US military to abandon Iraqi cities

The U.S. military in Iraq is abandoning — deliberately and with little public notice — a centerpiece of the widely acclaimed strategy it adopted nearly two years ago to turn the tide against the insurgency. It is moving American troops farther from the people they are trying to protect.

U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces inspect the site where a roadside bomb injured two electricians in central Baghdad, Iraq on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2008.(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

Starting in early 2007, with Iraq on the brink of all-out civil war, the troops were pushed into the cities and villages as part of a change in strategy that included President Bush’s decision to send more combat forces.

The bigger U.S. presence on the streets was credited by many with allowing the Americans and their Iraqi security partners to build trust among the populace, thus undermining the extremists’ tactics of intimidation, reducing levels of violence and giving new hope to resolving the country’s underlying political conflicts.

Now the Americans are reversing direction, consolidating in larger bases outside the cities and leaving security in the hands of the Iraqis while remaining within reach to respond as the Iraqi forces require.

The U.S. is on track to complete its shift out of all Iraqi cities by June 2009. That is one of the milestones in a political-military campaign plan devised in 2007 by Gen. David Petraeus, when he was the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and his political partner in Baghdad, Ambassador Ryan Crocker. The goal also is in a preliminary security pact with the Iraqi government on the future U.S. military presence.

The shift is not explicitly linked to U.S. plans for increasing its military presence in Afghanistan, but there is an important connection: The logistical resources needed to house and supply a larger and more distributed U.S. force in Afghanistan have been tied up in Iraq. To some extent that will be relieved with the consolidation of U.S. forces in Iraq onto larger, outlying bases that are easier to maintain.

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Obama Picks Experienced Pentagon, State Department Leaders to Assist Transition

President-elect Obama has hired former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sam Nunn to help shepherd his Pentagon transition, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

 
Former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., speaks during a news conference where he discussed Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s plans to stimulate the economy and lead the country in a new direction Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2008.(AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Nunn, a former Georgia senator and veteran Democratic defense adviser, was once rumored as a potential running mate for Obama. Transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said Nunn will perform “an informal senior adviser role throughout the defense transition process.”

Nunn’s role has been described by others, speaking anonymously because the transition teams have not been announced, as the leader of Obama’s defense transition. Similarly, a senior administration official said former Secretary of State Warren Christopher would advise Obama on his State Department transition.

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer

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Russia’s Defense Industry Hit by Credit Crunch, Ivanov Says

Russia’s defense industry is facing difficulties in meeting orders from the state because of the global credit crunch, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

Sergei Ivanov

Many companies are suffering from cash-flow problems, Ivanov said in remarks carried on state television. The financial crisis is “hitting some defense companies quite hard,” and the situation could prove “troublesome” for the industry, he said.

 
AFP/Ntv

Above: This Russian submarine had an on board non nuclear accident that killed 20 this week.  She was on sea trials and scheduled to be tranferred to India.  She is now emblematic of Russia’s failing defense industry.

By Sebastian Alison, Bloomberg

Banks in which the state holds a large stake, including OAO Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, VTB Group, the second largest, and state development bank Vnesheconombank, should consider lending to defense contractors, he said.

Ivanov was speaking today at a meeting in Moscow of a government commission on strategic enterprises and the defense industry.

“We’re talking about an industry with a lot of expenses and not too much revenue,” said Masha Lipman, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center. She noted that Russia has recently made major arms sales to countries like Venezuela on credit with no repayments due for years.

Lipman said Russia’s Defense Ministry has been sending out mixed signals, for example by announcing cuts in military staffing numbers. This will produce tens of thousands of unemployed officers and the cost of retraining them for civilian jobs will be high, she said.

“Probably we will see that no such cuts will be made, because if you cut expenses in one place, you create them in another place,” she said.

Georgia War

Russia approved 344 billion rubles ($13 billion) in new defense spending last month following its five-day war with Georgia in August, Ivanov said on Oct. 16.

“Additional funds will be spent on purchases of modern weaponry, especially aircraft,” Ivanov, a former defense minister, said during a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev.

At the same time, Russian state revenue may slump as the price of oil, its biggest export, plunges and capital flight accelerates on concern the global economy is entering a recession.

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Obama Leans Toward Asking Gates To Remain at Pentagon for a Year

President-elect Barack Obama is leaning toward asking Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain in his position for at least a year, according to two Obama advisers. A senior Pentagon official said Mr. Gates would likely accept the offer if it is made.

By Yochi J. Dreazen
The Wall Street Journal 

No final decision has been made, and Obama aides said other people are also under serious consideration for the defense post, one of the most highly coveted in any new cabinet. Several prominent Democrats, including former Clinton Navy Secretary Richard Danzig and former Clinton Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, are also being considered.
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The decision on retaining Mr. Gates will be the clearest indication to date of the incoming administration’s thinking about Iraq and Afghanistan.

Like the president-elect, Mr. Gates supports deploying more troops to Afghanistan. But the defense secretary strongly opposes a firm timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq, and his appointment could mean that Mr. Obama was effectively shelving his campaign promise to remove most troops from Iraq by mid-2010.

Several aides to Mr. Gates said that the defense chief often talks publicly about leaving the Pentagon in January and returning to his remote lakeside home in Washington state. They also noted that Mr. Gates carries around an electronic keychain whose display shows the number of days until the end of the Bush administration.

Still, speculation that Mr. Gates would remain in the job increased over the weekend when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) endorsed the idea in a CNN interview. “Why wouldn’t we want to keep him?” Sen. Reid said. “He’s never been a registered Republican.”

 
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaks after a tour of an Engagement Skills Trainer facility October 23, 2008 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It is thought likely that Barack Obama would act quickly to appoint a Secretary of Defense — Bush’s Pentagon chief Gates has been mentioned as a candidate — and Treasury Secretary.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Logan Mock-Bunting)

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Submarine Deaths Underscore Russian Navy Decline

An accident aboard a Russian nuclear attack submarine that killed at least 20 and injured 22 late Saturday, is the latest in a series of undersea tragedies that have struck the Russian Navy as it struggles to regain Soviet-era capacities.

The ship’s nuclear reactor was undamaged in the incident, and survivors evacuated to the naval base at Vladivostok on Sunday, Russian officials said.

This video grab from Russian NTV channel shows the Russian nuclear submarine. Russian officials are investigating a gas poisoning accident on a nuclear submarine due to be leased to India that killed 20 people, as local people mourned the victims.(AFP/Ntv)

“During sea trials of a nuclear-powered submarine of the Pacific Fleet the firefighting system went off unsanctioned, killing over 20 people, including servicemen and workers,” Russian naval spokesman Cpt. Igor Dyagalo told journalists.

“The submarine is not damaged, its reactor works as normal, and background radiation levels are normal,” he added.

The malfunction of the firefighting system, which spewed deadly freon gas through the forward compartments of K-152 Nerpa, an Akula-II class attack sub undergoing diving trials in the Sea of Japan, has a little-known international twist. Though neither government has officially admitted it, both Indian and Russian media have been reporting for months that the 12,000-ton Nerpa was to be handed over to the Indian Navy early next year under a 10-year lease.

The acquisition would multiply India’s military capabilities in the sensitive Indian Ocean, and raise questions about Russia’s role in proliferating nuclear technologies. Indian news agencies reported last week that a team of 40 Indian naval specialists was slated to arrive later this month in Vladivostok to learn about the ship.

“India was one of the main supporters of Russia’s defense industries after the Soviet Union collapsed, and provided funds that helped to keep our aviation and shipbuilding going,” says Vadim Kozulin, a military expert with the PIR Center, a security think tank in Moscow. “It’s only been in the past three years that Russian military procurement budgets have been greater than the earnings from exports.”

According to media reports, the deal was struck in 2004 in which India paid up to $650 million to refit the Admiral Gorshkov, a Soviet-era aircraft carrier, and assist completion of the Nerpa, which had lain on blocks at the Komsomolsk-na-Amur shipyard since its construction was largely abandoned in 1991.

The Akula-II class of nuclear subs, a late Soviet-era design, are able to dive deeper, more than 600 meters, run more silently than previous attack subs, and move at speeds up to 33 knots while fully submerged.

Russian seamen line up on an unidentified submarine believed to be an Akula-class submarine during a military parade training in Vladivostok in this July 25, 2008 file photo. More than 20 people were killed and another 21 injured in an accident aboard a Russian nuclear submarine in the Pacific Ocean, the navy said on Sunday, in the worst submarine disaster since the Kursk sank eight years ago. The RIA agency quoted a source in the Amur Shipbuilding Enterprise as saying the accident occurred aboard the Nerpa, a Project 971 Shchuka-B attack submarine, known inside NATO as an Akula-class submarine. Picture taken July 25, 2008.REUTERS/Yuri Maltsev (RUSSIA)

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By Sergei L. Loiko
The Los Angeles Times
November 10, 2008

Reporting from Moscow — A false alarm was responsible for setting off the emission of deadly fire-extinguishing gases on a new Russian nuclear-powered submarine in the Sea of Japan, killing 20 people and injuring 21 late Saturday, Russian navy officials said.

All but three of the dead were civilian specialists and experts on board the Shark-class submarine Nerpa for the performance test trial, according to the federal prosecutors office.

The ship’s nuclear reactor was not affected in the accident, and the submarine returned safely to port on its own, said Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo. The reactor was operating properly, and the radiation levels were normal, Dygalo told the Russian news agency Interfax on Sunday.

Dygalo said that, of 208 people on board, 91 were crew members and the rest were civilian specialists and experts overseeing the testing of the submarine.

Analysts said the large presence of civilians was probably a crucial factor in the high casualty count. The regular crew would have been far better prepared for the emergency situation when the gas-emission siren rang, said Igor Kurdin, a former Russian nuclear missile submarine commander and head of the St. Petersburg Submariners Club.

“Even if you are the president of the country present on a submarine,” Kurdin said, “you can’t rely on your security detail to save your life in a fire, because you need to be able to save your own life by using the rescue equipment properly and quickly.”

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MOSCOW – India’s navy was supposed to lease the brand-new Russian nuclear submarine that suffered an accident over the weekend which killed 20 people, news reports said Monday.

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Omama May Retain Three Top Bush Appointees

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to fill top positions for his incoming government, he faces a stubborn reality: Some of the key individuals he will rely upon to tackle the country’s most serious challenges are holdovers from the current administration — a trio of Bush appointees who will likely stay in place for at least the first year or two of Obama‘s presidency.

In confronting the financial crisis and weakening economy, Obama must turn to Ben S. Bernanke, a Republican and former chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, who will lead the Federal Reserve for at least the first year of the new administration.

 
US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is seen during the opening of the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Sao Paulo, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2008. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said during his speech the world’s big emerging nations must have a big role in upcoming negotiations to fix the planet’s financial system and prevent another global economic meltdown.(AP Photo/Andre Penner)

In assuming control of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama must work with Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was appointed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for a two-year term that will end in late 2009 and, by tradition, can expect to be appointed for a second term as the president’s top military adviser. Mullen shares Obama’s belief in focusing more on Afghanistan but is wary of a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

 
Admiral Mullen .(AFP/File/Nicholas Kamm)

And in guarding against terrorist attacks — while correcting what he considers the Bush administration’s excesses — Obama will rely upon FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, whose term expires in 2011. 

By Alec MacGillis and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 10, 2008; Page A01

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U.S. vows to back off if fighters use Afghan civilians as cover

U.S. forces in Afghanistan will “back off” from firing at insurgents if the fighters are using civilian buildings as cover, the U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan told CNN.

CNN

“I’ve given direct guidance, and so has my boss to me, that if there’s any doubt at all that the enemy is firing from a house or building where there might be women and children, that we’ll just back off,” Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, the commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division, told CNN’s Barbara Starr.

“That potentially is something that we did not do before, but now because of this increased emphasis, we are doing,” he said in an interview at an outpost in Afghanistan’s Paktika province near the Pakistani border.

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How will military greet Obama?

Barack Obama will enter the White House without any military experience and with a playbook that emphasizes diplomacy, behind a president who waged two wars and presided over some of the largest-ever defense budget increases. 

So, how will President Obama be received at the Pentagon? Much depends on his first moves. 

One of his senior security advisers, former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), said even though the president-elect has experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he’ll need a strong defense team that works together well. 

“He will have to pay a lot of attention to a secretary of defense and the close advisers to the secretary,” Hamilton said. “The whole military, national security establishment will be watching that with care.” 

And since the military is trained to follow orders, insiders say it is receptive to the change of command. 

The military needs to be ready to offer its advice while scrupulously avoiding any attempt to shape the agenda, said a senior defense official familiar with the transition. “It is to everyone’s benefit to shorten the learning curve for whoever is coming in,” he said, especially because this is the first wartime transition since 1968.

From Politico

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Israel urges US not to rule out military option in Iran

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Friday issued a thinly veiled call for the United States not to rule out the possibility of a military strike against Iran because of its nuclear ambitions.

“We don’t rule out any option. We recommend others don’t rule out any option either,” Barak told journalists after talks with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“We are convinced that Iran continues to try to obtain a nuclear weapon and continues to cheat everybody by holding negotiations on the control of such weapons,” Barak said.

Tehran denies it wants nuclear weapons, and says its atomic project is puirely peaceful.

-AFP

Above: A pilot boards an F-16. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

U.S. Troops Still Necessary, Iraqi Govt Official Says

Iraq’s deputy prime minister said Saturday his country still needs the U.S. military to ensure security and warned time is running out to approve a new security deal with Washington.

East of Baghdad, a suicide bomber slammed his car into a police checkpoint, killing eight civilians and wounding seven policemen. A security official says the Saturday attack occurred on a highway near the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi in Anbar province. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information to the media.

By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer

The violence came as U.S. and Iraqis officials were working to finalize a deal that would remove U.S. troops from Iraq’s cities by June 30 and withdraw them from the country by 2012.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh cautioned that Iraq will enter a “period of a legal vacuum” if the U.N. mandate under which US troops operate in Iraq expires by year’s end without the agreement having been approved.

On Thursday, the U.S. sent what it calls its final answer to proposed Iraqi changes to the draft agreement, and is now waiting on Baghdad’s response.

“The government is studying the latest amendments, and I hope that we can settle this subject as soon as soon possible because time is running,” he said.

Saleh, who is Kurdish, added the pact is key to preserving “the security improvement which has been achieved” in recent months.

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