Military Wants More Civilians to Help in Iraq

[jcustis]

Worse, it could actually hurt our anti-terror efforts by giving too strong a military cast to our programs and policies, fueling suspicion and resentment overseas.

And to think I was hoping that relaxed grooming standards would be in force...

[SWJED]

For reference and background material on tis topic don't forget the Interagency section in the SWJ Reference Library.

[120mm]

Time to look to the Phillipines again:

Just finished reading a paper for the 2003 Combat Studies Institute, about how US military force in the Phillipines routinely, and with aplomb, managed to fight a guerilla war and efficiently run an administration. These were Officers and NCOs without a professional development school system, by the way. (Perhaps part of the problem, hmmmm?)

Is it perhaps time to quit pretending the Active Duty military is incapable of doing more than one thing at a time? For one thing, the "up or out" system of promotion is a big culprit. Officers who make Captain in 36 months are hardly competent in their combat jobs, much less have the seasoning to run a town or a district.

And I think it's high time we brought back long hair and big, drooping moustaches.

[SWJED]

21 February NY Times - Negroponte Advises New Diplomats to Seek Challenging Posts by Thom Shanker.

Entering his first full week as deputy secretary of state, John D. Negroponte on Tuesday urged a graduating class of new diplomats to seek overseas assignments in challenging, difficult and even hazardous posts.

Mr. Negroponte, only the third career Foreign Service officer to hold the deputy position, said the diplomatic corps was shifting its weight from historic centers of politics and policy to increase the American presence in world capitals more subject to turmoil.

Potential assignments in Iraq were very much on the minds of many students at the Foreign Service Institute, where 4 members of this class of 75 will go to work in Baghdad or with provincial reconstruction teams throughout the country.

Mr. Negroponte’s comments will resonate across the diplomatic corps because of an animated interagency debate here in Washington about the proper way to share the burden among the government’s civilian agencies and the military to carry out the Bush administration’s new Iraq strategy...

[jcustis]

That's a win for State if you go thru with it, but it's a tragic sign of the times that those two qualities (MI and Arabic) don't pop up on some staffer/planner's Excel spreadsheet. I know that every battalion commander in the box would probably give up his own unit funds to bring those capabilities on board.

[Jimbo]

Want to work for state, well I take it you are going to donate a year of your life for no compensation?

[Jimbo]

Well,

COCOM's aren't the people who make those deciosions. Army HRC would determine if they needed your MOS not CENTCOM (NAVY/AF?Whatever). If you worked for CENTCOM in the past and they know you, great. However, DoD determines who goes to State, COCOMS only provide forces as tasked by DoD (JS). CENTCOM might send some LNO's to State, and they might have direct coordination authorization, but CENTCOM has very limited execution authority. If you feel you can utilized, then you need to engage through your respective service to go on active duty. That may or may not be in the CENTCOM AOR, and it may or may not be at State.

As far as DoS, I have read a lot of good ideas and such on here about what should happen. A couple of points, PDD-56 has been out since Jan 20, 200. NSPD-44 is the current document that they use (both similar). State has said a bunch of good things about what they want to do. The problem is money. DoS operates on a continuing resolution because their budget hasn't been approved. Civilian Reserv Corps and such have no money attached them at this time and no money budgeted. That is why DoD is having to support the intial PRT surge. DoS is trying to figure out how they are going to do PRT-type missions over time. There are a bunch of good ideas, but there is a hesitance to go out and ask for the resources in either personnel or money. Fortunately, a bunch of this should get resolved in the next 60 days. The downside, is that an optimistic view would be that in 180 days DoS can meet the surge requirement, pessimistic view would be a wait out until the FY08 budget gets done.