Shek

Always interesting to read people that try to draw historical analogies. I'll add where they left off. We're 26 months into Iraq. At 26 months in WWII, we were in February 1944. The Pacific was looking pretty good, but we still several months away from Normandy and owning land that was within striking distance of Germany (six months until the breakout from Normandy and the race across France). In fact, it would still be another three months until General Eisenhower drafted the announcement for a failed landing at Normandy, which he was very worried about.

There's plenty more analogies that are weak, but I'll stop there and let you read the article.


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USA Today
May 17, 2005
Pg. 12

Opposing View

Time For U.S. To Withdraw

By Neil Abercrombie and Dennis J. Kucinich

Forty-one months after the United States entered World War II, we had achieved victory in Europe. We've been in Iraq for over half that period. What reasonable person would say we have reached the halfway point in Iraq?

Today's troops are just as brave, patriotic and capable as their WWII predecessors. They have already accomplished much. They deposed and imprisoned a tyrant. They have given ordinary Iraqis the chance to shape their country's destiny.

Nevertheless, the military occupation of Iraq will not turn Iraq into a democratic nation. Longstanding rivalries will do more to shape that country's future than anything American troops can do. Those forces will not be controlled by American boots on Iraqi ground, no matter how many we put there or how long they remain.

In Iraq there are no front lines, no easy way to tell friend from foe, and no clear way to measure success. Iraq is a quagmire. Meantime, it has become a recruiting poster for Osama bin Laden. Are we to keep fighting indefinitely, losing more troops every week, spending billions of dollars, and increasing the strain on our armed forces, especially the reserve and National Guard?

We feel this course, with its echoes of Vietnam, is unsustainable. It has already added $200 billion to our national debt and costs U.S. taxpayers more than $1 billion per month. It jeopardizes the strategic interests of the United States, particularly in Asia and the Pacific. It alienates allies in the Muslim world and elsewhere, hindering efforts to create a united global front against al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

Unlike World War II, where the enemy surrendered and the troops came home, there is no such prospect in Iraq. We must define an endpoint. We will soon introduce legislation to achieve that goal by bringing the occupation of Iraq to a close. The troops have done their job. It's up to Congress and the president to forge a policy worthy of their sacrifices.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio, is ranking member of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.

Shek

Los Angeles Times
May 17, 2005

An Army That Learns From Its Mistakes

Acknowledging and studying civilian casualties would strengthen us in Iraq.

By Eric Umansky

Trying to flee fighting in western Iraq last Tuesday, one family in a taxi tried to speed through a Marine checkpoint. There are few details available about what happened next. The Los Angeles Times says only that the car was fired upon, the driver killed and a mother and daughter wounded. It quotes one Marine saying, "We were just sick to death when that lady got out of the car with her baby."

It's tempting to dismiss what happened that night as just something that happens in war. But it shouldn't be shrugged off that way. To see why, one has to look at the results of the Army's investigation into the March 4 attack on the car carrying former Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena — one of the few checkpoint incidents investigated.

The report enraged Italians for its conclusion that the GIs involved did nothing wrong. But while clearing the soldiers, the investigation ends up implicating the military's policies themselves. The report is a case study in how the United States has failed to adopt what could be a relatively painless, and moral, counterinsurgency tactic.

The unit involved in the Sgrena shooting, part of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, was manning a temporary "blocking position," meant to turn back all traffic. There were no written rules for that kind of operation. Instead, the unit learned on the job from the soldiers it was replacing, which turns out to have been a problem because the departing unit's tactics were outdated and dangerous. Rather than using signs, the units waved down drivers with a spotlight and laser pointer.

The night of the shooting, about two dozen other cars were stopped, but not without problems. "Many of the vehicles screeched their tires when stopping," says the Army report, adding, "While effective for accomplishing the mission, the spotlight and laser pointer may not be the best system from a civilian point of view."

There were other established checkpoint procedures, but they too were problematic. For instance, if drivers don't see or ignore the laser pointer and lights, soldiers were advised to fire warning shots. Of course, some people then assume they're being shot at, which seems to be what happened with the Italian driver of the Sgrena vehicle, who told soldiers he "panicked and started speeding."

The final element of the procedures calls for the GI holding the spotlight to drop it, shoulder his rifle and fire at the engine block. Again, the Army's report says that's exactly what happened. And again, as the report later acknowledges, it's a flawed tactic. It's not easy to hit an engine block in a moving car, especially when you have to drop a spotlight, pick up your gun and fire within seconds.

At the end of the report is a series of achingly common-sensical recommendations, including: Use warning signs with international symbols; reconsider requiring a soldier holding a spotlight to also be a gunner; and start a public awareness campaign.

Checkpoint killings, unfortunately, are nothing new, nor are the recommendations to ameliorate them. In late 2003, Human Rights Watch documented 11 civilian deaths at checkpoints in Iraq. Among the report's suggestions: "Initiate a public service campaign to inform Iraqi civilians about proper behavior at checkpoints."

Individual units that inadvertently kill civilians are required to file incident reports. But nobody seems to add them up. "We don't compile those," said military spokesman 1st Lt. Ryan Fitzgerald. Perhaps the Pentagon doesn't add the numbers because it fears bad publicity. Maybe it's bureaucratic inertia. Whatever, it's shortsighted.

There is some kind of actual guerrilla infrastructure that can be battled, but its most dangerous asset isn't a physical weapon; it's the insurgents' mind-set. Working to minimize civilian casualties may or may not dent the guerrillas' motivation, but there's little cost in trying.

GIs don't want to kill civilians, nor obviously does the military as a whole. But what's missing is a militarywide mechanism for learning from the casualties that do occur. The military has something called, self-explanatorily, the Center for Army Lessons Learned. Imagine if keeping civilian casualties to a minimum were part of the lesson plan.

Humans make mistakes. The point is not to assign individual blame. The issue is whether institutions have the structures in place to learn from them.

Before she was killed last month by a suicide bomber in Iraq, activist Marla Ruzicka was pushing a similar idea. She wanted a government office created to catalog, and ultimately offer compensation for, civilian casualties. Ruzicka's vision was driven by morals: We should make amends to those we harm. It's fortunate that it also has the possibility of being a counterinsurgency tool. If only the military would recognize that and take the step that's a prerequisite for learning from such casualties: acknowledge them.

Eric Umansky writes for Slate.

Anon

"We feel this course, with its echoes of Vietnam, is unsustainable."

Shek

A clueless reporter. This is from the report, but as usually, either he doesn't understand or chose not to place it in context. The unit had been trained on checkpoint procedures. A blocking position is easier - no searches of cars, personnel, etc. Just stopping them and turning them around. Use of the signs would have helped, but are no guarantee since most Iraqis suck at driving, many can't read, and many ignore obvious signs anyway.

Besides city signs on the Highway 1 cloverleaf south of Baghdad indicating which exit to take to get to the airport, Baghdad, and other cities, the grand total of street signs that I saw on Iraqi highways, in Samarra and its surrounding regions, and Mosul and its surrounding regions was a big, fat goose egg - 0! The signs may have helped the Italians, but probably won't do much for your average Iraqi citizen. We put out signs, but it still didn't help all the time as some Iraqis choose not to read it, couldn't read it, or decided to ignore it.

What I'd do with the spotlight is to develop a mount to marry it with the weapon, so the soldier making the decision can easily transition. Also, a 2 million candlepower spotlight and a green laser that is visible on the business end at hundreds of meters looks like a giant light saber at night. These are very effective tools and should continue to be used.

I'm not sure how well we are doing in this department, although you will always get people that choose to ignore what they are told. We had spots on TV, radio, and in print telling people not to pass our Strykers and to give them at least 25m worth of room. We always had people ignore this and idiots who would try to pass the minute you stopped waving them back.

I'm not opposed to the measures that are proposed in the article, but it's frustrating to see the general lack of realistic knowledge demonstrated in the press.

Anon

I gotta be honest, i couldn't stomach to read the whole article, just a percursory skim-through.

It never ceases to amaze me how utterly ignorant reporters are to military matters, issues, policies, and equipment.

Confed999

Same... same...

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry