Inside the Headquarters

Everybody loves a crisis.

Possibly buoyed by the hope of political nirvana, several lawmakers have been making some pretty strong statements about the DoD Trust Fund.

As speculated by some media (though feared by too few Defense leaders), the sharks smell blood and are swimming around the sacred Defense budget. Lawmakers are openly speaking about possibly slashing Defense dollars by as much as 25 percent.

One lawmaker said the services are going to have to choose among their “fancy” weapons systems. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chair of the House Financial Services Committee shared his typically “frank” view, while Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chair of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said the Army would have to make a choice between increasing the size of its force and paying for those weapons systems. “Blurtha,” a retired Marine and perennial favorite on the “what-will-he-say-next” circuit, probably knows the point is moot because lawmakers already have added thousands to Army and Marine Corps rolls.

While such (public) utterances might amount to tried-and-true political preening, the DoD Trust Fund has been virtually bottomless since 2002. Need more? Sure, but what Congress giveth, Congress taketh away. Some within DoD (some well-meaning; others doing time) have proved poor stewards of the Stash of Cash. Could lawmakers be wondering how badly the doe-eyed-and-desperate service du jour “needs” a weapons system, when it allows costs and delivery schedules to spiral out of control? Credibility is such a lonely word. … Remember the Army’s race to disgrace with the Crusader?

No one wants to appear anti defense, but would you loan DoD money?

All good things come to an end (so they can begin anew). Chair of the Joint Chiefs Adm. “Mad Mike” Mullen, USN, recently made his move by shoveling cash into DoD’s main budget for the next several years. Essentially, it seems Frank and Blurtha saw Mad Mike’s $360 billion and upped the ante.

Let the budget bout continue.

Who would have thought the U.S. and Iraq would enter into their own (costly) game of brinksmanship?

Part diplomatic discussion, part union negotiation, the current contract in this case — the U.N. mandate and the legal basis for the U.S. to operate in Iraq — evaporates midnight Dec. 31. Representatives of the two nations have hammered out a deal that must be approved by the Iraqi parliament. This status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) covering the role of U.S. forces in Iraq would take effect Jan 1.

That’s 2009. That’s less than 70 days. That’s well over 100,000 U.S. military personnel and contractors in the eye of this storm.

Decreased violence and improved stability throughout Iraq have taken the one-time hot-button issue off the front pages and out of the fall’s political campaigns. Despite fixation on the financial markets, this challenge in Iraq remains. While it is akin to having a contract end, those thousands of Americans serving will not have the protection they have with the current U.N. mandate or SOFAs in other countries. They will have no legal basis to be in Iraq and might be subject to Iraqi law. Happy New Year: More than a few well-meaning Americans might find themselves embroiled in the Iraqi legal system.

The agreement that is on-the-table and then off (apparently depending on the mood of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet of merry men) calls for U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraqi cities by June 2009 and all forces gone by the close of 2011, unless there is another agreement or extension.

Defense Secretary and occasional Super Hero Robert M. Gates and Chair of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen, USN, have expressed the urgency of the issue. Mad Mike stated the Iraqis are “running out of time” and they would be unable to handle their nation’s security without U.S. support. (Insulting the Iraqis probably is not going to move this any faster.) Gates played good cop to Mad Mike’s bad cop, praising the agreement, noting it was good for everybody and good for “Iraqi sovereignty.” Our guess is the parliamentarians preferred the Super Hero’s approach. (The Iraqi government has not been the fastest to act on much of anything. This agreement might prove no different.)

There are reports that Iran is less-than-pleased with the agreement and would prefer no agreement. It has been said Iraq’s former foe has tried bribes and other means to kill the deal.

(At the same time Russia supports an extension of the U.N. mandate keeping the U.S in Iraq. Of course it does.)

Given the very different and very unhappy parties involved, the almost-guaranteed daily drama over the next two months will be the one to watch. Rejection of the agreement will pose a tremendous challenge to a commander in chief with 20 days left in office.

And THAT might be what all sides are banking on.

It has been reported that DoD is adding $360 billion over the next six defense budgets beginning with the fiscal 2010 stash, which would increase from $527 billion to $587 billion. This news followed recent comments by Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, USN, who stated the services needed to “get off the supplementals.”

Could these moves be related? The Magic Eight Ball says, “Signs point to yes.”

The budgets in question are revisions of estimates sent to Congress in February 2008. The move has been labeled unusual, and some wonder what’s changed since February to justify the increases. It seems DoD has entered budget rehab.

As discussed in our last entry, the Joint Chieftan wants to wean DoD off its second set of books, and he seems to be acting sooner than expected. He finally has figured out two important things. First, Congress most likely will “cut, baby, cut” because supplementals don’t make much sense. (We give them two budgets, why?) The second revelation: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line; it is easier to put the money into one budget than it is to do back-flips while twirling a flaming baton and torturing lawmakers with endless Power Point presentations to coerce them into funding the suspect second set of books.

So Mad Mike’s mainlining’ — desperate times call for desperate measures, and there might be widespread panic over losing supplemental bucks. Moving away from the Enron-style accounting is a good thing.

If DoD wants money, why not raise it? (Call the lawyers, and kids, don’t try this at home.) Out-of-work Wall Streeters can repackage and sell DoD-backed securities to raise capital to more than make up for any loss in the supplemental column. In fact, maybe they can raise enough to buy vexing countries out-right bringing stability not just to the defense budget (excluding the Navy’s shipbuilding program) but to the world. Why not buy Afghanistan and Venezuela? We’re sure North Korea can be had for a good price. Libya would be of tremendous value to our fledgling AFRICOM. Why not really accomplish something with all that money? Brilliant? Shades of Iran-Contra. Sure, but the legal details can be worked out.

Well, maybe not, but Mad Mike’s move to mainline money into the DoD bloodstream and move away from the time-squandered, cajoling Congress for bucks to track in that second set of books is important, albeit long overdue. Better late than never.

Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Michael Mullen recently staged an intervention:
“By and large, we need to get off the supplementals, he stated. Stoicly. Heroically.

Supplementals, simply put, are second/alternative budgets bestowed upon each of the services to “pay” for current combat operations (not that they would ever be expected to just budget for all contingencies in the first place). These have come to be seen as a right by the services — just ask senior military and government servants. Mullen’s words probably sparked caterwauling aplenty. But it wasn’t all tough love: the Joint Chieftan couched his comment in terms of eventual defense spending cutbacks — not from the vantage that two budgets, two sets of service expenditures is no way to run a Navy.

The services have become dependent on this money to operate. Uniformed leaders have stated with panicked confidence words to the effect of, “We can’t run the war without this funding.” Each budget cycle, while the doe-eyed extort Congress for every last penny, planners lurk to exploit those dollars to, oh, maybe front-load Future Combat Systems and move up the Army’s timetable for its “Transformation” to brigade combat teams. War money. Got it.

Two sets of books. Two armies? Army of One does everything except, oh, fight wars. Army Strong contracts to fight wars. No money? No fighty! Like any smart contractor, it does not dig into company funds to carry out the terms of the contract but uses Client Bucks, or supplemental dollars. Absurd? The services have been taught to keep the war off their regular books. When queried, well-meaning leaders seem genuinely mystified that anyone would expect them to budget for combat operations with other operational and maintenance costs. Oddly, they bill as my landscaper bills his clients — charge what you need! After seven years of reprising the Sands of Iwo-Terror one would think the Money Boys would have worked out this cost thing. The probable truth is that supplementals are a windfall giving the services cash they would not have had otherwise. But it has been an addiction that is verging out of control. Spending has outpaced oversight efforts according to DoD Inspector General Claude M. Kicklighter, who is also a retired Army general.
Weaning the services off their supplementals is not unlike weaning an addict from his morphine or snatching the plastic from a shopping fiend. Success, in whatever form, might be fleeting at best, and its odds are daunting.

A deadly incident occurs halfway around the world, and U.S. forces are on the scene in minutes. Farfetched? Not if Defense leaders have their way.

Pentagon officials want to transport warfighters to hot spots via space travel. While pursuits in the not-so-final frontier have been reasonably safe and successful for some time, space travel has not been used as a means for transportation much beyond the International Space Station (that is, that we know of).

Representatives from the services recently met at the D.C.-based National Security Space Office. The two-day planning session targeted the development of the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN) program. USA Today reported that the Marine Corps first pushed the concept in 2001 following the terror attack Sept. 11. The Corps was seeking a way to place its Marines in hot spots quickly and within minutes.
The idea of unit space travel dates back even further when another Marine Gen. Wallace Greene Jr. floated the concept in a 1963 speech, hoping to have Marines in space by 1968. Greene later became the Corps’ commandant.

Fantasy? Private space travel was achieved in 2004. But blasting a squad of combat-ready Marines to a troubled area is a much different task according to experts. Weight is a major issue. The modules cannot be armored so missions are likely to be a one-way trip. Additionally, fuel costs would be staggering.

Currently, a more daunting (and overlooked) challenge is that of contract management. Let’s replay the Tax Payer Hit Parade: The Air Force and DoD have failed to contract for the replacement of the Air Force’s aging tanker fleet. The Navy is awash in cost overruns with its littoral combat ship program. The sea service continues its struggles with cost increases and schedule delays with its Zumwalt class DDG-1000. The Pentagon just scrapped an Army helo program that saw unit cost jump nearly 70 percent. (Can you imagine if the Army did not have its new Contracting Command?!)

They can’t build a helo, but they can get warfighters into space? Contract and cost control remain DoD’s final frontier.

The White House has awarded back pay plus interest to the families of an unusual group of veterans.

The 28 vets were not just World War II soldiers; they were black and had been dishonorably discharged. The convictions came in the aftermath of a deadly incident at Fort Lawton in Seattle. But things might not have been as they seemed, and more than 60 years later, following petitions from some of the soldiers and at the urging of lawmakers and other interested parties, history is being rewritten.

It might not have been a dark and stormy night, but the story plays like a “Cold Case” episode. Flashback a segregated military in August 1944. The story seems familiar: Black soldiers less than pleased to see POWs receiving better treatment from their Army than they received. Another theory is more clichéd: The white soldiers resented the good-looking and sometimes exotic Italian prisoners who were quite popular with the local girls whom they were allowed to date.

What happened Aug. 14 still is open to speculation. What is clear is there was a confrontation in the Italians’ barracks. At the time it was called a “riot,” and it was believed the black soldiers had led the assault. More than 30 men landed in the hospital, some with fractured skulls and stab wounds.

One Italian hung (dead) from a tree.

The next day black soldiers were rounded up. Did they riot as some allege? Were white soldiers involved? Had the dead Italian jumped from a window to escape the melee as some of the other prisoners stated? Did it matter? A dead POW was a big problem. Americans were fighting in Italy and pressing into Germany. Word of mistreatment would endanger American prisoners. Swift action was necessary. It did not have to be accurate. If one believes the varied accounts, justice was of little concern.

Of the 44 black soldiers court martialed, 28 were found guilty. Two were convicted of manslaughter — better than the charge of capital murder four originally had faced. All were dishonorably discharged. In 2007, the Army’s Board of Corrections of Military Records, overturned the convictions ruling the men found guilty in the death had been “denied access to their attorneys and to investigative records,” though the circumstances surrounding the longest and largest court martial were troubling.

Most of the men did not live to see their convictions overturned or receive their honorable discharges. It has been reported that the families of 14 of the men cannot be located. They will not know their loved one’s name has been cleared.

But these men probably carried this shame in secret to the grave.

It had all the makings of a murder-mystery. Maybe a bad NCIS episode. Five dead Army recruiters — all apparent suicides. But this was Houston, where folks looked kindly upon the local recruiters and service in the Army. No Code Pink Kiss-ins to worry about. No perennial parade of protesters outside their doors like their brothers and sisters in Berkeley, Calif., had to endure.

Hope as one may, this is not a made-for-TV script exploiting Army Strong. The Army’s Houston Recruiting Battalion has lost five recruiters to suicide — two just since August. Now a Texas senator is calling for an independent inquiry into the matter. It is alleged that earlier investigations into the suicides and the command climate have been tampered with.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) says he has received complaints of “toxic leadership” and “low morale,” which given the pressures of the job, might not be surprising. There also have been allegations of “ ‘improper and unprofessional’ practices such as mass punishment, organized hazing.” Recruiters who do not make mission have been threatened with discharge. (This is a surprise?)

The Houston Chronicle has followed the story closely for some time and has detailed the lives and untimely deaths of some of the soldiers. As would be expected, it seems at least some of the soldiers were depressed, and in some cases, the command worked to get the soldiers help. In at least one case, the command removed firearms from a soldier’s residence, though the soldier shot himself later anyway. The two most recent soldiers hung themselves.

These soldiers endured workdays were 12-14 hours, six-seven days a week and threats of poor evaluations or being tossed from the Army for failing to make the two-contract monthly mission. It might not be right, but this also describes life for many recruiters in challenging markets and times, like, the late 1980s to the early 1990s. How about holding a DUI over an officer’s head to ensure he performed? Desperate times can breed desperate measures. The delta here might be the war-weary going from the streets of Ramadi, Iraq, to the streets of Houston, some battling PTSD. But five suicides? Trend? Aberration? Perfect storm?

Maybe it’s a source of pride. Or it’s about insecurity. Maybe it brings a rush. Wearing a military uniform is an honor; impersonating an officer is a crime (18 U.S.C. § 912).

Reported occurrences of wannabe’s donning military threads — and the higher rank the better — seem to be on the rise. Last year, Trung Huan Nguyen appeared as a Navy rear admiral, speaking at a Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces Day outside Washington, D.C. (The event took place at Eden Center, an enclave of Vietnamese restaurants and shops catering to the area’s growing Vietnamese population. It is like stepping out of Falls Church, Va., and into the former South Vietnam. This is a must-see. But we digress.) Nguyen was pushing his luck. Some of the 100 attending the event became suspicious, as often happens. The former sailor has pleaded guilty to impersonating an officer and is looking at a maximum of three years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Some have impersonated general officers; others masquerade with lesser rank. Some are former military, like Nguyen, who was a former sailor; others have never served. Some are on active duty and make unlawful claims, often to military decorations they never received. Our personal fave was the Marine staff sergeant at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Calif., who passed himself off as one of the Iran hostages held from 1979-81. He spoke about his captivity at numerous events and wore the corresponding decorations. His claims went unquestioned, and the charade went on for so long he seemed to truly believe it himself. He eventually was outed and tossed from the Corps.

There are those embellish the details of their services. The false musings themselves are not a crime; if they don decorations or otherwise gain their dishonesty, that’s a different story. These guys make stuff up. It often starts with small, but then the stories grow. One day the masquerader is no longer the insurance salesman or veteran who spent time on board a ship in what he considers an irrelevant theater. Now he’s shooting down kamikazes, liberating concentration camps, or fighting the infamous fire on the USS Forrestal. (We cannot get over how many people we have met who were on the Forrestal at the time of the deadly fire.)

Most of these guys probably just want respect. They want to be John Wayne, Jack Nicholson, George C. Scott, Richard Gere. (We get the Richard Gere thing.) They want to be a part of something bigger.

Maybe imitation truly is the highest form of flattery.

In the face of worsening violence and leaks from a classified report that “concludes Afghanistan is in a downward spiral” Defense Secretary (and occasional superhero) Robert M. Gates has endorsed talks with Taliban leaders.

Better late than never?

Coalition and Afghan government reconciliation with receptive Taliban is crucial to the future of a quasi-stable and quasi-peaceful Afghanistan. It generally is accepted if Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S. want to retain a central government like Karzai’s, as fragile as it might be, brokering some sort of agreement with receptive Taliban might be key to avoiding further decline.

Some pundits and think tanks say the “desire to engage the Taliban” began last year, but such efforts date back to the early years of U.S. forces’ sojourn in this land of rugged beauty. In 2004, some coalition leaders on the ground talked to the Taliban regularly. Why? Because they had to — and it worked.

Since the first provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) appeared on the scene, the enormous undertaking of rebuilding this vast nation would have been impossible without close collaboration with local leaders — Taliban in some areas. One PRT commander, the first in Paktika Province, a region perched on the perilous Afghanistan-Pakistan border says, “There are good Taliban and bad Taliban,” his wisdom apparent with the passage of time and a deteriorating situation.

Good Taliban? According to our PRT commander, if local leaders (Taliban or otherwise) are taking care of their villages (and are not otherwise provincial thugs), it works, though relationships are anything but simple. Thugs? Those are the bad Taliban. Engage the good, theoretically the bad are forced out. It has worked on a smaller scale, but will it work for all of Afghanistan?

As the world peers into what could be the Afghanistan abyss, Gates and others admit the Afghanistan of tomorrow might not be the pillar of American-style democracy they tried to sell at one time. This should be no surprise. It seems everyone finally is in agreement there might be no future for Afghanistan as it’s now known unless elements of the Taliban are accepted on some level. Will they meet in Karzai’s Western-style digs or will Mohammad go to the mountain? Regardless, despite these seemingly desperate circumstances forcing reconciliation, hopefully, PRTs (and special operations units … you know who you are) throughout Afghanistan have maintained strong ties with the good (and the bad when necessary).

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey has said some difficult decisions might lie ahead for Army modernization and future technology. It seems the writing might be on the wall, and funding will have to be moved from legacy programs like the Abrams tank, Bradley fighting vehicle, and Stryker to fund Future Combat Systems (FCS). Though Casey implied a necessary move away from “Cold War systems,” our guess is the fiscal number crunching is on the wall, and the FCS well might be running dry.

Speaking at the annual Association of the U.S. Army D.C. Sit-in and Love Fest, Casey might have been sounding “Retreat,” succumbing to fiscal and political realities not beyond his control. Others in fact might be working to heave FCS (and maybe other Army programs … and maybe the Army) under the bus, but rarely has this been a deterrent to more embattled entities. Like the Navy. And Air Force.

Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig recently discussed an approach to future defense spending and other service-related issues. He noted that “costly” weapons programs should receive close scrutiny. He singled out the Army’s FCS and the national missile defense program.

Unmentioned but screaming, “Whattabout me?!” were disastrous Navy and Air Force programs that have dominated trade rag headlines and sent Air Force leadership packin’ the way of Wall Street fat cats.

Speaking at a Defense Writers Group meeting in Washington, D.C., Danzig said he thinks some programs may need to be revamped due to the “realities of cost.” But he would not sacrifice good ol’ air and sea power for superfluous efforts, like fighting nasty terrorists and guerillas. (Gee, and we thought maybe Navy and Air Force ought to see funding and programs curtailed because of the mismanagement and incompetence that have plagued their efforts for some time. Guess we were wrong.)

Danzig went on to imply funding for shipbuilding needed to increase. “Obviously, we’re not building enough [ships],” he said. Obvious to whom, Dick? To George Casey? You’re right, “we’re not building enough.” That’s because the Navy is struggling to find itself and a mission, and it is difficult to design even ships for a Navy that wrestles with vexing issues like which race-based award to support this week, and“Do I wear the brown shoes or the black, shiny ones? Sigh.” It is a challenge to build one (O-N-E) ship close to the budget nebula let alone multiple ships to get it to Magic 313. If the Boys in Blue could curb that appetite for change, a solution to NATO’s woes may not be far behind.

Danzig noted programs need to serve multiple uses and not target one threat (the mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle is our guess here). And the Army and Marine Corps need to grow without sacrificing quality. (Uh, too late: the Army is already clear-cutting Cat IVs and non high school grads (Sorry, George.), and according to recent reports, enlistment bonuses in the Army and Marine Corps are up 25 percent, well over $600 million for the year.)

Apparently the Navy man dared not criticize the Lost Boys or their DOA Zumwalt (that’s Dead on Arrival, the Flipped Ship to Nowhere DDG 1000). The Navy’s woes coupled with the financial-market style meltdown of Air Force procurement and leadership were probably too much to stand the scrutiny of his audience, so Danzig went after FCS — multiple systems, as easy to explain on the Hill as it is to cut. He says “F-C-S.” We say “Jum-bo-tron!”  He says “Air Force.” We Say “Melt Down.”

George, if the Navy can come out on top in 2008 with the promise of more money to squander in its ship-musings program, the Army should be able to find some backing for viable programs and comparatively well-managed money.

Go get ‘em, George