This is one Christmas gift U.S. taxpayers don't need. Construction of a $30 million dining facility
at a U.S. base in Iraq is scheduled to be completed Dec. 25. But the decision to build it was based on bad planning and botched
paperwork.
The project is too far along to stop, making the mess hall a future monument to the waste and inefficiency
plaguing the war effort, according to an independent panel investigating contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In its first report to Congress, the Wartime Contracting Commission presents a bleak assessment of
how tens of billions of dollars have been spent since 2001. The 111-page report, obtained by The Associated Press, documents
poor management, weak oversight, and a failure to learn from past mistakes as recurring themes in wartime contracting.
The report is scheduled to be made public Wednesday at a hearing held by the House Oversight and Government
Reform's national security subcommittee.
U.S. reliance on contractors has grown to "unprecedented proportions," says the bipartisan commission,
established by Congress last year. More than 240,000 private sector employees are supporting military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Thousands more work for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.
But the government has no central data base of who all these contractors are, what services they provide,
and how much they're paid. The Pentagon has failed to provide enough trained staff to watch over them, creating conditions
for waste and corruption, the commission says.
In Iraq, the panel worries that as U.S. troops depart in larger numbers, there will be too few government
eyes on the contractors left to oversee the closing of hundreds of bases and disposal of mountains of federal property.
At Rustamiyah, a seven-acre forward operating base turned over to the Iraqis in March, the military
population plunged from 1,490 to 62 in just three months. During the same period, the contractor population dropped from 928
to 338, leaving more than five contractors for every service member.
In Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama has ordered a large increase of U.S. troops, existing
bases will have to expand and new ones will be built — without proper oversight unless the Pentagon rapidly changes
course.
One commander in Afghanistan told the commission he had no idea how many contractors were on and off
his base on a daily basis. Another officer said he had property all over his installation but didn't know who owned it or
what kind of shape it was in.
There are questionable construction projects in Afghanistan, too. The commission visited the New Kabul
Compound, a building intended to serve as headquarters for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But members saw cracks in the structure,
broken and leaking pipes, sinking sidewalks and other defects.
"The Army should not have accepted a building in such condition," the report says.
The commission cites concerns with a massive support contract known as "LOGCAP" that provides troops
with essential services, including housing, meals, mail delivery and laundry.
Despite the huge size and importance of the contract, the main program office managing the work for
both Afghanistan and Iraq has only 13 government employees. For administrative help, it must rely on a contractor.
KBR Inc., the primary LOGCAP contractor in Iraq, has been paid nearly $32 billion since 2001. The commission
says billions of dollars of that amount ended up wasted due to poorly defined work orders, inadequate oversight and contractor
inefficiencies.
In one example, defense auditors challenged KBR after it billed the government for $100 million in
costs for private security even though the contract prohibited the use of for-hire guards.
KBR has defended its performance and criticized the commission for making "biased" statements against
the company.
"As we look back on what we've done, we're real proud of being able to go into a war theater like that
as a private contractor and support 200,000 troops," William P. Utt, chairman of the Houston-based KBR, said in May interview
with AP reporters and editors.
KBR is also linked to the dining hall construction snafu, although the commission faults the military's
planning and not the contractor. With American forces scheduled to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, the U.S. will use the
new facility for two years at most.
In July 2008, the Army said a new dining facility was badly needed at the Camp Delta forward operating
base because the existing one was too small, had a saggy ceiling, poor lighting and an unsanitary wooden floor.
KBR was awarded a contract in September. Work began in late October as American and Iraqi officials
were negotiating the agreement setting the dates for the U.S. troop withdrawal
But during an April visit to Camp Delta, the commission learned that the existing mess hall had just
been renovated. The $3.36 million job was done by KBR and completed in June 2008. Commission staff toured the renovated hall
"without seeing or hearing of any problems or shortfalls," the report says.
The decision to push ahead with the new hall was based on paperwork that was never updated and a failure
to review the need for the project after the security agreement was signed. Most of the materials have been ordered and construction
is well under way. That means canceling the project would save little money because KBR would have a legitimate claim for
payment based on the investment it has already made.
The commission urges commanders in Iraq to review thoroughly all ongoing construction and improvement
projects and only continue those essential to the life, health and safety of U.S. troops.
How Obama has voted for War Funding in 2009
Major war-funding legislation while Barack Obama was in the Senate, and how he voted:
_May 2005: Congress approved an $82 billion bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and international anti-terrorism
efforts. Obama voted yes.
_June 2006: Congress cleared a $94.5 billion bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well
as provide aid to hurricane victims. Obama voted yes.
_September 2006: Congress cleared a $448 billion Pentagon
funding bill that included $70 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Obama voted yes.
_April 2007: Congress cleared a $124 billion spending
bill that provided $90 billion for war costs but mandated the withdrawal of U.S. troops within six months. Obama voted yes,
but President George W. Bush vetoed the legislation.
_May 2007: Congress approved a roughly $100 billion spending measure to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
and domestic projects, including hurricane relief. Obama voted no.
_December 2007: Congress cleared a $555 billion catchall
spending bill that included $70 billion for U.S. military action in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Obama did not vote.
_June 2008: Congress approved a measure to spend $162 billion for war costs as well as provide a 13-week
extension of unemployment benefits and emergency relief for the flood-ravaged
Midwest. Obama voted yes.
Since the start of the Iraq War, Halliburton and their former subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root
have come under fire for receiving billions of dollars in no-bid contracts, and then failing to perform their duties adequately.
And now they're facing a major lawsuit for some of these shoddy services, most notably for providing tainted supplies of food
and water to American troops serving in Iraq. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. talks with Elizabeth Burke, one of the attorneys handling
the newest lawsuit against the two companies.
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted November 26, 2007.
Earlier this year, using the clout that only major broadcast networks seem capable of mustering, CBS
News contacted the governments of all 50 states requesting their official records of death by suicide going back 12 years.
They heard back from 45 of the 50. From the mountains of gathered information, they sifted out the suicides of those Americans
who had served in the armed forces. What they discovered is that in 2005 alone -- and remember, this is just in 45 states
-- there were at least 6,256 veteran suicides, 120 every week for a year and an average of 17 every day.
As the widow of a Vietnam vet who killed himself after coming home, and as the author of a book for
which I interviewed dozens of other women who had also lost husbands (or sons or fathers) to PTSD and suicide in the aftermath
of the war in Vietnam, I am deeply grateful to CBS for undertaking this long overdue investigation. I am also heartbroken
that the numbers are so astonishingly high and tentatively optimistic that perhaps now that there are hard numbers to attest
to the magnitude of the problem, it will finally be taken seriously. I say tentatively because this is an administration that
melts hard numbers on their tongues like communion wafers.
Since these new wars began, and in spite of a continuous flood of alarming reports, the Department
of Defense has managed to keep what has clearly become an epidemic of death beneath the radar of public awareness by systematically
concealing statistics about soldier suicides. They have done everything from burying them on official casualty lists in a
category they call "accidental noncombat deaths" to outright lying to the parents of dead soldiers. And the Department of
Veterans Affairs has rubber-stamped their disinformation, continuing to insist that their studies indicate that soldiers are
killing themselves, not because of their combat experiences, but because they have "personal problems."
Active-duty soldiers, however, are only part of the story. One of the well-known characteristics of
post-traumatic stress injuries is that the onset of symptoms is often delayed, sometimes for decades. Veterans of World War
II, Korea and Vietnam are still taking their own lives because new PTSD symptoms have been triggered, or old ones retriggered,
by stories and images from these new wars. Their deaths, like the deaths of more recent veterans, are written up in hometown
newspapers; they are locally mourned, but officially ignored. The VA doesn't track or count them. It never has. Both the VA
and the Pentagon deny that the problem exists and sanctimoniously point to a lack of evidence they have refused to gather.
They have managed this smoke and mirrors trick for decades in large part because suicide makes people
so uncomfortable. It has often been called "that most secret death" because no one wants to talk about it. Over time, in different
parts of the world, attitudes have fluctuated between the belief that the act is a sin, a right, a crime, a romantic gesture,
an act of consummate bravery or a symptom of mental illness. It has never, however, been an emotionally neutral issue. In
the United States, the rationalism of our legal system has acknowledged for 300 years that the act is almost always symptomatic
of a mental illness. For those same 300 years, organized religions have stubbornly maintained that it's a sin. In fact, the
very worst sin. The one that is never forgiven because it's too late to say you're sorry.
The contradiction between religious doctrine and secular law has left suicide in some kind of nether
space in which the fundamentals of our systems of justice and belief are disrupted. A terrible crime has been committed, a
murder, and yet there can be no restitution, no punishment. As sin or as mental illness, the origins of suicide live in the
mind, illusive, invisible, associated with the mysterious, the secretive and the undisciplined, a kind of omnipresent Orange
Alert. Beware the abnormal. Beware the Other.
For years now, this administration has been blasting us with high-decibel, righteous posturing about
suicide bombers, those subhuman dastards who do the unthinkable, using their own bodies as lethal weapons. "Those people,
they aren't like us; they don't value life the way we do," runs the familiar xenophobic subtext: And sometimes the text isn't
even sub-: "Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same
murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington and Pennsylvania," proclaimed W, glibly
conflating Sept. 11, the invasion of Iraq, Islam, fanatic fundamentalism and human bombs.
Bush has also expressed the opinion that suicide bombers are motivated by despair, neglect and poverty.
The demographic statistics on suicide bombers suggest that this isn't the necessarily the case. Most of the Sept. 11 terrorists
came from comfortable middle- to upper-middle-class families and were well-educated. Ironically, despair, neglect and poverty
may be far more significant factors in the deaths of American soldiers and veterans who are taking their own lives.
Consider the 25 percent of enlistees and the 50 percent of reservists who have come back from the war
with serious mental health issues. Despair seems an entirely appropriate response to the realization that the nightmares and
flashbacks may never go away, that your ability to function in society and to manage relationships, work schedules or crowds
will never be reliable. How not to despair if your prognosis is: Suck it up, soldier. This may never stop!
Neglect? The VA's current backlog is 800,000 cases. Aside from the appalling conditions in many VA
hospitals, in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, almost 6 million veterans and their families were without
any healthcare at all. Most of them are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage, but not poor enough to qualify
for Medicaid or means-tested VA care. Soldiers and veterans need help now, the help isn't there, and the conversations about
what needs to be done are only just now beginning.
Poverty? The symptoms of post-traumatic stress injuries or traumatic brain injuries often make getting
and keeping a job an insurmountable challenge. The New York Times reported last week that though veterans make up only 11
percent of the adult population, they make up 26 percent of the homeless. If that doesn't translate into despair, neglect
and poverty, well, I'm not sure the distinction is one worth quibbling about.
There is a particularly terrible irony in the relationship between suicide bombers and the suicides
of American soldiers and veterans. With the possible exception of some few sadists and psychopaths, Americans don't enlist
in the military because they want to kill civilians. And they don't sign up with the expectation of killing themselves. How
incredibly sad that so many end up dying of remorse for having performed acts that so disturb their sense of moral selfhood
that they sentence themselves to death.
There is something so smugly superior in the way we talk about suicide bombers and the cultures that
produce them. But here is an unsettling thought. In 2005, 6,256 American veterans took their own lives. That same year, there
were about 130 documented deaths of suicide bombers in Iraq.* Do the math. That's a ratio of 50-to-1. So who is it that is
most effectively creating a culture of suicide and martyrdom? If George Bush is right, that it is despair, neglect and poverty
that drive people to such acts, then isn't it worth pointing out that we are doing a far better job?
*I say "about" because in the aftermath of a suicide bombing, it is often very difficult for observers
to determine how many individual bodies have been blown to pieces.
Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest
book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day, 2006. Her blog
is Flashback.
This
site presents in a simple, nonpartisan pro-con format, responses to the core question "Should the US have attacked Iraq?"
We have divided questions about the topic into the issues and sub-issues listed below.
Thousands of Troops
Are Deployed on
U.S. Streets Ready to
Carry Out "Crowd Control"
author: Naomi
Wolf
Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready
to Carry Out "Crowd Control"
Members
of Congress were told they could face martial law if they didn't pass the bailout bill. This will not be the last time.
Background: the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division,
three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form
of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals," and the management of a national emergency. I am in
Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported that
an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.
George
Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that
in the "War on Terror," the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also
a battlefield.
He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely
defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the suspension of
habeas corpus -- habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial -- in the event of an "insurrection."
With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters "insurgents" staging an "insurrection"
is strengthened.
U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on YouTube,
that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout bill:
"The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. ... Many of us were told in
private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three
thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would
be martial law in America if we voted no." If this is true and Rep. Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that
if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also
foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment
accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.
I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and
patriot David Antoon for clarification:
"If the President directed the First Brigade to arrest Congress, what could
stop him?"
"Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off funding. The Congress would be at the mercy of military leaders
to go to them and ask them not to obey illegal orders."
"But these orders are now legal?'"
"Correct."
"If
the President directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?"
"Nothing. It would end
up in courts but the action would have been taken."
"If the President directs the First Brigade to kill civilians,
what would stop him?"
"Nothing."
"What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor
of the Washington Post?"
"Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq -- send a tank down a street in Washington and
fire a shell into the Washington Post as they did into Al Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else."
"What
happens to members of the First Brigade who refuse to take up arms against U.S. citizens?"
"They'd probably be treated
as deserters as in Iraq: arrested, detained and facing five years in prison. In Iraq a study by Ann Wright shows that deserters
-- reservists who refused to go back to Iraq -- got longer sentences than war criminals."
"Does Congress have any
military of their own?"
"No. Congress has no direct control of any military units. The Governors have the National
Guard but they report to the President in an emergency that he declares."
"Who can arrest the President?"
"The
Attorney General can arrest the President after he leaves or after impeachment."
[Note: Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi
has asserted it is possible for District Attorneys around the country to charge President Bush with murder if they represent
districts where one or more military members who have been killed in Iraq formerly resided.]
"Given the danger do
you advocate impeachment?"
"Yes. President Bush struck down Posse Comitatus -- which has prevented, with a penalty
of two years in prison, U.S. leaders since after the Civil War from sending military forces into our streets -- with a 'signing
statement.' He should be impeached immediately in a bipartisan process to prevent the use of military forces and mercenary
forces against U.S. citizens"
"Should Americans call on senior leaders in the Military to break publicly with this
action and call on their own men and women to disobey these orders?"
"Every senior military officer's loyalty should
ultimately be to the Constitution. Every officer should publicly break with any illegal order, even from the President."
"But
if these are now legal. If they say, 'Don't obey the Commander in Chief,' what happens to the military?"
"Perhaps
they would be arrested and prosecuted as those who refuse to participate in the current illegal war. That's what would be
considered a coup."
War has intensified in Iraq; hundreds of thousands civilians, military and Iraqis have been killed, but the
American army is pleased with the report of year 2005 because of the stabilization of the official figures with regard to
its contingent’s losses. In fact, if we check the Pentagon’s figures published on Sunday, January 22, 2006,
we again can seriously question the openly said goals of the Bush Administration regarding Iraq. We found out that the amount
of attacks launched by the resistance went from 26 496 in 2004 to 34 131 in 2005, that is, a 30% increase. With regard to
car bombs, attacks doubled to reach the figure of 870 last year; the Pentagon described half of them as suicide attacks and
provocations by the resistance. Despite this increase of violence in the country, the number of officially-murdered American
soldiers remained stable, that is 845 (vs. 844 in 2004) and the number of wounded went from 7 990 to 5 939.
The Pentagon is pleased because of the decrease of casualties among American troops when the number of attacks
have been increased. This is explained by the fact that the 227 000 Iraqi soldiers that are now part of the occupation forces
are the ones who suffer the losses. But counting the Iraqi dead people, civilians or military, is not useful. Once American
troops are better protected, the shares of Exxon, BP and Shell are doing better thanks to the annexed Iraqi oil reserves. Petro-euros are forbidden in the country. The rest can be considered
as part of the Iraqi private affairs.
Marine Corporal
James Jenkins, a decorated veteran of the Iraq invasion and
the Battle of Najaf, took his
life after serving for 22 months.
His mother shares his story with
ANP - a tragedy repeated 15 times
a day in the US.
When Jordan Fox was serving in Iraq, his mother helped organize Operation Pittsburgh Pride, which sends thousands of care
packages to U.S. troops from his hometown, which prompted a personal "thank you" from the White House. When Fox was seriously
injured in Iraq, the president sent what appeared to be personal note, expressing his concerns to the Fox family.
The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing
bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.
To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.
Now men and women who have lost arms, legs,
eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.
I watched the report from the CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh, and I kept thinking, "This can't be right." Apparently, it is.
In Jordan Fox's case, he was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle, causing back injuries and blindness
in his right eye. He was sent home, unable to complete the final three months of his military commitment.
Last week, the Pentagon sent him a bill: Fox owed the government nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus.
"I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they're telling me they want
their money back," Fox said.
Look, if a soldier signed a contract, collected a signing bonus, and then quit, I can understand the military asking for
the signing bonus back.
But we're talking about troops who volunteered, served, and were seriously injured. It's not their
fault they got hurt. How on earth is the Pentagon justified in asking for a refund?
In Jordan Fox's case, he doesn't have $3,000 lying around to give the government, and his injuries are such that he had
to give up on his goal of becoming a police officer.
For what it's worth, Fox's congressman, Democrat Jason Altmire, has introduced a bill to prohibit the Bush administration from asking the troops for refunds.
Mr. Altmire, D-McCandless, held a news conference yesterday at the Ross municipal building with Spc. Kaminski
and other veterans to tout legislation he has authored to aid wounded soldiers.
At the forefront was a bill introduced last week and sent to committee that targets a Defense Department policy
preventing eligible soldiers from receiving their full bonuses if discharged early because of combat-related injuries.
"Hard as it may be to believe, the Department of Defense has been denying injured servicemen and women the bonuses
that they qualified for," Mr. Altmire said.
He said he drafted the legislation after hearing "outrageous" examples of bonuses being denied.... Mr. Altmire's
legislation, the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act, would require the Defense Department to pay bonuses in full within 30 days
to veterans discharged because of combat-related wounds.
The Neoconservative Agenda
to Sacrifice the Fifth Fleet
The New Pearl Harbor
By Michael
E. Salla, M.A., Ph.D.
11/08/07 "ICH" -- -- -The Bush administration has covered up and ignored dissenting Pentagon war games analysis that suggests
an attack on Iran’s nuclear or military facilities will lead directly to the annihilation of the Navy’s Fifth
Fleet now stationed in the Persian Gulf. Lt. General Paul Van Riper led a hypothetical Persian Gulf state in the 2002
Millennium Challenge wargames that resulted in the destruction of the Fifth Fleet. His experience and conclusions regarding
the vulnerability of the Fifth Fleet to an assymetrical military conflict with Iran have been ignored. Neoconservatives within
the Bush administration are currently aggressively promoting a range of military actions against Iran that will culminate
in it attacking the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet with sophisticated cruise anti-ship missiles. They are ignoring Van Riper’s
experiences in the Millennium Challenge and how it applies to the current nuclear conflict with Iran.
Iran has sufficient quantities of cruise missiles to destroy much
or all of the Fifth Fleet which is within range of Iran’s mobile missile launchers strategically located along its mountainous
terrain overlooking the Persian Gulf. The Bush administration is deliberately downplaying the vulnerability of the Fifth Fleet
to Iran’s advanced missile technology which has been purchased from Russia and China since the late 1990’s. The
most sophisticated of Iran’s cruise missiles are the ‘Sunburn’ and ‘Yakhonts’. These are missiles
against which U.S. military experts conclude modern warships have no effective defense. By deliberately provoking an Iranian
retaliation to U.S. military actions, the neoconservatives will knowingly sacrifice much or all of the Fifth Fleet. This will
culminate in a new Pearl Harbor that will create the right political environment for total war against Iran, and expanded
military actions in the Persian Gulf region.
The Fifth Fleet’s Vulnerability to Iran’s Anti-Ship
Missile Arsenal
The U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet is headquartered in the Gulf State of
Bahrain which is responsible for patrolling the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Suez Canal and parts of the Indian Ocean. The Fifth
Fleet currently comprises a carrier group and two helicopter carrier ships. Its size peaked at five aircraft carrier groups
and six helicopter carriers in 2003 during the invasion of Iraq. Presently, it is led by the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the
first nuclear powered aircraft carrier commissioned in 1961. It is the oldest of the Navy’s nuclear powered class carriers
and scheduled to be decommissioned in 2015 when the first of the new Ford Class carriers enters service. The Enterprise has
over 5000 Navy personnel, and on November 2, began participating in a Naval exercise in the Persian Gulf. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL02134242 .
The Fifth Fleet is part of Central Command which is responsible
for military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, including the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Central
Command is led by Admiral William Fallon, the first naval officer to head Central Command. His appointment reflected widespread
opinion that Naval forces would be central in the evolution of missions and goals in the Persian Gulf region. Robert Gates,
the U.S. Secretary of Defense explained: “As you look at the range of options available to the United States, the use
of naval and air power, potentially, it made sense to me for all those reasons for Fallon to have the job.” http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/15/1212/ It would be Central Command and the Fifth Fleet that would be directly responsible for carrying out a new war against
Iran. As a result, it would be the Fifth Fleet that would be most vulnerable of all U.S. military assets to Iran’s arsenal
of anti-ship cruise missiles.
The Fifth Fleet’s base in Bahrain, is only 150 miles away
from the Iranian coast, and would itself be in range of Iran’s new generation of anti-ship cruise missiles. Also, any
Naval ships in the confined terrain of the Persian Gulf would have difficulty in maneuvering and would be within range of
Iran’s rugged coastline which extends all along the Persian Gulf to the Arabian sea.
Iran began purchasing advanced military technology from Russia soon
after the latter pulled out in 2000 from the Gore-Chernomyrdin Protocol, which limited Russia’s sales of military equipment
to Iran. http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/03-12-2005/9334-iran-0 . Russia subsequently began selling Iran military technology that could be used in any military conflict with the U.S.
This included air defense systems and anti-ship cruise missiles in which Russia specialized to offset the U.S. large naval
superiority. One researcher of Russia’s missile technology explains its focus on anti-ship technologies:
Many years ago, Soviet planners gave up trying to match the
US Navy ship for ship, gun for gun, and dollar for dollar. The Soviets simply could not compete with the high levels of US
spending required to build up and maintain a huge naval armada. They shrewdly adopted an alternative approach based on strategic
defense. They searched for weaknesses, and sought relatively inexpensive ways to exploit those weaknesses. The Soviets succeeded:
by developing several supersonic anti-ship missiles, one of which, the SS-N-22 Sunburn, has been called "the most lethal missile
in the world today." http://www.rense.com/general59/theSunburniransawesome.htm
The SS-N-22 or ‘Sunburn” has a speed of Mach 2.5
or 1500 miles an hour, uses stealth technology and has a range up to 130 miles. It contains a conventional warhead of 750
lbs that can destroy most ships. Of even greater concern is Russia’s SSN-X-26 or ‘Yakhonts’ cruise missile
which has a range of 185 miles which makes all US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf vulnerable to attack. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/ss-n-26.htm .
More importantly the Yakhonts has been specifically developed for
use against Carrier groups, and has been sold by Russia on the international arms trade.
Both the Yakhonts and the Sunburn missiles are designed to defeat
the Aegis radar defense currently used on U.S. Navy ships by using stealth technology and low ground hugging flying maneuvers.
In their final approaches these missiles take evasive maneuvers to defeat anti-ship missile defenses. The best defense the
Navy has against Sunburn and Yakhonts cruise missiles has been the Sea-RAM (Rolling Actionframe Missile system) anti-ship
missile defense system which is a modified form of the Phalanx 20 mm cannon gun . The Sea-RAM has been tested with a 95% success
rate against the ‘Vandal’ supersonic missile capable of Mach 2.5 speeds but does not have the radar evading and
final flight maneuvers of Russian anti-ship missiles. http://www.navybuddies.com/launcher/ram.htm Naval ships are having their anti-ship missile defense fitted with the new Sea-RAM http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20060412.aspx. However, the Sea-RAM has not yet been tested in actual battle conditions nor against the Sunburn or Yakhonts missiles
which out-perform the Vandal. The Vandal is currently scheduled for replacement by the ‘Coyote’ which replicates
many of the evasive maneuvers of the Russia anti-ship missiles necessary for developing an effective defense. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/gqm-163.htm .
So great is the threat posed by the Sunburn, Yakhonts and other
advanced anti-ship missiles being developed by Russia and sold to China, Iran and other countries, that the Pentagon’s
weapons testing office in 2007 moved to halt production on further aircraft carriers until an effective defense was developed.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a5LkaU0wj714&refer=home . Iran has purchased sufficient quantities of both the Sunbeam and Yakhonts to destroy much or all of the Fifth Fleet anywhere
in the Persian Gulf from its mountainous coastal terrain.
Millennium Challenge Wargames and GAO Report
In 2000, the Government Accountability Office (formerly General
Accounting Office – GAO) conducted a study on the US Navy’s preparedness for anti-ship cruise missiles http://fas.org/man/gao/nsiad-00-149.htm . Subtitled, Comprehensive Strategy Needed to Improve Ship Cruise Missile Defense, the study pointed out that
the “threat to surface ships from sophisticated anti-ship cruise missiles is increasing. Nearly 70 nations have deployed
sea- and land-launched cruise missiles, and 20 nations have air-launched cruise missiles.” The study found that although
“the Navy has made some progress in improving surface ship self-defense capabilities, most ships continue to have only
limited capabilities against cruise missile threats.” A subsequent military study in 2003 found that only 27 Naval ships
were fitted with the Sea-RAM anti-missile defense which had performed well in tests. http://www.jfsc.ndu.edu/current_students/documents_policies/documents/jca_cca_awsp/Cruise_Missile_Defense_Final.doc . The GAO study found that while “Navy leaders express concern about the vulnerability of surface ships, that concern
may not be reflected in the budget [1997-2005] for ship self-defense programs.” Most importantly, the GAO study found
that Navy assessments “overstates the actual and projected capabilities of surface ships to protect themselves from
cruise missiles.” The GAO study’s criticism of the Navy’s capacity to satisfactorily deal with cruise missile
threats was vividly illustrated in the Millennium Challenge wargames held in the summer of 2002.
The “Millennium Challenge” was one of the largest wargames
ever conducted and wargames involved 13,500 troops spread out at over 17 locations. The wargames involved heavy usage of computer
simulations, extended over a three week period and cost $250 million. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 Millennium Challenge involved asymmetrical warfare between the U.S military forces, led by General William Kernan,
and an unnamed state in the Persian Gulf. According to General Kernan, the wargames “would test a series of new war-fighting
concepts recently developed by the Pentagon.” http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm . Using a range of asymmetrical attack strategies using disguised civilian boats for launching attacks, planes in Kamikaze
attacks, and Silkworm cruise missiles, much of the Fifth Fleet was sunk. The games revealed how asymmetrical strategies could
exploit the Fifth Fleet’s vulnerability against anti-ship cruise missiles in the confined waters of the Persian Gulf.
In a controversial decision, the Pentagon decided to simply ‘refloat’
the Fifth Fleet to continue the exercise which led to the eventual defeat of the Persian Gulf state. The sinking of the Fifth
Fleet was ignored and the wargames declared a success for the “new war-fighting concepts” adopted by Gen. Kernan.
This led to Lt General Paul Van Riper, the commander of the mythical Gulf State, calling the official results “empty
sloganeering”. In a later television interview, General Riper elaborated further:
"There were accusations that Millennium Challenge was rigged.
I can tell you it was not. It started out as a free-play exercise, in which both Red and Blue had the opportunity to win the
game. However, about the third or fourth day, when the concepts that the command was testing failed to live up to their expectations,
the command at that point began to script the exercise in order to prove these concepts. This was my critical complaint.”
http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm
Most significant was General Riper’s claims of the effectiveness
of the older Cruise missile technology, the Silkworm missile which were used to sink an aircraft carrier and two helicopter-carriers
loaded with marines in the total of 16 ships sunk. When asked to confirm Riper’s claims, General Kernar replied: “Well,
I don’t know. To be honest with you. I haven’t had an opportunity to assess what happened. But that’s a
possibility… The specifics of the cruise-missile piece… I really can’t answer that question. We’ll
have to get back to you” http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm
The Millennium Challenge wargames clearly demonstrated the vulnerability
of the US Fifth Fleet to Silkworm cruise missile attacks. This replicated the experience of the British during the 1980 Falklands
war where two ships were sunk by three Exocet missiles. Both the Exocet and Silkworm cruise missiles were an older generation
of anti-ship missile technology that were far surpassed by the Sunburn and Yakhonts missiles. If the Millennium Challenge
was a guide to an asymmetrical war with Iran, much of the U.S Fifth Fleet would be destroyed. It is not surprising Millennium
Challenge was eventually scripted so that this embarrassing fact was hidden. To date, there has been little public awareness
of the vulnerability of the US Fifth Fleet while stationed in the Persian Gulf. It appears that the Bush administration had
scripted an outcome to the wargames that would promote its neoconservative agenda for the Middle East.
The Neo-Conservative Strategy to Attack Iran
Neoconservatives share a political philosophy that US dominance
of the international system as the world’s sole superpower needs to be extended indefinitely into the 21st
century. Part of the neoconservative agenda is to identify and overthrow states that are opposed to the current U.S. dominated
international system. After the 911 attacks, rogue states viewed as supporters of international terrorism were elevated into
what President Bush called in his 2002 State of the Union speech the “Axis of Evil” . http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html These originally included Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Neoconservatives view forceful diplomacy backed by military intervention
as the price to pay for reigning in rogue states that support terrorism. Up until the 2003 invasion, Iraq had been the principal
rogue state that was a targeted by neoconservatives. Subsequent to the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein and forceful multilateral
diplomacy on North Korea, neo-conservative attention has firmly shifted to Iran.
In early 2006 neoconservatives within the Bush administration began
vigorously promoting a new war against Iran due to the alleged threat posed by its nuclear development program. Iran has consistently
maintained that its nuclear development is lawful and in compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Article IV.1 of
the NPT states: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to
the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes…” http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/npttreaty.html . The only constraint on this “inalienable right” is that states must agree not to pursue a nuclear weapons program
as identified in Articles I and II of the NPT. Since 2004, The Bush administration has been citing intelligence data that
Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons and must under no circumstances be allowed to do this.
Much of Iran’s nuclear development has occurred in underground
facilities built at a depth of 70 feet with hardened concrete overhead that protect them from any known conventional attack.
This led to the Bush administration arguing in early 2006 that tactical nuclear weapons would need to be used to take out
Iran’s nuclear facilities. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/17/060417fa_fact This culminated in a fierce debate between leading neo-conservatives such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, with
the Joint Chiefs of Staff which remained adamantly opposed. Seymour Hersh in May 2006, reported the opposition of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
In late April, the military leadership, headed by General
Pace, achieved a major victory when the White House dropped its insistence that the plan for a bombing campaign include the
possible use of a nuclear device to destroy Iran's uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran.
…. "Bush and Cheney were dead serious about the nuclear planning," the former senior intelligence official told me.
"And Pace stood up to them. Then the world came back: 'O.K., the nuclear option is politically unacceptable.' http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/10/060710fa_fact .
.
Subsequent efforts by the neo-conservatives to justify a conventional
military attack have been handicapped by widespread public skepticism by the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program,
and Iran’s compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has stated that
Iran is complying with its inspection requirements. In a statement on October 8, 2007, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the
IAEA, dismissed the main argument used by the Bush administration when he said "I have not received any information that there
is a concrete active nuclear weapons program going on right now." http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20071028-114627-4645r . ElBaradei went on to cite U.S. military assessments that Iran is a few years away from developing weapons grade nuclear
fuel that could be used for nuclear weapons. The Bush administration, frustrated by the determined opposition both within
the U.S bureaucracy, military and the international community to its plans has adopted a three pronged track strategy for
its goal of ‘taking out’ Iran.
First Attack Strategy
The first strategy is to drive up public perceptions of an international
security crisis by warning of a Third World War if Iran’s nuclear program is not stopped. In a Press Conference speech
on October 17, President Bush declared:
I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World
War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them [Iranians] from having the knowledge necessary to make
a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously. And we'll continue to work with all nations
about the seriousness of this threat. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071017.html
Bush’s startling rhetoric was followed soon after by Vice
President Cheney on October 23 who warned in a speech before the Washington Institute for Near East Studies: ''Our country,
and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions.”
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/21/cheney.iran.ap/ Cheney went on to allude in his speech to military action where
the US and its allies were "prepared to impose serious consequences." He then declared: “We will not allow Iran to have
a nuclear weapon.''
Bush’s and Cheney’s alarming rhetoric provides political
cover for Israel, which is also adamantly opposed to Iran’s nuclear developments plans, to bomb its nuclear facilities.
On September 6, 2007 an elite Israeli Air Force Squadron launched a daring air raid and destroyed a secret Syrian facility
that had allegedly received nuclear material from North Korea. According to a Sunday Times report, the “Israelis proved
they could penetrate the Syrian air defense system, which is stronger than the one protecting Iranian nuclear sites.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2461421.ece The Syrian raid was a test run for what Israel could do against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Bush administration
has been encouraging a covert Israeli military strike against Iran given determined opposition to a U.S. led military strike.
An earlier Sunday Times report from January 2007 exposed Israeli plans for airstrikes against Iran using nuclear armed bunker
busting weapons in the event the U.S. did not move forward: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290331.ece . However, the U.S. military is also opposed to a unilateral attack by Israel which would result in a furious Iranian
retaliation against American forces.
There were unconfirmed reports that the U.S. denied Israel the flight
codes to fly over Iraqi airspace for an early 2007 air raid sanctioned by neoconservatives within the Bush administration.
Currently, Admiral Fallon, the Commander of Central Command, is opposed to U.S. military strikes against Iran. During his
confirmation hearing in February 2007, Fallon privately confided that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/15/1212/ . It is highly likely that Fallon would veto any Israeli attack on Iran, and deny it the flight codes it requires for flying
over Iraqi airspace.
Second Attack Strategy
The second strategy has been shift emphasis from removing Iran’s
nuclear facilities, to emphasizing its support for terrorism. Given widespread military and political opposition to attacks
on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Bush administration is now depicting Iran as a supporter of terrorism in Iraq. Seymour
Hersh described the shift as follows:
“Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes
on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of
attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as
counterterrorism.” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh .
The change in strategy was given a powerful boost by the passage
of the Kyle-Lieberman amendment by the U.S. Senate on September 26 which designated “the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Corps as a foreign terrorist organization” http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SP3017: . This would enable the Bush administration to authorize strikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities inside Iran
on the basis that they are supporting Iraqi terrorist groups targeting U.S. military forces. According to Hersh the shift
in strategy is gaining support from among the American military. While Admiral William Fallon has privately expressed opposition
to military action against Iran, the commander of U.S. forces inside Iraq, General Petraeus, supports the Bush administration’s
Iran policies. Petraeus has declared: “None of us, earlier this year, appreciated the extent of Iranian involvement
in Iraq, something about which we and Iraq’s leaders all now have greater concern”. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=2 Petraeus went on to claim that Iran was fighting “a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.”
Consequently, limited surgical strikes against Revolutionary Guards facilities might be authorized by the Bush administration.
Third Attack Strategy
The third and most dangerous strategy used by the Bush administration
is to sanction a covert mission that would create the necessary political environment for a war against Iran. This is arguably
best evidenced in the infamous B-52 ‘Bent Spear’ incident on August 30, 2007 where five (later changed to six)
nuclear armed cruise missiles were found en route to the Middle East for a covert mission. http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__071020_the_b_52_incident__96_.htm The nuclear warheads had adjustable yields of between 5 to 150 kilotons, and would have been ideal for use against
Iran’s underground nuclear facilities or in a false flag operation that would be blamed on Iran. According to confidential
sources, the covert mission involving the B-52 was to coincide with Israel’s September 6 military strike against a Syrian
military facility http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_wayne_ma_070928_news_of_b_52_nukes_l.htm . However, Air Force personnel stood down ‘illegal’ orders that most likely came from the White House, and averted
what could have been the detonation of one or more nuclear devices in the Persian Gulf region. There is much evidence to believe
that ultimate responsibility for the B-52 incident can be traced to the office of the Vice President. http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__070907_was_a_covert_attempt.htm Due to the Bush administration’s authority directly order military units to participate in covert missions regardless
of their legality, the possibility that a covert mission will be used to provoke a war with Iran remains high.
Consequences of Iran being Attacked
In an effort to intimidate Iran, the Bush administration has regularly
placed two aircraft carrier group formations in the Persian Gulf http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/ss_gulf_11_04.asp . In the naval exercises that began on Novembers 2, the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and a helicopter carrier, the USS Kearsarge
(LHD 3), are in the Persian Gulf simulating “a quick response to possible crises” http://www.cusnc.navy.mil/articles/2007/228.html . The size and timing of possible U.S. military attacks on Iran’s nuclear and/or military facilities, will influence
the speed and scale of an Iranian response. Iran’s response will predictably result in a military escalation that culminates
in Iran using its arsenal of anti-ship cruise missiles on the U.S. Fifth Fleet and closing off the Strait of Hormuz to all
shipping. Iran’s ability to hide and launch cruise missiles from mountainous positions all along the Persian Gulf will
make all Fifth Fleet ships in the Persian Gulf vulnerable. The Fifth Fleet would be trapped and unable to escape to safer
waters. The Millennium Challenge wargames in 2002 witnessed the sinking of most of the Fifth fleet. Less advanced Silkworm
cruise missiles, when compared to Iran’s stock of Sunburn and Yakhonts missiles, were used in a simulated asymmetric
warfare that would resemble what would occur if Iran and the U.S. went to war. The sunk ships included an aircraft carrier,
two helicopter carriers in the total of 16 ships that were ‘refloated’ in the exercise to produce a scripted outcome.
If an attack on Iran were to occur before the end of 2007, it would
lead to the destruction of the USS Enterprise with its complement of 5000 personnel on board. Further losses in terms of support
ships and other Fifth Fleet naval forces in the Persian Gulf would be catastrophic. An Iranian cruise missile attack would
replicate losses at Pearl Harbor where the sinking of five ships, destruction of 188 aircraft and deaths of 2,333 quickly
led to a declaration of total war against Imperial Japan by the U.S. Congress.
The declaration of total war against Iran by the U.S. Congress would
lead to a sustained bombing campaign and eventual military invasion to bring about regime change in Iran. Military conscription
would occur in order to provide personnel for the invasion of Iran, and to support U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan that
would come under greater pressure. Tensions would rapidly escalate with other major powers such as Russia and China who have
supplied Iran with sophisticated weapons systems that could be used against U.S. military assets. The closing of the Strait
of Hormuz to all shipping and total war conditions in the U.S. would lead to a collapse of the world economy, and further
erosion of civil liberties in a U.S. engaged in total war.
Conclusions
The above scenario is very plausible given the military capacities
of Iran’s anti-ship cruise missiles and the U.S. Navy’s vulnerability to these while operating in the Persian
Gulf. The Bush administration has hidden from the American public the full extent of the Fifth Fleet’s vulnerability,
and how it could be trapped and destroyed in a full scale conflict with Iran. This is best evidenced by the controversial
decision to downplay the real results of the Millennium Challenge wargames and the dissenting views of Lt. General Van Riper
over the lessons to be learned. The Bush administration is also downplaying the significance of the 2000 GAO report on US
Navy vulnerability to cruise missile attacks.
Neo-conservatives within the Bush administration are fully aware
of the vulnerability of the Fifth Fleet, yet have at times tried to place up to three carrier groups in the Persian Gulf which
would only augment U.S. losses in any war with Iran. Yet the Bush administration has still attempted to move forward with
plans for nuclear, conventional and/or covert attacks on Iran which would precipitate much of the terrible scenario described
above.
A reasonable conclusion to draw is that neoconservatives within
the Bush administration are willing to sacrifice much or all of the U.S. Fifth Fleet by militarily provoking Iran to launch
its anti-ship cruise missile arsenal in order to justify ‘total war’ against Iran, and force regime change. An
immediate solution is to expose the neo-conservative agenda to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet and to make accountable all those
responsible for it.
On April 24, 2007 Congressman Dennis Kucinich began circulating
articles for impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney which included among his “high crimes and misdemeanors”
his advocacy of aggression against Iran. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/int3.pdf . The relevant section in the Kucinich bill states:
“With respect to Article III, that in his conduct while
vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran, absent any
real threat to the United States, and has done so with the United States's proven capability to carry out such threats, thus
undermining the national security interests of the United States.”.
After gaining additional support from 21 members of Congress as
co-sponsors, Kucinich introduce his articles of impeachment as a privileged resolution on November 6 to force a vote
in the House of Representatives. http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=77985 . His privileged resolution was voted on and referred to the House Judiciary Committee for further study.
In addition to Vice President Cheney, President Bush also is culpable
for the neo-conservative agenda to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet by militarily provoking Iran into launching hostilities that
culminates in total war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Impeachment proceedings also need to be launched against President
Bush for “high crimes and misdemeanors” for approving neoconservative plan to sacrifice the U.S. Fifth Fleet through
an unnecessary military provocation of Iran. A new Pearl Harbor can be averted by making accountable Bush administration officials
willing to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet in pursuit of a neoconservative agenda.
***
About the Author
Dr. Michael Salla is an internationally recognized scholar in
international politics, conflict resolution, US foreign policy and the new field of 'exopolitics'. He is author/editor of
five books; and held academic appointments in the School of International Service& the Center for Global Peace, American
University, Washington DC (1996-2004); the Department of Political Science, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
(1994-96); and the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington D.C., (2002). He has
a Ph.D in Government from the University of Queensland, Australia, and an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne,
Australia. He has conducted research and fieldwork in the ethnic conflicts in East Timor, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Sri Lanka,
and organized peacemaking initiatives involving mid to high level participants from these conflicts.
"Just what am I supposed to do with this patient?"
"It's not my call to make. Don't know what
I can tell you beyond circumstance and treatment."
"Well, was he doing anything before he was
intubated?"
"He came in intubated, so we don't have
much of a baseline to go on. He seemed to have some upper extremity movement and looked like he was miming a fish's mouth
when we lightened anesthesia to attempt to wake him up. I think he's got some outside chance of a recovery, so we wanted to
give him that chance."
"Alright. Well I know it's not your fault.
I just wonder what we are going to do with this guy."
This was part of the conversation I had
last night with an ER physician in Balad. Our patient was an Iraqi civilian who decided to gun towards an IP checkpoint, holding
heavily armed men in low regard. For some reason, this is a common occurence. Civilians really like to speed close to convoys,
get their vehicles lodged into convoys, and just plain not pay attention to big signs that read "STOP, CHECKPOINT AHEAD" or
"STAY BACK, DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED" in Arabic.
From what I gathered from our interpreter,
this guy was unarmed, not suspected of being an insurgent, and just wasn't very good at following instructions while wielding
a two-ton weapon on wheels.
As he barreled towards the checkpoint, he
was shot in the neck and subdued. We heard about him when it happened, because he was originally supposed to come to Charlie
Medical. We aren't really sure what transpired over the course of the afternoon, but we knew that instead he was bound for
Ramadi General. Case closed. Or so we thought...
We had commandeered an entire table for
dinner, and the surgical team was sitting down to chow. Up runs one of the surgical techs looking for us. He was told by Charlie
Medical that indeed the patient was again coming to us, but Ramadi General had him in surgery. Well, this didn't make much
sense. But we'll roll with whatever comes, so we finished up and started back to medical to wait for his arrival.
Our detachment commander gets a call on
his cell. The patient just arrived, is intubated with gastric contents in the breathing tube, and he is obtunded (not arousable).
Bob sprints ahead now to assess the airway situation and find out why a previously stable and "in surgery" patient has mysteriously
shown up at the door a sudden train wreck.
He quickly assesses that somehow the patient
was improperly intubated. The breathing tube was inadvertently introduced down his esophagus instead of the trachea. However
this happened, we now have a patient with a stomach and bowels filled with a whole lot of air, and none to very little in
his lungs. How did it happen? Don't know. How long has he been deprived of oxygen? Don't know.
He still has the gunshot wound to the neck
that hasn't been explored or repaired yet, so we rush him to the OR. All major structures are intact except some cervial vertebra
damage. Martin does the exploration, cleanout, and is closing the wound within an hour.
Which now leaves us with a huge dilemma
to sort out. With a superficial and seemingly easily recoverable neck wound, we now have a patient on our hands who is one
big question mark. He seems to have been deprived of oxygen for some length of time. It is obvious that he currently has deficits;
we tried to wake him up after surgery, but it wasn't happening. With these types of injuries, it is impossible to know what
the outcome will be. What function and cognitive ability will he regain? 50% ? 80% ?
The only way to realize what the outcome
will be is to give it time. Weeks to months of time. And that is why we made the decision that I would fly him to a bigger
hospital. Somewhere with CT scanners and a neurosurgeon on staff. The only place in the Country where he has any chance whatsoever.
So we were asking a lot of Balad last night, asking them to accept the burden of initial and secondary care, giving up limited
resources, to a patient that may or may not recover. They accepted, as all of the caregivers out here would, and have the
patience to see him through, no matter the outcome. Like us, every day they press the "I believe" button and just go with
it.
Like my patient, Iraq is a wounded Country.
As with a brain injury, there's no quick prognosis and no quick fix for Iraq, either. Standing where we stand, there is no
crystal ball to gaze into and get all the answers. You'd be better off looking for starfish in the Mississippi River.
So we have to ask ourselves, what will give
us the best chance for a secure Iraq? Citizens free to go to the marketplace without wondering if they just palmed their last
pomegranate, waiting for the place to go up in a fireball. Without Iran and Syria squeezing it from the borders, like a nerfball
in a vice. I don't purport to have all the answers, but I'm intimately aware of how all wounds heal. With time and patient
support.
The Death of a Pro-War Conservative -or- The Day I got Away with Murder
Vividly I remember the 15th of May, 2004. It had been business as usual and we were heading home from FOB Warhorse in Baquba.
By "home" I mean FOB Normandy in the small town of Muqdadiyah, and by "we" I mean Support Platoon, 2-2 Infantry. Ramrods!
We had gone to Warhorse to fill our fuel trucks and pick up a two-day supply of food. We did this every other day for almost
the entire year we were in Iraq and so that day was nothing new. Improvised explosive devices (IED) were the norm, as was
small-arms fire. It had been two months since we started our convoy operations and we had learned how to avoid, or at least
minimize, the damage done to our vehicles by IED.
Our strategy was to drive as fast as possible down the center of the road. Ok, so we had to force the local drivers off
the road at times. We weren't concerned about them, just ourselves.
And for the record, I still credit this technique for the survival of everyone in the platoon, but I'm digressing.
I was driving the rearmost vehicle with the convoy commander, my platoon leader, and I was dozing off behind the wheel
again (those of you who were drivers in Iraq can probably empathize) when
Because my little brother,
who it is my job to protect,
decided to join the California
National Guard
to get some money for college
and
they promised he wouldn’t
go to Iraq.
instead three months after
enlisting
he was sent to Iraq for one
year.
Since he has been home for
the last six months, he refuses to talk to anyone, he lives by himself. The only person he associates with is a friend
of his, the one other man out of his squad of thirteen men who made it home alive.
He called me a few weeks
ago for the first time and told me he’s having nightmares. I asked what they were about and he said they’re
about picking up the pieces of his fellow soldiers after a car bomb hit them.
Because every single one of the Marines
I served with, the really brave warriors, even when some friends and people they looked up to got killed or lost an
arm or leg, they wouldn’t cry, they just kept fighting. They completed their mission.
Every one of them I have
spoken to since we got home has broken down crying in front of me, saying all they can do since they got back is
bounce from job to job, drink and do drugs, and contemplate suicide to end the pain.
Because I’m tired of
drinking, bouncing from job to job and contemplating suicide to end the pain.
Because every time I see
a child, I think of the thousands I’ve slaughtered. Because every time I see a young soldier, I think of the
thousands Bush has slaughtered.
Because every time
I look in the mirror I see a casualty of the war.
Because I have a lot of lives
I have to make up for, the lives I have taken and because it’s right.
That’s
why I fight. Because of soldiers with wounds you can’t see.
Bush's wars on Afghanistan and Iraq are consistent with this strategy,
as are his appointments of Wolfowitz, architect of the Iraq war and "preemptive war" doctrine, as head of the World Bank,
and John Bolton, avowed U.N.-hater, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
After NATO conquered Yugoslavia, Halliburton's
Brown and Root constructed Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, the largest foreign U.S. military base built since the Vietnam War. Besides the Great Wall of China, the only other earthly thing visible from outer space is Camp Bondsteel.
Brown and Root is also building the 14 permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq. (more)
American
foreign policy dominated by the idea of
military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life? Jarecki's ...all »shrewd and intelligent
polemic would seem to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions
What are the forces that shape and
propel American militarism? This award-winning film provides an inside look at the anatomy of the American war machine.
