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

Levin is Surge Report Misinformation Minister

When war news is good, it stands to reason that the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee should be pleased. After all, there should be no question that a senator holding such an important and influential position would want America’s military to win any war it enters. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), who currently chairs the Armed Services Committee is embarking on another “fact finding” trip to Iraq, but he is not going there to be supportive of the troops or to witness firsthand the widely-reported successes of the surge strategy led by General David Petraeus. On the contrary, Levin’s latest trip to Iraq serves, as explained in his own words, only one purpose:

I'm going to try to see if we can't shift the attention of the American people from the report on the military situation to a report on the political situation since everybody acknowledges that it's the failure of the political arena and the political areas that are the cause of the ongoing violence in Iraq.

That was a revealing and disturbing statement. Rarely does a politician so bluntly state that he is engaging in an intentional misinformation campaign designed to “shift the attention of the American people” away from a detailed military report that proves we are making significant progress and can win a war we committed troops to fight. Clearly senior Democrats do not want Americans to read the Petraeus report due in September, and Americans should pause for a moment to ponder the motive behind Levin’s Iraq trip as Minister of Misinformation.

Congressional Democrats are in an unenviable political position: having voted almost unanimously to send troops into Iraq; shifting to a virulent anti-war position; demanding a timetable for troop withdrawals; opposing the surge strategy; and now facing the release of a positive analysis of the surge’s effectiveness and optimism for eventual troop withdrawals under more favorable security and political conditions in Iraq.

During his presidency, media figures and congressional Democrats have insulted President Bush with labels such as “inept,” “incompetent,” “mentally unstable,” and of course “stupid.” Yet no such labels are applied by the media to the Democratic Party as a whole for its remarkable blunder of putting itself in position to profit politically only from military failure. Our troops lose, Democrats win. In that respect at least, the grim and incessant media comparisons between the Vietnam and Iraq wars are appropriate. There is an Iraq quagmire. Democrats stepped in it by investing their political futures in defeat in Iraq, but now they cannot seem to scrape the pesky quagmire ooze from their patent-leather shoes.

It is no wonder that on July 30th House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) stated that such a report from the military would be “a real big problem for us.” In other words, good news from the front lines in Iraq would be harmful to the Democrats’ political ambitions. To prevent such a “disaster” from occurring, Minister of Misinformation Levin will be working overtime shifting attention away from Petraeus’ report, which is already being dismissed in the media as merely an instrument for communicating what the Bush administration wants. Liberal bloggers have already attacked the report, which none of them have seen even a portion of, as a “fantasy evaluation” and just another Bush “sandbagging” of the American people.

Considering the recent foreign policy and military counterterrorism strategy gaffes by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, it appeared that no Democratic senator could be equally as naïve as Obama on those issues. Yet Levin’s explanation of why American’s should pay no attention to the upcoming Iraq progress report by General Petraeus demonstrated a fundamental ignorance or intentional obfuscation of what is causing the current level of violence in Iraq. Is there internal strife within the Iraqi Parliament? Of course there is strife there, just as there is bitter partisan strife within our own Congress. In Iraq, Sunni legislative blocs occasionally withdraw from the government in anger over real or perceived slights and injustices. In our Congress there are filibusters, blocked votes on judicial confirmations or cabinet appointments, and leaks of classified information to embarrass or destroy political rivals. In many respects, our Congress is more dysfunctional than the Iraqi parliament, yet our nation is not awash in suicide bombings, IEDs, and foreign-inspired terrorist groups infesting entire cities, which are all too common in Iraq.

As Iraqi parliamentarians are not detonating themselves in protest or killing each other over political disputes, the explanation for the violence in Iraq must go beyond mere politics. Failure by the Iraqi government to achieve rapid political unity and success, as Levin and his colleagues demand, may cause political discord, but to assert that the war in Iraq centers on political issues is far too simplistic. Religious disputes, more than politics, fan the flames of disunity, but without the violent interference of terrorists pouring in from neighboring nations, Iraqis would be in a much better position to engage in political discourse. That is what we are trying to achieve in Iraq: Remove foreign influences and provide sufficient security and public safety to allow Iraqis to resolve their differences and govern themselves unhindered by neighboring nations.

The Iraqi people have already achieved something Americans have not yet accomplished. Iraqis have united in recognizing that their enemy is al Qaeda rather than each other. Sunni and Shiite Iraqis have joined together in driving al Qaeda out of entire provinces. In contrast, nearly thirty percent of Americans believe that the Bush administration rather than al Qaeda brought down the World Trade Center towers with pre-placed demolition charges. If recognizing who our real enemies are is a sign of national survival instinct, America is woefully lacking, while Iraqis appear capable of uniting when self-preservation is at stake.

Leave it to a career politician like Levin to overestimate politics as the solution to all of Iraq’s current ills while ignoring the critical need for public safety and security in what clearly is a military confrontation with terrorist groups funded, trained, and equipped outside of Iraq and inserted into that nation as a destabilizing influence. The Iraqi government will never succeed in its political duties or live up to Levin’s benchmarks for success until al Qaeda in Iraq and other terrorist insurgents are decisively defeated, disbanded, and their demise displayed to the world as a deterrent from further foreign treachery in Iraq.

That will only happen through victory by our troops there and continued strengthening of the Iraqi military. General Petraeus’s September report will demonstrate that the surge strategy is working, which should be received as welcome news by all Americans. All Americans that is, except for those who, like Harry Reid and his fellow party leaders, have already declared the surge a failure and the war lost. In Reid’s case, he has already determined that he will not believe anything Petraeus reports if it includes good news about the surge . There is an ironic oxymoron in the nation’s highest ranking liberal being so decidedly close-minded. Democratic abandonment of Petraeus and the surge was an abrupt and hypocritical change in Democratic “support” for both considering the fact that earlier this year the senate voted 81-0 to confirm him as the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq knowing precisely what his intended plan of action would be.

Over the next several weeks while congress enjoys its summer recess away from Washington, Americans will be bombarded by media reports of Levin’s “findings” from his current trip to Iraq. We will witness a carefully calculated misinformation campaign that Levin himself admits is meant to distract people from the substance of General Petraeus’ pending war report. When politicians work so hard to discredit a military report or minimize the attention given to it, it should peak our interest in what is reported and why one party’s anti-war base considers it “a big problem.”

Americans should respond by rejecting the misinformation ploys and reading every word of the report, making their own decisions as to its veracity and impact on public support for the war effort.

Technorati Tags:
General Petraeus, Carl Levin, James Clyburn, Surge Strategy, Iraq War, Misinformation, Surge Progress Report, Iraqi Government, Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Anti-War Democrats

Times Surge of Truth Refreshing

Stop the presses! The New York Times, far and away the most virulent anti-Bush, anti-war news organization in America, today published an Op/Ed piece that actually debunked that paper’s own daily headlines of doom and gloom news from Iraq.

In a contribution co-authored by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, Brookings Institution fellows and no fans of the Bush administration, the pair presented a region by region analysis of the results so far of General Petraeus’ surge strategy, which finally reached full operational strength in June. Congressional Democrats and defecting (perhaps defective?) Republicans call for troop withdrawals and insist that defeat is inevitable, but O’Hanlon and Pollack, who spent eight days meeting with troops, military leaders, and Iraqi leaders, came to a far different conclusion about progress in Iraq than Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and presidential candidate Barack Obama.

I recommend reading the Op/Ed piece in its entirety, as it contains descriptions of progress that never garner any attention from major media outlets bent on reporting only suicide bombings or IED incidents that add to the death toll. The cynical nature of Iraq War news reporting offered by the traditional networks belies the truth of what is actually occurring in Iraq’s cities and villages: The country is becoming more secure, and the U.S. military has been infused with high morale. The following analysis of conditions in Iraq will surprise the “impeach Bush” crowd, much as it did the authors themselves:

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.

We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul…. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside.

The authors rightfully conclude from their observations in Iraq that while Iraq’s government must achieve solidarity and work with more urgency for its own survival, the undeniable fact is that General Petraeus’ surge strategy is working, and working impressively. They further credit Petraeus for ending the “whack-a-mole” security situation in many parts of Iraq that existed previously. The “Whack-a-mole” issue has been a complaint of U.S. soldiers through much of the war, because regions were formerly only temporarily secured by minimum force levels, and once American troops moved on to other more intense fighting, insurgents and al-Qaeda recruits would pop up again in the previously secure areas. This usually meant that our troops would be forced to return and re-secure those areas. Under Petraeus’ leadership, regions are held until they are actually secure before troops move on to clear other regions of insurgents and terrorists.

Bush administration critics should consider that the results observed by these two Brookings fellows have occurred in a relatively short period, and are increasing in momentum now that the surge force has reached full staffing levels. War opponents were looking with eager anticipation for Petraeus’ surge report due in September. They were certain there would be ample evidence in the report to justify their advocacy of troop withdrawals by April 2008, however this early report of surge success, coming as it did from two consistent critics of President Bush’s handling of the Iraq War, should throw some much needed water on the “impeach Bush” bonfire.

The Times deserves praise for providing its readers with O’Hanlon’s and Pollack’s Op/Ed report of the successes of the surge thus far. Although the pair included a mild disclaimer that “victory” may not be possible, they clearly saw potential for a “sustainable stability.” Such an achievement of stability would indeed constitute victory, as stability would permit the Iraqis to solidify their democratically elected government and develop the resources needed to defend themselves from foreign influences with ulterior motives for Iraq’s future. A “sustained stability” would further alleviate the need for full U.S. troop deployment in Iraq, as our soldiers could eventually assume an advisory/training role rather than performing actual regional security sweeps.

Surge critics will find it increasingly difficult to justify their opposition to Petraeus and the Bush administration when similar reports of success become available in the media. Americans are confident of our armed forces and know that good news is always just around the corner when our soldiers are committed to action. The surge strategy appears to have helped the Iraqis turn some important corners, and they are now more actively engaged in their own security and counterterrorism operations than ever before. That is good news for America, Iraq, and the free world. Hopefully the Times will continue to search for and publish the successes of the surge strategy with fervor equal to its reports of perceived Bush administration failures.

Technorati Tags:
David Petraeus, Surge Strategy, Iraq War, Brookings Institution, Anbar Province, Surge Progress

Beware Iran's Left Hand if Shaking Right

No government engages in more doublespeak than the current Iranian regime. While shaking America’s right hand and agreeing to participate in a Regional Security Subcommittee with the U.S. and Iraq, Ahmadinejad’s administration holds a lethal weapon in its other hand. It is impossible to assign any credibility to Iran’s stated desire to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq while it simultaneously floods Iraq with weapons, IEDs, and terrorists using them to kill American troops and Iraqis. It is likewise impossible to place trust for cooperation in Iraq in a regime that flatly refuses to comply with UN resolutions and sanctions designed to halt its uranium enrichment efforts.

Iran’s offer to help broker security in Iraq is nothing more than a clever political feint clearly designed to soften international perceptions of Iran’s intentions in the region. If Iran can convince world leaders through its participation on a security subcommittee that it seeks peace and stability in the region, then its claims to a peaceful nuclear program developed only for power generation will appear less transparent. Our European allies are easily pacified by small gestures of cooperation, no matter how insincere those gestures may be, from Middle Eastern leaders. Saddam Hussein proved that conclusively by co-opting high ranking government officials in Germany, France, and Britain through cash and oil bribes. In exchange, these leaders softened their countries’ stances on enforcement of UN resolutions against Iraq’s pursuit of WMD.

Consider whether these words from a senior Iranian official, reported by the Guardian (UK) indicate any commitment to a peaceful and lawful end to Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons:

Tehran has made clear that it will not suspend enrichment as the UN security council has demanded, despite two earlier rounds of financial, travel and arms sanctions. A decision on a third round has been put off until September. "If there is another resolution, we will react with whatever we have," the senior official told western journalists. "So far we have answered legally, limiting [UN] inspections, and reducing cooperation with the IAEA within the legal framework.

"But if there is no legal option left, it is obvious we will be tempted to do illegal things. What is very important to us is our dignity, and we are prepared to act."

There will never be a stable Iraq as long as there is a radical, nuclear weapons-seeking regime on its border, pouring arms and terrorist expertise into the country. The danger from Iran is increased by the fact, as stated by this senior official, that Iran's dignity is at stake. To a regime that thrives on projecting an image of strength, defending dignity will likely require irrational actions. The major difference between the mullahs’ quest for nuclear weapons and Saddam Hussein’s similar effort to acquire WMD is religion. Saddam was a secular leader who sought ultimate weapons for the sheer exercise of power politics. The mullahs seek them for self-proclaimed apocalyptic use on Israel and the United States.

In our determination to stabilize Iraq and assure that its government is capable of providing defending itself, we must not lose sight of the greater danger posed by Iran. Though it would be an unpleasant situation, technically the U.S. could fight al Qaeda indefinitely in Iraq on a small scale, but if Iran’s uranium enrichment is not halted and its production facilities are not rendered inoperable, we will be fighting the same war for years to come but under the danger of nuclear attack from Iraq’s neighbor. Thus our war to provide Iraq with freedom and self-determination will have been for naught.

The Bush administration is right to argue that a stable Iraq is important to our national security, particularly in the long run, because it would establish a Muslim democracy and maintain America's image of strength in an area of the world that preys on perceived weakness. However, stabilizing Iraq should be a secondary priority to eliminating Iran’s supply stream of IEDs and arms into Iraq as well as its uranium enrichment recalcitrance. Since Iraq’s stability is codependent on Iran’s, our focus should be on stabilizing the one that is months away from possessing sufficient enriched uranium to produce its first nuclear weapon. Once that genie is out of the bottle, there will be no further opportunity to recapture it. Israeli intelligence clearly shares this assessment and may be forced to act unilaterally by the end of this year. It should not be forced to act alone. The UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty should be enforced aggressively by all who signed it.

Before the U.S. places any trust in Iran, Iran must be required to demonstrate responsibility on the world stage by immediately halting its uranium reduction efforts. Ahmadinejad is no fool. His new willingness to engage the U.S. in diplomacy over Iraq’s security is a calculated tactical move that provides him with the two most valuable things he needs to move his uranium enrichment to the point of no return: an international image of cooperation; and time.

As long as Iran appears cooperative on the issue of Iraq, it will be difficult for President Bush to make the case to the world that decisive action must be taken to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. The world will always call for new talks, further negotiations, and diplomatic solutions. At some point in coming months, while holding talks and negotiations, Iran will pass the point of no return in its uranium enrichment and the opportunity for action will have passed. Iran is counting on its Iraq cooperation smokescreen to obscure from view its true intentions, both in Iraq and in its nuclear facilities.

An Iranian gesture of “goodwill” in Iraq on the one hand must not be allowed to conceal or excuse the nuclear dagger it holds in the other. America should make no mistake as to where that dagger points.

Technorati Tags:
Iraq War, Iran, Regional Security Subcommittee, Ahmadinejad, Bush Administration, Uranium Enrichment, Diplomacy

Sleepless Senate Awakens Iraqi Unity

Forget democracy and Iraqi self-determination as motivating factors for reconciling the internal differences plaguing their parliament. It seems that all it took to accomplish such a feat was the mental image of Ted Kennedy or Harry Reid in pajamas. The all-night Senate slumber party this week to debate troop withdrawal from Iraq was reported with amusement and no shortage of mockery by the American media, and ultimately the amendment to withdraw U.S. troops by April 2008 went down to inglorious defeat. Senator Levin (D-MI) argued at length that the Iraqis simply had not done enough to secure their own country, and virtually every Democrat who participated in the amendment debate cited Iraqi internal divisions and "civil war" as the primary reasons to withdraw American troops from the conflict. I disagree completely with those characterizations of the situation in Iraq, but perhaps the Democrats' emotional anti-Iraqi rhetoric lighted a few fires under certain factions within Iraq's parliament.

It may just be coincidence, but perhaps Iraqi parliamentarians, surely watching the captivating "Sleepless in the Senate" production via satellite, took note that while this particular troop withdrawal amendment failed passage in the Senate, others are sure to follow. They likely realized that the only way to blunt the criticism was to demonstrate unity in purpose among Shi'ite and Sunni members of parliament. That is one possible explanation for a news report Thursday that should have been heralded in the media as a great breakthrough in Iraq but was largely relegated to obscurity through beneath the fold attention. Credit Reuters for placing the headline "Sunni Bloc Ends Boycott of Iraqi Parliament" as the lead international news story at Reuters.com for a few hours Thursday.

Reuters reported that Sunni Arabs, who had staged a boycott of the Iraqi parliament since June, decided Thursday to end the boycott and work with the majority Shi'ite bloc to work on "very important legislation." The Sunni Arabs constitute 44 of the 275 seats in Iraq's parliament, making the passage of legislation without that bloc a difficult task that has bogged down Iraq's legislative attempts at unity. When combined with 30 Shi'ite followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who ended their boycott of parliament earlier this week, the end result was that 74 disgruntled Iraqis of varying religious sentiments returned to parliament to rebut accusations from the House and Senate that unity of Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis is not possible.

In typical fashion, the Washington Post determined that this effort at reconciliation might bring good news from Iraq and hope for its future, and the Post immediately buried the Reuters wire story at the bottom of its online front page, where only avid news observers might stumble upon it. It is sadly ironic that the main reason given in the Senate Sleepover for withdrawing our troops was that Iraq is engulfed in a hopeless "civil war," yet when Iraq's minority members of parliament set aside their differences with the majority and vowed to work together to secure Iraq's sovereignty and security, neither the Democrats in Congress nor the liberal media wanted to give that sign of progress any meaningful attention. Clearly, while they waxed philosophical (Sen. Schumer, D-NY) or emotional (Sen. Kennedy) about the "quagmire" in Iraq, none had any sincere desire for an actual reconciliation of Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq. The prospect that President Bush might be right about the instinctive human thirst for freedom in Iraq was just too politically frightening for the chorus of critics to consider or patiently nurture.

The Iraqi government still faces rough seas ahead, but at least now it will face challenges with a full complement of Shi'ite and Sunni leaders who presently appear committed to proving the sleep-deprived Senate critics wrong. Yet as the Senate Snoozefest demonstrated, if our Congress actually put in the kind of work hours that most Americans do each week, the number of world crises they could solve, even in their pajamas, would be impressive.

Photo Credit: McClatchey Washington Bureau

Technorati Tags:
Senate, Iraqi Parliament, Sunni, Shia, Boycott, Troop Withdrawal, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Moqtada al-Sadr

NIE Shows CIA, State in Denial on Iran

Portions of the much anticipated new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) will be released to the public today, and finally average citizens will get a clear view of the end product funded by their taxes. After more than two years of meetings, conferences, briefings, draft sessions, and revisions, the American intelligence agencies’ NIE concludes only that there is no consensus between them on very fundamental issues. The “major points” made by the report are truly shocking revelations that no one outside of an intelligence agency could possibly have concluded without all of that specialized training and experience (sarcasm off):

-Al Qaeda is still trying to get its hands on a variety of WMDs and, gasp, would use them if it possessed them.

-Al Qaeda has regrouped and restored most of the ingredients necessary to launch a major terrorist attack against the U.S. homeland.

-Al Qaeda, another gasp, is working hard to place operatives in the U.S.

-The U.S. faces “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat” for at least the next three years. The predicted main sources for that threat are, third gasp, Islamic terrorist groups, particularly Al Qaeda. The threat to the U.S. comes from “the undiminished intent to attack the homeland and a continued effort by terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities.”

Of course, NIE summaries released to the public are sanitized of any classified information or source references, but the level of sanitization for this NIE is insulting to Americans who do not have access to the full report. Capital Cloak readers are intelligent and interested in matters of national security and intelligence. You did not need the NIE, representing millions of dollars and thousands of hours of research, to tell you what you already knew: Islamic terrorists want to kill Americans in America with any weapon they can acquire. In my profession, we knew these things long before 9/11, and anyone who did not learn these lessons after 9/11 continues to live in a fantasy world of “if we leave them alone they will leave us alone.” What then was the purpose of the NIE and all of the media hoopla surrounding it?

Like most NIE’s, the one released today contains the official conclusions of the sixteen agencies that comprise the intelligence community. If nothing else, NIE’s offer a glimpse at the functionality and ideology of each agency, and often the gulf between certain agencies are nowhere more clearly demonstrated than in these documents. Sometimes inter-agency disagreements are little more than technical trivia, but disputes also can create institutional paralysis. When several major agencies offer divergent opinions of the same issue, it leaves the executive and legislative branches that rely on those opinions for policy decision-making in a difficult position. Unfortunately, as the NY Sun reported today, the new NIE includes a critical point of disagreement between agencies on what is likely the most important issue currently facing America: Iran.

Despite clear and increasing evidence that al Qaeda’s resurgence is occurring not only in Pakistan’s mountains but also in Iran, analysts within the State Department and CIA argue in the new NIE that Iran’s Quds Force, terrorist special forces units designed to support terror operations and report directly to Iran’s supreme leader, are acting independently of Iran’s official government in their funding, equipping, and transporting al Qaeda terrorists who have attacked and continue to attack American troops in Iraq. According to these two agencies, the simple fact that Iran is a Shia nation while al Qaeda is run by radical Sunnis makes collaboration between the two groups against a common enemy unlikely if not impossible. They appear convinced that Iran’s government is not giving orders to the Quds Force to assist al Qaeda terrorists with their fight against the U.S. in Iraq.

That conclusion is incredibly short-sighted and narrow-minded. It is true that al Qaeda’s Sunnis view Iran’s Shia population as “infidels” under a technical Koranic interpretation, but the differences between the two are far easier to overcome than the religious and cultural divide between Islam and non-Islamic nations and cultures. Thus it is far more logical to conclude that Shia-Sunni collaboration against the West is not only possible but extremely likely, and if the combined effort succeeds in defeating Western cultures, these two differing branches of Islam could then turn their attentions or contentions to each other. But don’t try to convince anyone at State or the CIA, they are convinced that the two are not capable of working together. Extending that flawed logic to its equally flawed conclusion, these two departments apparently believe that Sunni terrorists would refuse to join with Shia terrorists in a war against Israel. It is much more logical to conclude that branches of the same religion would gladly join hands and martyr themselves in a war against the U.S. or Israel, as doing so is necessary to bringing about their ultimate goal: a global Islamic state under Sharia law.

National Review’s Michael Ledeen nicely countered the flawed thinking behind the estimate that the Quds Force acts independently:

Instead, every new revelation about Iran’s role in the terror war is greeted with the pathetic mantra “but this does not prove that the regime itself is involved.” As if General Suleimani of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force would dare launch operation after operation against us in Iraq without the explicit approval of his commander-in-chief, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Do our analysts not know that the Revolutionary Guards were created for the explicit purpose of responding to the whims of the Supreme Leader? Whenever the Guards move, they do so precisely because “the regime” has willed it.

While Americans should be insulted by the common sense vanilla plainness of the public portions of the new NIE, we should also be concerned that two of the most influential agencies in any administration, the CIA and State Department, refuse to recognize that the Defense Department, which has infinitely more sources of information in the region at this time, is warning that Iran, despite a doctrinal religious difference with al Qaeda Sunnis, is actively supporting the terrorists in Iraq and killing our troops. Iranian weaponry and explosives are found in ever-increasing numbers within Iraq. Those weapons and IEDs did not leave Iranian supply facilities on their own or without the approval of Iran’s government.

The liberal media jumped out in front of this issue long ago, accusing the Bush administration and specifically Vice President Cheney, of pushing for action against Iran, branding such recommendations as “war mongering.” Yet it should be noted that counterterrorism expert and bitter Bush critic Richard Clarke’s deputy Roger Cressey told the NY Sun that when President Bush took the fight to the Taliban after 9/11, al Qaeda relocated its operational centers to two areas: Pakistan and Iran. Cressey described known meetings and meet locations of al Qaeda leaders in Iran and made it quite clear that the Shia Iranian government had no qualms about allowing and even embracing al Qaeda within its borders because they share common enemies, the U.S. and Israel. Those who casually toss out accusations like “war mongering” should remember that it was the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report, highly revered in liberal circles, that first reported publicly Iranian ties and assistance to eight of the 9/11 hijackers, with Iran’s government offering them passage into and out of Afghanistan.

What liberal critics and apparently the CIA and State Department fail to grasp is the concept of war. They mistakenly sit idly by, tinkering with foreign policy “solutions,” waiting for Iran to formally declare war on the U.S., and only then will they choose to recognize war-like behaviors for what they are and recommend decisive action to defend America. Unfortunately, the days of nations notifying each other through declarations of war are long gone, and whether or not State and CIA officials recognize it, Iran is conducting a war against the U.S., allowing well funded proxies to fight it for them. Another term for such proxies is mercenaries, and even liberals cannot deny that England’s employment of Hessian mercenaries against America in the Revolutionary War did not make Hessians responsible for the war itself. While Iran’s proxies kill our troops with no repercussions resulting for the mullahs, Iran continues to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons production with no intention of stopping or being induced to stop by sanctions or other diplomatic methods.

In war, there is logic behind meeting the enemy on a “neutral” battlefield. In this case, Iran is taking the fight to us in Iraq, attempting (very half-heartedly) to conceal its involvement, while making sure that Iraqi, not Iranian, citizens are killed in the battles and crossfire. At some point, however, defeating an enemy requires destroying his resources, production capabilities, and governmental centers. This is why it is so critical that the U.S. remain and stabilize Iraq; victory there will set the stage for the coming conflict with the world’s largest state sponsor of terror and soon to be its number one WMD threat.

The boots on the ground in Iraq insist that Iran is already at war with us. Hopefully the CIA and State Department will come to recognize this fact instead of holding tenaciously to the ridiculous notion that differing Islamic radicals groups cannot work together to hasten our demise.

Technorati Tags:
NIE, National Intelligence Estimate, Iran, Quds Force, Al Qaeda, Islamic Terrorists, CIA, State Department, 9/11 Commission

Colin Powell's Oscar-Worthy UN Iraq Act

Colin Powell, once the military name most respected by everyday Americans, is becoming increasingly synonymous with Hillary Clinton's well earned moniker of “America’s Greatest Iraq Monday Morning Quarterback.” Hillary, who joined her husband in condemning Saddam Hussein and claiming that nothing short of military action would remove the threat he posed to the world, voted to authorize President Bush’s decision to act militarily to disarm and remove Hussein from power. Now that she is running for the Democratic nomination in a party largely controlled by MoveOn.org and other radical anti-war groups, however, Hillary made the outrageously disingenuous claim that “if she knew then what she knows now,” as president in 2003 she never would have authorized a war in Iraq. The accounts of Hillary’s pre-war and pre-2006 press conferences and Senate speeches are legion, and they all contain a shared theme: Saddam possessed WMD, was unstable, and the security of the United States and the Middle East demanded that action be taken against him due to his continued violation of UN resolutions. The Monday morning quarterbacking Hillary now employs in her harangues against the Bush administration’s Iraq War policies is hypocritical but not surprising from the presidential candidate looking to establish ideological roots wherever fertile political soil is found, but Monday morning quarterbacking about the invasion of Iraq now made public by Colin Powell was less expected and in some ways more bereft of character than Hillary’s hypocrisies.

Hillary is a power-coveting politician, and as such her approach to support or opposition to the Iraq War vacillates depending on which way the political wind blows each day. This is not to suggest that her Gumby-like stretching into publicly desired positions is right, but rather it is expected. Colin Powell, on the other hand, as former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and an integral figure in the previous Gulf War to contain Saddam’s aggressions, was considered by many to be a man of honor, integrity, and military expertise. However, his Monday morning quarterbacking of the president’s Iraq War decision as reported in yesterday’s UK Sunday Times revealed a level of hypocrisy previously unknown to the American public. From the UK Times story:

THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.

“I tried to avoid this war,” Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. “I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.”

Powell has become increasingly outspoken about the level of violence in Iraq, which he believes is in a state of civil war. “The civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms,” he said. “It’s not going to be pretty to watch, but I don’t know any way to avoid it. It is happening now.”

He added: “It is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States.” All the military could do, Powell suggested, was put “a heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew”.

…According to Powell: “We have to face the reality of the situation that is on the ground and not what we would want it to be.” He believes that, even if the military surge has been a partial success in areas such as Anbar province, where Sunni tribes have turned on Al-Qaeda, it has not been accompanied by the vital political and economic “surge” and reconciliation process promised by the Iraqi government.

The assertion that Powell tried valiantly to avoid the war by talking President Bush out of an invasion is, to say the least, difficult to swallow. If Powell’s statement in Colorado was true, then perhaps Powell could explain what arm-twisting or blackmail was employed to force him into personally appearing before the UN Security Council in February 2003 as Secretary of State to present the administration’s case for war against Saddam Hussein. If Powell felt so strongly that invading Iraq was a mistake at the time, why is it that only now, after 4 years of a war he lent his personal credibility to in order to garner international support, does Powell mention that he was actually opposed to the war before it began? Who can forget the mountains of evidence Powell brought to bear in support of war against Saddam? Surveillance photos of WMD sites, recorded testimony of intelligence sources, financial transaction records revealing weapons funding in violation of UN resolutions while starving Iraqis received none of the food assistance the UN funds were supposed to purchase under the “Oil for Food” program. The list of documents brought to bear is staggering, and Powell eloquently explained the danger to the world that would result from allowing Saddam to ignore UN resolutions and continue his quest for WMD.

Powell’s case was so compelling that a coalition of allies voted to support the invasion and lent proportional military support. So credible was Powell’s UN testimony that Democrats and Republicans, reviewing the same intelligence data, voted overwhelmingly to authorize the invasion, with much bipartisan pontification about the potential threat to the world from Saddam’s WMD ambitions. Powell’s recent claim that he tried in vain to prevent the war lacks any corroborative evidence to support it. If Powell was as morally opposed to invasion as he now claims, then his performance at the UN Security Council was Oscar-worthy. A stronger case has never been made for war by someone who allegedly opposed it.

For the complete text of Powell’s testimony to the UN Security Council, click here. The following are brief selected excerpts from Powell’s command performance. Decide for yourselves if these were the words of a man who supposedly tried hard to talk the president out of war with Iraq:

The material I will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are U.S. sources. And some are those of other countries. Some of the sources are technical, such as intercepted telephone conversations and photos taken by satellites. Other sources are people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to.

…I cannot tell you everything that we know. But what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling....

…Everything we have seen and heard indicates that, instead of cooperating actively with the inspectors to ensure the success of their mission, Saddam Hussein and his regime are busy doing all they possibly can to ensure that inspectors succeed in finding absolutely nothing.

My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources.

…Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors.

…Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries.

…Iraq has now placed itself in danger of the serious consequences called for in U.N. Resolution 1441. And this body places itself in danger of irrelevance if it allows Iraq to continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately.

…We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression, given what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist associations and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time and the place and in the manner of his choosing at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond?

The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world.

It is equally curious that, if Powell’s new claim is to be believed, he was not convinced by the military and intelligence data he personally presented to the UN Security Council. One wonders what further evidence Powell wanted in order to quell his supposedly troubled conscience on the issue of invasion. How many UN resolution violations was Powell willing to tolerate? How many satellite images of WMD storage and production facilities did he need to convince him that action was needed? It is telling that Powell offered no explanation for why he allegedly opposed the invasion, limiting his condemnation of the Iraq War to the current results rather than the situation and available information at the time the decision to invade was reached. Perhaps it speaks volumes about Powell’s lack of qualifications for high office that allegedly he alone was unconvinced by overwhelming intelligence data from virtually every international agency. It is the ultimate Monday morning quarterbacking for Powell to look at today’s news reports from Iraq and claim that he foresaw the current situation and if only the president had listened to Powell, the violence and casualties could have been avoided.

There were many options available to Powell once he allegedly realized he could not change the president’s mind. He could have spoken to a reporter on condition of anonymity and leaked the story of his own opposition to the invasion and kept his job as Secretary of State. He could have resigned as Secretary of State in protest and made it clear to the press and public why he was resigning. Even later, when he resigned long after the invasion, he cited personal reasons like family time for his decision rather than publicly challenge a decision to invade a foreign nation. Instead, Powell mounted no principled opposition to a plan he claims to have argued against. Where is the integrity and honor in that?

The UK Times pointed out that Powell has consulted twice with the Barack Obama campaign, and that Obama’s position on an immediate withdrawal from Iraq has been revised to more closely dovetail with Hillary’s desired gradual troop force reductions. It is telling that Powell, who claims to have attempted to talk President Bush out of invading Iraq, is not counseling Obama to demand an immediate and complete removal of U.S. troops from Iraq. If the invasion was a mistake, as Powell allegedly asserted to the president already in 2002-2003, then why is Powell not recommending a complete reversal of the decision by “bringing the troops home” as quickly as possible? Certainly the anti-war wing of Obama’s party demands this, so why counsel the young, inexperienced Senator to call for gradual troop reductions or redeployment in the region?

While Powell uses clever language in describing the U.S. military effort in Iraq as putting “a heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew,” Americans should keep in mind that Powell agreed to lend his personal credibility to placing the stew on the stove and turning up the heat when he presented the government’s case for war in Iraq. He should apply his own words when it comes to his claim that he tried to prevent the war and put a lid on it.

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Colin Powell, Hillary Clinton, Iraq War, Monday Morning Quarterback, War Opposition, UN Security Council, Saddam Hussein, War Critics, Bush Administration

Bomb Doctors Sign of Radicalism's Reach

What would you think if, while conversing with an Iraqi Sunni sheikh at a meeting of sheikhs attempting to broker “peace” in Iraq, he began spewing a litany of anti-American rhetoric, warned you that militants would expand their operations to include direct attacks on Britain and America, and further warned you that “those who cure you will kill you?” Would that last phrase stand out in your mind? What would you conclude that the sheikh meant by his comment about “those who cure?”

You don’t have to be an intelligence specialist or counterterrorism expert to take the sheikh’s warning at face value and put two and two together, but apparently British Anglican cleric Canon Andrew White had difficulty seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. Instead of reporting the verbatim warning to the British Foreign Office in April, when the disturbing conversation occurred, White left out the statement “those who cure you will kill you,” and merely told authorities of the anti-American rhetoric at the meeting, warning in generic terms only that militants were going to target America and Britain directly.

White has received recognition from coalition forces in Iraq for his work among Iraqis and attempts to reconcile the various religious factions there. He was no stranger to radical ideology, having witnessed its brutality firsthand, and that is why it was stunning that he did not recognize the sheikh’s comments as a reference to doctors. White deserves standard kudos for reporting what little he did report to the British Foreign Office at the time, but unfortunately it took failed car bombings in London and Glasgow last week, and the subsequent arrests of 8 doctors, medical students, and laboratory technicians in Britain for it to dawn on White what the sheikh’s warning actually meant and to go public with his “discovery.” There is no question that had White shared the sheikh’s precise phrase with government authorities in April, British intelligence would have begun immediately to inquire with its informants about doctors or others in the medical profession and may very well have detected the London-Glasgow plot before its unsuccessfully execution last week.

The UK Telegraph reported today that the post-attack investigation has revealed that a group of 45 Muslim doctors may have participated in an extremist Internet chat room as long as three years ago in which they threatened to use car bombs to attack targets in the United States. One can only imagine how deeply British or American intelligence/counterterrorism agencies might have penetrated, or how closely they could have monitored such a group of doctors had they known of its existence as early as April of this year, when White first received an explicit warning about “those who cure.”

Yesterday I asked my wife, an astute thinker in her own right but who had not heard any coverage of White’s restored memory, to imagine what she would conclude if an anti-American Islamic sheikh told her “those who cure you will kill you.” She replied that not only would she immediately think of doctors, but that her concern would focus not on car bombs but rather on chemical/biological attacks that could be launched quietly through unsuspecting patients by doctors with access to biological and radiological materials. She was thinking of pandemics or radiation poisonings caused by doctors in whom Americans (or the British) would have placed their implicit trust for routine treatment, a much more frightening prospect than propane tank car bombs. Considering the large number of Muslim doctors in the United States, particularly in the Washington, DC area, it is possible that patients may reconsider their choice of doctor with the revelations of willing terrorists among the ranks of Muslim medical personnel in the west.

American and British Muslim physicians and medical staff may chafe at the suspicion and patient cancellations that are sure to come on the heels of current investigations into the London-Glasgow terror doctors. They may consider it unfair and unwarranted, but moderate Muslims, including respected physicians and other successful Muslim professionals, need to purge their own ranks of extremists like the eight medical personnel arrested since Friday’s initial botched bombing. Radio personality Fred Grandy posed a timely question to Muslims during the “Grandy and Andy Morning Show” today: “Where is the anti-Bin Laden? Where is the anti-al Zawahiri?” He explained that the world is mesmerized by each new videotaped statement by Bin Laden, but there is no corresponding moderate Muslim leader to issue rebuttals to Bin Laden or condemn his rhetoric and offer a better alternative for impressionable Muslims throughout the world.

The arrested doctors in Britain illustrate an important truth of radical Islam: it is not limited in social or educational status and has quiet support even among those who are supposedly dedicated to preserving life. It has followers in every profession, in every walk of life. When doctors, well-educated and engaged in a lucrative profession, are willing to throw away years of training and achievement by risking detonating themselves along with hundreds of innocent British or American citizens, radical Islam demonstrates the expanse of its reach and indoctrinating power. In its appeal to base human impulse, radicalism is more compelling than reason.

In an interesting concluding paragraph to its report of cleric White’s hindsight, CNN unintentionally published a compelling argument for America to remain engaged in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries until Islamic terrorists are dealt an ultimately fatal blow. Whether it meant to or not, CNN supported President Bush’s premise that “we are fighting the terrorists over there so we won’t have to fight them here.” From CNN’s report:

According to officials, there has been long-standing concern that Iraq is a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists who have been testing tactics of urban warfare, which can then be used in Western nations.

Terrorism analyst Marco Vicenzino, the director of the Global Strategy Project, says the world could be seeing a shift in jihadist tactics.

Confident after wounding the United States and its allies in Iraq, jihadists "are determined to take their combat experience directly to the superpower and its allies at home and around the world," Vicenzino said.

If the jihadists are “confident” after wounding the U.S. in Iraq, then it stands to reason that America’s response to a wounding should not be retreat, withdrawal, or “redeployment,” as Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and other prominent Democrats have euphemistically recommended. Rather than allow an emboldened enemy to be confident, grow stronger, and launch widespread attacks, the enemy must be defeated and discouraged from ever attempting to “wound” America again. If they are determined, we must be doubly so. If they are confident of eventual victory, we must deny them of achieving it by dealing them defeat and crushing their capacity to strike us. If radical Islam is a disease slowly consuming the world even through the assistance of professional healers, and moderate Islam will not treat the disease devouring its ranks, who then holds the cure?

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Muslim Doctors, London Car Bombs, Radical Islam, Terrorism, Fred Grandy, Canon Andrew White, Iraq War, Muslim Medical Students, Moderate Muslims, Jihad