Armchair Generalist

Casual Fridays

I fully expect the FBI to be very busy today as they hunt down all these offenders allowing the use of WMDs over major metropolitan cities...

In addition to the proposed FISA bill, there's always Title 18, section 2332, which notes:

(2) the term “weapon of mass destruction” means—
(A) any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title;

and section 921 says:

(4) The term “destructive device” means— (A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas—
(i) bomb,
(ii) grenade,
(iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces,
(iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce,
(v) mine, or
(vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses;

So let's be safe out there.

Trying to Move the Chem Demil Forward

The ACWA program manager told Congress that things aren't so good, still trying to pull it together. Our friends in Colorado, to include their political representative, aren't happy.

The Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program report also stated that meeting a separate 2017 deadline set by Congress would take round-the-clock operations in Pueblo and the use of something other than water neutralization for the 98 tons of mustard agent weapons in Kentucky.

"I found that report woefully lacking in any real information," said Irene Kornelly, chairwoman of the Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission. "I don't know why it took six months to come up with this. Six or eight of us could have done it in an hour."

The real questions, Kornelly said, are whether the Defense Department plans to ask for the funds necessary to accelerate the program and Congress is willing to spend the money. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., one of the authors of the legislation mandating the 2017 deadline, said the report includes some good news and some bad news.

Udall, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, explained: "The good news is that 2017 is doable. "The bad news is that we won't know until early next year whether the Defense Department can come up with the funds and the plans that are needed to complete weapons destruction at the Pueblo Depot by 2017.

"I believe DOD understands that Congress was serious when it passed the 2017 deadline into law, so I am hopeful that the next administration's budget request will include the funds necessary to make 2017 a reality," Udall said.

Udall's lips are moving so he must be lieing, and he is. Getting the program done by 2017 isn't executable, since Colorado is set on using neutralization instead of a technology that... ah, works. And DOD understood perfectly why Congress set the 2017 deadline - it was so that the military would not be able to tell Kentucky and Colorado that they didn't have time to build the disposal facilities and complete disposal operations.

So someone in the Pentagon on the acquisition side decided to tell Congress about their great idea to move the chemical weapons and agent to active incineration facilities (probably the ones at Tooele Army Depot and Pine Bluff Arsenal). It's a great idea, absolutely doable, could be done safely and could allow the program to be completed by 2017 with time to spare. Which is why Congress won't let the DOD do it.

In an unpublicized report delivered to lawmakers last week, the Pentagon said it probably could not meet that deadline unless it ships nerve agents and mustard gas to additional sites for destruction.

Even adding more people and working around the clock at the two sites with complicated dismantling requirements in Kentucky and Colorado may not help the military meet the 2017 deadline, the report said.

Work would be speeded up if some weapons at Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot are moved to sites in Alabama and Arkansas, the report said, while some at the Pueblo, Colo., site are sent to Utah and Oregon.

Congress would have to change laws that forbid moving the weapons, the report said.

Ah, silly, silly bureaucrats. The Army proposed moving the chemical weapons to two disposal sites in 1985, had all the routes planned out, showed how safe it could be, and every state governor freaked out. They knew that the perception of "deadly nerve agent" moving across state lines, despite how safe it would be, would cause the general public (in their ignorance) to question their actions. You know how numbers and statistics confuse people. So it never happened, because the politicians had absolutely no balls to do the right thing.

You know what's changed since 1985? Absolutely nothing. You know what's going to happen now? The congressional reps from Kentucky and Colorado are going to call that office in the Pentagon and say, "Stop screwing around, we're going to authorize the money and you're going to do exactly what we want. And that is, pay our constituents in our states to build and operate neutralization disposal sites. And we really don't give a shit about 2017."

Who Could Have Predicted?

RockRichard at VetVoice talks about his concern that the Taliban are shooting down American helicopters in Afghanistan. The latest shoot-down was a UH-60 Blackhawk on Wednesday. He notes his experience in May 2007:

headed for the TOC as quick as I could. When I arrived I learned the situation was not as bad as it could have been, but still not good.  The bird had been shot down after it dropped a lift of my battalion's Soldiers.  On the return trip it flew over an area of the battle box that had yet to be cleared when it was hit by a shoulder fired rocket by Taliban forces. The air crew, a British soldier and a Canadian journalist were killed.

The events of May 30th were startling.  No one had thought that the previously obliterated Taliban had the capabilities or the fire power to bring down an American aircraft.  In the previous six years of the war only four helicopters had been downed due to hostile action. Two of those were during Operation Anaconda way back in March of 2002. Since May of 2007, three American choppers have been shot down.

Yes, who could have predicted that the Taliban could gain the capability to shoot down helicopters. I mean, it's not as if they tried it earlier against another superpower's air force in the late 1970s or that we found out that U.S. aircraft vulnerable to insurgent combat arms in Somalia in the 1990s. Oh, wait - they did try it against the Soviets and we did lose helos in Somalia. Are we going to get serious about Afghanistan yet, Mr. President?

Follow-up on the Army's On Point

This is a minor irritation but I thought I had to voice it. The thing that bugs me about the Army's "On Point II" document is this - here the Army provided most of the forces required to search for Iraq's WMD program in 2003-2004. Following the failure to find much other than paper trails, SecDef Don Rumsfeld decided that DOD had to get serious on WMD interdiction and elimination. All the other stuff in combating WMD like nonproliferation, active and passive defense, and consequence management, not so much.

The Army volunteered to be the lead agent for WMD elimination, and now the 20th Support Command (CBRNE) has the task to make up the bulk of the Joint Task Force for Elimination. But you'd hardly know that from reading the accounts of the post-conflict Iraq assessment. That's the difference between the Army leadership and the Army's Chemical Corps and their interests in combating WMD.

Army's Critical Performance Review

The U.S. Army Combined Arms Center has released a historical review of the Army’s execution of Operation Iraqi Freedom called “On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign.” This weighty tome, coming in at more than 700 pages, ought to sate most people’s interest in the tactical and operational details of combat in Iraq between May 2003 (the end of major combat operations) and January 2005 (the first national elections). The Bloggers Roundtable had a discussion with the authors, Dr. Don Wright and COL Tim Reese, on Monday (at which there were only three bloggers!! (Shame, milblogging community, shame!). The transcript is here.

This is a relatively good and thorough self-examination of the Army’s ability to transition (thus the title) from conventional operations to its counter-insurgency operations. Yes, we know that the planning wasn’t done properly. There were bad assumptions, planning was late, and the intensity of the insurgency was unexpected. But given these challenges, the real story here is about the ability of the U.S. Soldier – that wonderful, complex fighting machine – to adapt, improvise, and overcome the failure of national strategy and to attempt to help the Iraqi people recover from the recent combat and regime turnover.

Because this book is, as I noted, more than 700 pages long, I haven’t had time to get into it. There is a digital version that weighs in at 103 megabytes, due to the high number of graphics (lots of maps and charts – combat arms soldiers need cartoons to comprehend). There is a great order of battle in the back pages, similar to the one in the first “On Point” publication. There is not any discussion about the sister services or coalition allies in this book – this is about the Army, just the Army. It is not very reflective on CENTCOM, CFLCC, or DOD guidance (or higher) at all, other than to reflect on certain personalities and from where the orders came. There is an attitude of “here was the mission, here’s what we had, so this is how it played out.”

It’s interesting in the initial summary of actions that the authors note the existence of one strategic objective – overthrowing the Baathist regime – and two supporting operational objectives: “(1) the discovery and elimination of any WMD to prevent their future use against Coalition forces or other countries, and (2) the preservation of the Iraqi oil infrastructure to avoid a repetition of the disaster in 1991…” Not that the war was about Iraq’s WMDs or Iraq’s oil reserves, of course, according to other war accounts, but there you are.

Again, I can’t claim to have read this cover to cover yet, but I can tell you what it doesn’t have – any discussion about the hunt for WMDs or the Army Chemical Corps. There are a brief few lines about the 75th Exploitation Task Force that initially had the task of searching for Iraq’s WMDs and the subsequent Iraq Survey Group. I suppose the logic is that the 75th XTF worked for CENTCOM and the ISG worked for the CIA, so their accounts were not reflected in this Army history. Similarly, the Army chemical units attached to those missions (such as the 415th Chemical Brigade) are not identified and are not in the order of battle. No discussion of chlorine IEDs - that's later.

Ironically, the book includes a photo of the 63rd Chemical Company (assigned to the 101st Airborne Division), its missions are not addressed. The 2d Chemical Battalion is listed in the order of battle, but again, no details. But to be honest, the main job of chemical units in Phase IV was more to provide security forces than to provide technical assistance on CBRN hazards. Still, it’s disappointing for the sake of addressing a very real operational objective of the war and for the sake of addressing the total Army effort.

The one point of criticism relating to the ISG and search for WMDs is when the CJTF-7 staff was trying to build up their human intelligence collection operations, its personnel went to DIA and INSCOM to get some intel assets. They were told, no, those are assisting the ISG to hunt down the Iraqi WMD materials, technology, and scientists. As a result, the Army headquarters struggled for months trying to develop its own intelligence to support counterinsurgency operations, where they had been much more used to building intel assessments on conventional enemy formations and anticipated actions by military units.

The book addresses Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, up-armored HMMWVs, information operations, heavy reliance on contractors, and other controversial issues of the war. I’m not going to cover these other than to say the Army says, “yeah, we need to do better.” They admit the mistakes. Some will no doubt feel that this historical review does not sufficiently identify the leadership failures and assign blame at the top levels of the Army and Defense Department. That may be, but one has to keep in mind the purpose of this text – to identify what the Army was able to accomplish and where it can do better. The authors do have the opportunity to make a few points, such as this entry, deep in Chapter 14.

“While CENTCOM and the US Army might not have been expected to plan for a full-blown insurgency of the type that emerged by late 2003, the historical record should have indicated that many more troops would be needed for the post-Saddam era in Iraq. Key decisionmakers ignored cautionary warnings about the paucity of troops, both official and unofficial, without giving them sufficient review. The Coalition’s inability to prevent looting, to secure Iraq’s borders, and to guard the vast number of munitions dumps in the early months after Saddam’s overthrow are indicative of the shortage. US commanders found it difficult to balance increasing requirements with the units available throughout 2003 and 2004. Furthermore, by the time the Saddam regime fell, most Iraqis had yet to see a Coalition soldier. Unlike Axis military forces and their citizenry in 1945, who had no doubts about their utter defeat and who accepted the imposition of far-reaching political and social changes by the victorious Allies, Iraqis not favorably inclined toward the Coalition’s postconflict goals had much less reason to passively accept fundamental change.”

Let us make no mistake – the Army leadership knows that it was shafted by the Bush administration, and they’re not going to forget it. There was quiet, professional advice going up the chain, requesting more troops, and contrary to President Bush’s statements, he didn’t provide the forces his generals requested. And let us stop these foolish statements about how occupying Iraq is just like the post-World War II occupations of Japan and Germany – we know it isn’t, the Army knows it isn’t, let’s move on.

Next for the CAC - "On Point 3" will cover January 2005 through January 2007 (the surge begins).

Chem Demil Update

The Army's Chemical Material Agency is moving along with its mission of destroying chemical weapons. Now it's getting close to eliminating the entire quantity of VX nerve agent from the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile.

• Anniston got rid of its VX agent projectiles in the end of May 2008
• Then Pine Bluff got rid of its VX agent in late June 2008
• Newport is nearing the end at 95% complete right now
• And now, Umatilla has met a major goal in its VX agent destruction of projectiles

Depot workers began incinerating the weapons on March 20 and finished the project earlier than anticipated.

“We’re pleased to complete another individual munitions disposal campaign in our mission to eliminate all chemical weapons stored at the depot,” said Army site project manager Mike Strong.

Disposal is set to begin of 8-inch VX projectiles following a changeover period at the incineration plant.  That would be followed by elimination of land mines filled with the agent.  Umatilla is scheduled to finish off its entire VX stockpile early next year.

And all we have left after the VX mines in Anniston and Umatilla are the VX agent-filled munitions in Blue Grass Army Depot, which won't be destroyed for at least another decade - long after the CWC deadline. Send your thanks to Sen. Mitch McConnell for being the sole hold-out on destroying the most deadly agent in the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile.

UPDATE: Corrections made for accuracy. Mines are easy, they don't have explosives in them, which is the good news. Bad news is that McConnell, while the major asshole stumbling block, isn't the only politician who enjoys holding the chem demil program hostage.

Gen. Clark's Controversy?

I am as befuddled as many others when I say, what's the controversy over Gen. (ret) Wes Clark's words on Face the Nation last Sunday? I just don't see it, because it sounds right.

Bob Schieffer: Well you, you went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was, quote, and these are your words, "untested and untried," And I must say I, I had to read that twice, because you're talking about somebody who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He's been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo these many years. How can you say that John McCain is un- untested and untried? General?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk. It's a matter of gauging your opponents, and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in Air- in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn't seen what it's like when diplomats come in and say, 'I don't know whether we're going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it-'

Bob Schieffer: Well-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: ' -it publicly.' He hasn't made those calls, Bob.

Oh - you meant the part further down, the one liner that made all the evening news shows without any context, about how McCain's POW experience - while harrowing - didn't qualify him to be a national security expert. Here's a news flash - it doesn't. McCain's POW experience didn't make him an economic leader either, or an immigration expert, and so on. Just as Rudy Giuliani seemed to use 9/11 as an example of how he demonstrated leadership in every imaginable field, it seems as if the McCain crowd wants to use his POW experience as the reason why he's the right candidate for President. The media seem unable to comprend this.

Just as my prior Army experience didn't make me qualified to be a defense analyst, McCain's military experience - on its own - didn't qualify him to be commander-in-chief. It's what you do with your experience and more importantly, the record of your judgment calls since that experience. McCain's record isn't so good (continue the war in Iraq, bomb Iran, no new GI Bill, etc etc), and his temperament isn't one I'd like to see in the next President. Let's not overlook the fact that McCain has missed the majority of this year's Senate votes, to include many defense-related debates. And to talk about bad judgment... let's talk about McCain's use of a SwiftBoater on his "Truth Squad." Another example of Orwellian newspeak, I guess.

Poppy Dreams

I know that I harp on this challenging problem of poppy crops in Afghanistan, but it confounds me that, in a country where US forces are occupying in some considerable numbers for six years, a country that is "friendly" to us and has a police and military force, there can still be regular increases in poppy yields from year to year.

The Taliban earned $200 million to $400 million last year through a 10 percent tax on poppy growers and drug traffickers in areas under its control, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, said in an interview. He estimates that Afghan poppy farmers and drug traffickers last year earned about $4 billion, half of the country's national income.

Afghanistan's high-yielding variety of opium poppies has helped double global opium production since 2005. With production far outpacing world demand, U.N. anti-drug officials and government intelligence agencies worry about massive stockpiling of the drug. "There will be two or three thousand tons of extra supply this year," Costa said.

The Bush administration cited U.N. data suggesting that opium production will fall slightly this year in Afghanistan but acknowledged the scope of the problem. "The drug threat in Afghanistan remains unacceptably high and requires a long-term commitment by both the Afghan government and international donors," said Susan Pittman, spokeswoman for the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.

But I guess part of the problem is that the Afghan military and court system can't seem to keep the narco-lords in jail once they're caught. And then there's the ones whom the U.S. government keeps out of the system in return for information on terrorists in the region.

Mr Costa said there were “many reasons” why foreign powers had been reluctant to crack down on the leaders of Afghanistan’s $3bn a year drugs business, including the way traffickers get “mixed up with the insurgency and intelligence-sharing”.

The US has used drug smugglers as valuable sources of information, possibly agreeing to turn a blind eye to their activities.

Haji Bashir Noorzai, an Afghan warlord arrested in 2005, recently alleged that he had been promised he would not be apprehended if he travelled to the US if he supplied information about the financing of terrorist organisations in Afghanistan.

Yeah, this is a great system, how our government is willing to make deals with nearly anyone to try to gain a few inches in the "War on Terror."

Quick Shots

We shouldn't have had to wait this long to say this, but it looks good that the first woman four-star general officer will soon be appointed by Congress to run the U.S. Army Material Command. There's a great article on LTG Ann Dunwoody in the NY Times.

A TPM reader notes Republican party flip-flops on the value of a candidate's military service.

FAS notes that yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the massive asteriod strike in Russia in 1908. The Tungunska incident was felt around the world. So why have all the Very Serious People in Washington ignored the possibility of another attack against Earth? Instead they focus on the less likely chance of a nuclear terrorist...

Also from FAS, this CRS report on the costs of the ongoing wars in the Middle East should open your eyes. You may know that we're up to $10 billion a month for Iraq and $2 billion a month for Afghanistan. Total costs between 2001 and 2009 (considering the recent defense budget and emergency supplemental) will cost the U.S. taxpayers more than $850 billion dollars. Hitting the trillion dollar mark won't be too far away.

The U.S. Army is releasing its latest history on Operation Iraqi Freedom - "On Point II" covers Army operations in Iraq between June 2003 and January 2005. I'll blog more about it tomorrow after I've had a chance to read it - the Army server couldn't keep up with demand yesterday.

Removing a Cold War Legacy

Taking the U.S. nuclear weapons out of Europe is probably way overdue, but it's good to see it happening (although unreported by the sleeping US media). There is a longer, more indepth article at the FAS Strategic Security Blog. As Hans Kristensen points out, the issue isn't as much what they did or why (pretty easy to figure out), but why both the United States and NATO are being so quiet about it.

Why NATO and the United States have decided to keep these major withdrawals secret is a big puzzle. The explanation might simply be that “nuclear” always means secret, that it was done to prevent a public debate about the future of the rest of the weapons, or that the Bush administration just doesn’t like arms control. Whatever the reason, it is troubling because the reductions have occurred around the same time that Russian officials repeatedly have pointed to the U.S. weapons in Europe as a justification to reject limitations on Russia’s own tactical nuclear weapons.

In fact, at the very same time that preparations for the withdrawal from Ramstein and Lakenheath were underway, a U.S. State Department delegation visiting Moscow clashed with Russian officials about who had done enough to reduce its non-strategic nuclear weapons. General Jones’ “good news” could not be shared.

By keeping the withdrawals secret, NATO and the United States have missed huge opportunities to engage Russia directly and positively about reductions to their non-strategic nuclear weapons, and to improve their own nuclear image in the world in general.

I understand what Hans is saying by "non-strategic" nuclear weapons, but I hesitate to call these B61 gravity bombs tactical nukes. To me, if it's anything larger than a 1-kt nuke, it's strategic, but I see that these are "dial-a-yield" bombs that can in fact do small nuke blasts. Still, someone's going to notice those air-delivered "operational/tactical" nukes and respond in a strategic mind-set. But the larger question is this: is the deliberate decision not to talk about this action demonstrate the failure to develop a nuclear weapons strategy for the post-Cold War era? Or is this just reflective of the old Cold War "thou shalt not speak of nukes" mentality?

Nuclear Hysteria - Part II

As our federal officials calmly talk about responding to mushroom clouds over U.S. cities, others want to stir up the fear and concern about whether our cities need to do more to prepare for "the unthinkable." And tell me, why do people keep using this phrase when it's clear that all they ever do is think about this very improbable scenario?

Federal officials are worried enough to have convened a National Academy of Sciences committee on medical preparedness for a nuclear attack by terrorists. The panel is holding its first two-day meeting in Washington this week.

"The risk is there - it's not zero," said the committee's chairman, Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. "We don't know where all the suitcase nukes are. They are out there, and we know the bad guys are trying to get their hands on them. ... If there is a catastrophic event, there are things we can do to prepare for it and to mitigate the effects if it happens."

Yes, we know the risk is not zero, but it's awfully, awfully close to zero, and it's not as if there are not other risks more tangible and with just as much need to be addressed. Of course, first the terrorist group would have to make, buy, or steal a nuke, not a trivial matter; transport it across the ocean without getting caught by international or national agencies, and then get past state and local police; and avoid undue attention as they try to negotiate a foreign country. But details...

However, there is still no consensus on how the public should respond to a nuclear blast. Ready.gov urges people to "Take cover immediately, as far below ground as possible." The private Rand Corp., though, urges the opposite: "Avoid radioactive fallout: evacuate the fallout zone quickly."

Dallas said the best response is somewhere in between: If you're in the path of a lethal plume of radioactive matter and can get out in time, evacuate. If not, seek shelter in a heavily reinforced building or basement to limit radiation exposure.

Hey, this is great advice, but it's not new. This is standard "all-hazards" response stuff, what one would do in the event of any hazmat release. But let's do more! Why don't we institute "duck and cover" drills in all the public schools and reinstitute the emergency tone commercials? We ought to be expecting a nuclear blast in the nearest metro city any day now, there's no time to waste! After all, the last set of "duck and cover" education in the 1950s and 1960s came in so useful when... oh, that's right. There was no massive Soviet nuclear attack, despite all the predictions, strategies, air defense and civil defense programs.

I don't think all the defensive preparations deterred the Soviets from launching, it was just that the they weren't as crazy as we said they were. We avoided nuclear destruction through diplomacy and political maneuvering. So when are we going to figure out the formula this time? We need to focus on the terrorists, not on the imagined horrors of another "Hiroshima" attack in the United States. Time to get reality back in the picture.

Nuclear Hysteria - Part I

Welcome back to Nuclear Monday! Our appointed federal leaders are praising each other about how they've improved security for our nation against potential nuclear terrorism.They were on the Hill last week, talking to our favorite DINO-in-charge Lieberman.

“The nuclear is different,” Paulison said. “Like Paul McHale said, it’s going to be catastrophic if we have a 10” kiloton detonation.

During and after the hearing, Paulison noted that he doesn’t like to give number rankings. “I would stick to my seven and hopefully, we never have to test it,” Paulison told CQ.

According to McHale, the situation has improved significantly since 9/11.

“I would say on Sept. 11, we would have struggled to be a two,” he said. “Today, we are probably a five. And to improve our capabilities in the face of a challenge that is almost impossible to calculate, the consequences of a 10-kt nuclear detonation in the heart of a major American city, I think from a DOD standpoint, now that we have designed the right kinds of capabilities . . . we’ve got to bring an operational reality to the concepts that we’ve developed.”

McHale suggested it would be possible to move from a five to an eight.

“We’ve got to get realistic, detailed planning at the state and local level so that we properly communicate to our partners at the state and local level what it is we can deliver and how fast we can deliver it,” he said. “They can inform us as to where they see their shortfalls and you can’t do that with a virtual presence. You need a planning capacity that is a focal point that exists in a real building with real people every day doing the planning.”

I find it surreal how these Very Serious People casually talk about how they believe that 1) terrorists will eventually use a 10-kt nuclear device in an American city and 2) how they can grade this on a scale and say, "yeah, ah, our response capability is about a five today because of all our nifty radiation detectors and training, but it could be an EIGHT if we got a whole lot more money. But I can live with a seven." What have we done since 9/11 that merits a raise from two to five? Plans, exercises, training, I suppose.

If there were terrorists developing nuclear bombs, they'd be getting the material and technology from a very small handful of nations, and you know which ones. We need to focus on the terrorist groups and intel against these sources, not planning for "response capabilities" for an incredible and unrealistic scenario. At best, the proposed three CCMRFs, at 5000 persons each, represent a general capability for natural disaster response such as Katrina or small terrorist incidents using chem or rad hazards.

I don't think these people understand "operational reality," or they wouldn't be testifying about such nonsense with such earnestness. But I guess it makes them feel important as they deliberate about "securing the country." The United States could absorb at least one nuclear attack, were it to ever happen, and as we did with Katrina, the response would initially be challenging but we'd get there. I'd honestly feel better if we had a more serious approach to terrorist WMD incidents, though.

Casual Fridays

Well, I've been avoiding answering this meme, but in the sake of courtesy, I suppose I must. I have been tagged by T.E. Shaw of the Soup Knife and the Bugs n Gas Gal with the Meme of Seven. Like brother Matt, I will not pass on the infection.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Present an image of martial discord something more relevant to my blog from whatever period or situation you’d like.

These are the facts:

• I enjoy military board games where you have to manually move units around the map. I especially enjoy a wargame against opponents who don't think that the weight of modern civilization rests on their winning and who take forever to complete their turn.
• I've never had a broken bone or medical stiches. Must have been my many trips to the library instead of to the local boxing ring.
• I was a triple varsity letter winner in high school, but they weren't "jock" sports.
• When I was in the Army, I was gassed by a sadistic evaluator with a CS grenade. He thought it was really funny to gas a chemical officer.
• I have way, way too many books, but I can't seem to give them away.
• I loved Marvel comics as a kid, and spent my tips as a newspaper boy getting a few every month. Spidey, Captain America, and the X-Men were favorites.
• I've visited the West Coast for business and pleasure, and it has very beautiful cities, but I don't feel any need to move there.

Have a nice weekend, folks. Enjoy the martial picture of gassed British soldier being treated during some battle in World War I.

Judicial Activism

Dionne in the WaPo: " Yesterday's narrow majority spent the first 54 pages of its decision, written by Scalia, trying to show that even though the Framers inserted 13 important words in front of the assertion of a right to bear arms, those words were essentially meaningless. Does that reflect an honest attempt to determine the "original" intention of the Constitution's authors?

"In fact, it was the court's four more liberal justices who favored judicial modesty, deference to democratic decisions, empowerment of local officials and care in examining the Constitution's actual text and the history behind it. Indeed, the same conservative majority ran roughshod over the work of an elected branch of government in its ruling yesterday on campaign finance law.
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In his intemperate dissent in the court's recent Guantanamo decision, Scalia said the defense of constitutional rights embodied in that ruling meant it "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." That consideration apparently does not apply to a law whose precise purpose was to reduce the number of murders in the District of Columbia."

No Nuke Terrorism Czar For You

I am shocked, shocked to find out that the Bush administration has decided to disregard congressional legislation calling for the appointment of a nuclear terrorism czar. Even though it's a law, I suppose the president thinks he's above the law - or at least in a position where he can ignore Congress for the next seven months.

National security analysts have long advocated for a top presidential adviser focused solely on organizing the government to prevent terrorists from acquiring catastrophic weapons, such as a nuclear device, a radioactive "dirty bomb," or biological agents. They contend that the current arrangement - in which that responsibility is spread across the Departments of Energy, Defense, State, and Homeland Security - is not fully integrated and has gaps in preparedness.

Calls to create such a post date to before the 9/11 attacks. A January 2001 task force - headed by former Senate majority leader Howard Baker, a Republican, and Lloyd Cutler, a former White House aide to Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter - called for a similar position and additional resources to lock down former Soviet arsenals and vulnerable nuclear stockpiles worldwide.

Under the law at issue, which Bush signed on Aug. 3, 2007, the nuclear antiterrorism coordinator would serve as the "principal adviser to the president on all matters relating to the prevention of weapons of mass destruction proliferation and terrorism."

That official - which the legislation stipulates must be "full time" and carry no other responsibilities - would draw up budgets and strategies for securing and detecting materials around the world that could be used in weapons of mass destruction. The president would appoint the coordinator pending Senate approval, and he or she would command a small staff that would participate in the deliberations of both the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, the law states.

Advocates say the post is needed now more than ever, pointing to growing evidence - documented by international intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency - that terrorist groups are actively seeking nuclear or radiological weapons and the know-how to make them.

I personally don't think that the "czar" concept works well in Washington DC. The agencies ignore the advice and congressional committees grill them without any intent