Limelight for Pentagon Withdrawal Plan

A week ago, this blog picked up on something the big media had all-but-ignored: a Pentagon plan to draw the number of U.S. troops down to about 92,000 by the end of next year.

"I would think that the fact that the DOD announced we were lowering the number of troops in Iraq for 2006 would be huge news, but no one seems to care," the site's author, Pierce Wetter, e-mailed me.

That was before Rep. John Murtha's call to bring the troops home. Now, suddenly, withdrawal plans are all the rage. Especially ones "drafted by Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey, the two top U.S. commanders of the war," as NBC notes.

If Iraqi elections are successful in December and a new parliament seated by January, withdrawal could begin almost immediately. Military officials say it would be an incremental or phased withdrawal — beginning slowly at first, with one or two battalions — up to 2,000 troops at a time.

Entire battalions of soldiers and Marines, now scheduled for duty in Iraq next year, would also be told they don't have to go. Some American troops would be placed on temporary standby in neighboring Kuwait — ready to respond, if needed, to any major outbreaks of violence in Iraq.

THERE'S MORE: In the comments, Murdoc says the 92K number doesn't include Marines... And "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, addressing the renewed debate over American troops in Iraq, said today that any paring down of the forces there would depend on military and security conditions, and that current troop levels must be maintained at least until the December elections in Iraq," according to the Times.

AND MORE: John Robb, as usual, has smart things to say about this. Particularly, about the natural consequence(s) of the isolation of US decision makers from the external reference environment. Instead of making connections, we severed them," he writes.

This isolation... drove: Bad decision making. The willingness to accept flawed intelligence on Iraq's WMD capabilities. The failure to stop the looting after the invasion. The decision to disband the Iraqi military. The failure to send enough troops.

Ad hoc planning and strategy development. The lack of a plan to win the peace in the Iraq. The plethora of different military plans since then: build Sunni militias (Fallujah), stability for elections and a political solutions, aggressive counter-insurgent sweeps, clear-and-hold (oil-spots), etc.

Comments are Back On...

...So start talkin'.

"Future Combat": Cuts, or More Cash?

It's only taken $50 billion in extra cash, a heap of missed deadlines and redrawn requirements, and a war that's lasted about two years too long. But the Pentagon may finally be ready to start putting the axe to the Army's leviathan modernization program, Future Combat Systems.

Inside Defense reports that FCS is on a "short list of...weapon system programs that could be terminated or significantly pared back."

“They are looking to slip it to the right or kill it,” said a source familiar with FCS options advanced by the Pentagon's office of program analysis and evaluation.

Army officials are working to convince Pentagon leaders, including England, to reconsider cutting or even terminating FCS, the service's only major new-start development program.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker is scheduled to meet Friday with England and again make the case for the program, a briefing that is expected to discuss FCS' relevance to today's challenges.

Whoops! Make that $70 billion in cost overruns. The Defense Department quietly released a "selected acquisition report" this week saying that FCS would now run $161 billion -- up from 2003's $92 billion estimate. So we're talking a 75% increase. And remember, folks, that's only down payment. Because $161 billion only pays for modernizing a third of the Army's troops.

"Climax" for Los Alamos Fight

Longtime friends of Defense Tech know I'm, uh, mildly interested in what goes on at Los Alamos National Laboratory. And it's been driving me nuts that I've been too busy to dig into the battle for control of the lab -- a battle which is about to reach its "climax," notes the San Francisco Chronicle.

A decision [about] who runs the world's most glamorous and controversial nuclear weapons lab and that also could end the University of California's unchallenged six-decade domination of the U.S. weapons program... could come soon, perhaps even Friday.

The decision will wrap up a six-month competition to run scandal-shaken Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was tested in 1945. UC and its industrial partners, including San Francisco-based Bechtel National Inc., are competing for the contract against aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp. and its allies -- the huge University of Texas system, several New Mexico universities and various industrial partners...

A Lockheed Martin takeover would be seen as an example of a growing trend toward the "privatization" of the nation's nuclear weapons complex...

UC has run the lab since 1943 without having to compete for its Energy Department contracts. But in 2003, Los Alamos and its management by UC came under fire after a series of security, safety, financial and managerial scandals at the lab, and the Energy Department and Congress ordered that all future contracts be open to outside bidders.

Several lab staff members told The Chronicle this week that they thought the Lockheed-Texas team had the best shot at winning the contract after what some view as a ghastly parade of UC screw-ups.

"The morale here is abysmal," said theoretical physicist Brad Lee Holian. [Check this blog and you'll see what he means -- ed.] "People's lives have been wrenched apart by the political games that have been played. You can't hold people's careers by the heels out over the balcony without them feeling threatened and cheapened."

Rapid Fire 11/18/05

Still no comments, people. But otherwise, we're back in business.

* Behind the IED economy

* Secrecy jargon, decoded

* Body armor recalled

* Anti-missile at sea: bullseye (background here)

* EOD, intel recruits MIA

* Tehran: sat is for spying

* Auto-translator in warzone test

* ChoicePoint Intelligence Agency?

* $1.3 bil for missile-watching blimps

* Spooks on UFOs: Shhhh!

(Big ups: JQP, Russ)

Small Arms in Iraq: What Worked, What Sucked What a Hoax?

I'm getting this e-mail, about how some small arms are working in Iraq, about fifth-hand. So I can't vouch for its authenticity. But it sounds right to me.

Soldiers, Marines: Is this on-point, or not?

UPDATE 11/18/05: A whole heap of people have written in, saying that the letter's author is either badly misiniformed, or that the whole thing is a hoax. (I'm guessing misinformed, since it's not a first-person account.)

For example, the note says that the Interceptor Body Armor only weighs "6 lbs." To which one reader says:

We only wish it weighed 6 pounds. The IBAs with SAPI plates weighs in at just under 16 pounds and when you add in the neck, shoulder and groin protection you're back up over 20 pounds.

In response to the item on the "M243 SAW," the same reader notes:

First off, it's the M249 SAW, and it's not drum fed. It's belt fed. Granted, the plastic box magazines the 200 rd belts come in, could be mistaken for a drum magazine by someone who had never seen one before, but I would think that a Marine would know the nomenclature of this weapon.

Decide for yourself.

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXXXXXXX
Sent: XXXXXXXXXX
To: XXXXXXXXX

XXXXX saw and did a lot and the following is what he told me about weapons, equipment, tactics and other miscellaneous info which may be of interest to you. Nothing is by any means classified. No politics here, just a Marine with a bird's eye view's opinions:

1) The M-16 rifle : Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the talcum powder like sand over there. The sand is everywhere. XXXXX says you feel filthy 2 minutes after coming out of the shower. The M-4 carbine version is more popular because it's lighter and shorter, but it has jamming problems also. They like the ability to mount the various optical gunsights and weapons lights on the picattiny rails, but the weapon itself is not great in a desert environment. They all hate the 5.56mm (.223) round. Poor penetration on the cinderblock structure common over there and even torso hits cant be reliably counted on to put the enemy down. Fun fact: Random autopsies on dead insurgents shows a high level of opiate use.

2) The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon) [I'm guessing he means this -ed.] : .223 cal. Drum fed light machine gun. Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of shit. Chronic jamming problems, most of which require partial disassembly. (that's fun in the middle of a firefight).

3) The M9 Beretta 9mm: Mixed bag. Good gun, performs well in desert environment; but they all hate the 9mm cartridge. The use of handguns for self-defense is actually fairly common. Same old story on the 9mm: Bad guys hit multiple times and still in the fight.

Click here for more, including reviews of the Ma Deuce, and the new body armor.

4) Mossberg 12ga. Military shotgun: Works well, used frequently for clearing houses to good effect.

5) The M240 Machine Gun: 7.62 Nato (.308) cal. belt fed machine gun, developed to replace the old M-60 (what a beautiful weapon that was!!). Thumbs up. Accurate, reliable, and the 7.62 round puts 'em down. Originally developed as a vehicle mounted weapon, more and more are being dismounted and taken into the field by infantry. The 7.62 round chews up the structure over there.

6) The M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun: Thumbs way, way up. "Ma deuce" is still worth her considerable weight in gold. The ultimate fight stopper, puts their dicks in the dirt every time. The most coveted weapon in-theater.

7) The .45 pistol: Thumbs up. Still the best pistol round out there. Everybody authorized to carry a sidearm is trying to get their hands on one. With few exceptions, can reliably be expected to put 'em down with a torso hit. The special ops guys (who are doing most of the pistol work) use the HK military model and supposedly love it. The old government model .45's are being re-issued en masse.

8) The M-14: Thumbs up. They are being re-issued in bulk, mostly in a modified version to special ops guys. Modifications include lightweight Kevlar stocks and low power red dot or ACOG sights. Very reliable in the sandy environment, and they love the 7.62 round.

9) The Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle: Thumbs way up. Spectacular range and accuracy and hits like a freight train. Used frequently to take out vehicle suicide bombers ( we actually stop a lot of them) and barricaded enemy. Definitely here to stay.

10) The M24 sniper rifle: Thumbs up. Mostly in .308 but some in 300 win mag. Heavily modified Remington 700's. Great performance. Snipers have been used heavily to great effect. Rumor has it that a marine sniper on his third tour in Anbar province has actually exceeded Carlos Hathcock's record for confirmed kills with OVER 100.

11) The new body armor: Thumbs up. Relatively light at approx. 6 lbs. and can reliably be expected to soak up small shrapnel and even will stop an AK-47 round. The bad news: Hot as shit to wear, almost unbearable in the summer heat (which averages over 120 degrees). Also, the enemy now goes for head shots whenever possible. All the bullshit about the "old" body armor making our guys vulnerable to the IED's was a non-starter. The IED explosions are enormous and body armor doesn't make any difference at all in most cases.

12) Night Vision and Infrared Equipment: Thumbs way up. Spectacular performance. Our guys see in the dark and own the night, period. Very little enemy action after evening prayers. More and more enemy being whacked at night during movement by our hunter-killer teams. We've all seen the videos.

13) Lights: Thumbs up. Most of the weapon mounted and personal lights are Surefire's, and the troops love 'em. Invaluable for night urban operations. XXXX carried a $34 Surefire G2 on a neck lanyard and loved it.

I cant help but notice that most of the good fighting weapons and ordnance are 50 or more years old!!!!!!!!! With all our technology, it's the WWII and Vietnam era weapons that everybody wants!!!!

Rummy Backing off from Iraq?

This article from Sunday's Washington Post Magazine is the second major attempt I've seen in the last few months to separate Donald Rumsfeld from the Iraq war. (Here's the other.)

The idea, basically, is that Rummy was more fixated on modernizing the military than invading any country. Iraq just happened to be the country that the President wanted to wack.

Rumsfeld portrayed the memo as a warning blast, an attempt to do "everything humanly possible to prepare" Bush for the awful responsibility that had settled onto his presidential shoulders -- and his shoulders alone. For there comes a point when even the secretary of defense must realize that "it's not your decision or even your recommendation," Rumsfeld reflected with Woodward. By which he meant the Iraq war wasn't Don Rumsfeld's decision or recommendation.

As if to underline the point, Rumsfeld also told Woodward that he couldn't recall a moment, in all the months of planning for the war, when Bush asked whether his defense secretary favored the invasion. Nor did Rumsfeld ever volunteer his opinion. ("There's no question in anyone's mind but I agreed with the president's approach," he added.)

"After considerable time with the top-ranking civilian and military leaders of the Pentagon, a new picture of Donald Rumsfeld has emerged for me, and I now believe something that I would have thought preposterous before: There are no 'Rumsfeld wars,'" Thomas P.M. Barnett wrote in July's Esquire.

Of course, he's integral to how the Pentagon has conducted these operations, and he deserves all the credit and blame any defense secretary naturally receives as a result. But they're not his wars, and they never were. And in that, critics of the war might have something. The rationales behind the Iraq war belonged to the departing neocons Wolfowitz and Feith (who took pains in an interview to lecture me on the correct usage of the word neocon). And of course the president.

But if that's true, then what was Rummy doing in the White House on February 11, 1998? That's the day he and six other conservatives pleaded with then-National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to go after Iraq. Or a few days earlier, when he signed an open letter to President Clinton which said:

The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

For that matter, what was the Secretary of Defense thinking on September 11, 2001?

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," [Richard] Clarke said to [60 Minutes' Leslie] Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.'"

Rumsfeld may not like how this war is turning out. But he's been for it for a long time. And no amount of after-the-fact spin is going to change that.

Rapid Fire 11/15/05

* Jihad.com vs. Zarqawi

* UAV sitreps

* Russia's chem-weapon timebomb

* NYT's nuclear hooey

* India-Pak fight = cash cow

* Passenger screening, the game

* CIA slipped Sovs software bugs?

* Admiral Cebrowski, RIP (more here)

* MVP, my ass

(Big ups: JQP)

Riding the Wave(form)

At Shaw Air Force Base in sunny Sumter, S.C., the pilots and maintainers of the 77th Fighter Squadron "Gamblers" are putting a new twist on an old mission, training to kill air defenses with the latest American version of the ubiquitous F-16 Viper.

The Gamblers fly around 20 1990s-vintage F-16CJ Block 50s, the model of the Viper optimized for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, or SEAD. They're radar killers, Wild Weasels, descendents of the F-105s and F-4s that fistfought SAMs over Vietnam and the Gulf. When the small force of highly-specialized two-seat F-4G Wild Weasels was retired in 1996 and single-seat F-16CJs procured to take over the job, critics said it was a step back for SEAD.

And they were right -- for a while. In its early days, the F-16CJ was limited to getting azimuth-only targeting data on enemy radars using its Harm Targeting System (HTS) pod. Without the ability to determine range, HTS-equipped Wild Weasels could only lob a HARM missile in the general direction of the bad guy's radar and hope for the best.

That was then. Almost a decade after it inherited the Wild Weasel mission, the F-16CJ is finally getting the tools it needs to equal and surpass the F-4G as a SEAD platform. These tools -- the Link-16 datalink, the Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS), color displays and a major software upgrade -- are being added to all 650 or so F-16C Block 40/42/50/52s under the $1-billion Common Capability Implimentation Program (CCIP). Paired with GPS and HTS, CCIP enables F-16CJs to share a bewildering variety of data with a wide range of platforms including other fighters, AWACS, J-STARS, Rivet Joint recce planes, Aegis cruisers, Patriot missile batteries and more. The key to this data-sharing is the Link-16's encryptable, frequency-hopping, high-volume waveform. Basically, Link-16 is an internet in the sky, and it's revolutionizing the way jet fighters wage war.

The new ability to combine off-board data with their own means the Wild Weasels can now pinpoint the locations of radars, track them with their helmet sights, shoot HARMs accurately and even drop JDAMs -- a new level of destructive capability that has necessitated some new terminology: Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses, or DEAD.

When CCIP wraps in around five years, the USAF will have 650 modern and flexible fighters capable of a full range of missions, from air defense to close air support to SEAD/DEAD. While the fighters are capable of swinging roles, the pilots will continue specializing, meaning the Gamblers will keep focusing on SEAD even though their jets can do much more.

With several hundred older F-16s slated for retirement in the next couple of years, some observers are worried that the Air Force will be stretched thin. The Air Force counters that the remaining fighters will more than make up for the cuts with greatly improved capability. While cuts can go only so far (you still need a four-ship flight to get anything accomplished, regardless of the individual jets' strengths), every indication is that the Air Force is performing a minor miracle, steadily increasing combat capability with a smaller and smaller fleet of airplanes. Research into new waveforms promises even more miracles.

--David Axe

Marines Quiet About Brutal New Weapon

War is hell. But it’s worse when the Marines bring out their new urban combat weapon, the SMAW-NE. Which may be why they’re not talking about it, much.

This is a version of the standard USMC Shoulder Mounted Assault Weapon but with a new warhead. Described as NE - "Novel Explosive"- it is a thermobaric mixture which ignites the air, producing a shockwave of unparalleled destructive power, especially against buildings.

A post-action report from Iraq describes the effect of the new weapon: "One unit disintegrated a large one-storey masonry type building with one round from 100 meters. They were extremely impressed." Elsewhere it is described by one Marine as "an awesome piece of ordnance."

It proved highly effective in the battle for Fallujah. This from the Marine Corps Gazette, July edition: "SMAW gunners became expert at determining which wall to shoot to cause the roof to collapse and crush the insurgents fortified inside interior rooms."

The NE round is supposed to be capable of going through a brick wall, but in practice gunners had to fire through a window or make a hole with an anti-tank rocket. Again, from the Marine Corps Gazette:

"Due to the lack of penetrating power of the NE round, we found that our assaultmen had to first fire a dual-purpose rocket in order to create a hole in the wall or building. This blast was immediately followed by an NE round that would incinerate the target or literally level the structure."

The rational for this approach was straightforward:

"Marines could employ blast weapons prior to entering houses that had become pillboxes, not homes. The economic cost of house replacement is not comparable to American lives...all battalions adopted blast techniques appropriate to entering a bunker, assuming you did not know if the bunker was manned."

The manufacturers, Talley, make bold use of its track record, with a brochure headlined Thermobaric Urban Destruction."

The SMAW-NE has only been procured by the USMC, though there are reports that some were 'borrowed' by other units. However, there are also proposals on the table that thousands of obsolete M-72 LAWs could be retrofitted with thermobaric warheads, making then into effective urban combat tools.

But in an era of precision bombs, where collateral damage is expected to be kept to a minimum, such massively brutal weapons have become highly controversial. These days, every civilian casualty means a few more “hearts and minds” are lost. Thermobaric weapons almost invariable lead to civilian deaths. The Soviet Union was heavily criticized for using thermobaric weapons in Afghanistan because they were held to constitute "disproportionate force," and similar criticisms were made when thermobarics were used in the Chechen conflict. According to Human Rights Watch, thermobaric weapons "kill and injure in a particularly brutal manner over a wide area. In urban settings it is very difficult to limit the effect of this weapon to combatants, and the nature of FAE explosions makes it virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter from their destructive effect."

So it’s understandable that the Marines have made so little noise about the use of the SMAW-NE in Fallujah. But keeping quiet about controversial weapons is a lousy strategy, no matter how effective those arms are. In the short term, it may save some bad press. In the long term, it’s a recipe for a scandal. Military leaders should debate human right advocates and the like first, and then publicly decide "we do/do not to use X". Otherwise when the media find do find out – as they always do -- not only do you get a level of hysteria but there is also the charge of “covering up.”

I'm undecided about thermobarics myself, but I think they should let the legal people sort out all these issues and clear things up. Otherwise you get claims of “chemical weapons” and “violating the Geneva Protocol.” Which doesn't really help anyone. The warfighter is left in doubt, and it hands propaganda to the bad guys. Just look at what happened it last week’s screaming over white phosphorous rounds.

-- David Hambling

THERE'S MORE: Americans aren’t the only ones with these weapons. The Chinese, the Russians -- even guerilla groups -- now have thermobarics' shockingly destructive power in their grasps.

Rapid Fire 11/14/05

* Google Earth, military app?

* Jetliner defender takes off

* IDF: sonic booms "confuse terrorists"

* "The bioweapon is in the mail"

* G.I. gum, good for teeth

* Bacteria make rocket fuel?

* Nuke lab scientists spooked (background here and here)

(Big ups: APB, RC, LANL: TRS)

Drudge on Drones - Doh!

"HONEYWELL is developing a micro flying spy drone -- that would be used for civilian law enforcement!" the Drudge Report shouts.

Which is true. In a way.

The company is, indeed, developing a small, "hovering robot carrying video cameras and other sensors," as Drudge explains, and Defense Tech has detailed in the past. And Honeywell officials have talked about unmanned vehicles being "a huge growth area... not only for the military, but for the department of homeland defense and other agencies."

But, near as I can tell, there's been nothing more than loose talk about the Pentagon-funded machines moving into police work.

Oh, another thing: Drudge says that "the vehicle [is] nicknamed 'Dragon Eye.'"

Which is wrong. The Dragon Eye is a Marine Corps drone -- one that's spent the last two years in combat zones, not it research labs, like the Honeywell machine.

Both are meant for short-range recon, true. But the model airplane-esque Dragon Eye (right) looks nothing like the cylindrical Honeywell bot (above). And it uses propellers to fly, not ducted fans.

Yeah, it's a small point. But telling.