GWOT Media Summary Feb 7

[RAMESES the Great]

U.S. Joint Forces Command
GWOT Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of February 7, 2008

 New Developments
 NATO Members Likely To Ignore Pleas To Share Burden In Afghanistan. NATO defense ministers meeting Thursday are not expected to offer any more troops for Afghanistan, despite a plea from commanders for another 7,500 soldiers, alliance sources said Wednesday. The gloomy prediction on the eve of an informal session of the defense ministers in Vilnius pre-empted appeals Wednesday from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. Secretary of State and Condoleezza Rice for other NATO countries to share more of the burden in Afghanistan. Dr. Rice, who met Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband, said: “I do think the alliance is facing a real test here. Our populations need to understand this is not a peacekeeping mission.” Only a small number of nations had troops in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, she said. (London Times – see attached)
 In Seized Video, Boys Train To Fight In Iraq, U.S. Says. Children in black T-shirts, trousers and face masks hoist AK-47s and pistols and rush toward an apparently unarmed man on a bicycle. In an instant they have surrounded him, shouting in the high voices of boys who are not yet men, “Put your hands behind your back.” The man hesitates, looking confused. They wave their guns, menacingly. The scene, from a video captured by the American military in December and shown Wednesday at a news conference, is believed to be part of a propaganda tape made by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown extremist group that American intelligence officials say has foreign leadership. While this is not the first time that the military has found images of children in the insurgent group’s tapes and photos, the video has the largest volume of raw images that American forces have come across. (New York Times – see attached)
 Rice, Miliband On Surprise Visit To Afghanistan. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband arrived in Afghanistan on a surprise visit Thursday. The visit comes after Rice and her British counterpart stepped up calls for NATO allies to provide more troops, saying that the alliance faced a full-blown counter-insurgency battle against Taliban rebels. "Frankly I hope that there will be more troop contributions and there need to be more Afghan contributions," Rice told reporters. When asked what would happen if other NATO countries failed to contribute, she added: "In the final analysis, you will see more troop contributions." "The problem is we have to make sure they are the right troop contributions and in the right place," Rice added. "It is not an overwhelming number of forces being sought here -- this is a troop contribution level that NATO can meet and should meet." (Agence France Presse)
 Gates: U.S. Won't Promise To Defend Iraq In Accord. The United States will not promise to defend Iraq nor seek permanent bases there under a planned agreement on future relations between the two states, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday. "The status-of-forces agreement that is being discussed will not contain a commitment to defend Iraq and neither will any strategic framework agreement," Gates told a U.S. Senate panel. "We do not want, nor will we seek, permanent bases in Iraq," he later told a U.S. House of Representatives committee. The United States and Iraq have agreed to start formal negotiations about their future relationship with the goal of finishing an accord by the end of July. The agreement will set the rules and legal protections under which U.S. forces operate in Iraq. (Reuters)
 Canada To Debate Afghan Role Vote. The government debate over whether Canada should continue its military role in Afghanistan may last for weeks before a possible vote in March, a report says. The Harper government said debate on a motion calling for an extension of the 2,500-troop mission is expected to start a next week, the Canwest News Agency reported Wednesday. Officials in the prime minister's office indicated the back and forth on the issue could go on for weeks, Canwest said. "If we believe our NATO allies will be forthcoming with the assistance we have asked for, the vote will take place in late March," said Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, press secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The motion is expected to follow recommendations by a panel led by former Liberal Cabinet Minister John Manley, which suggest extending the mission beyond February 2009, provided more equipment is secured and other countries commit roughly 1,000 more troops. (UPI)

 Military Coverage
 Gates Hits NATO Allies' Role In Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Gen. Dan McNeill, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, Wednesday issued a blunt assessment of the alliance's shortcomings in that country, arguing that the unwillingness of some member states to risk combat casualties is threatening NATO's future and undermining the prosecution of the Afghan war. "I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people's security, and others who are not," Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "It puts a cloud over the future of the alliance if this is to endure and perhaps get even worse." (Washington Post – see attached)
 Next Year’s War Costs Estimated At $170 Billion Or More. The military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost $170 billion in the next fiscal year over and above the $515.4 billion regular Pentagon budget that President Bush has proposed, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said on Wednesday. Mr. Gates gave that estimate in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee after cautioning the panel that any estimate would be dicey, given the unpredictability of war. “Well, a straight-line projection, Mr. Chairman, of our current expenditures would probably put the full-year cost in a strictly arithmetic approach at about $170 billion,” Mr. Gates said in response to questions from Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is the head of the committee. (New York Times – see attached)
 Pakistan Rejects U.S. Military Role. Pakistan has refused a U.S. request to conduct joint military operations in its lawless northern tribal regions where al-Qaeda and Taliban militants have become increasingly active. The Pentagon believes the Pakistani army needs help combating both al-Qaeda, which is operating from safe havens in the border region with Afghanistan, and the growing domestic threat from militants affiliated with the Taliban. A senior Pakistani official said that Islamabad would not agree to conduct joint operations in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). The issue is sensitive for Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan president and pro-U.S. leader, who is facing growing pressure from political opponents to step down. (London Financial Times – see attached)
 AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Gitmo. Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded -- a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret. For the first time, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo, has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with AP, Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup. Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack. (Newsday/AP)
 U.S. Resumes Thailand Military Aid. The U.S. has announced a resumption of military aid to Thailand, hours after a new democratically elected government was sworn in there. Washington suspended the aid after the Thai military ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup in September 2006. The sanctions were an automatic step under a law banning such aid to nations where elected leaders had been deposed. But funding for counter-terrorism work and joint exercises remained in place. The move came hours after Prime Minister Samak Sundarevej and his new cabinet were sworn in by the Thai king. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte "certified to Congress that a democratically elected government has taken office in Thailand", state department spokesman Tom Casey said. (BBC)

 Homeland Security
 C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes As Judge Sought Interrogation Data. At the time that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of operatives of Al Qaeda, a federal judge was still seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of one of those operatives, Abu Zubaydah, according to court documents made public on Wednesday. The court documents, filed in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, appear to contradict a statement last December by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, that when the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 they had no relevance to any court proceeding, including Mr. Moussaoui’s criminal trial. (New York Times – see attached)
 U.S. May Be Backsliding On Security: Chertoff. From weak border controls to the risk of chemical bombs, the United States could be backsliding on national security since the September 11 attacks, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said on Wednesday. "A couple of years after 9/11 it would not have seemed conceivable that a 'business as usual' mentality could creep back into our public mind-set. It has begun to return," Chertoff told a forum at Harvard University. "I'm concerned that we are beginning to backslide," he said, citing several areas where the United States has faced trouble while seeking to get tougher on security after the September 11, 2001, attacks. He said many residents, mayors and business owners are resisting the Department of Homeland Security's plan to build a border fence on private land -- a key part of his department efforts to stop "potential terrorists." (Reuters)
 Acquitted Man Charged Again. A man acquitted of terrorism conspiracy charges after a lengthy criminal trial has been accused of nearly identical offenses by federal immigration officials who want to deport him to Haiti. The immigration charges were filed Tuesday against Lyglenson Lemorin, a member of the so-called "Liberty City Seven" group accused of plotting with a man they thought was from al-Qaida to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices in Miami and elsewhere. Lemorin was acquitted in December after a two-month trial, with jurors deadlocking on the remaining six defendants. Immigration documents accuse Lemorin of conspiring or planning to engage in terrorist activity and gathering information on potential attack targets. They also claim that Lemorin was "a member of a terrorist organization" and is likely to get involved in terrorism again if he remains in this country. (Miami Herald/AP)

 World Developments
 Chad President Says He's In Control. Chad's president Idriss Deby declared himself in control of the country Wednesday, even while acknowledging that three-fourths of his government had disappeared since rebels attacked the capital. For the first time since the assault began, more people were crossing bridges toward N'Djamena than away — apparently heeding a government call to return. Government forces pushed rebels out of the capital after weekend battles that left hundreds dead and sent thousands fleeing. Deby denied reports that he had been injured as N'Djamena was besieged, spreading his arms wide and saying, "Look at me, I'm fine." "We are in total control, not only of the capital, but of all the country," he said after meeting with French Defense Minister Herve Morin, who came to Chad in a show of support for the government. (Time/AP – see attached)
 Israeli Leaders Approve Reinforcing Barrier On Israel-Egypt Border. Israeli officials say the country's top leaders have approved construction of a reinforced barrier on the border with Egypt, to prevent infiltration by Palestinian militants. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his foreign and defense ministers agreed on the barrier plan during a meeting Wednesday. Israel's full Cabinet will have to authorize the project before construction can begin. The plan calls for building a new fence along parts of the 230-kilometer Israel-Egypt border. In violence Wednesday, a Palestinian rocket fired from Gaza struck a home in southern Israel, wounding two young children. An Israeli air strike in Gaza wounded at least three Palestinians. The Israeli military also said it carried out air raids against what it described as an arms depot and a weapons manufacturing facility in Gaza. (Voice of America)
 Pakistan Needs Political Accord With Tribal Leaders, U.S. Says. Pakistan needs to reach a political settlement with pro-Taliban leaders in its tribal region because the government's previous agreements have proved ineffective, the U.S. State Department said. An accord where militants "lay down their arms, join the political process, avoid violence and have guarantees for it, I think that would be something," deputy department spokesman Tom Casey said Wednesday. Agreements reached in 2004 and 2006 in North and South Waziristan didn't "produce the results" intended. Forces loyal to al-Qaeda-linked Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud announced a cease-fire in South Waziristan Wednesday, AFP reported. The Pakistani military said it wasn't aware of any truce. (Bloomberg)
 African Ministers Arrive In Kenya For Talks. East African foreign ministers arrived in Kenya on Wednesday for a meeting the opposition has threatened to demonstrate against, while the rival sides hammered away at talks to end the post-election crisis. The opposition has threatened more street protests if the government holds Thursday's planned meeting of the seven-nation, regional bloc IGAD, whose rotating chairmanship is now held by President Mwai Kibaki. Kenya's government is banking on goodwill in African diplomatic circles to win support for its view that the opposition should challenge the vote in court, not in the streets. Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, mediating between the opposing sides, has chided the opposition for threatening mass action while talks were under way. (Reuters)
 'Rising Threats' To Sri Lanka Media. Rights group Amnesty International says threats to journalists have increased dramatically in Sri Lanka. The human rights group says threats to freedom of expression have gone up as the country slides back into civil war. It says that in the last two years at least 10 media workers have been killed. Others have been abducted, detained, or have disappeared. Most of those targeted have been Tamil journalists working in conflict areas in the north and east of the country. In the south, Sinhalese journalists have faced intimidation - especially those reporting on corruption, Amnesty says. (BBC)

 Public Opinion
 Majority Continues To Consider Iraq War A Mistake. The latest USA Today/Gallup poll finds that a majority of Americans continue to express opposition to the war in Iraq. According to the Jan. 30-Feb. 2 poll, 57% of Americans say it was a mistake for the United States to send troops to Iraq, while 41% say it was not a mistake. Those numbers are identical to what Gallup measured in late November/early December. This broad measure of the correctness of the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq has not changed much, even with more positive assessments of U.S. progress in Iraq in the last three months. About a year ago, shortly after the U.S. troop surge was announced, a Feb. 9-11 USA Today/Gallup poll showed that 56% of Americans thought the U.S. had made a mistake -- nearly identical to the current figure. There has been minor variation on this measure since that time, but in general, a majority of the U.S. public has expressed opposition to the war in all but a few Gallup Polls conducted since August 2005. (Gallup)

*AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

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NATO Members Likely To Ignore Pleas To Share Burden In Afghanistan
London Times
February 7, 2008

NATO defense ministers meeting Thursday are not expected to offer any more troops for Afghanistan, despite a plea from military commanders for another 7,500 soldiers, alliance sources said Wednesday. The gloomy prediction on the eve of an informal session of the defense ministers in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, pre-empted appeals Wednesday from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Condoleezza Rice, the American Secretary of State, for other NATO countries to share more of the burden in Afghanistan. Dr. Rice, who met the Prime Minister and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said: “I do think the alliance is facing a real test here. Our populations need to understand this is not a peacekeeping mission.” Only a small number of nations had troops in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, she said. “We believe very strongly there ought to be a sharing of that burden throughout the alliance.”

The main NATO players in the south are Britain with 7,800 troops, the U.S. (3,100), Canada (2,500), The Netherlands (1,600), Denmark (680), and Romania (500). Australia, not a NATO member, has 1,000 troops there. Emphasizing the focus of Taliban activity in the south, NATO sources said that 70 per cent of the insurgent incidents in Afghanistan took place in 10 per cent of the 398 districts, most of them in the south. Mr. Brown told the Commons: “We have 15 per cent of the troops in Afghanistan. We need a proper burden-sharing not only in terms of personnel but also in terms of helicopters and other equipment.” Germany confirmed that it would send around 200 extra combat soldiers to northern Afghanistan to replace a Norwegian unit, but said that it would not move the troops to the south. The appeal caused some anger in an already divided alliance. NATO officials said that the constant highlighting of the rifts in the alliance over troop deployments to Afghanistan was undermining all the achievements made over the past year. “These public rifts and talk of crisis in the alliance are doing the Taleban's work for them,” one official said.

“There were never going to be decisions made in Vilnius about more troops for Afghanistan because it's just an informal meeting, but now it will be seen as a failure because no one is expected to come forward with offers,” another official said. The sense of crisis was made worse by news from Ottawa where the Canadian parliament is split over whether Canada's 2,500 troops in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan should be recalled next year. Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, was reported to be threatening to go to the polls if parliament voted against extending Canada's troop commitment. Wednesday Britain underlined its commitment in southern Afghanistan by announcing the next two rotations of troops, each to serve in Helmand province in the south for six months: 16 Air Assault Brigade will go out in April, and 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines, will follow in October. Each will send about 7,800 troops.

The Ministry of Defense said that the same number of combat troops - as opposed to support units — would be deployed on each rotation. Two Parachute Regiment regular battalions, 2 Para and 3 Para, will form the principal fighting force of 16 Air Assault Brigade. The Parachute Regiment now has only two regular battalions for this type of deployment, because 1 Para has been reassigned and converted into the Special Forces Support Group, to provide back-up to the SAS and Special Boat Service (SBS). However, the list of units going out in April, released by the MoD Wednesday, has underlined the manpower shortages suffered by the main infantry battalions earmarked for Afghanistan. The MoD said that 2 Para and 3 Para were each about 100 men short, and that 60 men from 4 Para which is the Territorial Army support unit, are filling in some of the gaps. Other units with manpower gaps going out to Helmand province in April include The Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, and the 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment, all of which are 90 men short.

In Seized Video, Boys Train To Fight In Iraq, U.S. Says
New York Times
February 7, 2008

The children in black — T-shirts, trousers and face masks — hoist AK-47s and pistols and rush toward an apparently unarmed man on a bicycle. In an instant they have surrounded him, shouting in the high voices of boys who are not yet men, “Put your hands behind your back.” The man hesitates, looking confused. He is wearing a thin, untucked button-down shirt and looks vulnerable before the boys. They wave their guns, menacingly. As the video segment ends, he is kneeling on the dirt road as the boys close in and wave their guns at him. The scene is from a video captured by the American military in December near Khan Bani Saad, a town in Diyala, a turbulent province northeast of Baghdad. The video, shown Wednesday by the military at a news conference, is believed to be part of a propaganda tape made by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown extremist group that American intelligence officials say has foreign leadership. While this is not the first time that the military has found images of children in the insurgent group’s tapes and photos, the video has the largest volume of raw images that American forces have come across, a military spokesman said.

The insurgent group “wants to poison the next generation of Iraqis,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, an American spokesman, at a briefing about the group’s use of women and children. Military officials say they believe that the tapes are used during sessions with children in “the process of indoctrination and training that starts early to ensure they grow up to become future terrorists when they become of age,” he said. Admiral Smith said the military believed that the adults playing the roles of victims in the video were probably the boys’ parents or other relatives and that the militant group had possibly intended to circulate the video either internally in extremist circles or on one of the 5,000 Web sites of its affiliates. The video was professionally made and easy to understand even for non-Arabic speakers. In the tape, some of the boys look as if they are scarcely more than 10 or 11 years old, while others appear to be teenagers. Their energy and enthusiasm for what is almost a game, but with real guns, is palpable. After forcing the man off the bicycle, they stop a car and force the men out in a simulation of a kidnapping.

In another clip, a line of boys is seen running out of a house. As each boy emerges, he shouts “Allahu akbar!” (God is great.) Some of them speak uncertainly, half-stopping to turn to the camera; others say it as they are almost off screen. In a later scene they are sitting on the floor, their guns piled in the middle of the group, and they read a prayer. Admiral Smith emphasized that the military did not believe that this was a real training camp, but rather a rehearsed propaganda piece meant to encourage people to go to real camps. The militant group has long used young people as spotters, watching for victims or for police officers or troops who might apprehend the insurgents. However, the military offered no proof that suicide bombings or other attacks using teenagers had become a trend. Admiral Smith cited just two cases, in January, in which teenage boys were used as suicide bombers.

Similarly, several recent attacks have been carried out by women. Until 2007, the military found that women were bombers in five attacks. But since then 10 women have carried out attacks, 4 of them so far in 2008, Admiral Smith said. But he said it was too soon to say that it was a trend. The number of attacks carried out by women was small relative to the total number of attacks or even the total of suicide attacks. The American and Iraqi military reiterated assertions made last week that the bombings at two pet markets in Baghdad were carried out by women with severe mental disabilities, but they did not offer forensic proof other than to say that the condition of the women’s heads, the only body parts found after the bombing, was consistent with people who have Down syndrome, a genetic disorder.

In Anbar Province, tensions between Sunni factions appeared to be high. The tribal Awakening Council, which is now the most powerful group in the province but which lacks political influence, said it was giving members of the Iraqi Islamic Party 30 days to vacate the seats it holds in the provincial council. The Islamic Party holds a disproportionate number of seats in Anbar and some other Sunni-majority provinces; while many Sunnis boycotted the last election, the Iraqi Islamic Party was one of the few Sunni parties on the ballot. Now, as other political factions have gained ground, they are seeking to oust the party and replace its members with homegrown groups. That effort is particularly strong in Anbar, where the tribes have joined to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and are an influential force. Indications from the government in Baghdad that provincial elections would not be held until fall prompted the anger. Tribal leaders said they had expected the government to hold elections in March. Either the elections should be held sooner or, in the meantime, the provincial council needs to be replaced, said one leader, Sheik Ali al-Suleiman.

Different accounts continued to emerge Wednesday in the American military’s killing of three people near Tikrit on Tuesday. Those killed were a farmer, his wife and his son; at least one daughter was wounded. In a statement released Wednesday, the American military said its soldiers were fired on when they entered the house. As they moved through the house, they shot one man who was “holding a woman as a human shield.” A second man was killed by a soldier who believed the man had “hostile intent.” While checking the rest of the house, they found a dead woman and a wounded girl, the military statement said. They said the woman had been killed in the first exchange of fire as the troops advanced on the house. However, a cousin of the farmer said the military had mounted a large operation and had used overwhelming force against his relatives, who were poor and lived in a three-room house with cattle and sheep in the yard. “When I entered my cousin’s house the next day, I saw pools of blood everywhere,” said the cousin, Abu Hamza, 41. “His body was showered with bullets; parts of his brain were on the bed. The same was true of his wife’s body.” “We have no idea why they made this attack,” he said. Iraqi military officials in Samarra, an overwhelmingly Sunni area about 60 miles north of Baghdad, said Wednesday that they found a mass grave on Tuesday with 55 bodies in varying states of decay. The officials said they suspected it was the work of Islamic extremist groups.

Gates Hits NATO Allies' Role In Afghanistan
Washington Post
February 7, 2008

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the top U.S. commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan Wednesday issued a blunt assessment of the alliance's shortcomings in that country, arguing that the unwillingness of some member states to risk combat casualties is threatening NATO's future and undermining the prosecution of the Afghan war. "I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people's security, and others who are not," Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "It puts a cloud over the future of the alliance if this is to endure and perhaps get even worse."

American and other NATO officials are sparring over force levels, missions and strategy as violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest levels since the U.S.-led invasion and overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. Although coalition forces have defeated the Taliban in many tactical engagements, analysts say NATO remains in a "strategic stalemate" because of lagging reconstruction and governance efforts. The disputes have pitted Washington against its European partners in a manner rarely seen since the end of the Cold War, casting doubts on the credibility and purpose of the alliance.

Gates, who departs Thursday for a two-day meeting with NATO defense ministers in Lithuania, said he will urge European countries to loosen the "caveats" they place on their troops -- rules limiting where they can be deployed or whether they can engage in battle -- and to send reinforcements to Afghanistan. Gen. Dan McNeill, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, described in a wide-ranging interview how he is hamstrung by the combat restraints on some NATO troops, insufficient forces and intelligence capabilities, and a host of other political and military obstacles that undercut effective operations.

"Caveats deny me the ability to plan and prosecute," McNeill said. "I can't amass them to where I might have a decisive point. . . . Obviously I can't move as quickly as I want to," McNeill said. McNeill said such constraints have led to unofficial proposals that U.S. forces take charge of the mission in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban insurgency is strongest and where British, Canadian and Dutch troops now serve -- an idea that he said merits consideration. "I think it should enter into the dialogue" with NATO, McNeill said. The roughly 27,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan are concentrated near the eastern border with Pakistan and make up the bulk of the approximately 55,000 foreign troops in the country. McNeill attributed much of the increased violence to the stepped-up military operations.

NATO forces took charge of the Afghan mission in 2006, and the following year saw the worst violence in the country since the war began, with unprecedented military and civilian casualties and a nearly 30 percent rise in attacks, including 60 percent in the southern province of Helmand, according to U.S. military data. As he prepared to take command of NATO forces in Afghanistan in 2006, McNeill recalled, then-NATO Supreme Allied Commander Marine Gen. James Jones gave him simple instructions: "Don't fracture the alliance." McNeill now finds himself struggling to hold that alliance together. "It doesn't look as though it's fractured," he said on a visit from Kabul, noting that over the past year foreign troops in Afghanistan have expanded by more than 8,000, with reinforcements expected soon from the United States and possibly Britain and Germany. But "there is a hell of a lot of debate back in various countries about what their role should be," he acknowledged.

The growing divide over NATO roles led to a tense encounter in Kabul last year between McNeill and a senior German official. McNeill, who had learned that only about 6,000 of Germany's 250,000-strong military force is deployed abroad, asked if Germany could devote one alpine battalion of about 500 troops to Afghanistan. "You must understand the political context in our country," the official responded, wagging a finger. "General, that will not happen." In another sign of allies' reservations, the Canadian government is debating whether to shift its mission to training and mentoring, a move McNeill opposes. "My first choice is to have them stay in the fight," he said. In an earlier news conference, McNeill described troop levels in Afghanistan as "a minimalist force."

Canada's government announced last week that it would continue its combat mission past January 2009 only if another NATO partner deploys an additional 1,000 combat troops to the southern province of Kandahar, where Canada's 2,500 troops are based. Gates said Wednesday that his decision to send 3,200 Marines into Afghanistan this spring stems in part from the shortfalls by NATO partners. Although he praised the Canadians, British, Australians, Dutch and Danes for "doing their part," Gates told the committee that he has written all NATO defense ministers asking them to "dig deeper" to solve the problems in Afghanistan.

Daniel Korski, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said it will be hard for the United States to squeeze more troops out of NATO allies. "It's becoming increasingly difficult for governments to explain this is no longer a peacekeeping operation, this is counterinsurgency and combat, and that's far more dangerous," Korski said. McNeill said he has also faced pressure from Afghan President Hamid Karzai to curtail operations in some provinces, particularly after civilian casualties. McNeill said he and Karzai have "intensive dialogues about not only where and why we run particular operations but how we intend to run them."

Karzai's government has also opposed U.S. proposals for more aggressive eradication of opium crops. Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world's opium, and McNeill estimated the crop finances up to 40 percent of Taliban operations. McNeill said he was pushing the NATO mandate as far as possible to allow his forces to target the "nexus" between opium and insurgents. Regional interference, including weapons from Iran and fighters from Pakistan, are another challenge for McNeill. But he noted unusual progress made during a three-hour New Year's Eve meeting with the new head of Pakistan's Army, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, and the head of the Afghan military, who agreed to share intelligence on insurgent activity and conduct officer exchanges.

Next Year’s War Costs Estimated At $170 Billion Or More
New York Times
February 6, 2008

The military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost $170 billion in the next fiscal year over and above the $515.4 billion regular Pentagon budget that President Bush has proposed, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said on Wednesday. Mr. Gates gave that estimate in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee after cautioning the panel that any estimate would be dicey, given the unpredictability of war. “Well, a straight-line projection, Mr. Chairman, of our current expenditures would probably put the full-year cost in a strictly arithmetic approach at about $170 billion,” Mr. Gates said in response to questions from Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is the head of the committee.

So, Mr. Levin pressed, “That would be a total then of $685 billion” in Pentagon spending for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. “Does that sound right?” “Yes, sir,” Mr. Gates replied. “But as I indicated, I have no confidence in that figure.” Mr. Levin has been a persistent critic of the war in Iraq, and he has complained that the Bush administration has been less than straightforward about the financial costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns by seeking supplemental funding outside the regular Pentagon budget. Congress has gone along with the supplemental requests, with members of both parties pledging to give American troops whatever they need. “While the monetary cost is not the most important part of the debate over Iraq or Afghanistan, it does need to be part of that debate, and the citizens of our nation have a right to know what those costs are projected to be,” Senator Levin said.

Mr. Gates said he was concerned that some countries who have pledged troops to Afghanistan were not fully meeting their commitments, and that he would bring up the subject with his counterparts from other NATO countries. “I think we have to be realistic about the political realities that face some of the governments in Europe,” Mr. Gates said. “Many of them are coalition governments, some of them are minority governments, and they are doing what they think is at the far end of what is politically acceptable.” The secretary added: “There are allies that are doing their part and are doing well. The Canadians, the British, the Australians, the Dutch, the Danes, are really out there on the line and fighting.”

While Mr. Gates was before the committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was making the same point during a visit to London. Mr. Gates got a relatively friendly welcome, perhaps in part because he has tried to adopt a style less confrontational than that of his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld. Adm. Michael G. Mullen was also welcomed warmly by committee members in his first appearance before the panel as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Senator Levin complained, as he has before, about what he sees as the failure of the post-Saddam Hussein government in Iraq. “For years, the Iraqi leaders have failed to seize the opportunity our brave troops gave them,” he said. “It is long past time that the Iraqi leaders hear a clear, simple message: we can’t save them from themselves; it’s in their hands, not ours, to create a nation by making the political compromises needed to end the conflict.”

Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the committee’s ranking Republican and one of his party’s most influential voices on military matters, did not disagree with Senator Levin on Iraq. “I think by any fair standard, that level of progress to date is falling below the expectations that we had hoped,” he said. “Senator Levin quite appropriately observed that the elected officials in Iraq are simply not exercising the full responsibility of the range of sovereignty, and that puts our forces in a certain degree of continuing peril and risk.” Mr. Gates said in response to questions that he will soon visit Iraq again and confer with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander, on whether and when to reduce American troop strength to the “pre-surge” level of about 130,000.

Also on Wednesday, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, agreed that the international military mission there was “under-resourced,” in particular when compared with deployments to Iraq. “Afghanistan, land mass-wise, is half again as big as Iraq, for example, if you want to get some relative bearing there,” General McNeill said during a Pentagon news briefing. In Afghanistan, the population is “estimated to be perhaps as much as 3 million more than Iraq, yet we have, in trying to operate in a counterinsurgency environment, only a fraction of the force that the coalition has in Iraq,” General McNeill added. “So there’s no question it’s an under-resourced force.”

General McNeill said that if the official American military counterinsurgency doctrine were applied to Afghanistan, then well over 400,000 allied and Afghan security troops would be required. He acknowledged the impossibility of fielding a force of that size. “The trick, then, is to manage the risk that’s inherent in having an under-resourced international force and reaching the level of capacity at which the Afghan national security forces ought to be,” he said, stressing especially the importance of training the local police. The NATO-led security assistance mission has about 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, of which 14,000 are American. Separately, the United States has 12,000 other troops there conducting counterterrorism and support missions. Mr. Gates in recent days signed a deployment order for an additional 3,200 marines for temporary duty in Afghanistan.

The general also disputed public assessments that the Afghan insurgency was growing, and he cited the number of low- to high-level insurgent leaders who were killed or captured. “That number is significant,” General McNeill said. “Many of those were jihadists who cut their teeth fighting the Soviets. They were good at their skills. They’re no longer on the battlefield. That’ll be very helpful.” Commenting on a recent public debate about skills of various NATO nations at waging counter-insurgency missions, General McNeill said that “it is probably an incontrovertible truth that if you pull a huge alliance together, that the going-in position of different nationalities of that alliance, or at least their military forces, is somewhat different.” He acknowledged differences in training, as well as varying political pressures from individual home capitals that affect the capabilities of those forces in Afghanistan. Looking to the future, General McNeill predicted an exceedingly large opium harvest, and warned that significant portions of narcotics profits would go to Taliban and other insurgent activity.

Pakistan Rejects U.S. Military Role
London Financial Times
February 7, 2008

Pakistan has refused a U.S. request to conduct joint military operations in its lawless northern tribal regions where al-Qaeda and Taliban militants have become increasingly active. The Pentagon believes the Pakistani army needs help combating both al-Qaeda, which is operating from safe havens in the border region with Afghanistan, and the growing domestic threat from militants affiliated with the Taliban. A senior Pakistani official said that Islamabad would not agree to conduct joint operations in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). The issue is sensitive for Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan president and pro-U.S. leader, who is facing growing pressure from political opponents to step down.

Robert Gates, U.S. defense secretary, recently said the U.S. was prepared to conduct small-scale joint operations inside Pakistan. Admiral William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command, recently flew to Pakistan for talks about improving military co-operation. The Pakistani official said Islamabad was considering the possibility of US officers spending short periods in Pakistan to train the army in counter-insurgency operations. Mr. Gates on Wednesday told the Senate that the Pakistani military had focused on the conventional threat from India for several decades, but was now recognizing the growing threat from inside Pakistan. ”The Pakistanis, just as they recognize a new kind of threat to the stability of the country, are going to have to make some changes in terms of the training and equipping of their force,” Mr. Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

U.S. officials say General Ashfaq Kiyani, the new Pakistan military chief, realizes his army, which was trained to fight a war with India, lacks counter-insurgency capabilities. But they say the issue of U.S. forces operating inside Pakistan is so sensitive that Islamabad is unlikely to agree to joint operations. Pakistan recently rejected a similar request from the U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct covert operations inside its borders. In a sign of the importance the U.S. places on the region, Admiral Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and General Michael Hayden, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, recently flew to Pakistan to urge Mr. Musharraf to agree to the operations.

Last week, Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaeda operative was killed with a missile strike on a house in the border area of Waziristan. The U.S. and Pakistan have both refused to comment on the strike, which is reported to have claimed the lives of more than a dozen people. But a U.S. military official told the Financial Times that the missile was not launched by the military, suggesting it was fired by the CIA. Adm. McConnell this week said al-Qaeda was using the Fata as a “staging area” to support Taliban attacks in Afghanistan in addition to training for operatives towards conducting attacks in Pakistan and elsewhere. In his global threat assessment, he added that there had been an influx of “western recruits” into the tribal areas over the past 18 months.

Western officials have becoming increasingly concerned about the stability of the Pakistani regime, given the growing insurgency in the north-west frontier province led by Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The CIA and Pakistani authorities say he was behind the recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister. Taliban militants fighting Pakistani troops along the Afghan border on Wednesday claimed to have declared a ceasefire. If confirmed, the move would be the first significant break for the Pakistani military since last year when Mr. Musharraf ordered troops to storm a mosque in Islamabad, provoking a spate of suicide and armed attacks from Taliban militants. A Pakistani intelligence official said the militants appeared to be observing a ceasefire. But a western defense official warned that any ceasefire was unlikely to hold, especially because of Mr. Mehsud’s alleged involvement in the assassination of Bhutto.

C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes As Judge Sought Interrogation Data
New York Times
February 7, 2008

At the time that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of operatives of Al Qaeda, a federal judge was still seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of one of those operatives, Abu Zubaydah, according to court documents made public on Wednesday. The court documents, filed in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, appear to contradict a statement last December by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, that when the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 they had no relevance to any court proceeding, including Mr. Moussaoui’s criminal trial. It was already known that the judge in the case, Leonie M. Brinkema, had not been told about the existence or destruction of the videos. But the newly disclosed court documents, which had been classified as secret, showed the judge had still been actively seeking information about Mr. Zubaydah’s interrogation as late as Nov. 29, 2005. The destruction of the tapes is under investigation by the Justice Department and Congress.

One of the documents, a motion filed by Mr. Moussaoui’s lawyers to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, cites several instances in 2005, including one after the videotapes were apparently destroyed, when government lawyers produced documents to the court that came from the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. The document states that on Nov. 29, 2005, government lawyers produced documents, including “intelligence summaries,” about Abu Zubaydah but never told the court about the existence or destruction of the tapes. A response that was filed to the appeals court by federal prosecutors remains classified, government officials said. Mr. Moussaoui was convicted of terrorism-related charges in 2006, and the government officials said that last month an appellate judge had denied a motion by his lawyers, who argued that the destruction of the C.I.A. tapes meant the Moussaoui case should be sent back to a district court. The tapes destroyed by the C.I.A. documented the interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah and a second Qaeda operative, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, according to current and former intelligence officials.

After The New York Times notified C.I.A. officials in December that it intended to publish an article about the destruction of the tapes, General Hayden issued a statement to employees. In it, General Hayden said he understood that the tapes were destroyed “only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries — including the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.” Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Wednesday: “The rulings in this case are clear, and the director stands by his statement. Nothing has changed.” A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said he could not comment on the unsealed documents. It is unclear whether the C.I.A. notified federal prosecutors in the Moussaoui case about the existence and destruction of the tapes before the matter became public. But one of the documents released Wednesday, a letter from Chuck Rosenberg, United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said a prosecutor in the Moussaoui case “may have been told in late February or early March 2006” about the Abu Zubaydah videotapes, but “does not recall being told this information.”

The papers made public on Wednesday were filed in the appeal of Mr. Moussaoui, who was sentenced to life in prison by Judge Brinkema, of the Eastern District of Virginia, in May 2006. The documents were filed in December under seal and made public this week with some redactions. Mr. Moussaoui attended a flight school in Oklahoma in 2001 but was arrested in Minnesota on immigration charges before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He admitted in 2005 to participating in terrorist plotting with Al Qaeda. The new documents also raised new questions about a letter sent to Judge Brinkema in October by prosecutors in the Moussaoui case. In that letter, prosecutors acknowledged that two declarations filed in the case by C.I.A. officials were inaccurate. The C.I.A. officials had denied the existence of video or audiotapes of interviews of certain Qaeda suspects, but the letter said the C.I.A. in fact had two videotapes and one audiotape of interrogations. Intelligence officials have said the three tapes, which still exist, are separate from the hundreds of hours of videotape of Abu Zubaydah and Mr. Nashiri that were destroyed. It is unclear why the October letter did not mention those tapes or their destruction.

Chad President Says He's In Control
Time/AP
February 6, 2008

Chad's president declared himself in control of the country Wednesday, even while acknowledging that three-fourths of his government had disappeared since rebels attacked the capital. For the first time since the assault began, more people were crossing bridges toward N'Djamena than away — apparently heeding a government call to return. Government forces pushed rebels out of the capital after weekend battles that left hundreds dead and sent thousands fleeing. President Idriss Deby wore a military uniform as he received reporters in the presidential palace to make his first public comments since the coup attempt. He denied reports that he had been injured as N'Djamena was besieged, spreading his arms wide and saying, "Look at me, I'm fine." "We are in total control, not only of the capital, but of all the country," Deby said after meeting with the French defense minister, who came to Chad in a show of support for the government.

Oil-rich Chad has accused Sudan of backing the rebels in an attempt to prevent deployment of a European force to protect refugees from the war-ravaged Darfur region that borders Chad. Sudan has long resisted such a force, but has denied involvement in Chad's coup attempt. Deby said the Chadian army was chasing the rebels, who were fleeing east. "We are going to catch them before they enter Sudan," he said, speaking for about 30 minutes while seated in a chair in front of the flags of Chad and the African Union. But he suggested his government had been weakened. "I am working with less than a quarter of the members of my government," he said. "I do not know where the rest have gone." "There are traitors. When the time comes we shall work on that issue," he added.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin suggested the rebels were not completely routed, telling France-Inter radio that his intelligence showed a column of insurgent reinforcements was moving in. French officials had said earlier that 100-200 rebel vehicles appeared to have regrouped east of the capital. The U.N. Security Council has condemned the attack and authorized France, the former colonial power, and other nations to help Chad's government. France has backed Deby since he came to power in a coup in 1990 and has about 1,900 soldiers, backed by fighter jets, in Chad. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said French troops were ready to attack the rebels if necessary, though his government has stressed no such plans were imminent. As the rebel crisis increased this weekend, France says it even offered to fly Deby out of the country to safety. The rebels accuse Deby of corruption and embezzling millions in oil revenue. While many Chadians may share that assessment, the uprising appears to be a power struggle within the elite that has long controlled Chad; rebellion leaders include Mahamat Nouri, a former defense minister, and Timan Erdimi, a nephew of Deby who was his chief of staff.

Chad is one of Africa's newest oil producers. Competition for power has intensified since it began exporting oil three years ago through a World Bank funded pipeline. Rebels last year attacked, but failed to take, the capital. Rebels attacked the capital again Friday in pickup trucks after advancing in a matter of days from their eastern bases near the border with Sudan. The fighting left bodies in downtown streets. The rebels withdrew late Sunday, and by Wednesday morning the city was quiet, the streets almost empty. Chadian Red Cross officials have said hundreds of civilians were killed in the fighting, but no official death toll has been given. The U.N. refugee agency said some 20,000 people had fled across the Chari river into Cameroon since Monday. About 1,000 have taken refuge in Nigeria, that country's Red Cross said. But on Wednesday, more people were returning to N'Djamena than leaving across two bridges spanning the Chari. "We don't have any money and there's no food. We have been sleeping on the ground," said a man who gave only his first name, Nicholas, as he hurried on.