MRAPs get bad rap

SAN ANTONIO — The tiny town of Live Oak — a 4.8-square-mile bedroom community past San Antonio's city limits on the Northeast Side — is in possession of the only military-surplus Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle in Bexar County.

The cops there aren't preparing for battle against a group of insurgents planting roadside bombs.

The Live Oak Police Department is a member of a nine-jurisdiction SWAT team that responds to incidents in the area. The team had long been missing an essential element: an armored vehicle. But it's gotten one through the federal Defense Logistics Agency's 1033 Program, which distributes military surplus across the United States.

“Over the years, the SWAT team has not had an armored asset,” Police Chief Ken Evans said. “And that is one of the critical pieces that a SWAT team needs to be able to facilitate the mission safely, whether that's evacuating civilians in the middle of an active-shooter scenario ... or driving up into a front yard of a residence where you're trying to establish negotiations with somebody that has a long rifle that can reach out and touch you.”

Evans said the armored vehicles have gotten a bad rap recently. When civil unrest broke out last month in Ferguson, Missouri, officers there donned riot gear and arrived on the scene in menacing armored vehicles (which appear not to have been 1033 Program MRAPs). That incident has the potential of harming law enforcement efforts across the country.

“I think the challenge we have today is that there's a lot of political innuendo being thrown out there about the militarization of civilian police,” Evans said. “The reality is those vehicles are nothing more than armor that prevents somebody inside from being injured.”

But in the aftermath of the Ferguson incident, in which officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, MRAPs that have been distributed across the U.S. through the 1033 Program have come under intense scrutiny.

President Barack Obama has called for a review of the program, which disburses surplus military equipment — from parkas to pistols, machine guns to drones and night-vision goggles to helicopters — to local law enforcement agencies across the U.S.

And U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the Senate's second-highest ranking leader, asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to review the program.

The Live Oak Police Department is the only agency in Bexar County that has received an MRAP through the program. But according to a database provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety under the state's open-records law, several other agencies have received other tactical gear.

VIA Metropolitan Transit's police force, for example, received at least five M-14 rifles chambered in 7.62 millimeters and 18 .45-caliber semi-automatic pistols. The San Antonio Independent School District Police Department received four tactical vests, and the San Antonio Police Department has a surplus bomb robot, which cost the military more than $177,000 when it was purchased.

Bexar County constables have acquired M-14 and M-16 rifles, along with a night-vision scope and night-vision goggles.

Local officials have said their agencies don't pay for the surplus items, divided into two categories — including tactical gear, which is tracked by the feds and must be returned once it's no longer being used.

Much of the gear, including all the firearms, are given serial numbers and are tracked by the DLA.

A database published last week by National Public Radio shows that more than 70 MRAPs have been distributed across Texas, from the Alvin Police Department to the Van Zandt County Sheriff's Office.

In Central Texas, eight contiguous counties, spanning from San Antonio to north of Austin, have received MRAPs through the 1033 Program. Boerne Police Chief Jim Kohler said his department, which has an MRAP, joined with the Kendall County Sheriff's Office and the Fair Oaks Ranch Police Department to form an emergency-response team.

In the past, officers in the area have had to wait for hours to get help from the Bexar County Sheriff's Office SWAT team, he said. It's possible that there could be an incident where time plays a significant factor.

“I want to be able to protect my community as soon as I can,” Kohler said. “My No. 1 concern is protection of police officers and citizens.”

While he hopes the unit never has to deploy the MRAP, Kohler said the team is going through a yearlong intensive training program to ensure that it can handle scenarios such as active shooters and barricaded individuals shooting at officers.

The story of military MRAPs making their way into U.S. communities through the 1033 Program is a complex one, and it's compounded by local agencies not being precluded from buying armored vehicles, which have become commonplace.

The San Antonio Police Department and the Bexar County Sheriff's Office have armored vehicles, but they've not been obtained through the federal surplus program.

Evans said there are emergency teams along the Interstate 35 corridor with armored vehicles — some from the 1033 Program and others purchased from companies that make them.

Evans said he doesn't want to judge his counterparts in Ferguson because he doesn't know all the details of the incident there. But he echoes what SAPD Chief William McManus has said about his own department: that he wouldn't send an armored vehicle into a demonstration by concerned residents.

“At first blush,” Evans said, “I would say I don't think it's a good idea to send an armored asset to a civil disturbance.”

jbaugh@express-news.net

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©2014 the San Antonio Express-News. Distributed by MCT Information Services.

Germany doesn’t want job of leading EU

The gap between the European Union’s pretensions and capacities has never looked so wide. Its stagnant economy and the crisis in Ukraine point to gross failures of leadership. In both cases, Europe’s de facto leader — Germany — is especially to blame.

The EU’s current economic policy is indefensible: The EU has chosen to extend the recession by rejecting available remedies. As far as its foreign and security policy goes, this can barely be said to exist. Europe didn’t make Russian President Vladimir Putin the ruthless outlaw he is, but it provoked him while knowing it was unwilling or unable to deal with the consequences.

Germany’s input to these mistakes has been disproportionate. It isn’t just that the size and strength of Germany’s economy have made Berlin the de facto capital of Europe. It’s also that the errors are characteristically German — postwar German, that is. Germany’s morbid dread of inflation and what can follow has paralyzed Europe’s economic policy; and its overweening desire for commerce with Russia and reluctance to confront threats with force has defanged the EU’s security policy.

Don’t misunderstand me. Germany’s desire to heed the lessons of its modern history is noble. Better this, no doubt, than financial recklessness combined with resurgent militarism. But 70 years after the war it’s ashamed of, Germany is still — how to put this? — overcompensating.

Fiscal austerity and monetary stringency are imposing huge economic costs and threatening Europe with outright deflation. Germany’s pathologically orthodox policymakers have set their faces against fiscal relaxation and resisted the European Central Bank’s timid moves to loosen monetary conditions. Quantitative easing of the sort used by the Federal Reserve is needed to support demand. Europe’s suffocating fiscal rules, set down in the Stability and Growth Pact, could be adjusted too, given the will. These initiatives wouldn’t be entirely without risk, but fears of a 1920s-style hyperinflation are absurd in current circumstances. They need to be expunged from the discussion.

The desire for peace and commerce isn’t absurd and doesn’t need expunging — but Europe must be capable of showing Russia sufficient resolve to make Putin think twice. Led by Germany, the EU has dragged its feet over sanctions against Russia since the crisis in Ukraine began. Aside from reducing the immediate costs to Russia of its actions in Ukraine, this timidity calls into question Europe’s willingness to defend itself and its NATO partners. Russia is seizing foreign territory by force — and Europe flinches at the idea of tough economic sanctions. What does that say about the credibility of promises to fight for Poland and the Baltic states if the need arises?

Earlier I mentioned that Europe provoked Putin over Ukraine. How so? Under Germany’s leadership, Europe has greatly enlarged its union to the east. It brought in Poland and the Baltic states at a time when Russia was cowed and preoccupied with its own internal problems. Binding those countries to the West was a bold move and, since the timing was right, also wise. But when the EU in effect asked Ukraine to choose between Europe and Russia — as it did in 2011 — it acted imprudently.

By this time Russia under Putin was looking to reassert its place in the world. A Ukraine with aspirations to join both the EU and NATO threatened to bring the Western military alliance to the Russian border and defeat Putin’s ambition to rebuild Russia’s sphere of influence. Moreover, Ukraine has a large Russian-speaking minority and a special historical significance to Russia. It’s hard to say which would be more stupid — to deliberately provoke Putin with a scheme to marry Ukraine to the West, or to offer the betrothal without planning for the possibility that Putin might object.

In any event, when he did object, what were Europe’s options? Despite repeated warnings and pledges dating back to the building of the first pipeline in the 1980s, it has allowed itself to become dependent on Russian gas. It prizes the export opportunities of trade with Russia. And it has spent recent years diminishing its commitment to its own defense. Again, in all three respects, Germany has taken the lead. NATO members have informally promised to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense. Last year, the United States spent more than twice that — about the same share of GDP that Russia spends. Europe’s NATO members spent, on average, 1.6 percent. Germany spent 1.3 percent.

Considering the 20th century alternative, it’s good that a commerce-seeking, peace-loving Germany leads Europe. But the Age of Aquarius hasn’t quite dawned. Apparently, there are some bad people out there and one or two countries still haven’t adopted Germany’s modern Weltanschauung. If Germany expects to lead, it had better understand this, and accept the obligations that go with the job.

Clive Crook is a Bloomberg View columnist and a member of the Bloomberg View editorial board.

Cee Lo Green dropped from Navy concert over rape remarks

Performer Cee Lo Green has been dropped from a Navy-sponsored concert after posting comments about sexual assault on Twitter, according to a Navy Morale, Welfare and Recreation statement.

Green was scheduled to sing at Naval District Washington’s Freedom Live concert Sept. 20, but the Navy reconsidered after a series of tweets on what constitutes rape.

“People who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!” Green wrote Sept. 2, according to tweets that were captured by several websites.

Green also reportedly wrote that “if someone is passed out they’re not even WITH you consciously! so WITH implies consent.”

Green, who has been a contestant coach on the television show “The Voice,” made the comments after pleading no contest Aug. 29 to a charge of supplying a woman with the drug Ecstasy in 2012, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

The victim stated that she shared a drink with Green in a restaurant and woke up the next morning with no memory of the previous night, according to the Times.

Prosecutors declined to press rape charges due to lack of evidence, but Green had been recorded admitting to possession of the drug, the Times reported.

The Navy dropped Green from the concert because his Twitter comments were “completely inconsistent with Navy core values,” according to a statement posted on the concert series’ Facebook page.

“Regardless of intent or context, the lack of sensitivity towards an issue that is one of the great challenges facing our Navy is unacceptable,” the message stated.

Green, who is known for singing the 2006 Gnarls Barkley hit “Crazy,” and the solo hit “Forget You,” briefly deleted his Twitter account after making the controversial comments.

Soon after reinstating his account, he said he’d “never condone the harm of any women.”

The next day Green wrote, “I truly and deeply apologize for the comments attributed to me on Twitter. Those comments were idiotic, untrue and not what I believe.”

MWR is offering a refund for the concert, which will go on as scheduled with headliner Little Big Town, a country band.

slavin.erik@stripes.com

Twitter:@eslavin_stripes

Iraqi Kurdistan capital’s prosperity, tolerance threatened by Islamic State

IRBIL, Iraq – Neon lights up the night. Young people of both genders mingle freely in bars. Shoppers stroll by smart shops offering gleaming new cars and appliances.

The relative normalcy of Irbil, the capital of the thriving Middle Eastern oil hub of Iraqi Kurdistan, seems strange given the proximity of Islamic State militants whose reign of terror has included mass murder, torture and rape in the city of Mosul, less than 50 miles to the south.

Unlike other parts of Iraq plagued by Sunni-Shiite violence since the U.S. invasion in 2003, self-ruled Kurdistan has gone from strength to strength as oil money has flowed into the economy. Kurds have developed infrastructure to support the thriving service, agriculture and tourism sectors.

All this wealth and the tolerance the Kurds are known for are at risk from the Islamic State, which threatens Kurdistan as well as the rest of Iraq.

The advance of the Islamic State to within a 20-minute drive of the city limits last month was a shock to many living here. As the militants approached, foreign workers headed for the airport, leaving heavy trucks, cranes, pipes, drill heads and other oil industry equipment piled up along the sides of a dusty street on the outskirts of town.

“I drove our foreign staff to the airport myself,” said San Kaka, 30, a Kurdish coordinator for an oil service firm who is one of the few employees still working in the industrial zone.

There was fear in the eyes of workers from the United States, New Zealand, Canada and Britain as they headed for planes out of the country, but nobody panicked and local nationals weren’t evacuated, Kaka said.

“They (the terrorists) were so close, though — just 20 minutes’ drive away — but I never believed they would be here,” he said. “That’s why I never left.”

In recent weeks, Kurdish fighters known as peshmerga, helped by U.S. airstrikes, have pushed the Islamic State further from the city.

The U.S. military support is low key, and it’s not clear how many personnel are in Irbil, where the U.S. has a consulate. Locals report that a U.S. flag that flew above a military facility in Irbil was recently taken down. Military flights are often scheduled at night and go unnoticed by most people.

At the U.S. consulate compound — which covers several city blocks and is surrounded by concrete “T-walls” and protected by Iraqi troops — streets and buildings were empty last month because many staff members had evacuated.

Kaka said some foreign oil workers are still in Kurdistan, and that some drill operations never shut down. Other foreign workers were planning to return, but that was delayed after a car bomb went off in Irbil on Aug. 23, he said.

In the meantime, he and the other local employees are keeping an eye on the equipment until things get back to normal. For the Kurds, who are already selling oil independently of the Iraqi government in Baghdad, that can’t happen soon enough.

The prosperity of oil

In the south of the region, hulking new irrigation machines water once-barren fields where tongues of orange fire flare from drill sites on the horizon. That Kurdistan has oceans of oil beneath its fertile farmland is evident from a map in the air-conditioned shed where Kaka works.

The map includes drill sites run by Hunt Oil Co., of Dallas; ExxonMobil Corp., of Irving, Texas; Chevron Corp., of San Ramon, Calif.; Total SA, of France; Repsol YPF SA, of Madrid; Gazprom, of Moscow; and Tawazun Precision Industries, of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The sites have security teams, and oil workers often travel in armored cars protected by hired guns. But the relative peace and stability in Kurdistan mean vehicle accidents are the biggest risk, according to local security contractors.

The prosperity that oil brings is on display during a drive into town from Irbil’s gleaming new airport. Roads that were little more than dirt tracks a decade ago are being turned into four-lane highways filled with new American cars, especially Dodge Chargers — the well-to-do Kurd’s ride of choice. Neighborhoods of adobe huts have been replaced by high-rise condos, shopping malls and luxury hotels.

In Irbil’s Ankawa district, store windows display beer, cigarettes, cellphones and mannequins sporting the ripped jeans and form-fitting T-shirts popular with Kurdish youngsters.

It’s easy to spot the displaced people who have crowded into vacant buildings and schools in the neighborhood as they comb through donated clothing and food in front of churches. One displaced child had scored a T-shirt depicting Darius Rucker, lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish, though he had never heard of the band.

Communal tensions

The influx of tens of thousands of Christians and Yazidis, driven north by the Islamic State militants, has led to communal tensions.

A large bible sits on the desk of Ankawa Mayor Jalal Habeeb Aziz.

He and his staff are struggling to deal with water and power shortages brought on by the influx of 40,000 displaced people into a neighborhood that was home to 35,000 Assyrian Christians. Police don’t have time to sort out quarrels among drunken neighbors, he said, explaining his justification for imposing a ban on over-the-counter liquor sales after 8 p.m.

The displaced want to return to their homes in Mosul and on the Nineveh plains, on Kurdistan’s southern border, but they need protection, he said.

The longer the displaced stay in Kurdistan, the more tension builds with locals. There have been lines for cooking gas and rising food prices, and there’s growing animosity toward Sunni Arabs — the Islamic State’s constituency.

Only a small Arab population lives in Kurdistan, but in recent weeks there have been demonstrations by Kurds who want them expelled. Anti-Arab graffiti has appeared on walls around Irbil, and restaurants have put up signs stating that Arabs won’t be admitted, Aziz said. However, that does not apply to Christians, whom the Kurds do not perceive as Arabs.

“People are mad,” Azizi said. “They say, ‘We give you (Arabs) residency and then you bomb us.’ ”

Kurdish President Massoud Barzani has refused to expel the Arabs, and officials have reminded concerned citizens that records are kept of every Arab resident in Kurdistan, Aziz said.

“Some Arabs here support Daash, but everything is under control,” he said, using the local acronym for the Islamic State group. “We aren’t going to kick them out, unless they are here illegally.”

Tourism is Kurdistan’s other big industry after oil. The region is famous throughout the Middle East for snow-capped mountains, waterfalls and picnic spots.

The Irbil Citadel — a World Heritage site in the center of the city — has protected its inhabitants for millennia and, until recently, was billed as the planet’s oldest inhabited structure. Its residents were recently moved out to make way for renovations that appear aimed at creating a tourist site to rival the Acropolis.

A souq, or market, at the base of the citadel buzzes with shoppers, and street musicians entertain tourists in a park filled with fountains.

One of those browsing the merchandise there recently was Zahraa Nadhim, a Shiite who moved to Irbil from Baghdad with her family a few years ago. Dressed in a black singlet and jeans, the office administrator wouldn’t look out of place in a U.S. shopping mall, although there are plenty of more modest female shoppers in Irbil who prefer a headscarf and full-length dress.

A sense of safety

Nadhim said she was a little upset when the Islamic State got close and foreign workers from her company started leaving.

“They didn’t have an evacuation plan for us locals, but I knew it was safe,” she said.

The roads into Irbil from the south appear well-guarded. Driving to the city from the direction of areas controlled by the Islamic State involves passing through numerous checkpoints manned by the peshmerga.

“The media make it a big deal, but we know they (the Islamists) are not going to come here,” Nadhim said. “They were pretty close but they couldn’t get in.”

There’s a half-built camp for displaced people across the road from Babylon FM, a radio station that broadcasts Western pop music out of a two-story building in Ankawa. The building, which is filled with recording equipment, musical instruments and a wall display of expensive-looking video cameras, feels like it could be in any major U.S. city.

Station manager Noor Matti, 30, an Assyrian Christian, spent much of his youth in Detroit before returning to his hometown six years ago to start a business.

“Irbil is safer than Detroit,” he said. “It’s a fact.”

The city’s Christian and Muslim communities are tolerant of their differences, he said.

“People who don’t drink respect my right to drink,” he said. “We don’t have that in other parts of Iraq, where they have become more religious and extremist. Here, people are more open.”

Irbil today is the way all of Iraq was before the U.S. invasion, Matti said.

“There were bars all over the country,” he said. “My mom went on her honeymoon in Basra and wore a miniskirt.”

In his free time, Matti is raising funds from ex-patriot Assyrian Christian communities through a group he founded — the Shlama Foundation — to help the displaced arriving from the area around Mosul, where most of the Yazidis and Assyrians are from. Why not encourage them to stay in Kurdistan?

“These people aren’t rich enough to buy homes here,” Matti said. “They come from towns where the average house costs $25,000, and in Irbil the average is closer to $150,000.”

A better option would be an international force to secure the Nineveh plane, using the Tigris River as a natural barrier against the Sunni extremists, he said. If foreign governments aren’t willing to send peacekeepers, the U.S. should at least arm the peshmerga and provide them with air support to do the job, Matti said.

robson.seth@stripes.com

Twitter: @SethRobson1

The new breed of first responders

WASHINGTON — In the wake of 9/11, the world developed a special appreciation for first responders, the men and women who ran toward danger when they saw it. They risked all to help others, and fittingly there was a surge of recognition for cops and firefighters and paramedics -- both those lost in the twisted metal of lower Manhattan and those who carried on in the same tradition.

Neither James Foley nor Steven Sotloff wore a badge or a uniform. Nor did Mbalu Fonnie, Alex Moigboi, Alice Kovoma, Mohamed Fullah or Sheik Umar Khan. But they embodied the first-responder spirit as truly and fully as any of those whose courage inspired us and whose sacrifices broke our hearts at the World Trade Center. For precisely that reason, out of genuine respect for them and their contribution to the world, it is essential we not make the same errors we did amid the anger and grief that marked the earliest days of what we once called the War on Terror.

Foley and Sotloff, the two American journalists who were recently brutally murdered by terrorists, chose to run into the flames of Syria even as the rest of the world looked away. They, like other journalists covering that country's civil war, knew that the risks they faced were grave. But they made a calculation that letting the slaughter in that country go unrecorded, unnoted, or uncommented upon would be compounding those battlefield atrocities with indifference. That would be inhumane and was so intolerable to them that they made their way into a country that many of the world's great and powerful leaders were doing their best to avoid and ignore. What does it say about a person who chooses to go on their own into mayhem that has already claimed almost 200,000 lives and do so without a weapon, without an army, without a congressional resolution?

How deep must be their conviction that bearing witness is essential, the only possible human reaction, the one that might motivate others to action, to actually caring?

Fonnie, Moigboi, Kovoma, Fullah and Khan were all health-care professionals, doctors, nurses, and technicians who were affiliated with the Kenema Government Hospital's Lassa fever facility in Sierra Leone. All five, described in a moving Washington Post article from late August by Abby Ohlheiser, were co-authors of an important new Ebola study who died of the disease before their work could be made public. By virtue of their work, they were more acutely aware of the risks they faced from the current outbreak, the worst by far of its kind to date, one that has claimed more than 1,500 lives and may infect as many as 20,000 before it has run its course. Khan acknowledged this in late June by telling Reuters, "I am afraid for my life, I must say, because I cherish my life.... Health workers are prone to the disease because we are the first port of call for somebody who is sickened by disease. Even with the full protective clothing you put on, you are at risk." But it was precisely because they knew the risks better than others -- better than those who were infected and spreading the disease -- that they chose to remain on the front lines of the efforts to combat the epidemic. Like other first responders, they too felt that the right response to a crisis is to run toward it rather than away from it.

Of course, Foley and Sotloff were not the only journalists to die in Syria, nor were they the only ones to be lost to the depravity of terrorists. Because they were Americans and because their murders were so gruesomely fed to the media and the grotesque appetites of the Internet, their stories have gained the most attention. But estimates as to the number of journalists lost in Syria alone range from 71 to more than 150. And, according to the World Health Organization, the number of doctors, nurses, and other health-care workers to have succumbed to this current Ebola outbreak was, as of late August, more than 120, with over 240 estimated to have contracted the disease.

Both of these totals pale to insignificance when weighed against the greater tolls of the crises that claimed the lives of these heroes. And other wars and genocides and epidemics are claiming their own fair share of such heroes, the first responders to these humanitarian catastrophes that many would prefer to ignore. All deserve the kinds of thoughts, attention, and prayers that we have offered on behalf of Foley and Sotloff, as well as our gratitude, because these are the people who, by risking their lives, make it impossible for the rest of us to look away. These are the people who risk their lives in order to offer a human touch to those whom most of humanity has abandoned. These are the people who demand that we cut through the impotence of high-minded political rhetoric and the incomprehensible mountains of statistics to reveal and serve the human beings at the heart of these problems.

That is why out of respect for their lives and for the spirit of what they do, we must consider our reactions carefully. It is easy for tabloid newspapers to offer up headlines demanding revenge or promoting scare stories. When infected American doctors returned home to the United States to be treated for Ebola, social media erupted with a debate about the risks this entailed, ignoring how hard it is for this disease to spread when properly contained, not to mention the plight of the health workers seeking treatment. This week, the bottom feeders of the American political commentariat sought to use the Sotloff tragedy as an opportunity to bash U.S. President Barack Obama for his inaction in Syria and to call for tough strikes against the journalists' murderers. For them, the death was just a prop, and their railing reflected their own character flaws more than those of any of the people they were decrying.

No, an appropriate response to these tragedies lies not with the empty rhetoric of politicians going through the motions of seeming to care or with the histrionics of hotheads and opportunists. It lies with the ideas that motivated all of these first responders to action: compassion, getting to the facts -- and then taking action even when the risks were high. In the case of Sotloff and Foley, not only does this mean that the world must heed their message that this crisis demands our attention, but it means knowing that spasms or showpieces of revenge are not enough.

Nor is it enough simply to target the Islamic State. The entire Middle East and much of Africa and Asia are now at risk because of the spread of Islamist extremism, and as we learned with our too narrow focus on "core al-Qaida," targeting one group only ensures that others will assume its place. We need a comprehensive strategy to confront all such groups and to cut off their sources of funding and those who would give them comfort. And we must recognize that only through finding successful alternative political solutions to the problems on the ground can we fill the governance void that currently is the breeding ground and preferred environment for extremists. In the case of the Ebola battle, we must similarly not only contain and treat this disease, but recognize that the infrastructure, education, and resource gaps that enable an epidemic like this one to spread as it has threaten the world in ways that are greater than any one disease could.

Indeed, in both cases, what these first responders have shown are the costs of our indifference and inaction to date. And in both cases they demand a response that is not the narrow, crowd-pleasing "deliverables" of a political class that just wants ugliness off the front pages. Both crises are symptomatic of greater threats that demand long-term, global commitments to contain and eliminate them. Both require, in fact, governments, international institutions, and their leaders to act with something like the courage and humanity that defined the lives of Foley, Sotloff, the other journalists who have been lost bearing witness, the health-care workers fighting Ebola, and their colleagues fighting less well known but equally serious battles worldwide.

Rothkopf is CEO and editor of the FP Group. His next book, "National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear" is due out in October of this year.

In place of 'boots on the ground,' US seeks contractors for Iraq

Wary of putting combat troops in Iraq, the U.S. government is gauging contractors’ interest in advising the Iraqi Defense Ministry and Counter Terrorism Service in a range of capacities, including force development, logistics and planning and operations.

The U.S. Army Contracting Command posted a notice last month seeking contractors willing to work on an initial 12-month contract, who should be “cognizant of the goals of reducing tensions between Arabs and Kurds, and Sunni and Shias.”

They would focus on administration, force development, procurement and acquisition, contracting, training management, public affairs, logistics, personnel management, professional development, communications, planning and operations, infrastructure management, intelligence and executive development, the notice stated.

Those services “fall within the existing mission” of the Office of Security Assistance-Iraq, “which is to help build institutional capacity of Iraq’s security ministries,” Defense Department spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said in an email.

The rapid advance of Islamic State militants in Iraq in recent months has spurred the deployment of almost 1,000 American troops to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities in Iraq’s capital Baghdad and the northern city of Irbil, in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

Nearly 100 additional servicemembers are there as advisers with the Office of Security Assistance–Iraq, and civilian advisers may not be far behind.

President Barack Obama last month authorized airstrikes against Islamic State militants, who have overrun large swathes of Iraq, when their advances threatened U.S. personnel in Baghdad and Irbil. But he has ruled out deploying ground combat units to Iraq less than three years after bringing the last of U.S. forces home from there.

Analysts say hiring contractors is a way to avoid deploying such forces.

David Johnson, a former Army lieutenant colonel who is executive director of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington, said contractors aren’t considered “boots on the ground” in conflict zones.

“The government always seeks to minimize boots on the ground to reduce domestic political risk,” he said in an email. “The American people and media do not consider a paid contractor to represent them in the same way that they do a soldier.”

Using contractors, who, most studies show, are cheaper than soldiers, trims the official presence and still accomplishes the logistical and security objectives, he said.

Defense contractors have plenty of experience in Iraq. During the U.S. occupation, thousands of armed security contractors and support personnel worked alongside foreign and Iraqi troops to help stabilize the country.

Allison Stanger, a professor of international politics and economics at Middelbury College and author of a book on wartime contracting, said new Pentagon contracts for Iraq differ from security contractors hired by the State Department, which is seeking support “for a diplomatic mission, not a military one.”

“When the Pentagon does the same, it is another matter,” said Stanger, author of the book: “One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and Future of Foreign Policy.” “In the era of contractors wars, there are many ways to avoid putting boots on the ground, while committing significant U.S. resources and actually being very much militarily involved.”

Michael O’Hanlon, of the Brookings Institute, said the U.S. government has employed as many contractors as it has deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“As the political premium seems always to be placed on how many troops we have abroad, the pressure to have contractors do as much as possible only grows,” he said in an email.

Incidents such as the killing of civilians by Blackwater employees in Baghdad in 2007 remind policymakers of the dangers of having contractors as trigger pullers, but the pressure to minimize troop deployments means the ratio of contractors to troops may grow, he said.

Contractors are carrying a greater share of the load in Afghanistan these days as well. The U.S. plans to reduce the number of troops deployed there to fewer than 10,000 by year’s end but, according to a Congressional Research Service report, the number of contractors in Afghanistan ballooned to 108,000 last March at a time when 65,700 U.S. troops were there.

Johnson said vast numbers of contractors would likely remain in Afghanistan as troop levels declined.

The contractors provide services that local nationals wouldn’t be able to sustain in an impoverished, illiterate country, he said.

Stars and Stripes reporter Josh Smith contributed to this report.

robson.seth@stripes.com

Twitter: @SethRobson1

US launches airstrikes around Iraq's Haditha Dam

TBILISI, Georgia -- The U.S. military said Sunday it launched airstrikes around Haditha Dam in western Iraq, targeting Islamic State insurgents there for the first time in a move to prevent the group from capturing the vital dam.

U.S. officials said that while the Anbar Province dam remains in control of the Iraqis, the U.S. offensive was an effort to beat back militants who have been trying to take over key dams across the country, including the Haditha complex.

The strikes represented a broadening of the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State, moving the military operations closer to the border of Syria, where the group also has been operating.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Iraqi government had asked the U.S. to launch the airstrikes and that Iraqi forces on the ground conceived the operation.

"The dam is a critically important facility for Iraq," Hagel said. If the dam should fall into the hands of the Islamic State, that would cause serious damage and create a big risk, including against U.S. interests in Iraq, Hagel said.

He said the U.S. is continuing to explore all options for expanding the battle against the Islamic State into Syria.

Hagel spoke at a news conference in Georgia where he was meeting with defense and other government leaders. His visit comes on the heels of the two-day NATO summit in Wales.

"We conducted these strikes to prevent terrorists from further threatening the security of the dam, which remains under control of Iraqi Security Forces, with support from Sunni tribes," Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.

The dam is a major source of water and electrical power.

The military said a mix of fighter and bomber aircraft conducted four airstrikes, destroying five Islamic State Humvees, another armed vehicle, a checkpoint and damaged a militant bunker. The U.S. aircraft safely exited the strike area.

"We will continue to conduct operations as needed in support of the Iraqi Security Forces and the Sunni tribes, working with those forces securing Haditha Dam," Kirby said.

Last month Islamic State fighters were battling to capture the Haditha Dam, which has six power generators located alongside Iraq's second-largest reservoir. But, despite their attacks, Iraqi forces there backed up by local Sunni tribes have been able to hold them off.

The group was able to take control of the Mosul Dam in northern Iraq last month, but persistent U.S. airstrikes dislodged the militants. And while fighters have been trying to take it back, the U.S. has continued to use strikes to keep them at bay.

The military said Sunday it had also launched a fresh air attack against militants near the Mosul Dam.

U.S. officials have expressed concerns that militants could flood Baghdad and other large swaths of the country if they control the dams. It also would give the group control over electricity, which they could use to strengthen their control over residents.

Earlier this year, the group gained control of the Fallujah Dam on the Euphrates River and the militants used it as a weapon, opening it to flood downriver when government forces moved in on the city.

Water is a precious commodity in Iraq, a largely desert country of 32.5 million people. The decline of water levels in the Euphrates over recent years has led to electricity shortages in towns south of Baghdad, where steam-powered generators depend entirely on water levels.

On Friday and Saturday, the U.S. used a mix of attack aircraft, fighter jets and drones to conduct two airstrikes around Irbil. The strikes hit trucks and armored vehicles. Those operations brought the total number of airstrikes to 133 since early August.

The airstrikes are aimed at protecting U.S. personnel and facilities, as well protecting critical infrastructure and aiding refugees fleeing the militants.