Iraqis Bat .300 but Benched by Benchmarks

If the U.S. Congress invested heavily in a Major League Baseball team, and the team’s roster included a player with a .300 batting average and documented potential to increase that average consistently over time, would congressmen declare the player a failure and cut him from the team?

Considering congress’s historical record of mismanagement, perhaps congressmen would cut this productive and promising player due to their misguided belief that the player should have a 1.000 average, but this would be both unwise and fatal to hopes for a successful season. Cutting players with a .300 batting average would be a sure way to guarantee the team’s failure and dash any hopes for building a dynasty franchise that could dominate its era.

Yet congress is doing just that, and Iraq is the player batting .300 that never seems to satisfy congress’ desire for a 1.000 average and a tidy return on our federal investment in Iraq. According to AP reports, a classified GAO report to be presented to congress Thursday will advise eager opponents of the Bush administration that the Iraqi government has only reached six out of eighteen benchmarks for progress previously demanded by congress. The benchmarks were established and the GAO report commissioned to preemptively rebut the upcoming surge success report from General David Petraeus. The GAO report will further the impression that the Iraqi government has failed, which congressional Democrats have carefully nurtured over the past week.

Like our baseball analogy, the problem with the GAO report is not that congress wants to evaluate how its player, Iraq, is performing. The problem lies in the benchmarks that measure overall successes only and ignore a more flexible criteria: progress. Congress set benchmarks for success for Iraq which, like a 1.000 batting average, are unreasonably high, or as Defense Department Spokesman Geoff Morrell described them, “impossible to meet.” Baseball teams annually spend tens of millions in salaries for players who can hit .300 or anywhere near that percentage, but don't tell that to the George Steinbrenners in Congress who will only be satisfied by perfection from their players and managers and who are itching to fire anyone at any time.

Congress, in ordering the GAO report, demanded that it only report whether Iraq had actually achieved the benchmarks rather than seeking to measure progress toward those benchmarks. The Bush administration considers progress to be a form of success in itself as well as hope for the future, while congress has made it clear that it is uninterested in progress of any kind in Iraq and focuses only on the Iraqi government’s “failure” to fully reach the very broad benchmarks.

Unwilling to allow Iraq, which has already reached a .300 batting average by completely achieving six of the eighteen benchmarks, congress appears obsessed with cutting Iraq from the team because after only a few years of existence as a democracy it cannot yet bat 1.000. If congress imposed such benchmarks on its own performance in providing Americans with the legislation voters have requested, it would have a far lower batting average than Iraq’s promising .300 efforts.

Other than for purely political reasons, it is hard to imagine why congress would request a GAO report that contained multi-part benchmarks designed to create the impression that even benchmarks showing ninety-percent progress could be labeled as unmet and thus failures of the Iraqi government.

It is the epitome of irony that the U.S. Congress casts stones at another government while standing in its own glass house of bureaucratic inefficiency.

GAO report Iraqi Government Benchmarks Bush Administration Congress Batting Averages Iraq War

Counterterror Chief Interview Culls Only Cliches

Professional athletes and government intelligence officials have at least one shared characteristic: Both give a lot of media interviews, but despite an abundance of words spoken neither offers anything beyond tired clichés. I often wonder why journalists bother conducting such interviews. Rarely will a professional athlete state anything more substantive than “we just take each game one at a time,” or “we just need to play hard.” Likewise, intelligence officials, by necessity, rarely provide any statements more enlightening than “al-Qaeda wants to kill Americans,” or “It’s not IF we will be hit again, it is WHEN.” Both of those canned intelligence answers are of course true, but journalists hardly needed to interview an intelligence expert to confirm their veracity.

Newsweek reporters recently interviewed the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) chief, Retired Vice Admiral John Scott Redd, and stunned no one with their headline article, “We are Going to Get Hit Again.” Did they really need to interrupt the presumably busy work schedule of the NCTC chief to obtain such common sense information? In the cat and mouse game that occurs daily between the news media and the intelligence community, one ground rule applies: when an intelligence officer speaks on the record, nothing newsworthy will be offered. The corollary to that rule is that only intelligence sources who speak on condition of anonymity have the potential to reveal something that rises beyond clichéd sound bites.

What gems of wisdom did the Newsweek team mine from the understandably tight-lipped NCTC chief? Some examples follow:

What I’ll tell you about bin Laden is if we knew where he was, he’d either be dead or captured. It’s that simple. [He’s] obviously a tough target. That whole area is a tough target.

…We’ve got this intelligence threat; we’re pretty certain we know what’s going on. We don’t have all the tactical details about it, [but] in some ways it’s not unlike the U.K. aviation threat last year. So we know there is a threat out there. The question is, what do we do about it? And the response was, we stood up an interagency task force under NCTC leadership….

…We have very strong indicators that Al Qaeda is planning to attack the West and is likely to [try to] attack, and we are pretty sure about that….

…What we do have, though, is a couple of threads that indicate, you know, some very tactical stuff, and that's what—you know, that’s what you’re seeing bits and pieces of, and I really can’t go much more into it….

…It’s still there. It’s very serious, you know, and we’re watching it. We’re learning more all the time, but it’s still a very serious threat….

…But these guys are smart. They are determined. They are patient. So over time we are going to lose a battle or two. We are going to get hit again, you know, but you’ve got to have the stick-to-itiveness or persistence to outlast it…..

…Statistically, you can’t bat 1.000 forever, but we haven’t been hit for six years, [which is] no accident….

NCTC Chief Redd gave the type of answers journalists should expect from intelligence officials: clichéd, common sense, and superficial. Had he answered Newsweek’s questions in any more detail he would have divulged classified information, a felony offense. Newsweek’s readers may have been impressed by an interview of such a high level official, but they were surely disappointed by the complete lack of original or newsworthy information provided in the article.

Announcing to Americans that terrorists are planning to attack the west is equivalent to professional athletes stating in pre-game interviews that “our opponent will come at us with everything they have,” or “the team that wants it most will win tonight.” These interviews offer ample truth, but sparse substance. Athletes, like intelligence officials, are wise to speak only in general terms rather than reveal anything from their playbooks that might help the opposing team. Fans and news readers may find the practice annoying, but success on the sports field or battlefield often depends on holding the playbook close to the vest. Admiral Redd did an admirable job of pleasing Newsweek with headline quotes while telling Americans nothing we did not already know.

John Scott Redd NCTC National Counterterrorism Center Newsweek Al Qaeda War on Terror Intelligence Agencies

Bush's Wars Blamed for Police Ammo Crisis

If your local police officer or sheriff’s deputy shoots at a dangerous suspect and misses because he spent too little time practicing at the firearms range, you should blame President Bush. That was the message of a Washington Post report Monday titled “Police Feeling Wartime Pinch on Ammunition,” which placed at the feet of the president the responsibility for making ammunition for local law enforcement agencies difficult to obtain due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Post report was an illustration of what occurs when a reporter obtains multiple explanations for an alarming trend but chooses to emphasize the only possible explanation that fits the reporter’s or perhaps the news organization’s political agenda. The report included several factors that contribute to existing shortages of law enforcement ammunition for training, but each of these was dismissed in favor of adding to the list of societal and international crises allegedly caused by President Bush: “Quagmire” in Iraq; Hurricane Katrina; global warming; “cooking” intelligence to start wars; and now creating a famine of ammunition needed for law enforcement training.

Clearly intended to alarm local residents of the DC metropolitan region, the Post report opened by painting a dire portrait of law enforcement agencies eventually running out of ammunition:

The U.S. military's soaring demand for small-arms ammunition, fueled by two wars abroad, has left domestic police agencies less able to quickly replenish their supplies, leading some to conserve rounds by cutting back on weapons training, police officials said.

To varying degrees, officials in Montgomery, Loudoun and Anne Arundel counties said, they have begun rationing or making other adjustments to accommodate delivery schedules that have changed markedly since the military campaigns began in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Before the war, lag time from order to delivery was three to four months; now it's six months to a year," said James Gutshall, property supervisor for the Loudoun Sheriff's Office. "I purchased as much as I could this year because I was worried it would be a problem."

Montgomery police began limiting the amount of ammunition available to officers on the practice range a little more than year ago, said Lucille Baur, a county police spokeswoman. The number of cases a group of officers can use in a training session has been cut from 10 to three.

But some expressed concern that a prolonged shortage could eventually affect officers' competence as marksmen. Practice with live ammunition is a crucial part of any police training regime, experts say. A lack of practice can translate into diminished ability in the field, where accuracy and speed can mean the difference between life and death, they say.

So is the War on Terror really draining our local law enforcement agencies of the ammunition they need to train and remain prepared to serve and protect us? The answer is actually provided in the Post article, but the reporter failed to put the pieces of the puzzle together and view the big picture behind the ammunition shortages.

First, my experience with a federal agency that required stringent marksmanship training and monthly firearms re-qualification also included my observing shortages of live ammunition for training that pre-dated 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After successfully qualifying at the firearms range, we were not allowed to repeat the range exercises because ammunition needed to be preserved for those who had not yet re-qualified. Again, this was before 9/11 or the current War on Terror. The reason for those shortages, which continue to this day, was budget priorities. There was plenty of ammunition available from a variety of vendors, but insufficient funds to purchase it. That is not to say that law enforcement agencies intentionally place a low priority on training days at the range. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nearly all law enforcement professionals I have worked with would be willing to dedicate far more time to situational exercises and marksmanship training than is made available to them by their agencies. However, these agencies are given strict budgets of taxpayer money and must distribute funds in priority order.

Officer or agent salaries and benefits must come first, followed by facilities, utilities, and equipment including duty weapons, vehicles, ballistic vests, and a host of other necessities for public safety and national security. Contract vendors of such equipment understand the necessity of their products and charge exorbitant prices that quickly erode ever-shrinking budgets. When you throw in the costs of running temporary jails at sheriffs’ stations, budget needs rapidly become a challenge for administrators to meet. Do you cut back on 911 dispatchers and ballistic vests or ammunition set aside for training? Both are important, but choices must be made. If agencies are facing shortages of ammunition for training, it is far more likely that the shortage is the result of a conscious priority decision rather than the availability of ammunition due to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Second, for those few and far between agencies that are funded at comfortable levels, experiencing ammunition shortages occur due to poor planning. If vendor delays become a problem, there are competitors available to provide the needed products. Agencies can also order their ammunition further in advance to avoid reordering only when supplies are already becoming dangerously low. The Post report quotes various law enforcement officials tasked with maintaining ammunition supply levels, and in each case the officials describe how it now takes six months to a year to get shipments of ammunition that formerly arrived in three or four months. Is this because so much ammunition is flowing to Iraq and Afghanistan? More likely, it is caused by a fact mentioned only in passing by the Post reporter: law enforcement agencies at all levels of government since 9/11 have focused on obtaining better equipment, more training, and more ammunition for their officers, deputies, and agents to better prepare them to defend their communities from terrorist attacks.

The Post report repeatedly asserted that the bulk of ammunition produced by manufacturers was flowing to Iraq and Afghanistan but offered no statistics to illustrate the difference between how much ammunition was shipped to military units fighting the War on Terror and the quantity shipped to law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. Likewise, the Post made no effort to research whether military shipments from the same supplier were also delayed because of the increased demand from law enforcement agencies. The report did mention that one major supplier of ammunition had experienced an increase of forty percent in orders from law enforcement agencies in 2006 and business was booming so nicely that the company was expanding its production levels and its profit margin to accommodate the growing demand. Two critical factors explaining the shortage of ammunition for law enforcement agencies were thus set forth in the article but only in the context that the rounds requested by law enforcement were of the same caliber as those used by standard-issue military weapons.

The ammunition supplier cited in the article did not indicate that their products were being shipped to the military in higher priority than to law enforcement, but the Post report implied that this was the case, blaming the two war fronts for depriving law enforcement of precious ammunition when the cause was actually underproduction to meet demand. That situation is being corrected through capitalism: the manufacturer is opening new plants and expanding old ones to meet the needs of its customers. If one major supplier cannot keep up with demand, others will.

If you know you will run low of a critical item in your household, such as milk or in my case cereal, you naturally buy a new supply well in advance so you do not find yourself with a bare cupboard. Likewise, law enforcement agencies need to set aside sufficient funds in each year’s budget for the following year’s needs so that equipment can be ordered early enough to overcome supplier delays. Many departments and agencies are beginning to do this, as they are learning from their previous re-supply miscalculations.

Other than competition for ammunition between the military and law enforcement, the shortages currently experienced appear unrelated to President Bush or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were many explanations for the shortages but the most controversial approach was to blame them on the current administration. While the president and two unpopular wars may have been the most convenient scapegoats for a common supply and demand problem, the most likely explanations were downplayed or used in a limited context designed to fit a pre-determined conclusion. The ammunition shortage is a serious issue that merited more serious attention to its underlying causes.

Technorati Tags: Law Enforcement Ammunition Shortage War on Terror Bush Administration Iraq War Afghanistan Washington Post Live Fire Training

Hillary's Iraq Village Puppet Show

Hillary Clinton believes it takes a village to raise a child, but what is her solution when the one being raised prefers independence and resents interference from Hillary’s village? The concept of village influence seems to be the centerpiece of Hillary’s foreign policy goals, and it manifests itself most clearly in her ever-evolving policy statements on Iraq. Most recently the 2008 presidential candidate joined the shrill and gratingly off-key chorus of Carl Levin, most congressional Democrats, and a few Republicans auditioning for cabinet positions, who have called for an Iraqi no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his removal despite an on-going war. Not content to allow Iraqis the fundamental right of self-rule, Hillary applied her “it takes a village” approach to the realm of diplomacy, apparently convinced that the best way for Iraq to resolve its internal disputes was to have the world village step in and try to settle them rather than patiently allowing Iraqis to do it themselves.

It is an interesting irony that Senators Clinton and Levin refuse to adhere to diplomatic protocol in their interactions with and comments about Iraq. Both act as if the fact that America has nearly 150,000 troops in Iraq gives American congressmen carte blanche in what they say about that nation’s elected government. Even Republican Mitch McConnell described the Iraqi government as a “huge disappointment.” America does not have 150,000 troops in France, and there is no question that we considered former French President Jacque Chirac’s government to be a huge disappointment. Yet neither the Republicans nor Democrats in congress publicly stated that sentiment because France deserves respect and decorum from the American government as a sovereign nation. Senators Levin and Clinton do not extend such diplomatic courtesies to Iraq’s Prime Minister, and they should be required to explain the disparate treatment.

Likewise, our elected officials do not attempt to inject themselves into the internal political workings of other, longer-established nations yet think nothing of calling for the ouster of al-Maliki. Where are the cries from Democrats for Fidel Castro’s ouster, or Hugo Chavez’s ouster? Both of those leaders are sworn enemies of America, while al-Maliki risks his own safety each day working with America to preserve a budding democracy in Iraq.

Al-Maliki, a man under constant threat of physical attack by insurgents and al-Qaeda linked terrorists, was not cowed by Levin’s and Hillary’s harsh criticisms. Demonstrating his mastery of the sound byte and his familiarity with America’s distaste for Hillary’s vision of the global village, al-Maliki fired back brilliantly at Senator Clinton:

Maliki hit back on Sunday, saying: "There are American officials who consider Iraq as if it were one of their villages, for example Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin."

"This is severe interference in our domestic affairs. Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton are from the Democratic Party and they must demonstrate democracy," he said. "I ask them to come to their senses and to talk in a respectful way about Iraq."

The semantic slap regarding Democrats acting undemocratically was well-crafted and effective. It is shameful that an elected Prime Minister of a nation we are working with closely in a sensitive region felt compelled to defend himself against a barrage of criticism from the American Congress and remind our self-important congressmen that speaking respectfully about Iraq is an expected aspect of diplomatic protocol that many have neglected.

Lost in the verbal exchange between al-Maliki and America’s congressional vultures circling Iraq’s demise with great expectation was the failure of media outlets to press Senators Levin and Clinton on what would seem to be a critical question: who would they suggest take al-Maliki’s place as Prime Minister? Neither has come forward with any suggested replacements even though both have access to raw intelligence regarding the current political situation in Iraq. Likewise, neither addresses the obvious difficulty al-Maliki’s replacement would face from being labeled an American puppet leader. It is highly unlikely that Iraq would become more stable under different leadership if the Iraqi perception was that America called for al-Maliki’s removal and chose his successor. Middle Eastern governments considered puppets of America do not have a history of long-term survival.

On Sunday, leaders representing Iraq’s Shiite, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish communities made further progress in resolving internal disputes. The leaders agreed on provisions to make it easier for former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party to serve in Iraq’s government and military, facilitated the future release of Sunni’s detained and held without charge, and endorsed a draft oil revenue sharing law. Each of these must survive parliamentary debate and votes, but the agreements were a clear show of unity and progress in direct refutation of Senator Clinton’s and Senator Levin’s low opinion of the Iraqi government.

America’s patience with Iraq’s government should not be dictated by our presidential campaign schedule. A stable and free Iraq deserves support beyond the 2008 election and merits respect regardless of which party wins the White House. Expecting Iraq to resolve all of its internal political squabbles and secure itself from foreign terrorists by next month or next year is imposing our will and political timetable on a free people. Factions within a government arguing, boycotting, and stalling important legislation are hallmarks of America’s Congress and should not be considered disappointing characteristics of Iraq’s fledgling democracy.

The Iraqis do not want to be considered throughout the world as America’s puppet, nor do they want their government to be raised and nurtured by Hillary’s global village. She should stop treating al-Maliki’s government like a child and let the Iraqis experience their own political maturation.

Technorati Tags:
Al-Maliki, Hillary Clinton, Carl Levin, Puppet Government, Iraqi Government, Diplomacy, It Takes A Village