Iraq Rules Need More Airing
The leaked "Rules of Engagement" for U.S. military forces in Iraq, revealed by the website WikiLeaks and reported today in the New York Times, is actually less interesting for the rules than for a mind-boggling and complex document that says a lot about the nature of the American way of war.
We don't hear much these days about micro-management from Washington or fighting with one hand tied behind our backs: the assumption is that the Bush administration, particularly post-Rumsfeld, has given free rein to the military and its commanders and that the niceties of former hesitant administrations has been swept aside to fight and win.
The leaked rules, though, are a complex maze of regulation and constraints, most of which are oriented towards safeguarding civilians and Iraqi civilian infrastructure. I have heard complaints in the past from military officers that the "collateral damage" restraints, as they're commonly referred to, have hampered operations. But no one in Iraq today seems to think that these now deeply embedded rules are anything more than the way to fight in the al Jazeera era.
The spokesmen for U.S. forces in Iraq told the Times that the release of this classified document "could put U.S. military personnel at risk," a kind of knee-jerk official reaction. I say instead that because the rules are clearly so meticulous and sensitive to civilians, quite the contrary should prevail: Publicize the rules as much as possible, show how careful U.S. forces really are. It's not like we're otherwise winning the battle of hearts and minds by hoarding our secrets.
The 2005 Rules of Engagement for Multi-National Division Baghdad, classified Secret, were leaked by a soldier and posted on the WikiLeaks website yesterday. The Rules lay out almost every aspect of do's and don'ts for conventional military forces, including who is the enemy, what are protected places, when deadly force can and cannot be used, and what authorities and procedures exist for use of force, ranging from what the "on-scene commander" can do either in self-defense or during the conduct of operations all the way to authorities retained by the Secretary of Defense for striking certain targets.
Most of the document is unclassified. Secret parts include the specific designation of elements of the former government of Saddam Hussein and specific terrorist organizations and insurgent groups as declared hostile forces. And there are some secret sections dealing with politically sensitive topics, like the employment of Claymore anti-personnel mines for perimeter defense and the use of "riot control agents" (that is, tear gas and the like that is not banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention) and riot control "means" in dealing with civil disturbances and detainees.
The guts of the rules though, and the repeated message, is about the extreme measures that are required to safeguard civilians in operations. Categories of targets, people and places, are discussed in detail, and levels of damage are designated, each demanding different considerations and approval authorities. "High collateral damage targets," that is, those targets that, if struck, have a ten percent probability of causing collateral damage through blast debris and fragmentation or could kill more than 30 civilians, even a terrorist target, requires approval of the Secretary of Defense.
This is not news to me, but most Americans, and probably a lot of critics of the war and the military, would find it interesting if not comforting that those are the rules. Last week I had a long conversation with Lt. Gen. Gary North, commander of the air component of U.S. Central Command and the coalition air combat commander, who told me that he reviews every single weapon that is delivered by an airplane to ensure that units are adhering to the proper rules of engagement.
Maybe that's not micro-management a la LBJ, but it is the product of an inherent prosecutorial environment that leans in the direction of finding fault. And it is incredibly time consuming, perhaps even unintentionally constraining of the pace of operations, because we have become so regulated - read paranoid. I'm not arguing for a minute that there shouldn't be rules or that those rules should be mindful of the bigger battle for hearts and minds. I just think that much more should be published about what the rules are so that we can ponder what they have done to the American military and to our war efforts.
By William M. Arkin |
February 4, 2008; 7:57 AM ET
Iraq
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Posted by: Male Enhancement | March 4, 2008 10:12 PM
As an aside, BBC News posted an article today that the website Wikileaks has been ordered shut down by a judge.
Too bad. We need all the transparency we can get.
Posted by: Cornflower | February 18, 2008 4:52 PM
It doesn't matter...,
Iraq is a Free And Independent Nation now?
Smile!!!
American Rules-of-Engagement have been
'by any means neccessary' - long
before El Hajj Malik el Shabazz
coined the phrase!
It doesn't matter what was written, our
President has shown by example that
you write or say one thing to
the American people, then
you take out the other
Handbook!
Iraq is free though, correct?
Long live military rule,
and military rulers!
Posted by: The Rev | February 4, 2008 6:54 PM
"In 2000, the last year of the first Clinton presidency, the US ran a 236 billion dollar budget surplus. The same year US voters unexpectedly rejected Al Gore, the sitting US Vice President, in a tight general election. In 2008, the last year of the second Bush presidency, the US ran a 410 billion dollar budget deficit. The same year US voters elected John McCain over Barack Obama, the first African American candidate from a major party, president in another tight election. By 2012 the annual US deficit reached one trillion dollars. By 2016, the last year of the McCain presidency US budget deficit reached a staggering three trillions, mostly due to widespread war engagements in the Middle East. The US dollar reached parity with the Mexican peso for the first time. The next year ushered in the stock market crash of 2017 and the Great Depression of the Twenty First Century. In 2024, in a belated bout of nostalgia, the US elected its first female president, Chelsea Clinton. By then the Decline and Fall of America was irreversible."
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire, c. 2108
Posted by: | February 4, 2008 1:42 PM
al75 writes:
--To what degree have the US policy concerns that led to these rules of engagement been wholly subverted by the unregulated mercenaries in our employ?--
Good point.
As you may be aware, 95% or greater of Blackwater contractors worked for the Deparmtent of State in Iraq, not the Department of Defense. As such, the DoD ROE don't apply. (Unless of course, some specification is written into the DOS Blackwater contract which mandated that Blackwater conforms to DOD ROE. Although I'm not privy to the contract, I would be very surprised if such a contractoral specification existed.)
Are Blackwater contractors still unregulated?
In Oct 2007, the House attempted to close the legal limbo in which Blackwater was operating by passing legislation extending the criminal jurisdiction of U.S. courts to any federal contractor working alongside military operations. I not sure if "alongside military operations" applies to Blackwater contracted to DOD, or DOS, or both. And I also haven't been able to find any reference as to whether that legislation eventually made its way through the Senate and onto the President's desk for signature.
Posted by: Frank | February 4, 2008 1:23 PM
Arkin writes:
-- I just think that much more should be published about what the rules are so that we can ponder what they have done to the American military and to our war efforts.--
Perhaps. Although, I think publishing unclassified ROE so that folks at home "understand a bit better" is irrelevant. What counts are results. Not intentions.
For Arkin to suggest that "intentions" (as inferred from the ROE) should be considered when evaluating the US Armed Forces tactical decisions/actions in Iraq is akin to ascerting relativistic standards. More appropriate for The Oprah or Dr Phil Show, than for day-to-day peacekeeping operations.
And publishing ROE so that Americans may 'feel better' about their troops' actions overseas is psychological distraction at best, and blatant manipulation of the media at worse.
Posted by: Frank | February 4, 2008 1:00 PM
The rules of engagement make sense, and are consistent with the principles of counter-insurgency, as I understand them: taking measures to avoid recruiting enemies in the civilian population, even if it means taking more casualties.
But here's the question: what does this say about the role of Blackwater and other military "contractors", who have apparently been able to make their own rules?
The contempt of Blackwater for conventional rules and a "spray and pray" policy of fire-control in urban warfare, is a matter of record.
Rory Stewert, to cite one example, describes in "Prince of the Marshes" how he was violently assaulted by a contractor because he lacked a required ID card - even though Stewert was serving as a governor of a British-controlled province of Iraq at that time.
To what degree have the US policy concerns that led to these rules of engagement been wholly subverted by the unregulated mercenaries in our employ?
Posted by: al75 | February 4, 2008 12:51 PM
The Rules of Engagement sound alright to me. However, Good training and discipline combined with after action reports along with IG inspections might substitute for micro management from the Pentagon. I can also understand the Secretary of Defense's concerns considering past abuses.
Posted by: P. J. Casey | February 4, 2008 12:21 PM
"And that's not all. According to a press release by the US Military Public Affairs Command in Baghdad, after the bomb exploded, crowds of insurgents and terrorists ran from the marketplace to the still-burning car, took out the children's bodies, put them on skewers and held them over the flames, shouting to each other, 'You want yours well done?', and 'Do you want an arm or a leg?'.
'That's the kind of evil barbarians our wonderful brave troops are up against', Brigadier General Ignatz Puffer, spokesman for the USMPAC said, 'Cooking kids in public.
And they do it all the time, they've cooked more of their kids than have been injured by all our actions since the start of the war'.
General Puffer is scheduled to receive a special 'George W. Bush Medal for Exceptional Bravery in Speech'. --Commenter To A Posting Titled 'Iraq'd' @ Crooks and Liars Blog
Posted by: Da' Buffalo | February 4, 2008 12:14 PM
It is remarkable that those who initiate and fight these wars seem not to have grasped the central fact demonstrated by history - when the identity of the enemy within a population is not known precisely, any operations against the enemy will antagonize the population. Attempts to locate and identify the enemy are always resented no matter how "polite" the soldiers may be.
Posted by: skeptonomist | February 4, 2008 10:14 AM
Therefore the only logical conclusion is to withdraw.
Posted by: Toq | February 4, 2008 11:01 AM
"Even with those savings, Bush projects that the deficits, which had been declining, will soar to near-record levels, hitting $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009. The all-time high deficit in dollar terms was $413 billion in 2004."
The United States got a bullsh*tter for president. And people complain about Clinton? Soon very soon with the boomers collecting SS and MC there will be no money left for anything else. Maybe even war.
Posted by: Toq | February 4, 2008 10:39 AM
It is remarkable that those who initiate and fight these wars seem not to have grasped the central fact demonstrated by history - when the identity of the enemy within a population is not known precisely, any operations against the enemy will antagonize the population. Attempts to locate and identify the enemy are always resented no matter how "polite" the soldiers may be. And the soldiers engaged are simply not restrained by any rules when their lives are at stake and they don't know who the enemy is.
Posted by: skeptonomist | February 4, 2008 10:14 AM
Sorry... I'm NOT "comforted" by "rules" made by the invader in an ILLEGAL war of aggression.
Period.
Posted by: Da' Buffalo | February 4, 2008 9:35 AM
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