Secretary of the Army Pete Geren
Marshall Awards Speech
Evans Hall, Washington & Lee University
April 17, 2008

AS DELIVERED

MG Rees, thank you for that kind introduction. Your service to our Nation began over 40 years ago, when you entered West Point in 1962. Over those decades, you have served in both the active duty Army and the National Guard - cavalry troop commander in Vietnam, commander of the 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment, service as the vice chief and acting chief of the National Guard Bureau. And now you lead the Oregon National Guard as Adjutant General. A remarkable career. Thank you for your service.

And to our Marshall Award winners - it is a privilege and an honor to address you tonight. And I want to thank the Marshall Foundation, Washington & Lee, and VMI for their support of this occasion and acknowledge the role VMI played in shaping the career of George Marshall. VMI is our nation's oldest state military college, founded in 1839 - an institution with a proud and rich history.

Since the graduation of its first class, VMI graduates have served our nation with distinction in every war our Nation has fought, starting with the Mexican War four years after its founding.

Two hundred and forty-eight VMI graduates have reached general or flag officer ranks. Seven have been awarded the Medal of Honor. Nearly 600 VMI cadets have been killed in action in our Nation's wars.

And VMI remains the only military college whose student body marched into battle - the 257 cadets who fought on the side of the South in the Civil War. They marched to New Market to turn back a Union offensive in the Shenandoah Valley - suffering 54 casualties with 10 killed in action -- 6 buried on the grounds at VMI.

In 1897, with many of the wounds of that war yet to heal, Pennsylvania's George C. Marshall enrolled at VMI, one of 14 Yankees among 82 rats in that year's class.

In 1901, that Pennsylvania Yankee graduated as the unanimous choice for First Captain of his class - and embarked on a nearly 60 year journey that shaped our Army to meet the perils of the 20th Century; he served as chief of staff of the U.S. Army and was one of the chief architects of the Allied victory in World War II. And, with the Marshall Plan, laid the foundation for our ultimate victory in the Cold War.

You the Marshall class of 2008, are part of the legacy of one of our truly great Americans. You are being recognized both for your outstanding performance in ROTC and for your potential as future Army officers.

Each of you was selected as the top cadets of your ROTC Units -- you have demonstrated outstanding leadership and academic achievement.

Together, you represent our Army's next generation of leaders. You are among our very best and our expectations of you are high. Today, our Army is the best led, best trained and best equipped Army the world has ever seen. Your job is to make sure we can still say that 20 years from now.

You are leaders who will lead our Soldiers during this time of war and in this era of persistent conflict and persistent engagement.

You will lead in complex and complicated times - under the Chinese curse of all those who are fated to live in "interesting times" - and much will be asked of you. You will be entrusted with our Nation's most precious resource - our sons and daughters - and our nation's most important mission - our nation's defense.

Napoleon told us, "There are no bad soldiers, only bad generals."

Your responsibilities are heavy - your charge is as old as our Army: lead by example, accomplish the mission and take care of your Soldiers.

Each of you has been given Forrest C. Pogue's four-volume biography of George C. Marshall. You would do well to study it. The many and varied challenges George C. Marshall confronted over his nearly 60 years of service to our Nation - you will find them all compressed into your military career, whether it be 5 years or 40 - perhaps even into a single tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. Clear-hold-build, Counter-insurgency, stability operations, combat, nation-building - winning a war, winning the peace - and laying the foundation for a sustainable peace - our Soldiers are doing all of that and more -- everyday.
That is a lot to ask of you - but that is what we are asking of Army leaders today.

George C. Marshall's career - it began before the Wright Brothers took flight and ended in the Space Age.
He began as you will - as a second lieutenant. And he told us, and I quote from him, "There isn't anything much lower than a second lieutenant" - come this May, you will be able to judge for yourselves whether that is true.

And this man who is credited with many of the greatest successes of the 20th Century, considered his promotion to first lieutenant in 1907, "the most thrilling moment of my life" - a thrill each of you can reasonably expect to share with him. But there are big differences.

George Marshall spent 15 years as a lieutenant before World War I and 23 years as a staff officer, commander and instructor between World War I and World War II.

He had an advantage you likely never will have - an extended break between conflicts.

For you, it is likely that your career never will be free of war - it will be an era of persistent conflict and persistent engagement. You will not get an inter-war break. You will be changing tires on a speeding vehicle for most of your career.

Today I want to talk about three of the challenges you will face in this era of persistent conflict, separate challenges, but interwoven.
First, we must be a military that can "clear, hold and build" - all equally well - win the battle, win the war, and win the peace - build a sustainable peace. In the 21st Century, wars are not won when the enemy army is defeated on the battlefield - in fact, there may not be a uniformed enemy to fight at all. Instead, today, a war is won only when the conditions that spawned armed conflict have been changed.

That is asking a lot of our military - missions we have not sought for ourselves, but missions our nation has given us today and will in the future. Missions that are critical to the safety and freedom of our citizens and our allies.

We must be prepared for the full spectrum of skills that assignment requires - kinetic and non-kinetic - lethal and non-lethal.

And this brings us to the second challenge: strategic communications - an art, a skill that is essential to success on the battlefield of the 21st Century and on the homefront. By definition, non-kinetic - but in the hands of our enemy - lethal.

Strategic communications are essential to maintaining public trust and confidence in our military, recruiting our nation's finest into our military and sustaining the morale of our Soldiers - and their families, their families are essestial to defeating the enimies of the 21st century and maintaining - support for the war effort.
And third - sustain military families in this era of persistent conflict. We are a nation long at war. In this seventh year of combat operations, we are in uncharted waters for Army families, the linchpin of our All Volunteer Force.

Our Families deserve a quality of life equal to the quality of their service. Family support for the next decade will not look like family support from the last - it is changing and you will be part of that change - you must lead that change.

Back to Point Number One: "clear, hold and build" in a 21st Century context - developing leaders - officers and NCOs - who can succeed at lethal and non-lethal operations.

Recently, our Secretary of Defense, Dr. Gates, told us: "One of the principal challenges the Army faces is to regain its traditional edge at fighting conventional wars while retaining what it has learned - and unlearned - about unconventional wars, the ones most likely to be fought in the years ahead."

Dr. Gates continued: "These conflicts will be fundamentally political in nature, and require the application of all elements of national power. Success will be less a matter of imposing one's will and more a function of shaping behavior - of friends, adversaries, and most importantly, the people in between."

Our charge is to "dominate" land operations. How do you define, redefine, "dominate" in this security environment?

The Army we are growing in Afghanistan and Iraq today is redefining dominate -- is the Army we must retain if we are to do our job. The officers and NCOs of today's Army, shaped in the crucible of the complex strategic and tactical environment of Iraq and Afghanistan today, understand the gritty reality of what it takes to win today's wars.

We must capture and retain their hard-earned experience and wisdom. That experience and wisdom must shape our Army's present and future.

We need Soldiers who speak foreign languages, understand local cultures and empathize with and address the plight of struggling peoples.

In this century's conflicts, our Soldiers must dominate lethal operations, but be as comfortable working on a computer keyboard, debating in a village council meeting, recruiting allies among the local population, training indigenous forces, as they are capable of determining aimpoints for artillery targets.

Our Army understands that the way we fight has changed - and is changing, and you will become the leaders who will carry this dynamic vision into this century.
And, if we are going to retain the combat edge honed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and adapt as the future requires, we must be an institution that encourages Soldiers to ask hard questions, questions that make us uncomfortable - reward not only the Soldier who risks his life, but also the Soldier who is willing to risk a promotion - encourage those who afflict the comfortable.

Recently, LTC Paul Yingling wrote a piece that appeared in the Armed Forces Journal - and sparked heated debate throughout the Army - ruffled some feathers - ruffled a lot of feathers. That is a good thing. We need more, not fewer, Paul Yinglings.

And on this point, George C. Marshall also can serve as our model. Many thought MAJ Marshall's career was at an end in 1917 when he publicly disagreed with and angrily lectured GEN "Black Jack" Pershing at 1st Division headquarters in France during World War I. He even grabbed the general's arm when he tried to disengage.

His anger and assertiveness did not draw a rebuke from Pershing - rather it earned his respect.

And rather than end Marshall's career, this incident launched his career - broke him out of the pack of his peers. Pershing made him a temporary colonel and added him to his staff - within two years he became his personal aide. And his assertiveness did not stop there.

In World War II, Marshall regularly sat at the conference table with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, plotting strategy for the war effort. FDR labeled Marshall "the best man at the table."

Once, in response to an insistent Churchill's repeated demands that the Allies launch an invasion of the Greek island of Rhodes, the "best man at the table" looked straight at the Prime Minister and said, "Not one American soldier is going to die on that goddamned beach." And that ended the discussion of invading Rhodes.

Now let me move to the subject of strategic communications and share with you a recent quote from MG Rick Lynch, Commander of the 3rd I.D., speaking from Baghdad:

"Last night my dad asked if I was still in Iraq. He's not seeing it on TV because bad things aren't happening over here. It's less publicized. That breaks my heart, because I've got 20,000 Dog Face Soldiers working their butts off every day over here making great progress for the United States of America, and we just have to get that story told."
Well, it does more than break his heart. The implications of the media's silence on the success of our Soldiers are felt on the battlefront and on the homefront.

On the battlefront, news of our success encourages our allies, converts fence-sitters and discourages and even converts some of our enemies. At home, that silence erodes public support and the morale of our families.

I again will quote Dr. Gates:

"[P]ublic relations was invented in the United States, yet we are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies and our goals. It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America. As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, 'How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world's greatest communication society?' Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. strategic communications."

The enemy has learned this lesson and learned it well. With the 24-hour news cycle, communication satellites and the Internet, Al Qaeda has a reach around the world that dwarfs that of the major networks only a few years ago - and they are using it effectively.
And they are unconstrained by the facts - Secretary Rumsfeld used to remind us that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is getting its boots on - and in the meantime, Al Qaeda has spun its self-serving lie and broadcast it around the world. And, we are playing catch-up against the last lie while they launch their next.

We cannot get careless and retreat from our commitment to the truth - that is a given - but we must cultivate a sense of urgency in getting out the truth in the information domain comparable to that on the kinetic battlefield when responding to an urgent call for help from an embattled Soldier.

In the modern battlespace, our enemies use strategic communications to kill our Soldiers - we cannot yield that field of battle to them.

And on the homefront, devoid of good news, MG Lynch's father gets discouraged, so does the rest of his family and so does the American public.

And the impact is far-reaching - costing us support at home and abroad.

Recently, a newspaper columnist did a study of the 2005 press coverage of the posthumous Medal of Honor awarded to SFC Paul Ray Smith, the first Medal of Honor in the Global War on Terror, and compared it to the coverage of the court-martial of Abu Ghraib guard Lyndie England.

There were 90 stories about Paul Ray Smith and 5,000 on Lyndie England.

Lyndie England and her sordid story is known to most Americans and Paul Ray Smith is known to very few. That combination hurts our Army at home and abroad.

And, it does no good to blame the media - that will never solve the problem. We must focus on what we can do, what we can control.

We must embrace the media and it work for our Army.

As a leader - make the media your friend - use it to reach your Soldiers, their families, our allies and our enemies.

Tell the stories of your heroes in your Army - and get it heard.

Every leader in our Army, officer and NCO, must embrace the challenge of telling the Army story, the American story. It is not solely the job of public affairs professionals - every one of you must accept the challenge. As an Army leader, it is your job.

On the battlefront or homefront, we are in a battle for the hearts and minds of our friends, enemies and neutrals. As leaders in our Army, our nation's military - join that battle - whether you are in Kansas, Killeen or Kandahar.

On the firing range, every Soldier is a safety officer - in the war of ideas - the wars of this century - every Soldier must be a public affairs officer.

And, third - we must sustain our families in this era of persistent conflict.

President Bush underscored the central role of military families in his recent State of the Union address when he said, "Our military families also sacrifice for America. They endure sleepless nights and the daily struggle of providing for children while a loved one is serving far from home. We have a responsibility to provide for them. ... Our military families serve our nation, they inspire our nation and tonight our nation honors them."

We are in the 7th year of war in Afghanistan, in March we marked 5 years in Iraq. This is the longest conflict our Nation has fought with an All-Volunteer Force.

And the demographics of our Army are different from any Army so long at war: over half of our Soldiers are married - with over 700,000 children in Army Families. When a married Soldier deploys, he or she leaves a single-parent household behind and all the challenges of that family dynamic. When a single parent deploys, he or she leaves children in the care of others.

In our All-Volunteer Force, our Soldiers are volunteers and so are their Families. The Soldier of today does not look like the Soldier of 2001. He or she is equipped, trained and led differently. The family support systems cannot look the same, either.

Over the last several months, officers and NCOs across our Army signed our Family Covenant.

GEN Casey and I also have signed this covenant, and it's been signed at more than 120 installations across the globe, including Europe, Japan, Korea, as well as medical commands, Reserve Components and National Guard locations.

We must ensure that this covenant remains a living document, shaped by responsive leaders responding to the demands of a dynamic and unpredictable future. You are those leaders.

Across the force, we will look to you to make family support a top priority, to craft creative initiatives responsive to the needs of your command, to make the ideals of the Family Covenant a reality, and use your leadership positions to shape support for Families that meets their needs in an era of persistent conflict.

Our Families deserve a quality of life equal to the quality of their service. The future of our All-Volunteer Force depends on it. It is an obligation we owe to our Families and it is a readiness issue. You are the leaders who will ensure the Covenant remains a dynamic compact with our Families.

In summary, we must be and remain an Army that can "hold and build" as well as we "clear." We must seize the communications domain and make it a responsibility and competency of every Army leader, officer and enlisted. And we must guarantee our Army families a quality of life equal to their service.

I will close: When you receive your commissions next month, you become a part of the legacy of GEN George C. Marshall, the legacy of a man hailed a giant all over the world. Quite an honor and with it responsibility Winston Churchill called Marshall "the greatest Roman of them all." Joseph Stalin said he would, "trust him with his life". And Harry Truman judged him then, "the greatest living American ... one for the ages."

Let me close with a quote from Marshall - drawn from his speech when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize - the only Soldier ever to receive that award.

George Marshall was commissioned into our Army 107 years ago - he has been dead half a century. But his words are as current today as when he spoke them in 1953.

In these few words he captures the essence of your strategic mission as leaders of the United States Army in this 21st Century. He told us:

"We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race. By our actions we should make it clear that such a democracy is a means to a better way of life, together with a better understanding among nations. Tyranny inevitably must retire before the tremendous moral strength of the gospel of freedom and self-respect for the individual, but we have to recognize that these democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs and that people turn to false promises of dictators because they are hopeless and anything promises something better than the miserable existence that they endure."

Cadets - George Marshall has charted your course. Thank you.

� Secure this line!

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We must embrace the media and it work for our Army.

Explain to me how that differs from If you can't beat'em, join 'em.

Trying to ingratiate the military with the journos and chattering classes by feeding their megalomaniacal pretensions of being more than content providers in a scheme to sell advertising in the hopes that they will less enthusiastically channel As Sahab evokes unwelcome homoerotic images of vaseline and kneepads.

The prospect is a very stark one for people who work in, write, and edit newspapers. For these people do not think of themselves as “content providers.” They think much more highly of themselves than that. They believe they play a vital role, perhaps the most vital role, in the defense of the freedoms of every citizen. After all, who else is there to keep a vigilant watch over the official custodians of society? Who else is there to protect the people from the depredations of business and government? Is not freedom of speech—the very freedom that enables journalists to ply their trade—the first of our freedoms, primus inter pares, and who will guard it if not they? -- John Podhoretz

The MSM's power is eroding. Why would anybody who has been so abused by that power wish to prop it up?
Stockholm syndrome.

by Cannoneer No. 4 on April 24, 2008 2:12 PM

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I was wondering if anyone was going to jump in on anything in this piece.

At the same time, #4, we can't just ignore them and hope they'll go away.

Hence, why the Services are, with varying degrees of understanding and success, trying to find other info pathways to disseminate their info.

But until the Dinosaurs actually fall, you have to be cognizant of them.

And they still reach, and influence, a far greater number of citizens than the blogs do.

Blogs are a very inefficient way to gather information, if a surprisingly useful one for disseminating it, if what you wish is goodness in Google.

by John of Argghhh! on April 24, 2008 2:16 PM

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I really hadn't a whole lot to say, BB.

I am *curious* as to what this Covenant is.

BUt C4 brought up something and it has jogged an idea loose. The recent dustup about retired officers in relation to this working with the media instead of against it or blaming it? I dunno. I understand why Sec Geren said the mil should take a more collaborative rather than antagonistic approach with the media, but it just seems an errand doomed to fail. BUt then, a lot of the kids he talked to are smarter than me so just 'cause I can't see the way doesn't mean they won't.

by ry on April 24, 2008 2:30 PM

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I can answer the question about the Army Family Convenant, LB.

Fort Leavenworth.

Well, just about everywhere, actually.

The verbiage:

The Army Family Covenant
We recognize the commitment and increasing sacrifices that our families are making every day.

We recognize the strength of our Soldiers comes from the strength of their families.

We are committed to providing Soldiers and families a quality of life that is commensurate with their service.

We are committed to providing our families a strong, supportive environment where they can thrive.

We are committed to building a partnership with Army families that enhances their strength and resilience.

We are committed to improving family readiness by:
• Standardizing and funding existing family programs and services
• Increasing accessibility and quality of healthcare
• Improving Soldier and family housing
• Ensuring excellence in schools, youth services, and child care
• Expanding education and employment opportunities for family members

by John of Argghhh! on April 24, 2008 2:45 PM

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Definitely don't ignore them, but let's recognize the reality that 89% of them are in the tank for domestic oppositional elements who share common short-term objectives with an enemy whose strategic communications and Morale Operations against the domestic target audience depend on the MSM as delivery vehicles for their message.

Nine months from now when the counterinsurgent-supportive become the Loyal Opposition, the current “Loyal Opposition” assumes responsibility for retreat and disgrace, and the insurgent-supportive element within the newly-victorious counterinsurgent’s party demands indictments, sucking up to the alligators in the hope that they eat you last will be recognized for what it is.

by Cannoneer No. 4 on April 24, 2008 3:21 PM

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" ... evokes unwelcome homoerotic images of vaseline and kneepads .... "

ROFLMAO!

by fdcol63 on April 24, 2008 3:23 PM

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#4 has a way with words, don't he?

And he can jargon-speak with the best of them.

by John of Argghhh! on April 24, 2008 3:28 PM

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Let Me Just Say...
I for one will not be welcoming our new Democratic overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a bitter, clinging rightwing nutcase, I consider it my sworn duty to aid the escape of those toiling in their underground sugar caves, and cause them to use an inordinate number of party faithful to guard them, and to harass them to the best of my ability, just like Group Captain Ramsey said.

by Cannoneer No. 4 on April 24, 2008 9:57 PM

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Group Captain Ramsey
Gentleman, there's no fighting in the war room.

by ry on April 24, 2008 11:59 PM

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That was Group Captain Mandrake. Group Captain Ramsey was Senior British Officer at Luft Stalag III.

by Cannoneer No. 4 on April 25, 2008 12:26 AM

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"[P]ublic relations was invented in the United States, yet we are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies and our goals. It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America. – Sec Gates

True.

Definitely don't ignore them, but let's recognize the reality that 89% of them are in the tank for domestic oppositional elements who share common short-term objectives with an enemy whose strategic communications and Morale Operations against the domestic target audience depend on the MSM as delivery vehicles for their message –Cannoneer No. 4

True

Now, John and Bill are doing their share on the communications front.

But, Cannoneer No. 4 makes a valid point. The enemy has basically bought the MSM (or intimidated their stringers).

Because of the current laws it is next to impossible to sanction an enemy saturated “News organization.”

But, I believe it is entirely possible to investigate said “News organization” and turn the tables on them.

The enemy uses slick back alley K street “Communications consultants.” I see no reason why the US military cannot do the same.

This is information Gorilla War. The US should deal with it equally.

Hanoi Hannah and Tokyo Rose were unmasked by the USA. Why shouldn’t the new Iran Rose be unmasked?

The answer: She should be unmasked (however Un-Politically Correct it may be).

I would suggest that the military discreetly but effectively unmask those who disseminate anti-military propaganda to the US public.

Will it be easy? No.

Will it require the intelligence of the Manhattan Project? No.

Will it require adroit maneuvering? Yes.

Can it be done? Yes.

by Ledger on April 25, 2008 5:24 AM

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� Dismissed, Soldier!

I just blessed off on the four Iraqi stick-jockeys who came here to have their Instrument Instructor skills honed and evaluated. [names, ranks and squadrons redacted] all of them smacked their simulated birds into the simulated ground the first time I put them IMC, but they were "flying" an unfamiliar airframe. By the second hour, they were over being sim-sick and ready to go. No problem with their basic flying skills -- all were at least as good as the US helicopter pilots with the same flying hour level, and they all have multiple-thousand hours of stick time.

After the second sim period, I briefed them on attitude indicator failure and how to keep right-side up using only the non-electric instruments -- basically, the same things the pioneer mail pilots used in the 'Thirties. For the first two minutes, they were a bit shaky, but after they got their scan adjusted, they were good -- *very* good, in fact. After they landed, I got everybody outside for a break and one of them said, "Now I know why the Mi-17 crashed." He was on the IqAF investigation board.

Originally, everybody I talked to said all the IqAF pilots had zero instrument skills, but what I saw makes me call bullshit on that. These four were just plain *good* at instruments.

The Iraqi pilot continued, "When you started talking about the attitude indicator, I didn't realize you meant the artificial horizon, then when you failed it, I suddenly realized. And then I realized what killed the Mi-17 crew. I *knew*.

"In American helicopters, the little airplane stays still and the artificial horizon moves up and down and sideways. It is opposite with Russian artificial horizon -- the horizon stays still and the little airplane moves up and down and sideways.

"The Mi-17 has *Russian* artificial horizon."

The Iraqi Mi-17 pilots got their instrument training in the Huey. When they took off, they were nose-low -- *all* helicopters take off nose-low, it's the only way to get the beasts in the air, The little airplane on the artificial horizon went to the bottom of the gauge, as it was designed to do, and when they went IMC, the frikkin' Russian attitude indicator made them believe they were still straight and level for the first couple of seconds. By the time they got their scan going, they were still in a dive, probably only fifty feet above the ground.

Crunch.

I sent each one of the students off with a packet of instrument training pubs and slides. Got a couple of squadron patches in return -- [redacted] flies the Mi-17.

On a related note (related to oft-cited US opinion of Iraqi flying skills based on Gulf I and OIF), I think we might be painting with too broad a brush. [names and units redacted] flew fighter-bombers in Iran-v-Iraq and both had their bacon saved by the US Navy. The Aegis picket ships (who painted everything within 500 miles or so) would often give egressing Iraqi aircraft notice of bandits closing on their locations. When DS kicked off, most of the Iran-v-Iraq vets decided they weren't going to shoot up people who'd previously saved their asses -- but if they'd flat out refused to fly, they would have been shot; if they flew to Syria, they thought they'd be shot down by the Iraqi ADA ring oriented on Israel; they couldn't go to Turkey because Turkey was a Coalition partner. So, they went to Iran, got thrown in jail and beaten up for a while, and then were released at the end of hostilities. Most of the non-flying done in OIF was due to the Saddam's Got Control of the Situation Syndrome, but a bit of it was Iran-v-Iraq vets -- fixed- and rotary-wing -- hot-starting engines on purpose and frying them to ground the aircraft.

How much is true and how much is eyewash for the old gringo? Dunno, but both Su-7s on display here have slag for engine guts.

Now, before you lump me for telling tales out of school, consider the following:

1. The Iraqi board *knew* that spatial misorientation killed the Mi-17 crew, but they couldn't figure out *why* -- all the instruments were working normally and the crew, although inexperienced, had instrument training. Knowing the *why* won't change the causal findings, but it'll take a smidgeon of the onus off the dead pilots.

2. That's not the first time I've heard stories about what went on in the Gulf during Iran-v-Iraq -- just the first time I've heard them from the ones who were warned.

And now Dusty provides the coda:

"He's right about the Russian ADIs...they are the reverse of our design and VERY difficult to use the first time you try (given my MiG-23 sim experience in Hungary)...check that--it's impossible the first time. Everything is exactly backwards in the fixed-wing aircraft, i.e., what looks like a right bank in a US attitude indicator is a left bank in a Russian one, etc. If the little airplane moved as they say, that would be OK, but the ones I saw were out-and-out nauseatingly difficult to decipher.

As far as foreign pilot skills go, every fight I've ever been associated with assumes every SOB on the other side is an Eric Hartmann about to be unleashed. If they turn out to be less-than, so much the better. Then again, ask Randy Cunningham (on visitors' day) about Major Tomb.

I'm not surprised they are good pilots...they just flew in an air force owned by an a$$hole."

And to top it off - this might be the first "Marquee Post" where all the headliners of this space contributed something!

� Secure this line!

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Wow. That is some fascinating stuff. Thanks so much for sharing it!

A question: So the Iraqis are training on one style of artificial horizon, then using another style for operations? Was that something that nobody had picked up on?! If so, is anything going to be done to align the training and operational equipment?

by FbL on April 16, 2008 8:59 AM

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Wow... talk about a lightbulb moment.
You're right: It makes perfect sense now. Damn.

by AFSister on April 16, 2008 9:05 AM

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I think that goes along with Iraq now purchasing american weapons, etc.

by kat-missouri on April 16, 2008 9:17 AM

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I wonder how difficult it is, institutionally speaking, to overcome problems like the one you described? Up in the snowy, white north, we get people arguing all the time that we should be buying relatively cheap Russian or even more expensive European kit (especially aircraft). The example usually cited is the Indian military, which buys from whomever they can.

I wonder what a hodgepodge of equipment like that does to your safety, interoperability, orphan stock costs, and training costs?

by Damian on April 16, 2008 9:56 AM

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Damian,
This story is EXACTLY what happens when you get a hodgepodge of equipment. Tragic.

by AFSister on April 16, 2008 10:26 AM

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Well, it's what happens if you can't maintain some structural separation.

Back when I weont on my final trip to the Sandbox for saber rattling, Operation Desert Thunder, the Kuwaiti Army had a brigade each of Pact gear, French gear, and US gear, and kept track of it that way. They didn't swap people out from unit to unit willy-nilly.

But it certainly complicates things, no matter how you manage it.

by John of Argghhh! on April 16, 2008 10:42 AM

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This also brings up an interesting additional facet concerning when people accuse the US of aiding Iraq against Iran back in the day.

In real life, actions have both negative and positive consequences. People who either focus all on the negative or the positives, to the exclusion of the real deal, are bombs waiting to go off if you strap them to your mission payload.

And they're not going to go off when you think they are going to go off either.

Such people make an extreme disaster of operations, precisely because they either look at America's support of Iraq and try to use it to destroy America's support of Iraq in the here and now by overplaying the negatives, or they look at the so called "positives" of cheap, inaccurate, "better" Russian hardware for the Iraqis in order to discount the advantage of interoperability and training which would come from getting the Iraqis the M-16 family of armaments.

Russia's quality control seems to be rather weirdly different to AMerica's, if not in the suckage compartment. Their industrial or technological base isn't the problem, it's the way they do quality control. Take a look at how they maintain, or rather don't maintain, their nuclear armaments. Which is probably why their most popular armaments like the Ak 47 don't need quality control because they have low tolerances. The popular refrain seems to be that you could bury an AK 47 underground for years, dig it back up rusted and gunky, then fire it off. It won't be very accurate though...

Little things like making the artificial horizon more intuitive, doesn't really seem to factor in for the Russians compared to the American or Western obsession with making things more streamlined and intuitive. Different philosophies, different methodologies.

For people, whether Leftists or not, just interested in the minor tactical advantages of Russian arms and their lack of a need for maintenance, are ignoring the logistical question. It's one thing if it is a tactical choice between more firepowr and less firepower. It is one thing if it is a tactical choice between weapons that work and weapons that just don't work even if you did everything you could to clean them, sort of like VIetnam plastic rifles. But this is a difference between solidifying American and Iraqi logistics by cutting out foreign equipment, or stay as we are while we try to get the Iraqis logistically independent of us.

Better logistics in the lnog run is always better than any slight improvements in tactics that could be effected, in my view.

On another note, it is always fascinating to see the perspective from another party in a warfare, rather than your own. Makes learning things faster.

by Ymarsakar on April 16, 2008 10:55 AM

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Damien wrote:

wonder how difficult it is, institutionally speaking, to overcome problems like the one you described? Up in the snowy, white north, we get people arguing all the time that we should be buying relatively cheap Russian or even more expensive European kit (especially aircraft). The example usually cited is the Indian military, which buys from whomever they can.

You could go with the Israeli model and buy the A/C w/o instruments, and install your own

by Tim on April 16, 2008 11:16 AM

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This is the first I’ve written about the Iraqi Air Force Mi-17 Crash last month. I didn’t personally know Staff Sergeant Chris Frost, the US Air Force Gunner who was killed in the crash, but do I remember seeing him whenever I was up at Taji. I had the highest respect for the USAF gunners and pilots who flew with and trained the Iraqi Airmen. Those men and women are the unsung heroes of the US effort to rebuild the Iraqi Air Force. I worked with several Iraqi Air Force Mi-17 crewmen, so odds are I knew some of those who were lost in the crash. I wanted to wait until the official report was released before discussed the situation. After reading the comments to this post regarding the after action report, I couldn’t remain silent. I’m very proud of the Iraqi Air Force, and proud of the Airmen of the United States Air Force who are training their fellow Iraqi Airmen.

The Iraqi Air Force does not have a 'hodgepodge' of equipment as is assumed by many. Their Mi-17 fleet, though currently small, will triple in size over the next couple of years. The Iraqi leadership chose to purchase more Mi-17s because they're good at flying them, and their maintainers are very experienced working on them.

We pushed the Hueys on them because the Huey II is an excellent helicopter and we could bring them in faster than the Mi-17s. We almost convinced the Iraqis to purchase another 30+ Huey II’s last fall, but the Iraqi Air Force rightfully decided they should stick with what they're good at and purchased more Mi-17s.

Ironically last August when I was ordering the Mi-17s for the IqAF I was asked by the Iraqi Air Staff time after time to make sure the helicopters had two modern radar altimeters, something not standard on the Mi-17. I was told that during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, 80+ helicopters crashed in the early morning darkness enroute to Kuwait because their altimeters were sub-par. The Iraqi leadership still remembers that lesson, and they stressed the importance of ordering only the best altimeters for their helicopters. I did just that. The new fleet that is inbound this year will be modified immediately after they leave the Russian assembly line by a US company. They will all have the appropriate altimeters, and hopefully a tragedy like this won’t happen again.

As for the transition from Hueys to Mi-17s being a contributing factor in the accident, what else could the Iraqi Air Force do? The Hueys were the only operational helicopters available to the Iraqi pilots first, so most pilots trained on them. The ones who transitioned to the Mi-17 were limited to flying inside the perimeter of their base because of a lack of defensive systems and trained gunners. Once those limitations were overcome, the Iraqis began flying operational Mi-17 missions outside the wire with great success.

Their first missions were to Basra last fall. They did an outstanding job and the crews quickly learned to adapt. The flight that crashed this March was flying north of Mosul, something the Iraqis haven't done in years, but they had to fly up there to provide the support their nation is asking of them. The Iraqi Air Force sortie rate increased from 30 per week in January 2007 to 300 per week in December 2007 because the Iraqi government desperately needs organic air power in the Counter-insurgency war they are fighting. This ‘surge’ in air power will most likely double throughout 2008, so the pressure is on for the US and Iraqi Airmen to train, equip, and join the fight.

Are the pilots inexperienced? Some of them. Are they learning and adapting quickly? Absolutely. Are our US Air Force pilots training the Iraqi pilots to the same standards as we train our own. You bet. Still, it's a new, young Air Force. No matter how many obstacles you overcome in your training and maintenance, mistakes will still happen and lives will tragically be lost.

And remember, the Iraqi Pilots and Crewmen are all learning how to operate in a combat environment, which makes this entire enterprise even more difficult and costly. They’re dodging small arms, missile fire, sand storms, and a “quazi-free for all” VFR combat air space while they’re learning how to fly in an operational capacity.

Yet they're still flying, and we're still training them. Why? Because no nation can be secure without Airpower, and the Iraqis have always known this. It's just taken us 4 years to finally do something about it.

I worked directly for the Iraqi Air Force for 6 months, and I'd do it again if called upon. Our Air Force is doing an outstanding job growing and developing what once was, and soon will be again, one of the most respected Air Forces in the region.

by El Capitan on April 16, 2008 12:40 PM

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Just to be clear, El Capitan, Bill, Dusty and I were being *supportive* of the Iraqis, and not critical. That said...

Your information is illuminating. Thanks!

by John of Argghhh! on April 16, 2008 1:19 PM

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El Capitan, no disrespect was intended in my remarks. Canadian Forces aircraft are currently all American in pedigree, but we are constantly being pushed to buy something other than U.S. designs. I have concerns about mixing and matching, and was honestly asking for feedback, given that this post made me reflect on an issue that touches my military, but also quite a number of others.

by Damian on April 16, 2008 1:22 PM

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Same here.
The point is that training on American helicopters and then flying Russian helicopters seems to be an issue due to the instrument panel differences. That's what was meant by hodgpodge- not that they have shoddy equipment, or that they're trying to put Russian parts in American copters or visa versa. And no one is saying that the IrAF pilots are incompetent- quite the opposite. After you read Bill's AAR, you understand exactly how this kind of thing could easily happen.

It's like driving in America your whole life, and then renting a car in England for a week's vacation- you're bound to screw up the right-sided steering, or at least struggle with it. Being in the air has far more dire consequences though.

by AFSister on April 16, 2008 2:27 PM

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This is why I am a landlubber and don't like heights and don't like to fly and and and...WOW.

I am impressed. This is Good Stuff.

by Cricket on April 16, 2008 2:38 PM

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Damian
The Forces may purchase American sourced equipment, but it is not USAF or USN standard. Back in the 80's we lost three Hercs and were offered replacements by Lockheed at a must-buy price. The aircraft were sitting unsold at the factory; the price to be charged was for the bare airframe. Unfortunately, the aircraft would have required partial stripping to remove the wiring/electronics and install the RCAF standard kit. The rebuild would have brought the acquisition cost up to the price of a Herc purchased the 'normal' way, which the Air Force could not afford.

There's a company in Kelowna which tries to sell Russian hels to the Air Force, but their aircraft are fitted with Canadian standard avionics, not Russian.

Cheers

by J.M. Heinrichs on April 16, 2008 2:55 PM

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The Forces may purchase American sourced equipment, but it is not USAF or USN standard.

Uh...yeah...which is why I purposely used the phrase "American pedigree." Are you forgetting I've actually flown in most of them?

by Damian on April 16, 2008 10:55 PM

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Here's where I get to live down to the name of my site.

Bill, Bill, Bill... you and John threw a party and you didn't even invite me?

A** smacking, light hearted electronic bondage... err... badinage...???? Great goodly moogly!

A girl could really get her pert little nose out of joint :p

/flouncing off

by Cassandra on April 17, 2008 5:38 AM

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SCOOOORE!!!!

Cricket, Ymar and Cassie in the same thread!

by BillT on April 17, 2008 6:46 AM

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Heh. Given what Cassie came here for... I doubt it was a pert *nose*...

by John of Argghhh! on April 17, 2008 6:58 AM

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They’re dodging small arms, missile fire, sand storms, and a “quazi-free for all” VFR combat air space while they’re learning how to fly in an operational capacity.

Substitute "torrential rain" for "sandstorms" and you've got Vietnam. We lost a lot of helicopters *there* due to weather-related accidents before we taught ourselves how to survive.

That lesson wasn't lost on the Iraqi Air Force, either -- which is why they insisted that us rotary wing instructors have an Army Aviation background, rather than a USAF one.

When the Flight School Commander found out that two of us *were* Vietnam helicopter vets, he was ecstatic...

by BillT on April 17, 2008 7:07 AM

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John, Damian, AFSister... my apologies if I sounded a little gruff on that comment. Guess I'm still a little emotionally attached to the folks out there, as well as their mission. Hard to leave for home when you're so attached to the mission.

Thanks for putting the good word out on this situation and the many others out there that go unreported.

Cheers!
EC

by El Capitan on April 17, 2008 8:49 AM

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� Dismissed, Soldier!

In recent years, America has developed a counterinsurgency doctrine that fuses the tools of war with the instruments of peace to help countries in conflict shape a future of freedom and opportunity for themselves. Our armed forces can defeat any adversary, but our civilian agencies must shape the political and economic context in which our gains will endure. We’re gaining the field experience to work with you to do this right.

There has been much talk, of late, about how we are doing in Afghanistan. Some of it has been positive, some of it has not. Today, I’d like to offer you my assessment. We now have a new strategic opportunity in Afghanistan, one that is a product of lessons learned from both successes and setbacks. So here is why we will win in Afghanistan.

Since 2001, there has been much that has been good and successful. First, and most importantly, we have seen that whenever the Afghan people have an opportunity to choose a course for their nation, they have voted overwhelmingly, and often at great personal risk and sacrifice, for a future of democracy and modernity and liberty under law, not for the medieval despotism of the Taliban. And we continue to have a strong partner in the elected government of President Karzai.

To support our Afghan partners, NATO is leading an International Assistance Force of 40 nations. The Afghan National Army, which we are training and equipping, is now at the forefront of many combat operations alongside international forces. Twenty-six Provincial Reconstruction Teams, including 14 led by allies, are helping our Afghan partners to turn improving security into better governance and development. The legitimate Afghan economy is now growing faster than any other in Central and South Asia, and it is benefiting more and more of Afghanistan’s citizens.

America’s commitment to Afghanistan is also bipartisan. Congress has played a leadership role in funding U.S. policy there. And thanks to the generosity of the American people, the United States has provided nearly $23 billion in assistance to Afghanistan, with our allies providing another 18 billion. This assistance has helped over 15 – over 5 million Afghan refugees to return to their homes. It is supporting the construction of critical infrastructure, like the national ring road, which is nearly 75 percent complete. And it is enabling 5 million Afghan children to get an education, including, for the first time ever, 1.5 million girls.

Our mission in Afghanistan has led to substantial progress. But at times, our many good programs have amounted to less than the sum of their parts. We have grappled with a lack of coherence among a broad coalition of international partners with disparate capabilities. This partly reflects a learning curve, as we have re-engaged a nation that America and our allies had neglected for too long: a country of inhospitable terrain, many ungoverned spaces, and a long history of poverty, misrule, and weak civilian institutions and civil war. Indeed, much of the work in Afghanistan could be more properly described not as reconstruction, but as construction.

This challenge has been made more difficult too by a determined enemy, the Taliban that has regrouped after its initial defeat, and has now turned to the tactics of pure terror to further its intolerant goals. The Taliban has benefited from regional turmoil on Afghanistan’s borders. And this has led many in Afghanistan and the region, some even in our alliance, maybe even some here at home in America, to question whether our coalition has what it takes to support Afghanistan’s long-term success.

In recent months, our Administration has looked closely at our policy in Afghanistan, both what we’re doing well, and what we can and should be doing better. We have studied the independent reports that have been issued. I went to Afghanistan myself in February, both to Kabul and out to Kandahar, to see the situation on the ground. And the President and I have recently conferred with our allies, at the NATO summit in Bucharest.

I am confident that we are now laying the foundation for a long-term commitment to the success of Afghanistan and this region. This commitment must be built on a bipartisan consensus that unites our Administration and the Congress today, but also future administrations and future congresses. This commitment must also be built on an international consensus among our allies and our Afghan partners. We must all understand and explain to our people that Afghanistan is not a peacekeeping operation. It is a hard counterinsurgency fight and the stakes could not be higher.

The United States and the entire free world have a vital interest in the victory of our Afghan partners over the Taliban, and the consolidation and empowerment of an effective democratic state. Successes in Afghanistan will roll back the drug trade in a country that produces 93 percent of the world’s opium and a great deal of its heroin. Successes in Afghanistan will advance our broader regional interests in combating violent extremism, resisting the destabilizing behavior of Iran, and anchoring political and economic liberty in South and Central Asia. And success in Afghanistan is an important test for the credibility of NATO.

Let no one forget, Afghanistan is a mission of necessity, not a mission of choice. That country must never again become a haven for the kind of terrorists who attacked America on September 11th, who have attacked our friends and our allies repeatedly, and who seek to do us all even greater harm. We cannot afford, either, to think whether we will choose to succeed in Afghanistan or succeed in Iraq. That is a false choice.

In both countries, the stakes are too high, the potential benefits of success too great, and the real costs of failure too catastrophic for us to think that these missions are zero terms. The real choice, and it is a choice befitting a great people, a great power, and a great democracy, is how to forge long-term commitment to succeed both in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

This goal is not only essential, it is attainable. As in Iraq, our challenges in Afghanistan do not stem from a traditionally strong enemy. The Taliban does not offer a political vision that most Afghans embrace when free to choose. The Taliban’s theory of victory is not to prevail on the battlefield, or to win hearts and minds. It is simply to undermine the elected Afghan government, fracture the international coalition, and outlast us.

Our theory of victory, and the counterinsurgency strategy that we are pursuing to achieve it, is far superior to the designs of our enemy. We can defeat the Taliban on the battlefield. But we will render the Taliban obsolete by supporting an effective, democratic Afghan state that can meet the needs of its people. Where we have been able to do this, for instance, in the east of Afghanistan, the Taliban is in retreat.

Earlier this month in Bucharest, we and our NATO allies renewed our commitment to Afghanistan. President Karzai announced that the Afghan National Army will assume responsibility for security in Kabul by August, and we are supporting our Afghan partners. The United States is deploying roughly 300 – 3,500 additional Marines. France is sending a battalion. This has enabled Canada, whose service in Afghanistan is an inspiration for NATO, to extend its deployment through 2011. Our allies pledged to deploy additional forces, with some deciding to enter conflict zones in the south, where we are especially grateful to Canada, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia for shouldering most of the hardest fighting. We will continue to press our allies to lift the caveats on their military forces.

The international community is also taking new steps to increase the coherence of our assistance effort in Afghanistan, including appointing Kai Eide as the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative. Our strategy directs resources toward the central pillars of counterinsurgency: protecting the people from the enemy by strengthening Afghan security institutions, connecting people to their government by improving governance and rule of law, and fueling economic and social opportunity through reconstruction and development.

On the security front, Afghans are eager to provide more of their own security, and our plan supports that. We and our allies must step up our efforts to train and equip the national army of Afghanistan. But we must also increase our efforts to help the Afghan National Police become a more professional force that can enforce the law and police the nation’s now porous borders.

At the same time, we and our allies are helping the Afghan Government to marry these security gains with good governance and economic development. Success depends on expanding the good work of our Provincial Reconstruction Teams. These teams lead our growing effort to help Afghan leaders, both national and local, to promote the rule of law, to strengthen their ministries, to deliver essential services like health and education to the people, and to lay a foundation for long-term private investment. Just last week, I had the pleasure of meeting with eight Afghan governors who play an important role in these efforts. These are local leaders who are beginning to give Afghan – Afghanistan’s government the means to deliver goods and services more directly to the people.

Within our counterinsurgency strategy, we and our Afghan partners must also expand our counternarcotics efforts. This has been one of the most difficult and vexing problems and, frankly, we’ve not found all the right answers. Yet, it is just as urgent as the fight against the insurgency, because the two are inextricably linked. There is an erroneous view that poppy in Afghanistan is mostly grown by poor farmers struggling to earn a living. In fact, over 70 percent of Afghanistan’s poppy will likely be grown this year in the Taliban’s stronghold, on vast narco-farms that benefit our enemies. These drug kingpins do not need alternative livelihoods; they need to be brought to justice.

We must step up our interdiction, eradication, and law enforcement campaign while helping those Afghan farmers who truly do need adjusting. In places where security and political will exist, this strategy has shown some promise. Two years ago, only six of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces were nearly or completely poppy-free. This year, it will likely be 26.

In everything we do, we must encourage the Afghan people, empower the Afghan Government, bolster our allies, and demoralize our enemies. But success is only possible if Afghan ownership grows over time and with greater integrity. Afghanistan’s democracy is already under attack from external enemies. It cannot allow corruption to undermine democracy from within. Institutions like the Independent Directorate for Local Governance are a good start and we are increasing our support for Afghan efforts to create a fair and functional system of justice.

Addressing Afghanistan’s regional context is also crucial to success. A new strategic opportunity comes from the transition to democracy that is underway in Pakistan, a nation that, like Afghanistan, America had too long neglected. Pakistan has been an ally in the war on terror since September 11th and yes, this has necessitated a strong program of military assistance and cooperation. After 2001, we supported President Musharraf’s efforts to chart a moderate, modern path for that nation.

Our engagement, however, has always been multidimensional. Since 2005, America has invested $300 million each year to help the Pakistani people by supporting health programs, educational reform, as well as the building of civil society. And when this progress was put at risk last November, we pushed hard, publicly and privately, for a return to civilian rule, an end to the state of emergency, and free and fair elections in February that were open to all of Pakistan’s leaders.

To be sure, terrorists exacted a high toll in innocent life trying to stop this election, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. But not only did their violent efforts fail to disrupt the voting and plunge the country into chaos; the Pakistani people dealt the forces of political extremism a crushing defeat at the polls, including in the frontier province. Indeed, the election dispelled the myth of rising extremism in Pakistani politics, proving that a moderate, democratic center is the country’s dominant political force. We salute the Pakistani people for courageously restoring their democracy.

Successful American engagement with a democratic Pakistan is vital to our national security and to the lasting success of South and Central Asia. In Pakistan, as in Afghanistan, we must help a democratic partner to meet the needs of its people and eliminate the conditions that feed continuing extremism. We will greatly expand our support for the efforts of Pakistani civilians to strengthen democratic institutions and the rule of law and to reinforce the foundation of every free society: good governance, judicial independence, a free media, health and education, good jobs and social justice. We will support Pakistan’s efforts to secure all of its people, and to wage a counterinsurgency fight against the violent people who still threaten Pakistan’s future.

Finally, the United States will support Pakistan’s efforts to develop fruitful links with its neighbors and with the community of responsible nations. This includes intensified Pakistani-Afghan dialogue on regional security, continued efforts to reduce tensions and reconcile with India, and closer economic integration with the nations of South and Central Asia.

We have a unique opportunity to foster the lasting security of a troubled region, a region that is of vital interest to our nation. From our partnerships with the newly democratic Pakistan and a free Afghanistan that is fighting the Taliban, not governed by it, to our growing strategic partnership with India and our improved relationships all the way across South and Central Asia, the United States is in a dramatically different and better position in this region than we were in 2001.

Though we and our friends face savage and determined enemies, I am confident that we will prevail, not by force of arms alone, but by the power and the promise of the values we share: the conviction that parents everywhere want their children to grow up in dignity, in liberty, and with limitless horizons. Success in Afghanistan and Pakistan will demonstrate that these values are more compelling than the spiritual poverty of suicide bombing.

The journey ahead will be difficult and often winding. Most certainly, the path toward democracy is never a straight line. We have hard work to do. But I am confident that we will succeed because we have done hard work before. I was fortunate to be the White House Soviet Specialist from 1989 to 1991 at the end of the Cold War. It doesn’t get much better than that. In fact, those were very heady days. But as we went through those extraordinary days, it was important to stop and to pay homage and to think about those who had set up the possibilities and laid the foundation for the victory of our values at the end of the Cold War.

In fact, when I would go to the White House, and now, when I go to the State Department, I think about the people in 1945, in 1946, and 1947 who built a firm foundation for democracy on the ruins of Europe and Asia at the end of World War II. I think about people who faced a situation in 1946 in which the Italian Communists won 46 percent of the vote, French Communists 45 percent of the vote. I think about those people who faced a 1947 in which Europe was still starving, 2 million Europeans still starving; that in 1947, saw civil war in Greece and civil conflict in Turkey; that in 1948, saw what we all thought would be the permanent division of Germany with the Berlin crisis; the Czechoslovak coup in which the Soviet Union snuffed out the last of liberty in Eastern Europe; in 1949, a Soviet Union that exploded a nuclear device five years ahead of schedule; and when the Chinese Communists won, only to have war break out on the Korean Peninsula in 1950.

Those were not small tactical setbacks. Those were huge strategic defeats for the victory of democracy and Western values in Europe and Asia. But somehow, someway, the people who led that fight, Marshall and Truman and Kennan and Acheson – somehow, everyday, they got up and they stayed true to their values and they believed in the power of our principles. And that is what permitted us to see, in 1989, in 1990 and ’91 the overcoming of a country 5 million men strong, 30,000 nuclear warheads, and spanning 12 different time zones without firing a shot.

That is the spirit with which we must meet this new historic transition and transformation because challenges like the ones that we faced at the end of World War II and the ones that we face now can only be overcome with optimism about the power of our principles and our values. And so, as I sat at NATO next to permanent representatives from Poland and the Czech Republic and Hungary and the Baltic states in Latvia in 2006, I thought, had someone said there will be a NATO summit in Latvia in 2006, in 1946, people would have thought that they had lost their minds.

And so, I know that some Secretary of State will stand here in 10 years or 20 or 30, but most certainly, will stand here to say, of course the people of Iraq have triumphed in democracy; of course, the people of Afghanistan have triumphed in democracy. What else would you expect? Because the power of our principles is that it makes those things that one day seemed impossible seem, after, to have been inevitable.

Thank you very much and God bless you.
(Applause.)
Air University Part 2 (Q&A)
(Applause.)
GENERAL LORENZ: Thank you, Madame Secretary, for those inspiring and thought-provoking remarks. I believe our students and faculty have some questions, so if you’d go ahead and sit down, I’ll tell you how the rules will be played, all y’all. (Laughter.)

Air University students and faculty, if you have a question for Secretary Rice, please make your way to one of the microphones -- there are three on each side -- and to begin with, I will recognize you in turn. Prior to asking a question, please identify yourself and your college, your school. And with that, we’ll take advantage of this time. Please make your way to the microphones and let’s begin. Thank you.

Over here to the left.
QUESTION: Good morning, Ms. Rice. We have the honor to have you with us today. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Alenazi from Saudi Arabia. My question is you’ve been traveling a lot to the Middle East all this time. Could you give us an idea of to what level has the peace process reaches, and what is the King Abdullah -- have the influence in that process?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes, thank you very much. You’d like a trip report, is that right, on my trips to the Middle East? (Laughter.) All right.

Yes, we launched -- the President launched in November of this past year what has been called the Annapolis process. And the Annapolis process is an effort to help the Palestinians and the Israelis end their conflict by getting the vision of the Palestinian state, the details, the outline of the Palestinian state, finally agreed between Israelis and Palestinians. And there’s a very important reason to do that. Of course, of course, it would bring peace, and that’s a very important thing. But also, the moderate, tolerant, peace-loving people of the Palestinian territories and indeed of the Middle East in general need to know that there is an alternative to extremism. And the state, the Palestinian state, provides that alternative.

Now, the Annapolis process has three tracks. On the one hand, we are trying to help the Palestinian people simply have a better life through the ability to improve movement and access so that Palestinian businesses can start and the economic life of the people can grow.

Secondly, we are trying to make progress -- the Palestinians and the Israelis several years ago undertook certain obligations on something called the Roadmap, which are a set of parallel obligations to move them toward peace. And you might want to know that one of the Air Force’s own, General -- Lieutenant General Will Fraser, is the monitor for that effort and doing a very fine job.

And the third is the peace negotiations themselves. And I can tell you the following: They are talking very, very seriously about the hardest issues, about borders, about refugees, about how they’re going to bring into being two states living side by side in peace and security.

Now, one reason that you hear very little about what they’re actually talking about in the negotiations is they’ve made a very wise decision that they’re not going to go to the press every day to say whether they’re making progress. That says to me they’re really serious. I sat with them for two and a half hours. It’s going to be hard. If anyone had had an easy answer to this, they would have solved it a long time ago. But they are serious about it, and it is the President’s hope and the intention that there would be a state in being, or a state in outline, by the end of this coming year. We think it is time. It’s been too long. The Palestinian people need a state.

Now, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has been a very strong supporter of the Annapolis process. Prince Saud, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia attended. It was the first time that Saudi Arabia had actually attended under its own flag at a peace conference, so that was very exciting. And I believe that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, along with President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, are perhaps the most influential Arabs in helping to give the kind of support to both Abu Mazen, the President of the Palestinian Authority, and to the Israelis to go ahead and make peace. And so we’ve been in very close contact. The President visited Saudi Arabia very recently, talked to the King a great deal about the peace process. And we, this time, are going to make certain that we’ve worked with the Arab states so that they can be supportive if the Palestinians and the Israelis are able to come to an agreement.

GENERAL LORENZ: Let’s go to the second mike on this side.
QUESTION: Good morning, Secretary Rice. This morning, I just want to comment that the cooperation and friendship between yourself and --

GENERAL LORENZ: Hang on a second. Remember the rules: Identify yourself and your school, please.
QUESTION: Major Courier from Air Command and Staff College. The cooperation and friendship between yourself and Secretary Gates is refreshing and important to the unity of effort between the Department of State and the Department of Defense in addressing regional conflicts. I was wondering if you could please discuss specifically the new Office of Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization and our nation-building effort.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much. Yes, first of all, let me say that Bob Gates and I have a very close friendship that goes back a lot of years. We served together. He was the Deputy National Security Advisor when I was special assistant on that NSC staff of Brent Scowcroft and George H.W. Bush that was fortunate enough to be around at the end of the Cold War. So we had a great friendship and we have a lot of good stories and we enjoy being together.

And we recognize that we have a very strong obligation to have the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the uniformed military, be able to perform well on really what is a continuum between war and peace. We tend to think in our theory of war and then peace, so you win the war and then you go and build the institutions of peace. But of course, that’s not how we are fighting and winning any longer. We’re fighting on a continuum. Counterinsurgency really means that you have go to into an area, you have to clear it of the enemy, then you have to hold the area with police forces, most appropriately police forces of the home country, which means you have to build adequate police forces, and then you go in and you do reconstruction and development right there where you’ve cleared so that people don’t turn back to the terrorists.

Because the best – by far, the best weapon that the terrorists have is when they can imbed in a village or in a community and have the local people refuse to turn them over. Very often, the local people don’t really support them, but they’re terrified of them. And if you can give people security, then they will turn over the terrorists and they will be on your side. And that’s what we’re seeing in places like Al Anbar province in Iraq, where the Sons of Anbar turned on al-Qaida and have essentially thrown them out. And we’ve been able then to stabilize Al Anbar.

Now, if you’re going to do that, you have to have not just the ability to fight, but also the ability to bring that reconstruction effort. We call it the post – the stabilization phase. And we have never had in the United States an institution that was really capable and dedicated to doing that, and it needs to be a civilian institution. We’ve done it in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Frankly, we tried to do it with the UN structures and that didn’t work terribly-- all so well. And then in Afghanistan we tried to do it with the Bonn process, which brought every country in the kind of adopt-a-ministry approach, so the Germans took one ministry, the Italians another ministry. And frankly, while the efforts were sincere and I think many of them good, it left us with some of the incoherence that we have today. In Iraq, we tried to do it by handing it to the Defense Department to do reconstruction and development. Of course, that worked not all that well either. I mean, we were able to do some things, but not as much as we should have done.

So finally, Americans – if there’s one thing we do, we keep going until we get it right. And I think we’ve now got the right structure, which is a civilian structure that would be akin to the Reserve and the National Guard, where you have different kinds of expertise on call to go out and do reconstruction and development. There’s no way in the State Department that I can have city planners and engineers and specialists on building judiciaries and specialists on police. You really, however, might be able to call up Americans -- perhaps, that prosecutor who’s in Arizona and wants to spend a year helping the Afghan people to learn how to build a good justice system, or perhaps that city planner who’s in Montgomery and would like to go and help the people of Haiti or Liberia know how to do city planning. And so the idea is to have a civilian response corps, probably initially of close to 2,000 or so Americans, who would train the way the Guard and Reserve train, and then be ready when we need to do one of these stabilization efforts.

And not only do I think it would be a wonderful call for Americans who want to contribute in that way; but frankly, this isn't what the military, the Reserve and the Guard should be doing, and we've had to rely heavily on the uniformed military in order to do civilian stabilization and reconstruction because we've just not had the right institution. I think this is the right institution. It's had no stronger supporter than Bob Gates and the uniformed military. And if Congress fully funds it, which we hope that it will, it should be really ready for its initiation phases very shortly.

But thank you for asking.
GENERAL LORENZ: Let's go to the second mike on this side, please.
QUESTION: Good morning, Dr. Rice. I am Group Captain, or Colonel, Iqbal, from Terminal 13 Air War College and Pakistan. Thank you very much for sharing your views about the region, especially Afghanistan and its neighbor, Pakistan. I just want to call your attention towards the recent developments which has happened in Pakistan; that means the country is getting back to the path of democracy. But traditionally, what we have seen, that U.S. is more -- feels comfortable to engage with autocracy there. Because you know, about 30 years, in my country, the country has been ruled by the army. Now, you have a different stage. There is a broad-based government in Pakistan.

So I want to -- I'd like to hear your views about it, because many of the intellectuals here has given their opinion that now the U.S. policy should be engaging both the political as well as the other half, that is, the army. So what are your shares? Thank you very much.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. And again, on Pakistan, you are absolutely right that the Pakistani people have made a transition. There is a broad-based Pakistani Government which we intend to engage, as the Government of Pakistan, as we would engage any other democratic government. In fact, Deputy Secretary Negroponte has already been to Pakistan to meet the new civilian leaders. I have spoken to a couple of them on the phone prior to the formation of the government. And we think this is a really terrific step for the people of Pakistan. They're to be congratulated for doing it, despite a lot of threats from extremists and efforts to disrupt the elections, starting, of course, first, with the assassination of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto.

Now, we will engage the armed forces in military training and in military cooperation in the way that we do militaries around the world, many of them from democratic countries. It is terrific that you are here. I think one of the most important things that we can do is to have military officers from countries like Pakistan here for international military education. We cut that off for a period of seven -- let's see, four years, which really, I think, was a very, very bad thing to have done, frankly, because we need to engage with all of the institutions of Pakistan. And Pakistan now will need to find a way to have very solid civilian control of the armed forces. I believe that our tradition of that is a good one, in which Pakistani officers can come and be a part of a democratic state in which civilian control is really now taken for granted, but wasn’t always taken for granted, so we’ve built the institutions of it.

So we will engage across a broad front. As I mentioned in my remarks, I believe that the coming of a democratic government in Pakistan is a new strategic opportunity. It is an opportunity for an ally in the war on terror. But remember that our answer to terrorism is not just to fight and defeat the terrorists; it is to deal with the conditions that produce terrorism, and the absence of freedom is one of the conditions that produces terrorism. Perhaps the most important condition is the absence of freedom.

And so when we see an ally in the war on terror makes a transition to democracy, it could not be more affirming of everything that President Bush believes about the power of democracy, the power of those principles, and their power to defeat terrorism long term.

GENERAL LORENZ: Let’s go to the last mike on this side.