Armchair Generalist

Friends and Foes of the Steelers

Well, this ought to tell you everything you suspected about the individuals quoted below.

Pres. Obama: "I have to say, you know, I wish the Cardinals the best. Kurt Warner is a great story and he's closer to my age than anybody else on the field, but I am a long-time Steelers fan. "

Former SecState Condi Rice: "Five Super Bowls is enough."

Prediction: Steelers will crush. Great rejoicing will occur.

Casual Fridays

P.W. Singer has written a very interesting book in "Wired for War: The Robotic Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century." This is his third release in six years - impressive, considering the 438 pages of this tome. If you want a technical discussion and evaluation of the value of robots in war, this isn't the book for you. Instead, Singer takes a journey into the history of robotics, the military's past work with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sudden love affair with robotics after 2003, the pros and cons of using robots in combat operations, and what the future might show.

Singer's success in this book is how he has addressed the social, technical, military, and ethical aspects of the robot revolution. It is a relatively recent technical explosion of activity, but as Singer shows, the social impact of robotics go back decades. Still, the desire to use unmanned systems to augment and replace human frailties has been strong, especially in warfare. The more recent advances in robotics, added to military concepts of operation in urban areas and social comfort with electronics, has led to a Revolution in Military Affairs - of sorts. We may not be there completely.

Singer has talked to a large number of people for this book, and just when you think you can't stand all the positive statements from industry leaders, he flips over to the many existing challenges of operating autonomous robots in the field. What happens when the computer-guided robot armed with an M16 rifle drives off the road, comes back toward you instead of going toward the enemy, or starts spinning around in circles? What happens when the enemy - say, for instance, Muslim insurgents - decides that they are the human resistance fighting the Terminator machines? What if using robots - even Predators and Global Hawks - convinces your enemy that you are too cowardly to fight in person, and that emboldens them?

Using robots isn't that simple. There is no doubt that we've turned the corner, but it appears that we've only started taking advantage of what robots can do. There's no question that we need to continue forward, but Singer warns us that there are social consequences to think about. If robots do all the fighting, will the public or our politicians be deterred from fighting bloody wars? Or, as long as our kids aren't dieing, does that make war okay? There are no easy answers here.

I enjoyed this book - it was an easy read that crossed a number of relevant topics, and Singer certainly interviewed enough people. They include not just civilian experts in industry and academia, but also military leaders and social analysts. He goes off the reservation occasionally - I didn't quite get the excursion into the philosophy of science fiction or the contributions of the SIGMA group. I thought including Ralph Peter's views of military strategy was really unnecessary (really, P.W.? Ralph Peters? Was every other military futurist busy?). Fellow blogger LTC Bob Bateman is in here along with Lawrence Korb, which helps counterbalance Peters.

And there's this gadfly who keeps commenting throughout this book, some guy named Noah Shachtman... Singer says that Noah hosts "the best site for data and discussion on future technology on the entire Internet." Well. I don't know about that. But the book is worth the price of admission if you want to understand where we are in the robotic revolution. 

UPDATE: Singer op-end in today's Los Angeles Times.

UPDATE II: Singer on The Daily Show. Dude gets around.

Gotta Get My Comic Books Out of the Attic

From the Onion - Trouble communicating in the White House.

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama expressed frustration Wednesday after members of his cabinet failed to recognize his allusion to the 24th issue of the comic series Savage Sword Of Conan during their first major meeting together.

Obama, whose upcoming challenges include organizing a massive effort to rebuild the nation's infrastructure, was reportedly unprepared for the confused silence he received upon suggesting that his cabinet "team up with Taurus of Nemedia" to secure the necessary funding from Congress.
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Administration officials said the incident has caused the president to question whether his staff has ever understood any of his Conan references. One such instance he is reportedly reexamining occurred after his loss in the New Hampshire primary, when Obama rallied his staff by reminding them, "There is always a way, if the desire be coupled with courage."

Although campaign workers smiled and nodded at the time, Obama has begun to seriously doubt that any of them connected the inspiring quotation to the story line in which a Kothian rogue informs Conan that it is impossible to climb to the top of the Elephant Tower because the sides are more slippery than glass

While Obama has not scheduled another meeting with his cabinet this week—a respite the president hopes they will use to brush up on the 235-issue Savage Sword series—he is expected to meet with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Friday to discuss Afghanistan. A holdover from the Bush administration, Gates told reporters he may have gotten off on the wrong foot with the new president, citing an occasion when Obama asked him what he knew about 1984's Secret Wars, a 12-issue limited Marvel release. Gates then handed a visibly confused Obama 1,400 classified pages on covert CIA operations in El Salvador.
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When asked by the press corps if this week's hiccup has caused him to rethink any of his appointments, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton interrupted the president to assert that she and her colleagues have already begun educating themselves about comic books, and will soon be "an invincible team of Supermen and Wonder Women working to save America."

"Wonder Woman? That's not even Marvel," Obama responded before storming out of the press room. "Who are you people?"

Just freakin' hilarious. And oh yes,  I do have the Secret Wars collection.

Red Alert!

Belphagor was right -  I don't need no stinkin' toy figures and mock Star Trek bridge. Not when I can get the Captain's Chair instead... functional lights, sound effects, too. Sweeeeettttttt.

Blackwater Told to Pack Bags

Ray pointed me to this BBC article announcing that the Iraqi government has decided to tell Blackwater that their services will no longer be permitted in Iraq.

Iraq will not renew the licence of US security firm Blackwater, which was involved in an 2007 incident in which at least 14 civilians were killed.

An interior ministry spokesman said the US embassy had been told it will have to use another security company.
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"The contract is finished and will be not be renewed by order of the minister of the interior," said interior ministry spokesman Maj Gen Abdel Karim Khalaf.

He said the decision had been sent to the US embassy in Baghdad and "they have to find a new security company".

He added that the decision had been prompted by the incident on 16 September 2007.
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A new US-Iraqi security agreement gives Baghdad the authority to determine which Western security companies operate in the country.

A US embassy official confirmed it had received the Iraqi decision, and said US officials were working with the Iraqi government and its contractors to address the "implications of this decision".

Yeah, it's so uncomfortable when those governments reliant on US foreign aid and security decide to do things that's not in the US government's interest. Bloody rude, those chaps.

New Joint Ops Document Released

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently released a document which will help drive future joint capabilities. It's called the "Capstone Concept for Joint Operations" version 3.0, and it's a very, very interesting read. (Side note: isn't it cute how the Joint Staff gives documents version numbers as if they were computer programs?)

"The CCJO discusses broad national security challenges that likely will require the employment of the joint forces," said Navy Rear Adm. Dan W. Davenport, director, joint concept development & experimentation for USJFCOM. "We'll use this document to guide the study, development, experimentation and evaluation of joint concepts and capabilities."

The national security challenges addressed in the CCJO include: winning the nation's wars; deterring potential adversaries; developing cooperative security; defending the homeland; and responding to civil crises.

These challenges form the context for exploring how the joint force will operate in the future. The CCJO states that, "Above all, joint forces in the future will need to be able to apply combat power in more varied, measured and discriminate ways than ever before."

CCJO describes the operational art of employing the future joint force as the arranging and balancing of operations to meet the specific situation, with continuous assessment and adaptation as needed to produce the desired results.

The document talks about conventional and irregular war (p. 8), but it dropped the use of the terms "catastrophic" and "disruptive", the other two forms of expected future threats identified in Rumsfeld era-documents. Another thing that caught my eye was that this concept actually endorses the Boyd "OODA loop" idea (see bottom of page 12, footnote 14), which has been largely absent from formal military concepts outside of the Marine Corps. Bad side, the document echos the popular rhetoric on "terrorist WMDs" (p. 4):

The potential proliferation among a growing roster of states and nonstate actors of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, is particularly dangerous, and could significantly complicate any future U.S. use of military force. Nuclear weapons will remain one potentially existential threat to the Nation.

Well, I guess I can't argue with the nuclear part too much, but I still don't see any "growing roster of... nonstate actors" when it comes to WMDs. At least they don't use the term "rogue nation" anywhere. I know you may be tempted to think this is just another Pentagonese document, filling a space on a bookshelf and not worth much else, but take a read, especially you Clausewitz types. I think you'll enjoy it - it has some distinct differences from the old regime and it reads well.

Clausewitz Roundtable

I've been wanting to point out the interesting discussion going on over at Chicago Boyz - they're going through the classic "On War" book by Carl von Clausewitz and talking about various aspects of his writings. It's called the "Clausewitz Roundtable."

In particular, I'll point out Cheryl Rofer's work - she did a piece on Clausewitz and Herman Kahn (noted nuclear weapons strategist):

In Chapter 8 of Book 1, Clausewitz telescopes war down to “a single short blow” to show that this is not possible. Nuclear war moves closer to this idealization. Kahn’s analysis is that even a nuclear war does not consist of a single short blow. There can be warnings and exchanges.

But I also enjoy her take on Book II, where she talks about Clausewitz's view as to whether war is an art or a science. She explains, it's all in the context.

Technology was not linked as strongly to science as it is today. Like other aspects of modern science, that link was just emerging, with steam-powered transportation and the miner’s lamp resulting from Robert Fulton’s thinking about discoveries in gas properties and Humphrey Davy’s chemical experiments.

Science was a way to order observations and derive new generalizations. That’s not a bad description of what Clausewitz seems to have been trying to do in the case of war. A somewhat chaotic collection of observations was the raw material for a more general theory, which, by the way, would not have been the overarching Grand Unified Theory that today’s physicists are looking for, but something more like Coulomb’s Law, or the Law of Definite Proportions.

Did Clausewitz recognize the differences in scientific approaches to war and to electricity? I suspect that he didn’t fully when he started, but he had a much better idea of those differences by the time he finished his manuscript. He recognized early that war arises out of human behavior, the biggest difference with electricity, but he might well have decided that a scientific approach was worth trying. The lines between chemistry and physics were fuzzy, and it wasn’t at all clear how far one might go with the approach.

And that partly-organized collection of observations and attempts at generalizations is just the sort of data that we can still use as a basis for understanding today’s wars.

Good stuff. I need to go back to the classics, after I get through with the pile of unread books on modern military affairs and foreign policy. In the meantime, I recommend visiting the Roundtable.

Neglecting Our Veterans

Jack, a friend of the blog, sent me this sad note about how a Michigan utility cut back a World War II veteran's electric power during the middle of January, when the temperatures were ranging from 12 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 9, resulting in his death from freezing.

[Marvin] Schur, or "Mutts," was a retired foundry worker who lived alone, his wife having died a couple of years ago. The couple had no children. He could often be seen through the big front window of his comfortably furnished home of 50 or 60 years, watching TV or keeping an eye on his neighborhood.

On Jan. 13, a worker with the city-owned utility installed a "limiter" on Schur's electric meter after four months of unpaid bills. The device restricts power and blows like a fuse if usage rises past a set level. Electricity is not restored until the device is flipped back on by the homeowner, who must walk outside to the meter.

City Electric Light & Power did not contact Schur face-to-face to notify him of the device and explain how it works, instead following its usual policy by leaving a note on the door. But neighbors said Schur rarely, if ever, left the house in the cold.

At some point, the device evidently tripped and was not reset, authorities said. Schur's home was heated by a gas furnace, not electricity, but some gas furnaces do not work properly if the power is out.

This is just outrageous treatment. Bad enough that the greedy bastards want to twist every last penny out its users' hands, but in the middle of winter in Michigan? This is just not right. I recognize that we're in some tough economic times, but if we don't look out for our own, especially our older retired citizens, then we've lost a good part of our humanity.

Schur was an Army medic, and won a Purple Heart for his actions in the Pacific. I do wish that organizations, such as the Vietnam Veterans of America, would pay more attention to our rapidly fading population of World War II vets than to frivolous lawsuits about decades-old chem-bio testing. But I guess they have their priorities, too.

Restoring US-Russian Balance

Cheryl at WhirledView notes that President Obama made a quick phone call to start talks with Russian President Medvedev recently. It may have had something to do with reversing the ill-thought out missile defense system being set up in the Czech Republic and Poland. In return, Russia had a sudden change of mind regarding its threat to set up Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad. It's all very interesting.

I liked this Reuter's article:

The missile issue is likely to be on the agenda if, as expected, Medvedev and Obama meet on April 2 on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in London.

GOODWILL GESTURE

"It (the suspension of missile deployment) is a signal to Obama of Moscow's goodwill," Yevgeny Volk, an analyst in Moscow with the Heritage Foundation think tank, told Reuters.

But a senior Polish diplomatic source played down the significance of the Interfax report. "We are at the same place as we were yesterday ... nothing substantial has changed," the source said.

Obama faces a series of other challenges in dealing with Russia, including bridging differences over NATO expansion and strategic arms control.

Let me translate the Polish statement: "President Bush paid us well to secure the missile interceptor site - if you want to pull out, fine, but you're not getting the money back." At least that's my translation.

The Bush administration ignored Russia for too long. It's good to see Obama recognizing the need to treat Russia like an equal. Even if Russia isn't equal to the United States, it's still an awfully significant player (as talks about NATO supply routes to Afghanistan have shown).

SecDef Gate's Testimony

SecDef Bob Gates went before the House and Senate Armed Services Committee to talk about the DOD's current challenges and proposed strategies this week. As usual, Gates puts forward a very smart piece of testimony. Afghanistan and Pakistan are on the top of his list, not surprisingly, followed by Iraq. There are a few WMD issues rattling around there.

Beyond these operations [Afghanistan and Iraq], one of the greatest dangers we continue to face is the toxic mix of rogue nations, terrorist groups, and nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. North Korea and Iran present uniquely vexing challenges in this regard. North Korea has produced enough plutonium for several atomic bombs; Iran is developing the capabilities needed to support a nuclear weapons program. North Korea’s conventional capability continues to degrade as it becomes more antiquated and starved – in some cases literally – for resources and support. Both countries have ballistic missile programs of increasing range and a record of proliferation.

Wow. I was really, really hoping that the new administration would drop this rhetorical line. We have yet to see solid evidence of terrorist groups trying to get NBC weapons from "rogue nations." And really - the term "rogue nations" was just a Bush administration term for "nations with illegitimate goverments against which we can promote regime change and attack without too many other countries protesting." Can we drop it already? It's so 15 minutes ago.

In view of the National Guard’s growing operations and homeland security responsibilities, and to elevate the Guard in deliberations over policy and budget, I am pleased to say that the chief of the National Guard Bureau is now a full general. Another senior Guard officer recently became Northcom’s deputy commander, also a historic first that I hope will pave the way for a Guard officer to one day head that command.

Prediction: having a four-star general officer will not aid the NG Bureau in significantly influencing either policy or budget. It will, instead, divide the Army's interests into a battle between active and NG issues. So much for the One Army concept. And if we're going to make the NORTHCOM commander's position reliant on a litmus test of whether he's a NG general officer, well, that's the SecDef's call. I don't see anything special there, but whatever. Quality is more important than pedigree.

I continue to believe that as long as other nations have nuclear weapons, the U.S. must maintain an arsenal of some level. The stewardship of that arsenal is perhaps the military’s most sensitive mission – with no margin for error.

That there should be any question in that regard is why recent lapses in the handling of nuclear weapons and material were so grave. They were evidence of an erosion in training, expertise, resources, and accountability in this critical mission. And they brought severe consequences, starting at the unit level and reaching up to the top leadership of the Air Force.
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A task force headed by former Energy and Defense Secretary James Schlesinger has now reported. It has identified many trends, both recent and long-term, that may warrant corrective action. Among its recommendations:

• A new assistant secretary of defense for deterrence to oversee nuclear management; and
• Develop and maintain a strategic roadmap to modernize and sustain our nuclear forces.

But no mention of the need for a new post-Cold War nuclear weapons policy. I suppose we need the corrective actions to take place prior to doing the hard policy work...

A Waiver for DepSecDef-Nominee Lynn

Matt Yglesias has a very good line of logic why the nominee for DepSecDef, William Lynn, ought to receive a waiver for his past lobbying activities with Raytheon.

I don’t have particular views on the merits of Lynn or Patterson, but I think the whole thing illustrates the lack of merits of this anti-lobbyist posturing. Among other things, the distinction between “lobbyists” and other forms of influence-peddlers is pretty irrelevant. I do worry about putting too much of our regulatory authority in the hands of people whose primary allegiance is to friends on Wall Street rather than to the public interest. But if instead of being a lobbyist for Goldman, Patterson had been some other kind of Goldman employee, that wouldn’t actually ease my concerns. Meanwhile, you do need some people in government who know the private sector world so it’s not possible to totally avoid these kinds of ties. Either way, the way you take on the entrenched interests of the wealthy and powerful is by taking on their interests not by promulgating ethics rules so tight that you immediately start searching for loopholes in them.

Just so - attack the issues, not the person's character. There are bad lobbyists, but not all lobbyists are bad. The staffers and appointees can't be experts on everything. Lobbyists allow congressional staffers and political appointees to get up-to-date and expert information on important public policy issues. We do need to watch how these few lobbyists-turned-appointees deal with issues, but they can be trusted. Hell, it's not like the last administration (or the one before that) didn't have its share of appointees with significant business connections. In the meantime, let's not handicap the Obama administration with draconian guidelines.

UPDATE: Matt Y explains more on the proper role of lobbyists.

Planning for the "Unthinkable"

I'll bet that you were just wondering if your state and city emergency planners were prepared for that DHS scenario of a 10 kiloton nuclear device going off in your city. Well, wonder no more! The feds have written the manual for how to prepare for and respond to that event.

What is the "Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation"?

The White House developed this guidance specifically for application for nuclear detonations. This guidance is the first Federal guidance focusing on areas of severe damage and high radiation. It provides the basis to help state and local planners develop state and local plans by tailoring this guidance to their specific circumstances or to compare differing inputs and assumptions. It serves to facilitate coordination between state and local planners and the Federal government.

How is the “Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation” to be used?

The planning guidance may be reviewed and referenced by local and state emergency response planners. It is complementary to ongoing national preparedness activities, and will help to increase local and state emergency response planners’ knowledge of the expected effects and impacts of a nuclear detonation.

Yes, I imagine that all of you will be sleeping easier at night now. It's actually not a bad reference manual, has lots of facts and figures, once you get past its initial critical assumptions on page 10:

There will be no significant Federal response at the scene for 24 hours and the full extent of Federal assets will not be available for up to 72 hours. Emergency response is principally a local function. Federal assistance will be mobilized as rapidly as possible; however, for purposes of this document, no significant Federal response is assumed for 24 – 72 hours.

A nominal 10 KT yield nuclear device is assumed for purposes of estimating impacts in high-density urban areas. Variation in the size and type of the nuclear device has a significant effect on the estimation of impacts, however, most homeland security experts agree on 10 KT as a useful assumption for planning.

Really? a 10 kT blast is a "useful assumption for planning?" I really want to know the genius who thought up this assumption, way back when DHS developed its planning scenarios. Why a 10 kiloton yield? Why not 8 or 12? Why not 20? Did he (or she) just use a round number? Was there really a logic to this other than "well, what's within the realm of possible, but not too catastrophic?" 

Domestic CBRN Challenges

The FBI nabbed a janitor who was trying to sell some obsolete nuclear weapons-related equipment out of Oak Ridge. He wasn't looking to support terrorism, just wanted some quick cash. It probably wouldn't have been much of a hit to national security, but it is still against the law.

[Roy Lynn] Oakley tried to sell the parts to the French government, calling French consulates in Atlanta and Chicago and the French Embassy in Washington. The French turned him down and then informed the FBI.

After entering his plea Monday, Oakley avoided reporters seeking comment. His attorneys, federal public defenders Beth Ford and Kim Tollison, did not return a phone call later to their office.

Oakley was a contractor employee with moderate security clearance at the former K-25 uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge at least since 2005. He worked as a laborer and escort for other contractor employees dismantling the World War II-era plant, which is being transformed into an industrial park.

The former K-25 site is owned by the Department of Energy, but it is several miles away from other active government installations in Oak Ridge: the Y-12 nuclear weapons warhead plant and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Two quick thoughts - first of all, this clearly shows that domestic terrorism is a law enforcement issue. It's not a DOD issue. One could argue that international terrorism is also a law enforcement issue - that's the best way to interdict these threats, especially single actors and small local gangs. We need a good marriage between the intelligence and law enforcement communities, more so than getting the counterterrorism and counterproliferation communities together on this issue.

Second thought - here we are in this economic slump, and there are hundreds of biological laboratories funded by DHS and DHHS to research medical countermeasures for biological warfare agents. How many of them have screened their cleaning crews for reliability, let alone their main researchers? It's going to be a big problem.

Put DHS In Charge of Economic Bailout

I was just doing some research at the National Response Framework Resource Center, and noted this definition of "catastrophic incident":

Catastrophic Incident: Any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions.

 By this reading, DHS ought to be in charge of integrating the various government agency responses to the current economic melt-down, no? And you thought Katrina was badly handled...

On a separate thought, extraordinary levels of disruption severely effecting the national morale is a catastrophic event? Really?

It's Just a Game

What if the US democracy was just a big Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG)? Maybe inauguration day represented a big patch day for us players.

President

• Leadership: Will now scale properly to national crises. Intelligence was not being properly applied.
• A bug has been fixed that allowed the President to ignore the effects of debuffs applied by the Legislative classes.
• Drain Treasury: There appears to be a bug that allowed loot to be transferred from the treasury to anyone on the President’s friends list, or in the President’s party. We are investigating.
• Messages to and from the President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.
• Messages originating from the President were being misclassified as originating from The American People.
• A rendering error that frequently caused the President to appear wrapped in the American Flag texture has been addressed.

Vice President

• The Vice President has been correctly reclassified as a pet.
• No longer immune to damage from the Legislative and Judicial classes.
• The Vice President will no longer aggro on friendly targets. This bug was identified with Ranged Attacks and the Head Shot ability.
• Reveal Identity: this debuff will no longer be able to target Covert Operatives.
• Messages to and from the Vice President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.
• A rendering bug was affecting the Vice President’s visibility, making him virtually invisible to the rest of the server. This has been addressed.

Cabinet

• There was a bug in the last release that prevented the Cabinet from disagreeing with the President, which was the cause of a number of serious balance issues. This bug has been addressed, and we will continue to monitor the situation.

Read the rest, it's pretty funny.

Obama's Turn at Afghanistan

As the Obama administration continues to develop its strategies, it has to figure out what to do in Afghanistan. And unfortunately, this means continued "jaw jaw" on what to do with the poppy fields.

U.S. and allied combat troops will withhold efforts to destroy Afghanistan's narcotics industry, which finances the Taliban insurgency, unless Afghan government forces take the lead, a senior military officer said yesterday.

But with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai widely believed to be riven with corruption and its army and police units unable to conduct complex operations, the drug industry has flourished virtually untouched, military officers said.

Senior civilian and military officials have acknowledged that the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, launched by President George W. Bush weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, cannot be won unless the narcotics trade's stranglehold on Afghanistan is broken and insurgent sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan are eliminated.

"These things simply have not happened," Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, told reporters yesterday. "I'd like to see, if and when we do contribute additional troops, that there is a direct means to get after these things."

Until then, he said, "we have all the elements of a long-term insurgency."

Six and half years. We've been at this for more than six years and our leadership hasn't figured out how to take the funds away from the Taliban. This ought not to be such a tough decision. Burn, baby, burn... or come up with a better idea that hasn't flamed out by now. It may be that nation-building can't be done - then what?

Run Away, Run Away!

 You gotta watch those powdered doughnuts. From Ayrshire, Scotland:

An office was sealed off in an anthrax scare - caused by a box of doughnuts.

It happened after sugar spilled from the box on to a letter.

Staff at a debt collection agency were worried the white powder might be suspicious.

And that turned to panic after a woman who had handled the powder began to bleed from the nose.

The office block was sealed off for six hours to let police check the building for anthrax - leaving 50 terrified workers trapped inside.

They were finally given the all-clear at 7pm.

Again, hard to understand how emergency responders, knowing that it's most likely a hoax, go to such lengths to cover their asses in these "white powder" scares.

Iraq Abandons Chemical Weapons

Well, what a relief... Now Iraq will have to declare all of those chemical weapons that it didn't have in 2003.

The government of Iraq has deposited its instrument of accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) with the Secretary General of the United Nations and within 30 days, on 12 February 2009, will become the 186th State Party to the Convention

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is the implementing body for the Convention. The OPCW Director-General, Ambassador Rogelio Pfirter, welcomed Iraq’s decision as a significant step to strengthen global and regional efforts to prevent the spread and use of chemical weapons.

“Iraq’s accession draws us closer to the Convention’s goal of the universal ban on chemical weapons, and we call upon those nine States that have not yet adhered to the Convention to do so without delay,” Ambassador Pfirter said.

Yes, we will never have to worry about chemical weapons again, even though they are the easiest of the three classes of WMD to manufacture and employ by nation-states and terrorist groups. If only the Biological Weapons Convention had a verification protocol, and then we could forget about bioterrorist threats, right? Well, it might be a start, anyway.

Hiatt the Liberal Leader

Forbes magazine must be terribly, terribly confused to think that Fred Hiatt, editor of the Washington Post, should be anywhere near the list of top intellectual liberals in the US media, let alone in the number three slot.

Pilloried on the left for his non-Manichean support of the war in Iraq, his moderate and pragmatic editorial column is likely to be the one most closely followed by the Obama administration.

Wow, I really hope not. He's certainly not a friend of this administration. He was much more sympathetic to the Bush administration over the past years. No, Fred Hiatt is not a liberal. And Dowd, Friedman, and Hitchens on this list? Sorry. Nope. Influential, yes. Liberals, no.

Our Resilient Society

Ben Friedman of the CATO Institute offers us some common sense about "WMD terrorism." That is to say, we will survive.

Our way of life survived various wars, the virtual destruction of a large swath of New Orleans, and other disasters. It would survive even nuclear terrorism. Incidents of chemical or biological terrorism are unlikely to cause mass casualties, although they could, and will not collapse our institutions. The danger to American values comes more from our reaction to terrorism than the thing itself. What’s more, these sorts of incidents are not nearly as likely as you generally hear.

Many national security experts and politicians believe that our society is brittle, that even a well-timed cyber attack could cripple our economy and institutions. This idea is akin to strategic airpower theory, which argues that the destruction of a few pressure points can halt a nation’s industrial output and cause its surrender. History proves this theory wrong. Industrial societies are resilient. The transition to a more information-based economy makes this doubly true. Information is hard to destroy, for one, living as it does in dispersed networks and brains. Second, lowered communications and transport costs make us less dependent on any particular supplier or region, making recovery from supply disruptions easier. And our wealth provides further insurance against disaster.

We need to guard against the Chicken Littles who keep screaming about how we can't take the risk of a terrorist CBRN incident. Of course we can. This is not to say that we ought to disregard the possibility, but that we can, given a rational and thoughtful threat assessment and risk management plan, take steps to intercept the threat and to mitigate any consequences of an attack. We don't need doomsayers talking about the need to take action on "one percent chances  of the imaginable coming due." Less rhetoric, more rational actions, please.