Where is his military advisor?
Thanks to K-Lo I learned of Barack Obama’s level of military knowledge:
“I heard from a Army captain, who was the head of a rifle platoon, supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24, because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition; they didn’t have enough humvees.
They were actually capturing Taliban weapons because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief. Now that’s a consequence of bad judgment, and you know, the question is on the critical issues that we face right now who’s going to show the judgment to lead.”
There are a number of misstatements in Barack Obama’s story that call it into question. More troubling than the simple misunderstanding of the often arcane jargon that permeates all the uniformed services is the fact that there was so much in his statement that indicates that Obama does not have sufficient military knowledge surrounding him. That is deeply troubling for someone so deep into the presidential primary process.
Every candidate has weaknesses. John McCain’s is that he is economically inept. However, in recognition of that limitation he keeps Phil Gramm as a close advisor. Now you might not agree with Gramm’s economic positions, but even his opponents must acknowledge that he is a highly competent economist.
Obviously, Senator Obama’s weakness is foreign affairs and military matters. (View the video of Obama’s remarks here. It’s clear from the ineloquent delivery that is atypical of Obama, that he is not comfortably knowledgeable with the subject matter.) So who is his trusted military advisor? Who is the person on his staff who reviews everything he says on these matter? Were there anyone there with even a few years of even mid-level military experience, this story as it was presented would not have passed the smell test.
The truth behind the story is far less damning–if even damning at all. The captain (he is a captain now, but was a lieutenant when all this occurred back in 2003!) didn’t have half his platoon in one theatre while the rest was deployed somewhere else. Instead his unit, as a result of normal personnel rotations, had lost soldiers who had been transferred elsewhere and hadn’t yet been replaced. The Army’s individual replacement system, which makes such a gap in coverage possible, is in the midst of an overhaul toward a unit replacement system. Ironically, the long-overdue overhaul was in large part forced on the Army by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld over the objections of many senior officers in the service who were wedded to the older system which had been in place for three generations. (UPDATE: Four years ago I wrote an article for Military Review on this very subject. Unfortunately, the article is full of impenetrable army jargon, but the gist of it is a reform proposal much of which the Army actually implemented.)
The remainder of the captain’s complaint was about equipment shortages, including this:
“We should have had 4 up-armored humvees,” he said. “We were supposed to. But at most we had three operable humvees, and it was usually just two.”
The actual complaint is not that they didn’t deploy with enough humvees as Obama intimated; it’s that they weren’t all operational all the time. Anyone with any military experience in any era is familiar with that problem, and while unfortunate, it is just a fact of military life that military equipment breaks often and requires constant maintenance and resupply. Again, also keep in mind that Obama is relating a story that is so old that when it occurred, he was still a state senator in Illinois. Much has been fixed since then–especially the problems with the availability of up-armored humvees.
Finally, American operations in Afghanistan are a massive logistical undertaking, the chief limitation of which is NOT concurrent operations in other theatres, but simply the “tyranny of distance.” Bagram Air Base is more than 600 miles from the Arabian Sea. Much of what comes into Afghanistan arrives by air. As I mentioned on another topic earlier this week, this airlift operation requires a roundtrip flight twice as long as the one from Frankfurt to Berlin that relieved that city from the Soviet blockade 60 years ago. And this aerial resupply mission has already lasted six times as long as the Berlin Airlift. Furthermore, anything which puts our relationship with Pakistan (Barack, are you listening?) puts that entire Afghanistan mission at risk since there is no other route into the landlocked Central Asian country . . . unless you’d also prefer war with Iran.
What we have here is not the alarming story that Barack Obama presented last night. Nor, however, is it a fraud as has been intimated by so many Republican bloggers already. Instead this whole thing is a misunderstanding, the cause of which is that Barack Obama apparently has insufficient military experience around him to explain the “rest of the story” and to present it to him in such a way that Obama can convey his point without being lost in the details. It is that apparent lack of military knowledge, and not the story itself, that I find alarming.
UPDATE:
Phil Carter adds some more context. However, amongst his own relevant personal anecdotes is this:
Sen. Obama’s comments last night are eminently believable. Sen. Obama is also absolutely right to use this anecdote as a critique of the administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq. It is incontrovertible that the war in Iraq diverted scarce military resources (manpower, equipment, etc.) from Afghanistan to Iraq.
I’ve known Phil since we were both on Active Duty. While the comments as they were re-related by Jake Tapper are believable, I respectfully submit to Phil that his partisanship is showing if he thinks that how Barack Obama conveyed them is accurate.
Firstly, they are not contemporary; the complaint is nearly five years old. Secondly, why his platoon was shorted soldiers was not related to Iraq, but to an arcane Army personnel system that has been in place since the early 20th century. Phil had to know that because we have both corresponded extensively on the folly of the Army’s individual replacement system. Thirdly, the equipment and ammunition shortages are indicative not of the President’s carelessness, but of trying to resupply an operation at the end of an 8,000 mile supply chain the last 1,000 miles of which is by tactical air and then by ground through the most austere and remote environment on the planet.
In Phil’s defense, however, I would add that Barack Obama would be well served to put the former infantry captain and military lawyer in a senior position on his staff to put some qualified military experience around him. Obama desperately needs it.
MUCH MORE: Memeorandum
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Help a civilian out.
Instead his unit, as a result of normal personnel rotations, had lost soldiers who had been transferred elsewhere and hadn’t yet been replaced.
According to the Captain, “15 members of the platoon were re-assigned to other units. He knows of 10 of those 15 for sure who went to Iraq, and he suspects the other five did as well.”
If I’m reading your post right, the only part of Obama’s statement that might be inaccurate is that the shortage of ammo and humvees was due to military inefficiencies and not this man’s platoon being split up to go to Iraq.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
But other than that, how was the opera Mrs. Lincoln?
And Obama’s military experience is….what again? Last election, we needed a war hero. We needed experience. And John Kerry had that experience.
Now we need a faith healer who can heal the lame. No surprise how the lame crawl to his defense.
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:20 am
Sean,
According to the captain’s story 15 soldiers weren’t “reassigned to Iraq” they were transferred to other units as part of normal rotations. In 1995 I left my unit in Schweinfurt, Germany for a normal rotation back to Fort Knox. One month after I left Germany the unit was sent to Kosovo. I wasn’t sent away from the unit for another duty, it was just the normal rotation–something that is especially bad in the summer months when people try to be reassigned because it’s much easier to transfer your kids to a new school at the end of the year. The captain also tells ABC that most of the soldiers were replaced once he was in Afghanistan.
Here’s why this is not a slam on Bush. This has been going on for dozens of years. And it was the Bush Administration, specifically Donald Rumsfeld who said that this was a stupid way to run an Army.
Four years ago, coincidentally while the captain in question was deployed in Afghanistan, I wrote an article for Military Review outlining a reoganization plan that would move the Army from an individual replacement system to a unit replacement system. Much of it has since been adopted.
Getting back to my point, had Barack Obama had someone with military knowledge on his staff they would have pointed out that this wasn’t a Bush problem, but is actually a great example of a reform that his administration implemented. But I guess then Obama couldn’t have scored some cheap political points.
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:24 am
So it is your assertion that there isn’t any legitimacy to the argument that there would’ve been more troops and supplies available in Afghanistan had we not invaded Iraq? Because that is what Obama was saying, that the war in Iraq diverted our attention away from Afghanistan.
Now, it appears that you are saying that the way the military rotation system is setup there isn’t any platoon cohesion because troops are rotated into different units instead of staying together; if this is the case with or without Iraq, than I agree that this system needs to be changed.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 am
Sean,
You’re close. The Army’s individual replacement system was the cause of the captain’s complaint that his platoon was undermanned. That system long predated Iraq, and in fact was significantly changed over much Army objection by Secretary Rumsfeld. That’s one of the complaints that I had with my friend Phil Carter’s assertion that this was a Bush-Iraq problem. Phil and I have both written extensively on this very subject arguing for this very change since 2000.
On the second point, it is my assertion that it is the severe logistical difficulties associated with operating in Afghanistan that was the limiting factor on the size and supply there. Whether Iraq was or wasn’t happening concurrently is inconsequential. That was particularly true in 2003 and 2004 before more robust infrastructure (relative to what was there before) had been established in Afghanistan. Take Bagram Air Base as an example. When American forces arrived there the maximum on the ground (MOG–the number of aircraft that can be parked at an airport) was only two. Plus, due to the tactical environment, flights in and out were limited to nighttime hours only. That meant that you were lucky to get four C-130 loads of supply into there every 24 hours. We simply couldn’t supply more forces than were in Afghanistan at the time. The situation at the Airbase has improved but you are still limited by the ground transportation network in the country. Afghanistan is the size of Texas. There is not a single rail line in the country. Until American engineers built it there wasn’t even a road connecting each one of the provinces to the capitol, Kabul. And by “road” I mean single lane and dirt in many locations. Logistics is the number one limit on the size and scope of our operations there. Not our operations in Iraq. If we had an Army ten times as large we still couldn’t expand our operations in Afghanistan much more than is now there.
Bringing this back to my Obama point. Had there been knowledgeable military experience surrounding Obama they could have told him that the Captain’s complaints, while valid, didn’t have a damn thing to do with President Bush.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:52 am
Don’t we task organize any more? If so, the real questions for the captain are: 1) was your platoon used comensurate with its capibilities – whatever those capabilities were and irrespective of the TOE? 2) if not, did you use the chain of command to highlight the problem? 3) what was the COC’s response and when was your platoon finally wiped out by the misuse?
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:59 am
It is worth noting that Obama implied that the troops were short of ammunition in Afghanistan, while the account relayed by Mr. Tapper indicated that the 1LT specifically noted that they had sufficient basic weapons and ammunition while in Afghanistan, and were working with locally-available equipment for the heavy weapons which were not part of the nominal kit for the 10th Mountain.
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
We now see the true face behind the happy unity mask.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I think it is the question of weapons and ammo that is key. I mean, being short 1 truck is one thing, but to imply that American troops are sent overseas without weapons and/or ammo is a very serious charge – and that’s what Obama did. He made it sound like their primary source of weapons was the Taliban – like some sort of game of Bioshock where you start with a pipe wrench and work your way up to a machine gun and rocket launcher by taking them off enemies. That’s not what happened, and the Capt agrees that it didn’t happen. Soldiers can survive with ammo, water and some food. Everything else is just a degree of “nice to have” or “allow me to do the job better”.
Also, since when does “I talked to” mean the same thing as “My staff talked to”? I don’t mean he’s a liar, but I really don’t like that attitude – can’t he just say that the Capt talked to his staff? Must the Messiah do everything himself?
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
All but the most partisan and factually challenged Americans think of the Iraq war as anything but a clusterf$%K of historical magnitude. Everyone from JCS chairmen to Centcomm commanders to the ranks of captains and majors not reupping in record numbers to the 70+% of AMERICANS who think the Iraq war was a foolish distraction from the real war on terror. That Obama correctly points out that Iraq has diverted much needed resources ti Afghanistan is indisputable, as is the fact that Afghanistan is becoming more dangerous. That you call Phil Carter “partisan” when he points this out is beyond laughable when you begin this post “Thanks to K-Lo”. That you take that fat ignorant gas-bag’s word against an upstanding Senator demonstrates your partisanship. The Corner but a few weeks ago was nothing but niceties about Obama when he was the underdog against the hated Clinton. The Corner is the buzzing hive of GOP hackdom and K-Lo is the queen bee. And questioning Obama’s military experience is laughable. Its not a prerequisite for the presidency 1st of all, it didn’t do Bush any good and Reagan had none. Colin Powell has no problem with him. But you seem happy to be a neutered drone of K-Lo’s so buzz away.
Ed: You’re right that there’s an ignorant gas bag in this story. But it isn’t K-Lo.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Now we need a faith healer who can heal the lame. No surprise how the lame crawl to his defense.
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Your whole country is lame right now, been going that way for the last 7 years.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:55 am
It’s funny how stories even worse than this used to be cheered back in 2000 as proof that Clinton had broke the military. Claims they couldn’t even get basic ammo for training back here in the states.
Can we get some better wingnuts? Cause this argument is pretty damn lame.
February 28th, 2008 at 7:15 am
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