May 12, 2008

Senate panel: no "cohesive" strategy to counter terrorists' Internet use

We posted a few weeks ago on a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report describing how al Qaida and affiliated groups use the Internet, and concluding that there are limits to their mastery of the Web.

Now comes a much more somber report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on the same topic. The staff report concludes that the federal government has "no cohesive and comprehensive outreach and communications strategy" to confront the threat posed by violent Islamic extremists using the Internet.

Even more darkly, it says that foreign terrorist groups using the Internet increase the threat to the U.S. homeland, by bypassing traditional "defenses" and potentially recruiting individuals in the United States.

"Left unchallenged, it is very possible that the core terrorist enlistment message espoused over the Internet will drive more individuals in the United States all the way through the four stages of the radicalization process and encourage them to conduct actual terrorist attacks." (The four stages are Pre-Radicalization, Self-Identification, Indoctrination and Jihadization).

But the report  seems to offer little but speculation that  the domestic terrorist threat is growing. It lists several previously reported cases of confirmed or alleged homegrown terrorist plots, all of which were broken up by federal law enforcement authorities long before the plots came to fruition.

The American Civil Liberties Union and 18 other groups took issue with the report, and warned about the impact of proposed legislation, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, which has passed the House, but is stalled in the Senate.

"Our concern is that this focus on the Internet could be a precursor to proposals to censor and regulate speech on the Internet.  Indeed, some policy makers have advocated shutting down objectionable websites," the groups wrote.  "Moreover, testimony at the (committee's) hearings indicates that such an approach not only fails muster under free speech principles, but is unlikely to be effective."

May 09, 2008

Myanmar accepts U.S. aid

The news this morning did not start out promising. U.N. officials were apparently “furious” that Myanmar officials refused to allow the United Nations to distribute 38,000 tons of food, enough to feed 95,000 people. Myanmar’s isolationist military government seized the shipment, saying it wanted to distribute the aid. Some suspected under government control, the supplies would reach the elite first. The U.N. said it must distribute the aid. And with that, in the midst of a calamitous humanitarian crisis, a stalemate emerged.

If Myanmar’s government would not accept U.N. assistance, it seemed even less likely it would accept any part of the U.S. outreach, which included helicopters, supplies and at least 1,400 Marines.  The government of Myanmar is unapologetically distrustful of foreign governments.

But just as suddenly the tone changed again. Within minutes, the U.N. said it would resume its flights, despite the seizure of its aid. And then local agencies began reporting that Myanmar’s government said it would accept some U.S. aide. And finally, the White House announced Myanmar approved a U.S. C-130 aircraft carrying relief supplies to land in the country on Monday.

In announcing the development, the Pentagon was quick to say that it would keep its visit to Myanmar brief (The government of Myanmar has not yet approved visas yet for the U.S. relief workers.) And no one had any illusions about how much one plane of aide could do for a nation with at least 100,000 dead and 1.5 million injured and in need of help.  But one Pentagon official said “one plane is better than none.”

But it was welcome news here. The U.S. military prides itself on being the largest humanitarian relief organization in the world. And many were frustrated that the U.S. could not do what it does best – answer the world call for help during a crisis. One plane is not much, but it’s a start.

May 08, 2008

Dick Cheney's spring reading

    Our McClatchy colleague who covers the White House, William Douglas, contributed the following report today to Nukes and Spooks. The vice president's choice of reading material comes as he reportedly presses for a tougher line against Iran, while Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been speaking publicly about avoiding conflict with the Islamic Republic.

    Vice President Dick Cheney, arriving in Philadelphia today to watch economic stimulus rebate checks processed at a government financial center, had a thick hardcover book tucked under his arm as he got off Air Force Two at Willow Grove Naval Air Station.

    Aides said the book was "Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45," by the British historian Max Hastings.

    Reviews on Amazon.com describe the book as a brutally honest recounting of some of World War II's bloodiest clashes in the Pacific from the perspectives of the troops - American, Japanese, Australian, Russian and Chinese - more than the views of the generals and world leaders who sent them into battle.

    The book's main premise, according to reviews, is that the United States was justified in dropping  atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "The myth that the Japanese were ready to surrender anyway has been so completely discredited by modern research that it is astonishing some writers continue to give it credence," Hastings writes.

    At the same time, the book is critical of Gen. Douglas MacArthur for making some war-time decisions - like the battle of Manila - that Hastings believes "satisfied his (MacArthur's) own ambition more convincingly than the national purpose of his country."

May 07, 2008

George & Dana's excellent adventure

Nukes & Spooks is mostly meant as a forum for serious discussion of national security issues. But hey, we're not above passing along scurrilous gossip and fun vignettes from the halls of government from time to time.

To wit:  An "anonymous source who is in a position to know" tells us that after President Bush's trip to Europe last month, the White House arranged to flack the trip to Washington's diplomatic corps ... with a slide show at the State Department.  Two problems:  while State's protocol office was in on the plan, the rest of Foggy Bottom, it seems, wasn't. And the briefer was to be White House press secretary Dana Perino. While Perino's no slouch, some thought the assembled ambassadors and minister-counselors from Embassy Row might want a little more heavyweight policy. (Bush had traveled to Romania for a high-stakes NATO summit; stopped in Ukraine and Croatia; and held important talks with outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia).

After much to-ing and fro-ing, it was agreed that Dan Fried, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, would join in on the briefing, which took place in State's Loy Henderson auditorium. Some missions sent their ambassadors to the briefing, although a few seem puzzled as to why they had been gathered together. Other embassies sent lower-ranking diplomats.

The briefing went well. "You could call it outreach," our source says.

And you thought that after 7 years and 4 months, the Bush administration had figured out how to coordinate foreign policy.   

May 06, 2008

U.S. may stop paying soldiers after June 15

It sounds scary, doesn’t it? If the U.S. Congress fails to pass the administration’s latest request for supplemental war funding by Memorial Day, the Defense Department may not be able to pay its soldiers after June 15. That’s what Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, charged Tuesday during a briefing to reporters.

“if Congress does not act soon, the Army will not be able to pay its soldiers after June the 15th," Morrell told us earlier today, adding: "Unless Congress appropriates the 108 billion dollars in the next few weeks, most of our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan could go without pay, and the critical progress they have achieved will be in jeopardy."

Technically, Morrell is right. Without that bill, the money will run out, and the Pentagon will be forced to turn to its other branches for funds. And yet, in the briefing room, as Morrell portended of potential financial chaos, no one seemed fazed.

In Washington, such warnings have become the common line every time the administration presents a massive supplemental war bill to a Congress.  Legislators use the bill as a launching pad to question the war. And the Pentagon warns that some facet of national security could be in danger without that money. It happened last year and the year before that. In fact, it’s not even exclusive to the Bush administration.  Under the Clinton administration, the military took some planes out of service and cut non-essential base costs when Congress wouldn’t pass the Defense Department’s budget.

And every time, after a lot of politicking and posturing, a bill passes and the looming crisis is averted.

That’s not to say the military doesn’t need the money or that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not dug deep into the military coffers. Or that Congress will automatically base the bill. Who knows?

But Morrell acknowledged that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sent a letter Monday to Capitol Hill that said he was encouraged to hear they plan to pass the bill on time.

That is, it appears very unlikely soldiers in the field will discover empty bank accounts at home. So don’t panic, unless you think soldiers’ livelihood or key military programs should not be used as political leverage. There is no sign that will stop anytime soon.

Missile defense flight test "successes" questioned

    Is the U.S. Missile Defense Agency playing fast and loose with its flight test record?

    Victoria  Samson,  a research analyst at the non-profit Center for Defense Information, an arms control policy institute,  believes it is. The MDA begs to differ.

    In a new report released today, Samson takes issue with a March 31 assertion by Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, the MDA chief, that his agency has had "26 of 27 successful flight tests just since September of 2005."

    That count "is overly generous" and "leaves one with a misleadingly optimistic view of how missile defense is progressing," she writes, explaining that 11 of those tests did not involve an interceptor hitting a target.

    "Historically, calculating missile defense testing's effectiveness focuses on whether an intercept occurred during a flight test," Samson says. "This is not to say that important things cannot be learned during other types of testing, But these other tests do not instill confidence that missile defense can work reliably."

    Her report also questions why Obering picked September 2005 as the starting point in his success count, pointing out that his tabulation would be hurt if it included failed flight tests of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program in December 2004 and February 2005.

    To obtain what she calls "a more realistic assessment," Samson examines the flight test records of the MDA's individual missile defense programs going back to 1999. Since then, the GMD program has made seven intercepts in 13 tests, the Aegis system on Arleigh Burke class destroyers has made 11 out of 13 attempted intercepts and the Terminal High Altitude Defense system has achieved six out of 13 attempted intercepts. The Patriot Advanced Capability system, or PAC-3, which is an Army program, has scored 20 of out 27 attempted intercepts since 1997, according to Samson.

    Concludes Samson: "This "26 for 27" gives a sense of optimism about the reliability of the missile defense systems that is completely unwarranted."

    Richard Lehner, a MDA spokesman, questions Samson's questioning.

    "Ms. Sampson, not being a technical expert, apparently doesn't fully understand the type of testing that is required for the very disciplined approach we take in the area of missile defense technology," he writes in an email response to her report. "Remember that much of what we are doing in missile defense is state-of-the-art and is new technology that is not like updating or modernizing a plane, ship or tank."

    "The purpose of missile defense testing is not just to see if we can hit a target, because we know how to do that," Lehner continues. "Rather, it is to make sure we can hit a target effectively and reliably in conjunction with proper  target detection and tracking, radar and sensor performance, command and control (to include interceptor launch procedures) and accumulation of performance data received from telemetry units aboard interceptor and target missiles.  That's why we have to conduct a multitude of different types of tests so that we can extract as much data as possible to improve and enhance the technology, and is the reason why we conduct flight tests for radar characterization, booster rocket performance, countermeasure/decoy research, command and control, battle management and a host of other important development and operational activities.  They may not be as 'sexy' as intercept tests, but they are vital to program success."

    Meanwhile, the signing this month of an agreement between the United States and the Czech Republic on the siting of a U.S. missile defense radar in the Czech Republic - part of the European-based GMD leg that Russia is so bent out of shape over - has been postponed.

    A State Department official, who naturally asked not to be further identified, said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was unable to squeeze a stopover in Prague into her current overseas trip.

    "We don't have a new date yet" for the signing, said the State Department official.

May 05, 2008

Mullen:Iran conflict would be 'a very significant challenge'

     In perhaps his most explicit comments to date on tensions with Iran, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says that with the United States embroiled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now is not the time for a conflict with the Islamic Republic.

    "It would be a very significant challenge for the United States right now to get into a third conflict in that part of the world," Adm. Michael Mullen was quoted by the Reuters news agency as telling Israel's Channel 10 television in remarks broadcast today.

     "I actually am very hopeful that we don't get into a position where we have to get into a conflict," Mullen said.

     His comments are significant in that while tensions with Iran are high, they appear to reflect his  deep concern that the U.S. military is already way over-stretched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They may also reflect a judgment that in addition to the international opprobrium a U.S. strike on Iran would ignite, Tehran could could make things even worse for the 158,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by stepping up alleged support for Shiite Muslim militias there, and for the 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan through increased arms supplies that have allegedly been sent to the Taliban. U.S. intelligence agencies remain concerned about Iran's ability to use proxies like Hezbollah to launch terrorist strikes on U.S. targets.

    Mullen said that while he is worried about Iran, he believes the United States should continue relying on non-military means, like international financial sanctions, to deal  with Tehran for now.

    "I think it is very important that we increase as much as possible the financial pressure, the diplomatic pressure, the political pressure, and at the same time keep all the military options on the table," he said.

    Just how the president's top military adviser's remarks were greeted by administration officials who favor a more aggressive approach to Iran is not known. But they can't have been well received given the latest developments in the feuding.

    Tehran today said it will not hold new a fourth round of talks with the United States on security in Iraq while a U.S.-backed crackdown by Iraqi security forces on the Mahdi Army , the militia of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr, continues in Baghdad's Sadr City.

    The latest U.N. report on the humanitarian situation in Sadr City warned that conditions for the 2.5 million inhabitants of the densely packed slum are quickly deteriorating, with more than 900 people killed in the fighting that began March 27, approximately 60 percent of them women and children. Food supplies are scarce, numerous homes have been destroyed or damaged and hundreds of families have been displaced.

    The U.S. military says there has been a spike in attacks against U.S. troops from sophisticated roadside bombs that Iran allegedly supplies to Shiite fighters. My colleague, Nancy Youssef, reports today that two of the 50 U.S. troop deaths in April were soldiers killed by one of these bombs while riding in the military's best anti-mine vehicle.

    Iran, meanwhile, today reportedly told a conference in Geneva on the Non-Proliferation Treaty that it could not accept more intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of its nuclear facilities when the world's declared nuclear powers are not subject to the same oversight and they continue to ignore the nuclear arsenal that Israel is widely believed to possess. Iran also reportedly rejected a fresh offer of incentives from the United States and five other world powers to comply with U.N. demands that it suspend its uranium enrichment program, widely believed to be part of a secret nuclear weapons project. Iran insists that its program is strictly peaceful.

Dad builds armored vehicle for son's war

   I am always struck by the nestled pockets of the country where the effects of the war are felt day in and out.  Sometimes it’s in a small town that has buried too many of its sons or a city that must comfort scores of children whose parents are sent to war.

I found such a place here at the Red River Army Depot, which refurbishes damaged Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Situated near the northern Texas/Arkansas border, the depot is the largest employer in the area. The depot survived a threatening base closure in 1995. But since the war began, the assembly lines are buzzing. Workers constantly feel the pinch to get damaged Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles back to the war zones as fast as possible.  They used to refurbish two Humvees a week; now they move 32 a day. The pressure is ubiquitous. In some parts of the depot, there is a running clock overhead to make sure workers move a Humvee under 15 minutes.

I had a chance to visit the depot during a trip with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and I was struck by how many workers have sons and serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes riding in the very vehicle their parents refurbished.

David May, 50, of Simms, Texas is among them. I met David, a 25-year veteran of the depot, minutes after he gave Gates a tour of the facility. David always wanted to serve in the military, but never thought his son did. That is, until he got a call last year. “Guess where I am?” son Christopher asked David, “The Army recruiting center!”

David told his son, who was studying at Southern Arkansas University to be a teacher, to take a walk and really think about his decision. But Christopher, 20, didn’t hesitate, saying like his father, he wanted to serve his country.

So Christopher joined the 101st Airborne Division and within months, his unit was assigned a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT). Inside, on the driver’s door, was a sticker that bore the depot’s motto: “We build it as if our lives depend on it. Theirs do!”

The HEMTT had come off his father’s assembly line, and David quickly checked the records on it to make sure it was in perfect shape.  It was, he assured me. (To your right, I have attached a picture of David with a HEMTT coming off the assembly line. )

“Once you know your son will be operating this equipment, the responsibility for it really hits home,” May said.

So while Christopher trains and waits for his deployment orders, David said he will keep working at the plant and strive to do his job well. The war has become the focal point for both him and his son, he said, day in and out.

May 02, 2008

Ex Iraq commander: "gross incompetence and dereliction of duty"

   Retired U.S. Army Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was relieved as the top U.S. commander in Iraq by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal became public in 2004, is blasting back in a new memoir, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story.

   In an excerpt published in the latest edition of Time, Sanchez recounts what he contends was an attempt by Rumsfeld to involve him in rewriting the history of the invasion of Iraq by shifting to the ground commanders the blame for the failure to deploy a sufficient number of occupation troops.

   Sanchez writes that Rumsfeld insisted that he was never told about an order issued by former Gen. Tommy Franks, then head of CENTCOM, for a drawdown of U.S. troops that countermanded the original plan for a 12-18 month occupation. The order directed that all but 30,000 U.S. troops should be out of Iraq by September 2003, only five months after the fall of Baghdad. Sanchez rejects Rumsfeld's version of what happened, which is indeed hard to believe given Rumsfeld's notorious micro-managing of the invasion.

    "That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it," writes Sanchez. "And I was supposed to believe that neither the secretary of defense or anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it."

    "In my mind," he writes, "this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."

May 01, 2008

“You are all heroes, blah, blah, blah…”

The most enlightening – and amusing – part of my day occurred by complete happenstance.

I was in Ft. Bliss, Texas as part a trip with the Secretary of Defense and we had arrived a bit early. The plan was for the secretary to preside over a retirement/enlistment/re-enlistment ceremony, and we had walked in the middle of rehearsal. The stage was set up with an array of flags behind a podium from which the secretary would speak.  On stage, a group of 45 wide-eyed soon-to-soldiers donning jeans and black Army t-shirts were lined up, rehearsing how they would walk up, raise their right hand and take the oath to serve.

A burly man was standing in front of the podium, guiding them along. The ceremony will begin with the retirees stepping up to the stage to officially leave the military, he explained over the loudspeaker.

And then the secretary will rise, and give a brief statement, the man explained. He told them his comments would go something like this: “You are all heroes, blah, blah, blah…”  I couldn’t help but chuckle.

As it turned out, the secretary thanked the soldiers for serving with “honor and distinction”

I realize he didn’t mean anything by it, but the stand-in secretary’s comments got me thinking: Did those new soldiers feel like heroes for signing up today, knowing they would likely go to Iraq or Afghanistan?

Or do they feel serving is an obligation and to call it heroism is blah, blah, blah…