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H&I* Fires, 9 APR 2007

April 9, 2007 | | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (2)

Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.

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Johnny Hart has died. At his storyboarding table - so I'm guessing he went like he would have liked, doing what he does best - drawing BC. The world is a touch diminished today.

"He was generally regarded as one of the best cartoonists we've ever had," Hart's friend Mell Lazarus, creator of the "Momma" and "Miss Peach" comic strips, said from his California home. "He was totally original. 'B.C' broke ground and led the way for a number of imitators, none of which ever came close."

I don't know if the Air Force has a Fiddler's Green - but I'm sure Johnny, an AF vet, would be welcome to join Bill Mauldin and others as cartoonist-in-residence.

Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam.

Hopefully this book, The Occupation of Iraq by Ali A. Allawi, will become required reading at the War Colleges and in Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon. I'm sure that Allawi has his agendas, but let's face it - we screwed the pooch on the aftermath of the war - arguably the most important part of war, especially a war of choice - and we need to understand, in context, what went right and what went wrong. Just scoring partisan political points of "neener neener neener" or sticking your fingers in your ears and moving on to the next bright and shiny object is a waste of time. I've ordered the book, to add to Bremer's My Year in Iraq and Diamond's Squandered Victory.

Some excerpted points:

What followed was the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance" of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:

• The Americans disbanded Iraq's army, which Allawi said could have helped quell a rising insurgency in 2003. Instead, hundreds of thousands of demobilized, angry men became a recruiting pool for the resistance.

• Purging tens of thousands of members of toppled President Saddam Hussein's Baath party — from government, school faculties and elsewhere — left Iraq short on experienced hands at a crucial time.

• An order consolidating decentralized bank accounts at the Finance Ministry bogged down operations of Iraq's many state-owned enterprises.

• The CPA's focus on private enterprise allowed the "commercial gangs" of Saddam's day to monopolize business.

Many of these things were exactly what we *didn't* do in Germany and Japan after the war. Among other things, we kept the German Army in POW cages as we processed them against the war crimes list, etc - but we made the effort to maintain control of them and their arms. Of course, we had the manpower on-hand to do so, Secretary Rumsfeld.

Interesting video of an armed UTV - unmanned terrestrial vehicle... though the Army prefers XUV, Experimental unmanned vehicle. If they pan out, look for them soon at nuclear power plants near you. And other places. -the Armorer

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Apropos our post below about Canadian sacrifice in WWI - we note they sacrifice today, too.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - A devastating roadside-bomb explosion killed six Canadian soldiers Sunday in the worst single-day toll for the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

The explosion west of Kandahar city also caused serious but non-life-threatening injuries to one Canadian soldier and light injuries to another, said Col. Mike Cessford, deputy commander of Task Force Afghanistan.

Read more about Canadians At War here, at Canoe News. -the Armorer

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Lest we forget - Linda of Something... and Half of Something asks - Where is Matt Maupin?

Indeed. the only MIA of the war to date. This campaign's Scott Speicher. -the Armorer

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Speaking of Matt Maupin - AFSis has more, at My Side of the Puddle. -the Armorer

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Madame Speaker Pelosi gets a "Dear Speaker" letter from Senate Republicans. Good thing we don't call the Speaker... Leader. Too, Norkish.

John Hawkins at Right Wing News takes the temp of the Right Wing of the Blogosphere. -the Armorer

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Wahooo! Castle Argghhh! made the front page of Memeorandum.
RELATED:
Toby Harnden / Telegraph Blogs:
British humiliation becomes disgrace
Link Search: Google, Ask, Technorati, Sphere, and IceRocket
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Discussion: The Corner and Argghhh!
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Discussion:
John Derbyshire / The Corner: The Diana-ifictaion of Britain
John / Argghhh!: SHAME. SHAME ON THE BBC. … Shamelessly lifted from National Review's blog "The Corner"--ry
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A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.

Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.

*Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*

The UAVs (oops, can't call 'em UAVs anymore - they're now Unmanned Aerial Systems... some Colonel got his Legion of Merit for that change...), er, um UAS's we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.

I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to. It's also an open trackback, so if (Don Surber uses it this way a lot) someone has a post they're proud of, but it really isn't either Castle kind of stuff, or topical to a particular post, I've basically given blanket permission to use that post for that purpose. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".

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Where is Private First Class Keith Matthew Maupin? from Blue Star Chronicles on April 9, 2007 1:39 PM

LindaSog at Something …. and Half of Something reminds us that today is the third anniversary of the capture of Private First Class Keith Matthew Maupin by terrorists in Baghdad when a convoy he was in came under attack. Read More

Where is Matt Maupin from Cotillion on April 9, 2007 1:54 PM

Three years ago today, terrorists kidnapped Private First Class Keith "Matt" Maupin during a convoy attack near Baghdad. He was seen alive on one videotape, reported killed on another, but no one can be sure. Matt is not considered "missing... Read More

29 Comments

By AFSister on April 9, 2007 7:40 AM
Allawi's point #2 is exactly why Bush Sr. didn't allow Schwartzkopf to surge on to Baghdad during Desert Storm. His stated objected was to push Saddam's army back into Iraq and out of Kuwait, and that's exactly what they did... then they stopped. Knowing that there wasn't a strong enough opposition party which he could support made him stop short of toppling the entire Saddam regime. I wish it wasn't true, but it was, and still is, true. I just hope that the current Iraqi government develops leadership skills and international negotiating power WITHOUT the abuses that Saddam promoted. So far, I'm not very convinced.
 
By fdcol63 on April 9, 2007 8:38 AM
" ... Of course, we had the manpower on-hand to do so, Secretary Rumsfeld. ..." I think this is a little disingenuous. Rumsfeld can fairly be criticized for many failings during his tenure, and you can fairly disagree with aspects of his "transformation" policies, but this statement glosses over the serious manpower differential in the US Army between the end of WW2 and what Rumsfeld inherited and was able to use during Iraq War 2 after the "End of Cold War Peace Dividend Cutbacks" and the "Clinton-Era Emasculation".
 
By John of Argghhh! on April 9, 2007 8:46 AM
C'mon, Frank. I'm not talking about needing 16 million under arms, spread globally. I'm talking Shinseki's, Zinni's, even Franks' initial force numbers. It might have made all the difference in the world. But the reality is - there were insufficient forces in place to assume the security duties required - especially after we lost control of the Iraqi Army (and there's still arguable points to be made that the conscripts melted away and that the "dissolving" of the Iraqi Army was simply gilding the pig). And if they weren't going to have been enough, well, that's *another* lesson to learn, though much harder to quantify.
 
By Oldloadr on April 9, 2007 9:40 AM
John - The other down-side to the troop strength immediately after the fall of Baghdad was the amount of IED material that wasn't secured (that CENTCOM knew wasn't secured) from 03 until September 05. The intel estimate of the Iraqi ordnance stock-pile was over 600,000 tons. USACE contractors blew up 380,000 tons. You can make a lot of IEDs from the difference in those 2 numbers. Check out this Military Times article.
 
By fdcol63 on April 9, 2007 9:44 AM
I'm just feeling a little contrarian today, John! LOL More of your own forces is almost always better in war, and I agree that it would have been nice to have had an "overwhelming" force to suppress the post-war insurgency. Certainly in hindsight ... and I'm sure there were suggestions for more during the pre-war planning phase. As a more senior retiree with "ins" at the Pentagon that I don't have, you may be more aware of more solid numbers that may have been proposed by Shinsheki, Zinni, Franks, et al. But I've only heard reported the rather vague number of "several hundred thousand". Well, just HOW MANY is that? 200,000 or 300,000 or 400,000 or 600,000 or what? Did we really have that number to redeploy from elsewhere, and could we have supported them in theater logistically? How different might things have turned out if Turkey had allowed 4ID to move south? I think there was always a desire to meet the manpower needs in theater, but those needs were balanced by total force structure realities and a desire to avoid creating an "oppressive" American occupational footprint, while recognizing that the Iraqis themselves would need to ultimately provide for their own security. Rumsfeld, Franks, and the US military clearly had enough manpower to win the initial combat phase of the war in 3 weeks ... an incredible feat that still boggles the mind and nullified the educated estimates of people like GEN McCaffrey that we'd lose 30,000 people just taking Baghdad. As with many decisions made at upper levels in conflicts, if things work out as planned, then these decisions appear bold, daring, decisive, brilliant, etc. Think D-Day. If they don't, think Tarawa and Kasserine. Quite frankly, I think even if the US HAD deployed the forces you and other Rumsfeld critics now say we should have had, we would probably have still have seen the same kind of insurgency, with the same level of violence. Why? Because none of Iraq's neighbors have ever had any desire to see a free and democratic government in Iraq. Iran and Syria certainly don't, and they would have merely increased their meddling - in the absence of any US or European pressure or consequences for doing so - and states like Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia would probably have increased their open meddling. None of them want a successful democratic example on their borders that undermines the existence of their own regimes, either - and quite frankly, I think they still hope it fails despite their "assistance" so far. And had this occurred, the same people criticizing the administration for not having enough troops would be arguing that we created the post-war insurgency because of the "oppressive" American occupation. Personally, I think accusations and criticisms were inevitable, whichever way Rumsfeld and Bush went. I think constructive criticism is a good thing, and keeps everyone accountable and on their toes. But sometimes - and this is where my crankiness comes in today .. LOL - it just seems that we're now living in a hyper-critical age where we have lost the "constructive" part of the criticism and we're now just interested in political opportunism, pointing fingers and playing gotcha - with unrealistic expectations.
 
By John of Argghhh! on April 9, 2007 10:23 AM
It's all an exercise in bloviation, at this point - and you may be correct in that we were never going to succeed (which is a different lesson itself), but the figures were from 250K-325K or so, and would have been supportable. It just wasn't doable on any timeline that the Administration had in mind. Had 4th Infantry been available, it would have made a difference. Had Rumsfeld been less mesmerized by his tunnel vision, they might have been able to get there on time, too. The reality is - with the forces we have, we can do "smash and grabs" without peer. But we can't fight big wars with long trailers. Which may be a net good, in the long run, if it makes us less likely to do so. Which... is another lesson. Unfortunately, some of the lessons we're laying out are sort of exclusionary - which is why predicting the future is such a difficult art.
 
By fdcol63 on April 9, 2007 10:36 AM
" ... and you may be correct in that we were never going to succeed ..." Oh, I didn't mean to imply that. Just that we should not be surprised that it's been as difficult as it has been, or continues to be. The stupidest thing I ever heard was John Kerry's argument that Iraq's neighbors needed to be part of the effort. To me, this was like asking the wolf to watch the hen house. But as to your other point ..... we SHOULD be very careful when we choose to go to war. (And I personally believe that ALL wars are optional. We either decide to defend and protect ourselves and control our own destiny, or we decide to do nothing and allow others to control, kill, or enslave us.) However, we can not ... and MUST NOT ... allow ourselves to believe that all wars can be quick, easy, and relatively bloodless. Something that Desert Storm and Yugoslavia helped to foster. Nor can we be lulled into thinking that everything will go perfectly, without error, and without room for improvement. And we MUST NOT allow ourselves to be paralyzed into inaction because of the fears of error, failure, or because we're going to "alienate" those who already hate us enough that they're killing us, or those who are "fair-weather" friends like the Europeans and the UN.
 
By Oldloadr on April 9, 2007 12:42 PM
John - Don't you think we have the forces and the correct force mix for the long war if, and it's a big if, Congress was willing to authorize call up of any guard/reserve unit required for the op-plan and keep them called up for the duration plus 6 months (as in WWII)? And, as in Korea, call up retirees to back fill deploying troops? It could be done, but it seems like the politicians don't have the guts/desire to cut entitlements and pork in favor of defense. BTW, of the three (defense, entitlements and pork) only one is mentioned in the preamble to the constitution.
 
By John of Argghhh! on April 9, 2007 2:05 PM
Oldloadr - If we were going to do this long and hard and right, I'd still like to see an expansion of the active duty force (with those units in the expansion focused on Long War skills) to reduce the strain on the Guard and Reserve, and let them lapse into a longer call-up cycle. Partially because of the Guard (especially in the western states and hurricane coasts) are going to be stretched to meet their state missions, and partially to expand the base available for the active force, as well. These guys are getting tired, and Household Six is also losing some patience. We can tut-tut all we want about that, but it's a volunteer force, and I'd just as soon stay away from a draftee force. I don't believe it's putative values, absent total war (which Sanger would fight with volunteers only, regardless, and he's not alone in that thought process) outweigh the downsides of it - absent, again, a total committment. And if this is going to truly be a Long War, we have to find a way to fight it that doesn't highjack the economy to the war machine, lefty as that sounds. And, we've got to do a better job of finding Allies, and in some cases, better allies. But no, I don't think shifting over to a full wartime mobilization ala WWII is either a good idea, nor sustainable in the long run, and would have bad lingering effects. Because if we do it on our own, and fail in the larger aspects, then when the next real crisis comes, we could potentially be too weak to deal with it. Of course, that's all fuzzy in-the-future stuff. I could be flat wrong and that's exactly the way to go. But my gut says it isn't. We have to live in the here and now - and when we look at the world through that WWII lens, we need to remember how hard it was to get and keep the nation moblized until it was *crystal clear* to the population. Yes, 9/11 was a Pearl Harbor of sorts - but war had been raging in Europe since 1 September 1939, too, and the Japanese running roughshod over China for longer than that. And that's a key missing piece in this equation.
 
By Oldloadr on April 9, 2007 2:29 PM
I agree with you that getting and keeping the focus of the citizenry is an issue; probably the biggest issue. I agree that the force was shrunk too small during the Clinton Error (as mentioned by fdcol63). I think it would be politically difficult but possible (with a good communicating administration [ala Reagan]) to bring the force back to somewhere between Clinton and Reagan numbers. However, that would go back to my statement on pork, entitlement and defense. Getting many in congress to give up pork and entitlements (which they see as political self-preservation) for defense would be as difficult as keeping the citizenry focused. Besides, we don’t have an administration that is even up to poor communicators…
 
By fdcol63 on April 9, 2007 2:59 PM
John, There are several "key missing pieces" here. Most key, in my opinion, is a basic agreement on whether there is, indeed, a threat ... and what the nature of the threat is.
 
By ry on April 9, 2007 3:46 PM
The numbers Shinseki put out, as far as I know, weren't possible with other committments without a federalization of the Guard, as Abrams wanted it to be. There were the specific type of troops we wanted for this, MP types (6 batts down in Texas I'm told), but they're predominately in the Guard. Would the public have stood for it? Maybe. Maybe not. Right after 9/11 we have what's his name who wrote 'The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell' getting upset and telling anyone who'd listen because he was upset because he got activated when all he really wanted was money for college. We never had domestic consensus on WW2, even with an entetainment industry wholly supportive of the effort. I wish people would stop pretending on that. Not every American was in favor of it, even after Pearl, just like not every Frenchman was part of the Maqui. 50.0001% isn't enough of a majority. We know that now. It seemed to be back during Truman but isn't now. Lesson learned---the hard way. Was Chalabi able to deliver what he seems to have claimed he could? Doesn't look like it. If he's one of the assumptions you have, and it doesn't work out, does it matter? Bill Lind published something about how tenous the supply lines are. That they run thru Shia country from Kuwait for the most part, regardless of manpower devoted to it, is bad and vulnerable. They can be cut tommorrow and they could've been cut then too. 'Creeping Doom' might not be the answer. The 'Sysadmin' built around Long War is going to be expensive too. Man intensive and expensive for a LONG TIME(all those veterans benefits come out of the same federal coffers as everything else). Try buying the naval platforms necessary to secure our Asian allies economic interests(the main reason why they;re our allies) and Sysadmin. We're trying now and are doing poorly at both.
 
By NevadaDailySteve on April 9, 2007 4:21 PM
OK, here's where the civilian gets his butt handed to him but I'm still going to throw in some comments.
We never had domestic consensus on WW2, even with an entetainment industry wholly supportive of the effort.
You don't much hear about that but it's true. It gets passing reference when the run-up to WWII is mentioned but America has always had a streak of isolationism from the first. Remember Washington told us to watch out for foreign entanglements. There was an active 'peace' movement during WWII that lobbied long and hard to keep us out of it. One of the best movies of any kind ever made, The Best Years of Our Lives, has a scene where a man in a diner says something about a seaman's losing his hands being a waste because the war shouldn't have happened. I think one of the problems we face now is the build up of an expectation of a 'peace dividend' after the fall of the Soviet Union, but that may be a mis-perception on my part, I'll defer to those who have a greater knowledge of the subject. There are times I'd like to see us completely out of the Middle East and just let the area go to hell their own way but the conflict wouldn't stay there, they would bring it to us on our own doorstep as they did on 9-11. We may have screwed up the aftermath of the war but that is largely the fault of the politicians who seem to be demanding the military make bricks without straw, contain the insurgents and militias without offending Muqtada Al Sadir and others like him, although that seems to have changed with the surge.
 
By Heartless Libertarian on April 9, 2007 4:36 PM
LTG (R) Cushman made largely the same points in a paper he published in Jan-namely, that most of the ground commanders, especially Shinseki and the Army, wanted more troops for the initial invasion and security immediately thereafter, but that Rumsfield not only said no, but micromanaged the flow of troops into theater, in some cases meaning troops that were needed hadn't arrived yet (i.e., 2ACR to secure the supply lines). But Cushman's larger point was that senior generals, who should have known better, let Rumsfield walk all over them. Another niggling point: John, you're falling into the Leftist trap of calling it the "Iraq War". The War is the Long War. You're discussing the Iraqi front of the Southwest Asian Theater of the Long War. In politics, when you let the other side define the terms, you lose.
 
By kat-missouri on April 9, 2007 5:28 PM
yeah. I think I would argue the whole "disbanding the army" point with the "what army?" question. the only ones that really mattered in the beginning were the OFFICERS WITH MONEY, who essentially went home and waited to be called, getting surprised they weren't called and no longer had the means or methods to continue their extravagant living through bribes and outright theft. You know what I think about the number of troops? It was political. We were "liberating" the people, not occuping. We needed to keep all the yahoos around from going on defcon 3 because we were moving in forces. For instance Iran - not that it matters now, hind sight 20/20 we should have put in the biggest force possible rather than try to make the Sauds, Syrians and Iranians feel all happy in their pants that we wouldn't be invading them or trying to help the Saudis keep their population from going jihad en masse or demanding the oil be cut off, etc. In retrospect, everyone was calling us warmongering Nazis that should be feared for our hegemonic emperialism, we should have give them something to fear and screw being loved (considering that we tried to give all teh spoiled rotten childish nations everything they wanted while doing what we needed to do and we still go "we hate you"). In the end, I hate to say this, but I think we would have ended here, right where we are, even had we done 900 things differently. I think the insurgency was being prepared long before we engaged. I think the lead up and telegraphing of the war was the big front end catalyst to the insurgency. It gave Saddam time. It gave regional non-state actors time. It gave Iran time. it gave the fedeyeen, wannabe guerillas time to stock, hide and prepare materials for the insurgency as well as the rudimentary organization. I think what we would have had, instead of 150k in Iraq with an insurgency was 400k in Iraq with an insurgency. The only difference we would have been asking our selves different questions. Like, how do we have 400k in Iraq and we still have an insurgency? Can't 400k control Iraq? We still would have had people calling it Vietnam , this time a closer proximation since there would be a much closer number of forces there and very likely would have acted like an army of occupation as bad as or worse than the 150k. I picture Haditha and Fallujah X100 since the first attacks would have had us tromping around like the big freaking army we were. I think we would have ended up where we were but with very little in regards to reserves.
 
By Jon The Mechanic on April 9, 2007 5:32 PM
I did not know that Johnny Hart was an AF vet, even though I grew up in Endicott and Binghamton NY and read The Wizard and BC with a passion. There is an annual PGA tour stop in Endicott called the BC open that Johnny used to show up at and donate time and money to go to charities. He is also one of the few timeless comic strips, like Peanuts, Beetle Baily, and Hagar The Horrible. He will be missed, even if it is not by people like These Assclowns.
 
By kat-missouri on April 9, 2007 5:45 PM
Oh.. and am I confused or isn't it "Matt Maupin" and "Scott Speicher"? Who is "Scott maupin"?
 
By LindaSoG on April 9, 2007 7:16 PM
Thank you Sir, for the link!
 
By John of Argghhh! on April 9, 2007 7:22 PM
Geez, Kat - it was in the H&I, ya coulda just fixed it. Sigh.
 
By BloodSpite on April 9, 2007 7:23 PM
2 Points to Heartless Lib. I think it was W.E.B. DuBois in Souls of the Black Folk who said "He who controls the terms of a debate...controls the debate"
 
By John of Argghhh! on April 9, 2007 7:34 PM
Heh. Mosta the time I call it a campaign, but today is the day Dave weighs in. Sheesh. Tough audience today!
 
By J.M. Heinrichs on April 9, 2007 8:58 PM
No references to the superlative level of cooperation and support from the State Department? Cheers
 
By John of Argghhh! on April 9, 2007 9:02 PM
John - I actually meant to burn the State Department in this post, but got distracted by a bright shiny object. And the fact that I think we have a better chance of changing things in Defense than we do in State. I've given up on State.
 
By The Sanity Inspector on April 9, 2007 9:32 PM
Please forgive the off-topic comment and the self-pimpage. I hope this is an acceptable use of this thread. A Ranger on leave from Iraq called the Neal Boortz show today, and everyone should hear what he had to say. Please click here for more details.
 
By kat-missouri on April 10, 2007 1:12 AM
geez...I didn't notice it until late and I had to run errands. You're going to have to get another adjutant to proof read. lol
 
By John of Argghhh! on April 10, 2007 6:38 AM
Oh, sure, we had time to *comment*... but, fah!
 
By Heartless Libertarian on April 10, 2007 10:30 AM
Like I said John, I think Iraq is a front,with campaigns (Tal Afar, Fallujah, Anbar, Surge) within it. Of course, I guess we won't really know until the Army historians get around to doling out the campaign streamers for the Long War, will we?
 
By John of Argghhh! on April 10, 2007 11:04 AM
Well, I disagree - conventionally, Iraq is a campaign, and Tal Afar, Fallujah, etc are operations and battles within that which define the campaign. Afghanistan is a campaign. The Shadow War going on around the world is a campaign. All together, it's a war. But, President Bush has, by necessity or oversight, gotten himself painted into a corner on the authorizations. Imagine if Roosevelt had been required to go to Congress for approval of all major operations during WWII. But yer right, the streamer-designators will be the final authority.
   
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