Mullen Hails Iraqi Political Debate on U.S.-Iraq Strategic Framework

By Gerry J. Gilmore

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 12, 2008 -- Ongoing debate within Iraq's political realm about negotiations over the U.S.-Iraq strategic framework agreement indicates the healthy development of Iraq's young democracy, the U.S. military's top officer said here today.

The completion of the agreement would allow for continued U.S. military operations in Iraq after the United Nations security resolution ends Dec. 31.

Political debate in Iraq "historically, has not taken place," Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted at a Government Executive Magazine-hosted breakfast at the National Press Club.

Mullen said he is encouraged by what he called the "healthy aspect" of Iraqi officials' statements regarding the agreement. Such debate over policy would be inconceivable under Saddam Hussein's regime, he noted.

U.S. State Department and Iraqi officials are in negotiations over the agreement, which, among other things, specifies how U.S. troops posted in Iraq would be treated under Iraqi law as part of a status-of-forces pact.

The United States does not want a permanent presence in Iraq, Mullen said.

"This is no desire to have permanent bases in Iraq," Mullen emphasized. "The desire, quite frankly, is to return our forces [home] as rapidly as we can.

"But, at the same time," the admiral continued, "we're also committed to providing the security that they need until they can stand up and provide their own security."

If no strategic framework agreement between the United States and Iraq is in place before Dec. 31, Mullen said, the U.N. resolution would have to be extended.

Rumsfeld, one former Pentagon official told me, saw Iraq's degraded military as an easy target for our own; its destruction would provide a quick demonstration of American power, as well as get rid of the regional threat that the Iraqi regime constituted. No firm believer in democratic transformation, he probably assumed, as did many other people at the time, that any new regime in Baghdad, even a military one, would be a dramatic improvement, in strategic terms for the US and in human-rights terms for the Iraqis. Rather than a fear of chaos, what is more apparent at this stage is a certain complacency on Rumsfeld's part. For example, he evidently did not challenge the personnel system's choice of ground commander in post-invasion Iraq. The Army's 5th Corps was slated to rotate out of Germany and into Iraq. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the 5th Corps commander, and his staff, despite their service in Bosnia, had done little thinking about counterinsurgency. From that set of circumstances, a long trail of well-documented mistakes followed. In this and other cases, Rumsfeld, who is often accused of micromanaging, did not micromanage enough.

Kaplan on Rumsfeld - Max Boot, Contentions

Robert D. Kaplan, one of our most thoughtful and enterprising foreign correspondents, has an intriguing article in the Atlantic headlined, "What Rumsfeld Got Right." He admits that the Rumsfeld legacy is not a good one, as seen in the worsening situation in Iraq and Afghanistan on his watch. But he tries to argue that Rumsfeld wasn't wrong about everything. "Even before 9/11," he writes, "Rumsfeld saw a new strategic landscape of manifest uncertainty, of fundamental and catastrophic surprise." In responding to that changed environment, Rumsfeld moved tens of thousands of troops out of established bases in Europe and Asia

A Transformer in Disguise - Thomas Donnelly, Weekly Standard

Donald Rumsfeld's primary mission when he returned to the Pentagon as secretary of defense in 2001 was to transform the US military to meet the missions of the new century. Today it seems more likely that it is his successor, Robert Gates, who will leave the lasting legacy. It's not just the high-profile firings - Air Force secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Michael Moseley recently joined former Army secretary Francis Harvey, CENTCOM chief Admiral William Fallon, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace on the list of senior defense officials Gates has pushed out. Nor is it simply the critical promotions of General David Petraeus to replace Fallon and General Raymond Odierno to take Petraeus's place in Iraq. What these decisions reflect is Gates's larger purpose: to make the US military focus on the war they've got rather than the war they'd like to have. Though he's only been in the job for 18 months and will presumably be gone with the rest of the Bush administration next January, Gates has managed to push aside what he calls the "next-war-itis" that metastasized during Rumsfeld's reign and became almost as intractable a problem as al Qaeda or the Taliban. It wasn't supposed to be this way. When he replaced Rumsfeld after the Republican "thumping" in the 2006 elections, Gates was widely viewed as the man who was going to end the futile fighting in Iraq, slay the neocon dragons, and return a sensible "realism" to the land.

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Donald Rumsfeld - Wikipedia

Over the course of the past month, World Politics Review met with leading figures representing a wide range of France's national security and foreign policy community. Our interlocuters, all of whom were extremely generous with their time and insight, included Eric Chevallier, special advisor to Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner; Michel Miraillet, the director of the Defense Ministry's Strategic Affairs Directorate; Sen. Didier Boulaud (PS), member of the Senate Commission on Foreign Affairs, Defense & Armed Forces, who resigned in protest from the Livre Blanc Commission; Maj. General Vincent Desportes, commander of the Force Employment Doctrine Center for the French Army; Yves Boyer, deputy director of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS); Bruno Tertrais, who spoke with us in his capacity as research fellow at the FRS but who is also a member of the Livre Blanc Commission; and Jean-Pierre Maulny, deputy director of the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégique. We also had the privilege of interviewing former foreign minister Hubert Védrine, the full text of which will conclude the series of articles to follow.

Here are links to each segment of the series:

France's Strategic Posture: Series Introduction

NATO Reingtegration and European Defense

A Widening Focus

The Temptation of Forward Defense

An Interview with Hubert Védrine

The series is a very good read, providing excellent background and insights on the complex issues facing France as it looks ahead in regards to that country's national security interests.

One of the key areas to build security capacity in Iraq is the development, training, equipping, and sustaining of the armed forces under the Ministry of Defense - a completely different mission from the mission of developing the Iraqi Police because of the dissolution of the military after the 2003 invasion. The build-up of Iraqi Armed Forces, begun in 2004 with the training of the first infantry battalion, has continued to evolve to a focus on not only combat forces, but also the enablers required to sustain the force.

For 2008, there are a number of emphasis areas for the continued development of the Iraqi Armed Forces. These include ensuring that Iraqi forces are mostly self-sufficient in logistics, maintenance and life support. A second emphasis area is ensuring the appropriate size, capability and leadership of Iraqi forces such that they can assume additional battlespace from Coalition forces. The third emphasis area is to enhance the capabilities of Iraqi special operations forces. The final emphasis area is to ensure that the Iraqi Air Force and Navy growth are on track.

The Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq (MNSTC-I) has a major role in assisting this development, with the mission "to assist the Iraqi Government in the development, organization, training, equipping, and sustaining of Iraqi Security Forces and Ministries capable of defeating terrorism and providing a stable environment where individual freedom, the rule of law, and free market economy can evolve and, in time, will contribute to Regional Security in the Gulf Region." To implement this mission, there are three major focus areas -- ministerial level capacity for the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior, armed forces, and police forces.

Assisting in the development of Iraqi Armed Forces (land, air and sea) also requires a "systems of systems" approach to build an enduring capability for the IAF. This enduring capability requires an "enterprise mindset" to manage those forces and capabilities through a balanced approach of the different enablers for the military: maneuver; fires; aviation; combat service support; mobility, countermobility, and survivability; intelligence; and command and control. This enterprise approach, derived from the war-fighting functions found in U.S. Army doctrine, helps to develop a balanced approach to build capability for today and the future.

The growth of the Iraqi Armed Forces since 2003 has been enormous, from the ground up to a force of over 200,000. This rapid growth has coincided with the current counterinsurgency (COIN) fight -- analogous to building an airplane while in flight. MNSTC-I's assistance to the Iraqi Armed Forces has focused on completing the growth of the COIN force, accelerating the enablers, and continuing to assist in the professionalization of the military. For the systems in the Armed Forces "star chart," expected areas of emphasis for the near-term are on command and control, combat service support, intelligence, and aviation.

All of this reform and rapid growth within the Iraqi Armed Forces is taking place in the context of the current COIN fight, which impacts the prioritization of effort. The immediate requirement is to create an IAF that is "sufficiently trained, sufficiently led, and sufficiently equipped" to have adequate numbers of forces to deal with the COIN fight -- while enabling the military to develop along a trajectory that ensures a professional "self defense force" for the long term, focused on providing security from external threats. The COIN fight must be won to ensure this transition; nonetheless the development and investment in the Iraqi Armed Forces must be informed by future requirements of the "self-defense force."

The "systems of systems" or enterprise approach represents the approach to developing a professional Iraqi Armed Forces that can address the challenges of today as well as tomorrow. The approach of ensuring security while transitioning is designed to provide security to the people of Iraq as an enduring capability, in accordance with the Iraqi Constitution.

Dr. Jack D. Kem is the Chief of the Combined Arms Center (CAC) Commander's Initiatives Group (CIG), Fort Leavenworth, KS. As the CIG Chief, Dr. Kem assists the CAC Commander by developing ideas and initiatives, conducting strategic planning, and conducting independent and unbiased analysis of the CAC Commander' areas of interest. Dr. Kem also hold a concurrent appointment as a Supervisory Professor in the Department of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operations in the US Army Command and General Staff College. Dr. Kem is currently on temporary assignment with MNSTC-I.

The Honorable Robert M. Gates must continue on as the Secretary of Defense in your administration.

Our Nation and Armed Services require his leadership and a continuation of the policies he has set in motion.

Thank you for your consideration,

Small Wars Journal

This is another type of war new in its intensity, ancient in its origins - war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins; war by ambush instead of by combat; by infiltration, instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him... it requires in those situations where we must counter it... a wholly different kind of force, and therefore a new and wholly different kind of military training.

--President John F. Kennedy, 1962

The advent of the War on Terror and t e evolution of guerilla tactics into a decisive form of warfare in its urban and rural form s have impacted the way western forces conduct warfare. The US deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have created a plethora of lessons learned and adjustments to doctrine. However, harking back to officer training and the simple but effective "Defense of Duffer's Drift" by E.D. Swinton we believe that this short story will be of value to any young officer or small unit leader engaged in the complexities of counterinsurgency warfare.

The following story embodies the recollection of things done and undone in Iraq between 2003 and 2008. We hope that this fictional example will promote the application of the critical fundamentals of counterinsurgency and prevent their absence due to ignorance, arrogance, or misunderstanding. As the forces of liberal democracy continue to face the challenge of radical extremists, it is hoped that this simple text will provide a basis for additional study and discussion on counterinsurgency tactics.

Captain Michael L. Burgoyne

Captain Albert J. Marckwardt

Video of Skirmish Along Border - Candace Rondeaux, Washington Post

The US-led military coalition in Afghanistan released video footage Thursday that apparently shows militants firing on Afghan troops from a mountain ridge near the country's northeast border with Pakistan, prompting a deadly skirmish that Pakistan has blamed for the deaths of 11 of its soldiers. A Taliban spokesman said 10 others also died in the military operation, which occurred late Tuesday evening just a few hundred feet inside Pakistan's troubled Mohmand tribal area and has threatened to further destabilize the increasingly fragile alliance between the United States and Pakistan. The footage of the incident, which was shot from above by an unmanned aerial vehicle, was issued as Pakistani government officials unleashed a torrent of criticism about the US military operation along Pakistan's porous border with Afghanistan.

US Releases Video of Pakistan Airstrike - Mike Nizza, New York Times

The United States military today confronted the sharpest criticism of an airstrike that left 11 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers dead on Tuesday night by releasing what it says is a video of the incident. (For background, see this article by Carlotta Gall and Eric Schmitt). Rather than it being a "completely unprovoked and cowardly act" - a charge from a Pakistani military officer that was later leavened by other officials - the Pentagon hoped the video would persuade the public that the American air attack was a legitimate act of self-defense. While it generally confirms aspects of both the American and the Taliban accounts of the border clash on Wednesday, the released video shows only part of the operation - the striking of three bombs, out of a total of about 12 that were used, officials said.

Air Strike in Pakistan 'Legitimate, Self-Defense' - John Kruzel, AFPS

Defense Department officials called a US air strike in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border "legitimate" and "self-defense," and said they are investigating the attack with Pakistani officials. "Every indication we have at this point is that the actions that were taken by US forces were legitimate, in that they were in self-defense after US forces operating on the border of Pakistan in Afghanistan territory came under attack from hostile forces," Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said in a news conference today. "In self-defense, they called in an air strike, which took out those forces that were attacking them," he added.

CNAS Reports and Synopsis of Each:

Making America Grand Again Report - Shawn Brimley, Michele A. Flournoy, Vikram J. Singh

Years of debate over the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the so-called "war on terror" have prevented Americans from grappling with the deeper challenges posed by changes in the international system. Beyond the threats posed by terrorism, new great powers such as India and China are rising, the process of globalization is accelerating, and the challenges of climate change and energy security grow more ominous by the day. The absence of an overarching strategic framework beyond simple debates over wartime tactics has contributed to an erosion of America's position in the world. The authors of Making America Grand Again argue that America's leaders must broaden their strategic aperture and recognize the value in renewing their commitment to sustaining the pillars of the global system -- common global goods such as stability in key regions, a vibrant global economy, and fair access to the global commons. Arguing that America's Cold War strategy consisted of two parts -- containing the Soviet Union while building and sustaining a resilient international system -- the authors lay out a case for why sustaining America's power and influence in the 21st century requires reinvesting in, and innovating within, the very global architecture that helped make America a superpower.

Iran: Assessing U.S. Strategic Options - James N. Miller, Christine Parthemore, Kurt M. Campbell

Dealing with Iran and its nuclear program will be an urgent priority for the next president. In order to evaluate U.S. policy options, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) convened a bipartisan group of experts on foreign policy and national security, retired military personnel, former diplomats and other government officials, and specialists on Iran and the region. Ambassador Dennis Ross presented a paper on diplomatic strategies for dealing with Iran, and Dr. Suzanne Maloney wrote on potential Iranian responses. Dr. Ashton Carter evaluated various U.S. military options, and Dr. Vali Nasr described likely Iranian reactions and other potential impacts. Ambassador Richard Haass considered the challenges of living with a nuclear Iran. Each of these papers represents an important contribution to a much-needed national discussion on U.S. policy toward Iran. Based on these papers and expert group discussion, as well as additional research and analysis, three CNAS authors (Dr. James Miller, Christine Parthemore, and Dr. Kurt Campbell) proposed that the next administration pursue "game-changing diplomacy" with Iran. While both Iran and the international community would be better off if Iran plays ball, game-changing diplomacy is designed to improve prospects for the United States and the international community irrespective of how Iran responds.

Shaping the Iraq Inheritance - Colin Kahl, Michele A. Flournoy, Shawn Brimley

American policy in Iraq will undergo two critical transitions throughout the remainder of 2008 and into early 2009: movement to a new U.S. posture in Iraq; and a wartime transition to a new administration. It is vital that both are handled in a way that best advances U.S. interests in Iraq and the region. Yet neither is being paid sufficient attention. Shaping the Iraq Inheritance outlines America's interests in Iraq and the region, analyzes recent security and political trends, presents a framework for understanding U.S. strategic options, and makes recommendations for how the Bush administration, the military, and Congress can best prepare for the dangerous period ahead.

The report places America's interests in Iraq within a regional and global context, and suggests that the United States must simultaneously attempt to avoid a failed state in Iraq while not strategically over-committing to Iraq. The report examines current security and political trends, and suggests that success in Iraq requires additional steps toward political accommodation and improved governance. The report then outlines a policy of conditional engagement—a strategy that initiates a phased, negotiated redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq while conditioning residual support to the Iraqi government on continued political progress—and argues that it offers the best chance of achieving sustainable stability in Iraq while balancing U.S. commitments worldwide.

Finally, the report outlines steps that must be taken to smooth the handover of Iraq policy from this administration to the next. The Bush administration must prioritize prepara tion in three areas over the next six months: the development of an interagency transition plan; enhancing the situational awareness of both the Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates and their top national security advisers on Iraq; and hand-tooling personnel transitions for senior positions critical to Iraq policy and operations.

A Strategy for American Power: Energy, Climate and National Security - Sharon Burke and Christine Parthemore

To protect the American way of life and secure the future, the United States needs an energy security strategy that will cut both our dependence on oil and our greenhouse gas emissions. Today, the energy we use keeps our economy and security dependent on unstable and hostile states, vulnerable to natural disasters, and subject to the consequences of climate change. With a comprehensive strategy to change both our supply of fuels and our demand, the United States can win the energy war, just as the strategy of containment helped win the Cold War. This report gives an overview of the nature of the energy challenge, the main elements of a strategy for energy security, and then offers a plan of action for how to actually execute that strategy.

The Power of Balance: America in iAsia - Kurt M. Campbell, Nirav Patel, Vikram J. Singh

As the tides of influence and power shift from Atlantic to Pacific shores -- propelled by the remarkable ascents of China and India and the economic growth of an entire region that now accounts for over 30 percent of global GDP -- America must reassert its strategic presence in Asia.

Unfortunately, many strategists shape policies toward the region through either a Cold War or anti-terrorism lens; both are limited in dealing with Asian dynamism. The region must be described in creative and forward-looking terms -- Kurt Campbell and his team from the Center for a New American Security deem it iAsia -- and U.S. strategy must be made anew to match.

A traditional approach will not suffice if the United States is to protect American interests and help iAsia realize its potential. The new strategic vision, articulated as the "power of balance," involves creative engagement in multilateral forums while strengthening existing bilateral alliances and relations. It demands a willingness to enter agreements on specific issues, rather than as a means to cement broad-based, balance-of-power alliances. And, perhaps most importantly, it requires American political parties to perform a balancing act at home: bipartisanship in foreign policy debates must be the goal not lofty rhetoric. American engagement in iAsia demands as much.

As part of the Ministry of Interior, the Iraqi Police Services (IPS) have the mission to "serve the public by providing law enforcement, public safety and internal security. The IPS Directorate has its own unique tasks and duties. The IPS first priority is to protect its citizens from terrorists, criminals and all those who seek to harm to the people of Iraq. The IPS protects people, their freedoms, public & private wealth as well as protect its citizens from any hazards and persons which compromise their safety. The IPS work to curb crime by implementing laws, arresting criminals who violate those laws and keeping public order."

The Multi-National Security Transition Command -- Iraq (MNSTC-I) has the mission "to assist the Iraqi Government in the development, organization, training, equipping, and sustaining of Iraqi Security Forces and Ministries capable of defeating terrorism and providing a stable environment where individual freedom, the rule of law, and free market economy can evolve and, in time, will contribute to Regional Security in the Gulf Region." To implement this mission, there are three major focus areas -- ministerial level capacity for the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior, military forces, and police forces.

Assisting in the development of police forces also requires a "systems of systems" approach to build an enduring capability for the IPS. This enduring capability requires an "enterprise mindset" to manage those forces and capabilities through the entire spectrum of patrolling, investigations, forensics, apprehension, incarceration, adjudication, logistics, and facilities. Proper stewardship of the police forces also requires an emphasis on leader development and a robust internal affairs capability to create a professional police force in Iraq.

The growth of the IPS in the past four years has been enormous -- from a previous force of approximately 60,000 to a force of over 250,000. This rapid growth has largely coincided with the "surge" of forces and the emphasis on establishing security throughout the country. In addition to the quantitative growth in the IPS, there have been significant qualitative changes in the last year -- these include the adoption of a Police Code of Ethics, strengthening of the Internal Affairs function to root out corruption, and a shift from a "confessional system" to an investigative and evidentiary system for the prosecution of crimes. As a result, the police forces "star chart" includes important enablers such as forensics and internal affairs to ensure the appropriate emphasis on professionalism in the Iraqi Police Services.

All of this reform and rapid growth within the Iraqi Police Forces is taking place in the context of the current counterinsurgency (COIN) fight, which impacts the prioritization of effort. The immediate requirement is to create an Iraqi Police Force that is "sufficiently trained and sufficiently led" to have adequate numbers of forces to deal with the COIN fight -- while enabling the IPS to develop along a trajectory that ensures a professional police force for the long term, focused on the rule of law and steady state security assurance. The COIN fight must be won to ensure this transition; nonetheless the development and investment for the police enterprise must be informed by future requirements of the "Rule of Law Police Force."

The "systems of systems" or enterprise approach represents the approach to developing a professional Iraqi Police Services that can address the challenges of today as well as tomorrow. The approach of ensuring security while transitioning is designed to provide security to the people of Iraq as an enduring capability.

Dr. Jack D. Kem is the Chief of the Combined Arms Center (CAC) Commander's Initiatives Group (CIG), Fort Leavenworth, KS. As the CIG Chief, Dr. Kem assists the CAC Commander by developing ideas and initiatives, conducting strategic planning, and conducting independent and unbiased analysis of the CAC Commander' areas of interest. Dr. Kem also hold a concurrent appointment as a Supervisory Professor in the Department of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operations in the US Army Command and General Staff College. Dr. Kem is currently on temporary assignment with MNSTC-I.