time magazine of a half-mile radius of destruction, 100,000 people dead and another 700,000 irradiated - that is pure junk science, right out of the pages of the left-wing Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Robert G. Williscroft is DefenseWatch Navy Editor. He can be reached at dwnavyeditor@argee.net.
| ARTICLE 03 - Time Is Critical in Targeting Terrorists in Georgia |
By Patrick Hayes
Yet another front in the U.S.-led war against international Islamic terrorists has emerged, which so far includes Afghanistan, the Philippines, and possibly Somalia, the Sudan and Yemen. Now it's the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, where soon, some 100 to 200 U.S. troops will be operating at least as military advisors and trainers.
One might ask how Georgia, located on the Black Sea to the west and bordered by Russia on the north, connects with the current war against Islamic terrorists. It began when Islamic extremists in Chechnya declared their intent to break away from Russian control.
While the United States was playing Clintonian "policeman" in the former Yugoslavia, protecting Islamic extremists in breakaway republics there, Russia was drawn into one of the early battles of the war on international Islamic terrorism with the al Qaeda-supported Islamic terrorists in Chechnya, when the region declared its independence from Moscow following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia refused to allow the Islamic enclave to break away, the consequences of which - given the recent history of Islamic fanaticism and Islamic state-sponsored terrorism - is self-evident.
As conflict and tensions increased, Russia sent troops in to quell the uprising in 1994, amid a furor of anti-Russian sentiment from the West, particularly the United States. In 1996, following bloody fighting, the death of thousands and the virtual destruction of the Chechen capitol, Groznyy, a tentative peace agreement was signed between then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Chechen leader, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.
However, the peace - as is often the case when dealing with irrational people - was short lived. In August 1999, Islamic terrorists crossed from Chechnya into the Russian area of Dagestan and occupied several villages there. At the same time, a terror campaign of bombing and shooting ignited in three Russian cities, including Moscow. The Russians again responded, and Russian troops and air cover re-entered Chechnya to go after the terrorists. By February 2000, fighting in the Chechen region had stopped and Russian troops had chased the Islamic terrorist back up into the Caucus Mountains of southern Chechnya and northern Georgia.
The al Qaeda-supported Chechen Islamic terrorists had waged a costly and deadly war with Russia in their attempt to set up another Islamic state in Europe. The problem now faced by Georgia is that many of these terrorists escaped or retreated to the almost impregnable Pankisi Gorge area, which is the back door to Chechnya and Russia. This remote region has now become the apparent staging area for the Islamic terrorists, as well as the rat hole for other assorted criminals and cutthroats, including drug runners and kidnappers.
Located inside Georgian territory, the Russians cannot attack and the Georgians are unable to attack. A financial basket case since the Soviet breakup, the Georgian government has not had the will, the money or the manpower to do anything about the lawless Gorge region, which has become known as the "Black Hole."
The answer to the quandary: U.S. military assistance - and money - yet again. On Feb. 28, The New York Times reported that the Join Chiefs of Staff were close to approving the mission, in which U.S. forces would be engaged in training the Georgian military and help them set up an anti-terrorist unit. The report added that U.S. troops would not be permitted to take direct action in combat operations, but could engage the enemy if fired upon. Later that day, White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer confirmed the plan. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday told Pentagon reporters the assistance plan was still under consideration but no advisers had yet traveled to Georgia.
But it seems clear that the U.S. plan for Georgia will go forward in the near future. An advanced unit of about 40 U.S. Special Operations troops visited Georgia in February to assess the country's security needs. Another five are in Tbilisi, the Georgian capitol, setting down the groundwork for the anti-terrorist unit. Last November, ten UH-1H "Huey" helicopters were sent in, along with a military trainer and six civilian contractors to give flight training to Georgian personnel.
Given the delicate balance of power in the region, there are mixed feelings among the Russians and some Georgians about what might be perceived as yet another American incursion into Russia's sphere of influence, including the presence of U.S. troops in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The Russians, anxious to curb any more Islamic terrorist incursions back into Chechnya, have offered to help the Georgians train its troops and quash the terrorist enclave in the Pankisi Gorge. But fearful of becoming too dependent again on Moscow, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has continually refused Russian assistance, while the situation in the Gorge continued to worsen.
After the planned U.S. training activities in Georgia became public, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the American presence in the region would aggravate the situation in the Caucasus. "That is our position and Washington is well aware of it," he said, and again offered Russian help to deal with the terrorists. However, other Russian leaders, including Russian Federation Council Speaker, Sergei Mironov, said the presence of Americans in the region would not harm Russian interests. "It is Georgia's sovereign right to make those or other decisions on its own territory," Mironov said.
A Caucasus specialist at the Moscow Carnegie Center, Alexei Malashenko, seemed to have mixed feelings. On the one hand, he said sending U.S. troops to Georgia would boost Shevardnadze's political position. "It shows that United States didn't dump him," he said. However, he added that the move could also be seen as a humiliation for Georgia. "It's a catastrophic situation. You can't talk about Georgian sovereignty if the government can't deal with a situation involving several thousand people on its territory," he added.
Whether American help is seen as a positive or negative, the two obvious problems with this training scenario are the presence of Islamic terrorists on Georgian soil, and time.
How long will it take to get Georgian troops trained to the point where they can attack an almost impregnable position and take down the combat-hardened Islamic terrorists hiding there? Six months would be a minimum in the extreme, but taking unseasoned troops and training them in counter-terrorist operations would take closer to a year or more. From recent news reports, the Georgian military seems to be a long way from being highly trained, even by Russian standards, where Moscow can still boast of the capabilities of its own Spetsnaz (special operations) troops.
And in a year or more, when there may potentially be a cadre of highly trained Georgian troops ready to do some stellar stuff, what then? Can we imagine that the al-Qaeda terrorists will be sitting quietly in their hilltop retreat and waiting for the training to be completed and for a quick trip to Allah? I wouldn't think so. If these vermin are there now and the United States is in a position to do something, with Russian assistance, why not take the initiative at once?
In addition, other hot spots of Islamic terrorism will pop up around the world and we will have to deal with them too. All this aside, there is still Iraq and Saddam Hussein to consider. How thin is the Pentagon willing to go?
We can only hope that there is a larger operation in the works here. With the Russian Spetznaz, there is a seasoned and combat-ready force with special operations capability on the Russian side of the Gorge. And serious American will and know-how could be added to the Georgian side, given the permission of the Georgian government. Now that this little training venture has become widely known, why not take the initiative and attack the rats in their caves?
The point of the war on terrorism, as explained by President Bush, is to seek and destroy the al-Qaeda terrorists wherever they hide. In the Pankisi Gorge, they may hold the high ground, but they are caught likes rats in a trap. Attacking them would be a classic pincer operation with a blocking force (the Russians) on one side of the Gorge and an attacking force (Americans and Georgians) on the other.
The timing on this and other anti-terrorist operations is crucial before American forces and resources are spread too thin. Let's not forget what happened to the Romans.
Patrick Hayes is a contributing editor to DefenseWatch. He can be reached at Gyrene65@netscape.net.
| ARTICLE 04 - Guest Column: National Guard Needs Deep Reform |
By Maj. Gen. Frank Schober USARNG (Ret.)
The National Guard on paper is a major reserve component of the U.S. Army and Air Force. The Guard has been a key player in every war in which our nation has been involved (with the disastrous exception of Vietnam). Its forces joined those of the Continental Army in taking the British surrender at Yorktown. Its units played important roles in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. A division of the National Guard recruited from the states of Maryland and Virginia was first ashore at Omaha Beach.
But in few of those conflicts was the Guard ready to fight when the fighting started.
With larger and more significant consequences for our country today, the same historical unreadiness prevails. The Army National Guard is singularly unable to rapidly deploy and mobilize in the nation's defense. In most cases, it lacks the equipment, the training and the transport capability to do so. With the exception of the Air National Guard component, the National Guard is no more ready today to quickly mobilize than it was in all of the other wars in which it has been involved.
Because of the acceleration of military deployments made possible by the information technology revolution, and the extraordinary expansion of the modern battlespace stemming from the revolution in communications and precision-guided munitions, the Army Guard's traditional unreadiness is simply more dangerous than ever before. In particular, with Guard units now being tasked as "first responders" to terrorist incidents involving weapons of mass destruction, those responsible for the Guard's poor readiness share a heavy burden of culpability.
The constellation of dangerous forces in the world - including terrorist cells believed to be lurking in the United States itself - requires that any armed force worthy of the name be ready, in much the same way as the Minutemen of our Revolution, to march at a moment's notice to their place of assignment. To this end, the personnel strength figures that Guard units report, their training and equipment readiness and their ability to be mobilized and transported when and where they are needed, are matters of the highest priority.
The current motion picture Black Hawk Down, which is now a required element of the curriculum at all staff and command schools in the U.S. Army, makes a most important point: Every Army officer has drilled into his or her head a tactical requirement that can never be waived, whatever the situation: When commanders deploy a force, whatever the mission, they know that they must immediately organize a reserve force capable of immediate offensive action.
It requires no tactical genius to see the flaw in the command actions illustrated in Black Hawk Down. The on-scene ground commander, assuming that his operation would be concluded in an hour or two, did not establish a reserve force. His units in contact paid for that omission with an unanticipated - and unnecessary - loss of life.
The heroism displayed by our forces in Somalia notwithstanding, there can never be an exception to the rule that requires commanders in all cases to constitute a ready and immediately deployable reserve. We no longer enjoy the luxury as we did during World War II times when we had months and years to train and mobilize.
It is unfortunate but true: The Army National Guard in recent years has failed to meet the requirement of being a reserve force capable of immediate action in support of our nation's defense. The vast majority of its units lack the trained strength, the needed equipment and the mobilization capability of the active forces. In an age in which even active component Army divisions cannot be mobilized in time to move where forces are needed in the world to keep the peace and now to quell terrorism, the Army National Guard still attempts the useless enterprise of maintaining divisions.
The problems of falsifying strength numbers, retaliation against whistle-blowers and instances of waste and abuse in the Guard - underscored in a number of news media investigations in recent months - are only symptoms of the problem.
If these problems are to be solved, what is needed, without further delay, is a top-to-bottom reorganization and refocusing of the National Guard nationwide throughout the 54 separate state and territorial headquarters.
My assessment is that the Defense Department must, with all deliberate speed, implement a valid reorganization that will links every Guard unit with an active duty unit. Such a reorganization must include two other crucial requirements.
First, when the U.S. Army reports the training and equipment readiness of its active duty units, it must include the readiness of those linked reserve units in calculating its official preparedness level.
Second, officers of the both National Guard and active Army units should be required to serve in both components as part of their career development and promotion requirements.
Only by such a drastic change will the Guard succeed in implementing meaningful reforms. Only by such means can the nation justify its multi-billion-dollar investment in the Guard. And only by such an order can active component commanders develop and preserve the confidence that they can count on the Guard as a reserve "capable of immediate offensive action."
The problem of falsified personnel strength reports a problem that has beset the Guard in the living memory of any of its members. But this, too, can be easily solved. A constantly updated personnel reporting system can be easily organized using a "smart card" identification system that reports Guard units' real-time strength, training attendance and achievement, and attainment of mobilization requirements.
There are some other reforms that the Pentagon can and should implement in the short term.
If we want forces ready to back up our active military effectively, then we should equip every National Guard Armory with the latest in electronic training technology. A generation ago, armories were at best equipment storage areas. Now they can be distance learning and war-game centers that effectively train individual soldiers as well as unit commanders, staff and personnel. In the present age we train pilots very effectively using simulators that differ not at all in sense data received by their users from the real thing.
Finally - and this is a major, badly-needed change: We need to reform the Guard from the top down by eliminating the National Guard Bureau. The Guard Bureau today is still organized to represent the interests of the states on the Army General Staff - and not the interests of the Army.
At best, the current Guard Bureau constitutes a legalized conflict of interest, and no longer has a relevant mission. It might have had an important role when it was instituted as part of the Army General Staff at the turn of the last century. Its only contribution in the modern era of warfare is to add another, unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that hampers the readiness of the National Guard, politicizing it and limiting its effectiveness as a dependable, ready reserve.
If the Army does not begin to treat the Army National Guard as the U.S. Air Force treats the Air National Guard - as a fully-prepared combat partner - it should waste no tax dollars on it.
Every officer worthy of his or her commission knows that an unready reserve is no reserve at all.
Maj. Gen. Frank Schober served as Adjutant General of the California National Guard during 1975-1983, and is an expert in current Guard issues.
| ARTICLE 05 - Pentagon Cooking the Books on Reserve/Guard Callups |
By Paul Connors
As every reserve component soldier, airman, Marine, sailor and Coast Guardsman knows, the six months since 9/11 have resulted in ever more frequent callups of drilling members of the Army and Air National Guard and other reserve components. But determining how many people have been mobilized has been difficult.
The Department of Defense claims that only 79,000 members of all branches have been called to duty in support of the war against terrorism.
However, those figures are misleading for a variety of reasons. What they don't show or reveal are the numbers of reserve component members who were already on active duty prior to 9/11, or whose units were scheduled to be brought onto active duty to support other contingency operations around the world.
For example, more than half of the Army's personnel serving in Bosnia and Kosovo are members of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve. Entire units as well as individuals were activated to support that mission - a mission that many experts say should have ended long ago.
The figure of 79,000 also does not include those Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units that were already scheduled to support Operations Northern Watch in Turkey and Southern Watch in Saudi Arabia enforcing the "no fly" zones over Iraq. The Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units supporting those two operations were scheduled to participate before 9/11 became a terrible reality, and their funding comes from neither Operation Enduring Freedom nor Noble Eagle.
Because they are ongoing missions, the personnel assigned to Turkey and Southwest Asia are paid by the major commands using their services. Yet, the Air Guardsmen and Air Force reservists supporting these missions are nevertheless all on active duty and separated from their families and civilian careers, even though their numbers are not reflected in the "official DoD figures" released for public consumption.
There are other aspects to the DoD figures that also warrant mentioning. While the public has grown accustomed to seeing Army and Air National Guardsmen on duty at the airports, very few realize that most, if not all of those guardsmen are on state active duty: They have not been called out by presidential order, but instead have been activated for service within the borders of their states by their respective governors.
Again, the numbers are deceiving. These Guardsmen are paid with funds from Operation Noble Eagle and are dedicated to homeland defense, but since quite a few of them are volunteers, they are not counted as being mobilized as part of the total of reservists and Guardsmen who have been activated through the presidential Selective Reserve Callup.
Here's another example of "uncounted" Guardsmen: At many Air National Guard units around the country, security force squadrons have been activated to perform active-duty missions away from their home stations. To backfill the gaps created by the callup of entire security force flights and squadrons, the ANG has had to resort to employing augmentees to patrol and protect ANG bases, aircraft and other valuable military assets.
These "volunteers," serving under Operation Noble Eagle orders, also do not count against the mobilization figures because they volunteered - therefore they were not mobilized and they weren't ordered to state active duty by their governors.
The spirit of volunteerism has long been a part of Guard service, and the volunteers who step forward take a tremendous burden off their component and the government. They become problem solvers as they help manpower officers plug gaps that need filling.
Because these volunteers stepped forward before they had to be activated, they also provide the federal government with the ability to plausibly deny that the ongoing war against terrorism has required massive callups of reserve personnel and units. It makes the employment of reserve component units a political issue that is all that more palatable to the American people.
What the news media conveniently omit and what the general public either chooses to ignore or is completely unaware of, are the hardships endured by reserve component troops, their families and - last but not forgotten - their employers. Civilian employers, whether in the private sector or in local, state or federal government agencies, have had to get used to losing their employees for various missions since Operation Desert Storm. It is probably safe to say that most didn't like it.
This new war continues to be a drain on our military resources and because the active component was almost neutered by the criminally negligent force cuts imposed on the military by the Clinton administration, the nation has been forced to place an ever-increasing emphasis on the use of the reserve component.
As this war continues for an indeterminate period, rest assured that more and more reserve units and individuals will be activated to support the increase in military operations. As the mobilizations continue, more families will suffer financial setbacks, more employers will have to replace missing workers and more mothers and fathers will leave their children in the care of others. And sadly, only those directly affected by the mobilizations will know the true cost of the use of the reserves and Guard.
So, this begs the question: Are the Pentagon mobilization numbers accurate and true? My assessment is: They are not.
The federal government and its military departments are masters at creative accounting and the different ways that people can be utilized makes for numerous opportunities for the government to cook the books. Will we ever know the real numbers? Again, short of a complete mobilization of the entire reserve component, I think the answer is again, no.
It is unfortunate, and may well end up being a serious blow to the Bush administration's wartime credibility, that the Pentagon is being allowed to use inaccurate and dishonest methods to gauge the actual manpower cost of the war on terrorism.
Paul Connors is DefenseWatch Air Force Editor. He can be reached at paulconnors@hotmail.com.
| ARTICLE 06 - Decoding the Mysteries of the Joint Task Force |
By Matthew Dodd
As the war against terrorism becomes truly global, the U.S. military is turning to a proven organizational concept to maximize and synchronize the capabilities of the four military services - the joint task force (JTF).
The imprisonment of Al Qaeda detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and our actions in the Philippines are two recent examples of JTFs formed as a result of the anti-terrorism campaign. Concerns about the security of our borders and the creeping threat of narco-terrorism highlight the relevance of pre-existing counter-drug JTFs inside and outside the United States.
If you want to stay current in our war against terrorism, you must have a thorough understanding of JTFs. As a common point of reference, a joint task force is (according to current joint publications) a force composed of significant elements, assigned or attached, of two or more military departments operating under a single joint force commander, constituted and so designated by the Secretary of Defense, a combatant commander or an existing joint task force commander - usually for a limited time and to accomplish a specific task or mission.
A critical, yet often overlooked aspect of truly understanding confusing or unfamiliar military terms, is being able to recognize the differences among similar terms. A key to success, therefore, is being able to discuss the answer to the question, "When is a JTF not a JTF?" Here are some examples:
* When the JTF is disorderly and lacks coherence, it is a disjointed task force;* If the JTF is the lead element for a larger follow-on force, it is a point task force;* Should the JTF decide to wear costumes as part of its camouflage and deception plan, it is a joint mask force;* A JTF that has many secretive, functioning alcoholics is known as a joint flask force;* When the JTF is uncertain and full of questions, it is a joint ask force;* If the JTF is too heavily influenced by the Congressional Armed Services Committees (House and Senate), it is called a joint HASC force (House) or a joint SASC force (Senate);* Should the JTF be formed in a sunny beach location, it will probably become a joint bask force;* A JTF of many people with ancestors predominantly from the western Pyrenees region of France and Spain is known as a joint Basque force;* When the JTF logistics officer hoards liquids, the JTF is a joint cask force;* If the forces are a mockery of military order and discipline it will be a joint task farce;* Should the JTF offer correspondence classes on their website it will be a joint task course;* A JTF that relies on beasts of burden to move its supplies may be known as a joint task horse;* When the JTF can speak fluently any of the Scandinavian group of Germanic dialects and languages, it is a joint task Norse;* Finally, if the JTF is not functioning smoothly, it will be a joint task coarse.
Another way to deepen your JTF understanding is to look specifically at the leadership of JTFs. A little-known but useful tool for understanding the JTF commander is revealing anagrams. An anagram is a word or phrase made by rearranging the letters of another word. As Anu Garg from www.wordsmith.org observed, "All the life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie." Anagrams from "joint task force commander" include, but are not limited to:
* "Foremost cracked joint man";* "Often smarter nomadic jock";* "More fantastic modern jock";* "Joint monster, mad rock face".
A flag or general officer usually commands a JTF. A couple of insightful anagrams for a flag or general officer are, "a golfer, a lancer, of grief," and "align for carefree golf." The deputy commander can either be a "command duty peer," an "un-pert memo caddy," or a "crude, empty nomad." The commander and all his staff form the command element, anagrammed as "need calm moment," keeping in mind that "madmen melt once."
Understanding JTFs requires deeper knowledge than is readily available in joint publications and from the news media. Sometimes, it requires creative tools, imagination, and the courage to think outside the norm. Often, one of the best ways to make sense of something new and tough to understand is to first make non-sense of it.
So, the next time you find yourself in an awkward position of silence in a conversation about military capabilities or our global war on terrorism, remember that you now have the power to silence the crowd with your in-depth response to the question, "When is a JTF not a JTF?"
Lt.
Col. Matthew Dodd is the pen name of an active-duty Marine Corps officer stationed
at the Pentagon. He can be reached at mattdodd1775@hotmail.com.
Table of
Contents
| ARTICLE 07 - Guest Column: Disabled Veterans Fight For Justice |
By Thomas D. Segel
Far too long they have been wounded knights, fighting without their country offering its banner of support. They have attempted to slay the dragon of bureaucracy using only logic and fairness as their weapons.
For more than 112 years a petty, discriminatory law has robbed some of our best and bravest former warriors of fair compensation for wounds or permanent suffering received in defense of their flag. Today, with the steel-like resolve displayed throughout twenty and more years of faithful service, they prepare to battle their own nation.
Many citizens are still unaware of the discrimination imposed on the disabled military retirees of this country. Under a law, written specifically to penalize career service personnel, any soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who is found to be disabled after completing a 20-year or longer active-duty career, will have one dollar of retirement pay taken away for each dollar of disability compensation received. There is no other branch of federal service or civilian business which is impacted by such a vicious law.
Members of Congress who are military veterans with disabilities - such as Sens. John McCain and Max Cleland - do not get penalized under this law. Although they have disabilities, they will still draw their full senatorial retirement, plus any disability compensation to which they may be entitled.
Those who had service-ending disabilities which forced them into careers as civilian government employees are not touched. They too, will receive their full retirement pay, plus all disability compensation.
The law which provides for a ban on concurrent receipt of disability compensation and retired pay is a flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause and also violates the American Disabilities Act in that it singles out a specific class of people to penalize. The law targets only men and women who became disabled during the course of their long and faithful service in the armed forces of their country.
Because Congress has turned its back on this issue, because the Department of Defense has fought its own retirees' right to receive just compensation and because the nation's leadership will not undo a serious wrong, America's disabled military retirees are preparing to take their country into a court of law.
A lawsuit already filed in U.S. District Court in San Antonio, Tex., is only the first attack in what could be wave after wave of assaults against this injustice. The suit now in progress charges violation of the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the Constitution, plus violation of the American Disabilities Act. The suit also seeks "suspect class status" because these military retirees are victims of past discrimination.
Should the lawsuit fail to correct this long-standing injustice, there are other legal attacks waiting in the wings. One idea gaining favor in the disabled community is to seek equal protection under the law by having the dollar-per-dollar offset apply to the retirees of all government agencies - not just disabled military veterans. Perhaps when the bureaucrats and congressional personnel start having their own pockets picked, they will be more receptive to fair treatment for all.
Segel is a retired Marine combat correspondent living in Texas. He received the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts and other commendations during a 26-year military career.
| ARTICLE 08 - Medal of Honor Recipient - HARRELL, WILLIAM G., Sgt. USMC |
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps, 1st Battalion, 28th Marines, 5th Marine Division.
Place and date: Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, 3 March 1945.
Entered service at: Mercedes, Tex. Born: 26 June 1922, Rio Grande City, Tex.
Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as leader of an assault group attached to the 1st Battalion, 28th Marines, 5th Marine Division during hand-to-hand combat with enemy Japanese at Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, on 3 March 1945.
Standing watch alternately with another Marine in a terrain studded with caves and ravines, Sgt. Harrell was holding a position in a perimeter defense around the company command post when Japanese troops infiltrated our lines in the early hours of dawn. Awakened by a sudden attack, he quickly opened fire with his carbine and killed two of the enemy as they emerged from a ravine in the light of a star shellburst.
Unmindful of his danger as hostile grenades fell closer, he waged a fierce lone battle until an exploding missile tore off his left hand and fractured his thigh. He was vainly attempting to reload the carbine when his companion returned from the command post with another weapon.
Wounded again by a Japanese who rushed the foxhole wielding a saber in the darkness, Sgt. Harrell succeeded in drawing his pistol and killing his opponent and then ordered his wounded companion to a place of safety.
Exhausted by profuse bleeding but still unbeaten, he fearlessly met the challenge of two more enemy troops who charged his position and placed a grenade near his head. Killing one man with his pistol, he grasped the sputtering grenade with his good right hand, and, pushing it painfully toward the crouching soldier, saw his remaining assailant destroyed but his own hand severed in the explosion.
At dawn, Sgt. Harrell was evacuated from a position hedged by the bodies of 12 dead Japanese, at least five of whom he had personally destroyed in his self-sacrificing defense of the command post. His grim fortitude, exceptional valor, and indomitable fighting spirit against almost insurmountable odds reflect the highest credit upon himself and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
Editor's Note: If you know of any MOH recipient who is hospitalized or has passed away recently, please email DefenseWatch MOH Editor Jim H. at bulldogleader@mindspring.com.
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