Yesterday I posted on the subject of alleged cooperation between the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. In that post I made reference to skeptical remarks by two well respected experts, Paul Kerr and Jeffrey Lewis, that both seemed to step back from in subsequent posts. I also spoke with John Pike, who told me there was no way to confirm such reports, but that the North Korean, Iranian, and Pakistani nuclear programs were essentially "one program in three places."

Kerr feels I misrepresented his comments, and has attributed such misrepresentation to either dishonesty or stupidity on my part. I strongly deny that there was any intent to deceive (only time will tell if the other charge sticks), so let's go through point by point.

First Kerr says, "he claims (falsely) that additional evidence [of collaboration] has made the claim more plausible." The additional evidence I was pointing to was this piece by Bill Gertz on collaboration between North Korea and Iran on ICBM technology. Kerr says the piece I "refer to is about missile, not nuclear, cooperation." True enough, and I said as much, but any reasonable person could draw the conclusion that collaboration on technology for delivering a nuclear warhead makes collaboration on warhead design seem more plausible. If Kerr chooses not to make that leap, fine, but I'd have to disagree with him.

Second, Kerr says the two haven't changed their minds. I did mistakenly attribute a cross-post by Kerr that appeared on Lewis's site to Lewis himself. So, my apologies to Dr. Lewis. But Kerr subsequently posted that his initial impression--that North Korean data would be of little use to Iran--was not correct, since information from the test of a weapon with a plutonium core (North Korea) would, in fact, be useful to a country working to design a weapon with a uranium core (Iran). I inferred that Kerr's realization meant he was more inclined to believe that collaboration was possible, since there was much to be gained from the Iranian perspective. Kerr says, "that post only indicates that Iran could perhaps benefit more from North Korean test data than I had previously suspected. That doesn’t mean that North Korea is actually providing such data."

Again, Kerr chooses not to make this leap, I disagree--to me his statement implies that, in light of this new information, collaboration is more likely.

Finally, Kerr says I inaccurately claimed that, "In Kerr’s opinion, the only way to significantly shorten that estimate [the IC’s 5-10 year estimate] was if the North Koreans sold weapons-grade fuel, presumably plutonium, to the Iranians." Kerr had written that,

"there’s no reason why the cooperation between North Korea and Iran discussed in [Couglin's] article would impact the US IC’s 5-10 year estimate. My understanding is that that estimate applies to Iran’s ability to produce HEU . . . North Korea’s program uses plutonium."

Because Couglin's article was confined to collaboration on warhead design, I surmised that this only left the transfer of nuclear fuel as a collaborative measure which might speed up the Iranian program. I'm not sure what else goes into building a bomb other than designing the warhead and procuring the fuel--these seem to be the two significant obstacles. So if the estimate applies to producing HEU, it seems reasonable to conclude that, in Kerr's opinion, only a transfer of fuel from North Korea to Iran would shorten the estimate.

Again, I spoke to no one who thought Coughlin's story was particularly credible. But the fact that Gertz later reported on ICBM collaboration between North Korea and Iran, and that Kerr later acknowledged that test data from North Korea would be valuable to Iran, led me to conclude that Kerr's skepticism had softened and Couglin's claims seemed more credible. If Kerr insists that none of this new information has led him to change his position, fine. But I think he's sticking his head in the sand. We must assume the worst about these two regimes, and any evidence that confirms those assumptions ought to be treated as serious, rather than dismissed out of hand.

By way of Red State, this clip from NBC News shows that U.S. troops "are increasingly frustrated by American [read Congressional] criticism of the war." Says 21-year-old SPC Tyler Johnson, "People are dying here, you know what I'm saying, you may support...oh, we support the troops but you're not supporting what they do, what they sweat for, what they bleed for, what they die for. That just don't make sense to me."

It doesn't make much sense to me either. You can't support the troops without supporting their mission.

A little good news from the war on terror. The AP reports that a relative of Osama bin Laden was killed in Madagascar yesterday in what family members are calling a burglary. The victim, Jamal Khalifa, was wanted in the Philippines "for alleged terror financing," was named by the U.S. government as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and was married to one of bin Laden's sisters. According to Khalifa's brother, more than 25 armed men broke into the house, killed Khalifa while he was sleeping, and stole everything that wasn't nailed down, including computers.

Sounds suspiciously like a successful counterterror operation, but if not, it's still nice to see bad things happen to bad people. You can read more about Khalifa here.

There have been rumors for several days now that an attack in Karbala that resulted in the deaths of five American soldiers earlier this month was carried out directly by Iranian special forces. The American soldiers were meeting with local officials, and security was fairly tight. The attackers, 12 men disguised as American soldiers, were able to slip into the compound and capture four U.S. soldiers, leaving one more dead and several wounded.

The attackers fled east from Karbala in a convoy of SUVs, and soon aroused suspicions at an Iraqi checkpoint. The Iraqi police gave pursuit and found the trucks abandoned some 30 miles down the road, with two murdered American soldiers in the back of one truck, and another two laying dead on the road.

The efficiency, sophistication, and complexity of the attack all raised red-flags in the military community. As early as January 26, Bill Roggio was writing that, "based on the sophisticated nature of the raid, as well as the response, or cryptic non-responses, from multiple military and intelligence sources, this raid appears to have been directed and executed by the Qods Force branch of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps."

Other military bloggers drew the same conclusion, or were hearing the same things from their sources. Now CNN has confirmation from two different officials at the Defense Department--"the Iranian connection [is] a leading theory in the investigation."

Less than a week after the attack, President Bush announced that he had authorized American forces to kill or capture any Iranian agents found operating in Iraq. And administration officials made known their intention to offer substantial proof of Iranian meddling in Iraq. But now those plans have been put on hold.

Why would the administration hold back a "dossier" with detailed information about Iranian involvement in Iraq? In this country, the case against Iran is being made by the media already, and without much help from the administration. That Iran is supplying insurgent groups with weapons, training, and explosives is no longer a matter of speculation, but of fact, with new stories on the subject coming daily from mainstream media outlets. But the case against Iran has yet to be made effectively to the international community, which the administration has seemed so desperate to convince of the need for sanctions.

One possible explanation is that the administration has evidence of Iranian involvement that is so provocative that it would demand a serious American response--a response the administration just isn't prepared to undertake. Marvin Hutchens of threatswatch.org, speculated that "Negropante and company are withholding the report because they don't have an answer they can give in the current political climate (as to what to do next). The proper response to a nation making war on you is to respond in full kind. That is not something that can happen today--and in DC any discussion of doing so would end in disaster as the Iranians would receive more support than our Commander-in-Chief."

Last week at Davos, Senator John Kerry called the United States an "international pariah" while seated next to former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami.

From ABC News: Iranian-Made IEDs Are on the Rise, by Richard Esposito and Maddy Sauer.

From Fox News: Officials: White House Holding Back Report Detailing Iran's Meddling in Iraq, by Molly Henneberg and Nick Simeone.

From CNN: Iran involvement suspected in Karbala compound attack.

From the Tampa Tribune: Marines In Iraq Decry Lack Of Laser System, by Richard Lardner.

Earlier today, James Baker endorsed President Bush's plan to surge troops into Baghdad, as did Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the bipartisan Iraq Study Group with Baker. Baker told the Senate Foreign Relation Committee that "the president's plan ought to be given a chance . . . Just give it a chance." Said Hamilton, "If we can put this together there is a chance we can reasonably succeed. But we realize that is a very, very daunting challenge."

The Iraq Study Group's final report did recommend "a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective." And the U.S. commander, General David Petraeus, has determined just that. Democrats have been vociferous in their opposition to any proposed surge of troops, but in the days following the report's release, they overwhelmingly endorsed its recommendations.

Now that Baker and Hamilton have reiterated their support for an increase in troop numbers, Democrats will find themselves in the awkward position of having to go along with the plan or disavow the group's recommendations, which have otherwise been warmly embraced by the Democratic party. Either way, Baker and Hamilton have just made life a lot more difficult for Congressional Democrats, denying them the opportunity to hide behind a bipartisan commission as they push for withdrawal and defeat in Iraq.

Reader Bill Walsh sends along this story about the F-22's impressive training record last year. Among the highlights:

During a 6-week stay in Alaska, the 27th FS engaged in its first-ever, full-length exercise with the F-22, Northern Edge. In the first exercise week, while flying in joint teams with F-15 Eagles and F/A-18 Hornets, the Raptor was able to produce a whopping 144-to-0 kill ratio.

In the majority of missions, Raptors consisted of just one-quarter to one-third of the defending force, yet F-22s destroyed more than half of the enemy targets.

The F-22 also performed well in ground attack exercises:

More than 60 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (1,000-pound bombs) were dropped by Raptor pilots this summer; each punished the targets below hitting within six meters or less of the intended bull's-eyes. 26 bombs were dropped during Close Air Support exercises using a forward air controller, another first-attempt and complete success for the F-22.

Not to be outdone, the 94th FS took to the skies over Hill AFB in Utah and accomplished the first supersonic bomb drops for the F-22.

"Until then, no operational F-22 had ever done that," explained Lt. Col. Michael Hoepfner, 94th Fighter Squadron director of operations. "No other aircraft can get up to 1.5 mach at 50,000 feet and deliver a JDAM."

It's kinematics as it's best: Faster plane = faster bomb. Faster bomb = more dead targets.

If any of our readers can do the math, I'd love to know just what happens when a plane traveling at 1,200 mph drops a 1,000-pound bomb from 50,000 feet.

Bob Herbert wrote a really touching column yesterday about how the antiwar protesters that demonstrated on the Mall this weekend really do love America (Subscription).

Said Herbert, "You can say what you want about the people opposed to this wretched war in Iraq, try to stereotype them any way you can. But you couldn't walk among them for more than a few minutes on Saturday without realizing that they love their country as much as anyone ever has."

Unfortunately, that just isn't true. Approximately 300 anarchists showed how much they "love their country" by spray-painting anarchist symbols on the steps of the Capitol building. I know dissent is patriotic and all, but vandalizing a monument to American democracy means you don't love America.

Two anarchists loving their country. From the Lone Star Times.

Last week, the Telegraph's Con Coughlin reported that Iranian scientists had been sent to North Korea last fall to observe that country's nuclear test. Furthermore, Coughlin said the North Koreans were actively assisting the Iranians in their own preparations for a nuclear test.

The report was met with some skepticism--the estimable Dr. Jeffrey Lewis went so far as to call Coughlin a "super-hack." Paul Kerr, another well-respected expert, also mocked the report, pointing out that the Iranian program is designed around the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) as weapons fuel, while the North Koreans used plutonium for the core of their weapon.

Now we have a report from Bill Gertz alleging intense cooperation on ICBM missile development between the two remaining members of the axis of evil. Also, Paul Kerr has changed his tune after consulting with a number of physicists who explained that the Iranians could still learn a great deal from the North Korean test, despite the use of HEU instead of plutonium. Lewis, too, seems less certain that such collaboration is unlikely.

The crux of this debate is whether or not the North Koreans will provide Iran enough assistance to shave months, or even years, off the time it will take Iran to build a bomb. Kerr points to statements from Bush administration officials asserting that Iran will need 5 to 10 years before being able to test a functioning nuclear weapon. In Kerr's opinion, the only way to significantly shorten that estimate was if the North Koreans sold weapons-grade fuel, presumably plutonium, to the Iranians. That seems unlikely, given North Korea's own limited supply, but the accumulating evidence of increased cooperation between the two countries is not good news. According to John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, Iran could be ready to test as early as this summer.

So why has the administration not repudiated the U.S. intelligence community's fantastically optimistic 5-10 year estimate? One explanation is that the Bush administration is suffering from a credibility deficit after it overhyped the WMD threat from Iraq. But isn't the intelligence community just as much to blame, if not more so. Regardless, the Bush administration, and every other government, ought to err on the side of caution when dealing with Iran, which means assuming the worst case scenario: a nuclear Iran within the year.

By way of Blackfive, some very interesting comments by General James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps.

On the media coverage of Iraq:

"We believe that our people are subject to some misinformation -- not intentional perhaps, but nevertheless if you talk to any troop that's been to Iraq or Afghanistan, they will paint you a significantly different picture, I think, from what's being captured here day in and day out, in the news . . . "

On "the casualty issue":

Conway said "the casualty issue" is "driving the thinking of our country." But he argued the United States has "lost perspective" when considering the number of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I have gone to way too many memorial services and written too many letters to families to dismiss this lightly," he said. But he said U.S. forces are losing "on average about two soldiers, or Marines, maybe sailors, a day," compared to 302 casualties a day during World War II. "We've lost just over 3,000 now, in the entirety of the war," he said. "Since we invaded Iraq we've lost 43,000 young men of military age on the highway of this country. . . . That does not transmit to our country. I've got to tell you, it just doesn't stick."

Conway added, "My view is, if it's important to the country, we should be able to sustain whatever it takes."

On the insurgency:

"I'll tell you, these people have a plan," Conway said. "And the plan is to boot us out of the Middle East, destroy Israel, take charge of the oil supply and then strangle us to the point where we'll have no choice but to go back in."

On Marines:

Conway also said he wants every Marine in the existing force to get combat experience. He said he issued a directive Jan. 19 to implement this goal, which will affect about 35,000 Marines that have not seen combat. "I just think we need to give every Marine that opportunity," he said.

From the Jerusalem Post (HT the Corner): What a nuclear Iran would do, by Barry Rubin.

From BBC: Gaffes tarnish Royal's campaign, by Clive Myrie.

From the Washington Times: How the 'axis' seeks the killer missile, by Bill Gertz.

From the Fourth Rail: Iraqi Army battles Shia cult, Sunni insurgents in Najaf, by Bill Roggio.

From Defense News: After China Test, U.S. Lawmaker Urges More Space Spending, by William Matthews.

Rep. Gene Taylor, chairman of the House Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee, is talking about making the Navy's next-generation Cruiser, CG(X), a nuclear-powered ship. Late last year, Taylor made clear his intention to increase the size of the fleet, and to make sure that as many vessels as possible would rely on nuclear propulsion, so as to reduce the Navy's dependence on oil. There had been some speculation that Taylor wanted to see the spectacularly over-budget DDG 1000, and possibly even the LCS, redesigned to incorporate a nuclear propulsion system, but that idea seems to have been dropped in favor of focusing on the still-on-the-drawing-board CG(X).

Earlier this month I spoke with Robert Work of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment about Taylor's plans to expand the Navy's use of nuclear power to ships other than carriers and submarines. He said oil would have to cost more than twice what it does now to justify the added expense. But Taylor seems totally unconcerned with cost, so long as the Navy has the right equipment.

“They’re [the Navy] still saying, ‘It’s going to cost more. Can we afford it?’ And I’m saying, ‘Look, don’t you worry about that side of it. Just think about the future. And let’s build us a ship that’s going to last 30 years. And let me make the case that, yes, it’s more than worth the 10 percent extra.’”

The more I hear from Taylor, the more I like him.

Two truly silly statements from the Democratic leadership.

First, Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi (HT Real Clear Politics):

"I believe redeployment of our troops is a step toward stability in the region.''

Next up, Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer:

"I would propose that [a] conference be carried out under U.N. auspices, with robust involvement from various Iraqi factions, neighboring countries, key Middle East nations, the European Union and others, with the hope of brokering deals on securing Iraq's borders, disbanding militias, finalizing the constitution, establishing divisions of power and oil resources, and other issues."

And in the same breadth:

"While the world can and should critically evaluate the administration's flawed execution of this war, we cannot ignore the central argument that our action was, in part, a consequence of the international community's failure to act multilaterally . . . The U.N. only talked in the face of international violations, even though history demonstrates that vacillation only emboldens those who seek to rule through force and terror."

So the solution is to withdraw American forces and hope the international community can talk the militias out of killing each other, even though America was forced to act unilaterally by the failure of the international community to show any resolve. Which was the reality-based party again?

Defense Update has more news on the Pentagon's plans to deploy 4,100 additional mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles to Iraq within the year. Over the next two months, the Navy, which is managing the project, will test commercially available vehicles from nine different companies before selecting a winner. Among those competing is Force Protection Industries Inc., which manufactures the Cougar Joint Explosive Ordnance Disposal Rapid Response Vehicle, which you can read about here.

These vehicles can play an important role in reducing IED-related casualties, so we will keep an eye on this program as it moves along.

I'll take the one on the left.

Jane Fonda spoke to antiwar protesters on the National Mall yesterday. She also wore a button that read "Vietnam Veterans Against the War." I'm sure there are many Vietnam veterans who are opposed to the war in Iraq, but wouldn't it be more appropriate if Fonda wore a button that read "NVA Veterans Against the War."

Courtesy of Associated Press

There's no denying it, the F-22 is the most advanced fighter in the world. Stealthy, maneuverable, and lethal, it is without rival. Still, there may yet be a few kinks to work out.

First, Defense Tech reports that the F-22, unlike many older fighters, was built without the ability to send data. Hard to believe, but F-22 pilots need to pass on all information through the comm system. Defense Tech's David Axe: "I asked the Raptor jockeys at Virginia's Langley Air Force Base about this last year and they shifted uncomfortably in their seats while feeding me some line about how voice comms work just fine." Axe says a fix is in the works. But according to Aviation Week & Space Technology (via Defense News), the F-22 is also having problems receiving data.

Essential electronic surveillance systems used by the F-22 may be too sensitive--overwhelmed by the density of U.S. and allied emitters--to be useful in the electronically polluted environment of Baghdad.

The good news is that the F-22 was not built to provide close air support in a war like that being fought in Iraq. Still, at $350 million each, it'd be nice if the plane was able to send and receive information about where the enemy is. It's still an amazing plane, and I'm sure the Air Force will get these early problems ironed out, but one shudders to think how much it might cost.

This thing doesn't have internet?

That's the question Johns Hopkins history professor David A. Bell asked in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. Because so few were killed that day, at least relative to the number of Russians killed in the Second World War, Bell thinks we might have overreacted.

Certainly, if we look at nothing but our enemies' objectives, it is hard to see any indication of an overreaction. The people who attacked us in 2001 are indeed hate-filled fanatics who would like nothing better than to destroy this country. But desire is not the same thing as capacity, and although Islamist extremists can certainly do huge amounts of harm around the world, it is quite different to suggest that they can threaten the existence of the United States.

Occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Michael Tanji had this to say in response to Bell's question:

When I ran a warning shop I used to love hearing this from all the blind-wearing nay-sayers. Someone doesn't have ICBMs so they're not a threat. Someone can't project force via an aircraft carrier, so they're not a threat. I watched two kids in western Europe trump the best technical defenses of the government--better than rival nation-states--but for some reason they weren't a threat. It is as if the entire body of unconventional warfare doesn't exist for these people. Save for the suitcase nuke, the first four hours of '24' this season could be playing out today. Capacity is not the issue. Fact is they don't need to cause excessive death/destruction because they are threatening our existence without it. Every "loyal dissenter" says they would not have voted 'yes' then if they knew what they knew now; yet with the threat of Iran dancing in their faces they refuse act accordingly because THIS TIME they're not going to be DUPED.

Over at the Corner, John Podhoretz linked to another interesting response, this one from Tim Sumner of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America. In case you don't have the time to read it, his answer is yes...9/11 was really that bad.

From the New York Times: 250 Are Killed in Major Iraq Battle, by Damien Cave.

From the Washington Post: Baghdad is Key, by Stephen J. Hadley.

From the New York Times: Iranian Reveals Plan to Expand Role in Iraq, by James Glanz.

From Time: Kim Jong Il's Nuclear Ambitions, by Nicholas Eberstadt.

From the Washington Post: Clinton's Presidential Posturing, by David S. Broder.

From CNN: Missile defense shield test aced as dummy target hit.

From the AP: Senior Chinese officer predicts weapons will be deployed in space, by Edith M. Lederer.

A bizarre story from the Baltimore Sun brings word of an impending crisis at the National Security Agency. Senator John D. Rockefeller is calling it "a national catastrophe," in as little as two years the electrical demands of the NSA may outstrip supply.

Rockefeller, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, gave an interview to the Sun yesterday. He said that officials at the NSA "were so busy doing what various people wanted that they forgot to understand that they were running out of power, and that's sort of a national catastrophe."

The Sun reports that the NSA uses 65 to 75 megawatt-hours of electricity and expects demand at the facility to increase an additional 10 to 15 megawatt-hours by next fall. The NSA has "shut off some equipment and delayed plugging in some new supercomputers," in order to reduce demand. ACLU members, sleep easy, the NSA is powerless to bug your phones.

The future of the NSA: Hand Operated Red Analog.

It's been a busy week in India, where Vladimir Putin was greeted with much the same treatment as President Bush got during his visit in March of last year. Putin's visit was preceded by the announcement of increased military cooperation between the two countries, specifically a joint project to develop a fifth-generation fighter jet that will compete with the American-led F-35 project. That project will be in addition to a further $18 billion worth of arms India has already agreed to buy from Russia through 2010, including 16 MiG-29Ks for carrier operations. Putin's visit also included an offer to build four more nuclear power plants in India in addition to the two which are already under construction.

Of course, this all comes in the wake of great efforts by the Bush administration to forge closer ties between the United States and India. Last month in the pages of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Daniel Twining described India as a potential "swing state" that could help offset the growing military and economic power of China. Said Twining:

The United States has an enormous stake in the success of a rich, confident, democratic India that shares American ambitions to manage Chinese power, protect Indian Ocean sea lanes, safeguard an open international economy, stabilize a volatile region encompassing the heartland of jihadist extremism in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and prove to all those enamored of the Chinese model of authoritarian development that democracy is the firmest foundation for the achievement of humankind's most basic aspirations.

The idea is that India and the United States are natural allies. But some are skeptical that India is ready to assume the mantle of responsible world power. Closer ties with an ever more authoritarian Russia don't bode well.

The first MiG-29KUB undergoes flight testing in Russia earlier this week.
(Courtesy RIA Novosti, Sergey Pyatakov)

From WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor Gerard Baker in today's Times:

All politicians, sadly, lie. We can often forgive the lies as the necessary price paid to win popularity for a noble cause. But the Clinton candidacy is a Grand Deceit, an entirely artificial construct built around a person who, stripped bare of the cynicism, manipulation and calculation, is nothing more than an enormous, overpowering and rather terrifying ego.

Read the whole thing here.

Did President Bush provoke China's ASAT test with the "tough talk" of his administration's new national space policy? Theresa Hitchens thinks so. So does Russian General Leonid Ivashov. Now Michael Krepon has added his voice to the chorus, saying "if further evidence were needed that the Bush administration's tough talk backfires, China's test of an anti-satellite weapon will do."

Sure, Krepon was agitating against the new policy from day one. And he neglects to mention that the Chinese made three failed attempts at bringing down a satellite between October 2005 and November 2006 before finally succeeding this month. And he also concedes that any negotiated restrictions would be unlikely to deter the Chinese from further research and testing--"rules don't stop rule-breakers," he says. Yet he would have the United States negotiate a new set of rules and abide by them. Why, you ask? "[H]aving one set of rules allows us to identify, isolate and punish bad actors." Does anyone really believe that the international community would take action against China under such circumstances?

From Middle East Quarterly: My Problem with Jimmy Carter's Book, by Kenneth W. Stein.

From the New York Sun: Turnaround in Baghdad, by Nibras Kazimi.

From City Journal:Yes, Rudy Giuliani Is a Conservative, by Steven Malanga.

From Newsweek: Interview with Lin Chong-Pin, former Taiwan vice defense minister, by Jonathan Adams.

From the L.A. Times: Cooperative tone of Sadr surprises U.S., by Borzou Daragahi.

From the Washington Times: Untie Military Hands, by James A. Lyons Jr.

The former secretary-general of Hezbollah, Sheikh Subhi Al-Tufeili, gave an interview to the Kuwaiti daily Al Siyassa in December of last year. MEMRI posted the translation nearly a week ago, but it hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserves.

The most relevant excerpts follow, but it's worth reading the whole thing.

Question: "Does this mean that Hizbullah does not make its own decisions, and that its orders come from outside [Lebanon]?"

Al-Tufeili: "Yes, Hizbullah is a tool, and it is an integral part of the Iranian intelligence apparatus. Unfortunately, all the elements in the [Lebanese] arena have become tools, and take orders from outside [Lebanon] . . . "

Question: "Can you see any justification for the July [2006] war after southern Lebanon was liberated in 2000?"

Al-Tufeili: . . . "When we look at the causes of the war, there is no choice but to [admit] this. If [the war] had gotten worse, it could have led to the loss of the [entire] country . . . Are we allowed to destroy our country [just] so we can say that we abducted two soldiers - when we all knew what the magnitude of the Israeli response [would be]? What happened was an unsuccessful adventure, and there is no escaping the fact that those who carried it out will bear the responsibility for it . . . "

In the coverage of last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah, two themes came to dominate the narrative. First, every major news outlet estimated Lebanese casualties at around 1,200, "mostly civilians." Just search Google News for "Lebanon" and "mostly civilians" and you'll see the oft repeated numbers--at least 44 current news stories echo the claim, which was a staple of international reporting on the conflict in the months after the war. (As far as Israeli casualties, those numbers are uniformly, and accurately, given as 157 killed, "mostly soldiers," though not for lack of effort by Hezbollah to kill civilians.)

Only that isn't the case at all. To my mind it is impossible that the Lebanese government and human rights organizations didn't err in favor of a higher body count, but let's say that 1,200 is an accurate number. The Lebanese government draws no distinction between dead civilians and Hezbollah fighters, but during the war Hezbollah claimed only 70 of its men had been killed, and later revised that number upward to 250. The AP's estimate for Hezbollah casualties is, suprise!, 250. That the AP, and every other mainstream media outlet, unquestioningly accepted Hezbollah's count is laughable. Israeli estimates of dead Hezbollah fighters initially stood at 800. Those numbers were subsequently revised down to 532 confirmed dead, of which the IDF claims it can verify individual names and addresses, and a further 200 which cannot be confirmed. So that means approximately 732 Hezbollah fighters were killed out of 1,200. Even if one assumes the Israelis fudged their numbers, one must certainly assume the same of the Lebanese. By any measure then, Lebanese losses were not comprised of "mostly civilians."

The other dominating theme of press coverage last summer was that the IDF's bombing campaign risked driving the Lebanese public into the arms of Hezbollah. As John O'Sullivan put it, "Instead of destroying Hezbollah and strengthening Lebanon as a democratic state, it [the bombing campaign] destroyed much of Lebanon physically, weakened its new democratic government, and strengthened Hezbollah."

That even National Review bought into the "Israel lost" narrative is telling. Sure, Israel didn't win a decisive victory, but as healthy as Hezbollah appeared late last summer, it is now clear that the movement was suffering from the equivalent of severe internal injuries. As the violence in Lebanon spins out of control, Hezbollah looks less and less like the winner of last summer's war. Blogging from Beirut, Christopher Allbritton, a former reporter for the AP and the New York Daily News, writes that Hezbollah has, in fact, alienated its countrymen.

Today’s violence shows that Hezbollah no longer controls the opposition movement it created. Months of animosity over the war, the parliamentary paralysis and calls for changing the government has hardened positions among the Sunni, who increasingly see the Shi’a as responsible for last summer’s war and more loyal to Iran than to Lebanon. In short, the Shi’ite militant group has pushed its political opponents too far.

Whatever the outcome in Lebanon, it is a mistake to believe that Israel's campaign was entirely ineffective, or that Hezbollah was strengthened by the conflict. Certainly it was a mistake to believe that Lebanon's minorities were pushed into the waiting arms of Hezbollah. Sunnis are chanting pro-American slogans in the streets of Beirut. Lebanon is probably the only place outside of Iraqi Kurdistan where such a thing would be possible.

Michael Oren's op-ed in yesterday's New York Times comes in for some tough criticism at the Commentary blog, where Hillel Halkin chides the usually hawkish Oren for his willingness to "give up the unchanging for the contingent and the certain for the unpredictable."

Rumors of talks between Syria and Israel over the Golan are flying, and Oren says that such negotiations are taking place without American approval. Oren's analysis is that a peace treaty between Syria and Israel would allow "Israel . . . to address the Iranian nuclear threat--perhaps by military means--without fear of retribution from Syrian ground forces and missiles."

Halkin has a different take. While Halkin is less concerned with American opinion (Oren writes that "the potentially disparate positions of Israel and the United States on the question of peace with Syria could trigger a significant crisis between the two countries"), he counsels against trading away the Golan for so little--"land is an unchanging asset; it never loses its value." Hezbollah, he says, would still be free to retaliate against any Israeli strike on Iran, while political changes in Syria a few years down the road might leave Israel vulnerable to a more determined enemy on the high ground of the Golan. I find Halkin's argument much more persuasive.

On Tuesday, Commandant Gen. James Conway, ranking officer of the Marine Corps, told the House Armed Services Committee that surging U.S. Marines into Al Anbar beyond six or seven months would diminish the Corps's ability to respond to other potential hot spots.

We feel like we would be able to respond with those forces that are not committed to Iraq or Afghanistan, but the response would be slower than we might like, would not have all the equipment sets that [would] ordinarily be the case, and there’s certainly risk associated with that.

We already knew the Marine Corps was too small to carry out all the missions that are asked of it, and an increased deployment to Iraq will have an effect on readiness, but one wonders if Conway isn't exaggerating just a little bit in order to create a more favorable environment for increased funding. Still, the commandant made clear that the Corps was prepared for a long-term commitment to stabilizing Iraq:

I have seen it [the surge] characterized as a ‘hail Mary’ and that’s the last play of the game. I don’t necessarily see it that way. I think this is the latest in a series of operations to attempt to stabilize Baghdad and the Al Anbar province. And I’m not sure it will be the last.

MEMRI has translated an interview given by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah to Al Manar TV, Hezbollah's official media outlet. Strangely, Nasrallah offers some praise for his sworn enemy, "the Zionist entity":

I have said on several occasions that our enemy possesses some aspects that I wish we possessed--or that our countries or governments possessed. For example . . . I even praised Sharon once. I said that although this man is a criminal, a killer, a butcher, and a blood-shedder, there is something positive about the Zionists: They do not abandon their prisoners, and they do not abandon even their prisoners’ bodies, or their remains, even 50 or 60 years after their deaths. This is a positive aspect that you must respect in your enemy.

Funny that a man who has done so much to promote a culture of death and martyrdom among his own people would praise Israel for its commitment to preserving the lives, and returning the remains, of its own soldiers. Nasrallah also addressed the conflict in Iraq, suggesting that "Jihad against the occupation forces" is the only way forward for Iraqis. It seems likely that Nasrallah's Iranian sponsors take a similar view of the war in Iraq, and his comments only further undermine the idea that Iran might somehow become a partner for peace in Iraq.

As Iranian proxy Hezbollah works to destabilize Lebanon's pro-Western government through violence and intimidation, another Shiite group is emulating that strategy in Yemen. According to the World Tribune, the radical Shiite Believing Youth has, with Iranian support, been waging an off-and-on insurgency against the government of Yemen for the past 3 years. Now this latests report has the group driving a small community of Jews from their village in the north of the country. The group's ultimatum read, "it has become clear to us that they were doing things which serve mainly Zionism, which seeks to corrupt the people and distance them from their principles, their values, their morals, and their religion." The Jews were given 10 days to leave the country.

Yemen is no democracy, but writing in THE DAILY STANDARD in October of last year, Abigail Lavin described that country's first tentative steps towards elected government. It seems wherever there is progress in the Middle East--Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen--there is also the malign influence of Iran in the form of terrorism and insurgency.

From Prospect magazine: Identity and Migration, by Francis Fukuyama.

From City Journal: Facing the Islamist Menace, by Christopher Hitchens.

From FT.com (via FP Passport): Israelis, America and Iran, by Gideon Rachman.

From the Baltimore Sun: America must answer the Chinese challenge, by Greg Autry.

From IDG News Service: Expert: U.S. military needs wikis, video-sharing, by Grant Goss.

From the Washington Post: Defending Iraq War, Defiant Cheney Cites 'Enormous Successes', by Peter Baker.

From the AP: U.S. Troops Clash With Baghdad Insurgents.

ABC News anchor Chris Cuomo was in an up-armored Humvee on the streets of Baghdad this morning when the convoy he was traveling in was hit with small arms fire and two IEDs. Cuomo escaped unharmed, and the soldiers he was with had only "minor injuries." According to Cuomo, each IED was concealed beneath a corpse.

Cuomo had nothing but praise for the troops of the 410th MP Company. In an interview with ABC shortly after the attack, Cuomo was effusive in describing their performance under fire: "They are saving me, they are perfect, they are beyond expectation, they are supermen in green outfits."

A couple of journalists from the Detroit Free Press wrote a column earlier this month that conveyed their similarly overwhelming gratitude to the Reserve Marines of the 1st Battalion of the 24th Marine Regiment. You should definitely take the time to read their story.

Did the Islamic Republic really send experts to observe the North Korean nuke test last fall? Writing in the Telegraph, Con Coughlin mentions unconfirmed reports to that effect, and, citing an unnamed "European defence official," claims that the North Koreans invited Iranian scientists "to study the results of last October's underground test to assist Teheran's preparations to conduct its own--possibly by the end of this year."

According to John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, Iran could be ready to test a nuclear weapon as early as May of this year. Pike was skeptical that they would, saying such a test would likely be "more trouble than it's worth," but, assuming Russia delivers fuel for the newly built reactor at Bushehr some time this spring, and assuming the Iranians divert that fuel and start enriching it as soon as it is received, the worst case scenario is a nuclear Iran by this summer.

Pike said he had no reason to doubt reports of collaboration, but confirming such reports would be nearly impossible. Still, Pike says that between Pakistan, North Korean, and Iran, what we are seeing is "one [nuclear weapons] program doing business in 3 places." So does anyone still believe that Iran's nuclear program might not be a weapons program? Last night on MSNBC, Hillary Clinton had this to say about Iran:

Right now we are flying blind when it comes to Iran. We don't have good intelligence about Iran, about, you know, what their real motivations are, who is calling the shots. The same with Syria. And I would immediately open a diplomatic track.

And I don't think we would lose. In fact, I think we would gain insight. I mean, if we have to take a firm stand against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons, let's get more information before we do that.

We do have to take a firm stand against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons, and the only information we need before doing that is how far along the program is and where the critical facilities are. It's highly unlikely a diplomatic track would provide answers to either of those questions.

The editors over at Foreign Policy have a very amusing post on the copy at China's People's Daily over the past week. It's all very reassuring.

Concerned about China's rise? Here are some recent headlines for you:
* China's development an opportunity, not threat
* Chinese economy does not pose any threat to world
* China says it opposes arms races in space
* How the move for "harmonious East Asia" goes forward?

The junior senator from New York will have a busy schedule over the next 2 years, what with all the campaign stops, TV appearances, and her work in the Senate. Which is why her decision to pursue as many committee assignments as possible seems a bit strange. Elizabeth Benjamin, blogging at Albany's Times Union, points out that Clinton will serve on no less than 3 subcommittees of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And this is in addition to her work on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, of which she chairs the subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health.

Benjamin also notes that John Kerry's absence from the Senate during his 2004 run prompted considerable criticism. What kind of criticism will Clinton come in for if she is only occasionally able to attend meetings of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over:

policies and programs to counter emerging threats (such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, illegal drugs, and other asymmetric threats); information warfare programs; technology base programs; special operations programs; emerging operational concepts; Foreign Military Sales (FMS); technology export policies; Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction program issues; DOE non-proliferation programs; doctrine and R & D supporting non-traditional military operations, including peacekeeping and low-intensity conflict; and DOD commands and agencies including Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA); Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA); and SOCOM.

According to the AP, "the Defense Department [yesterday] exempted the Navy from complying with the Marine Mammal Protection Act for the next two years so sailors may practice tracking submarines with sonar."

Cara Horowitz, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that there was no reason for the Navy to delay in taking immediate and "commonsense" measures to protect the animals--"adopt a larger safety zone around its ships, reduce the power of sonar at night when marine mammals are harder to see and thus protect, and avoid training in rich marine mammal habitats." Maybe we can negotiate a treaty with the Chinese that any conflict over Taiwan would be fought only during the daytime and in waters devoid of marine life.

From MSNBC, U.S. stages 2nd airstrike in Somalia.

From the AP, Army Increase Will Cost $70B.

From the New York Times, Clash Pits Hezbollah Against Rule in Lebanon.

From Commentary, Backroom Dealing on the Golan.

From Defense Tech, Navy's Deadly New Darts.

From the Los Angeles Times, Daily body count in Baghdad falls.

Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar signed a memorandum of understanding with Leonid Maltsev, his Belorussian counterpart, yesterday. According to UPI, "the agreement formalizes the development of relations between Iran and Belarus, emphasizing expanding and solidifying defense ties between the countries."

Belarus is often referred to as Europe's last dictatorship, and Condoleezza Rice included the country in a list of six "outposts of tyranny" during her confirmation hearings in early 2005.

Iran has been a lucrative market for military exports from Belarus, which include tanks, artillery, and APCs, and Belarus has offered outspoken support for Iran's nuclear program in exchange. The Bush administration accused Belarus of selling military communication equipment to Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion and in violation of a U.N. embargo, so it seems unlikely there is any limit to the support Belarus might offer Iran in the absence of any international sanctions regime. Of course this is just the latest example of Iran cozying up to the world's most offensive regimes. Said Ahmadinejad, “In the light of their current abundant potentials, Iran and Belarus can complement each other in different areas.” Causing trouble seems to be the only thing for which these two regimes have "abundant potential."

Belarus Defense Minister Leonid Maltsev and his Iranian counterpart Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar; from IRNA.

The Los Angeles Times reports today on the "scant evidence" of an Iran-Iraq arms link. And what evidence does the Times offer to back up this claim?

During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered.

No surprise there, Iran is unlikely to funnel weapons and cash to Sunni insurgents (though it shouldn't be ruled out). Still, the Times concedes "that U.S. forces have picked up specially shaped charges used to make roadside bombs capable of penetrating advanced armor . . . with markings that could be traced to Iran and dates that were recent."

"Two years ago we were debating whether this was really happening," the [high-ranking intelligence] official said. "Now the debate is over."

So, "the debate is over," and every serious discussion of the IEDs focuses on the increased lethality of the devices owing to the influence of Iran--and the Times admits as much:

A second high-ranking U.S. intelligence official in Washington acknowledged that only a "small percentage" of explosions in Iraq could be linked to shaped charges coming from Iran.

"But in terms of American casualties, they are significant," he said, because they are much more lethal than standard roadside bombs.

How on earth, then, does the Times run a story under the headline "Scant evidence found of Iran-Iraq arms link"?

During this morning's Armed Services confirmation hearing, Sen. McCain asked Lt. Gen. Petraeus is if he can implement his new plan in Iraq without more troops?

Petraeus answered: “No sir.”

McCain also asked if it would be helpful to the general for the Senate to pass an anti-surge resolution. Petraeus responded that it would not be "beneficial.”

Sen. Lieberman asked Petraeus what impact he believed such a Senate resolution would have on our enemies in Iraq. The general said that we are engaged in a “test of wills” with out enemies and that he’d like “the enemy to feel there’s no hope.” Lieberman went on to ask Petraeus whether he believes passage of an anti-surge resolution would convey to our enemy a lack of unity here in Washington. “That’s correct, sir,” said Petraeus.

Lieberman continued:

I fear that a resolution of disapproval will send you over there with us saying you’re a good and great General but we don’t agree with what you believe we need to do in Iraq. And so, I want to appeal to my colleagues and consider with regard to the resolution of disapproval or the caps on troops or the cut off of funds to step back for a moment and give you a chance and the 160,000 American soldiers you will be commanding, a chance, perhaps a last chance, to succeed in Iraq. If, God forbid, you are unable to succeed, then there will be plenty of time for the resolutions of disapproval, or the other alternatives that have been contemplated.

Sen. Kennedy told Petraeus he had “every intention of voting” for the general’s confirmation. But the senator also plans to lead the charge on the Senate floor in passing resolutions against deploying the troops the general says he needs to accomplish his mission – something I discussed here a few days ago.

Just a thought, but Sen. Lieberman and his colleagues should consider introducing a resolution citing many of the remarks of Lt. Gen. Petraeus and comparing his remarks to the language in the anti-surge resolutions pinging around the Senate.

From the BBC, Crackdown 'nets 600 Sadr forces'.

From the Baltimore Sun, Scarcity of safe vehicles deemed worse.

From Bloomberg.com, Petraeus, U.S. Commander in Iraq, Will Test Doctrine He Wrote.

From the Fourth Rail, Suicide Strike on Pakistani Army in North Waziristan.

From Fox News, Lawmakers Want Polygraph of Berger Over Stolen 9/11 Documents.

From the AP, Romney calls for anti-apartheid-like sanctions against Iran.

From the Washington Post, Retreat Isn't an Option.

Bernard Cole, a professor at the National War College, spoke to Taiwanese reporters at the Brookings Institution on Thursday about the proposed sale of 3 diesel electric submarines, 12 refurbished PC-3 Orion aircraft, and $4.3 billion worth of PAC III Patriot missiles. The president authorized the sale in 2001 and the Pentagon's asking $12 billion for the lot, but the deal has been held up by the Taiwanese parliament.

Cole told reporters that it might be best if the deal didn't go through. "None of these has been purchased and perhaps none of them should be," said Cole. More pressing was the need for "mundane" things, such as munitions for artillery training, flight time for pilots, and fuel for surface vessels.

Most interesting was Cole's recommendation that Taiwan build its own submarines, rather than purchasing them from the United States. Writing in the November 28 issue of the WEEKLY STANDARD, David DeVoss examined the numerous problems, political and otherwise, that have plagued this deal from the start. Despite the fact that both the Executive and the DoD support the sale--the Pentagon will get a 15 percent cut--the U.S. Navy isn't keen on seeing these subs built at American shipyards. From DeVoss:

They are fast, quiet, relatively cheap, and extremely efficient when patrolling a continental shelf or shallow waters like the Taiwan Strait. It took decades for the Navy to get its all-nuclear sub fleet. The last thing admirals want is for congressmen to have a cheaper alternative that provides jobs in an American shipyard.

So the Navy does everything it can to kill the deal. It imposes a $360 million upfront charge before the subs are even designed, a poison pill the Navy never would agree to itself. Then it tells Taipei that even if the fee is paid the subs will take eight years to build, and 13 to fully deploy.

The Europeans, who actually build these subs, won't sell to Taiwan for fear of offending China. So Cole has proposed that the Taiwanese build their own fleet of subs. Says Cole, "Given the advanced state of Taiwan's electronics industry and its shipbuilding industry, I find it hard to believe that over the course of eight to ten years that Taiwan cannot produce an operational submarine."

Cole's comments are likely to anger a lot of folks in Washington, but, at $12 billion, this deal ought to greatly enhance Taiwan's prospects in any confrontation with mainland China. Cole makes a strong case that the money could be better spent elsewhere. Still, Cole advised the Taiwanese to push through the sale of the P3-Cs. That Cole thought these aircraft were critical to Taiwan's security is interesting given that, in promoting the sale of the same aircraft to Pakistan, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency claimed that the transfer would "not affect the basic military balance in the region."

The V-22 Osprey underwent its first flight test in 1989. Nearly two decades later, the Marine Corps has announced plans to deploy a squadron of 12 V-22s to Iraq sometime after June of this year. The V-22 has had a troubled history. Its development has been a top priority for the Marine Corps since the mid-80's, but four accidents, one in 1991, another in 1992, and two more in 2000, resulted in the deaths of 30 servicemen and led to significant setbacks for the program. Though the first three crashes could be attributed to defects in the manufacturing process, the fourth incident was the result of an aerodynamic phenomenon known as vortex ring state (VRS). According to a report released last week by the Center for Defense Information, VRS "occurs when a rotor becomes enmeshed in its own downwash and loses lift--with thrust from the remaining rotor often rolling the aircraft into an uncontrollable, inverted dive."

The Osprey would offer the Marine Corps, which has plans to buy as many as 360 of the aircraft, a replacement for its aging fleet of helicopters and a significantly more capable aircraft at that. The Air Force and Navy would buy the tilt-rotor aircraft as well, with plans to purchase 50 and 48 respectively. The Osprey can hold more men and materiel and transport them at much faster speeds and over longer distances than traditional rotorcraft designs. Still, CDI's report has ignited a new round of controversy over the $70 million aircraft, which was already killed once only to rise up again.

The Osprey's proposed deployment was praised last week by a Marine Corps News story headlined "Osprey Showin' Muscle," but CDI claims that the Osprey came up 42 percent short of its advertised 10,000 pound external payload. That would mean the hybrid wouldn't even be able to carry an up-armored Humvee. CDI also claims that testing for the Osprey was inadequate:

Specific tests to investigate methods of operating safely withing VRS, widely recognized as a potential problem, were cancelled, and because of danger to the rotor system and crew, test aircraft transitioning to helicopter mode "did not employ rapid right turns" that a helicopter would have used for evasion.

V-22s can supposedly make vertical takeoffs or landings with one engine inoperable, yet during 17 years of testing, this maneuver has never been attempted.

Today InsideDefense.com reported additional problems with flight testing that occurred this summer in the New Mexico desert. According to a report from the Defense Department's operational testing directorate,

“Frequent part and system failures, limited supply support, and high false alarm rates in the built-in diagnostic systems caused frequent flight delays and an excessive maintenance workload,” the report says.

Some of the reliability problems “may be attributable to the extended exposure to the desert operating environment” where the assessment occurred, says the report.

All this adds up to something of a nightmare scenario for the unique V-22. Terrorists seem to prefer a desert environment, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan offer little but, so reliability problems in New Mexico are deeply troubling. In addition, the inability to take evasive action means the aircraft will be of little use in the event of conflict with a competent adversary like the Chinese military. After making such an enormous investment in the V-22, the Pentagon will be loathe to scrap the project, and some members of Congress appear equally reticent to cut a program that provides so many jobs, but the alternative might be far worse.

The V-22, with Humvee in tow

Military and Aerospace Electronics reports that the Air Force is working to outfit the B-2 stealth bomber with a "30,000-pound bunker-busting 'super bomb.'" The bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), is designed to destroy deeply buried and reinforced bunkers of the type North Korea and Iran have relied upon for their nuclear weapons programs.

You can read more about the MOP at globalsecurity.org, but most significant is its ability to penetrate more than 200 feet of earth and reinforced concrete. That is a significant improvement over the GBU-28, which is a 5,000-pound laser-guided bomb that was initially used to destroy Iraqi underground facilities in the first Gulf War. And while some experts have questioned how effective bunker-busters will be against hardened targets in Iran and elsewhere, John Pike told me last year that he believed the military had deliberately fostered such doubts in an attempt "to lull the mullahs into a false sense of security." He said the GBU-28 would cut through such facilities "like a hot knife through butter," which makes one wonder just what a bomb six-times heavier could do.

In the past, President Bush has expressed his concern about releasing the body count of enemy fighters killed or captured in Iraq. Late last year, the president sat down with a number of conservative journalists and talked about the absence of daily body counts in the Iraq war. “We have made a conscious effort not to be a body-count team . . . [which] gives you the impression that [U.S. troops] are just there--kind of moving around, directing traffic, and somebody takes a shot at them and they’re down.”

In fact, that is exactly the impression one gets watching the evening news. But that might be starting to change. On a day when twin car bombs killed more than a hundred people on the streets of Baghdad, and after a weekend that saw 27 American servicemen killed (13 of them in a helicopter crash and another five when gunmen posing as American soldiers slipped through security and attacked a provincial headquarters in Karbala), the U.S. military looks set, at long last, to report the number of enemy fighters killed. From Reuters:

The U.S. military said on Monday 93 rebels were killed and 57 captured in a 10-day operation against al Qaeda-linked insurgents northeast of Baghdad.

I've never understood the government's resistance to reporting numbers of enemy dead. Sure, there are all types of problems with putting an emphasis on body counts, not least of which is a tendency to overestimate the number killed and create a false sense of progress. Still, every day Americans turn on their TVs and see the number of Americans killed that day, the number of Iraqis slaughtered by terrorist attacks, and not a single bit of evidence that American troops and Iraqi forces are getting the bad guys, too. It won't change the facts on the ground, but the American people deserve to know what they're getting for more than $4 billion a month. Last week they got close to 100 dead insurgents and 57 captured.

This weekend, Reuters reported that U.S. forensic tests had confirmed that a decomposing body found on the Philippine Island of Jolo was that of Khaddafy Janjalani, the military leader of Abu Sayyaf. That group had claimed responsibility for the worst terror attack in Philippine history, an attack on a ferry in Manila that claimed more than 100 lives. But the group also targeted Americans.

In the summer of 2001, Abu Sayyaf abducted 20 civilians from a resort on Palawan Island in the southern Philippines, among them Martin and Gracia Burnham, from Kansas City, who were both working as missionaries, and Guillermo Sobrero, from California. Within weeks of the kidnapping, the decapitated body of Guillermo Sobrero was found near an Aby Sayyaf camp. Martin Burnham was killed a year later during a rescue attempt that resulted in the release of his wife.

The abduction of American citizens made the destruction of Abu Sayyaf a priority for the American government, but it also had an effect in Saddam's Iraq. In 2006, Stephen Hayes reported on the existence of numerous documents connecting Saddam's intelligence services with the Philippine terrorist group. Those documents included this correspondence from the Iraqi ambassador to the Philippines, Salah Samarmad, to his superiors in Iraq:

"The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous year) receiving money and purchasing combat weapons. From now on we (IIS) are not giving them this opportunity and are not on speaking terms with them."

It seems clear that the Saddam regime was funding and arming Abu Sayyaf, though that support also seems to have ceased once the group became a target of the American government. Still, there are more questions than answers about the relationship between the two, and Hayes does a pretty thorough job of asking those questions in his piece, which can be read here.

Today's New York Sun editorial:

"Since Washington's hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation."

—The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, November 10, 2006.

Not since Dean Acheson helped provoke a North Korean invasion of the south on January 12, 1950, by stating publicly that Seoul was not part of America's defense perimeter has a Democrat so blundered. That's the appropriate way to describe Senator Reid's remarks Friday at the National Press Club.

"The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization," the Senate majority leader said, standing next to Speaker Pelosi.

The present situation differs from the one 57 years ago in that the enemy, in this case Iran, is already in Iraq. The Iranians are manning outposts our GIs are raiding. The Iranians are infiltrating the Iraqi government and interior ministry. But the stakes for the American interest are similarly high. And there is enough ambiguity about America's intentions in Iraq in light of the Democratic victory in November that Mr. Reid's remarks could have the same devastating effects as Mr. Acheson's.

Prime Minister Maliki and his government are faced with navigating a dangerous relationship with Iran. If Mr. Maliki believes America will leave the Iraqi theater too soon or that we will not be a ferocious enemy of Iran, he will be forced closer into an embrace of Iran, a country that has clearly shown its interest is not in a free and prosperous neighbor, but a chaotic one at war with itself.

The test of Mr. Maliki's mettle, in these critical weeks, will also test the stakes of whether America can leave Iraq better than we found it, a painful proposition made so by the sabotage of Iran, Syria, Al Qaeda and other foreign powers seeking to turn this country into Lebanon of the 1980s.

President Bush has authorized a new strategy to confront head on the foreign agents seeking to destroy Iraq. Last week, for example, American soldiers raided a Sudanese mission in Baghdad. More than 400 members of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army have been rounded up, and reports from Baghdad and al-Anbar province suggest that Al Qaeda is on the run. It is long overdue, and every American politician is within his rights to say so.

But to criticize these necessary steps as an escalation, to rule out the prospect that our fighting men can chase these terror masters into their safe havens in Iran, is to give the Iranians a powerful talking point the next time they strong-arm Prime Minister Maliki….

There's an excellent article in Salon today on the IED problem in Iraq. With the aid of a source at the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Task Force, Robert Bryce does an excellent job of capturing the scope of the problem--from the history of the devices, to the Pentagon's inept attempts at finding a technological solution, and finally to Iran's role in providing the insurgency with more lethal IEDs.

In May of last year, I was contacted by an officer serving in a counter-IED role with Multi-National Force-Iraq. He painted a similar picture of a military command that had thrown billions of dollars at the problem with little to show for it. My source emphasized the need for a tactical, rather than technological, solution, but his point was the same--were it not for the Pentagon's inability to counter the IED, U.S. casualties in Iraq would be far more tolerable, and the insurgents would be without any real means of attacking U.S. forces.

Below is a chart from Bryce's piece illustrating the devastating impact the IED has had on American forces. Bryce's source recommends the use of aerial surveillance to target insurgents setting the devices. The military is also sending more mine resistant vehicles and going after the Iranian networks that arm the insurgents.

Courtesy of Salon.com

From the Weekly Standard's Scrapbook:

Count us underwhelmed by the logic of the ballyhooed Joe Biden/Carl Levin/Chuck Hagel resolution attacking Bush's Iraq policy. It all sounds eerily familiar: "accelerate training of Iraqi troops"; keep a small U.S. footprint; the problem isn't military, instead "Iraqis must reach a political settlement." Yes, it's almost as if Biden had plagiarized the mantra we've been hearing for the last two years from the departing commanders, Generals Casey and Abizaid. The only thing missing is a call for U.S. forces to stand down as the Iraqi forces stand up. If you can figure out why a senator would embrace a strategy that (a) he has been consistently condemning and (b) has already failed, then you, too, may be qualified to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

On Thursday, Barry McCaffrey told the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs that the president's plan to surge troops into Iraq was "a fool’s errand." He went on, “Our allies are leaving us. Make no mistake about that. Most will be gone by this summer.”

Well it turns out it was McCaffrey who was mistaken. From Defense News:

Britain’s senior representative in Iraq on Jan. 19 said British forces will remain in Iraq through 2007 and perhaps into 2008 if the Baghdad government asks for continued help.

"Do I see ourselves being here throughout 2007? Yes," said British Army Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb, deputy commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq.

"Do I see that commitment being carried on to 2008? That will be for discussion among this sovereign government, my government, our part in the coalition and the like," he told reporters at the Pentagon in a teleconference from Iraq. "But if we’re asked to stay here then I don’t see any reason, although it’s a political one, that we would not continue to remain committed to the Iraqis."

Australian troops are also unlikely to withdraw any time soon, and Howard has vigorously supported the president's new strategy.

Other coalition members have expressed support for the new strategy as well, including Japan and South Korea, though the South Koreans will draw down the size of their contingent by 900 troops in April, leaving a total of 1,200.

So to which allies was the retired general referring? Looking down the list of coalition members it's difficult to tell. The Czechs might pull out, but that seems unlikely given Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek electoral victory this week. Poland, unlikely. Mongolia, unlikely. Who then?

Reaction to the Chinese ASAT test has been pretty wide ranging over the past couple of days. At the one end, a bunch of folks blame Bush for failing to propose a new international treaty on space weapons. According to Theresa Hitchens, that, and the president's new national space policy, have prompted the Chinese to stage this test as a means of forcing negotiations in "a classic cold war technique." Other comments have been rather dismissive of either the level of expertise this test represents or the impact it will have on bilateral relations.

Arms Control Wonk has been all over this story and brings word of the reaction from Russia, which, unsurprisingly, fits nicely with the take of the blame Bush crowd. From an interview with General Leonid Ivashov, vice-preseident of the Russian Academy of Geopolitcal Affairs:

“We remember Bush’s announcements about monopolization of space and his threat to destroy all unidentified satellites. Therefore it is possible to say that, it is indeed the Americans who are provoking a new arms race in space ” [Ivashov] said, noting that China is compelled to react to such US policy.

Space.com spoke with Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the Naval War College’s department of national security decision making and an expert on Chinese space policy, who doubted that there would be any serious fallout from the test:

“I think there will be a lot of very vocal rhetoric, but I don’t think it will have a substantive impact. There are just too many reasons for both of us to work together on so many issues.”

Maybe, but John Pike tells Defense Tech that we should "expect one or two more tests like this every year, for a long time." If Pike is right, it's unlikely that the relationship between China and the United States will be unaffected.

Finally, John, blogging at OpFor, thinks the Chinese test isn't nearly so impressive as reports would have it.

Welcome to 1985, Chicoms. The year when--presumably with REO Speedwagon cranked--we sent an F-15 soaring to the edge of space to kill a target sat.

True enough, the Chinese haven't exactly pushed the limits of modern technology. Still, our ability to strike Chinese satellites is largely irrelevant. The Chinese don't rely on satellite technology to fight, but we do. Again, John Pike:

"Our space assets are the first asset on the scene," Pike said. "They are absolutely central to why we are a superpower - a signature component to America's style of warfare."

The Chinese, he said, simply "don't have satellites worth attacking."

The incoming commander for Iraq, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, January 23. He’s expected to make the case for the “surge” and presumably explain why he needs the additional brigades to implement the new strategy. This will put surge opponents like Sen. Clinton, who serves on the committee, in a tight spot. They want to oppose the policy but support the troops on the ground in Iraq.

Sen. Obama framed it this way on Face the Nation: “We need to look at what options do we have available to constrain the president, to hopefully right the course that we're on right now, but to do so in a way that makes sure that the troops that are on the ground have all the equipment and the resource they need to fulfill their mission and to come home safely.” The problem is that Petraeus reportedly wants the additional forces, so the Illinois senator is also seeking to “constrain” the new ground commander in Iraq.

Petraeus is well respected across the political divide. Top Democrats praised the job he did in Iraq in earlier deployments. He’s considered the Army’s top counterinsurgency expert, knows Iraq well, and has stated many times that a military solution alone won’t solve Iraq’s problems. He also served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations of the NATO Stabilization Force in Bosnia.

Yet, Petraeus’ support for the surge isn’t just a case of following orders from the commander in chief. The NYT’S Michael Gordon has reported that behind the scenes Petraeus (and Lt. Gen. Odierno) have advocated a rapid surge “in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr.” And I’m sure the general came to his conclusion after examining all the options on the table to reverse the deteriorating situation in Iraq.

So, during the hearing, Sen. Clinton and her colleagues will speak on the virtue of “capping” our troop level in Iraq and then cast two votes -- in committee and on the Senate floor -- in favor of the nomination of Lt. Gen. Petraeus to be General and Commander, Multi-National Forces-Iraq.

Will the surge work? Will we surge enough forces and for how long? Should we pursue a different course of action? All these are critical questions and will be batted around during the Armed Services hearing. But it will be a bit of a spectacle for the full Senate to approve the general’s nomination (most likely unanimously) and then have Majority Leader Reid & company turnaround to devote their energy to passing a non-binding (for now at least), anti-surge resolution. Somehow I'm not surprised.

Stars & Stripes reports that the military will send 4,060 mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles to Iraq over the next year. The vehicles rely on increased armor and a v-shaped undercarriage to deflect the force of explosives concealed or buried in the road below. Only a few hundred of the vehicles are currently in use, and they are tasked mainly with detecting and clearing IEDs. Not a single American soldier of Marine has been killed by an IED while performing that mission in these more capable vehicles, which explains why the military is finally pushing to ramp up their numbers.

Though the military denies that these vehicles will replace the Humvee as the primary means of transportation in Iraq, if they are able to deliver more than 4,000 of these vehicles by the end of the year American troops will be far less vulnerable to IEDs while on patrol in Iraq's most dangerous neighborhoods.

At $2 billion, the MRAP vehicles are a bargain. From globalsecurity.org:

Protecting people is cheaper than replacing them in an all-volunteer service. Research by the Math and Statistics branch of the Naval Safety Center incicates that the financial costs associated to casualties should be adjusted upward no less than 250% from its current 1988 baseline to account for the real dollar costs of care and replacement. Adjusted enlisted casualties average $500,000 dollars while officers, depending upon their military occupation range from one to two million dollars each. This means the average light tactical vehicle with one officer and four enlisted personnel is protecting 2.5 million dollars of the DOD's budget. This $2.5 million is real O&M dollars. The argument that "we can't afford armored vehicles" is specious. The opposite is true, at 2.5 million dollars of precious cargo each, the Corps cannot afford UN-armored vehicles.

Another major threat to American troops in Iraq is highly-mobile mortar teams that "shoot and scoot" from highly populated areas so as to prevent what would otherwise be a devastating artillery response. Air Force Times reports that the "U.S. Army has seen rocket and mortar casualty rates drop 'to nearly zero' where its Counter-Rocket, Artillery, Mortar Program system has been deployed, said the manufacturer, and now the service plans to buy more."

Army spokesman Timothy Rider said the C-RAM had “successfully responded to RAM attacks directed at personnel in a U.S. base in Iraq by intercepting/destroying incoming rounds and by providing a capability that contributes to rapid and successful counterattacks and response options such as tracking and apprehending the enemy forces.”

These two programs could combine to significantly reduce American casualties in Iraq, and there are murmurs of other, as yet unidentified counter-IED technologies that are on the way. If the military can make a significant dent in this problem, American casualties could return to levels not seen since 2003.

According to U.S. News, sometime late last year the military launched a new special operations task force with the goal of disrupting the Iranian networks that are funding, equipping, and training Iraq's Shiite militias.

From a tactical perspective, the most devastating consequence of Iranian influence in Iraq has been the increased lethality of IEDs. The U.S military had made significant progress in reducing the IED threat with up-armored Humvees, but Iranian explosives and know-how allowed insurgents to plant more powerful bombs. The crude explosive devices favored by insurgents at the start of the war had given way to shaped-charges packed with military grade explosives by mid-2005. And, according to U.S. News, the guys on the ground have no question about who is supplying the insurgents:

U.S. military officials have been tracing the growth of Iranian influence through the increased use of Iranian-made explosively formed projectiles (or EFPs) as roadside bombs. When this particularly deadly and distinct variation on the improvised explosive device detonates, it melts and reshapes metal, turning it into what is essentially a deadly dart that punches through a humvee's armor plates.

"When the EFPs start popping up, we know, oh, that's Iran, that's Shia," says one U.S. special operations officer who served in Iraq. A senior American commander in Baghdad adds that the military has been able to trace numbers and manufacture dates back to Iran.

The news of this new task force and the arrest of five Iranian "diplomats" in Irbil both indicate that the president is committed to "interrupting the flow of support from Iran and Syria," as he stated when he set out his new strategy for Iraq. Success would mean stopping the flow of Iranian IEDs and a corresponding reduction in the number of American casualties in Iraq. If these efforts fail, the recent deployment of an additional carrier strike force to the Gulf offers the president another option for confronting Iran.

In what is perhaps the wackiest analysis of the recent war in Somalia, the New Republic's John B. Judis stops just shy of calling Bush a terrorist for his complicity in the Ethiopian invasion:

What exactly are we doing in the Horn of Africa, where we have encouraged the Christian government of Ethiopia to invade Somalia and replace its Islamic government? As far as I can tell, we have violated international law, committed war crimes, helped Al Qaeda recruit new members, and involved ourselves in a guerrilla war that could last decades. It's Iraq writ small.

The United Nations, however, seems to have taken a kinder view to the ousting of Somalia's al Qaeda affiliated ICU. The BBC reports that Francois Fall, the U.N. envoy to Somalia, has warned President Abdullahi Yusuf not to squander what he called "the best opportunity for peace for 16 years." Of course it's not all good news, the ICU has pledged to fight a drawn out insurgency, though it seems unlikely that the decimated group would be capable of any such thing, and there are more credible fears that Yusuf is no Thomas Jefferson. Still, the country is largely at peace, the bad guys have fled, and not a single American life has been lost. That's about as good as anyone could have hoped for 2 months ago.

Earlier this week, the Secretary of the Navy ordered a work stoppage on LCS-3, one of two littoral combat ships currently under production. The first of these ships, the Freedom, has already been built, and work will continue on a second, which is being built by General Dynamics using a different hull design. All work on the LCS-3, however, will stop for a period of no less than 90 days while the Navy tries to resolve the source of various cost overruns which have more than doubled the unit cost of the ship.

Right now the Navy has 276 Deployable Battle Force Ships, down from 592 at the end of the Cold War. In 2005, Admiral Michael Mullen announced a fleet target of 313 ships, including 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and 143 surface combatants. The low-cost LCS, with a price tag of just $400 million (a third of the cost of an Arleigh Burke class destroyer), was to be critical to this effort, with the Navy set to order as many as 55 by the end of the program--a number which would comprise more than 17 percent of the total fleet.

The Navy's other major shipbuilding program was to be the DDG 1000, previously known as DD(X). DDG class ships would total 69 ships, with 7 of those being the high-priced high-tech DDG 1000s and 62 Arleigh Burke class destroyers. Highlights of the DDG 1000 include a reduced radar cross section, dual-band radar, a PVLS missile system that doubles as a type of reactive armor, and a futuristic Advanced Gun System.

The DDG 1000 is a huge leap forward, but, like the LCS, the program has been fraught with cost overruns, though of a different magnitude. The first two DDG 1000s will come in at close to $3.3 billion each. Also like the LCS, the DDG 1000 will rely on gas turbines, rather than a nuclear reactor, to generate electric power for all mechanical systems, including propulsion.

When the Democrats won back Congress, Rep. Gene Taylor, the incoming chair of the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee announced his intention to pursue a policy of "Shipbuilding, shipbuilding. Getting the numbers of the fleet up . . . Numbers do matter.” Taylor's concern, however, was that the Navy's "Achilles heel . . . is fuel." To that end, Taylor said he would push the Navy to incorporate nuclear power into its ship designs wherever possible, including a possible redesign of the DDG 1000, despite the fact that oil would have to cost more than twice what it does now to justify the expense of using nuclear fuel to power a ship that size.

Where do other Democratic members of the committee stand on ship numbers? That's hard to say, as most did not return repeated calls for comment. Of those that did, Rep. Brad Ellsworth would only say that he was "looking forward to committee hearings," and freshman Rep. Joe Sestak, who not long ago retired from the Navy as a vice admiral, passed along this statement in response to my inquiry:

Since Joe has been gone from the Defense Department for over a year, he has no set number right now except to say the most important issue is the capability that is required to win, not the capacity. Over the next few months, he wants to listen and re-look at what is the capability that is needed to meet the mission; then, assess the most cost-efficient joint way to package the requisite battle-space awareness and combat weapon systems into platforms. The number of ships is the output of that process, not the input, while taking into account the maintenance of a ship building/combat system industrial base.

While an increase in fleet size to 313 ships would certainly mark a significant increase in capability, the Navy's current capacity is impressive. According to Robert Work of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, the Navy we have right now could "knock the snot out of any competitor." Work says the Navy now has "far more strike power" than the 600 ship Navy of 1989. With 10,000 missile cells, and a carrier fleet capable of hitting just as many targets in a single day, the U.S. Navy is without a serious rival. During Pax Britannia, the British navy understood supremacy to mean a force size larger than the next two largest navies combined. The United States Navy has more ships than the next 17 navies combined.

Given the overwhelming superiority of the U.S. Navy, it makes sense to put the LCS on hold until an appropriate price point can be reached. Work found the delays "very troubling," but speculated they may be related to the ship being among the first of its class more than anything else. Specifically, Work said a faulty reduction gear which put the program behind schedule may have been an expensive one-off problem. Still, problems with the LCS don't bode well for the DDG 1000.

And with regard to the enormously expensive DDG 1000, Work said he was still a fan of the ship, but compared its procurement to a Super Bowl champion spending big money to bring in Peyton Manning for a game against a Pee Wee league team--the Navy can defeat any potential adversary with or without it.

The Lockheed Martin version of the LCS

Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that "U. S. intelligence agencies believe China performed a successful anti-satellite (asat) weapons test at more than 500 mi. altitude Jan. 11 destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile."

Jeffrey Lewis, executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard's Belfer Center, reports on his blog, Arms Control Wonk, that the test is now "an open secret inside the US defense community." He even takes a shot at identifying which satellite the Chinese shot down:

Taking a look at the Russian and Chinese satellites in that orbit (The two states are most likely to conduct an ASAT test), I see only half a dozen candidates that might have been shot down and one stands out: The FY-1C, an obsolete Chinese meteorological satellite launched in 1999.

Lewis goes on:

If China has conducted an ASAT test, this is extremely bad. I had been hoping that the Bush Administration would push for a ban on anti-satellite testing, either in the form of a code of conduct. The Bush folks, however, have been fond of saying that wasn’t necessary, because “there is no arms race in space.”

Well, we have one now, instigated by an incredibly short-sighted Chinese government.

Read the whole thing here.

UPDATE:
AFP confirms earlier reports of a Chinese ASAT test. In addition AFP reports that the United States, Canada, and Australia have all "expressed concern" over the test to the Chinese authorities. What's really interesting is that critics of the president's new, more assertive space policy, or at least the media's interpretation of it, have pointed to this resolution, which the Chinese introduced to the UN Conference on Disarmament, as evidence of a Chinese desire to make illegal "attacks on spacecraft by land-, sea-, and air-based systems," and that the Chinese would have done so already if not for "US disinterest." That seems to be wishful thinking now that it's clear the Chinese have been working extensively on ASAT weapons systems.

Lewis, who has been anything but hawkish on the threat from China's space program, points out that no matter what the Chinese say, they "will simply not be credible partners in efforts to keep space peaceful."

Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter made it official yesterday; the Navy's next-generation aircraft carrier will bear the name of the late President Gerald R. Ford, making each subsequent carrier of that design part of the Ford class. The new carrier, on which construction has already begun, will be commissioned in 2009. The USS Gerald R. Ford will then replace the one of a kind USS Enterprise, which has been active for more than 50 years, and join the Navy's 9 other nuclear carriers, all of the Nimitz class. Also coming online in 2009 is the USS George W. Bush, the tenth and final Nimitz class carrier.

You can read all about the Ford class here.

Artist's rendering of the USS Gerald R. Ford.

Back from Iraq, Sen. Clinton said on the morning talk show circuit that she opposes efforts to cut off troop funding (for now at least) and opposes Lt. Gen. Petraeus’ request for more brigades in Iraq. Hillary now says that she supports capping the number of troops in Iraq to around 135,000. But the only way for Congress to enforce such a cap is somehow to prohibit the president from using appropriated funds for his recently announced troop surge. Sen. Obama also opposes the surge but won’t back the cutting off of funds. That leaves onetime "centrist" and Iraq War supporter John Edwards room to demand that Hillary and Obama lead the funding cut-off charge in the Senate to prove their anti-war bona fides. How ironic.

It was announced yesterday that the Marine Corps had ordered 15 additional Cougar Joint Explosive Ordnance Disposal Rapid Response Vehicles (JERRV) from Force Protection Inc. in a contract worth $9.4 million. In November of 2006, the Marine Corps ordered 200 Cougars to augment a total force of 300 already operating in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Cougar is a 12 ton mine protected armored patrol vehicle that has been used extensively to counter the IED threat in Iraq. Since the vehicle was first deployed in 2003, not a single soldier or Marine has been killed while patrolling in a Cougar, despite more than 1,000 IED attacks on the vehicles.

Here's a note from one Marine who was patrolling the streets of Iraq in a Cougar when it was hit by an IED:

"Just wanted to write a quick note to all of you at your company to thank you for the hard work you put into the Cougar vehicle. We are stationed in [omitted] Iraq and about 2 weeks ago our JERRV/Cougar ran over [deleted] mine coming back from a call downtown. It had been raining that night and the mines were placed in a hole filled with water. Right after the explosion, the Cougar was driven for two miles on the three remaining tires at speeds in excess of 20 mph so that we could make it to a safe area.

Once we got to the safe area we were able to survey the damage and everyone was amazed how far the vehicle had driven. The three of us inside were all okay other than slight concussions and a headache that lasted a few days. We know that if we had been in another type of vehicle that the outcome would have been much worse. We were also able to get a replacement Cougar within 24 hours. Thank you for everything and keep up the good work."

Sgt Chris Clair, USMC
EOD Team
Somewhere in Iraq
April 2006

Technology may be less important than tactics in combating the insurgency in Iraq, but this vehicle has already saved a lot of American lives. You can read more about the Cougar, and see some cool pictures and videos, at the Force Protection website.

Sgt Clair's Cougar

Over at National Review Online, Rich Lowry takes on a phony charge peddled by the NYT’s Rich and others. He writes:

Is kagan playing fast and loose with his numbers?

Frank Rich made this (sub. req’d) charge yesterday. It's amplified here. The charge is that Kagan first said it would take 80,000 troops to secure Baghdad, then 50,000, then at least 30,000, and now is supportive of a Bush surge of less than 20,000. This is basically a smear. Let's walk through it.

The 80,000 and 50,000 figures come from this TWS piece. 80,000 is clearly what he thinks it would take to secure Baghdad all at once: "Conducting Tal Afar-type operations across the entire capital region all at once would require concentrating all available forces in the area and a 'surge' of about 80,000 U.S. soldiers." 50,000 is his ballpark figure for what it would take to do it in phases:

There is every reason to believe that a reformulated operation, proceeding in phases to clear Baghdad neighborhood by neighborhood, but with sufficient force levels to leave significant American troops behind in the cleared areas, would be much more successful. It is impossible to estimate precisely how many more U.S. troops would be needed in the capital area, or in Iraq, without proposing a detailed military plan. But since the high end of estimates for doing the whole area at once produced the requirement for a surge of 80,000 or so, it is very likely that a surge of 50,000 American troops would be sufficient to stabilize the capital.

And 50,000 is not that different from what Kagan and Keane came up with when they sat down and did a more detailed military plan for securing Baghdad in phases (a huge part of the city, Sadr City, was left off the table in their plan). They called for five brigades and two regiments to Baghdad and Anbar, more than 30,000 combat troops (but even more troops than that if you count logistics, etc. to support the combat troops). Bush has proposed sending five brigades and a regiment to Baghdad and Anbar, almost precisely what Kagan/Keane proposed. The difference comes in the way the brigades are being counted. The Bush administration is low-balling them as 3,500 troops each, so it comes up with a lower total number.

None of this is to suggest that all is well with the Bush surge plan or that it exactly mimics Kagan/Keane, but it is unfair to charge Kagan with inconsistency on the numbers.

Lowry has more here.

The Lexington Institutes's Loren Thompson has a piece in UPI today which paints a pretty bleak picture of the Air Force and its ability to counter conventional threats.

The decay is most pronounced in the U.S. Air Force, the service that would have to take the lead in coping with urgent threats posed by Russia, China and other industrialized countries. After 20 years of neglect, the Air Force's fleet of combat aircraft is older than the Navy's fleet of warships. During his four-year stint as defense secretary, current Vice President Dick Cheney killed the service's cold-war fighter programs, terminated the next-generation B-2 bomber at a mere 20 planes, slashed the future C-17 cargo plane program, and decimated every other facet of U.S. air power. Clinton's defense secretaries added back some planes that Cheney had cut, but delayed and decreased the next-generation F-22 fighter that was the centerpiece of plans for future air dominance. Then Preident Bush's long-serving Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld launched the entire U.S. Department of Defense on a leap-ahead trajectory to military transformation that ignored air power for another six years.

The end result is that the U.S. Air Force now flies 45-year-old aerial refueling tankers using a plane retired by commercial airlines a quarter-century ago; its F-22 fighter program has been cut 75 percent even though the aging fighters it would replace are so old they operate under flight restriction; its production lines for C-130 and C-17 transport planes are scheduled for closure despite lack of adequate airlift; and the service has canceled its planned family of aircraft for replacing cold-war radar and reconnaissance planes. The only bright spot on the horizon is the tri-service F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but Navy efforts to slash funding for JSF suggest the Air Force can't even count on that program coming to fruition.

You can read the rest here.

By way of Blackfive, a medic in the 1st Cavalry Division gives his thoughts on Sadr and the surge:

The insurgents who battle the Coalition Forces are from outside the country. And the biggest problem down here isn't the insurgents. Its the politicians. The local politicians. Even though the country is controlled by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, downtown Baghdad is controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Shiites follow al-Sadr and thus the Prime Minister does what al-Sadr says. Think of it as if a warlord controlled New York and blackmailed the President into diplomatic immunity

When 1st Cav (mainly 2/5 Cav) came here in 2004, they took downtown Baghdad (known as Sadr City ) by force. It cost many lives, but after a year, we held an iron grip on the largest insurgent breeding ground in Iraq . The insurgents were afraid of the Horse People, and rightfully so. But when 1st Cav left, al-Sadr influenced the Prime Minister to kick out the Coalition forces from that area of Baghdad . He said the Iraqi military forces could hold the city. But all that happened was al-Sadr regained control of his cty, and it is now a heavily guarded fortress. A place where insurgents and terrorists can train and stockpile arms. And we cannot go back in becuase the Prime Minister won't let us. Our hands are tied. . . .

What appears to have happened within our diplomatic community, is that Prime Minister finally realizes that his days are numbered. If al-Sadr remains, [the prime minister] will be kicked to the curb. So hopefully he is about to allow us to reenter Sadr City , root out and destroy the enemy. A dramatic troop increase will allow us to do this. And the Horse People are back and ready to finish what they started over 2 years ago.

On Sunday, the Boston Globe reported that U.S. military commanders had been given new authority to pursue Sadr and other militia leaders:

US military officials say the Bush administration has given them new authority to target leaders of political and religious militias in Iraq who are implicated in sectarian violence, including the powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Such a showdown, key to Bush's plan to increase the number of US troops in Baghdad, could spark a deadly confrontation with Shi'ite militias, which enjoy widespread popularity in Shi'ite neighborhoods. It could also erode support for the fragile government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has agreed to the plan.

Senior US and Iraqi officials said last week that Maliki has pledged to confront the militias with the help of additional US troops. But many analysts doubt that Maliki has the will or the firepower to take on Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia is blamed for much of the tit-for-tat violence in the capital.

In recent months, Maliki and other top Iraqi officials routinely vetoed US raids on Sadr's operations, fearing the reaction of his legion of followers. Maliki's government kept a list of militia leaders who were off-limits to US troops, a senior Pentagon official told reporters in a background briefing in Washington, but now Maliki has agreed that the list would no longer be used.

If the specialist is right, going after Sadr may be Maliki's only option.

The Illinois senator had this to say on Face the Nation on Sunday.

One of the things that I strongly disagree with ... is this notion that we have future catastrophe to look forward to if we start phasing down troops. We are in the catastrophe ... right now.

Well, a short time ago, the Weekly Standard's Frederick Kagan sketched out what an Obama-like withdrawal would look like. He wrote:

Advocates of withdrawal, either gradual or complete, rarely consider in any detail what that action would look like. It is worth painting a few mental images. First, U.S. troops would pull back to their forward operating bases, ending patrols in Iraq's towns and cities. In places like Ramadi, this would mean abandoning the city completely, since the coalition forces there cannot be secure without continual raids and other combat operations. American units in towns like Tal Afar, where a precarious peace still holds more than a year after the last major clear-and-hold operation, would also pull out, abandoning the Iraqis, who put their faith in us, to fend for themselves. Before long, the only American troops in Iraq outside of the FOBs would be the small teams embedded in Iraqi units. The enemy would then return and brutalize the decent Iraqis who pressed for reconciliation and peace, as has occurred following previous coalition withdrawals from cleared areas.

The pullback of U.S. forces to their bases will not reduce the sectarian conflict, which their presence did not generate. It will increase it. Death squads on both sides will become more active. Large-scale ethnic and sectarian cleansing will begin as each side attempts to establish homogeneous enclaves where there are now mixed communities. Atrocities will mount, as they always do in ethnic cleansing operations. Iraqis who have cooperated with the Americans will be targeted by radicals on both sides. Some of them will try to flee with the American units. American troops will watch helplessly as death squads execute women and children. Pictures of this will play constantly on Al Jazeera. Prominent "collaborators," with whom our soldiers and leaders worked, will be publicly executed. Crowds of refugees could overwhelm not merely Iraq's neighbors but also the FOBs themselves. Soldiers will have to hold off fearful, tearful, and dangerous mobs. Again, endless photographs and video footage of all this will play constantly. Before long, it will probably prove necessary to remove the embedded U.S. troops from the Iraqi military units. The situation will become too dangerous; the Iraqis will increasingly resent the restraint the embeds place on their actions; and the U.S. military will become fearful of being implicated in death-squad activity. It is a matter of chance whether the embedded troops are pulled before any are kidnapped or taken prisoner by Iraqi military units turning bad or being infiltrated by radicals.

What will be the effect of all this on American soldiers? The result could be worse than what we suffered in Vietnam. There will be no "decent interval" here during which we withdraw in reasonably good order--the withdrawal itself is likely to occur in the midst of rising violence. Instead of pictures of Americans on the embassy roof in Saigon, we will see images of Iraqi death squads at work with U.S. troops staying on their bases nearby. And let us not forget that in the world of Al Jazeera, we will be accused of encouraging those death squads. The overall result will be searing and scarring. The damage to the morale of the military could be far greater than what will result from burdening soldiers with longer or more frequent tours of duty in a stepped-up effort to achieve victory. Those who are concerned about the well-being of the Army should fear defeat of this type more than anything.

An interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor on the rising costs of the war on terror. The bad news: "to pay for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has used its credit card, counting on the Chinese and other foreign buyers of its debt to pay the bills."

The good news:

The US is spending about $10 billion a month on Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of this year, the total funds appropriated will be nearly $600 billion--approaching the amount spent on the Vietnam or Korean wars, when adjusted for inflation.

However, the actual impact of the war on the economy is different than in the past, largely because the US economy is so much bigger now. During World War II, some analysts calculate that the US spent as much as 30 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the war effort. The Korean War, at its spending peak in 1953, represented 14 percent of GDP; Vietnam was about 9 percent. The current war, however, is less than 1 percent of America's annual $13 trillion GDP.

On January 18, the United States will deliver the first of eight P3-C Orion aircraft to Pakistan in a deal valued at close to $1.2 billion. The P3-C is a long-range, maritime surveillance aircraft designed for anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, and will augment, and ultimately replace, Pakistan's current fleet of European-made Atlantique aircraft. In December, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of another deal, valued at close to $900 million, for three additional P3-C aircraft with E2-C Hawkeye 2000 Airborne Early Warning system. The agency asserted that the sale "will not affect the basic military balance in the region."

In addition to the sale of the eight P3-C Orions, the deal will also include "six Phalanx close in weapons systems and an ammunition complement of 2,000 TOW-2A missiles and 14 TOW-2A Fly-to-Buy missiles."

All of this is dwarfed by the already approved sale of 36 F-16s to the Pakistani air force, which is expected to take delivery in 2010, in a deal valued at as much as $3 billion. And Pakistan isn't just buying aircraft. Late last year, the Pakistanis reached an agreement with the French government for the sale of 3 diesel-electric submarines in a deal valued at more than $1 billion. The White House has approved the sale of 130 Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Pakistan to arm the new subs.

It's hard to imagine how such substantial arms transfers, generously subsidized by the American taxpayer as they are (the United States has promised $1.5 billion in military aid over a five year period), won't tip the balance of power in South Asia, and specifically in the Arabian Sea, where the Indian navy has long held an advantage over their Pakistani rivals. In the analysis of one retired Indian naval officer, "the P3C Orion will definitely change the strategic and tactical dimensions of naval warfare in the Arabian Sea."

The P3-C Orion

According to USA Today,

the U.S. military is reporting a dramatic and unexpected increase in the number of police recruits in Anbar province, the center of Sunni insurgent activity in Iraq.

In the past two weeks, more than 1,000 applicants have sought police jobs in Ramadi, the provincial capital. Eight hundred signed up last month in Ramadi, said Army Maj. Thomas Shoffner, operations officer for the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division.

Those figures compare with only "a few dozen" recruits in September, the U.S. military said.

In announcing his new Iraq strategy last week, President Bush said previous efforts to establish security in the country failed partly because there weren't enough Iraqi and American security forces.

U.S. commanders attribute the sudden increase in police applicants to the support of local tribal leaders and a deepening rift between Sunni tribesmen and extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"They've seen enough of the murder and intimidation," Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, commander of U.S. forces in Anbar, said of tribes in the Ramadi area.

One catalyst: the murder of a popular sheik in August. Tribal leaders blamed the death on al-Qaeda and formed a force to battle the terrorist network.

The force's leaders agreed to have their fighters join the ranks of local police under a deal U.S. commanders helped broker, said Lt. Col. James Lechner, deputy commander of the 1st Brigade.

The U.S. military said Sunday that it had secured the support of four tribes in Ramadi after a month-long security operation there. In western Anbar, police ranks grew from zero a year ago to more than 3,000 today, said Col. William Crowe, the U.S. commander there.

Local tribes came to recognize that al-Qaeda's message was just "anarchy and chaos," Zilmer said. "It just took some time to settle in."

Back in the summer of 2005, Spain's socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero won parliamentary approval for proposed talks with ETA, the separatist group that had been waging a campaign of terror against Madrid for nearly 40 years. ETA seeks the full independence of the Basque region, shown in the map below, but Zapatero must have believed they would settle for less.

Courtesy of the BBC

Those talks ultimately led to a "permanent ceasefire," which Zapatero hailed as a major success of his administration, and which stood in stark contrast to the hard-line approach toward the group taken by Zapatero's predecessor, the staunchly pro-American Aznar. On December 29, Zapatero addressed the Spanish people:

“Are we better off now with a permanent cease-fire, or when we had bombs, car bombs and explosions?” he asked. “This time next year, we will be better off than we are today.”

The next morning, a bomb was detonated at the Madrid airport, killing 2 people and causing significant damage to the airport's newest terminal. Ever since, Zapatero has seen his public support seriously eroded by opposition attacks on his naive attempt at engagement with the terrorist group. Today, Zapatero reversed course, calling for a "great democratic consensus against terrorism."

"All Spaniards heard me say on 29 December that I had the conviction that things were better for us than five years ago and that in a year's time things would be better for us," Mr Zapatero told a special session of parliament debating Spain's anti-terror policies.

"Although it is not frequent among public leaders, I want to admit to all Spanish citizens the clear mistake I made," he said.

"Eta wasted the opportunity to contribute... to a better future for everyone, and by this decision Eta strives to prolong criminal activity which has already lasted more than four decades".

Welcome back to the war on terror.

Peter Pae of the Los Angeles Times has an excellent piece on the production process for the Joint Strike Fighter, aka the F-35.

Pae reports that Northrop Grumman plans to produce one complete JSF fuselage every day, with plans to produce as many as 5,000 aircraft if there is strong enough demand from the Pentagon and foreign governments. December saw a number of positive developments for the JSF program (which I wrote about here), particularly with regard to finding a large export market for the aircraft. Still, 5,000 seems a bit optimistic. John Pike of globalsecurity.org expressed his doubts about the program to Pae:

"How can we afford it?" asked John Pike, a security policy analyst with GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Va.

Pike said the program could face its biggest hurdle in about 10 years, when new unmanned-aircraft technologies and precision weapons, coupled with shifting military strategy, could make the F-35 obsolete.

"The whole idea of tactical aviation like the F-35 was predicated on fighting the North Koreans from South Korea, or fighting the Soviets in East Germany from West Germany, where a short-haul aircraft made sense," he said.

"We have to look at a future in which we have no allies to base our planes. That means we need long-range bombers."

Still, the need to subsidize the unit cost through exports seems to guarantee support for the program in the short-term:

The F-35 faces "little cutback risk" in the next year or two, said Cai von Rumohr, an aerospace analyst at Cowen & Co.

"The F-35 represents a major U.S. export potential that could be jeopardized if the program falters, increasing the odds that business would go to European competitors," he wrote in a note to investors.

The F-35, from Lockheed Martin

As if the Horn of Africa didn't already have enough problems, now Eritrea, which had relatively friendly relations with the United States when it first gained independence from Ethiopia in 1991, is looking ever more like a state sponsor of terrorism. No state has been officially labeled with that designation since the Sudan--which shares a border with Eritrea--back in 1993, not long after that country sponsored a conference that boasted representatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Saddam's Baath party, and the Islamic Republic of Iran among other distinguished guests (not to imply that Saddam's secular Iraq had any connection with terrorism). But Eritrea has become increasingly hostile to American interests in East Africa and it has done so most recently by supporting Somalia's al Qaeda affiliated Islamic Courts Union.

Eritrea has strained relations with nearly all its neighbors, including Sudan, but a border dispute with Ethiopia led to full-scale war in 1998, with more than 20,000 Eritreans killed over two years. That Eritrea would prefer Somalia's ICU in its struggle against the Ethiopian-backed interim government is hardly surprising then; however, the extent of the cooperation between Eritrea and the ICU is only now coming to light. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross posted a story on Pajamas Media this weekend on the alliance between the two:

Ethiopia’s longtime rival, Eritrea, had troops in the country for about four months prior to [the Ethiopian invasion]. A confidential UN report drafted by the Monitoring Group on Somalia in late 2006 says that “2000 fully equipped combat troops from Eritrea” arrived to the north of Mogadishu in late August, and redeployed to different areas held by the ICU. According to high-level sources in Somalia’s transitional government and U.S. intelligence, these Eritrean troops never left the country--a development unknown to American policymakers until today.

It seems reasonable to conclude then that the ICU's rise can best be explained by Eritrea's support for it, rather than as the result of an indigenous yearning for Islamic order. That the ICU is closely linked to al Qaeda is beyond doubt, but this fact seems not to have concerned the Eritreans in the least. Now, in addition to collaborating with terrorist organizations, Eritrea is making direct threats in an attempt to deter further American involvement in Somalia. According to Reuters:

Eritrea warned the United States yesterday that its involvement in Somalia would “incur dangerous consequences” following a US air strike in the Horn of Africa nation targeting Al Qaeda suspects.

The Eritreans kicked USAID out of the country in the summer of 2005. But we still provide Eritrea with a small amount of aid and military training. If the Bush administration does not want to brand Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism, it could at least cut off that funding as a symbolic gesture. The threat of sanctions and increased military support for Ethiopia would have an effect as well. Still, it will be difficult to rally international support for any move against Eritrea--like every other rogue state, Eritrea is forging ever closer ties with China.

Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Jack Keane worries that Lt. Gen. Petraeus may be assuming command in Iraq without adequate forces. From today's Sunday Telegraph:

THE MILITARY mastermind of President George W. Bush's new troop "surge'' strategy for Iraq has hit out at signs that the Pentagon is watering down the proposal for political reasons.

"You cannot try and do this piecemeal. We have to implement the whole package,'' retired Gen Jack Keane, the former army vice-chief of staff who co-wrote the "Choosing Victory'' strategy paper, told The Sunday Telegraph.

He expressed alarm after Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, told congressmen the troop build-up was expected to last "a matter of months'' - rather than the 18 months proposed by Gen Keane.

Mr Gates also said full deployment of the 21,500 extra troops announced by Mr Bush might not be implemented. He suggested that only two or three of the five brigades proposed for Baghdad might initially be deployed, while the rest were held in reserve.

"That makes no military sense, although it might seem to make political sense,'' said Gen Keane. "We need all five brigades in Baghdad as soon as possible. It will take three to four months to clear neighbourhoods of death squads and insurgents, and at least the rest of the year to establish proper security for the population. If you only wanted to stage a clearance operation, you could do that in a few months. But if we left then, the militia would just return as they have in the past.''

The J-10 fighter

The Chinese military has been working for more than 20 years to develop the J-10 fighter, a multi-role single-engine and single-seat tactical fighter, with a combat radius of 1,000 km. The program has seen numerous setbacks, including the crash of a prototype in 1995, which led to a 3-year suspension of the program. Defense News reported this week that the Chinese military had finally deployed approximately 40 J-10A single-seat fighters to two air bases in southern China. Now comes word of a mysterious military plane crash in Guangdong Province. From the AP:

Hong Kong journalists who tried to visit an area where a military plane reportedly crashed in southern China were expelled by shouting soldiers dressed in camouflage, a news report said yesterday.

The military plane exploded while airborne on Tuesday, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday, citing an unidentified witness. Chinese authorities have not confirmed the report. A man who answered the phone yesterday at the Xingning Military Airport in Guangdong declined comment and refused to give his name.

Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily News reported that several Hong Kong reporters climbed two big mountains in Jiexi county, in China's southern Guangdong Province, to try to reach the alleged crash site but were discovered before they got there. As one tried to take photos, soldiers appeared suddenly, shouted, and shooed the journalists away, Ming Pao said.

As the J-10's active duty status was only announced by the PLAAF on December 29, 2006, it would be extremely embarrassing for the Chinese if it was a J-10 that had crashed. The plane was intended to tap into a lucrative export market, and last April the Pakistani air force expressed interest in purchasing as many as 36 J-10s. The mysterious crash of an unidentified military aircraft in southern China may cause the Pakistanis, and others, to reconsider investing in a plane that the "the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence estimated . . . could be as manoeuvrable as the U.S. F/A-18E/F Super Hornet."

Bill Gertz reported yesterday on high-level discussions between U.S. and Chinese military officials over an incident that occurred in the western Pacific on October 27, 2006. Gertz was the first to report the incident in which a Chinese Song class submarine surfaced not more than 5 miles from the USS Kitty Hawk. The submarine remained undetected by the carrier and the accompanying warships until after it surfaced.

From Gertz:

The admiral in charge of the U.S. Pacific Fleet pressed Chinese military leaders to explain why an armed submarine challenged a U.S. aircraft carrier in the western Pacific by sailing within five miles of the warship, U.S. defense officials said.

The Chinese responded by claiming the Song-class submarine that surfaced near the USS Kitty Hawk on Oct. 27 was there by accident, and that it did not shadow the warship before making its presence known, the officials said.

Defense officials familiar with reports of closed-door military meetings in Beijing, Shanghai and Zhanjiang privately doubted the Chinese explanations and said it is more likely the Song-class diesel electric submarine was practicing anti-aircraft carrier operations.

When Gertz originally reported the incident, he spoke with Richard Fisher, a Chinese military specialist with the International Assessment and Strategy Center "who called the submarine incident alarming. 'Given the long range of new Chinese sub-launched anti-ship missiles and those purchased from Russia . . . It will likely happen again, only because Chinese submarine captains of 40 to 50 new modern submarines entering their navy will want to test their mettle against the 7th Fleet.'"

Other experts on the Chinese military have warned that such provocations have an alarming potential to spiral into a major confrontation between the United States and China. Larry Wortzel, chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and a leading expert on Chinese military policy, spoke on China's military ambitions in space at the National Press Club in November. (A transcript of the event is available in pdf here.) Wortzel spoke specifically about the need to avoid a repeat of this latest incident:

With respect to the goal the PLA has set of attacking a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group at sea, we don’t know, from their writings, whether their war plans--believe it or not, we all have war plans--are for a conventional, a nuclear or a high-altitude electro-magnetic pulse burst. But the PLA sees the goal of attacking a deployed American carrier battle group as realistic and achievable. Think of the implications of that! The Enterprise docked in Norfolk just before Thanksgiving and there are 5,000 people on the Enterprise alone. The casualties at Pearl Harbor reached only 2,400. The World Trade Center wasn’t much more than 2,400. Thus, when PLA officers routinely talk about being able to attack and sink an American aircraft carrier, they aren’t thinking really hard about what comes back at them after that.

I would argue that one of the implications of what seems to be serious research and writing in China is that the United States ought to be engaged in equally serious defense talks with the senior PLA leaders on what the red lines are in warfare. The anti-satellite programs that I talked about affect our strategic warning. The Chinese need to understand that we are very sensitive about interference with our strategic warning and about the ability of the United States to gather indications of hostility. When another nation interferes with that capability, we tend to take that as an indication that the nation may want to attack us. If you have been in the strategic warning system awhile, you know that the United States talked to the Soviets about this at great length. We still talk to the Russians about it. Senior American defense and foreign policy leaders have not had this dialogue with the Chinese. The PLA won’t even get serious about a dialogue with the Pacific commander about naval incidents at sea, to make sure that the next time a Song submarine broaches the surface, it doesn’t do it under the Kitty Hawk carrier battle group and bump into it. The PLA has avoided such discussions despite repeated requests from the U.S., and we need to talk to them about these matters.

Gertz's reporting makes clear that the Chinese are still unwilling to engage in a serious dialogue over how to avoid a future confrontation at sea or in space, where the potential for unintended consequences is even greater.

The incoming commander of U.S. forces in Iraq is considered the Army’s top expert on counterinsurgency. He recently authored the Army’s field manual on conducting counterinsurgency operations. He served in Iraq as commander of the 101st. Lt. Gen. Petraeus also believes that he needs more forces if he is to implement his strategy as the new commander in Iraq.

The New York Times reported that during internal deliberations on the size of the surge Petraeus “wanted to ensure that he had enough troops to carry out what by all accounts will be an extremely challenging mission. He sought a commitment that all five combat brigades would be sent.” Obviously, the general would be the best person to go before Congress sooner rather than later to explain why he believes he needs more forces to reinforce our soldiers and to increase the prospect of success.

Instead, I’m told that the administration has informed the Senate Armed Services Committee not expect Petraeus’ nominating papers for 2 to 3 weeks. That means his hearing could be up to a month or so away. In the meantime, the Senate could very well pass a resolution opposing the surge with some Republican support. And the fact that it would be a non-binding resolution wouldn’t limit the political damage to the president’s new Iraq policy.

The White House should consider speeding up the process and have Lt. Gen. Petraeus testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee before any “surge” votes, if possible. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and other Democrats and Republicans may be less inclined to support Sen. Reid’s “no surge” resolution after the new ground commander says he needs a surge to do his job.

(Rich Lowry makes a good point on the administration's surge verbiage here.)

This morning President Bush presented the Medal of Honor to the family of Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, the first Marine to receive the Medal of Honor for service in Iraq.

The citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a Rifle Squad Leader, 4th Platoon, Company K, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines (Reinforced), Regimental Combat Team 7, First Marine Division (Reinforced), on 14 April 2004. Corporal Dunham's squad was conducting a reconnaissance mission in the town of Karabilah, Iraq, when they heard rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire erupt approximately two kilometers to the west.

Corporal Dunham led his Combined Anti-Armor Team towards the engagement to provide fire support to their Battalion Commander's convoy, which had been ambushed as it was traveling to Camp Husaybah. As Corporal Dunham and his Marines advanced, they quickly began to receive enemy fire. Corporal Dunham ordered his squad to dismount their vehicles and led one of his fire teams on foot several blocks south of the ambushed convoy. Discovering seven Iraqi vehicles in a column attempting to depart, Corporal Dunham and his team stopped the vehicles to search them for weapons. As they approached the vehicles, an insurgent leaped out and attacked Corporal Dunham. Corporal Dunham wrestled the insurgent to the ground and in the ensuing struggle saw the insurgent release a grenade. Corporal Dunham immediately alerted his fellow Marines to the threat. Aware of the imminent danger and without hesitation, Corporal Dunham covered the grenade with his helmet and body, bearing the brunt of the explosion and shielding his Marines from the blast. In an ultimate and selfless act of bravery in which he was mortally wounded, he saved the lives of at least two fellow Marines. By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty, Corporal Dunham gallantly gave his life for his country, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

President Bush concluded his remarks:

With this Medal we pay tribute to the courage and leadership of a man who represents the best of young Americans. With this Medal we ask the God who commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves to wrap his arms around the family of Corporal Jason Dunham, a Marine who is not here today because he lived that commandment to the fullest.

"Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share."
--Ned Dolan

Lt. Gen. David Petraeus will soon assume command of U.S. forces in Iraq. Petraeus was previously responsible for Mosul and northern Iraq following the conclusion of major combat operations and is now at the forefront of the Army's search for an effective counterinsurgency strategy. He recently authored the latest Army field manual for counterinsurgency operations, which you can download here (10MB+ PDF), and is widely regarded as one of the Army's leading intellectuals.

Not to long ago, a WEEKLY STANDARD intern authored an exceptional profile of Petraeus for the DAILY STANDARD. You can read the piece in its entirety here, but I've pulled some of the highlights out below:

MANY YEARS AGO, Battalion Commander David Petraeus found himself lying on a field in Fort Campbell, Kentucky--dying. A rifleman had tripped during a training exercise, accidentally firing an M-16 round which had blown through the right side of Petraeus's chest and ripped out of his back. It wasn't supposed to end like this. Petraeus was supposed to jump to the world's hotspots, bravely commanding his soldiers in wartime or the uneasy peace that followed. He was meant to be among that small brotherhood of Army officers who had joined the battered United States Army in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War. He aimed to redesign the Army with the lessons of Vietnam in mind, to force it to recognize the importance of winning the "hearts and minds" of local citizens, and the necessity of being able to rebuild war zones as well as destroy them. A fiercely driven man, Petraeus willed himself to survive until surgeons were able to reach him. A decade later, Petraeus's physical and mental toughness would be one of his most important qualities as he embarked on the biggest challenge of his career: the reconstruction of Northern Iraq.

On Petraeus's work in northern Iraq:

Petraeus also gave his soldiers great authority--and the funding--to initiate civil works projects. Many of these were the basic tasks normally performed by local government. Petraeus said, "Some of our guys had studied politics 101; they reminded us that all politics is local." At a recent talk at Georgetown University, Petraeus clicked through slides showing the programs his soldiers had created, such as Operation Easy Rider, which painted lines down the center of roads, and Operation Pit Stop, which repaired gas stations. Soldiers went out to repair potholes and clean up trash in neighborhoods, working with Iraqis on a daily basis. Petraeus ordered posters hung in every barracks asking, "What Have You Done To Win Iraqi Hearts and Minds Today?"

And on training Iraqi forces:

THE ABILITY TO PROVIDE basic security will be critical to a fledgling Iraqi government, and Petraeus has devoted considerable resources to the creation of an Iraqi police force. By the time Petraeus left Northern Iraq, his soldiers had trained 20,000 police and security officers. Iraqis now patrol the borders with Syria and Turkey, protect ammo dumps, and escort truck convoys. "They guarded my headquarters . . . they lived with us, [and] they ate in our mess hall." Petraeus said. The police have shown improvement with time and training. "They were shot at; they shot back," Petraeus said. "Some of them were killed. We honored them just as we did our own soldiers, with memorial ceremonies, [and] payments to their families."

Petraeus certainly appears to be the right man for the job.

The BBC reports that twelve antiwar activists are demonstrating in Cuba against the indefinite detention of terrorists at Gitmo.

Anti-war activists are demonstrating near to the US prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to demand its closure.

The 12 activists include an ex-detainee and relatives of another prisoner. The protest marks the fifth anniversary of the first "war on terror" detentions.

The facility was set up at a US base in Cuba after the invasion of Afghanistan, to interrogate "enemy combatants".

The treatment of the 400 prisoners and the legal uncertainty about their fate have drawn international condemnation.

The protesters have reached the end of the Cuban military zone which borders the US naval base. It is as far as the Cuban authorities will let them go.

However, they say they are pleased to have got this close to the site of what they view as an international disgrace.

Elsewhere on the BBC website you can read this story about the death of Cuban dissident Miguel Valdes Tamayo, aged 50. Tamayo "was among a group of 75 activists jailed in 2003 for opposing President Fidel Castro, but was released on health grounds a year later." Still, the Cuban government would not allow him to leave Cuba for treatment--fellow dissident Maria Beatriz Roque described his confinement as "a cruel action by the Cuban government."

It's nice that antiwar activists can protest in Cuba. It's a shame no one else can--not that our antiwar activists would bother protesting that injustice.

This is from page 73 of the Iraq Study Group report:

We could, however, support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective.

Well, the incoming U.S. commander, the soon to be Gen. Petraeus, and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Odierno, reportedly believe more forces “would be effective” and are necessary to implement their new ground strategy. So I assume Chuck Robb, William Perry, Vernon Jordan and Clinton COS Leon Panetta will support the judgment of the new commanders and at least give them a chance to turn things around in Iraq.

INS Hanit, From the Jerusalem Post

One of the most worrisome developments of last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah was the death of four Israeli sailors aboard the INS Hanit, one of the Israel's three Sa'ar 5 class missile ships which are the most advanced in the Israeli fleet. The sailors were killed when an Iranian version of the Chinese made C-802 anti-ship cruise missile struck their ship.

News of the attack was quickly disseminated by Hezbollah's television station Al Manar, and the world was left to wonder if Israel's vaunted military was, in fact, quite vulnerable to Iran's increasingly sophisticated missile systems. Well, it turns out that the failure was not the ship's, but the crew's.

Defense News reported this week on an Israeli investigation into the attack. It seems that the Israelis can fault an "electronic warfare systems officer, who switched active defense systems into standbye mode without informing the ship's commander." The INS Hanit was armed with the Israeli-made Barak ship point missile defense system, seen below, which, according to DN, has "demonstrated an intercept capability of more than 95 percent in thousands of simulation and dozens of live-fire tests in Israel and abroad."

So, although the attack on the Hanit remains the most embarassing of the IDF's many mistakes this past summer, the threat from Iranian cruise missiles is clearly less significant than it seemed at the time. Hopefully the U.S. Navy has learned from the mistakes of the IDF.

From Israeli-weapons.com.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Sen. Joe Biden believes Congress should “demonstrate to the president [that] he’s on his own” on the troop surge. Well, it’s good to see that our allies aren’t listening to the Delaware senator:

From the Associated Press:

President Bush's decision to boost American troops in Iraq won support Thursday from U.S. allies as a step toward stabilizing the country, but the move was angrily condemned by opponents of the war.

The leaders of South Korea, Australia and Japan — all longtime supporters of the U.S.-led mission in Iraq — pledged continued political backing and material help to the beleaguered war effort.

"If America retreats in Iraq, then that has enormous consequences for the stability of the Middle East and it will also be an enormous boost to terrorism in our part of the world," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said in Sydney.

Senator Lieberman on the president's Iraq speech tonight:

I applaud the President for rejecting the fatalism of failure and pursuing a new course to achieve success in Iraq. There is no more difficult decision that a President can make than to send our nation’s bravest soldiers and patriots into harm’s way. Yet, no objective is more worthy in defending America’s vital national security interests than aiding a struggling democracy and supporting brave moderates who are in a life and death struggle against totalitarian extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran.

Our troops have sacrificed much and now more will be asked of them to defend our nation. They fight in a just, noble and moral cause against the forces of terrorism, and their sacrifices will make America and the world more secure. I want our troops to return home as soon as possible – after we allow, enable and support them in accomplishing their mission in Iraq in finishing this fight.

I know there are deep differences of opinion about what the President has proposed tonight. In the coming days and weeks, we should undertake respectful debate and deliberation over this new plan. But, let us also remember that excessive partisan division and rancor at home only weakens our will to prevail in this war. I am particularly pleased that the President has taken the important and necessary step of creating a bi-partisan Consultative Group consisting of representatives and leaders of the Executive and Legislative branches to address issues related to the war against global terrorism.

At the moment, we and our Iraqi allies are not winning in Iraq and the American people are understandably frustrated by the miscalculations, the lack of progress, and the daily scenes of violence and casualties. But, make no mistake - defeat in Iraq would result in a moral and strategic setback in our global struggle against Islamist extremists who seek to strike our interests and our homeland.

Success is attainable in Iraq, and tonight the President has offered a comprehensive program to chart a new course in both winning the military struggle to establish order and in achieving the political and economic objectives to build a more promising future for Iraqis. However, no progress is possible unless we restore order, particularly in Baghdad.

Tonight, the President did not take the easy path, but he took the correct and courageous course. We are engaged in a world-wide struggle against Islamist extremism, and Iraq is now the central front. It is a dangerous illusion to believe that we can depart Iraq and the inevitable killing fields and terrorist violence will not follow us in retreat - even to our own shores. That is why it is right and imperative that we recommit ourselves to success in Iraq. Weakness only emboldens our enemy, but united resolution will make our nation safer for generations to come.L

Via Hotline blog::

Success or failure in Iraq is not a matter of partisan politics but a matter of national security. All Americans should be hoping, praying and offering constructive advice for the success of our troops in Iraq and for those Iraqis seeking to create a stable and decent government. In that spirit, I support the President’s increase in troops. Even more importantly – I support the change in strategy – the focus on security and the emphasis on a political and economic solution as being even more important than a military solution.

I would add to it a heavy emphasis on measuring results and having the flexibility of adapting our strategy to make certain we restore security as quickly as possible.

We must not wait for a year or more to measure the success of our strategy but must develop a system to do so monthly weekly even daily so we give our troops the necessary support to succeed.

In 1999, Democrats, liberal pundits and some Republicans slammed Tom Delay’s comment that Kosovo was “Clinton’s War.” They were right to do so. At the same time, Sen. Joe Biden co-sponsored a resolution authorizing the commander in chief to use “all necessary force and other means necessary” to achieve victory in Kosovo.

Eight years later, the Delaware senator is hardly showing the courage of his convictions. He’s now leading the charge for “symbolic votes” against the expected troop surge. Biden explained his position this way in today’s New York Times:

“If you really want to change the situation on the ground, demonstrate to the president he’s on his own,” said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “That will spark real change.”

But why have only symbolic votes? How come Democratic leaders aren’t pushing for real votes on troop funding and Boland-type restrictions to “spark real change”? Are they only out to embarrass the president and score points with the base of their party?

At least anti-war Senators Feingold and Kennedy have the courage of their convictions to call for binding votes rather than the transparently political charade Pelosi, Reid and Biden are about to engage in.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed

The Associated Press is now reporting that a U.S. airstrike on suspected al Qaeda militants early Monday morning was, in fact, a success, resulting in the death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed. From the AP:

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, was killed in a U.S. airstrike early Monday morning local time, according to an American intelligence report passed on to the Somali authorities.

"I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage," Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president's chief of staff, told The Associated Press. "One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead." If confirmed Mohammed's death would be a major victory for the U.S. in its hunt for the 1998 embassy bombers. The strike was part of the first U.S. offensive in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993.

Further reports indicate as many as 10 other terrorists may have been killed in that strike. Following that success, U.S. aircraft have reportedly been engaged in at least 3 separate attacks in Southern Somalia.

What happens when we get the bad guys? From Deutsche Welle:

Europe Critical of US Airstrikes in Somalia

UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said new UN chief Ban Ki-moon was distressed by Washington's move.

"The secretary-general is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result," Montas said.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Rome opposed "unilateral initiatives that could spark new tensions in an area that is already very destabilized."

Norway, a member of the international contact group on Somalia along with Italy, said it was not satisfied with Washington's explanation of its conduct in Somalia and stressed that terrorism should be fought in a court room and not with military hardware.

The European Commission also slammed US moves to hunt down al Qaeda operatives in Somalia.

"Any incident of this kind is not helpful in the long term," a spokesman for the EU Commission told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. "Only a political solution can bring any serious prospects of peace and stability in Somalia."

Would the Norwegians have us arrest Fazul? And try him where? Surely not at Gitmo. These comments are absurd, but not so absurd as the caption accompanying one of the photos in the article:

The EU fears that the US airstrikes may destabilize Somalia.

That’s right. The U.S. Air Force is bringing instability to the Horn of Africa by killing terrorists.

The governor released the following statement today:

I agree with the President: Our strategy in Iraq must change. Our military mission, for the first time, must include securing the civilian population from violence and terror. It is impossible to defeat the insurgency without first providing security for the Iraqi people. Civilian security is the precondition for any political and economic reconstruction.

In consultation with Generals, military experts and troops who have served on the ground in Iraq, I believe securing Iraqi civilians requires additional troops. I support adding five brigades in Baghdad and two regiments in Al-Anbar province. Success will require rapid deployment.

This effort should be combined with clear objectives and milestones for U.S. and Iraqi leaders.

The road ahead will be difficult but success is still possible in Iraq. I believe it is in America's national security interest to achieve it.

Writing at Pajamas Media, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has broken a major story revealing the extensive cooperation between American military personnel and the Ethiopian armed forces during that country's recent invasion of ICU-controlled areas of Somalia. According to Gartenstein-Ross, "U.S. ground forces have been active in Somalia from the start, a senior military intelligence officer confirmed. 'In fact,' he said, 'they were part of the first group in.”

Many observers were surprised by the rapid advance of Ethiopian troops, and the hasty retreat of the ICU, despite assurances by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi that the Islamists could be displaced in "one to two weeks." Gartenstein-Ross has now confirmed the involvment of American aircraft, including American-piloted helicopter gunships, in the assault, which largely explains the success of the campaign. From Gartenstein-Ross:

Pajamas Media previously reported that Ethiopia’s use of helicopter gunships capable of targeting the Islamic Courts Union’s ground forces was a decisive factor in the army-to-army fighting against the ICU. A senior military intelligence source says that some of the gunships earlier described as Ethiopian were in fact U.S. aircraft. This has been confirmed by Dahir Jibreel, the transitional government’s permanent secretary in charge of international cooperation, who said that U.S. planes and helicopters with their markings obscured have been striking targets since December 25.

My first impression of the ICU's collapse was to reflect on the advantages of fighting wars by proxy, but it now seems that American air power played an important role in removing the threat of a Taliban-style terrorist regime imposing itself on Africa's most chaotic state--not that the Bush administration will get any credit from the press for taking such bold action. No, instead the New York Times has seemed to lament the exit of Somalia's Islamists: "The Islamists, using Islam as a bridge, did a better job than any recent authority to unite warring clans. But their military was no match for the better-trained, better-equipped Ethiopian-led troops, and now that the Islamists are gone, many fear a return to clan mayhem."

PS--My favorite quote from the above referenced article comes from Abdullahi Jama Ali, who the Times describes as "once part of an underground Islamist group": "The Islamic religion is like an ocean, everyone can swim where he likes." Ah, yes...those Islamists are so progressive.

Today's New York Times reports that Democratic leaders are exploring “ways to block financing for a military expansion without being accused of abandoning American forces already in Iraq." But Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are going to have to seek such a funding cut off over the likely objection of Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Odierno, the new senior ground commanders in Iraq.

John Burns of the New York Times has done first-rate reporting from Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Here’s what he had to say on the surge issue the other day on CNN’s Late Edition:

A group of us went out to the American military headquarters today to speak to Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, the new operational commander of U.S. troops here -- tough guy; in fact, the guy whose forces captured Saddam back in December '03.

He believes, and I think a lot of people do, that those additional American troops on the street will make a difference in the neighborhoods of Baghdad, and they may very well be able to inhibit, certainly not stop, but seriously inhibit the cycle of Sunni bombing attacks and sectarian death squad revenge.

We're talking about a very large increase in U.S. troop presence here, and everybody agrees this war is lost if you cannot regain control of Baghdad.

I have to say that General Odierno, on his second tour here, seems confident, but at the same time, we've heard that, of course, from previous American commanders.

We know that Lieutenant General Petraeus -- shortly, we believe, to be General Petraeus -- coming back for his third tour to take over from General Casey, strongly believes from his own experience in Mosul as the 101st Airborne commander in the first year after the American invasion, that having American troops in the neighborhoods makes an enormous difference.

And we've seen -- I've seen with my own eyes -- that when American humvees pull into a neighborhood, it quiets down. The bad guys don't want to stand and fight. They want the other guy to die for his country. They don't intend to do that for themselves.

So I think we can't dismiss the possibility that, over the time frame that they are talking about, and General Odierno, today, talked about three or four months after those troops are available to him in the spring, running through until the late summer -- that's the critical period, he thinks, whether they can control Baghdad and then bring the American troops, put them out on the periphery of Baghdad and go from there.

Certainly, one thing is true, and that is, if they don't do that, the war is lost. If they do it and they fail, the war is lost. The hopes may be 50-50 or less, but, you know, I think they feel that they don't have any other alternative than to do that or, as Dennis Kucinich was saying a few minutes ago, get out.

Burns’ blunt assessment is consistent with that made by his colleague, Michael Gordon, on Meet the Press two days ago – see here. Also, National Review’s Rich Lowry makes some good points -- here and here.

Mounir el Motassadeq was a member of the Hamburg sleeper cell that “planned and carried out” the September 11 attacks. A “close friend of 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah,” reports the McClatchy News, el Motassadeq “had signed wills, taken over power of attorney for the hijackers and wired money for logistical support, including flight training.”

Yesterday, he was sentenced to 15 years for his conviction as an “accessory to murder for the 246 people who died on the four airliners,” but not for the thousands murdered in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. His 15-year sentence, the maximum allowable under German law, means el Motassadeq will serve (assuming he’s not eligible for parole) a little over 22 days for each murder.

Here's the text of the letter Senators Lieberman and Lindsey Graham sent to the White House today:

January 8, 2007

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

For the sake of our own national security we must have a successful outcome to our commitments in Iraq. The choices facing the United States in devising a new strategy for victory are difficult but necessary. We hope that of all the options available, the option of losing will betaken off the table by all concerned.

That is why we will continue to push for and support policies to achieve a stable and free Iraq at peace with its neighbors and the international community.

One proposal that we are convinced will not achieve a successful outcome in Iraq is withdrawing American troops. We will vigorously oppose any plans to do this.

If the United States were to withdraw or redeploy from the battle, we would leave Iraq in shambles. A misguided and short-sighted withdrawal or redeployment plan would in all probability trigger a full-blown civil war encompassing the large parts of Iraq that are currently stable. In contrast, seeing our mission through to success would strengthen moderate forces in both Iraq and the region.

A withdrawal or redeployment could lead to a wider regional conflict involving neighboring nations including Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey. It could create a new safe haven for terrorist groups capable of striking the United States and our allies. It could embolden extremists in the region who view the United States as a paper tiger unwilling to make the necessary and worthwhile efforts to help the Iraqis secure a peaceful, free and productive nation.

Our strategy in Iraq is not working. We recognize that fact.

However, withdrawing from the fight is not a sound, long-term policy for the national security of the United States. Withdrawing from the fight is a recipe for defeat. It should not be adopted.

Now is the time for bold and decisive leadership to chart a new course forward in Iraq. It should be a course that leads toward a stable, secure Iraq which is at peace with its neighbors, an ally in the war against extremists, respectful of the lives and rights of all of its citizens, and with security forces for defending the independence of Iraq.

Some of the necessary changes, including new leadership in both the civilian and military leadership, have already been made. We applaud your efforts to strengthen our leadership team in Iraq. We also strongly encourage you to send additional American troops to Iraq to improve the security situation on the ground. For far too long we have not had enough troops in Iraq to provide security. It is time to correct this mistake.

A comprehensive new policy must also include clearly defining the mission of our troops and increasing the political and economic aid to and pressure on the Iraqi government to make the necessary political and economic changes. We firmly believe we and the Iraqi people can succeed if we adopt the right policy.

Over the coming weeks, Democrats and Republicans should be united around the fact that what happens in Iraq is directly tied to the future security of our nation. We should all strive to achieve a successful outcome which protects our national security for years to come.


Sincerely,

Joe Lieberman
United States Senator

Lindsey O. Graham
United States Senator

CBS News reports that a "U.S. Air Force gunship has conducted a strike against suspected members of al Qaeda in Somalia.... The targets included the senior al Qaeda leader in East Africa and an al Qaeda operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa.... Those terror attacks killed more than 200 people….The gunship flew from its base in Dijibouti down to the southern tip of Somalia ... where the al Qaeda operatives had fled after being chased out of the capital of Mogadishu by Ethiopian troops backed by the United States.)

The Associated Press reports:

A jungle hideout used by Islamic militants that is believed to be an al-Qaida base was on the verge of falling to Ethiopian and Somali troops, the defense minister said Monday….

Somali officials said the Islamic movement's main force is bottled up at Ras Kamboni, the southernmost tip of the country, cut off from escape at sea by patrolling U.S. warships and across the Kenyan border by the Kenyan military.

From today's editorial:

...If the stakes in Iraq are as great as Mr. Bush says--and we believe they are--then he should commit whatever forces are needed to achieve success. The public's support for the Iraq campaign is waning, in major part because the casualties and expense have been producing no visible progress. Even with Democrats running Congress, Mr. Bush has a political window to pursue a more robust security strategy. The paradox is that the fastest way home from Iraq is a bolder commitment now….Beginning in 2005, Mr. Bush began talking of a counterinsurgency strategy modeled on the successful "clear, hold and build" operation that drove insurgents from the northern city of Tal Afar.

However, it is now clear his two most important generals failed to muster the forces to make it work. The final straw was the failure of Operation Forward Together to secure Baghdad last year. Although many neighborhoods did improve during the "clear" phase, there were too few troops deployed for the "hold" process to work….

In appointing David Petraeus, who will replace General Casey, Mr. Bush has chosen a general with impeccable credentials in this theater. He governed Mosul in 2003 with enlightened engagement, marred by a Baathist spy who somehow managed to become police chief. He also built, essentially from scratch, the current Iraqi Army starting in 2004. One of his chief virtues is that he is a good listener who works well with Iraqis, which is crucial to implementing any new plan. Along with Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, who will be General Petraeus's chief deputy, the President will have generals who understand the priority of security….

What is sure to radicalize the Shiites is an early U.S. departure. They would then have little choice but to call on Iran and Hezbollah and anyone else for the military aid to defeat the Sunni terrorists. The forces of Shiite democracy, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, would be swamped. Then there really could be a Shiite dictatorship in Iraq, along with ethnic cleansing on a scale unseen since the India-Pakistan diaspora.

For all of these reasons, we hope Mr. Bush also refrains from using the words "surge" or "temporary" to describe his plans this week. A better message is that he will do whatever it takes to reinforce the forces of moderation and democracy in Iraq to prevent a defeat that would empower American enemies in Iraq and in the war on terror. And his strategy is best framed as providing the forces necessary to protect the population that most military experts believe is the key to successful counterinsurgency.

The tragedy nearly four years after the fall of Saddam is that such a strategy has never been tried. The consequences of failure in Iraq are too great not to try it now, before it really is too late.

Democrats and others have been pushing the line that military commanders really don’t want a troop surge in Iraq. Consider today’s Washington Post editorial:

[The president] will face a formidable task in convincing Congress and the public that such a "surge" makes sense. It's well known that many senior American generals, including the outgoing commanders of American forces in Iraq and the Middle East, have resisted a troop increase.

Actually, quite a few senior U.S. officers have been pushing for more troops, including the new senior commander in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus, and Lt. Gen. Odierno. From Michael Gordon's piece in yesterday's New York Times:

As a supporter of increased forces in Iraq, General Petraeus is expected to back a rapid five-brigade expansion, in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who has been openly skeptical that additional troops would help stabilize the country….

Since his appointment was disclosed Thursday, General Petraeus has not spoken publicly about his plans for Iraq. But the doctrine he has advocated suggests that he will want all five of the combat brigades slated to go to Iraq as quickly as possible instead of waiting for them to be phased in….

At one end of the spectrum have been General Casey, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of the United States Central Command, and Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces.

They have advocated plans to hand over security responsibilities to the Iraqis while gradually reducing American forces and shrinking the number of American bases in Iraq, as conditions permit. Their argument has been that a lengthy expansion of American forces in Iraq will simply put off the day when Iraqis take more responsibility for their security.

Taking a different view, other officers have argued for sending more troops while stepping up economic efforts, the better to apply the military’s new counterinsurgency doctrine. Progress in stabilizing Iraq, they argue, will come only when the Iraqi public does not feel that it needs militias or insurgent groups to ensure its security, and when it concludes that its basic economic needs are being met….

General Petraeus has been squarely in this camp, as was reflected in the military’s new counterinsurgency field manual…. As the senior American officer in Iraq, General Petraeus will work with Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, a subordinate who has day-to-day command of the forces and who also supports a troop increase.

It’s entirely reasonable to oppose a troop surge, but it is simply not accurate to pretend ground commanders in Iraq are against it.

Over at The Corner, Stanley Kurtz makes a good point regarding the Washington Post’s coverage of the Iraq “surge” debate.

There is something awfully odd about today’s big Washington Post story on the proposed troop surge. The headline reads, “Critics Say ‘Surge’ Is More of The Same,” and the article hammers that point home: “A sense that the White House is preparing more of the same is generating deep skepticism among Democrats in Congress.” The problem is that the article fails to report on the genuine tactical changes being proposed by the chief advocates of the surge….

[T]he Post reinforces the arguments of the surge’s critics, without giving a fair shot to its advocates. In fact, the whole article, from the headline to the chart, is an effort to back up Democratic critics, without even conveying the key argument of proponents of the surge.

Kurtz also rightly notes that there are "plenty of ways in which a surge might fail. But the Kagan-Keane plan has at least a prospect of success, and that’s more than we can say for the battle plan we’ve been relying on up to now."

The Republican senator will soon make it official. ABC News reports that Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback will declare his presidential candidacy on January 20. The Weekly Standard’s Terry Eastland profiled Brownback a few months back and recently reported on the senator's ground game Iowa.

From the current Weekly Standard editorial:

The task in these [upcoming congressional] hearings, then, is not just to explain and defend the president's plan, but to make the point that it is better than any plausible alternative, especially withdrawal. Committee members should not be allowed to get away with simply criticizing the president's plan. They must also explain what they would propose instead.

And if what they propose is withdrawal, then they must be asked to explain how that would work. And they should be asked to answer a few basic questions about how they would deal with the consequences of withdrawal.

How would they respond to the eruption of full-blown civil war in Iraq and the massive ethnic cleansing it would produce?

How would they respond to the intervention of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, Syria, and Turkey?

And most important, what would they propose to do if, as a result of our withdrawal and the collapse of Iraq, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups managed to establish a safe haven from which to launch attacks against the United States and its allies?

Would they favor another invasion of Iraq to root out these terrorist bases?

Or would they tolerate the establishment of another terror base, bigger and better funded than the one that developed in Afghanistan?

William Kristol offers his thoughts in the latest issue of Time:

There has been some sniping at the Keane-Kagan plan. But what is striking is that so few of the critics actually go to the trouble of analyzing it--or proposing a substitute. Instead, Keane and Kagan are treated with annoyance and disdain. Don't they know that we're losing in Iraq and that it's time to leave? What's all this talk about staying and fighting and winning? Didn't anyone tell them that the Bush Administration's errors have been so grievous that success is hopeless?

The Bush Administration's errors in the execution of the war have, in fact, been grievous. But George W. Bush seems to believe this: If we make serious mistakes in executing a worthwhile task, then we should try to repair those mistakes (even if belatedly) and correct course rather than abandon our friends and desert the battlefield.

Former DNC Chair, Clinton ally, and Global Crossing sweepstakes winner Terry McAuliffe dumps on Kerry in his new book, "What a Party! My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other Wild Animals." According to the AP, he calls Kerry’s ’04 campaign “one of the biggest acts of political malpractice in the history of American politics." Ouch. It’s a good bet these two won’t be dining together at the Nantucket yacht club this summer.

With Moscow wielding its energy club on its neighbors, Ukraine, Georgia and now Belarus, there’s been a growing awakening in Europe to the perils of being too dependent on the Kremlin for energy supplies. The latest is Germany. Radio Free Europe reports that Economy Minister Michael Glos welcomed “the agreement reached the previous night between Gazprom and Belarus on securing Russian gas supplies to Belarus,” but, Glos continued, "’the conflict shows that Europe ought not to make itself too dependent on gas supplies from the East.’" Indeed.

Nearly eight years ago, NATO (without Security Council approval) began its bombing campaign to expel Serb forces from Kosovo.

The UN has been trying to figure out what to do with Kosovo ever since it took over administering the province in 1999. That process may soon be coming to an end – sort of. As many expected, the UN will likley back “supervised independence” for Kosovo, reports Reuters:

A U.N. blueprint on the final status of Serbia's U.N.-run province of Kosovo, which diplomats say will open the door to independence, will be ready on January 21, a United Nations spokesman said on Thursday….

A Western diplomat told the Austrian daily Die Presse on Thursday that it was increasingly likely [UN envoy] Ahtisaari's blueprint would recommend "supervised independence."

Diplomats have said for months that the United States and its major European allies favor independence, supervised by the European Union and a NATO force of currently 17,000 soldiers.

But Russian backing for Serbia, which says autonomy is the most it can offer a region which was once the heart of the medieval Serb kingdom, is complicating efforts to decide the issue at the U.N. Security Council, where Moscow holds a veto….

Kosovo media reports say the document, to appease Russia, will fall short of recommending independence but clear the decks for individual states to recognize Kosovo….

NATO peacekeepers and U.N. police are braced for unrest as a decision nears, and a possible exodus by some of Kosovo's 100,000 remaining Serbs if the decision goes against them.

Sustained and robust engagement by the US and EU will be critical to Kosovo’s economic and political success. We should remember that instability in Kosovo wouldn’t stay in Kosovo for long.

The folks over at Foreign Policy have posted an interesting debate between Matt Continetti of Weekly Standard and the American Prospect’s Matthew Yglesias on the merits of this piece, "Why Hawks Win” in FP’s latest issue. Here’s the link.

With North Korea's nuclear program advancing, Japan is set to ramp up its missile defense capabilities. According to Reuters,

Japan may be getting set to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into plugging missile- defense gaps demonstrated by North Korea's July 4-5 test- firings….

Also being discussed is removing "barriers" to coordination with the United States to thwart missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads, said Ed Butt, head of a Lockheed missile-defense division….

Lockheed is linking sensors, interceptors and other components to give military commanders a range of ways to cope with any missile attack. It would let them respond with everything from Patriot Advanced Capability-3 batteries to Aegis cruisers to ground-based interceptor missiles.

Japan is working through issues tied to how far it may go in coordinating its missile defenses with the United States under its U.S.-imposed pacifist constitution. It is due to spend more than $1 billion in the coming year for on Patriot PAC-3 and Aegis sea-based missile defense….

Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3)

(source: Boeing.com)

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is a smart politician. He wants to rapidly drawdown U.S. troops in Iraq and escalate our involvement in Darfur. Both positions are extremely popular with Democratic primary voters. On ABC’s This Week, he explained what he’d do to end the atrocities in Darfur:

EDWARDS: Well, it depends on what your definition of a moral cause is and what moral leadership is. The kind of things that I'm talking about, I think there would be universal support for. Doing something about the genocide in Sudan and Darfur.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if it takes American troops?

EDWARDS: No. Actually, my own view is that putting American troops on the ground in Darfur would probably be a mistake. It would probably do more damage than good. But there are obvious things we can do in Sudan. The Janjaweed militia have air support from the Sudanese government. We could enforce a no-fly zone. We ought to be much tougher about imposing sanctions on the Sudanese government. But the genocide, global poverty, the spread of HIV-AIDS, the atrocities that occurring in northern Uganda -- there are a whole range of places that America would have basically universal support if we showed some leadership.

And the last thing I would say about this, a lot of people would think, well, this is a quote “feel good” thing. He wants the world to feel good about America. This is much more than that. Without America as the central stabilizing force in the world, there is no stability. There's chaos. There's no one else that can do this. We have to do it.

Edwards is right. American leadership is often crucial in successfully dealing with the world’s problems. He’s also right that a no-fly zone should be enforced and stiff sanctions should be slapped on Khartoum. But he’s wrong about “universal support for doing something about the genocide in Sudan and Darfur.” Moscow and Beijing (and the Arab League for that matter) haven’t been very helpful. Both governments have coddled Khartoum on the Security Council and have extensive business ties with the regime. So to end the brutality in Darfur any time soon what we’re really talking about is a coalition of the willing, one that targets Khartoum’s economy and aircraft operating in support of its proxy forces in Darfur. America would lead such a coalition and no doubt would be accused of acting “unilaterally” by some governments. So be it.

From the AP:

[President] Silva made the economy and crime the cornerstones of his inauguration speeches Monday. He vowed to increase economic growth that has lagged behind the rest of South America, without sacrificing the social programs that are largely responsible for his high popularity.

But political opposition to needed economic-policy reforms and entrenched criminal gangs will make meeting those goals no easy task, analysts said.

But political opposition to needed economic-policy reforms and entrenched criminal gangs will make meeting those goals no easy task, analysts said.

First elected in 2002, Silva, known familiarly as Lula, adhered to strict fiscal discipline and market-friendly policies during his first term, attracting foreign investors, strengthening the currency and curbing inflation.

But Latin America's biggest country has seen only feeble economic growth, reaching 2.8 percent in 2006 and expected to rise 3.4 percent in 2007 — far below Silva's stated goal of 5 percent.

"If growth were to reach or exceed 5 percent, Lula would be in better position to pursue even more aggressive and successful anti-poverty policies, giving him a splendid legacy in Brazil and even throughout Latin America," said Michael Shifter, Latin America analyst at Inter-American Dialogue research group in Washington.

"But Lula will have a very tough time reaching a higher rate of growth, raising productivity and stimulating investment, unless he carries out thoroughgoing policy reforms," he added….

Sony has filed a "patent for a motorized skateboard that riders steer by shifting their weight,” Techweb.com reports.

From a joint press release:

Press reports indicate that the leaders of the uniformed services are recommending that the Bush Administration increase the endstrength of the Army and Marines. Given the strain that our military is currently operating under, it is imperative that we act quickly to meet this need. As members of the Senate Armed Services committee, we have long called for increasing the size of the Army and Marines and have sponsored legislation to increase the endstrength of the Army over the next several years. It is critically important that the Department of Defense include an increase in Army and Marine endstrength in the Pentagon budget. We look forward to continue working with incoming Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin and our Armed Services colleagues in the 110th Congress to make increasing Army and Marine endstrength a priority.

Both senators have been calling for a larger force for some time now.

Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute explains why our immigration system needs a complete overhaul -- not just a fence.

In yesterday's Jerusalem Post, columnist Caroline Glick writes on the role of Yasir Arafat in the murder of top American diplomats in Sudan in 1973.

ON MARCH 1, 1973, eight Fatah terrorists, operating under the Black September banner stormed the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan during a farewell party for the US Embassy's Charges d'Affaires George Curtis Moore. The terrorists took Moore, US ambassador Cleo Noel, Belgian Charges d'Affairs Guy Eid and two Arab diplomats hostage. They demanded that the US, Israel, Jordan and Germany release PLO and Baader-Meinhof Gang terrorists, including Robert F. Kennedy's Palestinian assassin Sirhan Sirhan and Black September commander Muhammed Awadh (Abu Daud), from prison in exchange for the hostages' release.

The next evening, the Palestinians brutally murdered Noel, Moore, and Eid. They released their other hostages on March 4.

Arafat denied any involvement in the attack. The US officially accepted his denial. Yet, as he later publicly revealed, James Welsh, who served at the time of the attack as an analyst at the National Security Agency, intercepted a communication from Arafat, then headquartered in Beirut to his terror agents in Khartoum ordering the attack….

So it was that for 33 years, under seven consecutive presidential administrations, the State Department denied any knowledge of involvement by Arafat or Fatah in the execution of its own people.

Until last week.

THE CABLE released by the State Department's historian states, "The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, (PLO), and the head of Fatah. Fatah representatives based in Khartoum participated in the attack, using a Fatah vehicle to transport the terrorists to the Saudi Arabian Embassy."

… The cable concludes, "The Khartoum operation again demonstrated the ability of the BSO to strike where least expected. The open participation of Fatah representatives in Khartoum in the attack provides further evidence of the Fatah/BSO relationship. The emergence of the United States as a primary fedayeen target indicates a serious threat of further incidents similar to that which occurred in Khartoum."

From ABC's This Week yesterday:

STEPHANOPOULOS: [Do] you actually fear this idea that there's going to be a splitting of the difference. That the president will send 10,000 or 20,000 troops temporarily to Baghdad rather than the 20,000 to 30,000 or 40,000 that General Jack Keane and others have called for, for 18 to 24 months.

DAN SENOR (FORMER BUSH FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR): Right. So the plan that Keane, General Keane, retired General Keane has been advocating is about 32,000 troops which will get you four brigades in Baghdad, one brigade on reserve, and two marine regimens in the al-Anbar province. And if you do that you bring the ratio of Iraqi civilians to American soldiers 50-1 which is pretty consistent to the ratios in successful occupations throughout the 20th century. If you go for a smaller number than that, you can still get the ratio down in Baghdad but what's happened in past operations when we've increased our numbers in Baghdad, all the insurgency does is leave Baghdad and go back to the Anbar province so if you go for a smaller troop increase you have no capacity to deal with the insurgency once it moves back to Anbar.

My view is this, whatever troop increase the president goes for is going to be controversial. He's going to score no political points at home by going for a smaller increase. If he announces 10,000 or 15,000 or he announces 30,000 or 40,000 troops, those who are against the surge are going to say it's a disaster. And those who are for it are going to welcome it. So go for the number that maximizes the chances of success.

Senor is right. Too light a footprint has been a big problem going back to 2003.