Anonymous sources

McClatchy this week published a major story that revealed lots of new information about an Iranian general, Qassem Suleimani, who is the head of Iran's Qods Force, which is believed to have supported terrorist groups in Lebanon, the Palestinian areas, Iraq and elsewhere. The story described how Suleimani has tried--sometimes succesfully--to outwit the United States in Iraq, through a combination of violence, intelligence-gathering, deal-making and influence.

Not surprisingly, the story generated a lot of reader comment. Much of it fell into two categories: the story over-relied on anonymous sources; and we at McClatchy were unwittingly helping make the case for U.S. military strikes on Iran.

This post is going to deal with issue A, anonymous sources. They've been a matter of debate and dispute within journalism, and between journalist and readers, for some time - more so in recent years due to reporting scandals at the New York Times, USA Today and elsewhere. Readers, we know from surveys and comments, hate the use of sources who won't put their names on the line.

McClatchy's Washington bureau maintains a strict policy on use of anonymous sources, which you can read here. Here are the highlights:

• The information has to be newsworthy, reliable and not otherwise available. A senior editor knows the true identity of the source.
• The information must be verified, almost always by having a second independent source.
• The source must be protected because he/she would be in physical danger or face harm to his/her livelihood. Anonymity won't be granted for conjecture, opinion or personal attacks.

The truth is, sometimes it is just not possible to write stories, particularly when it involves investigative matters or national security issues, without using information from people who do not, for very good reasons, want to be quoted by name in the newspaper (and now, on the Web). McClatchy and its predecessor, Knight Ridder, which are widely recognized to have been the only mainstream news organization to have consistently questioned the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq prior to March 2003, could not have produced that award-winning body of work had we been banned from using anonymous sources. The same goes for the award-winning coverage by our colleagues in Baghdad.

As to the Suleimani story, it quoted some significant sources by name, including Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi; Ammar al Hakim, the son of a senior Iraqi Shi'ite political leader; and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad. We also reviewed numerous documents, including reports on Iran's influence in Iraq; Qods Force organization charts; Treasury Department listings and U.N. Security Council resolutions; and previous news articles on the subject.

But to get the whole story--and this story was in preparation for several weeks--we had to go to Iraqi officials who rightly feared for their political and personal safety if they were seen revealing inside information about a powerful Iranian general and Iran's behind-the-scenes relations with Iraq. The same was true of intelligence and counter-terrorism officials in Washington, who could be fired if their names appeared in the paper, but who had useful information to offer. As we report, we try to take our sources' motives and axes-to-grind into account and we debate the relative value of information every day, every hour.

We think the trade-off is worth it, and in this case, the use of anonymous source helped get more information into the public domain.

Why exactly is Robert Gates in Mexico City?

Greetings from Mexico City! One of the biggest perks of covering the Defense Department is an invitation to travel around the world with the Secretary of Defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top Pentagon leaders. So I try to never pass up an opportunity. Last week, I was invited to cover Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ trip to Mexico City, and I accepted immediately. 

A few minutes after I did, I wondered: Why exactly is Gates traveling to Mexico City?

After all, Mexico is our ally. In addition, Mexico has no troops stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the U.S. has no troop presence here. Sending troops here is not even an option. Mexico still abhors the idea, even to help address modern problems like drug trafficking and other major crimes. To Mexicans, the last U.S. troops here were occupiers. 

Moreover, most issues relating to Mexico are outside the Defense Department’s lane, as Pentagon officials often put it. Gates is only the second Defense secretary to make such a trip; the first one, William Perry, was here 12 years ago.  It falls to the State Department, DEA, and Homeland Security to chiefly deal with Mexico.

I never did find out why Gates was headed here as I boarded the plane this morning. But I figured for a few days anyway, I would not write about Iraq.

As it turns out, Gates is here to build up U.S./Mexican relations, which are marred because of Iraq. Mexico, and much of Latin America, feels U.S. attention and resources have been deflected by the war. It is not something the U.S. can ignore. Not only does it share a border with Mexico, but gets roughly 8 percent of its oil from here. Lately, the U.S. has taken notice of the rumblings.

Last year, the U.S., Mexico and parts of Central America created a $550 million security agreement called the Merida Initiative, which the U.S. Congress is currently considering. It calls for money for new police equipment and for Mexican soldiers to train in the U.S. But the secretary likely will not promise Mexico anything new to address its crime and drug problems without Congressional approval.

So Gates comes here chiefly as a diplomat armed with a simple message: “We haven’t forgotten about you.”

Joe Collins responds to our story on his Iraq report

  We received a considerable response - some good, some bad, some downright nasty - to our story about a study by Dr. Joseph J. Collins of the National Defense University of the Bush administration's decision to go to war against Iraq and the planning and aftermath of the March 2003 invasion. Here's what the author himself had to say about the version of our story published in the Miami Herald, which declined to print his letter.

Joseph J. Collins

3909 Franconia Road

Alexandria, Virginia  22310

April 21, 2008

To the Editor:

The Miami Herald story about my paper ("Pentagon Study: War is a 'Debacle'," April 18, 2008) distorted the nature and intent of its subject. The paper in question, Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and its Aftermath, was not a “National Defense University” study, nor was it a “Pentagon Study.” The disclaimer on page vi of the study clearly identifies this work as unofficial and personal, not a government “report,” as you portrayed it. 

This study examines how the United States chose to go to war in Iraq, how the U.S. decision-making process functioned, and what can be done to improve that process. The implication of the Herald story was that this study was mostly about current events or future policy. Such is not the case.

The study is about reforming decision-making, not apportioning blame.  It does not "lay much of the blame" on Secretary Rumsfeld for problems in the conduct of the war, nor does it say that he "bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff." It does not single out "Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley" for criticism, nor does it blame them for faulty decisions.

Your readers deserve a better summary of this paper than you gave them.  I urge them to download the study (www.ndu.edu/inss/Occasional_Papers/OP5.pdf ) and read it for themselves. 

Joseph J. Collins

Professor, National War College

 

Annual Terrorism Report: No Big Changes

The State Department's annual report on terrorism, formally known as the Country Reports on Terrorism, is due out this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday.

In contrast to the rhetoric on this issue that sometimes emanates from the White House, Capitol Hill and other quarters, the State Department report is generally seen as an even-handed, sober analysis of trends and developments in terrorism for the previous year. (Although there was that flap a few years ago, when the report understated the number of terror attacks, showing a decline when in fact there had been a large increase).

We don't have this year's full report yet, but we are reliably informed that it's expected to show no big increase or decrease in the number of terrorist attacks worldwide last year. (For 2006, the National Counterterrorism Center, which supplies the data to State, reported about 14,000 terrorist attacks worldwide).

The good news in 2007: A decline in attacks in Iraq. The bad news: An increase in Afghanistan.

New U.N. envoy to Afghanistan visits Washington

  Kai Eide, the new U.N. special envoy to Kabul, will face more than the Taliban, a weak and corruption-ridden government, rampant poverty and illiteracy and the world's biggest opium poppy crop in pursuing his ambitious mission to better coordinate international aid, governance and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
  The veteran Norwegian diplomat will also have to deal with U.S. and NATO officials and commanders who may resist his vision of a new approach in which civilian aid and reconstruction efforts receive equal billing with military operations.
   "We have to bring this together, and in particular the relationship between the civilian and military," Eide said in an address today at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It can't be the military carrying out a campaign and then asking the civilians, "Where are you now."
   Most experts agree that the Bush administration and some of its NATO allies have placed way too much emphasis on the use of force - which has claimed large numbers of civilian casualties, aiding Taliban and al Qaida recruiting and souring many Afghans on President Hamid Karzai and his foreign supporters - and have not invested nearly enough time, energy or money in helping Kabul win hearts and minds through reconstruction of ravaged infrastructure and non-functional law and order system, or fighting the country's endemic crime, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and disease.
   Eide acknowledged that bringing civilian programs into sync with U.S. and NATO military operations will be a "difficult challenge."
   But, he said he has noted in talks with American and European officials since his appointment last month "a readiness" to support his goal of improving cooperation and coordination in international civilian and military operations.
   "I do feel I have the full confidence of the international community," said Eide. "I feel I have the strong confidence of the Afghan leadership."
   He's going to need both.
   Recent reports put the level of violence in Afghanistan at or above last year, which was the bloodiest since the 2001 U.S. intervention that ousted the Taliban and al Qaida.
   NATO members have failed to fill a request for more troops, including trainers, and helicopters, and there are deep concerns that infiltration of militants from Pakistan will rise because of peace deals the new government in Islamabad is forging with Islamic extremists in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
   Eide, who I knew in Zagreb in the early 1990s as a dogged negotiator in international efforts to end the  Belgrade-backed insurrection by Croatian Serbs, is under no illusions about what he faces in Afghanistan.
   In his frank remarks, he acknowledged the poor coordination of international aid efforts in Afghanistan, the inadequacies of the Karzai government, the security challenge, rising food prices, the need for more international reconstruction funds and the graft that saps money and popular support from aid programs.
   His immediate priorities, he said, are putting more effort into rebuilding the country's police and court system, helping improve governance in Kabul and at the provincial and district levels and seeing what can be done to improve agricultural production.
   
   
   
   
   
   
 

Khalilzad: I'm not a candidate for Afghan prez

U.N. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has hinted that he will be leaving his post later this year, is frequently rumored to be considering a run for the presidency of Afghanistan. The Afghan-born Khalilzad again tried to quash the rumors Friday, although it was something less than an iron-clad denial.

"I'm not a candidate. I'm not planning to be a candidate," Khalilzad told a questioner (who apparently hoped for a different answer) during a session at the German Marshall Fund in Washington. Khalilzad said he hopes to return to the private sector ... in a position where he could help Afghanistan and Iraq. He's been ambassador to both places.

Meanwhile, it's TGIF. A busy first week here at Nukes & Spooks. And a busy week in the world, with revelations about Syria's nuclear reactor built with North Korea's help, continued crisis in Zimbabwe, the announcement of promotions for Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, and much more.

Back Monday ... or sooner.

Joe Nye, the 'smart power' guy

Today, we're continuing our on-going seminar on foreign policy, a topic we'll likely be returning to repeatedly as the U.S. presidential campaign moves forward...

President Bush's foreign policy has obviously run into some, er, problems, what with seemingly stalemated ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran refusing to abandon its nuclear program, a global credit crunch, and rising food and energy prices. Not to mention a declining U.S. image worldwide.

Where do we go from here? This morning, the McClatchy Washington bureau heard from one man who believes he has some answers to that question: Joseph Nye, Harvard University professor, former assistant secretary of defense, and author of a new book, The Powers to Lead.

Nye is a leading proponent of using 'smart power.'  What's that? It's a combination of hard power (basically the threat or use of military force) and soft power (other tools to get what we want, including public diplomacy, negotiations and alliances, U.S. economic power, American values, etc.)

Nye acknowledges he adopted the term 'smart power' because it is more politically saleable than 'soft power,' which, if used by a political  candidate, could leave him or her open to charges of being 'soft' on national security. But that's precisely the problem Nye argues:

"We tend to think about power as hard power. I bomb you, so I'm powerful ...  The discourse in this country is truncated."

Nye--and here we must point out he served in the Clinton administration--says President Bush's post-9/11 policies that emphasized unilateralism and military force have hurt U.S. interests. (He and former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, whose served in Republican administrations,  co-chaired a commission on restoring U.S. leadership through smart power. They testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning).

Nye said the Bush administration has slowly come around in its second term to realizing that the United States must use all the tools it has to advance its interests, not just military ones. He cited a November speech by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who called for an increase in the State Department budget. (Yes, you read that right, the Pentagon chief called for more State Department spending).  There should be, Gates said, "a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security – diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development."

Leadership, Nye says, is about knowing when to use which kind of power. Going forward, he recommended that the next president-elect announce even before taking office that he or she will close the Guantanamo Bay prison and take initiatives on issues of global concern such as climate change.

Finally, Nye says Barack Obama's candidacy for president has captivated foreign publics, and has helped America's image "even if he doesn't win."

The road to Iraq begins at West Point

Greetings from the United States Military Academy, or West Point, where I had the great honor to speak to the graduating class with Tom Brokaw and Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  The students are weeks away from graduating, and in all likelihood, less than one year away from combat duty.  And our job was to do whatever we could to somehow arm with advice that will help them thousands of miles from here.  It was daunting, but inspiring as well. They were truly impressive.

On the way here, the Pentagon announced that Gen. David Petraeus will move to U.S. Central Command, Gen. Raymond Odierno will become the new Iraq commander and Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin will remain as the No. 2 there. Throughout the day, I discovered the military was reacting in very different ways. As I boarded the plane from Washington, pundits, military experts and commanders alike were debating what the changes would mean for the Iraq mission, the future of military leadership and so on.

But at West Point, professors were boasting. The three commanders were all graduates of USMA's Department of Social Science. Not only that, they were classmates. Petraeus was from the Class of '74, Austin the Class of '75 and Odierno was a Class of '76 graduate.

No one had a clear answer about how the department of those years produced today's military leaders in Iraq. But the question spurred an interesting discussion. The guess around here is they were the among the first post-Vietnam students to arrive in West Point, that is, they were among the first tasked to fixing a military drained from that war. And when many of their classmates left in the '90s during the days of a shrinking military, they stayed, worked their way up and became nexus of today's military leadership. But why all social science majors? Perhaps, one professor here pondered, it's because that major, with its classes about politics, international relations and economics, suits those interested in counterinsurgency.

Is U.S. global power declining?

This is a touchy subject, and will no doubt generate plenty of agitated debate, but here goes...

Folks in the "think tank" world, as well as several high-brow magazines, are debating whether the United States' global power is shrinking. The United States will remain a major economic, military and political power for decades to come, these analysts argue, perhaps even the predominant global power. But relative to other nations and groups, its power is dimming.

In other words, the world of the lone superpower, which lasted roughly from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until now, is over.

Richard Haass, who served both President George W. Bush and his father, launches the latest salvo in this debate in an article in the new issues of Foreign Affairs magazine. Haass argues that the world is about to enter the "age of nonpolarity." This requires a quick detour into international relations theory:

* Bipolarity - That's when there are two major powers on the globe. Think Washington and Moscow in the Cold War.

* Unipolarity - One nation (and its allies) dominate. That was the post-Cold War world.

* Multipolarity - There are several or many "great powers." That describes the Colonial Era of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the world of "nonpolarity" that Haass describes, no one country or group is in charge. "Power is now found in many hands and in many places," he writes. U.S. power, Haass argues, is being challenged not just by rising nations like China and India, but by new power centers which are not even nations: terrorist outfits like al Qaida; nonprofits like the Gates Foundation; media outlets like al Jazeera; and inter-governmental groups like the International Monetary Fund.

This is not just Bush-bashing, although Haass says the Iraq war has contributed "to the dilution of the United States position in the world." He also faults a generation of U.S. energy policy (or lack thereof) that has left American dependent on oil imports.

Curiously, the rising power of states like China could push the United States and European Union together.

Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, gave a speech at Harvard University on April 12 arguing for a broadened trans-Atlantic agenda that would include dealing with issues like climate change, the downsides of globalization and the resurgence of political Islam.

"No single nation can solve these problems on its own – not even the most powerful, not even the United States," Steinmeier said. His unstated message: in this uncertain world, countries that share values such as democracy need to stick together.

For another article arguing that U.S. power is in decline, click here.

Tomorrow:  An introduction to "smart power."

Will Petraeus change Iran policy?

Nancy Youssef sends this on today's Central Command announcement:

The naming of Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top Iraqi commander, to head U.S. Central Command and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, Petraeus' deputy, to become the new Iraq commander suggests that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants the counterinsurgency strategy the two men have championed to define U.S. relations in the region that Central Command oversees. That includes, among other nations, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.

The appointments come at a precarious time, both in Iraq and the region. Petraeus’ surge strategy, which led to a significant drop in violence, has been in peril in parts of Baghdad after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki launched an offensive in Basra last month.

But Iran may be the bigger issue. During his congressional testimony earlier this month, Petraeus said Iran has been aggravating violence in Iraq, but stopped short of calling for U.S. military action against Iraq's eastern neighbor.

Petraeus' comments, however, were more hawkish than those of his predecessor, Adm. William “Fox” Fallon, who abruptly retired last month after Esquire published a story in which Fallon said he was standing in the way of a tougher policy toward Iran. Gates and Fallon both denied there was a rift, but Fallon said that the perception of one forced him to leave.

The appointment of Odierno as Iraq commander marks something of a redemption. He'd previously been criticized for having a ham-handed "kinetic" approach to warfare that lacked the subtlety counterinsurgency requires. His aggressive tactics against the insurgency in northern Iraq during his previous stint there are often blamed for inflaming tensions, rather than tamping them down.

But in his announcement, Gates said that Odierno had built strong relationships with the Iraqi leadership as Petraeus's No. 2 in Iraq.

Until Fallon’s retirement, Odierno was slated to be the Army’s vice chief of staff. Now that post will go to Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who during his service in Iraq was among the first commanders to recognize that U.S. killings of innocent Iraqis had helped fuel the insurgency. "I would argue in many instances we are our own worst enemy," he told me in June, 2006.

Pollard redux: U.S. charges American with spying for Israel

The United States has long considered Israel its closest ally in the Middle East. But the relationship, which hasn't always been an easy one, may have hit a new rough patch.

The FBI today arrested an 84-year-old New Jersey man and charged him with passing U.S. military secrets to Israel in the 1980s. According to a Department of Justice announcement, Ben-Ami Kadish delivered classified documents on U.S. nuclear weapons, combat aircraft and missiles to the same Israeli official who handled Jonathan Jay Pollard, the former civilian U.S. Navy intelligence analyst sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to spying for Israel in 1985.

Kadish, a former mechanical engineer at an army research center at Picatinny Arsenal, in Dover, N.J., would remove documents from a library at the facility and bring them to his home, where the Israeli official would photograph them, according to the charges filed in federal court in New York City.

Kadish, appearing frail and remaining silent, was released on $300,000 bail after his initial court appearance, according to Reuters, which quoted an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman as denying knowing anything about his arrest.

The Israeli official was not identified — he is referred to in the charges as CC-1 — but is said to have worked as the "consul for science affairs" at the Israeli consulate in Manhattan from at least 1980 through 1985.

According to the charges, CC-1 left the United States in November 1985, the same month that Pollard was charged with passing classified U.S. intelligence to CC-1.

Kadish's alleged spying took place between 1979 and 1985, although the charges say that he maintained contact with the Israeli official through last month, when CC-1 is said to have urged Kadish in a telephone conversation to lie to federal investigators.

"The following day, during an interview with the FBI, Kadish denied having had the telephone conversation with CC-1," the Department of Justice said.

Israel has acknowledged that Pollard spied for it, made him a citizen and has pressed the United States for his release, an issue that remains an irritant in U.S.-Israeli relations.

Just how the Kadish case will impact those relations remains to be seen. But wouldn't it be interesting to be a fly on the wall in those discussions?

"I know that we will be informing the Israelis of this action," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. "I would simply say just as a general matter that 20-plus years ago during the Pollard case, we noted that this was not the kind of behavior we would expect from friends and allies, and that would remain the case today."

Cooking with the Grill Sergeant

I often find myself comparing the Defense Department to a country. After all, it has its own rhythms, customs, flags, anthems, traditions, universities and on and on.  Indeed, if it were it would a nation, it would be the ninth richest in the world.

And what would a country be without its own channel, in this case the Pentagon Channel, which many cable stations carry. It broadcasts press conferences, congressional hearings, news from bases around the world, and my absolute favorite show, a cooking program called The Grill Sergeants. 

I discovered the show when I took my very first sick day from work a few weeks ago. Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was holding a press conference, and I was doing my best to watch and take notes, while battling a mean flu. I accidentally dozed off and probably would have slept the rest of the day had I not suddenly heard someone scream “Whoo Whee!” out of my television.  It was the Grill Sergeant, SFC Brad Turner, dropping chicken into cooking oil. 

As it turns out, “Whoo Whee” is the signature line of the show’s animated chef. Incidentally, the Whoo Whee is a product of the special seasonings of the day that makes for the “whoo, wee and wow.” SFC Turner, who is based out of Fort Lee, Va., is instantly endearing, as he guides neophyte chefs through the kitchen. The military references are peppered throughout, not just in the title. He talks to the food, like the vegetables that were trying to jump overboard in one episode. And when he put together a special mix in another show, he chanted, “Ambush on the Taste Buds!” Sometimes, SFC Turner says, battles break out in the pot.

He wears his sergeant insignia on his chef hat and a microphone in front of his mouth to talk to the viewers. He also has his live band play a tune that suits the food. That’s right. There is a live band, called what else, the Taste Buds, which plays jazz interspersed with military drum cadence.  The meals are presented on Pentagon-shaped plates at the beginning of the show.

Launched late last year, it’s become one of the most popular programs on the Pentagon Channel. The show titles include “Comfort Foods” and “Saving Private Dining.” He was a hit at the Pentagon when he came by recently to hold a special live cooking segment.

For me, the show was a delightful find, a welcome escape from the seriousness that defines military reporting.

I don’t feel any descriptions can do the Grill Sergeant true justice. So here is the show that introduced me to SFC Turner.  Enjoy.

Al Qaida — Web 2.0?

As it once did with the Soviet Union, the U.S. government sometimes tends to think of violent Islamic terrorists as 10 feet tall, both sinister and monolithic.

There's no doubt al Qaida and its affiliates mean the United States and its allies harm in the very worst way. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, they are the No. 1 security threat the country faces.

Still, even terrorist networks suffer from human frailties — power feuds, incompetence, betrayal.

A recent report by a researcher for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty finds a new vexation for the terrorists: they can't control the Web.

Conventional wisdom, the report notes, is that Islamic terrorist groups have been quick to exploit the Internet for propaganda purposes, in part because the Net's network matches terrorist groups' own loose, cell-like structure. Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was known to bemoan what he said was al Qaida and Co.'s ability to get their message across better than did the U.S. government, with all its resources.

But last month's report, entitled the "Al Qaida Media Nexus," says that the bad guys have a problem, too. Lacking "brick and mortar" media structures like CNN, Time or McClatchy, the terrorists need to brand their materials on the Internet to ensure credibility for their followers, and maintain message discipline.

This they do through "Media Production and Distribution Entities," which take statements, video and audio from groups like al Qaida in Iraq, polish them up, and post them on jihadist Web sites. The most influential appear to be Fajr, the Global Islamic Media Front, and Sahab. Freelancing is discouraged.

"Al-Qaida and its affiliates are stuck in Web 1.0," author Daniel Kimmage said in a statement accompanying the report's release. "Because Al-Qaida and its affiliates fear the intrusion of free-thinking, content generating individuals, they maintain strict message control. In this way, they resemble the stodgy structures of traditional mainstream media."

Traditional mainstream media. Hmm. That would be us.

The 28-page study has a few other surprising conclusions.

While statements and appearances by Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, get significant global media attention, products from the old "al Qaida central" — as opposed to loosely affiliated groups — make up only a trickle in the torrent of jihadist news flow.

Similarly, while terrorist videos get the most attention, 90 percent of jihadist "news" is made up of text. Books are occasionally posted, including the full Adobe Acrobat text of Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack.

Army, Marines sign up more recruits with records

Earlier this month, my 11-year-old son and I watched "The Dirty Dozen," the 1967 film starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Charles Bronson about a dozen GIs convicted of serious crimes who are given a chance to redeem themselves by volunteering for a dangerous mission in Nazi-occupied France. The idea did not sit well with top brass.

Today this popped up: the number of recruits with criminal records being allowed into the Army and Marines has undergone a major increase in what may be new evidence of the recruitment problems the U.S. military is encountering because of the war in Iraq.

Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released Pentagon data charting a significant rise between 2006 and 2007 in waivers granted by the two services to recruits with felony convictions.

  The Army approved waivers to 511 recruits in 2007, up from 249 waivers the previous year; the Marines granted 350 waivers in 2007, compared to 208 in 20006, according to the data.

Convictions for which waivers were approved included aggravated assault, burglary, forgery, drug use and possession, rape, sexual abuse and assault, incest and making terrorist threats.

"I understand that there can be valid reasons for personnel waivers and recognize the importance of providing opportunities to individuals who have served their sentences to rehabilitate themselves," Waxman wrote in a letter to David Chu, the undersecretary of defense for personnel.

At the same time, Waxman noted, there are concerns that the growth in waivers "is the result of the strain put on the military by the Iraq war and may be undermining military readiness."

Waxman asked Chu to give the committee by May 20 any documents explaining or discussing the reasons for the waiver increases, studies and analysis of the performance of service members with criminal records, and documents describing programs that all of the services have in place that provide additional counseling, training and oversight for those troops.

Chu also was asked to brief Waxman's committee on the issue by May 22.

Gates to Air Force: Change your thinking

It is impossible to cover the Air Force and not hear the desperate pleas for new aircraft. The planes are old, on average 47 years, any Air Force pilot will tell you. And the war in Iraq is depleting the U.S. of resources to develop the kind of technology it needs to protect itself from air, space and cyberspace threats, they argue.

But when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke this morning to Air War College students at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., he argued the planes are not the only outdated things in the Air Force. Its thinking about its future role in the post-Sept. 11 world is obsolete as well, he said.

At times, the military is "stuck in old ways of doing business," Gates said.

It was a bold statement, but one that has been driving his tenure as secretary. The military, particularly the U.S. Army, has been stressing its need to retrain and reequip itself to fight unconventional foes. Indeed, the Army released a new field manual earlier this year that equated counterinsurgency with traditional wartime battles. For the Army and the Marines, the change has been as much about adopting tactics that will increase their survival rate in Iraq as it is about adopting new ideology.

But the Air Force has not faced as much imminent danger in Iraq as the Army and Marines have. And so the secretary brought the lessons of the war to them. He said the future Air Force will likely be on the ground, working with civilians and other U.S. government agencies. That is, the Air Force will be on the front lines of the counterinsurgency fight, too.

The secretary's only mention of new aircraft came when the secretary lauded the use of Predators, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft that have become essential part of the war in Iraq.

It looks like plans to buy the latest fighter planes will have to wait.

We're not all stooges

The New York Times report Sunday on how the Pentagon used a group of former generals to buttress its claims about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has produced the usual denunciations of the Mainstream Media.

Some military commentators, however, weren't buying and didn't allow themselves to be bullied. See, for example, McClatchy columnist Joe Galloway's memorable account of a 2005 lunch with then-defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

UPDATE: From Sen. Carl Levin's office ...

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to investigate claims laid out by the New York Times on April 20 that the Pentagon gave special treatment to retired military personnel who served as TV analysts in support of the administration’s policies.

"While the media clearly have their own shortfalls for paying people to provide 'independent' analysis when they have such real and apparent conflicts, that doesn't excuse the Department’s behavior in giving both special treatment and valuable access to analysts who provide commentary in favor of DoD's strategy, while not offering similar access to some other analysts and cutting off access to others who didn’t deliver as expected," Levin wrote in a letter to Gates.

A copy of Levin's letter to Gates can be viewed here (.pdf format).

Meet the team

Welcome to Nukes and Spooks! Before we begin posting, we wanted to introduce ourselves. The three of us — Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef — make up McClatchy's national security team. Jonathan covers intelligence and national security issues, Warren is our State Department correspondent and I troll the halls of the Pentagon.

Warren and Jonathan have been working together for years, and you may recognize them from this Bill Moyers/PBS documentary about pre-Iraq war coverage. They were considered mavericks at the time as they wrote stories that questioned the Bush administration's claims about WMD and terrorism in the run-up to the Iraq war. Some called them unpatriotic. But in the weeks and months after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, they would be proven right. And they have been bringing that hard-hitting, objective reporting to their beats every day since.

I have been covering the war in Iraq since before it began, first in Jordan and then in Baghdad. I spent part of the war as our Iraq bureau chief before coming back to Washington last year to cover the Pentagon. You can see my last television appearance here.

Our goal is to share the tidbits, anecdotes and interesting happenings that don't always fit into our stories, but still give us insights about the important issues we cover. So sometimes we will have funny tales interspersed with the poignant moments that have come to define the post Sept. 11 world we all live in. We hope that day-by-day, blog-by-blog, you will see the mosaic of issues that makes our jobs so interesting.

Most of all, we are eager for you feedback. So please send us your comments — and news tips! And thanks for stopping in.