The cliche about bad news - "it never rains
but it pours" - was in full view the week of June 20.
And the forecast is for more of the same for the
foreseeable future.
The proverbial torrents in
question were the documents and statistics made public
by the Bush administration as it tried to regain the
initiative in all things relating to Iraq and the "war
on terror". News media calculated the White House alone
had released a two-inch thick stack of papers, with
other documents coming from the Justice Department and
the Pentagon.
For weeks, the White House and the
Pentagon had been fighting perceptions - stemming from
revelations of abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib - that
they were intent on circumventing if not outright
shredding international treaties and domestic US
statutes regarding interrogation techniques. But leaks
to the media of parts of various documents, plus the
publication of a meticulous Defense Department memo
parsing the language of the Geneva Conventions, the
Convention Against Torture, the constitution, US Army
publications on interrogation techniques, and US law,
kept the issue on page one.
The issue came to a
head when Attorney-General John Ashcroft, appearing
before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 8, flatly
refused to provide a copy of two memoranda originated by
his department's Office of Legal Counsel. A subsequent
proposal by Democrats on the Senate Armed Forces
Committee to issue a subpoena for 23 documents was
blocked by Republicans, who drew up a list of "talking
points" that included charges that "an out-of-control
media and widespread hysteria" had compelled the
administration "to reveal secret interrogation
techniques just to prove our men and women in uniform
aren't torturers and murders" (Washington Post, June
24). Additional talking points claimed that revealing
the techniques allowed would enable opponents to train
to withstand their use and urged that members "remember
who [US] enemies are". But the White House judged that
the controversy would not abate as long as it continued
to withhold documents.
The legal evidence
In all, 12 letters and memoranda plus one report
were posted on various media websites on June 22 (see
below). Six of these originated in the Justice
Department, one was a letter signed by President George
W Bush, and six - including an 85-page report -
originated in the Pentagon. There was also a one-page
press briefing paper listing allowed interrogation
techniques for Guantanamo Bay detainees. These documents
revealed none of the reported ambivalence of the highest
ranking military lawyers about the new rules pertaining
to permitted and prohibited methods of interrogating
detainees, whether prisoners of war or "unlawful
combatants". But among the papers released were only
three of the 23 requested by senators, and none dealt
with techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA).
The list of documents made public
January 22, 2002 memo from Department of Justice
(DoJ) Assistant Attorney-General Jay Bybee to White
House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Department of Defense
(DoD) general counsel William Haynes. The memo held that
Afghanistan was a "failed state", that this status was
grounds for the president to "suspend" US obligations to
Afghanistan under international treaties - including
Geneva Conventions;
February 1, 2002 letter from Ashcroft to Bush
outlining two options justifying the position that the
Geneva Conventions did not apply to either Taliban or
al-Qaeda fighters in US custody. One option was deemed
to offer more conclusive "protection" against
interventions by US courts;
February 7, 2002 DoJ memo (Bybee) to White House
counsel Gonzales stating that the president could issue
a "determination" that captured Taliban were not
entitled to prisoner-of-war status;
February 7, 2002 memo from the president in which he
claims the right to withhold Geneva Convention
guarantees from captured Afghan fighters but decides not
to apply his decision "at this time";
February 26, 2002 DoJ memo (Bybee) to DoD (Haynes)
concerning applicability of constitutional protections
in a court of law to prisoners' statements made during
interrogation;
August 1, 2002 DoJ memo (Bybee) to White House
counsel Gonzales advising that interrogation methods
employed against al-Qaeda captives would not contravene
the Convention against Torture and were not subject to
the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court;
August 1, 2002 DoJ memo (Bybee) to White House
counsel Gonzales asserting that under certain
conditions, torture of suspected terrorists could be
"legally defended" found that torturing terrorism
suspects might be legally defensible. (It is worth
noting that when these documents were made public on
June 22, 2004, the DoJ disavowed this memo);
December 2, 2002 DoD memo (Haynes), approved by
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld specifying
interrogation methods that could be employed against
detainees at Guantanamo Bay;
January 15, 2003 DoD memo (Rumsfeld) to the
commander, US Southern Command, rescinding the December
2, 2002 memo's standing approval to employ some
interrogation methods at Guantanamo, but permitting
special requests to use more coercive techniques for
specific prisoners if the request is meticulously
justified;
January 15, 2003 DoD memo (Rumsfeld) to general
counsel Haynes directing him to assemble a working group
to review all policies relating to interrogations;
January 17, 2003 DoD memo (Haynes) to the USAF
general counsel appointing her as chair of the working
group requested by Rumsfeld;
April 4, 2003 DoD report by the working group,
including recommendations on what methods to allow;
April 16, 2003 DoD memo (Rumsfeld) to commander, US
Southern Command, reaffirming interrogation methods
approved for routine use at Guantanamo and methods whose
use required his specific assent;
Undated one-page list of interrogation techniques
approved and employed at Guantanamo provided to media on
June 22, 2004.
Patterns of terrorism report
But the revelations concerning standards of
conduct in interrogations was but one part of the week's
bad news. Almost lost in this torrent of
interrogation-related papers was the State Department's
re-issue of a corrected Patterns of Global Terrorism
2003 report. The original version, which was released
April 29, indicated a drop in total terror incidents and
overall casualties. The revised report showed an
increase in the number of 2003 incidents from even a
revised 2002 baseline, a larger increase in
"significant" incidents, and a sharp rise in the numbers
injured in terror attacks.
As with many
statistical reports, the numbers in "Patterns" reflect
choices of what will be included and what excluded.
Because the report's real subject is international
terror - defined as incidents involving different
nationalities as opposed to a global survey of all
incidents labeled as terror-motivated - incidents are
not counted when perpetrator and victim(s) are of the
same nationality and the violence takes place in their
country. Moreover, civilian casualties - so-called
"collateral damage" - resulting from military action are
not counted - eg, Iraqi and Afghan civilians killed and
wounded in their countries during US and coalition
operations or Palestinian casualties from Israeli
military strikes.
Secretary of State Colin
Powell and ambassador Cofer Black, State's
counterterrorism coordinator, said that "technical and
human errors" accounted for the mistakes in the original
report. They both dismissed suggestions that totals were
manipulated to give the impression that the "war on
terror" was succeeding, which could be a political plus
for the administration.
In this case, unlike the
interrogation controversy, some Democrats agreed that
the errors were inadvertent; others were less sure, and
no one was comforted by the thought that the Terrorist
Threat Integration Center, the government's central
clearing house for terrorist information, botched the
original report.
Other trends in Iraq
As the media focused on these issues, few seemed
to take much interest in other significant statistics
and trends relating to Iraq. A brief overview based on
reports from the DoD, the army, Marine Corps, and US
Central Command briefings and data includes the
following:
With recent additions of US and British troops,
coalition forces in Iraq now total approximately 163,000
(141,000 US and 22,000 from other countries). There are
also an estimated 20,000 foreign, non-military armed
security personnel.
Of a total force numbering 1,049,000 personnel, the
army has 311,000 troops (29.6%) deployed in 120
countries. (The breakdown of the total force is: 495,000
active duty, 343,000 Army National Guard, and 211,000
Army Reserves. In addition, there are 118,000 in the
Individual Ready Reserve, a source of experienced
reservists who have not completed their service
obligation but are not assigned to a reserve unit for
periodic drills.).
Of the 311,000 deployed abroad, approximately
120,000 (38%) are in Iraq participating in Operation
Iraqi Freedom. An additional 30,000 are in Kuwait or
other countries supporting operations in Iraq. (There
are approximately 21,000 US Marines in Iraq with an
increase to 26,000 planned for August.)
In terms of "units of action" - the latest euphemism
for combat brigades - 27 of the current 34 active duty
formations (79%) are deployed.
US Central Command is considering whether to request
assignment of three to five additional brigades - as
many as 25,000 troops - to augment the current force.
Another source of personnel to bring units up to
authorized strength is the Individual Ready Reserve
(IRR). Approximately 2,300 members of the IRR are
participating in the Iraqi effort. Reportedly, most
volunteered, but the Pentagon may tap as many as 6,500
more with special skills such as military police,
intelligence, language, and civil affairs.
Total National Guard and Reserves (including IRR) on
active duty around the world are 168,000, of whom
144,000 (85.7%) are army.
US fatalities for the month of June totaled 41, with
10 deaths recorded during the week of June 20. Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz conceded in
testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on
June 22 that his department had not expected the
tenacity displayed by the Iraqi insurgents, a most
significant factor in the current plans calling for high
US force levels in Iraq "for years to come".
Two days later, General George Casey, nominated as
the new ground force commander in Iraq, echoed
Wolfowitz. And as if to add an exclamation point, on
June 24, nearly 100 Iraqis were killed and more than 300
wounded in a series of coordinated attacks and bombings
by insurgents.
The level and sophistication of
insurgent operations virtually guarantees that troop
levels will remain high - some observers suggest US
forces alone could reach 165,000. It is also apparent
that moves to return to the Marine Corps standard of
six-month deployments from the current seven months
rotation for Iraq are on hold. Similarly, the army will
retain its 12-month unit rotation schedule as well as
the application of stop-loss procedures to keep force
numbers up.
There is one ray of sunshine -
relatively speaking - to which the administration can
point. The 41 US dead in June is down from the 80 killed
in May and the 135 killed in April.
Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Retired)is
a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus,
a retired US army colonel, and a senior fellow on
Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National
Legislation.
