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 The Pentagon Early Bird for 26 Jan 2008 Use of these news items does not reflect official endorsement. Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. Item numbers indicate order of appearance only. This is the single print version. Use the PRINT command in your browser to print the entire Early Bird as one document. (NOTE: This single file format is a long document and can use 50 or more pages of paper.) IRAQ
New York Times January 26, 2008 Pg. 7 Mosul Bombings Prompt Promise Of New Offensive By Stephen Farrell and Michael R. Gordon BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki announced Friday that he was sending more forces to Mosul for what he vowed would be a “decisive” struggle to rid the city of insurgents. Mr. Maliki’s remarks, which came in the wake of successive bombings in Mosul, a northern city of 1.7 million, appeared intended to reassure Iraqis that the government was able to protect them against a resilient insurgent threat. By promising to drive militants from the city, however, Mr. Maliki has established a challenging test for Iraq’s security forces. Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province, has long been an important hub for militants from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a predominantly Iraqi group that American intelligence says is foreign-led. While the level of violence has gone down in many parts of Iraq, it has increased somewhat in Nineveh over the past year. That rise has taken place as many insurgents have moved into the province, prompted by American-led operations to the south in Baghdad and Diyala Province and by the new alignment of Sunni tribes and American forces in Anbar Province. Adding to the challenge for the Iraqi government is the relatively small number of American troops in Mosul. Some 7,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers are in the city, about seven times the number of American troops, according to an estimate in December by an American officer there. Even before this week’s bombings, the Iraqi government had taken steps to strengthen its forces in the city. A battalion from Iraq’s Second Division that had been moved to Baghdad was shifted back to Mosul, with a second battalion to follow in the next several weeks. An Iraqi battalion generally has about 700 soldiers. In an effort to improve coordination among the Iraqi forces, Mr. Maliki recently appointed Maj. Gen. Riyadh Jala to serve as commander of the Nineveh Operational Command, which oversees Iraqi troops, police and border forces in the province. Additional steps are being planned, according to an American officer in Iraq. Two more Iraqi battalions will probably go to western Nineveh Province from Baghdad in the next month or so. And Iraqi national police and special operations forces in Baghdad will also probably move to Nineveh, said the officer, who declined to be identified because he was discussing plans that had not been publicly disclosed. Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman in Baghdad, told The Associated Press that 3,000 police officers were being dispatched to reinforce Mosul, but he did not say when they would arrive. The recent surge of violence spiked on Wednesday when a huge blast killed more than 30 people as Iraqi soldiers entered a building packed with explosives by insurgents. The next day the provincial police chief was killed by a suicide bomber while visiting the site. After the second attack, the provincial governor, Duraid Kashmola, declared an emergency curfew in the city. Reacting to widespread anger in Mosul, some of it directed at the security forces for failing to avert the explosion on Wednesday, Mr. Maliki voted to “finish the last battle with Al Qaeda, the gangs and the remnants of the past regime.” “We have defeated Al Qaeda, and there is only Nineveh and Kirkuk left where the terrorists have fled to,” Mr. Maliki said in the southern city of Karbala. “Today the forces started to move to Mosul, and the battle will be final.” By most accounts, the struggle is likely to be challenging and unlikely to be final. Sunni insurgents have long been active in Nineveh. The province borders Syria, which has been a conduit for foreign fighters, and is a region marked by tensions between Sunni Arabs and Kurds. The United States Army’s 101st Airborne Division cornered and killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam Hussein’s sons, in Mosul in 2003. In 2004, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other Sunni militants forced from Falluja streamed to Mosul and sought to open a second front there. Many of the local police officers fled, which left the city under insurgent control until Kurdish pesh merga troops established order. With the increase in American operations in and around Baghdad, insurgents have again moved into Nineveh. Abu Ayyub-al Masri, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has twice slipped in and out of Mosul over the past six months to try to rally the militants there, according to American officials. Mr. Kashmola, who has threatened to resign as provincial governor more than once over what he has called the government’s failure to take on insurgents in Mosul, said reinforcements were needed. “The military campaign announced by Maliki comes too late, but I excuse him because he was busy with Baghdad and other provinces,” he said on Friday. “Now it is Mosul’s time.” Brig. Karim Khalaf al-Jabouri, a commander of police operations in Mosul, said the additional forces had yet to arrive. “Until this moment, no military trucks have entered Mosul and not even a single policeman or soldier from outside the province,” he said in a telephone interview. “We are fighting with our own forces and we didn’t get any kind of support at all. Nothing has changed at all except for the curfew.” Brigadier Jabouri said his men were getting “very good support from the Americans as they cooperate closely with both police and army forces, and we depend on their help a lot.” An Interior Ministry official in Mosul said that the explosion on Wednesday happened near a bridge in Mosul under which insurgents were hanging the bodies of their victims every morning to intimidate residents. The official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak on the record, said that Iraqi and American soldiers had tried to set up two towers nearby from which snipers could shoot those responsible for the killings, but that the insurgents destroyed the towers with rocket-propelled grenades. “The Iraqi Army then chose this three-story building to put snipers on the roof,” he said. “The gunmen took advantage of the fact that the ground floor includes shops that sell grains, sugar and flour to smuggle in their bombs and improvised explosive devices.” He said the building, originally thought to be a bomb factory, was blown up as Iraqi soldiers went in to defuse the bombs. Stephen Farrell reported from Baghdad, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Ahmad Fadam, Mudhafer al-Husaini and Abeer Mohammed from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Mosul. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575652.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post January 26, 2008 Pg. 13 Maliki Sending Troops To Mosul Premier Promises Action Against Al-Qaeda in Iraq Insurgents By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Foreign Service BAGHDAD, Jan. 25 -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Friday that Iraqi reinforcements have begun moving toward the northern city of Mosul for a "decisive" battle with the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. Maliki gave no details as to the number of troops or where they were coming from but said an Iraqi command center had opened in Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, to coordinate intensified efforts against insurgents in the city. He described the province as one of the last major places where al-Qaeda in Iraq remains a serious threat. "Today our forces started moving to Mosul," Maliki said in a televised speech during a ceremony for victims of violence in the southern city of Karbala. "What we are planning in Nineveh will be decisive." He spoke two days after security problems in Mosul, the third-largest Iraqi city, were punctuated by a massive bombing that killed at least 38 people. The following day, the police chief of the province was assassinated by a suicide bomber while he was inspecting the scene of the earlier attack. Iraqi and U.S. officials say insurgents have fled north from Baghdad and Anbar provinces under pressure from the American military offensive known as the surge and taken refuge in and around Mosul. "All terrorists in Iraq came to Mosul after being kicked out of the other provinces," said Duraid Kashmoula, Nineveh's governor. "Hopefully this statement from the prime minister will be implemented very soon." Some Iraqi officials were skeptical that Maliki would commit to a large military effort in Mosul. An aide to the prime minister said the operation was in its "planning" stages. "We have repeatedly demanded that he increase the number of troops in this city. We asked him that before the winter, but the government did not respond," said Mahama al-Shangali, a parliament member from Nineveh province. "They never respond." Mohsen al-Sadoon, a Kurdish lawmaker from Mosul, said that although a ceremony had marked the opening of the operations center, the government had not named a commander and the facility was not functioning. He further doubted that the Iraqi security forces could defeat insurgents without the support of additional U.S. soldiers. He noted that in addition to al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters, Mosul has remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and elements of the Sunni insurgent umbrella group Islamic State of Iraq. "There are also other gangs in the city," he said. "Thousands of Mosul's young men have fled the city because of the assassinations and the terrorism." Other people blame Kurdish fighters known as pesh merga for instability in the ethnically diverse city. "They are acting in a dishonest way and they are aggressive with the people," said Osama Nujeifi, a Sunni parliament member from Mosul. "If they bar the pesh merga from Mosul, security will be achieved very soon." Some American officers disputed the idea that Mosul had grown more dangerous in recent months. Lt. Col. Michael J. Simmering, executive officer of the U.S. regiment based in Mosul, wrote in an e-mail that "the perception that Mosul is less secure than it was six months ago is absolutely false. It is all relative to the security situation in the rest of the country." Special correspondent Zaid Sabah in Baghdad contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575657.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Times January 26, 2008 Pg. 6 Iraqis Chase Al Qaeda For 'Decisive' Win By Steven R. Hurst, Associated Press BAGHDAD — Shaken by two days of deadly bombings, the government said yesterday that it would dispatch several thousand more security forces to Mosul in a "decisive" bid to drive al Qaeda in Iraq from its last major stronghold. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki gave no details on troop strength or when the additional police and soldiers would arrive in Iraq's main northern city. But it added to growing signs that Mosul could represent a pivotal showdown with insurgents chased north by U.S.-led offensives. "Today, our troops started moving toward Mosul ... and the fight there will be decisive," Mr. al-Maliki said during a speech in the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala. The challenge, however, is whether the Iraqi forces have the firepower and training to lead an offensive into Iraq's third-largest city. The U.S. military is relatively thin across northern Iraq and has signaled no immediate plans to shift troops from key zones in and around Baghdad. Mosul is now considered the main logistical hub for al Qaeda in Iraq because of its size and location, at a crossroads of Baghdad, Syria, Turkey and Iran. Many extremists fled north as U.S.-led forces began gaining ground in former insurgent strongholds last year, aided by Sunni tribes that rose up against al Qaeda and its backers. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said 3,000 police were being sent to the Mosul region to augment the understaffed force. Nineveh province, whose capital is Mosul, has about 18,000 policemen, but only about 3,000 of those operate in the city of nearly 2 million, said police spokesman Saeed al-Jubouri. Mr. al-Maliki announced reinforcements for Mosul two days after an abandoned apartment building, thought to be used as a bomb-making factory, was blown apart as the Iraqi army was investigating tips about a weapons cache. At least 34 persons were killed and 224 wounded when the blast tore through surrounding houses in the Zanjili neighborhood, a poverty-ridden district on the west bank of the Tigris River. No soldiers were reported killed. A suicide bomber then killed a police chief and two other officers Thursday as they toured the devastation. Residents taunted the chief and pelted him with rocks moments before he was killed. South of Baghdad, meanwhile, Iraqi troops backed by U.S. helicopters raided a suspected al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold near Madain, a predominantly Sunni town. Twelve militants, including two female fighters and four men trying to plant roadside bombs, were killed, police said. Also yesterday, the U.S. military said American and Iraqi troops had cleared a bomb-infested route between Baqouba and Khan Bani Saad, a strategic village on the northern outskirts of Baghdad. The statement said the troops killed an estimated 41 al Qaeda in Iraq militant suspects. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575721.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times January 26, 2008 Radical Shiite Cults Draw Concern In Southern Iraq By Saad Fakhrildeen and Kimi Yoshino, Special to The Times NAJAF, IRAQ — Security official Abu Ali has reviewed hundreds of documents about the obscure messianic cult that incited deadly clashes last weekend at the height of Shiite Islam's most important holiday. The group, Abu Ali and other security and government officials say, wants to spark a war among Shiite Muslims. Officials said the so-called Supporters of the Mahdi disrupted Shiite worshipers last weekend in Basra and Nasiriya and fought security forces, leaving as many as 80 people dead. In similar battles in January 2007, hundreds of members of another cult, Heaven's Army, were killed. Najaf province spokesman Ahmed Daaibil accused such groups of being terrorists whose aim is "to assassinate the clerics to shake security, stability and the political status of the government." The extremists are not associated with Al Qaeda, but are a "real source of threat to the stability in southern Iraq," said military spokesman Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner. All week, police and soldiers have treated the Supporters of the Mahdi as dangerous criminals, raiding homes in Basra and Nasiriya. More than 250 suspects have been held. Police closed a border crossing and detained at least seven suspects headed to Iran. Stockpiles of ammunition, weapons and explosives also have been confiscated. Authorities are also examining the group's website, which claims responsibility for the assassination of the Babil police chief, the bombing of a shrine and other violent acts. The group's bimonthly newspaper, the Straight Path, expresses messianic beliefs and suggests that Mahdi supporters must rise up and "kill the enemies of God until God is pleased," according to an article in the Sept. 27 issue. The Supporters of the Mahdi group is named after a figure Muslims believe will appear with Jesus to establish peace. Most Shiites believe the Mahdi is their 12th imam and a descendant of the prophet Muhammad who they say went into hiding in 878 and will return. Some cults believe they can hasten his return by spreading chaos. A 48-year-old Shiite who lives in Zubair, south of Basra, said Supporters of the Mahdi tried to recruit him twice, in 2001 and 2004. The second time, the group had more financial backing, he said. "I was surprised when this group changed to an armed group and fought the security forces," said the man, who asked that his name not be used because he feared for his safety. "Now I realize I was on the right track when I refused to join them." Abu Tabarak, who lives in Basra, said he knows members of Supporters of the Mahdi and believes most are ethical, but close-minded. He said the group probably lost potential followers by sparking death and mayhem on Ashura, when Shiites mourn a key saint. Experts who study politics and religion in southern Iraq said the emergence of such groups underscores the struggle for power among the Shiites. If a Shiite leader such as radical cleric Muqtada Sadr somehow lost power, the door could open for these splinter groups, said Vali Nasr, a professor of international politics and Iraq expert at Tufts University. "They're operating on the fringes and trying to elbow their way in," Nasr said. "Nobody is interested in giving them the economic means or allowing them to wreak havoc." Reidar Visser, a historian and Iraq expert who edits the website historiae.org, said he believes the government is overreacting to a small minority group. So far, there has been no decisive proof that Mahdists have risen in revolt, he said. "Shiism in Iraq is a very complex religion, with many branches," he said. It would make sense that the main political parties and conservative religious leaders "are worried about any challenge to their dominant position." Abu Zainab Kanaani, leader of the Basra branch of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the leading Shiite party, said Supporters of the Mahdi does not pose a threat to Iraqi political leadership. "This is a terrorist group," Kanaani said. "Their ideas and creed are far from the Iraqi reality and the Iraqi society." On Al Arabiya TV on Friday, secular Shiite lawmaker Iyad Jamaluddin said the government should be careful how it characterizes the group. "The Iraqi Constitution ensures the freedom of thoughts and expression, and it's not the government's right to describe [the group] as blasphemous," he said. "Even Al Qaeda has not been described as this." Special correspondent Fakhrildeen reported from Najaf and Times staff writer Yoshino from Baghdad. Times staff writers Saif Hameed and Tina Susman in Baghdad contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575706.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) January 26, 2008 Some Sunni Muslims Won't Salute Iraq's New Flag By McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD — Officials in Iraq's mostly Sunni Muslim Anbar province are refusing to raise Iraq's new national flag, which the parliament approved earlier this week. "The new flag is done for a foreign agenda and we won't raise it," said Ali Hatem al Suleiman, a leading member of the U.S.-backed Anbar Awakening Council, "If they want to force us to raise it, we will leave the yard for them to fight al-Qaida." U.S. officials credit the Anbar Awakening Council with driving al-Qaida in Iraq, which once largely controlled the province, out of Anbar. The dispute over the flag is a more accurate symbol of Iraq today than the flag itself is. "On nothing we are completely united," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker. Although parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said the new flag would be raised immediately across Iraq after the parliament approved it Tuesday, it's nowhere to be seen. In fact, when the parliament met Wednesday, the old flag was still behind the speaker and his two deputies. A slim minority of parliamentarians approved the new flag, which doesn't have Saddam Hussein's handwriting or the three stars that represented his Sunni-dominated Baath Party. It was rushed through parliament before a pan-Arab parliament meeting that's planned for March in Irbil, in the Kurdish north, because the Kurdish Regional Government prohibits flying Iraq's Saddam-era flag. The Kurds consider that flag a symbol of Saddam's oppression. Only 165 of the Iraqi parliament's 275 lawmakers were present Tuesday, and only 110 voted for the new red, white and black flag with "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") in Kufic script, the ancient calligraphy developed in Mesopotamia. While the Anbar Awakening Council vowed never to raise the new flag, U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki praised the council for standing against al-Qaida in Iraq. In a speech in Karbala, al-Maliki also pledged a new fight against Sunni militants in Ninevah province, where at least 40 people were killed in a bombing this week and a suicide bomber killed the police chief. Suleiman of the Anbar Awakening Council, however, said he was angry that the parliament and government toiled away on a new flag rather than dealing with the country's lack of services. Many Iraqis, including some lawmakers who rejected the flag, were angered at what they considered a change to the flag in order to please the Kurdish north and its president, Massoud Barzani. "We don't want to handle the problem of the Kurdistan region by causing problems with other regions that might refuse the new flag," said Nassar al-Rubaie, the head of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc in parliament, who voted against the new flag. The new flag is temporary. According to Iraq's Constitution, the parliament must pass a new law that issues a permanent flag and a national anthem. The Iraqi flag has long been a point of contention. When a flag with light blue stripes and a blue crescent moon in the middle was proposed in 2004, many Iraqis thought that it resembled the Israeli flag and people took to the streets in protest. Othman, the Kurdish lawmaker, said he expected people to reject the latest change in the flag but hoped that when a new, permanent flag was chosen, people would salute it. "Just as the Kurds were not raising the flag all these years, others also will not raise the new flag," he said. "I hope with time it will ease away, and I think everyone should look forward to the permanent flag." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575589.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Mideast Stars and Stripes January 26, 2008 U.S. Holds 600 Iraqi Juvenile Prisoners By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes The U.S. military in Iraq is holding some 600 juvenile prisoners — ranging in age from 11 to 17 — and is building educational programs to address their special needs, officials said this week. According to Navy Lt. Cmdr. K.C. Marshall, a spokesman for the task force that handles prisons and prisoners in Iraq, the juveniles are all held at Camp Cropper in Baghdad. Each day, they are bused from Cropper to the Dar Al Hikmah, or “House of Wisdom,” an “educational and rehabilitation facility” near the Baghdad airport, Marshall said. There, they are given courses in core subjects such as Arabic, English, math, science and civics in the hope of preparing them “to continue their education in the Iraqi school system upon reintegration into society.” The center was opened in August and is the only American detention facility meant specifically to house juvenile prisoners in Iraq. In all, there are some 26,000 prisoners in the U.S. system in Iraq; that number has risen steadily over previous years as a result of the “surge” in Baghdad and other locations. “[Multi-National Force-Iraq] recognizes and accepts the responsibilities inherent to juvenile detention,” a U.S. statement read. “It continually evaluates its care and custody provisions and reintegration programs to ensure juveniles are afforded every opportunity to prepare themselves for successful reintegration into Iraqi society.” Separately, 100 Iraqi prisoners were released from Camp Cropper on Friday, bringing the total number of prisoners released in 2008 to 785, officials said. An equal number of Sunni and Shiite prisoners were among those released Friday, officials said. According to U.S. military figures, a total of 8,952 prisoners were released in 2007. All of the detainees have been screened by a review board, and they must promise an Iraqi judge to renounce violence and work toward reconciliation with the government of Iraq. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575571.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Defense News January 28, 2008 Helping Info Flow Freely Insurgents Outdo U.S. Military, Says U.S. 3-Star By William Matthews The U.S. military may have invented network-centric warfare, but in some practical ways, the insurgents in Iraq have mastered it, says a former U.S. commander of U.S. and allied troops in Iraq. Although U.S. forces have multiple high-speed networks, video teleconferencing, digital mapping, satellites and tons of high-tech gear designed to make battlefield information instantly available to troops who need it, it also has a hierarchical bureaucracy that strives — and too often succeeds — in doing just the opposite. “Information is firewalled by the bureaucracy,” Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli told an audience at a network-centric warfare conference Jan. 23. “Commanders are unable to get the information they need because of bureaucratic obstacles.” By contrast, information flows freely among Iraq’s insurgents, he said. Although they lack the sophisticated equipment the United States takes to war, they have cell phones, video cameras, Internet access and e-mail. And that’s enough to make them highly adaptable foes, he said. During his tour as commander of multinational forces in Iraq in 2006, Chiarelli fought the U.S. bureaucracy as well as the insurgents. He’s been back in the Pentagon for a year as a senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, but Chiarelli still rails against the “security Nazis,” op-sec bureaucrats and overclassification that prevent information from getting to the troops when they need it. And he expresses something akin to admiration for the speed and simplicity of the insurgents’ ad hoc use of networks. On a 2004 tour in Iraq, Chiarelli led the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division and supported the use of a relatively simple intranet setup so soldiers returning from a patrol could post information that would be useful for those going out on the next patrol. It was called CAVNet after the 1st Cavalry Division. The idea was to shortcut the traditional information trail, which required incident reports to be passed up through a multilayered chain of command before they could be passed along to the troops on the ground. A platoon leader couldn’t just talk to another platoon leader, Chiarelli said. Incident reports would have to be passed up to the brigade commander and sometimes to the division commander. By the time they were approved for distribution to the next platoon going out on patrol, it was often 48 hours too late, he said. Soldiers liked CAVNet, but it made security officials nervous. Chiarelli was told his troops could not use CAVNet on NIPRNet, the military’s “unclassified but sensitive” network. It could be used only on SIPRNet, the secure network. Of course, SIPRnet wasn’t as widely available as NIPRNet, Chiarelli said, so that security rule undercut the intent of CAVNet, which was to make it easier to get information to frontline troops. CAVNet and a number of similar military networks are the product of a new generation of troops who grew up with the Internet, said Trey Hodgkins, vice president for defense programs at the Information Technology Association of America. “They don’t come with the cultural inhibitions we have about sharing information,” he said. “They’re used to it, they see the benefit to it.” And when they are put in an environment that lacks that capability, “they create it,” Hodgkins said. “They’re pretty easy to create. And they do it outside the normal IT acquisition structure.” “If I had my way,” Chiarelli said, every soldier would have a PDA — a hand-held computer linked to a network — to receive information in the field. Can’t do that, security officials said. It would be too easy for information to get to the insurgents. “It’s like when the military doesn’t want to talk to the press about a roadside bomb that blew up a Bradley [fighting vehicle] because they don’t want the enemy to know how successful he was at blowing it up,” Chiarelli said. “He already knows that.” CAVNet was intended to inform U.S. troops of things the insurgents already knew, such as new enemy tactics and procedures, what to watch out for, and what worked and what didn’t for U.S. soldiers. Chiarelli praised another battlefield information innovation, TiGRNet — software that allows soldiers to download intelligence, including digital photos other soldiers have taken, maps, written observations, GPS data and the like. Like CAVNet, TiGRNet (which stands for Tactical Ground Reporting Network) bypasses the traditional paperwork trail for intelligence gathered on the battlefield. The information goes directly onto TiGRNet rather than being routed first to intelligence analysts. “It gives the individual soldier the ability to get information quickly,” Chiarelli said. “We’ve got to look for ways to pass knowledge as quickly as possible across the battlefield.” To the hierarchical U.S. military, this is a new and somewhat worrisome concept. On a PowerPoint slide, Chiarelli depicts the U.S. military as a series of large dots arranged in a pyramid, each dot connected to the dots above and below. Thus, information from one dot at the bottom must flow to the top before it can flow back down to the next dot over. The Iraqi insurgents are depicted as dots along a line. Each Iraqi dot can communicate with any other dot. It’s a flat organization that can pass information very quickly, Chiarelli said. “He can pass information faster than we can. And he uses that information to change the way he fights the fight.” The U.S. military should take heed. “We need to flatten our information system” and increase the ability of U.S. troops to share information “horizontally,” Chiarelli said, meaning that less information should be forced up the chain of command before it is passed on to frontline troops. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575697.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post January 26, 2008 Pg. 13 FBI Agent: Hussein Didn't Expect Invasion CBS to Air Interview With Interrogator By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post Staff Writer Before the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein misjudged the U.S. military strategy and thought the United States would launch only several days of airstrikes and not a full-scale ground invasion, according to a television interview with the FBI agent who interrogated the former Iraqi leader for seven months. FBI agent George Piro said that Hussein told him he "initially miscalculated . . . President Bush's intentions," according to a news release from CBS News, which will air the interview with Piro on "60 Minutes" tomorrow. Hussein "thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 . . . a four-day aerial attack," Piro said in the interview, according to CBS. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack." Hussein was later put on trial and was executed by hanging in December 2006. Piro, a Lebanese American and one of only about 50 Arabic-speaking agents in the FBI, became Hussein's sole debriefer beginning in January 2004, shortly after the fugitive Iraqi leader was captured by the U.S. military in a "spider hole" near his ancestral home of Tikrit. Realizing how defiant Hussein was, Piro adopted the only interrogation strategy he believed would elicit the truth: He presented himself as a high-ranking envoy who answered directly to President Bush, and tried to win Hussein's confidence during a series of long conversations, according to CBS. Piro also said that he sought to gain influence with Hussein by serving as the former leader's only provider of basic necessities such as paper for writing poetry and toiletries, according to CBS. Even when Hussein realized that U.S. military action was imminent, he sought to continue to project a strong image because of his worries about a potential Iranian invasion, Piro said. "For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that . . . would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq," Piro is quoted by CBS as saying. Hussein's strategy upon facing the U.S. invasion was to tell his generals to try to hold back the U.S. forces for two weeks, "and at that point, it would go into what he called the secret war," Piro said, referring to the Iraqi insurgency. Hussein bragged about escaping airstrikes and evading capture for several months after the fall of Baghdad, Piro said in the interview. "What he wanted to really illustrate is . . . how he was able to outsmart us," Piro said. "He told me he changed . . . the way he traveled. He got rid of his normal vehicles. He got rid of the protective detail that he traveled with, really just to change his signature." In the course of several face-to-face discussions, Piro said Hussein also told him that the incident that finally led him to decide to invade Kuwait in 1990 was a personal insult by the emir there. "What really triggered it for him, according to Saddam, was he had sent his foreign minister to Kuwait to meet with the emir al-Sabah . . . to try to resolve some of these issues. And the emir told the foreign minister of Iraq that he would not stop doing what he was doing until he turned every Iraqi woman into a $10 prostitute. And that really sealed it for him, to invade Kuwait," Piro said in the interview, according to CBS. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575692.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Times January 26, 2008 Pg. 1 Model Planes Earn Their Stripes In War By Richard Tomkins, Washington Times FORWARD OPERATING BASE NORMANDY, Iraq — Flying model airplanes might not seem like fit work for grown men, especially soldiers. But the use of "unmanned aerial vehicles," or UAVs, is transforming the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing U.S. commanders with real-time reconnaissance, surveillance and target-acquisition data that was never available before. "We're not rated as pilots," said Sgt. Thomas Oberman of Portsmouth, Va., as he controlled a UAV in flight near Baqouba in Diyala province, a front line in the latest U.S. offensive against al Qaeda holdouts north of Baghdad. "We have no illusions about that, but we"re well-versed in air operations, weather, everything that comes into getting the bird up and on mission." New Pentagon data obtained this month by the Associated Press show that the Air Force more than doubled its monthly use of drones between January and October 2007. A report cited by the AP predicted even more aggressive efforts to develop and use drones in the future. The best-known UAV to the American public is the Predator, which proved its worth in the Balkans. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the craft have been given killing power by outfitting their wings with laser-guided Hellfire anti-tank missiles that can be launched by an on-the-ground controller. The use of Predators shot up from 2,000 hours a month in January 2007 to more than 4,300 hours in October, the AP reported. Recently released Air Force video footage shows a Predator-launched missile killing three militants who were firing mortars at U.S. forces near the city of Balad in November. Less well-known than the Predators, but just as valuable, are the smaller Shadow 200s and Ravens. "They haven't been able to arm [the Shadow] yet because of the weight, but we do a lot of coordination with the air-weapons teams, the Apache [attack helicopters]," said Lt. Jason Siler. "So we're kind of the hunter and they're the killers." Lt. Siler is with Delta Troop, 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, attached to the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the Army's 2nd Infantry Division. The unit is responsible for four Shadows that fly from Forward Operating Base Normandy in Baqouba. At least one of the unit's aircraft is in the air round-the-clock to give the brigade a constant flow of real-time information and pictures of activity in their sector. That activity could be the movements of an al Qaeda unit, suspect vehicles, blocked roads or a bird's-eye view of terrain. Each Shadow is aloft for about six hours at a time, cruising at speeds of between 50 and 60 miles per hour and altitudes as low as 500 feet. Launched by a hydraulic catapult, it weighs just 375 pounds and has a 14-foot wingspan. Delta Troop's flight command center is a container unit on the back of a Humvee, where two men sit side by side — one flying the UAV and the other operating its camera system. Sgt. Oberman said the two men trade jobs about halfway through a six-hour mission. "You kind of go crazy looking at the same thing, so we switch off to go crazy looking at something else," said Cpl. Andrew Currier, from Missoula, Mont. Each Shadow serves a brigade. For smaller units in the field, there is the Raven, which is just 4½ pounds in weight, 38 inches long and has a 5-foot wingspan. It comes in sections that fit into a single suitcase, along with a hand-held controller and small image receiver that fit easily into a backpack. It is launched manually, much like the paper airplanes children play with, but with a running start. The Raven, with a small electric engine and a camera, can stay aloft for an hour. Its optics aren't as sophisticated as those of the Shadow or Predator, but are good enough to give its operator a clear image from 1,000 feet of a man on the ground carrying a rifle. Like the Shadow, it's gray in color and hard to see when in flight. The Shadow sounds like a distant, muffled lawn mower; the Raven hums like, well, a model airplane. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575573.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP National Journal January 26, 2008 Mideast: Instructions Not Included By James Kitfield When Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently instructed his top military commanders to prepare their best arguments for justifying troop levels around the world, he illuminated a long-simmering military dispute. To relieve some of the burden on its overstrained forces, can the United States afford to keep drawing down troop levels from Iraq past next summer without jeopardizing the fragile security gains there? And given the crisis in neighboring Pakistan and rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan, must the Pentagon add to the 3,300 marines recently deployed there to bolster the fight against terrorists? Which conflict is truly the central front in President Bush's "global war on terror?" For that matter, how do operations in Iraq and Afghanistan play into the administration's efforts to isolate Iran, advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians, promote democratic reforms in the Arab world, and bring the cost of oil down from $100 a barrel? Remarkably, six years after the 9/11 attacks, with U.S. troops engaged in two mammoth counter-insurgency and nation-building enterprises in the region, the Bush administration still lacks answers to those questions. The United States badly needs a strategy to connect the disparate efforts, experts say, to set priorities, and to help make sense of the inevitable trade-offs in juggling such an ambitious agenda. Indeed, the next president may well find that the most pressing issue in the Oval Office in-box is drawing up a blueprint for America's continued presence in the "arc of instability" that stretches from the Middle East to Southwest Asia. "It's a tragedy that there is still no overarching strategy that codifies our interests in the Middle East region, pegs those to specific goals designed to protect our interests, and establishes common purpose and unity of effort within the government in terms of reaching those economic, military, and diplomatic goals," said a senior military official in the Pentagon. Instead, the government operates in an environment of constant "crisis management," he said, where problems are raised one by one in deputy-level meetings that frequently leave the military holding the bag. "Other agencies such as the State Department often tell us that to acquire the needed capability to work these issues, they would have had to submit a budget for it two years ago," the officer said. "So, to me, the failure to develop an overarching strategy is the single greatest dereliction of the Bush administration's foreign policy." White House officials counter that the strategic goals in the war on terrorism, if not all the gritty details, are well understood. "On 9/11 we learned that terrorism in the Middle East can affect us at home," a senior administration source said. "So we're fighting terrorism and promoting freedom and democracy there. Because in our judgment the Middle East is an incubator for terrorism as a result of being left out of the great strides toward freedom and democracy that occurred in the 20th century." The gold standard for strategic conceptualization was set 60 years ago by President Truman and his foreign-policy team of "wise men" drawn from the worlds of finance, statecraft, and military planning. Together, they successfully navigated the dangerous shoals of the post-World War II era, and anchored for future presidents the strategy of containment that won the Cold War. Truman's wise men oversaw the establishment of the United Nations to avoid future world wars, the World Bank to fund postwar reconstruction, and the International Monetary Fund to promote free trade. In helping to rebuild Europe and reach out to defeated Germany, the Marshall Plan learned from the mistakes of the 1920s and 1930s, when the victors of the Great War ostracized the Germans and set the stage for the rise of Adolf Hitler. George Kennan's 1947 article, published anonymously in Foreign Affairs, supplied the blueprint for the strategy of "containment" of the Soviet Union, and Paul Nitze erected the structure with National Security Council Directive 68, which reordered the vast U.S. national security apparatus. Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson, the cornerstone of the NATO alliance was laid. By contrast, the lack of a strategic overlay for the Middle East and the greater war on terrorism has not only stymied interagency cooperation and synergy, experts say, but has also produced a herky-jerky foreign policy that confounds America's allies and adversaries alike. One moment the United States is pressuring Arab allies to embrace democratic reforms, and the next it is widely seen as backing away from that emphasis to focus on winning support for isolating Iran and stabilizing Iraq. Similarly, the administration has leaned on Iran to curtail its actions inside Iraq, but refuses to negotiate with Tehran on broader strategic issues. After rejecting NATO's offer of help after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush White House later encouraged the alliance to assume responsibility for nation building in Afghanistan and recently stirred controversy by criticizing the allies for not doing enough in that regard. National Journal recently interviewed retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, with responsibility for the Middle East. "When you talk to leaders in the Middle East today, there's a strong perception that the United States lacks strategic focus, and that we tend to work things day to day and bounce around from issue to issue," he said. The administration treats Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as one-off issues, he said, rather than seeing them as component parts requiring a broader strategic framework. "We're also seen as dealing with issues with a narrow view of our own interests, rather than working on building relationships and collective security arrangements that address mutual interests," Zinni said. "So we're really lacking a Truman- or Marshall-type strategic vision; and as a result Middle East leaders are really beginning to doubt our ability to manage regional affairs and get things done." With one eye on next year's transition of political power and the prospect of briefing a new commander-in-chief, the Pentagon's Joint Staff has begun to develop a regional strategy for the Middle East as a first step in filling the void. A major goal of the exercise, one participant says, is to highlight the interrelatedness of many issues so that the next White House will understand the likely second- and third-order repercussions of various decisions. Or as this officer put it, "The next president will need to understand that when you poke country X, something is going to happen in countries Y and Z because the region is so geopolitically contiguous." Another knowledgeable senior officer said, "There is going to be a change of administration next year, and we don't know or care whether a Republican or Democrat is going to come in behind President Bush, but we owe it to them, the American people, and our men and women in uniform to build a strategy that can make that transition as smooth as possible. My analogy is that there are a lot of pieces to this jigsaw puzzle of the Middle East," the officer continued, "but there's no picture right now on the front of the box. We want to clarify that picture so the next commander-in-chief understands how the various pieces fit together and influence each other and our overarching strategy, whether those pieces are individual nation states, the Arab League, NATO, the European Union, or whoever." One harsh reality sure to emerge from such a strategic review is that much of the government has failed to adjust to the demands of globalization and the post-Cold War era in which terrorists, insurgents, narco-traffickers, and organized criminals are increasingly hijacking weak and failing states. As the 44th president will discover, such threats require rapid and coordinated responses that call for security assistance, diplomacy, nation building, and civil reconstruction. The government simply does not have those capabilities today. "The 9/11 attacks, failed stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina -- these are not coincidental setbacks, but evidence of system failure," said Jim Locher, who is heading the independent Project on National Security Reform sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Presidency. The goal is to have suggested reforms ready to put on the president's desk immediately after the 2009 inauguration. Locher, a key architect of the Goldwater-Nichols military reforms of 1986, argues that the national security structure shaped by World War II and put into place by Truman 60 years ago can no longer cope with today's rapidly evolving threats. "The current interagency system simply cannot handle complex, rapidly unfolding security crises, because our departments are outmoded, stovepiped, bureaucratic, competitive, and frequently under-resourced," said Locher, speaking at a conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The nation urgently needs a new national security system, not as something nice to have but as an imperative. Because our performance will not improve without a new system, and future setbacks are likely to prove devastating." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575572.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP National Defense February 1, 2008 U.S. Special Forces Target Hearts And Minds By Stew Magnuson ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines — The convoy was about to depart a free medical clinic when two pre-teen boys who spent their days picking through garbage ran up and told authorities about the suspicious looking rice sacks with wires sticking out that lay nearby. In the convoy of Filipino soldiers, doctors and nurses were about 30 Americans who were participating in a civil affairs mission to spread goodwill in an area that had traditionally supported Muslim separatists. The boys had seen a poster describing roadside bombs and remembered that there were rewards for those who tipped off authorities to their whereabouts. The convoy was halted, the bombs rendered harmless, and the boys would receive about $4,000 each and a scholarship to finish school. The poster the boys had seen were part of an information campaign designed by a U.S. special forces military information support team, better known as psychological operations. Civil affairs teams had organized the free clinic. These two lesser known missions — designed to win the “hearts and minds” of local populations — are being increasingly recognized as an important tool for combating terrorism. Defense Secretary Robert Gates expounded on the use of so-called “soft power” to achieve U.S. objectives. “One of the most important lessons from our experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere has been the decisive role reconstruction, development, and governance plays in any meaningful, long-term success,” Gates said. “It is just plain embarrassing that al Qaida is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America,” he added. Some have touted the operation in the southern Philippines as a model of an effective civil affairs and psy-ops campaign. Shortly after Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001, U.S. special operations forces came to the area to advise and assist the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Officials here said the operation is needed in order to counter terrorist organizations such as the Abu Sayyaf Group and Jemaah Islamiyah, which have targeted westerners — Americans and friendly national governments. Stabilizing the Philippines is critical to maintaining a safe and secure Southeast Asia, which is one of the United States’ strategic security objectives, officials said. “This is a different mission than any other I’ve been on,” said Maj. Chris Polites, commander of F-company 97th civil affairs battalion, 95th brigade, based at Ft. Bragg, N.C. There is a “long-standing relationship with the Philippines, and that’s different from any other theater.” Despite the recognition that bullets and bombs alone aren’t going to win the so-called global war on terrorism, some experts have said the Defense Department has been slow to recognize the importance of these “indirect” effects. Authors David Tucker and Christopher J. Lamb in a recent book, “United States Special Operations Forces,” contended that civil affairs and psychological operations units are poorly understood, often underutilized, “less valued” and “neglected by Special Operations Command leadership.” That is not the case in the Philippines where these two esoteric specialties are being given credit for much of the success. The AFP is taking the cue and quickly beefing up its own capabilities. In October, it established the National Development Support Command, a non-combat, non-regional civil engineering operation. And mass communications graduates from Filipino universities are being recruited into the military to help the armed forces deliver its messages. In the past, bullets were seen as the only way to battle an insurgency. Military operations simply aggravated the situation, created ill-will, and the cycle of violence continued for decades. Capt. Abdurasad Sirajan, a former member of the Moro National Liberation Front separatist group, who joined the Philippine army after that organization entered a peace agreement in 1996, said the AFP now recognizes that it needs to engage in the battle of ideas. Defeating extremist ideology “can’t be done by using force,” he said. “The stigma of psy-ops is that it manipulates people, which is not true,” said Capt. Jose Taduran, who leads the military information support team, or MIST. MIST is the kinder, gentler acronym now being used for psychological operations, which is a term senior leaders here now discourage. “What we’re here to do is advise the AFP on how to do better information operations,” Taduran said as he displayed a table spread with posters, pamphlets, comic books, videos and school items such as book bags, pens and notebooks. Inside a nondescript building on Camp Navarro in Zamboanga City, he leads a team hunched over computers in a windowless, air-conditioned room. One member monitors open sources — the local media and websites. The Philippines has a lively and free press, and separatist groups such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have their own websites. A group of specialists develops surveys and questionnaires. AFP personnel and others conduct surveys in villages to gauge attitudes. The U.S. operation is spread out over several islands and the main island of Mindanao. Messages must be tailored to each community, Taduran said. The product development team creates the posters and printed matter that are disseminated throughout the islands. Television and radio are used as well, although these media do not always reach some impoverished communities, Taduran said. The most common forms of communication on the islands are word of mouth, radio, and text messaging. On the radio side, the MIST team has hired a well-known radio host, Salvation Acerat, better known to local listeners as “Miss Bingo.” She hosts about six one-hour programs each week broadcast on a government-owned and a private station. The overall messages are these: that the armed forces of the Philippines and the national government are here to assist the local population; the extremists are hindering economic development; and unless the people help the military rid the area of terrorists, prosperity will not follow. “Their mission is to destroy humanity. Their mission is to destroy peace and order,” she tells listeners. There are currently three targeted groups. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is in long-standing peace negotiations with the government. However, there are militants inside the movement who are opposed to the negotiations and continue to fight. More notorious is the Abu Sayyaf Group, which has conducted a series of kidnappings, beheadings and bombings. Also in the mix are members of the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah, who are alleged to have transferred their bomb-making skills and terror tactics to the Philippines. The MIST team is waging an aggressive operation to capture the bomb makers. Wanted posters offering awards in the millions of dollars are hung throughout the islands. The extremist groups are also the targets of a series of television commercials. MIST has hired a Manila-based marketing firm to produce the TV spots. One script targets the alleged mastermind of the Bali, Indonesia bombing in 2002. Last March 2003, the JI bombmaker Dulmatin brought the terror to our shores. Nineteen lives were lost when he bombed the Davao airport. Another bomb ripped through the wharf in Davao; 16 more lives perished. An award awaits people with information leading to Dulmatin’s arrest. Don’t let this monster destroy our beautiful Mindanao. Another ad features a 12-year-old Muslim boy whose father died in a 2005 bombing. Tears roll down his cheeks as he grieves. A similar ad shows the picture of a girl who was killed in a bombing. “Enough is enough. Help stop terrorism. Answer the call for peace,” a child’s voice says. Taduran said it’s important that all the information used in the campaigns is factual. Photos on posters are not manipulated. The facts in TV and radio ads and stories of the victimized children are real, he said. There are varying degrees of messages, from “soft” to “hard,” he explained. The hard messages are those directed toward supporters of terrorists or members of the groups themselves. These come in pamphlets and posters left behind by the Philippine forces. Word of mouth campaigns are softer. The AFP conducts town hall meetings in villages where officials show videos touting the economic progress and development that follows once peace and security are restored. Bumper stickers, matchbooks, backpacks and other school supplies are given out as presents with a “Helping Hands” logo. Taduran said the campaign is dynamic, so there are always adjustments to be made and messages must be updated frequently. The MIST team will conduct a pilot program using text messaging, which is an increasingly common form of communication. Inside the U.S. compound at Camp Navarro, a civil affairs soldier used mapping technology to help win hearts and minds in the southern Philippines. Geospatial software was employed to analyze where to best conduct free medical clinics. Free medical, dental and veterinary clinics — called civil action programs — are used to support the AFP in gaining access to communities. Filipino doctors, dentists and veterinarians come in to provide free care. Of utmost importance, Taduran said, is putting a Filipino face on all these operations. Other civil action programs include school and clinic renovations, wells and water projects, and road construction. Polites has a small team of about 32 spread throughout the region. One of the basic services it provides is civil reconnaissance. By populating maps with people, places and things, or “nodes” in CA lingo, it gives commanders the choice of where best to apply reconstruction projects or clinics he said. “We don’t have the capacity to fix governance problems, and that’s not really our job … But what we’re good at doing though is recognizing what the problems are,” Polites said. His team works closely with the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has a larger budget and can pay for big ticket development projects. Measuring success in civil affairs and psychological operations isn’t always easy. Col. Jim Mishina, operations planner, said one indication of progress is when the extremists attempt to mimic U.S. tactics. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is now conducting its own free medical clinics. And that’s okay with him. “Instead of buying weapons and explosive materials, they’re willing to commit dollars to providing medical aid,” Mishina said from Special Operations Command Pacific headquarters in Hawaii. The battle of ideas goes both ways, he noted. At the beginning of operations in the island of Jolo, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front spread images of the U.S. army dating back to the colonial era when Gen. John Pershing fought a bloody campaign against the local Tausug ethnic group. Ultimately, it is about matching words with deeds, Mishina said. Improved infrastructure and better security provided by AFP troops are some tangible benefits that please the populace. “Otherwise we’re just putting out messages,” he said. Despite the success, Taduran echoed the complaint that psy-ops and civil affairs teams don’t receive the respect and recognition as the more glamorous commando, or “direct action” teams. “Nobody understands us,” he said. “We get no respect because it’s complicated. Nobody wants to sit down and listen to an explanation as to why we shouldn’t just go in and kick doors.” Polites said that attitudes are changing. “I think people are recognizing more of the necessity [that] when you’re not engaged in high intensity conflicts, that you need resources like civil affairs and MIST.” http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575739.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Atlanta Journal-Constitution January 26, 2008 Pg. 1 Army Rangers Snared In Sting By Bill Rankin, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Three U.S. Army Rangers and another soldier were charged Friday with drug conspiracy after agreeing to an undercover scheme that involved the armed robbery of purported cocaine traffickers. When three of the men--Carlos Lopez, 30, Stefan Andre Champagne, 28, and David Ray White, 28, all staff sergeants--were arrested Thursday, they had an assault rifle, semi-automatic pistols, 15 magazines of ammunition, a TASER, a ski mask and a medic kit. The soldiers, two of whom were armed, were taken by surprise and arrested by agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' SWAT team and Sandy Springs police officers. The other soldier, Sgt. 1st Class Randy Spivey, a 32-year-old Ranger instructor who has been in the Army since October 1997, was arrested Friday. The four men were stationed at a Ranger training facility, Camp Frank D. Merrill in Dahlonega. Lopez, White and Spivey are Rangers, and Champagne is a medic. The men's hometowns were not available. If convicted, all four face mandatory minimum 15-year prison sentences--10 years for the drug conspiracy plus five more years for the weapons charge. "It is a sad day when members of one of America's most elite corps of soldiers, the Army Rangers, are alleged to have become involved in criminal activity," said U.S. Attorney David Nahmias. "These men were trained to defend the people and principles of this country, not to use their skills to steal cocaine from drug dealers at gunpoint." In an affidavit unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, an ATF special agent said the soldiers were targeted after the bureau learned in November there were soldiers who wanted to rob drug traffickers. Central to the arrest was the undercover ATF agent posing as someone who was routinely hired by Mexican cocaine dealers to help them protect their drug houses. The ATF agent, Brett Turner, first met with Lopez in November. He told Lopez he had become disenchanted with the drug ring when it had refused to front him several kilograms of cocaine. Now, Turner said, he wanted to rob the drug ring of at least 25 kilograms of cocaine and needed help from people the drug dealers did not associate with him, the affidavit said. Earlier this month, Lopez and Champagne met with Turner and agreed to help him rob Turner's "employer," the affidavit said. "The next step, I explained, was for me to meet everyone who was going to participate, so I could be sure that everything 'checked out' and that everyone was trustworthy," Turner said in his affidavit. On Jan. 15, all four soldiers met with Turner. Turner discussed plans for the armed robbery and put them on notice they needed to be well-armed, the affidavit said. At least one armed guard named "Oso" would be at the stash house, Turner told the soldiers. The soldiers, the affidavit said, wanted details: How were they going to get to the drug house? How many armed guards would be there? Where would the cocaine be hidden? Were there any obstacles that might hinder a quick entry into the house? "Spivey interjected that he was an expert in urban assault and that details about the house and location of the armed personnel were important," Turner wrote in his affidavit. On Wednesday, Turner called Lopez and told him a shipment of cocaine would arrive on Thursday. Lopez, White and Champagne then went to Buckhead and spent the night in a hotel there, which had been arranged by Turner, the affidavit said. Shortly after noon on Thursday, Turner met with Lopez, White and Champagne to discuss their plans. At that point, Turner asked why Spivey wasn't there. Lopez said Spivey was their boss and that the three Rangers could not have taken the day off without Spivey covering for them. "Lopez assured me that Spivey was still part of the team; he was simply playing a different role" and would still get his share of the cocaine, Turner said in the affidavit. Turner told the men he needed to make a phone call. Within moments, the Rangers had been arrested without incident, the affidavit said. Scott Sweetow, ATF acting special agent in charge, on Friday called the charges "an isolated incident." But he said the four "are grown men--all of them non-commissioned officers. They came into it heavily armed and with their eyes wide open." Monica Managanaro, spokeswoman for Fort Benning, the base and training center for the Rangers, said the Army was cooperating with the investigation. Staff writer Rhonda Cook contributed to this article. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080126575628.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_75267_AEbPj kQAAV1VR5uhgAueME7nDzE&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=e2 0080126aaindex_concat.html&cred=HkIv.4cRXP3m_1jVOj wdtrUvNzfc6uMR8SuqNK4kKxZ.3P.Uh_mOupHL5Ih1MM9Kvp#T OP&quo |
