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Tomdarch - Not trying to bait you this time. Just thought I'd provide an excerpt from Woodward's new book that you're so fond of. Remember what the left was always screaming about how it does no good to kill terrorists? That two more would just pop up in the place of every one we kill? Hmmm.


TARGETED KILLINGS KEY ACCORDING TO WOODWARD

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The dramatic drop in violence in Iraq is due in large part to a secret program the U.S. military has used to kill terrorists, according to a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward.

Bob Woodward's book, "The War Within: Secret White House History 2006-2008," came out Monday.

The program -- which Woodward compares to the World War II era Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb -- must remain secret for now or it would "get people killed," Woodward said Monday on CNN's Larry King Live.

"It is a wonderful example of American ingenuity solving a problem in war, as we often have," Woodward said.

In "The War Within: Secret White House History 2006-2008," Woodward disclosed the existence of secret operational capabilities developed by the military to locate, target and kill leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent leaders.

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, in a written statement reacting to Woodward's book, acknowledged the new strategy. Yet he disputed Woodward's conclusion that the "surge" of 30,000 U.S. troops into Iraq was not the primary reason for the decline in violent attacks.

"It was the surge that provided more resources and a security context to support newly developed techniques and operations," Hadley wrote.

Woodward, associate editor of the Washington Post, wrote that along with the surge and the new covert tactics, two other factors helped reduce the violence.

One was the decision of militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's to order his Mahdi Army to cease fire. The other was the "Anbar Awakening" movement that saw Sunni tribes aligning with U.S. troops to battle al Qaeda in Iraq.

Woodward told Larry King that while there is a debate over how much credit the new secret operations should get for the drop in violence, he concluded it "accounts for a good portion."

"I would somewhat compare it to the Manhattan Project in World War II," he said "It's a ski slope right down in a matter of months, cutting the violence in half. This isn't going to happen with the bunch of joint security stations or the surge."

The top secret operations, he said, will "some day in history ... be described to peoples' amazement."

While he will not reveal the details, Woodward said the terrorists who have been targeted were already aware of the capabilities.

"The enemy has a heads up because they've been getting wiped out and a lot of them have been killed," he said. "It's not news to them.

"If you were a member of al Qaeda or the resistance or some extremist militia, you would be wise to get your rear end out of town," Woodward said. "It is very dangerous."

Not too surprising that we have assassins in our military.

It appears that even a really smart guy like Woodward can't see the forest for the trees.

Let's see. Patreus developed a new counter insurgency strategy (COIN). He requested a surge in troop levels to help him implement the new strategy. This strategy (which had many elements) proved to be, in the words of Barack Obama, "successful beyond our wildest dreams".

Still, the critics insist on saying "it was the strategy that worked, not the surge". What is it about those words "the surge" that drives so many to deny reality? I think I know. What say you?

krampus wrote:Not to surprising that we have assassins in our military.

Hate to belabor the point, but consider this. Under "the surge" we began the highly successful targeted killings of terrorist leaders. In light of this, terrorist leader Sadr announces a cease fire. Critics say "it wasn't the surge that cooled things off, it was Sadr's cease fire". Fuck, that's funny.

secret program. that's funny. the whole point of the war on terrorism is to kill terrorists.

L K Day wrote:Still, the critics insist on saying "it was the strategy that worked, not the surge". What is it about those words "the surge" that drives so many to deny reality? I think I know. What say you?

As usual, you are unwilling to define terms.

In early 2007, there was a national debate about whether or not it was a good idea to send about 20,000 additional US troops to Iraq in the following few months. At that time the term "the Surge" was exclusively and specifically used to refer to this increase in troop deployments. Both McCain and Obama supported changing from the ineffective tactics that were previously being used to more effective tactics. What the differed on was one critical point: Should the US send about 20,000 more troops to Iraq in the following months or not. We're looking back and asking "who was right?" I say McCain got lucky on several points. It's hard to say if Obama was right, because we didn't send additional troops to Afghanistan as he was suggesting. (I'll bet that Dink Dink has an opinion on that, though.)

Let's be clear also on what that increase in troops meant on the ground. Only a fraction of the additional 28,000 us troops are actual combat troops and at the same time as "the Surge" of US troops, thousands of other 'coalition' troops in Iraq were either disengaged from contact with Iraqis (like the 7,000 UK troops that were pulled out of Basra, and then reduced to 5,000 troops hunkered down at an airport out of town) or totally removed from Iraq like the Danish contingent. So, in a nation of 29,000,000 people, what was the net increase in "boots on the ground"? I don't know exactly, but when you ask "did the increase in US troop deployments (aka "the Surge") cause the recent changes in Iraq?", it's important to keep in mind.

Hopefully, I've clarified that "the Surge" specifically refered to the increased US troop deployments. The next issue is defining your meaning of "deny reality" in this case. I'm happy, though, to point out that it is nice that you've stopped using the vague-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness term "success."

Yes, Obama is using the "wildly successful" phrase (especially when talking to the BillO audience) and that's unfortunate. It is more effective "politically" for him to talk this way and leave out the critical details. It's too bad because he knows better.

So what's the "reality" in Iraq over the last year an a half that Larry refers to:

- Widespread ethnic cleansing (along with a major Iraqi refugee problem in the region) has taken people out of contact with each other, reducing violent conflict, and correspondingly, reducing deaths of US troops. More US troops in Iraq didn't cause (or stop) that.

- Sunnis in Anbar (and other parts of Iraq) turned against AQI (the people in Iraq who started calling themselves "al Qaeda"). The US funded, armed and trained those Sunni militia to fight AQI, and that has been fairly "successful". The "Surge" - the increase in US troops did help with that, but was it critical? Hard to say. (But this arming of Sunni militia is a ticking time bomb in the future of the now-cooled Iraqi civil war. The mostly Shia government in Baghdad is none too happy about better armed, better organized Sunni militia on the outskirts of Baghdad.)

- Gen. Petraeus changed the tactics (separate from what Woodward is talking about) that US troops were using, which proved to be much more effective. Yes, the increase in troops (the "Surge") probably helped with this aspect, more than any other.

- Other militias, like Sadr's, have pulled back from direct conflict. It doesn't matter if they were taking losses or not. The problem is that they haven't been "defeated" like you defeat a normal army. These militias are just neighborhood guys with a few guns and maybe some explosives. They have simply put their weapons in the closet and are off the streets. When shit blows up in the future, they'll be back. There's little the US military can do about them - disarming and disbanding them is something that only the Iraqi government can do. Whatever role the increase in US troops had in the militia situation is, at best, temporary.

So, Woodward knows the details of this "targeted killing program" and he says that it was this tactic that was far more important than the additional US troops ("the Surge"). I have to assume that if he thought that the net increase in troops was important to implementing the new tactic, he would say so.

It sounds like the White House gave Woodward more access than just about any one outside the government (and their contractors) to what's actually been going on in Iraq, and he says that "the Surge" (the increase in troops) was far less important than the targeting killings, the Anbar Awakening or Sadr's pull-back.

But Larry "knows reality". OK - enlighten us.

The other problem here is this use of the word "terrorists" - as always, it's pretty damn vague. As an American, I'm most worried about "the terrorists" who want to do things like, oh, blow up the high-rise building that I'm sitting in here in Chicago! Or the terrorists who might want to kidnap and behead my dad the next time he's somewhere like Pakistan for work. I'm also pretty worried about the "terrorists" who want to do nasty things to subways in Europe, and such.

Sure, AQI fit in our conception of "terrorists" pretty well. They were/are a bunch of sick, religious nutjobs to the point that they turned their fellow Sunnis in Iraq against them. The problem is that they were focused on the internal conflict in Iraq, rather than having much time or energy to devote to external attacks. All they managed were a few small attacks in neighboring Jordan and they claimed to have taken some rocket pot-shots from Lebanon into Israel. Will the routing of AQI by combined US/Iraqi forces be used as a global propaganda point by Core al Qaeda? I have no idea. But they were clearly not the type of religious/ideological "terrorists" where "killing one creates ten more."

AQI strike me as being much more like the Colombian right-wing paramilitaries - sick fuckers who had an 'ideological' base, but basically existed to self-perpetuate and murder civilians.

Again, we're back to Obama's point that we need to be focusing on Core al Qaeda. They are they people who want to and are organized to attack "western" people and interests around the world. Military action has a role, but it's much more complicated than "killin' lots of terrorists."

Ya know what? Some smart people did actual research and looked at those weird "fact" thingys and came to some conclusions:

All terrorist groups eventually end. But how do they end? The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have ended because (1) they joined the political process (43 percent) or (2) local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members (40 percent). Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame have achieved victory. This has significant implications for dealing with al Qa'ida and suggests fundamentally rethinking post-9/11 U.S. counterterrorism strategy: Policymakers need to understand where to prioritize their efforts with limited resources and attention. The authors report that religious terrorist groups take longer to eliminate than other groups and rarely achieve their objectives. The largest groups achieve their goals more often and last longer than the smallest ones do. Finally, groups from upper-income countries are more likely to be left-wing or nationalist and less likely to have religion as their motivation. The authors conclude that policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa'ida. And U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase “war on terrorismâ€

Man I just wish I had the kind of time that Tomdarch does to write posts. With 6 year old triplets and a house to run (plus one more baby due in 8 weeks) I feel like I can barely take a shit, much less rant that long about anything.

Sorry Tomdarch, I didn't even read your post. I don't have time to!

I do waste a bit of time...

I'm trying to put "executive summaries" in when I really ramble!

Summary of above "Surge, blah, blah, blah, ethnic cleansing, blah, blah, secret tactics, blah, blah, Rambo and Chuck Norris combined can't beat al Qaeda."

they are often long, but usually interesting.

tomdarch wrote: I do waste a bit of time...

I'm trying to put "executive summaries" in when I really ramble!

Summary of above "Surge, blah, blah, blah, ethnic cleansing, blah, blah, secret tactics, blah, blah, Rambo and Chuck Norris combined can't beat al Qaeda."