USNS Comfort Blogs, Tweets Operation Unified Response from Haiti

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The hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) now has a blog set up in Blogger. Two days before it arrived in Haiti, it posted about a boy airlifted to the ship while she was still in the Atlantic Ocean:   

100119-N-4995K-187 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Jan. 19, 2010) Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Adam Buzzeo prepares medical equipment during the assessment of a six-year-old Haitian boy brought aboard the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20). The boy, who was Comfort's first patient as part of Operation Unified Response, suffered an injury to his bladder and a hip fracture during an earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan 12. The boy is in the intensive care unit aboard Comfort in stable condition. Comfort is supporting Operation Unified Response, a joint operation providing humanitarian assistance to Haiti.

Day 1 in Haiti:

The USNS Comfort arrived off the coast of Port Au Prince this morning at approximately 0630 and dropped anchor just past 0800. Our wake up call on this day was a registered 5.9 earthquake that shook the ship as if it were exercising severe stern propulsion. Nonetheless, activity continued on pace as we were set to continue our patient transfer procedures.

The day after it arrived in Haiti, its crew delivered its first baby on board:

100121-N-6410J-483 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Jan. 21, 2010) – Medical professionals aboard USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) delivered baby Esther at 2:27 p.m. Jan. 21, She is the first baby delivered aboard the 1,000-bed floating hospital, which is in Haiti supporting Operation Unified Response. Weighing less than five pounds, baby Esther was delivered prematurely via cesarean section due to her mother having sustained a pelvis and femur fracture during the earthquake that struck Haiti Jan. 12. Despite being premature, she is healthy and was delivered without complications.

Read more here | http://haiticomfort.blogspot.com/

Follow the ship on Twitter here.

WBAL TV 11’s Lowell Melser is also onboard; follow him on Twitter here.

Don't you feel just a bit envious that we could not have anyone at US Embassy PaP to do the same thing? Not enough people. I know ... I know ...



Here are a few State Department bloggers/twitters that you might be interested in:  DipNote, KateatState, WHAAsstSecty, and USAID News. You can also follow my  USGov  Haiti Relief list here for both military and civilian twitters on Haiti effort.  

     

Why USAID, Combat Boots PD in Haiti, and the Hanging “F” Part II

Former USAID Administrator Explains Why USAID is the Right Lead in Haiti

J. Brian Atwood, currently dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, who was USAID Administrator during the Clinton Administration writes about Haiti's Tragedy and the Inevitable Controversy for the Huffington Post on January 20. Excerpt below:

[…] The relief challenge is extraordinary, requiring the removal of bodies, the treatment of the wounded, and the feeding and care of millions of people.

Complicating the effort is a chorus of critics who believe the response would be faster and more efficient under different leadership. They argue that the military or FEMA should be in the lead for the US Government rather than USAID. I have heard these appeals before when serving as the government's coordinator for relief efforts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Honduras, Nicaragua and Haiti.

Our aid agency's Office of Disaster Assistance is statutorily authorized to respond to foreign disasters, both natural and man-made, and there is a logic to this. The office is staffed by professionals who understand the international community's relief organizations, the network of non-governmental groups that contribute so much to the effort, and the local culture. They are experienced in working in developing countries and understand the complexities of these environments. They also understand how to prepare the relief phase for the reconstruction and development phases down the road.

Other federal, state and local responder agencies including the US military, the Communicable Disease Center and major fire and rescue departments are seconded to OFDA. These organizations train together to handle foreign disasters. The OFDA operations center in the USAID building is as modern and efficient as any in Washington and in it you will see uniformed personnel sitting alongside USAID officers and representatives of other civilian agencies.

Our military units and FEMA do a great job in the context of their own primary missions, and they are occasionally brought into a very serious disaster to augment OFDA. When FEMA handles a disaster, it is operating in an American state that can bring resources and institutions into play. National Guard units and police forces are mobilized to help in the effort. Leaving the Katrina hurricane failure aside, FEMA at its best can cope with the disasters it faces in the United States. However, I would not want to see FEMA operating in a developing country. It would not have a clue what to expect.

Read the whole thing here.

Combat Boots Public Diplomacy in Haiti

Over at the U. S. Naval Institute (non-profit, professional military association of more than 50,000 members) Galrahn has blogged recently about how Obama’s Public Diplomacy From Haiti Wears Combat Boots.

Countries like France are exactly right to call US actions in Haiti as “occupation” even if it is not true, because in case you haven’t noticed, every US spokesman on TV and covered in press conferences involved in public diplomacy from the ground in Haiti wears combat boots.

[…]

There are serious coordination issues in Haiti, and it isn’t just the US with the UN or NGOs, because we would also not appear to be coordinating with other countries responding from sea, including NATO ships! The airport will not be able to meet the demand of inbound flights no matter how excellent a job the USAF 1st SOG does. Who is coordinating the effort at sea and in the port? How is it even possible that a Dutch naval ship is the first ship to unload materials in Port-au-Prince with all those US ships working on the port facilities, and at the exact same time the General is telling reporters something completely different? Did General Keen even know the Dutch ship was there when he was talking to reporters?

[..]

Everyone should understand why the DoD is being asked to carry the load in Haiti, but it is critical you also understand why USAID or the State Department should be in charge in Haiti even though you can’t name who the top US civilian leader is in Haiti right now. The DoD budget is going to be somewhere around $700 billion with supplemental budgets in FY2011, and that gets compared to a USAID budget of $4 billion and the State Department budget of about $65 billion. Obviously the catastrophe in Haiti is beyond the means of either USAID and State to handle the problem, but does that also mean neither agency can’t afford to have a leader inside Haiti to lead the US effort?

[…]

If the DoD is not the lead agency, and I do not under any circumstances believe they should be, why is the DoD being made the face of leadership in Haiti? Who and where is the Obama administration’s appointed representative? Rajiv Shah is in Washington DC, so who is running the show in Haiti? I do wonder if SOUTHCOM leaders are too buried in the internal politics of the UN and Haiti on the ground to support the relief efforts that involve the rest of the world, because General Keen seemed completely oblivious to what the Dutch were doing at the port – and activities at the port should be priority one.

When you don’t know the name of the top US civilian leader in the Haitian relief effort, there is a serious political leadership problem.

Read the whole thing here.

Rajiv Shah in DC and the Hanging “F”

Josh Rogin of The Cable writes Inside the Haiti response situation room yesterday which tells us a bit more about the USAID operation and what I’ve come to call “the hanging “F.”

"People have been working flat out 24/7. Some folks have been up until 5 a.m.," Susan Reichle, the USAID official who heads the coordination effort, told The Cable.

Reichle is not in charge of the entire relief effort -- her boss, USAID chief Rajiv Shah is -- but her shop is the clearinghouse through which the information is channeled up and down the chain within the U.S. government.

"It's a way for all that information at Port-au-Prince to come up to the interagency and a way for us to get messages back to Port-au-Prince from here," she said. "We deconflict issues and problems all day."

The interagency team is led by USAID's Office for Disaster Assistance, but has representation from an alphabet soup of government entities, including DHS, FEMA, the Coast Guard, DOD, the Joints Chiefs, OSD, OCHA, HHS, the State Department, U.S. Southern Command, and U.S. Transportation Command.

Shah isn't in the room. He's busy interfacing with top officials and lawmakers. Shah met with national security advisor Jim Jones yesterday, speaks with people like State Department counselor Cheryl Mills and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen regularly, and went to Capitol Hill today to brief House appropriators.

But Shah "is the decision maker," Reichle emphasized.

In the long term, it's not clear that USAID will remain in charge. Although President Obama announced an initial $100 million for Haiti relief, a long-term budget is being put together at State's Bureau of Foreign Assistance, the "F" Bureau, led by Rob Goldberg.  In the past, USAID administrators have supervised the F Bureau, but under the current arrangement its money (as well as USAID's) is controlled by Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew, rather than Shah.

Read the whole thing here. 

Uh-oh! I have a funny feeling about all this.

Quickie: State Department Arm Wrestling with the Pentagon

And the winner is ….

Josh Rogin of The Cable has this piece yesterday: Pentagon wins turf war with State over military aid. Quick excerpt: 

One big chunk of funding at issue is in foreign security assistance, known as the "1206" account, which could total about $500 million next year. This is money used to do things like military training and joint operations with countries outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, such as Indonesia and Somalia.

Since the military doesn't have the lead in those countries, the funding should flow through State, right? Well, not in 2011. The president's budget will keep those funds in the Pentagon's purse in its Feb. 1 budget release, following a pitched internal battle in which the State Department eventually conceded.

"That literally is the result of vigorous arm wrestling within the administration," one source familiar with the discussions said. The battle had been waged primarily between the shops of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy and Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro, but finally Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew got involved.

[…]

Overall, State is expected to receive a hefty increase in its top-line budget request for fiscal 2011, but much of that money will be for Iraq and Afghanistan, allowing little growth in the rest of the State-USAID accounts.

The slow pace of rebalancing national security spending and the lack of a comprehensive strategy for guiding that process is the subject of a new book by former OMB national security funding chief Gordon Adams, entitled Buying National Security: How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home.

"The tool kit is out of whack," Adams told The Cable. "There's been a major move over the last 10 years to expand the Defense Department's agenda, which has been creeping into the foreign-policy agenda in new and expensive ways."

Read the whole thing here.

Quickie: PaP Airport Go from 30 to 120 flights a day

Image by The U.S. Army via Flickr

All on a single runway, 24/7

SOUTHCOM Cdr, Gen. Fraser, discusses air operations into Port au Prince Airport in his latest blog entry. Excerpt below:

The HFOCC began coordinating all air traffic into and out of Haiti, a monumental task. Before 12 January, the Port-au-Prince airport handled no more than 30 flights a day. Since then, the airport capacity has increased four-fold – on average, 120 flights a day are flying in and out of Haiti; all on a single runway, 24/7.

This is a tightly choreographed operation with no margin for delay. Airplanes must arrive and depart on time, unload passengers and humanitarian supplies and load evacuees on schedule. My top priority – and I am sure the top priority of the entire donor community – is the organized, safe and speedy delivery of critical aid to the Haitian people. The Government of Haiti, in coordination with the U.S. Government and the United Nations’ Mission in Haiti, establishes aircraft landing priorities according to the priority of the aircraft’s cargo, such as medical supplies, food and equipment. Based on these priorities, aircraft are given a small window of time in which to land, off-load their cargo and depart. Aircraft that have requested and received time slots to land and off-load their cargo in advance are not turned away from the airport; every aircraft which requests a slot is assigned one.

Read Gen. Fraser’s blog post here.

Like Mark Thompson writes, “Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to demonstrate just how much more the U.S. military is able to do than simply kill the enemy. Only the U.S. can initially control flights into and out of the Port-au-Prince airport from aboard a nearby Coast Guard cutter, while waiting for an Air Force special-ops team to set up shop at the airport and step up operations to 24/7. Only U.S. warships have the capability to generate up to 400,000 gallons of fresh water a day from seawater." Read more here.

Hospital Ship USNS Comfort Races to Haiti

The American Forces Press Service reports (Jan. 16, 2010) that the USNS Comfort cast off lines Saturday morning in Baltimore to begin the race to aid the people of Haiti.

The hospital ship is loaded with medical expertise and supplies. Sailors from medical facilities all over the United States have arrived and are planning how to best deliver medical care.



“At this juncture the leadership of USNS Comfort is making every effort to expedite our arrival in Haiti, said Navy Lt. Bashon Mann, the ship’s public affairs officer. “The expected arrival date is Thursday (Jan. 21,) but we are moving as fast as we safely can to hasten the arrival in Haiti to begin delivering patient care.”

Getting the Comfort ready was a rush job, to say the least. The Navy notified most of the personnel that they would deploy on Jan. 13. Buses brought the medical staff to the ship yesterday, and sailors searched for their berths, muster stations and workspaces until late in the night.

Hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) receives supplies

from the supply ship USNS Peary (T-AK 5) July 16, 2009.

Teams on board Comfort have wrapped up a seven nation,

four-month humanitarian and civic assistance mission

to Latin America and the Caribbean

called Continuing Promise 2009.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Benjamin Stratton)

The ship has intensive care wards of 80 beds, limited care wards of 500 beds, total patient capacity of 1000 beds and 12 operating rooms. It also has four distilling plants to make drinking water from sea water (300,000 gallons per day) and a flight deck that can handle the world's largest military helicopters.

The USNS Comfort was built as an oil tanker in 1976.  She became part of the Navy in 1987.  She provides emergency, on-site care for U.S. combatant forces deployed in war or other operations.  When not on active deployment the hospital ship is kept in reduced operations in the Baltimore harbor. She normally is ready to ship out of Baltimore with 5 days' notice.  It shaved off a day from that normal preparation this time to get to Haiti.

The USNS Comfort was actually in Haiti last year as part of Continuing Promise 2009.  The four-month humanitarian and civic assistance mission to Latin America and the Caribbean started in April 2009 with stops in Antigua, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Panama.  Each visit lasted about 10-12 days. The ship blogged about that mission at http://www.comfort2009.blogspot.com/.  It’ll be hard work and long days ahead for this crew. Safe voyage!

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• U.S. floating hospital faces daunting challenge in Haiti (nationalpost.com)


• How the U.S. Military Will Help Haiti (time.com)


• First U.S. military aid reaches quake-stricken Haiti (cnn.com)

Huh News! The Man Who Conned the Pentagon

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Aram Roston writes in Playboy.com about The Man Who Conned The Pentagon. I tell you, this is like watching a really bad, bad comedy movie. It’s funny if only it were not too painful to laugh at taxpayer’s money down the drain. Quick excerpts below.

[T]there were no real intercepts, no new informants, no increase in chatter. And the suspicious package turned out to contain a stuffed snowman. This was, instead, the beginning of a bizarre scam. Behind that terror alert, and a string of contracts and intrigue that continues to this date, there is one unlikely character.The man’s name is Dennis Montgomery, a self-proclaimed scientist who said he could predict terrorist attacks. Operating with a small software development company, he apparently convinced the Bush White House, the CIA, the Air Force and other agencies that Al Jazeera—the Qatari-owned TV network—was unwittingly transmitting target data to Al Qaeda sleepers.[…]Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte weighed in. What secrets—what embarrassments—could be exposed if Montgomery and Trepp were to depose intelligence and military officials? Negroponte issued a declaration that warned of “serious, and in some cases exceptionally grave, damage to the national security of the United States.” He invoked the state secrets privilege. The judge in the case issued a protective order; the secrets of eTreppid’s government business would remain untold.

Active links added above. Read the whole spectacular story here.

President Signs H.R. 3326 Defense Appropriations Act of 2010

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On December 19, 2009, the President signed into law: H.R. 3326, the “Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010,” which provides FY 2010 appropriations for Department of Defense (DOD) military programs including funding for Overseas Contingency Operations, and extends various expiring authorities and other non-defense FY 2010 appropriations.

Bill Total for Defense

FY2009 Enacted: $625.3 billionPresident’s Request: $640.1 billionHouse Passed: $636.3 billionSenate Passed: $636.3 billion2010 Total Bill: $636.3 billion

Some highlights:

• Military Pay: The bill provides a 3.4% military pay increase, 0.5% above the request.

• Supporting Military Families: $472.4 million for Family Advocacy programs and full funding for Family Support and Yellow Ribbon to provide support to military families, including quality child care, job training for spouses, and expanded counseling and outreach to families experiencing the separation and stress of war.

• Readiness and Training: $154 billion, $1.3 billion above 2009, for the Defense Operation and Maintenance Account to increase readiness and training of our troops. The bill rebalances funding from preparing for Cold War-era type conflicts to the highest priority readiness requirements for the hybrid operations that our military will be facing for the foreseeable future.

• Reining in Outsourcing: $5 billion, greater than the previous year, to allow defense personnel, not contractors, to perform critical department functions. The Department estimates that every position that is converted from contract to federal civilian saves on average $44,000 per year. Additionally, the bill reduces contracted advisory and assistance services by $51 million, and includes general provisions to stop further conversions by the Department of Defense from government functions to contractors.

• The bill also directs DoD to in-source the task of vetting and issuing Common Access Cards and report on planned improvements of access control because the Committee found that about 212,000 contractors had been mistakenly been given Common Access Cards, causing a potential security risk.

• Inspector General Oversight: $288 million, $16 million above the request, for the Inspector General to hire additional investigators to ensure proper oversight of DoD acquisition and contracting.

• No Permanent Bases: Continues a general provision prohibiting the establishment of permanent bases in Iraq or Afghanistan.

• Torture: Continues a general provision prohibiting the torture of detainees held in US custody.

• CERP: Provides $1.2 billion, a reduction of $300 million from the request, for the Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP), and withholds $500 million in funding until the department develops and submits a comprehensive spending plan.

• Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility: Provides no funds for the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Naval base.

Related Items:

• Statement by the Press Secretary on H.R. 3326
• Summary: FY2010 Defense Appropriations
• Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010 (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate)[H.R.3326.ENR]

Quickie: A surge at $57,077.60 a minute

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Jo Comerford writing for Tomdispatch calculates the cost of the 30,000-troop surge to Afghanistan ($57,077.60 Surging by the Minute):

“Women and men from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be among the first to head out. It takes an estimated $1 million to send each of them surging into Afghanistan for one year. So a 30,000-person surge will be at least $30 billion, which brings us to that $57,077.60. That’s how much it will cost you, the taxpayer, for one minute of that surge. […]

For purposes of comparison, $30 billion -- remember, just the Pentagon-estimated cost of a 30,000-person troop surge -- is equal to 80% of the total U.S. 2010 budget for international affairs, which includes monies for development and humanitarian assistance.”

Read the whole thing here.

Colombia: New Barracks Construction Awarded

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The State Department had just awarded a new contact for the construction of barracks in Colombia to Carlos Gaviria Y Asociados S.A., a company based in Bogotá.

The project under U.S. Embassy Bogotá’s Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) consists of the construction of a barracks/housing unit with kitchen, laundry, dining room and living room area, 1110 square meter unit constructed in masonry and concrete. The structure will be one story capable of lodging 120 people (maximum) on bunk beds distributed in 20 separate rooms with restrooms. The project includes, site works, reinforced concrete structure, masonry, plaster and paint, metallic roofing, water and sewer installations, electrical and gas networks.

Place of performance is at Joaquin Paris Military Base, located in San Jose del Guaviare, Guaviare, Colombia. It is located at the southwest part of the country in the Amazonia jungle region. It is located 340 Km from Bogota, the capital city of Colombia, and can be accessed through domestic airlines, river and an under construction road. The average temperature range is between 21 and 32 C and 55 percent humidity. It is considered to be a high risk and hostile region.

The estimated construction cost for this project is between $400 and $700 thousand dollars. The actual contract awarded in dollar amount according to FedBiz is $727,142.92. See the solicitation statement: SWHARC09R0008.doc (741.50 Kb)

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• US-Colombia bases pact signed (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Federal Internship for Spouses, Military Spouses Only

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 on October 28, 2009 and it had become Public Law No: 111-84. Sec. 564 of the Act is a pilot program to secure internships for military spouses with Federal agencies.

(a) Cost-reimbursement Agreements With Federal Agencies- The Secretary of Defense may enter into an agreement with the head of an executive department or agency that has an established internship program to reimburse the department or agency for authorized costs associated with the first year of employment of an eligible military spouse who is selected to participate in the internship program of the department or agency.

(b) Eligible Military Spouses-

• (1) ELIGIBILITY- Except as provided in paragraph (2), any person who is married to a member of the Armed Forces on active duty is eligible for selection to participate in an internship program under a reimbursement agreement entered into under subsection (a).

• (2) EXCLUSIONS- Reimbursement may not be provided with respect to the following persons:

• (A) A person who is legally separated from a member of the Armed Forces under court order or statute of any State, the District of Columbia, or possession of the United States when the person begins the internship.

• (B) A person who is also a member of the Armed Forces on active duty.

• (C) A person who is a retired member of the Armed Forces.

(c) Funding Source- Amounts authorized to be appropriated for operation and maintenance, for Defense-wide activities, shall be available to carry out this section.

(d) Definitions- In this section:

• (1) The term `authorized costs' includes the costs of the salary, benefits and allowances, and training for an eligible military spouse during the first year of the participation of the military spouse in an internship program pursuant to an agreement under subsection (a).

• (2) The term `internship' means a professional, analytical, or administrative position in the Federal Government that operates under a developmental program leading to career advancement.

(e) Termination of Agreement Authority- No agreement may be entered into under subsection (a) after September 30, 2011. Authorized costs incurred after that date may be reimbursed under an agreement entered into before that date in the case of eligible military spouses who begin their internship by that date.

(f) Reporting Requirement- Not later than January 1, 2012, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report that provides information on how many eligible military spouses received internships pursuant to agreements entered into under subsection (a) and the types of internship positions they occupied. The report shall specify the number of interns who subsequently obtained permanent employment with the department or agency administering the internship program or with another department or agency. The Secretary shall include a recommendation regarding whether, given the investment of Department of Defense funds, the authority to enter into agreements should be extended, modified, or terminated.

* * *The defense appropriations act for FY 2010 is still in conference and has not been included in the omnibus spending bill that was just passed in Congress. Perhaps it's not be too late to tell AFSA and your elected representatives to include Foreign Service spouses in this pilot program? If it is -- there is always next year to lobby for a similar internship or fellowship. Contact AFSA here. Contact your elected representatives here.Based on statistics presented in FLO’s 2009 ―Worldwide Family Member Employment overview, close to 10,000 adult family members accompany a U.S. Direct Hire employee on his/her overseas assignment. According to the Family Liaison Office -- of this total, nearly two-thirds expressed an interest in working, while only a third was successful in finding employment. Unlike military spouses who may find employment inside military bases overseas, there are usually not enough jobs for diplomatic spouses overseas, inside the mission or in the local economy. And when jobs are available within the US missions, most jobs are clerical in nature and widely viewed by some 75% of family members with degrees (about half have advanced degrees) as not very challenging or interesting. A federal internship such as this would allow EFMs to obtain work experience for career advancement while accompanying the employee-spouse on a diplomatic assignment overseas. Which also means that returning home after years of being away would not put spouses and partners at a disadvantage when job hunting with their chequered and spotty resumes.

SFRC Report: How We Failed to Get Osama bin Laden

Image by Michael Foley Photography via Flickr

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) posted today its report titled “Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today.” And in black and white print, it points fingers -- “the decision not to deploy American forces to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, Gen. Tommy Franks.” Elsewhere in the report, and much harsher: “The responsibility for allowing the most wanted man in the world to virtually disappear into thin air lies with the American commanders who refused to commit the necessary U.S. soldiers and Marines to finish the job.”

You think maybe one of those guys named in the report would take to the air waves or the op-ed pages to rebut this in the next 24-48 hours? Quick excerpts below:

Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected. Requests were also turned down for U.S. troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan. The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines. Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack bin Laden and on Pakistan’s loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes. On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today.

The decision not to deploy American forces to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, the architects of the unconventional Afghan battle plan known as Operation Enduring Freedom. Rumsfeld said at the time that he was concerned that too many U.S. troops in Afghanistan would create an anti-American backlash and fuel a widespread insurgency. Reversing the recent American military orthodoxy known as the Powell doctrine, the Afghan model emphasized minimizing the U.S. presence by relying on small, highly mobile teams of special operations troops and CIA paramilitary operatives working with the Afghan opposition. Even when his own commanders and senior intelligence officials in Afghanistan and Washington argued for dispatching more U.S. troops, Franks refused to deviate from the plan.[…]After bin Laden’s escape, some military and intelligence analysts and the press criticized the Pentagon’s failure to mount a full-scale attack despite the tough rhetoric by President Bush. Franks, Vice President Dick Cheney and others defended the decision, arguing that the intelligence was inconclusive about the Al Qaeda leader’s location. But the review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.[…]Regardless of the exact number of enemy fighters, assaulting Tora Bora would have been difficult and probably would have cost many American and Afghan lives. The Special Operations Command’s history offered this tightly worded assessment: ‘‘With large numbers of well-supplied, fanatical AQ troops dug into extensive fortified positions, Tora Bora appeared to be an extremely tough target.’’ For Dalton Fury, the reward would have been worth the risk. ‘‘In general, I definitely think it was worth the risk to the force to assault Tora Bora for Osama bin Laden,’’ he told the Committee staff. ‘‘What other target out there, then or now, could be more important to our nation’s struggle in the global war on terror?’’[…]The responsibility for allowing the most wanted man in the world to virtually disappear into thin air lies with the American commanders who refused to commit the necessary U.S. soldiers and Marines to finish the job.[…]For American taxpayers, the financial costs of the conflict have been staggering. The first eight years cost an estimated $243 billion and about $70 billion has been appropriated for the current fiscal year—a figure that does not include any increase in troops. But the highest price is being paid on a daily basis in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where 68,000 American troops and hundreds of U.S. civilians are engaged in the ninth year of a protracted conflict and the Afghan people endure a third decade of violence. So far, about 950 U.S. troops and nearly 600 allied soldiers have lost their lives in Operation Enduring Freedom, a conflict in which the outcome remains in grave doubt in large part because the extremists behind the violence were not eliminated in 2001.

Read the entire report here.

Squirrels Are Us?

Image by Lynoure via Flickr

Edmund Andrews reported over the weekend on the Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government (NYT | November 22, 2009):

The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true.

But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest rates, may not last much longer. Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.[…]The problem, many analysts say, is that record government deficits have arrived just as the long-feared explosion begins in spending on benefits under Medicare and Social Security. The nation’s oldest baby boomers are approaching 65, setting off what experts have warned for years will be a fiscal nightmare for the government.

“What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter,” said William H. Gross, managing director of the Pimco Group, the giant bond-management firm. “The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”

But Nobelist Paul Krugman calls it The Phantom Menace.

Image by exfordy via Flickr

Still -- a tad scary, I supposed, when one realize a simple thing. It’s not only that we’re not saving nuts, or munching the bad ones left from last winter for that matter, but that we’re also giving “our” nuts away …

See -- there’s also Jon Boone in Kabul with more worrisome news from Afghanistan. He’s reporting that we are pouring millions into anti-Taliban militias in Afghanistan (Guardian | November 22, 2009). Apparently the Special Forces are funding fighters in Afghanistan and there are fears the strategy could further destabilize Afghanistan. “According to some western officials, the US government will make a pot of $1.3bn (£790m) available for the programme, although the US embassy said it could not yet comment on CDI.” He also writes that “senior generals in the Afghan ministries of interior and defence are also worried about what they see as a return to the failed strategies of the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan.”

Wait, wait a minute! Didn’t the we armed the somebodies out there in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation? What? We're not supposed to talk about that? The Guardian also reports that “in return for stabilising their local area the militia helps to win development aid for their local communities, although they will not receive arms, a US official said.”

How sure are we that they will not turn their aid money into arms to shoot at our guys?

This is just so, so confusing.

But I do feel sorry for squirrels like us. Are we ever going to enjoy our nuts again in peace like normal squirrels? Or is this as good as it gets?

Jumping the Gunman

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From ProPublica by Stephen Engelberg | November 12, 2009 2:11 pm EST. Republished under Creative Commons license.

The recent reporting on Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, is a classic run-and-gun investigative story in which dozens of reporters badger officials to disclose a new fact (which gets you on page one) or two new facts (which is enough to snag the coveted lead-of-the-paper slot on a slow day). This wolf-pack approach to reporting almost invariably produces stories that lack context, which is hardly surprising.

After all, reporters are telling a complex story by unveiling the key aspects as they learn them. It’s roughly akin to taking scenes from say, the three "Godfather movies" and spitting out them out as YouTube videos in random order. Good luck to anyone trying to follow the plot.

On the Hasan story, one of the earliest newsbreaks seems, at least so far, to be among the least clear.

About a year ago, U.S. intelligence intercepted messages sent by Hasan to Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical imam in Yemen. A task force of counterterrorism officials reviewed those messages , determined they were benign —consistent with work-related research Hasan was doing — and never contacted anyone in the military familiar with Hasan’s record in the military.

Newspapers, Web sites and TV all gave huge play to the story. But what was anyone expecting the government to do about someone who exchanged e-mails or text messages with a known bad guy? Seize his legally obtained gun? Remove him from his job? Arrest him as a material witness to a crime not yet committed?

Last night, NPR provided some context in an exclusive story on "All Things Considered." Daniel Zwerdling reported that Hasan’s supervisors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center had become increasingly worried that their young resident was losing touch with reality and might be psychotic and a danger to himself or others. They weighed firing Hasan, decided that would be too difficult, and sent him off to Fort Hood without a formal mental health evaluation.

Now, the intercepted messages story has more meaning.

Remember the contacts between Hasan and the Yemeni cleric? They are reported to have occurred in December 2008, which appears to be the same time as Walter Reed doctors were wondering whether Hasan might be capable of what NPR termed "fratricide."

The terrorism task force that reviewed the potential threat posed by Hasan looked at his personnel files. But they never knew of the doctors’ concerns, because as, The New York Times reported today, the doctors didn’t add them to his file.

Had the Federal Bureau of Investigation spoken to his supervisors – an idea that raises a host of civil liberties and privacy questions – the assessment of the danger he posed might have been different. But the available facts suggest that no one knew the full picture, which meant no one could start "connecting the dots.’’

The reader faces a similar challenge as the Hasan story unfolds in the coming months.

Here’s something to keep in mind: It is a long-established rule for reporting that the first accounts of any military action are frequently wrong. A corollary: The initial reports in a run-and-gun investigative story seldom age well. Remember the hero female cop who shot Hasan? Well, maybe she did and maybe she didn’t. And the purported view of Walter Reed officials that Hasan might be a threat? Shortly after the NPR story aired, the Washington Post asserted the possibility that Hasan might be "delusional" was never taken seriously and addressed by his supervisors only "in passing.’’

Stay tuned.

Stephen Engelberg is managing editor of ProPublica.

The Linguists Are Coming ... From DOD?

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In late October, President Obama signed into law H.R. 2647: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Sec.529 of that Act authorized the establishment of language training centers for the Department of Defense.

The program authorized includes the recruitment of native and heritage speakers of critical and strategic languages under the program into the Armed Forces and the civilian workforce of the Department of Defense and to support the Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps.

Like the CIA, there appears to be a recognition here that the agency cannot train itself out of the language gap in the Department's workforce.

The State Department on the other hand has what it calls, Diplomacy 3.0, a multi-year effort to increase the size of its workforce by 25 percent and aims to bring on board 1,200 new Foreign and Civil Service employees above attrition in fiscal year 2009 and another 1,200 in fiscal year 2010. The Director General of the Foreign Service, Nancy Powell writes that “In the short-term, we are working to identify and establish at least 200 new positions by December and more in 2010. With these new positions, we can also build a language training float, particularly for priority languages, such as Arabic, Chinese and Urdu.”

At a recent congressional hearing on diplomatic readiness, Ambassador Powell also says:

“More targeted recruiting can also help address the current challenges, and we are recruiting aggressively for certain critical language proficiency skills at this time. Those with these language proficiencies who pass our stringent Foreign Service Officer written exam are given preference points in the hiring process. Through this program, we have hired over 400 officers since 2004. For current employees, we have incentivized hard and super-hard languages such as Chinese, Pashto and Hindi. Such incentives underscore the value placed by the Department on obtaining capacity in our most challenging and needed languages.”

The exact number is 445 officers. That’s an average of 89 officers per year in the last 5 years. According to State, officers recruited for their proficiency in supercritical and critical needs languages are obligated to serve at an overseas post where they can use the language during their first or second tour. Officers recruited since 2008 are also required to serve at a post where they can use the language a second time as a midlevel officer. The State Department, however, told the GAO that it could not yet assess the program’s effectiveness because the program, which started in 2004, is still new and the department does not have sufficient data to perform such an assessment. Of course, what we don't know is how many of those recruits came in with a 2/2 or with a 5/5 native level skills. We do know from a series of GAO reports that even FSOs admit that 3/3 is not enough for them to effectively engage with their foreign audience on US foreign policy. We also know from this report (page 19) that "some officials noted the department believes it is easier to train individuals with good diplomatic skills to speak a language than it is to recruit linguists and train them to be good diplomats."The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learners will have 10 to 14 jobs by their 38th birthday. I think that State’s recruitment and training practices are still stuck in the career paradigm of the 50’s, of growing everyone from the bottom, of training everybody from scratch, of one career for life – and I can’t help but wonder if it will ever be able to climb out of this hole to face the next round of challenges in five years or the new challenges in 2030.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” That’s Albert Einstein. But they are…using the same kind of thinking, that is.And now, it is not even far off to imagine that in 5-10 years but maybe much sooner, the Defense Department will also have far more linguists than the State Department. And what happens then? Now that I have shocked you into walking down this corridor...

I should note that the bill the President signed into law was the authorization bill; it sets limits on funds that can be appropriated, but does not grant funding which must be provided by a separate congressional appropriation. Only after the president signs the Defense Appropriations Act does the program have budget authority (i.e. can incur obligations and make payments). The Defense appropriations bill, H.R. 3326, is still in conference committee as of November 8. Below is the text from the authorization bill that had been signed into law; this won't have teeth until the appropriations bill becomes law:

SEC. 529. LANGUAGE TRAINING CENTERS FOR MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

(a) Program Authorized- The Secretary of Defense may carry out a program to establish language training centers at accredited universities, senior military colleges, or other similar institutions of higher education for purposes of accelerating the development of foundational expertise in critical and strategic languages and regional area studies (as defined by the Secretary of Defense for purposes of this section) for members of the Armed Forces, including members of the reserve components and candidates of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs, and civilian employees of the Department of Defense.

(b) Elements- Each language training center established under the program authorized by subsection (a) shall include the following:

• (1) Programs to provide that members of the Armed Forces or civilian employees of the Department of Defense who graduate from the institution of higher education concerned include members or employees, as the case may be, who are skilled in the languages and area studies covered by the program from beginning through advanced skill levels.

• (2) Programs of language proficiency training for such members and civilian employees at the institution of higher education concerned in critical and strategic languages tailored to meet operational readiness requirements.

• (3) Alternative language training delivery systems and modalities to meet language and regional area study requirements for such members and employees whether prior to deployment, during deployment, or post-deployment.

• (4) Programs on critical and strategic languages under the program that can be incorporated into Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs to facilitate the development of language skills in such languages among future officers of the Armed Forces.

• (5) Training and education programs to expand the pool of qualified instructors and educators on critical and strategic languages and regional area studies under the program for the Armed Forces.

• (6) Programs to facilitate and encourage the recruitment of native and heritage speakers of critical and strategic languages under the program into the Armed Forces and the civilian workforce of the Department of Defense and to support the Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps.

(c) Partnerships With Other Schools- Any language training center established under the program authorized by subsection (a) may enter into a partnership with one or more local educational agencies to facilitate the development of skills in critical and strategic languages under the program among students attending the elementary and secondary schools of such agencies who may pursue a military career.

(d) Coordination- The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that the language training centers established under the program authorized by subsection (a) are aligned with those of the National Security Education Program, the Defense Language Institute, and other appropriate Department of Defense programs to facilitate and encourage the recruitment of native and heritage speakers of critical and strategic languages under the program into the Armed Forces and the civilian workforce of the Department of Defense and to support the Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps.

(e) Report- Not later than one year after the date of the establishment of the program authorized by subsection (a), the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the program. The report shall include the following:

• (1) A description of each language training center established under the program.

• (2) An assessment of the cost-effectiveness of the program in providing foundational expertise in critical and strategic languages and regional area studies in support of the Defense Language Transformation Roadmap.

• (3) An assessment of the progress made by each language training center in providing capabilities in critical and strategic languages under the program to members of the Armed Forces and Department of Defense employees.

• (4) A recommendation whether the program should be continued and, if so, recommendations as to any modifications of the program that the Secretary considers appropriate.

Afghanistan: Ticks with CCHF Virus?

Sara Carter of The Washington Times has an exclusive on a rare virus found in Afghanistan (Rare virus poses new threat to troops | Nov 6, 2009):

“U.S. military officials sent a medical team to a remote outpost in southern Afghanistan this week to take blood samples from members of an Army unit after a soldier in the unit died from an Ebola-like virus.”

The report says that Sgt. Robert David Gordon, 22, from River Falls, Ala., died Sept. 16 from what turned out to be Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever after he was bitten by a tick. Read the whole thing here.

According to the CDC, the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is caused by infection with a tick-borne virus (Nairovirus) in the family Bunyaviridae. The disease was first characterized in the Crimea in 1944 and given the name Crimean hemorrhagic fever. It was then later recognized in 1969 as the cause of illness in the Congo, thus resulting in the current name of the disease.

Symptoms according to the CDC factsheet:

The onset of CCHF is sudden, with initial signs and symptoms including headache, high fever, back pain, joint pain, stomach pain, and vomiting. Red eyes, a flushed face, a red throat, and petechiae (red spots) on the palate are common. Symptoms may also include jaundice, and in severe cases, changes in mood and sensory perception. As the illness progresses, large areas of severe bruising, severe nosebleeds, and uncontrolled bleeding at injection sites can be seen, beginning on about the fourth day of illness and lasting for about two weeks.

The CDC also says:

• There is no safe and effective vaccine widely available for human use.

• Fatality rates in hospitalized patients have ranged from 9% to as high as 50%.

• Insect repellants containing DEET (N, N-diethyl-m-toluamide) are the most effective in warding off ticks.

The WHO info on CCHF indicates that the length of the incubation period for the illness appears to depend on the mode of acquisition of the virus. Following infection via tick bite, the incubation period is usually one to three days, with a maximum of nine days. The incubation period following contact with infected blood or tissues is usually five to six days, with a documented maximum of 13 days.

This is actually not the first time that CCHF was found in Afghanistan. According to the Federation of American Scientists, 41 deaths from "a form of hemorrhagic fever"were reported in eastern Afghanistan in 2002. In August 2008, the WHO reported a total of 19 CCHF cases with 5 deaths in the Herat region. Click here for info on previous CCHF outbreaks in the area from the International Society for Infectious Disease.

If you’re heading out that way, don’t forget to pack some DEET insect repellants.

Related Items:

• CDC | Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever
• WHO | CCHF | Prevention and Control
• CDC | Protection Against Mosquitoes, Ticks, and Other Insects and Arthropods
• EPA | The Insect Repellent DEET
• EPA | Insect Repellents: Protection Times |Products that Repel Mosquitoes and Ticks | October 23, 2009 | HTML

In Afghanistan. We are the tourists.

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Air Force Reserve Major Richard C. Sater was activated for a one-year tour of duty in support of the war on terrorism in May 2003. He was initially assigned to 4th Air Force, March Air Reserve Base, California. In September 2003, he deployed to Afghanistan for seven months in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, assigned first to Combined Joint Task Force 180 at Bagram Air Base; and later to Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, Kabul. He kept a journal during the deployment, from which the following is extracted. On the civilian side, he has been a college professor of English and the arts and a classical music announcer for a National Public Radio affiliate station.

Notes from a JournalAfghanistan, 11 Sept 2003-7 Apr 2004 was published in War, Literature & the Arts Journal (public domain material). Richard C. Sater is currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

I know nothing about their calendar. But then, so much of the culture here remains absolutely foreign to me.

We are the tourists.

We employ local Afghan men to work on our posts and camps. Hundreds every day, skilled (carpenters, masons, electricians) and unskilled. They work always under guard, a bored junior-ranked soldier or airman seated close by to keep an eye out for sedition. But there is none. The men need work and, in exchange, endure our ignorance.

Bearded black, swarthy, as thin and hard as want, their utter commonness in Afghanistan still seems exotic to me. They wear the traditional loose-fitting robe called a khalat and equally loose-fitting trousers that match; a rolled felt hat, a pakol; a patterned square scarf, and a fringed wool blanket that serves as cloak and protection from dust and winter’s instructive cold.

I can’t even speak to them beyond “salaam,” which equals hello, and “tasha­kor,” approximating thanks. The men will return my gaze but rarely my smile.

I watch them; they regard me with similar curiosity. Sometimes, guilty, I will show them my camera and raise my eyebrows, a mute question. May I? They shrug, nod. My greedy machine snaps the images with more clarity than I can decipher when I view the pictures later, each worth a thousand untranslatable words.

Their faces reflect the bewildering hard times they live in. They could be a hundred years old or a thousand, though many of those I see are probably younger than I. These are handsome men, dignified men, resigned to traveling a hard road. We have pledged something better. Schools, clinics, clean water, jobs, a stable and safe country, a viable national army that will protect it. The men mark the days—twenty-four hours by anyone’s calendar—and wait for us to keep the promise.

No amount of book-learning will fill the chasm between what I understand about this place and what truly is.

Who's Storming Which Office to Sink Al Franken’s S.Amdt. 2588?

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Sam Stein at Huffington Post has just posted an update on Al Franken’s Senate Amendment that has now been called the Anti-Rape Amendment.

An amendment that would prevent the government from working with contractors who denied victims of assault the right to bring their case to court is in danger of being watered down or stripped entirely from a larger defense appropriations bill.

Multiple sources have told the Huffington Post that Sen. Dan Inouye, a longtime Democrat from Hawaii, is considering removing or altering the provision, which was offered by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and passed by the Senate several weeks ago.

Inouye's office, sources say, has been lobbied by defense contractors adamant that the language of the Franken amendment would leave them overly exposed to lawsuits and at constant risk of having contracts dry up. The Senate is considering taking out a provision known as the Title VII claim, which (if removed) would allow victims of assault or rape to bring suit against the individual perpetrator but not the contractor who employed him or her.[…]The second-longest-serving member of the United States Senate, Inouye is a veteran of WWII. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, he has received $294,900 in donations from the defense and aerospace industries over the course of his career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

According to the report, "[t]he defense contractors have been storming his office," said a source with knowledge of the situation.”

Read the whole thing here.

Ugh!!! I’ve just thrown my shoes at my computer screen. But that won’t help.

We can help! Please make time to contact Senator Inouye and tell him not to strip or water down the Franken Amendment, S.Amdt. 2588, from the defense appropriations bill. Call him in DC at Phone: 202-224-3934, Fax: 202-224-6747; in Honolulu at Phone: 808-541-2542, Fax: 808-541-2549; in Hilo at Phone: 808-935-0844, Fax: 808-961-5163. If you’re a HI voter, you can email him here.Call Capitol Hill and tell your senators to keep the Franken Amendment in the bill. Capitol switchboard phone: 202- 224-3121 to contact your senators. Here is Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Office contact numbers: Phone: 202-224-3542, Fax: 202-224-7327. If you’re a NV voter, you can also email Senator Reid here.

Related Post: Who Will Sink Al Franken's S. Amdt. 2588?

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