lily
02-05-2007, 03:17 PM
Well, there is nothing we can do about the surge, since Bush has made up his mind. Maybe having people who have a different perspective might help (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/04/AR2007020401196.html?referrer=email)
Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 5, 2007; Page A01
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a
small band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian
anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S.
attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical
of its top commanders -- in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward
trend in the Iraq war.
Army officers tend to refer to the group as "Petraeus guys." They are smart
colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most
selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from
top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq.
Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have
criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and
is letting them try to wage the war their way.
"Their role is crucial if we are to reverse the effects of four years of
conventional mind-set fighting an unconventional war," said a Special Forces
colonel who knows some of the officers.
But there is widespread skepticism that even this unusual group, with its
specialized knowledge of counterinsurgency methods, will be able to win the
battle of Baghdad.
"Petraeus's 'brain trust' is an impressive bunch, but I think it's too late
to salvage success in Iraq," said a professor at a military war college, who
said he thinks that the general will still not have sufficient troops to
implement a genuine counterinsurgency strategy and that the United States
really has no solution for the sectarian violence tearing apart Iraq.
"It's too late to make a difference in Iraq," agreed Bruce Hoffman, a
Georgetown University expert on terrorism who has advised the U.S.
government on the war effort.
Expanded Role for Academics
Having academic specialists advise top commanders is not new. Gen. George W.
Casey Jr., Petraeus's predecessor, established a small panel of
counterinsurgency experts, but it was limited to an advisory role. Also, Lt.
Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, created a "Red
Team" to examine his operations from the enemy's perspective and to report
directly to him.
Still, the team being assembled by Petraeus promises to be both larger and
more influential than anything seen in the U.S. war effort so far, both
making plans and helping to implement them. The group's members are very
much in the high-energy mold of Petraeus, whose 2003-04 tour commanding the
101st Airborne Division in Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq, gave
the U.S. military one of its few notable success stories of the war. He also
holds a PhD in international affairs from Princeton University.
"I cannot think of another case of so many highly educated officers advising
a general," said Carter Malkasian, who has advised Marine Corps commanders
in Iraq on counterinsurgency and himself holds an Oxford doctorate in the
history of war.
As the U.S.-designed campaign to bring security to Baghdad unfolds,
Petraeus's chief economic adviser, Col. Michael J. Meese, will coordinate
security and reconstruction efforts, trying to ensure that "build" follows
the "clear" and "hold" phases of action. Meese also holds a PhD from
Princeton, where he studied how the Army historically handled budget cuts.
He is the son of former attorney general Edwin Meese III, who was a member
of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, whose December critique helped push the
Bush administration to shift its approach in Baghdad.
Petraeus, who along with the group's members declined to be interviewed for
this article, has chosen as his chief adviser on counterinsurgency
operations an outspoken officer in the Australian Army. Lt. Col. David
Kilcullen holds a PhD in anthropology, for which he studied Islamic
extremism in Indonesia.
Kilcullen has served in Cyprus, Papua New Guinea and East Timor and most
recently was chief strategist for the State Department's counterterrorism
office, lent by the Australian government. His 2006 essay "Twenty-Eight
Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency" was read by
Petraeus, who sent it rocketing around the Army via e-mail. Among
Kilcullen's dictums: "Rank is nothing: talent is everything" -- a subversive
thought in an organization as hierarchical as the U.S. military.
Veteran Strategists
The two most influential members of the brain trust are likely to be Col.
Peter R. Mansoor and Col. H.R. McMaster, whose influence already outstrips
their rank. Both men served on a secret panel convened last fall by Gen.
Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to review Iraq
strategy. The panel's core conclusion, never released to the public but
briefed to President Bush on Dec. 13, according to an officer on the Joint
Staff, was that the U.S. government should "go long" in Iraq by shifting
from a combat stance to a long-term training-and-advisory effort.
But to make that shift, the review also concluded, the U.S. military might
first have to "spike" its presence by about 20,000 to 30,000 troops to curb
sectarian violence and improve security in Baghdad. That is almost exactly
what the U.S. government hopes to do over the next eight months.
Mansoor, who commanded a brigade of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad in
2003-04, received a PhD at Ohio State for a dissertation on how U.S. Army
infantry divisions were developed during World War II. He will be Petraeus's
executive officer in Baghdad, a key figure in implementing the general's
decisions.
McMaster's command of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in northwestern Iraq
in 2005-06 provided one of the few bright spots for the U.S. military in
Iraq over that year. In a patiently executed campaign, he took back the city
of Tall Afar from a terrorist group, and he was so successful that Bush
dedicated much of a speech to the operation. McMaster, author of the
well-received book "Dereliction of Duty," about the failures of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War, is expected to operate for Petraeus
as a long-distance adviser on strategy. He is based this year at the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think tank, but is
likely to visit Iraq every month or two, according to a top U.S. military
officer.
Beyond those senior officers is a larger ring of advisers whose views
already are shaping planning for the coming operation in Baghdad.
Lt. Col. Douglas A. Ollivant caught Petraeus's eye last year by winning
first prize in an Army "counterinsurgency writing" competition, sponsored by
the general, with an essay that scorned the U.S. military's reliance in Iraq
on big "forward operating bases." "Having a fortress mentality simply
isolates the counterinsurgent from the fight," he wrote.
Ollivant, a veteran of battles in Najaf and Fallujah who earned a political
science PhD studying Thomas Jefferson, argued that U.S. forces should
instead operate from patrol bases shared with Iraqi military and police
units. That is exactly what Petraeus plans to do in the coming months in
Baghdad, setting up about three dozen such outposts across the city -- which
isn't surprising, considering Ollivant has become a top planner for the U.S.
military in Baghdad.
Another adviser will be Ahmed S. Hashim, a professor of strategy at the
Naval War College who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and
then wrote a book sharply critical of how the U.S. military has operated
there. Hashim, who holds a PhD from MIT, concluded his critique by arguing
that the best course would be to partition the country along ethnic and
sectarian lines.
Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 5, 2007; Page A01
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a
small band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian
anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S.
attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical
of its top commanders -- in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward
trend in the Iraq war.
Army officers tend to refer to the group as "Petraeus guys." They are smart
colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most
selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from
top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq.
Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have
criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and
is letting them try to wage the war their way.
"Their role is crucial if we are to reverse the effects of four years of
conventional mind-set fighting an unconventional war," said a Special Forces
colonel who knows some of the officers.
But there is widespread skepticism that even this unusual group, with its
specialized knowledge of counterinsurgency methods, will be able to win the
battle of Baghdad.
"Petraeus's 'brain trust' is an impressive bunch, but I think it's too late
to salvage success in Iraq," said a professor at a military war college, who
said he thinks that the general will still not have sufficient troops to
implement a genuine counterinsurgency strategy and that the United States
really has no solution for the sectarian violence tearing apart Iraq.
"It's too late to make a difference in Iraq," agreed Bruce Hoffman, a
Georgetown University expert on terrorism who has advised the U.S.
government on the war effort.
Expanded Role for Academics
Having academic specialists advise top commanders is not new. Gen. George W.
Casey Jr., Petraeus's predecessor, established a small panel of
counterinsurgency experts, but it was limited to an advisory role. Also, Lt.
Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, created a "Red
Team" to examine his operations from the enemy's perspective and to report
directly to him.
Still, the team being assembled by Petraeus promises to be both larger and
more influential than anything seen in the U.S. war effort so far, both
making plans and helping to implement them. The group's members are very
much in the high-energy mold of Petraeus, whose 2003-04 tour commanding the
101st Airborne Division in Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq, gave
the U.S. military one of its few notable success stories of the war. He also
holds a PhD in international affairs from Princeton University.
"I cannot think of another case of so many highly educated officers advising
a general," said Carter Malkasian, who has advised Marine Corps commanders
in Iraq on counterinsurgency and himself holds an Oxford doctorate in the
history of war.
As the U.S.-designed campaign to bring security to Baghdad unfolds,
Petraeus's chief economic adviser, Col. Michael J. Meese, will coordinate
security and reconstruction efforts, trying to ensure that "build" follows
the "clear" and "hold" phases of action. Meese also holds a PhD from
Princeton, where he studied how the Army historically handled budget cuts.
He is the son of former attorney general Edwin Meese III, who was a member
of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, whose December critique helped push the
Bush administration to shift its approach in Baghdad.
Petraeus, who along with the group's members declined to be interviewed for
this article, has chosen as his chief adviser on counterinsurgency
operations an outspoken officer in the Australian Army. Lt. Col. David
Kilcullen holds a PhD in anthropology, for which he studied Islamic
extremism in Indonesia.
Kilcullen has served in Cyprus, Papua New Guinea and East Timor and most
recently was chief strategist for the State Department's counterterrorism
office, lent by the Australian government. His 2006 essay "Twenty-Eight
Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency" was read by
Petraeus, who sent it rocketing around the Army via e-mail. Among
Kilcullen's dictums: "Rank is nothing: talent is everything" -- a subversive
thought in an organization as hierarchical as the U.S. military.
Veteran Strategists
The two most influential members of the brain trust are likely to be Col.
Peter R. Mansoor and Col. H.R. McMaster, whose influence already outstrips
their rank. Both men served on a secret panel convened last fall by Gen.
Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to review Iraq
strategy. The panel's core conclusion, never released to the public but
briefed to President Bush on Dec. 13, according to an officer on the Joint
Staff, was that the U.S. government should "go long" in Iraq by shifting
from a combat stance to a long-term training-and-advisory effort.
But to make that shift, the review also concluded, the U.S. military might
first have to "spike" its presence by about 20,000 to 30,000 troops to curb
sectarian violence and improve security in Baghdad. That is almost exactly
what the U.S. government hopes to do over the next eight months.
Mansoor, who commanded a brigade of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad in
2003-04, received a PhD at Ohio State for a dissertation on how U.S. Army
infantry divisions were developed during World War II. He will be Petraeus's
executive officer in Baghdad, a key figure in implementing the general's
decisions.
McMaster's command of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in northwestern Iraq
in 2005-06 provided one of the few bright spots for the U.S. military in
Iraq over that year. In a patiently executed campaign, he took back the city
of Tall Afar from a terrorist group, and he was so successful that Bush
dedicated much of a speech to the operation. McMaster, author of the
well-received book "Dereliction of Duty," about the failures of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War, is expected to operate for Petraeus
as a long-distance adviser on strategy. He is based this year at the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think tank, but is
likely to visit Iraq every month or two, according to a top U.S. military
officer.
Beyond those senior officers is a larger ring of advisers whose views
already are shaping planning for the coming operation in Baghdad.
Lt. Col. Douglas A. Ollivant caught Petraeus's eye last year by winning
first prize in an Army "counterinsurgency writing" competition, sponsored by
the general, with an essay that scorned the U.S. military's reliance in Iraq
on big "forward operating bases." "Having a fortress mentality simply
isolates the counterinsurgent from the fight," he wrote.
Ollivant, a veteran of battles in Najaf and Fallujah who earned a political
science PhD studying Thomas Jefferson, argued that U.S. forces should
instead operate from patrol bases shared with Iraqi military and police
units. That is exactly what Petraeus plans to do in the coming months in
Baghdad, setting up about three dozen such outposts across the city -- which
isn't surprising, considering Ollivant has become a top planner for the U.S.
military in Baghdad.
Another adviser will be Ahmed S. Hashim, a professor of strategy at the
Naval War College who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and
then wrote a book sharply critical of how the U.S. military has operated
there. Hashim, who holds a PhD from MIT, concluded his critique by arguing
that the best course would be to partition the country along ethnic and
sectarian lines.