Ethan McCord: Candor on the Ground

Danger Room interviews Ethan McCord. McCord was the solider who - in the wake of an Apache helocopter attack - carried the wounded body of an Iraqi girl to safety.

Crazyhorse One-Eight

(Via CJR)

On the morning of July12th, 2007, two Apache helicopters using 30mm cannon fire killed about a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad.

Two children were also wounded.

Among the dead were two employees of Reuters, a cameraman and his driver.

We have it on film.

This is the gun camera film seconds before the Apache fires on a van that is collecting the wounded body of the Reuters driver. The gunner is afraid this van will get away and is urgently demanding permission to fire.

Come on, let us shoot!

Permission is granted, and the van is destroyed.

Once the wounded children are discovered and evacuated, the gunner's reply is Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.

Well, obviously.

--------------------------------------

Afghanistan is bringing us similar good news (H/t Glenn).

You just have to throw up your hands.

What. The. F@ck?

Team Mayhem vs. The Hurt Locker

Awhile ago, Danger Room offered a day in the life of an army EOD team called Team Mayhem.

Totally worth the read.

A sample:

At about 7 pm, 28 hours into Team Mayhem's shift, the guys are on the roof of a well-groomed apartment building in one of Iraq's nicest remaining neighborhoods. They're looking at a fist-sized projectile that landed about an hour ago. Palmer identifies it as a Chinese-made 60-millimeter mortar, but there's no way to tell from here if it's about to explode. Palmer looks at Ferraro.

Ferraro squares his gear on his chest and crouches next to the shell, his face inches from the mortar. He takes a whiff. And just then, white smoke starts to curl from the thing. "Water! Get some water right now!" Palmer shouts. He knows that the smoke is from white phosphorus, an incendiary agent that burns on contact with oxygen, and that it will ignite the mortar's highly explosive core. The rooftop? About 15 feet wide.

The only way to stop the shell from detonating is to smother it. Very, very soon. Ferraro runs downstairs to get water from the apartment's owner - "and some sand, too!" Palmer yells to his back. Things get worse; the air crackles with the popcorn sound of automatic weapons fire. Mayhem's security escorts, two sergeants carrying M4 rifles, duck behind the waist-high wall surrounding the roof and point their guns out into the setting sun, looking for targets.

Sounds an awful lot like a movie that just sucked up all the Oscars, right?

Now, I get that the pushback on Hurt Locker has already started - but conveying the intensity of this thing next to me could blow at any second is something that the Hurt Locker does very well.

I've read criticisms about the films accuracy and they seem to focus on EOD boys don't use sniper rifles, or go off base alone, or chase bad guys - which are perfectly valid points - but they miss the fact that the guts of the film hold up rather nicely. EOD is dangerous work, moreso when you don't dominate the lanscape.

Story wise, I had a similar reaction to Saving Private Ryan - as spectacle, there are few comparisons you can make. Both films show you new things, new scenes. They get you by the throat.

But as storytelling...there's not a lot of new ground - and the more you think about the story, the less satisfying it becomes.

(Minor Spoiler alert)





















In the Hurt Locker, you have the classic action hero guy - a risk taking, mavrick, who is at first resented, then admired. If they'd left it at that, the film would be just another clichéd war movie. They do one better, by showing you the main character's personality has drawbacks - things go wrong because of their inability to switch it off. But, at least to me - those elements were switched off just as they were becoming interesting. Here's the other side of this guy - now, roll credits.

Credit to the film for bringing across something more than "hail, the conquering bad-@ss" - but I wonder if the raves on this film were more due to the fact that it was a well-done movie about an ongoing war that didn't take sides.

Anyway - read the Team Mayhem stuff.

Raven-23 vs. a Nine-year-old Boy

Jeremy Scahill is on a mission to demonize the Blackwater corporation. He's got a book, and never misses an opportunity to portray them as murderous bunch of criminals.

So, you could question his objectivity.

But it's hard to see some of Blackwater's actions as anything less than demonic:

One of the Blackwater shooters was on top of an armored vehicle firing an automatic weapon, he says. "Every time he would finish his clip, he would throw it on the ground and would load another one in and would start shooting again, and finish the new one and replace it with another." One young Iraqi man got out of his car to run, and as he fled, the Blackwater shooter gunned him down and continued firing into his body as it lay on the pavement, Mohammed says. "He was on the ground bleeding, and they're shooting nonstop, and it wasn't single bullets."

The Blackwater shooter, he says, would fire at other Iraqis and cars and then return to pump more bullets into the dead man on the ground. "He sank in his own blood, and every minute the [Blackwater shooter] would shoot left and right and then go back to shoot the dead man, and I could see that his body would shake with every bullet. He was already dead, but his body was still reacting to the bullets. [The shooter] would fire at someone else and then go back to shoot at this dead man." Shaking his head slowly, Mohammed says somberly, "The guy is dead in a pool of blood. Why would you continue shooting him?"

That would be the Nisour square massacre, where a Blackwater unit called Raven-23 went all kinds of crazy on Iraqi commuters. It didn't make sense then - and it still doesn't.

The criminal case against the Blackwater operators has been dismissed, and all the victims families have accepted cash payments in exchange for waiving their legal claims against the mercenaries.

All but one.

A man named Mohammed Kinani, who used to be the father of four. His nine year old son, Ali was the youngest victim at Nisour square. Ali was shot in the head, in front of his entire family.

Nine f#ing years old.

Kinani was offered a deal:

"We want to give you $20,000," Mohammed recalls the Blackwater manager saying.

"I'm not taking a penny from you," Mohammed told him. "I want no money."

Mohammed asked for a blank piece of paper and a pen. "Look I have the paper and I can sign and waive all my [legal] rights. All my rights, I will sign away now, but under one condition: I want the owner of Blackwater to apologize to me publicly in America and say, 'We killed your son, and we're sorry.' That's all I want."

I cannot believe the odds are with this man - or that he will ever get even a breath of what he is asking for.

But I hope to God he gets it.

Read the whole article.

(H/t Steve Hynd)

Not included in the total

ProPublica reminds us that every time we are told the number of American casualties in a place like Iraq (As of today, somewhere around 4,300 deaths and over 30,000 wounded) we should append another number - that of the American contractors who bleed there as well.

Contractor casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan so far amount to over 1,500 dead and another 35,000 wounded.

And while a small portion of those contractors are trigger pullers - you're mostly talking about a people who signed up to mundane work - like drive trucks.

ProPublica tells the story of one of them - a man named Reggie Lane.

Reggie Lane was once a hulking man of 260 pounds. Friends called him "Big Dad." Now, he weighed less than 200 pounds and his brain was severely damaged. He groaned angry, wordless cries.

Mr. Lane's story is a window into a larger issue of what happens when civilians supporting the war effort in theater, become casualties of that war. They're supposed to be provided insured under a regulation called the Defense Base Act.

....back home, the American government consigned [civilian contractors] to a federal insurance system marked by substandard care and excessive delays, according to a joint investigation by ProPublica, the Los Angeles Times and ABC News. Military veterans and former cops were forced to fight for basic medical care, psychological counseling, even prosthetic legs. Janitors and cooks from impoverished countries hired to work at U.S. military bases were never told of their rights to medical treatment. Widows and children have been left in poverty.

And who is the primary provider of this second rate care? Three letters.

A. I. G.

SecDef Gates: We are equipping ourselves for wars we aren't fighting

(Via Danger Room)

SecDef Gates has been trying to pare down the extravagant spending on weapons better suited for a clash of nations in favor of equipment better suited to the wars we happen to be fighting right now.

It's a thankless, uphill slog - but I'm cheering for the man.

When was the last time you heard a Defense Secretary talk like this?

...after September 11th, some things did change. The base defense budget – not counting spending for the wars – increased by some 70 percent over the next eight years.

...when all was said and done, the way the Pentagon selected, evaluated, developed, and paid for major new weapons systems and equipment did not fundamentally change – even after September 11th.

Indeed, the kinds of equipment, programs, and capabilities needed to protect our troops and defeat the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were not the highest priority of much of the Defense Department, even after several years of war.

He points out that while other nations are buying new weapons and modernizing their forces:

...other nations have learned from the experience of Saddam Hussein’s military in the first and second Iraq wars – that it is ill-advised, if not suicidal, to fight a conventional war head-to-head against the United States: fighter-to-fighter, ship-to-ship, tank-to-tank. They also learned from a bankrupted Soviet Union not to try to outspend us or match our overall capabilities.

He then takes a good hard whack at the F-22 figher jet:

...the F-22 is clearly a capability we do need – a niche, silver-bullet solution for one or two potential scenarios – specifically the defeat of a highly advanced enemy fighter fleet. The F-22, to be blunt, does not make much sense anyplace else in the spectrum of conflict. Nonetheless, supporters of the F-22 lately have promoted its use for an ever expanding list of potential missions. These range from protecting the homeland from seaborne cruise missiles to, as one retired general recommended on TV, using F-22s to go after Somali pirates who in many cases are teenagers with AK-47s – a job we know is better done by three Navy SEALs. These are examples of how far-fetched some of the arguments have become for a program that has cost $65 billion – and counting – to produce 187 aircraft, not to mention the thousands of uniformed Air Force positions that were sacrificed to help pay for it.

In light of all these factors, and with the support of the Air Force leadership, I concluded that 187 – the program of record since 2005, plus four more added in the FY 09 supplemental – was a sufficient number of F-22s and recommended as such to the president.

-and then he beats on the F-22's proponents, hard:

The reaction from parts of the Washington establishment has been predictable for many of the reasons I described before. The most substantive criticism is that completing the F-22 program means we are risking the future of U.S. air supremacy. To assess this risk, it is worth looking at real-world potential threats and assessing the capabilities that other countries have now or in the pipeline.

Consider that by 2020, the United States is projected to have nearly 2,500 manned combat aircraft of all kinds. Of those, nearly 1,100 will be the most advanced fifth generation F-35s and F-22s. China, by contrast, is projected to have no fifth generation aircraft by 2020. And by 2025, the gap only widens. The U.S. will have approximately 1,700 of the most advanced fifth generation fighters versus a handful of comparable aircraft for the Chinese. Nonetheless, some have portrayed this scenario as a dire threat to America’s national security.

His central theme is one that I wish were central to discussions of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (emphasis mine):

The grim reality is that with regard to the budget we have entered a zero-sum game. Every defense dollar diverted to fund excess or unneeded capacity – whether for more F-22s or anything else – is a dollar that will be unavailable to take care of our people, to win the wars we are in, to deter potential adversaries, and to improve capabilities in areas where America is underinvested and potentially vulnerable. That is a risk that I will not take and one that I cannot accept.

Amen.

I have my doubts that a presidential veto threat is going to reverse the behavior of Congress - but at least somebody's trying.

Parallax 9/11

(Via FFFFound! and CVR)

Monument to failure

dday nails one. Right on the head.

Too perfect

An Iraqi gets to tell President Bush how he feels:

Were it not for the Secret Service - I expect there would be a line forming to do the same thing.

Late edit: Reuters has the reporter's translation:

This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog!

Barry, Barry, Barry...

The NYT's David Barstow dumps all over Barry McCaffrey.

One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex

In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity.

The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles.

Access like this does not come cheap, but it was an opportunity potentially worth billions in sales, and Defense Solutions soon found its man. The company signed Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general and military analyst for NBC News, to a consulting contract starting June 15, 2007.

Four days later the general swung into action. He sent a personal note and 15-page briefing packet to David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. “No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed,” he said.

Thus, within days of hiring General McCaffrey, the Defense Solutions sales pitch was in the hands of the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq’s expanding military.

“That’s what I pay him for,” Timothy D. Ringgold, chief executive of Defense Solutions, said in an interview.

General McCaffrey did not mention his new contract with Defense Solutions in his letter to General Petraeus. Nor did he disclose it when he went on CNBC that same week and praised the commander Defense Solutions was now counting on for help — “He’s got the heart of a lion” — or when he told Congress the next month that it should immediately supply Iraq with large numbers of armored vehicles and other equipment.

Of course, it gets worse. Read on.

(H/t Attackerman)

Human interest

(via CJR)

Two years ago Boston.com told the sad story of an Iraqi boy named Rakan. US soldiers had mistakenly fired on his family's vehicle - killing his parents and paralyzing the boy.

It was one of those stories where humanity tries valiantly to address inhumanity.

An outpouring of goodwill brought Rakan to the US for treatment. A group of committed backers got him what he needed. His condition improved - although he was still paralyzed. He new friends got him what he needed, bt not what he wanted - to be returned to Iraq.

They relented - and Rakan went home.

Kevin Cullen picks up the story:

As we waved, and the car driven by Rakan's brother-in-law disappeared into the dust, Larry Ronan must have felt what I was feeling because he put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said, "Don't worry. We'll see him again."

We never did.

Rakan Hassan, the boy whose life Larry Ronan saved, the boy I sat with most days for five months, the boy who became my sons' friend, the boy who touched anybody and everybody he met, was killed in June when a bomb exploded at his family's home in Mosul. He was 14 years old. Two of his sisters - an infant and a teenager - were injured in the attack but are expected to recover.

It happened June 16, but given the madness that is Iraq, it took us weeks to confirm. We got a death certificate the other day and so now we know for sure.

No storybook finish, no TV ending  - just the cold reality that bad things happen in dangerous places. To anyone.

Whatever we end up doing for this boy's country, all we did for him added up to one more senseless death.
Whatever happens in the next few years, we're still going to have a hard time answering the question  

What did we do here? 

What got accomplished?

An end in sight?

(via TPM and Spiegel online )

Wow.

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Barack Obama's 16 timeframe for a withdrawal from Iraq is the right one.

Just take a knee McCain - you look like a total fool now.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who read it that way

So, I'm on the Google - annnnnnd one of the Reuters headlines is this:

McCain says Obama trip to Iraq may be soon

Wondering why this might be news, I click and read this:

DETROIT (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain commented on Friday on the unannounced timing of a high-security trip by Barack Obama to Iraq, saying he believed his Democratic rival was going this weekend.

First reaction: No.

McCain did not just tell Iraq and Afghanistan to expect Barack this weekend, right? No one would do that.

Iraq: where the President of the most powerful nation of the world needs to sneak in.

McCain's throwing a best guess to the world. Gun up, bad guys - you might get a shot at Barack!

But then, I'm crazy right - just reading in my own little--

What? What's that you say Josh Marshall?

The Reuters piece hints at it. But if Obama is going to be in Iraq this weekend, this is a major breach on McCain's part. As a knowledgeable insider notes ...

If it is true that Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, it is a very serious mistake for McCain to have disclosed it publicly. Even for run-of-the-mill CODELs the military gives guidance like, "Please strongly discourage Congressional offices from issuing press releases prior to their trips which mention their intent to travel to the AOR and/or the dates of that travel or their scheduled meetings. Such releases are a serious compromise to OPSEC." If Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, I can not begin to imagine how much this is complicating the security planning for the trip.

McCain - he's got all the discretion of somebody's drunk grandfather.

Oh, he's the experienced candidate? I think experience would teach you to keep you yap shut about such things - but hey that's just me.

I wish I have the magical stick.

Inside Iraq is a blog where Iraqi journalists can post their observations to an English speaking audience.

They frequently post in fractured English, but its hard to fault them for their observations. Like today:

Today, we received an e-mail (press release) inviting us to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of A FIVE STAR HOTEL INSIDE THE INTERNATIONAL ZONE KNOWN AS THE GREEN ZONE 

Instead of building power plants, our government approves building a five star hotel. 

Instead of building water plants, our government approves building a five star hotel. 

Instead of building new hospitals for the poor Iraqis who fill the old, dirty stink hospitals, our government approves building a five star hotel.

I'm sure this Iraqi isn't the only person scratching their head over this one.

Fighting the right fight

(via TPM)
Obama on Iraq:

So let's be clear. Senator McCain would have our troops continue to fight tour after tour of duty, and our taxpayers keep spending $10 billion a month indefinitely; I want Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future, and to reach the political accommodation necessary for long-term stability. That's victory. That's success. That's what's best for Iraq, that's what's best for America, and that's why I will end this war as President.

[snip]

Senator McCain said - just months ago - that "Afghanistan is not in trouble because of our diversion to Iraq." I could not disagree more. Our troops and our NATO allies are performing heroically in Afghanistan, but I have argued for years that we lack the resources to finish the job because of our commitment to Iraq. That's what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier this month. And that's why, as President, I will make the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win.

Even read off a computer screen - that's some pretty good stuff. Take your position and box in your opponent.

McCain wishes he had a winning position like this one.

Read the whole speech.

Back to pre-surge levels

This, from Nukes and Spooks (emphasis mine):

...the last of the five surge brigades has left, the U.S. military announced today. Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, left their base just southeast of Baghdad. They are scheduled to land back to Fort Stewart, Ga., later this month. So that means roughly 140,000 troops are left in Iraq, or 8,000 more than when the surge plan began in February 2007.

Surge, drawdown, pause - rotate out, redeploy and here we are - more heavily committed than last year.

I wish someone could explain this crap to me.

Ashamed of the cost of war

(via E&P)

I imagine most people have heard about government regulations barring coverage of American war dead. This is not new, and something that was done even in the Clinton administration.

Restricting media access sounds pretty bad - but I can see the protection of an individual right under that policy. If I had a family member returning on one of those planes - I might not want them to be greeted by journalists snapping pictures and writing stories using their name.

Yes, the government has its own agenda in squelching this kind of coverage - but at least while the bodies are in their care, I think they can be permitted to deny public access. The information does get out, just without visuals.

What genuinely bothers me is that the government apparently assumes that they can muzzle the press even when the dead are in the custody of their families - during the funeral

Citing WaPo's Dana Milbank, E&P explains:

The family of 38-year-old Hall, who leaves behind two young daughters and two stepsons, gave their permission for the media to cover his Arlington burial -- a decision many grieving families make so that the nation will learn about their loved ones' sacrifice. But the military had other ideas, and they arranged the Marine's burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would make it into the public domain.

If you think that's unreasonable, you're not alone. The public affairs director at Arlington National Cemetery took issue with this approach:

When Gina Gray took over as the public affairs director at Arlington National Cemetery about three months ago, she discovered that cemetery officials were attempting to impose new limits on media coverage of funerals of the Iraq war dead -- even after the fallen warriors' families granted permission for the coverage. She said that the new restrictions were wrong and that Army regulations didn't call for such limitations.

Six weeks after The Washington Post reported her efforts to restore media coverage of funerals, Gray was demoted. Twelve days ago, the Army fired her.

Read the full story on WaPo

We're not there yet, but it's on our route...

(H/t to CJR)

The Onion shows us the perfect fusion of drama, news, and marketing:



Home Depot Honors Fallen Soldiers With Great Prices On Tools

Had Russert been a soldier...

...news of his passing might have been different.

16-Jun-2008
US Private 1st Class Jason Cox    Al Hillah - Babil    Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack

13-Jun-2008
US Sergeant Timothy J. Russert    Washington   Non-hostile

12-Jun-2008
US    Sergeant John D. Aragon    Kadamiyah - Baghdad    Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack

11-Jun-2008
US    Private Eugene D. M. Kanakaole    Balad - Salah ad Din    Non-hostile
US    Lance Corporal Kelly E. C. Watters    Al Anbar Province    Hostile - hostile fire
US    Lance Corporal Javier Perales Jr.    Fallujah - Anbar    Non-hostile
US    Sergeant 1st Class Gerard M. Reed    Baghdad    Non-hostile

(H/t iCasualties)

Had any one of these soldiers been a broadcaster, news of their passing might well have been different:


I mean no disrespect to either family - but a press that devotes days of coverage to the death of a newsman can surely afford more than a few seconds for its war dead.

What if it were all a set up?

Iraq that is?

(Via Nukes and Spooks)

What we find far more intriguing is a second report issued by the committee on the activities of former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and other underlings of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
In the second report we learn that Rummy's close aide, Steve Cambone, shut down a counter-intelligence investigation after only a month that questioned whether the Pentagon might have been fed misleading information by Iranian agents.

Now, there's any number of good reasons that Cambone might have put the kibosh on an investigation like that. But, given all the rumblings about Ahmad Chalabi and Iran, you have to wonder if a thorough investigation would have found something.