HerbEly

Poor Intelligence, (Un)Just War, the Bishops and Veterans

There is a just war question Bishops should, but probably won’t address in their forthcoming statement on political responsibility of American voters. Three successive columns by conservative writer George Will serve to illustrate the point that the Bishops will likely miss.

In his November 11th column on LA Times writer Bob Drogan’s book on intelligence source code named “Curveball”, Will relates how misleading information from an Iraqi émigré led us into the Iraq war:

…Curveball did not cause the war; rather, he greased the slide to war by nourishing the certitudes of people whose confidence made them blind to his implausibility.

Drogin probably overstates his indictment of U.S. officials when he says that the CIA, having failed to "connect the dots" prior to 9/11, "made up the dots" regarding Iraq's WMDs. In the next paragraph his assessment is less sinister -- but more alarming. More alarming because his formulation suggests that the problem was human nature, and there is always a lot of that in government. Calling Curveball a fabricator, Drogin writes, "implied that U.S. intelligence had fallen for a clever hoax. The truth was more disturbing. The defector didn't con the spies so much as they conned themselves."

Drogin's book arrives, serendipitously, as some Washington voices, many of them familiar, are reprising a familiar theme -- Iran's nuclear program is near a fruition that justifies preventive military action….

The Bush administration (and every major political candidate with the exception of Ron Paul and the possible exception of Mitt Romney), has indicated that will it consider a preemptive attack against Iran in order to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. In the abstract, a preemptive attack is likely to fail to meet several criteria of just war teachings.

Just war advocates might, with considerable effort, devise conditions under which a preemptive attack can be reconciled with the just war criteria of last resort. With more effort, they may be able to discern how Presidential authorization of a pre-emptive attack is compatible with the just war criteria that a war cannot be started without legitimate authority. In our system of government, James Madison sought to restrict this authority to the Congress, reasoning that Presidents should have less military power than kings.

Will indirectly addresses the legitimate authority question his November 4th column on the Constitutional War Powers Resolution introduced by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC):

Jones' measure is designed to ensure that deciding to go to war is, as the Founders insisted it be, a "collective judgment." It would prohibit presidents from initiating military actions except to repel or retaliate for sudden attacks on America or American troops abroad, or to protect and evacuate U.S. citizens abroad. It would provide for expedited judicial review to enforce compliance with the resolution, and permit the use of federal funds only for military actions taken in compliance with the resolution.

The constitutional issues are complex. Will doesn’t even touch on the just war issues of last resort, legitimate authority, just cause and probability of success. A thorough congressional debate would improve the odds of a correct Presidential assessment on the last two criteria. It would also improve the odds of a sound strategy and victory. (See my 1991 article in Army here.) When the Bishops do discuss their document on faithful citizenship the will properly debate pro-life issues, especially abortion and stem cell research. They will, I predict, make some pro-forma statements on just war and sparing non-combatants. They should also encourage a challenge to political candidates on the just war criteria of last resort and legitimate authority as they might relate to a pre-emptive attack on Iran.

This will be unfortunate. The Bishops might have some influence by cautioning candidates about a preemptive attack. Their impact on abortion, at least as a result of presidential election, will be minimal. As Will wrote on October 28th:

So, the overturning of Roe might not result from a Republican president's alteration of the court's balance. But suppose it did.
Again, so what? Many, perhaps most, Americans, foggy about the workings of their government, think that overturning Roe would make abortion, one of the nation's most common surgical procedures, illegal everywhere. All it actually would do is restore abortion as a practice subject to state regulation. But because Californians are content with current abortion law, their legislature probably would adopt it in state law.
It is not irrational for voters to care deeply about a candidate's stance regarding abortion because that stance is accurately considered an important signifier of the candidate's sensibilities and sympathies, and of his or her notion of sound constitutional reasoning. But regarding abortion itself, what a candidate thinks about abortion rights is not especially important.

Public figures on the Christian right and left are likely to overlook the need to challenge presidential candidates on the issues of last resort and legitimate authority. The candidates will not mention the issues, for fear of sounding soft on terrorism.

In honor of veteran's day, we should pause, give thanks and consider the moral obligation this country owes to its future veterans. The best way to do this is to insist that our elected representatives fully consider the just war criteria before starting a war. Protesting to stop a war is a much lesser, sometimes harmful, service.

Col. Patrick Lang's article in the Jesuit weekly America is a tribute and a reminder of what we owe these brave men and women before the war starts.

CBS’s Pitch on Curve Ball Just Misses the Strike Zone

The baseball analogy is irresistible. While the 60 minutes story last night on “Curve Ball” – the Iraqi source of misleading intelligence on Iraq’s WMD programs - added detail, it missed the causes of this intelligence failure.

“Curve Ball” was the intelligence designator of the Iraqi defector – or émigré – who was the source of misleading reports on Iraqi mobile bioweapons laboratories (which CBS kept calling mobile bioweapons). These reports were used to justify the war against Iraq. 60 minutes added details including:
• The name (Rafid Ahmed Alwan) and questionable background of this source.
• The fact that German Intelligence wrote CIA Director of Central Intelligence warning him that information from Curveball was unverified.
• Repeated efforts by CIA Group Chief Margaret Henoch to discredit the Curve Ball reports. Henoch eventually compared the to the game “Whack a Mole.”

Beginning intelligence analysts and interrogators are taught that émigré’s and defectors are likely to provide information that will help them obtain a new life in their new country. Analysts and interrogators approach their task with a learned skepticism. From my former insider’s point of view, it appears that many of them were properly skeptical and warned top intelligence leaders of their doubts.

In order to throw a strike, 60 minutes should have asked why the Bush administration’s top level officials, particularly Tenet and DoD’s Office of special Plans ignored or overruled these warnings. At this point it appears that there are three possible explanations;
• A mindset fed by Saddam’s evil actions and previous pattern of deception led to a confirmation bias. Curve Ball’s information fit an expected pattern.
• A strong desire to protect the United States against another 9/11 led to intelntional self deception and confirmation bias.
• They knew the information was unreliable but lied because it supported their public case.

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ve seen this story before:
• April 27, 2007 George Tenet and the Generalized Iceberg Theorem
• February 8, 2006 Politicized Intelligence Analysis
• November 11, 2005 Did Bush Lie or Was the Intelligence Analysis Flawed
• November 10, 2005 The Emporer's New Threat Assessment
• June 16, 2005 The Powers that Be Were the CIA’s Top Three
• April 19, 2005 Could Judge Silberman Retroactively Resign from the WMD Comission?
• April 15, 2005 Intelligence Failures: Senate Investigation Continues
• April 9, 2005 Can't These People Read?
• April 6, 2005 Judge Silberman Can't Hit Curve Ball
• December 14, 2004 The Missing Weapons: Asking the Right Questions
• August 23, 2004 Right Question - 4 Years Too Late
• July 13, 2004 CIA Officials Curious Use of the Upper Case

Please don’t take all of this as meaning that I am joining the anti-war protestors. I’m not – but I do think that political leaders have a moral obligation to do their jobs properly before they send someone else’s sons and daughters into combat. There was a just cause for the war, even though the Bush administration failed to make the case. Had the intelligence been properly analyzed and the case made honestly, the war might have been fought differently – or not at all.

This is partly because the Bush administration failed to apply some of the lessons learned from Vietnam.

IMHO Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC) with his Constitutional War Powers Resolution has the right approach to a solution. See George Will for details.

None of this addresses the question of what we should do in Iraq now. For that I suggest following Col. Pat Lang's blog.

If you are wondering how such an unreliable source came to be code named "curve ball", I can guess that his was part of a series all given baseball names. It would be interesting to know if there were sources code name fast ball, screw ball, etc.

Note: this post linked to Beltway Traffic Jam for 11/05/07

Presidential Candidates: the Unasked Just War Questions

Prolife supporters are actively debating whether or not they should support any of the presidential candidates based on their positions on abortion. They, and other Christian leaders are overlooking the question about the justice of a pre-emptive attack on Iran.

Every major Democratic candidate - Obama, Edwards, & Clinton – has implicitly endorsed a preemptive attack on Iran in order to prevent the development of nuclear weapons. Neither Huckabee, McCain, Thompson or Giuliani thought it necessary to obtain congressional permission prior to an attack. To his credit, Romney advocated a preliminary discussion with his attorneys in order to ascertain his authority. Ron Paul simply advocated following the Constitution.

Christians have reconciled Deut 5:17 “You shall not kill” with the necessity for defense by means of the
Just War theory.For purposes of review, the just war criteria that govern the decision to go to war are:

Legitimate authority
Only duly constituted public authorities may use deadly force or wage war
Right intention
Force may be used only in a truly just cause and solely for that purpose—correcting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain or maintaining economies is not.
Probability of success
Arms may not be used in a futile cause or in a case where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success;
Last resort
Force may be used only after all peaceful and viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted.

Even if we give the candidates credit for the criteria of right intention (just cause), reasoning that preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons is a sufficient cause, the other criteria still must be met. In order to meet the criteria of legitimate authority, a President must have a pre-authorization from Congress. (President Bush already has sufficient legal authorization.) It is possible, I suppose, to reconcile the criteria of last resort with mounting a preemptive attack. It would be a tricky argument and would have to assume adequate intelligence – something notably lacking in recent years.

My guess is that none of the candidates would be able to reconcile the notion of a preemptive attack with these two criteria. The most likely response would be total confusion.

Prolife advocates and Christian leaders should be asking this question now. They can demand answers while there may still be time. On the other hand, George Will contends that overturning Roe v. Wade will make little difference.

Richard Rhodes on the War Scare, Neocon’s and Threat Inflation

The Style section of the Washington Post features Bob Thompon’s profile of author Richard Rhodes. His just published Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race, gives an account of the 1983 war scare - the incident precipitated by exercise Able Archer 83 that might have led to a nuclear war. Rhodes apparently thinks the incident to be more important that did Melvin Leffler in his lecture at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. Leffler saw it as important, but not a turning point.

The Tompson profile also links the Neoconservative's Reagan era “threat inflation” to the current war in Iraq. (As a civilian analyst of Soviet Weapons Programs, who served through 1996, I felt that the whole neocon “Team B” approach was better described as “threat exaggeration.’) Based on this profile, and the Amazon review – I haven’t yet read the book – Rhodes connects this threat inflation to the justification for the war in Iraq. While the neocon’s and their approach certainly played a role, there were both good reasons and analytical errors that led to overstating the WMD threat in Iraq. My own view is that the administration, under fear of another 9/11 overstated the threat, and (deliberately?) ignored evidence that would have dissuaded them, or at least led them to fight the war differently.

Pat Lang on Crocker/Petreus

Col. Pat Lang spoke on The Crocker/Petraeus Report: What Does it Really Mean? (video) At the University of Virginia’s Miller Center on October 3, 2007. Well worth the hour to watch it. Sorry I didn’t take the time to go over and meet him.

He also offered a few comments on Iran. In assessing the nuclear threat, he suggested something that the Intelligence community failed to do on the question of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq:perform a programmatic analysis. A through programmatic analysis would not just ask if Iran has a nuclear weapons program. It would ask, when it will test, and when it will have the weapon mounted on a delivery system. Lang suggests that this will be a matter of years. If this is the case – and I hope that this time the administration is asking this question – there is time before a military attack will be required.

Lang observes that the administration already has all the legal authority it needs to attack Iran. Let me ask, as I did on August 22, 2005, where are the bishops and theologians? We have politicians busy posturing on pro-choice vs. pro-life, gay marriage, etc. Can’t someone ask them how they reconcile the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive attack with the just war criteria of last resort and legitimate authority? Unfortunately, there is no reason to change my August 2005 statement:

My guess is that the Bishops will ignore the question – being busy with topics such as 1) who should decide whether a politician should receive communion; 2) whether or not Harry Potter is a threat to children’s faith; 3) closing parishes in order to pay for their dereliction of administrative duty; and 4) changing the language of the Mass.

Am I being too harsh?

Lecture on How the Cold War Ended

Melvin P. Leffler gave a one hour overview of his new book For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War. IMO, it is well worth downloading and watching the video. Leffler looks at US and Soviet leaders, in terms of international forces, domestic politics, and belief systems is revealing. Even from start, leaders on both sides recognized that the Cold War worked against their national interests. He asks why the cold war could not be ended until Reagan and Gorbachev.

In answer to a question at the very end, he places exercise Able Archer 83 and the “war scare” in context. The Soviets perceived Able Archer in the context of expectation of a preemptive nuclear attack. While no one knows how close we really came to a nuclear war, the incident clearly influenced Reagan and Gorbachev. Leffler views it as important, but apparently not a turning point. For my own view, see my June 2004 posting on How Carter Helped Reagan End the Cold War

Did He Shoot Himself in the Right or the Left Foot?

   

Armed Forces Journal just published Lt. Col Paul Yingling’s A Failure in Generalship. The article is critical of Army Leadership and indirectly critical of the President. While it is coolly analytical in tone, the article is evidently passionate.

    I will post comments over the next few days. In the meantime please read the entire article. Here are a few extracts – with some emphasis of my own.

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.
…..
Armies do not fight wars; nations fight wars. War is not a military activity conducted by soldiers, but rather a social activity that involves entire nations. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that passion, probability and policy each play their role in war. Any understanding of war that ignores one of these elements is fundamentally flawed.
The passion of the people is necessary to endure the sacrifices inherent in war. Regardless of the system of government, the people supply the blood and treasure required to prosecute war. The statesman must stir these passions to a level commensurate with the popular sacrifices required…. The greatest error the statesman can make is to commit his nation to a great conflict without mobilizing popular passions to a level commensurate with the stakes of the conflict.
…
The most tragic error a general can make is to assume without much reflection that wars of the future will look much like wars of the past.

...

After visualizing the conditions of future combat, the general is responsible for explaining to civilian policymakers the demands of future combat and the risks entailed in failing to meet those demands…. The general who speaks too loudly of preparing for war while the nation is at peace places at risk his position and status. However, the general who speaks too softly places at risk the security of his country.
…
While the physical courage of America's generals is not in doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage. In almost surreal language, professional military men blame their recent lack of candor on the intimidating management style of their civilian masters. Now that the public is immediately concerned with the crisis in Iraq, some of our generals are finding their voices. They may have waited too long.

    Did LTC Yingling “shoot himself in the foot”, i.e. end his career with this article? James Joyner  suggests that he hasn’t:

An interesting critique and one that has a long tradition in modern militaries, which tolerate respectful dissent as part of their constant learning process. Indeed, a young Winston Churchill first came to public attention with a series of essays his wrote as a second lieutenant for the London Daily Telegraph criticizing the tactics used in the India frontiers wars. The resulting 1897 book, Story of the Malakand Field Force, was derided by some as “A Subaltern’s Advice to the Generals” but it was nonetheless read.

I respect him for taking the risk and telling the truth as he sees it. According to Mt. 18:8 the risk is worth taking.

The World IsN'T Becoming More Violent Every Year

Steven Pinker writes in the The New Republic (subscription required)

In the decade of Darfur and Iraq, and shortly after the century of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, the claim that violence has been diminishing may seem somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Yet recent studies that seek to quantify the historical ebb and flow of violence point to exactly that conclusion.
...

Col. Patrick Lang on Islam

I've respected Col. Lang for a long time. He blogs regularly at Sic Semper Tyrannis 2007. He is a member of the papal order of the Holy Sepulcher, a graduate of the US Army War College, and was Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East. I've linked to his blog before on the importance of understanding Arab viewpoints and on what went wrong in the intelligence community before the war in Iraq.

On Feb 7th he gave a lecture at St. Mary's University in San Antonio on Islam, in its various forms. He gives several analogies and points out differences from the way Christians understand religion. To get his lecture, go here , click on the link and take the time to watch the lecture. It will add perspective.

Note to the NYT and WaPo: the Truth is Already in Your Files

    Today’s New York Times features an editorial editorial following yesterday’s story on Douglas Feith. The WaPo follows yesterday’s story by Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung with a report on Senate disagreement over the Pentagon inspector general’s critique of Feith and his office. Both papers are making the case that Feith distorted available intelligence to demonstrate an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. The Post acknowledges that yesterday:

An article in yesterday's Washington Post misattributed to the inspector general's report critical comments about the Pentagon operation made by committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.).

    Both papers need to dig a little deeper into their own files. When they do they should find stories about DITSUM 044-02. From its numbering this defense intelligence summary appears to have been the 44th issue in 2002. If the document were published daily this would have placed it early in the year. According to news reports the document disputed the Iraq-Qaeda link.

    It is possible that Feith may properly have challenged the documents. However, the NYT and WaPo stories indicate that Feith made the case for war by failing to tell his superiors that the case was less than solid.

    While the inspector general’s report most likely provides additional detail on Feith’s maneuverings, the DITSUM 044-02 story was reported by Pat Lang on November 6, 2005. It was reported here on November 10, 2005 as The Emperor’s New Threat Assessment and on June 10, 2006 as Politicization of Intelligence: Part V.

    The Senate has had more than enough time to figure out what went wrong. Now it needs to debate the crucial question: what do we do now about Iraq?