Tim Weiner
New York Times
March 28, 2005
The Army's plan to transform itself into a futuristic high-technology force has become so expensive that some of the military's
strongest supporters in Congress are questioning the program's costs and complexity.
Army officials said Saturday that the first phase of the program, called Future Combat Systems, could run to $145 billion. Paul
Boyce, an Army spokesman, said the "technological bridge to the future" would equip 15 brigades of roughly 3,000 soldiers, or about
one-third of the force the Army plans to field, over a 20-year span.
That price tag, larger than past estimates publicly disclosed by the Army, does not include a projected $25 billion for the
communications network needed to connect the future forces. Nor does it fully account for Army plans to provide Future Combat
weapons and technologies to forces beyond those first 15 brigades.
Now some of the military's advocates in Congress are asking how to pay the bill.
"We're dealing today with a train wreck," Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania and vice chairman of the House
Armed Services Committee, said at a March 16 Congressional hearing on the cost and complexity of Future Combat Systems.
"We're left with impossible decisions," said Mr. Weldon, a strong supporter of Pentagon spending who was lamenting the
trillion-dollar costs for the major weapons systems the Pentagon is building. One of those decisions, he warned, might cut back
Future Combat.
The Army sees Future Combat, the most expensive weapons program it has ever undertaken, as a seamless web of 18 different
sets of networked weapons and military robots. The program is at the heart of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's campaign
to transform the Army into a faster, lighter force in which stripped-down tanks could be put on a transport plane and flown into
battle, and information systems could protect soldiers of the future as heavy armor has protected them in the past.
Army officials say the task is a technological challenge as complicated as putting an astronaut on the moon. They call Future
Combat weapons, which may take more than a decade to field, crucial for a global fight against terror.
But the bridge to the future remains a blueprint. Army officials issued a stop-work order in January for the network that would link
Future Combat weapons, citing its failure to progress. They said this month that they did not know if they could build a tank light
enough to fly.
The Army is asking Congress to approve Future Combat while it is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan whose costs, according to
the Congressional Research Service, now exceed $275 billion. Future Combat is one of the biggest items in the Pentagon's plans to
build more than 70 major weapons systems at a cost of more than $1.3 trillion.
The Army has canceled two major weapons programs, the Crusader artillery system and the Comanche helicopter, "to protect
funding for the Future Combat System," said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a member of the Armed Services
Committee. "That is why we have to get the F.C.S. program right."
David M. Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, said in an interview that the Pentagon's future arsenal was
unaffordable and Congress needed "to make some choices now."
"There is a substantial gap between what the Pentagon is seeking in weapons systems and what we will be able to afford and
sustain," said Mr. Walker, who oversees the Government Accountability Office, the budget watchdog of Congress. "We are not
going to be able to afford all of this."
He added, "Every dollar we spend on a want today is a dollar we won't be able to spend on a need tomorrow."
Paul L. Francis, the acquisition and sourcing management director for the accountability office, told Congress that the Army was
building Future Combat Systems without the data it needed to guide it. "If everything goes as planned, the program will attain the
level of knowledge in 2008 that it should have had before it started in 2003," Mr. Francis said in written testimony. "But things are
not going as planned."
He warned that Future Combat Systems, in its early stages of research and development, was showing signs typical of
multibillion-dollar weapons programs that cost far more than expected and deliver fewer weapons than promised. Future Combat is
a network of 53 crucial technologies, he said, and 52 are unproven.
Brig. Gen. Charles A. Cartwright, deputy director for the Army research and development command, said in an interview that
Future Combat was a work in progress, evolving in an upward spiral from the drawing board to the assembly line.
"We are working through the affordability," General Cartwright said. He acknowledged that the Army's cost estimates could spiral
upward as well.
The Army's publicly disclosed cost estimates for Future Combat stood at $92 billion last month. That excluded research and
development, which the G.A.O. says will run to $30 billion. Mr. Boyce, the Army spokesman, said on Saturday that Future Combat
costs were estimated at $25 billion for research and development and from $6.1 billion to $8 billion for each of 15 future brigades, or
as high as $145 billion.
The Army wants Future Combat to be a smaller, faster force than the one now fighting in Iraq. Tanks, mobile cannons and
personnel carriers would be made so light that they could be flown to a war zone. But first they must be stripped of heavy armor. In
place of armor, American soldiers in combat would be protected by information systems, so they could see and kill the enemy
before being seen and killed, Army officials say.
Future Combat soldiers, weapons and robots are to be linked by a $25 billion web, Joint Tactical Radio Systems, known as JTRS
(pronounced "jitters"). The network would transmit the battlefield information intended to protect soldiers. It is not included in the
Future Combat budget.
If JTRS does not work, Future Combat will fail, General Cartwright said. The Army halted production on the first set of JTRS
radios in January, saying they were not progressing as planned.
"The principle of replacing mass with information is threatened," Mr. Francis said in an interview. "Now you'd have light vehicles
fighting the same way as the current force, without the protection. This is one reason why we don't know yet if Future Combat
Systems will work."
Another factor is the weight of the new weapons. Future Combat's tanks and mobile cannons, all built on similar frames, were
supposed to weigh no more than 19 tons each. At that weight, they could be flown to a war zone in a few days, rather than taking
weeks or months to deploy.
They will weigh "less than 50 tons, perhaps less than 30 tons," Claude M. Bolton Jr., the Army's acquisition executive, told Congress
at the March 16 hearing. "Will it be 20 tons or 19? I don't know the answer to that."
That doubt may damage a conceptual underpinning for Future Combat: the ability to deploy armed forces quickly in a crisis. Unless
the weapons are as light as advertised, they will have to arrive in a theater of war by ship.
Boeing, best-known for making commercial aircraft and military space systems, is designing Future Combat Systems in the role of
lead systems integrator, acting as architect and general contractor. It is also responsible for the JTRS radios.
Boeing is being paid $21 billion through 2014 for its work on Future Combat Systems. "It's certainly a key element of our defense
business," said Dennis Muilenburg, the vice president and general manager for Future Combat Systems at Boeing. The Army's
Future Combat contract with Boeing, which has suffered several Pentagon contracting scandals in the last few years, exempts the
company from financial disclosures demanded under the federal Truth in Negotiations Act.
The challenge for the Army and Boeing is to build "an entirely new Army, reconfigured to perform the global policing mission," said
Gordon Adams, a former director for national security spending at the Office of Management and Budget, "and that is enormously
expensive."
Mr. Rumsfeld told the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee last month about the challenge of remaking an Army in the
middle of a war. "Abraham Lincoln once compared reorganizing the Union Army during the Civil War to bailing out the Potomac
River with a teaspoon," he said. "I hope and trust that what we are proposing to accomplish will not be that difficult."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation: Tim Weiner, "An Army Program to Build a High-Tech Force Hits Cost Snags", New York Times, March 28, 2005
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/politics/28weapons.html?ei=5070&en=1ba5a30bdf3e64d5&ex=1112590800&pagewanted=print&position=
This site is designed for use by researchers, educators, and students who seek access to its 2000+ military policy articles for research and/or educational purposes. Provided on a not-for-profit basis per 'fair use' rules.
28 March 2005
Delay and Uncertainty Hamper Day-to-Day Efforts of Iraqi Ministries
Edward Wong
New York Times
March 26, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 25 - The delay in forming a new government in Iraq has stalled important projects at ministries and is sowing confusion among current government workers about their duties, senior Iraqi officials say.
After the Jan. 30 elections, the office of the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, ordered the country's more than two dozen
ministries not to start any long-term projects or make any major policy decisions because the new government was expected to be
installed quickly.
Last week, as negotiations over a new government dragged on, Dr. Allawi's office rescinded its order. But some ministry officials
say they were not aware of that change or remain hesitant about pushing ahead with long-term projects. Many government
employees are also working at a slower pace because they are distracted by the political negotiations and insecurity of their own
jobs, the officials say.
"The lack of a government is causing a lot of problems," Sabah Kadhum, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the
nascent police force, said this week. "People are not carrying out the responsibilities they should be. This is happening in all the
ministries. There's absolutely no excuse. It's a very unfortunate way to begin a new government."
The main Shiite and Kurdish political parties have been engaged in heated talks to form a coalition government. Together, they hold
more than two-thirds of the 275 seats in the national assembly, enough to name a president and two vice presidents, who will then
appoint a prime minister. But the two groups have doggedly looked after their own interests, and as the talks have sunk into a
quagmire, the confidence of ordinary Iraqis has ebbed.
Officials from both sides say they are at odds over the control of oil fields and the splitting of oil revenue, as well as over important
posts in the government. The Kurds and Shiites are also negotiating with the Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the elections, over
which jobs the Sunnis will fill. In addition, the various parties have yet to agree on any role Dr. Allawi and his allies might play in the
new government.
Fallout from the protracted talks has been mounting. Ali Faisal al-Lami, a senior Shiite official, said Friday in an interview that a split
had begun to emerge in the ranks of the main Shiite political bloc, as some Shiite politicians began to question the nomination of
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a conservative former exile, for prime minister.
The most immediate impact, though, is being felt in the ministries, as officials struggle to overcome gridlock and carry on with
day-to-day work.
Hajim M. al-Hasani, the minister of industry and a national assembly member, said the initial order from Dr. Allawi's office forced
him to delay starting any long-term projects. That included anything needing large amounts of financing, he said. "I had a couple
companies that were supposed to sign contracts with foreign companies to do work on the factories, but they couldn't do it," he said.
The Ministry of Industry oversees 60 state-run companies spread out across 270 factory sites. It is also in charge of 11 more
companies that, under Saddam Hussein, produced weapons for the government. As with all ministries, any major decisions or plans
are supposed to be reviewed by the cabinet of ministers and various committees that report to the prime minister's office. The order
to freeze those plans was made shortly after the Jan. 30 elections by Zuhair Hamoudi, the head of the cabinet.
"For the last few weeks, these types of decisions, you couldn't really make," Mr. Hasani said. "Some of the ministers, because of
the first order, couldn't carry out what they're supposed to do."
That paralysis ended last week, when Mr. Hamoudi rescinded his order. Mr. Hasani said he was now pushing forward with major
contracts and projects. Still, he said, work at his ministry and others was slow to get going.
"The distraction is everywhere," he said. "Unless you're very close to the circle of decision making, you don't know what's going to
happen; of course people are distracted."
Raad al-Haris, a deputy electricity minister, said that with the start of the long hot season only weeks away, an array of delayed
power station projects now had to be pushed forward quickly.
"We are in a very critical time," he said, adding that in just two months, "we will have very high temperatures and we will have the
peak load."
In the Oil Ministry, officials were reluctant to commit to big contracts even before getting the order from the prime minister's office,
said Falah K. Khawaja, the ministry's director general for management, human relations and development. Noting that questions
over the future government have been lingering for months, he said, "We have been holding off on long-term planning for some
time."
Some officials said they were unaware that Mr. Hamoudi had lifted his order, and were still operating under the assumption that it
was still in place. One such official said he had prepared a big report in the third week of January but had never shown it to any of
his superiors because he was afraid it would get lost in the current atmosphere of uncertainty. "It's become a caretaker
government," he said.
"Most officials' minds are taken up by the politicking," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing
his job. "It's only natural."
That politicking is intense and changes day by day.
At the moment, the Shiites and Kurds are debating how to split up oil revenues, officials on both sides said. The Kurds have been
pushing for the Shiites to promise that tens of thousands of Kurds who were exiled from the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk under
Mr. Hussein will have their property quickly restored. The resulting demographic change would then strengthen the Kurdish case
that Kirkuk and its oil fields, which account for 10 to 20 percent of the country's reserves, should come under Kurdish
administration.
Based on the assumption that they will eventually control Kirkuk, the Kurds are arguing for more regional control of oil revenue.
Several formulas were being reviewed by the Kurds and the Shiites, including one that would give more control of revenue to the
provincial governments than to the central government in Baghdad, said Safeen Dizayee, a spokesman for the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish parties.
"This is a mechanism that needs to be worked out and needs to be clear," Mr. Dizayee said. "There are different proposals. It's a
matter of taking the most practical proposal."
James Glanz, Robert F. Worth and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation: Edward Wong, "Delay and Uncertainty Hamper Day-to-Day Efforts of Iraqi Ministries", New York Times, March 26, 2005.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/international/middleeast/26baghdad.html?pagewanted=print&position=
New York Times
March 26, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 25 - The delay in forming a new government in Iraq has stalled important projects at ministries and is sowing confusion among current government workers about their duties, senior Iraqi officials say.
After the Jan. 30 elections, the office of the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, ordered the country's more than two dozen
ministries not to start any long-term projects or make any major policy decisions because the new government was expected to be
installed quickly.
Last week, as negotiations over a new government dragged on, Dr. Allawi's office rescinded its order. But some ministry officials
say they were not aware of that change or remain hesitant about pushing ahead with long-term projects. Many government
employees are also working at a slower pace because they are distracted by the political negotiations and insecurity of their own
jobs, the officials say.
"The lack of a government is causing a lot of problems," Sabah Kadhum, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the
nascent police force, said this week. "People are not carrying out the responsibilities they should be. This is happening in all the
ministries. There's absolutely no excuse. It's a very unfortunate way to begin a new government."
The main Shiite and Kurdish political parties have been engaged in heated talks to form a coalition government. Together, they hold
more than two-thirds of the 275 seats in the national assembly, enough to name a president and two vice presidents, who will then
appoint a prime minister. But the two groups have doggedly looked after their own interests, and as the talks have sunk into a
quagmire, the confidence of ordinary Iraqis has ebbed.
Officials from both sides say they are at odds over the control of oil fields and the splitting of oil revenue, as well as over important
posts in the government. The Kurds and Shiites are also negotiating with the Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the elections, over
which jobs the Sunnis will fill. In addition, the various parties have yet to agree on any role Dr. Allawi and his allies might play in the
new government.
Fallout from the protracted talks has been mounting. Ali Faisal al-Lami, a senior Shiite official, said Friday in an interview that a split
had begun to emerge in the ranks of the main Shiite political bloc, as some Shiite politicians began to question the nomination of
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a conservative former exile, for prime minister.
The most immediate impact, though, is being felt in the ministries, as officials struggle to overcome gridlock and carry on with
day-to-day work.
Hajim M. al-Hasani, the minister of industry and a national assembly member, said the initial order from Dr. Allawi's office forced
him to delay starting any long-term projects. That included anything needing large amounts of financing, he said. "I had a couple
companies that were supposed to sign contracts with foreign companies to do work on the factories, but they couldn't do it," he said.
The Ministry of Industry oversees 60 state-run companies spread out across 270 factory sites. It is also in charge of 11 more
companies that, under Saddam Hussein, produced weapons for the government. As with all ministries, any major decisions or plans
are supposed to be reviewed by the cabinet of ministers and various committees that report to the prime minister's office. The order
to freeze those plans was made shortly after the Jan. 30 elections by Zuhair Hamoudi, the head of the cabinet.
"For the last few weeks, these types of decisions, you couldn't really make," Mr. Hasani said. "Some of the ministers, because of
the first order, couldn't carry out what they're supposed to do."
That paralysis ended last week, when Mr. Hamoudi rescinded his order. Mr. Hasani said he was now pushing forward with major
contracts and projects. Still, he said, work at his ministry and others was slow to get going.
"The distraction is everywhere," he said. "Unless you're very close to the circle of decision making, you don't know what's going to
happen; of course people are distracted."
Raad al-Haris, a deputy electricity minister, said that with the start of the long hot season only weeks away, an array of delayed
power station projects now had to be pushed forward quickly.
"We are in a very critical time," he said, adding that in just two months, "we will have very high temperatures and we will have the
peak load."
In the Oil Ministry, officials were reluctant to commit to big contracts even before getting the order from the prime minister's office,
said Falah K. Khawaja, the ministry's director general for management, human relations and development. Noting that questions
over the future government have been lingering for months, he said, "We have been holding off on long-term planning for some
time."
Some officials said they were unaware that Mr. Hamoudi had lifted his order, and were still operating under the assumption that it
was still in place. One such official said he had prepared a big report in the third week of January but had never shown it to any of
his superiors because he was afraid it would get lost in the current atmosphere of uncertainty. "It's become a caretaker
government," he said.
"Most officials' minds are taken up by the politicking," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing
his job. "It's only natural."
That politicking is intense and changes day by day.
At the moment, the Shiites and Kurds are debating how to split up oil revenues, officials on both sides said. The Kurds have been
pushing for the Shiites to promise that tens of thousands of Kurds who were exiled from the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk under
Mr. Hussein will have their property quickly restored. The resulting demographic change would then strengthen the Kurdish case
that Kirkuk and its oil fields, which account for 10 to 20 percent of the country's reserves, should come under Kurdish
administration.
Based on the assumption that they will eventually control Kirkuk, the Kurds are arguing for more regional control of oil revenue.
Several formulas were being reviewed by the Kurds and the Shiites, including one that would give more control of revenue to the
provincial governments than to the central government in Baghdad, said Safeen Dizayee, a spokesman for the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish parties.
"This is a mechanism that needs to be worked out and needs to be clear," Mr. Dizayee said. "There are different proposals. It's a
matter of taking the most practical proposal."
James Glanz, Robert F. Worth and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation: Edward Wong, "Delay and Uncertainty Hamper Day-to-Day Efforts of Iraqi Ministries", New York Times, March 26, 2005.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/international/middleeast/26baghdad.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Delay and Uncertainty Hamper Day-to-Day Efforts of Iraqi Ministries
Edward Wong
New York Times
March 26, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 25 - The delay in forming a new government in Iraq has stalled important projects at ministries and is sowing confusion among current government workers about their duties, senior Iraqi officials say.
After the Jan. 30 elections, the office of the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, ordered the country's more than two dozen
ministries not to start any long-term projects or make any major policy decisions because the new government was expected to be
installed quickly.
Last week, as negotiations over a new government dragged on, Dr. Allawi's office rescinded its order. But some ministry officials
say they were not aware of that change or remain hesitant about pushing ahead with long-term projects. Many government
employees are also working at a slower pace because they are distracted by the political negotiations and insecurity of their own
jobs, the officials say.
"The lack of a government is causing a lot of problems," Sabah Kadhum, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the
nascent police force, said this week. "People are not carrying out the responsibilities they should be. This is happening in all the
ministries. There's absolutely no excuse. It's a very unfortunate way to begin a new government."
The main Shiite and Kurdish political parties have been engaged in heated talks to form a coalition government. Together, they hold
more than two-thirds of the 275 seats in the national assembly, enough to name a president and two vice presidents, who will then
appoint a prime minister. But the two groups have doggedly looked after their own interests, and as the talks have sunk into a
quagmire, the confidence of ordinary Iraqis has ebbed.
Officials from both sides say they are at odds over the control of oil fields and the splitting of oil revenue, as well as over important
posts in the government. The Kurds and Shiites are also negotiating with the Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the elections, over
which jobs the Sunnis will fill. In addition, the various parties have yet to agree on any role Dr. Allawi and his allies might play in the
new government.
Fallout from the protracted talks has been mounting. Ali Faisal al-Lami, a senior Shiite official, said Friday in an interview that a split
had begun to emerge in the ranks of the main Shiite political bloc, as some Shiite politicians began to question the nomination of
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a conservative former exile, for prime minister.
The most immediate impact, though, is being felt in the ministries, as officials struggle to overcome gridlock and carry on with
day-to-day work.
Hajim M. al-Hasani, the minister of industry and a national assembly member, said the initial order from Dr. Allawi's office forced
him to delay starting any long-term projects. That included anything needing large amounts of financing, he said. "I had a couple
companies that were supposed to sign contracts with foreign companies to do work on the factories, but they couldn't do it," he said.
The Ministry of Industry oversees 60 state-run companies spread out across 270 factory sites. It is also in charge of 11 more
companies that, under Saddam Hussein, produced weapons for the government. As with all ministries, any major decisions or plans
are supposed to be reviewed by the cabinet of ministers and various committees that report to the prime minister's office. The order
to freeze those plans was made shortly after the Jan. 30 elections by Zuhair Hamoudi, the head of the cabinet.
"For the last few weeks, these types of decisions, you couldn't really make," Mr. Hasani said. "Some of the ministers, because of
the first order, couldn't carry out what they're supposed to do."
That paralysis ended last week, when Mr. Hamoudi rescinded his order. Mr. Hasani said he was now pushing forward with major
contracts and projects. Still, he said, work at his ministry and others was slow to get going.
"The distraction is everywhere," he said. "Unless you're very close to the circle of decision making, you don't know what's going to
happen; of course people are distracted."
Raad al-Haris, a deputy electricity minister, said that with the start of the long hot season only weeks away, an array of delayed
power station projects now had to be pushed forward quickly.
"We are in a very critical time," he said, adding that in just two months, "we will have very high temperatures and we will have the
peak load."
In the Oil Ministry, officials were reluctant to commit to big contracts even before getting the order from the prime minister's office,
said Falah K. Khawaja, the ministry's director general for management, human relations and development. Noting that questions
over the future government have been lingering for months, he said, "We have been holding off on long-term planning for some
time."
Some officials said they were unaware that Mr. Hamoudi had lifted his order, and were still operating under the assumption that it
was still in place. One such official said he had prepared a big report in the third week of January but had never shown it to any of
his superiors because he was afraid it would get lost in the current atmosphere of uncertainty. "It's become a caretaker
government," he said.
"Most officials' minds are taken up by the politicking," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing
his job. "It's only natural."
That politicking is intense and changes day by day.
At the moment, the Shiites and Kurds are debating how to split up oil revenues, officials on both sides said. The Kurds have been
pushing for the Shiites to promise that tens of thousands of Kurds who were exiled from the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk under
Mr. Hussein will have their property quickly restored. The resulting demographic change would then strengthen the Kurdish case
that Kirkuk and its oil fields, which account for 10 to 20 percent of the country's reserves, should come under Kurdish
administration.
Based on the assumption that they will eventually control Kirkuk, the Kurds are arguing for more regional control of oil revenue.
Several formulas were being reviewed by the Kurds and the Shiites, including one that would give more control of revenue to the
provincial governments than to the central government in Baghdad, said Safeen Dizayee, a spokesman for the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish parties.
"This is a mechanism that needs to be worked out and needs to be clear," Mr. Dizayee said. "There are different proposals. It's a
matter of taking the most practical proposal."
James Glanz, Robert F. Worth and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation: Edward Wong, "Delay and Uncertainty Hamper Day-to-Day Efforts of Iraqi Ministries", New York Times, March 26, 2005.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/international/middleeast/26baghdad.html?pagewanted=print&position=
New York Times
March 26, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 25 - The delay in forming a new government in Iraq has stalled important projects at ministries and is sowing confusion among current government workers about their duties, senior Iraqi officials say.
After the Jan. 30 elections, the office of the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, ordered the country's more than two dozen
ministries not to start any long-term projects or make any major policy decisions because the new government was expected to be
installed quickly.
Last week, as negotiations over a new government dragged on, Dr. Allawi's office rescinded its order. But some ministry officials
say they were not aware of that change or remain hesitant about pushing ahead with long-term projects. Many government
employees are also working at a slower pace because they are distracted by the political negotiations and insecurity of their own
jobs, the officials say.
"The lack of a government is causing a lot of problems," Sabah Kadhum, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the
nascent police force, said this week. "People are not carrying out the responsibilities they should be. This is happening in all the
ministries. There's absolutely no excuse. It's a very unfortunate way to begin a new government."
The main Shiite and Kurdish political parties have been engaged in heated talks to form a coalition government. Together, they hold
more than two-thirds of the 275 seats in the national assembly, enough to name a president and two vice presidents, who will then
appoint a prime minister. But the two groups have doggedly looked after their own interests, and as the talks have sunk into a
quagmire, the confidence of ordinary Iraqis has ebbed.
Officials from both sides say they are at odds over the control of oil fields and the splitting of oil revenue, as well as over important
posts in the government. The Kurds and Shiites are also negotiating with the Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the elections, over
which jobs the Sunnis will fill. In addition, the various parties have yet to agree on any role Dr. Allawi and his allies might play in the
new government.
Fallout from the protracted talks has been mounting. Ali Faisal al-Lami, a senior Shiite official, said Friday in an interview that a split
had begun to emerge in the ranks of the main Shiite political bloc, as some Shiite politicians began to question the nomination of
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a conservative former exile, for prime minister.
The most immediate impact, though, is being felt in the ministries, as officials struggle to overcome gridlock and carry on with
day-to-day work.
Hajim M. al-Hasani, the minister of industry and a national assembly member, said the initial order from Dr. Allawi's office forced
him to delay starting any long-term projects. That included anything needing large amounts of financing, he said. "I had a couple
companies that were supposed to sign contracts with foreign companies to do work on the factories, but they couldn't do it," he said.
The Ministry of Industry oversees 60 state-run companies spread out across 270 factory sites. It is also in charge of 11 more
companies that, under Saddam Hussein, produced weapons for the government. As with all ministries, any major decisions or plans
are supposed to be reviewed by the cabinet of ministers and various committees that report to the prime minister's office. The order
to freeze those plans was made shortly after the Jan. 30 elections by Zuhair Hamoudi, the head of the cabinet.
"For the last few weeks, these types of decisions, you couldn't really make," Mr. Hasani said. "Some of the ministers, because of
the first order, couldn't carry out what they're supposed to do."
That paralysis ended last week, when Mr. Hamoudi rescinded his order. Mr. Hasani said he was now pushing forward with major
contracts and projects. Still, he said, work at his ministry and others was slow to get going.
"The distraction is everywhere," he said. "Unless you're very close to the circle of decision making, you don't know what's going to
happen; of course people are distracted."
Raad al-Haris, a deputy electricity minister, said that with the start of the long hot season only weeks away, an array of delayed
power station projects now had to be pushed forward quickly.
"We are in a very critical time," he said, adding that in just two months, "we will have very high temperatures and we will have the
peak load."
In the Oil Ministry, officials were reluctant to commit to big contracts even before getting the order from the prime minister's office,
said Falah K. Khawaja, the ministry's director general for management, human relations and development. Noting that questions
over the future government have been lingering for months, he said, "We have been holding off on long-term planning for some
time."
Some officials said they were unaware that Mr. Hamoudi had lifted his order, and were still operating under the assumption that it
was still in place. One such official said he had prepared a big report in the third week of January but had never shown it to any of
his superiors because he was afraid it would get lost in the current atmosphere of uncertainty. "It's become a caretaker
government," he said.
"Most officials' minds are taken up by the politicking," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing
his job. "It's only natural."
That politicking is intense and changes day by day.
At the moment, the Shiites and Kurds are debating how to split up oil revenues, officials on both sides said. The Kurds have been
pushing for the Shiites to promise that tens of thousands of Kurds who were exiled from the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk under
Mr. Hussein will have their property quickly restored. The resulting demographic change would then strengthen the Kurdish case
that Kirkuk and its oil fields, which account for 10 to 20 percent of the country's reserves, should come under Kurdish
administration.
Based on the assumption that they will eventually control Kirkuk, the Kurds are arguing for more regional control of oil revenue.
Several formulas were being reviewed by the Kurds and the Shiites, including one that would give more control of revenue to the
provincial governments than to the central government in Baghdad, said Safeen Dizayee, a spokesman for the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish parties.
"This is a mechanism that needs to be worked out and needs to be clear," Mr. Dizayee said. "There are different proposals. It's a
matter of taking the most practical proposal."
James Glanz, Robert F. Worth and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation: Edward Wong, "Delay and Uncertainty Hamper Day-to-Day Efforts of Iraqi Ministries", New York Times, March 26, 2005.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/international/middleeast/26baghdad.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Pentagon Will Not Try 17 G.I.'s Implicated in Prisoners' Deaths
Douglas Jehl
New York Times
March 26, 2005
WASHINGTON, March 25 - Despite recommendations by Army investigators, commanders have decided not to prosecute 17 American soldiers implicated in the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, according to a
new accounting released Friday by the Army.
Investigators had recommended that all 17 soldiers be charged in the cases, according to the accounting by the Army Criminal
Investigation Command. The charges included murder, conspiracy and negligent homicide. While none of the 17 will face any
prosecution, one received a letter of reprimand and another was discharged after the investigations.
To date, the military has taken steps toward prosecuting some three dozen soldiers in connection with a total of 28 confirmed or
suspected homicides of detainees. The total number of such deaths is believed to be between 28 and 31.
In one of the three cases in which no charges are to be filed, the commanders determined the death to be "a result of a series of
lawful applications of force." In the second, the commanders decided not to prosecute because of a lack of evidence. In the third,
they determined the soldier involved had not been well informed of the rules of engagement.
A spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command, Chris Grey, said in a statement: "We take each and every death very
seriously and are committed and sworn to investigating each case with the utmost professionalism and thoroughness. We are
equally determined to get to the truth wherever the evidence may lead us and regardless of how long it takes."
Human rights groups and others have criticized the military for not pursuing prosecution more aggressively.
The accounting was the most detailed the military has yet made public of the deaths of prisoners in American custody in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Of the 28 deaths investigated, 13 occurred in American detention centers in those countries and 15 occurred at the point where
prisoners were captured. Only one occurred in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which has been known until now as the site of the most
extensive abuses by American military personnel.
The 28 deaths include two cases involving members of the Navy Seals, which are still being investigated by the Navy, according to
military officials. They also include a prisoner in Marine Corps custody whose death resulted in the conviction of two marines on
charges including assault and dereliction of duty, according to a Marine spokesman.
Not included in the 28 are three other deaths of prisoners involving marines but under investigation by the Navy.
With the disposition of the three cases involving the 17 soldiers not prosecuted, the Army now has 21 soldiers listed as subjects for
prosecution on criminal charges including, among others, murder, negligent homicide and assault.
Of those 21 soldiers, at least 3 have been convicted in general courts-martial, and at least 3 others are awaiting trial, the Army
accounting showed.
The Army said one of the three deaths for which soldiers would not be prosecuted was that of a former Iraqi lieutenant colonel
determined by investigators to have died of "blunt force injuries and asphyxia" at an American Forward Operating Base in Al Asad,
Iraq, in January 2004.
In that case, Army investigators had recommended that 11 soldiers from the Fifth Special Forces Group and the Third Armored
Cavalry Regiment face charges. The decision not to prosecute in that case, as well as one other, was made by the Army Special
Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., the Army said.
A senior Army legal official acknowledged that the Iraqi colonel had at one point been lifted to his feet by a baton held to his throat,
and that that action had caused a throat injury that contributed to his death.
The Army accounting said the Special Forces Command had determined that the use of force had been lawful "in response to
repeated aggression and misconduct by the detainee."
The former Iraqi colonel was not identified but has been named in other reports as Jameel.
The senior Army legal official said the prisoner's resistance to his captors' instructions had caused them to gag him and to lift him to
his feet with the baton, actions that contributed to the death.
The Army Special Forces case that commanders decided to drop for lack of evidence involved the shooting death of a prisoner in
Afghanistan in August 2002, the Army said.
The case not prosecuted because the soldier involved was not well informed of the rules of engagement, involved the Fourth
Infantry Division. The detainee, who died in September 2003, was an Iraqi prisoner at an American detention center.
The Army said it has now closed its investigations into 16 of the deaths, and referred five of them to the Navy, the Justice
Department or foreign governments for possible prosecution.
Some of the deaths described in the Army accounting have already been widely reported, including two deaths at Bagram in
Afghanistan in December 2002; the death at Abu Ghraib in November 2003 of an Iraqi who was being questioned by a Central
Intelligence Agency officer; and the death the same month of an Iraqi major general who had been stuffed head-first into a sleeping
bag.
An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, said the prisoners who died represented a tiny fraction of what he said had been
some 70,000 detainees held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Altogether, more than a million American
soldiers have taken part in those operations, Colonel Martin said.
A spokesman for the Army Special Operations Forces Command, Maj. Robert E. Gowan, said a "careful review of the facts"
surrounding each of the two incidents involving that command indicated that "no U.S. Army Special Forces Command soldiers were
found to have participated in any misconduct or detainee abuse."
"U.S. Army Special Forces Command takes all allegations of detainee abuse and homicide very seriously," Major Gowan said in an
e-mail statement in response to an inquiry. "As with any case, U.S. Army Special Forces Command will consider all relevant
evidence and facts. This command will make appropriate disposition of such cases as warranted by the facts and evidence derived
from the investigations."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation:
Douglas Jehl, "Pentagon Will Not Try 17 G.I.'s Implicated in Prisoners' Deaths", New York Times, March 26, 2005.
Original URL:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/politics/26abuse.html?pagewanted=print&position=
New York Times
March 26, 2005
WASHINGTON, March 25 - Despite recommendations by Army investigators, commanders have decided not to prosecute 17 American soldiers implicated in the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, according to a
new accounting released Friday by the Army.
Investigators had recommended that all 17 soldiers be charged in the cases, according to the accounting by the Army Criminal
Investigation Command. The charges included murder, conspiracy and negligent homicide. While none of the 17 will face any
prosecution, one received a letter of reprimand and another was discharged after the investigations.
To date, the military has taken steps toward prosecuting some three dozen soldiers in connection with a total of 28 confirmed or
suspected homicides of detainees. The total number of such deaths is believed to be between 28 and 31.
In one of the three cases in which no charges are to be filed, the commanders determined the death to be "a result of a series of
lawful applications of force." In the second, the commanders decided not to prosecute because of a lack of evidence. In the third,
they determined the soldier involved had not been well informed of the rules of engagement.
A spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command, Chris Grey, said in a statement: "We take each and every death very
seriously and are committed and sworn to investigating each case with the utmost professionalism and thoroughness. We are
equally determined to get to the truth wherever the evidence may lead us and regardless of how long it takes."
Human rights groups and others have criticized the military for not pursuing prosecution more aggressively.
The accounting was the most detailed the military has yet made public of the deaths of prisoners in American custody in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Of the 28 deaths investigated, 13 occurred in American detention centers in those countries and 15 occurred at the point where
prisoners were captured. Only one occurred in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which has been known until now as the site of the most
extensive abuses by American military personnel.
The 28 deaths include two cases involving members of the Navy Seals, which are still being investigated by the Navy, according to
military officials. They also include a prisoner in Marine Corps custody whose death resulted in the conviction of two marines on
charges including assault and dereliction of duty, according to a Marine spokesman.
Not included in the 28 are three other deaths of prisoners involving marines but under investigation by the Navy.
With the disposition of the three cases involving the 17 soldiers not prosecuted, the Army now has 21 soldiers listed as subjects for
prosecution on criminal charges including, among others, murder, negligent homicide and assault.
Of those 21 soldiers, at least 3 have been convicted in general courts-martial, and at least 3 others are awaiting trial, the Army
accounting showed.
The Army said one of the three deaths for which soldiers would not be prosecuted was that of a former Iraqi lieutenant colonel
determined by investigators to have died of "blunt force injuries and asphyxia" at an American Forward Operating Base in Al Asad,
Iraq, in January 2004.
In that case, Army investigators had recommended that 11 soldiers from the Fifth Special Forces Group and the Third Armored
Cavalry Regiment face charges. The decision not to prosecute in that case, as well as one other, was made by the Army Special
Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., the Army said.
A senior Army legal official acknowledged that the Iraqi colonel had at one point been lifted to his feet by a baton held to his throat,
and that that action had caused a throat injury that contributed to his death.
The Army accounting said the Special Forces Command had determined that the use of force had been lawful "in response to
repeated aggression and misconduct by the detainee."
The former Iraqi colonel was not identified but has been named in other reports as Jameel.
The senior Army legal official said the prisoner's resistance to his captors' instructions had caused them to gag him and to lift him to
his feet with the baton, actions that contributed to the death.
The Army Special Forces case that commanders decided to drop for lack of evidence involved the shooting death of a prisoner in
Afghanistan in August 2002, the Army said.
The case not prosecuted because the soldier involved was not well informed of the rules of engagement, involved the Fourth
Infantry Division. The detainee, who died in September 2003, was an Iraqi prisoner at an American detention center.
The Army said it has now closed its investigations into 16 of the deaths, and referred five of them to the Navy, the Justice
Department or foreign governments for possible prosecution.
Some of the deaths described in the Army accounting have already been widely reported, including two deaths at Bagram in
Afghanistan in December 2002; the death at Abu Ghraib in November 2003 of an Iraqi who was being questioned by a Central
Intelligence Agency officer; and the death the same month of an Iraqi major general who had been stuffed head-first into a sleeping
bag.
An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, said the prisoners who died represented a tiny fraction of what he said had been
some 70,000 detainees held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Altogether, more than a million American
soldiers have taken part in those operations, Colonel Martin said.
A spokesman for the Army Special Operations Forces Command, Maj. Robert E. Gowan, said a "careful review of the facts"
surrounding each of the two incidents involving that command indicated that "no U.S. Army Special Forces Command soldiers were
found to have participated in any misconduct or detainee abuse."
"U.S. Army Special Forces Command takes all allegations of detainee abuse and homicide very seriously," Major Gowan said in an
e-mail statement in response to an inquiry. "As with any case, U.S. Army Special Forces Command will consider all relevant
evidence and facts. This command will make appropriate disposition of such cases as warranted by the facts and evidence derived
from the investigations."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation:
Douglas Jehl, "Pentagon Will Not Try 17 G.I.'s Implicated in Prisoners' Deaths", New York Times, March 26, 2005.
Original URL:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/politics/26abuse.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Army Probe Finds Abuse at Jail Near Mosul
Associated Press
March 26, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Newly released government documents say the abuse of prisoners in Iraq by U.S. forces was more widespread than previously reported.
An officer found that detainees ``were being systematically and intentionally mistreated'' at a holding facility near Mosul in
December 2003. The 311th Military Intelligence Battalion of the Army's 101st Airborne Division ran the lockup.
Records previously released by the Army have detailed abuses at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq as well as at sites in
Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The documents released Friday were the first to reveal abuses at the jail in Mosul and
are among the few to allege torture directly.
``There is evidence that suggests the 311th MI personnel and/or translators engaged in physical torture of the detainees,'' a memo
from the investigator said. The January 2004 report said the prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions were violated.
Top military officials first became aware of the Abu Ghraib abuses in January 2004, when pictures such as those showing soldiers
piling naked prisoners in a pyramid were turned over to investigators. The resulting scandal after the pictures became public
tarnished the military's image in Arab countries and worldwide and sparked investigations of detainee abuses.
The records about the Mosul jail were part of more than 1,200 pages of documents referring to allegations of prisoner abuse. The
Army released the records to reporters and to the American Civil Liberties Union, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit.
``They show the torture and abuse of detainees was routine and such treatment was considered an acceptable practice by U.S.
forces,'' ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said.
Guards at the detention facility near Mosul came from at least three infantry units of the 101st Airborne, including an air-defense
artillery unit. The investigating officer, whose name was blacked out of the documents, said the troops were poorly trained and
encouraged to abuse prisoners.
According to the report, the abuse included:
-- Forcing detainees to perform exercises such as deep knee bends for hours on end, to the point of exhaustion.
-- Blowing cigarette smoke into the sandbags the prisoners were forced to wear as hoods.
-- Throwing cold water on the prisoners in a room that was between 40 degrees and 50 degrees.
-- Blasting the detainees with heavy-metal music, yelling at them and banging on doors and ammunition cans.
No one was punished for the abuses, however, because the investigating officer said there was not enough proof against any
individual. The report did not say what actions might have amounted to torture or which individuals might have committed them.
^------
On the Net:
ACLU: http://www.aclu.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation:
"Army Probe Finds Abuse at Jail Near Mosul", Associated Press, 26 March 2005.
Original URL:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Prisoner-Abuse-Iraq.html?pagewanted=print&position=
March 26, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Newly released government documents say the abuse of prisoners in Iraq by U.S. forces was more widespread than previously reported.
An officer found that detainees ``were being systematically and intentionally mistreated'' at a holding facility near Mosul in
December 2003. The 311th Military Intelligence Battalion of the Army's 101st Airborne Division ran the lockup.
Records previously released by the Army have detailed abuses at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq as well as at sites in
Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The documents released Friday were the first to reveal abuses at the jail in Mosul and
are among the few to allege torture directly.
``There is evidence that suggests the 311th MI personnel and/or translators engaged in physical torture of the detainees,'' a memo
from the investigator said. The January 2004 report said the prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions were violated.
Top military officials first became aware of the Abu Ghraib abuses in January 2004, when pictures such as those showing soldiers
piling naked prisoners in a pyramid were turned over to investigators. The resulting scandal after the pictures became public
tarnished the military's image in Arab countries and worldwide and sparked investigations of detainee abuses.
The records about the Mosul jail were part of more than 1,200 pages of documents referring to allegations of prisoner abuse. The
Army released the records to reporters and to the American Civil Liberties Union, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit.
``They show the torture and abuse of detainees was routine and such treatment was considered an acceptable practice by U.S.
forces,'' ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said.
Guards at the detention facility near Mosul came from at least three infantry units of the 101st Airborne, including an air-defense
artillery unit. The investigating officer, whose name was blacked out of the documents, said the troops were poorly trained and
encouraged to abuse prisoners.
According to the report, the abuse included:
-- Forcing detainees to perform exercises such as deep knee bends for hours on end, to the point of exhaustion.
-- Blowing cigarette smoke into the sandbags the prisoners were forced to wear as hoods.
-- Throwing cold water on the prisoners in a room that was between 40 degrees and 50 degrees.
-- Blasting the detainees with heavy-metal music, yelling at them and banging on doors and ammunition cans.
No one was punished for the abuses, however, because the investigating officer said there was not enough proof against any
individual. The report did not say what actions might have amounted to torture or which individuals might have committed them.
^------
On the Net:
ACLU: http://www.aclu.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation:
"Army Probe Finds Abuse at Jail Near Mosul", Associated Press, 26 March 2005.
Original URL:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Prisoner-Abuse-Iraq.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Vital Signs of a Ruined Falluja Grow Stronger
New York Times
Robert F. Worth
March 26, 2005
FALLUJA, Iraq, March 20 - Four months after American bombs and guns pounded much of this city into ruins, some signs of life are returning. A kebab shop and a bakery have reopened on the bullet-scarred main boulevard. About a third of the city's
250,000 residents have trickled back since early January. American marines and Iraqi police officers patrol the streets, and there
has been little violence.
But the safety has come at a high price. To enter Falluja, residents must wait about four hours to get through the rigid military
checkpoints, and there are strict nightly curfews. That has stunted the renascent economy and the reconstruction effort. It has also
frustrated the residents, who are still coming to grips with their shattered streets and houses. Many have jobs or relatives outside the
city.
"Falluja is safe," said Hadima Khalifa Abed, 42, who returned to her ruined home in January with her husband and 10 children. "But
it is safe like a prison."
American military officials here say they face a difficult choice. Easing the harsh security measures might help revive the economy
and cut the 50 percent unemployment rate; it could also allow the return of the insurgents who ran Falluja from last April until the
American intervention in November. Even now, insurgents lob occasional mortar shells into the city, and a number of contractors
have been killed here.
There are other obstacles. Falluja still lacks a mayor and a city council because of the new Iraqi National Assembly's failure to
form a government. The American military is reluctant to make decisions that will shape the city for decades, and the resulting
power vacuum has been crippling.
Hundreds of new police officers, trained in Jordan, are expected to arrive in the city soon, American military officials say.
Nongovernmental organizations have donated truckloads of equipment for fire stations, hospitals and schools. But there are no
police stations for the officers to work in, and there are no new fire stations because no one has the authority to decide where to
build them.
"Without a mayor, no one settles the disputes," said an American military official who is involved in the reconstruction effort and
who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Without a city council how do you get a design approved, and how do you coordinate a
plan for a functioning city?"
All the same, much has improved since residents first returned to a nearly deserted city almost three months ago.
On a tour of the city's central neighborhoods with an American convoy, civilian cars and taxis could be seen cruising the streets.
Customers shopped at fruit and vegetable markets, and a crowd waited outside a new branch of the Rafidain Bank.
At the Palestine School, where classes started again two months ago, the cheerful shrieks of students could be heard in the
hallways.
"Things are almost back to normal here," said the headmaster, Samer Eyd Jawhar, 60, a portly man in a light blue jacket and tie.
"We have teachers and books. Things are getting better."
Everywhere, there are complaints about the strict military control of the city. Najim Abed, the director of an emergency clinic, said
its one ambulance often has trouble getting in and out of the city. It is also hard to reach patients at night, because the ambulance
must be accompanied by a military patrol, he said.
There are still two battalions of marines operating in the city, with some added units like a Navy Seabee engineering team. There
are at least two battalions of Iraqi police officers, though military officials declined to give any exact figures.
Meanwhile the rebuilding efforts are proceeding, however slowly. After the American incursion in November, Falluja's utilities lay
in ruins. Today, electricity and running water are available in 40 percent of the city's homes and shops, American officials say, and
will reach the rest within the next month. The sewer drainage system is working again, and longer-term plans are under way to
completely replace the city's rickety electrical grid.
Insurgents have killed a few of the contractors who have done rebuilding work, contractors and American officials say. Others
have received death threats. Many contractors refuse to work in the city at all. No Shiite Arab contractors have done work here,
because the largely Sunni Arab insurgency has made them targets, said one Western contractor who asked that he and his firm not
be named for safety reasons.
The effect of the threats is apparent even in the American military headquarters here, where the bathroom is still unfinished. The
contractor working on that bathroom received a threat to stop working or die, said the American military official. The work stopped.
But the owner of the company, who did extensive work with the American military and lived in Baghdad, was killed last week
anyway.
"We have tried to hire a new contractor to finish the job, but have not found one yet willing to work here," the American official
said.
But American and Iraqi officials agree that the city's residents have worked hard to prevent the intimidation. A group of Falluja
residents, including some tribal figures, have formed an anti-intimidation council, said the Western contractor.
An effort to compensate residents for damage to their homes has begun in the past two weeks.
On Sunday, Ms. Abed was among the second group to receive a compensation check in the former youth center where the
American military has its Falluja headquarters. The checks were given out by members of the Falluja Working Group, a mix of
former government employees and others who form an ad hoc city council.
Each person received an initial payment equal to 20 percent of the cost of the damage as assessed by a group of Iraqi engineers.
The money comes from the interim Iraqi government.
Ms. Abed, dressed in a full-length black abaya, explained that she returned to her home in the city's Andalus district in January to
find the kitchen and pantry almost totally destroyed, with open sky visible through the ceiling. The rest of the house was a relief:
there were some holes in the walls, nothing more. The refrigerator, television and anything else of value were gone.
When her name was called, Ms. Abed went to the front of the room and received a check for 2,400,000 dinars, about $1,655. Like
many of the 30 people who received checks that day, she said it was nowhere near enough. Her husband and four of her children
are suffering from mental illness, she said, and the entire family talks constantly about their fears for the future.
Compared with her neighbors, though, she feels lucky.
"When I saw their houses were totally destroyed, I said, 'Thank God, we are O.K.; we are better off than the others,' " Ms. Abed
said.
Falluja's future is full of questions. The Iraqi government has determined that compensating the city's residents for their damaged
homes will cost $496 million, of which $100 million has been allocated, American officials say.
The city's identity, too, is uncertain. In an effort to push Falluja in a new direction, American and Iraqi officials have carefully
screened applicants for police and government jobs to make sure they have no insurgent ties.
"We listen to the voice of the people, not the voice of the former regime," said Lt. Col. Harvey Williams, an Army civil affairs
officer working on economic development issues in Falluja. "We're trying to set a whole new paradigm."
But Falluja has a history of sympathy with the insurgents, and it is still not clear how they will react as the reconstruction continues.
"When you are insulted, it is not enough to get money," said Sabih Shamkhi, 61, who was also waiting to receive a compensation
check for his damaged house. "But money is better than nothing. We hope the government will fulfill the rest of its obligations to
us."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation
Robert F. Worth, "Vital Signs of a Ruined Falluja Grow Stronger", New York Times, 26 March 2005.
Original URL:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/international/middleeast/26falluja.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
Robert F. Worth
March 26, 2005
FALLUJA, Iraq, March 20 - Four months after American bombs and guns pounded much of this city into ruins, some signs of life are returning. A kebab shop and a bakery have reopened on the bullet-scarred main boulevard. About a third of the city's
250,000 residents have trickled back since early January. American marines and Iraqi police officers patrol the streets, and there
has been little violence.
But the safety has come at a high price. To enter Falluja, residents must wait about four hours to get through the rigid military
checkpoints, and there are strict nightly curfews. That has stunted the renascent economy and the reconstruction effort. It has also
frustrated the residents, who are still coming to grips with their shattered streets and houses. Many have jobs or relatives outside the
city.
"Falluja is safe," said Hadima Khalifa Abed, 42, who returned to her ruined home in January with her husband and 10 children. "But
it is safe like a prison."
American military officials here say they face a difficult choice. Easing the harsh security measures might help revive the economy
and cut the 50 percent unemployment rate; it could also allow the return of the insurgents who ran Falluja from last April until the
American intervention in November. Even now, insurgents lob occasional mortar shells into the city, and a number of contractors
have been killed here.
There are other obstacles. Falluja still lacks a mayor and a city council because of the new Iraqi National Assembly's failure to
form a government. The American military is reluctant to make decisions that will shape the city for decades, and the resulting
power vacuum has been crippling.
Hundreds of new police officers, trained in Jordan, are expected to arrive in the city soon, American military officials say.
Nongovernmental organizations have donated truckloads of equipment for fire stations, hospitals and schools. But there are no
police stations for the officers to work in, and there are no new fire stations because no one has the authority to decide where to
build them.
"Without a mayor, no one settles the disputes," said an American military official who is involved in the reconstruction effort and
who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Without a city council how do you get a design approved, and how do you coordinate a
plan for a functioning city?"
All the same, much has improved since residents first returned to a nearly deserted city almost three months ago.
On a tour of the city's central neighborhoods with an American convoy, civilian cars and taxis could be seen cruising the streets.
Customers shopped at fruit and vegetable markets, and a crowd waited outside a new branch of the Rafidain Bank.
At the Palestine School, where classes started again two months ago, the cheerful shrieks of students could be heard in the
hallways.
"Things are almost back to normal here," said the headmaster, Samer Eyd Jawhar, 60, a portly man in a light blue jacket and tie.
"We have teachers and books. Things are getting better."
Everywhere, there are complaints about the strict military control of the city. Najim Abed, the director of an emergency clinic, said
its one ambulance often has trouble getting in and out of the city. It is also hard to reach patients at night, because the ambulance
must be accompanied by a military patrol, he said.
There are still two battalions of marines operating in the city, with some added units like a Navy Seabee engineering team. There
are at least two battalions of Iraqi police officers, though military officials declined to give any exact figures.
Meanwhile the rebuilding efforts are proceeding, however slowly. After the American incursion in November, Falluja's utilities lay
in ruins. Today, electricity and running water are available in 40 percent of the city's homes and shops, American officials say, and
will reach the rest within the next month. The sewer drainage system is working again, and longer-term plans are under way to
completely replace the city's rickety electrical grid.
Insurgents have killed a few of the contractors who have done rebuilding work, contractors and American officials say. Others
have received death threats. Many contractors refuse to work in the city at all. No Shiite Arab contractors have done work here,
because the largely Sunni Arab insurgency has made them targets, said one Western contractor who asked that he and his firm not
be named for safety reasons.
The effect of the threats is apparent even in the American military headquarters here, where the bathroom is still unfinished. The
contractor working on that bathroom received a threat to stop working or die, said the American military official. The work stopped.
But the owner of the company, who did extensive work with the American military and lived in Baghdad, was killed last week
anyway.
"We have tried to hire a new contractor to finish the job, but have not found one yet willing to work here," the American official
said.
But American and Iraqi officials agree that the city's residents have worked hard to prevent the intimidation. A group of Falluja
residents, including some tribal figures, have formed an anti-intimidation council, said the Western contractor.
An effort to compensate residents for damage to their homes has begun in the past two weeks.
On Sunday, Ms. Abed was among the second group to receive a compensation check in the former youth center where the
American military has its Falluja headquarters. The checks were given out by members of the Falluja Working Group, a mix of
former government employees and others who form an ad hoc city council.
Each person received an initial payment equal to 20 percent of the cost of the damage as assessed by a group of Iraqi engineers.
The money comes from the interim Iraqi government.
Ms. Abed, dressed in a full-length black abaya, explained that she returned to her home in the city's Andalus district in January to
find the kitchen and pantry almost totally destroyed, with open sky visible through the ceiling. The rest of the house was a relief:
there were some holes in the walls, nothing more. The refrigerator, television and anything else of value were gone.
When her name was called, Ms. Abed went to the front of the room and received a check for 2,400,000 dinars, about $1,655. Like
many of the 30 people who received checks that day, she said it was nowhere near enough. Her husband and four of her children
are suffering from mental illness, she said, and the entire family talks constantly about their fears for the future.
Compared with her neighbors, though, she feels lucky.
"When I saw their houses were totally destroyed, I said, 'Thank God, we are O.K.; we are better off than the others,' " Ms. Abed
said.
Falluja's future is full of questions. The Iraqi government has determined that compensating the city's residents for their damaged
homes will cost $496 million, of which $100 million has been allocated, American officials say.
The city's identity, too, is uncertain. In an effort to push Falluja in a new direction, American and Iraqi officials have carefully
screened applicants for police and government jobs to make sure they have no insurgent ties.
"We listen to the voice of the people, not the voice of the former regime," said Lt. Col. Harvey Williams, an Army civil affairs
officer working on economic development issues in Falluja. "We're trying to set a whole new paradigm."
But Falluja has a history of sympathy with the insurgents, and it is still not clear how they will react as the reconstruction continues.
"When you are insulted, it is not enough to get money," said Sabih Shamkhi, 61, who was also waiting to receive a compensation
check for his damaged house. "But money is better than nothing. We hope the government will fulfill the rest of its obligations to
us."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation
Robert F. Worth, "Vital Signs of a Ruined Falluja Grow Stronger", New York Times, 26 March 2005.
Original URL:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/international/middleeast/26falluja.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
24 March 2005
The Perfect Storm
On the Chopping Block
It is probably Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, who, with this comment in the Los Angeles Times of 19 December on the QDR-05 crisis, might well have the last word: “The Iraqi insurgents have managed to do what Don Rumsfeld in four years has not managed to do, which is to bring about cutbacks in a lot of these Cold War-era weapons.” We would broaden it to ‘what five secretaries of defense (Cheney, Aspin, Perry, Cohen and Rumsfeld) have been unable to do in sixteen years.’
The current year, 2005, will not be the year of Iraq, but the years of the Quadrennial Defense Review or the QDR. This exercise, first run in 1993 and mandated by the Congress in 1996 (FY ’97), places an obligation on the Pentagon to review its strategy and the structures and weapons programs that underpin that strategy for the following four years. But the QDR was instituted in point of fact for one reason only: to force the Pentagon to reform, to modify it structures and its programming. The 1993, 1997 and 2001 QDRs were failures in this respect. The restructuring and the reprogramming of a system that remains frozen in its Cold War mold just did not take place.
Some might consider that we are living in a bizarre time, a time when the state-of-the-art modernity of American military power are constantly the object of praise, and yet at a time when this very military power has shown itself incapable of undertaking it own fundamental reform necessitated by the end of the Cold War - and this notwithstanding the fact that the other major military powers have undergone such fundamental reform, although with less uniform results. (sic) This time, however, with the 2005 QDR, it would seem that we are finally getting down to business. At least that is what is being said by those whose opinions matter. When one reads the following in the editorial of the December 2004 issue of Air Force Magazine (AFA), you can be sure that the pressure is on: “[General] Mcnabb [formerly deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, USAF] once said the Air Force faced what could be described as a ‘perfect storm’ - a precise convergence of financial and other pressures that could bring new opportunities but also force hard choices.” There are two key issues here: why the use of the expression ‘perfect storm’ and the sentiment within the USAF community that the USAF is faced with ‘hard choices’, but that these could lead to ‘new opportunities’.
In effect, this feeling of inevitableness is overwhelming, for all the players, even those who are accustomed to defending their turf through dilatory bureaucratic actions, actions which in the past have generally had the desired effect. This feeling of inevitability is something completely new. It is explained by the intercession, the intervention, the intrusion in Pentagon business by outside influences. The Pentagon is not left to itself to conduct its QDR. The Pentagon is the object of pressure from two sources (three if you count the Congress): pressure by the White House, beginning to panic in the face of the budget deficit and having announced (the President himself) on 18 December that expenditures must be reduced - and we know that the Pentagon will be obliged to cut $10 billion from its FY 2006 budget forecast - and pressure stemming from the crisis in Iraq. (sic)
Iraq is the Litmus Test
The issue that is plaguing the Pentagon is not solely in the economic field (exponentially mushrooming, yet still inadequate, budgets; the uncontrollable character of budgets for major weapon systems, systems that have become of questionable deployability in new conflicts; etc.) What makes the ’05 QDR so unique is the omnipresence of the presence of the pressures generated by the conflict in Iraq.
Whatever Rumsfeld’s rhetoric, backed by the pretensions of the White House, everyone know (sic) that the force of 150,000 men in Iraq was and remains inadequate to the task. The realistic figures, with no guarantee of success, would be close to the initial estimates by US Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki, who in the spring of 2002 (before being bullied into retirement by the taunts and sarcasm of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz), dared to express the view that 400,000 men was the minimum force to hold Iraq after its initial military defeat or conquest. (sic) Everyone also knows that the US Army and the Marines are in over their heads - that they are under-equipped and that they are living on their reserves (Reserves units and National Guard units) under trying conditions, with involuntary retention on active duty and frequent extensions of overseas tours in combat areas. (sic)
The consensus therefore is that the US Army must be beefed up as soon as possible. The word is that 150,000 additional men are needed over and above the 480,000 currently available. That is considered a minimum: it would just barely permit the formation of two divisions or of six brigades, depending upon the force structure selected. Other sources express the view that that it is possible to forego force augmentation, but that it will be necessary to undergo an in-depth restructuring that will be extremely costly. The cost of either option is estimated to require additional funding of a minimum of $5-$6 billion annually. And (sic) that is an optimistic view. We would be inclined would be inclined to say that $10 billion or more in additional fund annually. This budget increase is being imposed at a time when the White House is cutting $10 billion from the DoD’s FY 2006 budget; at a time when the nation’s exchequer groans under the ever increasing expenditures required to finance the country’s expeditionary military adventures. A new request of the approximately $100 billion is expected, bringing the total cost incurred between September 2001 and September 2005 for the ‘Empire’s’ overseas expeditions to between $250 billion and $300 billion.
Today, the US Army is living on credit. It has been obliged to borrow from its sister service, the US Navy and the US Air Force, in order to be able to face up to high priority operational requirements, requirements that are increasing daily to meet the plethora of problems encountered on the ground. To cite but one example: at a ‘talking point’ with soldiers held by Rumsfeld in Iraq on 8 December 2004, a soldier took the Secretary of Defense to task because of the lack of armor plating for Humvee vehicles; this exchange led to an immediate requirement to accelerate fitting the required armor plating on all Humvees without that protection - at an equally immediate cost of $500 million. (sic) Everyone is claiming their rightful entitlement; the US Army looks to it civilian hierarchy as the budget is strained to the breaking point under the pressure of the deficit, thereby compounding the drop in the dollar and increasing the perception abroad of the fragility of American power.
It is this multitude of pressures converging at a single point (the ’05 QDR), with a single purpose (immediate reforms - structural, if possible - with immediate effect), that explains the situation. Thus, a ‘perfect storm’, a phenomenon of nature whereby all the natural forces gather to unleash themselves in a single, violent atmospheric disturbance, representing the ‘perception’ of the unleashing of the natural, pent-up, rage of the world.
Another Long Wait
In the nineties, the analyses on the future of the Pentagon were a dime a dozen. The end of the Cold War demanded no less. Circles in the know were rife with rumors of reform. The bolder assumptions foresaw the post-Cold War DoD budget falling to around $180-$200 billion in 2000, to stabilize at $150-$200 billion in 2005, depending upon the assumption relating to overseas commitments. We are talking not about a disarmament budget, but a restructuring budget based on requirements, threats and a foreign policy reduced to the exigencies of the continental security of the United States in a context of collective security (presupposing, for example, the dismantling of the majority of America’s bases abroad, whose sole justification was the threat of Communism). (sic)
The harsh reality is that a budget of approximately $360 billion at the turn of the century today exceeds $420 billion. If we add the expenditures chargeable to other departments (which should have declined on the basis of our 1990-92 assumptions, and which have, on the contrary, grown exponentially) and their fiscal impact, we are talking about an overall expenditure for US military power for the year 2004 of $750 billion. Contrary to all the inanities dished out over the past 10 years by the luminaries in the field, we are in a position to gauge, in the light of the situation in Iraq, the extraordinary catastrophe that the process has produced.
What has happened since 1990 is the contrary of the flourishing state of the US military power trumpeted by the sycophantic acolytes. The US armed forces, today confronted with a ‘real war’ of our era (asymmetrical war or 4th Generation War - 4th GW), are showing themselves to be an amorphous mass with sclerotic structures of a different age, to a point that is unimaginable. In 2000-2001, General Shinseki tried in vain to transform the US Army’s heavy divisions into mobile, light brigades; today, in Iraq, the US Army is still operating with a divisional structure. The US Army is still operating with a divisional structure. The US Army, a prisoner of its own bureaucracy and of its gigantesque, Pharonic budgets that dictate its material and equipment, and therefore its doctrine, is showing itself to be locked in a time warp with doctrines dating from World War II, to the point that the attack on Fallujah was reminiscent of the 1945 tank battles that took place in German towns; Fallujah saw the heaviest concentration of tanks in urban combat since Berlin in 1945. (sic) Reform is not necessary - it is crucial. It is a sine qua non for the Pentagon’s very survival.
Writing this, we have to pinch ourselves to make sure we’re not dreaming: Are we merely conjuring up in our imagination once again the long-awaited Pentagon reform that we have been promised so often? Such an eventuality is not beyond the realm of possibility. It is possible - for everything is possible - that the ’05 QDR mountain will give birth to a puny mouse. This has already happened in the past. This time, however, the tropical storm that is looming on the horizon is beginning to resemble the tsunami of recent infamy.
Decadence Sets In
But (sic) the situation is far worse since it is axiomatic that whatever does not progress regresses: if you don’t move forward, you find yourself inevitably losing ground, moving backward. Not only has the Pentagon fought off any idea of reform for the past 15 years, but this same spirit of immobility has undermined the traditional virtues of US military power.
For it must not be forgotten that American military power is a heavy, cumbersome piece of machinery - one that is extremely slow to shift into motion. It has a highly complex logistic organization. That explains the fact that when a war begins, the Americans experience setbacks and take forever to get their act together. (The first US soldiers arrived in France in July 1917; the first real combat took place in May 1918, with the 1st Infantry Division, and only then because the situation of the allies was so perilous that it required the intervention of all available forces.) But (sic) then, gradually, laboriously, the machinery grinds into action. The lines of communication are established and secured. The logistic support facilities become fully operative. The US armed forces, now fully equipped and prepared, are ready to show how effective a fighting force they can be.
That is in the past. Today, the situation is extraordinary, because it is exactly the converse. It was at the very start of the war - the March-April 2003 offensive - that the US Army seemed to be operating full-bore (with some weaknesses here and there, as in a combat helicopter tactic). Since May 2003, the situation has deteriorated at a dizzying pace.
Since the summer of 2004, the situation has reached a point of criticality: combat vehicles are not combat-ready; equipment as essential as radios are in short supply; poor maintenance, defective operation and spares shortages are common at all echelons, down to the infantryman’s rifle. Incident of protest and insubordination are rampant affecting entire units. The latest incident relates to a National Guard unit about to depart for Iraq in December 2004, without its full complement of M60 rifles or with weapons not operationally sound. It must be borne in mind that this state of affairs exists following a year’s preparation before the attack, with an annual budget of $420 billion, with attention totally focused on Iraq, against an insurgency that has no real fire power and only an embryonic organization.
We are compelled to conclude that the bureaucratic sclerosis of the Pentagon going back over half a century has succeeded in undermining the fundamental qualities of the American military. And we are further compelled to conclude that the remedy is not ‘more money’, ‘more technology’ and ‘more equipment’, but rather a change in attitude in philosophy. It is the organizational machine that has somehow broken down at the human level. The soul-searching inquiry required must go very deep. In such a context, one has to wonder whether the Pentagon has the capability of reforming itself at a time when reform has become a matter of life or death. For now, the outlook is bleak.
An Army in Serious Disarray
We must highlight the extent to which the ’05 QDR will be obliged to come to grips with a critical budget conundrum that poses serious psychological problems for the military establishment. Our analysis leads us to consider two factors - one negative, the other positive. The negative factor boils down to ‘budgetary constraints’, including the expenditures for the current commitments on the ground, especially in Iraq. Under this aspect, there is what appears to be the new orientation of the Bush Administration to combat the budget deficit, with the directive provided to DoD by the White House Office of Management & Budget to reduce its FY 2006 budget by $10 billion.
The second factor, generally deemed more positive, is a reformist buildup coming from the ‘transformational school’ of the Pentagon that wants to take advantage of the current state of turmoil to introduce changes in force structures and program choices, until now successfully resisted by the bureaucracy.
Our view, however, is that this somewhat rosy picture must be strongly toned down by a factor that is both practical and psychological - the practical aspect determining the psychological aspect - because of the unprecedented situation in Iraq as its affects America’s armed forces, essentially the US Army. The situation is dramatic, less because of the pressures of the insurgency than because of the inadequacies of the US armed forces themselves, inadequacies that have an extraordinary impact on the general situation of the forces. One can be sure that of the forces is dramatic when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld recognizes, as he did on 6 February on CNN: “The US military is clearly stressed and recruitment of new troops is falling short of plans.”
During the same interview, Rumsfeld, realizing that such an admission constitutes a reflection on his performance as Secretary of Defense, hastens to add: “The US military is clearly stressed, … but they’re performing brilliantly. They’re doing a fabulous job and we’re adjusting the incentives and the number of recruiters that are out there.”
This optimistic note introduced by the Secretary of Defense is far from being confirmed by the officers in charge of various corps being engaged in Iraq. The National Guard, which supplies a stupefying 40% of the troops on the ground in Iraq, is - according to Lieutenant General Steven Blum, Chief, National Guard Bureau, in a pathetic state: “As it pertains to the National Guard in particular, we were woefully under-equipped before the war started,” Blum told the House Armed Services Committee on 27 January. (sic) “It’s getting - it gets a little bit worse every day.”
In January 2005, the National Guard chalked up an impressive recruiting shortfall, meeting only 56% of it recruitment quota. America’s prestigious Marine Corps has also had it recruitment adversely affected by the War in Iraq, with 97% of its January 2005 quota - the first time since 1995 that the Corps has missed its monthly target.
The issue is not only a matter of men, material and statistics, however. There is also a psychological component. According to a source close to the Congress: “The morale of the fighting forces has never been this low since Vietnam. That is felt here, in the Congress, where the lawmakers are very sensitive to the human aspect of the setbacks suffered in Iraq. It threatens to bring a great instability, with likely repercussions on the budget, primarily in the appointment within the overall budget envelope.”
This instability will weigh heavily on the budget process and on the ultimate apportionment of the funds allocated. The attention of the Congress can be expected to look for the money where it can find it. This might, at first blush, seem to give Rumsfeld an ideal opportunity to launch his program of ‘transformational’ reforms. It will soon become apparent, however, that Rumsfeld is not the captain of his own ship - at least not when it comes to having the last say on the Pentagon budget.
Flash: The Cold War Is Over!
At the same time as it is confronted with the pressure of the Iraq conflict, the Pentagon also confronted with the prospect - rather the certainty - of having to restructure its programming completely, on the basis of what from the Pentagon seems to have been a well-kept secret: The Cold War is Over! (sic)
Our fascination with US military power since the end of the Cold War has always obstinately pushed to one side the obvious: US military power was created in response to, and as a response to, the Cold War. The war the West had to prepare for was a strategic war, waged on a planetary scale, with a nuclear component (as well as a nuclear component at the tactical level). Structurally, nothing has changed since 1989-91. The Pentagon thought it could capitalize on what it already had and transform that force into a mobile, agile expeditionary military power solely by high technology. The failure in this regard could not be more glaring, as we see daily in Iraq. The ’05 QDR will be a moment of truth - not the only moment of truth, however, since nothing is ever certain in this world of ours.
The cuts envisaged as the ’05 QDR gets underway are impressive. Let us cite two of them, affecting the two military services that are the main consumers of high technology, that were being bruited about in Washington as early as mid-December 2004:
- The US Navy was reported to be working under the ‘worst-case’ scenario of a cut in the number of aircraft carrier groups from twelve to nine over the next 15 years.
- The USAF was reported to be considering a cut of one-third (900 aircraft) of its orders for fighter aircraft over the next 20 years (more then 2,500 aircraft).
These were, we repeat, only working assumptions, which broadly transcend the ’05 QDR itself. But (sic) they make it possible to get a handle on the breadth of the cuts which are reported to be under consideration, cuts which would effectively approach one-third of the forces planned until 2005. Moreover, these working assumptions indicate the system and programs on which the axe is expected to fall first - those born of the Cold War.
USAF Is Alone
Another service, the US Air Force, is especially affected by the present situation - this time by an anticipation cut in credits the first of which was a Wolfowitz memo at the end of December. The main measure is a cut in the F/A-22 program from 277 to 180 aircraft for a savings of $10.5 billion of a total of $72 billion in total program costs. This cutback, which is to take effect in the 2008-2009 timeframe, is not exactly a masterpiece of economic planning: it sacrifices one-third in program production for a savings of under 15% and causes the F/A-22 to rise to a unit cost of $341.6 million (the fighter was announced in 1987 at a unit cost of $37 million). (sic) We are not far from the case of the B-2 bomber which got totally out of control to the point of becoming a budget absurdity (following various cutbacks and slippages, technical problems and disastrous management, over 15 years, the B-2 climbed from $180 million to $2.4 billion per bomber aircraft (sic).
This completely unexpected attack against the F/A-22 (the program had just begun to come into it own in 2004, having initiated its entry into service phase caught the USAF totally off guard. The USAF finds itself at an extremely delicate juncture in terms of its place in the Pentagon’s bureaucratic pecking order.
- The Druyen KC-767 scandal (See Context No 80, To the Point) considerably weakened the USAF position, psychologically and in terms of its prestige within the Pentagon bureaucracy. Several important general officer nominations have been blocked in Committee by Senator McCain.
- The civilian leadership of the USAF has been decapitated as a result of the forced resignation, in response to the scandal, of Air Force Secretary James Roche and his Assistant Secretary Marvin Sambur. This outcome was probably unfair to the two men, neither of whom was directly involved in the scandal. Be that as it may, the USAF has lost a very competent civilian leadership, Roche having been the most effective proponent of the F/A-22. Pending the nomination of their successors, the Air Force lacks the civilian leadership so vital to Pentagon bureaucratic infighting.
The issue has been joined: Does the Air Force find itself in danger of being defeated in the battle on budgetary cutbacks that has just begun? Does the Air Force risk seeing the F/A-22 sidelined? Such an outcome would be a catastrophe for the USAF - it would be a tremendous blow to the very prestige and status of the United States Air Force as a national institution. But (sic) the battle in this case, does not come down to a Rumsfeld/OSD versus USAF confrontation. The Congress will play a decisive role, especially since the cutbacks in the F/A-22 program will take time before coming into effect (2008-2009) and since, in the interim, funds can be restored. As a staff assistant of Senator Warner, Chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, commented: “We expect a lively debate on these cuts.”
The important issue for now is elsewhere. When it was informed of the cutbacks on the F/A-22, the USAF made a counterproposal to keep the program at 277 F/A-22’s: it offered to reduce its JSF order from 1,700 to 1,200 aircraft. The answer from OSD was a categorical refusal. It was at that point that the thesis began to emerge attributing ‘transformational’ qualities to the JSF, fitting right into Rumsfeld’s plans. That means that Rumsfeld’s OSD is aligning itself clearly on the side of the JSF against the F/A-22, with the USAF taking the converse position - its ultimate aim being to restore the F/A-22 to at least the production figure of 381 in order to be able to provide an F/A-22 squadron to each of its ten Air Expeditionary Wings. (sic)
The face-off between the two competing fighter aircraft programs is a highly significant development, and the battle is far from over. For the first time since the launch of its production phase, the JSF finds itself in the thick of the bureaucratic crossfire. Until now, the JSF had managed to distance itself from that arena, as a program that was sacrosanct and beyond the reach of the bureaucratic infighting. Today, the issue has been joined: the fate of the F/A-22 depends on what lies in store for the JSF. It would be the height of rashness to believe that we have heard the last of the battle of American’s aspiring tactical air programs - each contending for supremacy over the other.
----------------------------------
Citation: "The Perfect Storm," Context, February 2005.
It is probably Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, who, with this comment in the Los Angeles Times of 19 December on the QDR-05 crisis, might well have the last word: “The Iraqi insurgents have managed to do what Don Rumsfeld in four years has not managed to do, which is to bring about cutbacks in a lot of these Cold War-era weapons.” We would broaden it to ‘what five secretaries of defense (Cheney, Aspin, Perry, Cohen and Rumsfeld) have been unable to do in sixteen years.’
The current year, 2005, will not be the year of Iraq, but the years of the Quadrennial Defense Review or the QDR. This exercise, first run in 1993 and mandated by the Congress in 1996 (FY ’97), places an obligation on the Pentagon to review its strategy and the structures and weapons programs that underpin that strategy for the following four years. But the QDR was instituted in point of fact for one reason only: to force the Pentagon to reform, to modify it structures and its programming. The 1993, 1997 and 2001 QDRs were failures in this respect. The restructuring and the reprogramming of a system that remains frozen in its Cold War mold just did not take place.
Some might consider that we are living in a bizarre time, a time when the state-of-the-art modernity of American military power are constantly the object of praise, and yet at a time when this very military power has shown itself incapable of undertaking it own fundamental reform necessitated by the end of the Cold War - and this notwithstanding the fact that the other major military powers have undergone such fundamental reform, although with less uniform results. (sic) This time, however, with the 2005 QDR, it would seem that we are finally getting down to business. At least that is what is being said by those whose opinions matter. When one reads the following in the editorial of the December 2004 issue of Air Force Magazine (AFA), you can be sure that the pressure is on: “[General] Mcnabb [formerly deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, USAF] once said the Air Force faced what could be described as a ‘perfect storm’ - a precise convergence of financial and other pressures that could bring new opportunities but also force hard choices.” There are two key issues here: why the use of the expression ‘perfect storm’ and the sentiment within the USAF community that the USAF is faced with ‘hard choices’, but that these could lead to ‘new opportunities’.
In effect, this feeling of inevitableness is overwhelming, for all the players, even those who are accustomed to defending their turf through dilatory bureaucratic actions, actions which in the past have generally had the desired effect. This feeling of inevitability is something completely new. It is explained by the intercession, the intervention, the intrusion in Pentagon business by outside influences. The Pentagon is not left to itself to conduct its QDR. The Pentagon is the object of pressure from two sources (three if you count the Congress): pressure by the White House, beginning to panic in the face of the budget deficit and having announced (the President himself) on 18 December that expenditures must be reduced - and we know that the Pentagon will be obliged to cut $10 billion from its FY 2006 budget forecast - and pressure stemming from the crisis in Iraq. (sic)
Iraq is the Litmus Test
The issue that is plaguing the Pentagon is not solely in the economic field (exponentially mushrooming, yet still inadequate, budgets; the uncontrollable character of budgets for major weapon systems, systems that have become of questionable deployability in new conflicts; etc.) What makes the ’05 QDR so unique is the omnipresence of the presence of the pressures generated by the conflict in Iraq.
Whatever Rumsfeld’s rhetoric, backed by the pretensions of the White House, everyone know (sic) that the force of 150,000 men in Iraq was and remains inadequate to the task. The realistic figures, with no guarantee of success, would be close to the initial estimates by US Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki, who in the spring of 2002 (before being bullied into retirement by the taunts and sarcasm of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz), dared to express the view that 400,000 men was the minimum force to hold Iraq after its initial military defeat or conquest. (sic) Everyone also knows that the US Army and the Marines are in over their heads - that they are under-equipped and that they are living on their reserves (Reserves units and National Guard units) under trying conditions, with involuntary retention on active duty and frequent extensions of overseas tours in combat areas. (sic)
The consensus therefore is that the US Army must be beefed up as soon as possible. The word is that 150,000 additional men are needed over and above the 480,000 currently available. That is considered a minimum: it would just barely permit the formation of two divisions or of six brigades, depending upon the force structure selected. Other sources express the view that that it is possible to forego force augmentation, but that it will be necessary to undergo an in-depth restructuring that will be extremely costly. The cost of either option is estimated to require additional funding of a minimum of $5-$6 billion annually. And (sic) that is an optimistic view. We would be inclined would be inclined to say that $10 billion or more in additional fund annually. This budget increase is being imposed at a time when the White House is cutting $10 billion from the DoD’s FY 2006 budget; at a time when the nation’s exchequer groans under the ever increasing expenditures required to finance the country’s expeditionary military adventures. A new request of the approximately $100 billion is expected, bringing the total cost incurred between September 2001 and September 2005 for the ‘Empire’s’ overseas expeditions to between $250 billion and $300 billion.
Today, the US Army is living on credit. It has been obliged to borrow from its sister service, the US Navy and the US Air Force, in order to be able to face up to high priority operational requirements, requirements that are increasing daily to meet the plethora of problems encountered on the ground. To cite but one example: at a ‘talking point’ with soldiers held by Rumsfeld in Iraq on 8 December 2004, a soldier took the Secretary of Defense to task because of the lack of armor plating for Humvee vehicles; this exchange led to an immediate requirement to accelerate fitting the required armor plating on all Humvees without that protection - at an equally immediate cost of $500 million. (sic) Everyone is claiming their rightful entitlement; the US Army looks to it civilian hierarchy as the budget is strained to the breaking point under the pressure of the deficit, thereby compounding the drop in the dollar and increasing the perception abroad of the fragility of American power.
It is this multitude of pressures converging at a single point (the ’05 QDR), with a single purpose (immediate reforms - structural, if possible - with immediate effect), that explains the situation. Thus, a ‘perfect storm’, a phenomenon of nature whereby all the natural forces gather to unleash themselves in a single, violent atmospheric disturbance, representing the ‘perception’ of the unleashing of the natural, pent-up, rage of the world.
Another Long Wait
In the nineties, the analyses on the future of the Pentagon were a dime a dozen. The end of the Cold War demanded no less. Circles in the know were rife with rumors of reform. The bolder assumptions foresaw the post-Cold War DoD budget falling to around $180-$200 billion in 2000, to stabilize at $150-$200 billion in 2005, depending upon the assumption relating to overseas commitments. We are talking not about a disarmament budget, but a restructuring budget based on requirements, threats and a foreign policy reduced to the exigencies of the continental security of the United States in a context of collective security (presupposing, for example, the dismantling of the majority of America’s bases abroad, whose sole justification was the threat of Communism). (sic)
The harsh reality is that a budget of approximately $360 billion at the turn of the century today exceeds $420 billion. If we add the expenditures chargeable to other departments (which should have declined on the basis of our 1990-92 assumptions, and which have, on the contrary, grown exponentially) and their fiscal impact, we are talking about an overall expenditure for US military power for the year 2004 of $750 billion. Contrary to all the inanities dished out over the past 10 years by the luminaries in the field, we are in a position to gauge, in the light of the situation in Iraq, the extraordinary catastrophe that the process has produced.
What has happened since 1990 is the contrary of the flourishing state of the US military power trumpeted by the sycophantic acolytes. The US armed forces, today confronted with a ‘real war’ of our era (asymmetrical war or 4th Generation War - 4th GW), are showing themselves to be an amorphous mass with sclerotic structures of a different age, to a point that is unimaginable. In 2000-2001, General Shinseki tried in vain to transform the US Army’s heavy divisions into mobile, light brigades; today, in Iraq, the US Army is still operating with a divisional structure. The US Army is still operating with a divisional structure. The US Army, a prisoner of its own bureaucracy and of its gigantesque, Pharonic budgets that dictate its material and equipment, and therefore its doctrine, is showing itself to be locked in a time warp with doctrines dating from World War II, to the point that the attack on Fallujah was reminiscent of the 1945 tank battles that took place in German towns; Fallujah saw the heaviest concentration of tanks in urban combat since Berlin in 1945. (sic) Reform is not necessary - it is crucial. It is a sine qua non for the Pentagon’s very survival.
Writing this, we have to pinch ourselves to make sure we’re not dreaming: Are we merely conjuring up in our imagination once again the long-awaited Pentagon reform that we have been promised so often? Such an eventuality is not beyond the realm of possibility. It is possible - for everything is possible - that the ’05 QDR mountain will give birth to a puny mouse. This has already happened in the past. This time, however, the tropical storm that is looming on the horizon is beginning to resemble the tsunami of recent infamy.
Decadence Sets In
But (sic) the situation is far worse since it is axiomatic that whatever does not progress regresses: if you don’t move forward, you find yourself inevitably losing ground, moving backward. Not only has the Pentagon fought off any idea of reform for the past 15 years, but this same spirit of immobility has undermined the traditional virtues of US military power.
For it must not be forgotten that American military power is a heavy, cumbersome piece of machinery - one that is extremely slow to shift into motion. It has a highly complex logistic organization. That explains the fact that when a war begins, the Americans experience setbacks and take forever to get their act together. (The first US soldiers arrived in France in July 1917; the first real combat took place in May 1918, with the 1st Infantry Division, and only then because the situation of the allies was so perilous that it required the intervention of all available forces.) But (sic) then, gradually, laboriously, the machinery grinds into action. The lines of communication are established and secured. The logistic support facilities become fully operative. The US armed forces, now fully equipped and prepared, are ready to show how effective a fighting force they can be.
That is in the past. Today, the situation is extraordinary, because it is exactly the converse. It was at the very start of the war - the March-April 2003 offensive - that the US Army seemed to be operating full-bore (with some weaknesses here and there, as in a combat helicopter tactic). Since May 2003, the situation has deteriorated at a dizzying pace.
Since the summer of 2004, the situation has reached a point of criticality: combat vehicles are not combat-ready; equipment as essential as radios are in short supply; poor maintenance, defective operation and spares shortages are common at all echelons, down to the infantryman’s rifle. Incident of protest and insubordination are rampant affecting entire units. The latest incident relates to a National Guard unit about to depart for Iraq in December 2004, without its full complement of M60 rifles or with weapons not operationally sound. It must be borne in mind that this state of affairs exists following a year’s preparation before the attack, with an annual budget of $420 billion, with attention totally focused on Iraq, against an insurgency that has no real fire power and only an embryonic organization.
We are compelled to conclude that the bureaucratic sclerosis of the Pentagon going back over half a century has succeeded in undermining the fundamental qualities of the American military. And we are further compelled to conclude that the remedy is not ‘more money’, ‘more technology’ and ‘more equipment’, but rather a change in attitude in philosophy. It is the organizational machine that has somehow broken down at the human level. The soul-searching inquiry required must go very deep. In such a context, one has to wonder whether the Pentagon has the capability of reforming itself at a time when reform has become a matter of life or death. For now, the outlook is bleak.
A Psychological Crisis
An Army in Serious Disarray
We must highlight the extent to which the ’05 QDR will be obliged to come to grips with a critical budget conundrum that poses serious psychological problems for the military establishment. Our analysis leads us to consider two factors - one negative, the other positive. The negative factor boils down to ‘budgetary constraints’, including the expenditures for the current commitments on the ground, especially in Iraq. Under this aspect, there is what appears to be the new orientation of the Bush Administration to combat the budget deficit, with the directive provided to DoD by the White House Office of Management & Budget to reduce its FY 2006 budget by $10 billion.
The second factor, generally deemed more positive, is a reformist buildup coming from the ‘transformational school’ of the Pentagon that wants to take advantage of the current state of turmoil to introduce changes in force structures and program choices, until now successfully resisted by the bureaucracy.
Our view, however, is that this somewhat rosy picture must be strongly toned down by a factor that is both practical and psychological - the practical aspect determining the psychological aspect - because of the unprecedented situation in Iraq as its affects America’s armed forces, essentially the US Army. The situation is dramatic, less because of the pressures of the insurgency than because of the inadequacies of the US armed forces themselves, inadequacies that have an extraordinary impact on the general situation of the forces. One can be sure that of the forces is dramatic when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld recognizes, as he did on 6 February on CNN: “The US military is clearly stressed and recruitment of new troops is falling short of plans.”
During the same interview, Rumsfeld, realizing that such an admission constitutes a reflection on his performance as Secretary of Defense, hastens to add: “The US military is clearly stressed, … but they’re performing brilliantly. They’re doing a fabulous job and we’re adjusting the incentives and the number of recruiters that are out there.”
This optimistic note introduced by the Secretary of Defense is far from being confirmed by the officers in charge of various corps being engaged in Iraq. The National Guard, which supplies a stupefying 40% of the troops on the ground in Iraq, is - according to Lieutenant General Steven Blum, Chief, National Guard Bureau, in a pathetic state: “As it pertains to the National Guard in particular, we were woefully under-equipped before the war started,” Blum told the House Armed Services Committee on 27 January. (sic) “It’s getting - it gets a little bit worse every day.”
In January 2005, the National Guard chalked up an impressive recruiting shortfall, meeting only 56% of it recruitment quota. America’s prestigious Marine Corps has also had it recruitment adversely affected by the War in Iraq, with 97% of its January 2005 quota - the first time since 1995 that the Corps has missed its monthly target.
The issue is not only a matter of men, material and statistics, however. There is also a psychological component. According to a source close to the Congress: “The morale of the fighting forces has never been this low since Vietnam. That is felt here, in the Congress, where the lawmakers are very sensitive to the human aspect of the setbacks suffered in Iraq. It threatens to bring a great instability, with likely repercussions on the budget, primarily in the appointment within the overall budget envelope.”
This instability will weigh heavily on the budget process and on the ultimate apportionment of the funds allocated. The attention of the Congress can be expected to look for the money where it can find it. This might, at first blush, seem to give Rumsfeld an ideal opportunity to launch his program of ‘transformational’ reforms. It will soon become apparent, however, that Rumsfeld is not the captain of his own ship - at least not when it comes to having the last say on the Pentagon budget.
Flash: The Cold War Is Over!
At the same time as it is confronted with the pressure of the Iraq conflict, the Pentagon also confronted with the prospect - rather the certainty - of having to restructure its programming completely, on the basis of what from the Pentagon seems to have been a well-kept secret: The Cold War is Over! (sic)
Our fascination with US military power since the end of the Cold War has always obstinately pushed to one side the obvious: US military power was created in response to, and as a response to, the Cold War. The war the West had to prepare for was a strategic war, waged on a planetary scale, with a nuclear component (as well as a nuclear component at the tactical level). Structurally, nothing has changed since 1989-91. The Pentagon thought it could capitalize on what it already had and transform that force into a mobile, agile expeditionary military power solely by high technology. The failure in this regard could not be more glaring, as we see daily in Iraq. The ’05 QDR will be a moment of truth - not the only moment of truth, however, since nothing is ever certain in this world of ours.
The cuts envisaged as the ’05 QDR gets underway are impressive. Let us cite two of them, affecting the two military services that are the main consumers of high technology, that were being bruited about in Washington as early as mid-December 2004:
- The US Navy was reported to be working under the ‘worst-case’ scenario of a cut in the number of aircraft carrier groups from twelve to nine over the next 15 years.
- The USAF was reported to be considering a cut of one-third (900 aircraft) of its orders for fighter aircraft over the next 20 years (more then 2,500 aircraft).
These were, we repeat, only working assumptions, which broadly transcend the ’05 QDR itself. But (sic) they make it possible to get a handle on the breadth of the cuts which are reported to be under consideration, cuts which would effectively approach one-third of the forces planned until 2005. Moreover, these working assumptions indicate the system and programs on which the axe is expected to fall first - those born of the Cold War.
USAF Is Alone
Another service, the US Air Force, is especially affected by the present situation - this time by an anticipation cut in credits the first of which was a Wolfowitz memo at the end of December. The main measure is a cut in the F/A-22 program from 277 to 180 aircraft for a savings of $10.5 billion of a total of $72 billion in total program costs. This cutback, which is to take effect in the 2008-2009 timeframe, is not exactly a masterpiece of economic planning: it sacrifices one-third in program production for a savings of under 15% and causes the F/A-22 to rise to a unit cost of $341.6 million (the fighter was announced in 1987 at a unit cost of $37 million). (sic) We are not far from the case of the B-2 bomber which got totally out of control to the point of becoming a budget absurdity (following various cutbacks and slippages, technical problems and disastrous management, over 15 years, the B-2 climbed from $180 million to $2.4 billion per bomber aircraft (sic).
This completely unexpected attack against the F/A-22 (the program had just begun to come into it own in 2004, having initiated its entry into service phase caught the USAF totally off guard. The USAF finds itself at an extremely delicate juncture in terms of its place in the Pentagon’s bureaucratic pecking order.
- The Druyen KC-767 scandal (See Context No 80, To the Point) considerably weakened the USAF position, psychologically and in terms of its prestige within the Pentagon bureaucracy. Several important general officer nominations have been blocked in Committee by Senator McCain.
- The civilian leadership of the USAF has been decapitated as a result of the forced resignation, in response to the scandal, of Air Force Secretary James Roche and his Assistant Secretary Marvin Sambur. This outcome was probably unfair to the two men, neither of whom was directly involved in the scandal. Be that as it may, the USAF has lost a very competent civilian leadership, Roche having been the most effective proponent of the F/A-22. Pending the nomination of their successors, the Air Force lacks the civilian leadership so vital to Pentagon bureaucratic infighting.
The issue has been joined: Does the Air Force find itself in danger of being defeated in the battle on budgetary cutbacks that has just begun? Does the Air Force risk seeing the F/A-22 sidelined? Such an outcome would be a catastrophe for the USAF - it would be a tremendous blow to the very prestige and status of the United States Air Force as a national institution. But (sic) the battle in this case, does not come down to a Rumsfeld/OSD versus USAF confrontation. The Congress will play a decisive role, especially since the cutbacks in the F/A-22 program will take time before coming into effect (2008-2009) and since, in the interim, funds can be restored. As a staff assistant of Senator Warner, Chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, commented: “We expect a lively debate on these cuts.”
The important issue for now is elsewhere. When it was informed of the cutbacks on the F/A-22, the USAF made a counterproposal to keep the program at 277 F/A-22’s: it offered to reduce its JSF order from 1,700 to 1,200 aircraft. The answer from OSD was a categorical refusal. It was at that point that the thesis began to emerge attributing ‘transformational’ qualities to the JSF, fitting right into Rumsfeld’s plans. That means that Rumsfeld’s OSD is aligning itself clearly on the side of the JSF against the F/A-22, with the USAF taking the converse position - its ultimate aim being to restore the F/A-22 to at least the production figure of 381 in order to be able to provide an F/A-22 squadron to each of its ten Air Expeditionary Wings. (sic)
The face-off between the two competing fighter aircraft programs is a highly significant development, and the battle is far from over. For the first time since the launch of its production phase, the JSF finds itself in the thick of the bureaucratic crossfire. Until now, the JSF had managed to distance itself from that arena, as a program that was sacrosanct and beyond the reach of the bureaucratic infighting. Today, the issue has been joined: the fate of the F/A-22 depends on what lies in store for the JSF. It would be the height of rashness to believe that we have heard the last of the battle of American’s aspiring tactical air programs - each contending for supremacy over the other.
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Citation: "The Perfect Storm," Context, February 2005.
21 March 2005
Crime as Lethal as Warfare in Iraq
Monte Morin
LA Times
20 March 2005
Monte Morin
LA Times
20 March 2005
It's been more than a month since Hassan Hadi watched as his co-workers were executed one by one at the Happiness Bakery, and he can't stop replaying the moment when fate spared him. In a small apartment just a block from the scene of the slaughter, a relative of one of the victims tucks a pistol into his waistband and slides a dull green grenade into his coat pocket as he ponders revenge. And in the gloomy dissecting hall of Baghdad's central morgue, a doctor who examined the bakery victims laughs weakly to himself as still more bodies arrive at the crowded facility.
"The cases we are getting are unbelievable," Dr. Taha Qassim says. "Huge crimes, assassinations, beheadings. Why, only today I dissected three beheaded bodies. We will probably break the record for beheaded cadavers in any forensic department in the world."
As Iraq's newly elected leaders cobble together the foundation of a fledgling democracy, a killing epidemic has taken hold of this troubled nation. Ministry of Health statistics show that record numbers of Iraqi civilians are coming to violent ends, particularly here in the capital.
Assassinations and bombings have garnered worldwide attention. But Iraqi officials say violence unrelated to the insurgency is growing, and Iraqis are more likely to die at the hands _ or in the cross-fire _ of kidnappers, carjackers and angry neighbors than in car bombings. In some cases, authorities say, the motives are so opaque that they cannot tell whether they are investigating a crime disguised as an act of war or a political assassination masquerading as a violent business dispute.
In Baghdad alone, officials at the central morgue counted 8,035 deaths by unnatural causes in 2004, up from 6,012 the previous year, when the U.S. invaded Iraq. In 2002, the final year of Saddam Hussein's regime, the morgue examined about 1,800 bodies. Of the deaths occurring now, 60% are caused by gunshot wounds, officials say, and most are unrelated to the insurgency. Twenty to 30 bodies arrive at the morgue every day, and the victims are overwhelmingly male.
Much of the violence, officials say, is inspired by the ethnic, tribal and religious rivalries that were held in check by Hussein's brutal rule, and facilitated by a ready supply of firearms. That deadly combination has let loose a wave of vengeance killings, tribal vendettas, mercenary kidnappings and thievery.
"The only virtue of the old regime is that Iraq enjoyed a state of stability," said Lt. Faris Jubrail of the Baghdad police. "It was a reaction to the huge size of punishment that the regime would practice. This would never have happened then."
Police say they are also growing increasingly worried about the recent arrival of organized criminal groups who trade in arms, drugs and stolen cars and blackmail people. In some cases, police say, insurgents have paid gangs of thugs to kidnap doctors and engineers or kill barbers for giving Western-style haircuts. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed the police, saying Tuesday in Baghdad that criminals-for-hire were playing a growing role in the insurgency.
Police say the gangs aren't motivated by a desire to end the occupation; they're just looking to make a buck.
"There are many different ways people meet martyrdom now," an Iraqi police spokesman said dryly. "In the old days, these things were contained by the regime, but now they are unleashed."
One such incident, the officer said, was the brazen killing of 11 workers and customers Feb. 11 at the Happiness Bakery in New Baghdad, a working-class Shiite Muslim suburb on the capital's east side. Investigators first suspected Sunni Muslim insurgents _ the bakeries had images of Shiite clerics and posters urging customers to vote in the Jan. 30 elections, and the attack occurred just before Ashura, a major Shiite holiday. Police changed their thinking when witnesses recognized several killers as Shiites. Authorities now suspect a tribal vendetta. They speculate that a gang may have been hired to commit the crime and make it appear as though rebels were behind it.
Hadi, 30, said a crowd of hungry customers was clamoring for warm loaves of breakfast samoon that Friday morning at the popular bakery on Martyrs Street. Hadi was busy twisting gobs of dough into loaves, while baker Ali Salim hoisted them into the oven with a broad, wooden paddle. They joked as they worked. "We were kidding our younger worker, Mustafa," Hadi recalled. "We were making fun of his big nose." The laughter stopped abruptly when gunfire exploded just outside. Beyond Hadi's view, three cars loaded with armed men had emptied onto the street and the gunmen were rushing the stores. "God is the greatest!" a gunman screamed. "There is no god but God!" Alarm turned to terror within the Happiness Bakery as a second burst of gunfire shattered the front window and tore through the cashier, killing him. Hadi slipped behind an enormous bread mixer and peeked at the front door. He watched a man wearing a T-shirt and a black mask enter the bakery. He was holding a Kalashnikov rifle.
"I was so terrified to know what kind of weapon it was," Hadi said. "Then the most terrible moment came: The shooting was inside the shop and I was feeling the bullets were killing us one by one." Salim, the baker, died in front of his oven. Employee Abdul Rehman was shot as he leaped over the bread mixer. Hadi felt a bullet tear through his hip. As he braced himself for the coup de grace, Hadi suddenly heard someone shouting at the gunman: "Come on, finish them up! We are under attack! Let's go!" Within seconds, the gunmen were gone, and 11 people lay dead or dying.
Hadi's brother Farooq, 23, also works at the bakery. He and Mustafa, the boy they were teasing, had locked themselves in a toilet during the attack. As bullets smashed into the door and transom, they held their breath and dared not make a noise. When it was over, Farooq Hadi drove his brother and Rehman, who had been shot several times, to a hospital. "Even when we drove to the hospital, [Rehman] was only repeating, 'Oh, Ali,' " Farooq Hadi said, referring to an expression Shiites often use in moments of pain or trouble. Ali was the prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law. "Then, as we were getting closer and closer, his voice was getting fainter and fainter, until he was silent by the time we reached the hospital. It seems he had died by then."
The documentation of such deaths in Iraq is extremely spotty. Neither the United States' military nor its embassy claims to track or tabulate civilian deaths in Iraq. In addition to the morgue statistics, which cover only Baghdad, the Ministry of Health reported that 5,158 Iraqi civilians had died as a result of military and insurgent activity across the country during the last six months of 2004. That figure, like others released by the ministry, is dismissed as absurdly low by human rights groups and highly unreliable by officials in the U.S.-backed coalition in Iraq.
"We don't regard their statistics on civilian deaths as being at all reliable, but they are the only ones available," said a Western official who spoke off the record. "It's nearly impossible to determine with any accuracy how many Iraqis die, especially through violence. There is war, terrorism, vendettas, common crime, kidnapping_. In other words, it's simply impossible to know." Some groups insist that the Iraqis killed by U.S.-led forces far outnumber the victims of crimes. The independent organization Iraq Body Count tabulates Iraqi deaths reported in the local media. They estimate that as many as 19,432 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the United States invaded two years ago. A study published in the British medical journal Lancet estimated that more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed since the invasion and attributed most of the deaths to coalition forces, aerial bombings in particular. The study was unique in that it was an extrapolation from surveys conducted in nearly 1,000 households across Iraq. Its conclusions proved controversial in the final days before the U.S. presidential election last year, but the report's lead author, Les Roberts, stands by them.
On a bullet-pocked wall outside the Happiness Bakery, black mourning banners list the names of the dead and condemn the attackers' "cowardly and treacherous acts." Many such banners hang in the neighborhood; gun battles are not altogether rare here. Weapons are easily obtained, and neighbors say they are more than prepared to respond to attacks with their own arsenals. One resident, Abu Ali, 37, speaks with pride of his one-man counterattack during the bakery raid. The account provides a vivid example of how violence has permeated Iraqi society. Ali, a cousin of the bakery's owner, grew concerned when he heard continuous shooting that day. The former soldier grabbed his Kalashnikov and dashed to the scene. He said he saw a masked man with an automatic rifle standing in the street and he assumed he was attacking the bakery. Ali said he opened fire on the man, dropping him to the ground in three blasts. When other gunmen began firing at Ali, he said, he ran back to his home, where he had a collection of grenades. He grabbed two of them, climbed onto the roof of his house and tossed one into the street, where it exploded. Ali said the attackers began firing at him and he lobbed the second grenade, but this one hit a wall and bounced back at him. He said he managed to get back inside the house before it detonated. Ali said he was more than pleased to hear that the attackers were seen dragging two of their comrades' bodies into their cars before driving off. Ali reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, light-green grenade. "After the incident, I never go out without carrying one of these in my pocket," he said with a grin.
Outside the gates of Baghdad's central morgue, relatives of the dead wail and weep. A steady procession of flimsy, wooden caskets tied to car hoods or stuffed in trunks makes its way down the morgue driveway to the duty officer, who will sign over the corpse. Beset with emotion, the relatives are sometimes overcome with rage when they encounter the medical staff.
"So much has changed. It seems like the crime rates are increasing day to day," said Dr. Abed Razaq, the morgue's acting director. "Even the people we deal with are different now. Most people put in a critical situation tend to act abnormally or in a vulgar manner. With circumstances as they are today, with security and laws missing, people in grief will scream at us, intimidate us and even threaten us." The doctor said that he and his staff had become very skilled in dealing with their anger and had learned to absorb it "like a sponge sucks in water." "We have to do this in order to do our job," Razaq said. "Everything in Iraq has changed. Only the laws of forensic medicine remain the same."
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Citation: Monte Morin, "Crime as Lethal as Warfare in Iraq," LA Times, 20 March 2005. Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-crime20mar20,0,1367366.story?coll=la-home-headlines