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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (95169)	4/20/2003 8:23:34 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times are going all out this Sunday with terrific articles. This one is headlined about Rummy, but is really about SO and the Apache Helicopter, among other Military problems. A couple of excerpts and the URL. Rumsfeld Stands Tall After Iraq Victory >>>The Iraq war was one of the biggest Special Operations missions ever, with a thousand Delta Force members and Rangers in the west and another thousand Special Forces troops in the north and south. In almost every aspect, the missions broke new ground: Some units "staged" into Iraq through former Soviet bloc member Bulgaria. In northern Iraq, conventional Army paratroopers and tank units were put under the command of a Special Operations general. In the south, meanwhile, some Special Operations troops were put under the command of regular Army generals. Those novel arrangements reflect Rumsfeld's push to break down barriers between parts of the military and make them all work more aggressively. "I think what you are seeing is their potential being exploited," said Cambone, one of the Pentagon officials closest to Rumsfeld. "Things are possible today that weren't before." Special Operators have the Hollywood image of macho warriors who go into battle with a hunting knife clenched in their teeth, but in practice Rumsfeld found the command agonizingly cautious, constantly worried about rules and safety, Pentagon insiders say. Reflecting that frustration, Rumsfeld's office commissioned a secret study to determine why the Special Operations community seemed so resistant to his urgings that it do more to attack al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The classified study, by Richard Shultz, a Tufts University expert on unconventional war, concluded that a major part of the problem was a culture of "risk aversion" that made these elite troops, as one person put it, a "Ferrari that was never taken out of the garage." Determined to make Special Operations more effective and lethal, Rumsfeld is in the process of picking a new chief for it. Pentagon insiders say Rumsfeld's office is looking at three lieutenant generals -- the Air Force's Norton A. Schwartz, the Army's Bryan D. Brown, the Marines' Emil R. Bedard -- but in a radical departure also is considering some younger two-star generals who have played prominent roles on the front lines over the past two years. Whomever he chooses, the consensus view is that Special Operations was the big bureaucratic winner in the Iraq war. Pentagon officials said it is going to be showered with more people, more weapons, more aircraft -- and more missions. In fact, some Special Operations officers worry that Rumsfeld's largesse may prove to be a mixed blessing. They think that he may overtax a small force that already is strained. There are about 49,000 people in Special Operations, but at least three-quarters are in support functions, or psychological operations and civil affairs. All told, there are far fewer than 10,000 "trigger-pullers" -- and that small group is shouldering a big part of the war on terrorism. Special Operations does not even have on hand soldiers qualified to fill the positions it already has, let alone the new ones it is being given, a Pentagon official said. The Army is supposed to man a total of 270 Special Forces A-teams, with 12 troops each, but currently can fill only 225, he said.<<<<< >>>>>The feud may play itself out through a reexamination of some of the Army's most prized weapons, its attack helicopters. Some Pentagon officials already are asking sharp questions about the performance of the Army's Apache attack helicopter in the war. They are most concerned by the events of March 24, in which the Apaches of the 11th Aviation Regiment, carrying out the Army's first attack on the Republican Guard, were beaten back by small arms fire that knocked down one helicopter and hit more than 30 others, effectively cutting short the mission. "Armed helicopters will, I think, be the big losers" in the aftermath of the war, said one Pentagon official. "Rotary wing might have some problems," agreed Lewis, the House appropriator. "We're going to want to look very closely at that performance."<<<<<< washingtonpost.com

To: unclewest who wrote (95169)	4/20/2003 8:41:49 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 281500

I believe the number of active terrorists in the Philippines is down from 1000 to about 200. That is, however, still a sizable number of extremely violent terrorists to cope with. Those figures refer to the Abu Sayyaf. The Abu Sayyaf are really not a terrorist group at all, but an organized bandit group with a nominal Muslim separatist ideology. They are localized on two islands off the southwest coast of Mindanao, and do not operate farther than a day's boat ride from that area. They are certainly a major threat to anyone in that vicinity, but not outside it. They have been blamed for bombings well outside that area, but that has to be taken with many grains of salt: they make a rather good scapegoat. Interesting too that they have been receiving $20,000 monthly from Iraq...and of course the $20 million Ghaddafi gave them in 2000 after the big kidnapping didn't hurt their ability. The story of Iraqi support came from a fellow named Hasmiraji Sali, and he's pretty much the ultimate unreliable source. Sali's connection to the Abu Sayyaf is fairly dubious, and it's generally agreed that he has direct connections to Philippine military officials and possibly to other intelligence communities as well. He says what he's told to say. Much of the ransom money was snatched by the intermediaries: they always get a cut, and in this case it's believed that they got a bigger cut than was agreed upon. The Abu Sayyaf do have some cash, but they've suffered serious defeats and are pretty much on the run. The overall threat level there is very low, and the threat level to me personally is pretty close to zero.