| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Notes on Iraq from Retired Flag Officer Conference |
| 2006-06-22 |
| You will probably recognize at least one name of the presentors 20 June 2006 Note: This is from a recent "Retired Flag Officer Conference " recently held at Ft. Carson. Some of the comments and observations will not be news, but some of them will be. All of it is very interesting and has been released by the author for posting. I think you will be glad you gave it a gander. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MGen Butcher has approved relaying this email. His quote "------is just too important not to pass on." Although many of us have had suspicions about the true situation this provides us with hard no spin evidence from officers who have "had their feet on the ground". Paul -------------- Forwarded Message: -------------- From: "Bob Butcher" Subject: Retired Flag Officers Conference - Comments from a Navy Rear Admiral (2 star) Retiree Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:45:51 +0000 --------------- is just too important not to pass on. Bob Earlier this week I (Rear Admiral) attended a retired general and flag officer conference at Fort Carson, hosted by MGen Bob Mixon, the 7th Infantry Division Commander, which calls the Fort its home. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Ft. Carson, it is a huge installation located to the south of Colorado Springs; it’s in the process of becoming one of the larger Army installations in the country (26,000 soldiers); and it is the test location for the new “modular brigade” concept that will reflect the Army of tomorrow by 2008. It is also the home post of the largest number of troopers who have served multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and, regrettably, the largest number of troopers who have died in combat there over the past three years. There are Ft. Carson units going to and returning from the combat area virtually on a monthly basis. The conference was primarily organized to explain the modular brigade concept, and it featured a panel of officers who had either very recently returned from commands in the combat zone or were about to deploy there in the next two months. Three of the recent returnees were Colonel H.R. McMaster, Colonel Rick S., and Captain Walter Szpak. McMaster is the commander of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment, the unit that, through very innovative and population-friendly tactics, rid the city of Tal Afar of insurgents. The mayor of Tal Afar came back to Carson two weeks ago to thank the troopers and their families personally for “freeing his people”. (You say you didn’t hear about that in the mainstream media?) McMaster is considered the foremost U.S. expert on modern insurgent warfare, has written a book on the subject which is widely circulated at the war colleges and staff colleges, and he was asked to testify before Congress when he returned from the 3rd ACR combat deployment. He is obviously one of the great combat leaders that has emerged from the war and is highly respected (some would say revered) by his troopers and his superiors alike. Colonel S. is assigned to the 10th Special Forces Brigade and he headed up all of the 31 Special Forces A-teams that are integrated with the populace and the Iraqi Army and national police throughout the country. Many of these are the guys that you see occasionally on the news that have beards, dress in native regalia, usually speak Arabic and don’t like to have their identities revealed for fear of retribution on their families (thus the Colonel S.) Captain Szpak was the head of all the Army explosive ordnance teams in Iraq. He and his troops had the job of disarming all the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and explosive formed projectiles (EFPs) that were discovered before they were detonated. They also traveled around the country training the combat forces in recognizing and avoiding these devices in time to prevent death and injury. IEDs and EFPs are responsible for the vast majority of casualties experienced by our forces. Despite the objective of the conference (i.e., the modular brigade concept), it quickly devolved into a 3œ hour question and answer period between the panel and the 54 retired generals and admirals who attended. I wish I had a video of the whole session to share with you because the insights were especially eye opening and encouraging. I’ll try to summarize the high points as best I can. All returnees agreed that “we are clearly winning the fight against the insurgents but we are losing the public relations battle both in the war zone and in the States”. (I’ll go into more detail on each topic below.) All agreed that it will be necessary for us to have forces in Iraq for at least ten more years, though by no means in the numbers that are there now. They opined that 80% to 90% of the Iraqi people want to have us there and do not want us to leave before “the job is done”. The morale and combat capability of the troops is the highest that the senior officers have ever seen in the 20-30 years that each has served. The Iraqi armed forces and police are probably better trained right now than they were under Saddam, but our standards are much higher and they lack officer leadership. They don’t need more troops in the combat zone but they need considerably more Arab linguists and civil affairs experts. The IEDs and EFPs continue to be the principal problem that they face and they are becoming more sophisticated as time passes. (They are catching bomb makers with masters degrees from American universities!) He then goes into more depth on each of these topics. Some interesting news and observations. Well worth the read |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #3 lets hope good minds get to work on that as well. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-06-22 19:07 |
| #2 All returnees agreed that “we are clearly winning the fight against the insurgents but we are losing the public relations battle both in the war zone and in the States”. (I’ll go into more detail on each topic below.) So, how many piped up and recommended that this 'PR' work no longer be outsourced? How many recommended that they'd accept a 'cut' of their force structure to build a world class news organization to tell the Big Picture[tm] by utilizing the modern technology and the 'kids' on the ground who know how to talk to their generation [vice the over 60 crowd who read the same old dead tree pubs and listen to the old talking heads]? What's the purpose of winning on the ground but lose the war at home? |
| Posted by: Slineck Glaising9951 2006-06-22 16:42 |
| #1 I love it when they flip that phone open. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-06-22 16:13 |