The United States cannot afford strategically, economically, or politically to stay on the offensive forever in an ill-defined and open-ended conflict in Iraq. At the current “burn rate” of more than $15 billion per month, funding to stay on the “offensive” has severe opportunity costs, siphoning away finite resources from dimensions of national security, including defense and deterrence.
In 2008, 20 percent of the $740 billion “national security budget” will be spent on Iraq, twice what the federal government spends defending the homeland. We suffer from a strategic disconnect—the strategy we have places too much emphasis on military intervention and not enough on the other elements of national power that are more likely to reduce the threat of terrorism to the United States. We also suffer from a budget disconnect—our existing national security budget funds the strategy we have, not the one we need.
Hoping to turn enemies into allies, U.S. forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents. But it's already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq
A far-reaching history of terrorism across the world from its beginnings to the modern-day, from the highly acclaimed author of 'Sacred Causes' and 'Earthly Powers'. Basing his study on a wide range of sources and key players from the world of terrorism, Michael Burleigh explains and defines the meaning of terrorism and marks its progression from its hard to trace beginnings to the modern-day. He begins with the first modern terrorist groups: the Irish Republican Brotherhood -- the precursors of the IRA -- who played a key role in the formation of an Irish Republican ideology. He goes on to look at Tsarist Russia where the 'intelligentsia' launched attacks on organs of state, left-wing fighting against 'Fascism' and 'Nazism' in the 70's and 80's in western Germany and Italy, and Britain and Spain's long and drawn out battles with their own terrorist groups the IRA and ETA respectively. He ends with the first globally inclusive account of Islamist terrorism since 1980s till the present. Primarily, Burleigh aims to elucidate the mind-set of people who use political violence and explore the background and the milieu of the people involved. He will be interviewing several senior military and police figures who were responsible for security in Northern Ireland, as well as former soldiers who took part in operations such as 'Bloody Sunday'.
He will examine the Middle East which, since 1970's, has been the world's epicentre for terrorism and the mythologies and delusions of Islamist radicals. Finally, he makes clear that the west has considerable resources to comprehend and combat terrorism -- despite consistently failing to do so -- and highlights the shamefully inadequate nature of US public diplomacy. The book also includes a number of practical suggestions as to how terrorism can be combated both ideologically and militarily. 'Blood and Rage' is an unrivalled study that sheds an insightful new light, and a refreshingly complex angle, on a plight that threatens to affect the world at large for many years to come and establishes Michael Burleigh as one of the most original, learned and important historians of our time.
It seems this book has not yet been published in the US and Canada, but the title is currently available from UK retailers.
Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Armed Services Committee
Topic: War on Terrorism
3:07 pm EST, Mar 1, 2008
The judgments that I will offer the Committee in these documents and in my responses to your questions are based on the efforts of thousands of patriotic, highly skilled professionals, many of whom serve in harm’s way. I am pleased to report that the Intelligence Community is even better than it was last year as a result of the continuing implementation of reforms required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. This Statement is, in part, a product of our moving forward with the transformation of US intelligence, including more innovative and rigorous analysis and wider and more far-reaching collaboration.
You will see from the testimony that many of the key topics I touch on are not traditional “national security” topics.
Globalization has broadened the number of threats and challenges facing the United States. For example, as government, private sector, and personal activities continue to move to networked operations and our digital systems add ever more capabilities, our vulnerability to penetration and other hostile cyber actions grows. The nation, as we indicated last year, requires more from our Intelligence Community than ever before and consequently we need to do our business better, both internally, through greater collaboration across disciplines and externally, by engaging more of the expertise available outside the Intelligence Community.
Many of the analytic judgments I present here have benefited from the increasing integration of collection and analysis. Our systematic effort to synchronize requirements across the national intelligence, defense, Homeland security and federal law enforcement communities ensures collection assets will be better utilized and the collection community will be able to mount efforts to fill the gaps and needs of analysts. This more integrated Community approach to analysis and collection requirements is part of the DNI’s plan to transition the IC from a federation of independent intelligence organization to a more integrated enterprise; the beginning results of this new approach are reflected in the more nuanced and deeper analysis of the challenges and threats facing the US.
The attached report provides up to date data on the patterns and trends in violence in Iraq.
See also:
There are good reasons why General Petraeus and the other senior commanders in Iraq have been careful not to claim "victory" in Iraq. MNF-I has made striking progress in the last year. MNF-I and Iraqi reporting shows, however, that the violence is scarcely over. One of the most senior US commanders has warned that such violence may have reached an "irreducible minimum" until Iraq can make further progress towards accommodation, and towards creating effective security forces, improving its governance, and finding a path to development that can employ its youth.
The US still has years to go before it will know whether it can succeed to the point it can claim any kind of lasting victory in the grand strategic sense of the term. At the same time, using today's problems as an excuse to leave will abandon some 28 million people to problems we did much to create, and leave a power vacuum in Iraq that will directly threaten US strategic interests. The attached report provides an analysis of the current situation in Iraq, and the path the US must take to achieve stability and to reduce the "irreducible minimum."
There has been tremendous controversy over the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which consistently has been contrasted with Afghanistan. Many of those who opposed the Iraq war have supported the war in Afghanistan; indeed, they have argued that among the problems with Iraq is that it diverts resources from Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been seen as an obvious haven for terrorism. This has meant the war in Afghanistan often has been perceived as having a direct effect on al Qaeda and on the ability of radical Islamists to threaten the United States, while Iraq has been seen as unrelated to the main war. Supporters of the war in Iraq support the war in Afghanistan. Opponents of the war in Iraq also support Afghanistan. If there is a good war in our time, Afghanistan is it.
For seven years, our lame-duck President has rejected the idea that mere civilians – historians, armchair experts, American voters – have any right to criticize his foreign policy maneuvers. Not only is he the “decider,” but his decisions are based on criteria conveniently beyond our scrutiny, and thus unavailable for second-guessing. We may study the news reports and policy papers he doesn’t read, we may scrutinize the leaked and perhaps faulty CIA intelligence he ignores – but we can’t do the one thing that, according to President Bush, really matters: we can’t look foreign leaders in the eye.
Unilateral Strike Called a Model For U.S. Operations in Pakistan
Topic: War on Terrorism
1:23 pm EST, Feb 20, 2008
Officials say the incident was a model of how Washington often scores its rare victories these days in the fight against al-Qaeda inside Pakistan's national borders: It acts with assistance from well-paid sympathizers inside the country, but without getting the government's formal permission beforehand.
It is an approach that some U.S. officials say could be used more frequently this year, particularly if a power vacuum results from yesterday's election and associated political tumult. The administration also feels an increased sense of urgency about undermining al-Qaeda before President Bush leaves office, making it less hesitant, said one official familiar with the incident.
Secret evidence. Denial of habeas corpus. Evidence obtained by waterboarding. Indefinite detention. The litany of complaints about the legal treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is long, disturbing and by now familiar. Nonetheless, a new wave of shock and criticism greeted the Pentagon's announcement on February 11 that it was charging six Guantanamo detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, with war crimes -- and seeking the death penalty for all of them.
Now, as the murky, quasi-legal staging of the Bush Administration's military commissions unfolds, a key official has told The Nation that the trials are rigged from the start. According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantanamo's military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees in an attempt to foreclose the possibility of acquittal.
