Lt. Col. Rick Francona
According to recent remarks by Rep. John Murtha, he intends to cripple President Bush’s “surge” plan in Iraq by placing numerous restrictions on how money can be spent, stating, “They won’t be able to do the deployment. They won’t have equipment, they don’t have the training and they won’t be able to do the work. There’s no question in my mind. We have analyzed this and there’s no way this can be done.”
Perhaps the colonel –Murtha is a retired U.S. Marine Corps reservist – has forgotten the lessons we Vietnam veterans learned the hard way. You cannot prosecute a war effectively with interference from Washington. What he proposes, labeled the “slow bleed” by Murtha’s opponents, is exactly the type of interference and micromanagement we faced 40 years ago in Southeast Asia.
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The Senate failed to pass a non-binding resolution condemning President Bush’s plan to increase the number of American troops in Iraq by 21,500 over the next few months. The House passed such a resolution on Friday.
What does a non-binding resolution accomplish?
It does nothing but harm the morale of American forces in a combat zone and send a message to those we are fighting that the American Congress does not support their troops. It is a cowardly act – if those supporting the resolution truly have the courage of their convictions, they would introduce a bill cutting off funding for the war and force the withdrawal of the troops. Anything less is merely grandstanding at the expense of American troops in harm’s way.
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In his press conference Wednesday, President Bush said he is convinced that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force is providing components to Shia militias for use in roadside bombs. He also said he is not sure if the supply of the munitions was “ordered from the top echelons of government.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Peter Pace seemed equally vague, saying, “…I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.”
Having worked the “Iranian problem” for many years while in the intelligence community, the thought that the Qods Force could supply weapons and deploy personnel to Iraq without the knowledge and complicity of the Iranian government is ludicrous.
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Over the past month or so, there appears to have been a subtle shift in the focus of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East from Iraq to Iran. There are ample reasons for this: the continuing Iranian uranium enrichment program in defiance of the United Nations, stepped up militarization including the development of longer range ballistic missiles, a budding Iranian space launch development program, and—probably the most troubling of all—provision of advanced munitions to Shia militias in Iraq. The United States has accused Iran of supplying “explosively formed penetrators,” a devastating anti-armor weapon employed in roadside bombs, to its Shia allies.
The Iranian-American relationship has been a key factor in our relations in the Persian Gulf for decades. Our assistance to Iraq during the latter years of the Iran-Iraq war was not about supporting Saddam Hussein, but about containing Iran.
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On Feb. 5, the court martial of a U.S. Army officer began at Fort Lewis, Washington. Lt. Ehren Watada is charged with refusing to deploy to Iraq with his unit, a Stryker brigade combat team, and with two counts of conduct unbecoming an officer stemming from his public statements against the war in Iraq.
Several groups and activists have already rallied to Watada’s defense, including actors Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon. That is all well and good, but let’s take a closer look at the facts.
Lt. Watada volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army in 2003. Here is an excerpt from the oath he took as a commissioned officer in the armed forces of the United States: “…I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, …I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same….”
I took that same oath years ago. These are not mere words – they define who we are, they define a social contract between the military and the people of the United States. In the ensuing three decades, I was sent to wars, conflicts and “police actions” in Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq, the Persian Gulf and Bosnia. Did I agree with all these operations or commitments? Maybe, maybe not – it did not matter. When you take the oath, you commit to defend the Constitution and obey the orders of those above you. I bore true faith and allegiance.
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Last week the National Intelligence Council released an unclassified version of the key judgments of its recent National Intelligence Estimate, “Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead.” It included some tough assessments of the situation in Iraq and a rather bleak outlook for the next 12-18 months.
It is refreshing to see the intelligence community produce a realistic estimate.
As I read over the estimate (I have been involved in the NIE process in the past), I noted one recurring theme: the greatest threat to stability in Iraq remains sectarian violence - the civil war between Sunni and Shia Arabs. Absent a solution to that crisis, there is little hope that the current government will survive, and the country will likely plunge into anarchical chaos.
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Earlier this month, American forces in Iraq raided an Iranian facility in the Kurdish city of Irbil. Documents and computer files seized in that raid indicate that the facility was being used by members of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in an operation to provide money and weapons to various Shia militia groups in Iraq. The weapons include advanced improvised explosive devices, mortars, newer generation rocket propelled grenades and shoulder-fired surface to air missiles. The advanced IED’s have already killed American troops, and mortars allegedly traceable to Iran have been used in attacks on Sunni areas of Baghdad.
Is the IRGC operating in Kurdish northern Iraq? Of course they are - they’ve been there since at least 1991. Soon after the Iraqi defeat in Kuwait, IRGC officers conducted clandestine and covert operations in the southern Shia area and the northern Kurdish area, and have been active there ever since.
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Recent media reports indicate that the Bush administration has given new instructions to American forces across the Middle East on how to deal with Iranian operatives. No more catch and release – now the orders are to capture or kill them. It’s about time.
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By Lt. Col. Rick Francona
The troops deploying to Baghdad are tasked with suppressing the escalating sectarian violence in ethnically mixed areas of the city. Ever since the destruction of a Shia holy site in Samarra by forces of now-dead al-Qaeda-in-Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, there has been an ethnic cleansing campaign against Sunnis in neighborhoods previously home to both Sunnis and Shiites. The violence has been especially bad on the east bank of the Tigris River, an area rapidly becoming almost exclusively Shia. With the additional U.S. forces and the new directions from the recently appointed American commander Gen. Dave Petraeus, these troops will remain in the neighborhoods after they have cleared them, rather than returning to their garrisons. In the past, soon after neighborhoods or cities were cleared and American forces departed, the insurgents or militias returned and reclaimed the territory.
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By Lt. Col. Rick Francona
Iraq’s Arab neighbors are worried about what happens when American forces depart the country. With Iranian influence and power on the rise and an escalating civil war in Iraq, the Arab countries are understandably concerned.
Those concerns are particularly acute in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. With the exception of Bahrain, all of these countries have a Sunni majority. They are concerned about an Iraq ruled by a Shia-dominated government with close ties to Tehran. In an effort to ensure that the post-American period in Iraq is not chaotic and detrimental to their own internal stability, several Arab governments have committed to help stabilize the situation in Iraq.
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