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 The Pentagon Early Bird March 21, 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.) Please scroll down to read the Headlines, then further scroll down to read the entire News Article. Url's will not link out in this format. IRAQ
Washingtonpost.com March 20, 2008 Gates Considers US Force Levels For Iraq By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Top U.S. military leaders presented Defense Secretary Robert Gates with their strategy for future force levels in Iraq Thursday, including expected recommendations for a pause in troop cuts for as much as six weeks later this summer. The hourlong videoconference marked the start of what will be a series of meetings, presentations and congressional testimony over the next two weeks that will assess the military, political and economic progress in Iraq. During the Pentagon meeting, Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, heard from the top commander in the Middle East, Adm. William Fallon, and the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus. Officials said little about the discussions, but there was no indication Petraeus had backed off his call for a brief pause in troop cuts after July in order to see what effect the lower force levels have on violence in Iraq. The key questions that Petraeus will face -- and that are still unanswered -- include how long will the pause will have to last in order to assess the security trends, how many troops will be able to come home once that period is over and if that will allow the Pentagon to reduce Army deployments from the current 15 months to 12 months, beginning with those who head to war in August as hoped. "This meeting was an opportunity for the secretary to be updated on the current thinking and analysis on the way ahead in Iraq from Admiral Fallon and General Petraeus," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. He added that while this was the most recent session between the leaders, it doesn't mean that thinking won't continue to evolve until Petraeus goes before Congress on April 8. Other military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private, said there is little disagreement between Fallon and Petraeus over the basic strategy. Officials also are giving various estimates for the length of the pause -- ranging from four to eight weeks, with most leaning toward the latter. Gates has endorsed the idea of a pause but has also said that it should be brief and that he would like to continue to reduce the number of troops in Iraq after the assessment break. Mullen, meanwhile, has said any break in troop cuts must be balanced against the strain on the force as well as the military's need to address other threats worldwide. There has been some tension among other top military leaders over how long additional troop cuts can be delayed. The Army's chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, has expressed concern about the stress that long and repeated war deployments are putting on his soldiers and their families. And the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Conway, has voiced similar worries about the Marines. At the same time, however, military leaders have said repeatedly that they don't want to do anything that would jeopardize the gains they have made in Iraq. There are currently 158,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and that number is expected to drop to about 140,000 by the end of July, when the troop buildup ends. The lower figure is 8,000 more than the number of troops in Iraq in January 2007, when President Bush ordered five additional brigades to Baghdad in order to quell violence. One of the military leaders who will have a firsthand look at the effects of the troop cuts will be Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, commander of the 10th Mountain Division. When Oates gets to Iraq in May, he will have three brigades under his command in the region south of Baghdad, rather than the four there now. On Thursday, Oates said he is "not terribly concerned" that he will have 3,500 to 4,000 fewer U.S. troops at his disposal. And he said his area of responsibility will likely expand, since there will be fewer troops covering the same territory. He said that his troops will probably extend their reach farther south and west and that his major focus will be on efforts to prepare the Iraqi forces to take over security for their own country. Petraeus' assessment to Congress probably will also include a raft of charts detailing what has been a significant decline in violence since last summer. As of the end of February, overall attacks are down about 67 percent since last June, civilian deaths are down more than 60 percent and U.S. military deaths are down about 70 percent. The bulk of the reduction came between June and December, and since then attacks have either remained steady or declined slightly. Meanwhile, at least one statistic is troubling -- the number of attacks carried by insurgents wearing vests laden with explosives is on the rise, signaling a shift in tactics. Some of the recent violence, however, has been attributed to increased military operations in the northern Ninevah province -- and some suggest that the violence there is expected to decline in the coming months as a result of that stepped up activity. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589049.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today March 21, 2008 Pg. 1 Faces Of America's War Dead In Iraq U.S. death toll in five-year conflict approaches 4,000 By Rick Hampson and Paul Overberg, USA Today One in six were too young to buy a beer. About two dozen were old enough for an AARP card. Eleven died on Thanksgiving Day, 11 on Christmas, and at least five on their birthdays. One percent were named Smith. As the nation approaches its 4,000th Iraq war fatality — on Thursday the toll stood at 3,983 servicemembers plus eight Defense Department civilians — a USA TODAY analysis shows who gave their lives, where they came from and how they fell: *Ninety-eight percent were male (compared with 99.9% of those lost in Vietnam). Three-quarters were non-Hispanic white (compared with 86% in Vietnam). The most common age was 21 (20 in Vietnam). *Nine percent were officers, including 24 lieutenant colonels and six colonels. *More of the fallen were based at Fort Hood in Texas than at any other military installation. *New York City, which has lost 62 residents, had more deaths than any other hometown. *More than half of the nearly 4,000 (52%) were killed by bombs, 16% by enemy gunfire. Five percent died in aircraft crashes. Fifty-five people drowned, and 15 were electrocuted. Almost one in five died from what the military terms "non-hostile" causes. *Since the war began in March 2003, the Pentagon has reported double-digit U.S. fatalities on 35 days. The bloodiest was Jan. 26, 2005, when a Marine helicopter crashed in a sandstorm, killing all 31 aboard, and six other servicemembers died in combat. The bloodiest month was November 2004, when 137 died; the least bloody was February 2004, when 21 were lost. On 460 days of the war, no servicemember died. The nearly 4,000 deaths — not including 482 troops killed in Afghanistan and the wider war on terrorism — are small by the standards of modern warfare. The total is less than two-thirds the U.S. fatalities during the World War II battle of Iwo Jima, which lasted about a month; less than U.S. losses on each of the first three days of the Battle of the Bulge; and less than a fourth of U.S. fatalities in Vietnam in 1968 alone. Is the upcoming 4,000th death more notable than the 3,999th or 4,001st? "Four thousand is a good round number people can grab hold of," says Morten Ender, a U.S. Military Academy sociologist who studies the military. "It reminds us of what's going on with a war that, since the (military's troop) surge, seems to have lost its place in the public mind." Whether anyone pays attention to the benchmark is something else. "People tend not to be numerologists," says John Mueller, an Ohio State expert on war and public opinion. "These milestones basically have little effect on public support for a war. It's not like the stock market; people are more affected by events in wars than numbers." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589051.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today March 21, 2008 Pg. 4 Counts Vary, But Names Mean More Than Numbers Keeping an ordered tally can be difficult By Rick Hampson, USA Today The nearly 4,000 members of the U.S. military who have died in Iraq were more than numbers. They were teammates and neighbors, schoolmates and brothers — people such as these: *Cory Palmer and Rick James, Marines who came from the small town of Seaford, Del., and were killed within a week of each other in May 2006. *John Byrd and Bradley Parker, graduates of North Marion High School in Fairmont, W.Va., who were killed within two weeks of each other in fall 2004. *Joel House and Blair Emery, who played soccer together for most of their lives and were killed within seven months of each other last year. Their names will be inscribed together on the veterans monument in their native Lee, Maine. Those who try to assess the meaning of their sacrifice do so at their peril. Andrew Olmsted, an Army major who wrote online about military life in Iraq for Denver's Rocky Mountain News, left an entry to run in case of his death. After he was killed Jan. 3 by a sniper, "Final Post" appeared the next day. He asked "that no one try to use my death to further their political purposes. … My life isn't a chit to be used to bludgeon people to silence on either side. If you think the U.S. should stay in Iraq, don't drag me into it by claiming that somehow my death demands us staying in Iraq. If you think the U.S. ought to get out tomorrow, don't cite my name as an example of someone's life who was wasted." Who will be the 4,000th fatality? That depends on whom you count. Just members of the U.S. military, or U.S. civilians working for the military? Only deaths caused by the enemy, or all U.S. military deaths? (USA TODAY, like the Pentagon, counts hostile and non-hostile deaths of uniformed military personnel.) To complicate matters, soldiers often die in groups during battle, and it's often unclear exactly when and in what order they perish. The war's first four official U.S. fatalities, for instance, occurred in a helicopter crash in Kuwait . Sequential numbering of individual deaths is often an illusion. On Sept. 6, 2004, the day the death toll passed 1,000, 12 people died, making it almost impossible to determine who was No. 1,000. It can take days for military officials to receive, confirm and release casualty reports, making a sequential count in real time especially difficult. When Army Pvt. Dustin Donica was killed in the last week of 2006, he was described by several news organizations as the 3,000th U.S. military fatality; at his funeral in Houston, the minister said, "Three thousand is not just a number to us anymore. It has a face now." But it was not Donica's. There apparently was a miscount, by the Pentagon or news organizations or both. In retrospect, Donica was between 2,983 and 2,988 — six servicemembers died that day — not counting seven civilian Defense Department employees who'd died earlier in the war. No one knows how many Iraqis have died in the war. In January, a report by the World Health Organization and the Iraqi government estimated that 151,000 might have died violently from the war's start through June 2006. That was three times as high as the estimate for the same period by the organization Iraqi Death Count, and a fourth of an estimate published in the British science journal Lancet by a Johns Hopkins University research team. Clark Dougan, an editor at the University of Massachusetts Press who has written on the Vietnam War, says the focus on the U.S. death toll has one unfortunate effect: "The impact of war is always measured in terms of U.S. fatals — and only U.S. fatals." Contributing: Paul Overberg http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589052.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today March 21, 2008 Pg. 6 Al-Maliki Optimistic In Speech, Says Country On Road To Recovery By Associated Press BAGHDAD — Iraq's prime minister pledged Thursday that the country would play an active role on the world stage in an upbeat speech delivered as this troubled nation entered a sixth year of war. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke five years after U.S. forces fired a first salvo of missiles at Baghdad on March 19, 2003, triggering a conflict that toppled Saddam Hussein but has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis. In a nationally televised address, al-Maliki promised to strengthen Iraq's role in world affairs, assuring the Iraqi people that their nation "cannot be anything but strong, unified and active." "As Iraq has triumphed over terrorism, it will triumph in the international arena," al-Maliki said. His optimistic remarks were the latest in a series of statements aimed at rallying national morale and projecting the image of Iraq as a country on the road to recovery after five years of bombs, bullets and sectarian slaughter. On Wednesday, al-Maliki, a Shiite, attended religious celebrations in Azamiyah, a Sunni Arab neighborhood of Baghdad that until recently was a bastion of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups. He delivered his remarks Thursday at a cultural festival in Hillah, a mostly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad near the ruins of fabled Babylon, one of the great cities of the ancient world. Al-Maliki said the cultural festival was a sign that normal life was returning to Iraq. He cut short his remarks a few moments later when the electricity failed. U.S. officials have also touted the sharp decline in violence over the past year as a sign that the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq is showing signs of success, despite widespread opposition to the conflict within the American public. According to the U.S. military, attacks have fallen by about 60% since early last year, when President Bush rushed about 30,000 U.S. reinforcements to curb a wave of sectarian massacres that plunged the nation to the brink of full-scale civil war. U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iraq remains far from secure and that the security gains are fragile because of political disputes among rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities. "The situation is very unstable," said Jassim Mohammed, 40, a Sunni employee of the Iraqi National Library in Baghdad. "I simply do not see any light at the end of this dark tunnel." In violence on Thursday, three policemen were killed in a roadside bombing and a shooting in Mosul, which the U.S. military describes as al-Qaeda's last urban stronghold in Iraq. Another police officer was reported killed in the southern city of Kut. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589086.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times March 21, 2008 Pg. 1 In Iraq, U.S. Seeks Jobs For Surplus Hired Guns As calm returns to some areas, the U.S. military is faced with the question of what to do with the tribesmen it hired to defend their neighborhoods. By Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer HAWR RAJAB, IRAQ — A man in a dusty track suit elbowed his way through the crowd that had formed as soon as U.S. soldiers pulled up in this war-damaged village on Baghdad's southern outskirts. The man, who gave his name as Nasir, told the soldiers that he used to earn a living as a wedding singer. But the masked gunmen who took over Hawr Rajab in the name of their austere version of Islam considered such work sacrilegious and burned down his house. When the Sunni Arab villagers decided to fight back with the help of U.S. forces, Nasir said, he was one of the first to sign up for the $10-a-day paramilitary work. So he was less than pleased when he was informed last month that security had increased to the point that his services as a gun-for-hire were no longer needed. "I don't want to make trouble," he told the soldiers urgently. "I just want to live my life, and I need work." After five years of trial and error, the strategy of recruiting tribesmen to help defend their neighborhoods against Islamic extremists has proved one of the most effective weapons in the U.S. counterinsurgency arsenal. But restoring a measure of calm to what were some of the most violent places in Iraq has in turn presented the U.S. military with one of its biggest headaches: what to do with the more than 80,000 armed men whose loyalty has been bought with a paycheck that cannot go on forever. "We don't want to pay people to stand on street corners with guns if they don't need to be there. What we want to do is we want to get them into a transition to more gainful employment," said Army Col. Martin Stanton, who oversees the effort. After months of U.S. entreaties, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Shiite-led government grudgingly agreed in December to hire a portion of the mostly Sunni Arab fighters for the official security forces. But the process of vetting and approving the job candidates is painfully slow -- some say deliberately so -- and less than a third of them are expected to qualify. U.S. and Iraqi officials are now hammering out details of a plan to revive local economies and create new opportunities for the fighters through vocational training, public works schemes, farm revitalization programs, micro-grants and business start-up loans. The two governments have committed $155 million apiece to the projects. But these are long-term strategies, and the fighters need jobs now. If not, many openly declare they will have no choice but to work for the insurgency, which has tried to lure some of them back with offers of more money. Already, cracks are appearing in what one senior official describes as the central plank of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. Hundreds of Sunni guards abandoned their posts for weeks last month in the Diyala provincial capital, Baqubah, demanding the replacement of a provincial police chief, a Shiite Muslim they accused of brutality against Sunnis. Errant U.S. airstrikes, which have killed a number of the fighters, prompted a similar walkout in Jurf al Sakhar, south of Baghdad. Sunni Arab tribesmen first approached the U.S. military in Anbar province in 2006 for help in driving out the Islamic extremists they once backed. When commanders saw how effective the tribesmen were, they began using the power of the dollar to court allies in other insurgent bastions where residents had grown disenchanted with the militants' ideology and brutality. The U.S. military has signed contracts worth $143 million with the tribesmen, which it now calls Sons of Iraq, to help guard roads, bridges and other key infrastructure. A stopgap U.S. commanders say the three-month deals were never intended to be more than stopgap measures in areas where U.S. and Iraqi forces did not have the numbers to provide security. But the fighters argue that they have proved their worth and deserve permanent jobs. Adding urgency to their demands is a mounting death toll among the guards, as Sunni insurgents take aim at the neighborhood security groups that threaten their networks. Shiite militiamen also have attacked the guards in some areas. But though the Iraqi government will make so-called martyr payments to the families of slain Iraqi soldiers and police officers, there is no such provision for the guards. A senior guard leader in Baqubah estimated that as many as 450 members, mostly Sunnis, had been killed in Diyala province alone, a key battleground in the fight against the Sunni militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliates. "These people have sacrificed for Diyala," said the leader, who goes by the nickname Abu Talib. "They shouldn't just be dropped." The village of Hawr Rajab in Diyala in many ways epitomizes the work of the guard program. Four months ago, U.S. soldiers found headless bodies in the largely deserted streets. Now, many residents who had fled in fear are back, and the village bustles with activity. American soldiers are handing out micro-grants to help businessmen repair their stores and buy stock. Seed and plastic have been distributed to farmers. An Iraqi contractor is revamping the clinic and building classrooms. And there are plans to convert the abandoned shoe factory into an ice-making plant by the summer. "Men with weapons can only provide so much security," said Lt. Col. Mark Solomon, who commands the U.S. cavalry squadron responsible for the area. "The rest has to come from governance and economic growth." Security has improved to such a degree that Solomon decided to shift 200 of the 500 villagers employed as security guards to a pilot public works crew, to provide much-needed services. Nasir, the unemployed wedding singer, readily agreed to join the new program. But it has not been easy to persuade the proud tribesmen to trade in their AK-47s for trash bags and brooms. Some were wealthy landowners under Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime. Many hold university degrees. "I graduated from the teaching college. I don't want to sweep the streets," said Daoud Salman, a tall man in traditional Arab robes. Salman, a father of four, said his former comrades-in-arms laugh at him when they see him picking up trash and burning reeds to clear canals supplying water to farms. He isn't the only one disgruntled with the job switch. On a recent drive through the village, most of the workers energetically sweeping the streets with palm fronds were younger than 15, many of them the children of men killed in recent fighting. "The older ones don't work," said Adil Abbas Khodier, who is in charge of the program. "They all want to be sheiks." This month, U.S. Air Force technicians began teaching a class of 50 from the public works crew how to become builders, masons, electricians and plumbers, skills they can put to work repairing the village's nearly 100 damaged homes. Once they qualify, their salaries will go up to about $15 a day, while those for the guards will drop to about $8. But despite the pay incentive, most of the fighters tell their tribal leaders that they would prefer to remain on the checkpoints or to join the police, the only reliable source of local employment. About 10,000 guard members have been absorbed into the police force in overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar, where there was a virtual security vacuum until the tribesmen rebelled against the Al Qaeda in Iraq extremists in their midst. But authorities in Baghdad and other religiously mixed parts of the country have been more resistant to the idea of bringing Sunni guards into the largely Shiite police force. So far, they have accepted fewer than 8,000 applicants. The country's Shiite leaders are suspicious of the Sunni fighters, who include many former insurgents, and want them carefully vetted before allowing them into the official security forces. There is a limit to how many can join the local police force. The army, on the other hand, has space, but most of the fighters aren't interested in a military career because they want to stay close to their families. Hawr Rajab's leaders have been pressing authorities in Baghdad for a police station and have collected 700 applications. But with a population of less than 10,000, the village does not qualify to have its own station, a district official informed them last month. 'Government is too slow' If villagers want to become police officers, the envoy in a crisp suit and polished shoes told a smoke-filled room, they will have to work in neighboring Abu Dasheer, a mostly Shiite village that is a stronghold of the feared Mahdi Army militia. Fighters from the two villages have clashed for years, and occasional shots are still fired between them. A stunned silence fell over the room. Ali Majeed Msir was one of two tribal sheiks who launched the guard program in Hawr Rajab. Because of his family's stand, he says, insurgents killed his father, stole the family's money and slaughtered its cattle. He now chairs a council set up to run the village since the insurgents fled, an unpaid group that is campaigning for recognition from higher levels of government. "This project is successful right now . . . but the government is too slow," Msir said glumly, pulling a pair of dark sunglasses over his eyes. If the government won't take care of his men, he said, they might have no choice but to return to the battlefield. "We want to be part of the government," he said. "But if the government keeps refusing, we will have to be a militia." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589053.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today March 21, 2008 Pg. 6 Foreign Fighters Getting Out Of Iraq, Military Says Despite fissures, al-Qaeda not giving up, general warns By Jim Michaels, USA Today A growing number of foreign fighters are leaving or attempting to flee Iraq as U.S. and Iraqi forces have weakened al-Qaeda and forced its members from former strongholds, U.S. military officials say. The trend reflects a broad disenchantment among foreign fighters, particularly since al-Qaeda has lost sanctuaries in parts of Baghdad and Anbar, a Sunni province west of the capital, U.S. military intelligence officials say. "They're being told in their countries of origin by facilitators that, 'Hey, we're basically winning the war against the apostates,' " said Brig. Gen. Michael Flynn, intelligence director for Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East. "They go there and find out it's not quite the case." Foreign militants constitute about 10% of al-Qaeda's strength in Iraq, but Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said they make up about 90% of the suicide bombers. The departure of some fighters doesn't mean al-Qaeda is quitting the fight, said Brig. Gen. Brian Keller, the chief intelligence officer for the U.S. command in Iraq. "We're just starting to see more and more fissures in the morale and leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq," he said. Recently, families of about 20 Algerians in Iraq whom the military suspects are foreign fighters contacted the Algerian government and said the men were seeking safe passage out of Iraq. The Algerian government contacted the Iraqi government to seek information about the group, Keller said. The Algerians have not surfaced, but Keller said separate intelligence shows they exist. The number of foreign fighters entering Iraq has declined to about 40 to 50 a month from a high of about 120 a month last year, according to Multi-National Force-Iraq. Most enter from Syria. There are about 240 foreigners out of the 23,000 detainees in U.S. custody, according to Air Force Capt. Rose Richeson, a spokeswoman for detainee operations in Iraq. The bulk of the foreigners are from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria. The foreign militants are usually young men in their early 20s who grew up in large families and "found it hard to be noticed, to make their own mark in life," Smith said in Baghdad recently. "In most cases, they were lonely, impressionable young men" seeking "recognition and acceptance," Smith said. Those details, he said, were based on interviews with 48 foreign fighters held in Iraq. Many were lured with the promise of killing Americans but learned on arrival that their attacks would be directed at fellow Muslims, Smith said. Some were pressured to be suicide bombers, he said. Foreigners dominate the top of al-Qaeda's organization in Iraq, including Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian who heads al-Qaeda in Iraq. U.S. intelligence officials watch for signs that would indicate al-Qaeda wants to cut its losses in Iraq and possibly go elsewhere. Though some foreign fighters are leaving Iraq, it's hard to translate tactical gains there into an overall defeat of global al-Qaeda, said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. "What we've learned over the last several years is the resiliency of these organizations because of their sort of horizontal organization," Reed told C-SPAN's Newsmakers. "It's not a hierarchy where you take out the leader and they're set back for years." Iraq has warned neighboring countries that al-Qaeda militants will attempt to create problems elsewhere as they are forced from Iraq, said Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman. "These people will not give up," al-Dabbagh said. "They … need to practice jihad," or holy war. Before February 2007, estimates of al-Qaeda in Iraq's strength varied widely, from 5,000 to 10,000 members, according to U.S. military statistics. By December 2007, the group was estimated to have 2,800 to 3,900 members. The latest estimates put the number at 1,800 to 2,800. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589087.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times March 21, 2008 War-Ravaged Iraq City 'Alive Again' Fallouja has been rebuilt since the 2004 battles. Stores again are doing a brisk business, and the population is nearly back up to 300,000. By Tony Perry, Time Staff Writer FALLOUJA, IRAQ — The one-lane bridge over the Euphrates River where a mob hung the charred bodies of slain Americans four years ago is now a focal point in the revitalization of this war-ravaged city. The Iraqi government and the U.S. plan to widen the pedestrian pathways on either side of the bridge so shoppers can stream into Fallouja's western neighborhood and buy food, clothing and other goods from stores that again line the streets of a city once given up for dead. The comeback of Fallouja, the site of two major battles between Marines and insurgents in 2004, surprises even the most optimistic U.S. planners. "It continues to outpace all expectations," said Navy Capt. John Dal Santo, part of a State Department-funded effort called the Provincial Reconstruction Team for Fallouja. City Council leader Sheik Hamed Ahmed said that he was pleased with the city's progress but that he needed more generators for his neighborhood. Ahmed's three predecessors were assassinated by insurgents, but he has refused to back down. "Fallouja is alive again," he said. Restaurants, bakeries, photo shops, tire stores, Internet cafes, a body-building studio and other businesses line the avenues and side streets. BMWs share lanes with donkey carts on congested thoroughfares. The Anbar provincial government and the central government in Baghdad have poured tens of millions of dollars into street repair, rubble removal and school reconstruction. The governor has assigned what Americans might call ward heelers to tend to the needs of the city's nine districts. In 2004, Fallouja was a major base for the emerging Sunni Arab insurgency. On March 31 of that year, it was also the site of one of the most macabre images since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq: young Iraqi men dancing in glee as the burned remains of American private security workers hung from the aging bridge. Most civilians fled the city before the second Marine assault, in November 2004. And there are still signs of the fierce battles: crumpled buildings, downed power lines and bullet-riddled homes. Other problems also remain: an undersized police department; shortages of electricity, clean water and gasoline; high unemployment; and a small but resistant cadre of insurgents waiting to launch a counterattack. Yet Fallouja is vibrant again, and its population has climbed back close to its pre-assault level of about 300,000. Police are on the streets. A new hospital is set to open this spring, funded by the U.S. and the Iraqis. Marines have removed many of the barriers and concertina wire that gave the city what one officer called the "Berlin 1945 look." There have been soccer tournaments and art contests. And there are plans for a soft-drink bottling plant. "Fallouja has gone through a metamorphosis -- these people want their lives back," said Lt. Col. Christopher Dowling, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. "Fallouja has its soul back." Several hundred Marines live side by side with Iraqi police officers in outposts across the city. In five months, Dowling's Marines have carried out 7,000 patrols in the city and its suburbs without suffering a fatality or major injury. To ensure continued security progress, Marines conduct late-night raids several times a week after picking up intelligence about possible insurgent activities. The troops also have sought to provide employment to young Falloujans to help win their loyalty. One of Dowling's more successful efforts has been to pay youths $10 a day to pick up trash. Many of the main streets are now among the cleanest of any city in Anbar province. Fallouja also has a court system and judges, unlike most cities in the province, which lies west of Baghdad. Elsewhere, judges who fled the country have not returned. "Two years ago, even after the war was over, people were stealing and hiding," Iraqi police officer Jassim Hamid Khousan said. "Now is better. God willing, if the insurgents come back, we will fight." Haji Mohammed Hussin feels safe enough to reopen and expand his kebab restaurant, closed when the city was controlled by insurgents. He also owns a restaurant in Baghdad that remains closed, he said, because it has been confiscated by Shiite Muslim militiamen. When Dowling stopped by to drink tea, Hussin had a request: Extend the hours at the main checkpoint so more people can come in from the suburbs for a late dinner. "We need more people," Hussin said. Done. The checkpoint will stay open an hour later. An estimated 20,000 people a day stream through five checkpoints to shop or work in the city. The checkpoints are staffed by Marines, Iraqi police and an all-female contingent called the Sisters of Fallouja. This is the second Fallouja assignment for the Camp Pendleton-based 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. It was a lead unit in the November 2004 assault, suffering 19 fatalities. Most of the current officers and enlisted are new to the battalion. But some are veterans from 2004, including Staff Sgt. Terrance Gant, who remembers the fight to recapture the bridge. Marines attacked insurgent strongholds from the north, south and east -- pushing west toward the bridge was one of the final objectives. Gant visited the bridge and adjoining streets the other day and found small boys selling ice cream, a fishmonger hawking catfish, and food and trinket stores doing a brisk business. "This is a step forward," Gant said. "It shows me my Marines didn't die in vain." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589062.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Times March 21, 2008 Pg. 1 Saddam Friendly To Terror Groups No al Qaeda link in report By Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times Newly declassified documents show a number of links between the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and violent terrorist or Islamist groups, many of them dating from the early 1990s. A Pentagon-funded study of the documents failed to find a direct link between Saddam and al Qaeda, the group that carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. But it did establish Iraqi support for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, whose leader Ayman al-Zawahri merged the group with al Qaeda years later. The papers also show that Saddam's Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained a working relationship with Palestinian terrorist groups, secretly sent representatives to meet with them and trained scores of non-Iraqi Arabs to attack Israel. "Iraq was a long-standing supporter of international terrorism," said the report by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a nonprofit private group working under contract to the Pentagon. The institute, whose history goes back to 1947, has three federally funded research and development centers and addresses national-security issues that require specific scientific and technical expertise. The report, which is being mailed by U.S. Joint Forces Command to the journalists and media outlets, contains copies of the captured IIS documents that provide a detailed picture of Iraq's decades-old support of various terrorist groups. Al Qaeda out Agreeing with previous intelligence reports, the IDA said the documents showed no direct operational link between Iraq and al Qaeda, a connection that had been suggested by the Bush administration before the war. The Bush administration has not been eager to redebate its reasons for the invasion. Lt. Col. Philip Smith, a Joint Forces command spokesman, said, "The report speaks for itself" and declined to comment further. The Central Intelligence Agency also declined to comment. A 2006 Senate intelligence committee report said the postwar investigations by the intelligence community found only two confirmed al Qaeda-Iraq contacts. This spurred charges from Democrats that the Bush White House had politicized prewar intelligence. Since then, government analysts have continued to examine thousands of translated Iraqi documents to get a clearer picture of the Saddam-terror axis. It was in that vein that the IDA wrote its report, "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents." Lawrence Korb, an analyst at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the important point in the IDA report is that there was no Saddam-al Qaeda operational link. "The idea that the same people who attack on 9/11, that Saddam was connected to them, is not true," Mr. Korb said. "There's no doubt Saddam was involved with a lot of terrorist groups. A lot of them he used against his own people." Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, thinks the new details are "very significant." "It demonstrates the intentions of where Saddam was willing to go," Mr. Hoekstra said. "Were there proven contacts between him and al Qaeda? No. Maybe no. But were there clear indications that this was a guy who was more than willing to support Islamic terrorist organizations? This is one more piece of evidence that shows: yeah." Mr. Hoekstra bemoaned the White House's refusal to highlight the Islamic Jihad-Saddam connection, or, for that matter, recent disclosures that Saddam told his FBI interrogator that he planned to resume production of weapons of mass destruction. "It just points out from my standpoint how pathetic this administration has been in really talking to the American people about the threat from radical jihadists in general and what was going on in Iraq in particular," he said. White House spokesmen did not return calls seeking comment on the IDA report. Al Qaeda aside, the IDA report shows that Baghdad was an active player in international terrorism. "Many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States," said the report. "State sponsorship of terrorism became such a routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability." Egypt jihad in Perhaps the IDA report's most significant new disclosure is that the Iraqi Intelligence Service, known as the Mukhabarat, established an alliance with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ). A captured 1993 memo from the IIS to Saddam said that Iraq had aided the group previously and was restarting contacts to help with attacks on the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a U.S. ally. EIJ was founded by Zawahri, an Egyptian surgeon who, along with other members, sought to overthrow the secular Egyptian government. After the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, he was arrested but served jail time only for illegal arms possession. He met bin Laden in Afghanistan while with the mujahedeen resistance fighting the Soviets. He returned to Egypt in 1990 and, in 1998, merged Egyptian Islamic Jihad with al Qaeda. In 1996, he was arrested in Russia for recruiting Chechen jihadists, but Russian officials released him, saying they couldn't confirm his identity. Zawahri, who is on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list for his role in the September 11 attacks, also has been indicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. "In a meeting in the Sudan, we agreed to renew our relations with the Islamic Jihad Organization in Egypt," the Iraqi memo states. "It carried out numerous successful operations, including the assassination of Sadat. We have previously met with the organization's representative and we agreed on a plan to carry out commando operations against the Egyptian regime." A second memo issued to the IIS from Saddam's office stated, "There has been agreement since December 24, 1990, with the representative of the Islamic Group organization in Egypt on a plan to move against the Egyptian regime by carrying out commando operations provided that we guarantee them financing and training." A third memo reveals that Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who is now jailed in Iraq, sent a letter to Egyptian Islamic groups encouraging them to cooperate in "acts of insurgency against the Egyptian government." Palestinians in Before the 2003 invasion, the Bush administration made an issue of Saddam's offer to provide money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers as proof of Baghdad's support for international terrorism. The IDA report reveals that Saddam provided much more significant aid to groups such as Hamas, a terror group backed by Iran and now in control of the Gaza Strip. A 2002 annual report by the IIS' M8 division told of providing millions of dollars and arms to Palestinian terror groups and training Palestinians in Iraqi camps. The IIS maintained representatives in the Palestinian territories who met with Hamas leaders, such as founder Ahmad Yassin, who conveyed their needs to Baghdad. In 2002, Baghdad hosted 13 conferences of various Islamic groups, according to the M8 report, which also told of scores of messages from these groups seeking money and arms. Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front, found safe haven in Iraq in the late 1980s. He became a wanted man after he engineered the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro during which American Leon Klinghoffer was shot and pushed overboard in his wheelchair. In 1996, Abbas apologized for the hijacking and urged a Palestinian-Israeli peace accord. But the Iraq documents tell a different story. Abbas made secret visits to Palestinian terror groups to advise them on attacking Israel. In 1998, he met with Hamas leader Yassin. Upon his return to Baghdad, Abbas was debriefed by the IIS. An Iraqi memo stated, "Abu aI-Abbas stated that he is willing to fully work, in any area, which will serve Iraq's objectives towards the Zionist enemy." The U.S. captured Abbas in 2003 as he tried to escape to Syria. He died of natural causes while in custody in 2004. Sara A. Carter contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589082.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP FNC March 20, 2008 Iranian Support For Insurgents Questioned Special Report with Brit Hume (FNC), 6:00 PM BRIT HUME: Earlier this week, Senator McCain quickly retracted a remark that Iran supports al Qaeda in Iraq. Some observers suggest McCain was right that Iran has had ties with al Qaeda. So what is the evidence? National security correspondent Jennifer Griffin has been investigating that question. JENNIFER GRIFFIN: Iran doesn’t support al Qaeda because Iranians are Shi’a Muslims and al Qaeda are Sunni – at least that is the way it is often reported. The truth however is more complicated according to U.S. military officials. MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL [Former Multi-National Force-Iraq Spokesman]: We have in fact found some cases recently where some Iranian intelligence services have provided to some Sunni insurgent groups some support. GRIFFIN: That was a year ago. Today, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq scaled back the U.S. military assessment of Iranian links to al Qaeda, saying some of the lethal aid from Iranian backed sources may end up in the hands of al Qaeda affiliates, but most still goes to Shi’a extremists. "Reporting of Sunnis trained inside Iran alongside Shi’a insurgents, has little detail about specific groups," the spokesman wrote in response. Al Qaeda may have bought the Iranian munitions on the open market, another military official told Fox. Last year, the U.S. general in charge of central Iraq, an area that shares a border with Iran, showed what he said was evidence of Iranian support of al Qaeda. From Arab Jabour, al Qaeda smuggled these new Iranian weapons along with the fighters that would use them into Baghdad. Maj. Gen. Lynch told Fox -- MAJ. GEN. RICK LYNCH: I’m not into the politics of what’s going on. I just tell we’ve got Iranian munitions, we’ve got IEFPs attacking our soldiers, and we’ve got training being conducted in Iran – all of which we’re concerned about and we’re working against. GRIFFIN: And a report by the Iraq Survey Group in 2004 said 320 Ansar al-Islam fighters, a group tied to al Qaeda living in Northern Iraq had moved to Iran where they received military training. Similarly, a five-year investigation by the U.S. military into Saddam Hussein’s pre-war connections to terrorists showed a murky marriage of convenience regarding his support for terrorist groups. Quote, “Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States.” The report from the Iraqi Perspectives Project looked at 600,000 documents of Saddam archives. It did not find a smoking gun connecting Saddam to al Qaeda. But what many in the media missed in the report was the training that Saddam Hussein provided these groups in the use of car bombs and suicide vests. And the working connections he had according to the report with a range of nationalists and Islamic terrorist organizations. At the Pentagon, Jennifer Griffin, Fox News. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589091.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times March 21, 2008 Pentagon Battle Breaks Out Over A Spy Plane Defense Secretary Gates wants more unmanned Predator aircraft in Iraq. But the Air Force worries about the long-term viability of the spy plane program. By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has ordered the Air Force to put nearly all of its unmanned Predator aircraft into the skies over the Middle East, forcing the service to take steps that officers worry could hobble already-stressed drone squadrons. Pressure from the Defense secretary in recent months has nearly doubled the number of Predators available to help hunt insurgents and find roadside bombs in Iraq. But it has forced air commanders into a scramble for crews that officers said could hurt morale and harm the long-term viability of the Predator program. Some officers said pressure from Gates resulted in one plan that could have taken the Air Force down a path similar to the German Luftwaffe, which cut back training in World War II to get more pilots in the air. "That was the end of their air force," said Col. Chris Chambliss, commander of the Air Force's Predator wing. The Air Force plan, presented to the military leadership in January, eventually was scaled back. The surge in drone flights is Gates' latest push for short-term measures to win the Iraq war that will have long-term implications for the U.S. military. In recent months, Gates has campaigned to increase the size of the Army and to ship new, heavily armored troop transporters, known as MRAPs, to Iraq. Because of the far-reaching implications of the Predator debate, a fight has broken out between the Army and the Air Force over control of one of the most heralded technological successes of the war. The Army has argued that more overhead drones will save troops' lives, a position largely adopted by Gates. But the Air Force has complained that simply demanding more, with no end in sight, would severely strain the service -- just as repeated deployments of ground soldiers has strained the Army. "The leadership has to be careful," said one senior Air Force official who, like several others, spoke on condition of anonymity when describing internal debates. "If you keep on pushing them and pushing them and pushing them, and they say, 'Yes, yes, yes, yes,' at some point, they're going to break. Because they ain't going to say no until they break. No one wants to say 'uncle.' " Gates set up a team within his office to examine ways to increase Predator flights last year, when 12 were continuously flying combat patrols. Now there are 22, and Gates is pressing for more. His push to expand the use of drones grew out of a conviction last year that many agencies within the Pentagon were not at full war footing. By then, Gates already had taken aim at a pair of high-profile problems: failures that led to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal, and MRAPs. In an interview this year, Gates said the lack of spy planes -- known as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR aircraft -- was his third major gripe with the military leadership he inherited. "In ISR, it was business as usual," Gates said. "I really pushed the Army and the Air Force -- particularly the Air Force -- and I intend to keep pushing because the unmet need is huge." In response, the Air Force has stepped up training. Next year, commanders will train 200 two-man crews to remotely fly a fleet of Predators that numbers more than 100, as well as a larger version called the Reaper, mostly out of a spartan air base in the Nevada desert. Trainers will turn out more pilots for Predators next year than for all other Air Force fighter planes combined. But in the most dramatic example of brinkmanship in the struggle, the plan debated by the military leadership in January would have shut down the Predator training operation in order to increase to 36 the number of Predators continuously flying combat patrols in the Middle East by August. The plan was dubbed "all in" by its developer, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff. Although the most drastic parts of Moseley's "all in" plan have not been carried out, the Predator program has been forced through three makeovers since July, and the service has had to take aggressive steps to meet the new demand. At first, the Air Force extended the tours of the Predator crews. By September, however, officials began to recall many of the pilots who had completed their Predator duty and left for fighter and bomber assignments elsewhere. Then, as part of the January deal, Predator and Reaper crews were frozen. Even pilots who have been flying drones nonstop for three years will have to remain in Nevada for at least two more years. Many of them originally were trained as fighter and bomber pilots. Air Force officials are acutely aware that their concerns may seem like whining, particularly compared with Army counterparts who serve 15-month tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, Predator crews have been working 13-hour days, sometimes six days a week, for three years with no end in sight. "Now we're saying: 'Hey, you guys are just going to be here until we stop,' " said Chambliss, the Predator wing commander, comparing the tours of duty to "a prisoner with a finite term versus a prisoner with a life sentence." In the debate over control of the fast-growing fleet, the Air Force argues that only qualified pilots should fly airplanes that drop bombs and fire missiles. But Army ground commanders maintain they most need and use the streaming video to plan and execute their ground operations. "I want to control it," said Lt. Col. Adam R. Hinsdale, head of the Army's unmanned aircraft program, which has its own family of smaller, short-range drones. Hinsdale said Army troops occasionally found that an Air Force Predator assigned to their unit had unknowingly flown off for other missions. "I don't want it to be pulled away." Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, acknowledged the risks of overstretching Predator crews during an interview last month aboard his plane returning from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. He insisted his January plan was not an attempt to fire a warning shot at the Pentagon leadership. As a former war commander -- he ran the air war during the Iraq invasion -- Moseley said he understood the importance of supplying commanders in Iraq with the aircraft they needed. "This is a good thing and it's operationally useful, so you can see where people want more of it," Moseley said. Others saw Moseley's plan as an attempt to highlight the potential for long-term damage to the Predator program. "We've already pushed pretty hard," the senior Air Force official said. "At that point, the chief goes, 'OK, they want more, here's what we're going to do: Shut down the schoolhouse, shut down test and training . . . chain the operators to the consoles, give them a coffee can to pee in.' " But Pentagon officials familiar with Gates' thinking said he was not likely to let up. As one example, the Air Force is under pressure to give up its insistence that only qualified pilots fly Predators. That would significantly expand the available pool of operators. "I'm not satisfied that anybody in the Pentagon is doing enough to put us on a path where we have adequate resources for this," Gates said in the interview this year. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589098.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Seattle Post-Intelligencer March 21, 2008 Why Northrop Beat Boeing For Tanker Air Force says fewer planes would be needed for missions By Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News Northrop Grumman Corp.'s aerial tanker beat rival Boeing's plane for a $35 billion military contract in part because fewer of the aircraft would be required to meet wartime missions and it might be ready sooner, according to Air Force documents. The Air Force would require 22 fewer Northrop tankers to meet classified homeland defense and combat scenarios covering the Pacific and Southwest Asia required in the competition, according to a document that outlined the service's selection criteria. Boeing lost the 179-plane contract Feb. 29 to Northrop and its partner, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., and protested the decision March 11. The Air Force briefing document made available to Bloomberg News indicates that although the contest was close, the Air Force decided the Northrop entry was better in some key areas such as turnaround time on refueling missions. The Air Force also determined Los Angeles-based Northrop's plane was likely to need less development time to meet the goal of an April 2013 introduction, the document said. Both companies offered "fair and reasonable prices" and "a reasonable business arrangement," the briefing document said. Northrop was deemed "more advantageous in mission capability" and "in key system requirements" and "program management," the document said. The loss of the contest and appeals would end the hold Chicago-based Boeing has had on the Air Force tanker business since 1956. Boeing's entry in the latest contest was based on its 767 commercial plane, whereas Northrop's was based on the larger A330 made by EADS unit Airbus, based in Toulouse, France. Boeing spokesman Bill Barksdale said the company was given the document with selected Northrop material redacted. Northrop spokesman Dan McClain confirmed his company also received the document with Boeing data deleted and declined further comment. Lt. Col. Jennifer Cassidy, an Air Force spokeswoman, also declined to comment on the documents. The documents said Boeing's candidate had better communications capability and bested Northrop in some aerial refueling capabilities. The Boeing aircraft also was judged to have better survivability characteristics. Even so, "Northrop Grumman provides better aerial refueling efficiency," said the slides prepared by the Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The Air Force concluded there was more risk that Boeing's development phase would take longer and be more expensive than Northrop's, the slides said. That included the likelihood of a "relatively lengthy software development phase." "Little difference exists between" Northrop's "cost and price and the government's probable cost and price" for the development phase, the Air Force said. In contrast, the difference between Boeing and the government's probable costs "are not reasonably explained" for some categories. The Air Force slides, in assessing the competitor's past performance, said there was "little confidence" in Boeing's program management, whereas Northrop was rated "satisfactory." Barksdale, in his e-mailed statement, said that problems Boeing had with some international tanker programs and a Navy multimission aircraft were "overly emphasized" and that the Air Force didn't properly consider "lessons learned" by the company in resolving those issues. Among the "major discriminators" that swayed the Air Force was the Northrop model's larger size. Boeing, in its protest to the Government Accountability Office, said that if the company had been told "the Air Force wanted a large-scale tanker, it could have offered" the bigger 777 aircraft as a base. The GAO has 100 days from the March 11 filing to decide whether the contest was fair. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080321589030.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1952268_AEb PjkQAAKXXR%2BQC4gscuWO8d2Y&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20080321aaindex_concat.html&cred=UENo5KqEu4UEBV WnN68mbkdSc1Aw9zkaxIngYO6H7rSpimBWo5Xl26pZ5MBLu1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times March 21, 2008 Pg. 6 Sovereigns Of All They’re Assigned, Captains Have Many Missions To Oversee By Michael Kamber JISR DIALA, Iraq — During the war in Iraq, young Army and Marine captains have become American viceroys, officers with large sectors to run and near-autonomy to do it. In military parlance, they are the “ground-owners.” In practice, they are power brokers. “They give us a chunk of land and say, ‘Fix it,’” said Capt. Rich Thompson, 36, who controls an area east of Baghdad. The Iraqis have learned that these captains, many still in their 20s, can call down devastating American firepower one day and approve multimillion-dollar projects the next. Some have become celebrities in their sectors, men whose names are known even to children. Many in the military believe that these captains are the linchpins in the American strategy for success in Iraq, but as the war continues into its sixth year the military has been losing them in large numbers — at a time when it says it needs thousands more. Most of these captains have extensive combat experience and are regarded as the military’s future leaders. They’re exactly the men the military most wants. But corporate America wants them too. And the hardships of repeated tours are taking their toll, tilting them back toward civilian life and possibly complicating the future course of the war. “I have served my time; I’ve done two tours in Iraq,” said Capt. Kirkner Bailey, 26, of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Mosul. “For the past three years of my life I have either been in Iraq or training to go to Iraq,” he added. “I just know that there is more to life than this war, and my girlfriend, Shannon, and I are interested in finding out what that is.” “I can’t speak to trends,” he said. “But 8 of my 10 friends who are captains are leaving the Army.” It is hard to overstate the importance of these Army and Marine officers to the American war effort. Capt. Brian Gilbert, 30, who controls a million-dollar monthly Army budget for his sector of 200,000 residents here in Jisr Diala, a city east of Baghdad, has pulled together a group of tribal leaders as well as a local Iraqi security force, not to mention kept a close eye on the elected city council. On a recent afternoon, he ordered traffic control barriers installed to prevent car bombs, checked on refurbished water pumps for farmers and approved money to connect the pumping station to the Baghdad electricity grid. Then there were soccer uniforms to be dropped off for a community team, heated disputes to resolve, an influential sheik to visit. “It is purely my fight in my area of operation,” Captain Gilbert said. “I decide the targets, I decide the development projects and I choose to partner with the Sons of Iraq,” a reference to the local security group that he helped to set up. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, said: “It is the captains who turn the ‘big ideas’ and broad guidance issued at high levels into specific actions geared to local circumstances. Captains plan and execute the operations that often prove the most important, at ground level, where gains are truly achieved in this type of endeavor.” As the war has worn on, many captains say, the nature of that work has changed. General Petraeus’s counterinsurgency doctrine is centered on relatively small groups of soldiers establishing outposts in communities and living among the Iraqis. The result is a war that has largely been transformed into a fight on the ground by the captains. When Captain Gilbert began his third tour in Iraq in February 2007, he inherited a sector of Jisr Diala that had been patrolled only part time. “There was at least one kidnapping a day,” he said. The streets in some areas were lined with roadside bombs, one of which destroyed a Humvee, killing three of Captain Gilbert’s soldiers. “I’ve lost more of my friends in Iraq than I can count on two hands,” he said. His company pushed on, conducting foot patrols, talking to residents and gaining trust. And with the creation of a local security force, violence has been reduced significantly; in their first month of operation, the Sons of Iraq found four large arms caches, one containing more than 100 I.E.D.’s, or roadside bombs. They began to fight side by side with the Americans against insurgents, and last year one of their members was killed when he tackled a suicide bomber approaching a group of Captain Gilbert’s soldiers. “My previous tours were frustrating,” Captain Gilbert said. “The first tour there was jubilation at the fall of Saddam. Then it was like, ‘Now what do we do?’ We were just doing security. “On the second tour, we were fighting 24 hours a day in Samarra. If we saw Iraqis they were often shooting at us or reconning us. We got hit with an I.E.D. on every patrol we went on. I felt successful because I killed the enemy, but I was frustrated every day. I couldn’t rebuild the area. When we’d do a project, the next day they would blow it up. We couldn’t win hearts and minds because we were under constant threat.” Now, he said, the Iraqis he works with are more than receptive. “If I do a project in one village, they go and brag about it, and then the next village wants the same thing.” Still, for all the seemingly endless projects and negotiations, Captain Gilbert said: “The real question is, how does the population feel about you. Are you an occupier or a friend?” For the captains, there is also the irrepressible strain of repeated deployments. Captain Gilbert was in Iraq when his daughter, now 2½, was born. He has spent more than half her life here and has misgivings about being away from his family. “When I got home from my last deployment, the phone was ringing all the time with job offers from headhunters,” Captain Gilbert said. “They’re not pushy, but they tell you what they were able to do for other captains.” Despite the pressures, Captain Gilbert sees himself returning to Iraq, saying “We’re getting where we want to be.” But only a day after he was pinned with his captain’s bars in early March, Captain Bailey in Mosul knew he would leave the Army as soon as his deployment was over. “We’re leaders proven under fire,” said Captain Bailey. “Put me in the most stressful corporate board meeting and I’ll laugh.” In 2007, the Army authorized re-enlistment bonuses for captains of up to $35,000. But corporate recruiters have matched that, captains say. And most captains make a base pay of $4,000 to $5,000 a month in the military, a figure they can easily exceed in corporate America. Even so, money is not the deciding factor in leaving the military, most captains say. “Many of the brightest and most experienced captains of my generation are being driven out of the Army by the prospect of a career filled with deployments every other year,” said Capt. Patrick Ryan, who added that he was certain to leave the Army when his five-year commitment was done. “I think the Army stands to lose a generation of battle-tested junior leaders.” Even “in the one-year time window between deployments, much of your time home is not really yours,” Captain Ryan added. It is a sentiment echoed by many captains. “The pressures during the year at home are tremendous,” said Capt. David Sandoval, 35, commander of Company A, First Battalion, Eighth Infantry of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment. There is constant training, new gear and technology to be mastered, new soldiers to fit into the units. And there is round-the-clock responsibility for the men under their command. Disintegrating marriages, financial problems, sick children and post-traumatic stress fall on their shoulders. “We got back from our last tour and immediately there were rumors we were redeploying,” said a captain who requested anonymity for fear of displeasing his superiors. “Some of these guys are 18, 19 years old. They’d just been through a year of combat. They went crazy. They started fighting, drinking, crashing cars.” Captain Sandoval’s company also had troubles upon returning home. “They’re not all all right when they come home,” he said. “There are domestic-violence problems. I’m part marriage counselor, part drug and alcohol counselor, part suicide-prevention counselor. It’s an emotional roller coaster.” Here in Iraq, however, Captain Sandoval cannot even sleep when his men are out on patrol, and almost every night they are. His men say he goes for days without sleep. He denied this. “I sleep at least three hours a day,” he said, his eyes rimmed with red. And he worries about the burden on his own family, on his wife, who is in charge of helping all the other families of Company A soldiers back home, and on his 13-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. He kept his most rec |
