[Felix The Assassin]

GCOM Summary 2010 Aug 13
U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 13, 2010


ØNew Developments
•Showcase Afghan Army Mission Turns Into Debacle. An ambitious military operation that Afghan officials had expected to be a sign of their growing military capacity instead turned into an embarrassment, with Taliban fighters battering an Afghan battalion in a remote eastern area until NATO sent in French and American rescue teams. The fighting has continued so intensely for the past week that the Red Cross has been unable to reach the battlefield to remove the dead and wounded. The operation, east of Kabul, was extraordinary in that it was not coordinated in advance with NATO forces and did not at first include coalition forces or air support. (New York Times – see attached)
•Pakistan Fight Stalls For U.S. The U.S. military has stopped lobbying Pakistan to help root out one of the biggest militant threats to coalition forces in Afghanistan, U.S. officials say, acknowledging that the failure to win better help from Islamabad threatens to damage a linchpin of their Afghan strategy. Until recently, the U.S. had been pressing Islamabad to launch major operations against the Haqqani network, a militant group connected to al Qaeda that controls a key border region where U.S. defense and intelligence officials believe Osama bin Laden has hidden. The group has been implicated in the Dec. 30 bombing of a CIA base in Khost, a January assault on Afghan government ministries and a luxury hotel in Kabul, and in the killing of five United Nations staffers in last year's raid on a U.N. guesthouse. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
•Petraeus Wants To Set Record Straight On July 2011. One of the key goals of the new commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, is to try to settle the debate on the significance of the July 2011 date, according to an ISAF official familiar with Petraeus' thinking. After a month in the job, during which he stayed mostly out of public view, the general is preparing a round of interviews with media outlets. July 2011 is the date President Barack Obama has set to begin reducing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But just what that will mean continues to be a question that the administration is struggling to answer clearly. U.S. military officials are stressing that any withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan beginning in July 2011 could be fairly minor and will be based on conditions on the ground. Asked if the number of troops to be withdrawn in July could be relatively small, a senior U.S. military official told reporters, "We still think that's the case." (CNN)
•NATO Investigating Afghan Civilian Deaths. NATO says it is looking into whether its forces killed or wounded up to seven Afghan civilians during operations in southern Helmand province. In a statement Thursday, the alliance said its troops came under heavy fire in the Lashkar Gah district and that air strikes were called in to provide support. NATO said the wounded were immediately evacuated to a medical facility for treatment. In eastern Paktia province Thursday, NATO says Afghan and coalition forces killed more than 20 insurgents during an operation aimed at disrupting the Haqqani network, which has close ties to al-Qaida. In other violence, NATO says its forces mistakenly killed an Afghan woman during a clash late Wednesday with insurgents in the Musa Qala district of Helmand. NATO expressed deep regret and said it must continue its emphasis on reducing the loss of civilian life to an absolute minimum. (Voice of America)
•Foreigners Boost Insurgency In Eastern Afghanistan. As the spotlight of the Afghan war focuses on the south, insurgent activity is increasing in parts of the east, with Arab and other foreign fighters linked to al-Qaida infiltrating across the rugged mountains with the help of Pakistani militants, Afghan and U.S. officials say. Security in eastern Afghanistan is critical because the region includes the capital, Kabul, which the insurgents have sought to surround and isolate from the rest of the country. The east also borders Pakistan, where al-Qaida's leaders fled after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion drove the Taliban from power. Gen. Mohammed Zaman Mahmoodzai, head of Afghanistan's border security force, told The Associated Press that infiltration by al-Qaida-linked militants has been increasing in his area since March. "One out of three are Arabs," he said, coming mostly from Pakistan's Bajaur and Mohmand tribal areas where the Pakistan military is battling Pakistani Taliban insurgents. (San Jose Mercury News/AP)

ØMilitary Coverage
•Defense Chief Gates Orders Review Of Marines' Role. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is ordering a review of the future role of the Marine Corps amid "anxiety" that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had turned the service into a "second land army." The review would seek to define a 21st century combat mission for the Marines that is distinct from the Army's, because the Marines "do not want to be, nor does America need" another ground combat force, Gates said in prepared remarks for a speech at Marines' Memorial Theatre in San Francisco on Thursday to a group that included retired Marines and foreign policy experts. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
•Pentagon Push To Phase Out Top Brass Causing Much Consternation. Of all the spending cuts and budget battles the Pentagon is confronting, none is causing more angst than Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's vow to start getting rid of generals and admirals. By almost any measure, the military is more top-heavy an institution than it has been for decades. But the defense secretary's pledge Monday to cut about 5 percent of the brass is nothing short of seismic for many at the Pentagon. The cuts would be the largest in the upper ranks since a similar squeeze at the end of the Cold War, when the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the military to downsize. (Washington Post – see attached)
•Pentagon Slams WikiLeaks' Plan To Post More War Logs. U.S. defense officials on Thursday responded angrily to WikiLeaks' plan to post additional Afghan war logs, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggesting that the move could further endanger the lives of Afghans who helped the U.S. war effort. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday said his group had gone through 7,000 of the 15,000 documents the group has so far withheld from publishing. WikiLeaks had said it was withholding posting those documents until it had time to review them to block out the names of sources contained in the documents. "Absolutely," he replied when asked whether he still plans to publish the remaining documents. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
•Omar Khadr's Lawyer Collapses In Court. Omar Khadr's military lawyer collapsed in a courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Thursday at the end of what was already an emotionally charged first day of the Canadian detainee's war crimes trial. Army Lt. Col. Jon Jackson was taken from the courthouse by ambulance to the base hospital, where he remained overnight. Jackson had gall bladder surgery six weeks ago and doctors suspect the collapse may be related. It was a dramatic end to a day that had started seven hours earlier in the somber courtroom with another poignant scene as the widow of the soldier Khadr is accused of killing saw the Toronto-born detainee for the first time. Opening arguments Thursday by the prosecution and defense presented starkly different portraits of Khadr – a committed terrorist, or a kid sent to Afghanistan by a father who “hated his enemies more than he loved his son.” (Toronto Star)

ØHomeland Security
•Oil Spill Shows Difficulty The Coast Guard Faces As It Balances Traditional Tasks With Post-9/11 Missions. The U.S. Coast Guard in recent years has fought international terrorism, defended Iraqi pipelines and patrolled for pirates in the Arabian Sea. Its work in such high-visibility missions accelerated after Sept. 11, 2001, when Congress swept the Coast Guard into the Homeland Security Department. More funding followed. But the changes had the unintended consequence of lowering the profile of the Coast Guard's vital programs related to oil. "Priorities changed," a 2002 Coast Guard budget report said. (Washington Post – see attached)

ØWorld Developments
•Uganda Displays Suspects In Deadly Bomb Attacks. A former university librarian on Thursday said he wanted to kill as many Americans as possible in bomb attacks that killed 76 people in the Ugandan capital last month. In a public confession at a news conference in Kampala arranged by Ugandan military intelligence, Issa Ahmed Luyima said he planned the July 11 attacks and roped his younger brother and others into the plot. His motive was a deep hatred of Americans, the 33-year-old Ugandan said. "My rage was with the Americans whom I deemed responsible for all the suffering of Muslims around the world," he was quoted as saying by news agency reports. "I targeted places where many Americans go." (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
•Car Bomb Injures Nine In Bogotá. A car bomb exploded outside a radio station in Bogotá’s financial district on Thursday, causing gridlock in the Colombian capital and threatening fledgling moves towards peace after a 45-year war with leftist guerrillas. Juan Manuel Santos, on his fifth day as president, visited the site outside Caracol Radio, an important news outlet, and said the nation would not be intimidated. “This is a cowardly terrorist act. All they want is to generate fear and they will not succeed,” he said. Nine people were injured and the explosion damaged branches of Bancolombia and BBVA and the facades of up to 170 flats. The explosion was heard by Colombians across the country as they listened to the morning news. (London Financial Times – see attached)
•Indian Forces Face Broader Revolt In Kashmir. Sunday night, after six days on life support with a bullet in his brain, Fida Nabi, a 19-year-old high school student, was unhooked from his ventilator at a hospital in Srinagar, Kashmir. Mr. Nabi was the 50th person to die in Kashmir’s bloody summer of rage. He had been shot in the head, his family and witnesses said, during a protest against India’s military presence in this disputed province. For decades, India maintained hundreds of thousands of security forces in Kashmir to fight an insurgency sponsored by Pakistan, which claims this border region, too. The insurgency has been largely vanquished. But those Indian forces are still here, and today they face a threat potentially more dangerous to the world’s largest democracy: an intifada-like popular revolt against the Indian military presence that includes not just stone-throwing young men but their sisters, mothers, uncles and grandparents. (New York Times – see attached)
•Police Officers To Face Trial For Abuse Of Terror Suspect. Four police officers accused of a "serious, gratuitous and prolonged" attack and racist abuse of the terrorist suspect Babar Ahmad are to be charged with assault after a U-turn by Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS said a detective and three constables will appear before magistrates charged with causing actual bodily harm. All have been put on restricted duties. Mr. Ahmad – the longest-serving prisoner held without charge in the UK – is in a secure isolation unit at Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire, fighting extradition to the U.S. He was initially arrested at his home in Tooting, south London, in December 2003. The computer expert was originally held on suspicion of supporting and helping to recruit terrorists to fight in Afghanistan and Chechnya through email accounts and websites. (The Independent)
* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder



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Showcase Afghan Army Mission Turns Into Debacle
New York Times
August 13, 2010

An ambitious military operation that Afghan officials had expected to be a sign of their growing military capacity instead turned into an embarrassment, with Taliban fighters battering an Afghan battalion in a remote eastern area until NATO sent in French and American rescue teams. The fighting has continued so intensely for the past week that the Red Cross has been unable to reach the battlefield to remove the dead and wounded. The operation, east of Kabul, was extraordinary in that it was not coordinated in advance with NATO forces and did not at first include coalition forces or air support. The Afghans called for help after 10 of their soldiers were killed and perhaps twice as many captured at the opening of the operation nine days ago. “There are a lot of lessons to be learned here,” said a senior American military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the operation was continuing. “How they started that and why they started that.” He said there had been no public statements on the battle because of the need for confidentiality during a rescue mission. The Afghan National Army now has 134,000 soldiers, and on Wednesday, the new American commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, complimented the Afghans on reaching that target three months ahead of schedule.

Still, the Afghan National Army runs relatively few operations on its own, particularly large-scale ones. They take a little more than half as many casualties as coalition military forces, who now have roughly the same number of troops in the country. (In 2009, according to NATO figures, 282 Afghan soldiers were killed, compared with 521 coalition soldiers.) American advisers are included in most Afghan operations. It is not clear whether any were involved in this one. The operation began when the Afghan Army sent a battalion of about 300 men from the First Brigade, 201st Army Corps, into a village called Bad Pakh, in Laghman Province, which is adjacent to the troubled border province of Kunar. Their operation, which began on the night of Aug. 3, was to flush out Taliban in a rugged area where they had long held sway. First, using the Afghan Army’s own helicopters, a detachment was inserted behind Taliban lines, while the main part of the battalion attacked from the front.

But, according to a high-ranking official of the Afghan Ministry of Defense, the plan was betrayed; Taliban forces were waiting with an ambush against the main body of troops. Then the airborne detachment was cut off when bad weather grounded its helicopters, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. In the confusion, the 201st Army Corps commanders lost contact with the battalion. The battalion’s Third Company – 100 men – took particularly heavy casualties, the official said, although he did not have a number. He said many of the company were killed, captured or missing, and as of Wednesday at least, the status of the rest of the battalion remained unclear.

However, the senior American military official said the battalion had not been lost. “We know exactly where that battalion is,” he said, “although there are several soldiers unaccounted for and several killed.” He estimated that “about 10” soldiers had been killed and that no more than a platoon were missing, meaning up to 20 soldiers. An official of the Red Crescent in the area said that casualties were very heavy on the government side and that the Taliban had destroyed 35 Ford Ranger trucks, the standard Afghan Army transport vehicle, which typically carry six or more soldiers each.

Officially, the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Maj. Gen. Muhammed Zahair Azimi, said that there were only seven dead and 14 wounded and that the number taken prisoner was unknown. “We cannot say the number captured because some of them were in difficult places, but some of our soldiers were captured by the Taliban,” General Azimi said Wednesday. In addition, seven army vehicles were burned, he said, adding, “No other vehicles are in the hands of the enemy.” A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, spoke of a far more devastating toll. He said the militants’ ambush killed 27 Afghan soldiers, wounded 14 and led to the capture of 8, while 18 army vehicles and 6 tanks were seized. “The NATO-Afghan terrorists were forced to retreat in humiliation after taking on heavy casualties,” Mr. Mujahid said. The Taliban often wildly exaggerate the damage they inflict.

Both Afghan and American officials said that many Taliban fighters were killed and that the insurgents continued to take casualties through Thursday. Government forces now have the Taliban surrounded, General Azimi said. A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kabul, Bijan Frederic Farnoudi, confirmed reports that the group had tried to recover bodies and the wounded but had been turned back because the fighting was too intense. “We’re monitoring and ready to go,” he said. “As soon as it’s possible we’re willing to go in.” A tribal elder, a former Taliban official who has switched to the government side, said the Taliban contacted him to arrange for the Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross to remove the dead. “The Taliban commander said the bodies are decaying and it’s a problem for us,” he said, asking not to be named for his safety. “One of the Taliban told me, ‘I took three A.N.A. soldiers prisoner myself, then took them home and killed them in my house, so my home would be the home of a hero.’”

The International Security Assistance Force referred all questions about the operation to Afghan officials. “We can’t confirm information past what the M.O.D. released since this started as a unilateral Afghan operation,” said Col. Hans E. Bush, a spokesman for the NATO mission in Afghanistan. He added that a “personnel recovery” operation was under way, using the term for a rescue operation for wounded, dead or missing soldiers. “When ISAF conducts personnel recovery missions,” Colonel Bush said, “we consider them sensitive operations and do not provide public details while the operation is under way in order to safeguard any information/intelligence advantage we may have.”

Most officials in Laghman Province declined to comment about the fighting. On Wednesday, Iqbal Azizi, the governor of Laghman, described it as minor and said that only one policeman had been killed. A local journalist for Pajhwok Afghan News, a news agency, who wrote about the attack was called in by the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service, and questioned for several hours, according to the news agency’s director, Danish Karokhel.

Pakistan Fight Stalls For U.S.
Wall Street Journal
August 13, 2010

The U.S. military has stopped lobbying Pakistan to help root out one of the biggest militant threats to coalition forces in Afghanistan, U.S. officials say, acknowledging that the failure to win better help from Islamabad threatens to damage a linchpin of their Afghan strategy. Until recently, the U.S. had been pressing Islamabad to launch major operations against the Haqqani network, a militant group connected to al Qaeda that controls a key border region where U.S. defense and intelligence officials believe Osama bin Laden has hidden. The group has been implicated in the Dec. 30 bombing of a CIA base in Khost, a January assault on Afghan government ministries and a luxury hotel in Kabul, and in the killing of five United Nations staffers in last year's raid on a U.N. guesthouse.

But military officials have decided that pressing Pakistan for help against the group – as much as it is needed – is counterproductive. U.S. officials believe elements of Pakistan's intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, are continuing to protect the Haqqani network to help it retain influence in Afghanistan once the U.S. military eventually leaves the country. U.S. officials say the support includes housing, intelligence and even strategic planning. During a trip to Pakistan last month, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chose not to raise the issue of an offensive against the Haqqani network – a departure from the message U.S. defense officials delivered earlier this year.

The U.S. also had intensified the pressure for Pakistani operations in North Waziristan in May after the attempted bombing of New York's Times Square was linked to militants in Pakistan. Pakistan officials reject the U.S. conclusions about their efforts. They say they are taking significant action against militants in North Waziristan. They say their intelligence service has severed all ties with the Haqqani network. Islamabad points to a series of surgical strikes the Pakistani military has executed in North Waziristan, and say they have ratcheted up those efforts in recent months in a precursor toward more aggressive moves.

Pakistan's operations complement a Central Intelligence Agency drone campaign targeting militants in North Waziristan, a Pakistani official said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised the Pakistani effort to rout al Qaeda and other militants from Swat and South Waziristan. "Are they doing a lot to help us? The answer is yes," Mr. Gates said Thursday. U.S. officials acknowledged the recent Pakistani operations, but discounted their value against the Haqqani network. A U.S. defense official said that most of the raids have been against the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group that poses no direct threat to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, but opposes the Pakistani government.

Pakistan has failed to act on detailed intelligence about the Haqqanis provided in recent months, said a senior military official. "Our forces have put a significant dent in the Haqqani network," said the official. "It would be good if the [Pakistanis] would do the same on their side." U.S. officials say they have concluded that making more demands, public or private, on Islamabad to start a military offensive against the Haqqani network will only strain U.S.-Pakistani relations. The Haqqani network has decades-long ties with al Qaeda leaders that date back to their days of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan prior to al Qaeda's formation.

The network now is believed to provide al Qaeda with protection, shelter and support in North Waziristan. The group's historic base is in Afghanistan's Khost province and it remains the most potent insurgent force in the eastern part of the country and is closely aligned with the Taliban. The number of al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan is thought to be very small, under 100; Haqqani network fighters number in the thousands. The U.S. shift partly is in recognition that the Pakistanis simply may not have the military capacity to expand operations enough to secure the North Waziristan area, one U.S. official acknowledged.

Pakistani efforts in North Waziristan so far are too small to have a significant impact, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who headed the Obama administration's first review of U.S. policy toward Afghan and Pakistan. "It is mostly show to keep the Americans happy," he said. In the wake of Pakistan's recent flooding, U.S. officials also are concerned the Pakistanis may ratchet back counterterrorism operations as they redeploy troops to help respond to a burgeoning humanitarian crisis. U.S. defense officials now argue the only way to convince Pakistan to take action in North Waziristan is to weaken the Haqqani network so much that Pakistan sees little value in maintaining an alliance with the group – though they acknowledge that will be harder without Pakistani help.

The U.S. military has stepped up its own operations against the Haqqani network since April, and most significantly in the last two weeks, according to military officials. Strikes have significantly reduced the Haqqani network's ability to mount attacks in Kabul and outside their traditional tribal areas of eastern Afghanistan, said senior U.S. military officials. In eastern Afghanistan, a task force of elite troops assigned to target the Haqqani network conducted 19 operations in April, 11 in May, 20 in June and 23 in July. The high pace continued in the first week of August with seven operations. The Haqqanis threatened to disrupt an international conference in Kabul last month, but were not able to make good on the threat.

Defense Chief Gates Orders Review Of Marines' Role
Los Angeles Times
August 13, 2010

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is ordering a review of the future role of the Marine Corps amid "anxiety" that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had turned the service into a "second land army." The review would seek to define a 21st century combat mission for the Marines that is distinct from the Army's, because the Marines "do not want to be, nor does America need" another ground combat force, Gates said in prepared remarks for a speech at Marines' Memorial Theatre in San Francisco on Thursday to a group that included retired Marines and foreign policy experts. Gates is on a two-day trip to California. He met with sailors onboard the destroyer Higgins on Thursday and plans to attend a training ceremony for Navy Seals on Friday.

In ordering the Pentagon review, Gates was deepening a long-running debate about the role of the Marine Corps, including whether one of its main missions – amphibious assaults against fortified coastlines – has become obsolete because of the changing nature of warfare and advances in precision weaponry. Gates is seeking $100 billion in budget savings from the military services and Pentagon bureaucracies, though he intends to invest the money in weapons programs. Given the unwavering support for the Marines in Congress, there is little chance the service would be eliminated or see its budget significantly reduced. Gates noted that anxiety about the future of the Marines stems from the "perception … that they have become too heavy, too removed from their expeditionary roots."

In a question-and-answer session with sailors aboard the Higgins earlier in the day, Gates said, "I think they've gotten too big," and he predicted that the service would shrink in coming years. Such statements only intensify worries among serving and retired Marines about the future. But Gates sought to reassure his audience that he continued to see a major future role for the service. The review will be conducted by Gen. James F. Amos, the incoming Marine commandant, and by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. The Marines are a component of the Navy Department. The review, Gates said, would make recommendations about what "expeditionary forces in readiness would look like." It "should not lose sight of the Marines' greatest strengths," he said, including "a broad portfolio of capabilities" and its adaptability.

"The Marines' unique ability to project combat capability from the sea under uncertain conditions – forces quickly able to protect and sustain themselves – is a capability that America has needed in this past decade and will require in the future," he added. Like all the services, the Marine Corps has been forced in Iraq and Afghanistan to undertake counterinsurgency warfare, experiences that Gates said "well position" the Corps for the types of wars the U.S. is likely to face in the near future. But as the demands on the Marines have grown, so have its size and its approach to warfare.

Marines have found themselves in long, difficult deployments in the toughest parts of Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of Marines has grown from 175,000 to more than 200,000, another departure from its historical role as a small, elite force trained to move quickly and strike hard. There are currently 20,000 Marines in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Gates said he did not want to preempt the review's findings, but he noted that "it is proper to ask whether large-scale amphibious assault landings" are feasible because advances in anti-ship missiles would require troop-carrying ships to remain "25, 40 or even 60 miles" away from shore.

Pentagon Push To Phase Out Top Brass Causing Much Consternation
Washington Post
August 13, 2010

Of all the spending cuts and budget battles the Pentagon is confronting, none is causing more angst than Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's vow to start getting rid of generals and admirals. By almost any measure, the military is more top-heavy an institution than it has been for decades. Today, there are 40 four-star generals and admirals – one more than in 1971, during the Vietnam War, even though the number of active-duty troops has shrunk by almost half. The number of active-duty generals and admirals of all rank, meanwhile, has increased by about 13 percent since 1996. It is, as Gates puts it, "brass creep."

But the defense secretary's pledge Monday to cut about 5 percent of the brass is nothing short of seismic for many at the Pentagon. The cuts would be the largest in the upper ranks since a similar squeeze at the end of the Cold War, when the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the military to downsize. The defense secretary has said he also wants to make similar trims in the civilian leadership, noting that the number of people assigned to his office has grown by nearly 1,000 over the past decade. "Our headquarters and support bureaucracies – military and civilian alike – have swelled to cumbersome and top-heavy proportions," Gates said in a speech Thursday to the Marines' Memorial Association in San Francisco, adding that the top layers have "grown accustomed to operating with little consideration for cost."

The push has caused some squealing at the Pentagon, as one- and two-star generals and admirals privately fret that they could be forced to retire early. Up-and-coming colonels and captains worry that fewer plum posts will be available. Gates has acknowledged that he faces stiff resistance. "Every flag officer will think I'm after him or her," he told reporters in May, when he first suggested that the brass might need to go on a diet. "But we have to be willing to look at everything."

On Monday, Gates named the first casualty by announcing plans to dismantle the Joint Forces Command, a unit based in Norfolk that coordinates military doctrine among the armed services and is traditionally headed by a four-star commander. He has told aides that they have until Nov. 1 to come up with a list of at least 50 other brass jobs that will get the ax. Officials said that most of the positions probably will be eliminated by attrition.

Among the likely targets are officers in Europe. U.S military and NATO forces in Europe are jointly led by a four-star commander. In a vestige of World War II, however, the Army, Navy and Air Force have four-star officers overseeing their individual forces in Europe as well. "The ranks of the major commands there have remained intact since the Cold War," Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Monday. "So is that appropriate? Should we go back and adjust it? Not only the rank structure, but the size of the headquarters and what they do."

Analysts said the brass squeeze won't result in significant savings. Terminating a single general's billet might save about $200,000 a year in salary and benefits, barely a rounding error in the Pentagon's base budget this year of $535 billion. But they said the effort is necessary as part of Gates's broader drive to stave off budget-cutting lawmakers who argue that defense spending should no longer be exempt as Congress grapples with record deficits.

"He's pretty clearly trying to send a message that the Pentagon is going to get leaner, and that includes the people at the top," said Todd S. Harrison, a military spending expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. "If he had done nothing, if he had not trimmed the number of generals, then he would have been more vulnerable to the argument that the Department of Defense is fat and bloated and can take a cut." Another reason, Gates said, is that the military's decision-making process has become bogged down.

By way of illustration, Gates recounted the beleaguered history of a deployment request that landed on his desk to send a single dog-handling team to Afghanistan. The paperwork first had to be approved by five four-star commanders: the chief of U.S. Central Command, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Army chief of staff; and the supreme allied commander for Europe.

Analysts said there are some legitimate reasons why the number of brass has increased disproportionately to the size of the armed forces. Some commanders have been activated temporarily from the reserves to take part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military has also placed more emphasis on joint operations involving all the armed services, resulting in more high-level commands.

Raymond F. DuBois, a defense official during the George W. Bush administration, said he would advise Gates to take a methodical approach by targeting 20 percent of all four-star commanders and reclassifying their jobs as three-star generals and admirals. Then he would take 20 percent of the three-star officers and take them down to two stars, and keep doing the same until the ranks are flattened out. "Start with the top, don't start with the bottom," he said.

But DuBois added that he would be reluctant to cut many one-star jobs, which he said are necessary to keep as career incentives for ambitious colonels and captains. "In a military that needs to retain its best and brightest," said DuBois, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "it is an enormously important retention factor."

Pentagon Slams WikiLeaks' Plan To Post More War Logs
Wall Street Journal
August 13, 2010

U.S. defense officials on Thursday responded angrily to WikiLeaks' plan to post additional Afghan war logs, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggesting that the move could further endanger the lives of Afghans who helped the U.S. war effort. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, speaking to a group in London by video link on Thursday, said his group had gone through 7,000 of the 15,000 documents the group has so far withheld from publishing. WikiLeaks had said it was withholding posting those documents until it had time to review them to block out the names of sources contained in the documents. "Absolutely," he replied when asked whether he still plans to publish the remaining documents.

The organization has already released some 76,000 classified documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010, leaked by a source the website has refused to identify. The U.S. says it is investigating army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning as a possible source of the leak. The documents touch on unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings by North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces and covert operations against Taliban figures, among other things. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said posting more documents would be "the height of irresponsibility." "The only responsible course of action for them is to immediately remove all the stolen documents from their website and expunge all classified material from their computers," he said.

Earlier Thursday, Mr. Gates, responding to a question from a Navy sailor in San Diego, said intelligence sources have confirmed that al Qaeda and Taliban leaders have given direction to comb the documents looking for the names of Afghans who had helped the American war effort. "I think the consequences are potentially very severe," Mr. Gates said. "We don't have specific information of an Afghan being killed yet because of them. But I put the emphasis on 'yet.' " WikiLeaks' supporters say the accounts of the conflict should be publicized to reveal potential war crimes and the toll of the war. Mr. Assange said some of the criticism has been "legitimate," but repeated his earlier call for the Pentagon and human-rights groups to help him redact the names. "So far there has been no assistance," he said.

He expressed some ambivalence about the need to protect Afghans who have helped the U.S. military. "We are not obligated to protect other people's sources," including sources of "spy organizations or militaries," unless it is from "unjust retribution," he said, adding that the Afghan public "should know about" people who have engaged in "genuinely traitorous" acts. Mr. Assange said he still fears that the U.S. is trying to have him arrested for publishing the classified documents. He was meant to appear in person at the panel discussion about the media at London's Frontline Club, but dialed in by Skype instead. Asked by an audience member for his current location, he said "no comment." He appeared to have dyed his trademark white hair brown, and to have cut it in a close crop.

Oil Spill Shows Difficulty The Coast Guard Faces As It Balances Traditional Tasks With Post-9/11 Missions
Washington Post
August 13, 2010

The U.S. Coast Guard in recent years has fought international terrorism, defended Iraqi pipelines and patrolled for pirates in the Arabian Sea. Its work in such high-visibility missions accelerated after Sept. 11, 2001, when Congress swept the Coast Guard into the Homeland Security Department. More funding followed. But the changes had the unintended consequence of lowering the profile of the Coast Guard's vital programs related to oil. "Priorities changed," a 2002 Coast Guard budget report said.

Internal and congressional studies highlighted the difficulty the agency faces in balancing its many added responsibilities. "Oil-spill issues were not at the top of the list," said retired Capt. Lawson Brigham, a former strategic planner for the Coast Guard. When Coast Guard inspectors board offshore drilling rigs such as the Deepwater Horizon, which exploded and killed 11 workers in April, they rely on regulations put in place three decades ago, when offshore drilling operations were far less sophisticated, records show. The Coast Guard acknowledged 11 years ago in a little-noticed disclosure that its regulations had "not kept pace with the changing offshore technology or the safety problems it creates."

Since the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, investigations into oversight gaps have focused on systemic problems within the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which in recent weeks has been renamed and revamped. But the Coast Guard, which shared oversight with MMS, has largely escaped scrutiny. While the MMS inspected drilling equipment, the Coast Guard inspected rigs for worker safety. It also set standards for companies that clean up spills, and has coordinated the joint response to the spill in the gulf.

Some analysts said the spill highlights the need to rethink Coast Guard priorities. In the past 35 years, Congress has handed the agency at least 27 new responsibilities, according to a tally by Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "They just don't have enough personnel to carry out all those missions," said Oberstar, who favors severing the Coast Guard from the Homeland Security Department. "That's just not possible."

Coast Guard officials said they did not have budget figures to compare how much is spent on oil-related programs now and before Sept. 11, 2001. Even current budget numbers for these programs are unclear because spending falls into two categories that encompass many other activities, including fighting invasive species and oversight of recreational boating. Marine environmental protection was allotted 2 percent of this year's operating expenses, marine safety 8 percent. The Coast Guard said that before 2001, the agency was organized differently. A private study in 2003 by one Coast Guard officer calculated that, before the attacks, marine environmental programs accounted for 11 percent of operating funds and marine safety accounted for 14 percent.

Congressional staffers said the lack of reliable figures has complicated their efforts to ensure that vital programs are not neglected. Juggling diverse missions is far from the only challenge the Coast Guard faces. Its maritime fleet is aging, and a long-delayed fleet- modernization plan has suffered design flaws and cost overruns; it is now under Justice Department scrutiny. The White House has recommended budget cuts. And the Coast Guard's marine-safety programs have suffered a drain as personnel sought higher-profile assignments.

Senior Coast Guard officials said the agency's many missions make it stronger because ships patrolling for terrorists might happen across drug smugglers or an oil slick. They said that crews develop complementary skills and that combining missions saves money. Coast Guard officials point out that until April, oil spills had decreased dramatically. They said mission statistics do not reflect the division of labor at sea, where crews are ready for whatever comes their way. "The Coast Guard takes its role as an environmental-response agency seriously," said Capt. Anthony Lloyd, chief of the Office of Incident Management and Preparedness. But even some defenders of the Coast Guard fear that it is edging toward crisis. "It's basically at the breaking point," former commander Stephen Flynn said.

Community Policing

Federal regulation of offshore drilling grew over the years into a patchwork. The MMS leased offshore drilling rights to private companies, approved emergency response plans and inspected drilling equipment. The Coast Guard ensured the seaworthiness of mobile drilling units. Today, Coast Guard inspectors examine navigational equipment, lifesaving apparatus and fire protection systems, and look after day-to-day worker safety. The agency also oversees containment of oil and major spill cleanup.

The most rigorous Coast Guard inspections occur on U.S.-flagged oil rigs; they last for days. Rigs registered in other countries, such as the Marshall Islands-flagged Deepwater Horizon, get a six-hour review. A three-person Coast Guard team last visited Deepwater Horizon in July 2009, found no major deficiencies and issued a two-year compliance certificate. When inspectors show up, they often spot-check paperwork produced by private companies, which the Coast Guard refers to as "stakeholders." "It's more of a community policing kind of approach: get to know the neighbors, help an old lady cross the street," said Flynn, the former Coast Guard commander, who heads the Center for National Policy, a Washington think tank. "You build a level of collaboration, rather than an 'us-vs.-them' kind of approach."

Two months before the gulf blowout, the Obama administration proposed a 3 percent cut in Coast Guard funding and active-duty personnel. The plan would slash 1,100 military personnel and decommission the National Strike Force Coordination Center, which manages oil-spill response. "Not a good idea," Oberstar said. Coast Guard officials have long acknowledged strained resources, especially with ships and aircraft. In February, Adm. Thad Allen, then Coast Guard commandant, said in a speech that the Coast Guard operates one of the world's oldest fleets, with high-endurance cutters averaging 41 years of age, compared to 14 for the U.S. Navy.

"No amount of maintenance can outpace the ravages of age," Allen said, describing the sputtering performance of cutters assigned to Haiti relief work. "The condition of our fleet continues to deteriorate, putting our crews at risk, jeopardizing our ability to do the job." During the initial gulf response, Coast Guard logs show that three aircraft and one cutter suffered mechanical problems that delayed or scuttled their missions, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity.

Alarming Stories

In 2007, at Allen's request, Vice Admiral James C. Card interviewed 170 civilian mariners and Coast Guard personnel about marine safety operations. He found consensus that programs were deteriorating. The biggest concern, Card wrote in his report, "was that the Coast Guard no longer considered Marine Safety an important mission." The Coast Guard had become a "fundamentally different" organization, Card was told. New editions of the official "U.S. Coast Guard Strategy," a 54-page manual, contained a single page discussing marine safety, agency personnel said.

Many experienced inspectors have left the service or have transferred to more "career-enhancing" assignments, leaving behind a significant number who are seen as unqualified, the report said. In one service division, marine inspectors spent only about 40 percent of their time on inspections. "Every Marine Safety professional I talked to in the Coast Guard, both at Headquarters and in the field, said they didn't have enough people to do the job," Card wrote. "Some stories were alarming."

Officers feared that choosing to work in marine safety for the long term could damage their careers because senior officials were unsupportive. The report did not address environmental-response programs, but said many people interviewed expressed similar concerns about those programs losing "experience, resources, knowledge and focus." The report's findings were underscored this year at a hearing on the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Lt. Commander Michael Odom, head of the team that inspected the rig in July 2009, testified that Coast Guard regulations are outdated. "The pace of the technology has definitely outrun the current regulations," Odom testified. In fact, qualifications for inspectors assigned to mobile offshore drilling units, such as Deepwater, have not been updated since 2007. Although offshore inspectors are supposed to receive annual specialized training, that has occurred sporadically, officers testified in May. Even with training, they said, it takes a year for an inspector to comprehend the technologically complex rigs.

Others in the field fear that an overemphasis on homeland security could actually make the United States less safe, by drawing funding and attention away from other programs. "Spending so little on this just makes no sense," Flynn said. "I can't come up with any terrorism scenario, short of perhaps a nuclear weapon launched near a city, that could produce nearly as much destruction as we're seeing with this man-made disaster in the Gulf of Mexico."

Uganda Displays Suspects In Deadly Bomb Attacks
Los Angeles Times
August 13, 2010

A former university librarian on Thursday said he wanted to kill as many Americans as possible in bomb attacks that killed 76 people in the Ugandan capital last month. In a public confession at a news conference in Kampala arranged by Ugandan military intelligence, Issa Ahmed Luyima said he planned the July 11 attacks and roped his younger brother and others into the plot. His motive was a deep hatred of Americans, the 33-year-old Ugandan said. "My rage was with the Americans whom I deemed responsible for all the suffering of Muslims around the world," he was quoted as saying by news agency reports. "I targeted places where many Americans go."

One American died in the bomb blasts in Kampala at a rugby club and an Ethiopian restaurant, locations where people had gathered to watch the soccer World Cup final. Another attack had been planned at a dance hall but wasn't carried out. The four suspects at the news conference all confessed to involvement and said they were sorry for what they had done. One of them wept. "We have apprehended all those responsible for the planning and execution of these cowardly attacks," said the head of military intelligence, James Mugira, according to the news agencies. Earlier, police chief Kale Kayihura told journalists that 22 people had been arrested for alleged involvement in the bombings. Late last month, three Kenyans appeared in a Ugandan court charged with multiple counts of murder over the attacks.

Haruna Luyima, the ringleader's 27-year-old brother, said at the news conference that his role was to carry out the planned dance hall attack. "But when I reached there I wondered why so many people watching football on television should be killed over nothing," the younger Luyima said. He said he dumped a bag with the bomb in a flower bed and fled the scene. Police have since said the abandoned bomb and a cellphone helped them trace the terrorists. The older Luyima said he had joined Shabab, the Somali rebel group linked to Al Qaeda, last year and had fought with the militants alongside other foreign fighters.

Shabab last month claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were in revenge for Uganda's role in the African Union peacekeeping force backing Somalia's fragile government. It was the first time the group managed to mount an attack outside Somalia. Western governments have been alarmed at the rise of Islamic extremism in East Africa since 1998, when Al Qaeda militants bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing about 220 people. The Uganda attack was the worst terrorist attack in East Africa since. Issa Luyima said he left Somalia in April and spent time in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa before being sent by Shabab superiors to Kampala.

Another suspect at the news conference, Idris Nsubuga, said he had detonated a bomb at the rugby club. Two suicide bombers, a Somali and a Kenyan, also detonated bombs, he said. Nsubuga said he was jobless, under emotional stress and having marital problems when he joined the plot. He said Issa Luyima was interested in attacking places where white people, especially Americans, spent time. The fourth suspect, Mohammed Mugisha, 24, of Rwanda, said he had been recruited by Al Qaeda in Kenya two years ago and was given the task of running the Uganda attack. But he was dropped from that role after he made mistakes renting a safe house.

Car Bomb Injures Nine In Bogotá
London Financial Times
August 13, 2010

A car bomb exploded outside a radio station in Bogotá’s financial district on Thursday, causing gridlock in the Colombian capital and threatening fledgling moves towards peace after a 45-year war with leftist guerrillas. Juan Manuel Santos, on his fifth day as president, visited the site outside Caracol Radio, an important news outlet, and said the nation would not be intimidated. “This is a cowardly terrorist act. All they want is to generate fear and they will not succeed,” he said. Nine people were injured and the explosion damaged branches of Bancolombia and BBVA and the facades of up to 170 flats. The explosion was heard by Colombians across the country as they listened to the morning news.

Mr. Santos had been moving swiftly to stitch together a consensus for peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, restoring diplomatic relations with the leftist Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez and signaling he would be willing to talk if the Farc gave up its “weapons, kidnapping and drug trafficking”. Mr. Chavez, accused by previous president Álvaro Uribe of actively harboring up to 1,500 Farc fighters, has in recent days urged the group to release its hostages, many of whom have been held for years.

“Mr. Santos has made significant overtures for a peace deal, and you have to remember that both the Farc and the ELN (National Liberation Army) have also made statements seeking negotiations to be opened,” Jorge Restrepo, director of Cerac, a Bogota-based think-tank specializing in conflict and criminal-based violence, told the Financial Times. There had not been “a more propitious moment in recent years” for peace negotiations, Mr. Restrepo said. “We were coming from a moment in which there was a lot of happiness. People were thinking we were turning the page against terrorism ... This was only a 50kg car bomb but politically the impact and the fear it has instilled are very large.”

While the bomb was not confirmed Thursday morning as the work of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, it is thought to be the same explosive used in a 2003 Farc attack on an exclusive social club in north Bogota that killed 37 people and injured 200. Darío Arizmendi, a Caracol journalist who was inside the office when Thursday’s bomb exploded, has received threats from the Farc. Mr. Restrepo said it was likely the work of a hardline cell within the Farc. The last major bomb in Bogotá, planted in a Citibank ATM just a few blocks from Thursday’s bombsite, killed two people in January 2009.

Indian Forces Face Broader Revolt In Kashmir
New York Times
August 13, 2010

Late Sunday night, after six days on life support with a bullet in his brain, Fida Nabi, a 19-year-old high school student, was unhooked from his ventilator at a hospital in Srinagar, Kashmir. Mr. Nabi was the 50th person to die in Kashmir’s bloody summer of rage. He had been shot in the head, his family and witnesses said, during a protest against India’s military presence in this disputed province. For decades, India maintained hundreds of thousands of security forces in Kashmir to fight an insurgency sponsored by Pakistan, which claims this border region, too. The insurgency has been largely vanquished. But those Indian forces are still here, and today they face a threat potentially more dangerous to the world’s largest democracy: an intifada-like popular revolt against the Indian military presence that includes not just stone-throwing young men but their sisters, mothers, uncles and grandparents.

The protests, which have erupted for a third straight summer, have led India to one of its most serious internal crises in recent memory. Not just because of their ferocity and persistence, but because they signal the failure of decades of efforts to win the assent of Kashmiris using just about any tool available: money, elections and overwhelming force. “We need a complete revisit of what our policies in Kashmir have been,” said Amitabh Mattoo, a professor of strategic affairs at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a Kashmiri Hindu. “It is not about money – you have spent huge amounts of money. It is not about fair elections. It is about reaching out to a generation of Kashmiris who think India is a huge monster represented by bunkers and security forces.”

Indeed, Kashmir’s demand for self-determination is sharper today than it has been at perhaps any other time in the region’s troubled history. It comes as – and in part because – diplomatic efforts remain frozen to resolve the dispute created more than 60 years ago with the partition of mostly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. Today each nation controls part of Kashmir, whose population is mostly Muslim. Secret negotiations in 2007, which came close to creating an autonomous region shared by the two countries, foundered as Pervez Musharraf, then Pakistan’s president, lost his grip on power. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, by Pakistani militants in 2008 derailed any hope for further talks.

Not least, India has consistently rebuffed any attempt at outside mediation or diplomatic entreaties, including efforts by the United States. The intransigence has left Kashmiris empty-handed and American officials with little to offer Pakistan on its central preoccupation – India and Kashmir – as they struggle to encourage Pakistan’s help in cracking down on the Taliban and other militants in the country. With no apparent avenue to progress, many Kashmiris are despairing that their struggle is taking place in a vacuum, and they are taking matters into their own hands. “What we are seeing today is the complete rebound effect of 20 years of oppression,” said Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, the chief cleric at Srinagar’s main mosque and a moderate separatist leader. Kashmiris, he said, are “angry, humiliated and willing to face death.”

This summer there have been nearly 900 clashes between protesters and security forces, which have left more than 50 civilians dead, most of them from gunshot wounds. While more than 1,200 soldiers have been wounded by rock-throwing crowds, not one has been killed in the unrest, leading to questions about why Indian security forces are using deadly force against unarmed civilians – and why there is so little international outcry. “The world is silent when Kashmiris die in the streets,” said Altaf Ahmed, a 31-year-old schoolteacher. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made an emotional appeal for peace. “I can feel the pain and understand the frustration that is bringing young people out into the streets of Kashmir,” the Indian prime minister said in a televised speech. “Many of them have seen nothing but violence and conflict in their lives and have been scarred by suffering.”

Indeed, there is a palpable sense of opportunities squandered. Despite the protests of recent years, the Kashmir Valley had in the past few years been enjoying a season of peace. The insurgency of the 1990s has mostly dried up, and elections in 2008 drew the highest percentage of voters in a generation. High expectations met the new chief minister, Omar Abdullah, a scion of Kashmir’s leading political family, whose fresh face seemed well suited to bringing better government and prosperity to Kashmir. But election promises, like repealing laws that largely shield security forces from scrutiny and demilitarizing the state, went unfulfilled. After two summers of protests on specific grievances, this summer’s unrest has taken on a new character, one more difficult to define and mollify.

That anger has led to a cycle of violence that the Indian government seems powerless to stop. Events that unfolded last week in Pulwama, a small town 20 miles from Srinagar, illustrate how the violence feeds itself. It began on Monday, Aug. 2, when a young man, Mohammad Yacoub Bhatt, from a village near Pulwama was shot dead during a march to protest the earlier killings of other young protesters. Four days later, a procession set off to protest his death. Soon it swelled into the thousands. The police blocked the road and refused to let the marchers pass, worried that the crowd would burn down government buildings, as previous crowds had. What happened next is disputed. Protesters claimed that when they tried to surge through a barricade, the police opened fire.

“We did not think they would open fire,” said Malik Shahid, 17, who had joined the march. “There was no violence. It was a peaceful protest.” First the police fired in the air, witnesses said, then into the scattering crowd. A bullet felled Mr. Shahid’s uncle, Shabir Ahmed Malik, a 24-year-old driver, and killed him on the spot. Mr. Shahid, a 12th grader who hopes to become an engineer, said the latest violence was evidence to him that remaining part of India was impossible. “If India took steps against those who kill us, maybe the people of Kashmir would be willing,” he said. “But when there is no justice how can we remain with India? They are not doing anything but killing. So we will just go for freedom.”

Commandant Prabhakar Tripathy, spokesman for the Central Reserve Police Force, the main paramilitary force trying to keep order in Kashmir, declined to comment on the episode but said that the protests were not as spontaneous as they appeared. “Militants are just mingling with the crowd, firing bullets from the crowd,” Mr. Tripathy said. “Now they are trying to raise this confrontation between the public and the security forces.” “We are charging them with tear gas, rubber pellets, firing in the air, nothing works here,” he said. “When a crowd of thousands attacks the camp, what can you do?”

Indian officials have tried to portray Kashmir’s stone-throwing youths as illiterate pawns of jihadist forces across the Pakistan border and have suggested that economic development and jobs are the key to getting young people off the streets. But many of the stone throwers are hardly illiterate. They organize on Facebook, creating groups with names like “Im a Kashmiri Stone Pelter.” One young man who regularly joins protests and goes by the nom de guerre Khalid Khan has an M.B.A. and a well-paying job. “Stone pelting is a form of resistance to their acts of repression in the face of peaceful protest,” he said in an interview. “I would call it self-defense. Stones do not kill. Their bullets kill.”

Each death seems to feed the anger on the streets, creating new recruits for the revolt. Fida Nabi’s brother, Aabid, 21, watched over him as he drifted toward death this week, his head swathed in white bandages, his chest rising and falling to the ghostly rhythm of the ventilator. Aabid thought he had his life all mapped out – making more than $200 a month as a news photographer. But since his brother was shot his priorities have changed. “I used to cover the protests,” he said. “But now I will join them.”