Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review
At one point American occupation of Iraq was called a "quagmire." Many mistakes were made, but America's leaders got their act together. And along with the other nations forming the "coalition of the willing," they have given some 50 million Iraqis a chance for better lives than they had any hope for just eight years ago.

The status of forces agreement effective New Years Day replaced the U.N. resolution under which the U.S. government had been operating since the invasion. The agreement says Iraq may request help from the U.S. military "for limited and temporary support" in providing security for Baghdad's Green Zone, but otherwise the 3.5-square-mile zone on the banks of the Tigris in central Baghdad has become Iraqi territory.

The Republican Palace in the zone lost its American flavor when the United States handed over security control to the Iraqi government. As the Iraqi flag was hoisted at the palace entrance, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said, "It is our right to consider this day the day of sovereignty and the beginning of the process of retrieving every inch of our nation's soil" He added that "The palace is the sign of Iraqi sovereignty and it is a message to all Iraqis that our sovereignty has returned."

The Americans are not leaving the Green Zone overnight. Both governments agree that the American withdrawals will be gradual. Although the zone will be run by the Iraqi Baghdad Brigade, U.S. checkpoint equipment will remain and the Iraqis will coordinate the checkpoints with American forces.

Nevertheless, the traffic light remains green, and here's why:

• In the past four months, forces from 19 coalition countries have departed the country -- Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Georgia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Tonga and Ukraine.

• British forces have transferred control of Basra airport, a main military base in southern Iraq, to Iraqi officials.

• Britain and Australia -- which had the second and third largest contingents respectively after the United States -- have signed their own bilateral agreements with Iraq and expect to depart at the end of July.

• Under the American-Iraqi status-of-forces agreement, American combat troops will leave Iraqi cities by the end of June, and will completely clear the country by the end of 2011. Nonetheless, thousands of American uniformed troops are expected to remain behind as trainers and advisors. (Whether incoming president Barack Obama's previously announced target of May 2010 will be a factor remains to be seen.)

• The U.S. transition already has started. In an area south of Baghdad, once called "the triangle of death," a combat brigade of 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division is being replaced with a task force of 800 to 1,200 trainers and advisers. Granted, there's no free lunch for some Americans, but the light remains green, and the traffic cops are changing uniforms from American to Iraqi.
  

The light was already changing before Christmas of last year. On December 21, Army Brig. Gen. David G. Perkins, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, reported that the number of daily attacks in Iraq had dropped nearly 95 percent since the previous year. He explained that, Iraq had suffered an average of 180 attacks per day a year earlier, but over the past week, the average number was 10. He added that the country's murder rates had dropped below levels that existed before the start of American operations in Iraq. In November, the ratio was 0.9 per 100,000 people.

Another bilateral arrangement was signed by President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Called the "Strategic Framework Agreement," it formalizes economic, diplomatic, cultural and security ties between the two nations. President Bush said the pact establishes a common vision for future U.S.-Iraqi relations which will bring greater stability to Iraq and the region through trade and investment.

"Throughout the past eight years, I've seen the tremendous talent and courage of those who wear the uniform," Bush said. "Their efforts have overthrown tyrants, made our nation safer, put terrorists on the run, and opened the door to liberty for more than 50 million people."

So the Green Zone handover signals an enormous success. Of course much remains to be done, and we can expect setbacks and more bloodshed, but for now the light is green.

This article may be copied or retransmitted for information purposes, but may not be used commercially without written permission from Fred Edwards. If using it for information purposes, include this notice and credit the source as Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review by Fred Edwards.

Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review

My post of December 28 ("The Pirate Plague") outlined the international piracy problem in stark terms. This one explores solutions.

From the military point of view, defense of the more than 2.5 million square miles of the western Indian Ocean reminds one of the quandary T. E. Lawrence faced during World War I. He was tasked to find a way to defend up to 140,000 square miles of desert between the Levant and Medina. His answer was by insurgency, but almost a century later, the pirates are the insurgents. So the United States and other nations must conduct counter-pirate warfare.

Can security vessels help? More than a dozen warships from Italy, Greece, Turkey, India, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Britain, Malaysia and the United States already have tried. And China, in a first worldwide us of its navy, is joining in the flight. But the mathematics show that they can't easily protect the 20,000 ships a year that transit 2.5 million square miles of ocean.  A simple solution is not to protect ships but to attack the pirate strongholds.  In the Wall Street Journal on December 9, Max Boot wrote of the 19th century, when colonial powers simply planted their flag in a pirate hotbed, claimed it for their own, and cleaned it out. Today, a world or regional body could provide legitimacy for such action--like NATO and the European Union did in Bosnia and Kosovo. But it takes will, and Boot reminds us that NATO doesn't even have the will to fully support the Afghanistan war.

All the same, on December 16, the 15-member United Nations Security Council passed a resolution authorizing force. Under the resolution, nations may take "all necessary measures" to stop anyone using Somali territory or sea to plan or carry out piracy. This could include attacks on the port cities of Eyl and Haradheere, but that might involve unacceptable collateral damage. Nevertheless, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that, if the United States develops "adequate intelligence" to identify and locate the clans involved, joining in a U.N. air strike might be a future option.

Under the U.N. resolution, we could simply occupy the ports and any other lands that support piracy. The U.S. Marines carried out that mission in Haiti with the Gendarmerie d'Haiti in 1916. The gendarmerie  was commanded primarily by Marine non-commissioned officers who were commissioned into the gendarmerie. The gendarmerie thus became the de facto occupying force for stabilization operations in the country. Looking at the pirate plague, if the United States and allies had the assets and the will, they could occupy key parts of the country until a lasting government could be hammered together. But, too many Americans remember the bloody fight in Mogadishu Oct. 3 and 4, 1993, when 18 U.S. troops and more than 1,000 Somalis were killed, as shown in the 2001 movie, "Black Hawk Down."

What about defensive measures by the individual ships? Officials have advised shipping firms that pirates tend to attack between 4 a.m. and 6 p.m., and they can't board ships steaming faster than 15 knots, so their ships should try to pass through dangerous waters at night at higher speeds. Other ideas include searchlights to blind boarders, high-pressure hoses to drive them into the sea, and electrical fences on deck. Even if security vessels are in the area, pirates can reach a slow-moving ship and board it in 15 minutes, leaving virtually no response time available to the protective vessels.

Nevertheless, an international force did defeat pirates who attempted on December 17 to seize a Chinese cargo ship off the Somali coast. The task force launched two attack helicopters that forced the pirates to abandon the vessel they had boarded. In that episode, nine armed pirates in speedboats overtook the Chinese ship and boarded it. The 30-member crew sent a distress signal when they saw the pirates approach, and barricaded themselves within their living quarters. The international naval force dispatched the two helicopters and a warship. The helicopters arrived first and disposed of the pirates. Nonetheless, this was an exceptional case, when rescuing forces were near enough to act.

Some problems come from balky shipping companies. If they form World War II-like convoys with warship escorts, it lengthens their schedules, which sometimes can cost more than paying ransom. Private contractors have offered security services, but again the cost becomes prohibitive, along with legal problems involving weapons in international ports.

Furthermore, in "Buccaneers are back: The challenges of modern piracy," in the December issue of Armed Forces Journal. Peter Brookes wrote that "many shipping companies don't report hijackings out of concern for increased insurance premiums or lengthy investigations, which could hold their ships pier-side, despite an estimated $10 billion to $20 billion in annual industry losses to piracy."

It is tempting to tell such shippers, therefore, that it is their problem. But it's not. If pirates link with terrorists, a sunken ship in the strait of Hormuz, for example, could cripple world energy supplies.

All in all, security shipping and the onboard security measures discussed can help. But it seems that, unless we strike at the source, and establish a viable government in Somalia,  we can only fight the symptoms and not the cause. It doesn't take a doctor to tell us that you can't cure a plague that way.

This article may be copied or retransmitted for information purposes, but may not be used commercially without written permission from Fred Edwards. If using it for information purposes, include this notice and credit the source as Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review by Fred Edwards.

Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review

By the close of the 18th century, the Barbary States of Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis were extorting protection money from ships that crossed near their shores. The newly born United States of America went along with this to the tune of more than $2 million, until Tripoli jacked up the price in 1801. The U.S. government refused to pay more, and the pasha of Tripoli declared war against the United States.

This made Americans realize that a maritime nation could not hide behind isolationism with impunity. It also nailed down the concept of freedom of the seas. So the fledgling U.S. Navy spread its sails and thrashed Tripoli in 1805, and defeated the others after the War of 1812. This put a dent in piracy, but it didn't eliminate it.

Today it's back, in places like Tanzania, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Brazil, Peru, Nigeria, the Malacca Straits, and Somalia. Many operations are hit or miss, but in Somalia, piracy has become the national industry of a failed state that uses its 2,000-mile coastline for a national resource. And piracy has gone high tech. Mother ships go offshore and launch speed boats containing boarding parties of seven-to-ten. They may carry assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Their electronics inventory includes radar, GPS, and satellite phones. By the last count, Somali-based pirates had seized more than 35 ships, and held 280 crew members hostage. Two had been killed. The prize trophies have been a Saudi tanker carrying two million barrels of crude oil and a Ukrainian freighter carrying tanks and other heavy weapons. Billions of dollars worth of cargo have been hijacked and millions have been paid in ransom. As a result, shipping companies' operating expenses are surging; insurance premiums have spiked 10 percent, and ship routes have become 10 percent longer, raising costs by 20,000 to 30,000 Euros a day.

BBC's Africa analyst Mary Harper wrote that when pirates have taken a ship, the port of Eyl, where most of the ships are brought, springs to life. It's time for coats and ties as the pirates' accountant and the chief negotiator arrive. Special restaurants open up to feed the crews of the highjacked ships. Jonathan Clayton of UK's The Times adds that clan elders arrive to broker a deal between their young clansmen and shipping companies eager to pay ransom. The money sometimes goes into accounts in the United Arab Emirates as well as Western Europe. The activity in turn has spawned more pirate gangs, equipped with higher technology weapons and attack boats.

Officials in the United States and other countries are concerned that pirates will partner with international terrorists. Considering that the West's economy is a strategic target of al Qaeda, think what a ship sunk in a chokepoint such as the Strait of Hormuz would do to the worldwide energy supply. And, remembering the attack on the USS Cole by a small craft in 2000, think what al Qaeda could do if its operatives gained access to a port by using a hijacked ship or tug boat that had been flagged under a new name.

Piracy on the high seas mostly ended during the latter part of the 19th century because the United States with its tiny navy dared to go to war against the Barbary Coast, and because ship's masters knew they had the right to simply hang pirates they captured on the high seas--no courts needed. Considering the bitter criticism aimed at the detention of terrorists at Guantanamo. What would happen to a ship's captain who was lucky enough to catch a pirate today--and hang him?

In a column on November 25, Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal warned that, "A society that erases the memory of how it overcame barbarism in the past inevitably loses sight of the meaning of civilization, and the means of sustaining it."

Coming: Purging the Pirates

This article may be copied or retransmitted for information purposes, but may not be used commercially without written permission from Fred Edwards. If using it for information purposes, include this notice and credit the source as Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review by Fred Edwards.

Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review

In Mumbai, India, on November 26, a small group of well-trained and technologically savvy terrorists attacked two luxury hotels, a train station and peripheral targets, killing 173 victims, torturing or mutilating some of them, and wounding hundreds of others. They departed from Karachi, Pakistan, and arrived by a pirated boat. Their strategy parallels the attacks against the United States Sept. 11, 2001, as will be shown.

A gunman who was captured has identified the terrorist sponsors as Lashkar-e-Taiba (Lashkar), which is believed to have its training networks in Pakistan's tribal areas. According to Bruce Riedel's new book, The Search for Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden collaborated with Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence agency (ISI)  in the late 1980s to create Lashkar. It was subsequently officially banned.

How will India react? It must do something because its citizens are enraged and are demanding action against Pakistan. In a statement similar to President Bush's preemptive doctrine against countries harboring terrorists, Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee has warned that "every sovereign country has its right to protect its territorial integrity."

India and Pakistan have fought four wars since the British decolonized them  -- in 1947-1949, 1965, 1971, and 1999. When considering that both countries have nuclear capability, no sane-thinking person wants these two countries to go to war again.  A Pakistani security official commented that Pakistan cannot afford to deploy to two fronts. This suggests that Pakistan will divert some 100,000 troops from the tribal border region adjoining Afghanistan to the Indian frontier. Such a redeployment would leave the Taliban free to operate, unless the United States has the assets and the will to increase its clandestine operations exponentially in the region. This is mathematically and geographically impossible. The shifting of Pakistani troops also would remove pressure on the Taliban for talks. Furthermore, it would signal that if the United States doesn't support Pakistan in the Indo-Pakistani confrontation, it cannot expect Pakistani cooperation in the Afghan war.

What will India want? For one thing, it might insist that Pakistan's ISI be cleaned up and leashed. But the Pakistani civilian government has little control over the military, and therefore over the ISI. India also would want a guarantee against future terrorist attacks, which neither Pakistan nor the United States can promise.

What might come next? India could deploy more troops to the Indo-Pakistani border, place its nuclear forces on the alert, and perhaps begin artillery attacks into Pakistan. If past wars are any indication, Indian and Pakistani troops might even make cross-border thrusts. After that? Think tanks and airpower. Don't even think about nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, if Pakistan's civilian government falls, it would open the door to an Islamist military government at best, or to a rogue nuclear power at worst.

This sharpens the strategic focus for the United States, and should make Americans acutely aware of the scope of the enemy's strategy. Looking at the situation from the radical Muslim point of view, we find that the length of the Long War remains unchanged -- war to the finish. Fifteen years ago in July 1993, the jihadists planned a virtually identical attack on Manhattan -- dubbed the "Landmarks" plot -- which was blocked only because an informant had infiltrated the group. Analysts Fred Burton and Ben West of Stratfor gave the following details in a report on Dec. 3 , 2008.

U.S. counterterrorism agents arrested eight militants who were linked to al Qaeda, and who were later convicted of plotting a multi-pronged attack against key sites in Manhattan. Their mission had been to kill as many people as possible in the Waldorf-Astoria, St. Regis, and U.N. Plaza hotels, to block the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and to destroy a midtown Manhattan waterfront heliport. Why the hotels? Because the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the U.S. secretary of state, or other prominent persons might be there. Why the tunnels? To cripple the transportation infrastructure. Why the heliport? Because that's where prominent persons arrive.

Burton and West pointed out the following similarities in the "Landmarks" plot and the Mumbai attack:

• Both New York and Mumbai are financial centers that house their countries' major stock exchanges.
  
  
• In both cities, the targets were high-profile with relatively low-levels of  security.
  
  
• Both targets allow access by waterborne craft.
  
  
• Both plans included peripheral targets to "cause confusion and chaos and thus create a diversion from the main targets."
  
  
• In addition to adapting water transportation for movement to the objectives, both plots included the use of familiar-looking wheeled vehicles that would blend in with other city traffic.
  
  

Burton and West state flatly: "Ultimately, the biggest difference between the Landmarks plot and the Mumbai attack is that the Mumbai attack succeeded."

The radical jihadists used a new plan to attack the United States on 9/11, but they dusted off their old plan for the Mumbai operation. They have a long memory. Do we?

This article may be copied or retransmitted for information purposes, but may not be used commercially without written permission from Fred Edwards. If using it for information purposes, include this notice and credit the source as Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review by Fred Edwards.

"There is a warship in Bilwi [Nicaragua], but with medical aid. The ships from the U.S. are coming to help the people, and we have to sincerely express our gratitude." - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. 

The liberal Center for American Progress cites the USS Kearsarge's Operation Continuing Promise (a humanitarian mission which I was embedded and reported on extensively) as a little talked about success of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' and the Bush administration's foreign policy: 

He has been quietly putting this approach into action. In a little-noticed move last summer, the Pentagon sent the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship, on a humanitarian mission to six countries in Latin America. Instead of rushing Marines into battle, the Kearsarge carried more than 500 humanitarian workers, doctors and development experts -- all with the mission, in the words of the ship's commander, of "influencing generations to come." When Hurricane Ike slammed into Haiti in September, the Kearsarge steamed toward the desperate island nation, bearing helicopters and boats to help stem the humanitarian crisis. 

The Kearsarge mission shrewdly sought to build on perhaps the best foreign policy moments of Bush's two terms in office: the responses to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. In both cases, the United States used its might to address a pressing humanitarian crisis -- and in doing so, built up much-needed trust.