17 April MARFORCOM Media Summary

Early Bird summary

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates took his campaign for the Pentagon’s budget to one of the nation’s premier military institutions on Thursday as he pressed his argument for shifting billions of dollars from future Army weapons programs to the more immediate needs of the country’s two wars, the New York Times reports in today’s lead story in the Early Bird.“For too long, there was a belief, or a hope, that Iraq and Afghanistan were exotic distractions that would be wrapped up relatively soon,” Mr. Gates told a sometimes skeptical audience of officers and civilians at the Army War College in south-central Pennsylvania.As a result, Mr. Gates said, weapons and equipment most urgently needed for Iraq and Afghanistan were “fielded ad hoc and on the fly” and with temporary financing by Congress “that would go away when the wars did, if not sooner.”Mr. Gates, a former director of central intelligence, was on the fourth day of a weeklong political swing to sell the Pentagon’s half-trillion-dollar 2010 budget, an exercise that has left his adversaries — many in the military contracting industry and Congress — taken aback by what they say is both his deftness and his aggressiveness.
Meantime, the Los Angeles Times reports that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that the Obama administration would move cautiously in shifting policies on gays serving openly in the military, but he signaled that service members should prepare for possible changes.In his most extensive remarks to date about the ongoing ban on gays who serve openly, Gates said he and other military leaders had "begun a dialogue" with President Obama about the issue.Obama promised during last year's presidential campaign to end the ban on gays in the military, and the White House said recently that it was reviewing the issue. Gates said Obama had been clear with the military about his position."We will do what the president asks us to do," Gates said at the Army War College. "There is a law; we will uphold the law. If the law changes, so will our policies."
Welcome to Iraq. Now go to Afghanistan.That was the message delivered to the Army's 4th Engineer Battalion just two weeks after arriving in Baghdad for what was supposed to be a year-long tour, USA Today reportsDespite the stress caused by the unusual change of plans last month, many of the unit's approximately 500 soldiers said they realized their specialty — clearing roads of bombs and other obstacles — is more needed in the area of southern Afghanistan, where they'll likely begin patrols in a few weeks."If we were in the frying pan, we're now heading directly into the fire," Capt. Heath Papkov, one of the unit's company commanders, said this week as the soldiers packed their gear to leave.Moving a unit directly from one theater of war to another on such short notice is very rare, said Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, the battalion's commander. Usually when troops are shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan, the change occurs between regular rotations abroad, after they spend several months at their home base.
The Arizona Republic reports that a growing number of U.S. intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials have concluded that there's little hope of preventing nuclear-armed Pakistan from disintegrating into fiefdoms controlled by Islamist warlords and terrorists, posing a greater threat to the U.S. than Afghanistan's terrorist haven did before Sept. 11."It's a disaster in the making on the scale of the Iranian revolution," said a U.S. intelligence official with long experience in Pakistan who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.Pakistan's fragmentation into warlord-run fiefdoms that host al-Qaida and other terrorist groups would have grave implications for the security of its nuclear arsenal; for the U.S.-led effort to pacify Afghanistan; and for the security of India, the nearby oil-rich Persian Gulf and Central Asia, the U.S. and its allies."Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaida sitting in two-thirds of the country which the government does not control," said David Kilcullen, a retired Australian army officer, a former State Department adviser and a counterinsurgency consultant to the Obama administration.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this year launched a nationwide operation targeting white supremacists and "militia/sovereign-citizen extremist groups," including a focus on veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to memos sent from bureau headquarters to field offices.The initiative, dubbed Operation Vigilant Eagle, was outlined in February, two months before a memo giving a similar warning was issued on April 7 by the Department of Homeland Security.Disclosure of the DHS memo this week has sparked controversy among some conservatives and veterans groups. Appearing on television talk shows Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the assessment, but apologized to veterans who saw it as an accusation.
Somalia's prime minister says his government has identified many pirate leaders and would be willing to share that information with other countries, including the United States, to get the resources needed to go after them, the Associated Press reports.Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, speaking yesterday to The Associated Press in an exclusive interview, said the pirates have become so wealthy and powerful that they threaten his government."We have information on who is behind this, who is involved," Sharmarke said in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. "There is a lot of money flowing in. . . . We are following very closely how money is distributed here."He was referring to the fact that Somali pirates can earn $1 million or more in ransom per ship.
A new dispute erupted between Russia and Nato on Thursday, the Financial Times of London reports, when Moscow called for Nato military exercises in Georgia next month to be postponed or cancelled.The development came against a backdrop of improving Russian ties with the west, with a separate announcement by Moscow that talks would begin next week on a treaty with the US to reduce strategic nuclear weapons.Still, Moscow sees Nato’s 19-nation exercise as a sign of support for Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, which it fought a war against last August.Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, warned that the exercises would not promote stability in the South Caucasus. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s Nato envoy, said they could derail the restoration of relations with the alliance after ties were cut in the wake of last year’s conflict.
Meanwhile, Moscow Times reports that Russian and U.S. officials will begin negotiating a new deal next week to cut strategic nuclear weapons, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.The deal aims to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and has been billed as part of an effort by Moscow and Washington to reset relations that hit a post-Cold War low under former U.S. President George W. Bush.

Media summary

1. Leading newspaper headlines: The Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post lead with the Justice Department documents released by the Obama administration that provide the most detailed accounting to date of the harsh interrogation tactics used by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Bush administration, as well as the legal reasoning to back them up. (Slate Magazine)
2. U.S. envoy to hold talks with Abbas: US Middle East envoy George Mitchell is to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a day after his first meetings with Israel's new government. (BBC)
3. Hezbollah alleges Egypt vendetta: Egypt's claim to have broken up a Hezbollah cell plotting attacks on its territory is a "baseless" revenge bid, Hezbollah's deputy head has said. (BBC)

Leading newspaper headlines

The Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post lead with the Justice Department documents released by the Obama administration that provide the most detailed accounting to date of the harsh interrogation tactics used by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Bush administration, as well as the legal reasoning to back them up. At the same time, the administration made it clear that CIA officers who followed the guidelines would not be prosecuted. The four memos, one from 2002 and three from 2005, spell out in painstaking detail the techniques that could be used to get information from prisoners.
USA Today leads with a look at how Democrats and Republicans in state legislatures across the country are having the same "classic fight over taxes" as Congress. As states struggle to balance their budgets during a recession, Democrats are pushing for tax increases on the wealthy, while Republicans want to cut taxes for businesses. The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with President Obama stating that the ball is now in Cuba's court as the United States will not remove any more of its sanctions against the island until it gets some reciprocal action from the Cuban government. "Having taken the first step I think it's very much in our interests to see whether Cuba is also ready to change," Obama said during his visit to Mexico.
Many of the interrogation tactics described in the Justice Department memos were already well-known, but others either haven't received a lot of attention or were unknown. The two highlights involve insects and "walling." In one memo, lawyers allowed interrogators to exploit a prisoner's fear of insects by putting him in a small box with what they would describe as a stinging insect when, in fact, it would be a harmless one, "such as a caterpillar." The technique was allowed, although never actually used, as long as the prisoner was told the insect "will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain." In the practice known as "walling," a prisoner could be pushed "quickly and firmly" against a "flexible false wall" so that his shoulder blades hit the wall and produce a loud noise.
Even if most of the techniques had already been known, that doesn't make the memos any less terrifying, particularly when all the techniques are brought together and described in such detail. Prisoners could be deprived of sleep for as many as 11 days, confined to small boxes, doused with water as cold as 41 degrees, kept shackled for days at a time, and slapped in the face and abdomen, among others. All with the ultimate goal of making prisoners feel as if they have "no control over basic human needs." The memos also included extensive discussions about water-boarding and how it should be carried out. But the NYT points out that these directives weren't always followed, and one memo notes that water-boarding was used "with far greater frequency than initially indicated" and with "large volumes of water."
The LAT notes that, as outlined in the documents, "[e]ven the less violent techniques … can have a harrowing aspect," and points out that a prisoner being deprived of sleep would have his feet shackled to the floor, his hands cuffed near his chin. In that position the prisoner would be forced to wear a diaper and fed by hand and wouldn't be able to fall asleep because he would lose his balance.
Reading through the memos, it is evident that the administration's lawyers devoted lots of effort to justifying each and every technique. As the WP notes, the lawyers seemed to "put significant weight on the question of whether the tactics would cause severe, lasting pain."
The memos were released after a long, drawn-out fight within the upper echelons of the Obama administration. The CIA opposed the Justice Department's desire to release the documents. But ultimately, the documents were released practically without redactions, marking a victory for Attorney General Eric Holder. The talks became more urgent in recent weeks as the administration faced a court-imposed deadline in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to obtain the documents. Obama said the documents illustrated "a dark and painful chapter in our history," but the WSJ reports that the president "wrestled with the decision" on Wednesday night and had been considering redacting more of the information. The WSJ says that one of the main factors that pushed Obama to release the documents was that the New York Review of Books had published the Red Cross account of the interrogations, which led him to conclude that most of the information was already known.
Although Obama said that those who followed the advice from Justice would not be prosecuted, a carefully worded statement seems to leave "open the possibility that operatives and higher-level administration officials could face jeopardy if they ventured beyond the boundaries drawn by the Bush lawyers," notes the Post. The NYT also points out that it's not clear whether the lawyers themselves could be penalized in some way.
The WSJ and NYT front word that the head of the Obama administration's auto task force, Steven Rattner, is one of the executives involved in what has been described as a pay-to-play scheme to obtain business from New York state's pension fund. Rattner isn't named in a Securities Exchange Commission complaint, but both papers say he is the "senior executive" at Rattner's investment firm, Quadrangle Group, that is mentioned. The whole issue is a bit confusing because the investigation into the fund has been going on for a while. It basically breaks down into two parts. Through an affiliated company, Quadrangle acquired the DVD rights to a low-budget movie that was produced by New York's deputy comptroller and his brothers, netting the producers almost $90,000. Soon afterward, the deputy comptroller informed Quadrangle that it would get a $100 million investment from the pension fund. And then Quadrangle paid $1.1 million in finder's fees to a company affiliated with one of the comptroller's top political aides. Such payments aren't illegal per se, but why would Quadrangle need to pay an intermediary when Rattner had already met with the deputy comptroller, particularly since it had previously retained a separate intermediary for the deal? Both papers emphasize that Rattner, a former NYT reporter, hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing, and the Treasury Department said yesterday that "during the transition, Mr. Rattner made us aware of the pending investigation."
In an important front-page piece, the NYT reports on a so-far mostly overlooked factor that helped the Taliban gain control over Pakistan's Swat Valley: class warfare. In order to gain power, the Taliban skillfully exploited class divisions and ultimately forced out the approximately four dozen landlords that held the most power in the region. In order to do so, the Taliban organized armed gangs of landless peasants "that became their shock troops." The Taliban gained popularity by offering peasants, who were frustrated with their living conditions and a corrupt government that was deaf to their needs, what amounted to rich economic rewards and a feeling of self-determination. The ease with which the Taliban were able to exploit these entrenched class divisions is raising worries that the same series of events could play out in other parts of Pakistan, particularly in the populous Punjab province, which largely remains a feudal society.
In a piece that was reported in conjunction with ProPublica, the LAT fronts a look at how civilian contractors often have to endure long legal fights in order to get covered for injuries suffered in a war zone. Unlike soldiers, contractors are insured by private companies that frequently resist paying for coverage. The main culprit? American International Group. AIG is the main player in providing insurance to civilian contractors in war zones and has made a handsome profit from the business. As a whole, insurers have earned nearly $600 million in profit by charging premiums that a military audit called "unreasonably high." Yet that doesn't translate into good medical care. Insurers have rejected 44 percent of claims from contractors suffering serious injuries and more than half of claims relating to psychological ailments. Disputes are usually settled through mediation, but more than 1,000 cases have made their way to court. Workers win the vast majority of the appeals, but resolving the cases can take years while medical bills keep piling up.


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US envoy to hold talks with Abbas

Mr Abbas's accused Israel of putting new obstacles in the way of peace
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell is to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a day after his first meetings with Israel's new government.
On Thursday, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said he would only discuss a Palestinian state if Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state.
Mr Abbas's office warned Israel's new policy could have "devastating repercussions for the whole region".
Mr Netanyahu has stopped short of backing Palestinian statehood.
During his meetings with Israeli leaders on Thursday, Mr Mitchell reiterated the US government's commitment to a two-state solution, which the previous government pursued in talks with the PA.
But far-right Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the long-standing approach to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had brought "neither results nor solutions" and new ideas were needed.
And senior official in Mr Netanyahu's office quoted the new prime minister as telling Mr Mitchell: "Israel expects the Palestinians to first recognise Israel as a Jewish state before talking about two states for two peoples."
Review call
Under previous agreements, the Palestinians have recognised the right of the state of Israel to exist.
But correspondents say recognising it as a Jewish state would be tantamount to abandoning one of the Palestinians' key demands in final-status talks, the "right to return" of Palestinians refugees.
A spokesman for Mr Abbas accused to new government of putting "new obstacles" in the way of a two-state solution.
"This is seen as a challenge to international efforts, especially by the US. It needs the international community to carefully review Israeli policy for fear of devastating repercussions on the whole region," he said.
The Palestinian Authority has also called repeatedly for international pressure on Israel to keep its commitment to freezing building in settlements in the West Bank.
Human rights groups say construction activity has continued since US President Barack Obama came into office.
The settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
Mr Mitchell has given little comment on his meetings with leaders in the region, although he also assured Israeli President Shimon Peres of Washington's "absolute and strong commitment" to Israel's security.
The visit is Mr Mitchell's first since Mr Netanyahu formed his right-leaning coalition, which brings together centre-right, centre-left and far-right parties.
President Obama's MidEast envoy (l) flew in to Israel on Wednesday
Mr Netanyahu has said the economy in the Israeli-occupied West Bank should be improved before progress on creating a Palestinian state is attempted.
He has said he intends to resume talks and co-operation to promote "economic peace".
Mr Lieberman has said his government remains committed to the 2003 "road map" peace plan, which aims to create a Palestinian state through a phased process.
But he has also rejected the previous Israeli government's pledge to work towards Palestinian statehood at the 2007 peace conference at Annapolis in the US.

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Hezbollah alleges Egypt vendetta

Egypt is under pressure to halt smuggling from the Sinai
Egypt's claim to have broken up a Hezbollah cell plotting attacks on its territory is a "baseless" revenge bid, Hezbollah's deputy head has said.
Egypt says it is holding 25 Hezbollah suspects and searching for 24 more in the Sinai peninsula.
Cairo's claims are "fabricated" to "sully Hezbollah's image", Sheikh Naim Qassem told AFP news agency.
The Lebanese political and militant group says one suspect was trying to smuggle arms into Gaza for Hezbollah.
Last week Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Sami Shihab had been trying to get military equipment into Gaza along with no more than 10 other people.
Egypt announced on Wednesday that it was holding the group on suspicion of planning "hostile operations".
Egyptian prosecutors said Hezbollah had told the men to collect intelligence from villages along the Egypt-Gaza border, tourist sites and the Suez Canal.
"It has become clear to everyone that these accusations are fabricated... and that they are worthless," Sheikh Qassem said.
He said the accusations were "politically motivated" and were being made in revenge for the Lebanese movement's stance on Egypt's support for the Israeli blockade for Gaza.
Hezbollah supports Hamas, the Islamic movement which controls Gaza.
'Maid of honour'
In December, as Israel began a three-week offensive in Gaza - with the stated aim of ending Hamas rocket fire into Israel - Mr Nasrallah called on Egyptians to protest and force their government to open the border.
Hezbollah is both a political faction, with seats in the Lebanese government, and a military organisation which fought a war against Israel in 2006.
On Tuesday, in comments to the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit accused Iran of using the Shia group to gain a foothold in Egypt.
"Iran, and Iran's followers, want Egypt to become a maid of honour for the crowned Iranian queen when she enters the Middle East," he said.
Correspondents say the row reflects a wider power struggle between Sunni Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and Shia Muslim Iran and its allies Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.


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