The second war-funding bill

Outlines and trial balloons have begun appearing as the White House -- represented by three senior aides -- and Congress begin negotiating a compromise following Tuesday's veto of the previous bill.

Democrats started out, unsurprisingly, by dropping the timetables that most irked President Bush. But other options are being considered.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) indicated that the next bill will include benchmarks for Iraq -- such as passing a law to share oil revenue, quelling religious violence and disarming sectarian militias -- to keep its government on course. Failure to meet benchmarks could cost Baghdad billions of dollars in nonmilitary aid, and the administration would be required to report to Congress every 30 days on the military and political situation in Iraq.

There's bipartisan backing for something along those lines, even among Republicans who voted against the first bill.

By the way, you've got to love the White House response: They're okay with benchmarks, as long as there are no penalties for missing them -- only rewards for meeting them. Once again, the administration demonstrates its congenital opposition to even the most rudimentary forms of accountability.

I'm all for positive reinforcement. But given that we're already pouring money and blood into Iraq, there has to be some negative reinforcement as well. Otherwise the Iraqi government can do absolutely nothing and nothing happens: They still get the money and blood.

I really wish the world worked the way Bush thinks it does. "If you run this business well and make it successful, you'll get a $10 million bonus! If you run it into the ground, you'll have to make do on your $2 million salary."

Anyway, that wish won't fly in Congress. Hard benchmarks apparently have the support of large numbers of moderates in both parties, enough to make up for the most liberal members who will oppose the new bill on the grounds that it doesn't go far enough.

Also under consideration is the proposal I predicted: a measure to fund the war through July or so, but cut off funding unless benchmarks are met. The Senate supports funding through September, but the basic idea is the same: a short-term funding bill now, and a long-term bill in the fall only if we see progress from both the surge and the Iraqi government.

It'll be interesting to see what Bush's reaction will be to either proposal. But I like the Democratic options. I'm okay with hard benchmarks, funding only through September, or a combination of the above. And I hope they keep the waivable readiness requirements for our troops. The more they make Bush face up to the damage being done by the war, and the lack of progress therein, the better.

And if Bush actually pulls this off -- the surge works, the Iraqis suddenly get serious about governing -- he can make the Democrats dance naked on hot coals while getting slapped with ostrich feathers by the D.C. madame's fantasy sex squad.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Bush vetoes war appropriation bill

As expected, Bush today vetoed a timetable-laden war-funding measure -- four years to the day after his infamous "Mission Accomplished" photo-op on board an aircraft carrier, where he declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq.

Here's his statement, and here's the response from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Bush laid it on thick. While correctly criticizing the hard October 1 deadline, he then moved briskly on to scaremongering.

It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing. All the terrorists would have to do is mark their calendars and gather their strength -- and begin plotting how to overthrow the government and take control of the country of Iraq. I believe setting a deadline for withdrawal would demoralize the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East, and send a signal that America will not keep its commitments. Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure -- and that would be irresponsible.

First, we could only wish that the insurgents would stop the attacks and sit back for six months "gathering strength." That would give us the time we need to establish actual security and rebuild infrastructure.

Second, he conflates Sunni insurgents with "terrorists", as if Al-Qaeda -- which represents a tiny and resented fragment of that insurgency -- actually stands a chance of taking over Iraq. Not even the Sunnis stand much chance of doing that. So I guess by "terrorists taking over Iraq" he means "Shiite militias backed by the Iraqi government."

He then gripes about the restrictions on U.S. troop deployment following the withdrawal:

After forcing most of our troops to withdraw, the bill would dictate the terms on which the remaining commanders and troops could engage the enemy. That means American commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.

Again, this is patent nonsense. All the bill does is something that is well within Congress' purview: define the scope of the mission it is choosing to fund. You can disagree with that definition, but painting it as micromanaging makes little sense. Congress is simply defining the mission, not dictating how to accomplish that mission.

Lastly, he (rightly) criticizes the pork larding the bill, for which Democrats should be ashamed.

He then goes on to explain why the surge deserves time to show it can work, something I again agree with him on. But in so doing he uses carefully parsed language to imply that Al-Qaeda is a major part of the threat in Iraq instead of a minor part. For instance, he said: "It's true that not everyone taking innocent life in Iraq wants to attack America here at home. But many do." This implies that most -- but not all -- of the insurgents are terrorists, which simply isn't true.

Other than that, he gave no indication of where he might be willing to compromise with Congress on a bill. Not that I really expected him to -- that will wait for the closed-door negotiations. But I would like some indication that he has abandoned the "my way or the highway" approach to negotiations that has been his hallmark for most of his presidency.

On the other side of the argument, Reid said nothing of import. I'm growing less and less impressed by him. He alternates between saying and doing very little and saying and doing stupid things, not to mention the ethical and legal questions surrounding some of his business dealings back home.

Pelosi, however, was forceful and clear.

The president vetoed the bill outright, and, frankly, misrepresented what this legislation does. This bill supports the troops. In fact, it gives the president more than he asked for for our troops -- and well they deserve it.

They have done their duties excellently. They have done everything that has been asked of them. All of this without, in some cases, the training, the equipment, and a plan for success for them.

The president wants a blank check. The Congress is not going to give it to him.

Score one for the Speaker.

Democrats, too, gave no indication of where they might compromise. Look for intense private discussions accompanied by vituperative public statements, and then a funding deal in the next week or so. Most observers agree that getting a bill passed by mid-May is the only way to prevent a major cramp in military operations. Neither side wants that to happen, and they especially don't want to be seen as the party responsible for that happening. For now I stand by my prediction that Congress will pass a "clean" but very short-term bill -- perhaps with minor and largely symbolic strings, like the waivable readiness requirement -- then revisit the matter in the fall as the results of the surge become clear.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

... and it's botched execution

In the post before this one, I discuss George Tenet's book outlining the administration's rush to invade Iraq.

As a companion piece, an Army light colonel, Paul Yingling, has an article in Armed Forces Journal that essentially accuses our generals as a group of committing incompetence in Iraq.

As far as describing history and current conditions, there's not a whole lot in the article that hasn't been said elsewhere. What makes it powerful is the person saying it and the venue he's saying it in (Go here for a military interview with him on his experiences in Iraq. The link takes you to an abstract; click "access item" to read the pdf of the interview).

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

On Iraq specifically, he argues that the generals failed to "transform" the military in the 1990s, as they said they would, continuing to pursue a Cold War model of interstate warfare even as they were increasingly embroiled in counterinsurgency and stability operations.

Then, having built the wrong military, they used it badly. Here Yingling echos (and actually cites) Gen. Eric Shinseki, in noting that we committed far fewer troops to the occupation than we knew were needed based on prior experience. He castigates the generals for expressing reservations about those troop levels privately but not publicly.

They then made it worse.

inept planning for postwar Iraq took the crisis caused by a lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. In 1997, the U.S. Central Command exercise "Desert Crossing" demonstrated that many postwar stabilization tasks would fall to the military. The other branches of the U.S. government lacked sufficient capability to do such work on the scale required in Iraq. Despite these results, CENTCOM accepted the assumption that the State Department would administer postwar Iraq. The military never explained to the president the magnitude of the challenges inherent in stabilizing postwar Iraq.

After failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America's generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency theory prescribes providing continuous security to the population. However, for most of the war American forces in Iraq have been concentrated on large forward-operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents. Counterinsurgency theory requires strengthening the capability of host-nation institutions to provide security and other essential services to the population. America's generals treated efforts to create transition teams to develop local security forces and provincial reconstruction teams to improve essential services as afterthoughts, never providing the quantity or quality of personnel necessary for success.

After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public. The Iraq Study Group concluded that "there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq."

There's more, including outlining a process to find and promote the generals we need, not the generals we have. Read the article, and then go to the second link above to add some context. For instance, Yingling's article is merely a public example of a sharp split between younger and older officers in the military:

Many majors and lieutenant colonels have privately expressed anger and frustration with the performance of Gen. Tommy R. Franks, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and other top commanders in the war, calling them slow to grasp the realities of the war and overly optimistic in their assessments.

Some younger officers have stated privately that more generals should have been taken to task for their handling of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, news of which broke in 2004. The young officers also note that the Army's elaborate "lessons learned" process does not criticize generals and that no generals in Iraq have been replaced for poor battlefield performance, a contrast to other U.S. wars.

Top Army officials are also worried by the number of captains and majors choosing to leave the service. "We do have attrition in those grade slots above our average," acting Army Secretary Pete Geren noted in congressional testimony this week. In order to curtail the number of captains leaving, he said, the Army is planning a $20,000 bonus for those who agree to stay in, plus choices of where to be posted and other incentives.

This is why the military cannot afford to protect generals that don't deserve it: because doing so will prompt many of their most competent officers to leave, the military equivalent of eating your seed corn.

An interesting question is whether Iraq should be blamed or thanked for exposing this schism. On the one hand, if Yingling's viewpoint is the accurate one, the war has been disastrously mismanaged. On the other hand, if the problem is structural we can be glad that we found out about it through a relatively minor entanglement like Iraq and not something more serious, giving us a chance to fix the problem before we face a truly existential test.

Me, I tend to take a sanguine view of such things. We had the same problem in World War II: an officer corps that had evolved for success in peacetime, which usually demands different skills (like, say, a talent for bureaucratic infighting) than those needed for success in wartime. In World War II, the problem was handled through a combination of cashiering incompetents and the simple math of ballooning the military from a few hundred thousand souls to multiple millions, thus diluting the influence of the desktop warriors.

While I think the modern military is more professional and combat-oriented than the pre-World War II version, it still suffers from many of the same problems. On top of that, with Iraq there was no massive expansion, so we fought the war with the existing officer corps; and it was overseen by the Bush administration, so there was no serious accountability. Plus there was no sense of urgency, as I've noted in previous screeds here and here.

Yingling's article is part of the standard learning curve for the military. We prepare for the last war, get surprised by the next one, muddle through in denial for a while, and then partway through start hammering the new reality home. It may be too late to apply the lessons to Iraq itself, but they should be heeded in order to prepare us for the war after that.

military, Yingling, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Senate passes war-funding bill

As expected, the Senate passed the timetable-laden war-funding measure. It now goes to Bush for an almost-certain veto. After which the real politicking starts.

A foretaste:

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said Democrats were still considering what to do after Bush's veto. One option would be funding the war through September as Bush wants but setting benchmarks that the Iraqi government must meet, he said.

Murtha chairs the House panel that oversees military funding.

"I think everything that passes will have some sort of condition (placed) on it," he said. Ultimately, Murtha added, the 2008 military budget considered by Congress in June "is where you'll see the real battle," he said.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

House OKS troop withdrawal bill

The House has passed the conference committee version of the war-funding bill, complete with veto-attracting timetables. Two Republicans voted for the bill. 13 Democrats voted against -- six of them because it didn't go far enough. It goes to the Senate tomorrow, and could hit Bush's desk by Monday. If it reaches his desk: he might just scrawl "return to sender" across the front and give it back to the Congressional courier.

The details for the curious:

The bill passed yesterday sets strict requirements for resting, training and equipping troops but would grant the president the authority to waive those restrictions, as long as he publicly justifies the waivers. The bill also establishes benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet: Create a program to disarm militias, reduce sectarian violence, ease rules that purged the government of all former Baath Party members and approve a law on sharing oil revenue.

Unless the Bush administration determines by July 1 that those benchmarks are being met, troops would begin coming home immediately, with a goal of completing those withdrawals by the end of the year. If benchmarks are being met, troops would begin coming home no later than Oct. 1, with a goal of completing the troop pullout by April 1.

After combat forces are withdrawn, some troops could remain to protect U.S. facilities and diplomats, pursue terrorist organizations, and train and equip Iraqi security forces.

As well, Congress killed some of the $20 billion in pork they had padded the legislation with. They should have killed it all, especially given that Bush's promised veto makes it moot. Pork greases the wheels of politics, but $20 billion is just obscene.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

"Training Iraqi troops no longer the top priority"

Say what?

Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.

Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.

No change has been announced, and a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Gary Keck, said training Iraqis remains important. "We are just adding another leg to our mission," Keck said, referring to the greater U.S. role in establishing security that new troops arriving in Iraq will undertake.

But evidence has been building for months that training Iraqi troops is no longer the focus of U.S. policy. Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq. The officials spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to discuss the policy shift publicly. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made no public mention of training Iraqi troops on Thursday during a visit to Iraq.

Okay, on the one hand, there is less here than meets the eye. We're still training them; we've just shifted top priority to the "surge" and U.S. combat operations.

But consider this:

In nearly every area where Iraqi forces were given control, the security situation rapidly deteriorated. The exceptions were areas dominated largely by one sect and policed by members of that sect....

Earlier this month, U.S. forces engaged in heavy fighting in the southern city of Diwaniyah after Iraqi forces, who'd been given control of the region in January 2006, lost control of the city.

Also consider the "our strategy sucked" revelation implicit in the following paragraphs:

Casey's "mandate was transition. General Petraeus' mandate is security. It is a change based on conditions. Certain conditions have to be met for the transition to be successful. Security is part of that. And General Petraeus recognizes that," said Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group in charge of supporting trained Iraqi forces.

Um, didn't we have that exactly backwards? Shouldn't we have established security first, then begun the transition? Four years later, we're back to square one.

I suppose you can still blame Democrats:

Military officials say there's no doubt that the November U.S. elections, which gave Democrats control of both houses of Congress, helped push training down the priority list. The elections, they said, made it clear that voters didn't have the patience to wait for Iraqis to take the lead.

"To the extent we are losing the American public, we were losing" in the transition approach, said a senior military commander in Washington.

But that doesn't address the fact that we tried to leap straight to transition without first securing the country, or that military and administration officials fed expectations with their relentless "happy talk" about the progress of the training program -- talk that turns out to have been more than a tad overoptimistic.

So our exit strategy is in disarray, and our response is to send 23,000 more troops and think that will make a difference.

Or as a State Department official put it: "Our strategy now is to basically hold on and wait for the Iraqis to do something."

Color me pessimistic.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Delegating disaster

The White House is looking for someone to take over responsibility for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

The snark in me is asking "isn't that Bush's job?" But I realize that's unfair. We're talking day-to-day management of the war, which isn't a presidential duty.

No, the real telling thing is that nobody wants the job.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,'" he said.

You don't make general in the military without being able to smell a fiasco from miles away. Not that you really needed a special Spidey sense in this case. Not when the Pentagon is extending the tours of all Army soldiers in Iraq to 15 months, administration supporters like Bob Novak are saying the "surge" isn't working and Bush is preparing to sit down with Democrats to discuss ways to get continued funding for the wars.

What's more interesting is the view expressed by Sheehan, who retired after a 35-year career in the Marines.

"I've never agreed on the basis of the war, and I'm still skeptical," Sheehan said. "Not only did we not plan properly for the war, we grossly underestimated the effect of sanctions and Saddam Hussein on the Iraqi people."

In the course of the discussions, Sheehan said, he called around to get a better feel for the administration landscape.

"There's the residue of the Cheney view -- 'We're going to win, al-Qaeda's there' -- that justifies anything we did," he said. "And then there's the pragmatist view -- how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence."

That, folks, is a Marine saying the war was a mistake, Cheney is a problem and we should be looking to withdraw, not get drawn in further.

Maybe Cheney can take the job.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Why all the handwringing over Britain and Iran?

The 15 captured British sailors and Royal Marines are home from Iran, and while many people are simply glad to have them back, already the blame and handwringing has begun.

I haven't written about this previously because I had limited time to post, and if there was one thing I was sure of it was that the Brits would be returned home unharmed sooner or later. Iran may be crazy, but they're not stupid. Or is that stupid, but not crazy? Anyway, there was no way they were going to hurt the prisoners, and the whole situation was just one more black eye for Iran, internationally speaking.

However, the reaction in some quarters now that the situation is over just ticks me off.

First, the blame.

Some commentators said the captured personnel must explain the apparently easygoing demeanor with which they admitted entering Iranian waters and made public, televised apologies after their March 23 detention by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

It's perfectly fine to ask questions about how the sailors came to be captured -- that's classic after-action review procedure. But it takes a lot of ignorance -- not to mention a complete lack of empathy -- to question what the prisoners did while in captivity.

During Vietnam, we had a hardline "name, rank and serial number" expectation of our POWs. What we discovered in the course of that conflict is that such an approach merely increased the psychological pressure on our captured soldiers, leading them to endure extremely harsh treatment for no good reason -- they had no sensitive information to protect -- and heaping guilt on them if and when they finally "broke." The result for many returning POWs: a lifetime of physical and psychological problems incurred for zero benefit to our war effort.

Based on those experiences, the U.S. military changed its mindset. When I was in the Army, the guidance was simple: If you find yourself in enemy hands, your sole duty is to survive and return home. Yes, if you have truly sensitive information then you have a duty not to divulge it if at all possible. Other than that, you simply do what you can to get through. If that means cooperating with your captors in transparently coerced dog-and-pony show, so be it. If that means signing "confessions" and telling them anything they want to hear, so be it. You do what you have to do.

There's an additional twist when you consider that the chain of command remains intact during imprisonment. The ranking officers or noncoms in a group are responsible for the well-being of everyone within that group. They set the standard for behavior, and as far as possible make decisions about when and how the group members will cooperate with their captors. That also, of course, makes them susceptible to psychological pressure that takes advantage of that responsibility. I may be quite willing to endure torture without cooperating. But am I willing to let them torture the 18-year-old gunner's mate who was captured along with me? And even if I am willing -- should I be?

As a general rule, no. My only responsibility in that situation is to get me and my troops back home in one piece, both mentally and physically.

So to those criticizing the British captives: knock it off. No harm was done, and be glad you didn't have to walk in their shoes.

Now, on to the handwringing, courtesy of Charles Krauthammer:

Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the impotence of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the United Nations -- that pretend to maintain international order.

Okay, so he's not really wringing his hands -- though his main alternative would have been to immediately freeze European trade with Iran, a move that would have hurt Europe as well. But he's expressing the general sentiment of the handwringers. To which I have one response:

Give me a break.

This was not a "humiliation" of Britain. Iran seized sailors; Britain and the world denounced it; a few weeks later, Iran released them. Krauthammer sees a quid pro quo, but even if there is one -- and the evidence for that is so thin as to be ghostly -- it's incredibly tiny compared to the harm Iran caused to its own position with the seizure. So Iran proves it can defy the West -- whoop-de-do. Did anyone doubt that? Every time they do that they violate some norm of international behavior, which further isolates them and adds another ring to the target they're methodically painting on themselves.

Honestly, how is Iran stronger -- or Britain weaker -- for this event having happened? Self-serving neocons like Krauthammer claiming it is so does not make it true. With the dust settled, Iran is more isolated, not less. I fail to see how they benefited in any but the shortest of short terms.

So knock off the handwringing and the blame. This was a minor, if dramatic, event in a much larger dance, and it did nothing to change that dance in Iran's favor. It was a move that carried with it a whiff of desperation on Iran's part. The important thing now is to demonstrate how justified that desperation is, by keeping the screws on them to give up their enrichment program.

Iran, politics, midtopia

Dems show spine, but judgement is another matter

Ratcheting up the pressure on the White House, Sen. Harry Reid has co-sponsored a bill that would end funding for the Iraq war within a year.

Reid announced that he had teamed up with Sen. Russell Feingold, one of the Democrats' strongest war critics, on legislation to set a deadline of March 31, 2008, for completing the withdrawal of combat forces and ending most military spending in Iraq.

For his part, President Bush blasted the Democratic strategy, even as the military sped up redeployments to Iraq -- an example of how difficult it is to sustain current troop levels in Iraq, much less sustain the entire surge, which is only 40 percent complete at the moment.

Reid is pursuing a two-track strategy here, because Congress is also debating a compromise funding bill in preparation for Bush's expected veto of the recently passed measures. The compromise would dispense with timetables but include nonbinding calls for troop withdrawals to begin.

Republicans call Reid a hypocrite, because in November he said "We're not going to do anything to limit funding or cut off funds" for the war.

Reid, however, has his own explanation:

Reid had previously opposed setting a firm end date for the war, a stance he has backed away from in recent months as others in his party moved to increase pressure on Bush. He officially converted after visiting wounded soldiers last week at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"Talk about a way to be depressed," Reid said yesterday in a talk-radio interview with liberal host Ed Schultz. "The American people, I repeat, have to understand what is happening. It is not worth another drop of American blood in Iraq. It is not worth another damaged brain."

You can debate whether that's a good rationale, but at least he's got one.

And frankly, that's just a distraction. Because this move is a part of the complex dance between Congress and the White House over Iraq. This is, quite simply, an escalation of that dance because Bush has refused to accept the timetables in the recently passed funding bills.

I think it's fair to say that where contrary views are concerned, Bush generally only responds to 2x4s upside the head. With this move, the Dems are contemplating supplying just such a piece of lumber. Bush won't accept timetables? Reid's response is "Fine. No timetables, no money at all."

Is Reid cutting off funds for the troops? He would say no: Congress has passed the necessary funding bills. If Bush doesn't like the strings, whose fault is that? The president would apparently rather not have any funding than have funding with strings attached. That's his choice, but he can't say Congress refused to give him money.

So it's a toss-up who would deserve the blame for a lack of money: Bush for vowing not to accept any strings on the money Congress gives him, or Congress for refusing to give him money without strings. This fight will be won on public opinion grounds: The winner will be the side that the public blames the least.

Constitutionally speaking, I think Congress is in the stronger place here: it's up to them to determine the broad outlines for conduct of the war, and up to Bush to carry out the mission within that outline.

Politically speaking, though, the president might have the upper hand. While Democrats can cut off funding simply by refusing to act, there's not much political support for an immediate aid cutoff. So a funding bill of some sort will be passed. Further, there's probably not enough support in Congress to actually pass the Feingold bill, so Reid's co-sponsorship of it is something of an empty threat. At best it's yet another sign of hardening Democratic resolve on Iraq -- a signal to Bush that there are more and worse fights down the road, and he had better start planning according.

Some side notes:

1. There are infinite wrinkles in this little game. Congress could, for instance, pass a temporary funding bill with no strings attached, allowing the larger ballet to stretch out for months and holding the threat of a funding shutoff as a constant cudgel over Bush's head.

2. I think the $20 billion in pork that went into the funding measures is going to do more damage to the Democrats than whether Harry Reid flip-flopped. I recognize that pork greases the wheels of Congress. But $20 billion was simply a ridiculous amount of money. A couple of billion would have been more reasonable.

3. Political timing plays a role here. Much of what is done now will be forgotten by the time the 2008 elections roll around. And for those elections, both parties in Congress want Iraq off the table. For the Democrats, beginning an exit from Iraq would be a feather in their cap with their antiwar supporters. It would also make the 2008 election more about domestic issues, a perennial Democratic strength. Congressional Republicans, for their part, would like Iraq to be a nonfactor as well. It's a drag on their poll numbers on its own, and also serves as a direct and highly visible link to an unpopular lame-duck president. Republicans will let Democrats take the rap for putting a halt to it, but unless things in Iraq improve rapidly they won't work too hard to thwart the process.

4. Many of the people criticizing the Dems for doing this are the same ones who called the Dems "spineless" and "unwilling to simply yank funding", and called the timetable bills "meaningless" and "symbolic." Note the rhetorical win-win there: If they refuse to pull funding, they're cowards engaged in mere "symbolic" acts; if they pull the funding, they're undercutting the troops, encouraging terrorists and playing politics with our soldiers' lives. The only acceptable course is to keep giving Bush what he wants. Bleh: partisan logic makes me nauseous.

As it turns out, the Dems were not only serious but they have spines as well. Whether that spinage is being used in a good cause is, to me, the proper area for debate. I think as a negotiating tactic, Reid's move is just fine. But I think Bush's surge needs time to show it can work, so any bill that simply yanks funding immediately is a poor idea.

As a compromise, Congress should consider a "clean" bill that funds Iraq operations through the end of summer. That gives the surge time to work, but forces Bush to come back and request another installment after the August recess. At that point we'll have a good idea of whether the surge is working and sustainable, and thus be able to make some hard decisions on continued funding.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Bad news from Iraq

Boy, talk about a perennial headline. But this is noteworthy:

Shiite militants and police enraged by massive truck bombings in Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents in the northwestern town Wednesday, killing as many as 60 people, officials said.

The gunmen roamed Sunni neighborhoods in the city through the night, shooting at residents and homes, according to police and a local Sunni politician.

Witnesses said relatives of the Shiite victims in the truck bombings broke into the Sunni homes and killed the men inside or dragged them out and shot them in the streets.

Ali al-Talafari, a Sunni member of the local Turkomen Front Party, said the Iraqi army had arrested 18 policemen accused of being involved after they were identified by the Sunni families targeted. But he said the attackers included Shiite militiamen.

While not a direct reflection on Bush's surge, this is disheartening on three levels:

1. It's the sort of violence we are simply not equipped to stop. Incidents like this are why people say that we're not fighting insurgents, we're caught in the middle of a civil war.

2. It involves police massacring innocents -- demonstrating that, once again, the security forces are part of the problem.

3. It happened in Tal Afar, a city once held up as an example of a pacified city. I've written about it before (and may or may not have received a comment from Col. Sean MacFarland, then the commander in that area). Here's another take, with details on how we rooted the insurgents out of Tal Afar. If we can't pacify that city despite pouring troops in and surrounding it with sand berms, I don't hold out much hope for places like Baghdad.

If this isn't a sectarian civil war, what is it?

And this is just icing on the cake:

Saudi King Abdullah, whose country is a close US ally, on Wednesday slammed the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq in an opening speech to the annual Arab summit in Riyadh.

"In beloved Iraq, blood is being shed among brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and ugly sectarianism threatens civil war," Abdullah said.

He also said that Arab nations, which are planning to revive a five-year-old Middle East peace plan at the summit, would not allow any foreign force to decide the future of the region.

With friends like these....

Iraq, Tal Afar, politics, midtopia

What a kangaroo court looks like

For travesties of justice, it's a bit hard to beat the Guantanamo Military Commission hearings currently going on in Cuba.

As the New York Times opined on Sunday, the proceedings are so slanted that even a confession from a real bad guy, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, couldn't be taken entirely seriously.

When Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — for all appearances a truly evil and dangerous man — confessed to a long list of heinous crimes, including planning the 9/11 attacks, many Americans reacted with skepticism and even derision. The confession became the butt of editorial cartoons, like one that showed the prisoner confessing to betting on the Cincinnati Reds, and fodder for the late-night comedians.

What stood out the most from the transcript of Mr. Mohammed’s hearing at Guantánamo Bay was how the military detention and court system has been debased for terrorist suspects. The hearing was a combatant status review tribunal — a process that is supposed to determine whether a prisoner is an illegal enemy combatant and thus not entitled in Mr. Bush’s world to rudimentary legal rights. But the tribunals are kangaroo courts, admitting evidence that was coerced or obtained through abuse or outright torture. They are intended to confirm a decision that was already made, and to feed detainees into the military commissions created by Congress last year.

The omissions from the record of Mr. Mohammed’s hearing were chilling. The United States government deleted his claims to have been tortured during years of illegal detention at camps run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Government officials who are opposed to the administration’s lawless policy on prisoners have said in numerous news reports that Mr. Mohammed was indeed tortured, including through waterboarding, which simulates drowning and violates every civilized standard of behavior toward a prisoner, even one as awful as this one. And he is hardly the only prisoner who has made claims of abuse and torture. Some were released after it was proved that they never had any connection at all to terrorism.

Okay, but KSM is clearly guilty. So nobody is too concerned if we cut a few corners where he's concerned, right? The complete disembowelment of "rule of law" contained in that attitude aside, I'll concede the point -- and turn to David Hicks, another defendant processed through the system (he's the guy in the picture).

Hicks started out the day with three lawyers. He ended the day with one. The judge removed one lawyer on a technicality -- that although she had been properly appointed by the chief military defense counsel, she was not herself on active duty. He removed the other one, civilian attorney Joshua Dratel, for an even weirder reason. From the ACLU's blogging on the case:

The judge stated that Hicks's civilian defense counsel, well-known criminal defense attorney Joshua Dratel, had not submitted a letter indicating his agreement to comply with the rules and regulations of the Commissions, and therefore was not qualified to serve as counsel. Under Commission rules, a civilian lawyer must sign an agreement issued by the Secretary of Defense indicating that the lawyer agrees to abide by the Commission's regulations. The problem for the judge was that the Secretary of Defense had not yet created that agreement, and therefore Dratel could not sign it.

Instead, the judge had created his own version of the agreement – thereby, in Dratel's words, "usurping the authority of the Secretary of Defense." Dratel would have signed even that version – so long as the agreement made clear that it applied only to regulations that already existed, and not to those (and there are many) that have not yet been issued. "I cannot sign a document that provides a blank check on my ethical obligations as a lawyer," Dratel explained. In simple terms, Dratel was unwilling to pledge compliance with rules that he had not yet seen.

The judge was unpersuaded. "I find no merit in the claim that this is beyond my authority," he said. "That's sometimes what courts do, they find a way to move forward." Because Dratel refused to sign the agreement as written by the judge, he could not serve as counsel. There was a second empty chair.

Got that? He was removed because he wouldn't agree to rules that had not been written yet.

In case you don't like the source, here's a news article covering much the same ground.

Now the judge did give Hicks the option of keeping both lawyers with him as consultants, with all actual lawyering being done by his one remaining lawyer, Maj. Dan Mori. But Hicks said he didn't see much point to that, so they left. Mori then said he needed more time to prepare the case -- a reasonable request, IMO, seeing as how he had just lost two-thirds of his defense team. The request was denied.

A few hours later, Hicks cut a plea deal with prosecutors that will let him go home and serve whatever sentence he gets in Australia.

Hicks may very well be guilty, although what he's mostly guilty of is being a low-level Taliban combatant. But the slanted proceedings cast doubt on the verdict; generate sympathy for the defendant; give us yet another international black eye; undermine our claims of moral superiority; and give people no reason to trust either our word or our legal process. Sure, we don't blow up civilians in crowded marketplaces. Good for us. We just throw people in jail using a process more familiar to banana republics than democracies built on the rule of law.

As the New York Times summarized in its Sunday editorial:

The Bush administration has so badly subverted American norms of justice in handling these cases that they would not stand up to scrutiny in a real court of law. It is a clear case of justice denied.

And that, Mr. President, is why Gitmo and the commissions process is harming our security, not helping us. Way to go.

Hicks, Gitmo, politics, midtopia

How's the surge going?

With the House having passed an Iraq withdrawal timetable and the Senate hoping to follow suit, the big question becomes "are such timetables a good idea?" And the answer to that, in turn, depends mightly on how the Iraq "surge" is going.

Time has a broad assessment, so we'll start there.

First, it seems clear that if anyone can make it work, Gen. David Petraeus can. I've been impressed by his energy, tactics and professionalism. He knows what needs to be done and how to do it. The former isn't particularly impressive: the need has been obvious for a long time. But execution is a different matter, and he has shown to be highly capable in that department, from the actual deployment of security forces in Baghdad to collateral operations like those conducted in neighboring areas to catch insurgents fleeing Baghdad.

Some simple measures -- like banning car and truck traffic during business hours -- has helped cut back on car bombings in crowded places. Mostly, though, it's the "hold" part of "clear and hold" that has (unsurprisingly) proven quite effective.

But such moves don't succeed in isolation. Things have gone smoothly in large part because the Iraqi government continues to act serious about supporting nonsectarian security measures -- such as the recent arrest of former Mahdi Army members -- and has helped persuade the Mahdi Army itself to stay off the streets.

The numerical results have been promising, but with a couple of notes of caution. A week or so ago, military officials reported that killings in Baghdad were down significantly. But even as the crackdown expands, the number of deaths has been creeping back up. Yesterday 33 bodies turned up in Baghdad, uncomfortably close to pre-surge numbers.

Plus there's one key question: Can we trust the numbers? Because we've been through this once before, and it turned out they weren't counting bombing deaths.

So the answer remains "we don't know yet." Early signs are encouraging, but then they often are. Even Petraeus notes that it will take months -- until mid or late summer -- before we know whether the surge is working. And after that comes the really big question: can we sustain whatever gains we make? What happens when its time for the U.S. troops to go home?

All we can do is be patient. And it's a patience that is unaffected by the proposed Congressional timetables, because they won't take effect until long after we have a verdict on the surge -- the operation that will really determine the future of our mission in Iraq.

Petraeus, surge, Iraq, politics, midtopia

House passes Iraq timetable

By a razor-thin margin -- 218-212 -- the House of Representatives passed a war funding bill that includes a hard deadline to end combat operations in Iraq: September 2008.

I've already opined that the timetable is reasonable, giving Bush a year and a half to show progress. And even if the deadlines were enforced, it's not like we would abandon Iraq as of then. We would simply shift from doing front-line work ourselves to providing aid and training for the Iraqi military. And if Bush does manage to show progress, I'm sure he would find that the deadline, to quote Captain Barbossa, "is more of what you might call guidelines than actual rules." What Congress passeth, Congress can changeth.

Bush, however, exploded.

Just over an hour later, an angry Bush accused Democrats of staging nothing more than political theater and said that if the spending bill is not approved and signed into law by April 15, troops and their families "will face significant disruptions."...

"A narrow majority in the House of Representatives abdicated its responsibility by passing a war spending bill that has no chance of becoming law and brings us no closer to getting the troops the resources they need to do their job.

"These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen."

Bush's rhetoric is self-serving, of course: Whatever you think of the wisdom of its chosen course, this is Congress asserting its responsibility, not abdicating it. Abdication is what the Republican-led Congress engaged in for three years.

And if funding the war is so important, he can simply sign the bill. The money is there, and the restrictions don't kick in for quite a while. Apparently the funding isn't critical enough to keep him from vetoing it.

As political theater, this cannot be beat. As a practical matter, though, the deadline is probably a goner. The first hurdle is the Senate, where it will have trouble passing. If the Senate passes a bill lacking the timetable, that will have to be resolved in conference committee. If the deadline survives that (and the conference version passes the Senate), it faces a likely Bush veto, which will almost certainly be sustained.

At that point -- or, more likely, much earlier -- Bush and Congress will have to sit down and hammer out what sort of funding bill both sides will accept. The politics are uncertain, because both sides can accuse the other of holding our troops hostage to politics. My gut says Bush will win that battle of perception by claiming the timetable provision does not belong in the funding bill. But Congress can argue that the timetable is directly relevant to the funding.

Further, they could make the point that the timetable is a limitation on Bush, so how much sense does it make to pass it as a standalone measure that Bush will simply veto? Attaching it to the funding bill is the only way Congress can exert meaningful pressure on the president.

Problem is, that would mean Congress is using a tactical argument to try to counter a moral and strategic one. And critics could plausibly point out that if Congress cannot muster enough votes to force the timetable on Bush straight up, perhaps it is still too early to be doing such forcing.

I don't buy that particular logic but I'm still somewhat in the latter camp, mostly because I believe we need to give the "surge" time to show results before we start imposing withdrawal deadlines. More on that in my next post.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Found: WW II tank. Slight water damage.

Even if you're not a military history buff, this is pretty cool.

A World War II T-34/76 tank, captured, repainted and used by the Germans, was driven into an Estonian lake and abandoned by the retreating German army in 1944. A local boy later saw tank tracks leading into the lake, and suspected a tank might be in there. More than 50 years later, he finally mentioned it to the local historical society, which located the tank under 20 feet of water and 8 feet of peat, and then arranged to pull it out. Contrary to expectation, and apparently thanks to being buried in peat, the tank was in excellent condition -- no rust, fully armed and nearly fully functional. The story claims the salvagers were able to start the engine after making some minor repairs.

As an amusing aside, I love the technical obsessiveness with which the article describes the tractor that did the pulling -- noting such details as when it was built and that it had "19,000 operating hours without major repairs."

cool links, World War II, history, politics, midtopia

Simpson on "don't ask, don't tell"

Veteran and former Republican Senator Alan Simpson thinks "don't ask, don't tell should be scrapped.

He mentions the jaw-droppingly stupid decision to fire more than 300 language experts -- including 50 who were fluent in Arabic -- merely because they were gay. Much was written about this back in 2002; a few stories are here and here.

He also notes that societal attitudes have shifted, with 91 percent of young adults (those between 18 and 29) saying gays should be allowed to serve openly, and 75 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan vets saying they were fine working with gays.

He says 24 other countries allow gays to serve openly, without noticeable harm to morale or readiness.

Finally, he notes that we simply need more troops. Turning away qualified soldiers for reasons unrelated to their ability to serve simply makes no sense.

People like to say that the military is no place for social experiments. Ignoring the fact that it has historically been used as such -- for instance, when President Eisenhower forcibly integrated the armed forces in the 1950s -- that argument is dated. The experiment is over; when 91 percent of your recruit-age population thinks gays should be allowed to serve, there is no compelling "morale" or "cohesiveness" argument for preventing it.

Pass H.R. 1246 and repeal "don't ask, don't tell."

gay rights, military, politics, midtopia

Pace, gays and the military

Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he believes homosexual acts are immoral and that he supports "don't ask, don't tell" because otherwise the military would be endorsing homosexuality.

Gay activists have demanded he apologize. So far, he has refused.

As is his right. Some observers have attacked the groups demanding an apology, saying they are infringing on Pace's First Amendment right to speak freely. Which is nonsense. Pace has a right to speak his mind and not be arrested; that's what the First Amendment is for. He does not, however, have a right to be free from others expressing their constitutionally protected opinion of his opinion.

The real criticism here, IMO, is that the demand for an apology is excessive and over the top, fulfilling every stereotype of gay-rights activists as strident and demanding. I understand their anger, but a better tactic would be to express disappointment and perhaps highlight the stories of a few of the thousands of highly competent soldiers discharged for being gay -- at a time when the military is scraping the bottom of its manpower barrel.

Or like John Warner, R-Va., a former Navy secretary, put it: "I respectfully but strongly disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral."

The policy Pace defended is a problem, too. "Don't ask, don't tell" was a too-clever-by-half Clintonian compromise. It didn't end anti-gay witch hunts and it doesn't let gay soldiers have lives. It doesn't clearly state whether being gay is compatible with military service. It's a demand for gay soldiers to stay in the closet, which is a morale and security risk waiting to happen.

Maybe it's time to dust off a time-honored military tactic for dealing with stupid social issues. Create separate units for gay soldiers, the way we created separate units for blacks, Asians and women until we got over that particular silliness.

Or maybe we could just cut out the intervening 10 years of nonsense and allow gays to serve openly in the military, subject to all the fraternization and conduct rules that apply to straight men and women who serve together -- another blending of sexuality that critics (groundlessly) feared would destroy the military.

Which is what would happen if H.R. 1246, introduced by Massachusetts Rep. Martin Meehan, is adopted. It would repeal "don't ask, don't tell" and let gays serve openly. The good news: it has 113 co-sponsors. The bad news: The Democratic leadership hasn't scheduled it for debate yet, fearing political fallout.

They should get moving on it. The military manpower problem is too acute to afford the luxury of such discrimination any more, and the issues involved in integrating gay soldiers are more easily dealt with when they're out in the open. Gays are citizens too; they should be allowed to serve their country without having to deny part of who they are.

Update: Yikes! Meehan is resigning from Congress to become a university chancellor. Let's hope his bill survives his departure.

Meehan, Pace, gay rights, military, politics, midtopia

Walter Reed claims more victims

The Army surgeon general, Kevin Kiley, is the latest casualty of the Walter Reed scandal, choosing to retire under pressure from lawmakers and the acting secretary of the Army, Pete Geren.

The move comes the same day the Army inspector general released a report criticizing the Army's system for evaluating and caring for wounded soldiers, calling it understaffed, undertrained and overwhelmed by the number of wounded. Some of the examples given were surreal -- such as a care facility that lacked wheelchair access.

It's worth noting that the report was ordered back in April 2006, an indication that the Army was aware of and addressing some problems nearly a year before the current scandal broke. On the other hand, it makes the reaction of senior Army brass even more inexplicable. How could they downplay problems when they already knew about many of them? And the fact that the report took a year to produce indicates the military bureaucracy still does not have a wartime sense of urgency.

Walter Reed, Kiley, military, politics, midtopia

Dems set pullout date for Iraq

The House wants them all gone by August 2008; the Senate merely sets a "target date" of March 2008.

Here's a comparison of the proposals.

The House version would accelerate the pullout if the Iraqi government fails to meet certain benchmarks. It also retains John Murtha's "training standards" requirement for troops deployed to Iraq, but allows the president to waive it.

The House version will be attached to Bush's request for $100 billion in new funding authority for Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate version is a standalone measure.

This is notable for three things: First, it shows the Democrats have the backbone to confront Bush on this directly. Second, it apparently has majority (though, obviously, not unanimous) support in the Democratic caucuses. Opposition comes mostly from liberal Democrats, who don't think the proposal goes far enough or moves fast enough. Third, the deadline is clearly calculated to get Iraq off the table before the 2008 presidential elections. It'll still be an issue, of course, but not in the way it would be if there were still active combat operations going on.

You'll be shocked to know that House Minority Leader John Boehner doesn't think so. He said it amounts to "failure at any cost" and that the generals on the ground, not Congress, should be making troop decisions.

Boehner's wrong on both counts. Yes, Congress should not be involved in tactical or even strategic military decisions. But they are properly involved in setting the scope and shape of the war. If Congress has the power to start wars, it has the power to end them. As for this being "failure at any cost", that's Republican framing at its best. We wouldn't be having this discussion if the war in Iraq, however unjustified, were going well.

But are the measures a good idea?

I think they're reasonable. What it essentially does is give Bush and the Iraqi government a year and a half to show results. That's why it's not popular with the most antiwar Democrats; they're tired of giving Bush chances, and want the troops home now.

Further, it doesn't imply that we would totally abandon Iraq by the deadline. It's merely a deadline to shift from U.S. combat operations to supporting Iraqi government combat operations. If Iraq is unable to stand on its own by the end of 2008 -- five years after we invaded -- it's reasonable to conclude that they never will be able to do so.

The various certification requirements are smart politics, pointing out the damage that the war is doing to our military and forcing Bush to go on record about it. But giving Bush the ability to waive them eliminates any criticism that they are materially interfering with his handling of the war.

Finally, the big thing to remember is that any deadline set by Congress can always be changed by Congress. If things suddenly start going well in Iraq, you can bet that Congress will extend or abandon the requirements. Presidential election or no, everyone will want to be able to say they were a midwife for success.

Of course, the White House has bluntly vowed to veto any bill containing either measure, and there's no way Congress will pass this with veto-proof majorities. So this whole discussion is probably moot.

Although it'll be interesting to see what happens after that. If Bush vetos the war-funding bill because of the pullout provision, for example, the House will have to decide whether to reauthorize the funding without that provision, or go in another direction. They could simply cut the funding, for instance, so that it provides only enough money for operations up to the first benchmark deadline. They then could decide whether to grant further funding based on whether that benchmark was reached. If it wasn't, they could authorize funding solely for withdrawal and handover operations.

So this is merely the first shot in a battle that will be fought until either Bush turns Iraq around or Congress pulls the plug.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Heads roll among Army brass

Yesterday, the uproar over poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center claimed the career of a two-star general. Today, it claimed the Secretary of the Army.

Secretary Francis Harvey apparently ran afoul of Defense Secretary Robert Gates because, after firing Maj. Gen. George Weightman, he replaced him with another general with links to the controversy.

I haven't been commenting on this scandal because I haven't had a chance to read the Post's stories. Anyone who has ever been through the military medical system knows what a bureaucratic nightmare it can be. I wanted to make sure the Post wasn't making a big deal out of what, for the military, is routine -- however inexcusable it may be.

But with some corrections underway and a push by President Bush and Gates for a top-to-bottom review, not to mention the nearly unprecedented sacking of two senior officials, it seems clear that the administration is taking this seriously and not liking what it sees. Sad as it is to see our soldiers treated this way at any time, much less in the midst of a war, it's good to see it being addressed forcefully.

On the other hand, this would never have come to light without the investigative work of the Washington Post -- a prime example of why a vigorous and free press are important to the country.

military, politics, midtopia

This gives "war criminal" a whole new meaning

The bad old days of "join the Army or go to jail" might be creeping back up on us.

The Army and Marine Corps are letting in more recruits with criminal records, including some with felony convictions, reflecting the increased pressure of five years of war and its mounting casualties.

According to data compiled by the Defense Department, the number of Army and Marine recruits needing waivers for felonies and serious misdemeanors, including minor drug offenses, has grown since 2003. The Army granted more than double the number of waivers for felonies and misdemeanors in 2006 than it did in 2003. Some recruits may get more than one waiver.

The absolute numbers are still relatively small, though not insignificant. The Army recruited 80,000 soldiers in 2006. Of those, 9,000 received a "moral" waiver of some sort. 901 of them were for felony convictions, up from 411 in 2005; 6,000 were for misdemeanors, up from 2,700.

So roughly 11 percent of Army recruits received a "moral" waiver, with 8.6 percent having criminal records.

This is not an entirely bad thing. Youthful mistakes do not make someone a hardened criminal or preclude them from becoming productive members of society, and the military has a long history of taking in such people and turning them around.

But coupled with other lowerings of military standards -- notably mental and physical aptitude requirements -- what we have is a serious potential threat to the professionalism and capabilities of our military.

The military works because it's filled with motivated, intelligent soldiers who learn to trust each other with their lives -- believing that their comrades are trustworthy, competent and physically capable. This allows the high degree of initiative and flexibility -- not to mention use of complex technology -- that is the hallmark of the modern military.

If too many soldiers are substandard in the trust or competence departments, it undermines the assumptions on which our military doctrine is built. If it goes on long enough or spreads far enough, that doctrine will no longer be supportable.

The report demonstrates once again the strain the military is under merely to sustain itself at current strength. But the problem is going to be exacerbated by the call to add 92,000 soldiers over the next few years. I support that increase, so it's rather troubling to think that it will be difficult to find that many qualified people willing to serve.

It's not the only inroad that threatens. Recall December's Military Times poll, which found that a majority of those polled think invading Iraq was a mistake and disapprove of Bush's handling of the war. This raises fears that the military will be undercut in another way: by soldiers deciding to get out rather than face another tour in Iraq.

The obvious point to be made here is that this is what an open-ended, unpopular war will do to recruiting in an era of a volunteer military. I'm not advocating a return to the draft -- the economic dislocation that would cause aside, I prefer a smaller, motivated military to a larger, indifferent one. But it does show the long-term dangers of launching ill-defined military campaigns -- not just politically, but securitywise. Our military is an astonishingly fine instrument, but using it improperly damages it, even if actual casualties are relatively light.

Let's hope our leaders have absorbed that lesson, and only commit troops when national or humanitarian interests truly are at stake.

Update: Heres the study the article is based on, and here's the underlying data (pdf).

A few things to note:

1. The data only goes back to 2003, since they were studying the effect of the Iraq war on recruiting. It would be interesting to see what the waiver trend was like before then. Logic says it might have been lower in 2002, thanks to post-9/11 patriotic fervor. But what about 2001 and earlier?

2. If you look at the data, you'll see that overall "moral" waivers fell in 2004 before rising in 2005 and breaking the 2003 mark in 2006. But when you look at the service breakdown, you see why: Army waivers have skyrocketed, Marine waivers are up while Navy and Air Force waivers are way down.

The logical conclusion: fully-qualified recruits are gravitating toward the services that are least likely to land them on a street corner in Tikrit.

Also, I should point out that these numbers are only for recruitment. To get a picture of what this trend might mean for the long-term health of the military, you'd want to know how many of these people washed out in their first year or so. The Army might forgive you past screwups, but they're much less forgiving of screwups committed while in uniform. While a high washout rate would indicate an undesirable level of recruiting "churn", it would also indicate that whatever screening process the Army has in place is working.

recruiting, military, politics, midtopia